Front matter (continued 4)

What a morning, what sunshine, what a breeze!

"Does one good, Cutler. Blows the cobwebs away! Better than all your Doctor's stuffs, my boy!"

"My daughter," said Cutler, "tells me that in Demauritius, of which her husband is Governor, they have some extraordinarily beautiful country and she constantly——"

But Cutler's reminiscences are cut short, here is the Chequers, and here is Coombe with a tankard of beer in his hand. He waves the tankard to Sir Josiah unblushingly and drinks his jolly good health.

"And your jolly good health too, Coombe, my boy, what a morning! What's the time! Eleven—Bless me, we must have dawdled on the way! Beer! the air's good enough for me—like wine, sir, wine—the finest wine in the world!"

"Race you to Crawley for a fiver," says Coombe.

"I—I trust—Sir Josiah," says Jobson, "you will not agree, believe me Coombe needs no inducement at all to be reckless, he nearly ran over an old lady in Streatham a very respectable looking old lady, in Croydon he butted into a tram standard, and it is a mercy we were not all killed, and then at Purley Corner—a butcher's cart——"

But Coombe's beer is finished, Jobson is bundled into the car, Coombe starts her up, climbs over Jobson and tramples on his feet, seizes the wheel and away they go.

For all Coombe's boasting and reckless driving, Sir Josiah and Cutler are in Crawley first. Here they swing away to the right to Horsham and leave the Brighton road for good. From now on, their road takes them through the heart of Sussex, Sussex of the quaint wayside cottages, with gardens all blooming and fragrant, Sussex of the chalky white roads, the great undulating sweeps of noble hills. Sing of Devon who will, but can Devon shew such cottage gardens, can she shew anything to compare with yonder glorious range of downs? Green downs on which the passing clouds cast moving shadows of purple and blue, and here and there a gleam of purest white, where the sunlight strikes on to the bare white chalk of some cliff or cutting. Where in all the world grows turf so dense, so fine, so short and sweet and perfect as here upon these rolling hills of chalk. Under the hills the trees are all glowing red and bronze and orange. The car wheels swish among the fallen leaves, the children come running out of the cottages and cling to the gates to watch as the cars go whirling by.

But they are going at a more sober pace now, the country is all too lovely under the September sunshine to rattle through in a cloud of chalky dust. Sir Josiah, eager as he is, calls on Bletsoe to go more quietly, and it is luncheon time when they cross the river and run up into Arundel Town, so luncheon they have in the old Inn and walk up the hill to have a look at the castle, the home of the Howards, while the steak is grilling.

And then the last stage of the journey, along the pleasant road to Chichester, Chichester of the old market cross, and here the cars swing to the right towards Midhurst, but the end of the journey is very near now. The Midhurst Road is left behind, up hill and down dale sweeps the narrower bye-way.

"Here we are, this is Little Stretton!" said Sir Josiah. "That's the Fighting Cocks, many a good meal I've had there—hello Dalabey, how are you? Hello Crabb, hello Monson!" He waves his hand, there are smiles and bobs and greetings for him. Dalabey could not bow more profoundly if it had been a Royal Duke, and he could not have felt more honest respect for so exalted a personage than he did for the red faced old fellow who waved to him so pleasantly from the splendid car.

"We're getting near, see that wall, that long wall, that's Homewood, see them—those gates—those are the Homewood gates, they are open, they are expecting us of course! Drive in Bletsoe, drive right in, blow the horn Bletsoe, here we are!"

His face is beaming. It has been a jolly journey, a rare holiday in the September sunshine, but perhaps this is the most pleasant part of it all. Here is Homewood, the gates stand open, they drive through, the hall door stands open too!

And here is Kathleen; she has heard the wheels, she comes hurrying out. No servants shall open the hall door to Sir Josiah and carry Sir Josiah's card to the lady of the house, that would be but a poor welcome. So my Lady Kathleen, all smiling and dimpling, runs down the steps and springs lightly onto the running board of the car and puts her arms around his neck and kisses him before them all.

"Welcome," she says, "welcome, I've been watching for you for hours!"

Yes, this is the pleasantest part of the whole journey after all!

CHAPTER XXI

AFTER TEN YEARS

Kathleen had looked forward to conducting Sir Josiah and his friends around the house and grounds. But though she knew that he was pleased and happy to have her with them, though he took a delight in her company, yet her presence embarrassed them all a little, even Sir Josiah himself. How could he be the showman when she was near? How could he tell Coombe how much money he had spent on this and that? How crush Cutler with the magnificence of the rooms and dazzle Jobson with the extent and the beauty of the gardens?

Kathleen, with her rare tact and intelligence saw it in a moment. Coombe had allowed his cigar to go out, Jobson looked nervous. Sir Josiah, while he beamed on her, had scarce a word to say. Only Cutler seemed to be at his ease and was telling her about his daughter's establishment in Demauritius, in which island she was the Lady of the Governor.

Kathleen put her hand through Sir Josiah's arm, she drew him aside a little.

"I want you to shew them round, shew them everything, you know so much more about it all than I do! It is all your doing, you knew it as it was, you can describe it so much better than I can, and besides I'm terribly busy," she smiled at him. "You know my father is coming and he's bringing some other guest who I do not know. Allan will be back soon, he is terribly busy these days," she laughed softly. "He is at One Tree Hill Farm with old Mr. Custance; they have great schemes; Allan is going to make his fortune!"

"Bless me!" said Sir Josiah. "Allan is!—well, well!"

"So I must run away," she said. She smiled at him and hurried into the house.

But from the window she watched them with bright eyes, she saw Sir Josiah stretch his hand, pointing this way and that.

"You ought to have seen it, you ought, Coombe. Derelict wasn't the word for it. Weeds that high, my boy; now look, look at it. Jobson, what do you say to this for a garden, hey? and you, Cutler, you wait till you see the house. It's something to see I promise you, and six months ago, six months ago, my boy, you ought to have seen it, then."

The old man was himself again, that tender, kindly, loving greeting had warmed his heart.

"I'll bet it was her thought, keeping the gates open," he thought to himself. "It's like her to think of little things like that. Things that make just all the difference."

"Tidy place," said Coombe, "good taste, too; shouldn't be surprised if her Ladyship had a good deal to say in the management of this garden."

"Her ladyship has a good deal to say in the management of everything," said Sir Josiah, "and quite right she should. A place like this is a natural environment for her, while for me and my boy Allan, though he's twice—" he paused, "twice the gentleman I am—" he had been going to say, but these were Jobson, Cutler and Coombe, men he kept up his dignity with to a certain extent.

"What's the old boy say to it, hey?" asked Coombe.

"Old boy?"

"The Earl—Gowerhurst—what's he say to it all, hey?"

"Oh he—I don't think he's been down yet, but he's coming, they are expecting him to-day."

"I'll lay he don't know that I'm here," Coombe said. "If he did he wouldn't show up, not he."

"And why not?" asked Sir Josiah. "Why not, Coombe? I'd like to know."

"Money, my boy, money! I've had dealings with his Lordship before. His Lordship knows me well enough; bet you a fiver, Homewood, when the old boy sees me he'll turn green."

"I hope," said Sir Josiah with great dignity, "that here in my daughter-in-law's house there is not going to be any discussion about money matters. No shop, Coombe, no shop. We owe it at least to Lady Kathleen to behave like gentlemen when we are her guests."

Coombe looked at the old gentleman out of the corner of his eyes. "Quite right, Homewood, I should be sorry to be guilty of any disrespect to so charming and kind hearted a young lady I'm sure. The only wonder to me is that such a father should have such a child." Coombe winked broadly at Jobson, a very humorous man, Mr. Coombe, and fond of his little joke.

And now came Allan, who had been delayed by the garrulous but competent Mr. Custance. He gripped his father by the hand and thrust his hand through the old gentleman's arm.

He was kindly and courteous to Coombe, whom he did not like, and to Jobson and Cutler, whom he esteemed because they were his father's friends.

"You've seen Kathleen, father?"

"Seen her, yes, why bless her she was waiting on the steps to welcome us, that's what I call a welcome, Allan. None of your Society manners with Kathleen, no sending in of cards and being ushered in by servants. There she was, bless her pretty face, watching for us and ran down the steps, she did, and—and well, where have you been, Allan, hey? I hear you are going to make your fortune."

"I'm going to have a good try at earning a bit of money, father, and it can be done; I'll talk to you about it later. Now come in and have a look at the house, Mr. Coombe, I am sure would like something."

"Ha, ha!" said Coombe. "Guessed it at once, Allan, my boy! I've just been wondering how long it would be before someone made the suggestion."

"I am sorry," Allan said reddening.

They went in. Kathleen saw them come, but she was watching for the other visitor, the other guest, whom she told herself, she would not be half so pleased to see as the guest who had already arrived.

She took herself to task and yet she knew that she could not try and cheat herself. Her father was her father. It was Fate—respect for him she had none—that she could not respect him had been one of the greatest sorrows of her life. Affection for him she had but very little. She knew him too well, could read him too easily, understood his thoughts too clearly and she pitied him for his utter selfishness.

She knew, for she had been old enough to know, something of her mother's sufferings before death came, not unwelcomed. He had never been anything to his wife in the presence of others except polite and courteous, then he treated her with his usual charm of manner, on which he prided himself.

He had neglected her, ignored her when alone; he stung her and wounded her with his sneers, his poisoned darts of contempt and contumely. He had never lifted his hand to her, yet he had killed her in the end as surely as the drunken tinker slays the wife of his bosom with a boot heel or the kitchen poker.

And Kathleen knew much of this, not quite all perhaps, but she remembered the suffering of the quiet, pale-faced, cowed woman whom the young girl had surrounded with a worshipping, adoring love.

So she stood watching and listening for the coming of the car. Who the other guest might be, she did not speculate on. It was someone in whom she felt not the slightest interest. In a way she was glad that her father was bringing a friend of his own choice. It would be someone for him to talk to. Coombe, Jobson and Cutler would hardly prove to be associates of whom his lordship would approve. She knew his feelings toward Sir Josiah and she felt a twinge of shame, for in a way she had shared those feelings in the past.

His lordship was in an ill humour. He disliked the country intensely. The only occasions when he found the country at all bearable was, when one of a large house party, there was some shooting to be done in the daytime and unlimited bridge, billiards or baccarat to while away the night. That he would not find these amusements waiting him at Homewood he was fully aware.

During the journey from London Bridge to Longworthy, he was fidgety and faultfinding. The carriage when the window was up was too hot; when it was down the carriage was draughty, the seats were dusty, "a disgrace to the Railway Company." The line, he maintained, was the very worst laid line in the Kingdom. He was jolted to pieces, carriages worse sprung than this he had never ridden in.

"We might have come by car," Scarsdale said.

"I hate cars, nasty draughty things, I dislike the smell of the petrol, the hot oil, the dust, I hate running over children and dogs. I'm deuced unlucky in a car—never go out in one unless there's an accident; ran over a child last time when I was with Lysart, shook my nerves up most confoundedly. By George, Harold, I blame myself, yes, I take blame to myself, I do by Gad!"

"For running over the child?"

"No, I'm thinking of Kathleen's marriage. I was anxious about her, deucedly anxious. Kathleen was getting on, I don't tell everyone, but you know, you the friend of her childhood, that Kathleen isn't so young as she was. Not that she's gone off, not a bit of it. I consider Kathleen more handsome to-day than ever in her life. She comes of the right stock, Harold, the Stanwys wear well, the men and the women. My grandmother, begad, was a toast when she was fifty-five and they say she did not look a day over thirty. She was a Stanwys by birth, Arabella Stanwys, daughter of Francis—but this don't interest you. No, I was speaking of Kathleen. I say that I take blame to myself that I hurried on the wedding, hurried it on. I'll admit it frankly. Thoughts of Kathleen caused me sleepless nights. I'm naturally an affectionate man, a man on whom responsibility weighs heavily. I realised my position, Harold. 'When I am dead and gone, Begad!' I said to myself, 'what of Kathleen? What of my poor, dear child?' You'd have said the same had you been in my place. Then I fell in with Homewood in connection with a Company, common old fellow; you'll dislike him intensely as I do, by gad!"

"And so you married Kathleen to his son?"

"Yes, yes, I felt I had to. The girl's future troubled me, worried me to death, Harold. How was I to know that you'd come back; how the deuce was I to know that you hadn't married and settled down; how was I to know that you——?"

"That I had succeeded in life and was in a position to offer Kathleen a home?" Scarsdale asked.

"That's it, that's it, begad. The very words I was going to say. How could I know all that? I did not, I saw the chance. Allan Homewood isn't a bad fellow, not a gentleman of course; how could he be with such a father? But quiet and unassuming, decently educated, sensible. I was torn, Harold, torn, I confess now that I thought of you—" the tears came into his lordship's fine eyes, he leaned forward and gripped Scarsdale's hand. "I thought of you, I thought to myself, 'If ever that fine young fellow comes back, what a blow to him, what a blow!' Yet how did I know you were coming back?"

"No, you were not to know." Harold Scarsdale stared out of the window. "I wish, Heaven knows, for many reasons, I had not come back. I might have known that Kathleen could not have waited, yet I watched the papers, I saw no engagement, no marriage announced and I clung to hope, then—" he laughed shortly. "I ought not to be here now, Lord Gowerhurst, it's the weakest, most foolish thing I have ever done, yet you say you wrote and told Kathleen."

"I did, I did, 'pon my honour I did, wrote to her and said I was bringing you down and she wrote and said she'd be delighted to see you."

"Which was very kind and very friendly of her," said Scarsdale with a bitter sneer, "and proves that she doesn't care a hang for me now, and in all probability never did." He laughed again and his lordship, not quite knowing why, laughed too.

Kathleen was waiting, she heard the car wheels, the hoot of the horn as the car swung in through the open gateway. She could do no less to welcome her own father than she had done to welcome Allan's. She hurried out, and descended the steps, there was a smile on her face, her hand was held out, then suddenly she stopped. The smile seemed to set on her face, which had grown rigid, and suddenly very white; the outstretched hand shook and fell to her side.

So for a moment she stood there, wide eyed, conscious of the violent throbbing of her heart.

After—ten years—and so they faced one another again. And the man knew that her father had lied to him and that his coming was all unexpected by her.

But it was only for a moment, just one moment, that was yet enough to betray her to those keen, eager, watchful eyes. Then she came forward, calmly, with an artificial smile on her lips. She took her father's hand, she kissed him, what she said she hardly knew, she touched the other man's hand. She told him that his coming was an unexpected pleasure.

Jardine, the chauffeur, holding open the door of the car saw nothing out of the common. James, the footman, coming down the steps to take the rugs and handbags, little dreamed that here was a meeting between lovers who ten years ago had parted in tears and an agony of heartbroken hopelessness.

For Lady Kathleen was herself again, she was smiling, and if the colour had not yet returned to her cheeks, who was to notice so insignificant a fact? Not James and Jardine, not Lord Gowerhurst certainly.

"And so this is Homewood, eh Kathleen? Quite a nice little place; reminds me a little of—of Clamberwick, Normandyke'a seat in Cumberland, but smaller of course, a great deal smaller. Had some deuced good fishing there I remember. Thought you'd like to see Harold again, hey? By the way he is Sir Harold now, Governor of somewhere or other. The world's treated him decently, yes decently, eh Harold? And quite right too, I like to see a man work his way up in the world."

"I am glad to hear it," Kathleen said. "I am sure that any fortune that has come to Mr. Scar—to Sir Harold Scarsdale, has been fairly and honestly won—and thoroughly deserved."

"Ha, ha, nicely put, very simply and nicely put, eh Scarsdale?" said his lordship. "Give me your arm, my dear, I'm confoundedly cramped, getting to be an old fellow now. One of these days I may ask my daughter to find some corner, some out of-the-way corner by the fire for the old man, eh? Some obscure place where the old man may sit and dream away his last days. It's the fall of the leaf, my dear, the fall of the leaf. As I rode through your beautiful country a while ago, I saw the leaves all strewn on the road and I thought—as with the year, so with me—my leaves are falling, all wrinkled and brown. And yet it seems but yesterday since I put them on so fresh and green, hey, so fresh and green and—and——"

He was talking the arrant nonsense he loved, in the self-pitying style Kathleen knew only too well. She shivered, but not with her usual impatience of the humbug of it. How had he dared—dared to bring this man? How had he dared to make friendly overtures to one whom he had grossly and cruelly insulted ten years ago? And Harold himself? It shocked her to think that he could come here—that he could bring himself to accept her and Allan's hospitality. She had not looked at him since that first quick glance, and short though that had been, it had shewn her the change in him. The boy she had known—and loved—was gone—this man, she felt, she hardly knew. She asked herself even now, had she foolishly made an ideal of that lad, or had she idealised her love for him? she wondered—but it hurt her that he was here now.

Lord Gowerhurst, leaning far more heavily than he need on her arm, entered the house. He betrayed no interest in it. The finely panelled walls, the carefully selected and diligently sought after "Period" furniture, the vista from the windows of the wonderful old English garden in its autumnal glory, interested him not at all. He was talking of himself, which was the most interesting topic he could think of.

"I'm not eating too well, my dear, a bad sign, hey, a bad sign, and my sleep is broken—terribly broken. I never was one of the "fat kine" my love, but I'm growing noticeably thinner. I declare to you that Crombie, my man, is positively shocked at the falling off in my girth and Darbey, my tailor, poor fellow, is getting quite anxious about me."

Kathleen told herself that she ought to have known, ought to have anticipated it, yet she felt hurt that he took so little interest in her home. He never looked at anything; he sat down in a delightful Hepplewhite chair, a chair that the great Davenham had undertaken a seventy-five mile journey to secure. He sat down in the chair and stared at the very pointed toes of his exquisite boots.

"I'm not my own man, no, my love, I don't wish to pain you, I know how sensitive you are, what a loving heart my child has; I don't wish to rouse one anxiety in your mind, my love, but I feel age, old age creeping on."

Kathleen sat facing him, there was a set smile on her white lips. She heard him and did not realise one word that he was uttering, perhaps she had heard it all so often before that it was not worth listening to now.

"He is here, he is here. Here under this roof, here in this very room." The man who had written her those passionate love letters, letters which she had blistered with her tears, letters which she had destroyed at last with an aching heart and feelings of reverence and solemnity. How often, his voice calling to her, had come up out of the past, "Kathleen, I love you. Kathleen, come with me, risk all, give all, dare all, but come—come with me because I love you so."

And how nearly, how nearly she had said yes. Sometimes she wondered why she had not said yes, for it was in her heart to listen and to go—yet she had not, and now he was here.

Was she glad? No, no, no! Yet was she sorry? How could she answer, how could she tell?

"Darbey, of Dover Street, you remember, my love, my tailor, though Heaven knows I don't patronise the poor fellow one half as much as he deserves. I tell you Darbey was shocked; he said to me, almost with tears in his eyes and his voice shaking with emotion, 'My lord,' he said, 'I'm sorry to tell your lordship that your present measurements shew a falling off of two and a half inches at the waist, it's a serious thing.' He begged and besought me to consult a physician, but I did not. No, no, what does it matter after all? When I look about me and see your charming home—" he had not looked about him in the slightest degree, "then I realise that I have done what I could. I have seen to it that my child is—Don't I hear voices, hey, Kathleen?"

He certainly did, from the adjoining room came Coombe's big bass voice:

"Sir Josiah Homewood is here and he has brought some friends——"

"Friends, eh! bless me, friends of Homewood, very interesting." His lordship laughed a thin, cackling, unpleasant laugh. "My dear Harold, I think I can promise you some amusement, Sir Josiah Homewood is——"

"Is my husband's father," Kathleen said, and her cheeks suddenly blazed with generous colour. "He is also my very dear friend."

"And therefore entitled to the respect and esteem of all men," said Scarsdale quietly.

She turned to him for the first time, looked at him, and saw the many changes in him. She looked for some sign, something that would recall the boy lover of long ago, and it seemed to her that she looked in vain.

"My husband's father has been very kind, very generous and good to us," she said. "There are few for whom I have a greater esteem and a deeper affection than I have for him."

Coombe, putting down his empty glass, looked out of the window and saw the empty car turning towards the Garage. He gripped Jobson's arm.

"The nobility and gentry have now arrived," he whispered. "This is going to be as good as a play, Jobson. Keep your eye on me and watch old Gowerhurst, I'll bet it'll be amusing, you watch out, Jobson, he, he. Watch him turn green. Last time I saw the old boy he tried to borrow a couple of thousand, but no thanks, not taking any, said I. Securities too deuced rotten—rotten as his own confounded reputation. Almost wept to me, the old fellow did, but once bitten—twice shy—he had four hundred out of me once and I'd like to see the colour of my money; a shark, a confounded oily slimy old leech, that's what he is. Button your pockets up, Jobson, my son, when his nobility, the Earl of Gowerhurst, is about the premises."

All this was in an undertone to Jobson, who looked and felt very uncomfortable.

Allan and his father had been talking in a low voice, and now Allan turned.

"I think my wife is with her father in the drawing room; shall we go in?" he asked.

"Yes, yes, let's go in," Sir Josiah said. "It's a long time since I saw his lordship; I trust his lordship is quite well."

"His lordship won't be so jolly well presently," whispered Coombe to Jobson, "it's going to be as good as a play, watch the fun." And Coombe winked at Jobson knowingly.

And now the door of the drawing room opened and Allan, holding his father's arm, came in, followed by Jobson, Cutler and Coombe.

"The old fat common fellow;" thought his lordship, then suddenly remembering that in the very near future he would in all probability require the assistance of the "old fat common fellow," he rose and held out a friendly generous hand.

"Delighted to see you, Homewood. Looking well, positively well, you are, ha, ha, you busy men with interests in life, you're much to be envied."

"Allan," Kathleen touched his arm. "Allan, I want to present you to a—a friend, an old friend whom my father has brought down with him." Her voice shook, yet so little that Allan, unobservant as he was, noticed nothing.

"Sir Harold Scarsdale. My husband!"

Allan's hand was thrust out, his face lighted with pleasure and frank and friendly welcome.

"I'm delighted to see you, Sir Harold," he said, "it's kind of you to come to such an out-of-the-world place as this."

"I've been out of England for many years, and it's a great pleasure to me to see my own country again and—and my old friends." Scarsdale's voice shook a little. Why had he come, why had he come? Gowerhurst had lied to him vilely, when he had told him that Kathleen was expecting him and had expressed pleasure at the thought of seeing him; what a liar the man was.

And Kathleen, how little she had altered. The years had robbed her of nothing, he remembered her as a sweet faced, lovely girl; he saw her now a radiantly beautiful woman. Yes, the years had been kind to her. How often had he thought of her, pictured her to himself. How had he, many a time, lain awake in the sweltering heat of the tropical nights and tried to picture her, and yet the reality, how immeasurably superior it was to the vision his dreams had conjured up. And while he was thinking these things, he was talking to her husband.

His lordship's calm superiority always made Sir Josiah feel a little nervous, made him realise his own inferior station in life. He was feeling it now, he was conscious of a sensation of undue heat. He had been cool enough five minutes ago in the dining room, now he was visibly perspiring.

"Yes, her Ladyship, Lady Kathleen, was so kind as to ask us to run down, me and a few friends, ha, ha. As your lordship says we busy City men are much to be envied in one way, but when it comes to a holiday—ha, ha." He paused nervously. "We're always glad to get a week-end off, ain't we, Cutler? Let me introduce you, my lord."

His lordship frowned. He was not accustomed to be introduced to common persons like Cutler; Cutler, the common person, should have been presented to him.

"Mr. Cutler, Senior Partner of Cutler, Cutler and Wakethorpe, his daughter is Governor of—of—I forget the name. Jobson, let me introduce Lord Gowerhurst—" Sir Josiah went on, persisting in doing the honours the wrong way about.

Monied men no doubt, rich, opulent men, Lord Gowerhurst thought; just as well to keep in with them, one never knows.

"How de do Mr.—er—Johnson." He held out a finger and Jobson took it and shook it solemnly.

"Coombe," said Sir Josiah, "my friend, Mr. Coombe, my lord."

"Ah! ha!" said Coombe, "I've had the pleasure of meeting his lordship before; how de do, my lord? Hope I see you well?" He held out a large, red and moist hand.

Now was the moment, the moment for Jobson to hold his sides, the moment to witness the discomfiture of this Peer of the Realm. Did his lordship start? Did he turn pale? Did he tremble and turn green, as Coombe had prophesied?

No, he did not; he looked at Coombe, he put his monocle very slowly and deliberately in his eye and took another look.

"'Pon my soul, Mr.—er—Groom, did you say Groom, Sir Josiah?"

"Coombe," said Sir Josiah.

"I beg your pardon, Mr.—er—Coombe, 'pon my soul, I don't recall the pleasure." Very insolently his lordship looked Mr. Coombe up and down and Mr. Coombe turned red; the joke was not so good as he had thought it would be.

"Langworthy," he said, "you remember Langworthy's business, my Lord?"

"Langworthy, really did I meet you at Hansbar, my friend, Sir George Langworthy's house? I haven't been there, let me see, for three years, and the last time——"

"No, it wasn't there neither," said Coombe angrily. "It was in my City Office I met your lordship and it wasn't Sir George Langworthy, it was quite a different Langworthy."

"Indeed?" said his lordship politely, "indeed?"

Mr. Coombe's hot hand dropped to his side.

"I don't recall your face, 'pon my soul I am afraid I don't. But one sees so many faces, hey? And now—my dear Homewood, tell me all about the wonderful things you have been doing here." And his lordship turned his back on Mr. Coombe with marked deliberation.

Coombe clenched his fists.

"Supercilious beast!" he muttered. "I'll teach him, I ain't done with him yet, not by a long sight, I haven't. You wait, Jobson——"

But Jobson turned and stared out into the garden through the window. He was losing faith in the ability of Coombe to make Peers of the Realm feel unhappy.

CHAPTER XXII

MR. COOMBE WEARS A WHITE TIE

Kathleen had given them tea, she had chatted and laughed, she had concealed every feeling and every thought with that skill that is acquired by every intelligent, well educated woman.

How daintily she presided over the tea tray. Her white hand never trembled—was it three lumps or only two that Sir Josiah took? What a kind, friendly glance she flashed at Allan as he took his father's cup from her hand. How should Allan know, how should anyone in that room, save perhaps one, know that every nerve in her delicate body was quivering, that in her heart there was a mingled fear and joy, gladness and sorrow, anxiety for the future, and regret for the past.

"No tea for me, child, the doctor positively forbids it, positively," his lordship said; he sighed. "No one appreciates a cup of tea more than I, but I am obliged to forego it. One has to give up many things, eh Sir Josiah, the falling leaf must not be too roughly dealt with, else perhaps it will fall even before its time. No, no tea for me, my love, but if I might beg a glass of soda water—just a glass of plain soda water—with perhaps the merest, the very merest touch of brandy, hey Allan, just to take the bite off the soda water, so to speak?"

Coombe, sipping tea which he had no love for, eyed his enemy the peer, malevolently. His lordship, he noticed, reversed the programme, it was the merest touch of the soda water to take the bite off the brandy.

"Owes me four hundred and treats me like dirt, hanged if I don't bung a writ into him!" thought Coombe.

He happened to be sitting near to Lord Gowerhurst and presently his lordship adjusted his monocle and stared at Coombe.

"Ah, ha, Mr. Groom, I think that you were telling me just now that we had met at Hansbar, Langworthy's place in Somerset? Have you known the Langworthys long, eh?"

"I didn't say anything of the kind," Coombe growled sullenly. "I said——"

"Oh, yes, I remember, some other Langworthy, quite so."

"I'll bet a shilling," Coombe whispered under his breath, "I'll bet a shilling, my lord, as you remember me a sight better than you pretend you do."

Gowerhurst regarded Coombe's hot red face coldly and critically.

"I never, I never remember anyone I prefer to forget, my dear Mr. Groom," he said. "It's an excellent plan—eh? An excellent plan, saves a great deal of trouble and annoyance, eh?"

And now Kathleen was alone, she had come to her room, she had locked the door on herself. She sat down by the window and put her elbows on the sill and rested her chin on her hands.

He had come back.

It had almost stunned her, its unexpectedness and suddenness. She had not had time to realise what it all meant, all that she could realise was, that he was here.

She saw herself now, as she had been, a girl of eighteen, a girl deeply, desperately in love; she remembered how she had lain through long, sleepless nights, tossing on her pillow. How willingly in those days she would have gone with him into direst poverty, the deeper the poverty how much more would she have gloried in it. To tramp the roads by his side, to sing in the streets with him, to crouch beside him under some friendly hedge for the night—yes, she would have done that very willingly and yet—yet perhaps common sense, perhaps the hereditary instinct of her kind had kept her from such folly.

But she had loved him. Now, sitting here, she was realising that perhaps she had loved him more—more after he had gone and left her as she believed forever, than she had actually loved him while he was yet with her.

It is often the way, when the beloved object ceases to be real and tangible, when he becomes a memory—with what virtues can we clothe him? In memory we only recall all the good, the best that was in him—memory charitably forgets the numerous little faults, the tiny acts of selfishness, the little outbursts of foolish temper. No, they are all gone. So, because he was the beloved object, memory is eager to idealise him.

Perhaps it had been so with her—yet she had loved him—she had thrilled to the passion in his boyish voice, to the love in his boyish, ardent eyes. A child's love, a school girl's love, her father had said. "My dear child, I'm a man of the world and you are a young Miss who has only just learned to do her back hair up; accept it from me, the person who marries his or her first love lives to regret it. First love is merely a kind of preliminary canter, it's good exercise, provided you don't take it too seriously, but if you do take it seriously why then it is the deuce and all."

She smiled to herself, recalling her father's words. It had been her first love and her only love, it had lived with her for ten years and during those ten years it had seemed to her to have grown stronger, better, purer. It had perhaps made her a little cold to the world about her, yet in reality it had made her heart more tender, had made her more prone to sympathy and tenderness and kindness.

Why had he come, why had he come back? She clenched her hands tightly.

The few short months of her married life with Allan had been quiet and peaceful, uneventful, happy, yes happy! she had always liked him, she liked him better now than she had before he had given his name to her.

She liked him better and yet better every day, she liked him because he confided in her, because he was honest and open with her, because while he lavished no caresses on her, for would not caresses have been humbug and hypocrisy, he gave her a quiet affection and respect that won her heart to him. He had told her of his plans with old Custance, how he would make money and help repay his father a little of the much that his father had done for them both.

And then he had promised once that if ever—ever love came to him, the love that nearly always comes knocking at a man's heart at some time in his life, he would tell her candidly and truthfully and they would face the fact together. And she for her part had promised that she would tell him if—the lover of long ago should come back into her life.

And he had come, and so she must tell him, as she had promised to do; she must be honest and truthful with Allan, surely he deserved that of her.

There was a tap on the door and Kathleen rose and opened it.

"My lady, 'ee'll be wanting me? I've been waiting for the bell, my lady, but 'ee didn't ring it."

"No, Betty, I didn't ring, but—but come in. Betty, what is the matter?"

"Matter? Oh, my lady, nothing du be the matter wi' I."

"But your face is white, child, and your eyes look red from crying. Is there anything wrong, Betty? Have you seen your grandmother and is she still angry with you?"

"I bain't seen her, my—my lady, and I du not care whether her be still angry wi' me or not—for it be all the same to I."

"You shouldn't say that, child."

"For never, never will I marry Abram, my—my lady, never will I. Sooner would I drownd myself in the river, which I would du gaily, aye gaily, my lady, than—than marry Abram who I never could abide."

Kathleen smiled. "There need be no talk of that now, Betty, surely?"

"No, my lady, but I can't help thinking about it, specially when I du see Abram loitering about the green gate, my lady, and know he du be waiting for I."

"Then I will see that he is not permitted to loiter there, as you dislike him so much, Betty."

"I hate him, I du, I hate him mortally, my lady, I du. Oh, my lady, his hands du be terribul, terribul; if 'ee did see 'em they would make you shudder like they do I."

"But perhaps you dislike this poor Abram so much, Betty, because there is someone else?" Kathleen asked. "Is that the truth, my little maid?"

"Oh, my lady, I—I doan't know, I doan't know. No, no, there bain't anyone else, no one else—I promise, I swear, my lady, there bain't, there couldn't be! How could there be?"

Kathleen took her hand, she held it, it was very hot, this small hand of the girl's.

"Betty, child," she said, "you are not well this evening, your hand is hot and—" she lifted her hand to Betty's forehead, that cool, white, slender hand of hers, and let it rest there for a moment.

"And your head is hot, too, child, you had better go to bed and presently I will ring and ask that something is taken to you. No, Betty, don't wait, I can manage quite well to-night; go to bed, child, and go to sleep and forget all your troubles, and if you don't want Abram, why then, Betty, you shall not have Abram and no one shall force you to." She pushed the silken fair hair back from the girl's forehead; she smiled af her.

"Now to bed, Betty, and to sleep and forget all your little troubles, child, and to-morrow come to me with a smile on your lips as I would have you."

"Oh—my lady, if—if I could only dare—dare tell—'ee," Betty cried passionately. She caught Kathleen's hand and held it with both her own. "If only I could dare——"

"Dare what? Betty, tell me, child, if there is anything——?"

"No, no, I can't, I be mad to speak of it even—I think I be going mad altogether, my lady, sometimes I du think I bain't like other maids wi' such foolish strange notions that I get. I can't—can't tell 'ee, my lady, doan't ask me, for I can't—I can't." And then Betty flung the kind hand away and rushed to the door, fumbled for a moment with the lock, and then opened the door, fled.

"And so," Kathleen said, "we all have our troubles, our fears and our loves, Betty and I and all Eve's daughters."

She dressed herself, it was no hardship or novelty to her.

She looked at herself in the glass without vanity, but rather with a curious interest.

"I'm twenty-eight," she said, "in a few months I shall be twenty-nine—yet I have no wrinkles and there are no silver threads yet—I wonder—I wonder does he think me much changed? He is changed, greatly changed, yet I knew him, of course I knew him; I should have known him among ten thousand, I should have known him had he come in rags and poverty, just as I knew him, now he has come to me in his prosperity and health and strength."

She went down the stairs, she went into the drawing room and found, as she had almost feared she would find, that he was there alone. He came forward eagerly to greet her.

"Kathleen, are you angry with me?"

"Why should I be angry, Harold?"

"For coming."

"It would have been better, kinder to me if—if you had stayed away."

"And kinder to myself," he said bitterly. "Kathleen, do—do you think that this does not mean suffering to me?"

"Why did you come?"

"Your father told me you—you knew and approved, that you would be glad to welcome me."

She did not answer.

"But now I know that that was untrue; you did not know that I was coming——"

"I did not know," she said. "No, I did not know."

"Kathleen, Kathleen, you waited so long, all—all those years and yet not quite long enough; another few months, if only you had waited another few months, Kathleen."

She turned to him suddenly, her face bright, her cheeks flushed.

"You—you have seen him, my husband, you have taken his hand, you—you are here, his guest—our honoured guest—the past is dead and gone; I waited—ten years—" her voice broke for a moment, "then I looked at your letters for the last time and—and burned them all, and when I saw their black ashes in the grate, I knew that from that moment my new life began, a life that could not, must not, hold memories of a past. It was Fate and we—we must accept it; I have accepted it—so we—you and I—we meet again—as friends—" She held out her hand to him, she smiled at him.

He took her hand and held it tightly, he looked into her eyes, then he groaned, he bent his head and kissed the hand before he let it go, and then from beyond the door there came the sound of voices, Coombe's loud and dominant, argumentative.

"Not wear a white tie with a dinner jacket, Jobson? I tell you I'll wear any tie I like—and if people don't like it, they can do the other thing. A black tie makes me look like a waiter, by George, and I won't wear 'em. And if I want to wear a pink or a sky blue tie, why hang it, I'll wear it. And if it isn't the fashion, well I'll make the fashion like that fellow Beau—Beau Brummagem, or whatever his confounded name was."

All unknowingly Coombe had struck the right note, he had done Kathleen a service. A dead and gone love, burned love-letters, ten long years of waiting, of hoping and praying and nothing to reward the faithfulness and the loyalty—what mattered all that? Away with melancholy thoughts, away with sadness and regrets—poor Romance must fly for the moment and hide her diminished head before the advance of a stout gentleman in evening dress, wearing a white tie. Kathleen smiled. Honest Mr. Coombe little knew how grateful his hostess felt to him at that moment.

CHAPTER XXIII

"I BELONG TO THEE"

Lord Gowerhurst justly prided himself on the "Stanwys manner" which he had to perfection. If he were formal he carried his formality with grace, he was studiously polite, he was courteous, urbane—and a wet blanket.

He crushed utterly those four jolly City gentlemen, who would have been ten times happier if his lordship and his manner had not been there. Sir Josiah, seated on the right hand of his daughter-in-law, perspired freely from sheer nervousness, mingled with a kind of admiration and awe. Jobson and Cutler were noticeably ill at ease, and consumed by anxiety lest they might say or do the wrong thing. Mr. Coombe was resentful and would have been sarcastic had he dared.

That man, sitting facing Mr. Coombe, fingering the stem of his wineglass with his delicate white fingers, monopolising the conversation with his confounded drawling aristocratic voice and his infernal air of superiority, who was he? Was not he the same man who one day had come cringing into his, Coombe's, office hoping to raise a loan of two thousand on some rotten securities; was not he the same man who had well nigh wept when the loan had not materialised?

"And there he sits," thought Coombe, "there he sits, treating us all as if we were dirt, looking down on us, the rotten, humbugging, insolvent old—old—beast."

No one could find fault with the dinner, indeed his lordship gracefully congratulated his daughter on the excellence of her chef. Good Mrs. Crozier had watched over everything and had seen to everything, and a lady of her experience was scarcely likely to allow a dinner to go to table that would not be a credit to the household over which she ruled.

The wines, too, were above reproach, Sir Josiah had spared no expense in this matter, but there was something wrong with the atmosphere, yes the atmosphere was all wrong. Sir Josiah could not find one word to say. Even Cutler was unable to introduce an observation concerning the island of Demauritius, its Governor and the Governor's wife, his daughter. Jobson was frankly and noticeably unhappy, and in his agitation had splashed his white shirt front with gravy. Coombe was oppressed, angry and bitter, trying hard to find something to say that would take the wind out of the sails of that drawling, dandified, supercilious aristocrat on the other side of the table.

Kathleen had her own thoughts and the subject of them was sitting beside her on her left, facing Sir Josiah. She could feel his eyes on her now and again, she tried to laugh and to talk frankly and freely, but she was conscious of a weight, of a fear, of joy, she hardly knew what.

And Allan, too, his thoughts had strayed away from that unhappy dining table. They were out in the garden, not in the garden as it was now, all shrouded in the soft darkness of the summer night, but in a garden filled with sunshine, sunshine that touched and glorified a little head of gold, that lighted up a sweet, oval face and glistened on eyes as blue as the skies.

Why, why, why? He asked himself and could scarce frame the question. How much less the answer to it. Better that she should go, but poor child, how unfair to her. Yet he could not go; how could he? And to live here, under the same roof, to see her, perhaps every day, to have that strange memory, which was yet no memory, recalled every time he saw her. How could it be, how could he be loyal to Kathleen? Why should that girl, that child whom he had seen but once, mean so much to him? How were their lives connected; what could some unknown past have held, a past that affected their present and their future so greatly?

Coombe had grasped the opportunity. There had come a lull, Coombe seized on it, he began a story in a loud voice. It was about a deal in some shares. Coombe, in his eagerness to talk, grew involved, he floundered. He appealed to Sir Josiah, Sir Josiah who frowned, remembering that he had instructed Coombe that there was to be no "shop." Coombe saw the frown and got more mixed than before, Sir Josiah had let him down. He turned to Jobson, but Jobson had no help to offer.

"Anyhow, there it was, Munston bought seven thousand and fifty and Lockyer I forget how many, and the bottom fell out of the market see, ha, ha."

"Now that is very interesting, very interesting indeed, Mr.—er—Groom—my dear Allan, you and I are not business men, Mr. Groom here is a business man, it is quite interesting to hear these stories, eh? Of course we don't understand 'em, Allan, because, as I say, we are not business men. I have no doubt but that it is an excellent story, but I don't understand it, no, be gad, I don't see the point. It's the same with golfing stories, they may be deuced funny, but when you don't understand them, well you don't, and that's all there is to say to it. Which reminds me of Normandyke—you remember the Duke of Normandyke, my love? His place at Clamberwick was recalled to me by this little place of yours. Of course your home, elegant though it is, is a mere cottage in comparison; Clamberwick is one of the great houses—" and so on and so on, belittling his daughter's house with cheerful patronage and intense superiority, till the colour flamed into Kathleen's cheeks, born of the generous indignation in her heart. She slipped her hand under the table and her cool white fingers closed round Sir Josiah's thick old hand, and pressed it in silent sympathy, love and gratitude.

"I understand, my dear, I understand," the old gentleman whispered. "This Clamberwick may be a great place, my dear, and beyond an old fellow like me, but I'd give you ten such places if I could, and you'd be fit to reign over the lot of 'em."

"I—I wouldn't exchange Homewood for all the Clamberwicks in the world. You made it for us and gave it to us, and I love it for its own and the giver's sake."

She would not tell Allan to-night, she watched Allan. He looked, she thought, a little unhappy, this house party was weighing on his mind. No, she would not tell him to-night, she would wait till after they were all gone. She would keep her promise, of course, and when Harold Scarsdale had gone, when they had bidden one another farewell, and it would be for the last time, she would tell him that it must be for the last time, and as he was a gentleman he would understand and so—so when she told Allan, she would be able to tell him that she had seen the man again, that he had come and gone, and this time forever.

She felt easier, lighter and happier now she had made up her mind. She went to the drawing room and played and sang. Scarsdale, beside the piano, watched her, he turned her music. Now and again he spoke to her, reminding her of some song that called up the past.

"Won't you sing one of them to me, Kathleen?"

"No, no, not to-night, please don't ask me, I—I don't want to think of the past. I told you—there is no past—I burned it with the old letters—it is ashes now." Her lips trembled as she looked up at him and smiled at him. "It is better so, is it not? You know it is. So to-night I shall sing the new songs, the old ones belong to the past and are dead with it."

"If I could only think as you think, or do you think as you speak, Kathleen, do you believe what you say?"

"Yes, I believe it, I know it, it is true."

His lordship, having made a very good dinner, had selected the easiest chair in the room and settled himself down comfortably. Sir Josiah and his friends drifted to the smoking room and their cigars and their talk.

His lordship, taking his ease in his chair, had fallen into a sweet, refreshing slumber, for which he would have to pay presently when bed-time came. Kathleen was singing at the piano with this old friend of hers. Allan looked at them both. He did not quite know what to make of this old friend of Kathleen's, this man Scarsdale. He had not summed him up yet; on the whole he thought he did not much like him. To-night Allan felt in no mood to join his father and his friends, had Sir Josiah been alone it would have been different. Kathleen was interested in her friend. His lordship was asleep, Allan crossed the room quietly, opened a French window, and passed out into the garden.

When a man is face to face with a problem, he must wrestle with it, find an answer to it and act on his own finding. A man who thrusts the thing behind him and leaves it all in the hands of Fate is little better than a coward, and Allan Homewood was no coward.

In this garden he had dreamed a dream and in that dream there had come to him the sweetest little maid on whom the sun had ever shone, and though his eyes had never beheld her before, yet he knew that she came to him as no stranger, but rather as some sweet vision or memory out of a past, which past had never been, in this life at least, and when the dream had gone he had awakened with a feeling of loss that had stayed with him for many days till at last he had managed to banish that feeling.

And now, now a living girl, the very maid of his dreams, had come to him and he had looked at her and known her for the same, and all the old tenderness, the love for her had come welling up in his heart again. And she, strangely, seemed to know him even as he knew her. Had she not called him Allan? Had she not looked at him with that same strange light in her blue eyes as had shone in those of the little maid of his dreams?

"What does it mean?" he whispered. "And what am I to do? Send her away? That would be cruel and unkind, poor little soul." Where had she to go to; why banish her for no fault of her own? And yet how impossible for him to go. But to meet her every day, to see those blue eyes of hers with their strange expression, half pleading, half fearful—to know, for he did know, and must know that this little maid for some strange reason loved him, as he must love her. What should he do? Would Kathleen help him when he told her as tell her he must—yes, he would rely on her sane judgment, on her generous nature, on her sweet womanliness. She would know how to act; he would place it all in Kathleen's hands and all would be well.

He felt relieved to think that he had arrived at some definite conclusion. Kathleen would—he paused suddenly and lifted his head.

From the soft darkness there came to him a sound, the sound of sobbing, as of some child weeping bitterly in its loneliness. It touched him, for he was tender hearted to a fault. Who was it? He went on quickly, yet softly, so as not to frighten or disturb the child. And then he found her, crouching on the stone seat, near the sundial, the slender body bent, the little hands clasped over her face. He knew her at once, he saw the sheen of her hair in the dim light and stood still for a moment, yet the piteous sobbing, the heaving of the shoulders hurt him and he stretched out his hand and touched her gently.

"Betty," he said, "Betty, why are you here and crying, child?"

She did not start, she lifted her head slowly, her hands dropped, he could see her face dimly, white in the starlight.

"Why do I find you here alone, Betty, and weeping?" he asked gently. "Are you in some trouble or suffering?"

She shook her head in silence.

"Then why?"

"Oh, I doan't know, I doan't know," she cried suddenly, she flung out her arms with a gesture of despair. "I doan't understand it all, and it du frighten me, it du. Oh, I be terribul frightened of it all, I be, frightened and yet—glad." She looked up at him. He could see the oval face more clearly now, the shining eyes and the trembling red lips.

He took both her hands suddenly and held them tightly.

"Betty, what does it all mean? Can you tell me, for I do not understand?"

"Nor du I understand," she said. "Oh, tell me, Allan, tell me, did 'ee know me when—Oh, sir—forgive." She broke off suddenly and her head dropped.

"Tell me, what were you going to ask?"

She lifted her head again.

"Did 'ee know me as I knew 'ee, yesterday when I came here and—and found 'ee here, Allan?"

"Yes, I knew you, I knew you, Betty. Once before in a dream you came to me here in this same place and I cannot understand why it should have been so. No, I cannot understand."

"And it du frighten me terribul, terribul, it du. How did I know your name were Allan? How dared—dared I call 'ee Allan, seeing you be my lady's husband and my master, and yet I could not help myself, the name did come from my lips wi'out my knowing it."

"And you never saw me before?"

"Aye, many, many times."

He was startled. "You knew me, Betty, you had seen me before, but when, where?"

"Here, here in this place, in this garden, but 'ee was so different then. Grandmother was angry wi' me for coming, she said I were a bad maid to come here into this old garden, all weed grown and ramy-shackle that it were, but I came often—often—and then I used to see—'ee here, Allan, oh sir." She paused.

"Go on," he said. "Go on, Betty." And still held her quivering hands.

"But 'twas not as a fine gentleman as I did see 'ee," she went on, seeming to gain a little in confidence, though her voice was still tremulous, "'ee wore a queer old hat and brown clothes and—and stockings, and heavy shoes wi' brass buckles to 'em, sir, and for the most part 'ee was working in the garden, digging sometimes, sometimes at work wi' hoe or rake, but always working, bending over the flower beds 'ee were, and never, never did I see your face, sir, yet when I did see your face, I knew it for 'ee."

"Go on, go on."

"There's nothing more to tell 'ee, sir, only that I, contrairywise, came here to the old garden and climbed the wall, I did, and sometimes I did come here of nights when the moon was shining and it was then I see 'ee, sir, working here, bending over your work—and I knew—knew—" she paused.

"You knew——?"

"I knew as—as oh I—I can't tell 'ee, sir, I daren't tell 'ee."

"Tell me, Betty," he whispered, "tell me," and perhaps did not know how much tenderness he had put into his voice.

"I knew as 'ee meant summut to me, sir, as—as somehow it seemed as if 'ee belonged to me and I to thee."

She dropped her eyes, her hands seemed to flutter in his and he said nothing, could not, for he did not know what to say, but he realised that she had put into words that which was in his own mind, in his own knowledge, just as he had meant something to her so had she meant something to him. He had known that in some strange way they belonged to each other.

He spoke, to break the silence that had fallen rather than for any other reason.

"You were unhappy with your grandmother?"

"Terribul, terribul unhappy I were wi' she, sir, for her willed me to marry Abram."

"Abram?" he asked.

"Abram, aye, Abram Lestwick, sir, whom I du hate and de-test most terribul."

"But who is he?"

"Grandmother willed me to marry him, sir, but I would not and she be very wrathful wi' I."

"Poor little soul," he said gently. "Betty, it seems to me that strange and perhaps foolish dreams have—have come to both of us here in this old garden, and we must put those dreams out of our minds, and face life, child, as it really is. Just now you reminded me that I am your lady's husband and I am, and proud and happy that so good and sweet a woman should be my wife——"

"Good and sweet her be, there bain't none like she; I would die for her willing, I would."

"And I think I too, Betty, and so—so—" he paused to listen—out of the darkness there came voices.

"Wonderful air, isn't it? I don't know any air like this. Get a smell of the sea in it, don't you, Cutler, my boy?"

Allan dropped the little hands. He felt suddenly ashamed, felt as though he were about, to be detected in some wrong-doing, and yet, Heaven above knew, that there had not been one wrong thought in his brain.

He would have told her to go, but it was unnecessary. Very quickly and suddenly she snatched at one of his hands, he felt it pressed for a moment against burning lips and then she had gone. He heard the soft rustling of her gown among the bushes, the light tap of her little shoes, and then the heavier stolid tread of his father's honest feet.

Allan dropped onto the stone bench, and there, a minute later Sir Josiah found him.

"Why, who's here, Allan, Allan, my boy—is it you?"

"Yes, father, come here to dream in the old garden. Won't you and Mr. Cutler sit here and finish your cigars?"

He scarcely knew what he was saying. He was glad that they had come, and yet perhaps sorry too.

CHAPTER XXIV

IN WHICH LORD GOWERHURST RISES EARLY

His lordship had had a bad night. He had gone to sleep after his dinner, a foolish thing to do. He had tossed and turned restlessly in a strange bed and he loathed strange beds. Then after what had seemed to be interminable hours of sleeplessness and misery, he had fallen asleep to be awakened in apparently a few minutes by a feathered chorus in the beech tree, just outside his window.

What a noise they made, what a commotion with their piping and their shrill chattering. His Lordship sat up and solemnly cursed all birds.

A cock saluted the dawn in the customary manner; another, apparently some little distance away, took up the challenge. Lord Gowerhurst heard the crowing receding farther and farther till it was lost in the distance, then it came back, seemingly step by step to the original cock that was somewhere in his immediate neighbourhood. And all the time the birds kept up their incessant twittering and chattering and piping till the poor gentleman's nerves were on edge.

He rose, he thrust one bony leg from the bed, then the other. He went to the window, he shook his fist at the birds.

"Shoo! go away you beasts!" he shouted. "Go away, shoo!"

He slammed the window down and went back to bed, but it was useless. He put his head under the clothes, but he could still hear the babel of sounds. As the sun rose higher so did the sounds increase; there came the barking of dogs, the lowing of cattle from the green pastures, a hen had laid an egg somewhere and was proclaiming the fact triumphantly. Her husband shouted his joy, the other cocks took up the chorus. It was Bedlam and Babel let loose.

Added to the other sounds of animal and bird life came presently fresh contributions. A sleepy-eyed servant banged a pail down somewhere, doors were being opened and shut with unnecessary vigour.

"London, give me London. It's the only place in the world fit to sleep in, as for this country, this—" His lordship sat up and exploded with wrath and profanity.

He would stay in bed no longer, bed was purgatory; it was but six. He had never risen at six in the morning in his life. Frequently he had retired at this hour. He rang for hot water to shave.

At his chambers in Maybury Street, Webster, his landlord, valeted him. Webster shaved him every morning and dressed him with the same care as a young mother bestows on her darling. But Webster was employed during the day at his lordship's club, so had not been able to come.

The old gentleman's hand shook very severely this morning, he cut himself twice. He was entirely unhappy and in the blackest of ill humours when he went downstairs.

Early as it was, everyone seemed to be up. Sir Josiah, rosy and cheerful, came in from the garden, looking ridiculous with a great armful of flowers.

"Good morning, my lord, nice and early, eh? Lovely morning, nothing like getting up when the dew's on the grass, eh?" Then came Cutler, followed by Coombe, offensive in white flannel trousers; Kathleen, looking as fresh as the morning itself, came to him and kissed him. She saw his humour, she knew it of old, the morning was never his lordship's best time.

Happy he who can rise in the morning in a spirit of kindliness and good humour, who commences the day as he means to live through it, in good will and amity with all. Thrice happy they who live with such a man.

Kathleen knew her father.

"Would you like to have breakfast served you alone quietly in my own little room, dear?" she asked.

"Would I what? Hang it! do you want to get rid of me? Am I not good enough to sit down to breakfast with your absurd friends? Has that gentleman in the white trousers been attending a tennis party? It is somewhat early for tennis parties, is it not? Barely seven yet—is Homewood going to decorate a Church or is he merely masquerading as a Jack in the Green? Where's Scarsdale? Not down yet? I don't blame him, I never heard such an infernal din in my life—cocks crowing, birds shouting, dogs barking and—and cut my face twice, begad, twice—which means a deuced uncomfortable day for me and—and—and your father is to be poked away into a little back room and have his meals by himself, is he? I'm hurt, Kathleen, positively hurt; had you told me that my society was distasteful to you, had you only told me that you were asking me out of politeness, begad, out of compliment, why then I should have stayed away. I feel it, I am an old fellow and oversensitive perhaps, little things, little unkindnesses wound me, as perhaps a few years ago they would not. As one grows older one——"

"Come into breakfast, father," she said, and slipped her hand under his arm.

Scarsdale came down a little late. He held Kathleen's hand for a moment, looked her in the eyes and sat down.

"I slept badly," he said quietly, "in fact I could not sleep at all, it was strange to me to realise that the same roof that sheltered you—" he paused.

"Tea or coffee?" Kathleen asked brightly.

His lordship was like a bear with a very sore head, the Stanwys manner was not in evidence. He growled and cursed under his breath. He flung poisoned darts of wit, sneers and jibes at Coombe and they glanced harmless enough from that gentleman's toughened hide, but they went home when he turned his battery on Sir Josiah.

"Poisonous old devil he is," Coombe muttered to himself as he put away a huge breakfast.

CHAPTER XXV

BESIDE THE LAKE

They had all gone out together, Sir Josiah and his Lordship in Sir Josiah's car, Mr. Coombe and Mr. Cutler and Mr. Jobson with a large quantity of golf sticks in Allan's car, and Allan himself had gone over to One Tree Farm to discuss intensive culture, scientific pedigree poultry and pig raising and farm business generally; and Kathleen found herself for the first time alone with Harold Scarsdale.

She had tried to avoid this, yet in some fashion she had known that it must come sooner or later. She had suggested that he should go out with the others, but he had quietly declined. And so if it must be, well it must be. If she and Harold Scarsdale must come to a definite understanding, why not sooner than later? She was a coward to shun it.

From her bedroom window she saw him sauntering up and down the broad paved pathway. That he was waiting for her, confident that she would come to him, she knew, and she knew that she must go.

"Betty!"

"Yes, my Lady?"

"Sir Harold Scarsdale is in the garden; will you go down to him and tell him that I will join him soon? There he is, Betty, you can see him from here."

"I see him, my Lady, and I'll go and tell him." Betty turned away.

"Betty!"

"My Lady?"

"Betty, are you unhappy, child?"

"Unhappy, oh, my lady, I be very happy here, indeed—indeed I be—very happy I be, my lady."

"You look white and troubled, child," Kathleen said. "Is—is that man, is your grandmother—troubling you?"

"No, my Lady, I've not seen Grandmother since I came here."

"And Lestwick?"

"Abram du hang about waiting for I, my Lady, Polly Ransom have told me that Abram du continually be hanging about the green door, my Lady, but I doan't go out and so I du never see he."

"I will speak to Mr. Homewood about it and ask him to interview this Lestwick and tell him to keep away from here, for I will not have you worried and troubled, Betty. Now run down, child, and tell Sir Harold."

Scarsdale paced up and down in the warm sunlight, waiting, as years ago he had waited in another garden for the coming of his beloved.

And presently she would come to him, he did not doubt that. He turned now at the sound of a light step, but it was not she, he knew that—who, who loves, does not know the step of the beloved one? Is it not different from all other footfalls in the world, as different as 'her' voice is different from all other voices. A man usually knows the step of the woman he loves, but a woman always knows the step of her man. Scarsdale, turning slowly, knew full well that it was not Kathleen. A stern, silent man was he, misjudged by many who thought him cold and even heartless. Men found but little pleasure in his society, women none, for he had neither heart nor admiration to give them. He had looked at beautiful women and had failed to see their beauty, because only one face was beautiful in his sight. But this little maid tripping to him so demurely in the sunlight was pretty enough to win an unaccustomed smile to his lips.

What a pretty child she was, a fit handmaiden for Her!

"You want me?" he asked, and his voice was a little more gentle than usual.

She dropped him a curtsey, "My Lady sent me to say that she would be here in the garden very soon, sir."

"Thank you." He stood looking at her, at the pretty, downcast face. He looked after her when she had turned back towards the house. A pretty little country girl with a sweet voice, he thought, and then, even before she had whisked out of sight behind a door, he had forgotten her and his thoughts had gone back to the one to whom they were constant.

She was coming, and when she came what should he say to her? Just as ten years ago he had watched and waited for her in another garden, his heart filled with love for her, so he was watching and waiting now and his love was the same, no—not the same, for, even he, was conscious of its change. But it was no less, it was even more, it was greater, it burned with a stronger flame, a greater passion.

And after ten years—did many men love for ten long years, were many men as constant as he had been? Would not that constancy count for something with her? Surely, surely it must, for women prized constancy in a man above all other things.

So the smile still lingered on his lips, as he turned and slowly made his way along the sun warmed path. What should he say to her when she came, what had he said to her in the old days when he had poured out his heart to her? A thousand things, a million things, and yet all were summed up in three words, "I love you."

He had given her everything, a man's love, a man's constancy. His heart had not beaten one throb the faster for any woman but her. His eyes had found no pleasure in looking on any other woman's face. Could man give more than he had given? What could he ask in return? Everything—and he knew that he must ask everything of her.

Kathleen was conscious of a trepidation, of a nervousness unusual to her. A strange shyness had come to her, an unwillingness to meet him; yet she must and because she must she was here. She had asked herself—Was he the same, had the years altered him? And she had answered her own questions with No and Yes: he was not the same, the years had altered him. She scarcely knew this silent, almost morose man. He came to her with his tanned, lean face, his deep sombre eyes, as almost a stranger, just now and again for a fleeting moment she saw something in his face, heard something in his voice that brought back memories of the boy she had known and loved. Yet they were but fleeting.

The ardent, outspoken, honest, loving boy had changed into the quiet, self-contained man. The man had infinitely more self-control than the boy. Yet she had seen those eyes of his lighten up, had seen the spark of fire gleam in them and she knew that it was not the same flame that had burned so brightly in the boyish eyes.

He met her and looked at her with a smile on his face, but he did not speak and she spoke because she knew that the silence must be broken.

"I saw you from my window, you have been admiring the—our garden," she said.

"I do not think that I have given the garden a thought."

"Yet is it not beautiful enough? And to think that a few months ago it was little more than a jungle and now——"

"It is beautiful, yet I knew another infinitely more beautiful to me than this. You knew that garden too, Kathleen, our garden at Bishopsholme, the garden where I used to wait for you, where I first told you——" his voice quavered and trembled and her eyes, downcast, dared not lift themselves to his face.

"Where I first told you how I loved you—I have seen that garden in my dreams a thousand times, I have had cool visions of it in the sweltering heat of the tropical nights. I have seen it—and you—always you—and yet my memory never did you justice Kathleen. To-day you are more beautiful, more sweetly gracious, more lovable——"

"Hush!" she said.

"Why should I be silent when silence would be but pretence? Ten years ago I loved you with all my heart and soul, for ten years my love has been constant, my dreams and my memories of you were sweeter to me than the living realty of other women—I cared nothing for them, my heart was all yours."

"Harold!" she said. "Harold!" She put her hand on his arm. "The past is dead and it must lie dead and—and forgotten——"

"Forgotten! You tell me to forget when I have lived on memories, when the visions of you that my brain has conjured up have been the only real, the only beautiful things in my life: have I not heard your voice speaking to me in the stillness of those hot nights, have I not felt your cool hand on my brow when fever assailed me? You, even though thousands of miles parted us, were with me always. You were by my side in daylight and in darkness, my other self, my better, purer, sweeter self, and now after ten years when all that I had of you, all that I had in the world was memory of you, you tell me to forget——"

"Because you must," she said softly, "because—oh because you must."

"And did you forget? Could you have forgotten at the word of command?" he said. His cheeks were flushed under their tan, his eyes were gleaming and his words came quick and fast. "Could you have forgotten so easily? No, you too were faithful, you waited, Kathleen. You told me so yourself. You waited—hoping, dear, did you not, hoping that I should come back to you as, God willing, I meant always to come back. You knew as I knew that it was the great love, the one and only love of our two lives. It came to you, dear, when you were little more than a child, to me when I was but a boy, but it will last through my life and yours—yours too, and knowing this, you tell me to forget."

"Listen," she said. "Listen—this is my home, you are my friend, my husband's guest——"

"Does that matter, does anything in this world matter save that I have come back to you, that you and I love one another now as we did then and that after years of separation, years of heart sickness and longing, we are, thank God, together again. Does anything matter but that? You are married, you married the man for his money—his father's money—your father told me this—I am not speaking in anger, dear, nor contempt, I am only stating what I know to be a fact. You gave him no love, how could you, when you had none to give, for your heart was always mine."

"Oh hush, hush! Before you say any more, Harold, listen, for you must listen to me now. My father told you only the truth, I married for money, for a home, for a future—I had given up hope, I had waited so long, my youth was passing. I looked ahead, I saw old age and loneliness and oh—perhaps I was a coward, but I was afraid—afraid—Perhaps you had forgotten, perhaps you no longer lived—remember, remember that for ten years I heard no word of you: I know now that in not writing one word to me you were faithfully keeping the word of honour that my father forced you to give. Yet I did not think you had died, Harold, for if you were dead I think—I think I should have known—you were only a boy, I told myself, and the love of a boy changes, absence so often means forgetfulness. There are other women younger and more beautiful than I—No, no, let me speak, I know now that I was wrong—I know that I was wrong—yet how could I know it then? I was twenty-eight, twenty-eight and what had I to look forward to? Nothing! nothing in the world—my father had nothing to give me, I was useless, I could not work, I knew of no trade—I had been brought up in idleness, a useless creature—and the future—it meant—starvation, not merely genteel poverty, it meant worse, it meant——"

"I know, and you married for money—for a home—have I blamed you, have I shewn anger, Kathleen? No, dear, I pitied you. You married this man for his money only——"

"Not wholly, I liked him, respected him——"

"Liked him, respected him——" he smiled grimly. "But I had your heart?"

"Yes——" she said, "then."

"And now—now still now—always!"

"It is not fair, it is cruel, it is unlike you to ask me," she said, "it is too late to ask me now——"

"It is not too late. Was not your sin against me, against your love greater when you married him than any you might commit against him now?"

"I am his wife, I have promised to be faithful and true to him."

"You promised to be faithful and true to me; do you remember our parting at Bishopsholme, you promised then when I held you in my arms, when the tears were in your dear eyes—you promised always to love me, always to be faithful and true, all your life long—you promised me then with tears, beloved."

"And I performed—I waited for ten years. Never passed a day that I did not waking think of you, that I did not when I lay down to sleep ask God's blessing on you and then Fate was too strong——"

"It was Fate that brought me here to-day."

"So that we could meet as friends, take one another by the hand and——"

"As friends—you and I——" his voice quivered with scorn and bitterness—"Friends!"

They had come to the little lake, the pool where stood the stone nymph and where in the deep green water the great carp swam lazily. She was remembering how she and Allan had stood here days ago and had spoken of this little stone maiden.

"Kathleen, true love, love that is loyal and lasting and good and true is the holiest, the best and most enduring thing in this world, it stands far, far above a mere ceremony. It is Heavensent. You dare not sin against that love, dear, for Heaven itself put it in your heart. I have been faithful all those years, I have loved you. I have dreamed of you, spoken to you in my thoughts, and now I have come back, I have come to you for—my reward, Kathleen."

She turned slowly and looked at him, her face had grown white.

"Harold, I do not understand."

"You must, oh you must, you do understand, Kathleen, don't shrink from me—you see before you the man who loves you better than he loves his life, better I think, than he loves his soul. Marriage—what is marriage, such a marriage as yours, a marriage of convenience, a marriage of accommodation, a marriage tainted by money. Can you set up such a marriage as yours against my steadfast love? You cannot, you shall not, Kathleen, you belong to me—you became mine when you gave me your heart—when you let me hold you in my arms, when my lips first kissed yours. That—that gave you to me—I ask for my own now and you—you are my own—I have come for you—I want you, God knows I need you. I shall never let you go now never, never again in this world!"

She looked at him and saw that which was unfamiliar to her, looked at him and seemed to see the face of a stranger, of a man she had never known, that face was flushed, those eyes were bright, his hands stretched out to her trembled with the passion that moved him.

"What are you asking me?"

"To come with me, to leave all this, for your love's sake, for my love's sake, to let love rise triumphant above every earthly consideration, I have come for you, I shall not go without you."

And then she turned from him, she turned to look at the little statue that had stood there, reflected in the green waters through all those centuries. The stone maiden who would stand here perhaps when the grave had closed over her, and looking at the little statue, rather than at him, she spoke quietly.

"I loved you," she said, "I loved you all those years because I believed you to be all that I would have had you be. I loved you for your respect for me, for your honour, your purity and for your reverence. In those days you never offended me by word or look, I was safe with you as with a brother—and because I knew that with you, I was so protected, so safe, so secure, I loved you, I think I worshipped you and so I remembered you as good and honourable and innocent and true—and—and now you come back to me——" her voice broke a little, "and I know that the love I believed in, trusted in so, has degenerated into what is nothing but a selfish passion. Here under my husband's roof, you hold out your hand to me, you bid me come, you bid me leave honour, happiness and peace of heart, you bid me leave self-respect, all—all behind me."

"Kathleen—Kathleen!"

"Had I been free and had you come in rags, a beggar, with nothing in your hands, had you called to me to go with you—I would have gone gladly, proudly gone. But you waited, Harold, and you waited too long, and now you dishonour your love, you trample it into the dust at your feet. I idealised you and the idol that I set up and which I in my blindness and foolishness worshipped, is fallen and shattered, broken beyond repair, and so——" She turned to him for the first time and held out her hand, "and so we have come to the parting of the ways, Harold, the last parting. It is good-bye between us, good-bye for always."

"If your love had been as strong as mine, had lived as mine had lived, you would not say this to me now."

"It lived till a little while ago, till we came here just now and stood beside the lake—it lived till then—and then—you killed it, Harold, you killed it here."

"These are words, mere words!"

"Yet true words, it died here after I had kept it warm, after I had cherished it in my heart, after I had regarded it as the best, the sweetest, purest, noblest thing that could ever come into my life, and here you taught me that I was wrong, you degraded it, you made me see that it was not the pure and holy thing I had believed it. You shewed me that it was mean and cruel and selfish. You asked me for—for your reward, yet did not consider what the cost of that reward must be to me. You would have made me an outcast, my name a word of shame, you, who ten years ago never wronged me in word or thought. You would take me from here into the wilderness, thinking that if I could but hide my face from others I might find happiness. Did you give a thought to my soul, to my conscience, where could I have hidden from that?"

He did not answer, he stood looking at her, his brown hands clenched. Smouldering passion was in his breast, the passion of desire, the passion of anger. Yet he could be honest with himself and knew that she was speaking the truth, and had never a word to say in contradiction.

"Just now," she said, "just now you killed my love, you drove it from my heart—it belonged to the man I thought so fine, so splendid, so noble and when I found him ignoble, selfish, self-seeking, it died; it had to die, Harold, and being dead will never live again!" She held out her hand to him, there was a smile on her white face, a rather pitiful smile, for only she and her God knew what she had suffered here in this garden of sunshine.

"We must part here, dear, part—you and I who were lovers, part as lovers for ever, yet we shall meet again in a few hours, I the hostess, you my guest and friend. But I part here from the man I once loved and bidding him good-bye ask that God may bless him always."

"Once!" he said softly. "Once, Kathleen, I once loved? Once?"

"Once!" she said, and bravely looked into his eyes.

Moments of silence passed while he stood looking at her. His face seemed to have grown older, it was haggard, there were lines of pain upon it.

This place, she knew, would hold for ever a memory of pain and suffering for her, here she would see his face in memory as she saw it now. Never would she see these green waters lying motionless under the deep shadows of the yews, but that into her memory would come his face as she saw it. now, all haggard and stricken, the face of one who has seen the gate to happiness opened for an instant and then finds himself shut out in the darkness and the cold for evermore.

Suddenly he fell to his knees, he lifted the soft and dainty fabric of her dress and touched it with his lips and then, rising, turned and strode away, leaving her by the water alone.

CHAPTER XXVI

ON OTHER SHOULDERS

When he had knelt and kissed the hem of her garment, Scarsdale had meant it as an act of renunciation, as an acceptance of Kathleen's decision. He could not hope to fight against it. The truth of what she had said appealed to him. True he could take her away back to his own little domain at the farthest end of the earth. He could take her to a place where no one should know of her and his past. But he could not take her away from her own thoughts, the upbraiding of her own conscience. His love for her was a strange mixture of passion and reverence. Sometimes it was the one that was uppermost, at another time the other. Now it was reverence, respect for her purity that filled his heart. He put his passion away, for ever, he told himself. He would go back whence he came. He would take back with him his dreams and his memories and nothing else.

To-day was Saturday, his visit here would end on Monday. He would have ended it to-day, yet he felt that he might appear a coward in her sight if he ran away, besides, why should he cheat himself of these last few hours of her? She was nothing to him, never could be anything, but he could still watch her, still listen to her voice, still garner up in his brain memories of her on which he would draw presently when he had gone back to the old lonely, hopeless life.

No, he would not run away.

He found from one of the men servants, old Markabee it was, in which direction lay the golf course, to which Messrs. Coombe, Cutler and Jobson had repaired.

"Fower miles it be, fower good miles, sir," said Markabee, "through Stretton you du go, then turns to the left and——" And so on, Scarsdale listened to the directions and followed them and an hour later stood on the course and watched Mr. Coombe making wild and ineffective swipes at a small ball perched on a mound.

Mr. Coombe, bathed in perspiration, appealed to him.

"Never tried this game before, I haven't," he said, "and don't know as I'm going to spend sleepless nights before I try it again. I daresay it's all right for those who like it—play it yourself perhaps, Sir Harold?"

Scarsdale shook his head. "There's not much golf where I come from," he said briefly.

"No, too hot I reckon—well for my part, give me a quiet game of bowls. Innocent mirth I don't find fault with, but I object to making myself a sort of circus for a lot of grinning urchins, who ought to be at school or somewhere." He came and stood beside Scarsdale. At any other time Scarsdale might have avoided Mr. Coombe, to-day he welcomed him. Even Coombe was a better companion than his own thoughts.