William Le Queux (continued 3)

Next day the guests shot over at Banhaw, the Countess accompanying them, but “cubbing” having just opened, the Earl was out with the hounds at five o’clock at the Lady Wood.

A letter I received by the morning post from Lolita at Strathpeffer told of a gay season at the Spa, for quite a merry lot of well-known people always assemble there in early autumn and many pleasant entertainments are given. One passage in the letter, however, caused me considerable apprehension. “If Marigold should question you regarding the re-appearance of a certain person at the inn in Sibberton, tell her nothing. She must not know.”

What could she mean? Unfortunately her warning had come too late! I had told the Countess exactly what was contrary to my love’s interests. Could any situation be more perilous or annoying?

When I recollected her ladyship’s words of the previous night I saw with chagrin how clever and cunning she was, and with what marvellous tact she had succeeded in eliciting the truth from me.

Pink came in during the afternoon, and flinging himself into the armchair opposite me, took a pinch of snuff with his usual nonchalant air.

“Thought you’d be out cubbing this morning,” he commenced. “Too early for you—eh? We killed a brace in Green Side Wood. Frank Gordon was there, of course. He’s as keen a sportsman as he ever was, and rides as straight as half the young ones. Wonderful man! They say he used, back in the fifties, to ride seventy miles to the meet, hunt all day, and ride home again. That’s what I call a sportsman!”

“Yes,” I said. “There are few left nowadays like old Frank Gordon. He was one of the hunting crowd at the Haycock at Wansford in the old days when men rode hard, drank hard, and played hard. He did the first, but always declares that his present good health is due to abstinence from the other two.”

The old gentleman we were speaking of was the doyen among hunting-men in the Midlands. He had hunted with the Belvoir half a century ago, and was as fine a specimen of an Englishman as existed in these degenerate days when men actually go to meets in motor cars.

The doctor himself hunted, as indeed did every one, the parson of Sibberton included, and the opening of “cubbing” was always a time of speculation as to what the season was to be, good or bad. The Earl had been delighted at his success at winning the cup for the best dog-hound at the Hound Show at Doncaster back in July, and certainly the pack was never in better form even under the old Earl than it was at present. Of course he spent money lavishly upon it, and money, as is so often the case, meant efficiency. The thousand pounds or so subscribed annually by the Hunt was but a drop in the ocean of expenditure, for a Master of Hounds, if he wishes to give his followers good sport, must be a rich man and not mind spending money to secure that end.

“I had a funny adventure last night,” the doctor remarked presently, after we had discussed the prospects of hunting and all appertaining to it. “Devilish funny! I can’t make it out. Of course you won’t say a word of what I tell you, for we doctors aren’t supposed to speak about our patients.”

“I sha’n’t say anything,” I assured him.

“Well, I was called out about eleven last night, just as I was going up to bed, by an old labourer who drove into Sibberton in a light cart, and who told me that a woman was lying seriously ill at a farmhouse which he described as beyond Cherry Lap. It was out of my district, but he told me that he had been into Thrapston, but one doctor was out at a case and the other was away, therefore he had driven over to me. From what he said the case seemed serious, therefore I mounted my horse and rode along at his side in the moonlight. The night was lovely. We went by Geddington Chase, through Brigstock, and out on the Oundle Road, a good eleven miles in all, when he turned up a narrow drift for nearly half-a-mile where stood a small lonely farmhouse on the edge of a spinney. The place was in darkness, but as soon as I had dismounted the door opened, and there appeared a big powerful-looking man, holding a candle in his hand, and behind him was the figure of an old woman, who made a remark to him in a low voice. Then I heard a man somewhere speaking in some foreign language.”

“A foreign language?” I remarked, quickly interested.

“Yes. That’s what first aroused my suspicion,” he said. “I was taken upstairs, and in a rather poorly-furnished room found a person in bed. The light had been purposely placed so that I could not see the features distinctly, and so dark was the corner where the patient lay that at first I could distinguish nothing.

“My daughter here has—well, she’s met with a slight accident,” the sinister-looking fellow explained, standing behind me, and then as he shifted the paraffin lamp a little there was revealed a young woman, dark-haired and rather good-looking, lying pale and insensible. Upon the pillow was a quantity of blood, which had, I saw, flowed from an ugly gaping wound on the left side of the neck—distinctly a knife-wound.

”‘Accident!’ I exclaimed, looking at the man. ‘Why, she couldn’t have inflicted such a wound as that herself. Who did it?’ ‘Never mind, doctor, who did it,’ the fellow growled surlily. ‘You sew it up or something. This ain’t the time for chin—the girl may die.’ He was a rough customer, and I did not at all like the look of him. I was, indeed, sorry that I had entered there, for both he and the woman also in the room were a very mysterious pair. Therefore I got the latter to bring some warm water, and after a little time succeeded in sewing the wound and properly bandaging it. Just as I had finished, the young woman gradually recovered consciousness. ‘Where am I?’ she inquired in a faint, rather refined voice. ‘Hold your jaw!’ roughly replied the fellow. ‘If you don’t it’ll be the worse for you!’ ‘But, where’s George?’ she demanded. ‘Oh, don’t bother about him,’ was the gruff injunction. ‘Ah!’ she shrieked suddenly, raising herself in her bed and glaring at him wildly. ‘I know the truth! I remember now! You caught him by the throat and you strangled him?—you coward! You believe that Dick Keene doesn’t know about the Sibberton affair, but he does. They’ve seen him, and told him everything—how—’ The man turned to her with his fist raised menacingly saying, ‘Lie quiet! you silly fool! If you don’t, you’ll be sorry for it! No more gab now!’ Then turning to me he said with a short harsh laugh, ‘The girl’s a bit off her head, doctor. Come, let’s go downstairs!’ And he hurried me out lest she should make any more allegations.

“My first inclination was to remain and question her, yet it seemed clear that I was among a very queer lot, and that discretion was the best course. Therefore I followed the man down, although my patient shrieked aloud for me to return.”

“By Jove!” I exclaimed, aroused to activity by mention of the man Keene. “That was a strange adventure—very strange!”

“Yes,” he continued. “The fellow evinced the greatest anxiety that I should leave, pressed into my hand half-a-sovereign as a fee, and again assured me that the girl’s mind was wandering. Again and again she called after me ‘Doctor! doctor!’ but in a room beyond I again heard men’s voices, speaking low in a foreign language, therefore I hesitated, and presently mounted my mare and rode away. Now,” he added, taking another long pinch of snuff, “what do you make out of it, Woodhouse?”

“Seems very much as though there’s been another tragedy,” I remarked. “I wonder who the injured girl is?” I added, utterly amazed at his narrative.

“I wonder,” he added, “and who is this man Keene who knows all about the Sibberton affair? Could she have been referring to the tragedy in the park, do you think?”

“Yes, undoubtedly,” I said quickly. “We must return there, get to see her in secret, and hear her story.”

“The worst of it is that as I was there at night, just at a time when the moon was hidden behind the clouds, I doubt whether I’ll be able to recognise the place again.”

“Let’s try,” I suggested eagerly, springing up. “Don’t let us lose an instant. I have a suspicion that we’re on the track of the truth.”

Chapter Sixteen.

The Story of Mr Thomas Hayes.

By half-past four we had covered the eleven miles that lay between the old-world village of Sibberton and that point beyond Brigstock on the Oundle road which skirts that dense wood called Cherry Lap.

Both of us were well-mounted, the doctor on his bay hunter, while I rode my own cob, and our pace had all along been a pretty hard one. Being both followers of hounds we knew all the bridle-roads across Geddington Chase, and over the rich pastures between them and the road at Cat’s Head. Beyond Brigstock, however, we never hunted, for at that point our country joined that of the Fitzwilliam Hunt. Therefore, beyond Cherry Lap the neighbourhood was unfamiliar to both of us.

We hacked along on the grass by the side of the broad highway for a couple of miles or so, but the doctor failed to recognise the field by which he had turned off on the previous night. By-roads are deceptive in the moonlight.

“The gate was open when I passed through,” he remarked. “And if it’s closed now it’ll be difficult to find it again. The country is so level here, and all the fields are so much alike. I recollect at the time looking around for some landmark and finding nothing until I got to the top end of the field, over the brow of the hill.”

“We’ll go on slowly,” I said. “You’ll recognise it presently.”

We passed half a dozen fields with rough cart-roads running through each of them. Indeed, after harvest each field generally bears marks of carts in its gateway. In the darkness my companion had not been able to see what had been grown, except that the crop had been cut and carried.

For another couple of miles we rode forward, the doctor examining every field but failing to recognise the gateway into which he had turned, until at length we came to the junction of the road from Weldon, when he pulled up, saying—

“I didn’t come as far as this. We’d better turn back.”

This we did, slowly retracing our way in the sunset, the doctor now and then expressing disgust at his own failure to recognise the path.

Presently we encountered an old labourer plodding home from work with bag and scythe across his shoulder, and pulling up, the doctor asked, pointing over the hill—

“Which is the way to the farm across there?”

“What farm?” asked the man blankly, in his broad Northamptonshire dialect.

“I don’t know the name, but there’s a road goes in across one of these fields.”

“Oh! you mean Hayes’s, sir! Why, there’s a way across that there next field. ’Bout ’arf a mile oop.”

“Who lives there?” I asked.

“Why, ole Tom Hayes an’ his missus.”

“Anybody else?”

“Not as I knows of. Bill used to live with the ole man, but ’e’s gone away this twelvemonth. Ole Tom don’t make much of a thing out o’ the farm nowadays, for ’e’s nearly blind.”

We thanked him, and rode eagerly onward, Pink opening the gate with his hunting-crop. Up the hill we cantered, skirting a broad stretch of pasture land and presently coming into sight of a small old redbrick house with tall square chimneys and quaint gable ends, while at a little distance were several barns and cow-houses.

Pink recognised the place in an instant, and we resolved that while I dismounted, tied my horse to a tree and walked on to the house, he should approach boldly and inquire after his patient of the previous night.

I had found a convenient tree and was walking in the direction of the farm when I saw a decrepit blear-eyed old man leaning on a stick, emerge from the door and hold a conversation with Pink, who had not dismounted.

A moment later my friend beckoned to me, and as I hurried forward he cried dismayed—“They’ve gone. We’re too late.”

“Gone!” I cried in disappointment, turning to the old farmer for explanation.

“Yes, sir,” the old fellow answered. “I’ve just been telling this ’ere gentleman. They were a funny lot, an’ I was glad to get rid of ’em out o’ my house.”

“Tell us all about them,” exclaimed Pink dismounting, tying his horse to a ring in the wall, and entering the house with us. It was a poor, neglected, old-fashioned place, not over-clean, for it appeared that both Hayes and his wife were very infirm and kept no woman-servant.

“Well, gentlemen, it happened just like this,” explained the decrepit old fellow, when we were in his stone-floored living room, with its great open hearth and big chimney corner. “One evening, back in last month, a gentleman called here. He’d walked a long way, and was very tired, so the missus, she gives ’im a mug o’ milk. He would insist on me ’avin a shillin’ for it, and then ’e sat here smoking ’is cigar—an’ a good un it wor. After we’d been talking some time and he got to know we were livin’ alone ’e asked whether we wouldn’t care to let four of our rooms to some friends of ’is up in London, who wanted to come and stay in a farm-’ouse for a month. What people wanted to come and stay in this ’ere place in preference to their own ’omes I couldn’t quite understand. Still, as ’e offered us five poun’ a week, I an’ the missus agreed. ’E stayed with us that night, ’ad a bit o’ supper, and went to bed. Next morning ’e went away, and in the afternoon ’e came back with one of his friends, a young man who was called Ben, while the older man they called Dick.”

“Dick what?” I inquired breathlessly.

“I don’t know. I never ’eered his other name.” Was it possible that the stranger who had walked so far was none other than Richard Keene? I inquired what day of August he had arrived.

“It wor the night of the sixteenth,” was old Hayes’s reply.

The very night of the tragedy in Sibberton Park! I asked him to describe the man known as Dick, but his description was somewhat hazy on account of his defective sight. Having, however, no doubt that the man who had arranged for apartments for the others was really the mysterious wayfarer, I allowed him to proceed with his highly-interesting narrative:

“The two stayed ’ere about a week, but ’ardly went out. I’d got some old fishin’ tackle, so they spent their time mostly down at the river yonder. They were very pleasant gentlemen, both on ’em, and at the end o’ the week they gave me a five-poun’ note. Then they went away sayin’ that their friends were comin’ soon to occupy the rooms. At the end o’ the next week there arrived, without any notice, a young lady—the one you saw last night, Doctor—the big man with a beard, named Logan, two other younger men, and an old woman-servant. The two men were foreigners, as well as the woman-servant, but Logan seemed to be head of the household, and the young lady was ’is daughter. At least ’e said so, but I don’t think they were related at all. Well, from the very first ’our they were in the ’ouse they puzzled me: Logan took me aside, and explained that he and his friends wanted perfect quiet, and they didn’t want a lot o’ gossipin’ about what they did, and where they went. He told me to open my mouth to nobody, and if he found I kept my own counsel he’d make me a present o’ an extra five poun’. They seemed to ’ave plenty o’ money,” remarked old Hayes in parenthesis:

“So it seems,” I observed. “Well, and what then?”

“Well, they occupied the four upstairs rooms, the two younger men occupying one room. They were thin-faced, dark-eyed fellows, whom I never liked at all, they seemed so sly and cunnin’, always whispering to themselves in their own language. If anybody chanced to come up ’ere I saw how alarmed they all were. That’s what first aroused my suspicions.”

“Why didn’t you speak to the constable at Brigstock?”

“And lose my five poun’? Not likely! They did me no harm, even if they were forriners. Well,” he went on, “they all five of ’em remained ’ere, and like the men Dick and Ben, hardly ever went out in the day-time. The servant, an ugly old woman, did their cookin’ an’ looked after ’em while the three men amused themselves very often by playin’ cards for ’ours and readin’ their forrin’ papers. I’ve kept some of ’em—’ere they are,” and he took from a chair several well-thumbed newspapers, which I saw were the Italian Avanti, and other Continental journals of advanced socialistic policy.

“They had no letters?”

“Only one. The man Logan received it about four days ago.”

“But the young lady. Was she English?” I asked.

“I suppose so. But she would talk with the forriners just like one o’ themselves. I rather liked ’er. She was very kind to my missus, and seemed quite a lady, much more refined than that big bullyin’ fellow who said he was her father.”

“They gambled, you said, merely to kill time—or for money?” inquired Pink.

“I never saw ’em play for money. They used to play a forrin’ game and I could never make anythin’ out of it. After some little time the young lady went back to London for a day or two. While she was absent the man Dick called. He was differently dressed and took Logan out for a walk in the wood, in order to talk, I suppose. Logan came back alone, and I saw from his face that ’e was in a vile temper, so I suppose the two ’ad quarrelled. Howsomever, next day the young lady, who was known as Miss Alice, rejoined her friends, and that night they sat talkin’ together till very late. I listened at the door, and ’eard ’em one by one a-arguin’, it seemed, in their forrin language. It was just as though they were ’olding a council about something, but the tone of their voices showed that something alarmin’ had happened. What it was, of course, I didn’t know. But when I went up, I told my old woman that there was something unusual in the wind. Nothin’ happened, however, till last night.”

“And what happened last night?” I asked quickly.

“Well, as you’ll remember, it was a beautiful evening, and after supper they all four went out for a walk, leaving the servant at home with us. When they’d been gone nearly two hours, I saw Logan return in the moonlight across the grass-field from the wood, smoking ’is pipe leisurely. When he saw me sittin’ in the shadow outside the door, ’e said ’e’d missed the others and been wandering about the wood in the dark for more’n ’arf a hour. This struck me as rather peculiar, but I went inside with ’im, and presently went up to bed. I ’adn’t been there long afore I ’eard a great scufflin’ and whisperin’, and on lookin’ out o’ my door saw the two forriners a carryin’ Miss Alice upstairs to her room! I inquired what was the matter, but they said she’d only fainted and ’ud be better presently. So I went back to bed. Logan, howsomever, seems to ’ave gone out to old Jim Pywell’s cottage down the hill and sent him for a doctor, telling ’im not to get one close at hand, but from a distance. Pywell called you, sir,” he added turning to Pink, “and the first time I knew that anythin’ was wrong was after you’d gone and the poor thing began to cry out and say that an attempt had been made to kill ’er. Both me and my ole woman are a bit ’ard o’ hearin’, an’ they brought you very quietly up the stairs that I’d no idea you were in the ’ouse.”

“And what occurred afterwards?” Pink inquired eagerly.

“They were evidently frightened lest what the poor girl had said in ’er ravings might arouse your curiosity a bit too much, for they were early astir this mornin’, and by eleven they paid me and all of ’em left, walkin’ by separate ways over to Oundle station, Jim Pywell a-takin’ in their trunks on a wagon.”

“But the young lady?” the doctor exclaimed. “Was she well enough to walk?”

“Yes. She was bandaged, of course, but she ’ad one o’ them big feather ruffles that ’id her throat an’ the lower part of ’er face. When she said ‘good-bye’ to me she looked like a corpse—poor thing.”

“Then she said nothing about Logan’s attack upon her?” I asked. “She appeared anxious to get away with the others?”

“Very,” replied the old farmer. “She seemed to fear that she had said somethin’ which would reveal what they were all tryin’ to keep secret.”

“Now tell me, Mr Hayes,” I said, facing him very seriously. “Tell me one thing. Have you ever heard any of your mysterious visitors mention the name of Lejeune?”

The old fellow leaned heavily on his stick, scratched his white head and thought hard a moment.

“Ler—june,—Ler—june,” he repeated. “Why, I believe that’s the name by which the gentleman called Dick addressed the young lady when he came to see Mister Logan the other day! I recollect quite distinctly now. I’ve been a-tryin’ an’ a-tryin’ to remember it—an’ couldn’t. Yes. It wor Ler—june—I’m certain. Do you happen to know her, sir?”

Chapter Seventeen.

Which Concerns a Guest at the Hall.

The old fellow’s recognition of the name made it clear that the mysterious Mademoiselle, on her escape from Chelsea, had taken refuge in that house, together with certain other persons who were either accomplices, or who had formed some conspiracy in which she was implicated.

To the doctor, of course, this declaration of the man Hayes conveyed but little, but to me it threw an entirely fresh light upon the extraordinary affair. To Pink I gave a false explanation of the reason of my question. Some cunning plot seemed to be in progress, until the attack upon the young Frenchwoman and its subsequent exposure had, it appeared, put them all to flight.

Richard Keene had apparently gone straight from the Stanchester Arms and taken up his abode in that lonely house, ingratiating himself with the old people, in order, it seemed, to obtain a safe retreat for Mademoiselle, the man Logan and his two companions.

For what reason? Was this man Logan the same person who had walked with Lolita when I had discovered her after the tragedy?

I endeavoured to obtain a minute description of him from both the doctor and the farmer, but somehow his appearance, as described by my friend, was not as I had met him in those exciting moments on the Chelsea Embankment. Yet, perhaps, on that night, when he was secretly returning to Britten Street, his countenance might have been disguised. If he suspected that the police were watching, he would, no doubt, try and alter his personal appearance.

We both questioned old Mrs Hayes, a white-faced old woman in a silk cap with faded ribbon, but we could get nothing very intelligible from her, for she seemed upset and nervous regarding the hurried departure of the mysterious foreigners.

“I’m very sorry, sir, we ’ad anything to do with ’em,” she declared, shaking her head. “Only the first gentleman ’as come was so nice, an’ made us laugh so much with ’is funny stories that we thought any friends of ’is’n must be just so nice. He’d been at sea, and told us a lot about places abroad.”

“Oh! he’d been at sea, had he?” I remarked, as that statement confirmed the suspicion that the man called Dick was actually Richard Keene—the person whose return had struck terror in the heart of both Lolita and the Countess.

“He said so,” was her answer. “’E also said that he knew something of these parts, and made a lot of inquiries about the death of old Lord Stanchester, the present Earl’s marriage and all that. In fact it somehow struck me that he had known the family long ago, and was anxious to hear about the recent happenings over at the Hall.”

“He made no remark about the man found dead in the park?” asked the doctor.

“No. Not to my recollection. But Mr Logan did. He seemed very concerned about it, and I believe he went over to Sibberton one evening to see the spot. Only he didn’t tell us. We knew from the ostler at the Fox and Hounds in Brigstock, where he hired a trap.”

This negatived the theory that Logan was the man I had met in Chelsea, for if he were, he would surely not have wished to visit a place he had already seen. Indeed, he would, no doubt, have kept away from it as far as possible.

Compelled as I was to veil from my companion the reason of my inquiries, he regarded them, of course, as unnecessary, and did not fail to tell me so in his plain blunt fashion.

“There’s one thing quite certain,” he remarked as we cantered home together in the crimson sundown, “there’s a lot of mystery connected with those people. I wonder if there really has been a tragedy, and if the man Logan actually made an attempt upon the young fellow, as the girl had declared. It’s a great pity,” he added, “that we don’t know their surnames.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “If we did, we might perhaps establish their connexion with the affair in Sibberton Park.”

“Is it wise to tell Redway what we’ve heard?” he suggested.

In an instant I saw that to do such a thing would be to break my promise to Mademoiselle, therefore I expressed myself entirely against such a course, saying—

“My own idea is that if we conduct our inquiries carefully and in secret, we’ll be able to learn much more than the police. Personally, I’ve no faith in Redway at all.”

“I haven’t much, I confess,” he laughed. “Very well. We’ll keep our own counsel, and find out all we can further.”

To me the enigma had assumed utterly bewildering proportions. The mystery of it all, combined with the distinct suspicion resting upon the woman I loved so fondly, was driving me to madness. Sleeping or waking, my one thought—the one object of my life—was the solution of this problem that now constituted my very existence.

I would have followed Mademoiselle at once, and questioned her further, had I known her whereabouts. But, unfortunately, she had again escaped me, and I still remained powerless and in ignorance of the truth, which proved afterwards to be so utterly astounding.

We passed through Brigstock, and cantering on set out along the long white highway. Both of us were silent, deep in thought. From the west poured an infinite volume of yellow-gold light. A wonderful transfiguring softness covered the earth. Far above the transfiguring gold in the west was a calm clear-shining blue, and into the blue softly blended colour into colour so artistically that any painter’s brush would be defied.

Suddenly, the rays of the sun stretched up from behind the dark hill-tops and the whole became an illimitable blaze of gold and crimson. The sun seemed standing on the edge of the world, and its mystery was mirrored upon my heart.

The life of the day was nearing its end, and in the hush of silence we went onward, onward—towards home. And as we rode on I reflected that life was like an April day of alternate showers and sunshine, laughter and tears, flashes of woe and spasms of pain. One sun alone can brighten our gloom, and that sun is love. Without it, we have only the darkness of desolation.

Lolita! Lolita! The pale troubled refined face arose ever before me, haunting me sleeping or waking; that terrified look that had settled upon her matchless countenance at the moment when she had told me in her desperation that Keene’s return meant death to her, I could by no means efface from my mind. It had been photographed indelibly upon my memory.

I received a letter from her next morning, a brief friendly note containing, as usual, no words of affection, only an expression of intimate friendship and trust. Was she guilty? If so, of what?

Could such a woman be really guilty of a crime?

In my quiet room at the Hall I sat with a pile of the Earl’s correspondence before me. The letter-bag always contained a strange assortment of communications; some pathetic, many amusing, and at rare intervals notes on coloured paper in a feminine hand which, not being for my eyes, I re-enclosed in a plain envelope without reading.

Sibberton had had before his marriage what is known in club parlance as “a good time.” His name had been coupled with more than one lady; he had driven a coach, given wonderful luncheons at the Bachelors’, kept a house-boat up at Bray, was a well-known man about town, and an equally well-known figure at the tables at Monte Carlo. He had shot big game on the Zambesi, caught tarpon in Florida, potted tiger in the Himalayas, and had otherwise run the whole gamut of the pleasures of life as are opened to the wealthy young Englishman. On the day of his marriage with Marigold, he became a changed man, and now having assumed the responsibilities of an enormous estate, he declared himself to be gradually developing into an old fogey.

I had at last managed to stifle down my conflicting thoughts, and was busy replying to the pile of letters before me, when the Earl, in riding breeches, strode in from “cubbing.” He had been out at five, and now, at eleven, had finished the day’s sport and returned to his guests.

“Want to see me, Willoughby?” he asked, for it was usual for him to look in each morning to see whether I wished for any directions upon matters which I could not decide myself.

“Nothing of urgent importance,” was my reply. “Benwell, the agent at Brockhurst, suggests buying about a thousand acres that adjoin the estate and are in the market.”

“He means Haughmond Manor, I suppose?”

I replied in the affirmative.

“Tell him to buy if he can at a reasonable price. I fancy the Manor House isn’t let just now. Tell him to get a good tenant for it.”

I knew the place, a fine old sixteenth-century house, with beautiful terraces and gardens, one of the prettiest places in all Shropshire.

“What about visitors? Who’s coming?” he asked. “Has Marigold given you another list?”

“Yes,” I responded, taking out a slip of paper the Countess had handed me on the previous day, giving the names of some thirty persons, with the dates of their arrival and departure.

Having scanned them down quickly he gave a grunt of distinct dissatisfaction, for certain of the names were of persons of whom I knew he did not approve.

“I see she’s asked Goffe, after all—hang the fellow. You must put him off, Willoughby. I won’t have such a blackguard under my roof—and I told her I wouldn’t! I’m no saint myself, but I’m not going to ask my guests to meet such a person. It’s simply a marvel to me,” he added, striding up and down the room, his spurs clinking as he walked, “how the papers talk about him. To-day you read he is staying with Lord This, and to-morrow he is at the Duchess of That’s house-party, and the next day he meets the King at Doncaster. People must really think he’s the most popular man alive.”

“Sends the paragraphs to the editor himself, I suppose,” I remarked.

“Suppose so. There’s Marigold’s friend Lady Laxton, who boasts that she pays two hundred a year to some poor devil of a journalist up in town to puff her every other day in the papers, and scatter her portraits about in the ladies’ journals. That’s why you see ‘Lady Laxton at Home,’ ‘Lady Laxton on her motor,’ ‘Lady Laxton and her Chow,’ ‘Lady Laxton walking,’ ‘Lady Laxton riding,’ and all the rest of it,” he laughed. “The Laxton boom costs a couple of hundred a year, but it’s cheap to a draper’s wife, for it’s put her into a good set where she wouldn’t otherwise have been.”

I joined in his laughter, for like all his class he hated cheap notoriety, and was far too conservative to discern that no success, social or commercial, is achieved in these modern days without judicious advertising.

“Oh, by the way!” he exclaimed suddenly. “I see she hasn’t put Smeeton on the list—write it down, David Smeeton. You’ve never met him, I think. He’s a good fellow. I asked him down for a fortnight’s shooting. He’s a magnificent shot—was with me up the Zambesi.”

“When does he come?”

“To-morrow—five-forty at Kettering. See after him, won’t you? Introduce him, and all that. I shall shoot over at Harringworth, and can’t be back till late.”

“Very well,” I said, for it usually fell to me to put guests in the ways of that enormous house.

That day, and the following, passed uneventfully, and I heard nothing of any tragic discovery being made beyond Brigstock, therefore the suspicion that a second crime had been committed seemed negatived. I had driven over to Gretton in the afternoon to give instructions to one of the keepers, and returning about seven o’clock, was walking along the corridor to my room when, at the further end, in the fading light, I saw two figures, one a guest, and the other Slater, the butler.

“This is Mr Smeeton, sir,” the old servant explained. “He’s just arrived, and been shown his room. His lordship said you would entertain him until he and her ladyship returned.”

The newly-arrived guest came forward from the shadow to greet me, and as he did so the light fell straight across his face.

I stood open-mouthed, unable to utter a word in response.

The guest was none other than Richard Keene himself!

Chapter Eighteen.

Which Teaches the Value of Silence.

The man’s audacity in coming there openly and boldly as Lord Stanchester’s guest so utterly astounded me that my very words froze upon my lips. Was this some further development of the intrigue in which one man had already lost his life?

Yet the visitor, bluff and hearty of speech, stood smiling at me with a calmness that was absolutely amazing. In the first instant, I wondered whether the dim light of the corridor had deceived me, or whether his face only resembled in a marked degree the dusty wayfarer who had refreshed himself with such gusto at the Stanchester Arms. Suddenly I recollected that although I had watched him on that hot afternoon, he had been unable to see me where I remained in the publican’s back parlour. There was a screen on purpose to hide any person seated in the little low inner room from the vulgar gaze of those in the tap-room, and at the moment he had faced me I had been peeping round the corner watching him. As I crossed the room he had seen my back, of course, but his self-assurance at the moment of our meeting made it quite plain that he did not recognise me.

The dim light having concealed my surprise, I quickly regained my self-possession, and with effusive greeting asked him into my room.

“Lord Stanchester, her ladyship, and most of the party are still out,” I explained. “There’s been a big shoot to-day. He asked me to entertain you until he returned,” I said, when he had seated himself in an armchair.

His tall figure seemed somewhat accentuated; his dark face, however, no longer wore that expression of weariness, but on the other hand he seemed hale and hearty, and had it not been for his rather rough speech, he might, in his well-cut suit of grey tweed, have passed for a gentleman.

“Oh! her ladyship is at home, then?” exclaimed the man who called himself Smeeton. “I’ve not yet had the pleasure of meeting her. In fact I haven’t been in England since the Earl’s marriage.”

“You’re a big-game hunter, I hear,” I remarked.

“I shoot a little,” was his modest rejoinder. “I shot with Lord Stanchester in Africa, one season, and we had fair sport. I notice that he has some of his trophies in the hall. By Jove!” he added. “He’s a splendid sportsman—doesn’t know what fear is. When we were together he got in some very tight corners. More than once it was only by mere chance that there was an heir left to the title. It wasn’t through recklessness either, but sheer pluck.”

He at any rate seemed to possess an unbounded admiration for my friend.

“You spend most of your time abroad?” I remarked, hoping to be able to gather some further facts.

“Well, yes. I have a house abroad,” he answered. “I find England a nice place to visit occasionally. There’s no place in the world like London, and no street like Piccadilly. But I’m a born wanderer, and am constantly on the wing in one or other of the five continents, yet at infrequent intervals I return to London, stand for a moment beside the lions in Trafalgar Square, and thank my lucky planet that I’m born an Englishman.” He laughed in his own bluff hearty way.

And this was the man of whom both Lolita and Lady Stanchester lived in such mortal terror!

He took a cigarette, lit it, and leaned back in the chair with an easy air of comfort, watching the smoke ascend.

“Pretty country about here, it seems,” he remarked presently. “The drive from Kettering station is a typical bit of rural English scenery. The green of the fields is refreshing after the scorched lands near the Equator. What’s the partridge season like? It seems an age since I shot a bird in England.”

“Oh! They’re fairly strong,” I replied. “The spell of wet was against them in the early season, but I believe the bags are quite up to the average.”

“And who’s here just now?”

I enumerated a list of his fellow-guests, in which I saw he was greatly interested.

“There’s Lord and Lady Cotterstock, Sir Henry Kipton, General Bryan, Captain Harper, the Honourable Violet Middleton, Count Bernheim, the German Ambassador, Lady Barford, Mr Samuel Woodford—”

“Sammy Woodford!” he exclaimed, interrupting me. “How long has he been here?”

“Ever since the opening of the season. Are you acquainted?”

“Well—not exactly,” he responded evasively. “I’ve heard a good deal about him from mutual friends. I’ll be glad to meet him. He’s the man who was in the Chitral affair. They swear by him in India.”

“So I believe,” I remarked, puzzled at the strange expression which crossed his features when I mentioned the name of the Earl’s very intimate friend. Mr Samuel Woodford, or “Sammy” to his intimates, was a district superintendent of Bengal Police, who was home on two years’ leave, a short well-preserved fair-headed man, a splendid athlete, a splendid shot, a splendid tennis and polo player. At Sibberton, where he had been a guest on several occasions, he was a great favourite, for he was always the merriest of the house-party and the keenest where sports or games were concerned.

Stanchester liked him because he was so perfectly honest and straight. The very look in his clear steel-grey eyes spoke truth, uprightness and a healthy life, and after their first meeting, one season at Cowes, his lordship had taken a great fancy to him.

“Anybody else I’m likely to know?” asked the visitor, with a carelessness which I knew was assumed.

“Well, there’s the Marchese Visconti, of the Italian Embassy, young Hugh Hibbert from Oxford, and ‘Poppa,’ as they call the newly-made Lord Cawnpore. And the honourable Lucy Whitwell, the daughter of Lady Drayton.”

“Is she here also?” he exclaimed, looking at me in quick surprise, which he did not attempt to disguise. “She’s with her mother, of course?”

I responded in the affirmative, and recognised by his manner that the presence of the lady in question somewhat nonplussed him. Possibly she might be acquainted with him as Richard Keene, seafarer, and he anticipated an awkwardness about his introduction as the celebrated big-game hunter.

I anticipated a scene when the Countess met him, and was inwardly glad that at least Lolita was absent.

Ought I to warn the Countess, I wondered? She had, I remembered, appealed to me to assist her, and surely in this I might. Nevertheless, if her husband were in ignorance of the man’s real identity, it was not likely that he would expose it willingly, or seek to injure her ladyship, or make any demonstration before her guests. On the one hand, I felt it my duty to give her warning of the stranger’s arrival, while on the other I feared that by doing so I might be defeating the ends which the man Keene might have in view, namely, the discovery of the real author of the crime in Sibberton Park.

Thus I remained, undecided, continuing to chat with him, watching his attitude carefully, and seeking to learn from his conversation something regarding his intentions.

“I should imagine Lord Stanchester to be a very lucky fellow,” he remarked presently. “If the photographs one sees in the papers are any criterion, her ladyship must be a very beautiful woman.”

“Yes,” I answered, smiling. He was very cleverly trying to impress upon me the fact that they had never met. His shrewd cunning showed itself in the sidelong glance he gave me.

At that moment the door suddenly opened, and Lord Stanchester, in his rough shooting kit, came in.

“Halloa, Smeeton! Welcome, my dear fellow!” he cried, wringing his guest’s hands. “Excuse my being away, won’t you? I’ve got a lot of people here, you know, and had to go out with them. By Jove! When you said good-bye to me and left the boat at Zanzibar, I never expected to see you again?”

“Well, here I am—turned up in England again, you see!” he replied merrily. “When we parted I had no intention of coming back. But somehow, on occasions, a longing for home comes over me, and I’m drawn back to London irresistibly. I see,” he added, “some of the trophies are up in the hall.”

“Yes,” laughed his lordship. “I had them all mounted. And often when I look at them, they bring back pleasant recollections of those many weeks we were together. Well,” he added, “I’m very pleased, Smeeton, to see you here at Sibberton—very. My wife knows you’re here; she’ll be delighted to meet you. I’m sure. I’ve often spoken of you, and told her how you saved me from that lioness. By Jove! I was within an ace of being done—and should have been if you hadn’t been such a dead shot.”

“Oh, that’s enough,” laughed the guest, modestly. “I can’t shoot partridges—that you’ll see.”

The Earl walked to the mantelshelf, took a cigarette, and lit it, saying—

“I see Woodhouse has been making you at home. This is Willoughby Woodhouse, my friend as well as my secretary,” he exclaimed. “I spoke of him, I believe.”

“You did, on several occasions,” and turning, Smeeton added, “I’m delighted to make your acquaintance, Mr Woodhouse. His lordship said all sorts of kind things about you.”

But I scarcely heeded the newcomer’s remarks. I was wondering what would occur when he met her ladyship face to face.

“I want you to have a good time, my dear fellow,” exclaimed the Earl to his guest. “Just make yourself at home. You’ll find the house a big barrack of a place, too big in fact—but with the aid of the servants you’ll very soon discover the proper trails. If you don’t, just go into the nearest room, ring the bell and wait. That’s what most people do. My wife was fully six months before she could find her way about properly—it’s a fact! She wanted to shut up the place and live in the new wing. But,” he added, “the old guv’nor always kept it up properly, and I feel it my duty to do just as he did.”

That a cordial friendship existed between the pair was plain, and yet I had only once heard his lordship mention him, and that was in the smoking-room when daring feats of big-game hunting and the achievements of Selous and others were being discussed. Then he had declared that he knew a man that held his own with them all—a man named Smeeton, who had spent the greater part of his life exploring and hunting, some of whose trophies, sold to well-known dealers, were the finest in the world.

His lordship was never a boastful man, and had not referred at all to his acquaintance with this renowned hunter, nor to his own African exploits, which were in no way a mean achievement.

He had just ordered Slater to bring in whiskies-and-sodas, as it was his habit to have a “peg” before dressing, when there sounded out in the corridor a light quick footstep, and the scamper of a dog, and the next instant the door opened, and the Countess of Stanchester halted on the threshold, facing the man she held in such deadly fear—Richard Keene!

Chapter Nineteen.

Face to Face.

“My friend Smeeton—Lady Stanchester,” exclaimed the Earl, introducing them.

Their gaze met, and I saw that in a moment her heart became gripped by a nameless terror, her countenance blanched, and she halted rigid, as utterly dumbfounded as I had been; while the mysterious guest bowed, expressing his pleasure at making her acquaintance, and thus allowing her a chance to recover her self-possession.

I saw that he had darted a meaning look at her—a glance which she apparently understood, for next second she held her breath, stifling down her apprehension, and then managed to stammer out the usual expression of gratification at meeting any of her husband’s friends.

“We have only a moment ago, Lady Stanchester, been recalling memories of our days on the Zambesi. We were both, I think, a little more reckless then than we are now,” he said laughing.

“You’re right, Smeeton,” declared the Earl. “Playing the fool as I did, I narrowly escaped with my life half-a-dozen times over. But I’ve profited by your advice and experience.”

“George is quite a steady-going old fogey nowadays, you must know, Mr Smeeton,” exclaimed her ladyship. “He’s a member of all sorts of committees for this and for that, and sits on the bench of magistrates with the row of fat butchers and bakers.”

“And is pretty hard on poachers, I suppose?” he laughed. “In the eyes of county magistrates the snaring of a hare is, I’ve heard, regarded as one of the worst crimes in the calendar.”

“Of course. Because it is generally the only crime that personally concerns the bench,” remarked his lordship, while his wife had crossed to the fireplace and stood slightly behind her husband, in order, I noticed, to conceal the agitation now consuming her. Why had the man come there in the guise of her husband’s friend? That they had shot together in Africa was certain, for she had heard of this man’s prowess as a big-game hunter, but it was a revelation to her, as to me, that Smeeton and Richard Keene were one and the same person.

Old Slater returned with the “pegs” and the men drank them while her ladyship busied herself pretending to try and find a book in the large bookcase behind me. She chatted to them all the time, but managed to keep her face concealed.

At last the dressing-bell sounded, and the Earl accompanied his guest to his room, exclaiming with a laugh—

“I’d better show you the way, old chap, or you’ll be wandering about like one of the lost tribes.” Then, the instant the door had closed and their footsteps retreated, the Countess turned quickly to me, her face white and drawn, her eyes terrified, whispering—

“What does this mean, Mr Woodhouse? What can it mean?”

“Well, it seems as though the fellow had some object in coming to stay here as a guest,” I said. “What that object is you yourself know best.”

“Of course he has a motive,” she cried in despair. “But what am I to do? Why didn’t you warn me that you had recognised him?”

I explained briefly how to warn her had been impossible.

“Do you think George noticed my confusion when I opened the door and saw him here?” she asked anxiously.

“I think not,” was my reply. “You so quickly recovered yourself.”

“Ah! But you don’t know how sharp his eyes are. He’s really absurdly jealous sometimes.”

I smiled within myself to think that a woman so fond of admiration and flattery should complain of her husband’s jealousy.

“At any rate, in this affair, you’ll have to act with the greatest caution and discretion, Lady Stanchester,” I said. “The man is here for some sinister purpose—of that I feel quite sure. He arrived in Sibberton a little while ago, tramping along the highway, tired and hungry, a shabby wayfarer, upon whom Warr looked with suspicion. To-day he is your husband’s welcomed guest, to whom he expects you to act with kindness and attention.”

“Kindness!” she ejaculated. “Kindness to that man!”

“Is he such an enemy of yours?” I asked in a low tone. “Why don’t you take me further into your confidence, Lady Stanchester? Surely you can rely upon my discretion?”

“I have taken you into my confidence as far as I dare,” was her answer, uttered in a tone of desperation. “I want you now to assist me in combating this man’s intentions, whatever they are.”

“I promise to render you what assistance I can, but on one condition, recollect,” I said. “The condition is that what I do is in order that you shall be afforded opportunity to convince George of your true affection.”

“I know, I know,” she cried quickly. “I will adhere to my part of the compact. Believe me, I will,” and she stood before me a pale apprehensive figure in her Norfolk jacket and short tweed skirt—a woman whose attitude showed me that Keene’s presence there held her terrified.

The truth of it all I could not guess. A vague suspicion arose of some curious romance in the days prior to her marriage; of some skeleton in her cupboard, which she feared must now be brought out to the light of day before her husband’s eyes. I saw written in her countenance, as she stood before me, an all-consuming fear which seemed to hold her there immovable.

“I’m wondering whether I ought not to make some excuse to go away on a visit somewhere,” she suggested after a pause. “I can’t really stay under the same roof with him, meet him each day at table, and be compelled to chat with him. It’s utterly impossible.”

“But how can you leave all these people?” I asked. “Besides, if you did, he might perhaps revenge himself—that is, if you are wholly in his hands. Are you?”

“Utterly,” she answered hoarsely, as though that confession were wrung from her.

“You fear him, while he has no need to fear you. Is that so?”

She answered in the affirmative in the same hoarse unnatural tone.

“Then you must not run further risk by attempting to escape him,” I said decisively. “You must remain, act diplomatically, and endeavour to maintain a bold front. Recollect that he is here in order to take advantage of the first sign of apprehension on your part. Show no fear of him,” I urged. “Disclaim all knowledge of him if necessary. Assert to his face that you have never met before, should he speak to you alone and endeavour to recall the past. We live for the present or the future, Lady Stanchester, not for the past—whatever it may have been. Courage!” I said. “If you really love George and are now hounded by this man, I will help you in every way.”

“Ah!” she said gratefully. “I know you will, Mr Woodhouse. Believe me, I am at this moment sorely in need of a friend. I know, alas! what evil tongues have said of me, and what a reputation I have for giddiness and flirtation. Yet every action of a woman of my age and position is magnified and exaggerated in order that it may furnish food for gossips and hints for scandal. But I tell you I am not so black as I am painted. I still have a heart—and that heart is my husband’s. He is your friend, and if you assist me to defeat this man you will be rendering him the greatest service one man can render to another—and you will save me.”

“I have promised,” I answered. “You must go now and meet the man on perfect equality, with perfect friendship. Your mind is blank regarding the past, and you have never met him before in all your life. No matter what he threatens to reveal, or what he tells you his revenge will be, you must not admit that you have been previously acquainted.”

“It will be difficult—terribly difficult,” she said. “He can unfortunately recall certain facts which—well, which I fear I cannot deny.”

“But you must,” I urged. “Deny everything. Then he will expose his hand, and we shall know how to deal with him in order to checkmate his plans.”

“Very well,” answered the desperate woman. “I’ll do my best. But if I fail you must not blame me.”

“You are clever, Lady Stanchester, and with your woman’s diplomacy and quick inventiveness I am sure you can face the difficulty and overcome it. Go,” I urged. “You must appear at dinner gay and merry, as though you had not a serious thought in the world. Your careless attitude will then puzzle him from the very outset. Act as I tell you, and if you want advice at any moment, come to me.”

She thanked me, and turning slowly went out to dress for the terrible ordeal which she knew too well was before her. And when she had gone I sat in my chair for a long time, plunged in thought.

The mystery was assuming even greater and more remarkable proportions. The chief problem at the moment was the motive of the mysterious guest.

Who was this man Keene of whom both Lolita and Lady Stanchester were in such deadly fear? What power did he possess over them?

Times without number had I asked myself that self-same question, but no solution of the enigma presented itself. The mystery was now even more dark and inscrutable than it had been at the outset. The puzzle was maddening. So I rose with a sigh, and went up to my room to dress with a distinct feeling precursory of some untoward event about to occur in the Stanchester household, and a fervent hope that the young Countess would hold her own successfully in the desperate fight with this man whom she declared to be her very worst enemy.

The situation was surely a most grave and remarkable one, and her position was certainly unenviable. Knowing her abject terror of the man I felt apprehensive of the result, for I felt confident that one single sign of weakness would give the desperate game entirely into his own unscrupulous hands.

In the big white drawing-room where the visitors assembled before dinner, the Countess appeared in a marvellous gown of pale turquoise and cream, and wearing the diamond collar and bodice-ornament which was her husband’s wedding gift, and which cost a sum which to many a man would have represented a fortune. Her coiffure was beautifully arranged without a hair awry, and her white neck and arms seemed like alabaster. Truly she was a magnificent woman, and well merited the description a certain royal prince had once uttered of her—“Taking face and figure, the prettiest woman who ever came to Court during the present reign.”

She was laughing gaily with old Lord Cotterstock as she entered, chaffing him about his sleepiness after luncheon and missing several birds, and as her gaze met mine I saw that the manner she had reassumed, that nonchalant air that she usually wore, was little short of marvellous. One would hardly have recognised in her the white-faced, terrified and despondent woman of half-an-hour before.

In the corner of the room stood Smeeton, a tall, commanding figure in faultless dress clothes, and a small but fine diamond in his shirt, chatting to two women, Lady Barford and the Honourable Violet Middleton, to whom he had just been introduced. Her ladyship was of that middle-aged type of stiff-backed lion-hunter who sought London through to get the latest poet, painter or littérateur to go to her weekly “At Homes,” and had already, it seemed, buttonholed the renowned hunter of big game.

Old Slater appeared at the door, bowing with that formality acquired by long service in that noble family, and announced in a voice loud enough to be heard by all—

“Dinner is served, m’lady.”

Then the Countess walked boldly up to Smeeton and asked to be taken in by him, while I linked myself up with a rather angular girl in a pale rose gown that had seen long service, the daughter of a Squire from a neighbouring village who was this evening eating his annual dinner at the Hall.

Through dinner her ladyship preserved an outward calm that was remarkable. She chatted and laughed amiably with her guest seated at her right hand, and as I watched narrowly I detected that he was already amazed at her self-possession. That night she was even more brilliant than ever. Her conversation sparkled with wit, and her remarks and criticisms caused her guests in her vicinity to roar with laughter at frequent intervals.

From where I sat little escaped my watchful eyes. Once or twice she turned her gaze upon me, as though to ask whether she were acting her part sufficiently well, then fired off some epigrammatic remark to one or other of the gay crowd of well-dressed people around her.

Dinner ended, the ladies retired, the cloth was removed, the port was circulated in decanters in silver stands along the bare table of polished oak, in accordance with the custom that had obtained at Sibberton ever since the Jacobean days. The Stanchester cellars had always been celebrated, and assuredly there was not a finer port in the whole country than that which they contained. Among the men, as they drank their wine, the newly-arrived visitor became the centre of attraction. Sportsmen all of them, Lord Stanchester had told them of Smeeton’s keenness after big game, and many questions were being put to him regarding the practicability of shooting expeditions in East Africa.

At last an adjournment was made into the huge vaulted hall, the stained glass and architecture of which reminded me of a church, where there was music every evening. In the high roof hung those faded and tattered banners carried by the Stanchesters in various battles historic in English history, and around the walls stands of armour in long and imposing rows.

Her ladyship was an excellent musician, and although in these days of mechanical piano-playing music will, it is feared, soon be a neglected art, she always played on the grand piano for the entertainment of her guests. Some songs were sung—mainly from the comic operas, San Toy, The Geisha, The Country Girl—and some even with a chorus heartily joined in by those lords and ladies of illustrious name. It was Liberty Hall, and in the evening the fun always grew fast and furious.

Presently the bridge tables were set, parties were made up, cards were dealt and played, money rattled and very soon there were high stakes in various quarters and a good deal of money began to change hands.

With two or three exceptions the whole party played bridge. Myself, I could not afford to lose, and therefore never played. While among those who declined the invitation was Smeeton, who remained an interested onlooker at his hostess’s table.

Only by the slight trembling of her bejewelled hands could I detect in her any sign of fear, but when she rose as midnight chimed out from the turret clock over the stables, as a signal for the ladies to retire to their rooms, he had, I noticed, disappeared. Perhaps he wished to obtain a secret interview with her, therefore I was quickly on the alert, and succeeded in gaining a point at the junction of two corridors that ran at right angles, and down which I knew she must pass. In order to escape notice I slipped into one of the rooms and stood in the dark with the door slightly ajar.

She came at last alone, her silken skirts sweeping with loud frou-frou, her diamonds glistening in the light as she advanced. Her guests had passed out into the new wing, but she habitually reached her room by this corridor, which was a short cut and ran through a portion of the vast mansion not generally used.

She had almost gained the doorway wherein I stood, when I heard hurrying steps behind her, and next moment Smeeton caught her roughly by the wrist, exclaiming in a quick determined whisper as he bent to her—

“Marigold! Marigold! Have I so changed that you don’t know me? I told you that I should return and here I am! You thought you could escape by marrying this man—but you can’t! The awkward little matter outstanding between us still remains to be arranged, and I think you know Dick Keene well enough to be aware that in an affair of this sort he’s not a man to be trifled with. So you know well enough what I’m here for, and what a word from me to these fine friends of yours will mean to you. Do you hear me?” he added, with a hard ring in his voice. “What have you to say?”

Chapter Twenty.

Richard Keene Makes a Revelation.

The Countess, unconscious of my presence, halted quickly, and turning upon him with a start exclaimed—

“I—I really don’t understand what you mean, Mr Smeeton!”

“Understand what I mean!” he echoed with a short dry laugh. “I suppose you’ll deny acquaintance with me next!”

“I certainly do not recollect having met you before,” she answered with admirable hauteur.

“What?” he exclaimed, in undisguised surprise at her bold attempt to disclaim any previous acquaintance. “Do you actually affirm that we have never previously known each other?”

“Never until this evening,” was her response. “That is why I don’t understand what you mean in addressing me in this manner.”

He burst out laughing, treating her bold denial with derision. Yet she remained firm, and in indignation exclaimed—

“Let me pass. I think, Mr Smeeton, you have forgotten yourself this evening.”

“No,” he said. “I never forget a debt that is owing me. I am here for repayment.”

“I really don’t understand you. It’s late, and one of the servants may pass this way and overhear you. Let us resume this highly interesting discussion in the morning,” she suggested. “This must no doubt be a case of mistaken identity. I can only suppose I resemble somebody you know.”

“There was but one Marigold Gordon,” he replied, in a hard firm voice. “There was but one Marigold who wrecked one man’s happiness, and who afterwards married another because of his wealth and position—yourself.”

“Oh! this is insupportable!” she cried indignantly. “I shall tell my husband that I’m insulted by his guest—a man from nowhere. Let me pass—I say!”

“Yes, a man from nowhere,” he sneered. “Richard Keene is always from nowhere, because he has no fixed home. He comes to-day from nowhere and goes to nowhere. But before he goes he means that his account with you shall be settled. Understand that!”

“Well, you’ve said so already,” she laughed. “Is it the action of a gentleman to utter all kinds of vague threats like this?”

“Vague threats! You’ll find that they are more than vague. What I say I mean. You think,” he added, “to escape by denying all previous acquaintance with me. But you’ll discover your mistake when too late.”

“I have no reason to escape,” she declared with a nonchalant air that amazed me, knowing how at heart she feared him. “I shall merely tell my husband of this indignity, and leave him to act as he thinks best.”

“Ah!” he remarked, “you are a clever woman, Marigold—you always were. Is it really necessary to remind you of those ugly events of three years ago in which you and Lolita were so intimately concerned, or that there still exists a certain woman named Lejeune?”

“I desire no reminder of any matters which concern me,” she replied coldly. “This does not.”

“But it concerns Lolita—and what concerns her concerns you. She fled to the north the instant she heard that I had returned, for she feared to meet me.”

“Her affairs are not mine,” declared the Countess unmoved. “You are speaking of something of which I am in utter ignorance. Why don’t you explain your meaning?”

“Shall I speak openly?” he said. “Very well, if you prefer it, I will. If you recollect nothing else, perhaps you will remember that a young man named Hugh Wingfield was found dead in the park here quite recently—murdered.”

“I heard of it. I was at Aix-les-Bains,” she replied.

“You saw his photograph—your husband showed it to you after your return, and you recognised who the dead man was who had remained unidentified.”

“How could I recognise a person whom I had never seen before?”

“Then you also deny acquaintance with Hugh Wingfield, the poor young fellow who fell into the trap so cunningly set for him?”

“Certainly. Why?”

“Well, because you are a more wonderful woman, Marigold, than even I believed,” he answered in his deep rather rough voice. “You’re a perfect marvel.”

“Not at all,” she answered quite calmly. “First, I do not see what gives you permission to call me by my Christian name; and secondly, I don’t see the motive you have in endeavouring to fix upon me knowledge of certain matters of which I am in entire ignorance. Perhaps you’ll explain why, being my husband’s guest and only a few hours in this house, you arrest me like this, and commence all these extraordinary insinuations? You claim acquaintanceship with me, while I declare that I didn’t know you from Adam until my husband introduced us just before dinner.”

“Then what I have to reply is the reverse of complimentary. If you had been a man I should have told you to your face that you were a liar.”

“You may disbelieve me as you will,” she responded still unruffled. “But I merely tell you that I have no further desire to stand here and be insulted,” and although she tried to pass him he again clutched her wrist fiercely and prevented her.

“You shall answer me!” he whispered angrily. “You are Marigold Gordon, now Countess of Stanchester; you are the woman I am here to meet, to speak with calmly, and to come to an amicable settlement—if possible. You know, as well as I do, that Lolita’s future in is your hands, just as it is in mine. A word from either of us can ruin her. It would mean for her arrest, disgrace, condemnation. Now, do you intend to speak and to save her; or will you still deny previous acquaintance with me and consequently all knowledge of the affair? Lolita is in peril. If you will you can save her, although she is your enemy—although I know how you hate her.”

I stood aghast at this fresh development of the mystery. I had actually urged this woman to disclaim all that the man Keene might allege, yet in utter ignorance that, by so doing, she was bringing ruin upon my love! My ears were open to catch every word. The Countess was Lolita’s enemy! Could that be the actual truth? Did this woman whose beauty was so remarkable so mask her real feelings towards her husband’s sister that, while outwardly showing great affection for her, she had secretly plotted her ruin and disgrace?

“I know nothing,” was her persistent reply.

“Then you prefer that Lolita shall suffer,” he said in a calm hard voice. “Remember that her enemies are unscrupulous, relentless. The word once spoken can never be recalled. Do you intend that her life shall actually be sacrificed?”

“How?”

“She intends to take it by her own hand the instant the truth is known. I have been up to Scotland.”

“And you have, I suppose, threatened her, as you have me?” sneered her ladyship.

“I have no necessity to threaten her,” was his answer. “She knows quite well enough the peril in which she is placed by those who have sought her downfall.”

“Well, and what does her future concern me, pray?” asked the woman coldly.

“Only that you can save her,” he argued. “Think if, in a moment of despair, she took her life, what a burden of remorse would be yours.”

“There is no such word as remorse in my vocabulary,” she laughed. “If there were I should have entered a convent long ago.”

“Yes,” he said. “You speak the truth, Marigold. You are one of those few women who are, perhaps fortunately, untroubled by conscience. The past is to you a closed book, would that it were also to me! Would that I could forget completely that affair at which you and I exercised such dastardly cunning and scandalous duplicity. But I cannot, and it is for that reason I am here to beg—to beseech of you to at least save poor Lolita, who is being driven to extremity by despair!”

Lolita! I thought of her, desperate and unprotected, the victim of a vile and yet mysterious conspiracy—the victim of this woman who was, after all, her secret enemy. Heaven formed me as I was, a creature of affection, and I bowed to its decree in living but for love of her. Upon the tablet of my heart was graven Lolita, and death alone could efface it. I was no sensualist; thank heaven I had not brutalised my mind, nor contaminated the pure ray of my divinity. I loved with truth, with ardour, and with tenderest affection, from which had arisen all those ecstasies that constituted the heaven of loving. True, I was jealous—madly jealous. I was a tyrant in the passion that consumed me, but none can truly love who would receive it when divided.

Poverty claimed wealth—ambition craved for honour—kings would have boundless sway—despots would be gods—and I merely asked for love. Where was my crime in claiming a return for that already given? Or if it could never be mine, why should I dash at once to earth the air-drawn vision of felicity?

Fate was inscrutable; and sanctioned by its will, I determined to yield without a sign to my reward, be it love or be it misery.

Each pleasure has its pain, nor yet was ever mortal joy complete. In those days before the advent of Richard Keene in Sibberton I had been lulled by bliss so exquisite that reason should have told me it was but a dream. I had forgotten everything in the great vortex of love which had, till then, overwhelmed me. And as I stood there listening to every word that passed, I felt that I alone had power to save the woman I adored.

There was a plot, some vile dastardly plot, the mystery of which was inscrutable. And she was to be the victim. Was it right that I should remain silent and make no effort to rescue her from the doom which this man Keene declared must be hers?

“How can I save her, when I am in ignorance?” asked the woman, still persistent in the disclaimer I had so foolishly urged upon her.

“Then you still deny all knowledge of the affair?” he said in his deep earnest voice. “You still dare to stand there and tell me that you are not the woman who assisted Marie Lejeune—the woman for whom the police still hold a warrant, but who do not seem to recognise a common criminal in the person of the Countess of Stanchester. Think for a moment what a word from me to the police might mean to you,” he added in a threatening tone.

“And think also, Mr Smeeton—or whatever you choose to call yourself—that I also possess knowledge of a fact which, if known to Scotland Yard, would prevent you in future from pushing your unwelcome presence into a house where you were not wanted. Do you understand?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, as you’ve spoken so plainly,” she said in an angry tone, “I will also tell you what I mean to do. You are here bent upon mischief; you intend to carry out the threat you made long ago. Good! From the very start I openly defy you,” and she snapped her slim white fingers in his face. “Tell my husband any lie you like! Do your worst to injure my reputation, but recollect that from to-night, instead of being friends, we are enemies, and I shall tell the police something which will be to them of enormous interest. You wish to quarrel with me, therefore let it be so. My husband shall know of your insults at once, and that will allow you an opening to denounce me as one of the worst women in England. The result will be interesting—as you will see. One of us will suffer—but depend upon it it will not be myself,” she laughed defiantly.

“I have no wish to quarrel,” he assured her quickly. “I said I had come here to make terms with you and to save Lolita.”

“What do you wish? That I should incriminate myself?” she asked. “Lolita does not concern me in the least, neither do you, for the matter of that. I’ve given you the ultimatum,” she added. “If you wish to pick a quarrel, then my own safety will be assured.”

“You misunderstand me,” he said in a tone more conciliatory than before.

“Yes, I certainly misunderstand your desire to bring upon yourself what must be a very serious disaster by coming here and trying to wring from me certain things which I am determined, for my own good name and reputation, to keep secret. My own opinion of you is that you are a fool, and that if you are wise you’ll make an excuse, and to-morrow morning leave Sibberton.”

“I shall do nothing of the kind,” he responded in quick indignation. “I intend to act as I have told you.”

“Very well, then, that is sufficient. I wish you a very good-night,” she said passing on before the doorway where I stood hidden. “My husband shall know at once how you, a stranger to me, have dared to insult me with your outrageous insinuations and threats.”

“No, I did not mean—” he commenced, as though to modify his actions.

“Enough, Mr Smeeton. I have decided upon my course of action, and you had better leave this house while there is yet time. Otherwise perhaps you will have unwelcome inquiries made after you.”

The man upon whom she had so cleverly turned the tables gave vent to a muttered imprecation, while the swish of her silken flounces receded down the long dark corridor, and I stood there breathless and motionless, not daring to betray my presence.

The result of such an open quarrel as it had become I dreaded to contemplate, for I knew, alas! too well that whatever it be my love must suffer, and that she was bent upon taking her life rather than face exposure of the mysterious scandal.

Chapter Twenty One.

The Saints’ Garden.

After breakfast on the following morning I contrived to make an appointment with the Countess to meet her at a short distance from the house in what was known as the Saints’ Garden.

Her ladyship’s habit was to walk in the garden for half an hour after breakfast, and I deemed that the Saints’ Garden, being at a secluded spot down near the lake, and little frequented either by the gardeners or visitors, was a good place of meeting. The gardens at Sibberton were noted for their beauty. There was an old lavender garden; one for bulbs; another for roses, and—most charming of all, Lolita’s pride—the Saints’ Garden, the flowers of which were supposed to blossom on the days set apart for certain saints. In it were veronicas, lilies, Christmas roses, and a wild tangle of old-world flowers.

I waited in patience in this little “garden of the good,” encompassed by its dark thick box hedges. The morning was bright, the dew glistened everywhere in the sunlight, and the flowers filled the air with their fragrance. It was a peaceful spot where Lolita loved to linger, and where we had often walked and talked in secret.

She came at last—the reckless, handsome woman who held my love’s life in her hands.

Her fair face was smiling as she came along in her neat short skirt and fresh morning blouse, and greeted me saying—

“Really, Mr Woodhouse, I hardly think it was wise of you to meet me here. One of the gardeners or some one may see us and gossip,” and she turned her eyes upon me with that look which had made many a man’s head reel.

“We are safer from observation here, Lady Stanchester, than in my room,” I answered in a rather hard tone, I fear. She glanced at me quickly, apparently in wonder that I was in no mood for trifling. She was, of course, unaware that I had overheard all that had passed between her and the man Richard Keene. Nevertheless she said—

“As I anticipated, he claimed acquaintanceship with me last night—stopped me in the Panelled Corridor and addressed me by my Christian name.”

“Well.”

“I flatly denied ever having met him before. It took him back completely. He wasn’t prepared for it,” she laughed.

“And you were able, I hope, to sustain the fiction until the end?” I asked, looking straight at her.

“Well,” she answered, rather uneasily, “I managed to so confound him that I don’t think he’ll carry out what was his intention. As a matter of fact, I fancy he’ll curtail his visit. George has taken him to shoot over at Islip.” She made no explanation of his urgent appeal to her to save Lolita, of his threats or of her own declaration that if they were to be enemies then she would bring upon him an overwhelming disaster. She was keeping the truth to herself, suspecting my love for Lolita.

“He threatened you, of course?” I said, leaning upon the grey old weather-worn sundial and looking at her as though I were waiting for her explanation.

“Threats?” she laughed. “Oh! yes. He was full of them. But you were quite right; my denial utterly upset all his bluster. He can’t make out my intentions, and therefore will hesitate to do me harm, for he doesn’t know the extent of my knowledge. Really, Mr Woodhouse, you very cleverly foresaw the whole affair. I admit that I was very hard pressed for a few moments. But now—” and she paused.

“And now?” I asked.

“Well, I’ve met him with his own weapons. He won’t dare to speak, because at heart he’s afraid of me.”

“Then you think he’ll leave very soon?”

“Ah! I don’t know. He’s playing a very clever game, as he always does. Think how he has come here as George’s friend, and at the same time as my bitterest enemy! His audacity is surely unequalled!”

“But is he really your enemy?” I queried, fixing her with my gaze. “Are you not his?”

She looked at me somewhat puzzled. I had put a meaning note into my voice, yet I did not intend that she should be aware that I knew the truth of her secret hatred of my love, or that I had ascertained that the name of the young man who had fallen the victim of an assassin’s hand was Hugh Wingfield.

“Perhaps I am his enemy,” she laughed lightly. “I have surely need to be.”

“Why?”

“With a man of his stamp one must act with firmness and disregard all scruples. He will ruin me if he can. But I don’t intend that he shall. Before he does that I’ll give information against him myself—information that will be a revelation to certain persons in this house.”

I thought of the peril of my love.

“Information I take it, that would mean ruin to a certain person—a woman!” and I held her steadily with my eyes.

Her mouth opened slightly, and I saw that she suspected that I had gained some knowledge which she believed was his alone.

“A woman,” she repeated. “Whom do you mean?”

“Lolita,” I replied in a low hard voice.

“Lolita?” she gasped. “Who told you that—I mean, what makes you suggest such a thing?”

“My conclusions are formed upon certain facts already known to me, Lady Stanchester,” I answered coldly. “You deceived me when you sought my aid by declaring your desire to show your affection for your husband. You had a deeper and more desperate game to play—and poor Lolita is to be the victim.”

“You love her, I suppose?” she snapped. “You needn’t deny it. I’ve seen it long ago—you, her brother’s secretary!” she sneered. “Why, the thing’s absurd?”

“There is a wide gulf in our social positions, I admit, Lady Stanchester,” was my quick angry response. “But surely it is not so strange nor so absurd that I should love a woman who is friendless, and who has so strangely incurred your hatred!”

“Incurred my hatred? What foolishness are you talking now?” she asked with that cold hauteur which she could assume to inferiors when she willed.

“I repeat what I have said. You intend that the ruin that threatens you shall fall upon Lolita. In plain words, you will sacrifice her, in order to save yourself!”

“And who’s been telling you this interesting untruth, pray?” she asked. “I thought you knew Lolita sufficiently well to be aware that I have, ever since my marriage to George, been her friend.”

“To her face yes, but in secret no.”

“You are insulting me, Mr Woodhouse,” she exclaimed, her eyes flashing. “I have always been Lolita’s friend.”

“Then prove your friendship by telling the truth concerning her,” I said, “the truth known equally to Marie Lejeune with yourself—the truth that can save her from this unfounded charge against her.”

I made a blind shot, and stood watching its effect upon the brilliant woman.

A slight hardness showed at the corners of her mouth, and a strange light shone in her eyes as she realised that I knew the truth, how she had cleverly sought to deceive me by her false declaration of that love for her husband which she had assuredly never entertained.

“I didn’t know there was any charge against her. What is it?” she inquired calmly.

“Prevarication is useless. Lady Stanchester,” I said determinedly. “Richard Keene has come here to get you to tell the truth concerning Lady Lolita. You have refused, and he has threatened you with exposure. You, on your part, have retaliated by threatening him, hence the position at this moment is that he fears to speak lest he should incur your revenge, while you refuse to speak the truth and remove suspicion from Lolita. You intend, therefore, that she shall fall the innocent victim. But recollect that I am her friend, and I will save her, even if compelled to go to George and tell him everything.”

She bit her lip. I could see that it had never crossed her mind, that, being her husband’s friend, I might lay bare the truth to him and expose the fact that Richard Keene and Mr Smeeton were one and the same.

“Ah! So you intend to give me away?” she remarked, with a quick shrug of the shoulders.

“I have no wish to do anything that will tend to cause a breach between you and your husband,” I answered. “I merely say that I intend to stand as Lolita’s friend, and to-night I shall go north, see her, and explain all I know. She will be interested, no doubt, to hear that a friend of your pre-matrimonial days is here as your husband’s guest.”

“Then you’re going to tell her?” she asked with a quick start, and I saw by the way her eyebrows had contracted that she was devising some plan to counteract my intentions.

“I shall act just as I think proper, Lady Stanchester,” I responded. “In this affair I have the good name of only one person to consider—the person whom you declare it is absurd for me to regard with affection.”

“And so you mean to place me in a very invidious position by telling tales to everybody?” she exclaimed with a supercilious smile. “Well,” she added, “go up to Scotland and see her, if you like. Tell her whatever you think proper; it will be all the same to me.”

“Why?”

“Because I shall still retain the knowledge which I hold, and she cannot—she will not dare to—do anything to injure me. If she does, Mr Woodhouse—if she does—then I’ll speak the truth—a truth that will astound you, and cause you to regret that you ever interfered in my affairs, or ever sought to befriend a woman guilty of a crime.”

“Guilty of a crime!” I echoed. “What crime do you allege against Lady Lolita?”

She merely laughed triumphantly in my face.

“I demand a reply to my question,” I cried angrily.

“Ask her yourself. It is not for me to denounce her before she has sought my downfall.”

“But you make a distinct allegation!”

“And one that I can substantiate when the time is ripe,” was the woman’s firm fearless answer.

“But you can clear her character if it suits you!” I exclaimed quickly. “You have admitted that.”

“You think fit to take the part of my enemies against me, therefore you will find me merciless,” was her vague ominous reply. “Go to Scotland and see Lolita. Tell her that I have sent you—and,” she added, “tell her from me to keep her mouth closed, or else the story of Hugh Wingfield shall be known, You will recollect the name, won’t you?—Hugh Wingfield.”

I stood silent, unable to respond, for that was the name of the young man who was so foully done to death in that hollow behind the beech avenue.

“Moreover,” she went on, noticing the effect of her words upon me, “moreover, you are at liberty to tell George what you like concerning me. He loves me—and when a man’s in love he believes no evil of the woman. So go!” she laughed. “And afterwards tell me what he says. I shall be so very interested to know.”

Chapter Twenty Two.

The Sign to the Unknown.

Love knows not want—he has no such intimate as poverty; if he smiles, he has but one dread foe; if he frowns, he has but one true friend; and those both concentrate in the oblivion of death.

I loved—yes, I loved Lolita. While she lived, the soul-invigorating fire of her eyes kept alive my passion-torn frame. And yet who was I that I dared thus ally myself with heavenly beauty and terrestrial greatness? She was the daughter of an Earl and I a mere secretary, dependent upon her brother’s favours. No title, no transcendent qualities were mine. And yet, was I not ennobled? Did I not wear within my heart the never-fading insignia of love, the qualifications of which were fervency and immutable truth?

The proud Countess had sneered at me. She sneered because the passion of true love had never known a place in her fickle heart. As next day I sat alone in the express travelling up to Scotland, memory of the hour came back to me when I had first gazed upon those charms I since had learned to reverence with all the fervour of matchless truth. I recollected how long, long ago, whenever I saw Lolita, my pulse beat with an unwonted motion, and the throbbing of my heart spoke to my soul in a language it had never known before—my brain became on fire, and ere I knew the term, I knew what constituted love. Yes, love—love that had not yet taught me what presumption was, but I rather stood the awe-struck victim of his all-puissant will.

And now I was tearing with all speed to seek her, to hear the truth from her own sweet lips. Never once had she told me that my love was reciprocated, yet in her clear bright eyes I had long ago seen that mixture of tender pity, noble generosity, candour and pure refined womanly feeling open as the face of day, that told me that she was not averse to my attentions even though I was neither wealthy nor of noble birth.

Day had succeeded day since her departure for the north, and every coming dawn had proved what gave bitter anguish to my soul. A strange suspicion that seemed to envelop her like a cloud—a suspicion which somehow I could not determine—had caused the struggle of conflicting thoughts. And now I was rushing towards her, hoping fervently that her words to me might reveal the truth, and infuse into my chaotic soul one bright spark of heavenly comfort whence might blaze the inextinguishable flame of requited love.

Alone, gazing aimlessly at the fleeting panorama of hill and dale as the express rushed on from Crewe to Carlisle, my busy fancy seemed to reconcile impossibilities, and as the mariner who feebly grasps the plank surrounded by a sea of deadly horrors, so I, amid the gloom of black despair, illumined the fallacious touch of hope and wandered into the maze of gilded fallacy.

Ah! Hope, thou flitting phantom, thou gaudy illusion, thou fond misleader of the wrecked senses, that framest a paradise of airy nothingness, how strange that thou canst in pleasing dreams bring to the tortured mind a brief respite.

And yet when I recollected the dark suspicions that rested upon my love, I held my breath. When I calmly reviewed all the circumstances, life seemed all a blank to me; my reason bade me cease to hope. Yet better be warmed by madness than chilled by coward fear; better burn with jealousy than die the silent fool of black despair.

In such a mood I sat thinking and pondering until we glided into the great echoing station of Carlisle. Then I descended, bought a paper, and tried to read as the portion of the train in which I sat continued its way eastward towards Edinburgh. To concentrate my mind upon a printed page was, however, impossible. I recollected those strange, ominous words of the Countess when we had parted in the Saints’ Garden, and somehow felt convinced that her position was impregnable.

Keene had distinctly declared that if Marigold failed to tell the truth, then my love must fall a victim. Why—and how? All was so mysterious, so utterly inscrutable, so bewildering that the enigma admitted of no solution.

I could not disguise the fact from myself that Lolita had gone north purposely to avoid the unwelcome stranger who had so mysteriously returned, and I now intended at all hazards to obtain from her some fact concerning the conspiracy into which he seemed to have entered.

The strange incident in that lonely farmhouse and the attack upon Marie Lejeune were again facts which combined to show what a wide-spread plot was in progress—a plot the motive of which was still enshrouded in mystery, but of which the victim was undoubtedly to be none other than my well-beloved.

Lolita, who was staying with her aunt, the Dowager Lady Casterton, at the Royal Hotel, in Princes Street, sprang quickly to her feet when, shortly before dinner, the waiter ushered me into their private sitting-room. Fortunately her aunt was still in her room, and we were therefore alone.

“Willoughby!” she gasped springing forward to me breathlessly. “You! Whatever brings you here—what has happened at Sibberton?”

“Nothing,” I replied in order to set her at ease. “Or rather nothing in particular. Every one is very well, and the house-party has assumed its usual gaiety.”

“Marigold is still at home?” she inquired, as though her first thought was of her brother’s wife. I answered in the affirmative, and then slowly and with reverence raised her slim white hand to my lips. She allowed me to kiss her fingers in homage, smiling sweetly upon me the while.

She was in a magnificent dinner-dress of black net shimmering with sequins—a gown the very simplicity of which rendered it graceful, charming, and the essence of good taste. At her throat was a single row of large pearls, but she wore no other ornament. She always dressed artistically and in the latest mode, and surely her gown was exactly suited to the hotel table d’hôte.

I had only just had time to go to my room, change, and seek her, for I had not notified her of my coming in order that she should have no chance of avoiding me. Yet her manner of greeting was as though my presence gave her the utmost pleasure. Her cheeks flushed as I pressed her fingers to my lips, and I knew that her heart, like mine, beat quickly with the passion of affection.

In a few brief words I told her that I had taken quarters in the hotel, that I should explain to her aunt that my presence in Edinburgh was connected with the Earl’s affairs, and that I desired to have a private chat with her after dinner.

“Something has happened, Willoughby,” she said apprehensively. “I see it in your face! What is it? Tell me?”

“Nothing very serious,” was my evasive reply, for I heard Lady Casterton’s high-pitched voice outside, and wished to conceal from the snappy old dowager that the real object of my visit was to see Lolita.