Front matter (continued 8)

"My dear, of course I'm sure. I came along behind you. I saw it all. It was that young dog, Dick Stevens. I know him well, never did like him; and I'm sure he deserved all he got, probably more. Now you mustn't worry yourself any longer. Leave it all to old Mother Wright and go to deep! Will you, my dearie?"

"You're sure Charlie is safe?" Maud said quiveringly. "He--he was coming--don't tell Jake!--to see me to-day. But he didn't come. And I thought--I thought--Oh, are you sure Jake isn't listening?"

She broke off in sudden terror, starting up as if she would tear aside the curtain. But Mrs. Wright was swift to interpose.

"My dear, you mustn't upset yourself like this. It's very wrong. What if Jake did know? Surely he would understand. He would know that there could be no reason why Lord Saltash should not drop in and see you in a friendly way now and then. Didn't you tell me you were old friends?"

"Oh, you don't know Jake!" moaned Maud. "He is so terrible--so terrible. He would shoot Charlie--if he knew!"

"My dear!" Mrs. Wright was genuinely shocked. She threw a sharp glance towards the curtain. "But there is no reason! There can be no reason! You're talking wildly. You can't know what you're saying."

Maud had sunk back upon her pillows, white-lipped, exhausted. "There is a reason," she whispered. "There is a reason! I love Charlie. I have loved him for years. And Jake--Jake would kill him if he knew. He does know--a little. That's why--why I am so--afraid. Oh, I wish--I wish I were--dead!"

She ceased to speak, and a dreadful pallor crept up over her face. Mrs. Wright, anxiously watching, saw that she was slipping into unconsciousness, and across the bed she issued a sharp command.

"Quick, Jake! Go and fetch the doctor!"

The shadow behind the curtain vanished. Mrs. Wright reached for a fan. The heat was intense. The darkness hung before the window like a pall. And the good woman trembled a little in spite of herself. She felt as if the Angel of Death had suddenly entered the quiet room to share her watch.

CHAPTER XII

REFUGE

"So you've come to see your old uncle at last! Dear me, you've been a precious long time about it. Tut, tut, child, what a clothes-peg to be sure! Sit down. Sit down! You don't look fit to stand."

Old Uncle Edward pulled out a chair from his dining-room table and almost thrust his visitor into it. Then he turned, seized a decanter, and poured some wine into a large old-fashioned glass goblet.

"You drink this! It's good stuff--older than you are. It'll turn to blood in your veins, and a good thing too. You look as if you hadn't got more than a thin half-pint in the whole of your constitution. There! That's better. Don't be afraid of it! Don't be afraid of it! Take another dose before you start talking! I know what you women are once your tongues get going. Take another dose, I say! You're looking half-dead. What have they been doing to you? Starving you?"

His grey whiskers seemed to bristle with indignation as he asked the question; his eyes glared at her like the eyes of a terrier on the hunt. Maud sat in the red velvet chair with a feeling of vast unreality. It was true that she was feeling almost too weak to stand, and her weakness imparted to her an odd desire to cry. The gruff kindliness of her reception made her feel like a lost child brought home to a kind but somewhat severe parent. She drank the wine in almost unbroken silence.

Uncle Edward stood looking on, sternly critical. "So you've been ill, have you? I can see you have. Poor girl, poor girl! Well, we must see what we can do, to get you strong again. And you haven't brought your young brother along? How is he? Quite cured?"

"Yes, quite cured." Maud put out a hesitating hand and somewhat shyly slipped it into her uncle's. "He is quite cured," she said, forcing a difficult smile. "And he would have come too--it was so good of you to ask him--only it is September, and the school will soon be opening; and it seemed a pity not to let him go at the beginning of the term. We all thought so."

Uncle Edward grunted as if not wholly pleased. But his old knotted fingers closed very kindly about her own. "So your good husband is going to pay for his schooling, is he? That's very generous of him--very generous, indeed. He's a man of property, is he,--your Jake?"

A quick flush rose in Maud's upturned face; she averted it swiftly. "I don't know. He seems to be able to do anything he likes. He--he is very kind to Bunny."

Uncle Edward grunted again. "Well, and how do you amuse yourself, now that the all-important Bunny is off your hands? I suppose you play the busy housewife, do you?"

Maud uttered a faint laugh as forced as her smile had been. "Oh no. I don't do anything. There is an old woman who cooks and does everything. I really can't think of anything that I do. Of course lately--just lately--I haven't been able to do things. But everything goes very well without me."

Uncle Edward squeezed her hand and released it. "You've too humble an opinion of yourself, my dear. Most women get uppish when they marry. I don't as a rule like young married women for that reason. They think all the world stands still to admire 'em. But you--well, you're different. You and I will get on together."

He smiled upon her so suddenly and so genially that she felt as if a burst of sunshine had warmed her tired soul. She lifted her face with a gesture that was half-instinctive, and he stooped at once and kissed it.

"You're a very pretty young woman," he said, patting her cheek paternally. "At least you might be, if you weren't so painfully thin. You've been very ill, I can see. You're hardly fit to travel alone now. Why didn't you tell me? I'd have come and fetched you if I'd known."

"Oh, I didn't travel alone," she said. "I had Dr. Capper with me. I shouldn't have come so soon but for him. He was going to the docks, and he offered to bring me and take care of me. He knew how dreadfully I wanted to get away."

"And who may Dr. Capper be?" Uncle Edward demanded grimly.

"He is a very great American surgeon--a friend of Jake's. He was with us when--when I began to be ill. And--and I have been in his hands ever since." Maud spoke haltingly. "He is a very kind man," she said. "I don't think I should have lived if it hadn't been for him. He made me live."

"Oh, he's one of your quacks, is he?" Uncle Edward spoke with a mighty contempt. "Well, I thank Heaven I've never called in a doctor all my life, and I consider it's one of the chief reasons why I've lived so long. People think a deal too much about their health nowadays. The world is getting neurotic. Plenty of fresh air and exercise, and good wholesome food. That's my motto. No beastly doctors' messes for me. Now that man of yours, he's a healthy animal, I'll be bound. I liked the looks of him, and the ways of him too. A bit off-hand, but straight and clean. He's been good to you, has he?"

He shot the question with an abruptness that found Maud wholly unprepared. She made an involuntary movement of shrinking.

"Oh, that's it, is it?" said Uncle Edward. "He's been high-handed, I gather. Just what I expected. If a man doesn't make love to a woman before he marries her, he'll never be bothered to after. Silly fool! Silly fool! Still, you might have done worse. Don't take him too seriously, my dear! Tip him off his perch if he crows too loud!"

Maud smiled her faint sad smile and rose. "I am not complaining of anyone, Uncle Edward. You mustn't jump to conclusions. And you mustn't call Dr. Capper a quack, for he has healed Bunny. Now, may I please go up to my room? I know you are busy, and I shall be glad to rest for a little if I may."

"Go by all means!" said Uncle Edward. "You're to do exactly as you like in this house. Consider the whole show at your disposal! Come and go exactly as you will!" He drew her to him abruptly and kissed her a second time. "Be happy, my dear!" he said. "Be happy! You won't be young always, and there's not much fun to be had when you're old--specially if you're alone. But you'll never be that, please Heaven. You'll have your children and your children's children growing up around you--even when you're old."

He paused, holding her, for Maud had suddenly hidden her face against his shoulder. "I can't look forward--like that," she whispered. "I often think--that I'd rather--live alone."

There was a pathos in her words that bordered upon tragedy. Uncle Edward thrust a protecting arm about her, rasping his throat as if something had made it smart. "Tut, tut!" he said. "You wouldn't enjoy it for long. There's precious little fun in the lonely life, I can tell you, for I know. I sit here on a Sunday and listen to the quiet till even the racket of a dog-fight would be welcome. We're all the same, I expect; wanting what we haven't got instead of making the best of what we have. I should think the Almighty must smile sometimes at the very contrariness of us."

He patted her shoulder as she lifted her head, looking at her with his keen grey eyes that held humour as well as sympathy.

"You'll have plenty of solitude in this establishment, anyhow," he said. "You can soak yourself in it all day long. There's a library that may amuse you, but that's all I can offer in the way of entertainment."

"Oh, I don't want entertainment," Maud assured him.

"You're singularly unlike your mother," was Uncle Edward's comment.

He did not ask her how her mother was faring, and she did not feel that the moment for speaking of her affairs had arrived. There was a touch of the formidable about the old man, all his kindness to her notwithstanding; and she felt too tired and ill for a difficult discussion. She wanted to lie down and rest for a long, long time.

This visit to Uncle Edward meant deliverance to her from a yoke too heavy to be borne. All through her illness she had yearned for, striven for, this escape; and because of this intense longing of hers, Capper, realizing that disappointment could but retard her progress, had set himself to further her desire.

Jake had offered no opposition to it. She had scarcely seen Jake since the night of the races, and not once had they been alone together. He had bidden her farewell that morning in Capper's presence briefly, almost coldly. There had not been even so much as a touch of hands between them at parting. He had got into the carriage after them, it was true, and had wrapped a rug about her knees; but he had done it without any personal solicitude or show of sympathy. Only at the very last, just as the train started, had he looked her in the face; and then as it were half against his will he had turned his eyes upon her.

And the memory of that look had gone with her throughout the journey; it was to haunt her for many days with a strange poignancy. For the red-brown eyes had held no mastery, no passion, only a dumb misery that had somehow gone to her heart. Why had he looked at her like that? Why was he so unhappy? Had he wanted to speak to her and failed for lack of words? Did he blame himself at all for what had happened? Did he desire in any way to make amends?

She had thought that to escape from his proximity would have been sheer relief, but now that she actually found herself free from all possibility of seeing him she was curiously perturbed by the thought of him. She had an odd little regret that she had not waved a hand to him as the train had borne her away. Just a friendly wave to show him that she harboured no resentment any longer! She might have done it, but for an overpowering shyness that had prevented any expression of farewell. Ill though she was, ill and weary, she could have made him that sign of friendship and been none the worse for it.

But reserve had held her back. It towered between them, a barrier more insurmountable than it had ever been before. And behind that reserve her whole being crouched in fear. For she had begun to tell herself over and over, over and over, like a panic-stricken child, that once away from him she could never return, never, face again that which she had faced.

Possibly he had begun to realize this also; possibly that was why he had looked at her so. Would he accept it as inevitable, she wondered? Would he, now that she had dragged herself free for a space from a bondage unendurable, be merciful and let her go altogether?

There was her promise. Oh yes, there was her promise. But might not that promise now be regarded as fulfilled? She had striven to do her duty, but it had proved too hard for her. Surely he must see that now! Surely he could not wish to hold her any longer against her will! The thought tortured her. She was like a hunted creature in a temporary refuge all exits from which were barred. If she made a final dash for freedom and the open, she would almost certainly be trapped.

Against her will the thought of Charlie went through her like a flaming sword;--Charlie who had sworn to be a friend to her--Charlie from whom she had not heard one single word since that awful day that she had awaited him in vain. No one had spoken to her of him, but that he was no longer at the Castle she was fairly convinced. He had, as it were, darted like a fire-fly into her ken and out of it again. But he would return. She was sure he would return. And when he came--what then? What then?

She did not ask herself why he had gone in that sudden fashion. It was so characteristic of the man that she saw nothing in it. That there had been no encounter between him and Jake she was now certain. Perhaps he had gone away for her sake in order to avert Jake's suspicion. His complete silence seemed to point to this. But it was quite useless to speculate. His ways were past understanding, so vague was her knowledge of the motive that governed his actions.

Meanwhile the problem of her mother's difficulties remained and was becoming more and more acute. The place had been mortgaged by Sheppard to Saltash's predecessor who had had a fancy for possessing the whole of Fairharbour; and the affairs of the landlord of the Anchor Hotel had been on the downward trend ever since. Occasionally a good season would arrest this decline for a space; but good seasons were becoming more and more rare. Giles Sheppard sought consolation too often in his cellars, and the management was no longer what it had been. Regular visitors were beginning to desert him in consequence, and the downward slope was rapidly becoming precipitous. Saltash's man of business was tightening his hold, and Sheppard's tenure of the place was becoming week by week more uncertain.

All of this Maud knew. Her mother was growing desperate. Her life, it seemed, had been nothing but a series of misfortunes, and this threatened to be the greatest of them all. Giles had deceived her outrageously, and now that he had secured her he cared for her no longer, save when his frequent libations rendered him tipsily amorous. Something of a vixenish nature was beginning to develop in Mrs. Sheppard. She was no more the gentle, plaintive creature she had been. She had once--and only once--approached Jake on the subject of financial help. Maud was unaware of this. Jake's reply had been perfectly courteous but uncompromisingly firm. He would give Mrs. Sheppard shelter, if she ever needed it, but he would have nothing to do with her husband or his affairs. Mrs. Sheppard had turned from him with a bitter look that had said more than words. And since that day she had steadily avoided all intercourse even with her daughter, declaring herself far too busy to get as far as the Stables.

Maud had not needed her; but none the less she was uneasy about her. She wished she knew where Charlie was; but she could not risk sending a letter to the Castle. There seemed to be nothing more she could do. She had begun to tell him of her trouble. He knew she needed help. Possibly even he might without further persuasion refrain from carrying matters to extremes. She had mentioned her mother to him. He must have understood. He would surely remember her distress.

And yet whenever her thoughts turned towards him the memory of Jake's words awoke within her, tormented her: "Trust him, and he will let you down,--sure." Why had he spoken so certainly? What did he know of Saltash and his ways? Was it possible--could it be--that he knew a side of Charlie's whimsical nature that had never been presented to her? Or was she so blind that she had failed to perceive it? It was true that in the old days he had failed her, he had wavered in his allegiance. But he had come back. He had come back. Always she remembered that. And because he had come back, her heart had warmed to him again, against her will, against her judgment, even in spite of every instinct. He belonged to her; that was the thought that flashed with such a burning intensity through her soul, the thought that refused utterly to be stifled or put away. He belonged to her and to none other, trifle or intrigue as he might. She was his fate. How often he had said it! And so he would return. She was sure he would return. And when he came--what then? Ah, what then?

CHAPTER XIII

THE LAMP BEFORE THE ALTAR

Life at Uncle Edward's was as he had predicted a very quiet affair indeed, but Maud slipped into it very easily, with a sense of comfort at her heart. It had a healing effect upon her. It stilled the fevered unrest of her spirit. It was all so well-ordered, so methodical. It soothed her, gave her a sense of normality and peace. Her physical strength came back to her with a rapidity that surprised herself, and with its return she found herself beginning to look upon the world with new eyes, found herself able to thrust dark thoughts and problems into the background, found herself at rest.

At Uncle Edward's suggestion, she wrote once a week to Jake. It was not easy to write, but when her uncle remarked that the young man would probably come tearing hell-for-leather across England to find out what was the matter if she didn't, she deemed it the wiser course to follow. Her letters were very brief, very formal, and the letters she received in reply were equally so. She was sure that they were penned in that cheerless little den of his that faced north and overlooked the stable-yard.

Bunny's letters were very few and far between. He was completely engrossed with the thought of the new life at school upon which he was about to enter, and it was very plain to Maud that he missed her not at all. The fact had ceased to hurt her as poignantly as when she first discovered it. Empty though her life was, she had learned by degrees to do without him. She was learning day by day to endure that emptiness with patience, for by some secret instinct she knew that it would not be her portion for ever.

Not far from her uncle's house, at the corner of a busy street, there stood an old grey church. The doors were always open, and one day she dropped in to rest.

It was the first visit of many. The place was infinitely peaceful, full of silence and soft shadows. A red light burned ever before the altar, and there were always beautiful flowers upon it, white lilies that never seemed to fade. She loved to draw near and smell the incense of those flowers, to gaze upon their shining purity, to feel with awe that the ground beneath her feet was holy.

She did not often turn her eyes upon the lamp that burned so still and red. It was always the flowers that drew her, the fragrance of them that comforted her soul.

Once, on a golden afternoon in mid-September, she came in late and stayed for the evening service; and then it was that, sitting in the body of the church, she found herself gazing, gazing, not at the flowers, but at the red, mystic flame that burned unflickering before the altar. It reminded her of something, that still red flame,--something that made her want to flee away and hide. It came between her and her prayers. It lay in wait for her in her dreams.

And yet when Sunday evening came and Uncle Edward prepared to sally forth alone, she put forward a tentative suggestion that she should accompany him.

He was delighted with the proposal, and as they fared forth together, his horny old hand was on her arm, making her glad that she was with him.

They sat near the door, and she was secretly relieved. In the glare of many lights all down the body of the church, the gleam of that one red light was swallowed up and she saw only the flowers. It was a beautiful service--a harmonious whole in which no individual note was struck. The man who officiated was young and very quiet, and not till he ascended the pulpit was she aware of anything out of the ordinary in his personality. It came to her then instantaneously, like a flash-light piercing her soul. He struck no attitudes, made no visible attempt to gain the attention of his audience; but it was fully his from the moment he began to speak. He preached, not as one delivering a discourse, but with the absolute simplicity of a man who speaks from his heart. "Let your lights be burning," were the words he first uttered, and then without preamble he began to talk of Love--Love Divine, Unconquerable, Eternal--Love that stoops but is never small--Love that soars, but is never out of reach. He spoke of the great warfare of the spirit, of the thousand difficulties holding back the soul. And he declared that Love was the one great weapon to meet and overcome them all. "We do not know the power of Love," he said. "We only know that it is invincible and undying--the very Essence of God." He spoke of spiritual blindness, and swept it aside as nought. "We may not all of us be able to believe; but we can all have Love. Nothing counts in the same way. However blind we may be, we can keep that one lamp burning in the darkness, burning in the desert, giving light to the outcast, and guiding the feet of the wanderers."

It was while he was speaking thus that the lights in the body of the church went down and the red flame before the altar shone clear and unchanging in the gloom. Maud's eyes were drawn instantly to it, became riveted upon it. She sat with bated breath, almost as one who watched a miracle. And by some strange telepathy the man in the pulpit became aware of it also. He turned towards it.

"Look at that light!" he said. "It is kept burning perpetually, the symbol of undying worship, undying Love. Everyone may keep such a light as that burning always. The spark is ours for the kindling. It may be placed before the Altar of an Unknown God. But none the less is it offered to His Glory and immortal. It is not faith or hope that the soul needs above all things. It is Love, the power to love, and the power to create love--the will to offer love perpetually before the Altar of Love. It is only love that counts in the long run, only love that survives. There may be a thousand other things around us when we die, good and evil, but the only thing we shall carry with us beyond is that lamp that we have always kept burning before the altar and never suffered to go out. It is no easy thing to keep it always burning in this world of many failures. It is bound to flicker sometimes, even to die down; but while we live, the power to revive it is still ours, the power to worship God with love." He paused a moment, turned slowly back to face the dim nave, and then very quietly he gave utterance to words that Maud was never to forget. "We all want Love, hunger for it, starve for it. Our lives are mere ash-heaps without it. But do we all realize that love is only gained by love, that we must pour out all we have to win it, that we must purge our hearts of all selfish desire, sanctify ourselves by self-sacrifice, by the complete renunciation of self, before the perfect gift can be ours? Love is a joyful sacrifice. There are people whom everyone loves. They are the people who realize what Love means, who give and give, without measure, not counting the cost, rejoicing only in the power to give, till it all comes back to them a thousandfold. It is then that the ploughman overtakes the reaper, for ploughman and reaper are one."

When Maud lay down that night, those words were still running in her mind. That unstinted giving, that measureless pouring out, that utter sacrifice, were these indeed the means by which the desert could be made to blossom--even for her?

She slept sooner than usual, but the echoes of that quiet voice still followed her down through the deeps of slumber, till she dreamed that she was back before that shining altar of flowers. And a radiance that was not of earth was all about her--a radiance unimaginable that was warmth as well as light; and looking up she saw that it came from the red lamp above her--the symbol of undying Love.

As in a trance she waited, for the wonder of the thing held her spellbound. And while she waited, she became aware of someone else in the holy place, someone who moved stealthily, as if half-afraid. And turning, by the light of that revealing glow, she saw her husband with that look of silent misery in his eyes.

It pierced her then as it had not pierced her before. She was conscious of an almost fierce impulse to comfort, an impulse that urged her to him, banishing all hesitation, all doubt. She went near to him, she gave him both her hands. And even as she did so, the look in his eyes changed. She saw a deep, still fire come into them. It seemed to be reflected from the red lamp above. He moved forward with her into the glow.

And suddenly her own eyes were opened and she knew that he loved her--he loved her....

Then she awoke with a palpitating heart and realized that it was a dream.

CHAPTER XIV

THE OPEN DOOR

Not till she had been in her uncle's house for close upon four weeks did Maud brace herself to speak to him of her mother. She had been on the verge of doing so many times, but always, in his bluff fashion, he had managed to convey to her that the subject was not to be broached.

But for an urgent letter from Mrs. Sheppard herself, she would scarcely have summoned the courage to break through what was almost a prohibition, for Uncle Edward was not an easy man to resist; and even as she did so, she knew with absolute conviction that her effort was foredoomed to failure. She scarcely knew how to make it, so uncompromising was the old man's attitude, and when at last it was made, when in desperation she forced herself to tell him of her mother's pitiable plight, she regretted it almost immediately so curtly was her information received. She saw that Uncle Edward was really angry though he said but little. She also saw that what she said on her mother's behalf made not the smallest impression upon his will. He heard her out indeed, but so grimly that at length, feeling that she was presenting the matter quite inadequately in face of his total lack of sympathy, she gave him her mother's hysterical appeal to read.

He shook his head at first, but finally, as she pressed it upon him almost tearfully, he took and read the letter. Then, while anxiously she watched him, he tore it across and across and flung it back to her over the table.

"Pshaw!" he said. "The woman's a hypocrite--a confounded impostor. I know her. You don't. Leave her alone, and let her sink!"

And with that he stumped angrily from the room with beetling brows and fiery eyes.

Maud sat very still after his departure. She had known in her heart that it was hopeless to appeal to him, but now that the appeal had failed she was utterly nonplussed. There was no doubt in her mind that matters were desperate. Her mother had made her realize that, and she felt she could not write and tell her that she could do nothing. Slight as was the bond of sympathy between them, still were they mother and daughter, and she could not fling her off as Uncle Edward recommended. In a fashion the old man's anger reacted in her mother's favour; for she was conscious of indignation on her behalf. Whatever Mrs. Sheppard's faults might be--and it was quite possible that insincerity was among them--he had no right to abuse her to her daughter. It aroused her own anger, and it aroused also that protective instinct which was never very far below the surface with her. When she rose at length, her face was very pale and determined. She had not wanted to write to Charlie, but it seemed that she had no choice.

It was a still, warm afternoon in October. She went into the drawing-room, a stiff apartment upholstered in gold brocade, and sat down at a writing-table in a window-recess to write.

It was the most difficult letter she had ever composed, and yet she had never experienced the smallest difficulty in writing to him before. She could not express herself freely. Words would not come. She desired to avoid all reference to what had passed between them on that night of witchery on which they had last met. She wanted to blot it out of her mind and heart, to address him, to regard him, as only a friend. Ever since that Sunday evening, now nearly a week ago, she had kept her thoughts rigidly from straying in his direction. Had it been possible she would have put him altogether out of her life. It was not possible, and she knew it. But it was with the greatest reluctance that she set herself to write to him, and her reluctance displayed itself in every sentence.

She sat over that letter for the greater part of the afternoon, and when it was finished at last she felt utterly dissatisfied with it. She had an urgent desire to tear it up. But she could not face the writing of another. With a weary sigh she closed and stamped the envelope.

It was then that there fell a step outside the drawing-room door, and Uncle Edward's discreet, elderly maidservant peeped in.

Maud turned in her chair. "What is it, Martha?"

Martha was about to explain, but broke off with a gasp and drew back. There was a muttered word in the doorway, and the next moment Martha had disappeared, and a man's figure stood in the opening.

"Hullo!" said Charlie, with a smile of gay effrontery. "May I come in?"

Maud sat for a second or two as one in a trance and stared at him. It was as if the afternoon's labour had suddenly taken concrete form.

He did not wait for her greeting, but came lightly forward with hands outstretched. "Ah, queen of the roses," he said, "what a peculiarly unbecoming setting you have chosen for yourself! Why--why--what is that? A letter to me? How many times a day do you write them?"

With a lithe, elastic movement, he drew her to her feet, held her a moment, looking at her, then bent his smiling, swarthy face to hers.

"Greeting, queen of the roses!" he said.

She awoke then, came out of her trance, drew swiftly back from him. "Oh, Charlie, is it--is it really you?" she said rather incoherently. "You--how you startled me!"

He let her go, as always, at her desire, but with a faint, monkeyish grimace of disapproval. "You were always easily shocked," he said. "But on this occasion I assure you there is no need. I found myself in the neighbourhood, and thought it would be the correct thing to pay you a morning call."

His queer eyes mocked her openly as he made the explanation. She felt discomfited, painfully embarrassed, and withal conscious of an almost desperate longing to tell him to go.

But she knew she could not do that. Too much hung in the balance.

"Sit down!" she said, mustering her dignity with an immense effort. "And I will tell you why I have been writing to you."

"Wouldn't it save trouble to show me the letter?" he suggested, with easy audacity. "Or have you decided--now that you have had a further opportunity of considering my personal charms--that you really can't?"

She flushed at the implied suggestion. "You can read the letter if you like," she said somewhat stiffly. "It is on business."

She held it out to him, and he sank upon one knee to receive it.

"Merci, ma belle reine! Do you wish me to read it in your august presence?"

"Please!" she said.

He sat facing her, and read it.

She watched his mobile brows as his eyes travelled over the page. She saw amusement turn to humour and humour to merriment on his face. When he looked up at her at length he was laughing.

"You write as a serf appealing to a feudal lord," he said. "Did you mean to write like that?"

She shook her head at him gravely. "It is not a laughing matter," she said.

"What I am laughing at is," he rejoined, still smiling with a hint of derision. "By the way, have you heard from our worthy cow-puncher lately?"

She flinched sharply, before she was aware. Her whole body tingled with a sudden, burning blush.

And Saltash laughed again wickedly. "I saw him yesterday. He was in a fiendish temper for some reason or other. Naturally I asked after you, when he was expecting you back. What do you think he said?"

"What?" Maud breathed the word through lips that panted. Her heart was beating violently she knew not why.

Saltash's dark face seemed to exult over her agitation. "He said,--you know his soft, drawly way--'I guess I shall go--shortly--and fetch her back, my lord.' I wondered if you were aware of his amiable intention. There was the most deadly air of determination about him. I thought you might like to know."

Maud's face was no longer burning; she was white to the lips. But she turned from the subject with composure. "How did you know where to find me?"

He laughed teasingly. "You are curiously curious, Maud of the roses. Don't you yet realize that I always know everything? For instance, I know exactly why you are treating me to this wet-blanket reception. But you would be angry if I told you; so I won't. I also know--" he paused suddenly. "Shall I say it? No, perhaps I had better not."

She smiled faintly. "Perhaps it is beside the point, Charlie. Do you mind coming back to the subject of that letter? It is that that is troubling me now more than anything else."

"Really?" he said. "But why should you be troubled? It wouldn't trouble me to see my arch-enemy in dire straits."

"It is my mother I am anxious about," she said. "If Giles Sheppard goes under, she will go too."

Saltash raised his brows in amused interrogation. "Oh, does that follow? I should abandon the sinking ship if I were Mrs. Sheppard. She has nothing to gain by sticking to it."

Maud received the remark in silence. He leaned forward, his dark face still smiling.

"Do you know I love you for that?" he said. "Chère reine des fleurs, lady of the golden silences! Do you ever say what you really think?"

She shook her head. "Charlie, I am learning--very slowly--a hard lesson. Don't--please--make it any harder for me!"

"What?" he said. "You are really going back to him?"

She put up a hand to her face, almost as if she would hide it from him. "I don't know--yet--what I shall do. But I do know that it would be wrong not to go back."

"Mais vraiment!" he protested. "Is life so simple as that? How do you arrive at that conclusion? Do you follow always the easy path of virtue?"

She looked at him quickly. "It is not easy!" she said.

He lifted his shoulders. "No? But it is--safe at least. And you do not possess the adventurous soul. You like to be--safe, ma belle, even at the sacrifice of your very heart. Do you remember that night of moonshine? But of course you do. Do you know that I prowled in the garden half the night for your sake--just in case you should deem it worth while to be true to that poor heart of yours? You went through a good deal that night, my Maud." His voice changed subtly; the half-scoffing note went out of it, a faint warmth of pity took its place. "And yet you endured it all in silence. Why didn't you break free and come to me? You knew--and so did he--that I was waiting,--or you might have known."

Maud's head was bent; she did not attempt to answer him.

He got up abruptly and came to her. "Good-bye, Maud of the roses!"

She started slightly. "You are going?"

"Yes, I am going. I have received my discharge. My faithful service is at end--unless--or may I say until?--that message comes to call me back." He bent towards her. "Even I cannot wait for ever." he said. "Do you know I stood by the orchard-gate in the rain for two hours on the day of the races? You had a visitor, and so I would not intrude upon you. But you, chère reine,--you knew I was going to be there. And yet you never came."

She raised her head sharply, moved by something in his tone. "But how could I? How could I?" she said. "Besides,--Jake knew."

He laughed. "Yes, Jake knew. He saw me that night of moonshine. He nearly challenged me. And then he changed his mind and passed on. I conclude it didn't suit him to quarrel with me. But what of that? He was bound to know some day."

She clasped her hands tightly together. "If he knew all--he would shoot you," she said, with a sudden hard shudder.

But Saltash only laughed again, and touched a wisp of her hair. "Oh, I don't think so, queen of the roses. I think he would have pity on my innocence--if he knew all. But that isn't the point, you know. The point is that you choose bondage with him rather than freedom with me. And that being so, I can only bow to your ruling. Once more--good-bye!"

She parted her hands with an effort, and gave him one of them. "What about--my mother, Charlie?" she said.

He pressed her fingers lightly. "I commend her to the kind care of her worthy son-in-law."

She raised her eyes to his almost incredulously. "You are going to--to let them be ruined?"

He smiled at her, flashing his strange eyes. "It wouldn't do for you to be under an obligation--a personal obligation--to me, would it? Jake--you know--Jake might object."

She rose quickly and stood facing him. "Charlie, please don't jest!" she urged him, her voice low and very earnest.

His smile became a grimace. "It rests with you," he said, "whether I jest my way to the devil or whether I live a godly, righteous and sober life for evermore. If it is to be the latter, then I am quite prepared to fulfil my virtuous devoirs to my prospective mother-in-law. But if the former is to be my portion--well, I don't think even St. Peter himself would have saddled himself with anyone else's. That is the position, chère reine. Tu comprends maintenant?"

Yes, she understood. There was nothing complex in the situation. She stood looking at him her hand still in his.

"Then I cannot look upon you as--a friend?" she said at last, almost under her breath.

He smiled upon her--a sudden, baffling smile. "But ask yourself that question, Maud of the roses!" he said. "You will find the answer there in your own heart, if you seek for it."

She quivered at the words, feeling the subtle attraction of the man even against her will.

"You have refused to help me," she said.

He bent towards her, his dark face glowing. "I offer you--all I have," he said. "It is your own, to do with as you will. But you must take all or leave all. Maud, Maud," his speech quickened to sudden vehemence, "you love me! Why do you cling to your prison when the door is standing wide? Now is your time to escape, if ever. I will take all your cares--all your burdens. You shall be free as air. Only--now that the door is open--come!"

"Yes. I should shut the door another time if I were you," a gruff voice commented behind them. "It's a rash thing, young man, to leave the door open when you're talking confidences. What are you doing in this house, I wonder? Did you come in at the door?"

Both Maud and Saltash had faced round at the first sentence, she with a sharp exclamation, he with a laugh.

Uncle Edward, his eyes very bright under the beetling brows, stumped up to them with the air of an old watchdog investigating the presence of a suspicious stranger. He rasped his throat ferociously as he came.

"Who may you be?" he demanded.

"I?" Saltash was laughing still, facing the situation with his hands in his pockets, the soul of careless effrontery. "I don't suppose you have ever heard my name before. I am Saltash."

"Who?" Uncle Edward turned for explanation towards his niece.

"Lord Saltash," she said, in a low voice.

"Oh! Lord Saltash!" The old man turned back to him with a sound like a snarl. "Yes, I have heard of you before. You were co-respondent in the Cressady divorce case a few years back."

Saltash laughed again with easy nonchalance. "You have a good memory, sir. If it serves you as it should, you will also recall the fact that the case was dismissed."

"I remember--all the facts," said Uncle Edward, with ominous deliberation, "And as it is not my custom to admit men of your stamp into my house, you will oblige me by quitting it without delay."

Saltash turned to Maud. "I am sorry you have been caught in such bad company," he said. "Pray explain that I came uninvited! I shall be at Burchester for the present. When you come back, you and your husband must come and dine. Good-bye!"

With the unabashed smile still on his ugly face, he turned to go, moving with the easy arrogance of the ruling race, royally incapable of discomfiture.

Uncle Edward followed him to the door, and grimly watched his exit. Then still more grimly he came tramping back. "And now to pick a bone with you, my niece!" he said.

CHAPTER XV

THE DOWNWARD PATH

She stood erect, facing him. Her face was very pale, but her eyes were quite unflinching. There was about her a majesty of demeanour that might have deterred a less determined man than Uncle Edward. But he stood upon his own ground and grappled with the situation quite undismayed. He was moreover very angry.

"You young hussy!" he said, bringing out his words with immense emphasis. "How dare you have your lover here? Thought you were safe, eh? Thought I shouldn't know? Oh, you're like the rest of 'em, crafty as an eel. What's the meaning of it, eh? What have you got to say for yourself?"

She did not attempt to answer him. Where her mother would have been loud in self-justification, she uttered not a word. Only, after a moment or two, she turned slowly and sat down at the writing-table, leaning her chin on her hand as one spent. Even so, there was an aloofness in her attitude that conveyed to the wrathful old man beside her an unpleasant sense of being at a disadvantage.

He stood looking down at her, grievously resentful, striving to select a weapon sharp enough to pierce her calm.

"I thought you were to be trusted," he said. "Goodness knows why! You didn't seem to have any leaven of your mother about you. But I see now I was wrong. You are just your mother over again. But if you think you are going to pursue an intrigue with that aristocratic blackguard in my house, you're very much mistaken. No doubt I'm very old-fashioned and strait-laced. But there it is. I object. I object strongly. The man's a liar and a thief and a scoundrel. Don't you know it, eh? Haven't you found him out yet?"

He stopped so pointedly for an answer that she could not maintain her silence longer. She moved a little, turned her head slightly, without raising her eyes, and spoke.

"I know him very well. But--forgive me, Uncle Edward!--I can't discuss him with you. I--I am sorry you thought it necessary to insult him."

"Insult him!" Uncle Edward's anger boiled afresh. "Didn't I catch the hound making love to you? Here in my house where I have lived decently and respectably for over fifty years! Didn't I catch him, I say--he a well-known profligate and you a married woman? Didn't I actually hear him trying to tempt you from your husband and your duty? And you were calmly permitting it. Look here, young woman! I've been too kind to you. That's the fact of the matter. You've had too much liberty, too much indulgence, too much of your own way. You married in a hurry against my judgment. But--by heaven--since you are married, you shall stick to your bargain! You take a pen now--do you hear?--and a sheet of paper, and write to your husband this minute, and ask him to come and join you here! I won't be surety for you any longer. Tell him to come to-morrow!"

But Maud only stiffened as she sat making no movement to comply. She looked like a marble statue of Despair.

Uncle Edward came a little nearer to her. He was not accustomed to being set at nought. Most people regarded him as formidable even when he was in a comparatively genial mood.

"Are you going to do as I tell you?" he said.

She glanced up at him momentarily. "I think," she said, "we will wait till to-morrow."

He stamped a furious foot. "Will we, indeed, madam! Well, you may wait as long as you please; but I tell you this: If you don't write that letter--instantly, I shall go straight to the post-office found the corner and send your husband a telegram to summon him at once. He will be here by the morning, if I know him. And then I shall tell him exactly why I sent for him. So now you can take your choice. Which is it to be?"

He had moved her at last. Maud rose to her feet with a suddenness that was almost suggestive of panic. "You would never do such a thing!" she said. "You could not be so--so wickedly cruel!"

He snapped his jaws like an angry terrier. "Oh, that would be wicked, would it? You have some odd ideas of morals; that's all I can say. But wicked or cruel, it's what I mean to do. So take your choice, and be quick about it! For I shan't go back on what I've said. When a woman starts on the downward path, she usually takes it at a run; and I won't be responsible. So which is it to be? Your letter or my telegram? Make up your mind! Which?"

His manner was almost menacing. She stood facing with an awful sense of impotence growing at her heart. To summon Jake herself was a proceeding that she could not for a moment contemplate, but the bare thought of Uncle Edward's alternative pierced like a poisoned knife. She felt again that dreadful trapped feeling of former days. The liberty she had enjoyed of late made it all the more terrible.

"I can't decide anything just now," she said at last, and she knew that her voice trembled painfully. "Please--please let us wait a little! There is really no need to send for Jake. Lord Saltash has gone, and he will not come back."

"Don't tell me!" said Uncle Edward truculently. "Even if he doesn't, how am I to be sure that you won't take it into your head to go to him? No, my niece, I've heard too much. Why, he'd have had his arm round you in another second. I know--I saw. If I'd waited another three seconds, he'd have been kissing you. And not for the first time, I'll be bound."

The hot colour rushed to Maud's face; she turned sharply aside.

"Ha! That touches you, does it?" snarled Uncle Edward, with ferocious triumph. "I guessed as much. Now which is it to be? Are you going to write that letter?"

It was hopeless to carry the discussion further. A burning wave of anger went through her, anger that buoyed her up above despair, stimulating her to a fierce rebellion. She drew herself to her full height and faced him with supreme defiance.

"I will not write that letter!" she said. "I will not be forced into a false position. If you are tired of me, I will go. I will not stay--in any case--to be insulted!"

And with that boldly, with the carriage of an outraged princess, she swept by him and out of the room, leaving him staring after her in a fury too great to express itself before the closing of the door.

Up to her room she went, outwardly calm, inwardly raging. All the old hot rebellion against destiny had awaked within her. It had died down of late, soothed into quiescence by the peaceful solitude in which she had been living. But now it had sprung afresh to quivering life. Her freedom from bondage had given her new strength. She would not be bound again hand and foot, and thrust back into the old bitter slavery. It was too much, too much. She had her life to live. It was hers, not Jake's. She had a right to do with it as she would.

With hands that trembled she began to pack. Uncle Edward had made it impossible for her to stay. If he had not set her feet upon the downward path, he had sped her upon it with an impetus that drove her irresistibly. She worked in a fever, not pausing for thought, conscious but of the one urgent desire to be gone, to escape--she had scarcely begun to think whither.

No one came near her during those evening hours. The daylight waned, and she realized that it was nearing the dinner hour. Then suddenly it came to her that she could not face her uncle again. She must make some excuse.

Her work was done; she rang the bell.

After a pause Martha came to her. There was a scared look on the woman's face. She seemed half-afraid to meet Maud's eyes.

"Did you ring, ma'am?" she enquired.

"Yes." With an effort Maud made reply. "Is--is my uncle in?"

"He's just come in and gone upstairs to dress for dinner, ma'am," Martha told her.

"Ah!" Maud's heart contracted a little. "He has been out some time?" she said.

"Yes, ma'am, a long time. He seems a bit out of temper about something," Martha's round eyes suddenly conveyed sympathy that shone out to Maud like a beacon in the darkness. "I shouldn't take much notice of him, ma'am," she said. "He often says what he don't mean when he's in one of his tantrums. He'll be better in the morning."

Again that awful sense of impotence assailed Maud. She leaned her head against the door-post, closing her eyes for a second. What would the morning bring forth? The thought turned her sick.

"Is there anything as I can do, ma'am?" asked Martha.

"Yes." Abruptly Maud pulled herself together. A sudden resolution had sprung up within her. She could not face another storm such as that through which she had just come. Above all she could not face the morrow and its possibilities in this house. She turned back into the room, and took half a sovereign from the table. "Martha," she said, "I have packed everything up, and I am going away. I want you, please, to call a cab now, at once, to take me away before my uncle comes downstairs. I will write him a note while you are gone. Please, please, Martha, be as quick as you can!"

The sympathy in Martha's eyes became a sort of tragic friendliness. "I knew as you wouldn't stay, ma'am," she said, "not after the way he hollered at you. I wouldn't myself in your place, ma'am; no, that I wouldn't. But you see, I've been with him so long. I don't mind his rough ways. I'll go at once, and thank you kindly, ma'am. It won't take me five minutes. But, mind you, I think he'll be sorry to lose you."

"I can't help that," Maud made answer. "It is quite impossible for me to stay. He will know why. But I will write him a note all the same."

And when Martha had gone, she sat down and scribbled two notes.

The first she addressed to her uncle:

"DEAR UNCLE EDWARD,

"I do not think you will be greatly surprised at my leaving you. After what has passed, I could not stay. I am very sorry for what has happened, but I suppose it had to be. I wish I could thank you for all your kindness to me, but I know this is not the time. So I will only say good-bye.

"Yours,

"MAUD."

The second note consisted of one sentence only, "I am going to my mother. Maud." And when she had written it she picked up a tiny packet of tissue-paper that lay beside her and dropped it into the envelope with the note. She addressed the envelope to Lord Saltash, Burchester Castle, and later she sealed and registered it, stopping at a post-office to send it on its way. She believed it would reach its destination almost as soon as he did. And that packet--that tiny object wrapped in tissue-paper--would convey its own message. No further words were needed.

She herself went for the night to a small hotel in a back-street that was not far from her uncle's house. There would be a train in the early morning. She would not travel by night. Something held her back, some instinct she did not attempt to fathom. But she believed that Charlie would travel by the night-train, and she did not want to see him again until he had received that packet. Afterwards--well, the afterwards would rest with him.

Her sleep was fitful and troubled that night, broken repeatedly by the persistent chime of a church-clock. Towards morning she slept and dreamed again that strangely haunting dream of the flower-decked altar and the red, shining lamp above. For a space she held herself aloof from the dream, refusing to yield to it. But at length it seemed to her that someone came and took her hand, drawing her forward, and she had no choice.

Straight into the wondrous glow she went, and presently she knelt before those flowers of dazzling purity. The quiet hand still held hers in a calm and comforting grasp. She felt that she would have been frightened but for that sustaining hold.

And then suddenly she saw that the candles also were burning upon the altar, knew that she was kneeling there with Jake, heard a voice above their heads very low and clear that seemed to be speaking to their hearts:--"Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder." ...

And turning she found Jake's eyes upon her, alight with adoration....

She awoke with a gasping cry to a seething, passionate regret. Because in those first wild moments she knew with an awful certainty that her feet were set upon the downward path, and she could never turn back again.

CHAPTER XVI

THE REVELATION

The autumn dusk was falling as the Fairharbour train crawled at length into the station. A sea-fog hung clammily along the shore, and a smell of burning weeds was in the air.

Maud shivered with cold and weariness as she descended to the platform. It had been a long, long journey. Her whole body ached with fatigue.

There were not many travellers, and they had all disappeared before she had collected her luggage and made her way out into the dank chill of the station-yard where a rickety cab stood waiting.

She shivered afresh as she got into it. The dampness and the cold seemed to penetrate to her very bones. She sat huddled in a corner.

"Where to, miss?" The porter thrust a cheery face in upon her, and, albeit she was veiled, she shrank back with an instinctive desire to avoid recognition.

"The Anchor Hotel," she said, through teeth that chattered in spite of her.

She heard him give the order, and in a moment the ramshackle conveyance was on its way. They clattered forth over the stones into the clinging billows of mist.

The cold caught and pierced her anew as they neared the dreary front. She heard the muffled roar of the sea splashing dully against the wall. The mist became a wet drizzle beating in through the window. She tried to close it, but the strap was broken. She could only draw her wrap more closely about her.

The cab horse stumbled, and was dragged up by his driver with a curse. They were nearing the Anchor Hotel. She wished she had prepared her mother for her advent. She had not dared to do so in case--just in case--it should come to Jake's knowledge, though she believed that Jake must be well on his way to Liverpool by now, if he had not already arrived there. It was possible that he had not been able to leave at a moment's notice, and she had not dared to take the chance of any rumour of her coming reaching him. But now that she was so nearly at the end of her journey, she wished earnestly that her mother were expecting her. The thought of meeting Giles Sheppard, asking his hospitality, was hateful to her.

It would not be for more than that one night. Of that she was convinced. Charlie would be swift to answer her summons, if indeed he had returned to the Castle. But he was so erratic in all his ways that she had some doubt on this point. If he had not returned--! But she could not think of that possibility. She turned from it with a sick foreboding. Surely Fate could not play her so hideous a trick!

They lumbered on.

Suddenly the light from the swinging lamp that hung in the porch of "The Anchor" burst across their path. The horse stumbled again, recovered itself, jolted on a few yards, stopped. They had arrived.

Maud gathered her energies for one supreme effort though she felt almost too stiff with cold to move. The cabman shambled down and opened the door.

"No one about seemin'ly," he remarked.

She controlled her quivering nerves. "Perhaps you will get down my trunk," she said. "You can leave it in the porch."

The man grumbled to himself, but proceeded to comply, she standing on the step to watch him.

The mist was beating in from the sea. Her face was wet with it. And yet her dread of entering that house was such that she could hardly bring herself to open the swing door, debating with herself if even then she might not run up the hill to the house in which they had lodged a year before--only a year before--and obtain shelter for the night there.

The darkness and the rain deterred her. Her courage seemed to have quite left her. In the end she turned with a species of dreary desperation and pushed back the heavy door.

The entrance-hall was empty, vaguely lit by one flaring gas-jet round which the fog-wreaths curled and drifted in the draught, cold as a vault, and smelling of stale tobacco-smoke. The place looked bare and poverty-stricken, almost squalid. The rugs were gone from the floor, the pictures from the walls.

The door swung closed behind her, and she felt as if she stood inside a prison. The office-window was shut, and no sound came from any quarter. Only through the desolate silence there came the sullen thump of the sea against the wall, like the waning struggle of a giant grown impotent with long and fruitless striving.

The utter solitude of the place began to possess her like an evil dream. She stood as one under a spell, afraid to move. And then, quite suddenly, she heard a step.

The impulse came to her then to flee, but she did not obey it. She stood stiffly waiting. Even if it were Giles Sheppard himself, she would meet him before she went out into the dripping dark outside.

It was not Giles Sheppard. A man in a tweed suit and black gaiters, square-shouldered, rather short than tall,--a man of bull-dog strength--came suddenly upon her from the interior of the house. She heard the jingle of spurs upon the stones of the hall, caught one glance of a sunburnt, dominant face and hair that shone like burnished copper in the light; and then she was tottering blindly backwards, groping, groping for the door by which she might escape.

He came to her ere she could open it, and in a moment she became rigid, as one fascinated into passivity. He took her ice-cold hands and held them.

"Why, Maud! Maud!" he said, in the tone of one who would comfort a child.

A great shiver went through her at his touch; but she stood speechless. His face swam before her shrinking vision. She felt sick and faint.

"Snakes!" he said. "You're perished with cold. Say, why didn't you tell me you were coming?" Then, as still she could not speak: "Come along into the office! There's no one there; and I'll soon have a fire for you. You lean on me, my girl! It'll be all right."

His arm went round her; he supported her strongly. The warmth of his body sent a faint glow through her. Almost without knowing it, she leaned upon him.

He took her into the deserted office, put her into a chair by the empty fireplace, lighted the gas, then knelt to kindle the fire. The wood was damp; he coaxed it to burn, blowing at the unwilling flame, his head in the smoke.

"Say, that's better," he said softly at length. "Now I'm going to give you something you'll hate, but I reckon you'll take it to please me. Won't you?"

He still knelt beside her, but there was no hint of authority, no possessiveness, in his bearing. Rather there was about him a curious something that was almost like humility.

She watched him dumbly as he pulled a small glass flask out of his pocket and withdrew the cork. He turned to her as he did it, and for an instant she met his eyes. The old hot glow was wholly gone from them. She missed it with an odd sense of shock. Only kindness shone out at her; only friendliness was in the clasp of the hand he laid on hers.

"You'll take it?" he said, in his voice of soft persuasion, "It's raw spirit; but it's not going to do you any harm. Just a drop, and then I'll feel easier about you! There now, if that's not real good of you!"

He was pressing it gently upon her; and she could not refuse. She took the flask from him and drank a burning drain.

"Has it gone?" said Jake.

She nodded silently, feeling the glow of the spirit spreading through her veins and the deadly coldness at her heart giving place to it.

He smiled upon her, his pleasant, sudden smile, and took the flask back into his own keeping. Then he bent again to the fire, blowing at it persistently, patiently, till it shot up into a blaze.

She watched him as one in a dream--a dream from which all nightmare horror had been magically banished. This--this was the old Jake to whom she had once turned in trouble, in whose arms she had sobbed out her misery and despair. This was Jake the friend into whose keeping she had given her life.

He straightened himself again, coughing a little. She caught again the gleam of the red-brown eyes, seeking hers.

"Better now?" he asked her.

She bent her head. "Yes, I am all right now. You--you--I didn't expect to see you here."

"Guess it was a mutual surprise," said Jake. "What brought you anyway?"

Her heart gave a sudden quick throb of dismay.

Actually she had forgotten the desperate resolution that had urged her for so long. She turned her face quickly from him. "I--came--to--to see my mother," she faltered.

He raised his brows momentarily. "She wasn't expecting you, sure," he commented.

"No," she felt her cheeks burning, and strove still further to avoid his look. "No. It--it was a--surprise visit."

There fell a brief silence upon her words, and while it lasted, she sat in tense suspense, waiting--waiting for him to pounce upon her secret and drag it to the light. She dared not look at him kneeling there beside her, dared not meet the awful scrutiny of those lynx-eyes. Such was her agitation that she scarcely dared even to breathe.

And then an amazing thing happened. Jake's hand was suddenly laid upon her knee, pressing it reassuringly. "Well," he said in his casual drawl, "I reckon you've come in the nick of time so far as your mother is concerned. Your amiable step-father has cleared out bag and baggage, and left her to face the music. He pawned everything he could lay his dirty hands on first, and the place is empty except for the old ostler who is serving behind the bar till further orders."

"Oh Jake!" Startled, Maud turned back to him. "And what is my mother doing?"

There was a faintly humorous twist about Jake's lips as he made reply. "Your mother has gone to bed in hysterics. I can't get out of her what exactly she means to do. P'raps you will be more successful. I came down this morning as soon as I got the news of Sheppard's departure, and tried to persuade her to come along to the Stables; but she wouldn't hear of it. She's got some idea at the back of her mind, I gather; or maybe the Stables aren't aristocratic enough. Anyway, there was no moving her. I've been up at Tattersall's all day. Only got back half an hour ago. I thought I'd look in again here, and see how things were going before I went home. But they haven't moved any since this morning, and she is still in bed with hysterics."

He had not been home all day; he had received no message. The thought darted through Maud with a suddenness that nearly made her gasp with relief. He did not know of Uncle Edward's summons. And then she remembered that it must be awaiting him, and her heart sank again.

"You're shivering still," said Jake gently.

"It's nothing," she made answer. "It's nothing." And then desperately: "You--you didn't get--a telegram from Uncle Edward--last night?"

"I?" said Jake. "No. What should he wire to me for?"

She hesitated a second, then feverishly faced the danger that menaced her. "You--I expect you will find a message waiting for you. We--we had a disagreement yesterday. That's why I came away."

Jake's brows met abruptly. "Hasn't he been treating you properly?"

"Oh, it's not that. I--I can't tell you what it was. But--he said he should wire to you--to go to Liverpool."

Maud's hands clasped each other very tightly. She was striving with all her strength for composure. But she could not bring herself to look him in the face.

"And so you came away," Jake said slowly.

She nodded, swallowing down her agitation. "I didn't want to meet you--like that. I didn't know what was in the telegram."

Jake's fingers patted her knee gently. "And so you came back here for refuge! All right, my girl! You needn't be afraid. Uncle Edward may go to blazes. I shan't read that telegram."

He stooped with the words, picked up a fragment of burning stick that had fallen at her feet, and tossed it back into the flames.

Maud uttered a sharp exclamation. "Jake! You'll be burnt!"

He looked up at her with a smile. "I guess not," he said. "And now that that matter is disposed of, you'll maybe like to go and see your mother."

She met his eyes with a feeling that she could do no less. "You're very good," she said, with an effort.

His smile broadened. "Then it's the cheapest form of goodness I know," he said. "If your Uncle Edward were a little younger, I'd give myself the pleasure of accepting his invitation just for the sake of administering the kicking he deserves. However, we won't waste time discussing him. Are you going to spend the night here along with your mother?"

He seemed bent upon making things easy for her. His attitude amazed her. She kept asking herself again and again if this could be the man from whom she had fled in bitterness of spirit all those weeks ago.

She hesitated to answer his question. She was painfully uncertain of the ground beneath her feet. Almost she expected it to cleave asunder at any moment and reveal the raging fires that once had scorched her soul.

But Jake did not suffer her to remain in suspense. Very quietly he filled in her hesitation. "Maybe you'd sooner stay here," he said, in his soft, rather sing-song voice. "It's up to you to decide. Guess I shan't interfere any with your movements."

His one hand still lay on her knee. It pressed upon her a little as though seeking to convey something that she was slow to grasp.

Her doubt subsided under the steady touch. She suddenly knew beyond all questioning that she stood on solid ground. Yet it was not without difficulty that she answered him. "I think--perhaps--for to-night--I will stay with her."

Jake nodded with his face to the flames. "It's up to you," he said again.

She looked at his bent head, conscious of a new distress. How was she going to repay him for this his goodness to her? He was trusting her blindly. He had refused to let his eyes be opened. For she knew he would keep his word about that telegram. Jake always kept his word.

Her distress grew, became almost unbearable. She saw herself in a new and horrible light, and shrank in anguish of soul from the revelation. It was as if upon that downward path she had suddenly caught a glimpse of the precipice at the end, the cruel rocks, the dreadful fall, the black, seething whirlpool below. And her whole being revolted. All that was pure in her made swift outcry.

If Jake--Jake--had climbed back to the old high ground, surely she could do the same! Surely she could do no less. He trusted her--he trusted her! How could she go on?

The wild tempest of feeling rushed through her, and passed. She was left very cold, striving desperately to suppress a fit of shuddering that threatened to overwhelm her.

Jake was not looking at her. He seemed unaware of her agitation. After a moment he took his hand away, and rose.

He began to feel in his pockets, produced his clay pipe and tobacco-pouch; then suddenly paused. "Do you mind if I light up? I'm just going."

"Oh, please do!" she said.

He began to fill the pipe with minute care. "Don't let your mother take too much out of you!" he said. "Have a meal and turn in as early as you can! Guess you're needing a good rest."

She leaned her head on her hand. "Yes. I am tired."

Jake was silent again for a space. Finally he put the pipe into his mouth and shook the tobacco back into his pouch. Then in a curiously hesitating voice, he spoke. "Say,--Maud!"

She gave a start, and raised her head. He was looking down at her with a faint smile in his eyes, a smile that struck her as being whimsical and yet curiously wistful also.

"I just want to tell you, my girl," he said, "that you're not to be scared of me any more. Reckon you've had a hell of a time all your life, but it's to come to an end right now. For the future, you do the asking and I the giving. You're boss, and don't you forget it! I'm your man, not your master, and I'll behave accordingly. Guess I'll even lie down and let you kick me if it'll make you happy any."

Maud was gazing at him in open amazement long before he had finished his astounding speech. The slow utterance, half-sad, half-humorous, was spoken with the full weight of the man's strength of purpose. Every word came with the steady force of unwavering resolution. There was a touch of the superb about him even with that unlighted pipe between his teeth. And every word seemed to pierce her with a deeper pain, pain that was well-nigh unendurable.

As he uttered the last deliberate sentence, she rose quickly with a gesture of protest. She could bear no more.

"Jake, you--you--you hurt me!" she stammered incoherently.

He put out a hand to her. "No--no!" he said. "That was not my intention."

It was almost as though he pleaded with her for some species of clemency. She was sure she read entreaty in the red-brown eyes. But she could not lay her hand in his. She could not--she could not! She stood before him panting, speechless, shaken to the very foundations of her being.

His hand fell. "I just want you to be happy, my girl, that's all," he said gently; "happy after your own notions of happiness. Maybe there ain't room for me in the general scheme of things. If that's so,--I reckon I'll stay outside."

He turned aside with the words and struck a match to kindle his pipe with the air of a man who has said his say. Then while she still watched him, he puffed a great cloud of smoke into the air, straightened himself, and made her an odd, clumsy bow.

"I'm going now. So long!" he said.

And so, without further parley, he left her, striding away in his square, purposeful fashion without a backward glance.

Only when he was gone did it flash upon her that this--this--was her dream come true. All unknowing, wholly without intention, he had opened her eyes. And she knew that he loved her--he loved her!

CHAPTER XVII

THE LAST CHANCE

"It's a cruel world," complained Mrs. Sheppard. "Nothing ever goes right, and no one ever thinks of anybody but themselves." She wiped her eyes pathetically. "I'm sure I've always tried to consider others. And this is the result. In my hour of need I am forsaken by everybody."

"It's no good fretting," Maud said very wearily. "We must think what is best to be done."

She realized that her mother was in her most unreasonable mood, and she felt herself powerless to cope with it. Yet the situation had to be faced, and with a heavy heart she faced it.

"My dear, I've thought and thought till my brain refuses to work," said Mrs. Sheppard plaintively. "What is the good of it? You know as well as I that if Charlie refuses to help, all hope is gone. And you say he has refused."

"Yes." Maud was stooping over the kettle that she was boiling in her mother's bedroom. "He has refused."

"Unconditionally?" Mrs. Sheppard sent a sudden keen glance across at the slim, drooping figure and noted the weariness of its pose. "Maud, tell me! Unconditionally?"

Maud remained bent. "I am not going to accept his conditions," she said, after a moment.

"Then he made conditions?" The question came sharp and querulous from the bed.

"One condition." Maud bent a little lower.

"What was it? My child, you must tell me. I have a right to know." Mrs. Sheppard raised herself to a sitting position. "What was this condition?"

Maud did not turn. "What does it matter what it was as I am not going to accept it," she said.

"You have refused?"

"I am going to refuse." There was utter weariness in her voice. She spoke as one to whom nothing mattered any more.

"Maud! Then you haven't actually refused him yet?" Mrs. Sheppard suddenly flung out her arms. "Maud--darling, come and tell me all about it!" she urged. "There is something behind that you haven't told me yet. Come here, dearest! Come to me!"

Maud turned an unwilling face over her shoulder. "I am too tired to-night, Mother," she said. "Besides, there is really nothing to tell. Charlie made me a certain proposal which--which I thought for a little that I might accept. I now realize that I can't and--and--" a faint quiver of vehemence crept into her voice,--"I want to forget that I ever thought I could. Please let me forget!"

"My dear child! Do you mean that he made you a proposal of marriage?" The eagerness of Mrs. Sheppard's query was scarcely veiled. Her eyes had the look of one in search of treasure.

"Yes; just that." The emotion had gone out of Maud's voice again. It sounded flat and mechanical. She leaned her arm upon the mantelpiece for support. "I ought not to have suffered it. I was to blame more than he. He has always been--that sort. I--haven't."

"But, my dear, you have always loved each other. Why should either of you be to blame? The fault was certainly yours in the first place for sending him away long ago; but now--now----"

"Now I am married to another man," Maud said.

Mrs. Sheppard clapped her hands together in a sudden access of impatience. "A man for whom you have not the smallest respect or affection! A man of intemperate habits who took advantage of a weak moment to marry you, who has made you utterly miserable, and deserves nothing from you but the utmost contempt! My dear Maud, I always thought that you were proud and fastidious. Didn't Charlie always call you his queen rose? How can you--how can you--regard that farcical marriage of yours as binding? How can you contemplate ruining your own life and Charlie's also now that another chance has been given you? It is sheer wilful folly. It is madness. Or is it that you are just--afraid?"

Maud shook her head. "I don't suppose you would ever really understand, Mother," she said. "Anyhow I don't know how to explain. But I can't do it--now. I thought I could. I came back because I thought I could. But now I am here--now I have seen Jake--I find I can't."

"That is because you are afraid," declared Mrs. Sheppard, "He has terrorized you. But, oh, my dear, do try to break away from that! Do think of yourself--and of Charlie who has loved you all these years! One great effort--only one--and you will be free from this horrible, unnatural bond. I know that Charlie will be true to you. You are the one woman so far as he is concerned. And he--he is the one man, dear, isn't he? You can't--surely you can't--bear to disappoint him now! Think of the years to come! Think of the life-happiness waiting for you if you only muster the strength now to grasp it! Maud, my darling, my own girlie, can't you be brave just this once when so much hangs upon it? He will take you away in his yacht, and you will be all in all to each other. You will find all the good things you have missed till now; and this dreadful year will fade away like a dream. Oh, darling, surely you will make this one great effort to gain so much! The chance will never come again to you. It is the one chance of your life,--the last. How can you bear to throw it away?"

"And what of Jake?" Maud spoke the words as though uttering her thought aloud. She was gazing downwards at the steaming kettle and the red-hot glow of the fire.

"Jake!" Mrs. Sheppard's reply was instant and contemptuous. "He will marry a girl in his own station who will satisfy all his desires. You can't honestly imagine that you have done that, that he regards his marriage with you as a success! He may be annoyed at your preference, but he will be as glad as you are to be rid of his bargain. It will be the greatest kindness you can do him--if you want to be kind. You know you hate him from the bottom of your heart."

"Mother! You're wrong!" Sharply--as though stung to action--Maud turned. "I don't hate Jake. He--he is too good a man--too upright a man--to hate. It is true I haven't been happy with him, but that has not been his fault. Our ideas of happiness are not the same, that's all."

Mrs. Sheppard stared in momentary discomfiture at this sudden display of strength. She had not expected serious resistance in this quarter. But she was quick to rally her forces.

"Oh, I don't blame him entirely," she said. "As you say, you are utterly unsuited to each other. But it is sheer nonsense to call him a good man. I know that he is often the worse for drink. I have seen him myself flogging his horses down on the beach as no man in his sober senses would dream of doing. He is an utter brute at heart. There is no getting away from that fact. He may not be a wholly bad man. I have not said that he is. But he is a man of violent impulses. He knows nothing of the refinements of life. He is a brute."

Mrs. Sheppard paused. Maud was standing mute and motionless with tragic eyes fixed before her.

After a moment or two to give her words time to sink in, Mrs. Sheppard continued on a note of pathos.

"You may say to me that I have made exactly the same mistake myself. But then, I did it for you children. And it was not the whole of my life that I had to offer. But you,--you are young. Your good time is yet to come. And think, dear, think how much depends upon you! If Charlie dies unmarried, there will be no one to succeed him. He is the last of the Burchesters. And if he doesn't marry you, I am sure he will never marry any other woman. He loves you so devotedly. Through all his peccadilloes, he has always remembered you, come back to you. Are you going to let him be lonely always because of his love for you? He has laid the greatest gift in the world at your feet, dear. Oh, grasp it while you can! Don't let the whole of his manhood, your womanhood, be one long and fruitless regret!"

It was the climax of her pleading. The tears were running down her face as she reached it, and she did not check them too readily though she knew that she had made an impression. Victory would not come at once, she fully realized. The stony immobility of Maud's attitude told her that. But she had laid her plans with craft. She believed that by the exercise of extreme patience victory might ultimately be achieved.

"There, darling! You're very tired," she said, as she slowly dried her eyes; "much too tired to see anything in its proper light to-night. You must go to bed and sleep. You will see things much more clearly in the morning. And shall I tell you a secret?" She smiled, a wistful, loving smile. "Charlie will be at the Castle to-morrow afternoon."

"How do you know, Mother?" Maud spoke quickly as one suddenly awakened.

"How do I know? But everyone knows," Mrs. Sheppard answered vaguely. "The yacht is in the harbour, and they are getting her ready for a trip. Darling, the kettle is boiling at last. Mind how you take it off! Oh dear, I'm very tired. I hope I shan't end my days in the workhouse. So trying to have to make one's bed every day. Good night, darling! No tea for me, thank you. I haven't the heart to drink it. There's a bed made up in the room next to this. I hope you will find it comfortable. Good night, dear! Good night!"

The words went into a deep sigh. Mrs. Sheppard sank down upon her pillow. And Maud turned with a set face, and prepared to leave her for the night.

Yes, her mother's words had made an impression upon her. They had voiced all the doubt and turmoil in her own sad heart. But they had not blotted out that vision of the precipice, the rocks, and the black, black whirlpool that awaited her at the end of the downward path.

Neither had they wholly taken from her the memory of a man's eyes, straight and honest and strangely appealing, that had looked into hers only a couple of hours before.

Above her mother's warnings, above all the trouble and the tumult of her soul, she heard a voice within, clear, insistent, indomitable: "Love is only gained by love. We must pour out all we have to win it, purge our hearts of all selfish desire, sanctify ourselves by the complete renunciation of self, before the perfect gift can be ours."

The perfect gift! The perfect gift! She had almost ceased to believe in it. But that night she dreamed that she had it in her grasp.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE WHIRLPOOL

"Well, Billings, you're looking as cadaverously blooming as ever. How do you do it, man? Did someone give you an over-dose of respectability in your youth?"

Saltash leaned back in his chair smiling up at his wry-faced servitor with insolent humour.

Billings, the decorous, betrayed not the smallest sign of surprise or resentment. It was said of him that when Saltash had once in a fit of anger flung a wine-glass at his head, he had knelt and collected the fragments and mopped up the wine before he had dreamed of retiring to attend to the cut on his face that the glass had inflicted.

On the present occasion he made response with the utmost gravity. "I can't say, my lord. Shall I light the fire, my lord?"

"Oh yes, it's a filthy day, typical of a filthy climate. Yes, light the fire, and pull down the blinds, and let's be comfortable!"

"It won't be dark yet, my lord," observed Billings, with a glance at the clock.

Saltash's eyes went in the same direction. It was not quite three o'clock. "What of that, good Billings? I please myself," he said. "By the way, you might take coffee up to the music-room. Leave it to brew up there! And when Mrs. Bolton calls tell her I'm out, but I shall be back in a very short time! Ask her to wait in the music-room, and pour her out some coffee! Light the red lamp by the piano, but leave the rest! Is that quite clear, Billings?"

"Quite clear, my lord."

Billings was on his knees before the fire. Saltash leaned forward in his chair.

"Be sure you get her to have some coffee, Billings!" he said. "Tell her I specially recommend it."

"Very good, my lord." Billings spoke with his head nearly touching the logs of wood he was seeking to kindle. "I quite understand, my lord."

Saltash got to his feet. "I'll give you a gold watch if you succeed, Billings," he said.

"You're very good, my lord," said Billings.

Saltash wandered down the hall. He had a cigarette between his lips, but he was not smoking. He reached the marble statue near the grand staircase and pressed a switch that flooded it with light. Then he stood before it, silent and intent. White and wonderful the anguished figure shone, but it was rather a figure of death than life. Its purity was almost dazzling. Its very agony was unearthly.

Saltash frowned abruptly and switched off the light. Then for a space he stood in the gloom, staring at the vague outline.

Billings came up behind him soft-footed, unobtrusive. "The rose light, my lord, was placed on the other side according to your lordship's orders," he said deferentially, and passed on as if he had not spoken.

Saltash glanced over his shoulder momentarily, and resumed his silent contemplation of the figure in the shadows.

Several seconds passed. Then very suddenly he moved again, bent swiftly and pressed another switch. In a moment the figure was fully visible again, but no longer did it dazzle the eyes with its whiteness. A soft rose radiance surrounded it. It glowed into life, pulsing, palpitating flesh and blood.

And the man's eyes suddenly kindled as they passed over the naked, straining form. "I have you now, my Captured Angel," he murmured.

He stood and feasted upon the vision. Once he stretched a hand to touch the faultless curve of the breast, but checked himself with an odd, flickering smile as though he did reverence whimsically to a sacred element in which he had no faith. The agonized shame of the thing, poignant, arresting, though it was, seemed wholly to pass him by. His queer, glancing eyes saw only the unveiled voluptuousness of the form, the perfect contour of the limbs, the exquisite moulding of each full and gracious line. He dwelt upon them all with the look of an epicure. He moved again at length, drew near to the statue, reached a hand to the dark panelling of the recess behind. It slipped inwards noiselessly, disclosing a narrow doorway. In a moment he had passed through, and the great hall was empty; empty save for that figure of tragic womanhood, rose-lighted, piteously alive, standing out against the shadows.

It was nearly half an hour later that an electric bell sounded through the silence, and Billings, the respectable, came noiselessly through the hall. He swung the great door open with a well-bred flourish.

A woman's figure clad in a streaming waterproof stood on the step, and in a low voice asked for Lord Saltash. Billings stood back with a deep bow. "Will you walk in, madam?"

She entered and stood on the mat. He took her umbrella and set it aside.

"Will you permit me to remove your waterproof, madam?" he suggested.

She seemed to hesitate, but in a moment yielded. "But I can only stay a few moments," she said. "Please tell him so!"

"Quite so, madam!" Billings was deftly removing the wet garment. "Up in the music-room, if you please, madam."

She suffered his ministrations in silence; only as he turned to lead the way she shivered suddenly and uncontrollably.

She followed him up the dim hall. They approached the rose-lit statue. Her eyes were drawn to it. She stopped as though involuntarily, stopped and caught her breath as if in sudden surprise or dismay. Then quickly she passed on.

They ascended the grand staircase in solemn procession, and reached the music-room door.

Again Billings stood back for her to enter, but when she had done so, he closed the door, remaining within.

The great room was dim and shadowy, heavy with some mysterious Eastern fragrance that hung in the air like incense. It was lighted by two red fires that burned without flame and a red-shaded lamp that shed a mysterious arc of light far away by the piano.

There was a small table by the further fire, and on this a silver coffee-pot hissed over a spirit-lamp. A low divan--so low that it looked a mere pile of luxurious cushions--stood invitingly close. Billings deferentially led the way thither.

"If you will be pleased to take a seat, madam," he said. "His lordship will not keep you waiting long."

"Is he out?" Maud asked quickly.

"He has been out, madam. He came in wet through and is changing. He begged very particularly that you would drink a cup of coffee while you awaited him."

He indicated the divan, but Maud remained on her feet. The atmosphere of the place disturbed her. It seemed to be charged with subtleties that baffled her, making her vaguely uneasy.

She had come in answer to a message accompanying a great bunch of violets that had reached her that morning. She had not wanted to come; but for this once it seemed imperative that she should meet him face to face, and explain that which she felt no written words could ever express. She had sent him her rash summons, and he had replied by that bunch of violets and the request that she would come to him since he did not wish to risk interruption from "madame la mère." On this point she had been fully in accord with him, and she had sent back word that she would come in the afternoon, just to speak with him for a few minutes. She had hoped that he would gather from that that since the sending of her summons she had repented of her madness. It would not be an easy interview, she was sure; but she was not afraid of Charlie. She hated the thought of hurting him all the more because she did not fear him. He would let her go; oh yes, he would let her go. He had never sought to hold her against her will. But that very fact would make the parting the more bitter. His half-whimsical chivalry was somehow harder to face than any fury of indignation. He had hurt her at their last interview, hurt and disappointed her. But yet the man's fascination overpowered all thought of his shortcomings. Already she had almost forgotten them.