"GOD FORBID IT!"

Mr. Maddison—to drop at this point the name under which he had chosen to become the tenant of Falcon's Nest—was a member of a well-known London club, chiefly affected by literary men, and after his acceptance of Lady Thurwell's invitation, he hastened there at once and went to his room to dress. As a rule a man does not indulge in any very profound meditation during the somewhat tedious process of changing his morning clothes for the monotonous garb of Western civilization. His attention is generally fully claimed by the satisfactory adjusting of his tie and the precaution he has to use to avoid anything so lamentable as a crease in his shirt, and if his thoughts stray at all, it is seldom beyond the immediate matter of his toilet, or at most a little anticipation with regard to the forthcoming evening. If on the right side of thirty, a pair of bright eyes may sometimes make him pause for a moment, even with the hair brushes in his hands, to wonder if she will be there to-night, and if by any fortunate chance he will be able to take her in to dinner. And if the reign of the forties has commenced, it is just possible that a little mild speculation as to the entrées may be admitted. But, as a rule, a man's thoughts do not on such an occasion strike deep beneath the surface, and there is no record of an author having laid the plan of his next work, or a soldier having marked out a campaign, while struggling with a refractory tie, or obstinate parting. Even if such had ever happened to be the case, we should not have cared to hear about it. We prefer to think of a Napoleon planning great conquests in the serene stillness of night among a sleeping camp and beneath a starlit sky, or of a Wordsworth writing his poetry in his cottage home among the mountains.

But Mr. Bernard Maddison, before he left his room that evening, had come to a great decision—a decision which made his step the firmer, and which asserted itself in the carriage of his head and the increased brightness of his eyes, as he slowly descended the wide, luxurious staircase. And he felt calmer, even happier, from having at least passed from amid the shoals of doubt and uncertainty. The slight nervousness had quite left him. He was still more than ordinarily pale, and there was a look of calm resignation in his thoughtful æsthetic face which gave to its intellectuality a touch of spirituality. One of the members of the club said, later on in the smoking room, that Maddison seemed to him to realize one's idea of St. Augustine in evening clothes. So far as appearance went the comparison was not inapt.

As he reached the hall the porter came up to him with his cloak.

"There is a gentleman waiting for you in the strangers' room, sir," he said.

Mr. Maddison turned away that the man might not see the sudden dread in his face. It was not a long respite he craved for—only one evening. Was even this to be denied him?

"Any name?" he asked quietly.

"He gave none," the man answered; "but I think it is Sir Allan Beaumerville."

"Ah!" Mr. Maddison felt a sudden relief which escaped him in that brief interjection. He was scarcely surprised at this visit. "I will go to him," he said. "Call me a hansom, Grey, will you?"

The porter went outside, and Mr. Maddison crossed the hall and in a small, dimly-lit room, found himself face to face with his visitor.

Sir Allan wore the brilliant uniform of a colonel in the yeomanry, for the dinner to which he was going was to be followed by an official reception. But he was very pale, and his manner had lost much of its studied nonchalance.

"I followed you here," he began at once, "because, after your departure, I began to realize more fully the seriousness of what you told me."

"Yes. I thought at the time that your indifference was a little remarkable," Mr. Maddison said quietly. The positions between them were entirely reversed. It was Sir Allan Beaumerville now who was placing a great restraint upon himself, and Mr. Maddison who was collected and at his ease.

"I was taken by surprise," Sir Allan continued. "Since you left me I have been picturing all manner of horrible things. Have you fully realized that you may be arrested at any moment on this frightful charge?"

"I have fully realized it," Mr. Maddison answered calmly. "In fact, when the porter told me that a gentleman wished to see me, I imagined at once that it had come."

"And have you considered, too," Sir Allan continued, "how overwhelming the evidence is against you?"

"I have considered it."

"Then why do you linger here for one moment? Why don't you escape while you have the chance?"

"Why should I?" Mr. Maddison answered. "I shall make no attempt to escape."

Sir Allan's face grew a shade more pallid, and betrayed an agitation which he strove in vain to conceal.

"But supposing you are arrested," he said quickly, "everything will go against you. What shall you do?"

"I shall accept my fate, whatever it may be," was the quiet reply. "I prefer this to flight. Life would not be very valuable to me as a skulking criminal in a foreign country. If it be declared forfeit to the law, the law shall have it."

There was a sudden choking in Sir Allan's voice, and an almost piteous look in his face.

"God forbid it!" he cried; "God forbid it!"

And suddenly this hardened man of the world, this professed cynic in an age of cynicism, sank down in a chair and buried his head in his arms on the green baize writing table, crushing the gold lace of his glittering uniform, and the immaculate shirt front, with its single diamond stud. It was only for a moment that a sudden rush of feeling overcame him. But when he looked up his face was haggard and he looked years older.

"Does anyone—know of this?" he asked in a hoarse tone.

Mr. Maddison shook his head.

"No one whatever as yet," he said shortly. "If I am free to-morrow, I shall go to Italy."

A sudden change swept into Sir Allan's face. He rose from his chair, drawing himself up to his full height. Again he was the stately, distinguished man of the world, with little feeling in his voice or looks. Between him and this other man in his sober black, with wasted face and thin stooping frame, there was a startling difference.

"I have no doubt that you will do your duty, Mr. Maddison," he said coldly; "although, if I may be forgiven for saying so, your method appears to me a little quixotic, and, in a certain sense, singularly devoid of consideration for others. I will not detain you any longer."

He wrapped his long cloak around him and left the room in dignified silence. Mr. Maddison followed him to the steps, and saw him get into his carriage. They parted without another word.

LOVERS

Bernard Maddison kept his engagement that evening, and dined alone with Lady Thurwell and Helen. There had been some talk of going to the opera afterwards, but no one seemed to care about it, and so it dropped through.

"For my part," Lady Thurwell said, as they sat lingering over their dessert, "I shall quite enjoy an evening's rest. You literary men, Mr. Maddison, talk a good deal about being overworked, but you know nothing of the life of a chaperon in the season. I tell Helen that she is sadly wanting in gratitude. We do everything worth doing—picture galleries, matinées, shopping, afternoon calls, dinners, dances, receptions—why, there's no slavery like it."

Helen laughed softly.

"We do a great deal too much, aunt," she said. "I am almost coming round to my father's opinion. You know, Mr. Maddison, he very seldom comes to London, and then only when he wants to pay a visit to his gunmaker, or to renew his hunting kit, or something of that sort. London life does not suit him at all."

"I think your father a very wise man," he answered. "He seeks his pleasures in a more wholesome manner."

She looked thoughtful.

"Yes, I suppose, ethically, the life of a man about town is on a very low level. That is why one meets so few who interest one, as a rule. Don't you think all this society life very frivolous, Mr. Maddison?"

"I am not willing to be its judge," he answered. "Yet it is a moral axiom that the higher we seek for our pleasures the greater happiness we attain to. I am an uncompromising enemy to what is known as fashionable society, so I will draw no conclusions."

"It is intellect and artistic sensibility versus sensuousness," yawned Lady Thurwell. "I'm a weak woman, and I'm afraid I'm too old to change my ways. But I'm on the wrong side of the argument all the same; at least, I should be if I took up the cudgels."

"Which are the greater sinners, Mr. Maddison?" asked Helen, smiling, "men of the world or women of the world?"

"Without doubt, men," he answered quickly. "However we may talk about the equality of the sexes, the fact remains that women are born into the world with lighter natures than men. They have at once a greater capacity, and more desire for amusement pure and simple. They wear themselves out in search of it, more especially the women of other nations. And after all, when their life has passed, they have never known the meaning of real happiness, of the pleasures that have no reaction, and that sweet elevation of mind that is only won by thought and study."

"Poor women!" murmured Lady Thurwell. "Mr. Maddison, you are making me quite uncomfortable. Paint my sex in more glowing colors, please, or leave them alone. Remember that I am the only middle-aged woman here. I don't count Helen at all. I see that she is something of your way of thinking already. Traitress! Do light a cigarette, Mr. Maddison. I adore the perfume of them, and so does Helen."

He took one from the box she passed him, and gravely lit it. They were doing everything in a very informal manner. Dinner had been served in the library, a cozy little apartment with a large open grate in which a cheerful fire had been lit. The ordinary table had been dispensed with in favor of a small round one just large enough for them, and now, with dessert on the table, they had turned their chairs round to the fire in very homelike fashion.

"Do you know, I like this," Helen said softly. "I think it is so much better than a dinner party, or going out anywhere."

"See what a difference the presence of a distinguished man of letters makes," laughed Lady Thurwell. "Now, only a few hours ago, we were dreading a very dull evening—Helen as well as myself. How nice it was of you to take pity on us, Mr. Maddison!"

"Especially considering your aversion to our society," put in Helen. "Are not you really thinking it a shocking waste of time to be here talking to two very unlearned women instead of seeking inspiration in your study?"

He looked at her reproachfully.

"I know nothing of Lady Thurwell's tastes," he said; "but you can scarcely call yourself unlearned. You have read much, and you have thought."

"A pure accident—I mean the thinking," she answered lightly. "If I had not been a country girl, with a mind above my station, intellectually, there's no telling what might have happened. Town life is very distracting, if you once get into the groove. Isn't it, aunt?"

Lady Thurwell, who was a thorough little dame de société, rose with a pout and shrugged her shoulders.

"I'm not going to be hauled over the coals by you superior people any longer," she answered. "I shall leave you to form a mutual improvement society, and go and write some letters. When you want me, come into the drawing room, but don't come yet. Thank you, Mr. Maddison," she added, as he held the door open for her; "be merciful to the absent, won't you?"

And so they were alone! As he closed the door and walked across the room to his seat, there came back to him, with a faint bewildering sweetness, something of the passionate emotion of their farewell in the pine grove on the cliff. He felt his pulses quicken, and his heart beat fast. It was in vain that the dying tenets of his old life, a life of renunciation and solitude, feebly reasserted themselves. At that moment, if never before, he knew the truth. The warm fresh sunlight lay across his barren life, brightening with a marvelous glow its gloomiest corners. The old passionless serenity, in which the human had been crushed out by the intellectual, was gone forever. He loved this woman.

And she was very fair. He stole a long glance at her as she leaned back in her low wicker chair—the fond glance of a lover—and he felt his keenly artistic sense stirred from its very depths by her purely physical beauty. The firelight was casting strange gleams upon the deep golden hair which waved about her oval face and shapely forehead in picturesque unrestraint, and there was an ethereal glow in her exquisite complexion, a light in her eyes, which seemed called up by some unusual excitement.

The setting of the picture, too, was perfect. Her ivory satin gown hung in long straight lines about her slim perfect outline with all the grace of Greek drapery, unrelieved save by one large bunch of Neapolitan violets nestling amongst the folds of old lace which filled up the open space of her bodice. He stood and looked at her with a strange confusion of feelings. A new life was burning in his veins, and for the first time since his boyhood he doubted his absolute self-mastery. Dared he stay there? Could he sit by her side, and bandy idle words with her?

The silence had lasted for several minutes, and was beginning to possess something of that peculiar eloquence which such silences usually have. At last she raised her eyes, and looked at him standing motionless and thoughtful amongst the shadows of the room, and at the first glance he felt his strength grow weak, and his passionate love rising up like a living force. For there was in her eyes, and in her face, and in her voice when she spoke, something of that softening change which transfuses a woman's being when she loves, and lets the secret go from her—a sort of mute yielding, an abandonment, having in it a subtle essence of unconscious invitation.

"Come and talk to me," she said softly. "Why do you stand out there?"

He made one last despairing effort. With a strangely unnatural laugh, he drew a chair to her side and began to talk rapidly, never once letting his eyes rest upon her loveliness, striving to keep his thoughts fixed upon his subject, but all the time acutely conscious of her presence. He talked of many things with a restless energy which more than once caused her to look up at him in wonderment. He strove even to keep her from answering him, lest the magic of her voice should turn the trembling scale. For her sake he unlocked the inmost recesses of his mind, and all the rich store of artistic sensations, of jealously preserved memories, came flooding out, clothed with all that eloquence of jeweled phrase and daintily turned sentence which had made his writings so famous. For her sake, too, he sent his imagination traveling through almost untrodden fields, bringing back exquisite word pictures, and lifting the curtain before many a landscape of sun-smitten thought. All the music of sweet imagery and pure bracing idealism thrilled through her whole being. This was indeed a man to love! And as his speech grew slower, and she heard again that peculiar trembling in his tone, the meaning of which her woman's heart so easily interpreted, she began to long for those few words from him which she felt would be the awakening of a new life in her. He could not fail to notice even that slight change, and wondering whether her attention was commencing to flag, he paused and their eyes met in a gaze full of that deep tragical intensity which marks the birth between man and woman of any new sensation. The fire which glowed in his eyes told her of his love as plainly as the dreamy yet expressive light which gleamed in hers spoke also to him, and when her head drooped before the gathering passion in his face, and the faint color streamed into her cheeks, no will of his could keep the words back any longer. He felt his breath come quickly, and his heart almost stop beating. His pulses were quickening, and a strange new delight stole through him. Surely this was the end. He could bear no more.

And it seemed as though it were indeed so, for with a sudden impulse he caught hold of her white, ringless hand, and drew it gently toward him. There was a slight instinctive resistance which came and went in a space of time only a thought could measure. Then she yielded it to him, and the sense of her touch stole through his veins with a sort of dreamy fascination, to give place in a moment to the overmastering fire of his great passion.

Her face was turned away from him, but he saw the faint color deepen in her cheeks and the light quivering of the lip. And then a torrent of feeling, before which his last shaking barriers of resistance crumbled away like dust, swept from his heart, striking every chord of his nature with a crash of wild music.

"Helen, my love, my love!" he cried.

And she turned round, her eyes dim with trembling tears, yet glowing with a great happiness—turned around to feel his arms steal around her and hold her clasped to his heart in a mad sweet embrace. And it seemed to her that it was for this that she had lived.

A WOMAN'S LOVE

It seemed to him in those few golden moments of his life that memory died away and time stood still. The past with its hideous sorrows, and the future over which it stretched its chilling hand, were merged in the present. Life had neither background nor prospect. The overpowering realization of the elysium into which he had stepped had absorbed all sense and all knowledge. They were together, and words were passing between them which would live to eternity in his heart.

But the fairest summer sky will not be fair forever. Clouds will gather, and drive before them the sweetness and joy from the smiling heavens, and memory is a mistress who may slumber but who never sleeps. Those moments of entrancing happiness, although in one sense they lasted a lifetime, were in the ordinary measure of time but of brief duration. For with something of the overmastering suddenness with which his passion had found expression, there swept back into his heart all the still cold flow of icy reminiscence. She felt his arms loosen around her, and she raised her head, wondering, from his shoulder, wonder that turned soon to fear, for he rose up and stood before her white, and with a great agony in his dark eyes.

"I have been mad!" he muttered hoarsely. "Forgive me! I must go!"

She stood up by his side, pale, but with no fear or weakness in her look. She, too, had begun to realize.

"Tell me one thing," she said softly. "You do—love me!"

"God knows I do!" he answered. The words came from his heart with a nervous intensity which showed itself in his quivering lips, and the vibration of his tone. She knew their truth as surely as though she had seen them written in letters of fire, and that knowledge, or rather her absolute confidence in it, made her in a measure bold. The dainty exclusiveness which had half repelled, half attracted other men had fallen away from her. She stood before him a loving tearful woman, with something of that gentle shame which is twin sister to modesty burning in her cheeks.

"Then I will not let you go," she said softly, taking both his hands in hers, and holding him tightly. "Nothing shall come between us."

He looked into the love light which gleamed in her wet eyes, and stooping down he took her again into his arms and kissed her.

"My darling!" he whispered passionately, "my darling! But you do not know."

"Yes, I do," she answered, drawing him gently back to their old place. "You mean about what Rachel Kynaston said that awful night, don't you?"

"More than that, alas!" he answered in a low tone. "Other people besides Rachel Kynaston have had suspicions about me. I have been watched, and while I was away, Falcon's Nest has been entered, and papers have been taken away."

She was white with fear. This was Benjamin Levy's doing, and it was through her. Ought she to tell him? She could not! She could not!

"But they do not—the papers, I mean—make it appear that——"

"Helen," he interrupted, with his face turned away from her, "it is best that you should know the truth. Those papers reveal the story of a bitter enmity between myself and Sir Geoffrey Kynaston. When you consider that and the other things, you will see that I may at any moment be arrested."

A spasm of pain passed across her face. At that moment her thoughts were only concerned with his safety. The terrible suggestiveness of what he had told her had very little real meaning for her then. Her one thought was, could she buy those papers? If all her fortune could do it, it should be given. Only let him never know, and let him be safe!

"Bernard," she whispered softly, "I am not afraid. It is very terrible, but it cannot alter anything. Love cannot come and go at our bidding. It is forever. Nothing can change that."

He stopped her lips with passionate kisses, and then he tried to tear himself away. But she would not let him go. A touch of that complete self-surrender which comes even to the proudest woman when she loves had made her bold.

"Have I not told you, Bernard," she whispered, "that I will not let you go?"

"Helen, you must," he said hoarsely. "Who knows but that to-morrow I may stand in the dock, charged with that hideous crime?"

"If they will let me, I shall gladly stand by your side," she answered.

He turned away, and his shaking fingers hid his face from her.

"Oh, this is too much for a man to bear!" he moaned. "Helen, Helen, there must be nothing of this between you and me."

"Nothing between you and me!" she repeated with a ring of gentle scorn in her voice. "Bernard, do you know so little of women, after all? Do you think that they can play at love in this give-and-take fashion?"

He did not answer. She stood up and passed one of her arms around his neck, and with the other hand gently disengaged his fingers from before his face.

"Bernard, dearest, look at me. All things can be changed by fashion or expediency save a woman's love, and that is eternal. Don't think, please, of any of these terrible things that may be in store for us, or what other people would think or say. I want you to remember that love, even though it be personal love, is far above all circumstance. No power in this world can alter or change it. It belongs to that better part of ourselves which lifts us above all misfortune and trouble. You have given me a great happiness, Bernard, and you shall not take it away from me. Whatever happens to you, it is my right to share it. Remember, for the future, it is 'we,' not 'I.' You must not think of yourself alone in anything, for I belong now to everything that concerns you."

And so it was that for the first time in his life Bernard Maddison, who had written much concerning them, much that was both faithful and beautiful, saw into the inner life of a true woman. Only for the man whom she loves will she thus lift the curtain from before that sweet depth of unselfishness which makes even the homeliest of her sex one of the most beautiful of God's creations; and he, if he be in any way a man of human sensibility and capacity, must feel something of that wondering awe, that reverence with which Bernard Maddison drank in the meaning of her words. The mute anxiety of her tearful gaze, the color which came and fled from her face—he understood all these signs. They were to him the physical, the material covering for her appeal. A life of grand thoughts, of ever-climbing ideas, of pure and lofty aims, had revealed to him nothing so noble and yet so sweetly human as this; had filled his being with no such heart-shattering emotion as swept through him at that moment. A woman's hand had lifted him out from his despair into a higher state, and there was a great humility in the silent gesture with which he yielded his will to hers.

And then again there were spoken words between them which no chronicles should report, and a certain calm happiness took up its settled place in his heart, defiant of that despair which could not be driven out. Then came that reawakening to mundane things which seems like a very great step indeed in such cases. She looked at the clock, and gave a little start.

"Bernard, it is nearly eleven o'clock," she cried. "We must go into the drawing-room at once. What will aunt think of us? You must come with me, of course; but you'd better say good night now. There, that will do, sir!"

She drew away and smoothed her ruffled hair back from her forehead, looking ruefully in the glass at her tear-stained cheeks, and down at the crushed violets in her corsage.

"May I have them?" he asked.

She drew them out and placed them in his hand.

"To-morrow——" she said.

"To-morrow I must go into the land of violets," he interrupted.

She turned round quickly.

"What do you mean? You are not going away without my permission, sir?"

"Then I must seek it," he answered, smiling. "You have given life such an exquisite sweetness for me, that I am making plans already to preserve it. My one hope lies in Italy."

"How long should you be away?" she asked anxiously.

"Not a week," he answered. "If I am permitted to leave England, which I fear is doubtful, to-morrow, I can be back perhaps in five days."

"Then you may go, Bernard," she whispered. "Take this with you, and think of me sometimes."

She had drawn out a photograph of herself from a folding case on the mantelpiece, and he took it from her eagerly.

"Nothing in the world could be so precious to me," he said.

"For a novice you say some very nice things," she answered, laughing softly. "And now you must go, sir. No, you needn't come into the drawing-room; I really couldn't show myself with you. I'll make your excuses to my aunt. Farewell—love!"

"Farewell—sweetheart!" he answered, hesitating for a moment over the words which seemed so strange to him. Then, as though loth to leave him, she walked down the hall by his side, and they looked out for a moment into the square. A footman was standing prepared to open the door, but Helen sent him away with a message to her maid.

"Do you know why I did that?" she asked, her clasp tightening upon his arm.

He shook his head, and looked down at her fondly.

"I can't imagine, unless——"

She glanced half fearfully behind and then up into his face again, with a faint blush stealing into her cheeks.

"I want one more kiss, please."

He looked into her soft trustful face, and he felt, with a sense almost of awe, the preciousness of such a love as this, a love which, comprehending the terrible period of anxiety through which he had to pass, was not ashamed to seek to sweeten it for him by the simple charm of such an offering. Then, at the sound of returning footsteps in the hall, he let go her hands, and with her fond farewell still lingering in his ears, he hurried out into the street.

MR. LEVY, JUNIOR, GOES ON THE CONTINENT

Mr. Benjamin Levy was standing in his favorite position before the office fireplace, with his legs a little apart, and his small keen eyes fixed upon vacancy. It was thus, in that very pose, and on that very hearthrug, that he had thought out more than one of those deep-laid schemes which had brought a certain measure of notoriety to the firm of which he was a shining light, and at that very moment he was engaged in deep consideration concerning the case in which his energies were at present absorbed.

A few feet away, his father was carefully calculating, with the aid of a ready reckoner, the compound interest on a little pile of bills of exchange which lay before him. Every now and then he paused, and, looking up from his task, glanced cautiously into his son's perplexed face. Curiosity at length culminated in speech.

"What was you thinking, Benjamin, my son?" he said softly. "The Miss Thurwell case is plain before us, is it not? There is nothing fresh, is there? No fresh business, eh, my son?"

Mr. Benjamin started, and abandoned his reflections.

"No; nothing fresh, dad. It was the Thurwell affair I was thinking of. Give me the keys, will you?"

Mr. Levy leaned back in his chair and produced from his trousers pocket a jingling bunch of keys.

Mr. Benjamin took them in thoughtful silence, and, opening the safe, drew out a packet of faded letters tied up with ribbon. From these he selected one, and carefully replaced the rest.

"Those letters again," remarked his fond parent, chuckling. "Take care of them, Benjamin, take care of them. They was worth their weight in gold to us."

"They're worth a great deal more than that," remarked Mr. Benjamin carelessly. "There's only one thing, dad, that puzzles me a bit."

"It must be a rum thing, my boy, that does that," his fond parent remarked admiringly. "I never praise undeservedly, but I must say this, Benjamin, you've managed this Thurwell affair marvelously—marvelously! Come, let me see what it is that is too deep for you."

He rose and looked over his son's shoulder at the letter which he was reading—one thin sheet of foreign note paper, covered with closely written lines of faint, angular writing, and emitting even now a delicate musky scent.

"What is it, Benjamin—what is it?"

His son laid his finger on a sentence toward the close of the letter, and read it aloud:—

Mr. Levy listened, and nodded approvingly.

"All is plain there, Benjamin, I think. The meaning is quite clear."

Mr. Benjamin laid his finger upon the last sentence.

"What do you make of that, dad?" he asked.

Mr. Levy adjusted his spectacles and read it slowly.

"'It is not for you I fear, Bernard, so much as him.' Tut, tut, that's simple enough," he declared. "This woman, whoever she may be, is afraid of a meeting between Sir Geoffrey Kynaston and Mr. Bernard Maddison, to give him his right name, and she remarks that it is for him she fears, and not for Sir Geoffrey. Quite right, too, considering the affectionate tone of these letters."

"Yes, I suppose that's it," Mr. Benjamin remarked in an absent tone, folding up the letter, and putting it back amongst the rest.

Mr. Levy watched him narrowly, and returned to his desk with a sense of injury. His son—his Benjamin—had discovered something which he was not going to confide to the parental ear. It was a blow.

He was wondering whether it might have the desired effect if he were to produce a scrap of old yellow pocket handkerchief, and affect to be overcome, when they heard a hurried footstep outside. Both looked up anxiously. There was a quick knocking at the door, and a shabby-looking man dressed in black entered.

"Well, Leekson, what news?" Mr. Benjamin asked quickly.

"He's off," was the prompt reply. "Continent. Afternoon train. Waterloo, three o'clock."

Mr. Benjamin's eyes sparkled.

"I knew it!" he exclaimed triumphantly. "Job's over, Leekson. Get me a cab, and go to the office for your money."

"You're going to let him go!" cried Mr. Levy piteously.

"Not I. I'm going with him, dad. A fifty-pound note from the safe, quick."

Mr. Levy gave it to him with trembling fingers.

"Now, dad, listen to me," Benjamin said earnestly, reaching down his overcoat from the peg. "Miss Thurwell will be here some time to-day, I'm certain, to try and buy those letters. I've changed my mind about them. Sell."

"Sell," repeated Mr. Levy, surprised. "I thought that that was what we were not to do."

"Never mind, never mind. I'm playing a better game than that now," continued Mr. Benjamin. "I'll leave it to you to make the bargain. There's no one can beat you at that, you know, dad."

Mr. Levy acknowledged his son's compliment with a gratified smile.

"Well, well, Benjamin, we'll say nothing about that. I'll do my best, you may be sure," he declared fervently.

"I may as well just mention that I have ascertained how much money she has got," Mr. Benjamin went on. "She's worth, until her father dies, about fifteen thousand pounds. We won't be hard on her. Suppose we say five thousand the lowest, eh?"

"All right, Benjamin, all right," the old man murmured, rubbing his hands softly together. "Five thousand pounds! My eye! And how long shall you be away?"

"I can't quite tell, dad. Just keep your pecker up, and stick to the biz."

"Yes, Ben, yes. And of course you can't stop to tell me about it now, but won't this five thousand pounds from the young lady about put an end to this little game, eh? And, if so, need you go following this Mr. Maddison all over the country, eh? An expensive journey, Ben. You've got that fifty-pound note, you know."

Mr. Benjamin laughed contemptuously.

"You'll never make a pile, you won't, dad," he exclaimed. "You're so plaguedly narrow minded. Listen here," he added, drawing a little closer to him, and looking round over his shoulder to be sure that no one was listening to him. "When I come back, I'll make you open your eyes. You think this thing played out, do you? Bah! The letters aren't worth twopence to us. When I come back from abroad, I'm going to commence to play this game in a manner that'll rather astonish you, and a certain other person. Ta-ta, guv'nor."

Mr. Benjamin Levy was a smart young man, but he had a narrow escape that afternoon, for as he was sauntering up and down the platform at Waterloo, whom should he see within a dozen yards of him but Mr. Maddison and Miss Thurwell. He had just time to jump into a third-class carriage, and spread a paper out before his face, before they were upon him.

"Jove, that was a shave!" he muttered to himself. "Blest if I thought they were as thick as that. I wonder if she's going with him. No, there's no female luggage, and that's her maid hanging about behind there. Moses, ain't she a slap-up girl, and ain't they just spooney! D—d if he ain't kissed her!" he wound up as the train glided out of the station, leaving Helen Thurwell on the platform waving her handkerchief. "Well, we're off. So far, so good. I feel like winning."

But, unfortunately for Mr. Benjamin, there was a third person in that train whom neither he nor Mr. Maddison knew of, who was very much interested in the latter. Had he only mentioned his name, or referred in the slightest possible way to his business abroad before Mr. Benjamin, that young gentleman would have promptly abandoned his expedition and returned to town. But, as he did not, all three traveled on together in a happy state of ignorance concerning each other; and Mr. Benjamin Levy was very near experiencing the greatest disappointment of his life.

HELEN DECIDES TO GO HOME

Mr. Benjamin Levy's surmise had been an accurate one. Late in the afternoon of that day, Helen Thurwell called at the little office off the Strand, and when she left it an hour later, she had in her pocket a packet of letters, and Mr. Levy had in his safe a check and promissory note for five thousand pounds. Both were very well satisfied—Mr. Levy with his money, and Helen with the consciousness that she had saved her lover from the consequences of what she now regarded as her great folly.

She was to have dined out that evening with her aunt, but when the time to dress came, she pleaded a violent headache, and persuaded Lady Thurwell, who was a good-natured little woman, to take an excuse.

"But, my dear Helen, you don't look one bit ill," she had ventured to protest, "and the Cullhamptons are such nice people. Are you sure that you won't come?"

"If you please, aunt," she had begged, "I really do want to stay at home this evening;" and Lady Thurwell had not been able to withstand her niece's imploring tone, so she had gone alone.

Helen spent the evening as she had planned to. She took her work down into the room where they had been the night before, and where this wonderful thing had happened to her. Then she leaned back in her low chair—the same chair—and gave herself up to the luxury of thought; and when a young woman does that she is very far gone indeed. It was all so strange to her, so bewildering, that she needed time to realize it.

And as she sat there, her eyes, full of a soft dreamy light, fixed upon vacancy, and her lips parted in a happy smile, she felt a sudden longing to be back again upon the moorland cliffs round Thurwell Court, out in the open country with her thoughts. This town season with its monotonous round of gayety was nothing to her now. More than ever, in the enlarged and sweeter life which seemed opening up before her, she saw the littleness and enervating insipidity of it all. She would go down home, and take some books—the books he was fond of—and sit out on the cliffs by the sea and read and dream, and think over all he had said to her, and look forward to his coming; it should be there he would find her. They two alone would stand together under the blue sky, and wander about in the sunshine over the blossoming moors. Would not this be better than meeting him again in a crowded London drawing-room? She knew that he would like it best.

So when Lady Thurwell returned from her party, and was sitting in her room in a very becoming dressing gown, yawning and thinking over the events of the evening, there was a little tap at the door, and Helen entered, similarly attired.

"Please tell me all about it," she begged, drawing up a chair to the fire. "My headache is quite gone."

"So I should imagine," remarked Lady Thurwell. "I never saw you look better. What have you been doing to yourself, child? You look like Aphrodite 'new bathed in Paphian wells.'"

"If you mean to insinuate that I've had a bath," laughed Helen, "I admit it. Now, tell me all about this evening."

Which of course Lady Thurwell did, and found a good deal to say about the dresses and the menu.

"By the bye," she wound up, with a curious look at her niece, "Sir Allan Beaumerville was there, and seemed a good deal disappointed at the absence of a certain young lady."

"Indeed!" answered Helen. "That was very nice of him. And now, aunt, do you know what I came in to say to you?"

Lady Thurwell shook her head.

"Haven't any idea, Helen. Has anyone been making love to you?"

Helen shook her head, but the color gathered in her cheeks, and she took up a screen, as though to protect her face from the fire.

"I want to go home, aunt. Don't look so startled, please. I heard from papa this morning, and he's not very well, and Lord Thurwell comes back to-morrow, so you won't be lonely, and I've really quite made my mind up. Town is very nice, but I like the country best."

"Like the country best in May!" Lady Thurwell gasped. "My dear child, have you taken leave of your senses?"

"Not quite, aunt," Helen answered, smiling. "Only it is as I say. I like the country best, and I would really rather go home."

Lady Thurwell considered for a full minute. Being a very juvenile matron, she had by no means enjoyed her rôle as chaperon to an acknowledged beauty. She had offered it purely out of good nature, and because, although only related by marriage—Lord Thurwell was the elder brother of Mr. Thurwell, of Thurwell Court, and the head of the family—still there was no one else to perform such a service for Helen. But if Helen did really not care for it, and wished to return to her country life, why there was no necessity for her to make a martyr of herself any longer.

"You really mean this, Helen?"

"I do indeed, aunt."

"Then it is settled. Make your own arrangements. I have liked having you, child, and whenever you choose to come to me again you will be welcome. But of course, it is not everyone who cares for town life, and if you do not, you are quite right to detach yourself from it. I'm afraid I know several young men who'll take your sudden flight very much to heart; and one who isn't particularly young."

"Nonsense!" laughed her niece. "There'll be no mourning on my account."

"We shall see," remarked Lady Thurwell, sententiously. "If one person does not find his way down to Thurwell Court after you before long, I shall be surprised."

"Please don't let anyone do anything so stupid, aunt," pleaded Helen with sudden warmth. "It would be—no good."

Lady Thurwell lifted her eyebrows, and looked at her niece with a curious little smile.

"Who is it?" she asked quietly.

But Helen only laughed. Her secret was too precious to part with—yet.

MR. THURWELL MAKES SOME INQUIRIES

And so Helen had her own way, and went back to her home on the moors, where Mr. Thurwell, who had just finished his hunting season, was very glad to see her, although not a little surprised. But she told him no more than she had told her aunt, that she had no taste for London life. The time would soon come when he would know the whole truth, but until her lover's return the secret was her own.

She had one hasty note from him, posted in Paris on his way to Italy, and though there were only a few lines in it, she treasured up the little scrap of paper very tenderly, for, such as it was, it was her first love letter. He had given her an address in the small town to which he was bound, and she noticed, with a slight wonder at the coincidence, that it was the same place where he had first seen her. She had written to him, and now there had come a pause. She had nothing to do but to wait.

But though such waiting is at best but a tedious matter, those few days brought their own peculiar happiness to her. She would have found it impossible to have confided her secret to any human being; she had no bosom friend to whom she could go for sympathy. But her healthy, open-air life, her long solitary walks, and a certain vein of poetry which she undoubtedly possessed, had given her some of that passionate, almost personal, love of nature which is sweeter by far than any human friendship. For her those long stretches of wild moorland, with the dark silent tarns and far-distant line of blue hills, the high cliffs where the sea wind roared with all the bluster and fury of a late March, the sea itself with its ever-changing face, the faint streaks of brilliant color in the evening sky, or the wan glare of a stormy morning—all these things had their own peculiar meaning to her, and awoke always some echo of response in her heart. And it chanced that at that time all the sweet breezy freshness of a late spring was making glad the country which she loved, and the perfect sympathy of the season with her own happiness seemed to her very sweet, for it was springtime too in her heart. A new life glowed in her veins, and sometimes it seemed to her that she could see the vista of her whole future bathed in the warm sunlight of a new-born happiness. The murmuring pine groves, the gay reveling of the birds, the budding flowers and heath—all these things appealed to her with a strange sympathetic force. So she took long walks, and came home with sparkling eyes, and her cheeks full of a rich color, till her father wondered what had come to his proud silent daughter to give this new buoyancy to her frame, and added physical beauty to her face, which had once seemed to him a little too spirituelle and ethereal.

Once more Helen and her father sat at breakfast out on the sheltered balcony of Thurwell Court. Below them the gardens, still slightly coated with the early morning dew, were bathed in the glittering sunshine, and in the distance, and over the tops of the trees in the park, a slight feathery mist was curling upward. The sweet, fresh air, still a little keen, was buoyant with all the joyous exhilaration of spring, and nature, free at last from the saddened grip of winter, was reasserting itself in one glad triumphant chorus. Down in the park the slumberous cawing of the rooks triumphed over the lighter-voiced caroling of innumerable thrushes and blackbirds, and mingled with the faint humming of a few early bees, seemed to fill the air with a sweetly blended strain of glad music. It was one of those mornings typical of its own season, in which the whole atmosphere seems charged with quickening life. Summer with its warm luscious glow, and autumn with its clear calm repose, have their own special charms. But a spring morning, coming after the deep sadness of a hard winter, gains much by the contrast. There is overflowing energy and passionate joy in its newly beating pulses, the warm delight of reawakening life, happy to find the earth so fair a place, which the staider charms of a more developed season altogether lack.

It was in some measure owing to this influence, and also to the fact that she held in her hand a letter from her lover, which her father had handed her without remark, but with a somewhat curious glance, that Helen was feeling very happy that morning. The last year had dealt strangely with her. Tragedy had thrown its startling, gloomy shadow across her life, and had left traces which could never be altogether wiped out. Anxieties of another sort had come, perplexities and strange unhappy doubts, although these last had burned with a fitful, uncertain flame and now seemed stilled for ever. But triumphing over all these was this new-born love, the great deep joy of a woman's life, so vast, so sweet and beautiful, that it transfuses her whole being, and seems to lift her into another world.

And so Helen, leaning back in her chair, with her eyes wandering idly over the pleasant gardens and park below, to where, through a deep gap in the trees, was just visible a faint blue line of sea, was wrapped up very much in her own thoughts, and scarcely doing her duty toward entertaining her father. Indeed, she seemed almost unconscious of his presence until he looked up suddenly from a letter he was reading and asked her a question.

"By the bye, Helen," he said, "I've meant to ask you something every day since you've been home, but I have always forgotten it. Who was that young man who came down here to help Johnson with the auditing, and who went away so suddenly? A protégé of yours, I suppose, as he came here on your recommendation?"

"Yes, I was interested in him," she answered, looking steadily away, and with a faint color in her cheeks. "Why do you ask? Did he not do his work properly?"

"Oh, yes, he did his work very well, I believe," Mr. Thurwell said impatiently. "It was what he did after working hours, and which has just come to my notice, which makes me ask you. It seems he spent the whole of his spare time making covert, but I must say ingenious, inquiries respecting Sir Geoffrey's murder, and I am also given to understand that he paid Falcon's Nest an uninvited visit in the middle of the night. What does it all mean? Was it merely curiosity, or had he any object in it?"

"I think—he had an object," she answered slowly.

"Indeed!" Mr. Thurwell raised his eyebrows and waited for an explanation.

"You remember, papa, that awful scene here when Rachel Kynaston died, and what her last words to me were?"

"Yes, I remember perfectly," Mr. Thurwell answered gravely.

"Well, at that time I could not help having just a suspicion that Mr. Brown must be mixed up in it in some way, and it seemed to me that I should not be quite at ease if I let matters go on without doing anything, so I—well, this young man came down here to see whether he could find out anything."

Mr. Thurwell seldom frowned at his daughter, of whom he was secretly a little afraid, but he did so now. He was seriously angry.

"It was not a matter for you to have concerned yourself in at all," he said, rising from his seat. "At least, I should have been consulted."

"It was all very foolish, I know," she admitted humbly.

"It was worse than foolish; it was wrong and undutiful," he declared. "I am astonished that my daughter should have mixed herself up with such underhand work. And may I ask why I was kept in ignorance?"

"Because you would not have allowed me to do what I did," she said quietly, with downcast eyes. "I thought it was my duty. I have been punished—punished severely."

He softened a little, and resumed his seat. She was certainly very contrite. He was silent for a moment or two, and then asked her a question.

"Did this young man—detective, I suppose he was—find out anything about Mr. Brown?"

She looked up, a little surprised at the curiosity in his tone.

"Why, papa, it was I who found out how stupid I had been," she said. "When I discovered that our mysterious tenant was Bernard Maddison, of course I saw the absurdity of suspecting him at once."

Mr. Thurwell moved a little uneasily in his chair.

"He did not find out anything, then?" he asked.

She was silent. She had not expected this, and she scarcely knew how to answer.

"He found out what Mr. Brown—I mean Mr. Maddison—himself told me, that he had known Sir Geoffrey abroad."

"Nothing more?"

"I did not ask. To tell the truth, I was not interested. The idea of Mr. Maddison being connected with such a crime is simply ridiculous. I was heartily sorry that I had ever taken any steps at all."

Mr. Thurwell lit a cigarette, and drew his remaining letters toward him.

"I must confess," he said slowly, "that when his house was searched in my presence, and all that we discovered was that Mr. Brown was really Bernard Maddison, I felt very much as you feel; and, as you no doubt remember, I went out of my way to be civil to the man, and brought him up here to dine. But since then things have cropped up, and I'm bound to say that it looks a little queer. I hear that young man of yours told several people that he had in his pocket what would bring Mr. Brown to the scaffold any day."

"It is not true," she answered in a low firm tone. "I know that it is not true."

Mr. Thurwell shrugged his shoulders.

"I hope not, I'm sure. Still, I'd rather he did not come back here again. Some one must have done it, you see, and if it was a stranger, he must have been a marvelous sort of fellow to come into this lonely part of the country, and go away again without leaving a single trace."

"Criminals are all clever at disguises," she interposed.

"Doubtless; but they have yet to learn the art of becoming invisible," he went on drily. "I'm afraid it's no use concealing the fact that things look black against Maddison, and there is more than a whisper in the county about it. If he's a wise fellow, he'll keep away from here."

"He will not," she answered. "He will come back. He is innocent!"

Mr. Thurwell saw the rising flush in his daughter's face, but he had no suspicion as to its real cause. He knew that Bernard Maddison was one of her favorite authors, and he put her defence of him down to that fact. He was not a particularly warm advocate on either side, and suddenly remembering his unopened letters, he abandoned the discussion.

Helen, whose calm happiness had been altogether disturbed, rose in a few minutes with the intention of making her escape. But her father, with an open letter in his hand, checked her.

"Have you been seeing much of Sir Allen Beaumerville in town, Helen?" he asked.

"Yes, a great deal. Why?" she asked.

"He's coming down here," Mr. Thurwell said. "He asks whether we can put him up for a night or two, as he wants to do some botanizing. Of course we shall be very pleased. I did give him a general invitation, I remember, but I never thought he'd come. You'll see about having some rooms got ready, Helen!"

"Yes, papa, I'll see to it," she answered, moving slowly away.

What could this visit in the middle of the season mean? she wondered uneasily. It was so unlike Sir Allan to leave town in May. Could it be that what her aunt had once laughingly hinted at was really going to happen? Her cheeks burned at the very thought. She liked Sir Allan, and she had found him a delightful companion, but even to think of any other man now in such a connection seemed unreal and grotesque. After all, it was most improbable. Sir Allan had only shown her the attention he showed every woman who pleased his fastidious taste.