Bertram Mitford (continued 6)

Clever, scheming, as she was, to do her justice, Laura’s whole heart was in the plan. In progress of her manoeuvring she had conceived a great affection for this bright, open-hearted admirer of hers; an affection which was destined to blaze forth into a burning, deep-rooted, lifelong passion. And the motor which should work this transformation was very near at hand. Even then she stood on the verge of its shadow. But—Heaven help her when it should enshroud her entirely—for then might she sit down and cast ashes upon her head, and think no more of life.

Even in that brief, fleeting hour of her triumph—of her happiness—there was always one misgiving which, like the skeleton at the feast, would never be entirely banished. A heart caught at the rebound may constitute an easy capture, but it is doubtful whether it constitutes a safe one. And that her capture was of this nature Laura was fully aware. Given one of Philip’s expansive, sympathy-craving temperament, it was impossible she could have been otherwise. Indeed, it was very much the knowledge of this that constituted the trump card in her far from unfavourable hand; and it was a far from unfavourable one, for Laura Daventer could be very winning, very sympathetic, in short, very dangerously attractive when she chose.

They had travelled home to England together, and during the tediousness and worry of a long journey—no small test of patience and temper—Laura had shown at her best; helpful, ready, unselfish. They had spent three or four days in London together, and Philip had found her a delightful companion; and while Mrs Daventer rested or shopped, they two would go off upon a long day’s expedition—mostly up the river—returning in the best of spirits, and more wrapped up in each other than ever. It was a bright and happy time—an idyllic time—and there seemed no reason why it should not last. Yet, deep down in her heart, Laura was conscious of that gnawing, cankering misgiving. Without underrating her own charms—her own powers of attractiveness—she instinctively felt that one glance from Alma Wyatt’s great grey eyes would suffice to scatter her own fair house of cards to the four winds of heaven. “On revient toujours,” etc, may be, and in fact is, a saw of doubtful, not to say baseless, foundation, but this last experience of the volatile Phil’s was of far too recent occurrence, she decided. The wound could not actually be healed in so short a time; but, given a fair field, under her own soft and sympathetic hand, it eventually should be.

Once they had got him safe home, Laura breathed more freely. In or around the quiet and somewhat remote little Welsh seaport the prospects of any chance meeting with Alma Wyatt seemed so minute as to be practically non-existent. Ynys-cwm-barweg was not much of a place in the matter of attractions; but given cloudless summer weather, bracing sea air, and unbounded freedom, to two young people in love with each other such a place is apt to become a very Eden.

The rest was easy. To a clever woman like Mrs Daventer, the process of “drawing” the ingenuous Philip was the merest child’s play. Before he had been a week her guest, she knew all about him and his family—its circumstances, idiosyncrasies, and surroundings—as well as he did himself. The chances seemed good enough. Laura should marry him, and eventually become Lady Orlebar. Then the irony of the situation would be complete, but they two would never know.

That a chain is no stronger than its weakest link is proverbial. Clever as she was, as success attended her shrewdness and manoeuvring, Mrs Daventer closed her eyes more and more to one point. The scheme had been one of Fordham’s originating—could it therefore have for its object anybody’s good? Yet so promising did everything look that, woman-like, she almost began to believe she had originated it herself, and so thoroughly was she acting upon this idea that it became unnecessary for the real author to apply from time to time a refreshing spur, which, being the skilful tactician that he was, he forebore to do.

But if her astuteness failed her as to the bonâ fides of the plan, in the execution of the same she showed skill and generalship. She read Philip’s character like a book. If Laura was to marry him, it must be now. Once away, once at home again, absence, family influences, possibly unforeseen circumstances, such as counter-attractions, would do their work. Once away, it would be—never. Wherein she was most probably right.

Never did sheep walk so confidingly to the slaughter, never did condemned so readily place the noose around his own neck. What Mrs Daventer was cudgelling her wits to bring about Philip himself shortly suggested. Then came some exquisite card-playing. She was horrified. He must never suggest such a thing again. Great Heavens, the boy must be mad! Of course he must do everything en règle and in a proper way, and the first step in that direction was of course to consult his family. Why, what would be said? Of course that they had led him into it—entrapped him. No, she would not hear of anything of the kind.

Whereat the guileless Phil had laughed inordinately. Led him into it! That was a good joke, and he even thought of retailing for Mrs Daventer’s amusement Fordham’s characteristic parting words—

“You’re walking into the trap with your eyes open, Phil, my boy. Don’t come to me to get you out of it, that’s all, for I won’t. I wash my hands of you. You’re hopeless.”

Now Fordham, we need hardly say, was perfectly aware that this warning would have precisely the same effect upon Philip as endeavouring to pull back a pig by the tail has upon that homely and generally useful quadruped—that of strengthening the spirit of opposition, to wit.

Quem Deus vult perdere. It is just possible that some similar idea as that which had carried conviction to Mrs Daventer ran through Philip’s mind. He feared opposition in delay—knowing his own weakness, he may have feared for the result. And the present was so insidiously sweet, so seductively entrancing, why think of the future? Others would put before him all sorts of hard, repellant contingencies—would unsettle him—would, in fact, drag him, and that rudely, from his fool’s paradise? And why should they? It did not follow that everybody else knew everything, while he, Philip Orlebar, was bound to remain a consummate ass. It did not follow either that his paradise was a fool’s paradise. He was surely old enough to know his own business best; other people’s interference could do no good, but very likely plenty of mischief. No, this was entirely his own affair, and as such he intended it should remain. Thus the sheep went quite blithely to the slaughter.

It was done—was done at last. The mother’s horrified opposition went down at the last moment before the daughter’s quiet, determined persistency and a special licence—went down with a completeness that to an unprejudiced and strictly impartial observer might have looked ever so slightly suspicious. It was arranged that Philip should break the news to his father immediately afterwards, and on that condition only would Mrs Daventer be brought to yield a most reluctant consent; and, in accordance with this, Philip, leaving his bride in the care of her mother, was to travel down to Claxby alone.

Yet very happy were these two—very happy in their fool’s paradise. To Laura especially it seemed too good to be true—too good to last. She seemed to move as in a waking dream. And now they must part, though only for forty-eight hours, perhaps less—must part immediately upon their union. It did not seem right. It seemed ominous.

“Come back to me the moment you can break away, Phil, my darling,” she said, as she bade him a final good-bye in the early morning on the platform of the seldom-used little station. “I have no fear but that you will be able to talk over Sir Francis. Who could resist you?” she parenthesised with an inflexion of tender pride. “But do not remain away from me a moment longer than you are obliged. We have only just begun to belong to each other remember, and I have only just begun to live. Good-bye, my own.”

Then the train moved off from the platform, and soft-hearted Phil felt a corresponding lump rise in his throat as he watched those beautiful eyes, brimming over with love for him, fade into the dimness of distance, till even the white waving handkerchief became as a mere speck. Then a turn in the embankment hid the whole from view.

Thus they parted, there on the wooden platform of the deserted little country station. And those last words were as the knell of a life—of two lives.

Chapter Thirty.

After Fordham’s Visit.

After Fordham had left the room Sir Francis hardly seemed aware of his visitor’s departure. He sat there like one turned to stone, the full horror of the recent disclosure weighing him down. First had come the lawyer’s letter threatening an action against his son. That seemed very trivial now—very far-away. Then the shock of confronting so unexpectedly his old enemy, and following that the pain and resentment of learning that Philip had taken the most important step in life without a word to him. But all this was nothing—less than nothing—when compared with the nature of that fearful disclosure.

Why had the long-turned-down pages of that dark chapter in his past so suddenly been flung open before him now? Why should this man pursue him with such vengeful hate? He had wronged him, it was true, but equally true was it that he had never shrunk from the consequences. He had given him satisfaction, and bore the mark of that meeting even yet, would carry it to his grave. Why, then, should he be thus relentlessly pursued—why should his transgression be visited upon the head of his innocent son? Surely the retribution was out of all proportion to the offence. But reason as he would, rebel as he would, the horrible fact remained. For years he and his had unconsciously been the objects of a devilish, vindictive plot. And at the thought of the craft and cleverness of the plan a ray of hope shone in upon his mind. The whole thing might be annulled. It should be. But could it? He could no more prove the relationship now than Fordham could have done at the time. Besides, the publicity of such an attempt, and they had already been married more than twenty-four hours—horrible—horrible! Whichever way he looked at it there was a dead blank wall confronting him.

“So make up your mind to hear by any post that you are endowed with a daughter-in-law of the least desirable kind,” had been his wife’s sneering words but a short half-hour ago. Prophetic indeed, so much so that a brief suspicion crossed his mind lest she might be already in the secret—very brief though, only to be succeeded by a fixed determination that she must at all costs be kept out of it—out of that part of it which contained the whole sting of the grisly reality at any rate; for the bare fact of the marriage was of course public property. No; it must remain a secret between himself and Philip, while they should arrive at some decision as to what ought to be done.

It may readily be surmised that Lady Orlebar did not leave her husband alone for long, once Fordham had departed. Even her damaged dignity had to give way before the intense curiosity which was consuming her, and accordingly she swooped down upon him determined to arrive at the torturing secret. But, for once, she failed—only for the present though, she told herself—for so ill, so prostrated did he look that expediency supplying the place of feeling, moved her to refrain from worrying him further—moved her even to show some solicitude on his behalf. If ever there was a valuable life, from her way of looking at it, in this world, it was that of Sir Francis, for should it cease she would be left well-nigh penniless. He could not put by any thing now because she persisted in living up to the income, and at his death everything would go to the obnoxious Philip, against whom her ire raged secretly but hot.

Wherefore, we say, expediency moved her to show some consideration for her husband, and of a truth he needed it. Piteous indeed he looked, white and ill as a man who has received a knock-down blow. At first a horrible fear crossed her mind, that he had been speculating, but a hurried assertion that money had nothing to do with the affair had infinitely relieved it. If it was not that it didn’t matter, she reasoned. Of course it had to do with his scamp of a son, but that need not affect her.

“You had better go to bed, Francis, and take a sleeping draught,” she said, after several ineffectual attempts at eliciting the burden of the recent interview. “We can talk things over to-morrow. But, goodness gracious, what is the use of worrying? As if anything mattered at this time of life—anything short of the smash up of a bank—and you say it is no question of money. Come, now. The best thing you can do is to go to bed.”

But on this point Sir Francis was not compliant. By a curious coincidence a new idea struck him, viz, that Philip not having communicated with him, was coming in person to break the news of his marriage. And he might arrive at any moment. No, he would not go to bed, late as it was. And then, as if to add point to his resolve, there came a grinding of wheels on the drive, followed by a loud ring at the front door. The baronet started up in his chair, and his face became more ashy white than before.

“Goodness gracious! Whatever is it all about?” cried Lady Orlebar, as, following on a sound of voices outside, the door was thrown open, and Philip entered without waiting to be announced. “Shall we ever get to the bottom of all this mystery?” And then she stopped. For, at sight of her, the joyous, radiant look on Philip’s face had changed to one of cold sternness as he discounted her furious opposition in advance. Even she was overawed. She felt almost afraid of him.

“Pardon me,” he said to her, after the cold handshake of greeting. “I must see my father—alone. Would you mind?”

There was no mistaking the gesture as he moved towards the door. The bluntness of the request—the insult of it—thought Lady Orlebar as she swept majestically out. For the second time that evening she was turned out of the room. Well, let them talk over their infamous secrets. They need look for no help from her, she determined, fairly shaking with rage.

Sir Francis did not meet his son’s gaze as he extended one trembling hand. The other still clutched mechanically the packet which Fordham had thrust into it. Philip’s heart smote him, and all the brightness went out of his face. Had his father already heard the news which he had come to break?

“I say, dad, what’s the row? Dear old dad,” he went on, obtaining no answer but a sigh—bending down and placing his arm round his father’s shoulders—“you’re looking deucedly cut up. Have you been—er—hearing anything?”

“Hearing anything?” echoed Sir Francis, in a hollow, far-away tone, and turning to his son with a wild stare. “Hearing anything? Philip, I have heard that which I—which we had both better have died than have lived to see happen.”

“Come, come dad, don’t take on about it like that! It was playing rather low down, I know, doing things all on the quiet. Still—I couldn’t help it. Wait until you see my Laura—that’s all! Why you’ll fall in love with her yourself, and we’ll all be as jolly as sandboys together. But, how did you hear about it? Who told you?”

For answer Sir Francis pointed to the telegram which Fordham had left on the table either by inadvertence or as not worth taking away.

“Hallo! So Fordham has been here?” cried Phil. “Hang it, I never authorised the old chap to break the news. I suppose, though, he thought you knew it already, and came to congratulate you. Still—it’s odd—deuced odd. It isn’t like him, anyhow.”

“He left this for you,” holding forth the bulky missive. “Philip, take it to your own room, where you will be quite alone, lock the door, and read it through from beginning to end. Oh, God! It is horrible—horrible?”

“Horrible! Fordham!” echoed Philip, in blank amazement. “Father, I don’t understand. Tell me in a word—what’s it all about? Why make me wade through twenty pages of Fordham’s rigmarole when half-a-dozen words will do it?”

“Oh, I can’t—I can’t!” moaned poor Sir Francis. “Read it, Phil—read it! That will tell you.” And with almost frantic gesture he waved his son from the room.

Philip’s heart beat strangely as he went to seek the privacy enjoined. What on earth had Fordham to communicate that concerned himself—that availed to throw his father into so pitiable a state of agitation? Under ordinary circumstances he would have suspected the package, so elaborately sealed and directed to himself, to contain a string of stale and would-be cynical platitudes on the situation, for which he felt in no sort of mood just then. Now a strange eerie foreboding of evil was upon him.

He gained his room, which was fireless, and cold and uncheery of aspect. Then, by the light of the solitary candle, he broke the seals and drew forth the contents of the envelope. These would keep him busy for some time in all conscience, he decided, noticing how closely written were the numerous sheets. But almost with the first glance, as he began to read, a start and a wild ejaculation escaped him. Then, as he read on, a deathly paleness spread over his countenance, and his hand clenched convulsively upon the rail of his chair. His attitude became rigid and his features hardened. His eyes dilated with a stare of intense horror and surprise as they travelled down each successive sheet of the fateful paper.

Where is the sunny, light-hearted youth, rejoicing in the strength of health and happiness and love, who entered this house such a short while ago? Not surely to be found in this being, whose ashy features are stamped with the set, grey look of a stricken despair; the frozen horror in whose eyes, as they seek alternately the shadowed objects around the half-darkened room and the rigidly grasped paper, is that of a man who suddenly realises that he has all involuntarily committed some appalling crime.

His dry lips move half unconsciously, and in husky, laboured gasps, frame the well-nigh inarticulate words—

“O God! such a hideous thing could never be! God in Heaven, it can’t be true! It can’t be true!”

Chapter Thirty One.

What was Revealed.

“There is a good deal of a surprise before you, Philip,” began the paper, “but nevertheless, go patiently through this, from start to finish, and don’t look at the end first, after the manner of the average woman reading a novel, for it would only detract from the full bearing of the narrative, and probably cloud and obfuscate the same at every issue.

“My real name is not Richard Fordham, but Richard Cecil Garcia. It suited me—no matter how—to take the other, to drop my real name, with which I was thoroughly sickened and disgusted. With what show of reason you will learn as you read on. But it is a strange, foreign-sounding name, is it not? Well, it is a foreign name, for I am of Corsican origin. That being so, it follows I have the hot, vindictive temperament of a Southern race in addition to a fair share of British tenacity of purpose. No man ever injured me but was requited sooner or later—requited to the full—requited, in fact, tenfold. The bearing of this upon what follows you will all too soon grasp.

“You and I have known each other now for something less than two years; but have known each other better, more intimately, than we should have done under ordinary circumstances in about half a lifetime. You thought our first meeting entirely a fortuitous one. It was not. It was deliberately brought about by me in pursuance of a matured and long-set plan.

“You have often wondered at my unutterable detestation of, contempt for, the other sex. It has amused you, and you have laughed at it as a ‘crank.’ You are young, and think that a very large percentage of angel abides within the average petticoat. Very good. I can’t say I ever held that belief, for I always despised and distrusted the dear creatures from the very earliest time I can remember.

“‘Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall,’ may be only Scripture, but it is remarkably sound human nature. My ‘fall’ came—and an uncommonly far and hard one it was destined to prove. There is no need to go into all the sickening details—the how, or the when, or the where. Suffice it to say that the creature was well endowed with all the attractiveness (so-called) and the devilish arts and wizardry of her species. For a few months I thought myself in Paradise—had found the philosopher’s stone, the elixir of life.

“In this disastrous mania, mind you, it was not I who took the initiative. For every reason on the face of the earth it was to this woman’s advantage that my name and what modest competence I possessed should become hers. It suited her vanity, too, that she alone should be the one to penetrate my armour-coat of invulnerable mail. And in those days when the blood ran hot such beauty as hers was calculated to bring down even my defences—though now I can look back to that hideous mockery of a time with nothing but horror and unmitigated disgust—can look upon the actress in that shameful travesty with loathing and unquenchable hate. And now at this day I hold her very life in the hollow of my hand. Some day I will close my fingers and crush it—but not yet—not yet.

“For some months, as I have said, I thought myself in Paradise. Then came disillusion—speedy when it did come. I knew myself then to be in inferno. Heavens! the life that she-devil led me—she of whom I had practically been the salvation! She slandered my character, and dragged my name in the mud. She ruined my chances in life and caused every friend I owned in the world to flee as from the plague. She did worse than that, for she sapped and well-nigh destroyed even my sense of self-respect. I often wondered, at the time, I did not kill her; looking back now I wonder still more.

“Mind you, it was not on account of this one creature alone that I have always held the whole of its sex in such intense abhorrence. But I have studied it—studied it carefully. I have thought, ‘No one shall say that I, the thinker, the character-reader, the student of human nature all the world over, has judged a whole from a unit.’ But the result of my observation is that in a greater or less degree it is wonderfully alike. You get the same littleness—the same gratuitous malice—the same eager, scheming, unscrupulous grasping after individual advantage—above all the same domineering spirit, the same utter disregard of truth, the entire absence of any sense of moral rectitude. If it were possible to roll the tiger, the ape, and the snake into one animal, you would get a perfect embodiment of the average civilised and Christian woman of the nineteenth century. The gentle sex! Pah! it sickens one!

“Now and again, but rarely, I think I find an exceptional unit. But then I thought so once before, to my ultimate disaster. And, Philip, the last instance in which I thought to discover such an exception was that of the girl named Alma Wyatt. Well, it is too late to think of that now—for you at any rate. You have gone further and fared infinitely worse. Yet I warned you—warned you plainly and unmistakably. My very last words to you were those of warning. And now let us return to my own record.

“‘When things are at their worst, they mend,’ says the proverb. Things were certainly at their worst with me. I had committed social and financial suicide, all but mental—and even seriously contemplated actual and physical. When I had reached that point; when every conscious moment of the twenty-four hours was absorbed in marvelling what besotted affliction of mania could have induced me to wreck my life by legally chaining it to this demon, then, I say, came the proverbial ‘mend.’ It came in the shape of a third party.

“Why dwell upon circumstances and detail? The story was an utterly commonplace and ordinary one. She played off the whole stale bag of tricks upon the new man, who must have been nearly as great a fool as myself—in fact was. To cut the matter short, one fine day they went off together, levanted—also in the most commonplace and ordinary style. Then I sat down and chuckled—laughed as I had never laughed since I was idiot enough to forge my chain.

“But I was a curious tempered devil in those days—am so still you will no doubt say—and although I could not feel any serious resentment against one who had relieved me of an intolerable burden, by reason of that relief, still the act in itself was a deadly insult to me. I left the man alone for a few days, then I dropped down upon him when he least expected it. I raised no scene—not I. There was a better way of settling matters than that. It was easy enough if judiciously worked—is still at this very day. A meeting was arranged.

“It came off—in a wild out-of-the-way spot just across the Spanish border. We stood up, one lowering drizzling morning, when the clouds were sweeping the tree-tops of the beech-forests covering the Roncevallés plateau. We exchanged shots. I could have killed my man easily, but didn’t. I was only playing with him. He wasn’t a bad shot either, but I knew the game was entirely in my hands. I could have killed him, I say, but I never intended to do that. It occurred to me—knowing the man and having read off his character and temperament fairly accurately—that life itself would avenge me upon him far more than would his death. I would put my mark upon him, however. So when we stood up again to each other’s fire I planted my ball in the tendons of his left leg, just above the knee. My adversary dropped, and the seconds pronounced the affair at an end. But he was not dead; not even, with ordinary care, dangerously wounded. He would recover, but he would carry my mark—a mark apparent to all—with him to his grave. He would walk with a limp during the remainder of his life.

“No doubt, Philip, you will now have guessed this man’s identity. To avoid all chance of mistake, however, I will say that it was your own father.

“Now we will come to Act 2 in the drama.

“He soon had enough of the woman; very much more than enough, as, of course, was sure to be the case. But he found he had strapped a burden upon his back which it was in the last degree difficult to shake off. She, of course, fully expected I was going to free her, in which case she would undoubtedly have succeeded in marrying your father; for he never was a strong man, Philip, and I believe he would have been weak enough even for that. But I merely sat still and laughed. Heavens! how I did laugh! For the joke was all on my side. To be sure, if I had taken action which should have enabled Francis Orlebar to marry her, I should have wreaked a far direr retribution upon him than ever I could have done at the pistol’s mouth. But then I hated her far more than I did him, and I was not going to play into her hands. Not, however, that I had done with him, as you will, to your sorrow, learn. So no fees out of my pocket went to fatten the Divorce Court lawyers, and I sat still and laughed—laughed harder than ever. There was another consideration which militated against my taking any steps to free myself. Once legally free, I reasoned, so great a fool is man, who knows but that I might be tempted again to rivet that loathsome and degraded chain upon my emancipated limbs! So I resolved deliberately to leave it beyond my power again to perpetrate such an act of suicidal folly, and accordingly I have done so.

“Although, if empowered to do so, your father would, as I say, have been weak enough to give this woman the legal right to his name, when he—when they both—saw that such could never be the case while I lived, he mustered up sufficient resolution to break with her. Then she tried it on with me; took up a high-handed line, declaring that her legal right was to live with me; and that whereas nothing short of legal process could quash that right, and whereas I had taken no such process, she should assert her rights to the very uttermost. Again I only laughed, and—started off upon my travels.

“Then she tried another tack. A child was born to her—a daughter—whose paternity I, of course, denied. She initiated proceedings against me for maintenance, but these I stopped by pretending to fall in with her claim. It stipulated, however, that she should cease to use my name. This she promised; but of course the promise was not kept. So I cut off every shilling I allowed her, having previously placed my means beyond the jurisdiction of the British courts—a matter easily effected by secret and scattered investments in all parts of the world; and she and her child were reduced to absolute want. That brought her to her knees; that tamed the she-devil. I had things all my own way then. It was my prerogative to impose terms, and I did so most rigidly. She was to keep me regularly informed as to her place of residence, and not to make any radical change in the latter without my sanction, and under no circumstances was she to use my name, or let it be known that I had any acquaintanceship with her whatever. She was also to behave herself, and that thoroughly. Failing the observance of these conditions, I would inexorably cut off the supplies, and remove the child from her care in such wise that she should never set eyes on it again.

“Did she revolt? Of course she did—tried to, rather, more than once. But it didn’t answer; no, not for a moment. She found that my eye was ever upon her, that not a movement of hers passed unknown to me. So she had the gumption to see that nothing was gained by kicking, and that the wisest—in fact the only—plan was to make the best of it. But I hadn’t done with her.

“For years things went on quietly enough. The child grew and throve; and for this child the woman seemed to entertain an extraordinary affection. This I did nothing to lessen; for I saw therein a weapon ready to hand whenever I should choose to require it. So I sat still and laughed; for I had not done with her, remember. She had wrecked my whole life and its chances, nor during the process, nor ever since, had she shown one single redeeming point in her character, one single sign of regret.

“All this took place many years ago, while you were hardly out of the cradle, certainly not out of the nursery, for I am a great deal older than you think, Philip. To a certain extent, I watched you grow up, unknown to your father or to yourself, for, I repeat, our meeting and subsequent acquaintanceship was the outcome of no mere chance. And this brings us to the third act of the drama.

“Years went by, and your father, never having seen nor of late heard of me since the day we stood up to each other’s fire, ceased even to think of me as other than a somewhat tragical incident in the past history of his life. He little dreamed, however, that all this time I was watching him—was watching you. Yes, I watched you as you grew up. I knew that you were as the very apple of your father’s eye. Through you I intended to strike him once more—to crush him.

“We met, you and I, as you remember. You thought it a chance meeting, but it was not. In a week I had read off your character thoroughly, exhaustively. I knew you a great deal better than you knew yourself.

“Well, we went globe-trotting together. And as you look back on it you will recollect more than one occasion upon which, but for my intervention, your father would have been rendered childless. Why did I intervene, you will say? Well, for two reasons. First, I chose to pull the wires myself. I intended to close my vendetta by a plan that should be perfectly unique. The hunter’s instinct doesn’t move him to say, ‘No matter how the quarry falls, as long as it does fall.’ No; he must bring it down himself, in his own way. So it was with me. The other reason will strike you as strange and incredible to the last degree. I had taken a liking to you.

“Yes, paradoxical as it may sound, paradoxical as it is, the fact remains. I had a sneaking weakness for you, Philip. You were so open-hearted, so ingenuous, so utterly helpless—in short, such an ass. It seemed to devolve on me to be ever pulling you out of some tangle. I began to waver in my purpose. There were times when I thought I would leave the whole thing, and had it been a matter concerning your father alone I think I should have done so. But there was the woman. She was in my hand now. The time for her to feel its weight was near. She was living at ease, happy and contented, for, as I said before, she was entirely wrapped up in her daughter. She, happy and contented after having poisoned my life, ruined me, dragged my name in the mud—I don’t mean in the mere act of relieving me of her presence—but more in the shameful scandal, the horrible hell she made of life while she was with me, so that wherever I went it was rendered impossible—she happy and contented! Decidedly the time had come to strike.

“Even then I found myself still wavering on your account. I wavered to the last. I honestly did my best to get you out of that Glover hobble, and I believe I succeeded. Had not chance upset your relations with Alma Wyatt I believe I should have spared you, for I should have been powerless against her counter-influence—or, at any rate, I should have preferred to think so, if only as a pretext for throwing up the whole scheme. Then we went over to Zermatt, and here chance stepped in again and took the reins a good deal out of my hands. But for your accident you could have returned to Zinal in a few days. Time and absence would have been all in your favour, and you would have been saved.

“It was part of my design to bring you to Zermatt. You remember we were going there in the first instance, but chance diverted our plan. Now, however, the time had come for me to draw in the circle of the net. I wavered no longer.

“We will touch briefly upon what followed. The Daventers arrived, and, caught at the rebound, you transferred your susceptible heart. Even then I warned you. You cannot say I did not give you every chance. My last words to you were words of warning. But they were utterly thrown away, as I knew they would be. Well, there is very little more to be said. You walked into the trap with your eyes open and—were caught.

“Do you know who this woman is who calls herself Mrs Daventer? She is no other than the woman whose infamies I have been detailing—she who was and still is legally bound to me by the marriage laws of the land. And her daughter—your bride—do you guess now whose child she is? Mine—you will say. No, you are wrong. Her father is your father, Philip Orlebar, and if you doubt me ask him.”

At this stage the paper fell from Philip’s hand. The whole world seemed going round with him. It was as if he had received a stunning blow, a numbing shock. The dead grim horror of the situation had not yet fully broken upon him.

With an effort he picked up the paper again and read on:—

“You will remember that earlier in my narrative I said I disputed the paternity of this child at the time of its birth. Well, before letting the matter go into court I obtained more than one opinion from eminent counsel. But every opinion was substantially in accord—to the effect that the question of time rendered the matter such a very near thing that I could not hope to contest the claim with the slightest chance of success. How does this affect you now, Philip Orlebar? Why, exactly as it affected me then. Your chances of obtaining a decree of nullity are so remote as to be practically non-existent—even if you care to throw the case open to the public—for remember, by the time you get this you will have been married two whole days, and a court of law is a pretty scathing ordeal. Nor will the plea of fraud avail you, while I know for a fact that Laura was totally unaware of the circumstances of her parentage, or that the name under which she was married—her surname, to wit, was rightly any other than Daventer.

“Well, you must accept the situation in all its bearings, and if you cannot—as I firmly believe—break the tie by which you are legally, but only legally, bound, you can console yourself, as I did, with the reflection that it is now out of your power ever again to make a fool of yourself. Nothing further remains to be said, except that I suppose never before did the strands of Fate weave together so complete a web of what is commonly called poetic justice, so unique an instance of retribution. And remember this. If your father ate sour grapes and your teeth are set on edge, you must blame him—not me.

“Should you wish to meet me to talk over anything, I am still to be found at my old quarters. Of course, I am using the name by which you have always known me.

“Richard Fordham.”

Chapter Thirty Two.

“That Sting Each Other Here in the Dust.”

Father and son had the house to themselves, for the servants had long since gone to bed, and Lady Orlebar had done likewise, in a towering passion. Softly Philip returned to the library, where he had left his father, and then for a few moments they stood silently gazing into each other’s faces, the expression of each equally wretched, equally blank, equally hopeless.

“He has told you—that infernal villain!” said Philip, at length. “I can see it.” Sir Francis nodded. He could not speak just then. “And this,” went on Philip, drawing forth Fordham’s communication. “You know what he says here? Oh, father, for God’s sake, is it true?”

“It is impossible to say for certain,” gasped the baronet, in a strange, jerky tone, after several futile attempts to speak. “It is impossible to—prove anything—either way.”

He did not upbraid his son, as many a father might and would have done. He did not say, “If you will go and throw your life away upon your own weak and foolish judgment, if you will go and do things in such hurried and hole-and-corner fashion, if you will go and buy a pig in a poke, you have got no more than you deserve—you have only yourself to thank?” But he did think—and that bitterly—that but for the hurry and secrecy on the part of Philip in the matter, the weight of this horror would never have fallen upon them at all.

“Father, what do you think—candidly? Do you think that scoundrel Fordham spoke the truth?”

It was the bitterest moment in Sir Francis’s life. To answer in the negative would be but to perpetuate the horror; besides he could not so answer. His glance avoided that of his son, and his head drooped forward on his chest, as he faltered, like a man who talks in his sleep—

“I believe he did. I cannot say otherwise—I believe he did.”

And then Philip knew that his life was ruined at the outset—wrecked almost before leaving port.

“Father!” he said, at last, breaking the terrible silence which had fallen between them. “What does this villain mean when he says, ‘Remember by the time you get this you will have been married two whole days...’? Has he given it me two days sooner than he meant to?”

“Oh no—oh no. This would make it just about the time,” muttered Sir Francis, drearily.

“But how do you make that out? How can I have been married two whole days when I was only married this morning?”

The change in Sir Francis’s demeanour was in the last degree startling.

“What?” he almost shrieked. “What’s that you say, Phil? You were only married this morning?”

“Of course I was. I left Lau—I left her—almost at the church door.” And then he went on to detail Mrs Daventer’s inexorable insistence upon his breaking the news to his father at once.

“But the telegram, Phil? What of the telegram?” cried Sir Francis, wildly. “Look—look at the date. The 22nd—that was yesterday. And it says ‘this morning.’”

Philip had caught up the slip of paper and was staring at it with a puzzled look. “It’s as you say, father,” he said. “The office stamp does give the 22nd. Well, it is a mistake, and Fordham has been so far sold, for the most awful side of his ghastly, diabolical plot has been spared me. What an infernal fiend, in the literal sense of the word, the man must be!”

“Oh, thank God! thank God?” ejaculated poor Sir Francis, falling back in his chair. “So you parted at the church door. Oh, thank God! that unutterable horror is spared us. But the rest. My poor boy—my poor boy! You can never see them again—it would be too fearful.”

“Once, father—once I must,” was the reply, accompanied by a hard-set frown. “Once—but once only.”

Fordham’s chambers were situated in a quiet street just off Park Lane. They were comfortable, but not luxurious, as became one who was a confirmed wanderer—here to-day, there to-morrow. He never cared to accumulate a collection of things, for that very reason. Here on the day after Philip’s meeting with his father did Fordham sit. He was writing—answering a letter from Wentworth urging him to join the latter at Les Avants the following week—a suggestion which rather fell in with his own inclinations—for London at the end of September was insufferably close, abominably dusty, and blatantly vulgar. He hardly knew himself why he had stayed so long.

Well, that was not quite accurate either. He did know. He wanted to watch the explosion of the infernal machine he had so craftily pieced together, to note its results.

His letter finished, he pushed his chair from the table and began to think. He was in one of his worst moods that morning—cool, cynical, utterly without ruth. As he thought on his interview of the previous evening he laughed at himself because of the temporary softening he had undergone. When others had got the drop on him, did they relent? Not they. Now he had got the drop on them, why should he feel any compunction? He would not. While in this vein he heard steps quickly ascending the stairs. The door opened and there entered—Philip.

The latter stopped short. At first it seemed as if he could not speak. His broad chest was heaving, and a red spot burned in each of his livid cheeks. Then, slowly, he brought out three words—

“You—infernal villain!”

Fordham slightly shrugged his shoulders, and the expression of his face was not goodly to look upon.

“Is that all you came here to say? Well, at any rate you can’t say I didn’t warn you—didn’t give you every chance. Why, man, I did nothing but warn you.”

“Yes—by the rule of contraries. And now what have you got to say? Putting myself aside for the present, for what you have done to my father you shall answer to me. Yes, to me!”

His tone had attained a loud and threatening pitch, and he made a step forward. Fordham, who had risen when he first came in, drew himself together with a nearly imperceptible movement which reminded one of nothing so much as a snake ready to strike. Thus they confronted each other, these two who had been such close, such intimate friends.

“What have I got to say?” repeated Fordham, dropping out his words with a steely deliberation. “The question ought rather to come from me. No; stop! Stand back!” he added, warningly, as the other made towards him, a move whose nature was unmistakably aggressive. “You’ll do no good in that line, I promise you. Why remember, boy, all the best tricks you know with your hands I taught you, and there remain a great many better ones for you to learn. I’m the best man of the two in that way.”

None knew this better than Philip, tall, powerful, and in good training as he himself was. The other was a splendid boxer, and all wire and whipcord. He would stand no chance against him.

“Will you meet me in the old-fashioned way, then?” he said, with difficulty restraining his rage. “We can cross the Channel and exchange a few shots. What! You won’t!” for the other had burst into a derisive chuckle. “Hang it, Fordham, you may pretend to laugh, but I never thought you were such an infernal coward!”

“You may well talk about hanging,” replied Fordham, with that same sardonic chuckle. “Do you know, you young fool—do you know that all this time you have been bellowing out enough to hang you a dozen times over in this happy contingency for which you are thirsting? Do you know, also, that in the event of my being the one to go under, one single word construable into an arrangement of the meeting, uttered by you over here would be enough to hang you as surely as if you had cut a man’s throat to steal his watch?”

It was Philip’s turn to look slightly foolish now; and in spite of his anger and misery he did so—such is the power of a master-mind and a sarcastic tongue.

“Just do me the favour to open that door suddenly, will you?” went on Fordham. “Ah! The coast’s clear, is it? Well, then”—as the door was shut again—“if you really mean business, this is how you ought to have put it: ‘Fordham, old man, are you really going to St. Jean-de-Luz this week or next? Because if so I might join you there.’”

Philip started, and stared. Then it dawned on him.

“And where the deuce is St. Jean-de-Luz?” he said.

“About equidistant between Biarritz and the Spanish border, and very near both,” was the tranquil answer. “Well, I was going to Les Avants, but if you prefer it I will alter my destination. Do you prefer it?” with a keen glance into the other’s eyes.

“I understand,” said Philip, slowly. “Yes, certainly, I do prefer it.”

“Very well, then. There is no more to be said. I will be at St. Jean-de-Luz by the middle of next week at the latest. And now a word of caution for your own sake. Do not breathe one syllable with regard to our—er—rendezvous, while you are on this side of the English Channel. Remember that on this side of that geographical feature we are both within British jurisdiction. I suppose you don’t want to spend the rest of your life in penal servitude in the event of gaining your object?”

“I understand,” said Philip, again. “Till this day week, then—over there.”

“You may rely upon me.” And then the speaker rang the bell, and Philip, hardly knowing where he went, found himself following a manservant to the street door.

He had gone in there on violence intent. That was a mistake. Fordham was right to keep cool. It is what he ought to have done himself. Ah, well, he was learning his lesson gradually. He had acted upon impulse hitherto—the warm, generous impulse of youth. No more of that. But he would be cool enough that day week, when they two should meet.

No compunction did he feel—nothing but hate, and horror, and loathing towards his former friend. The diabolical and coldblooded cruelty which could predestine his life to shipwreck from the very cradle, which could watch him grow up, and then under the guise of friendship lure him to his ruin, effaced at one sweep all the recollection of their former intimacy, of many an act of kindness on the part of the older man, of strong and reliable comradeship in moments of danger. And his father—if he had injured Fordham in times past, he had given him full satisfaction. That ought to have closed the matter. And now this coldblooded villain, after all these years, rose again to persecute and hound him into the grave. Never while he was there. And then at the recollection of his father’s white, stricken face and pitiable aspect, Philip clenched his fists and wished he had insisted upon an earlier meeting.

When he reached the Great Western terminus the Welsh train was already moving, but with an effort and at imminent risk to life and limb he managed to fling himself into a compartment, and then, speeding over the familiar landscape, his thoughts turned from those he was leaving behind to those to whom he was going. Why, it was very little more than twenty-four hours since he had parted from his bride, and what a cataclysm had taken place within that time. His bride! Horror! How should he even meet her, knowing what he did? How could he even bear to look at her? And then, as he sat there throughout the day, gazing out vacantly upon the flying trees and hedges, the scales seemed to drop from his eyes. He had fallen a prey—a contemptibly easy prey—to a couple of designing adventuresses. All the kind and gracious attentions of the mother—the winsome ways of the daughter—all struck him now as so many arts to lure him into their net, and they had succeeded. He had fallen a victim to a couple of the basest tools ever employed to carry out a base and villainous scheme. Well, after that night they should look upon his face no more.

Then another thought struck him. If the more horrible side of Fordham’s scheme, as set forth in his revelation, were true, Mrs Daventer—so-called—could not be in ignorance of it. Could she, as a mother,—under no matter what pressure of circumstances—consent to become a party to so monstrous a crime? It did not seem possible. Yet, to poor Phil, now beginning to realise the sublimity of iniquity to which some will soar, it occurred that the woman acting under baser, stronger motives, might even have been brought to sacrifice her own daughter. Well, she would know, at any rate, and—she should tell.

Chance favoured him. It was late when he reached the house. Laura, having given him up for that night, had gone upstairs; but her mother was still sitting in the drawing-room reading. The French window, neither curtained nor shuttered, stood ajar, for the night was hot and stuffy. Standing there for a moment in the starlight, the fresh salt air fanning his brow, the murmur of the waves on the beach hard by, humming confusedly in his ears, Philip felt quite sick and faint. He had been continuously on the move since this horror had burst upon him—had eaten next to nothing, and had not slept a wink—and now it was all beginning to tell. Recovering himself, he pushed open the window and stepped into the room.

“Why, Philip! What a way to come back!” cried Mrs Daventer, recovering from the momentary start this unexpected invasion had thrown her into. “Laura will be delighted! Why—what is the matter? Has anything gone wrong?” she broke off, noting his haggard face and the miserable expression of his eyes; and her own cheeks grew livid with a horrible boding fear.

His first answer was to step to the door and turn the key.

“We had better not be interrupted for a few minutes,” he said shortly. “Now I want you to tell me. What is Cecil Garcia to you?”

She started, swayed, as if to fall, then recovered herself, as if by an effort of will.

“You know, then?” she gasped. “He has told you?”

“Everything?”

“Everything! Oh, the infamous fiend! He was always that way.”

“Maybe. Now I must have an answer to this! Who is Laura’s father? Cecil Garcia or—Sir Francis Orlebar?”

She started from her chair, and stood gazing at him, unutterable horror in her eyes, her lips livid and shaking. Her next words were gulped out, as though between the gasps of strangulation.

“He—told you—?”

“That your daughter’s father is my father. That I had married my half-sister. Is it true?”

She tried to speak—the words would not come. The full horror—the diabolical ingenuity—of Fordham’s plan, burst upon her now—for the first time, and burst upon her with crushing force. This was the blow then. While the barest taint of such suspicion lurked in Philip’s mind, Laura might go through life alone. This was how Fordham had chosen to strike her. And she had half credited him with benevolent motives! Him, a devil in human shape!

“Is it true?” repeated Philip.

But his voice hummed in her ears with a far-away sound. She made a convulsive clutch at her throat, gasping as if to speak. No words would come. Then swaying heavily, with a low cry that was half a groan, she tottered and fell.

“She has answered the question,” said Philip to himself, as he caught her just in time and placed her on the sofa. “She has answered the question, and now I know the worst.”

Stepping to the door he unlocked it, just as Laura was turning the handle. She had heard her mother’s cry and the sound of voices. Among the latter she recognised that of Philip, and had flown down, grievously dreading that something had happened.

And at sight of him all her fears were realised. That pale, stern man with the haggard eyes, and the hand stretched forth as though to bar her approach, was that her bright-hearted Philip, who had left her so gaily, yet so lovingly, but the morning before? Heavens, what did it all mean?

“No; it is all over,” he said, putting forth his hand again, as she was about to fling herself upon his neck. “I know all now. Heavens—it is too horrible!” he added with a shudder. “But I suppose you are in the secret too. To think of it!”

“I think you have gone mad,” she answered, a defiant fierceness taking the place of the soft love tones wherein she had at first addressed him. “But—what have you been doing to my mother?” she added in half a scream, as she caught sight of the latter lying there white and still, and rushed over to her side.

“She has fainted. You had better see after her while I go for a doctor. The knowledge that I had been made aware of the infamous plot to which I have fallen a victim has been too much for her.”

Even in the midst of her attentions to her fainting mother the girl turned upon him with flashing eyes and a livid countenance.

“Infamous plot!” she cried. “You dare? Mark this, then. Never come near me again—never again until you have apologised most humbly to her and to me. I mean it! Do you hear?”

“That makes it easier,” he replied, with a faint sneer. “Now I am going for the doctor.” And he went out. “She is in it too,” he soliloquised as he sped along through the cool night. “It is a horrible business—horrible—horrible! But the mother? Well, she answered the question. Still, when she comes round, I shall insist upon her answering it again in words, or in writing.”

But his question was destined to remain unanswered, for Mrs Daventer never did come round. A couple of hours after Philip’s return with the medical man she died. But she never spoke again.

The doctors pronounced it a plain case of heart disease, though they wrapped their definition up in a layer of technical jargon that was anything but plain. So the only person who could have cleared up the doubt was silent for ever, and the true secret of Laura’s paternity lay buried in her mother’s grave.

Chapter Thirty Three.

“For a Brother’s Blood.”

The wind soughed mournfully through the great beech-forests which cover the slopes leading up to the Roncevallés plateau.

It was early morning—gloomy and lowering. The two occupants of the open carriage wending its way at a footpace up the steep mountain road were well wrapped up, for at that elevation, late summer as it was, the air was biting and chill.

“And so you are determined to go through with this, Orlebar?” one of them was saying. “Can it not be arranged even now?”

“Certainly not,” was the brief, determined answer. “I am going to do my level best to rid the world of the most inhuman, damnable monster that ever disgraced it.”

“You will have to be as cool as—as this air, then, Orlebar. Your friend—your enemy I should say rather—is something like a dead shot. By the way, your story is one of the strangest I ever heard in my life; and not the oddest part of it to me is that you should still persist in choosing this place.”

“Because it is this place. You were here at the time of—of that other affair, Major. You will be able to place us upon the exact spot. I have a presentiment. On the very spot where that villain wounded my father I shall kill him. That is why I have chosen it.”

The other shook his head gravely. He was an older man than he looked—and he looked past middle age. Major Fox’s own career had been an eventful one. He had seen active service under the flag of two foreign powers severally, and, moreover, was reckoned an authority on hostile meetings of a private nature, at many of which he had assisted, not always in the character of second. That the object of this early drive was a hostile meeting the above fragment of conversation will clearly show.

Where is the sunny-tempered, light-hearted Philip Orlebar of old? Dead—dead and buried. He who now sits here, pale, stern, gloomy, with the aspect of a man upon whose life a great blow has fallen—whom that blow has aged a dozen years at least—surely these two personalities can have nothing in common?

Onward and upward, higher and higher wends the carriage. Then the acclivity ends, and surmounting the roll of its brow a great flat wooded space, with here and there the distant hump of a mountain jutting against the sky, lies spread out in front. It is the Roncevallés plateau.

A bell clangs forth, slow and sepulchral upon the raw morning air. Its measured, intermittent toll, heard beneath the gloomy lour of the overcast heavens, would be depressing enough under ordinary circumstances. But now it strikes the hearers as immeasurably ominous, for it is the death-toll.

Standing up, the Major, speaking in fluent French, impresses a few directions upon the Basque driver. The latter nods and whips up his horses. As they trot past the quaint, old-world monastery, with its red roofs lying against an appropriate background of foliage, dark hooded figures could be seen gliding about.

“That changes the scene again, Orlebar,” remarked Major Fox. “A few minutes ago one might almost have expected to meet Caesar and his legions emerging from the great beech-forests. Now this brings us to more mediaeval times again. Hallo! What is it?”

For the horses had been suddenly reined in. Then the driver drew them up to the side of the road.

A mournful, wailing, dirgelike sound was heard in front. Standing up in the vehicle, its occupants made out a number of white-clad figures advancing round a bend in the road. The dark-covered horizontal burden borne in the midst; the glitter of the crucifix moving slowly in front; the measured and solemn chant; the clang of the bell from the tower—all told the nature of that procession advancing along the desolate and lonely wooded plateau. Its errand was one of death; and they, the unlooked-for spectators, they, too, were bound upon an errand of death.

“Requiem aeternum dona ei Domine: et lux perpetua luceat ei” chanted the singers. The Basque driver doffed his beret and bent his head devoutly as the cortège went by, and the Major and Philip lifted their hats. But the words, the chant, struck upon the tatter’s ear with indescribable import, for they brought back a very different scene. He saw again the arching blue of the cloudless heavens above the Val d’Anniviers, the rugged cliff and the feathery pine forest, the vernal slopes and the flower-strewn graves. Again the dull roar of the mountain torrent rose upon the air, and Alma Wyatt’s voice was in his ears as upon that glowing morning in the churchyard at Vissoye. And now he heard it again, that chant for the dead, here in the wild solitudes of this Pyrenean forest country, swelling through the murk of the lowering heavens. And he himself was going forth to death—to meet death or to deal it out to another.

“Si iniquitates observaveris Domine: Domine quis sustinebit!” The chant rolled on, now sinking fainter as the funeral procession receded. Heavens! here was a comment on the errand of hate and vengeance—the errand of blood which had brought these two abroad that morning.

“If I were inclined to be superstitious, I should take that incident to be unlucky,” said the Major, with a jerk of his thumb in the direction followed by the receding cortège, “but I’m not, so it doesn’t matter. En avant, Michel.”

But the driver as he obeyed turned half round on his box to ask for directions, with the result that the carriage turned abruptly off into a bypath which penetrated deeper into the forest. A few hundred yards along this and the Major called a halt.

“We will leave the trap here, Orlebar. The place is close at hand, and the other party is sure to be on the spot.”

“You seem to know it well, Major,” said Philip. “Why, I couldn’t have ferretted it out to save my life.”

“My dear fellow, I have been here before—in times past,” was the answer, given with a touch of dryness.

Voices were now heard just ahead of them, and as they emerged into a sequestered open glade three figures were standing in a group chatting. They belonged to Fordham and two strangers—one mustachioed and grizzled, the other mustachioed and dark.

“Good morning—good morning,” said the Major, briskly, raising his hat as he stepped forward.

“M. le docteur Etchegaray—M. le Major Fox,” introduced Fordham.

The dark stranger bowed, and the Major bowed, and there was elaborate hat-lifting on both sides. Then the Major passed on the introduction to his principal, to whom he further effected that of the other stranger, who was Fordham’s second, and whom he named as “M. de Verrieux.”

Beyond a slight raising of the hat such as etiquette demanded, no recognition passed between the two principals. The seconds and the medical man drew apart for a few moments’ conference.

“Is it settled that the matter is to proceed, then?” said M. de Verrieux when this was ended. Both principals nodded. “Enfin—à l’affaire,” he went on.

On one side of the glade was a great dead tree trunk blazed by lightning. The seconds had decided to place their men twenty-five paces apart in such wise that the white trunk should be equidistant from either. The weapons were Colt’s revolvers, but each shot was to be fired by word of command.

The gloom of the morning deepened. A spot or two of rain fell upon the weapons as they were handed to the principals, and the wind moaned dismally among the tree-tops. They stood up, facing each other, those two who had been friends. They stood up, silent, motionless as that death which they were about to deal to each other. Again through the murky stillness there tolled forth from the monastery tower that distant dirge-bell.

“Attention, messieurs!” cried M. de Verrieux. “Un—deux—Trois!”

Both pistols cracked simultaneously. The hum of Philip’s ball passed just over his adversary’s head. Fordham, however, without moving his elbow from his side, had pointed his weapon almost vertically in the air, and had pressed the trigger. He stood cool, impassive, and motionless.

“The affair has proceeded with the greatest honour to both sides,” declared M. de Verrieux. “We may now, I presume, consider it closed?”

“I trust so,” said the Major, looking at Philip, whom he was heartily glad to get so well out of it. But the latter, to his dismay, replied shortly—

“By no means. I don’t consider it has begun.”

The seconds looked at each other, then at their principals. M. de Verrieux shrugged his shoulders.

“Enfin! Puisque Monsieur le désire,” he said.

“Take care he isn’t committing suicide,” said Fordham, with a queer flash in his eyes, and his brows met in that extraordinarily forbidding frown of his. But the remark was met by a somewhat sharp protest on the part of Major Fox, who declared that it was contrary to all precedent for one principal even to address the other under the circumstances, let alone utter what sounded uncommonly like a taunt. Fordham recognised frankly this infringement of etiquette, and apologised elaborately.

Again the two stood facing each other.

Never to his dying day would Philip forget that moment, and the still, sepulchral silence of the great forest, the faint earthy smell of moist vegetation, the sighing of the wind in the tree-tops, the mournful toll of the far-away dirge-bell. All the events of his later life swept through his mind in a flash—Alma Wyatt—the sweet, sunlit mountain slopes—the blue lake, and the shining glacier—then that other in her dark beauty—the dance and sparkle of the sea, and the expanse of yellow sand on the low-lying Welsh coast—then the frightful disclosure—his own horror—his father’s agony—the parting—Mrs Daventer’s death. All passed before him in vivid retrospect, as he stood there to receive the fire of the man whom up to a week ago he had reckoned his dearest friend.

The word was given. Again both pistols cracked together. Fordham only moving half his arm, had exactly repeated his former manoeuvre. He had fired straight up at the sky. At the same time he was seen ever so slightly to wince.

“Are you touched?” said the Frenchman, eagerly. “No? Ha—I thought—”

“It doesn’t seem much like it,” answered Fordham, slowly.

Then the seconds had their innings. On one point they were thoroughly agreed. The affair could be allowed to go no further. It had been conducted in a manner which was to the last degree creditable to both gentlemen concerned, pronounced M. de Verrieux animatedly, and he trusted they would both do each other the honour of shaking hands with each other. After which pleasing ceremony he, the speaker, would be delighted if they and the whole party would do him the honour of breakfasting with him, and doing justice to the best wines the cellar of the country inn could supply. This the Major emphatically seconded, though he knew too well there would be no handshaking or any such friendly parting between his two fellow-countrymen.

Philip, for his part, said nothing. The decision of the seconds was final. Nor could he, whatever his wrongs, bring himself to go on firing at a man who was determined not to return his fire. Even then—so desperately contradictory is human nature—even then, without in anywise detracting from his own wretchedness and desperation, he was conscious of a weakness towards his old friend, a strange sense of relenting. At that moment he rejoiced that he had not the other’s death upon his hands.

“Well, since there is to be no more shooting,” said Fordham, at length, speaking in an easy, careless tone, “I may as well convince you that I was not bragging just now. Look at that knot in the blazed tree—there about four feet from the ground.”

He raised his pistol, and with scarcely a moment’s aim fired. The knot, a flat one, and about the size of a crown piece, was seen to splinter. The ball had made a plumb centre.

“Look again,” he went on, and again his pistol cracked. The knot split into a gaping gash and the splinters flew from it. He had planted his second bullet right upon the first one. Ejaculations broke from the spectators in their respective tongues.

“Well, Mr Fordham,” said the Major, “I think I may say, on behalf of my principal and myself, that we appreciate your courtesy to the full. M. de Verrieux, if you will do me the pleasure of meeting me this evening or to-morrow morning at St. Jean-Pied-de-Port as arranged, we will draw up the usual procés-verbal. Gentlemen, I have the honour to salute you, and to wish you good morning.”

Then, amid much elaborate hat-lifting, Major Fox and his principal walked away, while M. de Verrieux and the doctor lit their cigars and proceeded to put away the pistols. Suddenly a cry escaped the medico. It was echoed by the other. For Fordham was lying on the ground as pale as death. He was in a dead faint.

“And he said he wasn’t hit?” ejaculated the doctor. “I could have sworn I saw him wince. Yes! look there,” pointing to a hole in the fallen man’s trousers just above the left knee. “There it is. He held his hand over it all the time, do you see, very cleverly too. Too proud to give way before the young one. Well, well; he is a man. But it is wonderful—wonderful.”

All this while the speaker had been ripping up the leg of the prostrate man’s trousers.

“Here it is,” he went on triumphantly. “Ah, ça! But there will be no probing required. The ball has gone clean through.”

“Is the wound a dangerous one?” said the other. “It doesn’t seem to bleed much.”

“C’est selon!” replied the doctor, with a shrug of the shoulders. “The haemorrhage is, as you say, slight; but the tendon is badly torn—and—he will carry the mark of this day with him to his grave. He will walk with a limp for the remainder of his life.”

And Fordham waking up just then to consciousness under the influence of the cordial which his second was administering, heard the words, and smiled grimly to himself.

“Poetic justice, with a vengeance!” he thought.

Chapter Thirty Four.

At the End of his Life.

Midway between Nyon and Rolle, the steamer Mont Blanc was shearing her arrowy course through the blue waters of Lake Léman, heading for the latter place.

Her decks were covered with passengers, mostly of French nationality—light-hearted, chattering, cheerful souls, talking volubly and all at once—talking the harder apparently in inverse ratio to the interest of the topic under consideration.

Right in the stern of the boat, beneath the upper deck, his back against the end of the saloon, sat a solitary Englishman. He was smoking a cigar and pretending to read, but it was patent to the most casual observer that the book before him occupied very little of his attention indeed, for he was gazing out upon the sapphire surface of the lake and its green and gold setting of engirdling mountains, with an expression of settled sadness upon his extremely attractive countenance, which had no business to be seen upon the face of one so young.

Suddenly there was a rush of feet, and a hat came skimming along the lower deck, a broad-brimmed straw hat—a feminine hat. Springing from his seat he caught it, just in time to save it from going overboard, and turned to hand it to its pursuer and owner.

“Thanks so much,” said a sweet voice. Then the speaker stopped short in amazement and changed colour. “Why, it’s Mr Orlebar—pardon me—Sir Philip, I should have said.”

“It used to be ‘Philip’ at one time, Alma,” was the reply, with the ghost of a sad smile. And then these two stood looking into each other’s eyes in silence. Neither seemed able to say a word.

It was as she had implied. Sir Francis Orlebar was no more. Never recovering from the prostration into which he had been thrown by Fordham’s revelation, he had sunk into a decline and had succumbed three months later, tended by his son devotedly to the last. Then Philip, reserving enough for his modest wants, had apportioned the remainder between his stepmother and that other who had a legal claim upon him. This done, he had left Claxby Court and had started upon his travels again.

She who was his wife, in the eye of the law, he had never set eyes on since that fateful night. He had tried by every means in his power to find some channel through which the mystery might be cleared up, but in vain. The only person who could have done so was dead, and her last words, her last look, her last behaviour, conclusively confirmed him in his very darkest conjectures. The bare recollection of the subject was unutterably nauseous and repulsive to him now.

Old Glover had in due course served him with a writ in the threatened breach of promise action. Nothing could be more repellent than to be dragged forth into notoriety thus, yet what could he do? He was too poor to offer any compromise, even if it were not the persistently rancorous intention of that estimable British merchant to exact his pound of flesh in spite of everything, and that pound of flesh the dragging of him—Philip—into notoriety and a court of law. But at the last moment chance had befriended him. For the beauteous Edith had succumbed to the prismatic attractions of a ritualistic parson of fine presence and ample means, and this cleric had, under pain of cancelling his own engagement, laid a stern embargo on his future bride making an exhibition of herself in a public court. So, whereas it is manifestly impossible to bring an action for breach of promise failing the consent of the interesting plaintiff, old Glover was obliged to deny himself the gratification of his rancour, and to console himself characteristically with the sound commercial reflection that, after all, they had got much the better bargain of the two. For the parson was well off, and would very likely be a bishop one day, or, at any rate an archdeacon, whereas Philip Orlebar, though now a baronet, would always have been as poor as Job, and would never have done any good for himself or anybody else. In which conjecture he was probably right.

“It’s an odd thing I should not have seen you all this time,” said Philip at last, realising that it was necessary to say something. “Yet you must have come on board at Geneva.”

“No—at Nyon.”

“At Nyon! That would account for it. I have been sitting here almost ever since we left Geneva, and, of course, I can’t see the gangway from here, or who lands, or who embarks. Have you been staying there?”

“Only a few days. The people I am with were there to see some friends of theirs. But—between ourselves—it was rather slow.”

“You are not with the General then?”

“Oh no! Don’t I wish I was!” she added, with an eager lowering of her voice. “But there, I ought not to say that. These are a very kind sort of people, but a trifle ‘heavy.’ I am only travelling with them, not their guest.”

Now what the deuce did Philip care about the estimability or other idiosyncrasies of the people she was travelling with? He saw only her—her as he remembered her in times past—her as he had seen her many a time since, waking and in his dreams—her as he had seen her the first time of all, here on the deck of this very ship. He detected the sympathetic softening of the great grey eyes, the saddened inflection of that voice, the first note of which had thrilled his whole being, and his heart tightened. For, after all, he was young, and, in spite of the blow which had fallen upon his life, all possibilities for him were not dead.

And she? Knowing something of his history since they parted—though not the exact nature of the grim skeleton so carefully kept locked up—knowing something of his history, we say, for the world is small and tongues are long, she felt her heart go out to him as it had never done before, as she never thought possible that it could have done. The sunny laugh had gone out of his face for ever; leaving an expression, a stamp of hopelessness, which to her was infinitely pathetic. It was all that she could do to keep down the rush of tears which welled to her eyes as they looked up into his sad ones. What, we say, did he, did either of them, care about the heaviness or otherwise of the people she was travelling with? Yet of such trivialities will the lips force themselves to chatter while the heart is bursting.

“Where and how is the dear old General now?” he went on. “And your aunt?”

“They have gone to live at a place in the country—a few miles from Rushtonborough. That is near your home, is it not?”

“Yes,” he said eagerly, and the possibilities began to stir around and quicken into life. Then his tone relapsed again. “Do you ever go down there yourself?”

“I haven’t yet. They have only just gone there. And now”—hesitatingly, “I think I must go back to my people. They will be wondering what has become of me.”

“Not yet—Alma.”

The pleading tone melted her not very strongly formed resolution. She paused. The end of the saloon hid them effectually, though, of course, they only held this snug corner to themselves on the precarious tenure of chance.

“Tell me a little more about yourself,” he went on. “Are you still living at that place you hated so—Surbiton?”

“N-no,” as if the topic was distasteful. “By the way, I saw you there once.”

“But—I have never been there in my life,” he answered, very mystified.

“Not on land, perhaps—but by water. You were in a boat—and the one I was in as nearly as possible ran you down. I was steering—or rather, ought to have been,” she added with a little smile. “You didn’t see me, but I recognised you.”

“I remember now,” he said. “And was that you? Yes, I remember perfectly. Oh, Alma—if only I had seen you!”

It seemed to escape him in spite of himself, and it conveyed volumes. There had been just a spice of bitterness in the motive that had urged her to let him know she had seen him and with whom, but now she would have given worlds to withdraw the remark—such a turning of the knife in the wound did it seem. And now she realised plainer than words could tell, that if he had seen her on the occasion in question, it would have made all the difference in the world to her life and his.

“What is this place we are coming to?” he said, as the steamer’s bell begun to ring to the accompaniment of a sensible slackening of the paddles.

“Rolle. The next is Morges, and then Ouchy, where we land. We are going to stay a few days in Lausanne.”

“What, at this time of year? Why you will be roasted?”

“So we shall. But the Sitgreaves want to get some things there before going on to the mountains.”

“Are you going on to the mountains? Where? Perhaps we may meet again?” And once more the possibilities were all astir.

“Philip, I think we had better not,” she answered, with her eyes full upon his. “It would not be fair to—you.”

“Oh, I can keep myself in hand all right,” he replied, with a hard laugh from which he could not altogether eliminate the suspicion of a tremor. “Don’t be afraid. I’ve learnt a thing or two since we last had the pleasure of meeting.”

The steamer was under way again, skimming merrily over the sapphire surface. The chit-chat and laughter of the other passengers rose gleefully upon the air, and in the saloon the pop of corks, the clink of knives and forks. There is solitude in a crowd—stillness in noise.

“Where are you going to now, Philip?” she said.

“Oh, I don’t quite know! I’ve booked to Territet. Perhaps I’ll walk up and put in a few days at the old shop—perhaps I’ll go on to Saas or the Bel Alp and do some climbing. Can’t tell till I get there.”

She made no answer. This was not the easy, light-hearted talk of the old times. There was a bitter, reckless ring about it that was unmistakable. The speaker literally did not care where he went or what he did. Still she did not leave him.

“I wonder if it has ever occurred to you all this time Alma,” he went on in a softer tone, “that it was here—on board this very ship—we first met? Not exactly that perhaps, but first saw each other, which amounts to the same thing.”

“Yes, it has.”

“It has? Well, it seems a strange chance, a strange stroke of Fate, that we should meet here again—here of all places. How long ago was it? Ten years—twenty?”

“No; only three.”

“Well, it is like twenty to me. I tell you I feel as if I had come to the end of my life.”

“You must not say that—believe me you must not. Time will do wonders for you. You have a long life before you yet, and great opportunities.”

But although she spoke bravely she could hardly succeed in steadying her voice. All the old feeling, all the feeling which had lain dormant within her since that stray glimpse on the river, was surging into activity. Philip Orlebar, crushed, saddened, all the elasticity burned out of his young life by the searing irons of sorrow, reigned king in her heart, as Philip Orlebar, sanguine, buoyant, light-hearted, could never have done. And the change, sad, infinitely deplorable as it was, had solidified and stamped his character, not altogether to the disadvantage of that possession. But for that one tremendous impediment, in all human probability lifelong, Alma would have needed no pressure to have returned love for love in full and abundant measure.

“Great opportunities?” he echoed. “Yes, I may have had once—before you condemned me unheard. Great Heaven! you had no pity—no consideration for me then, and now it is too late.”

It was cruel. The tears which she had striven so heroically to repress brimmed, overflowed. They fell, each shining drop burning into the heart of the spectator as a drop of molten lead. And upon the blue radiant lake the measured paddle-stroke of the steamer beat strong and joyous, the laughter and chat of the holiday-seekers rang out light and cheery.

“Darling love—love of my life—my only love!” he uttered, in heartbroken tones, “what am I to say? Why—why were you so hasty? And now it is too late.”

“Yes, I was hasty; I know it now,” she replied. “But I tried to make amends. Oh, Philip! why did you not answer—take some notice of my letter?”

“Your—what?”

His face had turned deathly white. Already he saw that some horrible contretemps had served to divert from him a life’s happiness.

“My letter? I wrote to you at Zermatt directly I heard of your accident. You took no notice, so I concluded you did not want to hear of me any more.”

“Alma, as sure as I stand here a living man, I have never received a line of your writing in my life.”

It was her turn to grow pale now.

“But I did write. I directed to your hotel at Zermatt. What can it mean? You never received it?”

He burst into a harsh laugh—a laugh infinitely more moving than tears.

“What can it mean?” he repeated. “It means this: it is part of the whole hellish plot. That letter was intercepted by the hand that for its owner’s vile purposes lured me to my ruin. But that hand is burning now for that act of wickedness—that one act alone—that act which ruined my life. It is burning in another world—if there be another world—for the woman, its owner, is dead.”

“I begin to see,” she said, her eyes brimming with love and pity. “Yes, I can see it all now.”

The bell rang again, and the paddles slackened. The Mont Blanc was sweeping up to the débarcadère at Morges. The next stoppage would be Ouchy, and there they must part.

“Do you remember that day we were crossing over to Bouveret on this very boat?” he went on. “Do you remember our conversation as we passed Chillon Castle? You remarked then, à propos of all its mediaeval horrors, instruments of torture, and so forth—that there seemed a time when the world must have been under Satanic rule instead of under that of a good Providence. Do you remember that?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Well, the same thing holds good now. What have I done that those whom I have never harmed should lay themselves out to ruin my life—to render my days a hell and a curse to me? For it is a curse—a lifelong curse.”

“Not that—not that, God grant. Philip, be brave; you are young yet. Better days will dawn, dear.”

“But they will not bring me—you. No, something tells me it is not so—it never will be so. Nothing better will dawn for me but the grave. I told you before; I tell you again. I feel as if I had come to the end of my life.”

“Hush—hush,” she said, soothingly. “Your life is still your own; you are your own master. You must make an object in life for yourself. That is the only remedy.”

But he shook his head.

“No, no. The Satanic influence is everywhere. Was it not abroad that day on the river when one glimpse of you would have saved me? Had your parasol been held but a few inches higher I should have seen you, and the sight of you would have brought me back to you, back to myself, in time. Yet it was not to be.”

Again the bell rang, again the paddles slowed down. The massive red-tiled tower of Ouchy drew nearer and nearer. The Mont Blanc glided proudly up to the pier.

“Alma, darling—my lost love—we may never meet again. Something tells me we shall not. Give me—one kiss.”

His hands were holding hers. His sad eyes were full upon hers. And she loved him. What could she do?

“Would it be right?” she said, hesitatingly.

“Right or wrong, give it me. You will never regret it.”

Her lips met his, in one sweet, warm, clinging kiss. Then with a murmured, “God bless you, Philip, dear!” she had torn herself away, and was gone.

There was the usual stir and bustle of landing. Then as they were wending their way from the débarcadère in the wake of their luggage, which an hotel porter was hauling before them on a truck, one of Alma’s friends said—

“Who was the other party to the tête-à-tête, Alma? I declare your behaviour is positively scandalous, my dear girl. Do you know you were rather more than a whole hour hobnobbing with him? Come, who was he?”

“An old friend of mine,” she answered, trying to do so lightly, but of course failing abjectly.

“Why don’t you say a dear friend?” said another of the girls, maliciously. “Why, he was standing there on the lower deck as we landed, simply devouring the last of you with his eyes. And they were eyes, too. Come, now, his name? You are not going to get out of that, don’t think it. Who was he?”

“Sir Philip Orlebar.”

“Sir Philip Orlebar?” repeated the last who had spoken and who was by way of being the wag of the party. “And you did not bring him up and introduce him. A whole, real, live baronet—and such a good-looking one, too! Oh, Alma, I should never have thought it of—Gracious goodness!”

The last words were little better than a shriek. For a frightful sound had drowned the speaker’s utterance—a loud, vibrating, strident roar, and a crash as of a heavy missile tearing through planks and rafters. Turning towards it, the faces of the girls blanched with terror and their knees trembled under them, so that they could hardly stand. Those around behaved variously, but all were in a state of the wildest consternation and dismay.

“Mais il éclate—le bateau-à-vapeur!” cried one of the bystanders.

The Mont Blanc was still at the jetty. At first it was difficult to make out what had happened. Then dense masses of steam were seen to be issuing from the centre of the ship, and from the whole outside of the saloon spurted white, hissing jets.

The upper deck was the scene of a wild and frenzied panic. A mob of terror-stricken passengers surged to the gangway, fighting, shouting, swarming over each other and everything, at imminent peril of being precipitated into the water. And over and above this chaos, this rout and tumult, there arose a succession of the most appalling screams that ever human ear was condemned to listen to, for they issued from the throats of so many human beings shut up within the death-trap below—so many human beings, for whom all escape was cut off, and who were being literally parboiled alive.

This is what had happened. The steam reservoir had exploded, and the mass of iron covering it had been hurled along the lower deck, sweeping the saloon from end to end, and crashing through the stern of the vessel like the projectile from a piece of ordnance. And then an enormous volume of scalding steam had filled the apartment, and in a moment the light-hearted holiday-seekers, with which it was crowded, wrapped in that hell-blast from which there was no escape, were writhing in the throes of the most horrible, the most agonising of deaths.

Alma, recovering her presence of mind, left her friends, and hurried back to the scene of the catastrophe. But the gathering crowd barred her way; it in its turn being kept back by the arm and voice of Authority. Yet she got near enough to see the outside of the wrecked saloon, the twisted girders supporting the upper deck, the jagged breach in the stern where the iron plate had gone through. She saw the panic-stricken crowd swaying and surging. She saw one scalded wretch rush to the side and leap overboard, in the frenzy of his intolerable agony. What she did not see was him whom she sought. She did not see Philip Orlebar.

Not in the terrified, struggling crowd upon the upper deck did her eyes seek him; even at that moment she knew it was not thus he would be found in the hour of peril and alarm. Her anguished gaze, straining upon the spot where she had last seen him, met with no reward. He was not there. Oh, merciful Heavens! Could he have gone back to his seat in the stern of the boat, to that spot where they had stood together talking for a full hour.

For that spot was now enveloped in a cloud of white steam, which was pouring out through the hole knocked in the end of the saloon by the iron cover of the cistern. Had Philip returned to his seat his back would have rested against that very part of the panelling which was blown away.

It was long before the work of rescue could be begun, long before the fiery breath of that hell-blast had sufficiently abated its fury to admit of search. Still Alma stood there, and as each agonising minute of suspense went by she realised more certainly that there was no hope. She saw body after body—in life or in death—brought away from the fatal ship. She heard the heartrending groans of the sufferers, and the appalling yells of some tortured wretch imploring the boon of death as a termination to his agony. These dreadful sights and sounds which at any other time would well-nigh have killed her with horror, seemed to be something outside her life now. He whom she sought was not among them—not yet.

She pressed forward. The crowd elbowed her backward. The voice of Authority warned her backward. To Authority she appealed.

Now Authority, even in a blue uniform and a sword, may still possess a heart, and Authority as there embodied, was young and presumably susceptible. The white eager face was passingly beautiful—the piteous glance and appealing voice correspondingly entrancing. Authority’s heart melted. In the result the crowd elbowed her backward no more.

“Mademoiselle had a friend on board? A lady? No? A gentleman—an English gentleman? Good. He should be sought for.”

Accordingly Alma learned the worst without undue delay. There was an English gentleman among the injured—a tall, good-looking gentleman with a blonde moustache. “He was hurt—very badly hurt,” declared Authority, humanely mendacious, adding, “But he is not burned—oh, no—certainly he is not burned. Wait. They will disembark him in one little moment. Is he dead? Well, Mademoiselle must not give way. He is not burned—certainly—not in the least burned.”