William Le Queux (continued 3)

At the expensive hotel in Scarborough, she met Jack Hargrave, a personable young fellow, who seemed to have plenty of money, and was of good family.

At that time Violet was a very thrifty young woman—she learned expensive habits later on—she reckoned that she would stay at Scarborough for a fortnight, and return with a handsome balance out of the hundred pounds. Then the kind Jaques, to whom she was genuinely grateful, would not have to put his hand in his pocket for some little time.

She met Jack Hargrave, who was staying at the same hotel. He fell violently in love with her, with her blonde prettiness. At the end of the first week he proposed.

Violet was attracted by him, perhaps a little bit in love. She accepted him on the spot, and went off the next morning to London to consult Jaques, in whom she placed her full confidence.

There was here a little break in the story, as told to Moreno. Evidently her guardian approved. She married Jack Hargrave, and they had taken the flat in Mount Street, of which she was still the tenant.

Here Moreno had interrupted. “You say that Jack Hargrave was well-off. How did he make his money? Flats in Mount Street are not run on credit.”

“Oh, don’t you know? It was Jaques who put him into good things in the City, out of friendship for me.”

“But, one moment,” pursued Moreno. “He was well-off when he met you. How was he making money when our good old friend Jaques had not appeared on the scene?”

Violet, under the influence of the liqueurs, was a little off her guard.

“Oh, don’t be silly. Jack was a very expert bridge-player.”

Moreno nodded. “I think I understand. We won’t go into details. Under his instructions, you became a very expert bridge-player too. It used to be whispered that you were just a little bit too lucky.”

Violet Hargrave admitted that many rumours had been flying about, and that the flat in Mount Street had become a little suspect.

“And how did you get into this?” had been Moreno’s next question.

Violet had been very frank. “It was dear old Jaques who drew me into it. You know I have told you how grateful I was to him, how indebted. When he asked me, could I refuse, after all the benefits he had showered upon me?”

“Impossible,” said Moreno in his quiet, easy tones. He added, after a pause, “I wonder if your heart is in it?”

She flashed at him a swift glance of interrogation. “I wonder if yours is?”

Moreno smiled. They were then each suspecting the other, on account of their mixed parentage.

“Absolutely,” he answered in a tone of deep conviction. “I am nine-tenths Spaniard, one-tenth Englishman. You are one-tenth Spaniard and nine-tenths Englishwoman. I very much doubt if your heart is in it.”

Violet spoke in a low, hard voice. And she also felt there was need of caution.

“I have lived a very hard life, depending upon charity, generous charity I admit, for many years. I think I do not love the present order of things. I am really an anarchist; I think I may truly say my heart is in it.”

Moreno accepted her statement. She was still an enigma to him. She had spoken of Jaques with a genuine sense of gratitude, she had alluded to her late husband in terms of sincere affection. The woman had her sentimental moments.

Then he remembered that she was the daughter of a drunken and derelict father—this much she had told him. Her mother was a Spanish dancer of unknown origin. Out of this peculiar blend, was it possible to fashion an honest woman. Moreno doubted it.

He remembered the night in the flat at Mount Street, when she had vindictively declared that Guy Rossett had to be got out of the way.

He had looked at the still very pretty woman, her fair cheeks just a little flushed with the after results of the good dinner. She had, perhaps, her good points, but was she not an absolute degenerate? Daughter of the wastrel father and the Spanish dancer!

He had been very sympathetic through the recital. He had helped her on with an encouraging word or two in the pauses of her narrative, for at times she had evidently pulled herself up with the recollection that she was being too frank. But he had learned a good deal about Violet’s past.

He still had his suspicions. Perhaps another dinner or two might get more out of her.

The four conspirators sat in the little room facing the sea. Violet Hargrave, by the way, was dressed in a peasant costume.

Alvedero spoke in his deep voice. “I think, for the present, we will make Fonterrabia our headquarters. It is a quiet little town, and, for the moment, not suspect.”

The Deputy-Governor of Navarre assented. They could do great things from this comparatively obscure quarter.

Alvedero spoke again. “Now, first, there is the question of Guy Rossett. Contraras and Luçue are agreed that he should be removed speedily.”

Moreno hastened to corroborate. He knew that Violet Hargrave was watching him narrowly. “The sooner the better,” he said heartily. “He knows too much.”

“A great deal too much!” burst in Zorrilta angrily. “The question is, where did he get his information from? Some traitor, of course.” Moreno glanced at Violet Hargrave. He had his suspicions of her, but not a muscle of her countenance moved. His suspicions of her then were not confirmed. But Violet said nothing in reply to Zorrilta’s angry outburst.

There came a diversion. Father Gonzalo passed the window of the small sitting-room. His hawklike eye peered through the window.

“Dios!” cried Zorrilta, jumping up. “That accursed priest again! He roves about here like an evil spirit.”

“Who is he, this priest?” cried Moreno eagerly. He had seen the lean figure of the father passing the window, and had noted the keen, inquisitive glance.

Zorrilta explained what he had learned from the intelligent fisherman Somoza. Father Gonzalo was a Jesuit, not attached to the Church of Santa Gadea. He was suspected of being a spy in the pay of the Government.

Moreno rose. “Shall I go and sample this gentleman?” he said. “I can play the rôle of the devout Catholic very well.”

Zorrilta and Alvedero grinned. They were both nominal Catholics, but their religion did not trouble them very much. They were pleased with the enterprising spirit of their new recruit.

“Go my friend, come back and report to us.” Moreno, well pleased, strode out, and soon overtook the priest, who was walking leisurely.

“Good evening, Father,” he said pleasantly. He also added a few Spanish words which were a password.

When he heard those magic words, the priest’s lean, ascetic face changed at once.

“You are one of us?” he asked briefly.

“Of course. My name is Moreno. I am attached to the English Secret Service, and I am helping your Government to beat the anarchists.”

“Good,” said Father Gonzalo. “Those people I saw you with in the little sitting-room at the ‘Concha,’ I know the two well, Zorrilta and Alvedero; the woman I do not know. I take it they are all anarchists. You are joining up with them for your own purposes.”

“Precisely,” answered Moreno. “Keep your eyes open too. This is, at present, the headquarters of the conspiracy.”

“My son, good night,” said the wily Jesuit in his most paternal tones. “We shall meet again. You have, of course, made a good excuse for leaving your friends, and running after me.”

Moreno smiled. “When I return I shall give the best report of you, a report that I trust will disarm suspicion. But it is as well to put you on your guard. You have a very keen enemy here, one Carlos Somoza, a fisherman. Conciliate him, if you can.” The Jesuit’s dark eyes flashed. “I know him. The dirty dog. I will be on my guard. I will go to Santa Gadea, and pray for my sins.”

The unctuous priest stole away. Moreno watched his departure with a contemptuous smile. He did not seem a very valiant member of the church militant.

Moreno joined his companions. He addressed them in his usual easy fashion.

“Couldn’t get much out of him. I should say he was quite a harmless old chap, full of good works. He seemed very concerned that I should be drinking at a place like the ‘Concha.’ He gave me some very good advice. I don’t think he has brains enough to be a spy.”

The other two men laughed. Moreno had carried the affair off so well that they believed him implicitly.

Then Alvedero spoke seriously.

“This affair of Guy Rossett was very pressing.” He turned to Moreno and Violet Hargrave. “I daresay you know that Luçue has delegated this matter to me, as being on the spot.”

The two members of this conclave of four bowed; they had gathered this much before they left England.

“Yesterday, however, I had instructions from our great leader, Contraras,” pursued Alvedero; he uttered the name of his chief in accents of profound reverence. “The affair of Guy Rossett has, for the moment, sunk into comparative insignificance. There is bigger game afoot.”

“Ah!” breathed Moreno eagerly. True to his histrionic instinct, he was playing the rôle of enthusiast very well.

Violet Hargrave, who was never very enthusiastic, thought it well to imitate him, and leaned forward as if eager to catch the next words from the great man’s lips.

Alvedero spoke slowly. “As you know, in difficult times, we have to proceed with great caution—I cannot divulge all that Contraras has entrusted me with to-day. To-morrow Valerie Delmonte will be over here! We will meet at the same place and the same hour.”

He paused, and then lifted his hands to the low roof of the mean sitting-room in which the four were assembled.

“The brain of that man is stupendous, gigantic,” he cried, in tones of the deepest admiration. “My friends, he has planned a great coup, and Valerie Delmonte is going to carry it out! She is devoted, she is fearless, she will not blench. To-morrow at this hour and this place I will take you into the secret; it is possible one of you may be called upon to assist.”

A few minutes later the meeting broke up. There would be an exciting day to-morrow, thought Moreno, as he strolled away.

Chapter Ten.

If Lord Saxham had been, in his heart, disappointed that he could not induce Isobel to cajole her lover away from his post, he was too much a gentleman to go back on his word. Besides, he recognised that in this instance the girl was right, and he wrong, that she had displayed a nobility of spirit which was lacking in himself and his daughter.

He had given his consent to the engagement without imposing conditions, and he could not in honour take that consent back. In addition, he could not but feel a whole-hearted admiration for a woman who could sacrifice her own feelings, not to mention her own interests, in such an unselfish fashion.

The immediate result of the brief visit to Ticehurst Park was the despatch of a paragraph to the various papers announcing the engagement of Mr Guy Rossett, second son of the Earl of Saxham, to Miss Clandon, daughter of General Clandon.

When father and daughter arrived at their modest home in Eastbourne, the news was public property. Letters of congratulation came by every post from the numerous friends and acquaintances whom they had made during their long sojourn in the town.

Isobel could now openly wear that beautiful ring which hitherto she had only dared to look upon in secret—that expensive ring which, as a matter of fact, had been purchased from money supplied by the obliging Mr Jackson. For, at the actual moment when the General had given his consent to the engagement, Guy had been extremely hard up.

So now all was plain sailing. Isobel was very proud of her lover, naturally very delighted at her adoption into the Saxham family. But, as there is no happiness without alloy, the knowledge of that lover’s danger weighed terribly upon her spirits, and caused her to shed many bitter tears.

Her little world which congratulated and fussed around her, of course, knew nothing of this. To the girls of her own age, girls moving in respectable but middle-class circles, who knew nothing of the aristocracy except through the fashionable papers, she was greatly to be envied.

There was one amongst the numerous letters of congratulations which had touched her very deeply. It was written by her cousin, Maurice Farquhar. It was couched in rather stiff, sometimes stilted phraseology, but sincerity was in every line. And, if Maurice was a bit priggish and old-fashioned, he was always a gentleman.

He had made no allusion to his own disappointed hopes. He had congratulated her heartily on her engagement, expressed his conviction that she would adorn any station to which she was called. And the letter had concluded with these words.

“I know the danger that is threatening your fiancé. Moreno has promised to let me know if I can help him. I do not fancy it will ever be in my power to render any valuable assistance; our paths in life do not seem to meet anywhere. Still, if the time does come, I shall do my best, from my own cousinly affection for you.”

It was put frankly but gracefully. He did not care twopence for Guy Rossett. It was not to be expected that he would. But he would be a friend to Rossett, because he still loved Isobel. She laid down the letter with a little sigh. So short a time as two years ago, Maurice might have satisfied her maiden dreams, she was not quite sure. She was so wrapped in the present that she could hardly see the past in its proper proportions. Anyway, she could reckon on her cousin in the future as a true and loyal friend.

Her heart was very much with Guy in that dangerous post at Madrid, her thoughts ever. One night when the two were sitting alone in the General’s cosy little den, a little cry escaped her.

“Somehow, I seem to hate Eastbourne! It is very ungrateful, considering how happy I have been here. But I do so long to be near Guy.”

The General was very moved by that pathetic cry. He stirred uneasily in his chair.

“Of course you wish it, my darling. I daresay Lady Mary wishes the same. But, if you were both there, neither of you could do him the least good, nor avert any danger that is threatening him.”

“Oh, I recognise that,” said Isobel, wiping the tears from her eyes. “It is the suspense that is so horrible. If one were near, one might know something of what is going on.”

The General thought for a moment or two before he spoke. He had indulged every whim, forestalled every wish of his dear wife. He had done the same with his daughter since the day when he had found himself a widower, and they had been all in all to each other.

He smiled a little sadly. “I am afraid we old men become a sad burden on our dutiful children, exact too much from them,” he said presently. “Lady Mary would love to be near Guy, and she cannot leave her father. And you, my poor little girl, are in the same plight.”

Isobel laid her soft cheek against his. “Oh, Daddy, dearest Daddy, it is not very kind to say that. However great my love for Guy, it can never supersede my love for you.”

The General patted her head fondly. “Ah, my dear, the curse of a small family; we have always been all too much to each other.” Then he spoke briskly; he waited to make her happier than she was.

“I see no reason, though, why we could not go to Madrid together. We could do it by easy stages, and, by gad, Madrid would be a change. I am very fond of Eastbourne, but we have had a good bit of it. I think I will go and see our old Doctor Jones to-morrow.”

But Isobel would not hear of it. Her father had suffered from heart affection in his youth. During the last five years it had become very acute. He must live a quiet, well-ordered life, avoid any undue exertion. His daughter had gathered from Dr Jones that the General’s life held by a very frail thread. The summons might come at any moment.

Nevertheless, General Clandon was round at the doctor’s door by ten o’clock the next morning. He was bent upon falling in with Isobel’s desire.

The doctor stared at him. He had always been summoned to the General’s house; not half a dozen times had his patient come to him.

“What’s up?” he inquired tersely. “The heart not troubling you more than usual, I hope?”

To look at General Clandon, as he stood in the surgery, a fine upstanding figure of a man, you would have said he was free from all human ailments. Nobody could have guessed that he carried in that stalwart frame the seeds of a mortal disease that, at any moment, might lay him low.

“No, no more than usual. But yes, I think the palpitations are a little more frequent the last week or two.”

“Let me run the rule over you.” Doctor Jones produced his stethoscope. “Why didn’t you send for me before?”

“Just a moment, my good old friend, before you begin. Isobel particularly wants to go to Spain for reasons you can guess—her fiancé’s there. I can’t let her go without me, unless I could lay my hands upon a suitable chaperon. I want you to tell me if you will give me permission to go with her myself. I should take the journey in easy stages, of course.”

There was a very wistful look in the old man’s eyes as he uttered the last words; it seemed as if he were pleading for permission to gratify his daughter’s wish.

“Isobel, of course, won’t hear of it, after what you have told me; she did not know I was coming here. But if you could give your sanction, it would make us both very happy,” he added hastily, as he began to unbutton his coat.

Jones had been an army doctor, and he was very sympathetic. It was very pathetic, this poor old father with almost two feet in the grave, begging a little further respite from death.

“I will see what we can do, as soon as I have examined you,” he said kindly. “If it is humanly possible for you to go, I will let you go, for Isobel’s sake.”

The examination was a searching and lengthy one. When it was finished, Doctor Jones laid down his stethoscope with a little sigh.

“My dear General, it is impossible. You are a brave man, you have faced death more than once on the battlefield, and you have always asked me to tell you the truth. If you undertake that voyage, you are committing suicide.”

“You don’t give me very long then?” asked the General quietly. The doctor shrugged his shoulders and turned his head away. He could not quite put it in words.

“You have had some extra excitement lately? Great inroads have been made since I last examined you.”

“Yes,” answered General Clandon quietly, “there has been a good deal of excitement lately.”

It was true. The uncertain position of Isobel as regards her engagement, the hurried visit to Ticehurst Park, the danger overhanging Guy Rossett had agitated him very much.

He returned home very crestfallen. He had hoped against hope for the doctor’s favourable verdict. He had longed to be able to say to her: “It is all right, I will take you to Spain myself.”

But in the face of those grave words it was impossible to say it. It would be no benefit to her to take her out, and die before they got to the end of the journey.

Isobel met him in the hall of their pretty little home, half villa, half cottage.

“Why, where in the world have you been?” she cried, “running away at this early hour of the morning?”

They lived such an intimate and domestic life, that it was almost a point of honour to give notice of each other’s movements.

The General was a bad dissembler. He blurted it all out at once.

“To tell you the truth, I wanted to take you out to Spain. I went round to see Jones, to learn what he said about it. He forbids it.”

She looked at him anxiously. Yes, he seemed to have aged even the last week. A spasm of reproach shot through her that she had not been quicker to notice his failing health. Guy had usurped her thoughts too much.

“But I don’t think it will be difficult to arrange. I can soon get hold of some female dragon, some elderly chaperon who will take you.”

The girl’s eyes filled with tears. Not for the first time did she appreciate that unselfish parental love, the love that gives everything, and asks so little in return.

She kissed him very tenderly. “No, no, a thousand times no, you kindest of all kind fathers. Until you get well and strong again, I would not leave you for a thousand lovers.”

He patted her hand. He was the most unselfish of men, but it pleased him very much to hear her say that much. The stranger who had come into her life was not going to oust the old father from his place in her heart.

“We have been so much to each other, little girl, since your dear mother died, have we not?” he asked gently.

“More than so much,” she whispered back. “Oh, more than so much. We have been everything to each other.” At that moment even her lover was almost forgotten. A few hours later, she stole out of the house, and called on the doctor.

“My father is worse,” she said impetuously, when she entered the consulting-room.

Doctor Jones looked very grave. “My dear child, he is as bad as he can be. I have warned you before. The end may come at any moment.”

“And yet it only seems yesterday that he was out shooting—of course I know it is months ago—and when he came back, I used to ask him if he was tired, and he always told me he never felt more fit in his life. And a big, strong man in appearance! A few weeks ago he did not look his age.”

“It is frequently the way with this particular disease,” was the doctor’s reply. “They hang on for years, with a sort of spurious energy, and then, all of a sudden, they go—snap.”

“Will he suffer much, do you think?” asked Isobel, bravely keeping back the tears.

“Don’t trouble yourself about that. He will go out like the snuff of a candle. Take my word for it, he will not suffer.”

He accompanied her to the door; he had become very attached to the pair—the charming girl devoted to her father, the elderly man who worshipped his daughter.

“Keep a brave heart, my child. It may come to-night, to-morrow. He is worse than I thought.” And three days after that interview with the kindly doctor the end came.

The housemaid went into his room with his morning cup of tea. The poor old General was lying on his side, his face quite placid. But the girl knew that the pallor on it was the hue of death. She ran sobbing to Isobel’s room.

“Miss, miss! Come at once to the General.” Isobel guessed immediately what that summons meant. She sprang out of bed and went to her father’s room. One glance at the white, placid face confirmed her worst fears. She sent the frightened girl for the doctor. He came, and was able to ease her mind in one respect—her beloved father had died peacefully, without a struggle.

The charming little home which had sheltered her for so many years was a house of mourning. She thought tearfully of his loving kindness, of the many self-sacrifices he had made to give her some small comfort, some little luxury. Even from a devoted husband, would she ever have such a disinterested love as that?—the love that gives all and asks nothing.

But she was a soldier’s daughter, and she braced herself to go through the ordeal, the most trying of all ordeals to affectionate hearts, the removal of the beloved dead.

She first sent a wire to Maurice Farquhar, asking him to come to her. Then she sent another wire to the General’s elder brother, the owner of the small family estates.

In two hours came back her cousin’s answer.

“Am catching an early train.”

The Squire’s answer came back about the same time. “Will be with you to-morrow morning.” And then she thought of a quite new, but very sincere friend. Lady Mary Rossett. She wired to her the sad news. To Guy she wrote a long letter. If she had sent him a wire, he might have rushed over, and neglected his duties. That would have rendered no service to the dead.

Lady Mary arrived first in her car—it was not a very long run from Ticehurst Park to Eastbourne. She explained that she had taken rooms at the “Queen’s” for herself and her maid, and would see Isobel through this trying ordeal.

The two girls clung together. Mary said she would like to look upon the General for the last time. Isobel led her into the darkened chamber, and Mary imprinted a kiss upon the waxen brow.

“He was a most perfect gentleman,” she said. “You will always be proud to remember that you were his daughter.”

“He was the dearest and the best. He was—”

But Isobel could say no more, for fear she should break down.

A few moments after Mary’s arrival came Farquhar, lumbering up from the station in a somewhat antiquated taxi.

Isobel welcomed him warmly. “How good of you, Maurice, to come so soon, and of course you are frightfully busy. I am afraid grief makes one very selfish.”

“I don’t think you were ever very selfish, Isobel,” replied Farquhar in his grave, quiet tones. “I am, as you say, frightfully busy, but I have handed over all my briefs to a friend, and I am going to see you through all this sad business. I suppose you have wired to the Head of the Family?”

Isobel’s lip curled a little. “Yes, I have wired to the Head of the Family. I have got his answer. He is coming down to-morrow. My true friends are here to-day, yourself, and Lady Mary Rossett. By the way, how remiss of me not to have introduced you.”

Lady Mary rose, and held out her hand to the rising young barrister.

“But, dear Isobel, we have met before, on that well-remembered evening at the Savoy. You will no doubt recollect, Mr Farquhar, you were dining with a very dark-complexioned gentleman, evidently a foreigner.”

“Of course, I remember perfectly. The man who was my guest is my old friend Andres Moreno, a very capable journalist.”

Lady Mary looked approvingly at the grave young barrister. Her heart was, of course, buried in the grave of the young Guardsman, but she felt a pleasurable thrill in this new acquaintance. There was something in his sedate demeanour that appealed to her practical and well-ordered nature—a nature that was apt occasionally to be disturbed by tempestuous and romantic moods.

“Where are you putting up?” asked Lady Mary casually.

“At the ‘Queen’s,’” answered Farquhar.

“Oh, so am I. I have taken a suite of rooms for myself and maid, while I am looking after dear Isobel. But it will be a little bit dull. Are you dining in the general room?”

“I certainly shall—unless—” Farquhar looked towards Isobel.

Poor Isobel looked very distressed. “You are both such darlings,” she said, in her candid, impulsive way. “I should like to put you both up, to ask you to stay. But I shall be such poor company for you.”

They both understood. The bereaved girl wanted to be left alone with her dead, for that day at least. She welcomed their sympathy, but they could not mourn with her whole-hearted mourning.

Farquhar and Lady Mary drove back in the car to the “Queen’s.” Farquhar suggested tea. Lady Mary accepted the invitation willingly. There was something about this serious young barrister that attracted her.

Over the teacups they chatted.

“Tell me, are you going to be Lord Chancellor some day? You have plenty of time.”

It was Lady Mary who put the question. Farquhar caught the spirit of her gay humour.

“Oh, no, nothing so stupendous as that. In my wildest dreams, I have never aspired to be anything higher than Solicitor or Attorney-General. I shall probably end by being a police magistrate, and cultivate a reputation for saying smart things.”

“Oh, but I shall be quite disappointed in you if you don’t become Lord Chancellor,” persisted Lady Mary, in her most girlish vein. “How dreadfully ancient we shall both be when you reach that exalted position. And then, think of your wife, she will be the first female subject in the kingdom. The Archbishop of Canterbury’s wife doesn’t count at all, although the Archbishop goes before you. Isn’t it comical?”

Farquhar fell in with her humorous mood. They had come from the house of mourning, but the poor old General had been very little to them. It was Isobel who stirred a generous chord of sympathy in their hearts. And Isobel was young, she had a lover, and she would recover shortly. The young do not mourn for ever after the old. Such is the inexorable law of nature.

They met again at dinner. The good understanding, begun at tea, was further cemented.

“You are going to be a sort of relation, in addition to being at least Attorney-General, or a police magistrate, or something of that sort,” said Lady Mary at the conclusion of the meal. “Do you shoot?”

“I can account for a few,” replied Farquhar, in his usual modest and cautious manner.

“Then you must come to Ticehurst Park in the autumn. I shall send you the invitation.”

“And your friends will be welcomed by Lord Saxham?”

Lady Mary smiled quite a brilliant smile. “I may tell you in confidence that my dear old father is as wax in my hands. Are you satisfied with that?”

Yes, Farquhar felt quite satisfied. But he thought of the grief-stricken girl keeping her lonely vigil in that quiet home, and his heart was very sore for her.

Still the world went on, and here was a very charming woman, not perhaps quite so youthful as Isobel, who was showing very plainly that she had taken an interest in him. The world was a very pleasant place.

Chapter Eleven.

The Head of the Family arrived next day. He was a very stolid and bucolic-looking person, a breeder of prize oxen and fat sheep. He commiserated with poor Isobel in a heavy fashion.

“Strange thing going off like that,” he commented. “We are a very long-lived family. But your father was always a little bit different from the rest of us when he was a boy.”

Isobel said nothing in reply. She had seen several members of her father’s family at rare intervals, and she had not been greatly impressed by them. The only one she had really liked was Mrs Farquhar, the mother of her Cousin Maurice. She was a sweet, charming woman, the favourite sister of her dead father.

Mr Clandon fingered his moustache a little nervously. “I suppose you know all about his affairs, my dear? He has left you comfortably off, eh? He came into quite a tidy little bit when my father died.”

Isobel smiled faintly. Mr Clandon wanted to be assured that he was not going to have a penniless niece thrust upon his hands. She knew all about her father’s affairs. Had not the dear old General spent hours in instructing her as to the careful management of her small patrimony, when anything happened to him?

“Quite comfortably off, uncle, thanks to his loving care. With my simple wants, I shall be rich.”

“Very relieved to hear it,” said the bucolic Mr Clandon. “And, of course, you are going to marry a rich man. Lord Saxham, I understand, is one of the wealthiest peers in England.”

“Reported to be,” corrected Isobel gently. “The estates are very heavily encumbered, and there are living three dowagers, and other pensioners who draw their portions.”

“God bless me,” said Mr Clandon, who was a very thrifty person. “What a frightful incubus! Then I take it your fiancé won’t get very much from that quarter?”

“Very little, I expect. But he will inherit a large fortune from his great-aunt, Lady Henrietta, a very old lady, over eighty.”

The Head of the Family looked relieved. He gazed with a certain respectful admiration at his good-looking niece. He had always recognised that she was a very pretty girl. At the present moment, grief had made great inroads on her good looks. But he thought somewhat sorrowfully of his own large family of girls, who were rather of the dumpling-faced order. They would have to seek their mates amongst the small squirearchy.

“I suppose my poor brother made a will?” was Mr Clandon’s next question.

“Oh, yes, he made his will years ago, after my mother’s death,” was Isobel’s answer. “He left her everything. When she died, he left me everything.”

“Quite right and proper,” observed Mr Clandon. He was very dull, but quite an upright and just person. He was relieved to find that his brother was more business-like than he thought. “And he has appointed executors, I suppose?”

“Yes, two—a very old friend, and my cousin, Maurice Farquhar.”

“Ah, Maurice Farquhar, Anne’s son! Yes, of course, your father and Anne were always great comrades. Maurice is getting on very well at the bar, I hear. You have seen a lot of him, I suppose. Somehow, we seemed to lose sight of Anne. We were such a big family, you know; and big families get scattered.”

Uncle Clandon had not the delicacy of Maurice or Lady Mary. He cordially accepted Isobel’s invitation to put him up. He was a very thrifty and careful person, and had no fancy to waste his money in expensive hotels, now that he knew his niece was left comfortably off.

The General was buried amongst his forbears in the family vault. When the sad business was over, Lady Mary took Isobel away to Ticehurst Park.

Guy Rossett had rushed over for the funeral, but he was so engrossed in diplomatic affairs that he had to leave immediately after.

The lovers had little time to say anything to each other. But Isobel was very much touched with Guy’s delicate feeling.

“Wasn’t he a darling to come over?” she said to Lady Mary. “I should have forgiven him if he hadn’t, but I love him ever so much more because he did.”

To which somewhat incoherent declaration Mary had replied with her usual air of experience and worldly wisdom.

“All men have something bad in them, and most women. But I think dear old Guy has the least bad in him that a man can have.”

Lord Saxham was very kind, very gentle, very paternal to his son’s betrothed. He had only seen General Clandon once, and he could not pretend to feel any great interest in him. But that sudden death reminded him that he also was nearing the goal. The remembrance of that fact softened, at least temporarily, his asperities, curbed his explosive temper.

The two girls were sitting in Mary’s cosy little boudoir. It was a very charming room, reflecting in every detail the delicate and discriminating taste of the young chatelaine.

“Mary, I can never go back to Eastbourne. I loved that little home so much while he was there. But now it would be torture. I should see him in every room, and I should want to cry out to him and he could not speak to me. Oh, I don’t think you can guess what we were to each other.”

“Have you thought of anything, dear?” asked Mary in her kind, gentle voice. She knew the girl was half hysterical with her sorrow.

“I should so love to go to Spain to be near Guy. Did I tell you dear father wanted to take me himself, only a few days before he died, and the doctor forbade him. Oh, Mary, if you could only come too?”

“I would love to,” said Mary slowly. “But you know as well as I do that my duty lies here. My father is old, I dare not leave him, and, in spite of his little faults of temper, he has been a dear, kind parent.”

“I understand perfectly,” was Isobel’s answer. “But, you see, nothing now ties me to England. All the world meant to me only two people, my father and Guy. Now, only Guy is left. I would love to be near him, even if he did not know.” Mary pondered a little. “I wonder if that nice cousin of yours could help in the matter?”

Isobel caught at the suggestion at once. “Yes, he is very clever. I will go up and see him to-morrow.”

“No need for that, dear. I will send him a wire at once, asking him to come down to-morrow to see you.”

“But he is always so frightfully busy,” cried Isobel.

“Bah!” said the more practical Lady Mary. “I know he is going to do wonderful things in the future, but he has plenty of time. When I send him that wire, he will come.”

Lady Mary sent off the telegram. It was quite a little excitement in her usually placid life. Farquhar came down as quickly as he could. He had handed over his briefs to a friend.

Lord Saxham greeted him kindly, being apprised by his daughter of his arrival. The poor old Earl was very subdued by now; he was quite prepared to make any amount of new acquaintances. His daughter had affairs well in hand.

Lady Mary plunged into matters at once.

“Isobel doesn’t want to go back to Eastbourne—that is quite natural. She is eager to go to Spain, to be near Guy. Of course nothing binds her to this country now.”

Mr Farquhar was not to be hurried. His judicial mind, if it worked a little slowly, also worked very surely.

“I should not say that, at the present moment, Spain was a very desirable country for anybody, still less so for a young and unprotected woman.” He looked rather disapprovingly at Isobel for having harboured such daring thoughts.

“I shall take a maid, one of the servants we had at Eastbourne,” said Isobel, in a rather quaking voice. She had sense enough to see that, at the best, it was a wild venture.

Lady Mary shot at him an appealing glance. “Don’t you think you had better let Isobel have her way? And I expect she will have it whether you approve or not.”

There was also a little something more in that glance than Mary was quite conscious of. And the little something was this: Why was Maurice Farquhar so foolishly in love with Isobel, while Isobel was so devoted to Guy Rossett?

Farquhar looked from the younger to the elder girl. Lady Mary was very comely, she had behind her a long line of illustrious ancestry. She had been very sweet and gracious to him.

“Do you approve this rather daring scheme, Lady Mary?”

“On the whole, I think I do. Of course, I recognise the objections to it. But Isobel cannot go back to Eastbourne. If she stays in England she will be eating her heart out.”

Farquhar was, perhaps unconsciously, swayed by Lady Mary. He made up his mind to regard the suggestion with some degree of favour.

“I will do all I can to help. Unfortunately, I know next to nothing of Spain. But I have a friend who knows it from A to Z. I will write to him and see how I can get her planted there.”

Of course, Lady Mary knew that Moreno was the friend. Isobel thanked him warmly.

“How sweet and dear of you,” she said. “Of course you understand, now my dear father is gone, there is nothing left but Guy.”

Farquhar understood. His cousin had spoken with the unconscious cruelty of the self-centred lover. She had not considered Maurice’s feelings at all.

Farquhar rose. “I will write the letter at once, if you will permit me.” He turned to Lady Mary, who led him to a small morning-room, and spread paper and envelopes before him.

“You are very fond of Isobel?” he asked, before he began his letter, a rather long one, to Moreno.

“I love her like a younger sister, Mr Farquhar,” replied Mary enthusiastically. “And, of course, she very soon will be my sister. And, moreover, being a woman, I love all true lovers. She and Guy are so absorbed in each other.”

“Ah!” said the youthful barrister shortly. “And you love your brother too?”

“Dear old Guy! I simply adore him. He is one of the most lovable of men.”

Farquhar looked at her a little quizzically. “You have, I should say, a most beautiful nature; you see good in everything and everybody, don’t you?” Lady Mary shook her head. “No. I am more discriminating than you think. I fancy I can always tell the false from the true.”

“I wonder how you would reckon me up?”

“I will tell you, if you really wish,” was Mary’s candid answer.

“Yes, I do wish, honestly.”

“You are frightfully, painfully just. You are terribly cautious. And—” She paused, and a faint blush spread over her cheek.

“Don’t spoil it, please. Finish what you were going to say. I can see you are a very discerning critic.”

Mary was a long time before she would answer. Then she turned away, and her blush deepened.

“I should say loyalty and honesty were your greatest characteristics. That you would be a sincere friend and a very generous enemy.”

She was leaving the room, but Farquhar darted up and detained her.

“I say, you know, that is the very greatest compliment I have ever had paid me,” he said, roused from his usual impassivity. “Will you think I am taking a liberty if I suggest that we shake hands on it?”

“Oh, not at all,” said Mary, in a rather fluttering way, as she put her hand in his.

She left the room, and he set about to write his letter to Moreno. But the disturbing vision of Lady Mary, with that faint flush on her cheek, appeared several times between the sentences of the rather lengthy epistle. That letter went out by the evening post.

About the same time that these events were happening at the Park, Ferdinand Contraras was taking farewell of his family. He explained to them that he was going to Spain, he could not say how long he would be away. It might be a few days, it might be weeks. He had left plenty of money in the bank for their needs.

His wife and daughter watched him out of the house without any signs of emotion. To these two, who should have been his nearest and dearest, he had long appeared as a man out of touch with realities.

When the car rolled out of sight, Madame Contraras turned to her daughter.

“I have a presentiment, Inez, he will never come back. He is going to give his life as well as his fortune to this insane cause.”

Inez, who was rather callous, shrugged her shapely shoulders. “Why did you marry him, mother? He must have been mad then.”

“The madness of strong, impetuous youth, my child. I never thought it would last through middle and old age.”

Chapter Twelve.

Contraras embarked on his great mission. Elderly man as he was, the fire of his convictions kept him alert and youthful.

He stayed a day in Madrid; from thence he travelled to Barcelona. And then he went on to Fonterrabia.

In the same little café, the “Concha,” he met several members of the brotherhood, Zorrilta, specially summoned, Alvedero, Andres Moreno, Violet Hargrave, and Mademoiselle Delmonte.

He opened the proceedings in his sharp, autocratic way. “You have already had a meeting about this particular coup which I planned in London.”

The young Frenchwoman spoke eagerly. If ever there was an enthusiast in the sacred cause, she was one. Ready to be burned or hanged for her principles, she had the spirit of the early Christian martyrs.

“We know all about it, Contraras.” In the spirit of true democracy, they addressed each other by no formal prefix. “I have undertaken it. It probably means death to me, I can only escape by a miracle, but it also means death to our enemies.”

Contraras looked at her approvingly from under his bushy eyebrows. “There spoke a true daughter of the Revolution which is to remake the world. If years had not come upon me, if my eyesight were more keen, my hand more sure, I would not delegate this task to another, less especially to a woman.”

Zorrilta hastened to observe obsequiously, “We cannot afford to hazard your precious life, Contraras. You are the head and brain of this organisation. The general directs the battle from safe ground. He does not go into the firing-line like the common soldier.”

Contraras smiled, well pleased. Like most great men, he was very susceptible to flattery, as easily susceptible as the most despotic monarch that ever ruled.

“I appreciate your devotion to the cause, your loyalty to myself,” he said in his most gracious manner. “When this great blow is struck, when we make a most terrible example, the echoes of it will reverberate through the world. The downtrodden population will arise, the world-revolution will be in being.”

There was a subdued murmur of applause at the conclusion of his speech. Moreno applauded the loudest; somehow Violet Hargrave could never force herself to be very enthusiastic. Moreno was watching her very narrowly.

Mademoiselle Delmonte spoke. “I cannot say how proud I am to have had this task deputed to me.” She looked very brave and resolute.

The meeting lasted for over half an hour. Details of the great coup were settled. Contraras had a powerful and logical brain. He never allowed digressions or diversions, he always kept everybody to the point. When the meeting broke up two people were very radiant, Contraras, who had planned the coup, the enthusiastic Valerie Delmonte, who had undertaken to carry it into execution, with or without assistance, as might be determined.

They strolled out from the obscure little café one by one. Moreno presently overtook Mrs Hargrave, in her peasant dress. They lodged near each other; it was natural they should stroll along together in the direction of their respective homes.

Behind them came Contraras, and the two other men who had joined forces after leaving the café. Contraras looked after the two young people with those keen eyes which age had not very greatly dimmed.

“The Englishwoman I know well,” he whispered to Alvedero. “She is a protégée, almost an adopted daughter, of our staunch comrade Jaques. What about this Moreno? Is he to be trusted?”

“You know that Luçue vouches for both.”

“Ah!” sighed Contraras. “Luçue is a keen judge of men. I have never known him make a mistake. But I do not like the English mother.”

“And, in the case of Violet Hargrave, you have the English father. And yet, you have no suspicion of her.”

Contraras nodded his massive head, the head with the broad, deep brow of the thinker.

“Your remark is just, my friend. I chose Violet Hargrave myself, on the recommendation of my friend Jaques; that, of course, prejudices me in her favour. Moreno was chosen by Luçue. Perhaps I am a little bit jealous of Luçue. And I am growing old.”

“No,” cried Alvedero, with whole-hearted admiration. “Give you another ten years yet, and you will still be the brains and leading spirit of this organisation. Zorrilta is good, Luçue has a touch of genius. But there is only one Contraras. Ten years hence you will be our leader, as you are to-day.” And while Contraras and Alvedero were exchanging these confidences, Moreno was talking to Violet Hargrave.

“We seem to be engaged in a pretty bloodthirsty business, don’t you think, Mrs Hargrave? Not much in common with Fleet Street, or the flat in Mount Street, eh?”

Violet Hargrave smiled. “We have both come out here to find adventure. Spain is a land of surprises. We shall have plenty of adventure before we have done with it.”

There was a grim note in the journalist’s tones, as he answered: “On this particular coup, engineered by our great leader, Contraras, it seems to me as likely as not that you and I shall meet our deaths. The one person who seems perfectly happy over the business is Mademoiselle Delmonte. By the way, she went out the first. She must have flown along like the wind. The others are behind. I can see them through the back of my head. I can wager they are just discussing whether we can be trusted—you, with your English father, I, with my English mother.”

He shot at her a penetrating glance, but she did not move a muscle.

“The southern blood in both is stronger than the northern,” she answered calmly. “And we are each a true son and daughter of the Revolution.”

He came to the conclusion that, for the moment, Violet Hargrave was impenetrable. Would he ever be able to disturb that sang-froid?

When he reached his humble lodgings, for it was a part of his rôle to live plainly, he found a long letter from his old friend, Maurice Farquhar.

It was the letter that had been written from Ticehurst Park. It explained at great length that Isobel Clandon had lost her father, that there were no longer any ties to bind her to England, that she wanted to be near her lover, in view of the danger that threatened him. Above all, that she did not wish Guy to know, at any rate for the present. Could Moreno help?

The young man knitted his brows. His first impulse was to write back and strongly oppose the scheme. Then his subtle mind began to work, half unconsciously. Isobel Clandon over in Madrid could do no harm. He would not prophesy that she would do any good. But there was no knowing what might happen with this bloodthirsty brotherhood. She might be useful.

He knew an English couple living in Madrid, old connections of his mother; he was sure they would willingly take in Isobel as a boarder. They were not rich people, only just in comfortable circumstances, they were elderly and childless. They would welcome a young girl as a member of their household.

He would go to Madrid to-morrow and interview them. And he could kill two birds with one stone while he was there.

He interviewed the elderly couple; they would be delighted to receive Miss Clandon.

Afterwards, in response to a letter received at the Embassy, Guy Rossett met the young journalist in the same obscure restaurant in Madrid, where he had met him previously.

“Things are humming a bit, eh?” queried Moreno, as they sat at a small table, quaffing a bottle of light wine.

“Looks like it,” answered Rossett, speaking with the usual English phlegm. “I’ve had some very important information over to-day.”

“Most of which, I expect, has been supplied by me, not but what I admit there are two or three very good men out on the job.” Moreno was dreadfully conceited, but he could be generous when he chose. He would sometimes allow that there were other people who might be—well, nearly as clever as himself.

“Well, Moreno, you wanted to see me. I take it, you have a reason?”

“Of course I have. I know you ultimately hear everything from headquarters. But that takes time, and I am on the spot.”

“I know all that,” said Rossett. “Besides, I have instructions from headquarters to keep in touch with you, because you are on the spot.”

“That is really awfully good of them, when you come to think of it,” said Moreno in his quiet, sarcastic way. “Fancy them relaxing red tape to that extent! I fancy there is a new spirit abroad.”

“Well, what is it?” asked Rossett a little impatiently.

Moreno puffed at his cigar a little time before he answered.

“I am going to put a very direct question to you. Some time ago you gave some very important information to the Secret Service about this anarchist movement. It is due to that that you are here.”

“Yes, I did,” answered Guy shortly.

“You know we are both practically in the same service,” said Moreno slowly, “and we might be frank with each other. Was that information given under the seal of secrecy?”

Guy nodded. “Yes, it was, absolutely.”

“As an honourable man, you could not reveal the name of your informant? I can give you my word, it is very important.”

Guy thought for a few seconds. “No, I cannot give you the name of my informant. It was done absolutely under the seal of secrecy.”

“I understand,” said Moreno. “And a very considerable price was paid to the man—or woman—I am convinced it was a woman, who sold you this information.”

“Quite right. But why do you say it was a woman?” asked Guy Rossett quickly.

“If I had not already been sure it was a woman, my friend, I should be quite sure of it by your sudden question. You English people are not quite so subtle as we who have southern blood in our veins.”

Rossett bit his lip. He felt he had given himself away to this quick-witted foreigner, nine-tenths Spanish and one-tenth English.

There was a long pause. Moreno shifted his point of attack.

“Do you know that Mrs Hargrave is over in Spain, in Fonterrabia?”

“What!” almost shouted Guy in his astonishment.

Moreno looked at him steadily. “Ah, you have not heard that from headquarters. Well, you see, they don’t know the little side-currents as well as I do. They do not know, for instance, that she is a sworn and apparently zealous member of the brotherhood.”

“Violet Hargrave, of all people!” cried Rossett. He was in a state of bewilderment.

“You know, I daresay, that Mrs Hargrave is no friend of yours now, whatever she may have been once,” said Moreno, speaking in his quiet, level tones.

“Yes, I think I can understand that.”

“Come, Mr Rossett, throw off a little of that insular reserve, and let us talk together quite frankly. Believe me, I am speaking entirely in your own interests. There is no doubt that, at one time, you paid Mrs Hargrave very marked attention, that you fed her hopes very high.”

“I was a bit of a fool, certainly,” admitted Guy.

“And then, pardon me for speaking quite frankly, you threw her over rather abruptly, because you had fallen in love with somebody else—a woman, of course, a thousand times superior to the discarded one.”

“You seem to know all about it, Mr Moreno.”

“It is my business to know things,” replied the journalist quietly. “Well, it is a case of the ‘woman scorned,’ you know. I should say the fair Violet hated you now as much as she once loved you.”

“It may be possible. I have a notion that you know women better than I do.”

“Bad women perhaps,” said Moreno quietly. “My experience has lain rather in their direction. I think I have only known three good women in my life, two of whom were my mother and a girl I was once engaged to—she died a week before our wedding day.”

Rossett regarded him with a sympathetic gaze. So this swarthy, black-browed young Spaniard had had his romance. His voice had broken as he spoke of his dead sweetheart.

“I am sorry for your experience. Most of the women I have known have been very good, the fingers of one hand would count the bad. But tell me more about Violet Hargrave. She hates me, you say?”

“I should say with a very bitter and malignant hatred,” was Moreno’s answer.

“All arising, of course, from jealousy or disappointment. How far is this hatred going to lead her?”

“I should say to the furthest point.”

Rossett recoiled. “You mean to say she can have so changed that she would contemplate that?”

Moreno did not mince his words. “You will take my word for it that it is revenge she seeks, and she will not hesitate. Her position in the brotherhood will give her a very plausible excuse.”

For a moment, Guy Rossett lost his head. “Yes, you told me just now, I remember, she belonged to the brotherhood. But I always understood—”

He paused; Moreno noted that sudden pause. Rossett had been on the point of saying something that would have revealed much.

The young man leaned forward and whispered.

“Mr Rossett, do you still refuse to give me the name of your informant?”

“I am afraid I cannot,” was the firm reply. “My word was given, you understand.” Again he seemed on the point of saying something further, and refrained.

Moreno shrugged his shoulders. “I admire your scrupulousness, but I still think you are very foolish in your own interests. Still, I know what you Englishmen are. If my suspicions had been confirmed by your positive evidence, my hands would have been very much strengthened. I could have dealt with the matter in a very positive and speedy way.”

Rossett kept silence. It was the safest method with the subtle young Spaniard, who took notice of every word and every glance, and rapidly constructed a theory out of the most slender facts.

“There is no more to be said, so far as that is concerned,” said Moreno quietly. “You could have made it very easy for me; as it is, I shall have to expend more time and trouble. But trust me, I shall get the information I want in good time. I shall find people in your own walk of life less scrupulous than you are yourself.”

“Perhaps,” replied Rossett briefly.

“I am keeping watch and ward over you, as you know,” went on Moreno in lighter tones. “And I promise you I will give you plenty of notice of danger.”

“It is pretty near, eh?” queried Rossett.

“Not very far off, I can assure you. I am seeing the Chief of the Spanish police to-morrow. I have some very important information to give him.”

The next day Moreno had a long interview with the Chief of Police, and also with the Head of the Spanish Secret Service. Both the officials made copious notes at the respective interviews. When he left them Moreno felt he had done good work. He was sure that he could outwit Zorrilta, Alvedero, even the great Contraras himself.

He took a flying visit to England after this, having two objects in view. First, he wanted to see Isobel to arrange the details of her journey to Madrid. He lunched with her and Lady Mary at a quiet little restaurant in Soho. He promised to meet her on her arrival at Madrid and conduct her to her friends. He would say nothing to Guy Rossett till he had her permission.

For at the eleventh hour Isobel’s heart a little failed her. From what point of view would Guy contemplate this rather wild adventure? Would he take it as a proof of her devoted love, or would he frown at the escapade, as a little unwomanly? Men of the straightforward English type like Rossett are apt to be a little uncertain in their judgment of what is seemly in their womenkind, and what is the reverse.

After luncheon, he went to keep an appointment with one of the chiefs of the English Secret Service. This gentleman received him very graciously. Moreno stood high in his estimation. He had rendered very valuable service in the past and the present.

“Delighted to see you, Mr Moreno. But I should have thought at the moment you could hardly be spared from Spain, more especially the neighbourhood of Fonterrabia, and Madrid.”

“I never take a holiday, sir, unless I feel I am justified. In this instance I am. It is true I had a little private business on in England at this particular time, which does not concern your department. But I have sandwiched that in.”

The grey-haired gentleman listened politely. Moreno, as he knew by experience, did not make many mistakes.

“Some little time ago, Mr Guy Rossett, at present attached to Madrid, gave you some very important information about the anarchist movement in Spain.”

“Ah, you know, do you?” was the cautious answer.

“Of course, I have known it for a long time. For very special reasons I want to know the name of the man or woman who gave that information to Rossett. I will give you my reasons presently.”

The other man thought a moment. “Yes, I remember the details perfectly. Rossett handed us certain memoranda which he had obtained from somebody, whose name he would not disclose.”

“That is exactly like Rossett. I have attacked him direct and he still keeps silence. As an honourable Englishman he remains staunch to his promise. One cannot blame him, although in his own interests it would be better if he were a little less scrupulous.”

The grey-haired man began to get interested. “Give me a few more details, Mr Moreno, so that I can see what you are driving at.”

Moreno unfolded his suspicions briefly. He finished his story with the words, “If you could not make Rossett speak, I cannot. But you have those memoranda in your archives. Will you show them to me so that I may see if I recognise the handwriting.”

The other thought for a moment before he replied. Even in the Secret Service everything is conducted with the most scrupulous fairness, although their opponents are destitute of the elementary principles of honesty.

Then he made up his mind. “From what you have told me, I think it is wise that I should show you these memoranda, with a view to strengthening your hand. Kindly wait a few minutes and I will fetch them.”

He was only away a very short time, but Moreno’s nerves were on the rack during the brief absence. Were his suspicions going to be absolutely confirmed, or still left in the region of mere conjecture?

The grey-haired man came back, and placed half a dozen closely covered sheets before him. They were in a small, clear, feminine handwriting.

Triumph glared in Moreno’s dark eyes. “As I guessed. She wasn’t clever enough to disguise her hand. I can understand she could not run the risk of having them copied. Why didn’t she get Rossett to write them out at her dictation?”

The other man made no reply to this ebullition on the part of the young Spaniard.

“Of course you can’t part with these, or any one page of them?” asked Moreno.

“Out of the question,” came the expected answer. “I quite agree. But you can get photographs taken of them, and then I shall have this woman in the hollow of my hand.”

“That shall be done, Mr Moreno. You are going back to Spain to-day. They shall be sent to you to-morrow at whatever address you leave with me.” And Moreno walked out of the cosy little room well pleased with himself. Guy Rossett might have saved him all this trouble if he had chosen to open his mouth. Still, he had got the information he wanted. And, above all, what a fool Violet Hargrave had been, to let those memoranda go out in her own handwriting! Moreno, who thought of every detail, would not have done that.

Chapter Thirteen.

The great anarchical association of which Ferdinand Contraras was the leading spirit did not differ greatly in essential features from those tyrannical and effete institutions which it was striving to supersede.

There was still the wide gulf between the classes, bridged over speciously by the fact that they addressed each other as “comrade,” waiving all distinctive titles.

The chief addressed the educated young fisherman as Somoza shortly, which was natural. And, on the other hand, Somoza addressed him, though always very respectfully, as Contraras, which would not have been at all natural, under ordinary circumstances.

Still, Somoza did not slap him on the back, or take liberties, as he would have done with an elderly fisherman in his own rank of life. The gulf of class could not quite be crossed by dropping titles, and calling each other comrade.

And then there was the question of wealth. Contraras, in spite of his numerous donations to the cause, was still rich; so was Jaques. Zorrilta was moderately well-off. Alvedero and Luçue were poor. The sharing out had not begun yet. Luçue, as we know, lived in humble lodgings in Soho, which galled him somewhat, as he was fond of comfort and the flesh-pots.

Contraras, after a brief sojourn at Fonterrabia had come back to Madrid, where he had many friends in his own sphere of life. Although not of noble birth himself, he had married a woman, a member of a family poor but boasting of the proudest blood of Spain in its veins.

At Madrid he had engaged a suite of rooms at the Ritz Hotel in the Plaza de Canovas, near the Prado Museum. Democrat and anarchist as he was in theory, the man delighted in displaying a certain amount of ostentation, whether at home or abroad.

A little aware of his weakness in this direction, he consoled himself by the thought that in doing this he was throwing dust in the eyes of people of his own class—that he could more successfully carry on his propaganda, because nobody would ever suspect him of seeking to overthrow the régime under which he had prospered so exceedingly.

The young Frenchwoman, Valerie Delmonte, was in Madrid at the same time also as Contraras. She was staying at an equally luxurious hostelry—the Grand Hotel de la Paix in the Puerta del Sol. She also had a suite of rooms, imitating her illustrious chief.

She chose to be known by her maiden name of Mademoiselle Valerie Delmonte. It did not suit her emancipated notions that a woman should sink her identity in that of a husband. She had borne with the infliction for three short years of married life. When her elderly husband, a rich Paris financier, died she found herself a very wealthy woman. Monsieur Varenne had no near kith or kin. With the exception of a few handsome legacies, he had left all his money to this young woman who was very handsome and still young, only in the late twenties.

Contraras was an anarchist by profound and philosophical conviction. He had persuaded himself that revolution, open and brutal revolution, was the only cure for a rotten and diseased world.

Valerie had arrived at the same conclusion from a merely personal standpoint—from the point of view of her own feelings. Naturally of a morbid temperament, absolutely a child of the gutter, the offspring of drunken and dissolute parents who had starved and beaten her, she had suffered no illusions as to what existence meant for the impoverished.

She was a sharp-witted child, with plenty of brain-power, and a marvellous capacity for self-education. At the age of twelve her parents had sold her for a paltry sum to the proprietor of a travelling circus. This man had perceived at once that there was plenty of grit in the precocious child. He had got her very cheap. If he trained her carefully he might make a good deal of money out of her.

The precocious little Valerie left her parents without the slightest regret—her life had been one long torture with them. The circus-proprietor was a big, burly man, not destitute of a rough geniality. There was a hard look in his eyes, a dogged squareness of the jaw that suggested a latent brutality.

On the whole, however, he was a welcome relief from her former torturers, who had never thrown a kind word to her from the day of her birth. Sometimes he was generous, sometimes he was brutal, as the mood took him. Often he swore at her till she trembled in every limb. Occasionally, in his cups, he beat her. But he was always sorry the next day, and did his best to make amends. In short, he was a ruffian with a certain amount of decent feeling, and an uncertain temperament.

She stayed with him till she was seventeen. She might have stayed with him for ever, had not a sudden severance been put to their relations, by the man’s sudden death, brought about prematurely by his constant indulgence in alcohol.

Valerie could never recall the years that succeeded without a shudder. The circus was broken up, she was left helpless and friendless.

It was during those terrible years that the iron entered her soul, when she experienced the keen, cruel suffering of the really poor, when she went to bed night after night, cold and hungry, after tramping the streets in vain for work.

A weaker spirit would have succumbed to the temptation that was always at hand, for she was a very attractive girl. But she was resolved, with her indomitable grit, to keep herself pure. She turned away disdainfully from the leering old men, the callous young ones who accosted her as she paced the streets in her restless tramp for an honest living. Better the river than that!

After many vicissitudes, she came to anchor at last. She was then about twenty-two. She was very clever at educating herself. She had taught herself to sing, she had taught herself to play the piano, she had taught herself to dance.

She got an engagement at one of the minor halls in Paris to do a turn which combined singing and dancing. She was very pretty and attractive. In a small way she made a name. At the end of three months the manager trebled her salary.

To this minor music hall came one night the rich financier, a somewhat shady one, if the truth must be told, Monsieur Varenne, a man of about fifty-five who had never married.

He was greatly attracted by this elegant young girl. Her voice was small, her dancing was nothing great. But there was an indefinable charm about her that appealed to his somewhat jaded senses.

He obtained an introduction through the manager, who was only too anxious to oblige such a well-known personage. He invited her to supper. She accepted the invitation graciously, but coldly. Her coldness inflamed him the more.

When they met, he was surprised at her cleverness, the correctness with which she expressed herself. This was certainly no ordinary girl of the music halls.

“Tell me something about yourself, my dear,” he said, as they sat over their coffee. “I did not expect to find you such a charming companion.”

Valerie smiled a little bitterly. “I have not very much to tell. I expect my lot has been like that of many thousands in this delightful world. I am a child of the gutter. My father and mother beat and starved me, and sold me for a paltry sum to the proprietor of a travelling circus. It wasn’t exactly a rosy life then, but it was paradise to where I had been. He died; I was thrown on my beam ends. I can’t tell you what I have been through for the last few years. I couldn’t bear to talk of it—I have suffered everything that the poor have to suffer in such profusion—cold, hunger, the most absolute misery. And, at last,” she looked round at the luxurious appointments of the restaurant a little disdainfully, “I find myself in receipt of a decent salary, and the guest of a rich man who has pressed upon me every dainty. And I have so often wanted a meal!”

Varenne was a very kindly man, in spite of his somewhat sharp ways in business. Those last few pathetic words had gone straight to his heart. She had often wanted a meal, and she was a most attractive girl! Many would have called her beautiful.

“It is a sad history, my poor child,” he said sympathetically. He paused a moment before he put the delicate question. “And during those terrible years, when you suffered hunger and privation, you kept yourself straight? It would have been so easy to go wrong, so excusable under the circumstances.”

“Of course,” she answered, and there was a note of wounded pride, of indignation, in her voice. “I am not that sort of woman—better the river than that. I might give myself to a man out of love or gratitude, but never merely for money.”

It was a new experience for the wealthy financier. Here was a girl who had just stepped off the platform of a music hall, where she was, no doubt, earning a very modest salary, who had grit and backbone in her, and, moreover, a proper pride and self-respect.

He had, of course, with the easy confidence of a man of the world, imagined the usual termination to such an adventure. But he recognised at once that he could not make any proposition of the kind he meditated. He pressed her hand tenderly at parting, and arranged a further meeting.

They met several times, and Varenne went through agonies of indecision. But the attraction was too strong, and at last he asked her to marry him. It was that or losing her altogether.

And did it matter much? His world would laugh at him as a matter of course, say he had got into his dotage. And a girl who was young enough to be his daughter! There is no fool like an old fool, he told himself rather ruefully.

But she had so subjugated him that he was quite a humble wooer in spite of the enormous advantages he was offering her.

“Of course I am an old man, I cannot expect you to have any real affection for me,” he said.

She met his glance quite frankly. “I have never been in love with anybody; my life has been too hard to permit me to indulge in the softer emotions. But I like you very much. I have always hated rich men; they think they can buy anything with their gold. You are a rich man, I know, you have told me so yourself, but you have a kind nature and a good heart.”

“And can you overlook the disparity of years?” he questioned, still very humble.

“I am twenty-two, but I don’t think I am very young; I am old in experience and bitterness. Well, if you care to risk the experiment, I will be your wife. I will do my best to make you happy.”

They were married. And this marriage was the turning point in Valerie’s life. If everything had gone smoothly, she might have forgotten those bitter experiences, outlived her still more bitter rancour against the prosperous and well-to-do.

Unfortunately the friends of Monsieur Varenne would not forgive him for this false step, so unpardonable in a man of his intelligence and position. He was a fool, that was clear, but they were not going to abet him in his mad folly. Their doors were shut against his wife, this creature of the music halls, to whom he was going to leave his fortune.

After this bitter experience, the iron entered even deeper into her soul. Her husband was kindness and tenderness itself. In his devotion to his young wife, he paid no attention to the fact that he had cut himself off from his old friends, his old social life.

He was ready to comply with her slightest wish. He showered on her the most costly gifts, his purse was absolutely at her disposal. She had everything that wealth could give, except the one thing she craved, to mix on equal terms with these people who despised her.

When the kindly old man died, she mourned him sincerely. If she had never loved him, in the true sense of the word, she had felt for him a very warm and grateful affection. On his death-bed, she had faltered forth a few words of self-reproach, had blamed herself for taking advantage of his generosity, for not having sufficiently counted the cost to himself.

On this point he had reassured her. “I have been very happy, my dear, happier than I ever expected to be. I would not have anything changed.”

She came into that considerable fortune which was of so little use to her. During her few years of married life she had educated herself into a woman of considerable accomplishments, for she had a very quick and acute intelligence.

Her socialist proclivities were now fully developed, after the scurvy treatment at the hands of her husband’s friends. The circles where these doctrines were preached readily opened their doors to an attractive and enthusiastic young woman, whose wealth would be very useful for propaganda. She was more than the equal of these purse-proud parvenus, who would not accept her acquaintance, in intellect and behaviour. She felt it bitterly.

Very soon she came under the influence of Contraras, who was possessed of great personal magnetism. His reasoned arguments, his fiery eloquence, quickly led her a step further—from socialism to anarchy. In a very short space she became one of the leading spirits of the brotherhood. As the old régime would not receive her, she would do her best to overthrow it, and assert the doctrine of absolute equality.

Contraras came frequently to the Grand Hotel de la Paix to visit his young colleague. He had very charming manners, this elderly enthusiast, and Valerie liked him very much, apart from his principles. He was one of the few rich men she had ever known, her late husband being another, whom she did not despise. He was no mere hoarder of wealth, using it as a means to enslave his less fortunate fellow-creatures.

Contraras came in one afternoon in a very cheerful mood. She looked at him eagerly. She could read his countenance pretty well by now.

“You have something to tell me, Contraras?”

The old man smiled. “Yes, my dear, I have got what we wanted. You can walk in boldly. There will be no smuggling through the back door, although we could have managed that, if the other had failed.”

“Did you get it in the quarter you expected?”

“Yes; I had a little tussle with del Pineda, but I overcame his scruples. Besides, he is considerably in my debt. I assured him that he would never be accused of complicity, that I would take all the blame on my own shoulders.”

He rubbed his hands and chuckled softly.

“What does Contraras, a man of means and position, with powerful connections in Spain, know of the secret sentiments of Mademoiselle Delmonte, a charming young lady of wealth, whom he has met abroad? Mademoiselle Delmonte asks for his good offices in a certain matter of a most, apparently, innocent nature. He places himself at her disposal, and secures what she wants through the agency of a certain Duke who is equally ignorant of her real purposes.”

A dreamy look stole into the young woman’s eyes. She spoke in a low voice, as if she were muttering to herself.

“A week to wait, only just one little week. And then, if all goes as we think and hope—the dawn of the new era! But I shall not live to see it.”

Chapter Fourteen.

Moreno met Isobel and her maid at the railway station, and drove them to the home of his friends, the Godwins, who lived in a respectable but not particularly fashionable quarter of Madrid.

Mrs Godwin, a buxom and kind-faced woman, received the girl with open arms. Mr Godwin had discreetly absented himself during the first meeting of the two women.

“So delighted to see you, Miss Clandon. I was a very intimate friend of Andres’ mother. Any friend of his is very welcome. I shall do my best to make you happy during your stay here. I am afraid the accommodation is not what you have been used to. We are a little cramped for room.”

A dear good honest bourgeoise creature. Isobel took to her at once. She felt the milieu was not quite what she could have desired, but Moreno had done all he could, most probably out of his old friendship for Farquhar. Whatever discomforts she might have to endure, well—she had brought them on herself by embarking on this daring adventure.

Mr Godwin came in presently, a large, heavy man, who greeted her with great gravity. She learned afterwards that he had been connected with the wine trade, and had retired from active business on a respectable competence.

Moreno took his departure as soon as he could. He had several matters on hand, besides looking after a wandering maiden of a romantic turn of mind.

Isobel stayed him at the door. “When am I going to see Guy?” she whispered.

The young journalist looked at her kindly. He remembered his own too short-lived romance. That whisper had come straight from her heart.

“Ah, that is for you,” he said. “You know, you confessed you were a little doubtful about how he would look upon it. Will you ask Lady Mary to write him the news, or would you rather that I should?”

Isobel interrupted him eagerly. “Oh, would you? Lady Mary is a darling, and devoted to us both. But if I write to her, and she has to write to Guy, it may be ages before we meet. And, besides,” she added with the unconscious guile of a woman, “in certain things, men are so much better diplomatists than women. I am sure you could put everything from a reasonable point of view, present everything in quite a favourable light. I do not want him to think I am a masculine sort of person, an enlightened female who goes tearing about all over the world after a man she loves.”

Moreno was a very kind-hearted fellow. He could not resist that wistful look in the beautiful dark eyes. The girl was alone in the world. She had just lost her father; Guy was now her sheet-anchor.

“I say, if you want to see him quickly, why not send a note round to the Embassy, just giving him your address, and saying simply, ‘I am here’?”

But Isobel rather shrank from that. It seemed too bold, perhaps a little unmaidenly. She had always been educated in the belief that a woman should never make advances. Advances might be made through a third party, perhaps, if they were made with discretion.

“But you could explain it all so much better than I could, Mr Moreno, how the whole thing was led up to by your letter to Lady Mary.”

Moreno looked at his watch. “I was going to leave Madrid in half an hour. Well, I can catch a train three hours later, it won’t make much difference. I will be off at once to the Embassy, and catch Rossett there, if not, at his flat. You, of course, can see him at any time, to-day or to-morrow?”

“A thousand thanks,” replied Isobel, with her charming smile. “Yes, I shall not stir out much anyway. But I will keep in the two whole days.”

“Mrs Godwin, I warn you, will insist on showing you the sights of Madrid.”

“I will resist her,” said Isobel firmly.

Moreno smiled, and said good-bye. It was a little pathetic, he thought, the patient, loving woman ready to wait the man’s convenience. Ever the way with true love.

A brief drive to the Embassy in the Calle Fernando el Santo, a hastily pencilled note sent up to Rossett. Half an hour later, the two men were seated at a different rendezvous, for this time Moreno was not in his working-man’s dress. He had to be very cautious.

Moreno went to the point at once. “I have news that will startle you, Mr Rossett. Your fiancée Miss Clandon, is in Madrid at this moment.” He named the respectable but unfashionable quarter in which the girl had taken up her abode.

“What?” shouted Guy Rossett in his astonishment. It was just the same ejaculation he had used when he learned that Violet Hargrave was in Spain. The vocabulary of the average Englishman is very limited when he has to express sudden emotion. And Guy was quite the average type.

“Of course you are very surprised. Well, I am afraid it is all due to me. You remember some time ago I begged you to get out of this place. You refused. I took it on myself to write to your sister to use your father’s influence to get you recalled. That fell through too.”

“It was very kind of you to interfere in my private affairs, Mr Moreno,” observed Rossett stiffly.

“You are a bit of responsibility to me, Mr Rossett,” replied the journalist in his usual imperturbable fashion. “I will tell you frankly I should be very glad to see the back of you to-morrow, for your own sake—” He added in a lower voice, “Still more for the sake of the girl who loves you as much as you love her.”

“Forgive me,” cried Rossett hastily. “I quite appreciate that you mean very well to both of us.”

“Thank you,” said Moreno. “Well, to get on with my story. I have a very old chum, one Maurice Farquhar who happens to be a cousin of your fiancée. One night, in his chambers, I hinted that danger was threatening you here. It seems he told Miss Clandon. As I have stated, I wrote to your sister. The two women put their heads together. Miss Clandon’s father died. She had no longer any ties binding her to England. She was mad to come out here to be near you. As men of the world, we might say, the unreasoning caprice of a very loving woman.”

“It was very sweet and dear of her,” said Guy. There was a little break in his voice as he spoke. “But I am interrupting you in your story. Please go on.”

“There is not much more to tell. As I have said, the two women put their heads together. Lady Mary sent for Farquhar to consult him as to how Miss Clandon could get to Spain. She felt if she consulted you, you would, under the circumstances, have vetoed the project altogether.”

“I don’t think there is the slightest doubt I should,” said Rossett, quite frankly.

“I agree. Well, they were not going to give you the chance. They took matters into their own hands. Farquhar knew nothing about Spain; he wrote to me to ask me if I could help them. Well, I helped them. I went over to London, saw your sister and Miss Clandon, and arranged for the journey. I met her at the station to-day, took her to the house of some very respectable English people whom I have known from my boyhood, not people of your class, nor of Miss Clandon’s. But I think there she will be very quiet and comfortable.”

Guy Rossett leaned across the table and held out his hand.

“A thousand thanks, Mr Moreno. After this, we must be firm friends. My brave little Isobel, how plucky and daring of her. And you took all this trouble!”

There was no suspicion in his frank tones, but Moreno liked to clear up everything as he went on.

“Yes, it took up a good deal of my time, but I didn’t grudge it. I saw your fiancée and sister dining one night with you at the Savoy, but had never spoken to them in my life. But Farquhar is an old chum of mine; he has done me some very good turns. I was pleased to return the compliment.”

There was a brief pause, before Moreno spoke again. “I left Miss Clandon a little time ago. She is longing to see you. I suggested she should send round a note to you. She seemed a little fearful of what you might think of her hasty action. She begged me to come round and explain matters. That is why I am here. Here is her address.”

“Again a thousand thanks.” Rossett looked at his watch. “Unfortunately, I have to dine at the Embassy to-night, and there is no getting out of that. We are the slaves of duty. I have only just time to get back and dress. I will leave as soon after dinner as I decently can, and go round to her.”

“Away with you, duty calls,” said Moreno, rising briskly. “I will send a note round to her saying I have seen you, and that you will be there to-night.” It was late when Rossett, hurrying as fast as he could, entered the small drawing-room of the flat tenanted by the respectable Godwins. Isobel was alone; the worthy couple, with commendable tact, had absented themselves. Moreno had told them just as much as it was well for them to know, and they were not very inquisitive people.

It was a very delightful meeting. They had been longing for each other since they last parted. They exchanged their vows of love all over again.

“And you are sure you are not angry with me, Guy?” asked Isobel, as they sat hand in hand on the rather hard sofa.

“Angry, my brave little darling. Why should I be? But I say, this is not the sort of place for you, you know. Have you brought a maid with you?”

“Yes, our old parlourmaid, Ethel. I don’t suppose you remember her.”

“Yes, I do. Well, you must go the Ritz, or one of the good hotels.”

“Oh, please no, dearest. I have no chaperon, you see, and it might look queer. Besides, I don’t want to meet a lot of people, and have to explain things. I would much prefer to stay here incognita. Dear Mrs Godwin is quite a motherly old soul, and knows nothing of what is going on in the great world except what she learns from the newspapers. And I am not so far off, after all. You can come and see me sometimes.”

“Every day, darling,” cried Rossett. On reflection, he was inclined to think that, under the very peculiar circumstances, Isobel’s course of action was the right one. If she blossomed forth at a fashionable hotel, a great deal would have to be explained. In a censorious and conventional world, young women, however pure in heart, cannot afford to be adventurous.

As they sat on the sofa, she told him at great length of her visit to Ticehurst Park, and the Earl’s consent to their engagement, of his endeavour to get her to use her influence to lure Guy from his post, of her refusal, in which she had been staunchly supported by her father. She had told him briefly of this at the funeral, but he had been so pressed for time that she had only supplied him with the barest details.

“The old dad, he was always great at a bargain, but this time you got the better of him, my darling.”

Then he put his hand in his breast pocket, and drew forth a letter. “By Jove, I had very nearly forgotten—a letter received this morning from that dear old Aunt Henrietta. I won’t read you all of it, there are yards, but I’ll just run through a passage that concerns us.”

This was the passage he read. “I hear a great deal from Mary, who as you know is a most indefatigable correspondent, about your fiancée, Isobel Clandon. She describes her as a most sweet and lovable girl. There were always the two types in the Rossett family, the practicable and the romantic. You, Mary, and myself belong to the latter. I married for love, Mary would have done, and you are going to.

“I hear also your post is rather a dangerous one, and that they have tried to get you recalled, but that you will not hear of it. Well, I admire your spirit and sense of duty. Still, as soon as you can retire with honour, do so.

“Now that your father has given his consent, there is nothing to wait for. I shall make the way easy for you, as I have always tried to do. Bring your Isobel to see me at the first opportunity. I am longing to make her acquaintance.”

“What a darling!” cried Isobel enthusiastically. “Well, anyway, there are three dear people in the present Rossett family, your Aunt, Mary, and yourself. And Lord Saxham is not so bad after all.”

In her happiness she freely forgave the old gentleman his former hostility, his attempt to drive a bargain with her.

“No, he’s by no means so bad, when you get to know him, to pierce through the crust as it were. He is a sort of cross between the practical and romantic Rossetts,” said Guy.

They talked for a long time about their future plans.

When Isobel laid her head upon her pillow that night, she was happier than she had ever been since the day her dear old father died.

Chapter Fifteen.

A week had passed since the conversation between Valerie Delmonte and Contraras had taken place. A great function was on at the Royal Palace to-night. All the élite of Madrid would be there.

For this special occasion, the leading members of the Spanish section had shifted from Fonterrabia to the capital—Zorrilta, Alvedero, Violet Hargrave, Andres Moreno. Contraras and Valerie Delmonte had already taken up their residence there. It was the night of the great coup, on the successful development of which depended the dawn of the new era.

Moreno had a busy day. Thanks to the noble-spirited action of Mademoiselle Delmonte, who had taken the entire execution of the coup upon herself, he was spared any active participation in it. Violet Hargrave, who had been originally named as an assistant, was also dispensed with.

At eleven o’clock in the morning, he was seated in the private room of the Head of the Spanish Secret Service. There was also present the Head of the Police. The three men talked together for a very considerable time. Moreno was attired in his shabby workman’s garb; he had on also a false beard and moustache.

When the interview was terminated, Moreno rose; and turned to the Chief of Police.