THE PEACOCK FEATHER (continued 4)

“Something will happen to make up to us,” they cry. But—so Peter reflected from the wisdom of his present vast age (he was two-and-thirty be it stated)—nothing does happen. We burn our all heroically, and then are surprised to find that there is no life in the grey ashes left to us. His optimism had gone, vanished, and nothing but a deep pessimism remained to him.

“It’s no use, Democritus,” he said, as with tongue and wagging tail the small creature tried to cheer this terrible mood that had fallen upon his master, “it’s no use. I’ve made a mull of things, and perhaps it’s just as well to know when I am beaten. And yet if——”

Unpleasant little word, which so often prefaces all the joys that might have been and are not.

Bear with Peter in his present mood. The marvel is it had never fallen upon him before, and that it had not must be accounted for by the fact that youth, health, and what had appeared as indomitable good spirits were all in his favour.

It is useless, however, to dwell on his misery. Picture him, if you will, as wretched as man well could be. He was, after all, only human, and up till now he had fought his fight bravely.

He slept little throughout the night. About midnight the wind dropped suddenly, and by the light of a candle he saw snowflakes falling through the hole in the roof. He was trying to console himself with Conard’s life of Beethoven, which he had purchased; but with the remembrance of the woman who had recommended him to read it before his mind, the consolation was not overgreat.

Towards morning he fell into a fitful slumber which lasted till dawn. Then he awakened, roused himself, yawned and stretched. The memory of his mood of the previous night recurred to his mind. He felt suddenly ashamed, though there had been none but his own soul and Democritus to witness it. Courage, high-handed, sprang again within him. He flung last night’s mood behind him, and brave-eyed faced the future. And with what is to follow it is good to think that he did so.

He got up, and went to the cottage door.

The earth lay snow-covered and very still. Since midnight the air had been thick with feathery flakes falling gently, silently. Just before dawn they had ceased, and now the world lay under the soft mantle. White and spectre-like the trees reared their branches against the cold grey sky. Only here and there the berries of the holly and the rowan-tree gleamed scarlet against the snow. A little stream that in summer made faint music as it wended its way to the right of the hut, finally losing itself in the shadow of the pinewood, was now frost-bound and silent. Over everything lay an intense stillness, an unearthly purity. The ground before the hut was covered with curious little star-like lines imprinted in the snow, the impress of the feet of feathered wayfarers seeking for food which was not to be found.

And then through the silent frosty air came clear sounds—the barking of a sheepdog, the clarion note of a cock in an outlying farmyard, and, very distant, the sound of a church clock chiming the hour.

The eastern sky began to flush with colour. An amber light stole upward through the grey, turning to rose and then to deeper crimson. The white earth pulsated, breathed, awakened. Softly it reflected the crimson of the sky, and then slowly, majestically, the sun, a glowing ball of fire, came up over the horizon.

Peter stood gazing at the fairy magic of the scene. It was a pure transformation after the bleak dreariness of the previous night.

And then suddenly he saw a man coming along the road—a man tall, broad-shouldered, of a build akin to his own. A thick coat covered him, its fur collar well pulled up to his ears; a cloth cap was on his head.

“Hullo,” said Peter to himself, “he’s early a-foot!”

The man paused, looked in the direction of the hut, then turned and tramped quickly across the snow towards him. As he came nearer Peter saw a pleasant freckled face, brown eyes like a dog’s, a firm short chin, and a small reddish moustache.

Within three or four yards of him the stranger halted and spoke.

“Is your name, by good luck, Peter Carden?”

“It is,” said Peter, surprised, wondering.

“Thank Heaven!” murmured he of the freckles piously. “I’ve found you at last! Come along back to the hotel with me and we’ll talk as we go. I’m famishing for breakfast.”

CHAPTER XXVII

A MIRACLE

And here it is necessary to record certain things which led up to this—to Peter—most extraordinary of meetings: things which those who do not believe in the miracles wrought by love and prayer might regard as almost incredible coincidences.

One afternoon, it was in the week between Christmas and the New Year, Father O’Sullivan was in the Westminster Hospital. He had been with a sick man for the last half-hour or so, cheering him on his high-road to recovery. He had only just left him—he was, in fact, in the corridor—when a nursing Sister, a Catholic, came up to him.

“Father,” she said, “there’s a man—a gentleman—who would like to see you; he’s a Catholic and dying. I asked him to let me send for a priest yesterday, and again to-day, but he refused. A few moments ago, however, I happened to mention your name and say that you were in the hospital. He asked me then to fetch you.”

“Ah!” said Father O’Sullivan, smoothing his chin, as was the way with him—if he had worn a beard he would have been stroking it; “where is he?”

“In here, Father.” And she led the way through a ward, and into a small room that opened out of it.

Father O’Sullivan looked at the man lying on the bed. His eyes were closed, and his face almost deathly pale against the red coverlet which was pulled up to his chin.

Father O’Sullivan sat down by the bedside. The man opened his eyes and looked at him.

“Well, Father,” he said, with a faint attempt at a smile.

And then, in spite of the pallor, the thinness, Father O’Sullivan recognized him. He saw in him a man he had known from boyhood, one who had attended his confessional, though for about six years he had entirely lost sight of him.

“Hugh Ellerslie!” exclaimed he.

“You remember me?” said Hugh.

“Of course, of course,” replied Father O’Sullivan, “though it’s six years or thereabouts since I saw you.”

“I know,” said Hugh wearily. “I want to talk to you, Father. They tell me I’m dying.”

“Well, now,” said the old priest compassionately, “and if that’s so, isn’t it a good thing I’m here to help you make your peace, to have you tell me what it is is troubling you?”

For a moment Hugh was silent,

“I’ve a confession to make, Father,” he said presently. The Sister moved towards the door.

“No,” said Hugh, “don’t go. How long have I got to live?”

“Some hours at least,” said the Sister gently.

Hugh smiled. “Well, you’d better both hear what I’ve got to say. It won’t take long, but I can think of nothing else till I’ve said it. Perhaps you, Sister, will write down what is necessary. I can sign it presently, and, at all events, there will be two witnesses.”

At a sign from Father O’Sullivan the nurse crossed to the other side of the bed.

“Now, my son,” said Father O’Sullivan quietly, tenderly.

“I have let another man suffer instead of me,” said Hugh steadily. “His name—please get that down clearly, Sister—is Peter Carden.”

Father O’Sullivan did not move, but he drew a long breath. And there are some people who say that the age of miracles is past!

“There’s no need to enter into all particulars,” went on Hugh; “it would mean rather complicated business details that really don’t signify. But get this down clearly. About five or six years ago, Peter Carden was accused of forgery and embezzlement. He was put on his trial and pleaded guilty. He got three years in Portland Gaol. He was innocent; he was shielding me. Everything of which he was accused, and to which he pleaded guilty, was done by me. Is that clear, Father?”

“Perfectly clear, my son.”

“We were friends,” went on Hugh, “school friends, college friends. Peter always hauled me out of scrapes. He stuck to me through thick and thin. I believe this last time it was as much for my old mother’s sake as mine that he stood by me. She was very fond of Peter. I said,” a slow colour mounted in the white face, “that it was for her sake that I let him do it; it wasn’t—at least, not only that. I was a coward. She died about a year after Peter had been in prison. I might have come forward then. I didn’t; I went abroad. I came back to England only about six months ago.” He stopped.

“Anything else?” asked Father O’Sullivan gravely and tenderly.

“That’s all,” said Hugh wearily, “at least, with regard to that. I’d like Peter to know that, cur though I’ve been to him, I’ve always been fond of him. Tell him, if you can, Father, that I’ve tried to run straight since, because of him and what he did. I wasn’t getting on badly, but now——”

“He shall be told,” said Father O’Sullivan.

“Do you know where he is?” asked Hugh, “You speak as if you knew him.”

“I’ve heard of him,” replied Father O’Sullivan, “and though I don’t know where he is now, he shall be found.”

Again Hugh was silent. After a moment he spoke.

“If you’ve got all that down, Sister, I’ll sign it. You’re sure it will be all right, Father; that it will let every one know, and clear him entirely?”

“Perfectly sure.”

The Sister put the paper by Hugh’s hand, and he signed a straggling, wavering signature. He let the pen fall. Then he looked up at the Sister.

“Now,” he said, “there are other things. Will you——?”

And the Sister left the room, closing the door noiselessly behind her.

It was after seven o’clock before Father O’Sullivan finally left the hospital. He had left it once to fetch the Sacraments for which Hugh had asked. And then, when the full peace of forgiveness and union had fallen upon him, he had lain very still.

Once when Father O’Sullivan had moved he had spoken wistfully.

“Must you go, Father?”

“Not at all, as long as you’re caring for me to be with you.”

Hugh turned his face on the pillow.

“If it hadn’t been you this afternoon, Father!” he said.

“The good God understood that,” said Father O’Sullivan calmly, “and just sent me along to see Tim Donoghue, who’s the very saint of a fellow when he’s sick, and would have me be reading to him and praying for him by the hour, and me with other jobs to be looking after.”

“We’re all like that, perhaps,” said Hugh, smiling.

“Faith, and it’s a good thing too,” was the reply. “And to whom but your Mother should you be going when you’re sick, and in whose arms but hers should you be dying?”

And then there was a silence, broken occasionally by little remarks from Hugh, who, coward though he might have been once, and more than once, was no coward now that he was dying. And Father O’Sullivan had responded with little tender speeches, such as a mother indeed might make to a child.

And now he was walking towards Muriel’s house in Cadogan Place, and thanking God in his kind, big old heart for a soul which had passed peacefully away.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE FINE WAY

I

“And so,” said Father O’Sullivan, blowing his nose, “I came right along to tell you, and ask you what is the next step to take.”

“Poor chap!” ejaculated Tommy, delivering himself of a huge sigh. He was standing on the hearthrug, immaculately attired in dinner jacket, white shirt-front, and all the rest of the paraphernalia.

Muriel gave a little choke. She was sitting near him in a dress of her favourite pale green. Father O’Sullivan had descended on them both as they were waiting in the drawing-room for the announcement of dinner. It had, be it stated, already been made, but little heed had been paid thereto, and the butler in wrathful terms was now ordering the soup to be taken below again.

“And what are you both looking so glum about?” demanded Father O’Sullivan fiercely. “Faith, and weren’t you having me say Masses, and yourself setting up candles to St. Joseph, that that young Quixote—what’s-his-name—might hold up his head again? And now that the good Lord has answered our prayers and cleared him, and let that poor boy make a good confession and pass peacefully away, you’re looking as mournful as a mute at a funeral. Was it perhaps some other way you’d have been having God arrange things and not His way at all?” He stuffed his handkerchief back vigorously in his pocket as he spoke.

“But,” quoth Tommy in a slightly haughty fashion, feeling this speech somewhat of an aspersion on his wife’s wet eyes, “you will not, I imagine, deny that it was sad?”

“Sad! Of course it was sad, what happened first. But can’t you see the fine way, the beautiful way, God has taken away the sadness? You’re all for saying Paradise must be a grand place, but directly a soul gets a bit nearer to it you’re for weeping and wailing and crying ‘Poor fellow!’”

Muriel choked back her tears. Smiling at the old priest and the half-wrathful Tommy, she spoke.

“And you’re just as near crying yourself as I am, Father,” she protested. “And it’s that is making you so abominably rude and cross to us both.”

“Huh!” said Father O’Sullivan, and he coughed, putting up his hand to his mouth. And both cough and gesture hid that his lips were trembling.

“And now,” he requested after a moment, his voice steady and a trifle dry, “what’s to be done next?”

“Find Mr. Carden, of course,” announced Muriel with airy decision, as who should say that was a fact apparent to the most infantine intelligence.

“And it’s all very well to say ‘Find him,’” remarked Father O’Sullivan dryly, “but have you the faintest suspicion of a notion where he is at all?”

“Not the least,” quoth Muriel cheerfully; “that is exactly what we have to discover.”

“And how will you be doing that may I ask?”

Muriel leant forward, finger-tips pressed together, speaking with the decision of one who has thoroughly weighed the whole problem.

“First we must tell General Carden, and see if he knows where he is. I don’t think he does, but we must find out for certain. Then there are his publishers—oh, yes,” in answer to Tommy’s elevated eyebrows—“he has written a book, a very good book indeed, and thereby hangs more of a tale than is enclosed within its covers. Failing both those plans,” she concluded firmly, “Tommy must find him.”

“Faith,” said Father O’Sullivan admiringly, “it’s a fine thing to be a husband!”

And then a second time the drawing-room door opened, and a second time a voice announced, this time in accents of deep reproach, that dinner was on the table.

Muriel looked at both the men. “Oh,” she cried, “didn’t he tell us that before? I feel apologetic. He’s such a treasure, and so is the cook—both artists in their way, and we’re spoiling their artistic efforts. Come, both of you. We’ll talk more at dinner.” A whirl of chiffons and daintiness, she led the way downstairs.

In the intervals of the servant’s absence from the room, she promulgated plans, like any old veteran at the beginning of a campaign. If they sounded somewhat fantastic plans it is certain that neither man had any better to offer. And what, in her opinion, was more feasible, more practicable, than that Tommy should take the car to Abbotsleigh, where Peter was last seen by Anne, and from there scour the country for a man with a peacock feather in his hat? It was, she assured them both, the simplest of proceedings.

By the end of dinner they had warmed to her ideas, confessing at least that no better solution of the difficulty presented itself to them. Further, she told them, and on this point she was firm, that they must both go that very evening and tell General Carden the present state of affairs. For herself, she thought Anne was expecting her. Yes; she was convinced Anne was expecting her, but she would telephone through and make sure while they were finishing their cigars. Thus she departed from the room.

Anne’s voice at the other end of the telephone presently answered her. Yes, she would be at home that evening, and delighted to see Muriel. But what was the matter of importance of which Muriel had to speak? Too long to communicate at the moment? Oh, well, Anne must possess her soul in patience till Muriel arrived.

And then Muriel hung up the receiver, and rang for the footman, on whose appearance she ordered him to tell her maid to bring a cloak immediately, and stated also that she would require a taxi in ten minutes. Then, as one who has put great things in train, she sank back in a chair with a sigh of relief and content.

II

General Carden was in his smoking-room when the opening of the door by Goring heralded the entrance of Tommy Lancing and a stout, elderly priest.

Somewhat perplexed, General Carden put down the book he had been reading, and rose from his chair to greet them. True, Tommy occasionally favoured him with his presence at this hour, but why should he drag along with him a man whom he had only once met, and that man, moreover, a priest? He appeared, too, somewhat embarrassed. It was the elder man who was at his ease.

“We came to see you, General,” said Tommy, shaking hands and introducing Father O’Sullivan, “because we thought—that is, Muriel—well, something unusual has happened.” Neither speech nor introduction was made after Tommy’s customary suave fashion.

“Ah!” said General Carden, eyeing them both keenly, while his heart gave a little anxious throb. Unusual news can easily portend bad news. Also Tommy’s manner was a trifle disconcerting.

“It is,” said Tommy, “about your son.”

“Ah!” said General Carden again, this time with a quick intake of his breath. He put his hand up to the mantelpiece. The floor seemed not quite so solid as he would desire it to be.

“He,” blurted out Tommy quickly, “was—was not guilty. Father O’Sullivan will tell you.”

Thus in the simplest, most commonplace of language can momentous announcements be made. It would seem as though there should be a grander language, a finer flow of words, for these statements and yet in such bald fashion are they invariably announced.

There was no question now but that the room was certainly revolving. Presently it steadied itself, and General Carden knew that he was sitting by the fire, the two men opposite to him, and that the old priest was talking. Gradually his mind adjusted itself to facts: he heard and understood the words that were being spoken. When they stopped there was a silence. There is so astonishingly little to be said at such times, though the tittle-tattle of small events will supply us with endless talk.

“Thank you for coming to tell me,” said General Carden gravely, and he pushed a box of cigars towards the two men. Again silence.

Presently Tommy began to talk, quietly, easily, now. He put forward Muriel’s suggestions, her advice, her plans. He explained minutely the scheme she had proposed.

General Carden listened intent.

“It is like her kind-heartedness to suggest it,” he said, as Tommy paused, “and yours to follow it up. I have no notion where he is, nor—nor have his publishers. I happened to ask them the other day.” He made the statement with an airy carelessness of manner.

“Then,” said Tommy with a firmness which Muriel would distinctly have approved, “I start to-morrow.”

Thus definitely was the decision given.

The two stayed a while longer, Tommy supplying most of the remarks made—conversation it can not be termed.

General Carden kept falling into abstracted silences, in which his eyes sought the fire and his hand pulled gently at his white moustache. Father O’Sullivan watched him from under his shaggy eyebrows. He was not a priest for nothing. He knew well enough how to read the vast unsaid between the little said, and the workings of the reserved old mind were as clear as daylight to him.

Presently they rose to depart. In the hall General Carden spoke.

“If,” he said, addressing himself to Father O’Sullivan, “you would let me know the day and hour of young Ellerslie’s funeral I should be obliged. He was a friend of my son’s.”

And in those words the old man blotted out, forgave, the wrong Hugh had done, as Peter himself would have wished.

An hour later Goring came in with a tray on which were a tumbler and a jug of hot water.

General Carden looked up. “Which wine did I drink to-night?” he demanded.

“The ’54 port, sir,” replied Goring respectfully.

“Hmm!” General Carden beat a faint, delicate tattoo with his fingers on the table. “I thought so. How much more is there?”

“About eight bottles, sir. Seven or eight I should say.”

General Carden coughed. “You need not use any more of it at present, not till”—he coughed again—“Mr. Peter comes home.”

The most perfectly trained of butlers might, perhaps, be excused a slight start at such a statement, taking into consideration, of course, previous circumstances. Goring unquestionably started. Then the mask was on again, impassive, impenetrable.

General Carden still kept up that light tattoo. He had a statement to make. In all fairness to Peter it had to be made. It was, however, peculiarly difficult to put into words.

He cleared his throat. “There was,” he said, gazing hard at his fingers, “a mistake. Mr. Peter was shielding some one else.” The tattoo stopped. The words were out.

And then the man broke through the butler. The mask of impassivity vanished.

“Lord, sir!” his voice was triumphant, “and mightn’t we ’ave known it, if only we ’adn’t been such a couple of blithering old fools.”

General Carden stared. “Ahem! Goring—really, Goring, I—” He was for a moment dumbfounded, helpless in his amazement. Then suddenly the amazement gave way before a humorous smile, his old eyes twinkled, and he brought his hand down on the table with a thump. “By God!” he cried; “you’re right.”

And Goring left the room choking with varied emotions, but pulling down his waistcoat with dignified pleasure the while.

CHAPTER XXIX

FOUND

Here, now, are the present employment and emotions of five of our characters—Tommy, with car and chauffeur, off to Devonshire, which was to be the starting-point of his search for a man with a peacock feather in his hat; General Carden watching hourly (though it was far too soon to begin to watch) for a telegram which should acquaint him of the success of the search; Anne alternating between waves of pride and despair and delicious secret joy; and Muriel spending hours with St. Joseph, imploring the dear Saint to hurry up with the job he had so successfully begun.

The intervals between these visits she spent mainly with Anne, rejoicing with her in her happier moods, encouraging, chiding, sympathizing when the waves of despair rolled high. Muriel alone knew to the full the heart of this woman friend of hers, saw the proud spirit a captive between the hands of Love, realized what the captivity meant to her.

As for our fifth character, Millicent Sheldon, a pretty truthful rumour of Tommy’s expedition having reached her, her feelings were at first distinctly mixed, though it is certain that presently she found a method of adjusting them to her own satisfaction. After all, it was unquestionably the hand of Providence which had removed the somewhat impecunious Peter from her life and given her in exchange the solid Theobald Horatio, with his equally solid income acquired from the patent of the little brushes which, being fixed behind carts, kept the London streets in a cleanly condition. It is not to be supposed that she dwelt upon these brushes; those articles had long ago been firmly obliterated from her mind. It was in the solid income alone that she saw the hand of Providence and realized that all had undoubtedly been for the best. Had Peter’s innocence been apparent from the outset, there would have been no excuse for the letter she had penned him at the time of his release from jail. Of a former letter, written on the first hearing of his accusation and conviction, she did not care to think. If she thought of it at all at this juncture it was to tell herself the letter had been prompted by an impulse of pity, the folly of which was shown her later by calm reason. That reason had been aided by the advent of Theobald Horatio Sheldon on her horizon, she naturally did not care to allow. It was, however, her inadvertent mention of this first letter and the subsequent events to Anne which had caused her to break a second time in Anne’s eyes.

But why dwell on her further? Let her remain satisfied, as she protests she is, in the possession of her Theobald, her little Theobalda, and her Theobald’s solid income. Her influence on these pages has ceased; our acquaintance with her may well cease also.

Tommy’s expedition was certainly not all joy. The month of January is hardly one to be willingly chosen for a motor tour through England, and the weather was distinctly unkind.

To attempt to recount his adventures would be to fill a volume with a description of bad roads, hailstorms, punctures, and repeated disappointments. Nevertheless he eventually got on the track of that peacock feather, and followed it up as surely as a bloodhound on the scent of his prey, though more than once he had to return on his own trail.

How Tommy kept on the scent at all was a marvel. It was by sheer perseverance, by following up every smallest clue, by letting no possible chance go untried. He was indefatigable, undoubting, and his chauffeur, hearing the story from Tommy’s enthusiastic lips, warmed to the work, and played his part with a zest equal only to Tommy’s own.

It was the third week of the search that they entered Congleton, which was, as we know, to cry “Hot!” as the children cry it in the game of hunt the thimble. But Tommy did not know it; and here, in spite of all inquiries, the clue appeared lost, vanished.

The wind was blowing, a deluge half of rain, half of sleet, descending. It being then seven o’clock or thereabouts, they decided after some parley to drive to a hotel, put up for the night, and renew the search in the morning. Some slight disarrangement in the internal organs of the car further decided them in the plan, though the chauffeur averred that ten o’clock the following morning should see them again en route. Slightly depressed, however, Tommy retired to bed.

He was up betimes. In the night the weather had changed, and snow some inches deep lay upon the ground. Before daylight he was downstairs and in the street. There he met a sleepy milk-boy delivering milk. Tommy entered into casual conversation with him, questioning carelessly, unconcernedly, as his method was. And then suddenly the clue was once more in his hand.

Of course the boy had seen him—a man with a peacock feather in his hat and a dog at his heels—a queer dog, a bit of a mongrel, so the youngster announced. Now a dog of no kind had been in the category, but the peacock feather was assuredly unmistakable. Where, then, had the boy seen him? The previous evening, it appeared, walking towards the Cloud.

Tommy consulted his watch. It was now, so he discovered, about a quarter after seven. The car by arrangement did not make its appearance till ten. Tommy demurred within his soul, cogitated as to possibilities. Then with the thought of further clues in his mind he started off a-foot towards the mountain. Presently the town lay well behind him, a wide road before him.

The crisp frosty air was exhilarating, the chance of success spurred him on. He passed a few houses. At the door of one a woman was emptying a pail of dirty water. Tommy stopped a moment to inquire. Luck, good fortune, was in his favour. A man such as he had described had passed up the road the previous evening, so the woman confidently averred. Hope beat high in Tommy’s heart. Never before had he been so close on the track. It had been always three or four days old at the least.

Now the road became desolate of houses, a smooth expanse of unbroken snow lying between stone walls. After a while the road turned a bit to the left, and here there was a largish house—a farmhouse, he judged—lying among trees. He passed it, the road still bearing to the left. Tommy plodded on. The sun was coming up in the east, a glowing ball of fire.

And then suddenly he saw a hut lying back from the road across a bit of moorland. In the doorway a tall man was standing, a peacock feather in his hat, a white mongrel dog beside him.

Tommy’s heart gave a sudden exultant leap. He turned sharply towards the hut.

CHAPTER XXX

THE RETURN

“How on earth did you find me?” demanded Peter, as the two descended the Cloud together, Democritus following in the rear.

“By the guidance of Providence,” announced Tommy. “It’s been the oddest search imaginable, and if it hadn’t been for that blessed peacock feather I’ll dare swear it had been fruitless. It was a kind of landmark, the one characteristic by which you had been noticed.”

Peter laughed. He was at the moment extraordinarily, exuberantly happy. So can fate play shuttlecock with our lives.

At the hut door Tommy had given him the barest outline of the story, sufficient only to persuade Peter that he was indeed justified in accompanying the famished Tommy down the mountain-side. Now he elaborated those details, entered fully into the most miraculous history of the last three weeks. And the story of Hugh’s confession filled Peter with a curious exultation. He saw, as Father O’Sullivan had seen, the fine way, the grand way, in which the past had been blotted out and his friend given back to him in spirit.

Tommy strode down the mountain joyous of heart, his honest freckled face fairly shining with pleasure. His whole further programme was already arranged—the wires to be sent, the breakfast to be eaten, the train to be caught that was to convey them swiftly back to town. The car and chauffeur could follow at their leisure.

Here, however, Peter demurred. It was all very well to tramp the road in this ridiculous garb, but return to civilisation attired as a mountebank—never! There were some things at which Peter drew the line, and he drew one here, and firmly. Tommy was prepared for him; he met and overruled each and every objection. Had Peter no other garments in that bundle he was carrying? What! only a dress suit? Tommy opened eyes of wonder. What on earth was the use of a dress suit to a wayfarer? Oh, of course, it was Peter’s own business if he liked to carry one around the country in a bundle on his back for the mere pleasure of boasting to his soul that he possessed one. No, of course he couldn’t wear it up to town. Tommy didn’t propose that he should. But he—Tommy—had another suit at the hotel. Peter was much of his build; he’d take him to his room to change. During the process he’d dispatch telegrams. Then, Tommy presumed, he’d be allowed to have his breakfast, after which the train. He was obdurate on that point. Yes, Peter could have a bath if he liked—fifty baths, as long as he agreed to take the train at noon.

Thus planning, arranging, the hotel was reached. Tommy escorted Peter to his room, indicated a change of raiment and the bathroom opposite, then, bursting with excitement, proceeded to find the chauffeur and dispatch telegrams. Within ten minutes—such was his celerity of action—he was in the dining-room, had ordered a substantial breakfast, and was waiting with what patience he might for the appearance of Peter.

Peter, in the bathroom, was luxuriating in a sea of gloriously hot water, while Democritus kept guard without. Occasionally a wet black nose was lowered to the crack beneath the door to sniff and wonder perplexedly at this new freak on the part of his master.

“It is certain,” remarked Peter, full length in the bath, and addressing himself to the ceiling, “that if I’d once indulged in the luxury of a good hot soapy bath in a private bathroom after leaving the jail, wild horses would never have dragged me to the roads. I’d forgotten—completely forgotten—the joy of it!”

But at last, with a mental picture of the famished Tommy before his mind, he reluctantly proceeded to dry himself and don decent habiliments.

Tommy greeted the entrance of Peter and Democritus with fervent enthusiasm, and without more ado they proceeded to make good headway with the substantial, steaming breakfast which forthwith made its appearance.

“Heavens!” cried Peter presently, pausing in the consuming of eggs and bacon, toast, marmalade, and coffee, “was there ever such a breakfast before? And have I once tendered you my thanks for coming in pursuit of me? The whole miraculous business, the entire blessed kaboodle, seems to have upset my mental equilibrium and clouded my manners.”

“Bless the man!” cried Tommy, “don’t I understand?”

Some couple of hours later the two, with Democritus, were in the train, sitting in a first-class carriage, which Tommy had bribed the guard to reserve to their sole use. Neither man desired the company of strangers at the moment. Under all their chaff and light-heartedness there was a sense of bigness, a feeling of something great accomplished.

Peter gazed through the carriage window at the snow-covered landscape, his mind a whirl of varied emotions. It is useless to attempt to say which was uppermost. Kaleidoscopic they revolved in his brain, a jumble of pleasure, relief, half-forgotten fatigue, expectation, though now through them all ran a thought of regret, of sadness—the thought of Anne.

Is ever the perfection of joy allowed to us mortals? It would appear not, mused Peter. Here was everything to his hand that his soul could desire, save the one thing after which it really hankered; and with that to his debit, the balance—in spite of its appearance—was distinctly inadequate.

Tommy, gazing at him furtively from behind the morning paper, marvelled at the sudden melancholy of the man. Cogitating in his mind for the reason, and having heard from Muriel of Peter’s previous engagement, he thought to have found it. If only, so meditated Tommy—no lover of Millicent—he could realize the escape he had had.

And so the train bore them onward, out of the snow-covered land, past bare brown fields and skeleton trees, past smoky towns and small villages lying in pale sunlight, on to the suburbs past whose platforms the train roared and rushed, on and ever onward, till London itself was reached.

CHAPTER XXXI

DEMOCRITUS ARRIVES TO STAY

General Carden in his smoking-room was listening, waiting. Fifty times already in the last half-hour he had looked over the curtain that veiled the lower half of the window. Fifty times he had looked at the clock on the mantelpiece and compared it with his watch.

An orange envelope lay on the table beside him, and with it a strip of pink paper. He knew the words thereon verbatim; certainly they were few in number:

“Found. Arrive Euston four o’clock to-day.—Lancing.”

On the receipt of this brief missive General Carden’s heart had thumped violently. He had found voice to pass the good news on to the devoted Goring, but it was well on half an hour before voice and heart were under his normal control.

Muriel had descended on him radiant, triumphant, a-bubble with joy and glee, showering her congratulations.

“Come to Mrs. Cresswell’s dance to-morrow night,” she implored, “and bring him with you. I want to shake hands with Don Quixote. I have never before met him in the flesh.” But behind this desire, and stronger than it, was the knowledge that Anne would be there, and, woman-like, she longed for an immediate meeting of the two.

“We’ll see,” promised General Carden, smiling indulgently as at a pleading child. In his heart he longed to parade London with his son and let the whole world be witness to his return, to their reunion.

Again he glanced at the clock. Any moment now! He tried to quell the tumult of expectation within him.

Dare one penetrate a little way into the mind of the reserved old man, guess at the tide of memory he had at last allowed to flow back to his heart? For years he had kept it relentlessly at its ebb, a long barren shore between him and its waters. He had feared to be submerged in its flood; he had feared that, should it approach him, it would come swiftly, remorselessly, drowning him in its depths, choking the life out of him with a deadly, icy cold. Now, and now only, he realized the sweetness of its waters, realized that their approach would be not to submerge but to lift him on buoyant waves—waves warm, exuberant, joyous. Oh, it might come now, come in all its strength, come bearing life in its flow! No longer a barren, desolate shore between him and those waters. Throughout the day the wavelets had lapped ever softly, gently nearer. Now calmly, joyously, they lifted him on their surface.

There was the old house down in the country, with the pear-tree whose branches reached the window of that octagon-room. It should be restored, re-inhabited. There was the river that ran below its grounds, wherein speckled trout and silver salmon abounded. Many were the fish he had caught there, many the fish Peter had caught. What was to prevent them from catching more? Already in thought the speckled trout lay gasping on the bank, the silver salmon were giving play in the long reaches of water between the meadows. There was the shooting, too—the pheasants, the partridges, the snipe in the swampy ground beyond the old mill, the wild duck where some seven miles distant the arm of the sea ran up to meet the river. The old days again! Memory carried him on her tide towards the future.

And then into the midst of his thoughts came a sound that brought his old heart fluttering to his throat—the sound of the front-door bell.

He held on to the arms of his chair, his eyes upon the door. It opened.

“Mr. Peter!” Goring’s voice was on a note of exultation.

And into the room came a tall, lean man, a mongrel dog at his heels.

“Hullo, father!”

“Well, my boy!”

There was a grip of hands. Then the old man was sitting again by the fire, Peter opposite to him. There was a little silence. Democritus, sniffing at the black, hairy hearthrug, was completely engrossed with his own occupation. In the silence the two men watched him.

Presently he curled down with a thump. A quivering sigh of satisfaction passed through his body.

“It is evident,” said Peter with a little laugh, “that Democritus has come to stay.”

CHAPTER XXXII

PER ASPERA AD ASTRA

“And so,” quoth Peter, “when the two met again, he had a story to tell her.”

“Oh!” queried Anne, toying with her fan, the flimsy thing of mother-of-pearl and cobwebby old lace. “A long story?”

“That,” ventured Peter with temerity, “depended largely—I might say altogether—on his listener.”

They were sitting, these two, in a wide window-seat at the end of a passage. They had the full length of it before them. It was a post of vantage. With what generalship Peter had marked it out, with what fine diplomacy he had found Lady Anne and escorted her hither, is no doubt better imagined than recorded. It suffices to chronicle that here they were, in an alcove of soft draperies and shaded lights, listening—if they chose—to the strains of music, watching—if they chose—the brilliant kaleidoscopic effect of colour through the open door of the great ballroom.

“My story,” continued Peter, “is of a Wanderer, one whom Fate in one of her freakish moods had wedded to the roads, the highways and hedges, the fields and woods.”

“Had he,” queried Anne, “nothing to solace him in his wanderings—no thoughts, no memories?”

“None,” said Peter steadily. “Once long ago Cupid had touched him with his wing—the merest flick of a feather. The man—poor fool!—fancied himself wounded, thought to bear a scar. Later, when he looked for it, he found there was none. It had been the most entire illusion on his part. And so he wandered the roads, regretting perhaps that he was scathless. But that is beside the mark.” He paused, glancing at the hands which held the flimsy cobwebby fan.

“One day,” continued Peter, “into his lonely wanderings came a letter, a mere scrap of bluish paper with tracings thereon of black ink. A flimsy fragile thing you might say, but to him it meant—well, everything. I fancy he had never realized his entire loneliness till that delicate herald of joy appeared. And—here was the wonder of it—it was written by a woman.”

“Oh!” said Lady Anne, the little pulses fluttering in her throat.

“It was,” went on Peter, “a gracious letter, a charming letter, written by one who had guessed at his loneliness of spirit, and thought to cheer that loneliness, to heal the wound she fancied him to bear. To him it came as a draught of water to one in a waterless desert. It brought him help, refreshment. He began to dream a dream of the writer, to imagine her near him. He spent hours in the company of his Dream Lady. He was no longer lonely, no longer desolate. In spirit—in fancy, if you will—she was ever with him. Oh, he knew well enough that he could never meet her in the flesh, that was part of the compact. But disembodied though she was, she meant more to him than all the material friendships in creation.” Again he stopped, his heart was beating fast.

“And then?” questioned Lady Anne.

He drew a deep breath. “And then Fate played a trick—a curious, almost incredible trick, Fate threw the woman in his path. Their meeting was strange, picturesque—I might almost call it unique. At the moment reason did not tell him the woman was the writer of the letters, but his soul, I believe, guessed. And presently he knew without a doubt his soul was right.”

“Ah!” breathed Lady Anne. “He knew the writer of the letters to him, but she did not know who answered them.”

“She did not,” echoed Peter.

There was a little pause.

“Then,” she asked, her eyes still upon her fan, “I suppose he told her what he knew?”

“No,” said Peter in a low voice, “he did not. There is no excuse for him. I myself make none. But—he feared to lose her letters. There’s the whole matter in a nutshell. He did not tell her, and he continued to write.”

“Oh!” said Lady Anne. Again there was a pause.

“Of course,” continued Peter, “it was inexcusable of him. But Fate had his punishment in store.”

“Yes?” she queried.

“Fate disclosed his trickery to the woman. He read his punishment in the contempt in her eyes. He deserved it, every bit of it. But it hurt none the less.”

“And—and then what happened?” she asked, trembling.

“He went away,” said Peter. “First he made a sacrifice—a small funeral pyre on which he burnt her letters, and I fancy his heart.”

“Did he do nothing else?” she demanded.

“Oh, yes,” confessed Peter. “He wrote to her. It was the least he could do. He prayed her forgiveness.”

“And—?” she queried.

Again Peter drew a deep breath. “After that there were months of a greater loneliness. I fancy he tried to be brave, to be worthy of her memory. She was, you see, his star.”

“Did—did he not condemn her for her harshness?” asked Lady Anne.

“Never,” cried Peter hotly. “She was to him his goddess, his divinity.” He stopped.

“Is that all?” she asked.

“No,” said Peter. “Fate had another surprise in store. She brought him from his loneliness, set him again in the midst of his fellow-men. But that was not all—it was the least. He found”—Peter’s heart beat to suffocation—“a letter—one that should have reached him long ago but for his own folly. From it he dared to believe, to hope, that his Lady had condoned his offence, had forgiven.”

Lady Anne did not reply. Peter looked at her.

“Had she forgiven?” he pleaded.

For a second—the merest fraction of a second—she raised her eyes to his.

“I—I think so,” she said. And a tiny adorable smile curved her mouth. “Is that all the story?” she questioned in a low voice after a little silence.

“Oh no,” said Peter.

“No?” she asked, surprised. “I fancied it was the end.”

“It is,” said Peter boldly, “only the beginning.”

“Oh!” she asked with delicately raised eyebrows; “and—and is the rest of the story long?”

“It is,” said Peter, “as long as a lifetime, and longer. It stretches away into Eternity. It is a story of his love for his Lady, his Queen. She is immeasurably more to him than all in earth and heaven. With every fibre of his being, with his body, his soul, his spirit, he loves, worships, and adores. It is a story that will take a lifetime in the telling. Dare he tell it? Is she, think you, willing to listen?”

Lady Anne again raised her eyes to his.

“You’re sure,” she queried, “that he wants her to listen?”

“Absolutely sure,” said Peter, his blue eyes holding hers.

“Then,” breathed Lady Anne softly, “tell her.”

THE END

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