Bertram Mitford (continued 3)

The said Bob, too, contributed his share of mean and petty annoyance. He would insinuate that he did not believe she had really returned the cheque. She wanted to keep it all for herself, and leave them out. He went further, like the mean and despicable cad he was, insinuating that there was plenty more where that came from, that Wagram knew a pretty girl when he saw one, and so forth; in short, behaving in such wise as would formerly, according to the ways of Siege House, have drawn upon himself some sudden and violent form of retaliation. But a change had come over the sister he was persecuting, and the ways of Siege House were no longer her ways, hence the abominable Bob took heart of grace, and his behaviour and insinuations became more and more scandalous. Even Clytie could no longer restrain him. But his turn was to come.

Throughout all this Delia never regretted the decision she had arrived at, never for a single moment. She would act in exactly the same way were the occasion to come over again—were it to come over again a hundred times, she declared, goaded beyond endurance by her father’s alternate maudlin reproaches or vehement abuse. And he had retorted that the sooner she got outside his door and never set foot inside it again the better he would be pleased. This she would have done but for Clytie and—one other consideration.

Clytie at first had been a little cool with her, but had come round, declaring that, on thinking it over, perhaps, on the principle of a sprat to catch a herring, what had happened was the best thing that could have happened, if only they played their cards well now. Then Delia had rounded on her.

“Don’t talk in that beastly way, Clytie; I’m not going to play any cards at all, as you put it. Even if I were inclined to, look at us—us, mind,” she added, with a bitter sneer, and a nod of the head in the direction of the other room, where their father and brother were audibly wrangling and swearing—the former, as usual, half drunk.

“Pooh! that wouldn’t count,” was the equable reply. “You don’t suppose you’d have that hamper lumbering around once you’d won the game, do you? I’d take care of that.”

“Well, I shall go; he’s always telling me to.”

“No, you won’t. Let him tell—and go on telling. I can do some telling too, if it comes to that—telling him that if you go I go too, and we know well enough how he’d take that. No; you stop and face it out. You’ll be jolly glad you did one of these days.”

Poor Delia within her heart of hearts was glad already. A month ago less than a tenth of what she had had to undergo would have started her off independent, to do for herself. Now all the strength seemed to have gone out of her, and the idea of leaving Bassingham and its neighbourhood struck her with a blank dismay that she preferred not to let her mind dwell upon. Now she broke down.

“I wish it had been me, instead of the bicycle, that had been knocked to pieces,” she sobbed. “I wish to Heaven the brute had killed me that day.”

“But you should not wish that, my dear child,” mocked Bob, who, passing the door, had overheard. “You should not wish that. It’s very wicked, as your Papist friends would say.” Then he took himself off with a yahooing laugh.

Now, it befell that on the following morning, while moving her post-card albums, Delia dropped several loose cards. Upon these pounced Bob, with no intention of picking them up for her, we may be sure, possibly in the hope of causing her some passing annoyance by scattering them still more; but hardly had he bent down with that amiable object than he started back, as though he had been about to pick up a snake unawares. “What—why? Who the deuce is that?” he cried. One of the cards was lying with the picture face upwards. This he now picked up. “Who is it?” he stammered, staring wildly at it. “Don’t you recognise it, or does it bring back painful recollections?” retorted Delia as she watched him blankly gaping at the portrait card which Yvonne had given her. For upon her a new light had dawned. “Don’t you? You should have good reason to,” she went on mercilessly, her eyes full upon his face. “Isn’t it Miss Haldane? You know—and I know—who it was that insulted her on the Swanton road one day, but Mr Haldane doesn’t know—as yet.” Bob’s face had gone white.

“Hang it all, Delia,” he gasped, “you wouldn’t give your own brother away, surely?”

“My own brother has just given himself away,” was the sneering reply. “Brother! Yes. You have been very brotherly to me of late, haven’t you—trying to drive me from the house, and making all sorts of perfectly scandalous insinuations! Very brotherly? Eh?”

“Oh, well, perhaps I said a good deal more than I meant,” grumbled Bob shamefacedly.

“And you’d have gone on doing the same if it hadn’t been for finding that card,” she pursued, not in the least deceived by an apology extorted through sheer scare. “Well, please yourself as to whether you do so or not, now.”

Thus the abominable Bob’s turn had come, and so far as he was concerned Delia was henceforward left in peace. Bob, then, being reduced Clytie judged the time ripe for reducing her father also.

“See here, dad,” she began one day when the old man was grumbling at his eldest daughter, and suggesting for the twentieth time that she had better clear out and do something for herself, “don’t you think we have had about enough nagging over that cheque business?—because if you don’t, I do.”

“Oh, you do, do you, Miss Hoity Toity?”

“Rather. And I move that we have no more of it—that the matter be allowed to drop, as they say in the House.”

“What the devil d’you mean, you impudent baggage?” snarled her father.

“What the devil I say—no more—no less,” was the imperturbable reply. “Two or three times a day you tell Delia to clear, and we’re tired of it.”

“Are you?” he returned, coldly sarcastic. “Well, I wonder she requires so much telling.”

“Well, you needn’t tell her any more—it’s waste of trouble. She isn’t going to clear, not until she wants to, anyway; except on these terms—if she clears I clear too. How’s that?”

Thereupon old Calmour went into a petulant kind of rage, and choked and spluttered, and swore that he’d be master in his own house, that they were a pair of impudent, ungrateful baggages, that they might both go to the devil for all he cared, and the sooner they got there the better. Unfortunately, however, he rather neutralised the effect of his peroration by tailing off into the maudlin, and allusions to the wickedness and ingratitude of children who thought nothing of deserting their only parent in his old age, and so forth—to all of which Clytie listened with unruffled composure.

“All right, dad,” she rejoined cheerfully. “Now you’ve blown off steam and are more comfortable again let’s say no more about it. What has been done can’t be undone, that’s certain; in fact, I’ve an instinct that it may have been all for the best after all, so let’s all be jolly together again as before. I’ve got a lot more orders for typing—in fact, almost more than I can do—and if they go on at this rate I shall have to get another machine, and take Delia into partnership—she has an idea of working it already.”

“Well, well, there’s something in that,” said the old man, mollified by this brightening of prospects. “I must have a glass of grog on the strength of it.”

Clytie looked at him for a moment, shook her pretty head, and then got out a bottle. He was quite sober, and it was the first that day.

“Only one,” she said. “No more, mind.”

She did not think it necessary to tell him that this increase of material prosperity was due to the good offices of Wagram. The latter was not the one to do things by halves, and had never forgotten the promise he had made on the occasion of his call at Siege House.

“There you are, Delia!” she triumphantly declared as the orders came pouring in. “You never know what you lose through want of asking. If I hadn’t put it point-blank to him I shouldn’t have got all these—and it makes a difference, I can tell you. What a devil of a good chap he must be!”

A few days later a surprise came for Delia in the shape of a letter from the editor of a particularly smart and up-to-date pictorial, requesting her to contribute to its illustrated series of articles on old country seats, so many words of letterpress and so many photographs of Hilversea Court, and quoting a very liberal rate of remuneration if the contribution proved to be to the editor’s satisfaction. The girl was radiant.

“It’s too good to be true, Clytie. How can they have heard of me?” she exclaimed. “Surely no one has been playing a practical joke on me. I can hardly believe it.”

Clytie scanned the letter “It’s genuine right enough,” she pronounced. “Wagram again.”

“What? But—no—it can’t be this time. Why, don’t you see what it says: ‘Provided you can obtain the permission of Mr Grantley Wagram’? So, you see, it’s apart from them entirely.”

“That’s only a red herring. I’ll bet you five bob he’s at the back of it. Are you on?”

“N-no,” answered Delia, upon whom a recollection was dawning of things she had let fall on that memorable occasion of her last visit to Hilversea. She had prattled on about herself, and her experiences, among which had been a little journalism of a very poorly-paid order.

“I believe you are right, Clytie,” she went on slowly. “I remember letting go that I had done that sort of thing in a small way, and even that I would be glad to do it again in a large one if only I got the chance, but I never dreamt of anything coming of it—never for a moment.”

“No? Well, you’re in luck’s way this time, dear. Probably this editor is a friend of his; and then, apart from that, a man in the position of Wagram of Hilversea can exercise almost unlimited influence in pretty near any direction he chooses—by Jove, he can.”

Delia did not at once reply, and, noting a certain look upon her meditative face, Clytie smiled to herself, and forebore to make any allusion to her cherished scheme, which, in her own mind, she decided was growing more promising than ever.

Chapter Sixteen.

“A Calmour at Hilversea.”

Wagram’s private study, or “den,” where he was wont to do all his business thinking and writing, and which was absolutely sacred to himself and his papers and general litter, was a snug room overlooking the drive; and thence, as he sat with his after-breakfast pipe in his mouth and some business papers relating to the estate before him on the morning following the incidents just recorded, he was—well, not altogether surprised at seeing a girl on a bicycle skimming up to the front door.

“Poor child!” he said to himself. “She looks positively radiant. I used to think, in those awful days, if I were in the position I am in now—by the grace of God—what a great deal I could do for others, and yet, and yet, it’s little enough one seems to be able to do.”

He need not have disparaged himself. There were not a few, among them some who had shown him kindness in “those awful days,” who now had reason to bless his name as long as they lived, and their children’s children after them.

“Come in. Yes; I’ll be down in a minute or two,” he said in response to the announcement that Miss Calmour had called on a matter of business, and very much wished to see him. He smiled to himself as he remembered the occasion of her last call—also “on a matter of business.” Then he made a note as to where to resume the work in which he had been interrupted, laid down his pipe, and went downstairs.

“And now,” he said merrily when they had shaken hands, “what is this ‘matter of business’?”

Delia was looking radiant, and, consequently, very pretty. She had that dark warmth of complexion which suffuses, and her hazel eyes were soft and velvety.

“This will explain,” she said, holding out the editor’s letter; “and, Mr Wagram, it would be affectation for me to pretend that I did not know whom I had to thank for it.”

“Of course. As far as I can see it is the editor of The Old Country Side. But editors don’t want thanking; they are hard, cold-blooded men of business, as I have had ample reason to discover in my old struggling days.”

She made no comment on this last remark. She had heard that this man’s life had not been always a bed of roses.

“Yet, how could this one have heard of me?” she said. “No; I don’t know how to thank you enough for this—and Clytie too. She has almost more work than she can do, all thanks to your introductions. You are too good to us.”

“My dear child, haven’t you learnt yet that we must all help each other in this world as far as lies in our power? The difficulty sometimes lies in how to do it in the right way. By-the-by, this letter, I observe, makes it a condition that you should obtain my father’s permission. How, then, could we possibly have had anything to do with instigating the offer?”

Delia smiled, remembering her sister’s dictum: “That’s only a red herring.” However, she had sufficient tact not to press the point.

“I see they want six photographic views,” he went on. “Now, if I might suggest, do two of the house, from different points of view—outside; one of the hall and staircase; two of the chapel, outside and in; and one of the lake. That makes it.”

“But, Mr Wagram, you are forgetting the African animals. I must have those; they are such a feature.”

“Why, of course. Well, then, now I think of it, we will delete the interior of the chapel. To the crowd it would only look like any other interior. What is your camera, by the way?”

“Only a Kodak. Bull’s-eye Number 2. But I understand time exposures, and it takes very sharp and clear.”

“And shorthand writing too. You are a clever girl, and should be able to turn your accomplishments to useful account.”

Again Delia smiled, for she remembered having let out that she was a ready shorthand writer during that former conversation.

“Well, now, what I suggest is this: I have rather a pressing matter of business to finish off this morning, so, if you will excuse me, I propose to turn you over to Rundle. He will show you every hole and corner of the house; he knows it like a book. We only looked at it cursorily last time you were here. That will take you all the morning. After lunch—we lunch at one—I can take you over the outside part of the job myself. The Old Country Side is a first-rate pictorial, and we must do justice to Hilversea in it, mustn’t we?”

Delia professed herself delighted, as indeed she was. Then Rundle, having appeared in response to a ring, Wagram proceeded to direct him accordingly.

“Show Miss Calmour all there is to see, Rundle,” he said, “and work the light for her so as to get everything from the best point of view for photography. I showed her the priest’s hiding-place the other day, so you needn’t; besides, you don’t know the secret of it.”

“No, sir; and it’d have been a good job if some others hadn’t known there was such a thing,” said the old butler in historic allusion. “This way, miss.”

Delia appeared at lunch radiant and sparkling. Rundle had proved a most efficient cicerone, she declared; indeed, so much had there been to see and hear that she wondered how on earth she was going to compress her notes into the required limit. Wagram was in a state of covert amusement, for he knew that his father was not forgetting his former dictum.

“A Calmour at Hilversea! Pho! it’d be about as much in place as a cow in a church!”

And yet, here was this bright, pretty girl, who talked so intelligently and well—why, she might have been anybody else as far as keeping the old Squire interested and amused was concerned.

“Now, Miss Calmour, which shall we take first—the animals or the chapel?” said Wagram as they rose from table.

“The animals, I think, because it may take some time, and the sun is not as reliable as it might be. The chapel I can get much easier with a time exposure, if necessary.”

“Right. I’ll tell them to get my tyres pumped up, and we can bike down there.”

Their way took them over the very road where the adventure had befallen, then a turn to the left, where the riding was rough. Here, under the trees, a shed of tarred planks came into view.

“We’ll leave our machines here,” said Wagram, dismounting. “They’ll be quite safe; still, I’ll chain them together, as a matter of precaution.”

“What a perfectly lovely place this is,” said the girl as they walked on beneath great over-arching oaks, which let in the sunlight in a network on the cool sward. “Tell me, Mr Wagram, don’t you sometimes find life too good to be real?”

He looked at her a trifle gravely. There was something very taking in her genuineness and spontaneity. In the present instance she had voiced what was often in his mind.

“Yes, indeed I do,” he said; “so much so that at times it is almost startling.”

It did not occur to him how he was giving vent to some of the most solemn side of his meditations for the benefit of this girl—this daughter of the drunken, disreputable, old ex-army vet, any other member of whose family he would not willingly have had there at all. But had he known her better—that is, had he known her before that eventful day—he would have reason to marvel at the great and wondrous change that had come over her within that short space of time. Her former slanginess, and other amenities and ideas begotten of Siege House, were to her now quite of the past, so effective had been recent influences to refine and soften her.

“Look there, we are in luck’s way so far,” he said. “Have you got an exposure ready?”

They had reached a high paling with the upper part bent over inward. In front was a step-ladder giving access to a small wooden platform at the top of this.

“Don’t show too suddenly,” he whispered as he helped her up this; “you’ve a fine chance.”

Delia could hardly restrain a cry of delight. About twenty yards away a couple of white-tailed gnus were feeding, and just beyond three more of the larger and brindled kind, and a little apart from these a fine specimen of the sable antelope. It was as if some fortunate freak of Nature had grouped and focussed the lot for her own especial benefit.

“Got ’em,” she whispered, clicking the trigger.

Up went every head. The white-tailed gnus, their wild eyes staring out of fierce-looking, whiskered countenances surmounted by sharp meat-hook-like horns, began to snort and prance round and round. Those of the other kind drew nearer, uttering a raucous bellow.

“Now, snap them again,” whispered Wagram; “you’ll never get a better chance.”

“There; that’ll be perfect. Are there any more, Mr Wagram?”

“None worth taking. Some of the smaller kinds of antelope; but we hope to get some more specimens. Haldane got these for us. He’s been an up-country sportsman in his time, and shot lots of them.”

“How picturesque they look; but they are very ugly.”

“Not the sable antelope?”

“Oh no; the others. They look as if Nature had started to make a goat, then changed her mind, and manufactured a bad attempt at a buffalo, with a dash of the camel thrown in.”

“Good description,” laughed Wagram. The creatures, excited by the sound, snorted and bellowed, pawing the ground or capering in absurd antics, while two had got up a sham fight on their own account.

“Supposing we were to go down into the enclosure?” she said.

“Hadn’t you a specimen of what that would mean the other day? We have notices posted everywhere warning people against venturing in; but this part of the park is right away from any public road, and we don’t encourage trippers. Hallo!”—looking up—“it’s lucky you got your snapshots. It has started to rain.”

Big drops were pattering down. The sky had become quickly overcast, and an ominous boom from a black, inky background of cloud told that a summer shower was upon them with characteristic suddenness. They regained the shed where they had left their bicycles only in the nick of time, as, with a roar and a rush, the rain whirled upon them in a tremendous downpour. Then the vivid sheeting of blue electricity, almost simultaneously with the sharp thunder-crack. The girl gave a little start.

“Are you afraid of thunder?” asked Wagram, with a smile.

“Not now. Sometimes when I am alone I get rather nervous, but now I don’t mind it a bit.”

She spoke no more than the truth. She would have welcomed another hour of the most appalling thunderstorm that ever raged to sit here as she was doing now, and spend it in this man’s society. Yet a wooden shed, open in front, and overhung by tall, spreading oaks, is not perhaps, the safest refuge in the world under all the circumstances. But the thunder and lightning soon passed over, although it continued to rain smartly.

“Mr Wagram, there is something I would like to talk to you about,” began the girl, rather constrainedly, after a quite unwonted interval of silence—for her. “I have been thinking of late that I would like to be a Catholic.”

Wagram looked up keenly.

“Have you given the question careful study?” he said.

“I have thought it over a great deal. I am fairly at home in the Catholic services. You see, I was travelling on the Continent as companion for a time, and then we always attended them, so I do know something about it.”

“To know ‘something’ isn’t sufficient; you must know everything.”

“Tell me, then. What should I do?”

“First, be sure that you are thoroughly in earnest; then you must undergo instruction.”

Delia’s face brightened.

“I will,” she said. “But—tell me how.”

“There is a mission in Bassingham. Go and consult the priest there.”

Delia tried all she knew to keep her face from falling. She had hoped, in her ignorance, that Wagram would have accepted the post of instructor.

“Father Sonnenbloem!” she said. “But, he’s a German.”

“Well, what then? My dear child, the Catholic Church is the Church of the World, and is above nationality in that it embraces all nations—hence its name. As it happens, Father Sonnenbloem is one of the most kind-hearted and saintly men who ever lived. He is learned, too. If you are in earnest you could go to no one better.”

Delia declared that she would; and, the rain having ceased, they went forth just as a bright shaft of sunlight, darting through the cloud, which it was fast dispelling, converted the rain drippings from the leaves into a shower of glittering diamonds, and the moist, ferny, woodland scents after the shower were delicious.

“We shall have a splashy ride back, I’m afraid,” said Wagram as they regained the road. “No; it has run off rather than soaked in. It won’t hurt us; and you’ll have the sun for your remaining shots.”

After she had taken the chapel and the Priest’s Walk—she must take that, she said—Delia asked, somewhat diffidently, if she could see the ornaments.

“Certainly,” answered Wagram; “only we must get hold of Father Gayle for that, because he has got the keys of all the best things.”

The chaplain was at home, and soon found.

“Been taking our private Zoo, I hear, Miss Calmour,” he said genially as he joined them. “Your second sight of it is not quite so startling as your first, eh?”

In the sacristy—for they did not do things by halves at Hilversea—Delia was lost in wonder and delight at the beauty of the vestments and ornaments, rich and exquisite in texture and design, and she almost had to shade her eyes to look at the great sun-shaped monstrance, blazing with precious stones; but what interested her no less, perhaps, was a splendid old chasuble of Flemish make, rich and full, and displaying a perfect chronicle of symbolism in every detail of its embroidery, which Wagram pronounced to have been almost certainly worn by their martyred relative.

“From that to my boy’s things is something of a skip,” he went on, half opening a drawer, in which lay an acolyte’s dress of scarlet and lace; “only the rascal isn’t over-keen on getting inside them when he’s here—eh, Father? Says he has enough of that sort of thing to do at school.”

“Oh, well, we mustn’t expect a boy to be too pious,” laughed the priest. “I know I was anything but that at his age.”

Delia was interested. It was the first time she had heard Wagram refer to his son, and she was about to question him on the subject when the sound of a door opening, and of voices inside the chapel, caught their attention.

“It’s Haldane and Yvonne,” pronounced Wagram. “Perhaps they’ve come to have a practice.”

His conjecture proved correct, as in a minute or two the new arrivals joined them in the sacristy. They wanted to try over a few things, they said, and now the organist was nowhere to be found. Wagram couldn’t play and sing at the same time, and the same held good of Yvonne, while Haldane couldn’t play at all. What on earth was to be done?

“Could I be of any use, Mr Haldane?” said Delia with some diffidence. “I have some knowledge of accompaniment, and am used to the organ; in fact, I can sing and play at the same time without difficulty.”

“The very thing!” cried Haldane. “What a friend in need you are, Miss Calmour.”

They adjourned to the choir-loft over the west door, and Delia took her seat at the organ. It was small, but a perfect little instrument for the size of the building—here again Hilversea did not do things by halves—and had an automatic blower.

“This is a treat,” said the girl as she ran her fingers over the keyboard. “Why, the instrument is perfect. What shall we start upon?”

“Arcadelt,” said Yvonne. “Can you take soprano, Miss Calmour?”

“Yes.”

“All safe. Then we are set up. Mr Wagram, you take tenor, and father will take bass, though he’s not as good as he might be at it. Now, are you ready?”

And then Arcadelt’s Ave Maria, than which, probably, no more beautiful composition of its kind was ever wrought, in its solemn and plaintive melody and exquisite interpretation of light and shade, went forth from the four voices, cultured voices too, swelling up to the high-pitched roof in all its richness of sound, and softening into tender petition.

“Lovely, lovely!” whispered Delia, half to herself, as it ended.

“It is, isn’t it?” said Yvonne. “Do let’s have it on Sunday, Mr Wagram.”

“Shall we?”

“Oh, do, Mr Wagram,” echoed Delia enthusiastically. “I’ll ride over, wet or fine, if only to hear it.”

“Very well, then, we will; but won’t you not only hear it but help us in it?”

“May I? Oh, I shall be delighted.”

They tried over a few more things, including a gem or two of Gounod, then adjourned to the house for tea.

“What a universal genius that little girl is, Wagram,” said Haldane as they walked thither, the two girls being in front.

“Yes; she’s a clever child—seems able to turn her hand to anything.” And then he told of the day’s doings.

“Good, and good again,” said Haldane. “We must tell everyone to get that number of The Old Country Side. Then they may give her another job.”

“I think they very likely will,” said Wagram, with a twinkle in his eyes that escaped his friend.

Chapter Seventeen.

Blackmail?

Grantley Wagram sat alone in his library—thinking.

When a man thus sits, with an open letter in front of him, at which he gazes from time to time, with a contraction of the brows, it is safe to assume that his thoughts are hardly pleasant; and such, indeed, represented the state of the old Squire’s mind.

The correspondence which troubled him was not quite recent—that is to say, it was some days old. But, great Heaven! the issue it involved if the statements therein set forth were true! It speaks volumes for the old man’s marvellous self-control that he should have gone through that period evincing no sign whatever that anything had occurred to threaten his normal urbanity—no, not even to his son; and yet, day and night, awake, and even asleep, the matter had been uppermost in his thoughts. Now, those thoughts for the hundredth time seemed to voice the two words: Only Blackmail! And yet—and yet—he knew that it was blackmail from which there would be no escape.

He took up the letter and scanned it, then let it fall again with a weary sigh. There was a genuine ring about the tone of the communication. No; there could hardly be two Develin Hunts.

Well, a few moments would decide, for the letter which troubled him was subscribed with that name, and the writer promised to call that very morning—in fact, might arrive any moment.

Even then there came a tap at the door, and the servant who entered announced the arrival of a stranger.

“Show him up here,” said the Squire.

The first thing the new-comer did was to look deliberately around, return to the door, open it, and look outside. Then, closing it, he came back, seated himself opposite the Squire, and said:

“Don’t you know me?”

“No.”

“Look again. You know me right enough, though we’ve neither of us grown any younger.”

“Not from Adam.” And Grantley Wagram leaned back in his chair, as if there were no more to be said.

“Never heard my name before, eh?” said the stranger sneeringly.

“N-no. Wait. Let’s see. Now I remember I read it in connection with some shipwreck. Are you the person referred to?”

“That I am. And a hell of a time I had of it. By the Lord, we all had.”

“I can quite believe that,” said the Squire. “That castaway business must be one of the most ghastly situations imaginable.”

“Quite right, Squire. Come, now, I believe you’re not half a bad sort after all. I believe we are going to understand each other.”

The old diplomat made no immediate reply as he leaned back in his chair and watched the other. He saw before him a tallish man, somewhat loosely hung, but conveying an idea of wiriness and strengths. The face, tanned a red brown, might very well have been good-looking at one time; now somewhat bloodshot eyes and an indescribable something told that its owner had lived hard and wildly, and that in wild, hard places.

“Yes; I believe you’re not half a bad sort, Squire,” repeated the stranger, pulling at his short white beard—“far too good a sort not to have forgotten that a man might have a thirst after a walk on a hot morning; for I walked over here, mind.”

“To be sure, I had forgotten,” said the Squire, with a pleasant laugh, as he touched an electric button on the table. “What do you fancy? A glass of wine?”

“Wine? No, thanks. Scotch is good enough for me, especially good Scotch—and it’s bound to be that here,” with a comprehensive sweep of the hand round the library.

A servant appearing, the whisky was ordered and brought, Grantley Wagram the while uneasily hoping that it would not have the effect of making his unwelcome visitor uproarious.

“Soda? No, thanks,” said the latter emphatically; “that’ll do for those stay-at-home popinjays who loaf about clubs, not for a man who’s lived. Ah! That’s real good,” swallowing at a gulp half the four-finger measure he had poured out for himself. “Soft, mellow as milk. Squire, you’re not with me.”

“Not—?”

“Not with me. It isn’t usual in places I’ve been for one man to drink and another to look on.”

“Oh, I see. I must ask you to take the will for the deed. This is the wrong end of the day with me for that sort of thing.”

“Oh, but—it’ll never do,” returned the other in an injured tone, gulping down the remains of his glass. “We shall never get to business that way.”

“Perhaps even better,” said the Squire pleasantly. “Well, now—what is your business?”

At this—put point-blank—the stranger stared, and the decanter which he had reached for, to fill up again, was held arrested in mid-air.

“Well, I’ll get to it,” he said, following out his immediate purpose, and tossing off a good half of the same. “I’ve been knocking about all my life—and it has been a life, mind you—and now I want to squat. Some nice, bright, pleasant neighbourhood where there’s good company and a bit of sport to be had; like this, for instance.”

“Quite natural,” said the Squire pleasantly. “Made your pile, I suppose, and want to settle down and enjoy it.”

The other winked.

“Not much ‘pile,’” he said. “For the rest you’re right. I do want to enjoy it—if by ‘it’ you mean life—and it strikes me this is just the corner of this little island to do it in.” And down went the remainder of the glass.

The Squire was relieved to find that the liquor had no effect upon the man whatever, for though he had lowered practically a tumbler of it neat, and within a very short interval of time, he talked with the same easy, confident drawl, nor did his speech show any signs of thickening. The said speech, by the way, was correct, and not by any means that of an uneducated person.

“And—the business?”

“That’s it, Squire. I want a nice snug little box, where I can smoke my pipe in peace and stable a horse or two, and have a day’s shooting now and again, and throw a fly when I want. That’s reasonable, isn’t it?”

“Quite. But, then—I’m not a house agent.”

“Ha—ha—ha! Capital joke—capital! Well, for once in your life you shall be one—”

“Eh?”

”—And find me exactly what I want. I think the terms are easy. Only there is another trifling detail I forgot. You were mentioning a ‘pile’ just now. Well, I haven’t made any pile—rather the other way on. Now, that modest establishment I suggest will want a little keeping up—a banking account, you understand.”

“Yes; it would want that.”

“Well, then, you could arrange all that for me too,” rejoined the stranger airily, though at heart somewhat disconcerted by the old diplomat’s coolness. “Come, now; the terms are not hard. What do you think?”

“Shall I tell you what I think?”

“Do.”

“I think you must be an escaped lunatic.”

“Ah, you think that, do you? Well, I’m not going to lose my temper with you, Squire; in fact, I admire your gameness. But it’s of no use. I like this part of the country, and I’m here to stay. When I’ve prospected around a little more I’ll tell you which place I’ll take, and how much it will require to keep up.”

“Yes? Pray be modest when you do.”

The other laughed. The mild sarcasm tickled him, and he felt so sure of his ground.

“I think I am, all things considered,” he said. “Of course, we can break off the deal—right now. You are all right for your life, but what price when your son Wagram has to pack up and go, as, of course, he will? You have another son?”

“No.”

“What? Oh, Squire! Ah, I see. You don’t own him, and all that sort of thing. Well, I’m not surprised, and I don’t blame you, for he’s a hard case. Upon my word, he’s a devilish hard case—one of the hardest cases I’ve ever struck, and that’s saying a gaudy good deal. Well, now, I know exactly where to put my finger on him, and when Wagram has to pack, why, then, the other one—Everard—comes in. It’ll all be his then, and won’t he make things hum!”

“I should think he most probably would, unless he’s vastly changed since I last saw him,” smiled the old man, as if his visitor had just vented some pleasant witticism.

“Well, he hasn’t—not for the better at any rate, from your point of view. You may take it from me, he won’t refuse me what I am asking you—ay, and a great deal more besides. In fact, he daren’t.”

“In that case, why did you come to me at all if you could get so much more from him?”

“Don’t you see, Squire, that would be a waiting game, and I don’t prefer that if it can be avoided, for, of course, he couldn’t touch a thing during your time.”

“No; he couldn’t—and certainly shouldn’t.”

“Very well, then. There’s one motive, and here’s another. What if I have a hankering—a genuine one—after respectability? What if I would rather settle down as a highly respectable neighbour of yours—you would find me all that, I promise you—than help ‘blue’ the whole show with Everard? No; don’t smile so incredulously. A man with your cool reasoning faculties, which I have been admiring all along, ought to know human nature better.”

“Now, look here, Mr Develin Hunt, or whatever you choose to call yourself,” said the Squire, rising in his chair, as a hint to terminate the interview, and speaking in a crisp, decisive tone. “Do you really imagine that this precious concoction of yours is going to frighten or influence me in the slightest degree—because, if so, you don’t know me at all—as, indeed, how should you? But I warn you that personation and blackmail are felonies in this country, and not only very severely punishable but generally very severely punished. So now I’ll say good-bye; only lay my warning to heart, and don’t come here with any more of these flimsy attempts to obtain money or I shall know next time how to treat them.”

“Blackmail! Felony! Ugly words both,” said the stranger cheerfully as he, too, rose. “Well, I’m not much afraid; only, let me echo your words: ‘I shall know what to do next time’ if you refuse to see me, and that will be to place the matter before your son Wagram. He’ll think twice before allowing all the good you and he have done here—I have been taking observations, you see—to be wrecked at the sweet will of as cut-throat and piratical a ‘tough’ as ever escaped hanging, even though it be his own brother. Good-morning, Squire. Shall see you again in a few days. Looks as if we were going to have rain, doesn’t it? Good-morning.”

He passed through the door, which was being held open for him, for the Squire had already rung, and went down the stairs with jaunty step. Then, as he heard the front door shut, Grantley Wagram sank back into his chair.

The sting of the whole interview lay in the parting words. About the man’s identity he had no doubt, and that his other and missing son should be the instrument for undoing all that had been done, and bringing the family to utter ruin! It was terrible! He could not so much as sit still to think about it. He felt cornered and trapped.

He went to the open window. The June sunshine was flooding over the richness of the foliage tossing in mountainous masses against the cloudless blue. A perfect gurgle of bird voices in sweet harmony blended in unceasing song, and that clear, pure fragrance which you will only find in the open country came up with every waft of the summer air. Red roofs nestling among the trees, near and far, where farm or tiny hamlet formed a cluster of dwellings—all the people represented by these looked up to him, and to him who should come after him, and the reflection only served to add bitterness to Grantley Wagram’s meditations. He had striven to do his best for all these, in the truest and best sense of the word, and had no reason to believe his high aims had met with failure; indeed, it would have been false modesty to pretend to himself that the very reverse was not the case. Wagram had ably and whole-heartedly seconded him, and would continue to do so after his time. Yet now, if this would-be blackmailer could but furnish convincing proof of his identity—ah, surely high Heaven would never permit such an undoing of its own work!

Chapter Eighteen.

Further Counsels.

“Monsignor Culham, sir,” announced a servant, throwing open the library door.

The Squire advanced with outstretched hand. “Ah, my dear old friend, I never was more glad to see you in my life.”

“And how are you, Grantley? Upon my word, in spite of whatever it is that’s bothering you, you are looking younger than ever.”

“That’ll soon remedy itself, unless we can devise some way out of this abominable tangle.”

“Supposing, now, you let me in behind this same abominable tangle—for, of course, I have as yet no idea as to its nature.”

A week had gone by since the visit of the African adventurer, but nothing further had been heard of or from that worthy. Clearly he was not going to hurry his victim unduly, but that he had given up his predatory scheme the said victim could not bring himself to believe.

In a matter involving weighty issues even the most shrewd and secretive of us may be excused for doubting his own judgment, or, at any rate, desiring to take counsel of another mind. Thus the situation, as laid down by the would-be blackmailer, had got upon even the cool nerves of the old diplomat; and upon whose judgment could he rely as he could upon that of his old friend?

“But you are only just off a journey,” he now replied. “You must rest and refresh first.”

“Neither, thanks; and the journey wasn’t a long one. Now, begin.”

“It’s a tale soon told. My first wife—Wagram’s mother—was married before. She honestly believed her husband to be dead; in fact, if certificates and all that sort of thing count as proof, she was justified in believing it. Afterwards he turned up, and tried blackmailing us.”

“Was that before Wagram was born?”

“No; after. Not that it made any difference either way, because, of course, the marriage was void.”

“You have no doubt whatever that he was her real husband?”

“She had no doubt. Poor thing! it killed her.”

“And what became of the man?”

“I made it worth his while to leave the country, and on the way to New Zealand or Australia—I forget which—he was washed overboard, and never seen again. I was justified in believing him drowned, if only that he never troubled me again, which he would certainly have done otherwise.”

“And he wasn’t?”

“So he says. Read this,” handing him the newspaper cutting narrating the rescue of the three castaways.

“And is this the man—Develin Hunt?”

The Squire nodded. “Funny, isn’t it, that he should reappear in the same way as he went? Well, he has been here to blackmail me.” And he told of the recent visitor and the proposed terms.

“People change a good deal in a matter of thirty years or so,” said the prelate. “And you had no doubt as to this man’s identity?”

“Unfortunately, none. I didn’t let him know that, though. I treated him politely, and as if I thought him a fraud of the first water, but it didn’t seem to disconcert him. He has a trump card to throw down, for it is not merely a case of Wagram going out but—of who do you think coming in? Everard!”

“What?”

“Everard. He professes to know his whereabouts, declares that he has gone utterly to the bad. The fellow even dwelt upon the utter wreck that wretched boy would make of everything here in the event of establishing his claim.”

To listen to the old man telling his tale in his easy, light, cynical tones you would have thought it concerned him not at all. But his friend saw deeper down than that; he knew that if this thing were to befall Grantley Wagram’s days were numbered. Heavens! it was too awful! And Wagram, whose love for his heritage was an obsession, and who was such a perfect steward of the great wealth entrusted to him—what would be the effect on him when he learnt that such heritage was reft from him at one blow—that he had no right even to the name he bore, nor his son after him? The prelate’s face wore as gloomy a look as that of his friend.

“Of course, you must insist on this man furnishing you with every proof of his identity,” he said. “He can do that, of course?”

“The worst of it is I’m convinced in my heart of hearts as to his identity. There was something out of the way about the fellow that even the lapse of time hasn’t affected. I don’t know quite what it is. Perhaps it’s his way of talking. Anyway, I’m sure of him.”

“You can be sure of nothing in this world, Grantley—nothing that isn’t a matter of faith, which, of course, sounds paradoxical. But in mundane matters such as this it isn’t a question of faith but of hard, dry evidence, which for present purposes may be taken to mean: Can this man prove that he was validly and legally married to your first wife before you went through what we will, provisionally, and for the sake of argument, call the form of marriage with her?”

“And supposing he can’t?”

“Then there’s an end of the whole affair.”

“Even if I am morally certain?” persisted the Squire, smiling sadly to himself as he remembered how, when they were youths at college together, he had delighted in putting every form of difficult and intricate case of conscience he could think of to the budding priest, who, for his part, had never shirked the challenge.

“Everything is to be ruled upon its own merits. Moral certainty in such a matter as this is nothing, and counts for nothing. We must have clear, authenticated, documentary proof.”

“I have often wondered,” went on Grantley Wagram slowly, “how Everard could really be my son; there was a total absence about him of every sort of seeming relationship or affinity. Well, well, it is too late to dwell upon that now. Yet I gave him every chance, and he threw it from him. Did I not give him every chance?”

“You did indeed; you have nothing to reproach yourself with under that head.”

“Then, as a matter of conscience, I am justified in resisting the claim de haut en bas? And I don’t know who could be a better authority in that department than you, old friend.”

“Absolutely and entirely you are. You can’t as a juror conscientiously hang a man on moral certainty, you must have legal certainty—otherwise clear evidence. It’s the same here. When you consider the enormous stake involved the principle of ‘the benefit of the doubt’ holds good more than ever.”

“Knowing what I knew,” resumed the Squire after a brief pause—“knew, or at any rate was morally certain of—I reckoned it my duty to make a second marriage, to obviate all possibility of Hilversea passing to a distant and apostate branch of the family, which stands in no sort of need of it, by the way, being as well endowed with this world’s goods as I am myself. How disadvantageous that second marriage turned out—well, you, old friend, will remember. And the only result spells—Everard. Why, it might even be better for everything to go to the other branch than to him.”

“So far as we have got it doesn’t follow that it need go to either. You were saying something just now, Grantley, about your first wife being in possession of certificates proving this man’s, Develin Hunt’s, death. Now, did you ever see anything of the sort attesting his marriage to her?”

“No; I never thought of it. No; I never saw any such certificate. The poor thing admitted that it had taken place; and that was enough for me, for it was a painful business, so I made it worth his while to clear out.”

“You committed an error of judgment, Grantley, not only in failing to require such a certificate and establishing its genuineness, but also in omitting to institute a thorough and searching inquiry into the antecedents of this Develin Hunt prior to the alleged marriage.”

“You think, then, that such may not have been valid?”

“I am not in a position to think; I only know—we both know—that such things have happened. This man, you say, has led an adventurous life in various parts of the world. Who knows what experiences it may hold, any one of which would invalidate this alleged marriage, thereby rendering yours valid?”

“Ah-h!”

Grantley Wagram drew a long breath as he straightened himself up in his chair; his face lightened.

“In that case Wagram would be safe,” he said.

“Safe as yourself; but it doesn’t do to build too much on such an uncertain foundation. Still, what I should do in your place would be to take steps immediately to have this man’s past traced. Of course, the lapse of years will have added enormously to the difficulties of the search, but by sparing no expense, and setting the right people to work, the thing ought to be feasible, I imagine.”

“I had thought of some such plan myself; but two heads are better than one—by Jove, they are! I’ll set to work about it directly; but meanwhile this fellow threatens to call round for his price.”

“When?”

“In a few days, he said, whatever that may mean; and it’s about a week ago now.”

“Wait till he does call, then. But, of course, you won’t pay him any ‘price.’ Give him rope instead—and plenty of it.”

“Yes; I shall require the certificate of his marriage, and it will be easy to verify it, unless, of course, it took place out of England—then it will be more difficult.”

“Not necessarily. It will take more time, and I don’t know that that’s altogether an unmixed evil—the gaining of time in an important and critical matter seldom is. By the way—er—I suppose Mrs Wagram never informed you where it had taken place?”

“No. You see, the whole thing came as more than something of a shock, and we agreed never to refer to it. Heavens! my working life was spent in defeating the wiles of the potential enemies of my country, and when it became a question of my own nearest affairs I seem to have acted the part of a very complete and unsophisticated idiot.”

“Not an uncommon thing, my dear Grantley. I seem to remember more than one instance of an eminent judge or counsel whose will, drawn by himself, was productive of a fruitful crop of lawsuits. But now you have not got to let yourself get flurried or out of hand in the matter. This man, from your account of him, seems to be a singularly confident and level-headed type of adventurer. If his position is as secure as he would have you believe, why, then, he can afford to play a waiting game, and will be too much of a man of the world to spoil his own play by hurrying yours. If he shows an unwillingness to play the said waiting game, why, then, I think he will be giving away his own hand, which in that case is sure to be weak.”

“That’s sound wisdom,” said the Squire, “and I’ll act upon it. I’ll put it to him straight that, until I’ve had time to have inquiries made, I’ll do nothing for him.”

“Meanwhile don’t give him a shilling.”

“Oh no; certainly not. In any case I should never dream of embarking on that idiocy over again.”

“I suppose you have let drop no hint of that matter to Wagram?”

“No hint. If anything comes of it, why, he’ll know soon enough—if nothing, why disturb him? And—Wagram is so ultra conscientious. He’d never have done for the Diplomatic Service.”

Both laughed, but it was somewhat mirthlessly.

“There is Wagram,” went on the Squire as a step and a whistled bar or two sounded outside; and then the door opened.

“Ah! how are you, Monsignor? They told me you had arrived.”

The old prelate’s keen, kindly glance took in the man before him as they shook hands, and there was sadness in his heart, though sign thereof did not appear. Yes; he took in the tall, straight form and the refined, thoughtful face, and realised what a blow hung over their owner. Should it fall, how would he take it? How? He thought he knew. But—it would be terrible, disastrous, ruinous. Heaven in mercy avert it!

“What do you think, father?” said Wagram as they were seated at lunch. “You remember that fellow who escaped from that wreck we were reading about the other day—the fellow with the quaint name—Develin Something—ah, Hunt—that was it? Well, he’s staying in Bassingham. Charlie Vance pointed him out to me. Says he’s stopping at the Golden Crown. Funny, isn’t it?”

“Very. That’s the man at whose expense you perpetrated that infamous pun, isn’t it, Wagram?” answered the Squire, with a twinkle of the eyes, and as complete an insouciance as though the man’s very existence were not a matter of life and death to them.

“Well, I wasn’t as bad as Haldane. I only fired it off once; but Haldane—you know, Monsignor, Haldane spent the rest of the day suggesting to everyone within hail that a chap named Develin Hunt must have had a bad time throughout life in that he would be continually in the way of being told that he had the Develin him.”

“Capital—capital!” said Monsignor Culham, with a hearty laugh. “I read the case in the papers at the time. And what sort of a fellow did this shipwrecked mariner strike you as being, Wagram?”

“Oh, he looked a hard-bitten, unscrupulous sort of pirate. They say he’s been a West African back-country trader—a life, I imagine, likely to turn a man that way.”

The prelate laughed again, so did the Squire. Thus admirably did they keep their own counsel these two finished old diplomats. But—beneath!

Chapter Nineteen.

Interim—Peace!

One glowing summer morning saw Delia Calmour spinning her bicycle along at a great rate up the Hilversea drive. It was Sunday, and she had come to attend the chapel, a thing she had done more than once of late, since the time she had given efficient musical aid on a certain informal occasion we wot of. Some weeks had gone by since then, and now it was golden August. The beautiful landscape lay in a shimmer of heat, but the glad shout of the cuckoo echoed no more, and the chorus of bird voices had undergone considerable abatement, but the stillness and the glowing richness of the summer haze shed a peace around as of the peace of heaven.

She was late; yes, as she alighted and chained her bicycle to the railings she heard the roll of the organ within. She was late, but not very. Mass had hardly begun, she decided, as her ears caught the opening bars of the Kyrie in Mozart Number 1. She hesitated a moment whether to do so or not, then went up to the choir-loft. Two things struck her as Yvonne handed her the score: one, that the choir was in less strength than usual; the other, that Wagram was at the organ. He half turned, astonished, as the full, rich soprano sounded forth among, if not slightly above, the rest, then settled down to his work with renewed satisfaction. She was doubly glad that she had come, for she knew that her musical talent was of genuine practical assistance, and as such was thoroughly appreciated.

“Take the organ for this,” whispered Wagram just before the offertory. “You can sing and play at the same time; I can’t. We are going to have Arcadelt—your favourite.”

She complied, and was astonished at herself and the tone and expression she managed to get out of the instrument, while not in the least drowning the voices, among which her own led, clear and rich. So were others, for more than one head turned round inquiringly towards the choir-loft, among them that of the old Squire.

“No—no; keep it all through,” whispered Wagram, as she would have got up. “I shall be free to make one more to sing then.”

Again she obeyed, and threw her best into it, and her best was very good indeed. The music at Hilversea was above the average, but to-day it had surpassed itself.

“Well done, Miss Calmour,” said Haldane enthusiastically as they met outside after the service. “What degree in music have you taken, may I ask?”

“None, Mr Haldane. But I know you’re only chaffing me.”

“’Pon my honour, I’m not. If you haven’t, you ought, to have. They ought to make you a Mus. Doc. at least. Oughtn’t they, Wagram?”

“Of course,” said the latter, joining them. “Thanks so much for your help, Miss Calmour. If you had come a bit earlier I would have asked you to play from the very first. Our regular organist’s away, and someone had to take his place, so I threw myself—rather heroically, I think—into the breach. He’d have been jealous, though, if he’d heard you.”

“I’m afraid you’ll make me very conceited, Mr Wagram,” laughed the girl rather deprecatingly. “But I am so glad if I have really been of any use.”

“By Jove!” Haldane was saying to himself. “By Jove! but she is a pretty girl.”

Nor was he overstating matters. Delia was dressed, plainly as usual, in cool white, which suited well her clear, mantling complexion and light hazel eyes, the latter bright with animation. She looked her best here now in the hot August sun, and what has been said of her musical accomplishment applies equally to her physical aspect—her best was very good indeed.

“You’ll come up and lunch with us, Miss Calmour?” said Wagram. “It’s much too hot to ride back all the way to Bassingham in the middle of the day, especially after all your exertions on our behalf.”

Delia accepted, hoping she was not betraying too much delight by her tone. Sunday at Siege House was the least tolerable day in the week, and now she wondered if she were going to have a day of heaven.

“Here, Gerard,” called out Wagram, as two boys came up, accompanied by Yvonne, with whom one of them at any rate seemed to be engaged in altercation. “Miss Calmour, this is my rascal,” he explained genially. “The other has a parent of his own to give him a character, so I won’t.”

Both were straightly-built, handsome boys of fourteen, a complete contrast to each other, though both of the same height—one dark, the other golden-haired and blue-eyed. The first, however, moved Delia’s interest the most as they came up and shook hands. So this was Wagram’s son! The other was Haldane’s. The two were sworn pals, and were at the same school.

“Why didn’t you go and serve Mass, you scamps?” went on Wagram.

“Oh, we do that enough at Hillside, pater,” answered Gerard, hanging on to his father’s arm in a sort of insinuating and conciliatory way; “besides, we got in—er—a little late.”

Delia, listening, remembered Wagram’s remark when they had come upon the speaker’s acolyte dress in the sacristy the day that she had first tried her hand at the organ. He was an exact replica of his father, she decided—just what Wagram might have been at his age.

“Reggie’s just as bad, Mr Wagram,” struck in Yvonne, who deemed it her mission to “round up” her brother in matters of the kind. “He slipped away from me when we were talking to old Mrs Clancy, and I believe he was at the bottom of it.”

“Oh, well, as it’s the beginning of the holidays, I suppose they must be allowed some law,” rejoined Wagram.

“Give me your key, Miss Calmour, and I’ll unlock your bike and wheel it up to the house,” said Gerard.

“That will be good of you,” answered Delia, with a smile that won the boy’s heart there and then. She was mentally contrasting him with the raw, uncleanly, unlicked cub, which mainly constituted her experience of the animal hight ‘boy’ of the same age. Yet about this one on the other hand there was nothing priggish, nothing self-conscious. He was purely and entirely natural.

During lunch the old Squire congratulated her on her playing, and also on the excellence of her illustrated article in The Old Country Side, which had appeared that week.

“We were wondering how in the world you managed to say so much in so limited a space,” he observed, “and to say just the right thing, too. What a memory you must have, child!”

Delia was thinking that, whatever else might slip her memory, no single detail about Hilversea Court was likely to do so.

“And the illustrations were excellent,” went on the Squire—“excellent.”

“Rather,” assented Haldane. “I wish my box were not too insignificant for The Old Country Side, Miss Calmour, then you could scare up an illustrated interview with it.”

“And bring in Poogie,” said Yvonne. “Oh, and—incidentally—father.”

“Where do I come in?” hazarded her brother.

“To spoil the picture, of course.”

“Thanks,” answered the boy, with a good-humoured laugh. Yvonne looked at him and shook her golden head.

“Do you know, Miss Calmour, Reggie is the most provoking child. It’s simply impossible to tease him. I’m always trying, and you’ve just got a sample of how I succeed. Is he the same at Hillside, Gerard?”

“Can’t tell tales out of school.”

Then Yvonne retorted, and the banter went on fast and furious, but always good-tempered, and sometimes really humorous, until it finally merged into plans for fishing on the morrow.

“They are threatening to take us all down to the west park presently, Miss Calmour,” said Wagram soon after lunch. “Do you feel up to that amount of exertion?”

Delia replied that she would have been delighted, only it was time to think of getting back.

“Of getting back?” repeated Wagram. “Are you obliged to? Because if not, won’t you stay and play for us again this evening? It would be a great help.”

“Yes; do stay, Miss Calmour,” urged Yvonne, cordially impulsive.

“There will be a bright moon to ride back by, and I can offer you my escort.”

“Can I go too, pater?” said Gerard, eagerly scenting the fun of a moonlight bicycle ride.

“Certainly. You wouldn’t leave your venerated dad to return over three miles of lonely road unprotected, would you?”

“Then I shall be very pleased to stay,” answered the girl, her whole face lighting up. Days such as this constituted to her everything that was worth living for, and now there was more of it before her than behind.

The old Squire had withdrawn, laughingly explaining that he could not do without his forty winks on a hot Sunday afternoon. The workings of Fate, or Providence, are indeed strange. Some such working it must have been that moved Haldane to declare that he too felt drowsy, and it was much too hot for exercise. In a word, he resisted all persuasion to join in the walk; had he yielded the subsequent events of this our history might have turned out very differently.

They reached the paddock, and the great sable antelope, which was inclined to be tame, condescended to stalk up in a lordly manner and be fed with some crusts they had brought for the purpose. The gnus, however, kept their distance away in the middle, whisking their tails, and prancing, and shaking their fierce-looking heads. Suddenly Wagram, chancing to look round, became aware of the propinquity of a stranger. He was a little distance off along the fence, and with the aid of a bough had managed to climb up, and was holding on, watching the animals.

“That’s a cool customer,” he said after watching him for a few minutes. “I must go and talk to him.”

“Going to turn him away, pater?” asked Gerard.

“No, I won’t do that; but I’ll drop him a friendly hint that he mustn’t make this the scene of his daily walks. You remain here.”

The stranger was not in the least confused or apologetic as Wagram accosted him. The latter recognised with some interest the weather-beaten, white-bearded face of the man who had been pointed out to him as Develin Hunt.

“Good specimens these,” he said approvingly. “I’ve shot many of them, so I ought to know.”

“Yes. They’d be dangerous if they weren’t shut in,” said Wagram.

“Very likely. Wild animals enclosed generally do get that way.”

“Now you’re here you’re welcome to look at them,” said Wagram pleasantly, “but I thought I’d just mention that this is private ground.”

The man dropped from his perch with a cat-like nimbleness, rather noticeable in one of his apparent years.

“Meaning I’m trespassing?” he said shortly.

“That’s the word,” laughed Wagram. “But, as I said before, as you are here pray see all you came to see; I have no wish that you should hurry away. Good-afternoon.”

The stranger stood gazing after him.

“So that’s Wagram Wagram!” he said to himself. “Why, chalk from cheese isn’t in it in the difference between him and that bright boy Everard. Lord, Lord! it’s a rum world. To think that now he should be turning me off, and soon I shall be turning him off—bag and baggage. But I hope it won’t come to that. No; somehow or other I don’t think it will. He has every inducement to be reasonable—oh, and I hope he will. He’s a fine fellow, but—necessity knows no law.”

“I say, pater, that chap’s got some cheek,” said Gerard as his father rejoined them. “Look, he hasn’t moved. Didn’t you tell him to clear?”

“No; I told him he needn’t hurry as he was here.”

And, indeed, the stranger seemed to have taken Wagram literally at his word, for he had climbed up again to his former position, and was placidly puffing at a pipe.

“Look at those three, Miss Calmour,” said Wagram presently, referring to the children, who had started some romping game; “they can no more keep quiet for half-an-hour when they get together than a lot of kittens. Yvonne is generally the one who sets it going. Look at her now—issuing her commands as usual.”

The tall, beautiful child was standing erect, her blue eyes sparkling, and cheeks flushed with the glow of health and exercise, tossing back the golden flash of her flowing hair. There was grace in each unstudied gesticulation, music in the high, sweet key in which she was expostulating rapidly with her playfellows.

“She is too sweet,” murmured Delia.

“Isn’t she? By the way, you haven’t told me yet what you think of my son and heir—”

Breaking off, the speaker turned. It was only the trespassing stranger, who raised his hat and passed on his way.

”—Though, really, it’s hardly a fair question, as coming from me.”

“I think he’s one of the best-looking and best-mannered boys I’ve ever seen; Mr Haldane’s son is the other.”

“You do us proud,” laughed Wagram. “But Hilversea is a dullish place for one boy to get through his holidays in, shut up with two old fogeys, so he’s generally over at Haldane’s, or Haldane’s boy is over here. They divide it up between them, and get all the fun they want.”

Delia was about to reply that she could not imagine the word “dull” in connection with Hilversea under any circumstances whatever; but it struck her that the remark would sound banal, and she refrained.

“We shall be going North on Thursday for the grouse,” he went on. “Haldane and I always ‘split’ a moor. Then these young scamps will be in clover. We’re going to let them take out a gun this time, and they’re about half mad with anticipation.”

“I expect so,” said Delia, to whom, however, the whole of this announcement brought a heart-sinking. She knew enough by this time of the manners and customs of Hilversea to be aware that such a move was probable; but somehow, now that it was on the eve of becoming an accomplished fact—well, she felt depressed. “Does old Mr Wagram shoot?”

“Doesn’t he! If he isn’t quite so good at right and left now as a few years back, even yet he can hold his own with the great majority. We must round up those riotous children now and begin strolling homeward.”

Of late something had occurred to Wagram and set him wondering, and to-day it struck him more than ever. This was a certain unaccountable change which had come over this girl. She seemed of late to have acquired a subtle and unconscious refinement, not only in speech and manner but also in look, which certainly was not there when he had first made her acquaintance under dramatic circumstances; indeed, were that acquaintance to be made over again, and now, assuredly one dictum in which he had summed her up would be omitted. The fact was there, but there was no explaining it. It puzzled him. To one other this change had become manifest, and her it did not puzzle at all. That one was Clytie; and, going over things in her mind, that extremely attractive schemer nodded her plotting head complacently and smiled to herself.

The westering sunlight flooded down upon the vernal sheen of tossing oak foliage and smoothly undulating grass with a richness of glow that was well-nigh unearthly in the sensuous stillness of the August evening. One of this group sauntering there it thrilled through and through. The children, excited with their game, were laughing and chattering—frequently all at once. But Delia, while bearing her part as brightly and intelligibly as ever in conversation with her host, was conscious of an absorbing arrière-pensée—that, if there were such a thing as a day of paradise, she was going through just that. The while a yet further back and subtle thread of thought kept crying aloud that the paradise was a fool’s paradise.

Chapter Twenty.

A Forced Hand.

“Now then, old josser, where are you coming to? have you bought the whole room or only half, eh?”

The time was the middle of the morning, the place the saloon bar of the Golden Crown in Bassingham, and the speaker Bob Calmour, who had been indulging in more John Walker than was good for him, incidentally at the expense of an opportune friend. The man thus unceremoniously expostulated with was a tallish man with a weather-beaten face and a white beard, who had committed the grave indiscretion of being there what time the unsteady Bob had lurched backward, thus cannoning against him. We have seen him twice before for a short space—once at Hilversea Court and once in Hilversea park.

“See here, young man,” was the answer, drily given, “I think it’s time you went home.”

“See here, old cock, when I want to know what you think I’ll ask; till then I’ll trouble you to keep it to yourself.”

And the tone was particularly aggressive and insulting.

“If you don’t keep a civil tongue in your head I shall be under the necessity of starting you on the first homeward stage by firing you into the street,” said the stranger with the most provoking tranquillity.

That white beard proved Bob’s undoing. He associated it with age, and age with decrepitude.

“Will you?” he yelped. “You couldn’t do it—no, nor three of you.”

“Not, eh?” said the stranger; and then Bob Calmour hardly knew what had happened, except that some irresistible force had got him by the scruff of the neck and was propelling him rapidly towards the swing doors. The latter swung, and Bob shot down the steps outside, and would have fallen bang on his nose but that he cannoned into a passing stranger just in time.

“Here! Hi! Hold up! Why the devil don’t you look where you’re going, you silly young ass!” cried the latter angrily as he collared him. All the swagger and bounce had evaporated from the luckless Bob. The whimpered apology died away into a sort of yelp of terror, and his pasty face went ashy white as he realised that he had run bang into no less formidable a person than Haldane. And in the hand of the latter was a riding-crop. Visions of the ghastly thrashing he had deserved at that individual’s hands, and would certainly receive, finished him off, and he dropped limply on to the pavement in a sitting posture, half fainting.

“Awfully sorry, sir,” he was just able to whine; “but I’ve been violently assaulted by a ruffian in there, and—er—couldn’t see where I—I—was going.”

Haldane looked at him with a sort of good-natured contempt, seeing before him just an ordinary raffish young pup who had probably got quarrelsome in his cups and come off worst.

“Well, you’d better go away home,” he said shortly, and passed on, leaving the unspeakable Bob to pick himself up with feelings akin to those of a criminal reprieved on the very drop itself, then as one condemned afresh as he saw Wagram cross the road and join Haldane. The two stood talking together, then, turning, they looked at him. Of course, Wagram was giving him away, decided the terror-stricken Bob, whose every instinct now was flight—headlong flight; wherefore, having shuffled rapidly round a friendly corner, he sprinted for cover all he knew, nor stopped till he found himself, panting, within the—for once welcome because protective—offices of Pownall and Skreet. Nor did he more than half hear the acrid jobation to which Pownall, who had seen him arrive, treated him by reason of having taken so long about the business upon which he had been sent out.

Here again came in the strange, mysterious workings of Fate—or Providence. Had the African adventurer been a little more roused to ire it is conceivable that, not content with throwing the offensive Bob into the street, he might even have kicked him along a section of the same, which, of course, would have befallen exactly what time Haldane was passing. In which event the whole course of this history might have been changed; in fact, we will go as far as to say that it certainly would have been. And it has been recorded that Haldane seldom came to Bassingham.

“Hope I haven’t been the means of spoiling custom,” said Develin Hunt pleasantly as he returned to where he had been standing, “because, if so, I hope that all here will put a name to theirs and join me by doing something to make up for it.”

“Oh, that’s all right, Mr Hunt,” said the landlord, who, attracted by the scuffle, short as it was, had come in. “Not much ‘custom’ about that young waster.”

“Who is he?”

“Young Calmour, a clerk at Pownall and Skreet’s. I only wonder they haven’t given him the sack long ago.”

“I must say he brought it upon himself,” said the man who had been “standing” him. “Bob can be pretty abusive when he’s got anything on board. Mine? Oh, thanks; another Scotch, I think. Here’s luck.”

The landlord’s answer had given Develin Hunt food for thought, not for astonishment; he had seen too many queer phases of life to be astonished at anything. So this egregious young pup stood in the relationship of brother to the exceedingly pretty and even refined-looking girl he had seen with Wagram and his party in Hilversea park some Sundays ago! It seemed hardly credible, but then, as we have said, he was astonished at nothing.

He had not spent all the intervening time in Bassingham, where at the Golden Crown he was very popular, and instrumental in an increase of custom; for he was open-handed in setting up “rounds,” and could tell strange, wild stories of strange, wild lands and stranger, wilder people, and this led to an increasing roll up of the good citizens of Bassingham of an evening. But he had not as yet made acquaintance with old Calmour, for the very good reason that that worthy had transferred his custom elsewhere, from motives that may be readily divined.

Now, although Haldane had not seen Develin Hunt the latter had seen Haldane. It was a mere glimpse snatched between the swing doors as they let out the obnoxious Bob; but in the school which had afforded the African adventurer his life training a mere glimpse to him was as good as half-an-hour’s scrutiny to most men, and to this one and his plans it now made all the difference in the world.

“Who was the man I shot that young pup against?” he said. “Tallish man, sunburnt face, and riding-gaiters?”

“Squire Haldane, worse luck!” answered the landlord.

“Why ‘worse luck’?”

“He’s a magistrate. He don’t often show up in Bassingham, and now, when he does, get’s nearly knocked down by a chump fired out of my bar in the middle of the morning. Maybe he’ll have a word to say, when licensing day comes round, that I keep my house rowdy.”

“Shouldn’t think he’d do that, Smith, he looks too much of a sportsman. I’ll bet drinks all round that man has been in countries where firing anyone out doesn’t constitute the liveliest side of a bar worry.”

“I won’t take you, then, because he has,” replied Smith. “But what made you think so?”

“Quite simple. He never got painted that colour by any sun that only shone over the British Isles.”

“Here, I say, sir, excuse me,” struck in the young man who had brought in Bob, “you’re not Sherlock Holmes, are you?”

“No. Who’s he?”

“Who’s he? Never heard of Sherlock Holmes?”

“Now you’re trying to get at me, young man. I suppose you’re going to answer he was a chap who’d forgotten that everybody’s glass had been empty too long. All right. Set ’em up again, Smith, for all hands.”

There was a big laugh at this, and three persons started in to explain at once.

“Come to think of it, I had heard of the party, but I’d forgotten,” said Hunt with his usual easy good humour. “But about this one, the one we were talking about—where did you say he’d been, Smith?”

“Squire Haldane? Oh, everywhere. Mostly in South Africa, I believe. He lives out Fulkston way—a goodish step from here.”

Assimilating this piece of information, which, from the point of view of his purposes, was satisfactory, the adventurer easily and imperceptibly switched the conversation on to other matters, and shortly retired to his own quarters.

He sat down to think. He had made an important discovery that day—important to the last degree. Haldane in the neighbourhood, and a resident at that! Heavens! what a near thing it had been that they had not run right into each other! The adventurer’s hard face grew quite moist at the thought of it, and of what a volcano he had been sitting over during his sojournings in Bassingham the last few weeks. This discovery had clean altered his plans, and now in their altered stage he must proceed to put them into operation without a moment of unnecessary delay.

And yet throughout that day, until after dark, Develin Hunt never ventured outside the doors of the Golden Crown.

Chapter Twenty One.

The Bolt.

“Well, Squire, I’ve called to settle up that little matter that has been outstanding,” said Develin Hunt pleasantly as he took the seat indicated to him—exactly the same seat, by the way, that he had occupied during that first interview in which we made his personal acquaintance.

“Yes?”

“Yes. But first of all you’ll admit that I haven’t hurried you any over the inquiries you’ve been making; in fact, have afforded you every facility I could in the making of them.”

“Yes; I’ll admit that.”

“And it’s a case of ‘as you were.’ Well, it’s satisfactory to both of us, because now there’s no room for any little mistake. I have enjoyed my stay in this charming neighbourhood. By the way, I hope you enjoyed yours at the moors, Squire, and had good sport. Well, now, I’ve got a modification of my former proposal to put to you. I’ve decided that this part of the country, delightful as it is, won’t suit me for more than one reason; so, instead of becoming a neighbour of yours, I would suggest some comfortable little arrangement in hard cash.”

“Yes. May I ask what would meet your requirements? Don’t be too modest, pray.”

The adventurer’s face brightened. The easy tone, the satiric banter was only the other’s philosophical and courtly manner of making the best of a bad job. He had won the game at last.

“What do you say to thirty thou? Not all at once; I would be prepared to accept a cheque for twenty-five thou, down, and the rest six months later.”

“That would be very considerate of you,” laughed the Squire. “I begged you not to be too moderate.”

“And I haven’t met your wishes, Squire. Thirty thou, is a substantial figure, but it is a mere half-crown to the Wagrams of Hilversea. It’s surprising how much I know about the family and its circumstances, you see. Nearly ruined in fines for persistent recusancy under the penal laws, a lucky speculation or two in building-land and coal mines made it a millionaire over and over again. That’s correct, I think, Squire?”

“Nearly.”

“And all this for the benefit of Everard—‘Butcher Ned,’ we used to call him—never mind why. Well, I’m truly glad it needn’t go to him after all. So we’ll consider my terms accepted, eh, Squire?”

“Not so fast—not quite so fast. You don’t seem to realise, Mr Develin Hunt, what an exceedingly perilous position you have placed yourself in. How do you know, for instance, that there are not those present, unseen by you, who have been taking down every word of our conversation?”

The adventurer laughed easily.

“Oh, as to that, I know it; because Grantley Wagram of Hilversea is considerably too complete a gentleman to admit the secret presence of a third party at a confidential conversation.”

In spite of the momentous issues at stake the consummate assurance of this man tickled the old Squire’s diplomatic soul.

“I don’t know. There is such a thing as fighting the devil with fire—no play on your somewhat peculiar name intended, Mr Hunt,” he parenthesised, with a smile. “And the fact remains that you have been demanding money from me—a large sum—very civilly, I admit,”—with a courtly wave of the hand—“but still demanding it by a threat. That, as I reminded you on the occasion of our first meeting, means in this country a long term of penal servitude.”

“For me?”

“For whom else?”

“For Everard.”

Even the cool old diplomat felt his cheeks go waxen, nor could he repress a slight gasp. He remembered the other’s assertion on a former occasion—to the effect that he had a hold upon Everard—and, bearing in mind Everard and his propensities, he thought it very likely to be true.

“For Everard,” repeated the adventurer. “Every year that it would mean for me it would mean two for Everard; indeed, it is possible—I don’t say certain, mind—that it might result in something shorter, sharper, and much quicker over, but—more irrevocable.”

The other felt himself growing paler still. A hopeless, beaten feeling came upon him now. Curiously enough, he was not without a consciousness of appreciation of the courteous way in which this man urged his demands. There was nothing of the common, bullying insolence of the blackmailer about him. He might almost have been a disinterested friend urging a certain course for the good of the family.

“Do you mind opening that window a little, Mr Hunt?” he said. “I do believe I really am getting old.”

“Delighted, Squire,” said the adventurer with alacrity. “Getting old!” as he returned to his seat, “why, you are not even beginning to get old; or, if you are, all I can say is that many a much younger man would be glad to do so on the same terms. But, in any case, why add another anxiety—a totally unnecessary anxiety—to your afternoon of life, and all for a paltry thirty thousand pounds, which, as I said before, can only be, relatively, a mere half-crown to you?”

“That’s all very well; but what guarantee have I that it would end there?”

“I would give you an undertaking, cautiously worded, of course, to make no further demand upon you, nor upon anybody after you, for another farthing.”

“Legally, not worth the paper it’s written on,” said the Squire.

“I’m afraid that’s so; still, it would make a very strong piece of presumptive evidence against me if I did fail to keep my word. You may trust me this time. I don’t profess to be a saint or angel, I own to having done some pretty tough things in my time, but one thing I never have done, and that is to go back on a fair, square, and honest deal. Think of your son, Squire—Wagram, I mean—I have seen him more than once, not always when he has seen me. By the way, he turned me off here once when I was trespassing, but he did it in such a nice way, as between one gentleman and another. He’s a fine fellow—a splendid fellow—and I’ve heard a good deal more about him than I’ve seen. Well, isn’t it a thousand pities that life should be ruined for him, and his son after him—I have seen him too, by-the-by—and all because you can’t bring yourself to look at things from my standpoint, which is that necessity has no law?”

There was silence for a few moments. In saying that he had seen more of Wagram than the latter knew Develin Hunt was speaking no more than the truth. He had noted the quiet happiness of the man’s flawless life, had gleaned some idea of his intense joy of possession, and had done so with considerable satisfaction in that it would all go to further his own plans. No man living, he argued, would think twice as to what his action would be when called upon to choose between paying down what was, relatively speaking, an inconsiderable sum and throwing up his possessions and his name, and the name of his son after him—and to the case of this one was added an almost unlimited power for good. To do so would be the action of a stark, staring, raving lunatic, and it was abundantly certain Wagram was not that.

“Well, Squire, now is the time to make up your mind. It is important that I should go up to London to-night, and unless I take your cheque for twenty-five thousand with me I shall be under the necessity of postponing my departure for a day or two and applying to your son Wagram. I believe he would gladly give double the amount. Think! it is to save his name—his name, mind—and his son’s after him.”

The old man felt beaten. It was not the money value that afflicted him; he would cheerfully have parted with double the amount if by so doing he could close the other’s mouth for ever, but he doubted whether in any case he could do this for long. Sooner or later Hunt would come down upon him for more—it was the way of blackmailers for all time—nor did he in the least believe this one would keep his undertaking to make no further demand. And this disreputable adventurer had the power to hold a sword over Wagram’s head indefinitely. He remembered as a far-off thing his agreement with Monsignor Culham—here in this very room—not to give this man another shilling. Yet now matters looked differently; he felt himself cornered beyond all hope of deliverance.

“Give me the undertaking you mentioned just now,” he said at last. “Sit down there and draw it up,” pointing to another writing-table.

“No need, Squire, I have it here all ready; I knew we should come to terms. Here it is, and you may rely upon my adhering to it rigidly.”

He produced a paper with some writing on it as the Squire, slowly unlocking a drawer, produced his chequebook. A moment more and the adventurer could hardly contain his exultation. A cheque for 25,000 pounds was in his hand.

“It will be a satisfaction for you to see me sign this yourself, Squire,” and stooping over the writing-table he affixed his signature. As he did so the door opened, admitting Wagram.

Even had the latter no other reason for coming in, then one glance at his father’s face would have told him that something was very wrong indeed. The Squire seemed to have aged by twenty years.

“Ah, good-morning, Mr Wagram,” said the adventurer cheerily, looking up. “Your father and I have just been getting through a little piece of business together, and we have got through it with complete satisfaction to both parties. Yes; to both parties,” he repeated emphatically.

“May I ask its nature? My father’s business affairs are mine in there days.”

“Ah, but not this one—no, not this one. It’s an exception, believe me,” was the answer, accompanied by a pleasant laugh. “And now I think I will say good-bye.”

“One moment, Mr Develin Hunt,” said Wagram, “but I fear I must detain you a little longer, there is something that needs explanation.”

The other looked at the tall form, literally barring his way, and a ghastly misgiving was upon him. The cheque for 25,000 pounds—would he be forced to disgorge? But he replied, easily, pleasantly:

“Quite a mistake. No explanation needed. Is there, Squire?”

Wagram looked sharply at his father, whose only answer was a feebly-assenting headshake.

“Ah, but there is,” he resumed. “For instance, there is one remark you made just now to the effect that I would gladly give double the amount to save my name, and that of my son after me. Now, that remark does emphatically need explaining.”

“You heard that?” said the adventurer shortly.

“Couldn’t help it. This room is only one storey from ground. Given an open window and still autumn air, and—”

Develin Hunt mentally ground his teeth and cursed. So it was with a purpose the Squire had asked him to open the window! As a matter of real fact, this was not the case. Oh, the old fox, with all his blandness and soft sawder! He felt vicious.

“That all you heard?” he said shortly.

“Enough, wasn’t it? Now, will you kindly tell me in what way my name needs saving; for, looking back, though I have been through hard times, I cannot—thank God—call to mind any instance of having ever disgraced it.”

The adventurer felt a wave of intense relief. This was how Wagram had read his words! Well, he would reassure him on that point; perhaps he might even yet save the situation.

“No! no! no!” he said emphatically. “Great Scott! Mr Wagram, but you’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick there. Why, your name stands on a pedestal all around here, and, if you will allow me to say so, it thoroughly deserves to. Now, be advised by me. Leave this affair alone. It is between myself and your father, and reflects discredit upon nobody named Wagram—take my word for that.”

You see, he was plausible, almost persuasive, this rough-and-tumble West African adventurer. But Wagram shook his head.

“Not satisfactory,” he said. “I still demand to know in what way my name needs ‘saving’—and that of my son after me, you added.”

“You demand?”

“Yes.”

Develin Hunt looked at the man standing over him very stern and straight, then he looked at the Squire. He would have given anything to have avoided this, but since his hand had been forced it was, perhaps, as well that Wagram should know all—should know where he stood. Perhaps the Squire thought the same, for he said no word, gave no sign.

“In the name of God, leave things where they are, man!” conjured the adventurer in a real outburst of feeling. He was not all bad. He had got his price, and he felt an intense respect and pity for the man before him. He would make one more effort. “I tell you nobody’s discredit is involved here. We can’t always know everything—it isn’t good for us. As for me, I have pledged my solemn word you shall never be troubled by me again. Now, let me go.”

Still Wagram did not move. He had heard of this man’s former visit, but as his father had not mentioned it to him he himself had kept silence on the subject. But he had put two and two together, and had connected it with days of depression under which the old Squire had suffered. Moreover, it struck him that his father had undergone a subtle change, had not been quite the same ever since. Now he had come in and found him in a state of collapse after another interview with this man. His own name, too, had been brought up, and in such a manner.

“No,” he answered; “not yet. This mystery must be cleared up before you leave this room. I repeat my former question: In what way does my name require ‘saving’?”

“Oh, if you will be so obstinate!” answered Develin Hunt excitedly, “you have only yourself to blame. I’ve done all I could for you. Since you will have it, your name—well, it isn’t your name.”

“Not my name?” repeated Wagram in a strange voice. “Man, are you mad, or only drunk?”

“Neither,” returned the adventurer doggedly. “Well, then, your mother was married to me before she married your father. She was not to blame. She thought I was dead. If you don’t believe me ask the Squire here.”