Bertram Mitford (continued 2)

“Here, Wagram, get up and return thanks,” laughed Haldane. “If it weren’t breakfast-time one would have said that Monsignor was proposing your health.”

“The lion’s share of the kudos is due to Father Gayle,” said Wagram. “He and I between us managed to knock together a fairly decent choir for a country place, which includes Haldane, a host in himself, and, incidentally, Yvonne. The rest is easy.”

“‘Incidentally Yvonne!’” repeated that young person with mock resentment.

“I don’t know about easy,” declared Monsignor Culham. “The fact remains you had got together an outside crowd who weren’t accustomed to singing with each other—over and above your own people.”

“Yes; but we sent word to the convent asking them to practise their children in what we were going to sing—and to practise them out of doors, too. For the rest of those who helped us we trusted to their intuitive gumption.”

“Ah, that’s a good plan,” said the prelate; “there’s too little care given to that sort of thing. Singers on such an occasion are left to sort themselves. Result: discord—hitches innumerable.”

“I know,” said Haldane. “I was on the sanctuary once in a strange church. They were going to have the Te Deum solemnly sung for an occasion. I asked for a book with the square notation score. They had no such thing in their possession, and the consequence was everyone was dividing up the syllables at his own sweet will. It was neither harmonious nor jubilant.”

“I should think not,” assented Wagram emphatically. “Now, there is hardly an outdoor function I have been present at which hasn’t represented to my mind everything that outdoor singing ought not to be. Unaccompanied singing is too apt to sound thin, and if backed up with brass instruments it sounds thinner still. So we dispense with them here, and our oft-repeated and especially final injunction to all hands is: ‘Sing up!’”

“Well, it certainly was effective with your singers, Wagram,” pronounced Monsignor Culham, “and I shall cite it as an instance whenever opportunity offers.”

“That’s good, Monsignor,” returned Wagram. “We want all round to make everything as solemn and dignified and attractive as possible, as far as our opportunities here allow, especially to those outside; and we have reason to know that good results have followed.”

“In conversions?”

“Yes. We throw open the grounds to all comers on these occasions, and in the result some who come merely to see a picturesque pageant are impressed, and—inquire further.”

“I wonder what proportion of the said ‘all comers’ confine their sense of the picturesque to the tables in the marquee,” remarked Haldane, who was of a cynical bent.

“Well, you know the old saying, Haldane—that one of the ways to reach a man’s soul is through his stomach,” laughed the Squire. “Anything in that paper, by the way?”

“N-no,” answered Haldane, who had been skimming the local morning paper, while keeping one ear open for the general conversation. “Wait, though—yes, this is rather interesting—if only that it reminds me of a bad quarter of an hour once owing to a similar cause. Listen to this: ‘The R.M.S. Rhodesian, which arrived at Southampton yesterday evening, reports passing a derelict in latitude 10 degrees 5 minutes north, longitude 16 degrees 36 minutes West. The hull was a dull rusty red, and apparently of about 900 or 1000 tons burthen. The vessel was partly submerged, the forecastle and poop being above water. About eight feet of iron foremast was standing, and rather more of mizzen-mast, with some rigging trailing from it. No name was visible, and the hulk, which had apparently been a long time in the water, was lying dangerously in the track of steamers to and from the Cape.’ I should think so indeed,” continued Haldane with some warmth. “It was just such a derelict that scraped past us one black night when I was coming home in the Manchurian on that very line. It was about midnight, and everybody had turned in, but the skipper and I were having a parting yarn on the hurricane deck. We were so close to the thing that the flare of our lights showed it up barely ten yards from us; then it was gone. I asked the skipper what would have happened if we’d hit it straight and square, and he said he was no good at conundrums, but would almost rather have run full speed on against the face of a cliff.”

“I suppose there was great excitement in the morning?” said the Squire.

“Not any; for the simple reason that nobody knew anything about it. The occurrence was logged, of course, but the skipper asked me not to blab, and I didn’t. Most of the passengers were scary enough over the risks they knew about, he said, and if you told them a lot more that they didn’t many of them would die.”

“They oughtn’t to leave a thing like that,” said Wagram. “Why didn’t your captain stop and blow it up, Haldane?”

“I asked him, and he said his company didn’t contract for hulk-hunting on dark nights; it contracted to carry Her Majesty’s mails. Probably the skipper of the Rhodesian reasoned in exactly the same way about this one.”

“It’s as bad as an infernal machine.”

“It is an infernal machine,” said Haldane.

Chapter Eight.

Retribution—Sharp and Sore.

“Now I’ll race you, Mr Wagram.”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort. When I consented to take charge of you—a weighty responsibility in itself—I did so on condition that it was at your own risk. In short, the average railway company couldn’t have contracted itself out of its liabilities more completely.”

They were skimming along at the rate of about ten miles an hour, and that on an ideal road, smooth, dustless, and shaded by overhanging woods. Yvonne was trying how far she could ride with both hands off the handlebars, and performing various reckless feats, to the no small anxiety of her escort.

“Slow down here,” said the latter. “This pace isn’t safe; too many rabbits.”

“Too many rabbits?” echoed the girl. Then she gave forth a peal of laughter.

“Yes; it’s a screaming joke, isn’t it? But it may surprise you to hear that I’ve known of more than one bad spill caused by a fool of a rabbit dodging under the wheel, especially at night.”

“Really? You’re not stuffing me?”

“Well, can’t you see for yourself how easily the thing might happen? They’re crossing the road in gangs in both directions, and a rabbit is sometimes as great a fool as a human being in crossing a road, in that it is liable to change its mind and run back again. Result in either case, a bad spill for the bicyclist. You needn’t go far for an instance. Saunders, the chemist’s assistant in Bassingham, was nearly killed that way. He was coasting down Swanton Hill in the moonlight, and a rabbit ran under his wheel. He was chucked off, and got concussion of the brain.”

“Fancy being killed by a rabbit!”

“Yes. Sounds funny, doesn’t it? Here’s Pritchett’s.”

They had emerged from the woods into an open road, beside which stood a large farmhouse. The farmer was somewhere about the place; he couldn’t be very far off, they were informed. His wife was away, but might be back any minute. Should Mr Pritchett be sent for?

“No, no,” said Wagram; “just find a boy to show me where he is. I’ll go to him. Yvonne, you’d better wait here for me; a rest will do you no harm.”

“All safe. Don’t be longer than you can help.”

But Yvonne could not sit still for long, being of a restless temperament. She was soon outside again, and, promptly tiring of the ducks and fowls, she wandered down the shady road they had just come along.

Not far along this she came to a five-barred gate, opening into a broad green lane with high hedges, leading into the wood at right angles to the main road. In these hedges several whitish objects caught her glance.

“Honeysuckles,” she said to herself. “Beauties, too, if only I can reach them.”

In a moment she had opened the gate and was in the lane. But the coveted blossoms grew high, badly needing the aid of a hooked stick. She looked around for something approximating to one and found it. Then followed a good deal of scrambling, and at last, hot and flushed and a little scratched, Yvonne made her way back to the gate, trying to reduce into portable size and shape the redundant stems of the fragrant creeper. Being thus intent she did not look up until she had reached the gate, and then with a slight start, for she discovered that she was no longer alone.

Standing on the other side of the gate, but facing her, with both elbows lounged over the top bar, was a pasty-faced, loosely-hung youth, clad in a bicycle suit of cheap build and loud design. This precious product nodded to her with a familiar grin but made no attempt to move.

“Will you make way for me, please? I wish to pass,” she said crisply.

This time the fellow winked.

“Not until you’ve paid toll, dear,” he said, with nauseous significance.

It was well for him that Yvonne’s hands held nothing more formidable than a couple of bunches of honeysuckle. Had they held a whip or a switch it is possible that the pasty face of this cowardly cur might have been wealed in such wise as to last him for quite an indefinite time.

“Will you stand away from that gate, please? I repeat that I want to pass,” she said in even more staccato tone than before. Her blue eyes had grown steely, and there was a red flush in the centre of each cheek. She glanced furtively on the ground; if even she could find a stone for a weapon of defence; but the lane was soft and grassy, and stones there were none. But all the fellow did was to drop his elbows farther down over the top bar, so as to hold the gate more effectually.

“Not until you’ve paid toll, dear,” he repeated. “Come, now, don’t be disagreeable. It’s the rule of the road to take toll of a pretty girl when you let her through a gate. You’re only a kid, too, and I won’t give it away. Ooh—hah—hah!”

It would be impossible to convey an idea of the combined terror and anguish conveyed in the above shout. Equally impossible would it be, we fear, to convey the attitude struck, in sudden and swift transition, by him who uttered it. He bounded back from the gate like an india-rubber ball thrown against it, and with like velocity, for a tough and supple ground-ash stick had descended upon that part of his person which his forward lounge over the gate had left peculiarly suggestive of the purpose; and with lightning-like swiftness again the stick came down, conveying to the recipient some such sensation as that of being cut in half by a red-hot bar. One appalled glimpse of Wagram’s face, blazing with white wrath above him, and the terrified bounder, ducking just in time to avoid being seized by the collar, turned and fled down the road, quite regardless, in his blind panic, of abandoning his bicycle, which leaned against the hedge a few yards from the gate.

But for himself no more disastrous plan could he have conceived. Wagram had no intention of letting him down so easily, and sprang in pursuit, with the result that in about a moment he was flogging his victim along the road at the best pace that either could by any possibility put forward. At last the fellow lay down, and howled for mercy.

Giving him one final, pitiless, cutting “swish” as he rolled over, Wagram ceased.

“You crawling cur,” he said, still white with anger, and rather breathless with his exertion, “I won’t even give you the privilege of apologising. That is one reserved for some slight semblance of a man; but for a thing like you—Faugh!”

The thought seemed to sting him to such a degree of renewed ferocity that his face changed again. Fearing a renewal of the chastisement the cringing one fairly whimpered.

“You’ve nearly killed me,” he groaned. “I didn’t mean any harm, sir; it was only a bit of fun.”

“Fun!” Wagram turned away. He could not trust himself until he had put a dozen yards between them. Then he turned again.

“Get your bicycle, and take yourself off,” he said—“if you can still sit on it, that is.” Then he returned to Yvonne.

“I am not pleased with you,” he said. “You should not have gone wandering off on your own account like that. And I’m responsible for you to your father. What’ll he say? The only bright side to it is that I was in time to thrash that unutterable young brute within an inch of his life. No, though; I didn’t give him half enough,” with a vicious swish of the ground-ash through the air.

“Don’t be angry with me, Mr Wagram,” she answered, and the sweet, fearless blue eyes were wet as she slipped her hand pleadingly through his arm; “I’m so sorry.”

There was no resisting this, and he thawed at once.

“Well, we’ll think no more about it, dear. There, now, don’t cry.”

“No, I won’t.” She dashed away her tears with a smile. She thought so much of Wagram that a displeased word from him was more to this happy, sunny-hearted, spirited child than the occasion seemed to warrant. Then a shout behind caused them both to turn.

They had strolled about a hundred yards from the gate, and now they saw that the fellow had regained his bicycle. He was standing in the middle of the road ready to mount, but at a safe distance.

“I’ll have the law of you for this,” he shouted, “you great, bullying coward. I’d like to see you hit a man your own size. I’ll have a thousand pounds out of you for this job. You’ve committed a savage assault on me, and you shall pay for it, by God! I know who you are, my fine fellow, and you’ll hear more about this; no blooming fear!”

“Oh, you haven’t had enough?” called out Wagram. “All right. My bike’s just close by; I’ll get it and come after you, then you shall have some more,” holding up the ground-ash. “Go on; I’ll soon catch you up.”

This was a new aspect of the affair. The fellow seemed cowed, for he forthwith mounted his machine with some alacrity, and made off at a pace which must have caused him agonies in the light of the raw state to which his seating properties had just been reduced.

This is how the situation had come about. When Wagram returned to the house with the farmer he found that Yvonne, tired of waiting, had strolled off down the road, intending to pick wild flowers, or otherwise amuse herself. Without a thought of anything untoward he had followed her. The gate at which the affair began stood back from the road, and was concealed by the jutting of the hedge from anyone approaching. But the girl’s indignant voice, clear as a bell, fell upon his ear, and simultaneously he had caught sight of the objectionable cad’s nether extremities, as their owner, leaned over the gate. The idea suggested, to open his knife, and in a couple of quick, noiseless slashes to cut one of the fine, serviceable ground-ash plants growing on the bank, was the work of a moment. It was the work of another moment to step noiselessly behind the fellow just as he was delivering himself of his second insult. The rest we know.

“Well, child, we shall have a lovely ride back,” he said. “I believe Mrs Pritchett has got some rather good strawberries and cream for you before we start, to say nothing of some very inviting-looking home-made bread and butter. She has come in, you know.”

They had reached the farmhouse by now, and the farmer and his wife were waiting for them in the porch.

“Come in miss, do,” said the latter. “I know you’ll like this.” And she beamed proudly, with a look at the spotless white tablecloth, and the set-out of blushing strawberries and snowy cream, and the thin, tempting slices of brown bread and butter. “I’ve made you a nice cup of tea, too, Mr Wagram, sir. I don’t know that you’ll take a fancy to such things,” added the good dame ruefully.

“I’ll take an immense fancy to a glass or two of your husband’s excellent home-brewed, Mrs Pritchett. Why, you’re forgetting how I’ve enjoyed it before to-day.”

“Why, of course I am, sir,” was the reply, immensely pleased; and in a trice the farmer returned with a foam-capped jug and a glass.

“What’s this?” said Wagram, with reference to the latter. “Why, certainly you’re going to keep me company, Pritchett.”

“Well, sir, I shall be proud,” was the answer, and the omission was promptly rectified.

“Here are your healths,” said Wagram, raising his glass. “I didn’t see you yesterday, Mrs Pritchett. Weren’t you able to get over? Of course, I don’t mean necessarily for the service,” he added quickly; “but you ought to know by this time that all our friends are heartily welcome, irrespective of their creed.”

“Well, sir, you see it was this way,” began the good woman with some slight embarrassment.

“That’s all right,” interrupted Wagram genially. “Well, you’ll know it next time, I’m sure.”

“That I shall, sir.”

After a little more pleasant conversation they shook hands heartily with the worthy couple and took their leave.

Just before the dressing-bell rang Haldane burst in upon Wagram in a wholly unwonted state of excitement.

“What’s this my little girl has been telling me, Wagram?” he said. “I must go and kill the scoundrel at once. I’ll borrow the Squire’s biggest hunting-crop.”

“You can’t, Haldane, if only that we haven’t the remotest idea who the said scoundrel is. It’s probably some miserable counter-jumper doing a bike round. But, sit tight; he’s got enough to last him for many a long day.”

“Did you cut him to ribbons? Did you?”

“I cut his small-clothes to ribbons. By George, he’ll have to launch out in a new biking suit. No; great as the offence was, even I think he got something like adequate compensation for it,” added Wagram grimly, as he called to mind the fellow’s insults—and their object.

And with this assurance Haldane had perforce to remain satisfied.

Chapter Nine.

“We Get No Show.”

“Great Scott!” exclaimed Clytie Calmour as a vehement ring sounded at the front gate, obviously produced by the owner of the large red head which surmounted that portal. “Great Scott! but whoever called this shebang Siege House named it well. Here’s our last butcher pestering for his account for the seventh time. Now, dad, shell out.”

“Don’t talk rot, Clytie. You know I haven’t got a stiver. He’ll have to wait till next quarter-day. Tell him that, and let him go to the devil.”

“Yes, yes; that’s all right. But meanwhile we shall have to be vegetarians.”

“This infernal dunning gets on a man’s nerves. It oughtn’t to be allowed,” grumbled old Calmour, who, it being only breakfast-time, was not sufficiently drunk to philosophise.

“No, it oughtn’t,” cut in Bob; “but this time tell him we’ll square with him next week to a dead cert, Clytie, and deal with him ever after. You know, dad. You were forgetting,” with a significant wink.

“I wonder what nefarious plan you’re hatching between you,” said Delia. “But I’d be sorry for Wells if he depended upon it for getting his money.”

“Oh, shut up,” snarled Bob. “You weren’t so blazing straight-laced and sanctimonious until you got taken up by the nobs, either. By Jove, I believe Clytie’s got round him after all. What a girl she is!”

For the exasperated tradesman, who had been delivering himself of all sorts of uncomplimentary sayings, on the appearance of Clytie on the scene had evidently thawed with a suddenness which was quite miraculous, and was seen to salute quite respectfully as he turned away.

“I’ve fixed him,” she said serenely as she entered. “He’ll send round. We shan’t have to vegetate to-day.”

This sort of incident was common at Siege House, which, by the way, had really been so named by a former owner who had taken part in the siege of Delhi. Indeed, it was a mystery how they lived. Old Calmour’s pension was not large, and generally forestalled, yet somehow they managed to rub along.

“When are you going to start for Haldane’s, Delia?” went on Bob, who was inclined to make himself disagreeable.

“Soon.”

“Soon? Can’t be too soon, eh? It’s surprising how these old widowers freeze on to you. First Wagram, now Haldane,” jeered Bob.

But there came a look into the face of his would-be victim that he did not like. Delia had a temper, both quick and hot when roused, as he had more than once had reason to know, wherefore now his asinine guffaw seemed to dwindle. Clytie intervened.

“Shut your head, Bob,” she said decisively. “You open it a great deal too much, and generally at the wrong time. Likewise clear; we’ve had enough of you. Besides, you’re late. Pownall and Skreet must be absolutely languishing for you and your valuable services. Do you hear? Clear.”

Whatever hold the speaker had upon Bob it was obviously a tight one, for he never failed in his obedience. Such was rendered grumblingly, indeed, but rendered it was. Now he retreated to the door, grunting a surly “All right.”

“What are those two up to, do you think, Clytie?” said Delia. “The old man’s going to Pownall and Skreet’s as well as Bob.”

The last named at this juncture put his head in at the door to shout out:

“Which is the one, Delia? Wagram or Haldane?” and withdrew it in a hurry lest a well-aimed missile might considerably damage it—for of such were the ways of Siege House.

“I don’t know. There may be a judgment summons out against him that we know nothing about—or anything,” answered Clytie with a tinge of anxiety.

“You don’t think they’re up to any mischief with regard to that wretched gnu affair?” said Delia anxiously.

“No—no; I’ve put my foot on that. And Pownall and Skreet are infernal thieves. Look how they fleeced me. They couldn’t let Charlie Vance’s thousand pass through their hands without sticking to a lot of it. Called it costs! Why, they ought to have got those from the other side. Well, that’s all gone, and I don’t know how we’re going to raise the wind. A cool thou, wouldn’t come in badly just now. By the way, Delia, supposing my scheme fell through, how would it be to bring off something of that kind—on the principle of ‘half-an-egg’? And it would be a dashed sight more than a cool thou, this time, for the Wagrams are Croesus compared with the Vances.”

“Oh, that’ll do, Clytie. I suppose, as Bob says, I must have become straitlaced and sanctimonious; but I hate to look upon it in that light. I’m not meaning to reflect on you, mind; but, rather than do the other thing, I’d starve.”

“So might we. Oh, I don’t mind,” was the serene answer. “Only, look here, Delia, and see where we come in. It’s like having first-rate teeth but nothing to eat with them. Here we are, two devilish good-looking girls, each in our own way, yet we get no show. What’s the use of our looks if they’re to be nothing more than an instrument for cajoling a red-headed butcher into giving us further ‘tick’—as in the present case?”

“What’s the use? None at all,” said Delia bitterly—“nor ever will be. We don’t seem to ‘get there,’ and it’s my belief we never shall.”

“We’ve a margin left yet, thank the Lord; and you never know your luck. Well, Delia, you’ve a ripping day before you, at any rate. If I were you I should start early and ride slow. You never look your best coming in hot and blown. And make all you can and half as much again of your chances, for, as I said, you never know your luck.”

What Clytie had stated, in her characteristically slangy way, was rather under the truth. These two, possessed of exceptional powers of attractiveness, had, as she put it, “no show.” Nor did their relative attractions clash. The one, with her limpid blue eyes, Grecian profile, and tall serenity of carriage, made an effective contrast to the rounder, more voluptuous outlines of the other, with her dark, clear skin and mantling complexion, bright hazel eyes and full, ruddy lips. But their circumstances and surroundings were all against them; and, handicapped by tippling, disreputable old Calmour as a parent, those they would have had to do with fought shy of them, and those they would not—well, they would not.

“There’s the second post,” said Delia with a sigh. “More duns, I suppose.”

She went to the door just as the postman rapped his double knock, and returned immediately with two letters.

“Both for me, but—I don’t know the first at all.”

“It’s Haldane, putting you off, of course.”

“Oh, Clytie, don’t,” quickly answered Delia, to whom such an eventuality would have constituted the keenest of disappointments. “No; it’s all right,” tremulously tearing open both envelopes. “But—they’re not for me at all, they’re for you. They’re about typing, but they’re both directed ‘Miss Calmour.’”

“Let’s see.” Then reading: “‘Madam,—you have been mentioned to me by Mr Wagram Wagram—’ Ah, that’s all right.” And she went on with the letter, which ran to the effect that the writer wanted the MS of a novel of 80,000 words typed, asking her terms, and throwing out a promise that, if such were satisfactory, he would be happy to entrust her with all his work. The name was a fairly well-known one.

“Now, what shall I ask him? If I say a shilling a thousand, there’s a four-pound job. But, then, he may answer he can get it done for tenpence, which is quite true. If he had seen me I’d ask him fifteen pence.”

“Do it anyhow. You can always come down.”

“No fear; not through the post. Well, I’ll ask him a bob, and chance it.”

“He could well afford it. He must be making pots of money, according to the newspapers.”

“M—yes—according to the newspapers. Now, then, Delia, here we are. ‘Mr Wagram Wagram’ again. It’s a she this time, and starts on tenpence. Knows her way about evidently; hints at ninepence because of the inconvenience of postage, and it’s only two short stories of 4000 apiece. Well, I’ll take her on, too, at tenpence. You can’t haggle up our own sweet sex. Well done, Wagram Wagram. It’s brickish of him; and I’d just begun to think he’d forgotten what he said, or had only said it for something to say. Four quid, and a trifle over; that’ll help stave off Wells. Just in the nick of time too.”

“Yes; isn’t it good of him?”

“Who? Wells? Oh, Wagram. Yes. Quite so. It is rather. Good job you went over to Hilversea the other day, Delia; it may have reminded him.”

“I don’t think he’d ever have forgotten. Oh, but it was lovely there—the whole thing. It was like being in another atmosphere, another world.”

Clytie, the shrewd, the practical, put her head a little to one side as she scrutinised her sister.

“Make it one then, dear; make it yours. You’ve got some sort of show at last, if you only work it right. I’m sorry, though, we let Bob into the scheme. What asses we were, or rather I was. One oughtn’t so much as to have mentioned a thing of that sort in his hearing.”

“No, indeed. But the idea is too ridiculous for anything.”

“Because he is Wagram Wagram of Hilversea. Supposing he were Wagram Wagram of nowhere? What then, Delia?”

“Ah!”

Clytie shook her pretty head slightly and smiled to herself. The quick eagerness of the exclamation, the soft look that came into her sister’s eyes, told her all there was to tell.

“You’re handicapped,” she said. “You can’t play the part. You’re handicapped by genuineness. Never mind; even that may count as an advantage.”

Chapter Ten.

At Haldane’s.

Delia was a quick and graceful cyclist, and now on her beautiful new machine she seemed to fly as she skimmed the level and well-kept roads; and although she covered the eleven miles intervening between Bassingham and Haldane’s house—a pleasant country box—in a little over the hour she was neither hot nor blown. Yvonne was strolling on the lawn, and greeted her with great cordiality.

“Is that your post-card collection?” she said as she helped to unstrap three large albums from the carrier. “Why, it must be as big as mine. I am longing to see it. We’ll overhaul it after lunch down there,” indicating a spreading tree by the stream which gave forth abundant shade.

“What a lovely kitten,” cried Delia.

“Isn’t it?” said Yvonne, picking it up. “Only it isn’t a kitten; it’s full-grown. It’s a kind that never grows large—do you, Poogie?” she added lovingly, stroking the beautiful little animal, which nestled to her, purring contentedly. It was of the Angora type, with small, lynxlike ears, thick, rich fur with regular markings, and a spreading tail. “We got it in Switzerland. I wasn’t going to lose the chance. You might go all your life and never see another like it, so I made father buy it for me. It follows me like a dog. If I walk up and down it walks up and down with me. Look.”

“How sweet,” said Delia, watching the little creature as, with tail erect, it paced daintily beside them. “I do love them like that.”

“So do I, and so does father. I believe if anything happened to Poogie he’d be as sick about it as I would.”

“I don’t wonder.” And, all unconsciously, the speaker had more completely won Yvonne’s heart.

Even the shyest—and Delia was not addicted to shyness—would have felt at ease as they sat down, a party of three. Haldane had a frank, easy way with him towards those he did not dislike, calculated to make them feel at home, especially in the case of a bright, pretty, and intelligent girl, and soon all three were chatting and laughing as if they had known each other all their lives. Delia was at her best, and talked intelligently and well, as she could do when temporarily emancipated from the depressing atmosphere of Siege House.

“What a beautiful place Hilversea Court is, Mr Haldane,” she said presently.

“Yes. Too big for me. Very good as a show place; but for living in give me a box like this.”

The said “box” at that moment looked out upon a wondrously lovely bit of summer landscape—great clouds of vivid foliage against the blue sky; intervening seas of meadow, golden with spangling buttercups; and in the immediate foreground a stretch of green lawn, flower-bedded, and tuneful with the murmur of bees, blending with the plash of the stream beyond. Within, all was correspondingly bright and cheerful.

“Father says Hilversea Court exists for the sole purpose of framing old Mr Wagram,” said Yvonne. “That Grandisonian, old-world look about him wouldn’t be in keeping with anything more modern.”

“No, it wouldn’t,” assented Haldane. “But, as I said before—never to the Wagrams, though—the place is much too big to live in.”

“I suppose they are passionately attached to it?” asked Delia.

“That’s the word. If they have a weakness it is a conviction that the world revolves round Hilversea, and this conviction Wagram holds, if possible, a trifle more firmly than the old Squire.”

“Really?”

“Yes; but he acts in keeping with the idea. There isn’t a better looked after place—well, in the world, I may safely say. All the people on it simply idolise him, especially since the old Squire turned over the whole management to him.”

“How perfectly delightful,” pronounced Delia. “I can well imagine it, for a more kind and considerate man can hardly exist. Fancy, that splendid new bicycle I’m riding he insisted on sending me in place of mine that got smashed up by the gnu—an old rattle-trap of a thing that would hardly have fetched its value in old iron.”

“Yes; that’s just the sort of thing he would do,” said Yvonne.

Then Delia went on to tell about the typewriting work he had been instrumental in procuring for her sister; and they talked Wagram for some time longer, in such wise as should have put the heir-apparent of Hilversea to the painful blush could he have overheard them.

“What I object to about him, though,” said Haldane, “is that he shirks his duties on the Bench. I suppose if it weren’t that he can hardly help being on the commission of the peace he’d resign.”

“I’m sure he would,” declared Yvonne. “You know, Miss Calmour, he says it doesn’t seem his mission to to be punishing other people.”

“Ho—ho—ho!” laughed Haldane. “Decidedly, then, he had forgotten that principle when he caned that cad for you the other day, Sunbeam. He seems to have waled the fellow within an inch of his life.”

“Why? What was that?” asked Delia, looking up with quick interest. And then the story came out.

“The brute deserved all he got,” she exclaimed with heat, and there was something like adoration in the glance she sent at Yvonne. This lovely child-woman, in her exquisite refinement, to be insulted by a common or roadside cad!

“And he deserved all he’s going to get if ever I have the pleasure of beholding him,” supplemented Haldane grimly.

“No, he isn’t, father, for I don’t believe I should know him again from Adam, in the first place. In the second, I shouldn’t point him out to you if I did. Thirdly and lastly, I think the poor beast got quite enough that day.”

“He couldn’t. Don’t you agree with me, Miss Calmour?”

“Most decidedly,” said Delia, looking again at Yvonne. The latter laughed.

“The thing isn’t worth making any more fuss about,” she said, with a shake of her golden head. “And, if we have all done, it’s time to look at the post-cards; I’m longing to see them.”

Now, through all this conversation Delia was conscious that she had never enjoyed a more excellent lunch. Haldane was fond of the good things of life, and his Moselle was irreproachable—so, too, was Yvonne as a hostess—and, being gifted with a fine, healthy appetite, begotten of youth and a bicycle ride, their guest was in a position to appreciate it nicely.

The two girls adjourned to the shade of the big tree that Yvonne had pointed out, and there for long did they compare notes and look over each other’s collections.

Delia had been on the point of selling hers—everything was considered in the light of an asset at Siege House—and had only refrained by reason of the inadequacy of the offers made. Now she rejoiced that she had not since it constituted the peg whereon hung the initiation of this acquaintance. Yet she wished she had thought of weeding it a little, for some of the specimens, looked at in recent lights, struck her as tawdry and vulgar. Yvonne’s collection, on the other hand, seemed to represent every town, village, cathedral, and picturesque spot in Europe, with famed works of art and a sprinkling of celebrities.

“Why, what’s this?” cried Delia as several loose cards fluttered out of the books. “It’s yourself!”

“Yes. Father had it done to send to people as a Christmas card.”

“But you must let me have one of these. Why, they are charming portraits. Do! Will you?”

“Certainly, if you care about it. Shall I post it to you?”

“Not for the world. They’d stamp it all over, perhaps right across the face.”

“Ah—ah!” mischievously. “Now you see why I don’t like them through the post. All these places are like portraits to me; they remind me of good times.”

“They must indeed,” said the other, thinking under what glowing circumstances this happy child’s life had been passed.

“Here’s one of Poogie. I had that done. Would you like it too? Come here, Poogie, and strike the same attitude, and let’s see if it’s good.”

“I should rather think I would like it,” answered Delia, who was stroking the beautiful little creature. And so the afternoon fled, for one of them only too quickly; and presently Haldane joined them, smoking a pipe, and they strolled about a little till it was time for the inevitable tea, and soon after for a homeward move.

“You must come and see us again, Miss Calmour, if you have not found it too slow,” Haldane said as they exchanged farewells.

“Slow! Why, Mr Haldane, I have never enjoyed myself so much in my life.”

“I’m so glad,” Yvonne interposed in her frank, sunny way. Then they had parted.

“She seems a nice, pleasant, straightforward sort of girl, with no nonsense about her,” was Haldane’s comment as they strolled back from the gate. “Pity she comes of that rotten brood. I wouldn’t have one of the others inside my door on any account. But I’ve always stood out against holding the individual responsible for the defects of its relatives, and here, I fancy, is a case in point. Let’s go and try for a trout, Sunbeam.”

Their late guest, speeding along in the sweet June sunshine was going over the day’s events in her mind, and into the same there shot a sudden idea. If only she could be wanted as “companion” for Yvonne. She had held a post of the kind before, and had found it, not through her own fault, intolerable. But here it would be like Paradise, such was the spell this sunny child-woman, with the pretty little foreign ways contracted during a large Continental experience, had woven upon her. It needed Clytie to point out to her that a hale, middle-aged man such as Haldane, if in want of that functionary at all, must perforce employ a very Gorgon, which, of course, he could never dream of doing; and her musings kept her so busy that she nearly dropped off her bicycle in the start she gave on finding herself almost face to face with Wagram.

He was advancing towards her, evidently making for a gate that led into the ride of a wood. He had a rabbit rifle in his hand, the same weapon that had figured in the adventure. She was on her feet in a moment.

“Oh, Mr Wagram, how good of you!” she began in her impulsive way. “Clytie has just had two orders—both through your recommendation.”

“I am always pleased to be of use to anybody when it is within my power.”

What was this? Had the very heavens fallen? His tone was icy. He had just formally touched her outstretched hand—no more than the barest courtesy demanded.

“It was very, very good of you all the same,” she pursued lamely.

“Pray don’t mention it,” he replied, lifting his hat with a movement as though to resume his way, which she could not ignore.

She remounted her bicycle, and well, indeed, was it for her that the road was clear, as she whirled along mechanically with pale face and choking a sob in her throat. What did it mean? What had she done? What could she have done? The god at whose shrine she worshipped was displeased—sorely and grievously displeased. Yet why, why? To this she could find no answer—no, none.

And the sunshine had gone out of the day.

Chapter Eleven.

Concerning Two Claims.

“God bless my soul!” ejaculated the old Squire in a startled tone. Then relapsing into mirth: “Is it meant for a joke?”

“What?” asked Wagram, who was engaged in the same occupation—investigating letters which had just come by the afternoon post.

“This,” said the Squire, handing across the letter he had been reading. “Why, it’s too comical. I never heard of such preposterous impudence in my life.” And he began to pace up and down the hall.

Wagram took the letter, and the first glance down it was enough to make him thoroughly agree with his father, except that he felt moved to even greater anger. For the heading showed that it emanated from the office of Pownall and Skreet, Solicitors, Bassingham, and its burden was to claim the sum of one thousand pounds damages “on behalf of our client, Miss Delia Calmour, by reason of certain severe bodily injuries received by her from a certain ferocious and dangerous animal, your property, suffered to be at large at such and such a time and place, the latter a public highway.” And so on.

“Is it a joke, Wagram?” repeated the old Squire.

“If so, it’s an uncommonly bad one,” was the answer; “in fact, rotten. No, I wouldn’t have believed it of the girl—really, I wouldn’t.”

His father smiled slightly, but refrained from retorting: “What did I tell you?”

“And yet the other day,” he pursued, “she came in among us all, and we treated her as one of ourselves. Yet all the time she was scheming a plan of vulgar and most outrageous blackmail.”

“That’s the worst part of it,” said Wagram with some bitterness. “See what comes of thinking oneself too knowing. I could have sworn the girl was a good girl and honest; she had honest eyes.”

“Honest! You can’t mention the word in connection with that low-down, scheming, blackmailing brood.”

“Well, there you have me, father, I admit,” answered Wagram. “You advised me against them, and I took my own line. I sing small.”

“Oh, that’s no matter. The question is: What are we going to do? Take no notice?”

“I should send her the money.”

“What! Why, Wagram, it’s preposterous. Why, on your own showing the girl wasn’t hurt at all. A thousand pounds?”

“Still, I should send it. We shouldn’t feel it. I expect these people are in desperate straits, and I’ve known that enviable condition myself.”

“Send it? Great heavens, Wagram! A thousand pounds for that old sot to soak on?”

“No, no. Send it so that nobody has the handling of it but the girl herself. She behaved very pluckily, remember. I’m almost sure she saved my life.”

“Yes; but if you hadn’t come to her rescue it wouldn’t have been in danger, as I said before,” replied the Squire somewhat testily.

“Well, perhaps not; but the situation was inevitable. I couldn’t slink away and leave her to be hacked to death by the brute.”

“All right. I’ll leave it to you, Wagram. Do as you think fit.”

“Very well,” was the answer as he busied himself again with his letters. Then he repressed a quick whistle of astonishment.

“Pownall and Skreet again. Another thousand pounds!” he mentally ejaculated. And, in fact, it was just that; and this time the claim was made on himself on behalf of “our client, Mr Robert Calmour, by reason of injuries sustained in the unprovoked savage and brutal assault committed by you upon him, on the public highway,” at such and such a time and place.

“Pownall and Skreet are having a merry innings,” he thought to himself; and then he laughed, for a recollection of the said Mr Robert Calmour’s frantic rebound from the gate when that worthy first came in contact with the ground-ash rushed overwhelmingly upon him. But astonishment underlay. So that was the identity of the fellow he had thrashed! Could it be Delia’s brother? Why, it must be; and then he remembered the running epitome as to their family and its habits which Clytie had given him on the occasion of his call at Siege House. Well, the Calmours were on the war-path this time, and no mistake.

“What’s the joke, Wagram?” said the old Squire, who was looking out of the window and had his back turned.

“Something reminded me of the cad I whacked the other day, and it was funny.” He decided not to let his father into a knowledge of this other impudent demand. It he would know how to deal with himself. “Who are Pownall and Skreet?”

“Two rascally solicitors in Bassingham.”

“All right. You’ve left it to me now, father. Don’t you worry any more about the affair; it’s out of your hands.”

“Oh, I shan’t bother about it.”

Soon after Wagram took up the rabbit rifle and strolled forth to try a long-distance shot or two; but his mind was full of the demand they had just received—that on behalf of Delia: to Bob’s affair he did not give a further thought. He had felt interested in the girl; had thought to discern a great deal of good in her; had even been wondering what he could do to help her. He owned himself astonished—astonished and disgusted. Had it been the other the result would not have surprised him. Looking back, too, he thought to discern a potential slyness beneath Clytie’s open ingenuousness; but as to this one he was disappointed.

Then he remembered that he had, in a way, taken her up, and through him Haldane. She was no fit companion for Yvonne, and at this thought his disgust deepened. Well, it would be easy to let Haldane judge for himself, and at sight of the lawyer’s letter he knew what Haldane’s judgment would be. Then, too, he recalled her demeanour on the occasion of last week’s solemnity: how she had affected an interest in it, and so on. All acting, of course; possibly due to the acquiring of a cheap honour and glory among her own set as having been seen among the party at Hilversea Court. Innately very much of a misogynist, Wagram’s bitterness in a matter of this kind needed no spur, no stimulant. He felt very bitter towards this girl with the straightforward eyes and appealing ways who had so effectually bamboozled him. It was no question of the amount—that, as he had said, they would not feel—it was the way in which the thing had been done. And, having arrived at this conclusion, he looked up, and there, skimming towards him on her bicycle, was the object of his cogitations. The method of that brief interview we know.

Thereafter Wagram resumed his way. It was only natural, he argued, that she should affect ignorance, utter innocence, as to what had transpired. Another bit of acting. He hoped he had not been manifestly discourteous, but he could not have trusted himself to prolong the meeting. Now he would dismiss the matter from his mind. He had made a grievous error of judgment, and when the affair became known he would become something of a laughing-stock. For that, however, he cared nothing.

Delia, for her part, felt as if she had just received a blow on the head as she wheeled homeward in a semi-dazed condition. The sight of Bob in the doorway—Bob, perky, expansive, more raffish than usual—did not tend to soothe her either.

“Hullo! What’s the row?” he cried as she pushed past him. “You’re looking like a boiled owl. Too much of Haldane’s champagne, eh?” For he delighted to tease Delia, did this amiable youth; she was putting on too much side of late, and wanted taking down a peg, he declared. With Clytie he had to mind his P’s and Q’s, as we have seen. Now the latter appeared to the rescue.

“Clear out, Bob,” she said. “What a young cur you are! A jolly good licking would do you all the good in the world, and I wonder every day that someone or other doesn’t give you one; only I suppose you keep your currishness for us.”

“Oh, do you?” snarled Bob, in whom the words awoke a perfectly agonising recollection. “Who the deuce cares what you think or don’t think?” he added, the sting of the allusion rendering him oblivious of the five shillings he had been intending to “borrow” from the—for the present—earning one of the family. Besides, he would be flush enough directly, then he would be in a position to round upon Clytie for the domineering way in which she had been treating him of late. When he got his thousand pounds, or even half of it, he had a good mind to chuck his berth with Pownall and Skreet and clear off to South Africa, or somewhere, and make his fortune. When he got it!

Paying no further attention to him, both girls made straight for their room.

“I’ve got a ghastly headache,” said Delia, throwing herself upon the bed. “I believe I got a touch of the sun.”

“Yes; it’s been infernally hot—is still. Well, did you have a good time of it otherwise?”

“Perfect; yes, perfect,” she answered, with a bitterness begotten of a strong instinct that it was the last she would have of any good times of that sort. “Do you know, Clytie, the contrast is too awful. It’s brought home to one so, and it hurts. I think I shall try and get some work again that’ll take me away, and keep me at it from morning till night—that’ll be the only thing.”

Clytie knew better than to question her further at that time.

“You turn in and get to sleep,” she said, “and I’ll bring you something that’ll send you off like a humming-top. Don’t go down again; and if that rascal Bob does anything to disturb you I’ll—I’ll—well, he’d seriously better not.”

She had her good points, you see, this handsome, slang-affecting, cold-blooded schemer.

Throughout the whole of the next day Delia was very miserable and depressed; only now did she realise what an obsession this secret cultus had become. What had she done to offend its object? Had any of her belongings done so, her father, perhaps, or Bob? She questioned Clytie as to this, but on that head could get no satisfaction.

“Let me think it out,” said the latter. “I’ll keep my ears open too. It’s a thousand pities my scheme should fall through. But, Delia, you must buck up. It’s of no use going about looking, as Bob said, like a boiled owl. Buck up.”

While she was dressing the following morning there came a whole-hearted bang at Delia’s door, coupled with the somewhat raucous voice of Bob.

“Here, I say, Delia; here’s a registered letter for you. Oof, of course. Well, I claim my commission for bringing it.”

“‘Costs’ shouldn’t it be?” she answered. “Well, push it under the door.”

“There’s the receipt too. You must sign it, and shove it back again. Postman’s waiting.”

This was done, and Delia looked at the registered envelope, wondering. Nobody owed her money, nor was there anyone in the wide world who would be in the least likely to give her any. There was a certain amount of excitement about the conjecture—something like the solving of an interesting conundrum. Then she cut open the envelope.

It contained a letter written on stiff, blue-grey, lawyer-like paper. Over this was the turned down end of a cheque. She looked at the cheque before the letter, and then—Great heavens! what did it mean? For the characters on the oblong slip danced before her amazed eyes.

“Pay Miss Delia Calmour one thousand pounds.

“Grantley Wagram.”

One thousand pounds? Grantley Wagram? What did it mean? In Heaven’s name, what did it mean? With trembling hands she spread out the letter. But it was not to herself. It was, in fact, the letter of demand which we have already seen the old Squire receive.

What did it mean? Delia was simply dumfoundered. She had never instructed anybody to claim damages in her life, either from the Wagrams or anyone else. Pownall and Skreet! Ah-h! They were Bob’s employers. Now she saw light. Her father and Bob had put up this between them. She remembered her suspicions with regard to them, or at any rate her father, two mornings ago. All now stood explained.

With eager hands she looked once more into the envelope, but it contained no further communication, no line or word addressed to herself, no explanation. There was the letter of demand, and the tangible evidence of compliance therewith in full. The sender had clearly deemed further explanation unnecessary.

How she completed her dressing Delia hardly knew, so consumed was she with a burning longing to get at those who had placed her in this shameful position. No wonder Wagram’s demeanour had been what it had when the girl to whom he had shown kindness had revealed herself as a mere blackmailing adventuress—a gainer of money under false pretences. Heavens! it would not bear thinking upon. Well, first to give the schemers a piece of her mind, then to rectify in so far as it lay within her power the shameful wrong they had done her.

Chapter Twelve.

Concerning Two Claimants.

“Well, Delia, how much was it?” was Bob’s first greeting.

“A thousand pounds.”

The effect of this announcement was electrical and diverse. Old Calmour dropped his knife and fork—they were at table—and stared. Even Clytie could not repress a gasp; while as for Bob, he hoorayed aloud.

“Then Wagram has stumped up! Did he send it straight to you?”

“Look! There’s the cheque,” holding it up.

“Phew!” whistled Bob. “It ought to have come to you through our people, though.”

“Good thing it didn’t,” said Clytie significantly.

“Rather!” assented Bob briskly. “All the more for us. Now we need only pay for the letter of demand. Well done, Delia. I say, dad, we ought to have a jolly good dinner to-night on the strength of it, and some fizz to drink Delia’s health.”

“So we will, so we will,” snuffled the old man. “It’s like a blessed gift of Providence coming as it does just now, for the devil only knows how we should have managed to get on much longer.”

“Buck up, old girl,” cried Bob, boisterously affectionate on the strength of this sudden accession to wealth. “Buck up. You’re looking sort of white about the gills, and pulling a face as long as a fiddle, instead of hooraying like mad. Why, you’ve got your thousand—a cool thou—and no costs charged, and no delay, and you don’t seem a bit happy.”

Then Delia spoke.

“Happy! I feel as if I could never look anybody in the face again. A mean, extortionate, blackmailing swindle has been perpetrated in my name, and I shall not lose a moment in putting it right, and explaining that I had no part in it. I am going to return this cheque.”

“Wh-at?” bellowed Bob.

“Going to re—” gasped old Calmour, who had fallen back in his chair, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.

“Is she mad?” snorted Bob, who had gone as white as the girl herself. “Gets a cool thou, sent her—a cool thou, by the Lord Harry!—and then says ‘No, thanks; I’d rather not. Take it back again.’ It oughtn’t to be allowed.”

“And would rather see her old father starve,” yelped old Calmour. “Here, take it from her, Bob. We’ll keep it for her till she comes to a better frame of mind.”

“You dare to lay a hand on me,” said Delia; and there was that in her livid face and blazing eyes that caused the move Bob had made to rise in his chair to subside again. “Besides, you couldn’t take it from me without tearing it to pieces, nor could you cash it without my endorsement—which you would never get. How’s that, Lawyer Bob?”

“Damnable tommy-rot. Oh, hang it, Clytie, can’t you knock some sense into her silly noddle? You haven’t said anything.”

“How can one when you’re all bellowing at once? Well, I may as well tell you both that you’ve made a thundering silly mess of the whole thing. My beautiful scheme, which was becoming simpler and simpler every day, is now irrevocably knocked on the head—”

“Beautiful scheme! Tommy-rot!” interrupted Bob. “A cool thou, in the hand’s worth twenty ‘beautiful schemes’ in your head.”

”—But as you have knocked it out,” went on Clytie, ignoring the interruption, “I say stick to the thousand.”

“Hear, hear!” cried Bob.

“My mind is quite made up,” replied Delia. “I am going to return it. Why, we could never hold up our heads in the place again.”

“We don’t hold them extra tall as it is,” laughed Clytie, “yet we manage to rub along somehow. A cool thou, doesn’t tumble our way every day, wherefore don’t be in a hurry about the thing, Delia; give it, say, till to-morrow. Think it well over.”

“It won’t bear thinking about, much less thinking over. I am going to Hilversea as fast as my bicycle will carry me; now, immediately.”

Then her father and brother began upon her again. Ingratitude for what they had done for her, callous indifference to her father’s declining old age and increasing wants, general selfishness—these were but few of the crimes laid to her charge. But she was adamant.

“You’ll have to get your bike to carry you first,” snarled Bob, giving up the contest. Hardly had he flung himself from the room than the meaning of his words flashed upon Delia. She flew to the door. Too late. Her bicycle stood in the front hall, and Bob, with a nasty grin on his face, was in the act of replacing a pin in his waistcoat. He had punctured both wheels in two or three places, and, to make assurance doubly sure, had treated Clytie’s machine in like manner.

“You cur!” she gasped. “Never mind; I’ll hire one at Warren’s.”

“Wagram won’t pay the bill this time. Ta-ta! Bong voyadge!” And the abominable cub took himself off.

“How could you do such a thing?” she flashed out, turning on her father. “You have disgraced me for ever. A downright blackmailing fraud!”

“Fraud be damned?” snarled old Calmour. “What are you talking about, girl? That sort of talk is dangerous. A highly respectable firm like Pownall and Skreet don’t deal in frauds.”

“What sort of firm did you say, dad?” said Clytie sweetly.

The old man whirled round upon her.

“What have you got to say to it, I’d like to know? You just mind your own blanked business. Are you backing that idiot up in her lunacy? And look here, my lady Delia. You’ve grown too big for your boots of late. If we’re not good enough for you, and our ways don’t suit your ladyship, you’d better go and look out for yourself. See then how much your swagger friends will do for you.”

“Yes; I will go,” said the girl, “but not until I’ve put this matter right. Your ‘highly respectable firm’ ought to be struck off the rolls for this job. Faugh! it’s scandalous!” she flashed out, as angry as he was.

“Here, Delia, come away,” said Clytie. “We’ve all let off quite enough steam, and we don’t want to go on nagging all day.” And she dragged her sister from the room almost by main force.

The while Bob, heading for the offices of the said “highly respectable firm,” though hugely incensed at his sister’s decision, yet through it discerned a silver lining to that cloud. If Wagram père had been so quick to respond to her claim—or rather to the spurious claim that he and his father had put forth—and that to the uttermost farthing, by parity of reasoning would not Wagram fils be equally ready to meet his own, issued simultaneously with the other? Clearly these people had a horror of litigation, and already he saw himself master of a thousand pounds, all his own, or at any rate of the result of a substantial compromise. Consequently, when he entered the office—incidentally a little late—it was with a jaunty, rakish air, as though, if he chose, he could buy up the whole concern.

“Pownall wants you, Calmour,” said one of the clerks at once.

“Ha, does he? I thought he would,” answered Bob lightly. Already he saw himself in possession. The reply had come. The only thing now to be reckoned with was that Pownall should not make an undue deduction for costs. Yet, somehow, as he knocked and entered, there was something in Pownall’s veined and scrubby-bearded face that was not propitious. And Pownall was not inclined to waste valuable time.

“Look here, Calmour,” he began, “when you brought me this claim of yours I told you I didn’t think there was the slightest chance of your getting anything. Here’s the answer.”

“Do they refuse, sir?”

“Absolutely and uncompromisingly. Here, read it yourself,” chucking an open letter across to his discomfited clerk, who took it and read:

“Hilversea Court,

“23rd June 1897.

“Sirs,—I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter of yesterday’s date, demanding from me the sum of a thousand pounds as compensation to one Robert Calmour, for assaulting him. If this person is the blackguard I chastised last week on the Swanton Road for grossly insulting a young lady under my charge, I may mention incidentally that he is very ill-advised in revealing his identity, for the young lady’s father, on learning it, is not only prepared, but eager, to repeat the infliction, and that with very considerable exaggeration of the punishment he received at my hands. To come to the main point, I flatly refuse to pay one farthing; indeed, so impossible is it for me to treat this claim as a serious one that I have not even deemed it worth while to refer the matter to my solicitors.—Yours faithfully,

“Wagram Gerard Wagram.

“Messrs Pownall and Skreet.”

Bob had gone very pale during the perusal of this letter. Not only had his house of cards gone down with a flutter—for he could read no compromise here—but he was threatened with the summary vengeance of an unknown and vindictive parent. The stripes that Wagram had laid upon him, now turned to yellow and red bruises, seemed to tingle afresh.

“Is it no good pressing him further, sir?” he stammered. “This may be bluff.”

“Ours was bluff,” sneered Pownall. “I thought it just worth trying on, but only just. Now I see it isn’t. No jury in England would find for you, and we can’t afford to take up such a case.”

“But they paid my sister, sir, almost by return.”

“What?” shouted Pownall, jumping from his chair. “What? Paid in full?”

“Yes. Sent her a cheque for a thousand.”

“But this ought to have gone through us. It’s irregular, damned irregular.”

“So it is, sir. And what’s more irregular, she’s going to return it.”

“Going to return it?”

“Yes; swears she won’t accept it; calls it blackmail, and so forth.”

“Does she? Well, see here, Calmour, I’m sick of all your family grievances, and am devilish sorry I ever took them up. If it hadn’t been that your father’s a very old friend of mine I wouldn’t have touched them with the tip of the tongs. Now you’d better get back to the office.”

“One minute, sir,” stammered Bob. “Er—who is the person referred to in the letter as—er—threatening me with further violence?”

“I shrewdly conjecture it’s Haldane—and, if so, you’d better give him a wide, wide berth. He just about worships that girl of his, and he has knocked about in rough, wild parts. Hang it! couldn’t you tell the difference between a lady—a thoroughbred—and a village wench if you must get playing the fool by roadsides, you silly young rip? Now get back to your job. I haven’t taken anything by either of you,” added the lawyer disgustedly as he resumed his work.

If ever anybody found himself in an utterly abject state of mind, assuredly that individual was Bob Calmour as he slunk out of his principal’s room, and as he took his place at his own desk he felt as if he could have blown his brains out, only he lacked the courage. He cursed Pownall, he cursed Delia, he cursed everything and everybody, but more than all did he curse Wagram. Should he take his claim to some other solicitor? That would be useless, for he felt pretty sure that nobody but his principal would have touched it. Furthermore, the hint thrown out by Wagram with regard to his identity becoming known commanded his whole-hearted respect, and he grew green with scare at the thought that Haldane might be looking for him even at that moment. Heavens! what if Delia had let drop anything that might give him away when she was spending the day there? Hardly likely; and again he congratulated himself on his sound policy in keeping the thing a fast secret between himself and his principal. One comfort was that Haldane rarely came to Bassingham, his county town being Fulkston, away in the other direction; still, Bob Calmour was destined to expiate his act of Yahooism very fully, in the shape of a chronic apprehension, which rendered life a nightmare to him for some time thenceforward.

Chapter Thirteen.

Concerning One Claim.

“A matter of urgent importance,” read the Squire again from a card just handed him by a servant, and which bore the inscription: “Miss Calmour.”

“What on earth can the girl want next? She’s got her money—far more than any court would have awarded her. What the deuce is she bothering us further for?”

“I can’t imagine. Still, I’ll see her, if you like.”

“I wish you would, Wagram. The fact is, I’m sick of the very sound of the name.”

It was the middle of the afternoon, and the two were strolling together in the shrubbery. Both were, not unnaturally, somewhat annoyed.

“The young lady’s in the morning room, sir,” said the footman. “I put her in there, sir, because she said she’d come on a matter of business, and hoped no one else would come in.”

“Quite right,” said Wagram.

Delia rose as he entered. She did not put forth her hand, and did not seem to expect him to. She was busying herself extracting something from an envelope, and he noticed that her hands shook.

“I would have been over about this the first thing this morning,” she began, speaking quickly, “but my tyres were punctured. I did not want to lose a moment. But”—looking up—“it was not you I came to see, it was your father.”

“Won’t I do as well, Miss Calmour? Any matter of business is all within my province.”

“Well, then, it is about this,” exhibiting the letter of demand and the cheque. Wagram felt himself growing grim.

“Has any mistake been made in the drawing of it?” he asked, bending over to look at it. She caught at the word.

“Mistake? The whole thing is a mistake, and worse. Mr Wagram, will you believe me when I assure you upon my honour that until I received these two enclosures this morning I knew no more about this than—than, well—than if I had never been born?”

“I’m afraid I don’t quite understand.”

“Don’t you? Oh, you do make it hard,” with a little stamp of the foot. “Well, then, this claim was never made by me—never—and until this morning I did not know it had been made at all.”

“Well, but—if you were hurt that time why not accept a little—er—compensation?”

“Hurt that time? I would be hurt now, if I were not too ashamed, that you should think me capable of such a thing. Even if I had been half killed I would not have—have—done—what has been done. Compensation! Look!”

She tore the cheque twice across, and laid the fragments on the table before him, together with the letter of demand.

“Now, will you believe that my hands are entirely clean in the matter? The moment I received this I never had a moment’s doubt as to the course I should pursue. That is the outcome.” And she pointed to the torn cheque.

She looked very pretty standing there—her breast heaving in her excitement, her eyes brightened, and the colour coming and going in her face—very pretty and appealing.

“Certainly I believe you,” said Wagram, who now, as by an inspiration, saw through the whole sordid affair; “and I don’t think you need go to the trouble of explaining it any further, for I can quite see how it happened.”

“But I must explain a little. Oh, Mr Wagram, my father is not well, not always quite responsible. His health is weak, and he has had a great deal of trouble, and might do what he would never have dreamed of doing when he was a younger and stronger man; and the temptation, I suppose, was too great.”

Her voice tailed off into a sob, and Wagram felt a great wave of pity overwhelm him as he looked at this girl, who now more than ever struck him as far too good for her sordid surroundings. Her laboured apology for her rascally old parent, too, had sent her up a hundred per cent, in his estimation, but as an excuse for the old sot it weighed not with him at all. The attempted blackmailing had been too flagrant, too outrageous, but to find that Delia was entirely innocent of it afforded him more satisfaction than he could have believed.

“Sit down, sit down. Why have you been standing all this time?” he said gently; and the tone was too much for poor Delia, who broke down utterly, and wept.

“There, there, now. Don’t give way over nothing,” he went on. “A mistake has been made, and put right again, that’s all. Meanwhile you must accept my sincere apologies for my side of it.”

“Apologies! Mr Wagram, don’t. Apologies! Why, I have been feeling as if I could never look you in the face again.”

“But you don’t feel that any more, of course not. Now, I know my father would like to see you, so I will let him know you are here, if you will excuse me for a minute or two.”

As the door closed on him Delia brushed away her tears, and then did an inexplicable, a foolish thing. She rose and pressed her lips to the table, on the spot where his hand had rested during the interview.

“And they would have had me extort money from him, blackmail him!” she said to herself. “Faugh! what a horrible word. But the whole thing was horrible, shameful. Oh, but the tactfulness of him! It was wonderful. No wonder such people seem to reckon themselves a separate order of being. They are.”

Meanwhile Wagram had found the old Squire in the library.

“The poor girl had no hand in it after all,” he said. “It appears she knew nothing about it until this morning, when she received the cheque. The whole thing was got up by her rascally father without her knowledge.”

“Of course. But now that it’s within her knowledge she won’t find a thousand pounds come in badly,” was the somewhat testy answer.

“She tore up the cheque of her own accord under my eyes.”

“What? Did she? That looks genuine, Wagram. By George, that looks genuine. Fancy anything Calmour refusing a thousand pounds—or even a hundred! Good heavens! is the world coming to an end?”

“Well, she’s done it anyhow. I want you to come in and see her, father, and put her at her ease. She’s genuinely distressed that we should have thought so badly of her, and all that.”

“By the way, does she know of the trouncing you gave that precious blackguard of a brother of hers?”

“I haven’t told her. If she knows I expect she thinks he richly deserved it. I fancy she’s that sort of girl.”

The blend of the courtly and the paternal in the old Squire’s manner was charming, and soon Delia was quite at ease with herself and her surroundings. Then they showed her over the historic parts of the house, and she gazed with awed delight at the great staircase with its twisted stone banister and the gallery hung with family portraits and old war trophies.

“Oh, but this is perfection,” cried the girl as she leaned out of one of the high windows to gaze upon the panorama unfolded beneath. Miles and miles of it lay outspread in the sunlight—green meadow and dark fir covert, cloud-like masses of feathery elms and hawthorn hedgerows, with here and there a gleam of silver, as a winding of the river broke into view. Then, from far and near, a chorus of song thrushes and the joyous sound of a cuckoo lent the finishing touch to this fairest of English landscapes.

“That spire away there beyond the dark line is Fulkston, near Haldane’s place,” went on Wagram, in the course of pointing out to her the various landmarks.

“Is it? What a delightful day that was. Isn’t Miss Haldane perfectly sweet? By the way, Mr Wagram, I enjoyed hearing how you thrashed a cad for insulting her.”

If the faintest gleam of mirth came into the other’s eyes Delia missed its point.

“Oh, I’m not proud of it, I assure you. If he had been impudent only to me I wouldn’t have touched him, for he was no match for me. If it had been any other girl I should have thought I had given the poor devil too much, but it being Yvonne Haldane he insulted it seemed as if he couldn’t have enough.”

“I most heartily agree,” said Delia, and again that curious gleam passed across Wagram’s face.

“Would you like to see a secret chamber?” he said.

“Wouldn’t I? Is it a real secret chamber, opening with a sliding panel, and all that sort of thing?”

“You shall see.”

He led the way to a high gallery in an unused part of the house, a trifle gloomy by reason of the few and narrow windows that lighted it from one side. The old Squire had left them early in the investigation, declaring that he did not feel equal to going up and down so many stairs. The girl’s nerves were athrill with the delightful air of mystery suggested by the surroundings.

“You haven’t asked as to the family ghosts yet,” he said, “and it seems strange.”

“Strange? Why?”

“Because you are the first within my knowledge to be shown over the house who has not asked about them long before this. Were you keeping it till we got down again?”

“No. I wouldn’t have asked such a question. How could I tell but that it might be an unwelcome one?”

It was a small thing, but somehow it seemed to Wagram to argue an uncommon thoughtfulness and delicacy of mind on the part of this girl—this daughter of a drunken, blackmailing, old ex-army vet.

“I won’t insist on blindfolding you, Miss Calmour,” he said, with a smile, “but I’ll ask you just to look out of that window for a minute.”

“Certainly,” she said. “Why, this is more than interesting.”

“That’ll do. Thanks.”

“Can I look?”

“Yes.”

The inner wall of the gallery was patterned faintly in large squares diagonally divided, so that you might see in them squares or triangles according to the caprice of the eye. Now, where one of these squares had been Delia saw a dark aperture easily large enough to admit the body of a man. It was about a yard and a half from the ground.

“What was it used for?” she said, as her eyes becoming more accustomed to the gloom she made out a narrow, oblong chamber, or rather closet, about eight feet by four, and running parallel with the wall.

“A priest’s hiding-place. There is still a sprinkling of them to be seen in our old country houses, more or less perfect still.”

“This one seems perfect. But how did they get light and air?”

“They didn’t get much of the first. For the last, there’s a small winding shaft that opens under the roof.”

“And did they spend days in here? It must have been dreadful.”

“Not to them, because their mission was in its highest sense the reverse of dreadful. But there was a dreadful side to it, for at that time every one of them who came to this country came with the quartering block and boiling pitch before his eyes, as, sooner or later, his certain end. You can imagine, then, that to such men there would be nothing very dreadful in spending a few days in a place like this.”

“Of course not. What a stupid remark of mine.”

“As a matter of fact, the last to use this place met with just that fate. He was a relation, and was captured in that avenue which was the route of the procession this day last week.”

“How terrible,” said Delia, gazing with renewed awe into the gloomy chamber. “How you must venerate this place, Mr Wagram.”

“Well, you can imagine we do; in fact, it isn’t often shown.”

“Oh, then I do feel honoured—I mean it seriously.”

He smiled.

“Have you seen enough? because if so we’ll shut it up again.”

“One minute. How does it open and shut? Why, it isn’t a mere panel, it’s a solid block of stone.”

“Ah, that’s the secret of it. It is easily opened from within if you know how; but from without—well, it has never been discovered. The secret has been handed down among ourselves. It is always known to three persons, of which, needless to say, I am one.”

“How interesting! But if I were in there, and you and the other two were not get-at-able, what then?”

“You might as well be buried alive. Now, oblige me by looking out of that window once more.”

“If I mayn’t look, may I listen?”

“Certainly. Now you may turn again. Well, what did you hear?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? Well, see if you can tell which of the squares it was that opened.”

“This one. No; it doesn’t sound hollow. None of them do. I give it up.”

“We’ll be going down again, then. You’ll be glad of tea.”

She protested that such a thing was beyond her thoughts amid the wonder and delight of all she had seen. On the way he pointed out a few of the more prominent family portraits.

“That is our martyr relative.”

A cry of surprise escaped Delia.

“That! Why, Mr Wagram, it might be yourself.”

The portrait was quite a small one, and in a massive frame of stained oak. It represented a man of about the same age, with the same thoughtful dark eyes, the same shaped face, and the same close-trimmed, pointed beard. The figure was gowned in black, and the head crowned with a Spanish biretta with high-pointed corners. Attached to the frame was a Latin inscription.

“People do remark a likeness,” he said; “but you can guess how we value that portrait for its own sake. It was painted at Salamanca just before he left for St Omer to start on the English mission.”

“Is there any Spanish blood in your family, Mr Wagram?”

“A strain; but it dates rather far back. Aren’t you more than ever afraid of coming to our services now?” he added slily. “The Inquisition, you know.”

“Afraid? If I didn’t know you were chaffing me I would say that I was the more attracted after what you have shown and told me to-day.”

The old Squire was waiting for them in the great hall, where they had tea, and Delia, having now recovered her spirits completely, was chatting away as though the matter which had brought her there was but the recollection of a half-faded nightmare—a very note of interest and admiration concerning all she had just seen. Then, imperceptibly to her, they drew her on to talk about herself, and one point in the plain tale of real, plucky, hard work, which had come within her experiences of late, Wagram made a mental note of for future use.

Chapter Fourteen.

The Sea and her Dead.

The old Squire was skimming the morning paper, without much show of interest, however. Of politics he declared himself sick, and there was not much of any interest all round. He felt himself wishing that all newspapers were only issued weekly.

He was about to throw the paper aside when a paragraph caught his eye. It was headed: “A Terrible Tale of the Sea,” and set forth the picking up of an open boat, a small dinghy, in fact, containing three men in the last stage of starvation and exhaustion, survivors—probably the sole survivors—of the passengers and crew of the steamship Carboceer, homeward bound from West Africa. The steamer, according to the narrative of these, had run at full speed ahead on to a huge floating hulk in black midnight, and had gone down in less than five minutes they estimated, and that amid a scene of terrible panic.

“But,” continued the paragraph, “the survivors, consisting of two seamen and a passenger, seem unable to agree as to the cause of the disaster. The sailors pronounce the obstruction to be a derelict, and are emphatic on this point. On the other hand, the passenger, Mr Develin Hunt, is equally positive that he saw at any rate one man on board of it, which points to the possibility of another lamentable catastrophe due to the carelessness of those in charge of a certain type of windjammer in neglecting to show lights.”

The paragraph went on to a little more detail, mainly conjectural, but of this Grantley Wagram took no heed. He had dropped the paper, and sat staring into space, with the look upon his face of a man who has met with a shock, as violent as it is unexpected—as one who had seen an apparition from beyond the grave.

“Develin Hunt!” he repeated. “Good God! it can’t be. Yet—there can’t be two Develin Hunts.”

He snatched up the paper again, with something of a tremble as he grasped it, and once more scanned the paragraph. Then he turned eagerly to several other morning dailies which lay on the table. More detail might be set forth in each—but no. Either too hurriedly did he turn over each close-printed sheet, or the item of news had been overlooked, but nothing further could he find concerning the tragedy. At last, stuck away in a corner of a different sheet, he found another paragraph: “The only surviving passenger of this ghastly marine tragedy,” it concluded, “proves to be a West African trader who has spent many years far up country—an elderly gentleman of some sixty years, named Develin Hunt.”

Grantley Wagram’s face lost none of its set greyness.

“Of some sixty years?” he repeated—“that would be about the age. No; he’d be more than that. There can’t be two Develin Hunts! The sea has given up her dead.”

He looked years older as he sat there, still grasping the paper, and for it he had reason; for should his conjectural identification of this man prove an accurate one, why, then, it meant that the ruin of his house would be fixed, and, humanly speaking, beyond his power to avert.

For long he sat, motionless as a stone figure. Through the open window came in the joyous sounds of the summer morning—the rustle of the great elms in a light breeze, the caw of rooks, and the distant clicking of a mowing-machine, and, with all, the scent of flowers upon a groundwork fragrance of new-mown hay. Every nerve and sense was alive to these. No wonder that he should look grey and stony. What if all should end with him?

What if his son—? And then from without came the voice of his son, together with that of another, and both were inquiring as to his whereabouts. The voices from outside acted as a tonic; and, pulling himself together, the old Squire got up and went to meet their owners—his son and the family chaplain. Wagram had been serving the latter’s Mass, and had brought him in to breakfast.

“Looking fit? Oh, well, I suppose so. I haven’t begun to feel my years as yet,” was the easy answer of the old diplomat to the fresh, cheery greeting of the priest. But the latter was not altogether deceived. His keen observational faculty did not fail to detect a certain drawn and anxious look, differing from the ordinarily suave expression of his host’s face. “Wagram, tell Rundle to get us out a bottle or so of that dry, sparkling hock. You know, the 13 bin. I believe that’s better than anything else on a warm morning like this.”

“Upon my word, Squire, you’ve missed you’re vocation,” laughed Father Gayle. “You ought to have been a crack physician, for certainly no one answering to that qualification could have been guilty of a more salutary prescription.”

“Any news?” said Wagram, picking up the paper. Then, as they sat down: “Why, this is a queer yarn, these three chaps being picked up in a boat.” Then, after briefly skimming it: “Why, by George! I wonder if that’s the hulk we were reading about the other day when Haldane was here? I shouldn’t be surprised. It must be very much in the same part of the world.”

“You forget, Wagram,” said the chaplain quizzically, “that so far we none of us know what the mischief it is you are talking about, save that it concerns three men in a boat, a yarn, and Haldane. Now, even in my childhood, I was never good at piecing together puzzles. I can’t answer for the Squire.”

“Here you are; read it for yourself,” said Wagram, pushing the paper across the table. “It’s a ghastly thing to figure out, though, if these are the sole survivors. Develin Hunt! That’s a rum name! How perfectly sick that fellow must have got all through boyhood, youth, and middle age of being—banteringly or the reverse—told he had the Develin him.”

They laughed at this—none more heartily than that finished old diplomat Grantley Wagram. Laughed—in his bright, genial, humorous way, and yet all the time he was thinking how Wagram was, figuratively speaking, cracking jokes over his own open grave. Laughed—even as he might have laughed a few minutes earlier, before this dreadful bolt out of the blue had fallen. Laughed—as Wagram, sitting there in his blissful ignorance, was laughing. Why, the thing was so sudden, so unlooked-for, and withal so disastrous, that it seemed like a dream. Yet Grantley Wagram could laugh. But within his mind still hummed in mocking refrain his first ejaculation: “There can’t be two Develin Hunts.”

They talked on of various matters—the prospects of grouse on the Twelfth, and when Wagram’s boy would be home for the holidays, and so forth. Then the priest said:

“By the way, Squire, that’s a most astonishing thing Wagram has been telling me about that Miss Calmour and the claim made against you.”

“Yes; I told Father Gayle because he seemed to have rather a—well, unexalted opinion of the poor girl when we first talked about her,” explained Wagram.

“Oh, come; I didn’t say so.”

“No. Still, I thought it only fair to show the other side of her.”

“No one could have been more astonished than I was myself,” said the Squire. “She certainly behaved most honourably.”

“I should think so,” declared Wagram. “Her people are chronically hard up, and, that being so, to tear up a cheque for a thousand pounds deliberately was in her case rather heroic.”

“Probably the rest of them will lead her a terrible life on the strength of it,” said the Squire. “Poor child! she seemed a good deal better than her belongings. We must see if we can’t do something for her.”

“Yes, we must,” agreed Wagram. “This is a morning to tempt one out. I think I shall jump on the bicycle and rip over to Haldane’s—unless you want me for anything, father.”

“No, no. I’ve a thing or two to think over, but nothing that you need bother about,” answered the Squire, adding to himself—“as yet.”

Soon after breakfast Father Gayle took his leave, and the Squire his usual morning stroll round the gardens and shrubbery. But he did wrong to be alone, for, try as he would, the one idea clung to his mind in a veritable obsession: “There can’t be two Develin Hunts.”

The while Wagram, skimming along the smooth, well-kept roads, was again thrilled with the intense joy of possession as he revelled in the cool shade of over-arching trees; in the moist depths of a bosky wood, echoing forth its bird-song, with now and again the joyous crow of a cock pheasant; in the green and gold of the spangled meadows and the purl of the stream beneath the old bridge. Surely life was too good—surely such an idyllic state could not be meant to last, was the misgiving that sometimes beset him; for he had known the reverse side of all this—had known it bitterly, and for long years.

Haldane and Yvonne were pacing up and down one of the garden walks, the former smoking a pipe and dividing his attention between the morning paper and the lovely child beside him. Just behind the latter, stepping daintily, and turning when they turned, was the beautiful little Angora cat.

“Did you see this, Wagram?” said Haldane, the first greeting over, holding out the newspaper. “Well, you remember that confounded stray hulk we were reading about over at your place? It’s my belief that it’s the very one that’s sent this boat to the bottom. Did you read about it?”

“Yes.”

Yvonne’s face was now the picture of blue-eyed mischief.

“Well, this chump that was picked up, did you notice what a devilish odd name they’ve given him?”

“Develin Hunt, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Well, now, think of his life spent in being told he had the Develin him.”

A peal of laughter went up from Yvonne—and it was good to hear that child laugh—such a clear, merry, hearty trill.

“I’ve been waiting for that,” she cried. “Mr Wagram, you’re a perfect godsend. Father has inflicted it upon every available being up till now. Briggs, the gardener, was gurgling to such an extent that he had to stop digging. He even stopped old Finlay, driving by to Swanton, and fired it off on him.”

“Sunbeam, you are getting insufferably impudent,” said her father. “I shall really have to cane you.”

With mock gravity she held out a hand that was a very model, with its long, tapering fingers, which closed upon those which descended upon it in a playful little slap.

“He isn’t the only sinner in that respect, Sunbeam,” said Wagram. “I myself was inflicting it upon our crowd at just about the same time.”

“And are not ashamed of yourself? I’ve a great mind not to show you where I took out a two-pounder the other evening.”

“Did you get it out yourself?”

“That’s stale. I sha’n’t even answer it. Come.”

She had taken an arm of each, in the way of one who ruled both of them. But Haldane hung back.

“Take him alone, dear. I must get two confounded letters behind my back, or they’ll never get done. I’ll come on after you if I’m done in time.”

“All safe. Poogie, I think I won’t take you,” picking up the beautiful little animal. “Some obnoxious cur might skoff you.”

“Why not chuck her in the river for a swim?” said Wagram mischievously. The look Yvonne gave him was beautiful to behold.

“Now, I’ve a great mind not to take you,” she said severely. “Well, come along, then.”

For nearly an hour they wandered by the stream that ran below the garden, talking trout generally, and peering cautiously over into this or that deep hole where big trout were wont to lie. Then, recrossing the plank bridge, with its rather insecure handrail, they started to return.

The field footpath was a right-of-way, and now along it came a somewhat ragged figure, dusty and tired-looking. It was that of a swarthy, middle-aged woman, with beady, black eyes. Instantly Yvonne’s interest awoke.

“She can’t be English,” she declared. “Wait, I’ll try her.”

She opened in fluent Italian, but met with no response. A change to Spanish and French was equally without result.

“It ain’t no good, young lady,” said the tramp; “I don’t understand none of them languages. And yet I ain’t exactly English, neither, as you was saying just now.”

“What! You heard that?” cried Yvonne, astonished. “You are able to hear far.”

“Ay; and able to see far too. Would you like to know what I can see for you, my sweet young lady?” she went on, dropping into the wheedling whine of the professional fortune-teller.

“It would be fun to have my fortune told,” said the girl rather wistfully.

“Yvonne, I’m surprised at you,” said Wagram, with somewhat of an approach to sternness. “Don’t you know that all that sort of thing is forbidden, child, and very wisely so, too?”

“I know; but I don’t mean seriously—only just for the fun of the thing.”

“No—no. Not ‘only just for’ anything; it’s not to be thought of.”

“It’s ’ard to live,” whined the woman, “and me that’s tramped without bite or sup since yesterday. And I’m that ’ungry!”

She certainly looked her words. Wagram softened in a moment.

“Here,” he said; “and now take my advice and get on your way. We don’t want any fortune-tellers round here.”

The tramp spat gleefully—for luck—on the half-crown which lay in her surprised palm.

“Thankee, sir, and good luck to you, sir, and to the sweet young lady. I’ll move on, never fear. You’re a genelman, you are.”

“What are you up to, Wagram?” said Haldane, joining them. “Encouraging vagrancy—as usual? Good line that for a county magistrate.”

“Oh, I can’t see those poor devils looking so woebegone and turn them away. The principle’s quite wrong, I know, but—there it is.”

“Quite wrong. They’re generally lying.”

“More than likely. Still, there it is.”

He was thinking of his meditations as he had ridden over—of the contrast between his life now and formerly, of the intense joy of possession, which he hoped did not come within the definition of “the pride of life.” Of the ragged tramp he had just relieved he had no further thought. Yet it might be that even she would cross his path again. It might be, too, when that befell, little enough of “the pride of life” would then be his.

Chapter Fifteen.

More Siege House Amenities.

In conjecturing that Delia Calmour’s honourable renunciation was probably made at the cost of her peace at home the Squire proved himself a true prophet, for the poor girl’s life became anything but a bed of roses. When he heard that she had irrevocably carried out her intention old Calmour grew savage, first abusing her in the most scandalous manner, and, being half drunk, fell to whining about the ingratitude of children, deliberately allowing their parents to starve in their old age for the sake of gratifying a selfish whim. Then he got wholly drunk, so violently, indeed, that even Clytie, the resolute, the level-headed, found it all that she could do to keep her nerve, while the intrepid Bob promptly skulked off out of harm’s way.