The Truants

ghts re

NTE

WES AND SON

AND B

NT

ap

le learns a ver

mela l

The T

retton make

a makes

ews o

Lady on t

ideon's

he Ne

r. C

the Dog

y's Insp

retton return

n pays a Visit to

ge comes to

Foreign

lon leave

outh of

e Turnp

ase does n

llon re

Mudge's

quebrune

End of the

ton bids Farewe

d News f

. "Ba

. Home

la meets a

Giraud

t the R

usband a

Millie

he Next

tle House in

. The

TR

PTE

LEARNS A VERY

ny lasting consequence. And it was no doubt as well for her peace of mind that she never guessed. But of the others it was unlikely that any one would suspect the truth. For Pamela made no outward sign. She hunted through the winter from her home under the Croft Hill in Leicestershire; she went everywhere, as the saying is, during the season in London; she held

to the east of Monte Carlo. The schoolmaster was the nearer to the truth, for he not only knew that something was amiss, he suspected what the somethin

apet of the tiny square beside the schoolhouse, whe

the villa at noon to-morrow?" the servant asked

ut with a glow of pl

could be more simple. I will be at the

disguised as a schoolmaster. But the moment of shame passed. He had no doubt as to the reason of the summons, and he tingled with pride from head to foot. It was his little brochure upon the history of the village--written with what timidity, and printed at what cost to his meagre purse!--which

eaten with particular forks. Sometimes a knife should be used and sometimes not. He turned back to the parapet with the thought that he had better, perhaps, send up a note in the morning pleading his duties at the school as a reason for breaking

owards another station of many lamps far away to the right, and as he looked there blazed out suddenly other lights of a great size and a glowing brilliancy, lights which had the look of amazing jewels discovered in an eastern cave. These were the lights upon the terrace of Monte Carlo. The schoolmaster had walked

hrough tunnels of rock, he was always tormented with visions of great cities and thoroughfares ablaze; he longed for the jostle of men, he craved for other companionship than he could get in the village wineshop on the first floor, as a fainting man craves for air. The stars came out above his head;

lock had stopped chiming Mrs. Mardale came in to him. She was a tall woman, who, in spite of her years, still retained the elegance of her youth, but her face was hard and a tri

of Roquebrune, M

asant at Aigues-Mortes. I was b

e went on. M. Giraud was on the point of explaining. Mrs. Mardale, however, was

ers here and lose the chance of becoming really proficient in French. The curé recommended me to apply to you, and I

events that first difficult step outwards. He was to be the teacher in appearance; at the bottom of his heart he knew that he was to be the pupi

voice which showed that she had no great hopes of success. And as M. Giraud

e will learn nothing which she does not want to learn, she will not endure any governess

besides, to sit quietly in any drawing-room. When she was a child, horses had been persons to Pamela rather than animals, and, as her conduct showed, persons preferable by far to human beings. Visitors to the house under Croft Hill were at times promised a sight of Pamela, and indeed they sometimes did see a girl in a white frock, with long black legs, and her hair tumbled all over her forehead, neighing and prancing at them from behind the gate of the stable

ttle schoolmaster was so shy, so timid, that Pamela was disarmed. She could be gentle when she chose, and she chose now. She saw, too, M. Giraud's anxiety to justify her mother's choice of him, and she determined with a sense of extrem

lessons for my working hours, and the wineshop for my leisure. I took long walks over Cap Martin to Mentone, along the Corniche road to La Turbie, and up Mont Agel. But still I

nd the hills. It lay red upon the Mediterranean on their left, but the ravine and front was already dark, and down the hillside the shadows of the trees were lengthening

in a low voice of eagernes

lked continually upon this one point they had in common, their curiosity as to the life of the world beyond their v

onsieur," she said. "Why

e than I do,

bout horses." Then she laughed. "Really, we bo

ognise. The instincts of her class, her traditions, the influence of her friends, were all audible in her voice as well as in her words.

ing," she continued, "isn't i

selle. I am beginning to

ain from Paris, mounted throug

rug of impatience, "we shall b

aid the schoolmaster, sudde

e children in the schoolroom, teaching over and over again with an infinite weariness the same elementary lessons, until he became shabby and wo

thought with a child's oblivion of obstacles and a child's confidence. She

with his eyes fevere

d Pamela. "We will

hing," he

me," s

ked out acros

age, and took them by the short cut of the steps down to the railway station. They were from London. They talked of London and o

r book," and then she shook a finger at him, just as the sc

he. "I have thou

d himself into the atten

to become

of use, but that didn't matter so much. The horse was regretfully given up. It might come later, he must get elected first, never mind how. In a word, he was as good as a Deputy already.

future, and the schoolmaster listened, seeing the world through her ey

g down the dark narrow streets towards him. She was tall beyond the average, but without ungainliness, long of limb and lightly built, and she walked with the very step of youth. Her dark hair swept in two heavy waves above her forehead, and was coiled down behind on the back of her neck. Her throat rose straight and slim from the firm shoulders, and her eyes glowed with anticipation. Thou

d to keep the look of happiness out of her eye

d-bye, the

shall come back to Ro

olmaster

-day until that month comes.

ess should hurt her friend, she added, "But I shall n

r musings return to that terrace and the speculations they indulged in, and the fairy palaces they built, with an envy of the ignorance and the high though

bring it back. We will talk it over in Roqueb

ce and courage, and expectation, a brilliant image of youth. Giraud, as he watched her the proud poise of her head, the light springing st

e, and when in the month of December he noticed that the shutters were opened in the Villa Pontignard, and that there was a stir of servants about the house, he felt that the shutters were being opened after a long dark time from his one window on the outside world.

t merely his friend who had returned, but his instruct

she turned away without the slightest sign of recognition and busied herself about her luggage. The world had spoilt her. That was his first thought, but he came to a tr

well?"

" sai

become part of a pleasant, very foolish, and very distant past. He was aware of the vast gulf between them. With a girl's inimitable quickness to adapt herself to new surroundings, she had acquired in the few months of her absence the ease, the polish, and the armour of a woman of the world. He was still the village schoolmas

lla," she said. "I shall lo

ired. Giraud, watching her, could not but compare her with the girl who had come lightly down that street a few months ago. It dawned upon him that,

vely they walked down to that corner on the point of the bluff which overhung the ravine and the white torrent amongst the oleanders in its depths. They had come

ay station. Here they had dreamed, and the reality had shown the dreams to be bitterly false, so false that the very place where they had dre

home of great trouble

ow that?" Pamela a

" he repli

Pamela stopped and looked

e said nothing-

know except from you, since thr

tly. "Not for all. You are serious, my friend, this aft

had come a gravity into her manner, and a womanliness in

f you for a ch

y?" asked Giraud, and a con

continued at length. "Is it not so? I

thing," she int

mile. "The school at Roquebrun

ere was no conviction in her voice

s birth's in

gs, but there

him with a great earnestness, "we shal

er's aspirations. They conveyed so much more tha

I shall still have the memory of the years when I taught you history. I shall k

he had meant his. Yet to both they had the sound of a farewell. And in a way they were. They were

and the red signal-lamps pointed out the way to Paris. But he was no longer thinking of his fallen plans. He was thinking of the girl up there in the villa who h

ealth lasted all that winter. After those two years had passed, she disappeared for a while altogether out of Giraud's sight. She came no

PTE

A LOO

ady Millingham's house in Berkeley Square. He took her down to dinner, and, to tell the truth, paid no particular attention either to her looks or her conversation. His neighbour upon the other side happene

you think of P

which enthusiasm could be based. He did his best, however; but he was unconvincing. Lady Millingham shrugged her shoulders and frowne

mplated Warrisden with silent scorn. She had set her heart upon this marriage more than upon any other. Of all the possible marriages in London, there was not one, to her mind, so suitable as this. Pamela Mardale came of one of the oldest families of commoners in Leicestershire. The family was not well off, the estate had shrunk year by year, and what was left

le friend. Having duly achieved that place in her thoughts, he disappeared for ten months and returned to town one afternoon in the last week of June. There were letters waiting for him in his rooms, and amongst them a card from Lady Millingham inviting him to a dance upon that night. At eleven o'clock his coupé turned out of Piccadilly and entered Berkeley Square. At the bottom of the square the lighted windows of the house blazed out upon

, however, set

ack, then?

afte

find fri

ce. The season was drawing to its end, and brown faces were not so usual but that the eyes turned to them. He spoke, however, the fewest possible words to the men who greeted him, and he did not meet the eyes of any woman. Yet he saw the women, and was in definite quest of one of them. That might have been noticed by a careful observer, for wh

a dance

ickly round upon

rds the balcony. Warrisden saw a youth emerge from the throng and come towards them. Pamela was tall, and she used her height at this moment.

when they were seated on the balcony, he left for her to speak first. She was sitting upon the outside against the railing, so that the light from the windows streamed full upon her face. He watched it, looking for the change which he desir

aid. "You were shooting

s at Chr

were hur

utes, and indeed they have to be, there are so many wolves. The worst of

You were at Quetta, get

rossed by the new trade ro

no clue to her thoughts. Now, however she turned her eyes

t have told me that you w

her question, and he did not attempt to invent one. He sat still and looked at her. She followed the question with another. "Don't you t

was the most hopeful sign for him which she had made that evening. He had expected a harsher accusation. For

shrug of her shoulders,

ught you would have enjoyed i

answered l

. It had its faults, of course. It was ugly and a trifle feverish, but to men of his stamp, the men with means and energy, a new world with countless opportunities had been opened up. Asia and Af

easant to come back, if only as a

th her eyes wide open and a look

ght to work upon people and make them your friends, if you mean, when you have made the

u to miss me

ago, then I should have no right to complain. I should have no right to call you back. But it's different now, and you willed that it should be different. You stayed by me. Whenever I turn

because it

ment on me, but the experiment was made at my expense. Fo

joined in

ed to the same serious tone in which she had spoken. "Why

shook h

he was about to interrupt. "Lots of women are content to begin with friendship. How they can, puzzles me. But I know they do begin with nothing more tha

ened. He had returned to London, and nothing was changed. There was the same busy life vociferous in its streets, and this girl still sat in the midst of it with the same lassitude and quiescence. She seemed to be waiting, not at all for something new to happen, but for the things, which were happening, to cease, waiting with the indifference of the very

you during these months,"

"No," she answered, "there has been no new road

unities denied to her grandmother, she could do so much more, she had so much more freedom, and yet Pamela insisted upon looking on. If she had shown distress, it would have

arrisden had she admitted it. And it was only acknowledged to him after he had found it out for himself. For she did not sit at

men to young ones?" he cri

hings and less of pe

worse case, indeed, for the princess in the story might have slept on till the end of time, a thing of beauty. But was it possible for Pamela, so to sleep to the end of life, he asked himself. Let her go on in her indifference, and she might dwindle and grow

he life of the square, it so consistently effaced itself from the gaieties of the people who lived about. Its balconies were never banked with flowers, no visitors mounted its steps; and even in the daytime it had a look of mystery. It

" he asked. "In the win

es

time. It was just a quarter to twelve.

a mo

at his eagerness watched too. In a little while they saw the door open and a man a

nd take one quietly. Very likely they'll look up at the lighted window on the second floor as though they were schoolboys who ha

Apparently they were reassured. They walked along the pavement until they were well past the house. Then they signalled to a passing hansom. The cab-driver did not see them, yet they did not call out, nor did the m

were with a cold splash upon his enjoyment of the little scene, suddenly brought him

ointed to the eastern side of the square towards Berkeley Street, "and what we have seen to-night used to take place every night, and at the same hour. The light went up in the room on the second floor, and the truants crept out. Guess where they go to! The Savoy. They go and sit there amongst the lights and the m

Pamela, wit

n's wife. I have never met them. In fact, no one

er knowledge, although Warrisden did not know it, l

PTE

TR

urned quick

r mention

imply haven't mentioned them because for two years I have lost sight of th

den, with a nod towar

y Street. They gave that up two years ago when old Lady Str

nto contact always had interested and amused him. It was his pleasure to fit his observations together until he had constructed a little biography in his mind of each pers

's death, and they come to live here with Sir John. That's natural enough. Sir John's an old man.

dmitted. And she added, "I was

n needed, for Millie was naturally affectionate. A girl without any great depth of feeling, she responded easily to a show of kindness. She found it neither difficult to make intimate friends, nor hard to lose them. She was of the imitative type besides. She took her thoughts and even her language from those who at the moment were by her side. Thus her step-mother had the easiest of tasks but she did not possess the necessary tact. She demanded obedience, and in return off

rgon of her new companions. In a word, with the remarkable receptivity which was hers, she was very quickly at home in Mrs. Rawson's house. She became a favourite no less for her modest friendliness than on account of her looks. Mrs. Rawson, who was nearing

as concerned they had little in common. It may have been that the difference between them was the actual cause of their friendship. Certainly Millie came rather to lean upon her friend, admired her strength,

he characteristic of Sir Anthony Absolute. There was no one so good

ogether. She invited Millie up to her house in Scotland, the house Lady Millingham now has, and Mr. Stretton fell in love. He was evidently very fond of Millie, and Millie on her side liked him quite as much as any one else. They

chair, smiling at War

old man, Sir John

a. "He never went out to parties

t of jealousy, Warrisden swung round and looked into the room. The man was well past the middle age, stout of build, and with a heavy careworn face with

re eng

the man who was retiring. "But we shall meet again--

risden, and, as he took it,

rst, without talking it over, so that I may know

ad, why was she content with just that and nothing more, he asked himself. Why did she not claim a little more and give a little more in return? Why did she come to a halt at friendship, a mere turnpike on the great road, i

They were driving home to the dark house in the Square, and they sat side by side silent and with troubled faces. Warrisden's thoughts went back to what Pamela had told him that night. She had told him the

was a miser, who during his wife's existence had not been allowed to gratify his instincts. He made all the more ample amends after she

ey were there, in the great bare dining-room at dinner-time, in the hall when Sir John came home of an afternoon. For the old man went out each day as the clock struck three; he came back each evening at half-past six. He went out alone, he returned alone, and he never went to his club. He took an omnibus from the corner of Berkeley Street and journeyed eastwards as far as Ludgate Hill.

aid magnanimously. "What's that? Money? B

n a commission in the Coldstream without an allowance. Sir John, a tall thin man, with hig

sion, he was not clever enough to enter upon a new one without some sort of start and in addition he had a wife. His wife, it was true, had a few thousands; they had remained untouched ever since the marriage and Tony shrank from touching them now. He sat on one of the hall-chairs, twisting his moustache and staring with his blank blue eyes at the opposite wall. What in the world was he to do? Old Sir John was quite aware of those few thousands. They might just as well

she, "we'll share

e replied. "Heaven knows how long

rty. He was rich, and all the money was safely tucked away in the public funds, and he could bequeath it as he willed. He was in a position to put the screw on Tony and his wife, and he did not let the opportunity slip. The love of authority grew upon him. He became exacting and portentously severe. In his black, sh

tion of the position in which they stood caused them to shrink more and more into their privacy. When they walked out in the afternoon they kept away from the Park; when they played truant in the evening, at the Savoy, they chose a little table in an obscure corner. This was the

o on. It ca

t villages in a wild country of flowers, or when the wind in the trees would recall to him a little ship labouring on short steep

PTE

TON MAKES

ght and colour as soon as they were free. They stayed on in their own sitting-room. But it seemed that they had nothing to speak about. Millie Stretton sat at the table, staring at the wall in front of her, moody and despairing. Tony Stretto

rner of the blin

Lady Millingham's last night. You should have been at both

uld. Light, admiration, laughter and gaiety, and fine frocks--these things she was born to enjoy, and he himself had in the old days taken a great pride in watching her enjoyment.

ully. "Here we are cooped up together with just ourselves to rely

ugged her

n my word I don't remember. Oh yes

other will begin to-morrow. We can't help ourselves, and you have given

oughtfully at

quarrelling, too

terd

th a start of surprise. "By Geo

uble upon his face brought a smile t

blame. The house alone gets on our nerves, doesn't it? These great empty, silent, dingy rooms, with their tarnished furniture. Oh! they are horrible! I wander through them sometimes and it always seems to me that, a long time ago, people lived here who sudd

es that were hopeless and almost haggard. As Tony lis

"I would, upon my word." He drew up a chair to the table, and, sitting down, said

shook h

it over y

so w

n hour after we h

while it occurred to him that the silence was more complete than it had been a few minutes ago. It seemed that a noise had ceased, and a noise which, unnoti

ed," he exclaimed.

ght," repl

over to the mantelshelf and filled his pipe, there was something in his

," she added in a kinder voice. "For, after all, I do

a man slow in thought, and when his thoughts compelled expression, laborious in words. The

owned it

h you too, then?" she ask

fed at h

"Perhaps chiefly since I s

e how wide a place she filled in all his thoughts, partly because her own nature with its facile emotions made her unable to conceive a devotion which was engrossing, and partly because Tony himself had no aptitude for expressing such a devotion, and indeed would have shrunk from its expression had the aptitude been his. But s

ter the others have any time they want it. It made up for the days, it was fun then, Millie, wasn't it? Upon my word, I believe we enjoyed our life, yes, even this life, a year ago. Do you remem

door," Millie interrupte

the gloom settled down again. But now the fun's all over, at the latest when the lights go down in the supper room, and often be

o the gentleness of

this house and the empty rooms and the quarrels"--she hesitated for a sec

nly. His face was most serio

en she added reassuringly, "It must end s

; "but it can last

nough f

spoil both our l

, time and chance had failed them. He had been seriously thinking, and as the result of thought he had come to definite conclusions. Millie understood that there was much more behind the words he had spoken and that h

aid faintly,

urse, but how will it leave us, you and me? Soured, embittered, quarrelsome, or no longer quarrelsome, but just

Millie

es, active dislike. We are both of us young, we can both reasonably look forward to

ared at h

aid, echoing his

y, and I take it sitting down.

se can you d

at question, couched in just those words. "Ask yourse

of their life from the ruin which he saw was likely to overtake it. He spoke out frankly, not counting the risk. Millie, for her part, was not in the mood to estimate the truth of what he said, although it remained in her memory. She was

," she said. "You can b

and then he indulged in a yet greater indiscretion than any which he had yet allowed himself to utter. But he was by nature simple and completely honest. Whatever occurred

tions--that's the word I want--the associations which made one's recollections valuable, and gave a colour to one's life. For instance, you sang a song last night, Millie, one of those coon songs of yours--do you remember? You sang it once in Scotland on a summer's night. I was outside on the lawn, and past the islands across the water, which was dark and still, I saw the lights in Oban bay. I thou

h, and Tony was very gl

t. He was too intent upon convincing her, and too anxious to put his belief before her with unmistakable clearness to reflect in what spirit she might receiv

on, Millie. Let's keep what we've g

ccustomed to long intervals between her questions and his replies, but she was on the alert now. Something in his movements and his attitude showed her that he was not thinking of

must go away, and t

nd to her and n

xclaimed, looking ro

a home for you to come to. Only till th

cried, "however short it

r them. She thought of the long dull evenings, in the faded drawing-room. They were bad enough now, those long evenings during which she read the evening paper aloud, and Sir John slept, yet not so soundly but that he woke the instant her voice stopped, and bade her continue. What would they be

had learned enough of the methods, and had saved a little money, to get hold of a small farm to which he could ask her to come. It was a pretty and a simple scheme, and it ignored the great difficulties in the way, such as his ignorance and his lack of capital. But he believed in it sincerely, and every word in his short and broken sentences proved his belief. He had his

ied. "I'll wait here, To

library door that night

PTE

MAKES A

the evenings of the following week, long after the footsteps overhead had ceased, they sat choosing the site of their house and building it. It was to be the exact opposite of their house of bondage. The windows should look out over rolling country, the sim

n once or twice he tried to check the leap of he

simply. "Your help will shorten our sepa

cried

n you wanted a new frock?"

ugged her

n you so soo

he burden which she would be called upon to bear--the b

illie," he protested. But she paid no heed to the prote

thousand pou

am only borrowing. Should things go wrong wit

next morning, and fifteen hundred p

or into Pall Mall, "we have not yet settled where

tepney Green?

the man t

ar his news. Never, even in this house, had an evening seemed so long. Sir John sat upright in his high-backed chair, and, as was his custom, bade her read aloud the evening paper. But that task was beyon

y, when Tony at last cam

. "Farming wants more knowledge and a long app

ed Millie. "You

A week is

ttle while. Then she aske

mean to tell

morr

at, somehow, at the last moment an insuperable obstacle would bar the way. "Don't tell him at all," she went on. "Leave a

an he

reaten to disinherit you; if you disobeyed, he might car

e moment of separation was very near, they began to retrace their steps through the years of their married life, and back beyond them to the days

r?" he asked, rather of

," Millie re

lly; and more than once during the evening he looked with anxiety

w at eleven o'clock. As he passed through the gates of Hyde Park, he saw Pamela tu

re," she said, with a

he replied. "I came out

ed out the truants from the window of Lady Millingham's house, and had speculated upon

ask you a

answer," she re

Millie's b

es

eal of her before

es

, Pamela wondering to what these questions were to lead

efore indeed there was any likelihood of our being

d

what you meant. You said, 'The man who marries her should never leave her. If he goes awa

s Pamela and Tony went forward at a walk the sunlight slanting through the leaves now shone upon their faces and now left them in shade. And when it fell bright upon Pamel

aid?" she remarked. "I

, "I had begun to notice al

generally, perhap

ason," Tony insisted.

nt or two. Then she patted her

rankly. She did more, for she turned in her saddle to

e. But, had I been, I should have said

hy

nd her fellows. He was indeed a little timid in her presence as a rule, for she overawed him, though all

a attempted

l you," she

promi

k the p

ing he had felt sure from the moment when he had remembered them. And her refusal to explain proved to

ed, "because I am going away,

ed. She turned qu

," she continued; "shall we ride on?" and she put her horse to a trot. It was not her busines

which Millie and he had led in the big lonely house in Berkeley Square; and in spite of herself Pamela was interested. She had a sudden wish that Ala

at a dance close by, and I was surprised to se

it seemed that new fresh life was beginning. "I shall breed horses in Kentucky. I was recommended to it by an East End parson called Chase, who runs a mission on Stepney Green. I used to keep order

ed; and she retained t

ou said troubles me very much. If I go away remembering your words and

I did, a rule not to interfere. And I see now that I did very wrong

Tony that no persuasions would induce her to explain

be a very staunch friend, Miss Mardale, if you chose. Millie will be lonely aft

this promise might lay upon her a burden, and a burden of a heavy kind. And she shrank from all burdens. On the other hand, there was no doubt that she had caused Tony much uneasiness. He would go away, on a task which, as she saw very clearly, would be m

e said reluctan

reluctantly, but she would keep it now. Of that he felt assured,

ements and responsibilities, and, behold! the meshes were about her. She had

PTE

OF

ring for his departure with an easier mind. It was even in his thoughts when he stood with his

Count on her till I send for you. I think I am

lie, however, paid heed only to

id, with a confidence which broug

ence in herself and in Tony was still strong. "I can wait," she said, and the consciousness of her courage rejoiced her. She walked from room to room and sat for a few moments in each, realising that the coldness, the dingy l

called in the afternoon. Millicent w

e the mere effervescence of that excitement, or was it a steady, durable thing? Pamela led her friend on to speak of the life which she and Tony had led in the big house, sounding her

emed to me typical of the whole house,

the library was below the level of the hall, and a smooth pla

wall from floor to ceiling, it was not as a library that this room was used. Heavy black curtains draped it with a barbaric profusion. The centre of the room was clear of furniture, and upon the carpet in that clear

ok her shoulders wi

room, hate knowing that it

e she led. For even to her there was something eerie in the disposition of the room. It looked out upon a dull yard of stone at the back o

ridge and laid on the crutches here, each in our turn. It became just a symbol of the whole house. For what is the house, Pamela? A place that should have been a place of life, and is a place merely expecting death. Look at the books reaching up to the ceiling, never taken down, never read, for the room's a room for coffins. It wasn't merely a

r. The words she had spoken must have seemed exaggerated and even theatrical, but for the aspect of her as she spoke

d I--I am waiting for life now. I am only a lodge

st at that moment opened. Pamela heard a man's footsteps soun

-in-law,"

is doing?"

strange, isn't it? But ther

ceased. Millie led the

, he has never shown the least interest in us. However, when I went up to my room to dress for dinner, I saw that the candles were all lighted in Tony's room next door, and his clothes laid out upon the

ers. At first I thought that Sir John had not troubled to read the letter at all. I thought that all the more because he never once, either during dinner or afterwards, mentioned Tony's name or seemed to remark his absence. B

and it was out of her knowledge that she had spoken long ago in Tony's presence when she had said, "her

her exaltation. Pamela welcomed it, but she ask

moors in Scotland, or at her own home in Leicestershire, she would think of Millie Stretton, in the hot and dusty town amongst the houses where the blinds were drawn. She imagined her s

nt, his footsteps dragged along the floor for a while longer, and his light burned in the window after the dawn had come. Finally he ceased to leave his room at all. But that was all. For Millicent, however, the we

London on her way to Sussex, and broke h

. "She wants you to stay with her in Leicestersh

he

inning of t

ent la

hen. Tony will have made his way,"

Casino at Monte Carlo. She heard a young girl prophesying success upon that terrace with no less certainty than Millicent had used. Her face softened and her eyes shone with a very wistful look. She took out her watch and glanced at it. It was five o'clock. The school childr

Millie," she insisted;

It should have come a fortnight since." And s

ad soon made an acquaintance, and the acquaintance had become a friend. The two men had determined to go in

ew York. Tony said I would

and two letters were brought in for Millicent. One she tossed upon th

asked. "I have be

f course,"

once the light died out of her eyes,

fear. "He writes from New York." And with trembling fing

she wondered, with how much pain! Failure was the message which it carried. Millicent's trembling lips told her that. And again the village of Roquebrune rose up before her eyes as she gazed out of the window on the London square. W

ack again. The sheets of the letter had fallen upon the floor, they lay scattered, written over in

left the train at a station on the way and disappeared. To

man can b

ittle chance, and Tony has no mon

home, then?"

stay and retrie

do that, don't you think? Men have started badly before, an

as a loyal friend, and he had pluck. Was that enough? On the other hand, he had little knowledge and little experience. The schoolmaster of Roquebrune and Tony Stretton st

r sentence, and she turned hastily away. However, she recovered her self-control and went down the stairs with Pamela, and as they came into the

" said Pamela. "It seems th

her head. "He would only say, 'Let him come home,

exclaim

ot believe he ever will leave it again. It's not that he's reall

. It seemed that the library was again to become typical of the house, typical of the life its i

and, compared with the heavy tidings she had by the same post received, it seemed utterly trifling and unimportant. It was no more indeed than the invitation from Frances Millingham of which Pamela had spoken. P

PTE

Y ON TH

of the house a paddock made a ring of green, and round this ring the carriage drive circled from a white five-barred gate. Whitewebs stood in a flat grass country. From the upper windows you looked over a wide plain of meadows and old trees, so level that you had on a misty day almost an illusion of a smooth sea and the masts of ships; from the lower, you saw just as far as the nearest hedgerow, exce

she saw that the ground glimmered white on every side; above the ground a mist thickened the night air, and the cold was piercing. When she reached the house

ie Stret

es Millingham. "She

lly. "My father was at home alone. How is Millie? I hav

ountry and had stayed in London for a week. But she had not returned to London since, and consequently she had not seen her friend. She had heard regularly from her, it is true; she also knew that there wa

ham replied; "she seem

ll, but the first ten may be omitted, for they are in no way concerned

said Frances Millingham; an

ike

th Pamela at Lady Millingham's dance, the man with no pleasure i

asked

ents, he k

that people who did not arouse her active interest passed in and out of her acquaintanceship

rances Millingham, glancing at

he figure of a man. He was standing by the fireplace, on her left hand as she descended, looking into the fire indeed, so that his back was towards her. But at the rustle of her frock he swung round quickly and looked up. He now moved a few steps towards the foot of the stairs with a particular eagerness. Pamela at that moment had just come round the bend, and was on the small platform from which the final flight of steps began. The staircase was dimly

dale?" said the man. "Yo

isliked the man. He was thirty-three in years, and looked a trifle younger, although his hair was turning grey. He was clean shaven, handsome beyond most men, and while his features were of a classical regularity and of an almost feminine delicacy, they were still not without character. There w

t the question, "What in the world has my health to do with you?" Sh

staircase. Pamela disliked him; she was, besides, disappointed by him of that private talk with Millicent which she desired. She was in a mood for mischief. She changed her manner at once, and, crossing over to the fireplace, engaged Mr. Callon in conversation with the utmost cordiality, and as she talked

--the shutting of a door on the landing above, and then the rustle of a frock upon the stairs. Mr. Callon was evi

a little in

ale," Callon answered hurr

ompanion with the blan

on, "that one feels a little in the way when one has bro

st an apology betrayed that the lady upon the stairs and Mr. Lionel Callon had arranged to come

pardon, Mi

was obeyed by the lady on the stairs, for all at once the frock ceased to rustle, and there was silence. Lionel Callon kept his eyes fixed upon Pamela's face, but she did not look towards the

from his lips. Pamela noticed the change with amusement. She was not in the mind

on't you think? From what

could see, and wondering how much she had seen. He was to some extent relieved. The stairs were ill-lighted, the panelling of the wall dark mahogany; moreover, the stairs bent round into the hall just below the level of the roof, and at the bend the lady on the stairs had stopped. Pamela could not have seen her face. Pamela, indeed, had seen nothing more than a bl

ess. It was long in coming, however. Pamela had no doubt that it would come last, and in a hurry, as though its wearer had been late in dressing. But Pamela was wrong

e all

llingham l

k shoes and stockings. She might be wearing them deliberately, of course; on the other hand, she might be wearing them because she had not had time to change them. It was Millicent, certainly,

hand on her host's

f Frances to ask Mi

ee, Frances knew her. We all knew, besid

"I suppose everybo

alked of it," he ans

ve been conscious of any need to shrink back at the warning, who would have changed her dress to prevent a recognition; and Millicent herself need not have feared the warning had there

ong since vanished. If Tony had only taken her advice without question, she thought. "Millie's husband should never leave her. If he goes away he should take her with him." The words rang in her mind al

made no effort to separate her friend from the other women. She had a plan in her mind, and in pursuit of it she occupied a sofa, upon which there was just room for two. She sat in the middle of the sofa, so that no one else could sit on it, and just waited until the men came in. Some of them crossed at once to Pamela,

ery one here

very

on, at al

ed shrewdly at

him slightly,

what yo

while he had acquired manners, he had lost nothing of his simplicity. The journey from the Seven Dials to Belgrave Square is a test of furnace heat, and John Mudge had betrayed no flaws. There was a certain forlornness, too, in his manner which appealed particularly to Pamela. She guessed that the apples, for which thro

utsider; and when I am on strange ground I go warily. If I am as

amela, with a smile. "I want

iberately, and no less

ought to know the

e was Millicent's friend. Was it for tha

m I dislike him heartily. Women, on the other hand, like him, Miss Mardale--like him too well. Women make

ppreciable time. Then

ady Millingham, who

eyed, but she did not misunderstand it. She had been told indirectly

Mudge; and Pamela uttered a little exclamati

fference to good looks. He is tall, he has a face which is

an who spoke. That he should ever have given a thought to ho

r as I can judge, untroubled by a single scruple in the management of his life.

, perhaps; a mere nothing compared with what he spends--and he never does an hour's work, as we understand work. Yet he pays his card debts at his club

Pamela had never heard from him before, "A very contemptible existence, anyway, Miss Mardale. But the man's not to be despised, mind. No, that's the worst of it. Some day, perhaps, a strong man will rise up and set his foot on him. Till that time he is to be feared." And when Pamela by a gesture rejected the word, Mudge repeated it. "Yes, feared. He makes his plans, Miss Mardale. Take a purely imaginary case," and somehow, although he laid no ironic stress on the word imaginary, and a

oked up i

d good friends

The burden of her promise was being forced upon her back. It

will learn that women can be most helpful; later on, as he gets towards middle life, as the years shorten and shorten, he will see that he must use whatever extraneous assistance comes his way. But he will begin with a fearless ambition to suffice with his own hands and head." Mr. Mudge dropped from the hi

ar away to hear,

Callon fights among the teacups. Cajolery first, and God knows by what means afterwards. But he wins, Miss Mardale; don't close your eyes to that! Look, I told you he was listening. The r

king there until Frances Millingham rose.

ry much," she s

udge

"I am very glad you came to-n

red? She could not get Lionel Callon sent away from the house. It would be no use ev

head and spok

wished that she could doubt their wisdom. But she could not. Let Millie's husband leave her, she would grieve with all the strength of her nature; let him come back soon, she would welcome him with a joy as great. Yes; but he must come back soon. Otherwise she would grow used to his absence; she would find his return an embarrassment, for it would be the return of a stranger with the prerogative of a husband; she might even have given to another th

cent's door, saying who she was. Millicent opened th

me in?" s

se," sai

o one another on ea

" said Pamela. "You have not told me latel

e blaze of the fire. She happened to shade it als

ork?" Pamela asked; a

. She let her hand fall, and looked

hile," she added; and as she spoke ther

TER

N'S F

remained, and of the two women she was the stronger in will and character. She sat, with her eyes quietly resting upon Millicent's face; and in a little whil

rieve his failure. Yo

replied

e would not. I couldn't make him see that he wasn't

nodded

te that

fted her fac

o that he might try again; but he refused to take a farthing more. It was unreasonable, do

ed your pity, to

ly that something was sure to happen soon, that he would be sure to find an opening soon.

, and never doubting but that he would surmount it. The honesty of his nature had bidden him speak all that he had thought, and he had spoken without a suspicion that his very frankness might put in her mind an argument to be

in misery. I wrote to him that I had guessed as much from his very reticence, and I said how sorry I was. Yet, in spite of what I wrote," and here her voice hardened a little; she showed herself as a woman really aggrieved, "

extreme to extreme as Millicent's, impatience, anger, and a sense of grievance. Pamela could hold the balance fairly enough to understand that. But chiefly she was thinking of Tony--Tony hidden away in some lodging in New York, a lodging so squalid that he would not give the address, and vainly seeking for an opportunity whereby he would make a rapid fortune; very likely going short of food, and retu

red you in that short way in spite of what you wrot

etton shoo

herself, and it fairly startled Pamela. "Tony no longer

and how he had looked at the moment when he spoke. It was just because he cared so much that he had taken his wild leap

He was losing the associations which used to be vivid in his memory. Our marriage had

of water trembling away in the moonlight across to the lights of the yachts in Oban Bay, had become a mere coon song "sung by some one." Millicent had often remembered and reflected upo

into the colourless, dull, ordinary thing it so frequently becomes. He has lost ground by his failure. No doubt your own letters have shown that; and

room. The chances were all against him. Even if he retrieved his failure, it would be a long time before that result was reached--too long, perhaps, w

ook on! Look on!" She knew herself well. She was by nature a partisan. Let her take this trouble in hand and strive to set it right, her whole heart would soon be set upon success. She was fond of Millicent already; she would become fonder still in the effort to save her. She liked Tony very much. The thought of him stoutl

out clearly in her mind. She had given her promise to Tony to be a good friend to

d for a sign now quite seriously. If a thaw had set in, why, the world was going a little better with her, and perhaps she might succeed. But the earth was iron-boun

y, and he was the only person in the house who interested her at a

eart sank. She interpreted Millie's thought, and accurately. Here was a successful man, a man who had got on without opportunities or means, simply by his own abilities; and there, far away in New York, was her failure of

r his actual address. In the second, Millie told Frances Millingham that she had received news that Sir John Stretton was really failing, and although there was no immediate danger, she must hold herself in readiness to return to town. This to Pamela was really the best news

PTE

NEW

p that day, and, in the mere asking, gave, as women must; and she neither asked nor gave in ignorance of what she did. The request might be small, the gift small, too; but it set her and her friend in a new relation each to each, it linked them in a common effort, it brought a new and a sweet intimacy into both their lives. So that the noise of a loom was never heard by them in the after times but there rose before their eyes, visible as a picture,

ugh woods and level meadows towards Leicester. It was the old coach road, and the great paved yard of the inn and the long line of disused stables had once been noisy with the shouts of ostlers and the crack of whips. Now only the carrier's cart drove twice a week down the steep road to Leicester, and a faint wh

expected to be back at Whitewebs until the afternoon; so I thought we might lunch at

or a horse, wasn't

ran with water, and were most slippery. On each side patches

ted. "But I could not wait. It was ne

ine over the sloping ground. There was no vehicle, not even another person, moving along it. Warrisden could see the line of houses ahe

y ordered luncheon; and it was not until luncheon was

said first of all. "I w

it a pipe a

frank with you," she went on, "fo

. There was a leap in his voice whi

and, with a smile, sh

e answer

ive. It may occupy a long time besides. I a

brought a smile t

he said, "how much one wants t

solitary road. She began to understand that now. To need--actually to need people, to feel a joy in being needed--here were emotions, familiar to most, and no doubt at one time familiar to her, which we

f, although it is not for myself that I need your help; but I am not blind. I know it will be for my sake that you give it, and I do

interrupted her lest he should check the utterance on her lips. He saw clearly enough that she was taking a great step for her, a step, too, which meant much to him. The actual explanation was not the

born. And I had just my first season, that was all." She smiled rather wistfully as her thoughts went back to it. "I enjoyed my first season. I had hardly ever been in London before. I was eighteen; and everybody was very nice to me. At the end of July I went to stay for a month with some friends of mine on the coast of Devonshire, and--some one else stayed there, too. His name does not matter

ght and her left; further away the towering headlands loomed misty in the hot, still August air. A white yacht, her sails hardly drawing, moved slowly westwar

's character. Mrs. Mardale had remarked the growing friendship between Pamela and the man, she had realised that marriage was quite impossible, and she had thought, with her short-sighted ingenuity, that if Pamela fell in love and found love to be a thing of fruitless trouble, she would come the sooner to take a sensible view of the world and marry where marriage was to her worldly advantage. She thus had encouraged the couple to a greater friendliness, throwing them together when she could have hindered their companionship; she had even urged Pamela to accept that

s very lonely. The time was long in passing, and it wasn't pleasant to think that there would be so much of it yet, before it pa

her words. There was no affectation in Pamela Mardale. Warrisd

ither great troubles or great joys. I have hoped that some day you would wake, that I should find you loo

at Roquebrune had once sadly pondered. It seemed needlessly cruel, needlessly wanton that a girl so equipped for happiness should, in her very first season, when the wor

elt that I would not dare to face it again." She suddenly covered her face with her hands. "I don't think I could," she cried in a low, piteo

d here she sat shrinking in a positive terror, like any child, from the imagined recurrence of her years of trouble. Warrisden was mov

o me than a friend whom I could relinquish; I would merely look on. I should grow narrow, no doubt, and selfish." And, as Warrisden started, a smile came on to her face. "Yes, you have been thi

you need my help?" W

-day," Pamela

s heavy with grey clouds; the wind was roaring about the chimneys; and the roads ran with water. It was as cheerless a day as February can pr

to do?" he asked, tur

's husband," she replied; "and, at

husband?" he repe

d out of the dark house in Berkeley Square and

re was no road for you, no new road from Quetta to Seistan. I was puzzling my brains, too, as to how in the world you were to be rouse

ook for Mr. Stre

onths ago, to make a home for Millie and himse

ed?" cried

dn't be fair. I have no right to tell you. But he must be found, and he

us?" Warrisden asked. "Ha

t's just possible that the friend may know where he is to be foun

me his

reen. Tony Stretton told me of him one morning in Hyde Park just b

the name down in

retton is, even if he knows? You say Str

There is an argument which you can use. Sir John Strett

rgument to Stretton himself,

comes back in time or not. He is sure to say that. But you can answer that every night since he went away the candles have been lit

ing Millie was not yet so deeply entangled with Lionel Callon but that Tony's home-coming might set the tangle right. A few weeks of companionship, and surely he

on his return, for Millie, for him, and for me, too. Yes, for me! If

answered simply; and

rely look on as before and wait for things to cease. If, however, he succeeded, she would be encouraged to move forward still; the common sympathies would have her in their grasp again; she might even pass that turn

'll try,"

ht round to the inn door

you go?" ask

the

ottom with you. The r

ack woods with swinging boughs, and the broad high road with its white wood rails. A thin mist swirled across the face of the country in the wind, so that its every feature was softened and

f the incline, and Pam

she, pointing along the

ossed a wooden bridge and curved out of sight round the edge of a clump of

la s

Quetta,"

her horse's neck, and looke

eistan?" he aske

For a moment she let her hand rest lightly upon his sleeve, and did not sp

d, can you. Only"--and her voice took on a lighter an

the hill again, and turned when he had reached the top; but P

PTE

CH

lmost as if Pamela and he had met that day only in thought at some village which existed only in a dream. The train, however, rattled upon its way. Gradually he became conscious of a familiar exhilaration. The day had been real. Not merely had it signalled the change in Pamela, for which for so long he had wished; not merely had it borne a blossom of promise for him

riend; each one summoned him, and to each he answered with a rising joy, "I shall follow, I shall follow." The boats passed down to the sea through the night mist. Many a time he had heard them before, picturing the dark deck and the side lights, red and green, and the yellow light upon the mast, a

billiard-room, a bagatelle-room, and a carpenter's workshop. Mr. Chase was superintending a boxing class in one of the lower rooms, and Warrisden, when he was led up to him, received a shock of surprise. He had never seen a man to the outward eye so unfitted for his work. He had expected a strong burly person, cheery of manner and confident of voi

saw was not ugly, but he disliked it. It almost repelled him. There was no light in the eyes at all; they were veiled and sunken; and the features repelled by reason of a queer antagonism. Mr. Chase had the high narrow forehead of an ascetic, the loose mouth of a sensualist, and a thin cro

o see me?"

ou pl

you see,

an w

If you can wait till then you might come h

ight appear to be, neither he nor any of the members of the mission were aware of it. He was at ease alike with the boys and the men; and the boys and the men were at ease with hi

. You see they cover the gas taps. Before that was done, if there was any trouble, the first thing which happene

boy; now he was arranging an apprenticeship for another in the carpenter's shop. Fina

ep order?" said Warrisden; and Chase

mprehension, "I was wondering what bro

is eyes turned curiously and furtively towards Warrisden. His face was stubborn, and wore a look of wariness. Warrisden began to fear lest he sho

interview. As the hands of the clock marked eleven,

-balls. The motive for that proceeding became apparent as they walked to the house where Chase lodged. Their

versities come down and put in a week now an

uxury, but the luxury was that of a man of taste and knowledge. There was hardly a piece of furniture which had not an interesting histor

o Warrisden that the procession of bottles would never end--some held liqueurs of which he had never even he

round bottle and held it up to the light. "It is difficult perhaps

ey and soda?" asked W

d at his compan

disappointment, and with an almost imperceptible shrug of

nessed in its discharge. He spoke of other climates and bright towns with a scholarship which had nothing of pedantry, and an observation human as it was keen. Chase, with the help of his Livy, had traced Hannibal's road across the Alps and had followed it on foot; he spoke of another march across snow mountains of which Warrisden had never till this moment heard--the hundred days of a dead Sultan of Morocco on the Passes of the Atlas, during which he led his forces back from Tafilet to Rabat. Chase knew nothing of this retreat but what he had read. Yet he made it real to Warrisden, so vividly di

s happens that I see no one outside the mission people for a good while, and during t

rsation still fresh in his mind. Was Chase a man at war with himself, he wondered, who was living a life for which he had no taste that he might the more completely escape

me," Chase continued. "I kno

," said W

ed him in the bil

inger-tips joined under his chain, and his head thrown back. There was no expression upon his face but one of we

ded Stretton to try hors

ded, "after he had decided o

fail

es

has disa

s, but did not turn

ance," he said. "That, like his

t is thought that you might have hea

odded h

hav

at you might know

aken from him. Chase knew, at all events, where Stretton was to be found. Now he mu

Mr. Warrisden. By whom i

great friend o

, "by Miss Pamel

n starte

w her?"

in a letter. She has sent you to me in

romise to Tony Stretton. But, on the other hand, he saw that Mr. Chase was givin

n home," he said. "I want y

hook hi

e said

ome back," Warrisden declared with great deliberat

s absolutely necessary t

ther is

his chair, and stared at

xcuse?" he sa

was aware. He did not

he replied; and he

coals. Warrisden sat very still. He had used his one argument--he could add nothing to it; he could only wait for the answer in a great anxiety. So

or mine. We considered--in letters, of course--other possibilities; but not this one. I don't think I have the right to remain silent. Even in the face of this possibility I shoul

iled. After all, the steamboats on the river had l

shillings in his pocket. He knew something of the sea. He had sailed his own yacht in happier times. He was in great trouble. He needed time to think out a new course of life. He hung about on Gor

h him?" War

er goes out every day from Billingsgate to fetch the fish. I know one of the owner

ied Warrisden. "The

It will take you forty-eight hours with ordinary luck to reach the Dogger Bank. Of course, if ther

hase. The new road seemed after all likely to prove a smooth one. As he wrote, every now and then a steamboat hooted from the river, and the rain pattered upon his

where in the darkness of the North Sea Tony Stretton was hidden. Very likely at this moment he was standing upon the deck of his trawler with his hands upon the spokes of the wheel, and his eyes peering forward through the rain, keeping his long nig

PTE

DOGGE

. Below the Tower she took her place in the long, single file of ships winding between the mud banks, and changed it as occasion served; now she edged up by a string of barges, now in a clear broad space she made a spurt and took the lead of a barquantine, which swam in indolence, with bare masts, behind a tug; and at times she stopped altogether, like a carriage blocked in Piccadilly. The screw thrashed the water, ceased, and struck again with a suggestion of petulance at the obstacles which barred the boat's way. Warrisden, too, chafed upon the bridge. A question pressed continually upon his mind--"Would Stretton return?" He had discovered where Stretton was to be found. The tall grey

he high chimneys of the cement works on the Essex flats began to stand out against the pale grey sky, each one crowned with white smoke like a tuft of wool; the barges, und

ld be given until a night, and a day, and another night had passed, until he saw the Blue Fleet tossing far away upon the Dogger Bank. Suppose that the answer were "No!" He imagined Pame

elf upon the top-rail of the bridge, like some nautical Blondin, had run from side to side the while he exchanged greetings with the anc

tea while they are loadi

under her forefoot gave to her a buoyancy of motion--she seemed to have become a thing alive. The propeller cleft the surface regularly; there was no longer any sound of petulance in its revolution

ne brightly, like a chain of gold stretched out upon the sea; in front of him there lay a wide and misty bay, into which the boat drove steadily. All the unknown seemed hidden there; all the secret unrevealed Beyond. There came whispers out of th

ft, showed where the towns of Essex stood; upon the light hand the homeward-bound ships loomed up ghost-like and passed by; on the right, too, shone out the great green globes of the Mouse light like Neptune's reading-lamps. Sheltered behind the canvas screen at the corner of the bridge Wa

are in luck, and the rest of your time you're in carpet slippers on the bridge. You'll sleep in my chatoo, to-night. I

hat he was being offer

The bench of the saloon

did not pres

he said. "I often sleep there myself. You

d a man on the tra

ee his face, but he knew from his attitud

adly," he commented. "The No'th Sea in

to be expected?"

e Outer Gabbard winked good-bye on the starboard quarter at four o'clock

panions trumpeted in his ears. Moreover, the heat was intolerable. Five men slept in the bunks--Warrisden made a sixth. At four in the morning the captain joined the party through his love of company. The skylight and the door

steward rose, and made tea by the simple process of dropping a handful of tea into the kettle and filling it up wi

out any other preparation sat down and ate. Warrisden slipped up the companion,

signs of discomfort. Surely, he thought, they must be used to heavy weather. But, nevertheless, something w

s wrong," said he; "

ed up to

it

" Warrisden

s were turned on him

captain. "Don't you l

" Warrisden s

; and the steward went on deck

ly bathed in a pail on deck. But he was wrong; for the Blue Fleet had gone a hun

It hunted the Blue Fleet for half-a-dozen hours, and, as night fell, it ca

rawl," said the captain; an

e Blue Flee

the Dogger," c

d many things, such as the real meaning of tannin in tea, and the innumerable medical uses to which "Friar's Balsam" can

air was thick with spindrift. The waves leaped exultingly up from windward and roared away to leeward from under the cutter's keel in a steep, uprising hill of foam. All about him the sailing-boats headed to the wind,

you a passage back to the Perseverance, but I don't think you will be able to return. There's a no'th-westerly gale blowing up, and the sea

he captain's words. He looked at the tumbling, breaking wav

come alongside

the skipper re

bout the cutter. Warrisden could see boat tackle being rigged to the main yards and men standing about the

ir fish on board for three or four days after this," the captain explai

own with the wind towards the fish-carrier. The trawlers bore away, circled round the City of Bristol, and took up their formation to leeward, so that, having discharged their fish, the boats migh

is the boat from the

the fifth," sa

n the crests of the waves. Each moment he looked to see a boat tossed upwards and overturned; each moment he dreaded that boat would be the fif

ged up. A man stoo

against the windward bow of the cutter. The cutter rolled from it suddenly, her l

set, and men and boxes whelmed in the sea, unless a miracle happened. But the miracle did happen. As the fish-cutter righted she scooped on to her deck the boat, with its boxes and its crew. The incident all seemed to happen within the fraction of a second. Not a man u

of the boat and stepped on dec

d Warrisden, leaning by the captain's side upon the rail, knew the sailor to be Tony Stretton.

I want," he sai

aptain replied. "Speak to him wh

escended on

etton,"

ickly. There was a look o

d he, abruptly. "We are not acquainted

d Warrisden. "I have come out to t

p. He led the way to the stern of the cut

noyance in his face, but he had the stubborn and resolute look of a man not lightly to be persuaded. Standing there on the cutter's deck, backed by the swinging

sea is getting worse each minute, and I have

den, a stran

terrupted; "how di

e tol

face flus

for these few weeks to be alone. He g

arrisden, firmly. "It is necessary

even so could hardly keep his feet. He had a sense of coming failure from the very ease w

he turned Warrisden shouted--for in that high wind words carri

t there was no change in his expression by which Warrisden could gather wheth

as not se

ment, and Stretton had, in his direct way

retton. "He has

en admitted;

will n

les have been lighted in your dressing-room and your clothes laid out, in the hope that on one evening you will walk in at the door. On the very first n

mile which was almost wistful about his lips, his eyes had a kindlier look. And the kindlier look remained.

not sent

irst time he became aware of him as a man acting

id send you?" he

N

o t

amela M

ly the strongest argument Warrisden had in his

doubtfully; "so Mis

e in fulfilment of that promise. It might be that, for some unknown reason, he was now needed at his wife's side. But he had no thought of distrust; he had great faith in Millicent. She despised him, yes; but he did not distrust her. And, again

ook!" and he pointed to the boats. "Those boats are taking theirs. Yes; whether it's

was already launched, the two fishermen waiting in it. As it rose on

ly four have passed. I cannot run away and leave the ship shor

ler, the men now stopping and backing water, now dashing on. Warrisden saw them reach the ship's side and climb on board, and he saw the boat slung upwards and brought in on to t

PTE

INSPI

lights of the village shone brightly through the clear night air, just as the lights of Margate had shone across the bay when the steam-cutter had sprung like a thing alive to the lift of the sea beneath her bows. Then all the breeze had whispered promises; now the high hopes were fallen. "Do not fail!" Pamela had cried, with a veritable passion, hating failure as an indignity, he could hear the words in the very accent of her voice. Once she had suffered failure, but it was not to be endured again. That was what she had meant; and he had failed. He

re were one or two men lounging by the fire in scarlet, and Pamela was wearing her riding-habit when she receiv

alone!"

tton would

ss, I am ver

Pamela's indeed, was to him at this moment rather inscrutable. It was not indifferent, however. He recognised that, and was, in a way, consoled. It h

him, then?"

d like to hear

cour

hough I

with some surprise

e said, a litt

Fleet than we anticipated," he began. "Stretton came on

er? Tell me about your own journey o

ee that his journey after all was not entirely a defeat. The alliance to which they had set their hands up there in the

ght of his hardships on the steam-cutter.

he remarked, with a smile,

erseverance. He described the way in which he had come on board; he relate

legs firmly planted apart, as easily as if he were standing on a stone pavement. I, on the other hand, was clin

his father's illn

his father had

the candles li

on for eight weeks. There was only one moment when I thought that there was a chance I might persuade him;

sked Pamela,

I told him that I had been sent out b

her head in

but he refuse

'One must tak

den crossed over to her side. His voice took a gentler not

ne's risks.' He said that he had learned that in the North Sea. He pointed to the little boats carrying the fish-boxes to the steamer through the heavy, bre

ion with a very friendly smile; but she did not answer him at all. And when she spoke, she spoke words which utterly surprised him. All the time since

ed fruitless. It makes us so much the better friends, doesn't it? And that is a gain fo

r--and Warrisden took it. Then came the explanat

, suddenly. I received a telegram last night from Millie. So Tony will naturally come home when his four weeks are u

e house. A groom was holding Pamela's horse. The others who were hunting that da

e as a thing enjoyable began to tingle in her. She was learning again lessons which she remembered once to have learned before. The joy of being needed by those one needs--there was one of them. She had learned a new one to-day--"One must take one's risks." She repeated the sentence over to herself as she rode between the hedgerows on this morning which had the sparkle of spring. A few days ago she would have put that view of life away from her. Now, old as it was, simple as it was, she pondered upon it as t

*

til eight of the morning; it was now eleven, and he had the cabin to himself. The great gale had blown itself out. The trawl, which for three days had remained safely stowed under the lee bulwarks, was now dragging behind the boat; with her topsails set the ketch was sailing full and by the wind; and down the open companion the sunlight streamed into the cabin and played like water upon the floor. The letters Tony Stretton was reading were those which Millie had sent him. Disappointment was plain in every l

some of them he was just down on his luck; t

ght of the gale, when both were standing by the lashed wheel one night. "I ask no questions. All I say is,

nd with a roar. It was a wave breaking down upon the deck. Both men flung themselves down the companion, and the water sluiced after them and wash

p till now, he had not enjoyed. The precarious existence which he had led since he had lost the half of Millie's small fortune--now a clerk in a store, and a failure; now a commercial traveller, and again a failure--had left him little breathing space wherein to gather up his slow thoug

t very contempt of which the letters gave him proof. Must he not now stay away in order to regain her? His wife was at the bottom of all his thoughts. He had no blame for her, however much her written words might hurt. He looked back upon their life together, its pleasant beginnings, when they were not merely lovers, but very good friends into the bargain. For it is possible to be the one and yet not the other. They were good days, the days in the little house in Deanery Street, days full of fun and good temper and amusement. He recalled their two seasons in London--London bright with summer--and making of each lon

He had never understood that saying; it remained fixed in his memory, plaguing him. He should be at his wife's side. So Pamela Mardale had said, and for what Pamela said he

ought to him a letter, which told him that four days ago his father had died. He could not reach home in time

ld problem. Should he go back or should he stay

ne morning, and h

fog on land

now that?" as

some birds hovering ove

kbird. You won't find them so far from land without a reason. There has bee

belonging to the land they vainly sought. Stretton, watching them, felt very much like one of those birds. He, t

wl was hauled in for the last time, and

ch harbour?" Stret

in twenty-four hours,

he was no nearer to the solution of his problem than when he had stepped from the quay on to the deck eight

nce passed a lightship. Already the boat was so near home! And in the hour which followed, his eight weeks of solitary communing, forced, as it were, by immediate necessity, bore their fruit. His inspiration--he counted the idea no less than an inspiration-came

etton's side heard him suddenly begin to si

h love! I'm a-wai

yuh window cl

laughed softly to himself, as though the song had very dear associations in his thoughts. Then his voice rose

gwine put dey li

sh now, sin

on nod his slee

n put a littl

h of a summer night. He was looking out past the islets over eight miles of quiet water to the clustered lights of the yachts in Oban Bay. The coon song was that which his wife had sung to him on one evening he was never to f

ght o'clock in the morning, and just at that time Milli

TER

TON RETURN

the fire. Thus debating he came to his own door, and had unconsciously taken his latch-key from his pocket before he had decided upon his course. The latch-key decided him. He opened the door and went quickly up to his sitting-room. The gas was low, and what light there was came from the fire. Chase shut the door gently, and his face underwent a change. There came a glitter into his eyes, a smile to his lips. He cr

d upon his shoul

d; and Tony Strett

p waiting for

u get back?"

is morning. I came up to

p the gas and

e said. "There is news waiting fo

on replied. "He

. He drew up a chair to

ked slowly; "and yet y

retton. "And I d

during the last few days had kept him restless and uneasy. He had come to his decision. Chase was aware of the st

e restrictions under which you and your wife were living. Well, y

shook h

w months had brought to him. He had grown thin, and rather worn; he had lost the comfortable look of prosperity; his face was tanned. But there was more. It might have been expected that the rough surroundings amidst which Stretton had lived would leave their

quickly; so very quickly. I can't express half what I mean. But haven't you seen a man and a woman at a dinner-table, when some chance sentence is spoken, suddenly look at one another just for a second, smile perhaps, at all events speak, though no word is spoken? Well, that kind of intimacy was going. I saw in

h a very close attention. Never had Stretton

hat you are saying is--

now," Stretton resumed, "at once--do

cried

leave her when things are at their worst. That's not all. I take half Millie's fortune, and am fool enough to lose it right away. And that's not all. I stay away in the endeavour to recover the lost ground, and I continually fail. Meanwhile Millie has the dr

e said, with a smile.

is former attitude

from New York brings her only another instalment of my disastrous record. Work it out from her point of view, Chase; then add this to crown it all." He leaned forward towards Chase and emphasize

on with a positive violence, and flung himse

hat it is your father's weal

forgetting

," Chase repeated. "You ha

do with the question at all? If my wife thinks me

It was too direct, too unanswerable. Stretton rose fr

I went back to-night. I start out with fifteen hundred pounds of hers to make a home and a competenc

the truth of your story, Stretton. And don't you think the hardships

ink I would find it difficult to make a moving tale

to realise what those hardships had been. Tony's story would have been to her just a story, calling, no doubt, for exclamations of tenderness and pity. But she could not have unders

f ten would say, 'Take the gifts the gods send you, and let the rest slide. What if you and your wife drift apart? You won't be the only couple.' But, frankly, Chase, that is not good enough. I have seen a good deal of

it been more elaborate it would have meant less. It needed no ot

nderstand

d took out a briar pipe from his pocket. The

h a laugh, as he removed it. Then he took o

ky and soda?

tha

ony Stretton who had once come to him for advice. That man had been slow of thought, halting of speech, good-humoured, friendly; but a man with whom it was difficult to get at close quarters. Talk with him a hundr

, "you are determi

Stretton

you propo

York, completed by the eight weeks in the North Sea. For Chase put the question. H

ist in the French

een naming the house at which he was to dine the next night. Nevertheless,

off my head, and I have not been drinki

ed to expound that inspiration whi

ssions are open to me in which I could gain, I don't say distinction, but mere recognition? I am not a money-maker; that, at all even

true," Chase agr

if you can, in which a man at my age--twenty-nine--with my ignorance, my want of intellect, has a single chance of s

se was silent. He waited with a smile

ernative," Chase said

it,

r education; there was not one in which Stretton was likely to succeed. Soldiering or the sea. These were the two callings for which he

you think of the For

hrugged hi

last night. We were passing a light-ship. In a way, you see, we were within sight of home. I was in despair; and suddenly the i

here will be chances, for there's always so

in Siam," s

ments are you

ith the income. She has power, too, to sell the house in Berk

it. The plan it had prompted might be quixotic and quite fruitless, but, at all events, it was definite; and a definite scheme of life, based upon a simple and definite motive, was not so common but that it was enviable. Stretton was so sure of its wisdom, too. H

he said. "Risks of death, o

ks of them," he went on, with a laugh of impatience. "But I have been eight weeks on the Dogger Bank, Chase, and I know--yes, I know--how to estimate risks. Out there men risk their lives daily to put a few boxes

laugh, and, risi

up for the nigh

Goodbye!" He held out his hand, and as Chase took it he went on, "I am looking forward to the day when I come back. My word, how I am looking forward to it; and I

a moment or two on the pavement. After all, he thought, a life under those Algerian skies, a life in

g there. Then he slowly walked back to the fire, and left the cupboard locked. Stretton had gone, but he had left behind him memories which were not to be effaced--the memory of a great motive and of a sturdy determination to fulfil it. The two men

PTE

AYS A VISIT TO

tion afterwards. Many people came, for Frances Millingham was popular. By half-past ten the rooms were already over-hot and overcrowded, and Lady Millingham was enjoying herself to her heart's content. Mr. Mudge, who stood by himself at the end of a big drawing-room, close

enough." And he unlatched and pushed open the window.

, with a laugh; "t

man but he had a wish that he might get a glimpse of him alone in his own rooms, with the smile dropped from his face, and the unpaid bills piled upon his mantel-shelf, and his landlord very likely clamouring for the rent. He imagined the face grown all at once haggard and tired and afraid--afraid with a great fear of what must happen in a fe

at once lifted to the clock-face, and almost at once he moved f

e warmth of summer. Mr. Mudge stood at the open window facing the coolness and the quiet of the square; and thus by the accident o

and side. When he reached the pavement he walked for twenty yards or so in the direction of Piccadilly, until he came to a large and gl

is, as it were, the first scene in the comedy, distinctly heard the door close, and the sound somehow suggested to him that the time had come for him to go home to bed. He looked at his watc

a spoke to him. He had never yet met Warrisden, and he was now introduced. All three stood and talked together for a few

es in that house?" and he pointed across the corner of t

y at one another. Then Pamela turn

w," she answered.

aid Mudge; "I think tha

ty. But he got no answer for a few moments. Both Pamela and Warrisden were looking out towards the house. They w

a low voice. He spoke to Pamela, not to Mr. Mudge at all, whos

Warrisden and smiled with a great friendliness--"where the new road began. For it was there reall

s true," sai

both wer

ived there, and that the new road begins at the foot of the steps," he s

st July, when from this balcony they had watched the truants slip down the steps and furtively call a cab, was busy in their thoughts. From that ni

ives there?"

wer; for Warrisden suddenly exc

stinctive movement he

ndows of the dark house. His face could not be seen

t's he?" she as

ure," repli

pe so! I

ait! Wait and loo

ement. Again he stopped, again he looked up to the house; then he walked slow

rrisden; "he will come within

ight fell white and clear

ck," exclaimed

r. Mudge; "who

e he was

le she answered him; she was too intent upon Tony Stretton in the square below. She did not therefore

is Stretto

es

retton, is she in Lond

It passed now unremarked; for Warrisden, too, had his preoccupation. He was neither overjoyed, l

ie Stretton is at home. Coul

s, and about to enter; the wife and the interloper within: here were the formulas of a comedy of intrigue. Only, Mr. Mudge doubtfully wondered, after the husband had entered, and when the great scene took place, would the decorous accent of the comedy be maintained? Nature w

Warrisden, "is that St

Mr. Mudge, with a good deal of suspense, "now he will ascend them." Pamela had the same conviction, but in her case hope inspired it. Tony,

Pamela, blankly; "he

ned to her ve

e, "nothing better c

was good fun. The escapes from the house, the little suppers at the Savoy, the stealthy home-comings, the stumbling up the stairs in the dark, laughing and hushing their laughter--upon these incidents his mind dwelt, wistfully, yet with a great pleasure and a great hopefulness. Those days were gone, but in others to come all that was good in them might be repeated. The good humour, th

to Millie in that little sitting-room

ss of his visit, and when he was s

has happene

sitting here alone. I am tired besides, and overworked. I knew it would be a rest f

smiled

nd," sa

d him to

added. "How does you

most insuperable obstacles. He flattered her, moreover, by a suggestion that she herself was a great factor in his successes. The mere knowledge that she wished him well, that perhaps, once or twice in the day,

or man," said Callon.

llie Stretton, with a delighted

a word, as she had felt when she had

the sound of his voice violated her li

rose too, and a

Anthony Stretton?" he sai

eard. He will

n's eyes. He raised his hand

st sympathy, "would have left you

her shoulder. He was very still, the house was

at, Mr. Callon," she

our pardon. I had no idea my sympathy

llicent turned round in surprise. She

her voice was troubled. "

Mudge had told Pamela, he knew the tactics of the particular kind of warfare which he waged. To cause a woman some pain, to make her think with regret that in him she had lost a f

, at length, as though he had

looked at him wi

like this," she said piteousl

reconciliation. That must come from her, it would give him in her eyes a reputation for strength. He knew the value of that reputation. He had no doubt, besides, that she would suggest a reconciliation. Other women might not, but Millie--

PTE

COMES TO

d no knowledge of Pamela's promise to Tony Stretton; no suspicion, therefore, that she was now passionately resolved to keep it in the spirit and the letter. He was even without a though

own; and in addition the private enclosure was separated by the width of the course from the crowd and clamour of the ring. She attended this particular meeting, and after the second race was over she happened to be standing amidst a group of friends within the grove of trees at the back of the paddock. Outsi

think she will

now here, now there, to exchange a word with some acquaintance, he moved on again, invariably alone. Gradually he drew nearer to the grou

h a smile. "I am glad, though

glasses slung across his shoulder, had the disconsolate air of a man consciou

of summer," he said, and he added, with a shrewd glance a

d up at him

ave. Let

nclosure was at this moment rather empty. Pamela led the way to the rails alongside

s Millingham's?" she asked. She had

replied im

he was, she laughed. "Sir Anthony Stretton turned away from the steps of his house. You were distressed, Miss

troubled." She spoke with a little hesitation. There was a frown upon her forehead, a look of perplexity in her dark eyes. She was reluctant to admit that her friend was in any danger or needed any protection from

troubles me," she said, "but I cal

d?" exclaim

letters from his solicitors empowering her to do what she liked with the house and income

udge what the Perseverance w

had returned, but she refused to believe it

reluctance to speak. He determined to help her out. "Let me describe to you what

, in surprise; "that

urned a little pale, perhaps was dis

he was afraid. I would have given much to have doubted it. I could no

his head, and w

estioned you closely as to the time when you first saw St

tude that he might have bee

after eleven when he came, and that he on

Mr. Mudge, "Lady Stretto

y was she afraid? For, since you have guessed that she was, you must know the reason which she had for

d her immediately

Callon was ins

ts were passionately set on saving Millie, and here came news to her which brought her to the brink of despair. She blamed Tony. "Why did he ever go away?" she cried. "Why, when he had come back, did he not stay?" And at once she saw the futility of her outcry. Tony, Millie, Lionel Callon--what was the use of blaming them? They acted as their characters impelled them. She had to do her best to remedy the evil which the clash of these three characters had produc

en quietly w

ou, Miss Mardale, what I knew unless I had already hit upon a means

e. It had not occurred to her at all

I do?" s

hole trouble in my h

a little while; then s

d of you to off

head at Pamela wit

ur world I am not of it. Its traditions, its instincts, even its methods of thought--to all of these I am a stranger. I am just a passing visitor who, for the time of his stay, is made an honorary member of your c

of dissent; but Mr.

qually well why I offer you help which may

mela; "on the contrar

they stood. They turned and walked slow

that in my haste to get on I rather neglected my wife's happiness. You see I am frank with you. From the residential suburb I moved into the Cromwell Road, from the Cromwell Road to Grosvenor Square. I do not think that I was just a snob; but I wanted to have the very best of what was going. There is a difference. A few years ago I found myself at the point which I had aimed to reach, and, as I have told yo

t any interruption; but when he ha

me the best of help at once. Even the best of help fails at times, and my friend did. I was wondering merely whether it wo

t I think that I can give yo

istence that he had a definite p

eave the whole matter for a

he looked up towards the course.

he opened the purse she carried on her

ase," she said, with a laugh. "Be

an eagerness which astonished Mr. Mudge, so completely did she seem to have forgotten all that had troubled her a minute ago. But he did not understand P

all wi

Lionel Callon, Miss Mardale? The words are not mine, but the sentiment i

PTE

REIGN

from the school of St. Cyr. Captain Tavernay picked up his cap from the iron table in front of him and settled it upon his grizzled head. Outside the town trees clustered thickly, farms were half-hidden amongst groves of fig-trees and hedges of aloes. Here there was no foliage. The streets were very quiet, the sunlight lay in dazzling pools of gold upon the sand of the roads, the white

eet the train from Oran. A batch of thirty recruits is

end of his cigarette on to the

red. "But we should see the anim

distinct in nationality as in character, flung together pell-mell, negroes and whites, criminals, adventurers, silent unknown men, haunted by memories of other days or tortured by remorse--a garrison town with its monotony and its absinthe played havoc. An Abyssinian rubbed shoulders in the ranks with a scholar who spoke nine languages; a tenor from the Théatre de la Monnaie at Brussels with an unfrocked priest. Often enough Captain Tavernay had seen one of his legionaries sitting alone hour after hour at his little table outside a café, steadily drinking glass after glass of absinthe, rising mechanically to salute his officer, and sinking back among his impenetrable secrets. Was he dreaming of the other days, the laughter and the flowers, the white shoulders of women? Was he again placing that last stake upon the red which had sent him straight from the table to

d Lieutenant Laurent

little stories ready for us, they will be armed with discretion. But let us see them descend from the train, let us watch their first look round at their new home, their new f

n in the Foreign Legion. M. Laurent had, a few months ago, in Paris, imagined himself to be irrevocably in love with the wife of one of his friends, a lady at once beautiful and mature; M. Laurent had declared his passion upon a suitable occasion; M. Laurent had been snubbed for his pains; M. Laurent in a fit of pique had sought the consolation of

lk accurately. For as they reached

ese cases," said Tavernay. "W

n the uniform of the Legion, walked towards the cases behind which Tavernay and his companion were concealed. In front came two youths, fair of

?" asked Laurent

eplied Tavernay, and his voice trembled ever

ry. They are not poor. Whence c

deep note of reverence. "They come from Alsace or Lorraine. We get many

which would not so quickly tire of discipline and service. He gazed with a momentary feel

worth while to come to the station and see the

d Laurent; an

he was attired in evening dress. It was his dress which had riveted Laurent's attention; and certainly nothing could have seemed more bizarre, more strangely out of place. The hot African sun poured down out of a cloudless sky; and a new recruit for the Foreign Legion stepped out of a railway carriage as though he had come straight from a ball-room. What sudden disaster could have overtaken him? In what trag

you mak

hrugged hi

ade a fool of himself. They

will r

il they reach Marseilles. Suppose that he enlisted in Paris. He is given the fare

re were dark shadows under his eyes, th

id Tavernay. He watched his recruit with

ing aston

d inspected them. As he passed along the ranks he suddenly stopped in front of an old soldier with fifteen years' service in the Legion, much of which fifteen years had been passed in the cells. The old soldier was a drunkard--oh, but a confirmed drunkard. Well, in front of this man my young Captain wit

o marched, keeping time with their feet and holding their hands stiffly at their sid

rs," said Tavernay.

open face, not particularly intellectual, on the other hand not irretrievably stupid. He was dressed in a double-breasted, blue-serge suit, and as he walked he

ed, he has done work too. Yes! You see, Laurent, he is a little ashamed, a little self-

rth," said Lament. "P

nay. "I am wondering only what he will

in the strong sunlight. The man in the ruffled silk hat and the dress-suit toed the line beside a bundle of rags; the German deserters rubbed elbows with the "true legionary" in the

paper in his hand he began to read. The answers came back

taub

man voice

ese

d no answer was given. "Ohlsen," he r

man in the serge suit flashed

ese

e reason for the pause was too obvious; "Ohls

open," said the sous-officier. "N

t marched off tow

e shrugged his shoulders. "Wel

y in this grotesque procession. None the less he had to wait with the others, drawn up in the barrack-square until Captain Tavernay returned. The Captain went to his office,

asked

s Oh

f enlis

seil

answers with some writ

doctor Paul as sound of body. Ye

iona

we

inclined to try his new recruit with a few questions in the Swedish tong

ge

irt

cat

herm

ed up. This time he c

upon the bare brown space with a blinding fierceness. All the recruits but Stretton had marched off; a second ago it had been quite empty and very silent. Now these three men were hurrying across it, shouting, gesticulating with their hands. Stretton looked at them with surprise. Then he noticed that one of them, the man running in the middle and a little

the door, and a voi

al

rnay who wa

ady halfway acr

al

ng the command. Captain T

raded to the ranks," said he. "Half a pi

him fell back and halted. Certainly Captain Tavernay was accustomed to obedience. The Spanish ex-corporal ran on alone, straight towards Tavernay, but as he ra

!" he cried, wav

round, and with the same leisurely deliberation walked back to his room. The ex-corpora

revolver o

d. Tavernay pushed open

ot be seen in this condition by your

limbs. Then he staggered into the Captain's room. Tavernay tur

r way in your-fishing-boats," he continued, with a chuckle. Stretton knew very well that he meant "army." "But there is no Foreign Legion amongst your--fishermen." He laughed again; and gathe

n Legion by means of these"--and he touched lightly the medals upon hi

TER

LEAVES

the first at which he looked brought a smile of satisfaction to his face. The superscription told him that it was from Millie Stretton. That little device of a quarrel had proved successful, then. He tore open the envelope and read the letter. Millie wrote at no great length, but what was written satisfied Callon. She could not understand how the quarrel had ar

Had he given in, had he been the one to make the advance, to save her the troubled speculations, the sorrow at this abrupt close to their friendship. Millie Stretton would have been glad, no doubt, but she would have though

enger. Then he turned to his other letters, and amongst them he found one which drove all the satisfaction from his

in our hands for the collection of their outstanding debts, we must ask you to send us a

, your

eys &

. His eyes wandered to a drawer in his dressing-table. He got out of bed and unlocked it. At the bottom of that drawer lay the other reasons, piled one upon the other--letters couched in just the same words as that which he had received this morning, an

hire of horses and carriages; bills of all kinds--and there were just Mr. Callon's election expenses in Mr. Callon's exchequer that morning. Even if he parted with them, they would not pay a third part of the sum claimed. Fear invaded him; he saw no way out of his troubles. Given time, he could borrow e

of the dark, striking with knowledge too. For the blow fell where he could least parry it. Mr. Mudge would have been quite satisfied could he have seen Callon as he lay that morning with the summe

l-turn. Name after name occurred to him, but amongst those names was not the name of Mr. Mudge. Th

d Neill. Summonses would never do with a general election so near. He dressed quickly, and soon afte

mself as Humphreys. "Oh yes. You have come in reference to

n. "There are a good

entleman laug

we humdrum business people are spared. Let me see. The total amou

through his spectacles with a look of the utmost astonishment. "You see, Mr. Humphreys, all these bills, each one

ndered," said Mr. Humphreys, as he re

s, seriously embarrass me t

. These duties are very painful to me, Mr. Callon. But I have the strict

how it is that all my bills have come into y

"Why not pay them in full?" His eyes beamed through his spectacles. He had an air of making a perfectly original and delightful sug

some time,"

rsuaded that the concession of

nd he bowed Callon from his office. Then he wrote a little note and despatched it by a messenger into the City. The messa

ticular person who wished to ruin him. He walked gloomily back to his club and lunched in solitude. A day remained to him, but what could he do in a day, unless----? There was a certain letter in the breast-pocket of Callon's coat to which, more than once as he lun

om cab he had driven straight to the house in Audley Squ

with Lady Stretton, please! And don't go away too soon!

ative mood, and Millie Stretton sitting before the tea-table silent and helpless. Callon stayed late; Pamela s

looked too crude when written down. Callon knew the tactics of his game. There must, in a word, be an offer from Millie, not a request from him. He tore up his letter, and while h

me. You know so many people that you might be able

d up careles

rrupting me. What kin

end an important undertak

sness had gone. He looked at Mr. Mudge, who stoo

allon. "Tell

which was unoccupied and sat down. Mu

men enough on the spot. And I don't want any one out of my office. I need some one, on whom I can rel

"The appointment wou

yea

alary woul

hout any show of eagerness. Two years would be all the time he needed whe

ou shall judge for yourself. It

His heart was beating fast. Two thousand a year for two years, plus the sum for his election e

ge appeared, however, not to notice his agitation. He was looking down at

een merely uttering a joke. He did not even lift his eyes

m," crie

his companion now,

ve the time to spare. You are

ugged his

Parliament. And there are reaso

nswered wit

Dine with me tonight at my house,

, and Mudge rose from his seat

iety. "The truth is, I am rather embarrassed at the present moment. I owe a good

ace clear

exclaimed cheerily.

my first ye

nce. Offer them a thousand on accou

hat they will,"

ch hindered him from gaining Lionel Callon's invaluable help. "I will write you a cheque," he said; and sitting down at a writing-table he filled out a cheque and brought it back. He stood in front of Callon with the cheque in his hand. He did not give it to Callon at once. He had not blotted it, and he held it by a corner and gently waved it to and fro, so that the ink might dry. It followed that those tantalising "n

aid Mr. Mudge, "that the unde

ad not dreamed of that possibility. Two years abroad, even at tw

epeated doubtf

aps he kept his eyes too deliberately from Callon's face. At all events, Callon became suddenly suspicious. There flashed into his mind by some trick of memory a picture--a picture of Mr. Mudge and Pamela Mardale talking earnestly tog

" said

a mo

ent presence at Millie Stretton's house this afternoon. One by one the incidents gathered in his recollections and fitted themselves together and explained each other. Was this offer a pretext to get him out of

said Mud

Callon. He meant that he must have time to obtain an int

able. It is seven o'clock now. You dine wi

ll to-morrow morn

e shook

ake the necessary arrangements and to talk over your duties. For i

protest. "On the day

looked Callon quietly and deliberately in the eyes. "Bu

ebts, who now held him in so secure a grip that he did not think it worth while to practise any concealment. Callon was humiliated to the verge of endurance. Two ye

d. "I will give you

as he pleased, he would spend two years in Chili. It was five minutes past seven, besides. Callon could hardly call at the h

allon's stay in England. He kept Callon with him until two o'clock in the morning; he made an appointment with him at ten, and there was a note of warning in his voice which bade Callon punctually keep it. By one shift and another he kept him busy all the next day, and in the evening Callon

TER

OF O

ied Captai

ple of hundred yards behind them the two companies of the Foreign Legion came to a standstill. The convoy of baggage mules upon the right flank, the hospital equipment, the arti

force marched out from the trees of the high plateaux into the open desert. It was extraordinary with what abruptness that transition was made. One minute the companies were treading upon turf under rustling leaves, the next they

pany. It was he who had stepped from the train at Bel-Abbès with a light dust-coat ov

who marched at his side: "the

n expedition from Mesheria to the Chott Tigri, and knew, therefore, the look of those tantalising salt lakes

-night," he added. "The wel

adels and hanging gardens, tall towers and waving woods and majestic galleons, topsail over top

that vast plain except the small group of Arabs and soldiers about the well, by five o'clock the camels were squatting upon the sand with their drivers beside them. The mules were s

ak its limbs; the next another would fail, and die through a long-untended wound, caused by the rough saddle upon its back. In the ranks of the soldiers, too, there was trouble, and Laurent was not the man to deal with it. There was hardly a company of the Legion, recruited, as it so largely was, from the outcasts and the men of sorrows, in which there were not some of disordered minds, some whom absinthe had brought to the edge of insanity. Upon these the severity of the expedition bore heavily. Tents had been perforce discarded. The men slept under the stars. They woke from freezing nights to the bitter winds of dawn, and two hours after dawn they were parched by a burning sun, and all the day they suffered under its pitiless and blinding glare. Storms whelmed them in lofty spirals of whirling, choking sand. For a week they would toil over high red mountainous ground of loose stones; then would follow the monotony of bare round plains, piled here and there with black rocks, quivering

and it no

ls of halfa-grass and sticks. He was kneeling up in front of it, and by the

you stand?

nce over his shoulder. "There is a man put on to watch me. Night and day I am watched by Captain Ta

for a while to Barbier's rambling, minat

er upon this expedition. He had to be watched; that was all. Thus for seven hundred miles the force pushed southwards from Ouargla, and thus from within it disintegrated as it

es crackling. Stretton was at his side, and saw his commander stop and shade his eyes. Tavernay was looking westwards. Far away against the glowing ball of the sun, which was just dipping down behind the pl

men for a long time

and that night the sentinels were doubled; and in

he monasteries of that body sent out their missionaries eastward to Khordofan, westwards to Tafilet, preaching the purification of the Mohammedan religion and the enlargement of Mohammedan countries now subject to the infidels. But nowhere

fficered," he thought. "But the men are of the Le

mud fortress of Abd-el-Kader, the sheikh, and were instantly admitted to the dark room where he sat upon a pile of rugs. When the eyes of the scouts became accustomed to the gloom, they saw t

uts told him roughly the number of the

r turned to the

suave gentle voice. "A hundred miles more, and they will be amongst the sand dunes. Sin

that country a maze of intricate valleys. Led by a local guide commandeered from the last oasis, the companies of the Legion marched into the maze, and on the second day saw, as they came over a hill, just below them in a narrow hollow, a mud parapet built about the mouth of a well. This was Bir-el-Gharamo, and here they camped. Sentries were posted on the neighbouring crests; suddenly the darkness came, and overhead the stars rushed down towards the earth. There was no moon that night, nor was there any sound of danger heard. Three times Tavernay went the round of the sent

ain Tavernay. "They

broken cardboard, and the Arabs were within the square, stabbing at the backs of the soldiers, loosing and stampeding the camels. And at once, where deep silence had reigned a minute ago, the air was torn with shrill cries and oaths and the clamour of weapons. The square was broken; but here a group of men stood back to back, and with cartridge and bayonet held its ground; there another formed; and abou

Tavernay, "fight well; the

Touaregs broke and fled. When it shone out in its full round, there was no one left of them in that hollow except the wounded and the dead. But the victory had been dearly bought. All about the well, lying pell-mell among the Arabs and the dead camels, were the French Legionaries, some quite still, and others writhing in pain and crying for water. Stretton drew his hand across his forehead. He was stunned and dazed. It seemed to

d aloud of no

at attitude had fallen asleep. But he might so easily be pushed into the well, and custom had made the preservation of wells from impurity an instinct. He removed the body and wen

nant La

across an old grey-headed soldier

re," said the soldier

of a lady far away in Paris had brought him. He lay with his face to the sky, his wounded vanity now quite healed. He had earned Tavernay's praise, at all events, that day. For he had

think you have learnt something about it on your

ed and thirty men who had made up the two companies of the Legion, only forty-seven could stand in the ranks and answer to their names. For those forty-seven there was herculean work to do. Officers

an envelope, and ink. They were fetched from his portfolio and very

said, "now, in

ton o

back to Ouargla without me, gi

uargla. The Touaregs hung upon the rear of the force, but they did not attack again. They preferred another way. One evening a solitary Arab drove a laden camel into the bivouac. He was conducted to Stretton

e the morning. Short of food, short of sentinels, the broken force crept back across the stretches of soft sand, the greyish-green plains of halfa-grass, the ridges of red hill. One by

Pelissier would recite such prayers as he remembered, and the force would move on again, leaving one more soldier's grave behind it in th

ht senses, but so weak that he could not lift a hand, and with a face so pinched and drawn that his year

ve the

es

ot fo

and disaster ... the big force afterwards to retrieve the disaster, and with it victory, and government and peace, and a new

captain. You will lead

years ago. And the Legion, my friend, is the nation of the unhappy. For twenty years I have been a citizen of that na

umbled at last through the gates of the town. Silently it marched through the streets to the French fortress. On no survivor's face was there any sign of joy that at last their hardships were over, their safety assured. All were too tired, too dispirited. The very people who crowded to see them pass seemed

n this was written,"

andant sat with his hand shading his eyes. When h

e letter contains

y Comm

ok it and read. There were a few lines written--only a few; but those few lines recommend

justice not be done. Have no fear, my friend. It is you who have brought back to Ouargla the survivors of the Legion. But you must give your real name.

k up h

ton," replied Tony; and the C

PTE

URNPI

along this road between the white wood rails and the black bare stems of trees on a winter's evening of mist. That was more than fifteen months ago. The brown furrows in the fields were now acres of waving yellow; each black clump was now an ambuscade of green, noisy with birds. The branches creaked in a light wind and rippled and shook the sunlight from their leaves, the road glistened li

e as he came out from the glass-door on to the gravel, and she rose from her chair. She did not advance to him, but just stood where she was, watching him approach; and in her eyes there was a great perplexity. Warrisden came straight to her over the lawn. There was no hesitation in his manner, at all events. On the

cted me?"

ed your letter

uessed why

es

troubled," sa

lackbirds and thrushes; a gardener sharpening his scythe in the rose garden made a little r

e old question," said Warr

ly. She was prepared for the question, yet she took her time to ans

she said, in a

The broad, white forehead under the sweep of her dark hair, the big, dark eyes shining beneath her brows, the delicate colour upon her c

make no career. I think there are enough people making careers. They make the world very noisy, and they rais

t," said

oth of us," he continued. And again

not

ed, were never to her liking; and here,

o one else. But that is not all. I can say too, I think, quite certainly, that there will

n nodded

ot enough," he

by side in silence

ame again with this old question, as I knew you would, I might be quite clear and frank. Do you remember that you once spoke to me ab

I reme

gate between friendship and the ev

es

. "But one cannot open that gate at will. It

stays sh

swered hi

gate, but that I am afraid to try." And she turned

ue. Pamela looked down into the dark, swiftly running water, and went

isden was aware from her attitude that she had not finished. He did not stir lest he should check what more remained to say, and that remnant never be s

think that if I did touch that

which she was well familiar. Was the letter delayed, there was a keenness in her disappointment which was like the pang of an old wound. And this recognition that the good days might come again, as in a cycle, brought to her very vividl

de with the sunlight playing upon her face and her hair--a girl brilliant with life, ripe to turn its possibilities into fa

en, quietly as he spoke, the greatness of his longing made itself heard

y upon her memories. Sh

"For there is one thing which might make me take my risks.

on?" exclaim

edition somewhere in Central Africa, and out of reach. But that is n

said Warrisden. "This time I mi

shook h

e would be only one way of persuading him to return. Well--that

spoken so long ago had meant. She must write why he should not have left his wife. She must relate the sordid story, whic

t blame Tony for his absence, for she understood the motive which caused it. In a way, she was inclined to approve of it in itself, just as a motive, that is to say. It was the character of Millie Stretton and his ignorance of

s possible that the necessity might recur." For she knew that, though Callon was far away in Chili, letters came from him to Millie. Only lately a careless remark of

would send for m

hould rel

answered quiet

d Pamela. She had never told him that she had used another's help and not his. She wondered whether it was quite fair not to tell him. But she kept silent. After all, she

on keeping a promise which I made to Tony Stretton. If he returns, whether of his own accord or by my persuasion, and thin

r a moment she gave those dreams their way. She looked across the garden through a mist, seeing nothing of the trees or the coloured flowers, but gazing into a vision

reams from her

-everything, not merely companionship, not merely liking; out the ever so much more which there is. I cannot contempla

replied, "I ask

there was complete confidence be

gly, sparingly; counting what she gives. And that little, to my mind, is worth rather less than nothing. Better have no ties than weak ones. If, on the other hand, a man asks a great deal, an

asked

much more than he asks, and giv

ught the t

true," she said. "But, after a

den la

But then you are not bored,

a lighter note. They walked towards the house, an

ie Stretton,"

ng here?" cri

do something for me. Oh, it is quite a small thing. But I shou

Warrisden, "I ha

ed to him during the last half-hour. It had arisen from their

London to-morrow

es

nd I want you to post it, not by the country post, but afterwards, so that it will re

a moment afterwards, and War

ey Square," she said to Pamela. "I think I w

that Pamela was coming slowly towards him. There was a great difference between her "No" of last year and her "I do not know" of to-day. Even that "I do not know" while they talked had become "perhaps." Had she not owned even more, since she was afr

hat room which had not been unlocked for years, and of which Pamela sedulously guarded the keys. They held letters, a few small presents, one or two photographs, and some insignificant trifles which could not be

crew perished. The cargo was spilt amongst the breakers, and the shores of that bay were littered with red beads. You may pick them up to this day amongst the pebbles. There Pamela had picked them upon a hot August morning, very like to that which now dreamed over this green, quiet garden of Leicestershire; and when she had picked them up she had not been alone. The locked cabinets held all the relics which remained to her from those few bright weeks in Devon; and the mere touch of any one, however trifling, would have magic to quicken her memories. Yet now the

PTE

E DOES N

e Millie Stretton was at her side. For the letter was in the handwriting of Mr. Mudge, who wrote but rarely, and never without a reason. She read the letter in the garden as soon as Warrisden had ridden off, and the news which it contained was bad news. Callon had lived frugally in South America--by Christmas he would have discharged his debts; and he had announced to Mudge that

ly that Chase would be away upon a holiday. But there was a chance that he might find him clinging to his work through this hot August, a chance worth the trouble of his journey. He drove to the house where Chase lodged, thinking to catch him before he set out for his evening's work at the mission. The door of the house stood open to the street. Warrisden dismissed his cab, and walked up the steps into the narrow

oked at the

e said. "I suppose that he h

te. The hot weather in these close streets is trying. But he certainly sh

himself as Mr. Raphael Princkley, and his companion as Mr.

can do, but you are no doubt acquainted with the poetry of Robert Browning:

usekeeper. She was an old woman, fat and slow,

Mr. Chase?" he asked when the

"You told me yesterday evening not to d

ey turned t

he told us that he felt unequal to his duties. He was sitting in th

look to Mr. Stile

tiles, between two mouthfuls; "and

s some fruit upon the table. He took an apple from the d

ed, and went on

pple which he took. He

ed Warrisden, politely. Warrisden was growing a little res

ent upstairs to his sitting-room. I gave orders to Mrs. Wither that he must not

rday evening!"

ning," replied

has been nea

Wither i

m an hour afterwards. He was sitting

and. I think. Mrs. Wither,

his arm out resting on the arm of the

!" exclaime

ll him in the morning until he

e say?" ask

as not he does not answe

his armchair before the grate. One arm was extended along the arm of the chair, with the palm turned upwards, and in the palm lay an apple. Chase was sitting huddled up, with his head fallen forward upon his breast like a man asleep. Warrisde

en, "when you looked into t

ly aghast. Warrisden pushed them out, locked

ill you run for a

is head, and went

descended the stairs

part had run out of the house as quickly as she could. She hardly knew what she was doing. She had served as housekeeper to Mr. Chase eve

the mission, and of the distaste which he had felt; he remembered the array of liqueur bottles on the table, and the half-hour during which Chase had talked. A man of morbid pleasures, that had been Warrisden's impression. Yet there were the years of work, here, amongst these squalid streets. Even August had seen him clinging to--nay, dying at--his work. As Warrisden looked out of the window he saw a group of men and women and children gather outside the house. There was not a face but wore a look of consternation. If they spoke, they spoke in whispers, like people overawed. A very strange life! Warr

the postmark, and at the foreign stamp upon the envelope. Was that so great a crime? Warrisden was sorely tempted. If only he could be sure that Chase would a second time have revealed what he was bidden to keep hid, why, then, would it not be just the same thing as if Chase were actually speaking with his lips? Warrisden played with the key. He went to the door and listened. There was not a sound in the house except the ticking of a clock. The front door still stood open. He must be quick if he meant to act. Warrisden turned to the stairs. The

ded the key of the room to the latter, and the three men went up. The docto

been touche

" replied

e turned to Warrisden, mistaking him, as the ot

no certifica

st be an

es

ir. There was a decanter upon it half filled with a liquid like brown sherry, only

e of comprehension. He t

know?"

N

risden took it, moistened the tip of a finger with

s it?"

the doctor. "An

ass, then, in wh

le close to the decanter-sto

said Warrisden; "I no

turned it upside down, and held it to t

the corner there. His keys are still dangling in the lock, he took the decanter and the tumbler out, placed t

ched the decanter. "Opium poisoning. It may not have been an overdose, but a regular practice." He went to the door and calle

ver see th

," she a

cupboar

as always

help you here," he went on; and, with Warrisden's assistance, h

n, and again he appealed to Warrisden. "Do yo

at

of discovering the secret which was of so much importance to Pamela and Millie Stretton and himself had vanished. If only he had come yesterday, or the day before! He sat down by the

rning. They were not taken up to his

e importance. He held the letters in his hand and turned them over one by one, and half-way through the file he stopped. He had come to a letter written up

ondered whether he had found the clue. Ain-Sefra in Algeria. Warrisden had never heard of the place before. It might be a health resort, a wintering p

aid. "I knew Chase very slightly. His relations must be

hat colony. The Foreign Legion! Warrisden jumped to the conviction that there was the secret of Tony Stretton's disappearance. Every reason he could imagine came to his aid. Let a man wish to disappear, as, from whatsoever reason, Tony Stretton did, where else could he so completely bury himself and yet live? Hardships? Dangers? Yes. But Tony Stretton had br

promise he wrote to Pamela that night. Just a few lines--nothing more, as she had asked. But in those few lines he wrote that he would like her to procure for him a scrap of Tony Stre

the summons to service shoul

PTE

N RED

the Quorn, and for once her thoughts were set on other matters than this immediate business. The long grass meadows slipped away under her horse's feet the while she pondered how once more the danger of Callon's presence was to be averted. At times she hoped it would not need averting. Callon had been eighteen months away, a

me words which her mother had spoken at the breakfast-table

not go to Roquebrune this

many winters now. I shall stay in England, for a

added, "I shall be going to London to-mo

e days when her troubles were at their worst. He would follow her about the paddock or the yard nuzzling against her arm; a horse of blood and courage, yet gentle with her, thoughtful and kind for her as only a horse amongst the animals can be. She must leave him. On the other hand, her thoughts of late had been tur

she could not but remember the plans which Tony and she had debated long ago. They had been so certain of realising them. Well, they were realised now, for her, at all events. There was the sunlight piercing through every cranny; there were the wide expanses of green, and trees. Only the windows looked on Regent's Park, and on no wide prairie; and of the two who, with so much enthusiasm, had m

the house, and until that ceremony was over she did not broach t

have always wa

rune in the south of France. It will be empty this winter. And I thought that

indow with her back to Pamel

te the plac

wered with

o go very much. I won't tell you why. But I do wa

o large a place in her thoughts, she had wished to put herself to the test, to understand whether her distress was really and truly dead, or whether it merely slumbered and could wake again. It was necessary, for Warrisden's sake as much as her own, that she should come to a true knowledge. And nowhere else could she so certainly acq

ed back to

ndon this winter," she said. "You see

u some annoyance,"

derstand,"

in Tony's absence. He will very l

ugged her

wo years," she replied. "I do not

count that she decided to remain? Pamela could not ask the question. Her

etton's house. Millie was alone; she was indeed expecting him. When Callon entered the room he found her stan

looked at him with curiosity, but with yet more an

d he, "a l

ell and ordered t

ot changed,

r y

ards the light she had allowed very little of her expression to be visible to her visitor. When tea was brought i

owered his voice, although there was no third person in the room. He knew the value of such t

nger rather than pleasure. There was a ha

he said. "You did not come to see me before

ught it

nkind," s

o you. I have

u told me why you wen

me when I

ugged her

missed--I missed--something," she said.

never mentioned the reason in my letters; I meant to tell

eated. "I understood, from what you wrote,

t was forced on me. Mudge was only th

away, then?"

yours--Miss P

chair. "Pamela!" she cried incredul

ht that I was seei

is determination to tell it to Millie Stretton. He had been hoodwinked, outwitted by Pamela and her friend; he had been banished to Chili for two years. Very well. But the game was not over yet. His vanity was hurt as nothing had ever hurt it before. He was stung to a thirst for revenge. He would live frugally, clear off his debts, return to England, and prove to his enemies the futility of their plan. He thought of Pamela Mardale

ching her hands together sud

n the shires as the only wintering-place. That was explained now. Mr. Mudge had informed Pamela, no doubt, t

se from h

ebt. Miss Mardale had an old rich man devoted to her in Mr. Mudge. He bought up my debts, his lawyer demanded an immedi

ve come to me,

sed a prot

moment! Oh, you would have offered help at a hint. I know you. You are

ion, and that hour between seven and eight in the evening. He had thought of calling upon Millie to suggest in her mind the

otive was to get me out of the country. He did not care whether I knew his motive or not. I did not count," he cried, bitterly. "I was a mere pawn upo

e; and Callon stepped

was nothing at, all, a mere prisoner, in everybody's way, a man utterly befooled. But that was not the worst of it. Shall I be frank?" He made a pretence of hesitation. "I will. I will take the risk of frankness.

"I was angry, of course. I knew that I wa

ed him: "How did she

you in the hall. You came down the stairs and ran up again. There was a mirror on the mantelp

her chair and mov

ured," she said, in a low voice. She was really hurt, really troubled. "I am so v

ed and stood

t," he said. "It

ly, and as quickly fell. The col

ued, with a smile. "I see you again. If you wish

the very difficulty of attaining her. Millie allowed him to come again and again. She had a natural taste for secrecies, and practised them now, as he bade her do, without any perception of the humiliation which they involved. If he called at her house, it was after the dusk had fallen, and when she was at home to no other visitors. They dined together in the restaurants of unfashionable hotels, and if she drove to them in her brougham, she sent it away, and was escorted to her door in a cab. Callon was a past-master in concealment; he knew the public places where the public never is, and rumour did not co

to a theatre in the Haymarket. At the door she sent her carriage home, and when the performance was over she took a hansom cab. She declined any escort, and was driven up Regent Street towards her home. At the corner of Devonshire Street, in Portland Pla

Regent's Pa

the roadway on the left, the road under the wheels was very white. There was a great peace in the park. It was quite deserted. In a second it seemed they had c

great issues of life and honour were debated. Millie had just her life in her hands. One way or the other, by a 'Yes' or a 'No,' she must decide what she would do with it, and, to whatever decision she came, it must reach out momentous with consequences and touch other lives beyond hers and beyond those others, others still. Her husband, her relations, her friends--not one of them but was concerned in this midnight drive. It seemed to Millie al

," said Callon. "If he did,

throng which ran about the cab? And all at once it seemed that the hurrying footsteps

ed know,"

ys knows," re

you will not mind. If you love, you will

it, just for the moment. Disenchantment would come later; but nothing of it would she foresee. As she had matched herself with To

she said. "I

n, wretchedly clad, slouched past and turned into the Marylebone Road. That was all. Sooner or late

TER

GE'S CO

ontained these words: "Important that I should see you. Coming down. Please be at home at two." Punctually Mr. Mudge arrived. Pa

usy man. You would not have come down to me had you not bad ne

o bad that you must ask your other frie

r the other friend; indeed, he wished, with all his heart, that she should be happy with some mate of her own people. But at the same time he wished her to owe as much as possible of her happiness to him. He was her friend, but there was just that element of jealous

Callon?"

t Sir Anthony Stretton should return, an

n Mr. Callon?

etton. They w

he

t. In Rege

as doubtful how to put

sure the trou

e nodded

ton's face. It was a clear night. There was a lamp too, in th

ir, and fixed her troubl

hey se

udge

N

ela, "Tell me the story from the beginni

ordinary human sympathies and desires. It seemed that he could have neither time nor inclination to indulge them. But here he was, as he had once done before, not merely admitting their existence within him, but confessing that they were far the greater part of him, and that because they had been thwarted, the prosperous external life of business to which he seemed so ardently enchained was really of little account, He spoke very simply. Pamela lost

wmarket," he said. "You must remember wha

id Pamela, gently. "I thin

interest. As often as not she was unaware that it existed; when she was aware, she dismissed it without consideration.

s head, with a smile towards

sis upon the word that Pa

w?" she

oticed. Imagination, the power to see clearly, the power to understand

She neither admitted nor denie

uch as it is, has left me a very lonely man amongst a crowd of acquaintances, who are no more in sympathy

onnection. Mudge was not of those who take a pride in disclosing the details of their life and character in and out of season. If he spoke of himself, he did so with a definite reason

but I can and I do go back all the way at times. I reconstruct the days when I was very, very poor, and yet full of hope, full of confidence. I do not mean tha

g at him with a frown of p

m again?" she asked.

our later on one of my pilgrimages. You would never know me; you might toss me a shilling, that's all. Of course, I have to be careful. I am always expecting to be taken up as a thief as I slink away from the house. I would look rather a fool if that happened, wouldn't I?" and he laughed. "But it never has yet." He suddenly turned to her. "I enjoy myself upon those jaunts, you know; I really enjoy myself. I like the secrecy.

you go?" a

g forty years ago, when this or that scheme, which turned out well, first came into my head. But don't misunderstand," Mudge exclaimed. "I don't set off upon these visits for the satisfaction of comparing what I was then with what I have become. It is to get back to what I was then, as nearly as I can; to recapture, just for a moment, some of the high hopes, some of the anticipations of happiness to be won which I felt in those days; to forge

s had not been so pleasant as they appeared in the retrospect; but time had stripped them o

n. "I wonder what has become of them all

se do you go?

ork near the Marylebone Road. There's a tavern near Madame Tussaud's where I used to go and have supper at the counter in the public bar. Do you remember the night of Lady Millingham's reception, when we looked out of the window and saw Sir Anthony Stretton? Well,

, and Mudge no

cabmen and the others who were about it, and drinking my coffee. As I returned into the park the cab drove past me again. I thought it was the same cab, from the casual glance I gave, and with the same people inside it. They had driven round, were still driving round. It was a fine night, a night of spring, fr

stfulness from

again, and pulled up. Callon got out. I saw him clearly. I saw quite clearly, too, who was within t

se, and held

have a fly waiting to take

e door of the house. As they

k you still more now, and for another reason. I thank you for telling me what you have told me about yourself. Such

confidence,

hout creating a difference. We no longer stand where we did before they were made. I al

yes glistened a little, and she added, "You are no

e took h

," he said; and, mounting i

ow grown very pleasant and sweet to her thoughts. She asked him to meet her at the place where they had once kept tryst before--the parlour of the inn upon the hill in the village of the Three Poplars. Thither s

TER

RUNE R

It seemed to her that Millie Stretton was slipping beyond her reach; but the sight of those trees lightened her of some portion of her distress. She was turning more and more in her thoughts towards Warrisden whenever trouble knocked upon her door. In the

"I am very glad. I was not sure th

e from the choice of our meeting-place. We meet at Quetta, on the sam

said

of the hill. An ostler took charge of Pamela

ind Stretton agai

ed at him r

the matter was very urgent. I have used you for my needs, I know, with too little consideration for you, and

o, and the colour burned in her cheeks. Warrisden was surprised to hear t

er the elms in Lady Millingham's garden? If Tony returned, and returned in time, why, then you might lay your finger on the turnpike g

e softened i

n this very room, and nothing came of all your trouble. I want you to believe now that I could not ask you again to u

den replied; "but, on the other hand, the trouble I shall

the load of anxiety was

" she ex

sden

im again, and I wished to be ready. Chance gave me a clue--an envelope with a postmark. I followed up the clue by securi

d, you do not fail me;" and her

n the frontier of Algeria," Warrisden

"It was only a letter which I was going to ask you to carry to Tony.

er from a pocket of h

ach Stretton if you

, and was drawing the inkstand towards her. Sh

fra, Algeria,

each him in time? You say the need is urgent. Well, it was last summer when I saw the postmark on th

ber," sa

at Ain-Sefra now. But it is a small post, and he may not. The headquarters of the Legion are at Sidi Be

again; that Warrisden, searched he never so thoroughly, would not be able to find the man he searched for. There are so many graves in the Sah

diering openly under his own name, how will you address your letter with any likelihood that it will reach him? Just 'La Legion Etrangère'? We want to know to what section of la Legion Etrangère he belongs. Is he chasseur, artilleryman, sapper? Perhaps he serves

objections one by one in front of her until it seemed she would lose Tony o

Address it to Stretton under his own name. I will find him, if

risden had been speaking she had felt an impulse strong within her to keep him back; and it was because of that impu

ng will

nd him withi

smiled

t. "Telegraph to me when you have found Tony. Bring him back, and come back yourself." She added, in a voice which was very lo

he said. And Pamela said quickly, as though som

ait a

ndings of heart. Here was a good opportunity to apply the test. Warrisden would be away upon his jour

illa Pontignard, Roquebrune, Alpes Maritimes, Fr

ned of Pamela's visit at this time. She would have been quick to change her own plans; but she had no knowledge of whither Pamela's thoughts were leading her. When Callon in the hansom cab had said to her, "Come South," her first swift reflection had been, "Pamela will be safe in England." She herself had refused to go sou

on as I can make arrangements f

village many years ago. Perhaps you were at the villa then. I wonder. You must have been a little girl. It

!" exclaim

op on the first floor of a house in the middle of the village, and we sat there quite a long time. He asked us about Paris and London with

nodded

all night for thinking o

re, then?" cr

Englishmen had come up to Roquebrune, and had talked to him about the great towns and the lig

of the window, and for the moment altogether lost to h

be goi

brought to the do

"just as you did on that other day, when the h

g was coming with a great peace, the fields and woods lay spread beneath them toned t

in her voice and in her face than he had ever known.

and yet I am rather proud to know that you are doing something for me

gate of friendship had already swung open of its own accord. As she rode from Quetta that evening, she pa

ahead of her--the new road, which was the old road. Even that glimmer of white had almost vanished when at last she saw the lighted windows of her father's house. The footman told her that dinner was already served, but she ran past him very quickly up the stairs, and coming to her own room, locked the

stle of people. She sat down upon the parapet. Below her the cliff fell sheer, and far below, in the darkness at the bottom of the gorge, the water tumbled in foam with a distant hum. On the opposite hill the cypresses stood out black from the brown and green. Here she had suffered greatly, but the wounds were healed. These dreaded places had no longer power to hurt. She knew that very surely. She was emancipated from sorrow, and as she sat there in the still, golden after

ted for Warrisden's telegram. On the morning after she had arrived, the old curé cli

still

ied the curé; but he pursed u

d for him,"

almost imperceptibly he shrugged his shoulders as though

she asked gent

u once knew. That is all. The wine shop has made the difference--the wine

aid Pamela, gravel

hile, and greatly trou

arried?"

N

ve been bett

the curé, "but he has not, an

r. She would be going away in a few days. She would only hurt him and put him to shame before her. She took no ste

from her garden upon the quiet sea and saw, away upon the right, the lights, like great jewels, burning on the terrace of Monte Carlo. She went do

little while she was sure, for the man turned and showed his face. It was Lionel Callon. What was he do

at a Reserve, on the Corniche road, which was rather a restaurant than a hotel. She searched through the list, fearing to find the name of Millie Stretton under the heading of some other hotel. To her relief it was not there. It was possible, of course, that Callon was merely taking a holiday by himself. She wished to

een Millie Stre

ied. And one asked,

lied. "I asked her to come with me, but she could not d

as there. Pamela went back to Roquebrune that afternoon, and after she had walked through the village

gram for me?" sh

plied, "I have just l

the message. Tony Stretton was actually coming back. "Would he come too late?" she asked, gazing out in fear across the sea. Of any trouble, out there in Algeria, which might delay his return, she did not think at all. If it was true that he had en

TER

OF THE E

ed; and if one looked southwards from any open space, one saw a tawny belt of sand in the extreme distance streak across the horizon from east to west. That is the beginning of the great Sahara. Tony Stretton could never see that belt of sand, but his thoughts went back to the terrible homeward march from Bir-el-Ghiramo to Ouargla. From eas

the soft, yielding sand. He had brought back his handful of men, it was true; they had stumbled into Ouargla at the last; but there were few of them who were men as good as they had been when they had set out. Even the best, it almost seemed to him, had lost something of vitality which they would never recover; had a look fixed in their eyes which set them apart from their fellows--the look of those who have endured too much, who gazed for too long a time upon horr

im. Him the Sahara definitely claimed. Str

stopped where a man lay tossing in

er," h

uttered incoherently. But there was recognition neither in his eyes nor in his voice. An orderly approached the b

d the do

he orderly replied, with an ex

ry," said Stre

His eyelids were red, as though with much weeping, and, below the eyes, his face was drawn with fever and very white. Stretton laid his hand gently upon Barbier's forehead. It was burning hot. Stretton dismissed the orderly with a nod. Th

m, a stoutly built man, with a white moustache and imperial, and a stern

p hope. Barbier will hardly live out the night. They should never have sent

s return he had been sent to the asylum at Bel-Abbès, but there he had developed cunning enough to conceal his hallucination. He had ceased to complain that his officers were in a conspiracy to entrap and ruin

perceiving that the orderly was out of earshot, he bent down towards Barbier

s no longer th

"Monsieur de----" He uttered a name which the gener

er's face contracted. He start

e on the stairs," he whispered, "coming up--some one treading very lightly--but coming up--coming up." He inclined his head in the strained attitude of one listening with a great concentr

d him down again in the bed and covered him over with the

ing more than the dread that it will never pass. Always he ends with those words. Yet it was that night, no doubt, which toss

the stairs, the cautious turning of the door handle, the opening of the door, and the impenetrable blackness with one man, perhaps more than one, holding his breath somewhere, and crouching by the wall. But no hint escaped the sick man's lips of what there was which must needs be hidden, nor whether the thing which must needs be hidden was discovered by the one who trod so l

ore knowledge to be gained by Stretton. H

Barbier's father died two years ago; but an uncle and a sister lived. I wrote to both, offer

nswer, sir?" a

not mean to write. The uncle's letter makes that clear, I think. Read!" He ha

bier wants for nothing which

se things Fusilier Barbier must not expect. Stretton, reading the letter by the sick man's bed, thought it heartless and callous as no letter written by a human hand had ever been. Yet--yet, after all, who knew what had happened on that night? The uncle, evidently. It might be something which dis

y sad, sir

memories." He tore the paper into the tiniest shreds. "We have no reproaches, no accusations for what Barbier did before Barbier got

character of the Foreign Legion. It was a fine say

," said Stretton, "

me, for there is another

left the hospital. Stretton

" said the colonel, with a smile. "You will be gazetted, under your own nam

on was not a demonstrative man. He took the notification with no more

quietly; and for a moment h

re his eyes so that he could not read them. He saluted his colonel and went out on to the great o

l coming was to him most wonderful. He looked southwards to where the streak of yellow shone far away. The long marches, the harassing anxiety, the haunting figures of the Touaregs, with their faces veiled in their black masks and their eyes shining betw

f previous service in the English army. His knowledge of the manual exercise, of company and battalion drill had been of the greatest use at the first. He had had luck, too--the luck to be sent on the expedition to the Fig

t his plans. He would obtain his commission, secure his release, and so go home. A few months and he would be home! It seemed hardly credible; yet it was true, miraculously true. He would writ

white-washed house, with a flat roof, overtopped the rest. Hedges of cactus and prickly pears walled in the narrow lanes, and now and then a white robe appeared and vanished. Very soon S

llie. She would get the letter within ten days--easily. He began to hum over to himself the

h love. I'm a-wai

p yuh window

e am a-whisp'rin'

t he began to wonder how Millie woul

the only course which promised happiness for Millie and himself, and impelled by that conviction he had gone on his way undisturbed by doubts and questions.

friends, without even any knowledge of his whereabouts. There had been no oth

t he never wrote it, for as he walked along the lane towards the barracks a man tapped him on

n' see all de lo

jus' a-pinin'

eel. He saw a stranger in European

thony S

longer seeking t

e became vaguely familiar to him.

risden. You saw me for a few minutes on th

, to be sure, I did. You were sent

again," repl

before. He remembered Pamela's promise to befriend his wife.

urgent message that I sho

e again, only it is a th

he spoke, and handed it to Stretto

at the handwri

u," he sa

n the envel

PTE

BIDS FAREWEL

anding in the narrow lane between the high walls of p

d, not considering at all o

e," replied Warrisden; "but I do not doubt its trut

" said Stretton, abs

you reach

morn

u came

day, I came first of all to

u," said

place in his thoughts. Warrisden had found him, had brought the letter which Pamela Mardale had wr

amp here?" St

es

ught has rather stunned me. I should li

ished from his face. Di

"but for the moment I don't understand i

ou the way," s

seen together," Stretton said thoughtfully. "Will yo

aching the camp from the side opposite to Ain-Sefra. There was no one, at the moment, loitering about the spot. He walked into the garden. There were three tents pitched. Half a dozen mules stood picketed in a l

own,"

t, I think," re

ut; stay away for a little while, she will long for your return; make that little while a longer time, she will grow indifferent whether you return or not; prolong that longer time, she will regard your return as an awkwardness, a disturbance; add yet a little more to that longer time, and you w

Thus it ran; but Stretton was in no mood to weigh its justice or injustice at the moment. Only this afternoon he had been lying under the palm trees putting together in his mind the sentences which were to tell Millie of his success, to re-establish him in her esteem, and to prepare her for his return. And now this letter had come. He sat for a time frowning at the letter, turning its pages over, glancing no

said W

urn at once

u c

tart to-night,"

back toge

t's impo

asked W

rrested if we did," St

" Warrisde

shall have to

tarted from

re is an al

ed at Stretton in wonder. He could not understand how a man could speak so calmly of such a plan. Why in the world had Stretton ever j

h a sort of passion. "I have foreseen this necessity ever since you tapped me on the shoulder in the lane. Because I foresaw it, I would not walk with you to your camp. Were we seen

by an inexorable fate, and knew it. He jus

ion--that is to say, I enlisted for five years' ser

rrisden. "You meant to

nce no harm has yet been done. Therefore I must desert. I am very sorry"--and again the wistfulness became very audible--"for, as I say, I have a good name; amongst both officers and men I have a good name. I should have liked very much to have left a good name behind me. Sergeant Ohlsen"--and as he uttered the na

h a simplicity so sincere, and so genuine a sorrow, that Warrisden could not but be deeply moved. He forgot the urgency of his

without----" And he stopped, keepi

ut dis

hed the senten

t at the first moment that I could let things slide and stay. But there's dishonour in that course, too. Dishonour for myself, dishonour for my name, dishonour for others, too, whom it is my b

who had placed him in so cruel a position, anger, perhaps, i

ne into the house the evening I was in London, after I had come back from the North Sea. Yes, I

had thought it out in ignorance of his wife's char

s chair. In an instant he had become the practical ma

rrow mone

es

a m

es

choose m

e mules stood picketed. Warrisden poi

the str

ll-fed," said Stretton; and he selected anothe

e," said

uleteer towards him

of scissors and knives, a few gaudy silk handkerchiefs, one or two cheap clocks, some pieces of linen, needles and thread--in fact, a small

the camp at once and speak

back to the tent. Stretton sat down again in his chair, took a black cigarette from a bright-blue packet w

the mule and some food for me, and bring it with the clothes to the south-west corner of the barrack wal

coast? Surely you can come as one of my men as far as the

It would be too dangerous for me to tramp through A

and pointed thro

t clear air the peaks and gaps, and jagged arêtes were all sharply defined. The sun was still bright, and the dark cliffs had a purple bloom of extra

tton. "That's my way--over them. My only wa

r," Warrisden objected, "

rom rec

in no ot

hrugged hi

t it has been traversed. Prisoners have escaped that way to Fez--Escoffier, for instance. Deserters

n Warrisden's hearing. Much the same feeling came over Warrisden as that which had then affected him--a feeling almost of inferiority. Stretton was a man of no more than average ability, neither a deep thinker, nor a person of ingenuity and resource; but the mere stubbornness of his character gave to him at times a certain grandeur. In Warrisden's eyes he had that grandeur now. He had come quickly to his determination to desert, but he had come calmly to it. There had been no excitement in his man

come with you. If we travel toge

shook h

but enough. I know something of these tribes, too. For I once marched to the Figu

s proposal. Stretton had s

have a revolver, I suppos

's astonishment,

carry no

arms of defence upon the table so

ns!" he e

the market. A Jew can go in Morocco where no Moor can, for he is not suspected; he is merely despised. Besides, he brings things for sale wh

e trees of the high plateaux into the open desert, with its grey-green carpet of halfa-grass. Far away the lake had flashed like an arc of silver set in the ground. Stretton could not but remember that expedition and compare it with the one upon which he was now to start; and the comparison was full

egretfully. "I had no idea how much

rets of their lives, of which every now and then, in a rare moment of carelessness, a glimpse was revealed, as though a curtain were raised

a little dull, a little uninteresting afte

and I have just not won it. In a month or two, perhaps in a week, perhaps even to-morrow, it might have been mine. Very soon I should have been back at home, the life I have dreamed of and worked for ever since I left London, might ha

and looked for a moment

y that I ever came

ve been much worse--beyond all remedy. Do you know a man named Callon--Lionel Callon?" he asked abruptly. And before Warrisden could answer, the blood rushed into his face, and he exclaim

, the place without habitations. He remained under the shadow of the high wall, watching this way and that for Stretton's approach; and in a few minutes he was almost st

e close to the grou

feet. He had dropped fro

t?" whispere

ou the clot

ss. He had shaved off his moustache and blacked his hair. As

black. I shall want that for my hair. Glossy raven locks," he said, with a low laugh, "are not so easily procured in A

asked W

mind!--and travel up at once to Fez. If you are quick you can do it within a fortnight. I shall take a fortnight at the least to

l; I will

t on the road. Now let me climb on to your shoulders." Stretton made a bundle of his unifo

n a whisper. "They will find your clothes in t

not intend to be shot as a thief, for that is what may happen when a man

, and, as Warrisden

med to have been made unhappy by your coming. Since things are as they are, I am glad you came. I than

nd, in a voice which trembled, so deeply was he move

m glad Taver

otion. These last words were whispered from a heart overcharged with sorrow. They were his fare

TER

WS FOR

t the Villa Pontignard. The telegram informed her that Tony Stretton was returning, though his journey might take longer than she would naturally expect; and, secondly, that he himself was sailing that day for Tangier, whither any message should be sent at once to await his arrival at the English post-office. The telegram was couched in vague phrases. Tony Stretton, for inst

Roquebrune as s

sented, now that Lionel Callon had come to the Riviera, sh

would have been done; whereas, if she did, and Tony went strai

s returning. Yes, that was something--that was a great thing. But he was going to take a long time in returning, and, to Pamela's apprehen

outh the name would have been inserted. It was impossible that Millie Stretton could come to Monte Carlo, or to, indeed, any hotel upon the Riviera, under a false name. She could not but meet acquaintances and friends at every step, during this season of the year. To assume a name which

illie Stretton. There was nothing now which she could do. She had that hard lot which falls to women, the lot of waiting. But she could not wait with folded hands. She must be doing something; even though that something were alto

p. In front of her the road rose a little, and then on the other side of the crest dipped down a steep hill. On her left a pair of iron gates stood open. From those gates a carriage-drive ran in two zigzags between borders of flowers down to an open gravel space in front of a long one-storied building. The building faced upon the road

oke to th

e is this?

nd he told her enough for her to know that this w

come here?"

he driver. "It is such a little

itself had the look of a country house in a rich garden of flowers tended with love. In the noonday the spot was very quiet and still. Yet to Pamela it had th

n and walked into the building. A large dining-room opened out before her in which two waiters lounged. There were no v

race," Pame

ater portion of the building was occupied by the restaurant, but at one end Pamela noticed a couple of

Madame, that the restau

stay here?

One is occupied; but the other is vac

ecorated; a sitting-room, and a bedroom comprised the suite. Pamela came back to the terrace. She was disquieted. It wa

round the head of the gorge, and when she came to the hotel she bade the coachman drive in. In the open space in front of the hotel she took tea. She could not see the rest

u expect La

d up his books. "In three weeks, Madame," he s

ou," sai

se that lonely restaurant without some particular, nay, some secret object? No one, it seemed, visited it in the day; no one but he slept there at night. Callon was not the man to fall in love with solitude. And if he had wished for solitude he would not have come to the Riviera at all. Besides, he spent his days in Monte Carlo, as Pamela well knew. No, it was not loneliness at which he aimed, but secrecy. That was it--secrecy. Pamela's heart sank within her. She had a momentary thought that she would disclose her presence to Lionel Callon, and dismissed it. The disclosure would alter Callon's plan, that was all; it wou

climbed. Had she done so she might, perhaps, have seen a head above the parapet in the little square where the school-house stood; and she would certainly have seen that head suddenly withdrawn as her head was raised. M. Giraud was watching her furtively, as he had done many a time since she had come to Roquebrune, taking care that she should not see him. He watched her now, noticing that she walked with the same lagging, weary step as when he had last seen her on that path so many years ago. But as he watched she stopped, and, turning about, looked southwards across the sea, and stood there for an appreciable time. When she turned again and on

sent. He had twenty days in front of him. If Tony kept to his time, twenty days would serve. He hired a camp outfit, and the best mul

one whose advice he sought. Warrisden discounted the statement,

TER

AL

he fashion in Morocco. There they build and make, and they do both things beautifully and well. But they seldom finish; in a house, dainty with fountains and arabesques and coloured tiles, you will still find a corner uncompleted, a pillar which lacks the delicate fluting of the other pillars, an embrasure for a clock half ornamented with gold filagree, and half left plain. And if they seldom finish, they never by any chance repair. The mansion is built and decorated within; artists fit the tiles together in a mosaic of cool colours, and carve, and gild, and paint the little pieces of cedar-wood, and glue them into the light and pointed arches; the rich curtains are hung, and the master e

cing on a mule no less fat, preceded by his servants, must turn or huddle himself into an embrasure. There are no social distinctions in the alley-ways of Fez. It may be that one of those donkeys will fall then and there beneath his load, and refuse to rise.

andkerchiefs about their heads, will ride through the bazaars, ragged of dress and no less ragged in the harness of the

a place of width, or cross a bridge where one of the many streams of the river Fez boils for a moment into the open, and then swirls away again beneath the houses. But, chiefly, they run deep beneath the towering walls of houses, and little of the sunlight visits them; so that you may know a man of Fez, even though he be absent from his town, by

ists of evening. The stars had come out overhead, behind him the lights shone in his tent, and a cheerful fire crackled in the open near the door. He had come up quickly from Tangier, and without hindrance, in spite of warnings that the road was not safe. The next morning he would be in Fez. It had seemed to him, then, that fortune was on his side. He drew an augury of success from the clean briskness of the air. And that confidence had remained with him in the morning. He had crossed the valley early, and riding over the long pass on the other side, had seen at last the snow-crowned spur of the Atlas on the further side of the plain of Fez. He had descended

tlements of the Bugilud into the old town. And as he passed through the covered bazaars and the narrow streets, in the gloom of the evening, while the rain fell drearily from a sullen sky, his confidence of the morning departed from him, and a great depression chilled him to the heart. The high, cracked, bulging walls

passage on the right, and at the end opened with a key a ponderous black door. Warrisden stepped over the sill, and found himself in a tiled court of which the roof was open to the sky. On the first floor there was a gallery, and on each of the four

to Roquebrune. He had reached Fez in five, and he thus had twelve days left. In other words, if Stretton came to Fez within a week, there should still be time, provided, of course, the road to the coast was not for th

te wool, but he could not put on with it the Moorish patience and indifference.

f. Warrisden lay listening to it, and interpreting the words from the modulation of the voice which uttered them. Now it rang out imperious as a summons, dropping down through the open roofs to wake the sleepers in their beds. Now it rose, lyrical and glorious, in a high chant of praise. Now i

is entrusted, and each sends out his chant above the sleeping city for half an hour. But in the voice of this, one of the ten whom Warrisden heard on the first night when he slept in Fez, there was a p

aloes and prickly pears--at Karia Ben Ouder, at Djouma--villages where there was no mosque at all, but whence none the less the voice of

irred in his sleep, and waked to hear some such summons chanted about the village. Perhaps he was even now loading his mule, and setting forth by the glimmer of the starlight upon his dangerous road. Warrisden fell asleep again with that

up. Upon some there were gardens planted--so, he thought, must have looked the hanging gardens of Babylon; on others, linen was strung out to dry as in some backyard of England; th

the only sound audible was the chattering of women's voices--for the roofs are the playgrounds of the women, and Warrisden could see them in their coloured handkerchiefs and robes clustered together, climbing from one house to another with the help of ladders, visiting their friends. But

oldier who had ridden with him from Tangier, went out of the city over the plain towards Sefru. For through that small town of gardens and fruit at the base o

ast, and crouched down behind the parapet so that he might not be seen. For the m

cut. Word has come into Fez this morning. The Z'mur have come down fr

sden

ifle on his back, a revolver in his belt, and a Winchester in his hands; while between the fingers of his left hand he carried ready four cartridges--but he was none the less afraid. However, Warrisden remembered that mountain pass wh

m, "the Z'mur are bad men. They might

to make light of them. But there was no doubt they terrorised the people; in the villages where Warrisden had camped, they were spoken of with a dread hardly less than that which Ibrahim betrayed. It

en who had been with him to Ain-Sefra, and descending the

I gave away at Ain-Sefra?" he as

ld know

t. He described the marks by wh

road to Sefru. If you see a Jew come towards Fez driving the mule, le

sden betook himself to the vice-consulate.

om governor to governor. We can reach Larache, travelling hard, in five days. We may f

d passed. Warrisden became anxious again, and restless. The seven days which Tony Stretton could take, and still reach Roquebrune by the date on which Pamela in

rnment letter takes a long time in the writing in Morocco. It was not until the fifth evening that a messenger from the Palace knocked upon the door. These were the days when Mulai-el-Hassan ruled in Morocco, and was on

and ruddy in the sunset, and wondered whether it would avail at all. His servant had come back from the gate wit

below. He looked over the balustrade and saw a man standing amongst his muleteers and servants. Warrisden could not see his f

a little in his manner as though he was afraid. Then he spoke in Arabic, and the voice was timo

cried out in

e between this ragged Stretton in the courtyard and the Stretton Warrisden had known than mere looks explained. The man who had looked up when he heard his voice loudly and suddenly pronounced had been startled--nay, more than startled. He had raised an arm as though to ward off a blow. He had shrun

ny, "I am here

rrisden. "Oh, but I thou

he steps into

laugh. "Wait till I have had a b

he came up on to the gallery and sat down to dinner, he was wearing the clothes of a European, and the look of fear had gone from his face, the servility fr

TER

EWA

together upon the r

"to watch the track from Sefru. I had brought him

me," said Tony, "an

knew t

d, in a low, grave voice, like a man speaking u

days ago in the Ait Yussi country

then, upon the w

were withdrawn; there was no cloud anywhere about the sky; and on such a night, in that clear, translucent air, the city, with its upstanding minarets, had

ght that I would be sitting here in Fez

. "We must reach Roquebrune in the S

enly sat back

" he exclaimed. "We

answered. "A telegram reach

ocket and handed it to Stretton

sden, "just time enough, I

returned the telegram. "But I

e mention of Roquebrune; but after sitting for a litt

t of the Bab Sagma upon the thronge

nted on small donkeys. They began to ride through high shrubs and bushes of fennel over rolling ground. Stretton talked very litt

he exclaimed impatiently. "Look at this one. There's no

hat open plain like some brown

surveyed and made, or else it runs from gate to gate, and both gates are visible. One might think the animals made this track

hoofs upon the broken cobbles; and looking up saw a body of men ride across the bridge. There were about forty of them, young and old; all were mounted, and in appearance as wild and ragged a set of bandits as co

ed their horses. Stretton and Warrisden rose to do likewise. And as they rose a dozen of the mounted Z'mur quietly rode round from the end of the bridge and

our country. Now, why are you doi

no less pleas

with a letter from your master and mine, my

how us then

two soldiers sat upon their horses smiling--it seemed that matters had come to a deadlock. Mea

eseta apiece. We are going to Fez to offer our help to the Sultan, if only he will give us rifles and ammunition. Bu

nd he turned his horse and, followed, by Warrisden and Stretton, the terrified Ibrah

near to them. It needed only that one of those wild tribesmen should reach out his hand and seize the bridle of a horse. But no hand

drew no comfort fr

rnment," he said. "Therefore they will avoid trouble until t

ma. By this waterfall they lunched, the while Ibrahim bared his right arm to the shoulder, stretched himself full length upon the ground, and, to the infinite danger of th

aimed Ibrahim. "

as left of the work of Mulai Ismail, who, in the seventeenth century, had built and planned buildings about this town until death put an end to all his architecture. There was to be a wall across the country, from Fez to Morocco city far away i

now of the minarets, and no sign of Mequinez was visible at all. The ground sloped downwards, the track curved round a hill, and suddenly, on the opposite side of a valley, the

e wear of the centuries nor the neglect of its possessors has availed to destroy. Its tiles are broken. The rains have discoloured it, stones have fallen from their places. Yet the gate rises, majestic yet most delicate, beautiful in colour, exquisite in shape, flanked with massive pillars, and s

messenger from the Basha with ser

said, "for the country is not safe. It will be well

the better,"

five," said Ibrahim, to whom punctuality was a t

. "We will start at

tton lying quite motionless in his bed on the other side of the tent. Tony lay with the bed-clothes up to his chin, and his arms straight down at his sides, in some uncanny resemblance to a dead man. But Warrisden saw that all the while his eyes were open. Tony was awake with his troubles and perplexities, keeping them to himself as was his wont, and slowly searching for an issue. That he would hit up

Zarhon like a cascade. A little further an arch of stone and a few pillars rising from the plain showed where once the Romans had built their town of Volubilis. But when that was passed there was no sign of life anywhere at all. For hours they rode in a desolate, beautiful world. Bushes of asphodel, white with their starry flowers, brushed against them; plants of iris, purple and yellow, stood stirr

eside a stream which ran prettil

er until evening," said Ib

ismounted,

s on and catch them u

rs shook t

country," they said. "

oked around

not two hours before by eleven mounted Berbers. He had been driving three mules laden with eggs and food to Mulai Idris, and his mules and their loads had been taken from him. He was walki

y, ascending in and out amongst low, round peaks towards the summit of a grea

ried Ibrahim, "is the

of trees, stretching away as far as the eye could reach. It was afternoon, not a cloud was in the sky, and the sun shone through the clear, golden air beneficently bright. The hillside fell away to the plain with a descent so sheer, the plain broke so abruptly upon the eyes, that the very beauty of the sce

n, and suddenly checked himself with an expression of anger, a

led the way down the steep, w

pt that night, but he slept fitfully. He had not yet come to the end of his perplexiti

of it. I am to blame. I should hav

ws. He should have gone in and declared what was in his mind to do. Very likely he would only have made matters worse. Contempt for a visionary would very likely have been added to the contempt for a ne'er-do-weel. Ce

t space of open turf, into which the cattle were driven at night. For upon the hills, and in the forest of Mamura to the south, close by, the Z'mur lived, and between the Beni

m Fez to Rabat, and close to the road from Rabat to Larache, and a garrison guards it. For you could almost throw a stone from its walls into

In the thickness of the walls there were little rooms or cells, and in these the merchants were making their homes for the night, while about them their servants and muleteers buzzed like a hive of bees. And the whole great square within the walls was one lake of filthy mud, wherein camels,

said Warrisden. But the captain

xcitedly. "The Z

hrugged hi

ttle bored with th

the captain continued, "that t

looked

nd in word?

arrison looked aston

come inside. You have a letter from my lord the Basha of Fez, it is true. If the letter said you were to sleep outside the walls of El Kantra, then I wo

ey had to go inside the caravanserai. This was the last day on which they ran any risk.

d, the sunset flushed the blue sky with a hue of rose; the mueddhin came out upon the minaret which rose from the southern wall, and chanted in a monotone his call to prayer; and

e the Mohammedan priest was chanting from his minaret, he should hear again, after so many years, that familiar tattoo sounded by an Eastern bugle and an Eastern drum. In how many barracks of England, he wondered, would that same "Last Post" ring out to-night? A

on their left hand hid the sea from their eyes, and it was not until the next day, when they mounted on to a high tablela

TER

MEETS A

emed to her, as she turned her calendar, that the days chased one another, racing to the month's end; every evening, tired out with her vigil, she wondered how they could pass so slowly. The thirty-first of the month dawned at last. At some time on this day Millie Stretton would arrive at Eze. She thought of it, as she rose, with a sinking heart; and then thrust thought aside. She dared not confront the possibility that the trains might stop at Roquebrune, and move on to Italy and discharge no passengers upon the platform. She dared not recognise her dread that this da

She thought for a moment of going herself to Eze, thrusting herself upon Millie at the cost of any snub; and while she debated whether the plan could at all avail, the door was opened, a servant spoke some words about a visitor, and a man ente

she cried. "At last!

n Tony's attitude, something of coldness in the manner

I watched the path. The t

nquire my way at the village. This is t

rve of his manner, the cold reticence of his voice

e, and with him there had come, most unexpectedly, disappointment. She had expected ardour, and there was only, as it seemed, indifference and stolidity. She was prepared for a host of questions to be tu

could?" she asked, trying to re

nt since I received you

, perhaps too frankly she feared at this moment. Had the letter suddenly killed his love for Millie? Such thi

must not exaggerate its mean

care

e went on, pleading with his i

uth," said Tony; "I

ou must not doubt that either. Remember, you yourse

well be that you, too, are not quite free from blame. Had you told me that morning, when we rode together in the Row

ned?" she cried. And Tony for a moment

time since he had entered the room. "However, it can do neither of us any

and set upon the tables. Tony waited until the servant ha

it. I was to be at Roquebrune on the thirty-f

said

f an old man; there were flecks of grey in his hair, and lines about his eyes. These changes she noticed, and took them at their true value. They were signs of the hard life he had lived during these years, and of the quick, arduous journey which he had made. But there was

h your lives, in keeping you and Millie for each other. Of late, since you did not come,

, coldly; and Pamela's enthusiasm

France to-day. She stops at E

of gladness dawn suddenly in his eyes, some smile of forgiveness

ut his wife out

llows that Callon comes to-day as well," and he repeated the name in a si

t. She had planned to bring back Tony to Millie and his home. The Tony Stretton whom she had known of old, the good-natured, kindly man who loved his wife, whom all men liked and none feared. An

Callon has been here all this wh

ting for her, then?"

aimed in despair. "I have not s

have no

iting here for Millie. But she only arrives to-day. They h

dded hi

ht be present

stood that other and dreadful consequences might ensue. These consequences were vivid enough before her eyes now. All three would meet--Tony, Millie, and Lionel

k of Millie. You can gain her back!... I am very sure.... I wrote that to you, didn't I?... Mr. Callon.... It is not worth while..

e cried again piteously, and ye

ous to meet hi

r, and, for a moment, hope brightened on her face.

. I left him behind with o

cried Pamela, as ag

fair, not his. I claimed to-night. He

im to stay b

only so that another might not know of the trouble between himself and Millie? Or was it not so that another might not be on hand to hinder him from exacting retribution? Pamela was appalled. Tony was angry--yes, that was natural enough. She would not have felt half her present distr

that when I wrote to you. But, of course, these yea

tween her hands. Stretton did not answer her wor

on, too,

that here was some small point on which she could attenuat

am. You sent me neither the one nor the other without goo

t Eze," he insisted

to Eze. He might find Millie and Callon there. On the other hand, it was unlikely that he would. Pamela had seen

" asked Tony. "Wh

sed to tell him what he asked, Millie and Callon might escape for to-night. That was possible. But, t

t from the window in her vision. She could almost hear voices and the sound of laughter, she imagined the laughter all struck dumb, and thereafter a cry of horror stabbing the night. The very silence of the villa became a torture to her. She rose and walked restlessly about the room. If she could only have reached Warrisden! But she did not even know to which hotel in all the hotels of Monte Carlo he had gone. Tony might have told her that, had she kept her wits about her and put the question with discretion. But she had not. She had no

, hardly knowing what she wrote. She bade him go the instant when he received it, go at all costs withou

PTE

RAUD

the height of trouble for her had been the sickness of a favourite horse, and all her life was an eager expectation. On so many evenings she had seen those lights flash out through the gathering night while she had sat talking in her garden with the little schoolmaster whom she was now to revisit. To both of them those lights had been a parable. They had glowed in friendliness and promise--thus she had read the parable--out of a great, brig

whether she needed help. Help, indeed, she did need, but not from them. She came to the tiny square whence the steps led down to the station. On the west side of the square stood the school-house, and, close by, the little house of the

olmaster leaned forward and stared at the white figure which sto

ough to bar the way. But she slipped quickly past him i

all its furniture. Pamela leaned against the wall with a hand to her heart. M. Giraud saw her clearly now

ied; and she answered, pit

n with. Her dark hair, her eyes, the pure outline of her face, her tall, slim figure, the broad forehead--all the delicacy and beauty of h

u come to me. Without that need would you have come? No, i

ongue, but he never spoke them. He

r old comrade, but not for so complete a disfigurement. The wineshop had written its sordid story too legibly upon his features. His face was bloated and red, the veins stood out upon the cheeks, and the nose like threads of purple; his eyes were yellow and unwholesome. M. Giraud had grown stout in body, too; and his dress was slovenly and i

cher than his pupil, upon the garden terrace of the Villa Pontignard--a youth full of dreams, which were vain, no doubt, but not ignoble. There was a trifle of achievement, too. For even now one of the tattered books upon his shelf was a copy of his brochure on Roquebrune and the Upper Corniche road. With perseverance, with faith--he understood it in a flash--he might have found, here, at Roquebrune, a satisfaction for those ambiti

ask me to help you? Look at

n his hands, and burst into tears. Pamela crossed to him and laid

you can,"

her, but she wou

me like this! Why did you come? I did not mean you to see me. You must have known that!

myself, it is true--my need is so very great; but now I see y

e cried. And she answer

pressed his handkerchief

come back. But you never did. Each summer I said, 'She will return in the winter!' And the winter came, and I said, 'She will come

plied Pamela; "I

sed with sorrow. Nothing could well lie less in sympathy with Pamela's nature than Giraud's outburst and display of tears; for she was herself reticent and proud. She held her head high as she walked through the world, mistress alike of her sorrows and her joys. But Mr. Mudge had spoken the truth when he had called upon her in Leicestershire. Imagination had come to her of late. She was able to understand t

have needed m

convinced her, had she needed conviction. It seemed to express the dilatory passa

erwards"--she began to speak slowly, carefully selecting her words--"it happened that in my own experience I proved it to be true--at all events, for me. Is it true for you also? Think well. If it i

n he answered her with simplicity, and so, for the first t

p you," he said.

n to Lionel Callon. She bade him carry it wi

ay be that one man's life, and the happiness of a man

the door he paused, and standing thus, with an averted face, h

? You are no longer lonely in your

gently: "I am no longer

appy when you were at Roquebrune last. I should li

edging the change which had come over her. It seemed cruel; yet he clearly wished

a low voice; "I am very glad." And he

TER

HE R

ut upon the road and began to run. He ran very quickly. The road turned sharply round the shoulder of a hill, and Stretton saw in front of him the lights of Monte Carlo. They were bunched in great white clusters, they were strung in festoons in the square and the streets. They made a golden crescent about the dark, quiet waters of the bay. Looking down from this sho

e. The night had come; above his head the stars shone very brightly from a dark sky of velvet. The carriage passed out of the town;

es stood in the centre and delicately perfumed the air. Thither Millie had come in fulfilment of that promise made on a midnight of early spring in Regent's Park. The colour burned prettily on her cheeks, she had dressed herself in a pink gown of lace, jewels shone on her arms and at her neck. She was, perhaps, a little feverish in her gaiety, her laughter was

his lips and gently took the cloak from her shoulders. "You have had a long journey. But you are not tired." He plac

He reached the hotel at Eze, and dr

ton in the hot

ip went out to dinne

ny. "She arrived thi

ame shall I give

he ordered his coachman

hed it he direct

e saw the lights of the Réserve. He stopped at the gate, dismissed his carriage, and walked down the

in which he had travelled to Roquebrune. He was covered with dust, his face was haggard and stern. He had nothing in common with the dainty little room of ligh

e stammered. "H

e restaurant. A door stood open there, and in the passage beyond the door he saw a waiter pass carrying the dish. Moreover, the man who had

t; and, at the end towards the terrace, there was another door upon the opposite side. The waiter with the dish had his hand upon the door-handle, but he tur

ul

in front o

s room is priv

liberty to intrude,

ermination to regain his wife's esteem, to free himself from her contempt. For the moment he could have laughed bitterly at his persistence as at some egregious folly. It seemed all waste--waste of time, waste of endeavour, waste of suffering. She was laughing! And with Lionel Callon for her companion! The cold, black nights of the North Sea and its gales; the arid sands of

waiter. And since the man did not instantly move, he se

or. Inside the room the laughter suddenly ceased. Tony listened for a second. He could not hear even a whisper. There was co

he gaiety vanished in an instant from Millie's face. She was sitting opposite the door; she sa

nderstood that somehow she was trapped. The sudden clatter of the dish upon the floor, the loudness of the waiter's cry, which was not a mere protest, but also a cry of fear, terrified her; they implied violence. She was trapped. She sat paralysed upon her chair, staring across the table over Callon's shoulder at the door. Callon

e. Callon, on the other hand, started up on to his feet. As he did so he upset his wine-glass over the table-cloth; it fell and splintered on the polished floor. He turned towards the intruder wh

cried Callon. "You

t here," said Tony

. But it was detection by Pamela Mardale and her friends, who had once already laid him by the heels; the husband had never entered into his calculations. He had accepted without question Millie's version of the husband--he was the

exclaimed. "Th

le voice. He stretched out his arm

a suggestion of scorn. Yet it was her manifest terror which now convinced Callon that the husband was indeed before him. Here the man was, sprung suddenly out of the dark upon him, not neglectful, for he had the look of one who has travelled from afar very quickly, and slept but little on the way; not indifferent, for he was white with anger and his eyes were aflame. Callon cursed

might be startled----" And Tony broke

cried, "and

llie was listening. The order, roughly given, was just one which Callon for very shame could not obey. He wo

so poor a figure as to slink from the room like a whipped schoolboy.

d suddenly Tony caught him by the throat, struck hi

ck the stone flags with a horrible sound. He lay quite still in the strong light which poured from the room; his

n. She kneeled in deadly fear, admiring him in the very frenzy of her fear. She had no memory for the contemptuous letters which she had written and Tony had carried under his pillow on the North Sea. Her little deceits and plots and trickeries to hoodwink her friends, her little pretence of passion for Lionel Callon--she knew at this moment that it never had been more than a pretence--these were the matters which now she remembered, and for which she dreaded p

ty," she moane

TER

ND AN

s triumph then. Only triumph w

"get up from your knees. I don't l

ony spoke to her his voice was rather that of a man very dispirited and sad. He had indeed travelled through the mountains of Morocco hot with anger against Callon the interloper; but now that he had come face to face again with Millie,

. Tony closed the door and shut the whispers out. Upon the terrace, outside th

he asked. "Wh

ebrune," said the man, timidly. "I bri

rrace. Tony turned back to his wife. His mind was full of a comparison between the ways in which he and she had each spent the years of absence. For him they had been years of endeavou

nnocent

e rep

much to-morrow had I n

silent for a while, and only the murmur of the sea breaking upon the beach filled the room. A light wind breathed through the open window,

d ceased to care what

her. She was sincere-

the table. "Sit down here! Let me understand! You thought that

shook h

ore

e chair on which Cal

xclaimed in perplex

er against hi

mind to go away and make a home for both of us? It was on that evening. You ga

neither you nor I. It was just because I feared that at some

moved or touched by the associations which they once had had. I recollect the very words you used. I sat as still as could be while you spoke them; but I never forgot them, Tony. There was a particular instance which

nced that you had reaped to care. When you remained

ble-cloth with its glittering s

more contemptuous than the letter which had preceded it. I had failed, and you despised me for my fa

ised you for that. No! That is not fair. I never

here. He recognised his mistake,

antage--you had no faith in me at all. In your eyes I was no good. Mind, I don't blame you. You were justified, no doubt. I had set out to make a home for

asked

unkindness, or perhaps have hidden it altogether. You see, I was not hav

itting with her hands clenched in front of her upon the table-cl

help it your contempt should not embitter all our two lives. So I ceased to write. For the same reason I stayed away, even after my father had died. Had I come back then I should have come back a failure, proved and self-confessed. And your scorn would have stayed with yo

o her was utterly surprising and strange. He had been thinking of her, then, all

ve written. It would have been better, kinder"--and she paused upon the word, uttering it with hesitation and a shy deprecating smile, as though aware

ht have written. But would you

e urged. "Once--just for five minute

y did. I was under the windows of the house in

ere," she s

knew

d she added, "I wish now, I think

would have had no faith in it. You would merely have thought, 'Here's another fol

m. She saw him sitting now in front of her, quiet and stern; she remembered her own terror when he burs

strangers to

never have left you--now I understand that. I t

ed her eyes

did you do when you went away t

the Foreign Leg

head again with a

ion where I had just a little of that expert knowledge wh

cribed to her the arduous perils of active service and the monotony of the cantonments. He was resolved that she should understand in the spirit and in the letter the life which for her sake he

ese are mine. I earned them for you; and wh

the world--the little emotions, the little passions, the little jealousies and rivalries, the little aims, the little methods of attaining them, that only with great difficulty could she realise a simpler and a wider life. She was overwhelmed now. Pride and hum

Tony!" she exclaimed, twisting her h

led her to realise something of the dumb, implacable hostility of the Sahara, to see, in the evening against the setting sun, the mounted figures of the Touaregs, and to understand that t

that they were both here in France, with the murmur

ed my men through the gate of Ouargla-

an who was before her. Memories of the kind of talk she was wont to hold with Lionel Callon recurred to her, filling her with shame. She was glad to think that when Tony led his brok

ed, in an abasement of

my commission. That was what I aimed at all th

handed to him at Ain-Sefra. He had carefully treasured it

nds, or money. Won just by myself. That is what I strove for. If I could win that I could come back to you with a great pride. I shou

and a smile for a moment rela

t?" she

might perhaps get hold again of the little house in Deanery Street, where we were s

her at this moment. Was that little house in Deanery Street still a possibility? She did not presume to hope so much; but she wished that she could have

id; "I shall be glad to know that. I sha

when I received that letter I took it away with me, and that song, with all that it had ever meant, came back to my mind. I lay beneath the palm trees, and I looked across the water past the islands, and I saw the lights of the yachts in Oban Bay. I was on the dark lawn again, high above the sea, the lighted windows of the ho

ho had brought the news; but the next words wh

t have left the Legion, leaving behind me many friends and an ho

the words fell with a shock upon Millie. S

f it all my life. Had I been caught, it might have meant an ignoble death; in any case,

was well aware that his whole nature and character must be in revolt against the act itself. Desertion! It implied disloyalty, untruth, deceit, cowardice--just those qualities, indeed, which she knew Tony most to hate, which perhaps she had rather despised him for hating. No man would have been m

p of remorse wa

hink. I have come very quickly, yet I am only just in time." There was a long stain of wine

w that quite clearly. So I came away." He forbore to say that now the disgrace fell only upon his shoulders, that she was saved from it. But Millie understood, an

on that, start

ean?" she aske

, has there not? Suppose that the manager o

thered up the medals and held t

ar and there's a deserter from the Foreign Legion laid by the heels in France. All t

sofa. She had the look of a hunted creature. S

you say this at

ubbornly in

given you an account of how I have spent the years

. Would she, stung by her remorse, lay before him truthfully and without reserve the story of her years? If she did, why, that dim light which s

wil

then, and t

! It is not safe. As we go back t

pon Tony's face. He ros

er app

y the bill

t the bill and To

doctor has been. He has a concussion. It will

aurant. A single light faintly illuminated it. They crossed it to the door, and went up the winding drive on to the road. The

TER

IE'S

and tired. The hopes, so stoutly cherished during the last few years, had all crumbled away to-night. Perpetually his thoughts recurred to that question, which now never could be answered--if he had gone into the house in Berkeley Square on that distant evening when he had been contented to pace for a little while beneath the windows, would he have aver

und very trivial, very contemptible, after what you have told me. It fills me utterly with shame. But I should have told you it none

. She saw her own life in its true perspective. And, that she might see it the more clearly and understand, she had the story of another life wherewith to compare it. It is a quality of big performances, whether in art or life, that while they surprise when first apprehended, they appear upon thought to be so simple that it is astonishing surprise was ever felt.

Millie drew her lace wrap m

d to be talking here. We had better perhaps walk on

you first." Millie's voice wavered now and broke. "If we do not walk along the road together any more," she went on timidly, "I will still be glad that you came back to-night. I do not know that you will believe that--I do not, indeed, see why you should; but I should very much l

so," sa

"One sees it glimmering, one can keep between the banks;

st interview with Warrisden at the village of the three poplars, th

th was really the easier one to

ack. I do not think it was so simple and direct while you walked upon it." And Tony,

at it was so easy to dis

a lightship ran across the waves and flashed upon his face. Tony remembered the moment very clearly when he had first hit upon his plan; he remembered the

sorry that I did not leave the decision to you. But

in the words themselves. Millie took heart, and told him the whole story of

e said. "You see, I did not understand you at all. You

she spoke the story seemed more utterly contemptible and small than even she in he

alked with me for half an hour. Yes, at the very time when you were standing on the pavement he was within the house. I know, for you were

Tony interrupted, "you told me

it is quite true; I wish

gent's Park, and of the consent sh

ave tried to forget nothing. I want you, whatever

id Tony, simply

know who has thrown away t

nd land. The hills rose dark and high upon their left hand, the sea murmured and whispered to them upon the r

are t

she an

er. It was not merely that his story had filled her with amazement and pride, but she had seen him that night strong and dominant, as she had never dreamed of seeing him. She loved his very sternness towards hersel

aying here unde

en rooms in Monte Carlo for both of

l leave Fran

es

e!" she

did not understand. He was wondering what he must do in this crisis of their lives. Was he to com

or of the hotel, an

just a little word of kindness or forgiveness--if only she waited long enough without answering him; and she was willing to wait until the morning came, he did indeed speak again, and then M

there came a momentary smile--"to-night I miss t

ht, without so much as a touch of the hands. Was this the very end?" A sharp fear stabbed her. For a few moments she heard Tony's footsteps upon the flags in front of the hotel, and then for a few moments upon the gravel of the garden path; and after that

TER

EXT M

entered into her and gave her peace. A light mist hung over the sea, birds sang sweetly in the trees, and from the chimneys of Roquebrune the blue smoke began to coil. In the homely suggestions of that blue smoke Pamela found a comfort. She watched it for a while, and then there came a flush of rose upon the cr

ked. And he an

ved too

hand upon the gate to steady herself. There was

dly, "to help you, to be of any real service to you.

lon lying outstretched and insensible upon the p

d a doctor. M. Callon will recover--it is a concussion of the

amela asked eagerly. "The two

erturned, the chair on which she had sat. She was in great distress, and, I think, afraid; but he spoke quietly.

help or not. But I did not think that there was any danger

gratefully. "Indeed, you

That was prevented now. If Tony took back his wife--as with all her heart she hoped he would--he would not, at all events, take back one of whom gossip would be speaking with a slighting tongue. She was not aware that Tony had deserted from the

ould hear their voices through the door. So I came away. I walked up to the villa here. But it was already late, and t

s my room,"

not sure that it was your room. So I determined to wait until the morning. I am sorry, for you have

and the laugh told him surely th

You have brought me very good news.

was no less clear that he found the utterance of it very difficult. Pamela guessed what was in his mind, and, after

they had interchanged, in other times, their innermost thoughts, their most sacred confidences. The stone parapet, the bench, the plot of grass, the cedar in the angle of the corner--among these familiar things memories must throb for him even as they did for her. Pamela sat down upon the p

lle, that I was of ser

mela, gently; "th

often any more. Very likely you will not come back to Roquebrune--very likely I shall never see y

ards his. He could see that his words greatly rejoiced her; a very tende

glad,"

know I have always thought that it is a bad thing when such a one as you is wasted upon loneliness and misery--the world is not so rich that it can afford such waste. And if only because you told me tha

that too?"

it framed in the light when I came out into the porch. I shall never forget that you stood within my room, and called upon me, in the name of our old comradeship, to rise up and help you. I think my room will be h

Pamela took it, he raised her

ad known the best of him, and went down to his schoolroom in the square of Roquebrune

broken to-day. It was very unlikely, she thought, that she would ever see her friend the little schoolmaste

f the path, and, looking up, saw Warrisden approaching her. She rose from the parapet and went forward to meet him. She

seen Tony?

at the hotel for him. He said nothing more tha

his mo

I did not see him. He went away with his lug

d thoughtfu

have done," Warrisden continued

t s

French Legion. It was the only way in which h

d, but she was sta

me here?" she said.

coming out again said, "Le

of steps. At the station Warrisden

Eze," sh

sden kept his question in reserve--this was plainly n

n?" she asked; and

e left for Engl

" asked

man came and

arrisden with a look of

is risks. He has not forgotten that lesson learnt on

rrisden, putting h

door until they were out

t quietly upon her companion, and she add

TER

HOUSE IN DE

looked no further, since her own affairs had become of an engrossing interest. But the last word has not been said about the Truants. It was not,

ing beside her, and then leaned back in the carriage. With her quick adaptability she had fallen into a habit of not questioning her husband. Since the night in the South of France she had given herself into his hands with a devotion which, to tell the truth, had something of slavishness. It was his wish, apparently, that the recollection of that night should still be a barrier between them, hindering them from anything but an exchange of courtesies. She bowed to the wish without complaint. Tonight, however, as they drove through the unaccustomed streets, there rose within her mind

to his wife

!" he

d, there was the sharp curve of the street into Park Lane, there was the end of Dorchester House. Here the happiest years of her life, yes, and of Tony's, too, had been passed. She had known that to be trut

ith a catch of her breath.

is is ou

the Réserve by the sea. He had dreamed of buying the house in Deanery Street, of resuming there the life which they had led together there, in the days when they had been good friends as well as good lovers. That dream for a time she had made her own. She had come to long for its fulfilme

h excusing herself for her unresponsive manner. The door was open. She went into

hed just as it used to be. I could not get all the pict

he had never left the house; that the years in Berkeley Square and Regent's Park were a mere nightmare from which she had just awaked. And then she looked at Ton

her with an eagerness whi

sked earnestly. "Mil

rious face. Once a smile brightened it;

ve been very kind. You have done this to pleas

" said

ave been lately. I shall be reminded every minute of other times, and the comparison between those times and the pres

. She had longed for it as the outward and visible sign of the complete reconciliation on which her heart was set. But to have

sadly. And the next moment his arms were about h

in a low voice; a

ht that she had swooned. But when he moved her hands held him cl

the lights in Oban Bay? And the gull

?" she whispered; an

us

ne word w

TER

E

f forgiveness was in question, there was much to be said upon her side too. He was to blame, as Pamela had written. He had during the last

a hundred little ways. I did not think of that. There was the mistake I made: I left you alone to think just what you chose. Well, that's all over now. I bought this house not merely to please you, but as much to please myself; for as soon as I understood that after all the comprom

n his arms. Millie remained quite st

as you thought you would--as mu

ion as he had thought he would. There were moments, no doubt, when the sound of a bugle on a still morning would stir him to a sense of loss, and he would fall to dreaming of Tavernay and Barbier, and his old comrades, and the menacing silence of the Sahara. At times, too, the yapping of dogs in the street would call up vividly before his mind the picture of some tent village in Morocco where he had camped. Or the wi

lock, but on descending into the hall he found that he had miscalculated the time. It was as yet only a quarter to the hour, and having fifteen minutes to spare, he determined to walk. The night was hot; he threw his overcoat across his arm, and turning southwards out of Oxford Street, passed down a narrow road in the neighbourhood of Drury Lane. In those days, which were not, after all, so very distant from our own, the great blocks of model dwellings had not been as yet erected; squalid courts and rookeries opened on to ill-lighted passages; the houses had a ruinous and a miserable look. The

his particular spectacle in this particular place. Warrisden, indeed, was wondering carelessly at the speed with which the small crowd had gathered when he came abreast of it. He stopped and peered over the shoulders of the men and women in front of him that he might see th

ip out. This row i

he advice, all the more readily because he perceived that the group was, as it were, beginning to reform itself, with him as the new centre. He was, however, still upon the outskirt

he said, "for saving me

There was no real quarrel at all. Those two men were merely pretending to quarrel in order to attract your attention. You were seen approaching--that white shirt-front naturally inspired hope. In another minute you would have been hustled

It occurred, indeed, to Warrisden that he was deliberately avoiding conversation. Warrisden accordingly walked on t

together homew

bsurd, of course--and yet, I don't know; but the little

suddenly towar

dge?" s

astonishment at the accuracy of he

lent; then she let her hand fall upon her husband's: "He was

TNO

1: "Tak

E

OWES AND SONS, LIMITE