Introductory material

THE BLACK ABBOT

I

“Thomas!” … “Yes, m’lord.”

Thomas the footman waited, a look of concentrated interest on his unprepossessing face, whilst the pale man behind the big library desk sorted out a small pile of treasury notes. The battered steel box from which they were taken was full to the brim with bank and treasury notes of all denominations in hopeless confusion.

“Thomas!” absently.

“Yes, m’lord.”

“Put this money in that envelope—not that one, you fool, the gray one. Is it addressed?”

“Yes, m’lord. ‘Herr Lubitz, Frankfurterstrasse 35, Leipsic,’ m’lord.”

“Lick it down, take it to the post office and register it. Is Mr. Richard in his study?”

“No, m’lord, he went out an hour ago.”

Harry Alford, eighteenth Earl of Chelford, sighed. He was on the right side of thirty, thin of face and pale as students are, his jet-black hair emphasizing the pallor of his skin. The library in which he worked was a high-roofed building, the walls bisected by a gallery that ran round three sides of the room and was reached by a circular iron staircase in one corner of the apartment. From the roof to the floor every inch of wall space was covered with bookshelves with this notable exception. Over the great stone fireplace was a full-length painting of a beautiful woman. None who had seen his lordship could make any mistake as to the relationship which existed between himself and that wild-eyed beauty. It was his mother; she had the same delicate features, the same raven hair and dark, fathomless eyes. Lady Chelford had been the most famous débutante of her time, and her tragic end had been the sensation of the early ’nineties. There was no other picture in the room.

His eyes strayed to the portrait now. To Harry Alford, Fossaway Manor, for all its beauty and charm, was a poor casket for such a jewel.

The footman in his sober black livery, his hair powdered white, lingered.

“Is that all, m’lord?”

“That is all,” said his lordship gravely. Yet when the man had moved noiselessly to the door—

“Thomas!”

“Yes, m’lord.”

“I heard something by accident as you passed my window this morning with Filling the groom—er——?”

“He was telling me about the Black Abbot, m’lord.”

The pale face twitched spasmodically. Even in broad daylight, with the sun streaming through the stained windows and marking the parquet with arabesques of crimson and blue and amethyst, the very mention of the Black Abbot set his heart beating faster.

“Any man in my employ who discusses the Black Abbot will be instantly dismissed. Will you tell your fellow servants that, Thomas? A ghost! Great God! Are you all mad?”

His face was red now, little veins swelled at his temples, and under the stream of anger his dark eyes seemed to recede into his head.

“Not a word! You understand? It is a lie! A mischievous wicked lie to say that Fossaway is haunted! It is a trick played by some of the louts about the place. That will do!”

He waved the bowing man from his presence and resumed his study of the black-lettered book that had arrived from Germany that morning.

Once outside the library door, Thomas could afford to twist his sallow features to a grin. Only for a second, and then he became serious again. There must be nearly a thousand pounds in that cash box and Thomas had once served a three-year sentence for a tenth of that sum. Even Mr. Richard Alford, who knew most things, was unaware of this interesting fact.

Thomas had a letter to write, for he maintained a lucrative correspondence with one who had an especial interest in Fossaway Manor, but first he had to report the gist of the conversation to Mr. Glover, the butler.

“I don’t care what his lordship says (and why he should tell a footman and not me, I don’t know) there’s a ghost and all sorts of people have seen it! I wouldn’t walk down Elm Drive alone at night for fifty million pounds!”

This portly man shook a head that the years had silvered.

“And his lordship believes it too. I wish he was married, that’s what I wish. He’ll be more sensible then!”

“And we’ll get rid of Mr. Blooming Alford—eh, Mr. Glover?”

The butler sniffed.

“There’s them that likes him and them that don’t,” said the oracle. “We’ve never had a cross word, Thomas—— There’s somebody at the door.”

Thomas hurried to the hall entrance and opened the big door. A girl was standing under the portico. She was pretty in a bold way, red of lips and bright of eye and dressed expensively.

Thomas gave her a grin of recognition.

“Good-morning, Miss Wenner—this is a bit of a surprise!”

“Is his lordship in, Thomas?”

The footman pursed his lips dubiously.

“He is in, miss, but I’m afraid I can’t take you in to him. Don’t blame me, miss, it’s Mr. Alford’s orders.”

“Mr. Alford!” she sneered. “Do you mean to tell me that I’ve come all the way from London and can’t see Lord Chelford?”

But Thomas kept his hand on the door. He liked the girl who, when she had been his lordship’s secretary, had never given herself airs (the unpardonable sin of the servants’ hall) and who always had a smile for the meanest of the domestic staff. He would gladly have admitted her and felt that his lordship would have been pleased to see her, but in the background somewhere hovered Dick Alford, a man of curt speech, who was not only capable of showing him the door but kicking him through it.

“I’m very sorry, miss, but orders is orders, as you know.”

“I see!” she nodded ominously. “I’m to be turned away from what might have been my own door, Thomas.”

He tried to look his sympathy and succeeded in assuming an expression of imbecility. She smiled at him, shook hands with him graciously, and turned away from the portico.

“Miss Wenner,” reported Thomas, “her that Alford fired because he thought his lordship was getting sweet on her——”

The library bell rang at that moment and Thomas hastened to answer the call. “Who was that lady? I saw her through the window.”

“Miss Wenner, m’lord.”

A cloud passed over Harry Alford’s face.

“Did you—ask her to come in?”

“No, m’lord, Mr. Alford gave orders——”

“Of course… yes. I had forgotten. Perhaps it is just as well. Thank you.”

He pulled down the green shade over his eyes, for even in the day he worked by artificial light, such was the gloom in the library, and resumed his study of the book.

Yet his mind was not wholly concentrated on the work. Once he rose and walked up and down the library, his hands clasped before him, his chin on his breast. He stopped before the picture of his mother, sighed, and walked back to the writing table. There was a press paragraph which he had cut out of a London newspaper and this he read for the third time, not ill pleased with the unaccustomed experience of finding himself the subject of newspaper comment, and yet irritated by the subject on which the paragraph was based.

Chelfordbury, a sleepy Sussex village, is engaged in the thrilling sport of ghost-hunting. The Black Abbot of Fossaway has, after a period of quiescence, again made his appearance. The legend is that seven hundred years ago, the Abbot of Chelfordbury was assassinated by order of the Second Earl of Chelford. Since then, from time to time, his “ghost” has been seen. During the past few years horrific stories of an Unseen Being that shrieked and howled demoniacally have been current in the county, but the noisy spook was not actually seen until last week.

Fossaway Manor has other romances besides ghosts. Four hundred years ago, a great treasure of gold was, according to legend, hidden somewhere on the estate; so effectually, in fact, that it has never been discovered since, although successive Earls of Chelford have searched diligently for the ancestral hoard.

The present Earl of Chelford, who, by the way, is engaged to be married to Miss Leslie Gwyn, the only sister of Mr. Arthur Gwyn, the well-known solicitor, informed our local representative that he had no doubt that the apparition of the Black Abbot was a practical joke in very doubtful taste on the part of the foolish youth of the neighbourhood.

He made as though to tear the paper but thought better of it and put the cutting under a paper weight.

That reference to the practical jokers of the village was reassuring and might be a comfort when the night came and he needed encouragement.

For Lord Chelford believed in the Black Abbot as religiously as he proclaimed his scepticism.

His restless hand moved to the bell-push on his table.

“Has Mr. Richard returned?”

“No, m’lord.”

Lord Chelford struck the table pettishly with his palm.

“Where on earth does he get to in the mornings?” he asked querulously.

Thomas, very wisely, pretended not to hear.

II

The reapers had laid low the last of the golden heads, and the sheaves stood like yellow tombstones on Racket Field. Beyond the field was Chelfordbury, where the gray old spire of the church came up from a velvety knoll of trees; beyond again, the green and white downs of Sussex, along the foot of which the railway runs.

Dick Alford sat on a stile on the top of a little hillock and could see across the weald for fifteen miles. He could turn his head and take in the home farm and the green roofs and cupolas of Fossaway Manor, with its broad lawns and its clipped yew hedges. Neither cornfield nor down, manor house nor pleasaunce, interested him for the moment. His eyes were fixed and his mind centred upon the girl who was walking quickly up the winding path that would bring her presently to where he sat.

She was singing as she walked, the riding crop she carried whirling round and round like a drum major’s baton. His lips twitched to the ghost of a smile. Presently she would see him, and he wondered if she would be annoyed. He had never seen Leslie Gwyn except in such circumstances that her face was a pleasant mask and her manner conventionally charming. She had been nicely brought up and taught that all things are permissible except one: to make one’s equal feel foolish.

The song ceased. She had seen him, but she did not check her pace and came quickly up the hill path, slashing at a nettle bush as she walked.

“Peeping Tom!” she greeted him reproachfully.

She was not so tall as the average English girl, but her slimness gave her height, and the supple movement of her hinted at greater strength than her slight figure suggested. Her face, delicately modelled, had the subtle refinement of her class. Small, beautiful hands and feet, a head finely poised, eyes of a deep gray, and a red mouth that smiled easily, Leslie Gwyn in rags would have been unmistakably a beautiful lady.

Dick had seen her riding; she gripped the withers with her knees, jockey fashion, and was part of the horse. He had seen her on the polished dancing floor; there was lissom grace in every line. When he danced with her, he held in his arms a fragrant something that had more substance and character than he had thought. The hand on his shoulder was definitely placed, the body which his arm encircled was firm; he could feel the tiny muscles ripple under his hand.

She stood now, her little black riding hat askew, her figure clad in neat black relieved by the lawn collar. Her neatly booted legs were planted stubbornly apart, one gloved hand holding her waist, the other swinging the crop. In her gray eyes was an imp of mischief that gleamed and danced all the merrier for the studied solemnity of every other feature.

Dick Alford, from his vantage place on the top rail of the stile, chewed a blade of toddy grass between his white teeth and surveyed her approvingly.

“Been riding, Leslie?”

“I have been riding,” she said gravely, and added: “a horse.”

He looked round innocently.

“Where is the favoured animal?” he demanded.

She looked at him suspiciously, but not a muscle of the tanned, lean face so much as twitched.

“I dismounted to pick wild flowers and the beastie ran away. You saw him!” she accused.

“I saw something that looked like a horse running toward Willow House,” he confessed calmly. “I thought he had thrown you.”

She nodded.

“For that prevarication you can go and find him—I’ll wait here,” she said, and, when he got down from the stile with a groan: “I meant you to do that, anyway. The moment I saw you I said to myself: ‘There’s a lazy man who wants exercise!’ Sisters-in-law-to-be have privileges.”

He winced a little at this. She may have noticed the cloud that came momentarily to his face, for she put out her hand and checked him.

“One of the grooms can find him, Dick. He is such a hungry pig that he is certain to make for his stable… no, I don’t mean the groom. Sit down; I want to talk to you.”

She swung up to the stile and took the place he had vacated.

“Richard Alford, I don’t think you are enjoying the prospect of my being the mistress of Fossaway House?”

“Manor,” he corrected.

“Don’t quibble—are you?”

“I count the days,” he said lightly.

“Do you?”

He took a battered silver case from his hip pocket, selected a cigarette and lit it.

“My dear Leslie——” he began, but she shook her head. She was very serious now.

“You think I will—interfere with things? With the management of the estate—I know poor Harry couldn’t manage a small holding—with—oh, with all sorts of things, but I think you are wrong.”

He blew three smoke rings into the air before he answered.

“I wish you would manage the estate,” he said quietly. “It would be a blessing to me. No, I’m not worried about that. With your money—forgive the brutality—the estate will not count. A bailiff could manage it as well as any second son!”

III

He spoke without bitterness, without a hint of self-pity, and she was silent. He was the child of a second marriage, and that had made it worse for him. When old Lord Chelford followed Dick’s mother to the grave, the second son’s portion was his. The estate, the title, the very car he had used as his own, passed from him. A tiny estate in Hertfordshire that brought two hundred a year, some old jewellery of his mother’s and a thousand pounds came the way of the second son. And the thousand pounds had never been paid. In some mysterious fashion it had been swallowed up.

Mr. Arthur Gwyn had settled the estate. In all the circumstances Dick felt happier when he did not think of that thousand pounds. Yet, for some reason or other, he thought of it now, and as though she read his thoughts dimly, and associated his reserve with her brother, she asked:

“You don’t like Arthur, do you?”

“What makes you say that?” he said, in genuine surprise. He had never betrayed his aversion to the dandified lawyer.

“I know,” she nodded wisely. “He exasperates me sometimes, and I can well imagine that a man like you would hate him.”

Dick smiled.

“Harry doesn’t hate him anyway, and he is the person who counts.”

She looked round at him, swinging the crop idly.

“It doesn’t seem real to me that I’m to be married at all—it was such a funny proposal, Dick, so polite, so formal, so—unreal! I think if it had come in any other way——” She shook her head.

Dick wondered a little drearily how his brother would propose. Harry was something of a novice at the love game; once he had had a pretty secretary, and on a warm June afternoon Dick had interrupted what was tantamount to a proposal from the enterprising young lady. And the flustered Harry would have agreed to her matrimonial suggestions, only Dick had happened along—and the calculating Miss Wenner had left Fossaway Manor rather hurriedly. He remembered this happening.

“I suppose if he had proposed in the conventional way you wouldn’t have accepted him?”

“I don’t know,” she said dubiously. “But it was quaint and—queer. I like Harry awfully. I have often wondered if he would like me if——” She did not finish her sentence.

“If you weren’t so horribly rich?” smiled Dick. “You’re not paying him a very high compliment.”

She held out her arms and he lifted her down, though there seemed no necessity for it, as she was a very agile young person as a rule.

“Dick,” she said, as he crossed the stile and they walked side by side toward the main road, “what am I to do?”

“About what?” he asked.

“About Harry and everything.”

He had no answer to this.

“Arthur is very keen on my marrying him,” she said. “And really, I’m not averse—at least, I don’t think so.”

“That is the worst of being a great heiress,” he bantered.

“I wonder?” Her brow wrinkled in a frown. “And am I a great heiress?”

He stopped and looked at her in surprise.

“Aren’t you?”

He seemed so shocked that she laughed.

“I don’t know; my uncle left me a lot of money years and years ago. I don’t know how much—Arthur has managed my estate for years. I have all the money I need.”

“Then don’t grouse!” he said crudely, and she laughed again.

“I suppose most girls in my position have their marriages arranged in the way mine has been arranged, and until quite recently I have accepted the idea as part of the inevitable.”

“And why have you changed your mind now?” he asked bluntly, and saw the pink come into her face.

“I don’t know.” Her answer was very short, almost brusque.

And then she saw the look in his eyes—the infinite yearning, the hopelessness of them. And in a flash there came to her a knowledge of herself.

For some reason which she could not understand she became of a sudden breathless, and almost found a difficulty in speaking. She felt that the thump and thud of her heart must be audible to his ears and strove desperately to recover her balance. Vividly before her eyes came the picture of her fiancé, the thin, irritable young man—the weakling with all that man needed in his hands, save manhood. A pitiable, nerve-racked creature, now pleading, now bullying—oblivious of the impression he made on the woman who was to share his life. And from this mental figure of him, her eyes moved mechanically to the man by her side; calm, serene, radiant in his strength and self-reliance.

Ten minutes later she was walking back to Willow House, and in her heart she struggled with a problem that seemed well-nigh insoluble.

Dick Alford, making his slow progress homeward, saw the lank figure of his brother waiting at the end of the elm drive.

The wind flapped the skirts of his long frock coat; standing, he stooped slightly and had a trick of thrusting forward his head, which gave him the appearance of a big, ungainly bird. His face was dark with anger, Dick saw, as he came up with him.

“I deputize many duties to you, Richard, but I’ll do my own love-making, understand that!”

The blood came into Dick Alford’s face, but he showed no other sign of his hurt or anger.

“I will not have it—you understand?” Lord Chelford’s voice was shrill with childish fury. “I will not have you interfering in my private affairs. You sent one girl away from me, you shall not take Leslie!”

“I am not——” began his brother hotly.

“You are—you are! You don’t want me to marry! I am not a fool, Dick! You stand next in the line of succession! I am going to marry Leslie Gwyn—understand that! You shall not break that engagement.”

For a moment the brutality, the injustice of the accusation, left the younger man white and shaking, and then, with a supreme effort, he laughed. Scenes such as this were of almost daily occurrence, but never before had Harry Chelford gone so far. In ten minutes the storm would pass, and Harry would be his old lovable self, but for the moment it was bitterly hard to bear.

“Why do you say such horrible things?” he said. “I got rid of Wenner because she was not the wife for you——”

“You didn’t want me to marry! You are waiting for my shoes, a dead man’s shoes!” almost screamed the elder son. “The last thing in the world you want to see is a new Countess of Chelford. You know it, you know it!”

Dick Alford was silent. God knew his brother spoke the truth! It would be a woeful day for him when Harry Chelford brought a wife to this great house to share the dreadful secret which hung like a cloud over Fossaway Manor.

IV

Dick Alford was in the little study where he usually worked, a businesslike room filled with filing cabinets and deed boxes. The French windows giving to the lawn were open, for though it was September the night was warm, and he was working in his shirt-sleeves, a pipe gripped between his teeth, his eyes protected from the overhead light by a big green shade that he wore affixed by a band to his head. If there was a resemblance between Lord Chelford and his mother, not even the keenest observer could trace in Dick Alford the slightest likeness to his half-brother. He was a creature of the open, a six-foot athlete, broad of shoulder and slim of flank, and his tanned face spoke of a life spent on the windy downs. His blue eyes surveyed the footman with a quizzical smile, as he pushed his battered old typewriter aside, relit his pipe, and stretched himself.

“Black Abbot? Good Lord! Have you seen him, Thomas?”

“No, sir, I have not seen him. But Mr. Cartwright, the grocer down in Chelford village…”

He gave a graphic narrative of Mr. Cartwright’s horror, amazement, and confusion.

“They telephoned up from the Red Lion to ask if his lordship had heard anything about it.” Even Thomas, who believed in nothing except Thomas, shivered. “It is the first time he has been seen for years according to all accounts, though he has been heard howling and moaning. Nobody knows who set fire to the vicarage when the parson was away at the seaside——”

“That will do, Thomas. As to Cartwright, he was drunk,” said Dick cheerily, “or else he saw a shadow.”

He glanced out at the lawn, bathed in the blue-white rays of a full moon.

“You can see things in the moonlight that never were on land or sea. I understood that his lordship said that the Black Abbot was not to be discussed?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then shut up!” said Dick.

Pipe in mouth, he strolled across the hall into the dimly lit library.

The three electroliers that hung from the roof were dark. Only the two green-shaded reading lamps that flanked each side of the desk were alight, and these intensified the gloom. Dick closed the door behind him and lounged over toward the desk, pulling a chair behind him.

Chelford frowned at the sight of his brother.

“Really, Dick,” he said irritably, “I wish to heaven you wouldn’t loaf about the place in shirt and breeches. It looks fearfully bad.”

“It feels fearfully cool,” said Dick, sitting down. “Will your nerves sustain the smell of a bit of honest baccy?”

Lord Chelford moved uncomfortably in his chair. Then, reaching out his hand, he snicked open a gold box and took out a cigarette.

“My pipe against your stinkers for a hundred pounds!” said Dick, with a cheery smile. “Cigarettes I can stand, but scented cigarettes——”

“If you don’t like them, Dick, you can go out,” grumbled his lordship fretfully. And then in his abrupt way: “Did you see this newspaper cutting?”

He pulled the paper from under the crystal weight and Dick skimmed the lines.

“We are getting into the public eye, Harry,” he said, “but there is nothing about me—which is unkind.”

“Don’t be stupid. How did that get into the papers?”

“How does anything get into the papers?” asked Dick lazily. “Our spook is almost as useful as a press agent.”

Harry snapped round on him.

“Can’t you take this seriously? Don’t you see that it is worrying me to death? You know the state of my nerves—you have no sympathy, Dick, you’re just as hard as rock! Everybody seems to hate the sight of you.”

Dick pulled at his pipe glumly.

“That is my unfortunate character. I am afraid I am getting efficient. That is the only way I can account for my unpopularity. It keeps me awake at nights——”

“Don’t fool, for heaven’s sake!”

“I’m serious now,” murmured Dick, closing his eyes: “try me with a hymn!”

Harry Chelford turned away with a gesture of utter weariness, fingered the manuscript at his hand, and gazed from his brother to the door. It was a gesture of dismissal and Dick rose.

“Don’t you think you’ve done enough work for to-night, Harry?” he asked gently. “You look absolutely all in.”

“I never felt better in my life,” said the other emphatically.

Dick slewed round his head to read the printed page from which his elder brother had been copying, and saw at once that his effort was in vain; the book was written in Old German, and Dick’s linguistic abilities ended at a mastery of restaurant French. Lord Chelford put down the book with a sigh and sat back in his padded chair.

“I suppose you think I’m a fool wasting my time on this”—he raised his hand toward the serried shelves—“when I could be having a very amusing time with Leslie?”

Dick nodded.

“Yes, I think you might be more profitably employed out of doors. Really, for a bridegroom-to-be, you’re the worst slacker I’ve ever struck.”

There was a superiority in Harry Chelford’s smile.

“Happily, Leslie knows she is marrying a bookworm and not an athlete,” he said, and, rising, walked over to where Dick was sitting and dropped his hand on his shoulder. “What would you say if I told you that I was halfway to discovering the real Chelford Treasure?”

Dick knew exactly what he would say, but replied diplomatically:

“I should say you were three parts on the way to discovering the philosopher’s stone,” he said.

But his brother was serious. He paced up and down the long library, his hands behind him, his chin on his breast.

“I expected you to say that,” he said. “I should have been rather surprised if you hadn’t. But the Chelford Treasure has an existence, Dick, and somewhere with it is the greatest treasure of all!”

His brother listened patiently. He knew by heart the story of the thousand bars of pure gold, each bar weighing thirty-five pounds. The legend of the Chelford treasure was inseparable from the Chelford estate.

Harry walked quickly to his desk, pulled open a drawer and took out a small vellum-covered book. The pages were yellow with age and covered with writing that had faded to a pale green.

“Listen,” he said, and began reading:

“On the fifteenth of the month, the same being the feast day of St. James, came Sir Walter Hythe, Kt., from his cruise in the Spanish seas, for the cost of which I raised first three thousand eight hundred pounds and eight thousand pounds from Bellitti the Lombard, and Sir Walter Hythe brought with him on ten wagons one thousand ingots of gold each of thirty-five pounds weight which he had taken from the two Spanish ships Esperanza and Escurial, and these ingots he shall put away in the safe place if yet the weather be dry and the drought continue, though rain is near at hand, to judge by the portents, deeming it wise not to inform my lord Burleigh of the gold because of the Queen’s Majesty and her covetousness. Also he brought the crystal flask of Life Water which was given to Don Cortés by the priest of the Aztec people, a drop of which upon the tongue will revive even the dead, this being sworn to by Fra Pedro of Sevilla. This I shall hide with great care in the secret place where the gold will be stored. To Sir Walter Hythe, Kt., I had given permission that he keep for himself one hundred bars of like weight and this he did, thanking me civilly, and sailed off from Chichester in his ship the Good Father which ship was wrecked on the Kentish coast, Sir Walter Hythe, his shipmaster, and all his company perishing. Such was his terrible misfortune. As for myself, being in some danger because of the part I have taken in promoting the welfare of my true sovereign lady, Mary——”

Lord Chelford looked up and met the steady eyes of his brother.

“The writing ends there,” he said. “I am certain that he was not interrupted by the arrival of Elizabeth’s soldiers to arrest him for his share in the conspiracy to put Mary on the throne. He must have had time to secrete the treasure. Where is the crystal flask?”

“Where rather is the gold?” asked the practical Dick. “If I know anything about Queen Elizabeth, she bagged it! Nobody ever found it—for four hundred years our respected forefathers have been searching for this gold——”

Lord Chelford made an angry gesture.

“Gold—gold—gold! You think of nothing else! Curse the gold! Find it and keep it. It is the flask I want!” His voice sank to a whisper, his face had grown suddenly moist. “Dick, I’m afraid of death. God! You don’t know how afraid! The fear of it haunts me day and night—I sit here counting the hours, wondering at which my spirit will go from me! You’ll laugh—at that—laugh, laugh!”

But Dick Alford’s face was set, unsmiling.

“I do not laugh—but can’t you see, Harry, that such a thing as an elixir of life is preposterous?”

“Why?” Lord Chelford’s eyes were shining. “Why shouldn’t this discovery have been made by the ancient civilizations? Why is it more wonderful than wireless telegraphy or the disintegration of atoms? Thirty years ago flying was regarded as a miracle. The flask—I want the flask of Life Water! The gold—throw it into the road—let the poor devils take it who want it. I want life—do you understand?—life and the end of fear.”

He dropped heavily into his chair and wiped his streaming forehead.

“The end of fear!” he muttered.

Dick listened, his eyes never leaving his brother’s face. And this was to be Leslie Gwyn’s husband. He shivered at the thought.

V

If the Honourable Richard Fallington Alford had been regarded by the compilers of such volumes as being sufficiently important to have his biography enshrined in a popular work of reference, his life’s work, his hobby, and his recreation would be described as “looking after the Chelford estates.” His bailiffs said he knew every blade of grass; the tenant farmers swore he could price a standing crop to the last penny of its worth. He knew Fossaway Manor, its strength and weakness, better than the estate architect—could point out where the foundations were scamped by the Elizabethan builders. He could trace the walls of the old castle which Richard of York had burnt and razed, beheading the fourth earl for his treachery under the great archway, one crumbling pier of which still showed its gray and battered head above the roses that now surrounded it. He gave to the broad lands of Chelford a loyal and passionate devotion which any mistress might envy.

In the chill of an autumnal morning, when mist blanketed the hollows and a pale sun was struggling through thin clouds, he strolled across the park toward the Abbey ruins. There was little of them left. A truncated tower wrecked by lightning; a high, arched space where an oriel window had once flamed; mounds of scattered stones left where Cromwell’s soldiers had overturned them; and, under the carpet of grass, a “feel” of solid pavement.

He drew at his pipe as he stepped out, and the tobacco smelt sweet and wholesome in the cold air.

He was on his way to the home farm, and his errand was a prosaic one. A cow had died in the night, and his cowman had reported symptoms of cattle fever.

The familiar ruins showed up ahead, the half arch, like a huge question mark, arrested his eye and raised again the well-argued problem of restoration. Some day, when the Chelford ship came home, when that coal vein was proved, or when Harry had a rich wife.…

This was an unpleasant thought. His lips curled in a grimace of distaste.

He stopped suddenly.

A figure was walking amongst the ruins—a woman. Her back was toward him and she was obviously unaware of his presence. Something about her figure seemed familiar—Dick turned from the path and walked toward her.

Evidently she did not hear him, for when he spoke she started, uttered a little scream, and turned a frightened face to him.

“Good-morning, Miss Wenner,” he said politely. “You are up and about very early.”

There was no need for him to wonder whether this girl had ever forgiven him for the very painful interview that had preceded her retirement. Recognizing him, her eyes blazed with hate.

“Good-morning, Mr. Alford.” She was civil enough. “I’m staying in the village and I thought I would like to come up and see the old place.”

He nodded gravely.

“You had a similar thought yesterday,” he said, “and tried to see my brother.”

“Well?” defiantly.

“I gave you to understand, Miss Wenner, that we should all be much happier if you never again passed the lodge gates,” he said quietly. “I hate saying this to any woman, but you ought to be the first to recognize how very uncomfortable you make me feel. I thought you would apprehend this.”

“Apprehend” was a stilted word, but he could think of no other.

“Is that so?” The colour had deepened in her face. “Is—that—so!”

“That is so,” he nodded.

She looked at him for a while and her lips curved.

“I’m sorry I’ve annoyed the family chaperon,” she sneered.

He could admire, in a detached way, her wholesome good looks; could even admire her courage. Her wrathful eyes were fixed on his, the break in her voice betrayed the fury she strove to conceal. As for Dick Alford, he felt a brute.

“I’m extremely sorry if you don’t like my calling,” she said, her voice razor-sharp and tremulous, “but I think the least Lord Chelford could have done was to see me, considering I’ve worked for him for three years and after all that has passed between us——”

“The only thing that passed between you, Miss Wenner, was your weekly wages,” said Dick, with maddening calmness.

But now he had taxed her to the limit of endurance.

“He asked me to marry him and I would have married him if you hadn’t put your spoke in!” she said shrilly. “I could get thousands and thousands out of him for breach of promise if I wasn’t a lady! You second sons and hangers-on poisoned his mind against me! You ought to be downright ashamed of yourself, you good-for-nothing, penniless pauper!”

Dick was faintly amused at the redundancy.

“You’ve wrecked and ruined my life,” the pretty virago went on, “with your interference, and after all the work I’ve done! After all them—I mean those hours I’ve spent with his lordship workin’ at the treasure an’ he told me I was the most helpful secretary he’d ever had.…”

He let her talk herself to a sobbing incoherence.

“All this may be true,” he said soothingly, “and probably is. The point is, your presence here is a little—indelicate.”

Seeing her look round over her shoulder as she was talking, he had taken a quick survey of the ruins, expecting to discover that she had a companion. But there was nobody in sight. The ground sloped steeply from where he stood to the little Ravensrill, the broad brook which had for a thousand years marked the boundary of the manor. Unless somebody was concealed behind the fallen masonry she was alone.

“I suppose you want me to clear out now,” she gulped, and he inclined his head.

“I will walk with you to Fontwell Cutting—that is the nearest way to the village,” he said, and she was too much occupied with her manufactured misery to resent his offer.

What had she been doing in the Abbey ruins so early in the morning? He knew that it was useless to ask her.

As they passed down the steep path to the road she spoke over her shoulder.

“I wouldn’t marry him for a million pounds!” she said viciously. “He is going to marry Leslie Gwyn, isn’t he? I wish him joy!”

“I will convey your kind message,” he said ironically, an indiscreet rejoinder, for it roused the devil in her.

“Mind he doesn’t lose her, that’s all!” she screamed. “I know! Everybody knows! You want her money too—the Second Son’s in love with her—that’s a nice lookout for Harry Chelford!”

He sat swinging his legs over the edge of the bluff, watching her till she was out of sight.

Everybody knew that he loved Leslie Gwyn! And only at that moment he knew it himself!

VI

In all the City of London there was perhaps no office more elegant than that in which Mr. Arthur Gwyn spent his leisurely business hours. It was a large room, panelled in white wood, with pink-shaded wall brackets of frosted silver. Its floor was covered with a deep rose carpet into which the feet sank as into an old lawn; and such furnishing as the room held was of the most costly description. Visitors and clients who had business with this dainty lawyer were warned not to smoke in his sacred presence. The windows were doubled to keep out the noises of Holborn; there were exterior sun blinds to exclude the fugitive rays of pale sunlight which occasionally bathed the City; and long velvet curtains, in harmony with the carpet, to shut out the horrid world that roared and palpitated outside Mr. Gwyn’s exquisite chamber. In this room was a faint aroma of roses—he was partial to the more expensive varieties of perfume, and had a standing order with the best of the Grasse houses.

He was a fair man with an unblemished skin and a small yellow moustache; a credit to his hosier and shirtmaker. His wasp-waisted morning coat fitted him without the suspicion of a wrinkle; his gray waistcoat, the severe dark trousers with the thinnest of white stripes, the patent shoes, the exact cravat, were all parts of a sartorial symmetry.

Mr. Gwyn seldom appeared in the courts. His head clerk, a gray-haired man of fifty, who was generally supposed by Mr. Gwyn’s brother solicitors to be the brains of the business, prepared most of the briefs, interviewed the majority of clients, leaving to his employer the most important.

On a bright morning in the early days of September, Mr. Gwyn’s big Rolls glided noiselessly to the sidewalk, the youthful footman seated by the side of the driver sprang out and opened the door, and Arthur Gwyn stepped daintily forth. There was a small white rose in his buttonhole, and the passer-by who saw him, noting the perfect shine of his silk hat, the glitter of his patent shoes, and the ebony stick that he carried in his gloved hand, thought he was a bridegroom stopping on his way to church.

He entered the tiny electric lift and was whisked up to the first floor. A porter opened his door with a little bow and Arthur walked in, followed by the servitor, who took his hat, gloves, and cane, and disappeared with them to an inner room. Mr. Gwyn sat down at his desk, glanced at the letters that had been left opened for his inspection and pushed them aside. He pressed an onyx bell-push twice, and in a few seconds his hard-faced managing clerk came in, carrying a wad of papers in his hand.

“Close the door, Gilder. What are these?”

Gilder threw the papers on the polished table.

“Mostly writs,” he said curtly.

“For me?”

Gilder nodded and Arthur Gwyn turned over the papers idly.

“There is going to be trouble if they give judgment against you for some of these,” said Gilder. “Up to now, I’ve managed to keep them out of court, but there are at least three of these which must be paid. I haven’t had a chance to speak to you since I came back from my holidays. Did you lose much at Goodwood?”

“Eight or nine thousand,” said Arthur Gwyn lightly. “It may have been more or less.”

“That means you don’t know because you haven’t paid,” said Gilder bluntly.

“I paid a few—the more pressing,” the other hastened to assure him. “What are these?”

He fingered the writs again with his beautifully manicured hand.

“One of them is very serious indeed,” said Gilder, picking it out from the rest. “The trustees of the Wellman estate are suing you for three thousand pounds—the loan you had from Wellman.”

“Can’t you fix them?”

Gilder shook his head.

“I can’t fix trustees—you know that. This is going to look ugly if it comes into court.”

Arthur Gwyn shrugged his shoulders.

“There is nothing ugly about a loan——”

“You were Wellman’s lawyer,” interrupted Gilder. “And he was not capable of managing his affairs. I tell you that will look ugly, and the Law Society will be asking questions. You’ll have to raise money to settle this case out of court.”

“What are the others?” asked Arthur Gwyn sulkily.

“There’s one for twelve hundred pounds, furniture supplied to Willow House, and another from the vendor of Willow House for balance of purchase money unpaid.”

Arthur Gwyn leaned back in his chair, took out a gold toothpick and chewed it.

“What is the full amount?”

“About six thousand pounds,” said Gilder, gathering up the writs. “Can’t you raise it?”

His employer shook his head.

“A bill?”

“Who is going to back it?” asked the lawyer, looking up.

Gilder scratched his chin.

“What about Lord Chelford?” he asked.

VII

Arthur Gwyn laughed softly.

“And what do you imagine Chelford would say if I went to him with such a proposal? You seem to forget, my dear fellow, that to Chelford I am the brother of a young lady who on her twenty-fifth birthday inherits the greater part of a million pounds. I’m not only the brother, but I am her trustee. Besides which, I am managing his mother’s estate. What would he think if I tried? Chelford’s a fool, but he’s not such a fool as that, and I would remind you that all his business affairs are in the hands of the Second Son.”

“You mean Alford—why do you call him that?”

“He’s always been known as the Second Son since he was a child,” said the other impatiently. “He is a shrewd devil, never forget that, Gilder. I don’t know whether or not he suspects that I’m a fake, and that Leslie’s fortune is a myth, but there have been times when he has asked some deucedly uncomfortable questions.”

“Is the fortune a myth?” asked Gilder, and his companion looked at him slyly.

“You ought to know, my friend,” he said. “We have been living on it for eight years! The croupiers of Monte Carlo have raked into their treasury quite a lot of it—various bookmakers I could mention have built handsome villas out of it. A myth? It wasn’t a myth ten years ago. It was two hundred thousand pounds short of a myth! But to-day——”

He spread out his hands and eyed the writs with a whimsical smile.

“What do you expect to get from Chelford?” asked Gilder. “He has no money.”

Mr. Gwyn chuckled.

“You may be sure that before I went to the expense and trouble of buying—or nearly buying—a house adjoining Chelford’s place, and before I took the trouble to bring Leslie and him into touch, I took the elementary precaution of sizing up his position. He is comparatively poor, because that brother of his will sell none of the estates. He has the family obsession—their motto is ‘Hold Fast.’ Harry Chelford is realizable at a quarter of a million—apart from the buried treasure.”

They both laughed at this.

“You’ve been lucky up to a point,” said Gilder seriously. “It was luck to inherit his legal business——”

A clerk came in with some letters to sign at this moment, and, after he was gone:

“Does your sister still think she is an heiress?” asked Gilder.

“She has that illusion,” replied the other coolly. “Of course she thinks so! You don’t imagine Leslie would lend herself to that kind of ramp, do you?”

He took a pen from the silver tray before him, dipped it into the ink, and, drawing a sheet of paper toward him, scribbled down the figures.

“Six thousand pounds is a lot of money,” he said. “I lost three times that amount when Black Satin was beaten a short head in the Drayton Handicap. The only thing to do is to rush the wedding.”

“What about the Yorkshire property?” suggested the managing clerk.

Arthur Gwyn made a little grimace.

“I put a man in to buy it. I could have made twenty thousand profit on that. There’s coal in abundance; that I have proved. But the Second Son was on the job, damn him!”

There was a long silence.

“What are you going to do?” asked Gilder.

“I don’t know. I’m at my wits’ end.” Arthur Gwyn threw down the pen. “The position is exquisite torture to a man of my sensibility. Can’t you suggest anything?”

“Give me five minutes,” said Gilder, and went out.

As Gilder was making his way to his own office, a clerk handed him a letter. It was addressed to him personally, in an illiterate hand. Behind the door of his office bureau, he opened the envelope.

The letter began without any preliminary:

His lordship is still working on the treasure. He had an old book sent to him from Germany last Tuesday, written by a German who was in this country hundreds of years ago. I cannot read the title because of the funny printing, which is like old English. His lordship has also had a plan sent to him from a London bookseller of Fossaway Manor. His lordship’s brother, Mr. Alford, has sold Red Farm to Mr. Leonard for £3,500 [here Mr. Gilder smiled]. Miss Gwyn came to tea yesterday with his lordship and Mr. Alford, and afterward Miss Gwyn and his lordship went for a walk in the home park. There is some talk about the Black Abbot having been seen near the old abbey. He was seen by Thomas Elwin, the half-witted son of Elwin, his lordship’s cowman, but nobody takes any notice of this. He has now been seen by Mr. Cartwright, the grocer. His lordship has had an offer for his Yorkshire estate, but I heard Mr. Alford advise him not to sell as he was sure there was coal on it.

Gilder nodded, understanding just how his employer’s plan had fallen through.

… When I was taking tea into the library I heard his lordship say that he wanted the wedding to take place in October, but Miss Gwyn said she would like it after Christmas. His lordship said that he didn’t mind because he was so busy. Mr. Alford said he thought that the marriage settlement should be fixed by Sampson & Howard, who were the old Lord Chelford’s solicitors, but his lordship said that he thought the settlement had better be in Mr. Gwyn’s hands. I did not hear any more because Mr. Alford told me to get out. Miss Wenner, who used to be his lordship’s secretary, came down from London yesterday, but Mr. Alford has given orders that she is not to be admitted. His lordship did not see her.…

Mr. Fabrian Gilder’s spy reported other minor matters which were less interesting. He read the letter again, put it in his pocket, and was busy at his desk for five minutes.

He came back to find his employer leaning over his desk, his head between his hands, and laid a slip of paper before him.

“What is this?” asked Gwyn, startled.

“A six-months’ bill for seven thousand pounds. I’ve put an extra thousand in for luck,” said Gilder coolly.

Gwyn read the document quickly. It was a bill, and required only his signature and that of Harry, Earl of Chelford, to make it convertible into solid cash.

“I dare not do it—I simply dare not do it!”

“Why tell him it’s a bill at all?” asked Gilder. “You can get him by himself, spin a yarn—you have a fertile imagination—but I suggest to you that you tell him you need his signature to release some of your sister’s property and once his name is on the back of the bill——”

Arthur Gwyn looked up sharply. Was it a coincidence that this excuse should be suggested? There was nothing in the head clerk’s face to suggest otherwise.

“But when it comes due?” he asked irresolutely, as he turned the document over and over in his hands.

“In six months’ time he’ll be married, and if things aren’t better with you, he’ll either have to meet the bill or hush the matter up.”

The eyes of the two men met.

“You’re on the edge of ruin, my young friend,” said Gilder, “and I’m rather concerned. If you go down, my livelihood disappears.”

How true this was, Arthur learnt one bitter day.

“You make a deuced sight more out of it than I do,” he grumbled as he wrote the name of a bank across the face of the bill.

“I spend less than you, and when I get money I know how to keep it.”

“You might even raise the sum yourself,” said his employer, with a feeble attempt at jocularity.

“I might,” said Gilder grimly, “but, as I said before, I know how to take care of my own, and lending money to you is not my notion of a good investment.”

He had been out of the room only a few minutes when he came back, and closing the door carefully behind him:

“Do you know a Miss Wenner?” he asked.

Mr. Gwyn frowned.

“Yes. What does she want?”

“She says she must see you on an urgent personal matter. Is she one of your—friends?”

Arthur shook his head.

“N-no—I have met her. She was Chelford’s secretary. Can’t you find out what she wants?”

“I’ve tried, but it is a matter personal to you. Do you want to see her?—I can easily stall her.”

Arthur thought for a while. She might have something important to tell him.

“Ask her to come in,” he said.

A few minutes later Mary Wenner came into the room and greeted him with a familiar nod.

“Well, my dear, this is an unexpected pleasure. You are getting prettier every time I see you.”

She accepted the flattery as her right, and sat on the edge of his desk.

“I’ve been down to Fossaway, Arthur,” she said.

“Silly girl,” he smiled. “But I thought that affair was all over and done with. You’ve got to be good, Mary. Chelford is going to marry my sister.”

“Isn’t that grand! And I’m not surprised. I saw you working when I was at Fossaway.”

She slipped down from the desk and dropped both her hands on his shoulders.

“Arthur, I’m tired of stenogging! And I want like sin to get back on that cold-blooded hound Dick Alford. I’ve been fired out once for proposing to a man—I’m going to take a second chance. We’ve been good pals, Arthur.”

He murmured something in his alarm.

“Listen—don’t turn down a good thing. You can marry me and I’ll bring you a bigger dowry than your sister will take to Harry Chelford.”

He stared at her.

“You?… Dowry?” he stammered.

She nodded slowly.

“Marry me, and I’ll take you to the place where you can lay your hands on fifteen tons of Spanish gold—the Chelford treasure! Two and a half million pounds!”

VIII

Fifteen tons of gold! Two and a half millions sterling!

Arthur Gwyn stared at the girl incredulously. But she was making no idle statement, and that she at least believed what she said was clear from her flushed face and shining eyes. For a second he was speechless.

“Fifteen tons of gold?” He frowned and smiled at the same time. “You’re mad, Mary!”

“Mad, am I?” She nodded vigorously. “Oh, indeed, I daresay you think so, but you won’t be thinking that very long! I have found the Chelford treasure, I tell you.”

He sat down heavily in his chair, his startled eyes still fixed upon hers. He was for the moment inarticulate.

“Rubbish!” he managed to say at last. “There is no Chelford treasure! Living so long in the same house with Harry Chelford has made you as mad as he!”

She walked slowly to the desk, and, with her palms on the ledge, leant down over him.

“You think that, do you?” she asked in a steady voice. “I was three years Lord Chelford’s secretary, and it’s true I had this treasure stuff dinned into me from morning till night. The sight of a black-lettered book makes me ill even now, and the plans of Fossaway Manor that I’ve studied—well, I don’t like to think of them! I’ve lived with this treasure for three years, Arthur, and there have been times when I could have screamed when it was mentioned. I got so that I came to like Dick Alford, just because he never spoke to me about it. And then one day there came a bundle of plans from London—Harry had a standing order with an old bookseller to send him anything he could find about Chelfordbury or Fossaway Manor. Harry had gone up to town that morning and I had no other work to do, so I went through these dusty old sheets to index them. And on the third sheet I found something that made me open my eyes.”

“What was it?” asked Arthur carelessly.

She looked at him with a quiet smile.

“A lot has to happen before I tell you that,” she said. “Arthur, if I give you this, or your share of this, will you marry me?”

Arthur looked at her steadily.

“If you can put me next to a million, or half a million,” he said slowly, “I would marry you if you were the plainest woman on the face of the earth! Instead of being the bonniest, prettiest little angel——”

“You can keep that stuff for later,” she said practically.

She opened her handbag and took out a paper, and he watched with fascinated interest. If he expected the secret of the Chelford treasure to be laid before him in writing, he was to be disappointed.

“I’m not much of a lawyer,” said Mary, as she smoothed out the paper and laid it on his blotting-pad, “but I think this is binding on both sides.”

He took up the paper with a wry face and read it.

In consideration of receiving one half of the Chelford treasure, I, Arthur Gwyn, of Willow House, Chelfordbury, Sussex, agree to bind myself to Mary Agnes Wenner in the holy bonds of matrimony within one month of the treasure being found and divided.

“Is that in order?” she asked, watching his face.

He put the paper down.

“My dear girl——” he began, in his suavest manner.

“Listen, Arthur.” She perched herself on the edge of the desk. “This is the time for ‘yes’s’ and ‘no’s,’ for ‘I will’s’ and ‘I won’t’s’! I’m not in love with you and you’re not in love with me. But I want a home and a position. I may not be a lady, but I am ladylike, and I have lived long enough with swagger people to make no mistakes. Is it yes or is it no?”

Arthur looked at the paper again.

“Does it strike you,” he said, “that the Chelford treasure is not yours or mine to divide? That it belongs to Harry Chelford, his heirs and his successors?”

“It is treasure trove,” she said startlingly. “I know the law of the country, because I’ve talked this thing over with Harry times without number. Treasure found hidden after hundreds of years has to be divided between the State and the finder.”

He shook his head with a smile.

“Our Mary is a lawyer!” he bantered. “You’re wrong, my dear. That is only the case if the owner of the money cannot be found. In the present instance there is no doubt whatever that the treasure would belong to Chelford.”

He saw her face fall and went on:

“I don’t know that that is going to seriously inconvenience us,” he said, looking her straight in the eyes. “You cannot lose what you never had, eh?”

She drew a deep sigh of relief.

“It is Harry’s, I suppose, but after the way he has treated me, and all that I’ve done for him——”

“Yes, yes,” he said soothingly. “We needn’t worry about Harry. The only question is, have you found the treasure?”

She nodded.

“You’ve actually seen it?”

“No,” she hesitated, “I haven’t seen it. I hadn’t time. But I saw the boxes through the grating. The door was locked, and I was so excited that I had to come out and walk around. And then Dick Alford saw me.”

Arthur was puzzled. He knew this girl well enough; they had been good friends in the days when she was Chelford’s secretary, and she had been a most useful agent of his.

“Now, let’s get down to brass tacks,” he said brusquely. “Where did you see this treasure and when?”

“I’ll tell you when. I saw it two days ago,” she said, to his surprise, for he had thought she was talking about some experience she had had when she was an inmate of Fossaway Manor.

“Two days ago?” he gasped.

“Two days ago,” she affirmed. “And as to where, well, there’s another matter to be settled before we get as far as that, Arthur. Will you sign that agreement?”

He looked at the paper again. His training in the law, his natural instincts against putting his name under any document which bound him, urged him to temporize.

“It is yes or no,” she said, as though she read his mind. “I’m not going to fool around with you unless you mean business. I’ll take it to Harry, and maybe, if I put him in possession of this gold, he’ll do the right thing by me.”

And, seeing that he made no move, she took up the paper, folded it determinedly, and put it in her little satchel.

“What’s the hurry?” he said, in alarm. “Mary, you’re mad to expect me to take a big decision like this without giving the matter a moment’s thought. Don’t you realize what you’re asking me to do? You’re proposing an act of sheer robbery and you’re asking me to become an accomplice. After all——” He shrugged his shoulders.

“If your conscience is hurting you,” she said, “we’ll leave it. I’m not the sort of girl who’d throw herself at any man’s head. I’ll take it along to Harry and see if his conscience is busy.”

She turned to go, but before she reached the door he had intercepted her.

“Don’t be silly and don’t be unreasonable.” He was more than a little agitated. “It’s a big thing you’re asking——”

“It’s a big thing I’m giving,” she said impatiently. “Two million and a half pounds—there’s nothing mean about that.”

He took her by the arm and forcibly drew her back.

“Sit down and don’t be a fool,” he said. “I’ve told you already I’ll marry you to-morrow, and I’ll go farther and say that there never was a time when money was sweeter to me than it is at the moment.”

“Will you sign that note?”

He skimmed it through quickly, making sure that he was under no obligation if the treasure did not materialize, and, picking up a pen, he made a little correction, she watching suspiciously, and signed with a flourish.

“What is that you’ve put into the paper?” she demanded.

“An exit for Arthur Gwyn,” he said with a whimsical smile. “The document reads ‘In consideration of receiving on behalf of my client Lord Chelford,’ etcetera, etcetera.”

At first she did not understand, and then a slow smile dawned on her face.

“I see,” she nodded. “That means that if anything comes out, you’re acting for him and not for yourself. Arthur, there are times when I think you’re clever!”

Arthur Gwyn smiled as he put his arm about her and led her to the window. Below, thick streams of road traffic were passing east and west. A great lorry was under his eyes; he saw an inscription on its side, “5 tons.” It would require three such lorries to move the Chelford treasure, he thought, and for a moment his head reeled.

“I’ll tell you how clever I am when I handle the first bar of the Chelford treasure. And you’ll know how clever you are when I’ve dealt with the last. There’s two millions in this. Now, tell me, where is this gold?”

She looked at him for a second, and then, lowering her voice:

“In the vaults of Chelford Abbey,” she said.

For a second neither spoke, and then:

“Will you see your sister, Mr. Gwyn? She has just arrived.”

Arthur Gwyn spun round, an oath on his lips. Gilder had come noiselessly into the room, his inscrutable eyes fixed upon his employer. Not a muscle of his face betrayed whether or not he had overheard the last words.

IX

Leslie Gwyn’s occupations at Willow House were well defined. Though her brother did not maintain a very expensive or elaborate establishment, he lived in a style consonant with the position he held in the county. There were little dinner parties, an occasional dance, and in the winter, Arthur, who was a good man to hounds and was ambitious to be master of the local pack, entertained on a lavish scale the more prominent members of the hunt. In these amenities Leslie acted as hostess for her brother, and at all times was the real housekeeper of the establishment. For all his extravagance he was a careful and grudging house master, required that the necessities of life should be bought in the cheapest markets, that the best at the lowest price should be found upon his table.

The resolve to go to town that morning had been born of a sudden impulse. The day was her own and she could do as she liked with it. For some reason the idea of lunching alone did not appeal to her. She had a wild thought of going on to Fossaway Manor, but remembered that Wednesday was a day that Dick Alford gave up entirely to visiting his tenant farmers. She did not attempt to explain to herself why the prospect of lunching tête-à-tête with her fiancé was even more distasteful than lunching alone. She had got beyond the point of finding excuses for herself; she felt a certain recklessness; was conscious that her manner and attitude of mind were defiant. Against what and whom?

With a lift of her pretty shoulders she shrugged the matter out of consideration. All that she knew was that the preoccupation of Dick Alford and the unlikelihood of seeing him, made a visit to Fossaway Manor not only undesirable but out of the question.

She would go to town: the decision was taken in an instant, and she went upstairs and dressed hurriedly, whilst the gardener wheeled her little two-seater to the drive before the house. Five minutes later she was spinning along the straight road toward the railway station. She had plenty of time; indeed, there was a certainty that she would arrive at the rail at least half-an-hour before the train left, even if it pulled out on time.

As she entered Fontwell Cutting she thought she saw a familiar form crossing the field toward the road a quarter of a mile away, and her heart jumped for no known reason. The high walls of the cut road shut out her view, but when she emerged and slid down the steep little hill to the village road, she discovered that she had not been mistaken, and brought her car to a halt as Dick Alford opened a field gate and came out.

He greeted her with a wave of his hand and a smile, and, to her consternation, would have passed on had she not called him back.

“You are very jumpy and cross this morning,” she said, and to her surprise he admitted that fault, though she had seen nothing in his manner to deserve the challenge she had made.

“I am very annoyed indeed. If there is one thing I don’t want to see, it is our good farms turned into little residential estates for the City gentry! I sold Red Farm to Mr. Leonard last week, under the impression that the old”—he checked a naughty word—“gentleman wanted to extend his holding, though why on earth he should want to buy Red Farm, which is the poorest land around here, I couldn’t guess.”

“And what has he done?”

Dick was indeed very much annoyed, she noticed now, and was secretly amused. She had a woman’s satisfaction in seeing the man she liked thrown momentarily off his balance and revealing himself in a light that was new to her.

“And what has the old—gentleman done?” she mocked him.

“He has resold the farm to a wretched man in London—though the purchaser is not aware that such a sale is invalid without my signature.”

“A stranger?” she asked.

“Yes; though he has been living in the neighbourhood all summer. He has a cottage somewhere about here.”

“On the Ravensrill?” she asked, in surprise.

“That is the fellow,” he nodded. “I’ve never seen him, but I understood he was only staying here for a few months. And now I find that the beggar’s bought Red Farm and intends putting up something in stucco with bow windows! And I daresay he will dig an artificial pond, start a rosary, and turn God’s productive acres into a forcing house for sickly flowers!”

“Why shouldn’t he?” she asked coolly, and he stared at her. “After all, you said this was the poorest land round here, and if it cannot be useful it may as well be beautiful. I rather like artificial ponds and rosaries.”

In spite of his annoyance he laughed.

“Then probably you’ll go to Mr. Gilder’s house-warming,” he said.

She started.

“Who?” she asked.

“Mr. Gilder. He’s something in the City—probably a deuce of a swell in his own way, but I wish he’d gone somewhere else. And as to Leonard, I’ve already told him that I shall not go to his funeral.”

“Dick, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!” she said indignantly. “Poor old man!” Then, in a different voice: “You don’t know his Christian name?”

“Whose—Leonard’s?”

“Don’t be stupid—Mr. Gilder’s.”

Dick frowned.

“Fabrian,” he said at last. “What a name! It sounds like a secret society!”

She wondered if Arthur knew of this enterprise of his clerk: it was hardly likely that Mr. Gilder would buy property in the neighbourhood without consulting his chief. For the moment she deemed it prudent to turn the subject.

“If you were nice and kind and brotherly,” she said, “you would come along with me to the station and garage my car like a nice man.”

He stood irresolutely, and for a moment she went hot at the implied rebuff. And then:

“I’m wasting my master’s time,” he said, “but there are occasions when pleasure must interfere with duty, and this is one of them. Do you mind if I drive? I have no faith in women drivers.”

“You are very rude,” she said, but nevertheless moved aside to let him take the wheel.

“How is Harry this morning?”

“Fine,” he said sardonically. And then, heartily ashamed of himself: “Harry is trying a new patent medicine. You’ve never been in his bedroom? That is an indelicate question to ask, but have you?”

She shook her head, the hint of laughter in her eyes.

“There are about eight hundred and forty-five varieties of patent medicines in Harry’s bedroom,” he said grimly. “Once every three months we have a spring-cleaning and chuck ’em out! Really, there isn’t very much wrong with Harry, and if he did not read patent medicine advertisements he would be a happier man. Just now he’s trying something for his nerves, and if there’s anything left in the bottle at the end of the week I shall take it myself.”

“Poor Harry!” she said softly.

“Yes, I’m a brute to grouse,” he said, almost gruffly, and seemed to imply in some subtle fashion that she was a provocative party to his brutality.

It occurred to her as strange that he never spoke about the time when she would be mistress of Fossaway Manor. It would have been natural in him to say, “When you’re married I hope you’ll cure Harry of that nonsense,” but he had made no such reference. That was the strange thing about Dick, that he never even suggested or hinted of a coming time when she would be Countess of Chelford. In one way she was glad he did not—especially now.

They wound slowly through the leafy lanes, passed a little wood, all olive, russet, and purple with the decay of autumn, and came to the station ten minutes ahead of time.

“You have had no further visit from your Black Abbot?” she asked, as they strolled on to the station platform.

He shook his head.

“No; the police came last night to make inquiries. I don’t suppose it will go much farther. You read about it in the newspaper, of course?”

She shook her head.

“Servants talk,” she said.

“I really don’t believe in this Black Abbot,” he went on. “It is queer that Harry is scared of this spook. He never goes outside the house when the old Abbot is reported in the neighbourhood.”

“You don’t believe either?”

He pursed his lips.

“When I see a ghost I shall believe it. Until then I am politely sceptical.”

As the train drew out of the station she put her head out of the window and looked back. He was standing stock still upon the platform where she had left him; and although she could not see his face, she felt that he was gazing after her, and thought she detected a certain tenseness in his very attitude—all of which was very pleasing to Miss Leslie Gwyn.

X

Strange as it may seem, she had never visited her brother’s office on High Holborn before she left her taxi at the door and came up in the elevator to his magnificent suite. Her appearance had a prosaic cause. She had left the country without a penny: a fact she did not realize till the ticket collector, working through the train, came into her compartment and aroused her from a daydream to the realization that she had neither ticket nor money to pay for it. She gave the man her card, and a taxi brought her to Holborn.

She was to have another novel experience. A tall, thick-set man, with iron-gray hair and a strong, attractive face, had come into the waiting room to meet her. She remembered him as the solitary fisherman who had sat fishing for hours on the bank of Ravensrill, without, apparently, catching anything. So this was the redoubtable Mr. Gilder of whom Arthur had so often spoken. She was not especially curious about him. He was a head clerk, and, by Arthur’s account, a clever man at his work; but now that she saw him, she was impressed. He was distinctive—outside of type. The average of humanity you may pass in the street without noticing. It would have been impossible to see Fabrian Gilder once without recognizing him instantly after the passage of years. The jaw was almost square, his big mouth was so tightly drawn that he seemed to be lipless; a powerful nose, a pair of penetrating gray eyes, under straggly, uneven eyebrows; this, and the breadth of his shoulders, conveyed an imponderable expression of power.

“You are Miss Gwyn, of course?” he said. “I would have recognized your relationship with your brother even if I had not known your name.”

It was a little shock to Leslie that she in any way resembled Arthur, for Arthur’s good looks were of a variety which she neither envied nor admired.

“He is engaged at the moment. If you’ll sit down I’ll go along and tell him.”

His eyes did not leave her face. She had often seen in stories the word “devour” applied to an intensity of gaze, and she thought that fictional characters must look somehow as Mr. Gilder was looking. He was not staring; it was the concentration, the probing investigation of those bright gray eyes, that made her writhe inside. If he had been impertinent it would have been an easy matter to deal with him, but he was respect itself. His attitude was deferential, his general manner was friendly. He was dressed very well and carefully, she thought, and wondered whether Arthur’s preciosity in the matter of clothing influenced his staff. The gray homespun, the rather solid shoes, were set off by the expensiveness of his linen. With a woman’s eye she saw that in his way this man was something of a dandy too.

“I hear you are going to live near us, Mr. Gilder?” she said, and he was obviously taken aback.

“Why—yes,” he said awkwardly. “I’ve bought a little place near your house. I love that part of the country.”

“We shall be neighbours,” she said with a smile, but felt no pleasure in the prospect.

“Er—yes. I suppose we shall be, Miss Gwyn,” he agreed.

“It will be very nice for Arthur. I suppose it was his suggestion that you should come down?”

He had a nervous little trick of stroking an invisible moustache, for he was clean-shaven.

“Well… no,” he said. “I haven’t told Mr. Gwyn yet that I have bought the property. I thought another time would be more opportune. I bought it for a song—thirty-five hundred pounds.”

She looked up quickly.

“That is an expensive song,” she said, before she realized an error of taste.

This time he was visibly disconcerted.

“Yes; I—er, I borrowed the money,” he said.

She had a feeling that he was going to ask her a favour, and guessed what the favour would be: Leslie had the uncanny gift of reading people’s minds and gathering their surface thoughts, and in those moments when Fabrian Gilder dropped his mask he was rather easy. He opened his lips to speak, thought better of it, meeting, perhaps, the chill atmosphere of a refusal before it was given, and then:

“I’ll see if your brother is disengaged,” he said, and went into the room to Arthur Gwyn, his head reeling with the vision which had emerged through the gray fog of his drab life.

Day after day he had watched her, and she had never known. He had left his rod and line to steal behind trees that he might see her pass. She was romance in excelsis—the perfect realization of thirty years of dreaming.

It took him a second to compose himself before he turned the handle and walked in, and then he stood stricken dumb by the words that came to him.

XI

“My sister?” said Arthur quickly. He looked from Gilder to Mary Wenner. “Come and see me later,” he said in a lower voice. “Gilder, show Miss Wenner out through the side door.”

Gilder opened the private door and followed the girl into the corridor.

“Where are you living?” he asked.

There was such a note of authority in his voice that for the moment the girl was taken off her guard.

“57 Cranston Mansions. Why?” she asked, with a certain archness that indicated resentment but invited a further offence.

“Because I want to see you,” said Gilder. “Can I come round to your flat some evening?”

Miss Wenner was shocked a little at this. There were moments when her sense of propriety was easily outraged. She was curious too; so far from resenting his commanding address, she rather liked it.

“Yes, any evening you wish, if you will let me know that you are coming. I will ask a young lady friend to keep me company.”

Gilder’s hard lips curled.

“Unless you particularly want a chaperon, don’t get one,” he said. “I have much to say to you that I don’t want anybody else to hear.”

He accompanied her to the elevator and on the way extracted a promise to receive him alone. Miss Wenner was almost as curious to know the object of that visit as Mr. Gilder was to discover what was behind the amazing statement he had heard. He passed the closed door of Arthur’s room and heard voices. He would have given a lot for an excuse to interrupt brother and sister, but something told him that it would be wiser if he kept out of his employer’s way until he was absolutely certain that the girl had not betrayed the very carefully hidden transaction which had made him the proprietor of Red Farm.

* * *

“You’re a little goose to come up to town without money,” said Arthur, as he skinned three notes from his pocketbook. “Here is enough to keep you happy for the rest of your life.”

“Would fifteen pounds do that?” she laughed, and was going, when she remembered.…

Arthur listened in amazement to the news she had to give.

“Gilder has bought a house at Chelfordbury? Impossible!” he said. “He would have told me. Why the dickens does he want a house?—besides, he has no money.”

“Hasn’t he?” she asked, in surprise.

Arthur scratched his chin irritably.

“I suppose the beggar has; but a house at Chelfordbury—that is extraordinary! I wasn’t even aware that he knew the place.”

“He is the man who has been staying at Ravensrill Cottage all the summer,” she said.

“The fisherman!” He whistled. “What a close bird he is! Of course,” he went on quickly, “there is nothing wrong in a man wanting to live at Chelfordbury, and there’s no reason in life why he shouldn’t buy a house. But what a sly old fox!”

He was troubled; she saw that he was trying to hide it behind a flippancy that was transparent to her.

“I knew, of course, that somebody had rented the fisherman’s cottage, as they call it, and to think that he’s been down all these months and never once given himself away!”

“He has a car, if he’s the same man who was living at the cottage,” she nodded. “Dick Alford is furious!”

Arthur chuckled.

“Poor old Dick!” he said good-humouredly. “He loathes this residential idea, and when I put forward a scheme to cut up one of his northern estates into residential properties, he nearly bit my head off. Harry would have done it like a shot, and I hope, my dear, when you’re married you’ll persuade him…”

He waited expectantly.

“Yes—when I am married,” she said, and her tone made him glance at her keenly. But he was wise enough to skim over that subject.

“Dick, of course, is a fool,” he said, with good-natured contempt. “He has a blind faith in the future of agriculture in this country, and grudges every acre that’s taken out of cultivation. And yet, if you were to put up a scheme to build huge blocks of cottages to relieve the slum congestion, or something equally quixotic and unprofitable, he would jump at the idea. I can well understand that the mere thought of a successful lawyer’s clerk setting himself up as a country gentleman would make Dick foam at the mouth!”

“He wasn’t foaming when I left him,” she said drily.

“When you left him?” He was quick to take a point.

“Yes, he came down to the station with me.” And she could not account for her momentary feeling of embarrassment.

He was still searching her face, and then, laying his hands on her shoulders, he shook her gently.

“Old girl,” he said, “keep your mind off the Second Son! He’s a good-looking fellow, and side by side with his brother there’s no question of choice! But he’s a second son, which means that he’s next door to being broke. And you can’t live on good looks or——”

She raised her eyes slowly to his.

“What do you mean—I can’t live on good looks?” she said deliberately. “Why do you emphasize the fact that Dick Alford is poor? Amn’t I an heiress?”

He did not speak, and then, with a little laugh, dropped his hands.

“Why, of course, chick!” he said lightly. “Only—well, I want you to do something for yourself. Make a name in the country. It will be something to have the position which Harry can offer you. Dick is quite a good fellow—one of the best, although he doesn’t get on very well with me. But there’s nothing to it with him, Leslie. You might as well marry some poverty-stricken gentleman farmer——”

He stopped under the steady gaze that met him.

“ ‘Poverty-stricken’ again, Arthur—without suggesting that I would rather marry Dick Alford, I wonder why the question of his poverty interests you so much. If you had called him a commoner and a nobody, I could have understood, but you insist upon the question of my possible fiancé’s wealth, and that seems strange to me.”

He laughed long and loudly, but his merriment seemed, to her sensitive ear, lacking in sincerity.

“You ought to be a lawyer, Leslie! Upon my word, I’ve a good mind to have you coached for an examination! You’d look simply topping in a wig and gown! And now, my little girl, you must run away, because I’ve a tremendous lot of work.”

He put his arm round her shoulders and walked with her to the door, and breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the whine of the elevator carrying her down. Closing the door behind him, he rang the bell, and, to the clerk who came:

“Ask Mr. Gilder to come in, will you, please?”

XII

When Gilder had this message he knew that the girl had told her brother; and although he had his fair share of moral courage, it needed a conscious effort on his part to answer the summons.

“Gilder, what is this story of you buying Red Farm?” asked Arthur sharply.

“Why should I not buy Red Farm?” replied Gilder coolly.

“There is no reason in the world why you shouldn’t,” said Arthur, after a moment’s thought; “but it is rather curious you never told me.”

“I thought you might object,” said Gilder. “Business men hate their workaday associates living anywhere near them. It was stupid of me not to tell you. I’ve been living in a cottage at Chelfordbury for three months—was that in itself objectionable? You will forgive me for saying so, but although I have always regarded you with the respect that is due to an employer, I have never quite looked upon you as my feudal lord!”

Arthur grinned for a second.

“Once or twice I thought of coming over to see you,” Gilder went on, “but I’ve always had what I think to be a natural reluctance to intrude myself in a social capacity upon my chief. If you had ever invited me to come and stay a week-end at your place I would have come, and you would have known all about my presence in the neighbourhood. As it was, I felt very much in the position of a servant enjoying himself in his own independent way and feeling no need to consult his employer as to how he should employ his spare time—and money.”

“And money,” repeated Arthur. “I didn’t know you were so well off, Gilder.”

Mr. Gilder inclined his head.

“I have already hinted to you that I have made considerable sums. There, again, it has never seemed necessary that I should keep you acquainted with my bank balance.”

“You have had a moderate salary,” said Arthur significantly. “Not a generous amount, I agree; certainly not an amount from which a man could save a sum sufficient to buy and rebuild Red Farm and maintain it.”

For answer Gilder put his hand in his pocket and, taking out a little Russian-leather note case, laid it on the table. The name in gold letters upon the cover was that of a bookmaker who carried one of his employer’s biggest accounts. With this firm Arthur had lost his largest bets, for Truman’s had offered him facilities which other houses had denied to him.

“Truman?” He frowned. “What has that to do with it? Have you been backing horses?”

Gilder shook his head.

“No,” he said simply. “I am Truman.”

Arthur Gwyn gaped at him. Truman! The bookmaker to whom for weeks in succession he had been paying thousands upon thousands of pounds!

“Then the money you have—is my money!” he gasped.

“Your money?” said the other quietly. “If Truman’s had not taken it, some other bookmaker would have done so. When you won you were paid—have you any complaints?”

“My money!” muttered Arthur.

Gilder replaced the book in his pocket.

“You remember five years ago complaining to me that you couldn’t find bookmakers who would take big bets by telegram within a few minutes of the race? That little talk gave me an idea. I knew you lost steadily, that you were one of those—unfortunate people——”

“Say ‘fools’—that was the word on your lips.”

“ ‘Mug’ was the word,” said Mr. Gilder, with great calmness. “I knew you were one of those people who couldn’t stop betting. So Truman’s came into existence. Their book of rules was sent to you, featuring the important concession that you could wire big sums of money up to within a few minutes of a race. Do you know how much you’ve lost in the last five years?”

Arthur was pale with fury, but, mastering himself, shook his head.

“You have lost sixty-three thousand pounds to Truman alone,” said the other slowly. “And I have won it!”

The colour came and went in Arthur Gwyn’s face. He knew all the time that his rage and resentment were unreasonable. Hitherto Truman had been a name on a telegraph form, an address somewhere in the West End to which his unprofitable telegrams were sent. Who they were he neither knew nor cared; they might have been people infinitely more objectionable than Gilder.

But there was a suggestion of duplicity in the man’s confession. Arthur Gwyn felt that he had been tricked by a servant he trusted, and he was helpless in face of sixty-three thousand facts, all of which balanced on the side of the hard-faced man before him.

“You are not Rathburn & Co., I suppose?” he asked, mentioning another bookmaking firm that had drawn heavily upon his resources.

To his amazement, Gilder nodded.

“I am Rathburn & Company. I am also Burton & Smith. I am, in fact, the three bookmakers to whom you have been losing money at the rate of thirty thousand a year for the past five years. There is no sense in looking like that, Gwyn. I have been guilty of no crime. On the few occasions when you have won money, you have been paid. Your losses would not have been so distasteful if they had been made to an unknown man. I took the risk—my luck against yours. When I started, I staked my little fortune—three thousand pounds, won through the years by scrimping and saving. If you had been lucky, I should have been ruined.”

“Instead of which you were lucky—and I am ruined,” said Arthur Gwyn huskily. He was shaken from his accustomed calm. “You are quite right, though it is a little—bewildering.”

He looked curiously at the inscrutable face of his managing clerk, striving to readjust his estimate of a man whom he had looked upon as little more than a superior servant. Then the humour of the position struck him and he laughed.

“If I’m not careful I shall be sorry for myself, and I should hate that, Gilder! So you’re a rich man, eh? What are you going to do with your money?”

Gilder’s eyes did not leave his face.

“I am going to settle down in the country,” he said, “and I am going to marry.”

“Splendid!” There was a note of irony in Arthur Gwyn’s tone. “And who is the fortunate lady?”

It was a long time before the other replied. He stared open-eyed at his sometime master, and then, very deliberately and slowly:

“It is my desire and intention to marry Miss Leslie Gwyn,” he said.

Not a muscle of Arthur Gwyn’s face moved; his colour did not change. But into his eyes came a glare which was malign and devilish. For a second the imperturbable Gilder was scared. Had he gone too far? Both men were learning something that day. Gilder had a momentary view of something that was very ugly and menacing, and then the curtains were drawn and the inner self of Arthur Gwyn vanished in an enigmatic smile.

“That is very interesting and very—enterprising of you, Gilder! Unfortunately, I have other plans.”

He rose leisurely from his chair, walked round the desk and confronted the other, his hands thrust into his pockets.

“What are you prepared to pay for the privilege of being my brother-in-law?” he bantered.

Fabrian Gilder took up the challenge.

“The return of half your betting losses for the past five years,” he said.

Arthur shook his head.

“Not enough,” he smiled.

“The cancellation of four bills,” said Gilder deliberately, “drawn and accepted by Lord Chelford, the acceptance in each case being forged by you.”

Arthur Gwyn staggered back to his desk, his face white and drawn, and Gilder pursued the advantage.

“You didn’t think it was an accident that I suggested you should get Chelford to back a bill for you, did you? Seventy-five thousand pounds isn’t enough for you, eh? I’ll give you this alternative: five years in Dartmoor!”

XIII

Leslie had spent rather a boring afternoon, and not once but many times she regretted that she had promised to return to Arthur’s office. He was driving her down to Willow House, and, but for this arrangement, she would have returned to Chelfordbury by an early train, for her shopping did not occupy more than an hour.

She rang up her brother to suggest this plan, never doubting that he would agree, but, to her surprise:

“I think you’d better return with me, girl. Come along to the office about half-past four instead of five. By the way, Gilder wants us to go home to his flat to tea. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Mr. Gilder?” she said, in surprise, and he went on hastily:

“We ought to be civil to him. He’s going to be a neighbour of ours, and he—he’s not a bad sort of fellow.”

Her inclination was to plead a headache and be excused an experience which, to state the matter mildly, was not wholly to her taste. But Arthur seldom asked a favour of her, and it was apparent from his tone that he was anxious she should show this act of civility to his head clerk; somewhat unwillingly she agreed.

If he detected her reluctance, he made no comment upon it and seemed in a hurry to hang up. There was no reason in the world why the projected call should make her uneasy, and yet, for some obscure reason, this coming experience hung like a cloud over her for the rest of the afternoon. This time, when she returned to the office, she entered by Arthur’s private door. He was alone, sitting at his desk in a familiar attitude, his head between his hands, his gloomy eyes fixed upon the blotting-pad. She thought his face had less colour than usual; and in his eyes there was a haggard, hunted expression which was startling. He forced a smile to greet her, but she was not deceived.

“Aren’t you well, Arthur?” she asked anxiously.

“Fit as a fiddle,” he laughed; “only I have had a pretty heavy day. I suppose I look a little washed out.”

He did not seem very anxious to discuss himself, but plunged straight into the subject of the surprising call they were to make.

“Gilder has a flat off Regent’s Park,” he said. “Be as nice to him as you can, Leslie. He’s been a pretty useful man. By the way,” he said awkwardly, “he is a bachelor.”

She smiled at this; in her wildest dreams she would not have imagined that this statement had any particular interest for herself.

“I had no idea he was such a—that he was so prosperous,” she said. “No, I don’t mean that bachelorhood is a sign of poverty, but his estate at Chelfordbury and his flat in Regent’s Park are not exactly what one would have expected.”

“He isn’t a bad fellow,” repeated Arthur, as he rang the bell. “I think you’ll like him: he is rather—amusing.”

“Amusing” was not the word he would have used, in all truth, but it was the only word he could think of at the moment. As though he were waiting for this summons, Mr. Gilder came in answer to the bell. He carried a light coat over his arm and a spotless gray felt hat in his hand. Again she was uncomfortably conscious of the man’s scrutiny.

“You know Mr. Gilder, Leslie?”

His uneasiness and apprehension were communicating themselves to her. Try as she did, she could not succeed in shaking off her sensation of disquietude. The atmosphere was electric; she would have been dull indeed if she had not responded to the strain.

Throughout the journey Mr. Gilder talked almost without interruption. He had a deep but pleasant voice, and was an easy conversationalist. Arthur was beginning to know something about the man with whom he had worked side by side all these years, and to regard him in a new light. Hitherto, Gilder had been a cipher—a familiar figure that had appeared from heaven knew where in the morning and had disappeared at the end of a day’s work into the blue. As though unconscious of his employer’s wonder and speculation, Gilder chatted on.