Front matter

BY

WARWICK DEEPING

With Frontispiece in color by

A. C. MICHAEL

New York

Cassell & Company, Limited

1913

Copyright, 1913, by CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI CHAPTER VII CHAPTER VIII CHAPTER IX CHAPTER X CHAPTER XI CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XIII CHAPTER XIV CHAPTER XV CHAPTER XVI CHAPTER XVII CHAPTER XVIII CHAPTER XIX CHAPTER XX CHAPTER XXI CHAPTER XXII CHAPTER XXIII CHAPTER XXIV CHAPTER XXV CHAPTER XXVI CHAPTER XXVII CHAPTER XXVIII CHAPTER XXIX CHAPTER XXX CHAPTER XXXI CHAPTER XXXII CHAPTER XXXIII CHAPTER XXXIV CHAPTER XXXV CHAPTER XXXVI CHAPTER XXXVII CHAPTER XXXVIII CHAPTER XXXIX CHAPTER XL

The House of Spies

I

Jasper Benham tumbled out of bed, with the crack of a pistol-shot splitting the silence of the night. Before him ran the long casement window, each diamond pane a silver lozenge set in a frame of jet. Moonlight came through and lay patterned upon the floor.

"Master Jasper—Master Jasper——!"

It was a plaintive howl from under the window, the voice of a man who was afraid.

"Master Jasper—horse-thieves in t' yard!"

The lattice opened, and a pair of broad shoulders caught the moonlight.

"What's this—Jack——?"

John Bumpstead, the groom, was squeezing himself against the wall.

"Dear Lord—sir—they've bruk into t' stable. Me and Jim Burgess tumbled up to see what was wrong. We couldn't face pistols, sir. They be there still, sir——"

"What! The infernal rogues! Here, take the blunderbuss, Jack, and have a blaze——"

"Master Jasper—I dursn't——"

"You're not man enough to scare rooks!"

The figure disappeared from the window, and from the moonlit room came the sounds of an active young man plunging furiously for his clothes. Anything served; a frilled shirt, the red coat of a lieutenant of volunteers thrown over a chair, a pair of riding-breeches and rough boots. A hanger hung from the bed-post, and there was the blunderbuss in the corner. Jasper Benham went down the oak stairs with the clattering impetuosity of a boy playing hide-and-seek. He drew back the bolts of the heavy porch door, and ran the oak bar out of its socket.

Jack Bumpstead waited in the porch, with little coquettish flirts of something white swaying in the draught. He had been valorously quick in dressing, but his teeth chattered behind his thin beard.

"Take the oak bar, Jack; it's a good cudgel. How many of them?"

"May be a dozen."

"Fudge! Where's Jim Jenner?"

"I shouldn't like t' say, sir."

"No doubt back in bed and under the sheets by this time! Shout—if you can't fight, Jack; make a noise—anything. Come along."

They skirted along the terrace, turned down by the yew hedge, and so by the stone-paved passage between the bake-house and the great brick barn. The passage was in deep shadow, and Jasper had no notion that a man was lurking there till the yellow spurt of the powder in the priming-pan of a pistol made him throw himself against the wall. The piece missed fire, and the clatter of heavy boots over the stones betrayed what had become of the man who had pulled the trigger. There was some shouting in the stable yard, and the stamping of horses. One deep voice sent oaths flying, the savage and impatient oaths of a man in a fluster.

Jack Bumpstead had thrown himself flat on his face. He caught young Benham by the ankle.

"You shan't go for to be shot, master; they be some of Dan Stunt's gang."

"Let go—you fool!"

"They don't mind God or devil, sir. Better for 'em to have the nags——"

"Let go, Jack, or by Jove——"

He twisted free and ran on into the yard in time to see a hustle of horses crowding through the gateway into the moonlight. One fellow was still lying across his horse's back with his legs dangling. Another sat gaunt and erect, pistol raised, ready, like a big forefinger.

Jasper's blunderbuss came up. He fired high, because of the horses, and the belching mouth of the blunderbuss stabbed the night with flame. Smoke hung for a moment, drifting away in wisps. The gateway had emptied as though by magic, and in the place of the black knot of men and horses, a strip of moonlit road was guarded by the two black, brick pillars with their two stone balls.

Jasper ran for the gate, shouting to Jack Bumpstead as he ran.

"Get a lantern—get a lantern."

Nothing lay in the roadway beyond the gate, no dark thing that squirmed with leaden slugs burning in its body. A dark blur that moved broke the white road across the paddock. Jasper watched it a moment with jaws set, and then turned back into the yard. He was in an ugly temper, and even the tail of Jack Bumpstead's shirt, flickering in doleful whiteness by the stable door, flapped no laughter from him. A tinder-box was kept on a window-ledge close to where the cord that held the great stable lantern sloped down to a hook in the wall. The groom had groped for the tinder-box and was trying to get a light, though his hands were shaking so that he struck the flint with his knuckles more often than he struck it with the steel.

"The deuce, Jack! Here, give me the things!"

From the loose-box at the far end of the stable came the whimpering of a horse and the clatter of hoofs on the brick floor.

"Why, they've left Devil Dick!"

"Sure, Master Jasper, sure!"

"That's luck, indeed!"

John Bumpstead managed to get one of the sulphur-tipped matches alight. Benham had lowered the great lantern and it dangled close by. The groom put the match to the candle, and the yellow rays shooting between the black bars showed four empty stalls littered with trampled straw.

Benham pulled a wry face.

"Confound the blackguards! Two cart-horses, and Peggy, and Brown Bob gone. And they have left Devil Dick, the best of the whole bunch!"

He went to the loose-box, and a warm nose was thrust over the door. The horse's lips nibbled affectionately at his hand.

"Jack, light that other lantern there. Run into the house and get me a brace of pistols. You'll find them in the case on the oak chest in my room. Run, man, run. I'll saddle Dick."

"Sir——?"

"Don't stand and stare, you fool! Do you think I'm going to let these gentry go without a gallop! I may follow them up if I can't bring them to action."

In ten minutes Devil Dick was prancing sideways through the gateway, carrying a bare-headed, bare-legged man with a pistol in each pocket. A good square jaw, blue eyes, and a firm mouth are the points of a youngster who does not fawn upon fate. Jasper Benham had been an impudent young cub, a little laughing, keen-eyed imp who had been whacked and cuffed into a sturdy, determined, brown-faced man.

Jasper drew Devil Dick on to the grass and listened. The night was still, with a gibbous moon sailing away up yonder, and a vague, inconstant breeze murmuring occasionally in the trees and hedgerows. Rush Heath House stood black and huge at Jasper's back. He listened to a faint galloping rhythm coming like the noise of a stream running in the distance. The moonlight shone on the deep-set eyes under the square brows.

"Tsst—Dick—on—lad."

They started away through the paddock, and over the furze-covered slopes of Rush Heath, the big black horse swinging smoothly between Jasper's knees. Stones clinked in the road. The stunted thorns rushed by, stretching out warning hands. In the damp places the rush tufts splintered the moonlight like silver wires. The further woods were very black upon the hillsides, and the fresh smell of the spring night was tinged with the scent of the sea.

Jasper galloped through Polecat Wood, on over Stubb's Common, and past Flanders Farm into Lavender's Hole. At the top of the further hill he drew in to listen, and heard something that heartened him and set his blood a-spinning. There was good turf along the track over Stonehanger Heath, and by the light of the moon he could see the fresh marks left by the horses ahead. A lively imagination is needed for the making of a coward, and Jasper Benham's shoulders were too sturdy to form a squatting-place for fear. Devil Dick at a gallop was made for audacity, pistol-shots, and the clashing of swords.

"Scurvy thieves——!"

The land was very wild here, rough wood and heathland rising toward uplands that overlooked the sea. Stunted oaks and firs hung in black tangles against the moon. Desolate furze-covered knolls heaved this way and that, and the track plunged, twisted, and burrowed through thickets. Even higher ground lay up yonder under the moon, a bluff ridge where the trees had been blown all one way by the wind, and the furze rolled like green breakers.

Jasper saw the roof and chimneys of a house rising black against the sky. He lost sight of it for a moment as the track curved under a rocky bank where dwarf trees and brushwood broke the moonlight. Then the house reappeared again upon the hilltop, a bleak house, parapeted, square-windowed, with massive chimneys built for the roar of the wind. Tattered thorns, oaks, and firs sheltered it on the north and the south-west, and held out their arms to it as though it had tormented them for years with some strange secret. The furze broke upon the very walls of its terrace and garden.

Jasper drew in, like a man challenged in the darkness.

"Stonehanger! I had forgotten the old place!"

He looked up at it, frowningly, as though it roused grim thoughts, ghostly drifts of gossip that made folk draw nearer to the fire.

"Who's there now? Bless me if I know! These horse-thieves——!"

He took a pistol from his pocket and let Devil Dick advance at a walk. The black house up yonder oppressed him. Such things had happened there. It was as though it threw a shadow across his heart.

What was that? Horses galloping! By George—what a fool he was to be shying at a dark house like a nervous horse, while the gentry yonder were going over the hill. Jasper urged Devil Dick to a trot. The track was steep here, and littered with loose stones.

But in chasing blackguards a man may forget to be on his guard against the blackguards' tricks. At the spot where the grey stone wall of the Stonehanger garden began a great yew threw its shadow across the road. And a man leaning round the trunk of the tree, flashed a pistol at Jasper, and then jumped into the road.

"Take that—for being obstinate, and be darned to you!"

Jasper was down in the road as quickly as the man, simply because Devil Dick had swerved and thrown him, and left him lying on his back. The horse-thief bent over Jasper with the butt-end of his pistol ready. A superfluous precaution. Benham of Rush Heath lay as still as a stone, and his horse had bolted down the road.

The man spat, and nodded.

"You lie nice and quiet there, lad. I should have liked your nag, but the beast's bolted. Good-night to ye——"

And he went off with a wave of the hat.

II

There was a light in Stonehanger House. It had flashed out suddenly in one of the side windows, as though the black house had raised an eyelid and looked out on the world with a sinister, yellow eye.

The light disappeared from the window, and left the eastern side of the house a mere dark surface. At the same moment a gust of wind came over the hill from the sea. The stunted trees shook their fists at the house, cursing it and bidding it beware.

Then a door opened, and the light came out into the paved yard at the back of Stonehanger. It flickered across toward the stable whose stone roof was brushed by the boughs of a clump of firs. There was the sound of some one hammering at a door, a hollow sound like blows struck with the hilt of a sword upon the panelling covering some secret hiding-place.

The light approached the road, shooting yellow rays among the overgrown laurels and hollies of the shrubbery inside the stone wall. There was a gate here, with an arched stone bridge leading over the ditch to the road. The gate was thrust open and the lantern held out at the end of a white forearm. Ten yards away Jasper Benham lay flat on his back, one arm flung out, the other twisted as though it were broken. The lantern swayed uncertainly at the gate and then came down into the road. It showed the white face and the slight figure of a girl, a red cloak flung over her shoulders, her dress open at the throat.

She stood and looked at the figure in the road as though she were shrewdly afraid, and ready to reason with herself for being so.

"Don't be a coward, Nance. You won't help any one by being afraid."

She spoke the words aloud, in a mood to be reassured by the sound of her own voice.

"Can't you see that the man has a soldier's coat? The French may have landed at last. You heard horses go by, and the sound of a pistol-shot."

She moved forward and, holding the lantern shoulder-high, bent over the man in the road. It was a pure coincidence that Benham opened his eyes at the same moment, and blinked at the light that was within two feet of his face.

"Hallo!—O—my head!"

He stirred, turned on one elbow, and fell back with a savage start of pain.

"Damnation, what's this? What have they done to my arm? Who—? I say—I beg your pardon——!"

Sudden sanity came into his eyes, and he lay and stared at the girl's face. It seemed that these two were fascinated momentarily by each other's eyes. Benham moistened his lips, and made an effort to explain himself.

"I must have had a crack on the head. Of course, what am I thinking of! The scoundrel shot at me from behind a tree. Where's Dick? Can you see anything of a horse?"

She looked up and down the lane, and her eyes returned slowly to his face. They were very solemn eyes, big and dark, like the eyes of a southern woman.

"I can't see any horse. Have the French landed——?"

"The French?"

"Yes."

"Nothing so respectable. I was chasing horse-thieves, and one of them shot me from behind that yew-tree. I'm Benham of Rush Heath."

Her solemnity took the colour of compassion.

"I'm sorry. And your poor arm there! No, don't move. I'm Nance Durrell, and this is Stonehanger Lane."

"Durrell! H'm. That fellow's bullet must have broken my right arm."

"I heard horses galloping, and the sound of a pistol-shot. You see, I was watching for father. And I couldn't wake David; he's stone deaf."

"You live here then?"

"Yes, at Stonehanger. Don't you know?"

Jasper looked discomfited by his ignorance.

"It's my head; this tumble has knocked my wits to pieces. I wonder if I can get up."

She put the lantern down, and they regarded each other with great seriousness.

"I don't know. There's your arm! And it has been bleeding."

"Has it?"

"Sssh—it must hurt!"

"Well, I can't lie here in the road, can I?"

"No."

"I must get up—and home—somehow."

She looked at him as though considering what was best to do.

"I know. You ought to have your arm fastened to your side. I had my arm broken once. I'll go in and get a scarf."

She picked up the lantern and disappeared through the gate with beams of light swinging about her in the darkness. As for Jasper Benham, his head had cleared sufficiently to admit some measure of astonished curiosity. Who were the Durrells, and how had they come to Stonehanger House, and how was it he could not remember ever having heard the name?

"Nance Durrell—Nance Durrell."

He repeated it to himself as he lay under the shadow of the yew-tree, as though the uttering of the name might help him to realise that he was not dreaming in his bed at Rush Heath. No; the ground was solid, the yew bough above him was solid, the pain in his arm was very real. And the girl who called herself Nance Durrell? He found himself waiting impatiently for her return, and watching the foliage of the shrubs for the shine of her lantern.

She was back again in the road, carrying a red scarf in one hand.

"I had to hunt for it, or I should not have been so long."

She put the lantern down, and knelt beside him, her lips parted, her eyes full of her purpose. It struck Benham of a sudden that she must have led a free and rather lonely life. She seemed ready to rely upon herself, to meet responsibilities with the frank self-reliance of a girl who has had to trust to her own hands.

"Do you think you can sit up?"

"Of course I can."

"Wait; I'll help you. Hold your arm with your other hand."

She drew herself behind him, and put her hands under his shoulders.

"Now."

He was up, with her hands still holding him, and her breath touching his cheek.

"Can you bear it?"

"Yes."

"Draw the arm across—so."

"Phew—confound it! I'm sorry; it's nothing."

"I know how it must hurt."

The frank impulse toward sympathy in her voice sent a start of emotion through him. He set his teeth as she bound the broken arm to his side with the red scarf. There was a kind of pleasure in the pain.

"What gentle hands you have."

"Have I? There! How does that feel?"

"Splendid."

"Now I'll help you up."

Whatever a man's pluck may be it cannot raise him above nature, or make him independent of the ills of the flesh. Jasper Benham scrambled to his feet to be smothered by a sudden fog of faintness that blotted out the moonlight and set him groping with his hands.

"I can't help it—but——"

She understood what ailed him, and was practical in her compassion.

"You're faint."

Her hands steadied him.

"Put your head down—just for a moment."

He felt the grip of her strong young hands, and the thrill of it may have helped his heart.

"That's better."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

She picked up the lantern and, holding it high, looked at him with frank concern.

"You can't get back to Rush Heath to-night."

"I am afraid that's the truth."

"You must come in here. I'll wake David somehow. He can go over to Rush Heath as soon as it is light, and tell them to send a cart."

"What a friend you are."

She stood there in sudden forceful contrast to all the things feminine that he had ever known. There was a sweet and brave directness about her that challenged his manhood. Simple, chivalrous homage; some women win such service with a word or a look. He bowed to her, and his heart bowed with his body.

"You are very good to me."

"Good! What else could one do!"

Everything about the grey, upland house seemed fashioned out of stone. The paths and yard were paved with rough stones from the quarry; the hall and passages floored with flagstones. Jasper Benham found himself lying on a long couch under the window in a room that might have been part of an old religious house. It was walled and vaulted with stone, and the fireplace was a great yawning recess with carved pillars on each side of it.

Nance Durrell had gone to wake David Barfoot, the servant, who slept in a room by the stable. Benham lay back with his head on the round squab, and looked about him with the consenting curiosity of a man who dreams. Who were the Durrells, and how had they come to Stonehanger, this grey house, that for thirty years had been spoken of as a house of horror? Benham was not an imaginative man, but this grey room with the huge yawn of its fireplace filled him with a vague sense of eeriness and mystery.

He heard footsteps crossing the paved hall. Nance reappeared with an armful of wood. Her big, brown eyes ran over with laughter, the mischievous and sparkling laughter of perfect health.

"I have managed to wake David. We make him leave his window open, because there is only one way of waking him."

"Throwing stones——?"

"I could only find the stable bucket—and I'm afraid I dropped it on David's head."

She put her wood down and, kneeling, stirred the heap of grey ash in the fireplace. Her breath roused it to redness, and the twigs that she threw on crackled with flame. Benham watched her as though the kindling of that fire was one of the most wonderful things that he had ever seen. The burning wood threw a warmth upon her, and made her black hair gleam.

"Don't you love making a fire?"

"Yes, when it is not at six o'clock on a winter morning."

"Oh, I love that, too. It is so glorious to get warm."

To Benham the whole adventure had been incredibly delightful. Only by degrees did he become conscious of himself, of his bare legs, and the general precipitation of his dress. But somehow these things did not seem to matter. The girl had picked up the incidents of the night as naturally as she would have gathered wind-blown apples out of the grass.

"There's David."

Sounds came from some far-off corner of the house. Nance disappeared, to return with a skillet full of milk, a cup, and some bread and cheese on a plate.

"I am going to heat this milk for you."

"You are taking too much trouble."

"I should have to sit up—anyway. Father may return to-night. He was coming by the night coach, and meant to walk from Battle."

Jasper was seized with a desire to ask questions, but his finer instincts smothered the desire. And in another minute she was holding out the cup of milk to him with that solemn and intent look in her eyes.

"You must get some sleep now. I shall have to keep awake by the fire, and listen."

"For Mr. Durrell? He will have a long tramp from Battle."

"Yes. David never hears anything."

"A useful man on occasions."

"Does the arm hurt you much?"

"No, nothing to speak of."

She brought a rug from somewhere and threw it over him, and took the cup when he had finished the milk.

"I will put out the lantern. The firelight will do for me."

She drew an arm-chair before the hearth, took some logs from the oak log-box and piled them against the fire-back. Benham lay and watched her out of the corners of his eyes. She sat herself down with the firelight playing upon her black dress, and touching her throat and face. Perhaps she had outwatched her own wakefulness, for presently she fell asleep, her head resting against the chair back, her face turned toward the window.

Jasper Benham could not sleep. The aching of his broken arm, and a feeling of restlessness kept him awake. Moreover, he was very conscious of the nearness of the girl sleeping in the chair; and the alluring strangeness of her white face seemed sharpened by his own pain. He became feverish and nervously alert, unable to master the thoughts and conjectures that made a whirligig of his brain. He began to question the history of Stonehanger as a sick man busies himself with patterns on a wall. Was it true that Inchbold had killed his wife here fifty years ago? Was it true that two men had fought a duel to the death in this very room? What of the tales told of the haunting horror of the house, a horror that had emptied it and kept it empty for twenty years? Nance Durrell, sleeping before the fire, seemed to contradict all this. The ebbing and flowing of her breath between the red lips of youth might exorcise such ghost tales.

But Benham was very restless. The flicker of the firelight through the vaulted room made a grim, fantastic shadow-play. There was a listening silence about the house that made wakeful ears tingle with imaginary sounds. Sometimes a log settled, and sent up a scattering of sparks. More than once a gust of wind rattled the windows.

Suddenly Benham turned his head. He had heard, or thought he had heard, the ring of a horse's hoofs upon the stones of the court-yard. He wondered for the moment whether he ought to wake Nance Durrell.

Benham's eyes were turned toward the fire. He did not see something white glide up toward the window. A face seemed to flatten itself against the panes, and to be distorted by the crinkles in the glass. It remained there for a few seconds, and then melted back into the night.

III

Two men were waiting in the stone porch that sheltered the yard-door at Stonehanger. A third man crossed the yard with long, silent strides, and joined the two who were waiting. He took one of them by the arm.

"Over here—among the shrubs."

They moved away into the moonlight, and along under the shadow of a stone wall toward the wild tangle of the neglected garden. The man who had spoken carried himself with a grand air that was spoilt by a suggestion of swagger. He had restless eyes that threw rapid glances from side to side. The man whom he held by the elbow had white hair and a thin, sharp, eager face. The third fellow was a little tub of a Frenchman, frog-faced, blue-chinned, and very fat.

"Here, this path will do. Anthony Durrell, what shall you say if we are trapped?"

"What do you mean?"

"For God's sake, sir, keep that squeaky voice of yours down in your shoes! Pardon me, I am somewhat excited. There is a red-coat officer lying at his ease upon your couch. He had covered himself with a rug, but I got a glimpse of his red jacket. And Mademoiselle Nance is asleep before the fire."

The three men stood close together under the laurels and hollies, whispering with their heads close, and speaking sometimes in French and sometimes in English. The tall man seemed to take the lead.

"Pest on it, Durrell; I have a mind to go back and shoot the man through the window."

"No—no—I will not countenance——"

"There, there, am I a fool! The house may be full of red-coats. We have got to find that out. Your daughter expects you?"

"Yes."

"Well, then, you must go and knock as boldly as any corporal. Jerome and I can stay in the shadow by the porch. If the red-coat is alone, and means mischief, we can deal with him. If he has men with him, they will catch nothing but a respectable scholar returning after a journey to London. It is lucky I left the horses in the quarry."

Anthony Durrell fingered a prominent and bony chin.

"I think you are right, Chevalier."

"Tut, tut, it is plain as the moon. Jerome and I know where to bolt to in case of trouble. Go and embrace your most charming daughter."

Nance Durrell woke with a start, and her eyes met the eyes of Jasper Benham.

"I've been asleep!"

"There is some one knocking."

She was up instantly, and kindling a piece of stick at the fire she lit the lantern.

"It must be father."

Nance went out, and Benham heard her shooting back the bolts of the door. A man's cheery and exclamatory voice told of a home-coming.

"Why, child, here we are—at last."

"I am so glad you have come."

"All well, all well?"

"Yes. But we have had an adventure."

"What—what!"

"Let me take your cloak. Yes; a gentleman was shot at and wounded by horse-thieves—in the lane. I had to help him in here. He is in the parlour."

"Bless my soul!"

"Come in and see him."

Benham sat up, the rug falling from him, as Nance Durrell and her father entered the room. He saw a thin, narrow-shouldered man in black regarding him with weak and red-lidded eyes. Anthony Durrell had one of those narrow, hungry, aspiring faces, the face of a man whose desires would never be satisfied. He might have been a bookman, a fanatic, or a dreamer of dreams.

He came in smiling, and the smile spoilt the dignity of his face. It lifted the angles of the mouth too markedly, showed the gaps between the teeth, and was too reminiscent of a snarl.

"Good evening to you, sir."

Benham had risen. He had the watchful look one sees in the eyes of a young man who is brought into sudden contact with a personality that is new and strange.

"Miss Durrell has told you? Yes. I must say, sir, that I am vastly grateful——"

"Common courtesy, common kindness, Mr.——"

"Benham of Rush Heath."

"Mr. Benham. I hope you are not badly hurt."

He rubbed his hands, and smiled with a sympathy that seemed ill at ease.

"A broken arm, sir."

"Indeed! That's bad."

He looked fixedly at Benham, and then turned to Nance.

"I commend you, my dear child. I am glad that we have been able to be of service to Mr. Benham. What does the clock say? What, gone two! It seems to me that it will be kinder to leave Mr. Benham undisturbed. You can get me some supper in the kitchen, Nance. And then I think bed will be very welcome."

He stood a moment staring at the fire. The smile had died from his face and left it cold and preoccupied. When he turned once more toward Benham, the smile spread again over his face, unspontaneously, forced up from within.

"Mr. Benham, sir, I will not disturb you further. Make what use you please of this room. Shall we decide to meet again in the morning?"

He gave Jasper a stiff and constrained bow, and walked slowly from the room. Nance followed him, but turned at the door.

"Good night. Is there anything else you would like?"

"No; only to thank you again."

Her brown eyes smiled kindly at him as she closed the door.

"Nance, dear."

"Yes, father. David is in the kitchen."

"Ah, send him to bed, and get me some supper. I have left my bag in the porch. I had almost forgotten it."

"I'll fetch it for you."

"No, no; get me some milk heated. I feel rather chilled."

And he left her with irritable precipitation. Durrell had no more than a few hurried words with the two men who waited in the yard. He had closed the door behind him, and spoke in a half-whisper.

"No danger—I hope. It's a young man who was shot in the arm while chasing horse-thieves. I will send the girl to bed, and then come back for you."

"Who is the man?"

"A young Benham of Rush Heath."

"Psst—damnably awkward——!"

"I mustn't stay now."

"Yes, get back."

Half an hour passed before Nance took one of the brass candlesticks from the mantelpiece and went up to bed, yawning behind her hand. David Barfoot had been sent back to his room, and Anthony Durrell had Stonehanger House to himself.

The first thing he did was to take off his shoes, and go very cautiously along the passage leading from the kitchen to the hall. A faint line of light showed under the door of the room where Jasper Benham of Rush Heath sat on the couch, swinging his heels. Durrell went softly to the door and listened. The key was on the outside. He felt for it, and turned it with the utmost caution. Yet the lock gave a faint click as the catch shot home, and Durrell stood for three minutes, listening for any sound in the room within.

Durrell's ears satisfied him that all was quiet, though he would have felt far from satisfied had he been able to see through the panels of the door. Jasper had heard the click of the lock. He was sitting on the couch, and staring intently at the door. Presently he crossed the room, sliding his feet silently over the stones, and tried the door, only to find it locked.

"That's funny!" he said to himself; "it seems that the old fellow doesn't trust me. What has he to be anxious about?"

He turned and sat down in the chair in which Nance had fallen asleep.

Anthony Durrell had opened the porch door, and was whispering to the men in the porch.

"Go round to the kitchen entry. Don't make a noise. Nance has only just gone to her room."

They disappeared into the darkness, and Durrell felt his way back toward the kitchen, shutting the door that closed the passage from the hall. Entering the kitchen, he drew the heavy stuff curtains across the windows, and then let the two men in.

"Don't talk too loud. The old house is solid—but I don't want Nance to hear."

Jerome the Frenchman glanced greedily at the bread and cheese on the table, and drawing up a chair he pulled out a bottle of schnapps, and began to eat and drink. The taller man smiled, and laid his cloak and hat on a dresser. He stood six feet, held himself arrogantly, and looked down at Durrell out of a pair of hard, brown, closely set eyes. He was clean-shaven, and the skin of his face was harsh and red. His long, straight nose had a curiously drooping tip, and two deep, vertical furrows where it joined his forehead. The man had the air of an aristocrat, and the easy and contemptuous manner of one who has seen too much of life.

"Durrell, I don't like this interlude. What's the fellow's tale?"

"He says that he was chasing horse-thieves, and that one of them shot him down yonder in the lane. Nance found him and brought him in."

"A plague on the women! Pity is the devil! Where was he hit?"

"In the arm."

"Sure?"

"It was bound up with a scarf, De Rothan."

The Chevalier straightened himself, and gave a toss of the head.

"I tell you what I think, Durrell—the man's a spy. I know young Benham. He is just the man they would choose to play a bluff, downright part. They may have suspicions. Who tied up the arm?"

"Nance."

"The devil! There you are! What do you mean by having a pretty daughter! Even if this is no spying trick, the booby may give us trouble. David should have had the job. You never know what a pair of soft eyes and hands will do."

Durrell looked troubled.

"But, Chevalier——"

"Yes, yes; it is accursedly awkward whichever way we look."

Jerome, his mouth full of bread, threw a suggestion into the air.

"Shoot the dog."

De Rothan laughed, sat on the edge of the table, and reached for Jerome's bottle of schnapps.

"You are a wise fellow, Jerome, always loading up against emergencies. But you are a little too rough in your methods. Strategy does it. I shall have my eyes on Mr. Benham."

"A snap of the fingers for him, then," said the Frenchman with a grin.

Durrell brooded, staring at the fire.

"The boat will not come ashore till to-morrow after dark, and then only if we give the signal."

"Yes; you will have to pack us in the attics, and get that fellow out of the house."

"Early."

"And take a ramble to the quarry."

"Yes, yes; no doubt."

Durrell answered irritably, like a man oppressed by a crowd of cares.

"The girl must be asleep by now."

"Very well. Away to the rookery. Bring that bread and cheese along with you, Jerome. I have only talked as yet."

Durrell took the lantern and went out into the passage. He was away for about five minutes. Then they saw him standing in the doorway, beckoning.

The two men drew off their boots and gathered their belongings. They followed Anthony Durrell up the oak stairs to the attic story of Stonehanger House.

IV

Jasper Benham lay on the couch under the window and watched the dawn come up over the sea.

It was a stealthy creeping of tawny light into the sky, a rising of blue hills and headlands, dim, huge, and distant against the broadening East. The vague grey sea became a sheet of amethyst crossed by a band of gold. Birds were piping in the ragged thorn-trees upon Stonehanger Hill. A sense of wonder seemed to sweep across the land, touching the hills with splendour, and leaving the valleys full of a shadowy awe.

The breaking of the day was a relief to Jasper after a restless and pain-haunted night. He had come by odd snatches of sleep, but the starting of the broken arm had always awakened him, and left him at the mercy of his thoughts. The great, grey room, lit by the faint glow of the dying fire, had filled him with restless and unreasoning distrust.

He raised himself slowly on the couch, and his head swam with the fall of the previous night when Devil Dick had thrown him in the lane. Yet faint and dizzy as he was, the view from the window astonished him. From the Stonehanger uplands, wild, furze-clad slopes melted into the green-tinged browns of the April woods. Nearly the whole coast from Hastings to Beachy Head was visible. Pevensey Bay was a great half-moon of silver cutting into the green flats of the Level. The dim blue sky met the dim blue sea. Along the rim of Pevensey Bay were dotted little round pillars, the distant martello towers with the black mouths of their twenty-four-pounders waiting for Napoleon and the French.

Benham knelt on the couch and gazed. He had heard vague movements about the house. A door had opened somewhere, and footsteps descended the stairs.

Then a girl's voice sounded out yonder amid the furze.

"Coop—coop—come along."

Jasper saw her drifting against the dawn, her black hair doubly black, her forearms bare to the elbow, her short skirt showing her feet and ankles. A kind of rough terrace garden, half grass, half paved path, ran along the front of the house. There were rose-beds in the grass, and the two old yews rose blackly above the parapet of the terrace wall. Nance was on the furze-land beyond, where the ground fell away toward the south.

A brown cow came into view. It passed Nance, and, like a creature of habit, followed a path that led to the yard. The girl had turned, and was looking at the windows of Stonehanger. A flight of rough steps went up to the terrace. She mounted them, and crossed the grass toward the windows of the parlour.

Benham, kneeling there, unfastened the lattice and thrust it open. Nance Durrell was quite close, and a kind of warmth went over her face. Her eyes had the dewiness of the dawn.

"You are awake."

"The morning is worth it."

She rested her hands on the window-ledge, and looked in at him with frank intentness.

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry!"

"You have had a bad night of it. I can see that. The arm has been hurting you."

"A little."

"More than a little. Perhaps I did not bind it up tightly enough."

To Jasper Benham her compassion seemed very wonderful. What did it matter to her that he had suffered.

"You could not have done more for me. To tell the truth, I am glad that fellow shot me under the yew."

"How do you manage to be glad?"

"Well—otherwise, I should not have spent a night at Stonehanger, and come by such a friend."

Her red mouth smiled at him, and her eyes were the eyes of a tease.

"If you set out to make all your friends by being shot at—or getting hurt——!"

"I should not go as far as that—for most people."

He laughed, to carry off his rush of earnestness.

"You see, some things are worth bearing. I am not a fool. I say what I mean."

Nance looked at him as though she were puzzled. She dropped her hands from the window-ledge, but her eyes did not avoid Benham's.

"We have sent David off to Rush Heath. I must go and milk Jenny."

He was about to ask her to let him join her when he remembered the locked door. The memory jarred the impulsive delight of the moment. Nance had turned, and he saw her clear profile against the sky. He could find nothing to say to her, and that short silence seemed the fatal break between an enchanted dawn and the prosaic day.

Overhead the lattice of an attic window had been opened noiselessly, and a man's head thrust out. He had been listening to Nance Durrell and Jasper talking at the window below. Nor had the incident pleased him, to judge by the stiff and cynical smile upon his face.

Jasper Benham was still kneeling on the couch when he heard footsteps in the hall, and the sound of the key being turned cautiously in the lock. The door opened, and Anthony Durrell's white head and thin, visionary face appeared in the opening.

"Good morning, Mr. Benham."

Jasper had turned with a queer feeling of distaste.

"Good morning, sir."

Durrell moved in, glancing about the room, and rubbing his hands together.

"I hope that you have had a passable night?"

"I am obliged by all your kindness."

"Do not speak of it, Mr. Benham. In half an hour we will bring you some breakfast. My man has gone off to Rush Heath. If you will excuse me, I will light the fire."

He disappeared, and returned with a bundle of wood, a lighted candle, and some paper. Benham sat on the edge of the couch and watched him. He had grown intensely curious about Mr. Anthony Durrell. The man seemed part and parcel of Stonehanger, with his restless reserve and his sidelong glances.

Durrell knelt down by the hearth.

"A scholar, Mr. Benham, has to do many things with his hands. We who are wedded to knowledge have to serve as menials, not only as priests."

Jasper eyed him reflectively.

"You find Stonehanger a quiet place?"

Durrell glanced over his shoulder, and his pointed chin looked sharp and forbidding.

"Exquisitely quiet, sir, for me and my books. And the rent is low, a matter of consideration to a scholar. I have tried many places in my time—towns, villages, watering-places. Pah! Distractions everywhere. One of the most difficult things in the world, sir, is to get away from noise and from fools."

He had lit the fire when Nance came in carrying a tray full of breakfast things. Anthony Durrell looked at her with a morose hardening of the face.

"Nance, I will set the table. Go and look after the milk and eggs."

He wanted Nance and Jasper Benham apart. The Chevalier de Rothan's hint had been sufficient.

It was nine o'clock when Jack Bumpstead brought the light wagon into Stonehanger yard, with two of Farmer Crowhurst's horses borrowed for the morning. David Barfoot climbed out. The bottom of the wagon was littered with straw.

When Jasper appeared in the yard, with Durrell walking beside him, Jack Bumpstead joggled his hat, and grinned like a man who had had the best of a bargain.

"Mornin', master; glad I be to see ye alive!"

They had helped Benham into the wagon when Nance came into the yard, carrying a faded, chintz-covered cushion. Jack Bumpstead's blue eyes fixed her with the true Sussex stare.

"You must take this cushion. You can put it under your head when you are lying down."

She tossed it into the wagon, and Jasper caught a glimpse of her father's sulky face.

"I'll take the cushion, and return it."

"It's not very new."

"A piece of rubbish, sir. Never waste a man's time sending it back to Stonehanger."

"I may bring it back myself, some day; and this scarf, too."

Durrell looked at him with a grim twinkle.

"I am a bit of a character, Mr. Benham. When I am among my books I sometimes stay among them for days. I have a prejudice against being interrupted, nor can I promise you my company if you call."

It was a blunt hint, bluntly given. Durrell was not fool enough to pretend that a young man would ride five miles to chop logic with a scholar. Nor was Benham fool enough to miss the elder man's meaning.

Jack Bumpstead turned the horses, and the wagon jolted over the stones of the yard. Benham leaned forward as he sat in the straw, and looked at Nance over the lowered tail-board of the wagon. Her eyes seemed to follow his, and she was smiling.

"Good-bye. I shall always be grateful."

He could say no more, because of the sour face of her father.

A dormer window projected from the northern slope of the roof of Stonehanger, and at the window, whose dusty glass rendered anything inside it invisible from without, stood the Chevalier de Rothan. He had cleansed one diamond pane with the tip of a long forefinger, and was looking down with cynical amusement at the scene in the yard. He watched Nance Durrell and he watched Benham, and the ends of his mouth lifted contemptuously.

"Good-day, Mr. Jasper Benham. It may be an unlucky chance that brought you to Stonehanger. Well, we shall see!"

He took a silver snuff-box from his pocket, lifted the lid, and took snuff with elaborate unction, flickering his fingers under his nose.

"If young fools get in a great man's way, they must suffer. Stuck like a lark on a spit, eh! Be damned to you, my Sussex squireling! My pretty Nance, too! I had my eyes on her long before you, my friend. You know me, and yet you do not know me. You may know me better some day, not far hence!"

The man Jerome rose from the edge of a truckle-bed, and came yawning to the window.

"I wonder when the old philosopher will be able to smuggle us up some breakfast. What's all the talk about, monsieur?"

"Jerome, you are a greedy animal. One seldom has a chance to talk to a genius in this world. That is why I so often talk to myself."

"What's that? A wagon going out of the gate."

The Frenchman had spat upon the window, and was cleaning a peep-hole with his thumb.

"Yes; taking a calf home. Do you like veal, Jerome? I have an idea that the calf yonder will never make good beef!"

V

Parson Goffin and old Christopher Benham had dined together, and sat facing each other on either side of the fire.

Kit Benham was past sixty, and had drunk himself into premature dotage. A pursy, ponderous, florid man, he could do little more than sit in his padded chair, smoke interminable pipes, and drink perpetual beer. He was a gross man, who could hardly speak without uttering all manner of quaint and ingenious oaths. Already his legs were swollen with dropsy, and they were propped on a joint stool as he fumed and pulled at his pipe.

"Four horses, Parson; four blazing, burning, heaven-forsaken beasts pinched by eternally accursed, skunk-livered, black-mouthed thieves! My lad shot in the arm, too, and abed, with old Blister of Battle running up a bill! Tell me to be an addle-brained, pond-waterweed of a Christian! Grrrh!"

The great thing about Parson Goffin was his gout. He was a knobbly man, the colour of leather, and he always sat with his knees drawn up and his bumpy feet tucked away under his chair as though he dreaded having them trodden on. Goffin might have been in the habit of using Cayenne pepper in place of snuff, for his nose looked so angry. Gout had made him explosive, yet this explosiveness suited the neighbourhood. It threw him into sympathy with his surroundings, and made him popular with the hot-tongued squires and farmers. Goffin was the very man for a grievance. He took it as a dog takes a rat, crunched it, shook it to and fro, not indeed to kill, but out of sympathy for the aggrieved friend.

"They will catch the rogues, sir; catch them and hang them."

Kit Benham flourished his pipe.

"By old Nick's bones, Parson, that's just what they won't do. We are driven clear crazy by these infernal French. All the oafs in the county are standing and gaping all day at the sea. And all the flea-bitten scoundrels in the county rob and do just as they please."

"Yes, sir; perhaps in this world, sir. But think how they will burn in the next!"

"I should like to see it, Goffin, by all the lies of Ananias—I should like to see it!"

"They'll all sizzle, sir—just like apples."

Christopher Benham expanded his nostrils.

"To smell 'm singeing! Dear heart—I'd be ready to go there myself, surely! Thank God, sir, there is a hell."

"Thank God, sir, indeed. Think of all the thieves there ever were going up in glorious black smoke."

"Don't, sir—don't—Goffin! The thought of it makes me too infernally excited."

"Happy, you mean, sir. Hallo now, I hear wheels on the drive."

A green curricle had swept up past the cedars on the lawn, and drawn up outside the house. Jack Bumpstead came running from somewhere, pulling an eager forelock. A young woman with a rather sallow face, and a short, upturned nose, threw Jack the reins. She had blue eyes that stared, and a quick, masterful manner. A prim little bonnet caressed the neat plaits of her reddish hair.

"Lucky there are any springs left to the carriage, Jack! These by-roads!"

"Ah, miss, you oughtn't to take her off t' main road, sure-ly!"

"Squire Christopher in? And Master Jasper? Yes, I have heard all about it, Jack—all, thank you."

"Parson Goffin be with the squire in the oak parlour."

"Oh, is he! I thought I saw flames coming out of the chimney!"

Into the oak parlour marched this brisk and urgent young woman with her queer blending of piety and worldliness. Parson Goffin rose stiffly and made her a formal bow. Mr. Christopher Benham pointed with his pipe stem at the legs reposing on the stool.

"Laid up, see. Can't move. Goffin can do the bowing. Well, young woman, you look too fat."

"Mr. Goffin, do you agree with my uncle?"

"I never interfere between relatives, Miss Benham."

"Oh, don't you! So Jasper has been getting into the wars. Four horses, was it? Lucky that Devil Dick came back. I hear some people at Stonehanger took pity on Jasper. Durrell or Darrell or Barrell or something. Who are they?"

Christopher Benham looked at her irritably.

"Just like her mother; talks like a water-wheel. Don't ask me, girl, how should I know? Ask the parson, he knows everybody's business."

Mr. Goffin grinned, and showed his tobacco-blackened teeth.

"Durrell is the name, Miss Benham. They are queer folk, I hear. The man is a bookworm, deist, encyclopædist, atheist, anything you like. I don't know much about them. No one does. This Durrell put it about that he wanted to be left alone. He is."

Mr. Goffin took snuff and sneezed, turning his angry nose toward the fire.

"Then it was the girl who picked Jasper out of the road?"

"The girl! Thunder and cabbages, the lad never told us that."

Kit Benham heaved with laughter.

"A girl, was there? Oh, the rogue! I know nothing about it. You had better ask Jasper. May old Nick boil my marrow-bones——"

Rose Benham had her Methodist face—for the moment.

"Uncle Christopher, when will you learn to be clean in your speech?"

"What!"

"It is contemptible, at your age."

"Thunder and lightning, can't I swear in my own house? Here's Goffin, too; he's a good judge of language. You go and see Jasper. He's in bed."

"I will."

She left Parson Goffin and her uncle staring at each other. Then Squire Kit spluttered:

"If that girl hadn't got a thousand a year of her own, hang, draw, and quarter me if I'd——"

"Ssh, sir; ssh! She is your brother's daughter."

"Bah, she's not! She's his cat-faced wife's cat-clawed daughter! They killed poor Nat between 'em with their little goody books and their snuffle."

Rose Benham had climbed the broad stairs, noticing a number of trivial things, such as dust on the bannister rail, and cobwebs in some of the corners. Jasper was lying asleep in the oak four-poster when his cousin knocked at the door.

He woke out of the thick of a dream, to hear Rose's metallic voice calling:

"Jasper, can I come in?"

They had been children together, but no such thing as false modesty would have kept Rose Benham out of her cousin's room. She entered breezily, without a fleck of colour on her cheeks, her blue eyes full of a frank, intimate interest. Three years older than Jasper, she still treated him as a boy.

"This is a nice affair! Getting shot when you are wanted to drill your volunteers on the green of a Sunday. Not that I can call them anything but a lot of waddling ducks. And you have had old Blister Doddington, have you? I hope he was sober. And you are sure he has set your arm properly?"

Her pale-blue eyes and her reddish hair seemed to tone with her brisk self-confidence. Rose Benham knew what she expected of life, and she meant life to satisfy her expectations. Whisking a rush-bottomed chair from a corner, she sat down beside the bed, talking the whole time. She was one of those women who overwhelm the world with words.

"Well, what an adventure! And how does it feel to be picked up out of the road by a young woman? Yes, I have heard all about it."

She laughed her quick, harsh laugh.

"Don't look at me as if such things happened every day! You men, you take everything for granted. And here am I dying to hear all about it. Cousin Rose has a right to know, hasn't she?"

There was a subtle suggestion of ownership in the way she put out a hand and smoothed the pillow. Jasper was not wholly the boy cousin to her. He was the man she had determined to marry.

Jasper looked bothered. Rose had such a way of driving people into a corner.

"There is nothing to tell. One of the rogues waited for me in the dark, and shot me in Stonehanger Lane. They just helped me into the house, and I spent the night there. Jack fetched me in the wagon yesterday morning."

She grew caressing, and a caressing mood never suited her. She was too thin, too hard about the eyes.

"Now, Jasper, you know——"

"What do you want me to tell you, Rose?"

"Why, everything. Dear lad, do you think it is nothing?"

"I'm not dead, or likely to be."

Their eyes met. There was something in Jasper's that repulsed the girl. She stiffened, and withdrew her hand.

"You know, Jasper, these things sometimes come to us from above. They are messages, divine warnings."

It was her doctrinal phase, and she had inherited it from her mother. Jasper glanced at her uneasily, and then stared at the window. He had never realised it so vividly before that Rose talked to him as though he belonged to her.

"It pulls a man up, and makes him think."

"Yes; only men will put off the thinking. Though I don't believe you are that sort of man, Jasper. You are steady, and sensible, and I know you read your Bible."

Jasper turned restlessly on the pillow. Her cool way of discussing him to himself, of approving and disapproving as though she had a kind of authority, had always rather amused him. Whether some new intelligence had come to him in the course of two days, he could not tell. One thing he did know. He had discovered a sudden new significance in his cousin's attitude toward himself.

"I'm afraid I'm a stupid fool, Rose. I still have a head from that bump in the road."

"Poor Jasper!"

Her hand came out, and for the moment there was something very like repulsion in Jasper's eyes.

"Now, I won't chatter any longer. Go to sleep. I will draw the curtains. There, lad. And now I will go and have a talk with Uncle Christopher."

Said Squire Christopher to the parson when the green curricle had driven off along the road across the paddock: "There's a hell-cat for you, Goffin; preach at you or scratch your face—whichever you please. The image of her dear mother. She means to marry lad Jasper."

The parson refilled his pipe.

"What have you to say to that, sir?"

"If Jasper cares to be caught, I shan't meddle. What's more, one woman's very like another. I don't believe in a man marrying the woman he's in love with."

"But, Mr. Benham—sir!"

"What! You don't see how it works? Why, sir, marry a woman you dislike and you will always be in love with some charmer who won't nag your head off. A man ought to go out loving as he goes out hunting; it's a sour, dull sport in your own yard. Poor Nat was ruled by his wife. But Jasper's got grit. Maybe he'd tame Miss Rose. And don't you see, Goffin, there's something in a thousand a year and more to come! You don't expect good looks and a sweet temper when you get so much cash."

As for the two people under discussion, Rose had driven off with a tightly shut mouth and three lines of thought across her forehead, while Jasper lay abed with a chafed and uneasy conscience. Generous men are always inclined to be severe upon themselves, when some unforeseen clash of the emotions makes them look at life very seriously. Jasper was puzzled with regard to Rose, and angry with himself. Had he been blind, and missed seeing things that had been very visible to others?

One thing he did know. He was haunted perpetually by the face and voice of Nance Durrell.

As for Nance herself, the sun shone on her as she sat on the stone parapet of the terrace garden at Stonehanger, and looked toward the sea. Nance had developed a passion for gardening, and had adventurously set herself to grow flowers in that wind-swept upland garden. She had made old David dig her a broad border at the edge of the stone path, and she had searched the overrun garden at the back of the house for stray plants that had managed to survive the weeds. Old David had bought her a few roots from some of the cottages at Rookhurst, and Nance had pansies, sweetwilliams, pinks, foxgloves, lavender, and a few roses ready to bloom in the coming summer. Several clumps of daffodils waved their golden heads in the wind. A rake, a trowel, and a wooden trug lay on the grass beside her. Her hands were brown with soil, and she sat and forgot for a moment that such things as flowers existed.

She was thinking of Jasper Benham, and wondering how he did with his broken arm. His brown face, square jaw, and steady blue eyes had seemed very pleasant to her. Something in him had called to her own youth.

Her father's voice startled her from her reverie. He was looking out of an upper window, the window of his study, the wind blowing his white hair over his forehead.

"Nance."

"Yes, father."

"What are you idling there for, child?"

"I wasn't idling—I was thinking."

"Oh, and what may these most serious thoughts be?"

His morose and peering curiosity puzzled her, but she was quite frank in her answering.

"I was wondering how Mr. Benham is?"

"Tssh—do you call that thinking! Go in and brew me some tea."

VI

Jasper Benham grew very restless those April days, though he moved in a cool, green world, and saw the primroses starring the banks of the paddock, and Squire Kit's Dutch tulips opening their cups of crimson and gold. The "cuckoo's mate" had come, and called plaintively in the oak-trees. The grass in the orchard was the colour of emeralds, and the fruit-buds were opening against the blue.

Jasper was restless, adventurous, obstinate, and Surgeon Doddington protested. He was a little, purplish man with a huge, bald head, who talked very fast and spluttered as he talked. A wag had once watched Surgeon Doddington with extreme attention for fully five minutes, and then explained that he had been waiting to see him blow up.

"Stuff and nonsense, Mr. Benham, I'll not be responsible, not for a moment, not for a moment. Ride that beast of a horse of yours, indeed! Captain Curtiss can drill the men. Your arm's more important than the way twenty bumpkins turn their toes out."

"You are not a patriot, Mr. Doddington!"

"Yes I am, sir—yes I am, sir; but I'm a surgeon, too, sir," and he ended with a sizzle.

It was of no avail. Possibly Jasper needed an excuse, and meant to have one at all costs. Sunday saw him on Devil Dick's back, his arm slung in a red sash, bound for Battle town and the Sabbath parade.

There was quite a gay gathering on the green close to the Abbey gate. The gentry were there, fresh from their pews in church; the "regulars" quartered in the town were there; Captain Curtiss was there on his big white horse. For with Napoleon's great army of invasion camped ready at Boulogne, all Sussex was dotted with red-coats. Each town and townlet had its gallant fellows ready with pikes and firelocks. There were the camps at Brighton and at Eastbourne, and guns gaping everywhere, black muzzles toward the sea. Red-coats were quartered at Hastings, Battle, Pevensey, Hailsham, Lewes, Seaford, Worthing, Arundel, Chichester, and at many places more. Hanoverians had held Bexhill. There were the Yeomanry, the Sea Fencibles, the Fencible Cavalry, the Volunteer corps, and in the west the Duke of Richmond's Volunteer Horse Artillery. All eyes were on the Channel, and many people's hearts were in their mouths.

That April Sunday the volunteers of Battle town and the neighbouring villages were drawn up on the green facing the Abbey gate. An old sergeant of regulars with a lame leg and a peppery red face was limping to and fro. Captain Curtiss sat silently superb upon his big white horse. The gentry chatted and looked important. The lesser folk bunched together in groups and enjoyed themselves in a stolid, staring way.

Near the old-timbered guest-house Rose Benham sat in her green curricle. Dick Mumfit had drawn up his nag beside the curricle, and was showing his teeth, which meant that he was making idiotic puns, and marching out all the stale jokes that had lived a vagrant life for years in the county of Sussex.

"'Tention. Shoulder arms."

Up went the muskets, one of them topped by a disreputable beaver hat.

"Damn 'ee, Sam Mepham, this be t' second time yuv scraped m' noddle wid yer musket. Sergeant! He'll be for shootin' me, sure-ly!"

"Silence in the ranks!"

"He fetched her under m' jaw time afore."

"Silence! Lower that hat. Private Mepham, you're a dashed, flat-footed, camel-backed clod, sir. D'yer hear? Now. Satan help me—did I say 'ground arms'? Of all the——! Now, what are ye all staring at? Lieutenant Benham wid his arm in a sash? Hi, some one bring me a rattle, to keep the poor babies to attention. Just look at the 'reg'lars.' They're laughin' their belts undone."

Patriotism or no patriotism, every one appeared to be laughing save the much-tried sergeant and the stately Curtiss on his white horse. Jasper caught Rose Benham's eyes. She beckoned him to come to her.

"You wicked lad, how dare you be so rash——!"

"Well, I was sick of Rush Heath."

She challenged him with her shallow eyes.

"Now—I know why you came."

"Do you?"

"Yes; but I shall not confess. Me—oh, no. Wouldn't you like to let one of the men hold your horse, and come and rest in the carriage. You won't have to drill the boobies. Look at Jeremy Curtiss. All he has to do is to look grand. Poor old cock-a-doodle-do, there, with the lame foot, does everything."

Jasper was posed. He had no desire to place himself conspicuously beside Cousin Rose.

"I can see better here. I want to see how the men handle their muskets."

"Oh you wicked deceiver. You want all the women to say: 'There's Jasper Benham with his broken arm. Doesn't he look handsome?' I caught Kitty Lavender—you know, the pretty, dark one—simply languishing at you just now."

Jasper said: "Confound Kitty Lavender!"

Then some one intervened. A big bay horse drew up on the other side of the curricle, and a man in black saluted Cousin Rose.

"All the sunshine to you, Mees Benham."

"Why, Chevalier, is it you? What a man for being here, there, and everywhere. Jasper, you know the Chevalier de Rothan."

The two men stared at each other. They had met before in a casual way.

"Mr. Benham—a broken arm, I hear."

His hard, handsome, insolent face had a look of amused tolerance.

"I come to see your brave men drill. And to think that it is against my France! Poor France. Some day I shall return to her. But picture my château; a black shell in mourning. Yes; rightly in black."

He looked grave and melancholy. Rose's eyes wandered over him.

"Still in black, Chevalier?"

"Ah, mam'selle, did I not put on black the day our King was butchered? I wear it still. I shall wear it till the white flag of the Bourbons returns to France. No bastard, upstart emperor for me. I know that even now I might return to France. Honour and pride keep me here, an exile, among charming Englishwomen."

Jasper watched the man, and disliked him in the vague yet vigorous way that one man may dislike another. De Rothan had the casual soaring air that puts other men under his feet. He could be courteous, but there was a taint about his courtesy. You could see the lines about mouth and nostrils that muttered: "These boors of English!" Rose became even more animated.

"I think you are a wonderful man, Chevalier. And do you really wish us to conquer France?"

"Mam'selle, not to conquer, but to free her."

"There is a difference."

"I pray each day of my life that I may see King Louis at Versailles, before I grow too old."

"Too old?"

"Ah, one is not the same at Court."

The sergeant's voice became the dominating sound for the moment.

"You tail-wagging lot of ducks! Stand up! Hup! Bay'nets? Dash me, I wouldn't trust ye with a set of skewers. It 'ud be a bloody business. Wanton damaging o' uniforms. Now we'll charge our pieces. Put some pipe-clay into it."

And so it went on, Captain Curtiss sitting his white horse like a great soldier in a battle-picture, looking whole campaigns, and uttering never a word.

When Jasper took leave of Rose, the Chevalier de Rothan was still in attendance.

"Jasper—now—be careful. Do send us a word. Or come yourself in a few days. I'll give Devil Dick lots of sugar."

"It is very good of you, Rose."

"Silly boy!"

Her eyes flashed at him as he turned his horse.

The Chevalier woke from a studied reverie.

"Mr. Benham, sir, I ride a little your way."

"You do?"

"I will take the charm of your company. Mees Benham, your most devoted servant."

They had ridden no further than Battle church, grey in the midst of its green grass and great elms, when De Rothan glanced significantly at Jasper.

"Mr. Benham, sir, you are a most fortunate young man. A most exquisite lady, your cousin. I offer you my felicitations."

"Sir?"

"Ah, you think me too forward. We French, sir, are less difficult, less reticent. Now in France, Mr. Benham——"

"I don't know what you mean, Chevalier."

"Ah—my good young man!"

He shrugged, and smiled like a grandee.

"These Sussex villages delight me, Mr. Benham. Such red brick, such maturity. They live in the landscape. I assure you I never tire of riding everywhere, and seeing your sweet villages."

Jasper grunted, which was bad manners.

Before long they parted company. And to part company with the Chevalier de Rothan was a considerable event. It justified, even glorified, a whole day's existence.

"Mr. Benham, your very good friend. Au revoir, au revoir."

There was a queer glint in his eyes. It puzzled Jasper like the subtle flash of a clever enemy's sword.

No sooner was he alone than De Rothan allowed himself to seem desperately amused.

"What a world of fools it is! They have swallowed me as the whale swallowed Jonah. 'Ah, Chevalier, sweet Chevalier!' How the tradesmen run after a title."

There was as much Irish blood in him as there was French. In fact, his great grandfather had been as boastful and swaggering a rogue as had ever sailed from Ireland to use his wits and his tongue in France. The Sussex folk knew him as the Chevalier de Rothan, aristocrat and émigré, a wild partisan of the Bourbons, and a wearer of the white cockade. He had taken the Brick House between the villages of Westfield and Sedlescombe, ridden to hounds, entertained the notables, and served them off plate marked with the De Rothan arms. The man seemed to have money.

"Ah, gentlemen," he would say, "I was more fortunate than many of my friends. I not only saved my head, but my plate and my jewels. It is also something to have money in English companies. But I am poor. I make what show I can."

And De Rothan was popular. He could be gay, quaint, and witty. He rode here, there, and everywhere, a man who should have been mistrusted, and yet was not. His French-Irish cleverness carried him along. He could speak English perfectly when he chose, but for effect he played picturesquely with the language, and out-Frenchified the vulgar notion of a Frenchman when he was dealing with half-educated people. A little quixotry was useful. He made much of his ostentation of wearing black, and of his passionate devotion to the Royalist cause. Once he had been seen to weep. He was ready to fight any man who had a good word for Napoleon.

On the outbreak of the war, and especially when the scare of an invasion gripped the country, the French exiles had been compelled to live a certain distance from the sea-coast. But the Chevalier de Rothan had planted himself boldly within four miles of the sea, and no one had interfered with him. He was on excellent terms with the gentlemen who wore the King's uniform, dined with them, betted with them, abused Bonaparte with them, and was allowed to ride in and out of camps and barracks very much as he pleased.

The Brick House lay in a lonely hollow where a stream wound through oak woods, and narrow, secret meadows. A lane led to the house from a by-road. It was a solid, Jacobean house with a brick-walled garden, a big porch, and a stone horse-block at the gate. Two yews, clipped in the shape of peacocks, grew on each side of the main path. De Rothan had settled here with three French servants. He kept two horses, and devoted himself to gardening. He was always ready to talk of his great garden and his orangery in France.

When he returned that Sunday, he left his horse in the stable-yard, and entered the house by the back door.

"Gaston—Gaston——!"

A short, square man appeared in the passage. He had a solid, thundery face, the nose flattened, a black patch over one eye. A red handkerchief tied round his head, and a belt with pistols stuck in it, would have made him an admirable buccaneer.

"Monsieur?"

"I shall sleep lightly to-night, Gaston. Be ready if I should want you."

"I shall be ready."

"Good. I will dine immediately."

When he had dined De Rothan climbed the Jacobean staircase and passed along a gallery to a room at the southern end of the house. It was a big room with an undulating, oak-planked floor, great beams and struts showing in the walls. There were books upon shelves, a reading-lamp and writing-materials on an oak table, and a black wainscot chair with a red cushion to soften the seat.

De Rothan locked the door, and then went to the fireplace where the bricked chimney stood out in the room like a great oven. He took off his coat and laid it on the chair, rolled up the right sleeve of his shirt, and, stooping, thrust his arm well up into the chimney. He took out a brick, laid it on the hearth, wiped the soot from his hand, and groped again. This time he brought out a little metal case. He opened it, and drew out a roll of papers.

Here, in cipher, were the results of his popularity, his wanderings to and fro from village to village. The Chevalier was interested in farming and in the breeding of cattle! Listed here were most of the larger farms in the rapes of Pevensey and Hastings, with a rough estimate of the stock, and of the corn that might be found in the barns. Here were maps, elaborate in detail, showing every road and lane, and points that might have military importance. The number of troops stationed in each town was recorded, and the number of guns in the various forts and batteries along the coast.

De Rothan glanced through these papers, making an alteration or an addition here and there. He sat back in the chair, and smiled.

"Nelson fooled, and a day's fog in the Channel! So little—and yet so much!"

VII

It was stormy weather. The golden-budded oaks shook their branches against a hurrying grey sky. Primroses shivered on the banks, and cold glimmers of wind-swept over the bent grass. A few early swallows skimmed against the stiff south-wester. Everywhere the woods looked gloomy and black.

Up at Stonehanger the furze rolled like a sea as Jasper and Devil Dick climbed out of the valley. Jasper came slantwise up the hill, so that he had a raking view of the terrace and the grey house with its bluff, stern chimneys. The casements shook and glittered. One thin stream of smoke was blown like a pennon from the nearest chimney.

Jasper saw a figure on the terrace, outlined against the sky. It stood there visible between two clumps of thorn-trees, and tossed its arms as though they were blown about by the wind. Its gestures were so wild and passionate that Jasper drew in under the shelter of a furze-covered bank, and watched the distant figure over the tops of the bushes.

It was Anthony Durrell. Benham could tell that by his thin, black figure and white hair. The old man was like a mad poet in a frenzy, or a prophet drunk with the spirit of prophecy. He strode up and down between the thorn-trees, waving his arms, shaking his fists, pointing toward the sea. The fragments of a voice were carried down to Jasper against the blustering of the wind.

"The man's mad!"

He reconsidered the exclamation, out of respect to Nance.

"A bit queer in the head, perhaps! Too much hanging over books. I wonder what he is shouting about? Just like Mad George, the Methodist!"

He rode on, drawing a little toward the left, so that the thorn-trees were between him and Anthony Durrell. For Jasper had not ridden to Stonehanger to waste time on a dry-as-dust scholar. He wanted to make sure of seeing somebody before Anthony Durrell could interfere.

Jasper found a five-barred gate closing the stable-yard from the common. The gate was padlocked, but Jasper put Devil Dick at it, and was over in style. In fact, the horse nearly trampled on old David Barfoot, who bobbed out suddenly from the door of an outbuilding.

"Where be ye a-coming to?"

"Hallo! Good-day to you, Mr. Barfoot. Is your mistress at home?"

David stared, and Benham remembered the old man's deafness. He felt in a pocket, produced the red scarf, and also a silver crown.

He spoke slowly, showed David the scarf, and pointed to the house. David displayed utter stupidity. He held out a brown paw for the scarf.

"No, you old fool! Do you think I have ridden five miles to hand this over to you!"

He pointed toward the house, and then gave David the silver crown.

The man stared at it, scratched his chin, and then pocketed the money. He threw up his hairy face suddenly, and shouted:

"It's Miss Nance you be wanting?"

"All right, all right, don't tell the whole county!" and he nodded.

"She be'unt in."

"Oh?"

"She be gone over yonder, down to the oak wood for primroses."

David was not such a cross-grained old fool, after all.

"You'd better go round by t' lane. It'll take ye out on t' common."

Jasper smiled at him, leapt Devil Dick over the gate again, struck round by the grey wall of the garden at the back of the house, and found a gap in the hedge leading through into the lane.

"I am in David's debt," thought he. "Mr. Durrell can play the windmill yonder so long as he pleases."

The lane brought Jasper out on to the common where he could see the oak wood as a brown and purplish mass beyond the tumbling green of the wind-swept furze. Something red was moving along the edge of the wood like a spark creeping along tinder. It was the red hood that covered Nance's black curls.

Jasper thrilled on the edge of an adventure. He rode down the hill, and met Nance in a winding grass-way between the furze bushes. She was carrying a rush basket full of primroses, with a bunch of purple orchids thrust into one corner.

"Mr. Benham!"

The exclamation was as obvious as Jasper's satisfaction at seeing her.

"David told me you were down in the wood."

"David! How did you make him understand."

"Oh, somehow. I have brought you back your scarf."

He dismounted, looped Devil Dick's bridle over his sound arm, and set himself beside Nance. Her eyes sent a hovering glance over his face. An immense seriousness seemed to possess him. His square jaw, firm mouth, and blue eyes might, have belonged to a man who was about to lead a forlorn hope. Yet the whole truth of it was that he had been attacked by violent and absurd shyness.

"How is the arm?"

"Mending. Surgeon Doddington admired the way you had bound it up."

"Did he?"

"Yes. By the way, I have forgotten that cushion. I must bring it back some other time."

He glanced at Nance, and the frank flash of laughter in her eyes helped him to climb out of the slough of his own shy seriousness.

"It sounds very simple, doesn't it?"

"What?"

"To make a cushion an excuse."

"An excuse for what?"

They looked at each other again, and laughed, with the incipient mystery of the thing creeping into their blood. The wind blew the golden-flowered furze against the grey sky. Even this stormy day seemed glorious.

"I wanted to come to Stonehanger."

"Did you! Well, why not?"

"Yes, why not! And just for the same reason I'm going to call you—Nance."

She looked straight before her with a sudden self-conscious stiffening of the face. It was as though some strange new thought had touched her, and startled her into introspective silence.

"Is this your horse—Devil Dick?"

"Yes."

"And the other horses? Were the thieves caught?"

"No. They got clean away. It is a rogue's country."

"What a shame!"

She looked past Benham toward the sea where faint white smudges showed up against the greyness of the horizon. They were the sails of ships in the Channel. The boom of a distant gun came to them on the wind.

Nance stood at gaze.

"Is anything happening out there?"

"Only a signal-gun from somewhere."

"I wonder if the French will ever come?"

"I wonder!"

They moved on again toward Stonehanger, Nance looking at Jasper a little shyly.

"You are a soldier, are you not?"

"A lieutenant of volunteers. Nearly all the gentry are serving in one way or another."

"You wore a soldier's red-coat that night. If the French land it will be a terrible thing for us all."

"It may be more terrible for the French."

"But Napoleon! Who have we to put against him? And they say the French are such ruffians; think of having them quartered on us, and doing just as they please. I sometimes start awake at night and think I hear the sound of guns."

"Do you?"

"Stonehanger is such a windy old place. It is the sound of the wind in the chimneys."

Jasper looked at her gravely.

"I can promise you and your father an early warning should the French land. All the country folk will be hurried away inland with the cattle and the corn."

"I don't think I should be afraid when the danger actually came."

"No, I know you wouldn't."

"But it is the waiting, a tense feeling in the air like there is before a thunderstorm."

They came in sight of the terrace of Stonehanger. Anthony Durrell was still there, pacing up and down, and waving his arms. Nance watched him a moment, and then glanced at Jasper.

"Father has his restless moods."

"The times worry him?"

"No, I don't think it is that. He just stares when I speak of Napoleon and the French, as though I were telling him some absurd tale. He often walks up and down the terrace and makes long speeches in Greek or in Latin. I think the words are to him what music is to other people."

Jasper's presence did not seem to trouble her. She took the path that ran along the foot of the terrace, and Benham had no choice but to follow her. He was too honest a man to think of shirking Anthony Durrell. The scholar was standing by one of the yew-trees, one arm raised, head thrown back, when he caught sight of Nance and Benham. He remained thus for a moment, mouth open, eyes set in a stare. Then his arm fell abruptly, and an irritable frown wiped the finer fervour from his face.

Jasper raised his hat to the old man.

"Good day to you, Mr. Durrell."

"Good day to you, sir."

His face seemed to narrow with sharp severity, and with scorn. He stared at Jasper as an eagle might eye a jay.

"I rode over to return the scarf Miss Durrell lent me."

"You might as well have kept the rubbish, Mr. Benham. Nance, I have been waiting for you. There are several papers of notes to be copied into the manuscript book."

Nance looked at him questioningly.

"Perhaps—Mr. Benham——"

"Mr. Benham is waiting to be off. We must not keep him. It will rain in half an hour; the wind is dropping."

Nance went up the steps to the terrace, and turned to glance, half-humourously, at Jasper.

"It is one of father's whims," her eyes said to him.

Jasper mounted his horse. He was angry, and a little puzzled.

"Mr. Durrell, sir, I need hardly speak to you of the danger that threatens all of us. As a friend I can promise you an early warning, and a place in our wagons if the French should land."

The elder man stared, and seemed to breathe through scornful nostrils.

"Mr. Benham, I am obliged to you. But I have always managed my own affairs. I wish you good day."

He turned and followed Nance who was walking toward the house. Jasper watched him, and saw his narrow, black figure disappear round the grey angle of the house. Nor was he in the sweetest of tempers as he rode on through the waving furze.

The wind dropped somewhat toward nightfall, and howled less in the Stonehanger chimneys. Nance went to bed early, her face troubled and a little sad. Her father had been morose, reticent, and strange, and she had caught him watching her from his chair beside the fire.

It was near midnight when Anthony Durrell put down the book he was reading, listened a moment, and then went to the porch door. He rapped on it gently with his knuckles. The rap was answered from without.

Durrell opened the door, and the Chevalier de Rothan stepped into the hall.

"Well, sir, any news?"

"Only that young Benham has been here."

"The devil! There will be trouble between me and that young man."

VIII

Anthony Durrell had brought the candle from the parlour. That stately person De Rothan lowered his dignity to the cautious level of drawing off his boots before following Durrell up the stairs.

Nance's room was at the western end of the long upper gallery. De Rothan and the scholar had to pass the door of the girl's room, for the stairhead lay close to it. They were within three steps of the landing when Durrell heard the lifting of a latch.

Instantly he blew out the candle, and, reaching back in the darkness, thrust De Rothan gently backward.

"Is that you, father?"

Nance had opened her door an inch or two, but no light showed.

"Yes, child. Some one must have left the window open at the end of the gallery. The draught has blown out my candle."

"I thought I heard voices, and the sound of some one moving."

"Rubbish! You ought to be asleep. I was reciting Virgil to myself. Go to bed, child."

"Shall I get you a light?"

"No, no—go to bed. I know the house as well in the dark as I do in the daylight. I can go downstairs if necessary, and get a light at the fire."

"Good night, father."

"Good night, child."

Nance's door closed, and the two men passed along the gallery, Durrell holding De Rothan by the arm. The scholar's study was at the eastern end of the house. There were three rooms between it and Nance's, all of them empty and unfurnished, the keys rusting in the locks.

Durrell opened the door of his study, and led De Rothan in.

"What possessed the girl——?"

"Lucky you blew out the light. It would have been uncommonly awkward. Explanations—to women—always are awkward."

They spoke in whispers, and Durrell closed the door.

"I have a tinder-box on my table."

"Good."

There was the sound of some one moving cautiously about the room, and the thud of books falling to the floor. The flint and steel rang against each other, and sparks dropped on to the scorched linen in the tinder-box. A minute passed before Durrell got one of the sulphur matches alight. He shaded it with his hand, and carried the flame to the candle.

"That's better, Durrell. What a howling, wind-swept hell this house of yours is! I suppose Miss Nance will play us no tricks? She suspects nothing?"

"Nothing."

"Wakefulness! Shall we put it down to Mr. Benham?"

Anthony Durrell's room was crowded with books. A truckle-bed stood in one corner, looking meagre, thin, and austere. A mahogany washstand and a Dutch high-boy were squeezed in between the bookcases. The brown volumes possessed the place. They were laid like stepping-stones upon the carpetless floor, massed like buttresses against the walls, even stacked beneath the bed and table. Black curtains were drawn across the window, and hung by two straps from the narrow sill was a seaman's telescope.

The Chevalier caught his toe against a huge brown rock of a book.

"Pardon, fat fellow!—Have you read them all, Durrell? Books, books, books! Heaven help us! What did a man ever get out of a book? Has any book ever helped me to swagger, handle a sword, spend money, live gallantly, love a woman? Books, sir, are for the poltroons. They are the broken meats thrown to the wretches who stand outside the gate of life and beg."

Durrell gave one of his grim looks.

"It is strange that such a chatterbox should be trusted with such secrets."

"Good—good for you.—What's the time?"

He pulled out a watch and scanned it by the light of the candle.

"Psst, Durrell; we are due to show our first flash in five minutes. Where's the lamp? Hurry, hurry!"

Durrell went to a cupboard in the wall, and brought out a brass lamp fitted with an Argand burner. He set it on the table, lit it, and turned the wick up cautiously.

"Will they be out to-night? It's rough."

"So much the better. Jerome is no fair-weather smuggler. You had better put two or three of your precious books under the lamp. I will work the curtain."

Durrell busied himself with the lamp, and De Rothan walked to the window. He kept his watch in one hand, and held the bottom of one of the black curtains with the other.

There was a short silence. Then De Rothan glanced sharply at the scholar.

"Ready?"

"Yes."

De Rothan drew the curtain aside, and left the window uncovered for about twenty seconds.

"Jerome will have been on the lookout for that. We must wait half an hour for the next. No one is likely to pick up our signals when a window happens to be lighted for twenty seconds at intervals of half an hour."

"A mere casual flash of light. I have let people know that I work late into the night."

De Rothan looked round for a chair, and found a rush-bottomed stool by one of the bookcases.

"So Master Benham has been here? Dissolute young dog."

Anthony Durrell lifted a scornful head.

"Dissolute?"

"One of the most profligate young rogues in the county. I hear all the gossip. There's hardly a pretty wench—well, you know, Durrell. Engaged to marry his cousin, too!"

"Poor young woman."

"She is no fool. Has a thousand a year of her own, and a mouth like a man-trap. She will lead Mr. Benham a godly, straight-up-and-down life. Meanwhile the youngster must not be allowed to hang round here."

Durrell picked up a book, glanced at it, and then threw it back upon the table. His austere face had a kind of hard pride.

"A scholar need not be an owl, De Rothan."

"My good sir, did I suggest it? But sweet Nance has a lonely life here. Not much youth comes her way. And these young rakes, Durrell, have an honest, stage-hero way with them."

"I shall see to Mr. Benham."

"You may need me, sir. Faith, it seems strange that I should be here in this house once a week, and Miss Nance know nothing of it. Look you, Durrell, I'm an old friend of yours; I might pay a few open and friendly calls. I have a fatherly way with young women."

Durrell looked at him ironically. De Rothan met his eyes, and laughed.

"You think I might be as bad as young Benham? Tssh! Nance is a girl for a man to marry, and to think himself a lucky dog. I tell you, Durrell, I will pay a state call next week. Come now; we must keep an eye on the time. Jerome should have news for us. I have a packet of cipher to give him."

Anthony Durrell appeared restless and preoccupied. He began sorting and arranging some of the books that were piled against the wall. De Rothan watched him with just the faintest glimmer of contempt. This fanatic, filled with visions of a regenerated world state, was something of an enigma to the Frenchman. Durrell was a man of Miltonic dreams, austere, fervid, morose. In Bonaparte he saw a foredestined Angel of Wrath who should smite the crowns from the heads of tyrants. His work done, the man Napoleon would disappear. Liberty would stand among the peoples, holding her fiery sword aloft, her mouth full of prophetic and noble words. The world would become a new world. Kings and princelings would cease to strut and bully. The golden age of brotherhood and equality was at hand. Anthony Durrell believed all this, and yearned so fervently for its consummation that he was ready to whisper with spies in a corner. For himself he desired nothing but the right to live, and speak and write as he pleased. This disinterestedness of his made De Rothan despise him a little. The Chevalier saw visions, but they were the visions of a man who valued such material things as titles, and orders, palaces, estates, the pride and pomp of power. Durrell's fanaticism was useful to him. As for these broad English lands, he might find himself choosing which he should own and enjoy. The earth for the people—indeed! De Rothan knew better. He had no intention of sitting down on the same bench with half a score born fools.

De Rothan glanced at his watch, and returned to the window.

"It is time for the second signal."

The black curtain did its work once more.

"Cover up the lamp—now, Durrell. I will see if I can catch Jerome's answer."

Durrell carried the lamp to the cupboard, turned the wick low, and shut the door. De Rothan had opened the lattice, and was looking out into the night, the wind blowing in and tossing the black curtains behind him.

He spoke in a whisper.

"He's yonder."

"At sea?"

"I caught the two flashes. Jerome will land when we show him a third light. This smuggling game is accursedly useful."

"A means to an end."

"It makes half the county our dupes. Think of it, sir, all these greedy, spirit-swindling fools helping us to bring in the French bayonets."

Both men stood at the window and stared out into the windy darkness. Intent upon watching the black horizon they had not heard the soft, gliding tread of bare feet along the gallery. Nance had been standing for some minutes outside her father's door, a dim, white figure that faltered on the edge of a discovery.

Once she had raised her hand to knock, but the sound of that other voice had paralysed her. Who was the man who talked to her father? Why was he there? How had he come into the house? The voice seemed vaguely familiar. She had heard it before, but she could not remember where.

Perplexed, and a little afraid, she crept back to her room, closed the door gently, and, slipping back into bed, drew the clothes up over her knees. For a while she sat there in the darkness, listening. The wind blustered in the chimneys, and to Nance the grey house had become eerie and cold. Questions that she could not answer importuned her in the darkness. Her father was concealing something from her, and the thought hurt her and filled her with vague unrest.