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THE SILVER BAG



BY THE SAME AUTHOR


MRS. POMEROY’S REPUTATION
ENTER BRIDGET
THE FUTURE MRS. DERING
THE ANGER OF OLIVIA
THE DISSEMBLERS
SEVERANCE
THE BISHOP’S GAMBIT
SCRUPLES
MR. PASSINGHAM
THE CHOICE OF THEODORA
THE BUSY WHISPER
SECOND IN THE FIELD
THE HILLERWAY LETTERS
CAPTAIN MARRADAY’S MARRIAGE
ETc. ETC. ETC.


THE SILVER BAG
BY THOMASMQPBBM
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LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
NEW YORK; jOHN LANE COMPANY MCMXIX
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PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB LTD” EDINBURGH


THE SILVER BAG





THE SILVER BAG
CHAPTER 1
that his friend Derrick Chalmers had
not waited to surrender the flat in
accordance with his promise, but the hall porter
explained, as soon as he had taken the suit-case
and kit-bag out of the taxi-cab and handed over
the latchkey, that a letter had been left on the
sitting-room mantelshelf.
“Then,” asked Valentine, “when did Mr.
Chalmers go?"
“On Monday—the day before yesterday," was
the answer.
“At about what time ? ”
“It must have been getting on for half-past
eight,” the hall porter explained. “I’d been off
duty for an hour or two, and Mr. Chalmers, he
was just starting off as I got back. There’s
been a young lady here.”
“Not to see me?" cried Valentine, with
obvious astonishment,
V A LE N TIN E looked surprised to hear
1


2 THE SILVER BAG
“Well, sir,” was the reply, “she spoke to me
on her way out, and said she’d been ringing the
bell and couldn't get an answer. She wanted
to know when Mr. Chalmers was likely to be
home.”
“ When was that ? ” demanded Valentine.
“About half-past two yesterday afternoon.
But," the hall porter continued, “though I said
Mr. Chalmers had gone away and wasn’t coming
back, she was here again by twelve this very
morning and asked when you were expected.”
" Did she leave her name ? ”
“No, sir, she wouldn’t give no name,” said
the hall porter, following Valentine with the suit-
case in one hand and the kit-bag in the other
to the lift.
The third floor of the huge block of buildings,
known as No. 3 Parliament Court, consisted
principally of small bachelor flats, one of which
Valentine Brook had occupied during the last
twelve months, living quite alone. For his meals _
he could either go downstairs to the common
dining-room or order anything from the menu to
be sent up.
On this Wednesday evening, the twenty-
second of February, he had just returned from
a month’s visit to Paris. Having let himself
into his flat and switched on the electric light,


THE SILVER BAG 3
he looked round the sitting-room and saw that
everything was precisely the same as when he
went away, only, perhaps, a little more tidy.
Derrick Chalmers had apparently been able to
remove all his possessions in spite of what seemed
to have been a hasty departure.
Taking a box of matches from the pocket of
his Harris tweed overcoat, Valentine stooped to
light the gas fire, then opened the envelope which
was propped up against the clock on the mantel-
shelf. He had barely time to finish reading
the pencilled letter before the bell rang, and
on going to open the outer door he found him-
self face to face with a rather tall, dark-haired girl
who looked about three-and-twenty years of age.
“ Good evening," he exclaimed. “I think you
have been here before.”
“I came to see Mr. Chalmers,” she re-
turned.
“Oh well, I’m afraid you can’t do that, you
know,” said Valentine. “The fact is he went
away the day before yesterday.”
“ How surprised you must have been!” she
cried, with a smile. From the outset, she showed
no sign of embarrassment on the one hand or
of effrontery on the other. Her manner,
indeed, struck Valentine as being curiously self—
possessed.


4 THE SILVER BAG
“ Why, yes, I was," he admitted. “ I expected
to find him here this evening. Perhaps you
know that I lent him my flat while I was abroad
for a month, but he left a letter to say he had
received an urgent summons from his mother.
She had been suddenly ordered to undergo
an operation, and of course he started off at
once.”
“You,” she said, “are Mr. Valentine Brook.”
“There,” he suggested, “you have the advan-
tage over me."
“Everybody knows your name,” she insisted.
“Your play is advertised on all the motor-buses
and Tubes in London. But mine is really not
of the slightest importance.”
“ Still,” urged Valentine, “ it’s rather convenient
to know whom one is talking to.”
Standing in the somewhat dim light of the
corridor, with an umbrella in one hand, while
the other rested on the door frame, she tantaliz-
ingly shook her head. It seemed odd that she
should refuse to give her name, especially as
she knew a good deal about himself as well
as Derrick Chalmers. In any case, Valentine
came to the conclusion that she was an excep-
tionally nice-looking girl, quietly dressed, with
dark hair and quite embarrassingly expressive
eyes.


THE SILVER BAG 5
“ It isn’t that I really wanted to see Mr.
Chalmers so much,” she said.
“In that case,” exclaimed Valentine, “may I
ask why you have taken the trouble to come here
three times in two days ? ”
“Oh well, I came to fetch something,” she
answered, and now he could not help feeling a
little suspicious. If she had come to fetch some-
thing, surely it was more strange than ever that
she should refuse her name! “Nothing of the
least importance,” she continued, in a casual tone,
which might be assumed. “ A wrist-bag—a small,
silver wrist-bag. You must surely know the sort
of thing.”
“ But,” said Valentine, “ there can’t be anything
of that kind here.”
“Oh dear yes! I’m perfectly certain it’s
somewhere here," she insisted.
“What the dickens could Chalmers have
wanted with a silver wrist-bag?” demanded
Valentine.
“ How stupid!” she returned impatiently. “If
it belonged to Mr. Chalmers naturally I shouldn’t
take all this trouble about the thing.”
“ Perhaps,” he urged, “you wouldn’t mind
telling me how it got here."
“Wouldn’t it be reasonable to suppose that it
was brought?” said the visitor.


6 THE SILVER BAG
“ By yourself? " he asked.
“Oh dear no! " she cried, with her head in the
air. “ I had never put my foot inside the building
till yesterday.”
“ Anyhow," said Valentine, “if it’s here as you
say, it must have been left by somebody, you
know. Do you mind telling me when P ”
“On Monday afternoon—the day before
yesterday. Rather late in the afternoon."
“ In that case it could scarcely have been very
long before Chalmers went away," suggested
Valentine.
“Oh dear!” she exclaimed. “How I wish
you would be nice and give me the bag and let
me go ! ”
“First catch your hare,” he said. “ But if you
would like to come in and look round for yourself,
of course I shall be very pleased."
She entered the narrow passage, which could
scarcely be described as a hall, without the
slightest hesitation, whereupon Valentine shut
the outer door and led the way to the sitting-
room, where she at once began the most business-
like search, examining the leather-topped writing-
table which stood between the windows, the side-
board opposite, each of the four easy chairs in
turn, the sofa—taking care to look beneath the
cushion—and the small cottage piano.


THE SILVER BAG 7
Standing on the hearth-rug, Valentine followed
her swift movements with attentive and admiring
eyes, coming to the conclusion that he had not
done her justice in the dimmer light of the corridor.
When she turned to glance in his direction, a
little coquettishly perhaps, every now and then,
he noticed that she had unusually long black eye-
lashes, also that there might be the faintest trace
of powder on her face. At last, having searched
every corner of the sitting-room, she came to a
standstill in the middle of it, biting her lower lip
in perplexity, while she looked around as if for
fresh worlds to conquer.
“Well, now, I suppose you’ll admit,” said
Valentine, “that there’s nothing in the least
resembling a silver wrist-bag here."
“Not at all,” she insisted. “I am perfectly
certain it’s here ”
“In the face of your extremely thorough
search,” he suggested, “it couldn’t surely have
been overlooked if it were.”
“Oh well,” she cried, after a momentary
hesitation, “ I—l suppose this is not your only
room.”
“Why, no,” said Valentine, raising a hand to
stroke his chin.
“Perhaps,” she urged, “you wouldn’t mind
looking in the other one.”


CHAPTER II
r l \HERE was nothing to differentiate the
silver bag from scores of others which
Valentine had seen in shop windows
and women’s hands. It must have been about
five inches wide by four in depth, a slight bulgi-
ness showing that it was not empty. Taking it
in his hand, Valentine puffed out his cheeks as
he sat down on the edge of the bed. For a few
moments his face wore a reflective expression,
but suddenly remembering that he had left his
anonymous visitor alone he started to his feet,
shaking his head sagely as he returned to the
sitting-room.
“Oh, thank you, thank you so much!” she
exclaimed, coming to meet him with her hand
outstretched.
“Upon my word, you know, I’m not quite
certain———” began Valentine, with a good deal
of embarrassment.
But she promptly interrupted him.
“ Not certain of what?" she asked, with her
hand still held out.
9


10 THE SILVER BAG
“ Really," he stammered, “ I’m most frightfully
sorry. I don’t know what I ought to do. I’m
afraid I can’t see my way to part with it. "
“What do you mean i’” cried the visitor.
“ Why in the world shouldn’t you?”
“ You see,” he returned, “ I can’t help feeling a
kind of responsibility to Chalmers.”
“ Oh, what dreadful nonsense!” she said.
“As if Mr. Chalmers would have the remotest
objection. Why, it is exactly what he would
wish you to do."
“ To give something that was left in his flat to
a young lady who refuses to tell me who she is
or anything about herself! Upon my word, you
know, it’s bound to make one feel a little——”
“A little what, for goodness’ sake ? ”
“ Well, a little suspicious, don’t you know.”
“I should like very much to hear,” she re-
torted, sinking into one of the capacious easy
chairs, “what in the world you can suspect
me of.”
“ One thing is perfectly clear,” said Valentine,
facing her on the hearth-rug with the bag hanging
from his forefinger, “ shortly before Chalmers
went away on Monday evening he must have
been entertaining a visitor. A woman, who left
this confounded thing behind her.”
“In that case,” was the answer, “it surely


THE SILVER BAG II
can’t be inconceivable that she should be anxious
to get it back into her own possession again."
“Why, no, not at all,” Valentine admitted.
“ But it’s equally conceivable that some one might
wish to forestall her. Imagine, for instance," he
continued, “that Chalmers’s guest was a married
woman. Imagine that she was shadowed and seen
to enter this building with the silver bag in her
hand, seen to leave later on without it. If her
property were found here, might not the result
prove a little inconvenient in certain circum-
stances?”
“What a remarkably ingenious theory! " she
cried, with a laugh.
“You could quite easily knock the bottom out
of it by giving me your name,” he suggested.
“As you appear to disbelieve everything else I
have told you, why should you believe that?”
she demanded.
“It might be verified by your address, you
know.” >
“I think,” she retorted, “you are quite the
most suspicious person I have ever had anything
to do with. I suppose a fellow-feeling with Mr.
Chalmers makes you kind; though you are
certainly very unkind to me.”
“ Oh, but you mustn’t say that, you know,” he
urged. “If you hadn’t refused to account for


12 THE SILVER BAG
yourself, I don't suppose I should have made the
least fuss about the thing. I should have given
it up without a murmur. As it is, I’m immensely
sorry, but-~well, I’m afraid I’m not taking any
risks."
“At all events,” she answered, with her eyes
on his face, “you can’t possibly refuse to let me
open it." She held out her hand without leaving
her chair.
“ I don’t think it ought to be touched till
Chalmers turns up,” said Valentine.
Rising now, with a slight pout on her lips, she
drew so near that her coat touched his own. She
was certainly a remarkably attractive girl!
“ As if," she entreated, “ there could be the
slightest shadow of harm in letting me take some-
thing out—something quite without value—while
you are looking on.”
“A card-case, for example,” said Valentine,
with a smile.
“ How do you know it contains one ? ” she
sharply demanded.
“ I don’t know. I simply made a lucky
guess,” he admitted.
“ Oh, why," she pleaded, resting a hand on his
sleeve, “ can't you be generous? Why can’t you
let me have my own way ? ”
Naturally, he did not like to be regarded as un-


14 THE SILVER BAG
key and see that it is not disturbed till Chalmers
comes back to London.”
Taking a small bunch of keys from his trousers
pocket, and making as much fuss about it as
possible, he went down on his knee before the
writing-table, unlocking one of the drawers, while
the visitor stood gazing over his shoulder.
“What do you say to that?” he asked, drop-
ping the bag into the drawer.
“Oh well, if only I could feel certain it would
not be taken out again,” she murmured.
“You may,” he protested. “I give you my
word ”
“ I am more trustful than you,” she cried. “I
accept it without the slightest reservation.”
“Then you will go away contented after all?"
said Valentine, turning the key and standing
upright.
“Oh—contented!” she answered. “I don’t
say that. Naturally, I should have preferred to
get my own way. That goes without saying,
doesn’t it? But this is the second best. If no
one is really allowed to touch the bag until Mr.
Chalmers takes possession of it, that is the
important matter. Still,” she added, with a
plaintive expression, “I wish you could have
made up your mind to trust me.”
Seeing her turn towards the door, he began to


THE SILVER BAG I5
congratulate himself on the success of his experi-
ment. If she had come to Parliament Court for
any nefarious purpose, to obtain possession of the
silver bag, in fact, for Derrick’s undoing, she
could scarcely have derived the remotest gratifica-
tion on seeing it stowed away in the drawer. It
really appeared, in spite of her refusal to give her
name, as if she had been telling the truth from
the beginning, whereas her principal’s desire to
remain unknown to a friend of Derrick Chalmers
might easily be understood.
“Oh well,” said Valentine, “I think I do trust
you, if it isn't rather cheek to put it in that way.”
“You are going to let me have What I want
after all?” she exclaimed, turning by the door
and holding out her hand again, as he stooped in
front of the writing-table.
“Yes, I am going to let you have what you
want after all,” he returned, unlocking the drawer
and rising.
“Oh, thank you ever so much!" she said, as
he parted with the bag.
A few moments later he was following her
along the passage to the outer door. She showed
a radiant face as it was opened, smiling and
nodding as he stood on the threshold, looking
after her tall, graceful figure as she walked
swiftly towards the lift.


16 THE SILVER BAG
Well, he hoped that Derrick would not say
he had acted injudiciously, though it must be
admitted that the silver bag would have been still
in his possession if his mysterious visitor had
not been endowed with a pretty face—only very
slightly powdered—a pair of unusually expressive
eyes with marvellously long black eyelashes, and
a delectably curved figure.


C H APT E R III
VALENTINE’S father had been a barrister
with an unremunerative practice, a wife
for many years an invalid, a daughter,
and a son on whom—for no apparent reason at
that early age—he founded his highest hopes.
Valentine, predestined to achieve the fame and
fortune which his father—owing as every one said
to no fault of his own—had missed, was to go on
from his public school to one of the universities,
and when he failed after several attempts to gain
a scholarship, Mr. Brook skimped the other
members of the family—including himself, it is
true—sent his son to Clare, and died suddenly
eighteen months later.
His widow and daughter were compelled to
remove into a much smaller house; and to keep
even this going it became obviously necessary for
Valentine to make some contribution. Coming
down from Cambridge at the end of the term, he
succeeded, through the influence of an old friend
of the family, in obtaining, although he was
beyond the usual age—being in fact in his
2


18 THE SILVER BAG
twentieth year—a berth in the City office of the
London and Southern Counties Bank. He lived
at home with his invalid mother and Sibylla,
whom he saw gradually developing into a house-
hold drudge, his sole dissipation being an occa-
sional visit to the pit of a theatre.
By and by he began to form the unsociable
habit of retiring to his bedroom close under the
roof as soon as he returned from the bank, and
Sibylla understood that he was writing a play.
From first to last he had never attempted to write
anything else, but henceforth for several years his
efforts were unceasing. '
From the time he was twenty-one until his
twenty-seventh birthday he always had one or
two manuscripts going the rounds of the London
managers, some never being heard of again, some
returning after many days. But at the end of
more than six tentative years, on reaching home
one Friday he was met by Sibylla with an open
telegram in her hand.
Three years older than himself, Sibylla, with-
out the least pretension to beauty, had a fresh,
wholesome face and good blue eyes; she was in
fact very much like her brother in appearance,
and the two were splendid friends.
“Val,” she exclaimed, before he had crossed
the small garden, “it’s from Reginald Anstruther.


THE SILVER BAG 19
He wants you to go to see him to-morrow after-
noon.”
An appointment was made for six o’clock, and
as soon as Valentine reached Mount Street he
saw that the actor-manager meant business. He
wanted a play, he could see himself in the
principal part, and was prepared to put it into
rehearsal at once. When Valentine walked away
—on air—it was understood that he should receive
a formal contract early the following week, and a
cheque for a hundred pounds on account of
royalties as soon as it was signed.
He was able to attend the rehearsals only after
office hours, and even then felt too bashful to
offer many suggestions. By the evening of the
dress rehearsal he knew the whole thing so well
that it seemed flat, stale and unprofitable.
The first-night audience, however, proved en-
thusiastic; and, although the newspaper critics
expressed themselves somewhat less favourably,
Reginald Anstruther insisted that the three-act
farce was in for a long run.
A month after its production Valentine earned
Sibylla’s serious disapproval for the first time in
his life. She even went as far as to ask the old
friend who had obtained the berth at the London
and Southern Counties Bank for her brother to
make an attempt to persuade him not to give it up.


20 THE SILVER BAG
“ It seems such a dreadful pity,” she insisted.
“The money has been wonderfully useful. I
don't know how I could manage to keep on the
house without it, and you know, Val, the play
won’t run for ever.”
“ No, but I’ve another more than half finished,"
he insisted.
Nothing that she or anybody else could say
made the slightest difference. Valentine left the
City, bought a second-hand writing-table for his
bedroom, and before the first play had nearly
ceased to run Reginald Anstruther accepted a
second.
“ Now," exclaimed Valentine, “ for the revolu-
tion! We’ll clear Out of this house as soon as we
can find another."
“ But we have got it for nearly a year longer,”
Sibylla expostulated, quite in vain.
A larger and more convenient house in
Sycamore Road was taken, some additional
furniture was bought, a trained nurse was engaged
to be in constant attendance on Mrs. Brook, and
Sibylla was set free. Then a severe disappoint-
ment fell upon her. Valentine broke the news
that he intended to live in bachelor rooms,
explaining that the time had come when he
wanted to be more in the midst of things, though
it is possible that he scarcely knew what he meant.


THE SILVER BAG 21
It was certainly not that he wished to do any~
thing which he felt reluctant for Sibylla to hear;
but he experienced a vague desire to launch out
without steering for any definite shore. After
much looking about, he came to rest on the third
floor of No. 3 Parliament Court, though he
never omitted to pay two or three visits a week
to his mother at Sycamore Road. He became a
member of a club in Pall Mall and made a few
new friends, but still remained the same good-
natured, rather bashful, diffident fellow as
before.
Now Sibylla was looking forward to seeing
him again after his month’s absence in Paris—
his first visit abroad. But by the time he had
dined after the departure of his anonymous
visitor, it seemed too late to go to St. John’s
Wood that evening. Having rung Sibylla up
on the telephone, he inquired after his mother,
and promised she should see him the following
morning.
Meanwhile he did not anticipate another
encounter with the claimant of the silver bag.
For that matter Valentine was not certain that
he wished for one. Still, he thought of her
several times before he went to bed on
Wednesday night, assuring himself that after
her experience at the flat she would in all


22 THE SILVER BAG
probability take care to give it a wide berth
in the future.
The thoroughfare was easily to be avoided
unless one wished to enter the block of residential
chambers itself, or the government offices over
the way. Most people would prefer to take
the parallel Thames Embankment. But, on
setting forth the following Saturday afternoon,
Valentine was astonished to see his visitor
coming towards him a few yards from the
doon


CHAPTER IV
that he betrayed a little embarrassment.
It is conceivable that he might have
done the same in any case, but as it was he raised
his soft felt hat, hesitated to offer his hand until
she held out her own, and then for a moment or
two stood in the middle of the pavement without
being able to think of anything to say.
“I wonder whether you were coming to look
me up again?” he ventured at last.
“ Certainly not,” was the prompt reply. “ How
could such a ridiculous idea enter your head! I
assure you that enough is as good as a feast,
though if I really had been coming you could
scarcely have looked more surprised."
As she walked on he thought he ought to keep
by her side. She was rather more smartly
dressed than she had been on Wednesday evening,
and her eyes looked even darker in contrast with
her faintly powdered face.
“ I am simply on my way to the Underground,"
she explained, “and I should have given you the
VALENTINE was so deeply astonished
23


24 THE SILVER BAG
cut direct if you had not repented at the eleventh
hour on W'ednesday. I wonder," she added, as
they crossed the road, “why you changed your
mind so suddenly P ”
“Oh well,” answered Valentine, “it was most
frightfully difficult to stand out, you know."
“Was it really?" she murmured, bringing her
eyes to bear on his face as she stopped outside
the station.
Men were shouting the contents of the even-
ing papers, and an apparently endless queue of
passengers was hastening to the booking-offices.
“You will let me take your ticket?” he sug-
gested, when she offered her hand.
“Thank you," she returned, with a laugh, “I
am not to be caught in that way. I shall get
one from the penny-in-the-slot machine.”
“Then you are not going to let me know who
you are and where you live? ” said Valentine.
“ Oh dear no! " she cried. “Though what in
the world you must think of me is more thanI
can imagine. Perhaps you haven't thought of
me at all. I feel certain you don’t quite trust me
even now. Well," she continued, with a sigh,
“I suppose it's a case for Faith. Faith in the
unseen, you know, for it seems rather unlikely
that chance will throw us together again.”
Although Valentine Brook may have been a


THE SILVER BAG 25
little shy, he was by no means an incorrigible
fool, and as she entered the station he could not
help suspecting that he should see her again
before very long. On the whole he did not think
that “chance” had very much to do with the
recent encounter, which nevertheless, in spite of
certain slight misgivings, had caused a little
pleasurable excitement. After all there was a
zest in being pursued by one of the most attractive
girls he had ever come into contact with. If she
elected to take the matter into her own hands,
he was, as he walked away from the station,
recklessly prepared to meet her half-way.
He was scarcely surprised to see her again at
the same time and place on Wednesday, when
he rejoiced to find that he was able to greet
her with a little more confidence.
“I say,” he exclaimed, “I hope you’re going
a bit farther than the Underground this time,
you know.”
“ Do you? ” she returned, with a radiant smile.
“ Well, to tell you the prosaic truth, I was think-
ing of looking for a place to get some tea.”
“Oh well, you needn’t go very far for that,”
he urged, rather astonished at his own boldness.
“You see, there’s a room on the ground floor
here where we can entertain our friends.”
“ Is that quite—quite ale rzlgueur? ” she asked.


THE SILVER BAG 27
nothing could be more utterly impossible. But
I might be able to manage lunch one day. Would
Monday do?”
“ At one o’clock,” said Valentine.
“If anything should turn up to prevent me,”
she cried, “ I will let you know."
“That would be the most frightful sell," he
remonstrated. “ There would be only one com-
pensation.”
“What is that ? ”
“Anyhow, you would have to sign your letter.”
“Oh dear no, I should do nothing of the kind,”
she said, with a laugh. “I should either wire or
ring you up.”
A little later she insisted that she must be
going, and Valentine was permitted to accompany
her as far as the station, where they stood at the
entrance for a few moments, while he urged her
not to forget the appointment for one o’clock on
Monday. It was just as she turned away that
Valentine saw Lionel Windermere.
They had been at Rugby together and subse-
quently at Cambridge, although Lionel, like
Derrick Chalmers, also an old schoolfellow, had
been in his last year when Valentine was a fresh-
man. While Valentine had seen something of
both men during the intervening years, he knew
little or nothing of their set, his own pecuniary


28 THE SILVER BAG
position until the last twelve or eighteen months
having kept him on a different social plane.
Lionel was rather shorter than Valentine and
more sturdily built; a handsome man, with a
black moustache; well turned-out, distinguished-
looking, a member of one of the best-known firms
on the Stock Exchange. Previous to Valentine's
departure for Paris, Derrick had hinted at certain
rumours, and this afternoon Lionel looked as if
he were harassed half out of his life. His face
was long and haggard, with dark patches beneath
his eyes; he must have lost flesh during the last
few months, and his manner betrayed a kind of
suppressed irritability.
“Oh, I’m a bit out of sorts," he admitted in
answer to Valentine’s inquiry. “I can’t sleep,
can't eat. In fact I got Dr. Bendicott to over-
haul me the other day.”
“What you want is a holiday," answered
Valentine. “Is Margaret all right?”
“ She was when I saw her yesterday," said
Lionel a little grudgingly.
Valentine knew that the Windermeres did not
hit it off together so well as they might have
done.
“ How’s the youngster? ” he asked.
“Jolly little beggar,” cried Lionel, with a
better satisfied expression. “He only came


THE SILVER BAG 29
home the day before yesterday—been staying
with his grandmother at Tunbridge Wells.
Well,” Lionel added, “who’s the young woman,
Val?”
“Just what I should like to know,” was the
reply. '
“ Where did you pick her up ?”
“Oh well,” Valentine explained, “it was a bit
of an adventure in a way. You know I lent
Derrick my flat. A day or so before I got back
from Paris he had a wire from Mrs. Chalmers.
She was ordered to undergo a serious operation,
and off he set at once. It seems that he had
been entertaining a visitor——”
“ A woman ! ” exclaimed Lionel.
“The dickens of it was,” Valentine continued,
" that she gave the show away by leaving her
bag.”
“ So, she had been staying on the premises ! ”
“ N o, no,” said Valentine. “ Not a kit-bag or
anything of that sort. One of those sort of
filigree arrangements—silver, you know. Women
use them instead of pockets. She left the thing
on my shaving-table, and the girl you saw me
saying good-bye to just now came to fetch it.”
Lionel Windermere stood a few yards from
the entrance to the Underground Station, tugging
at his moustache. His face had turned suddenly


30 THE SILVER BAG
crimson; his voice shook as he asked the next
question.
“ You don’t know who she is?”
“She refused to tell me even her name,” said
Valentine. “ I hesitated at first about letting
her have the bag. "
“ Why ? " demanded Lionel sharply.
“ Oh well, I didn’t want to run the risk of
getting old Derrick into a mess,” was the answer.
Without another word, to Valentine’s astonish-
ment, Lionel turned away, walking rapidly towards
N orthumberland Avenue.


CHAPTE'R V
ALENTINE’S plans for the following
Monday were not upset either by
telegram or telephone, and only a few
minutes after the appointed time he saw his
guest approaching from the direction of the
Underground Station. Her greeting could
scarcely have been more cheerful, and it seemed
obvious that she had made up her mind to
enjoy the expedition. She talked gaily on the
way to Bernasconi’s in a taxi-cab; the large
dining-hall was almost full, and the string band
was playing as they made their way to one of
the side-tables.
She looked about her enjoyably while Valentine
was giving his orders to the waiter and studying
the wine list, her excitement making her more
attractive than ever. She grew more talkative
as she went on with the meal.
“Now confess,” she said, “that you think I
am dreadfully barefaced! I know that very
clever men are often simple-minded, but though
you look so ingenuous——-”
31


THE SILVER BAG 33
“ Most pretty women are,” answered Valentine.
“You see,” she explained, with a gratified
smile, “the first time I came to Parliament Street
I really expected to see Mr. Chalmers, but the
moment I heard he had gone away and that
I should have to meet you whether I liked it
or not, I thought I might never have such an
opportunity again. That was why I walked
past the building twice before I succeeded in
meeting you. Even if you couldn’t find me a
part in your own play,” she continued, “I
thought, perhaps, you might be able to introduce
me to some one ”
“Introduce you!” said Valentine. “Try to
imagine the situation! I arrange an interview
with some actor-manager. The fateful moment
arrives. ‘Mr. Blenkinsopp Jones,’ I begin,
‘ Miss— I’m really immensely sorry, but upon
my word I don’t know the young lady’s
name!”’
“Don’t you understand,” she murmured,
leaning eagerly forward across the table, with
a wineglass in her hand, as Valentine lighted
a cigarette, “that I shouldn’t mind telling you
every single thing about myself, I should be only
too pleased, if it were possible without giving
some one else away.”
“Are you so well known,” suggested Valentine,

3


34 THE SILVER BAG
“that your name would at once furnish a clue
to—to the some one’s identity? ”
“ No, of course not,” she replied a little im-
patiently. “I am the merest nobody. If you
wish to know what it is—”
“Why, naturally l”
“Oh well, it’s Knowles——Lucilla Knowles,”
she said. “I used to live at Brighton. My
father was Major Knowles—a gunner. There
were just the three of us: my father, my mother
and I; and nobody could possibly have been
happier till she died four years ago. Then my
father seemed to change altogether. He had
been immensely fond of her. He was seldom at
home after the funeral, and when he was it—it
wasn't very pleasant. When he died also, fifteen
months ago, everything had to be sold off.
I found myself without a home or anything but
a few pounds and a little trumpery jewellery.”
“ How old were you then?” asked Valentine.
“Twenty-two,” she answered. “The only
person in the world I could turn to was my
Aunt Hannah, my father’s sister. She lived near
Clapham Common, and we had never seen much
of her. She was—oh, so narrow and bigoted
and puritanical! But she offered me a home,
and what could I do but accept it? She seemed
to think I had inherited all my father’s most


THE SILVER BAG 35
unfortunate tendencies, and she was always on
the look-out to eradicate them. Oh, you can’t
imagine the life I led till I was fortunate enough
to meet my——my Good Fairy. But then, perhaps,
you don’t believe in fairies ! ”
“ Oh, I don’t know,” he said.
“Anyhow, you have only to see mine,” cried
Lucilla, with an enthusiasm which made a favour-
able appeal to him. “But then,” she continued,
“if there’s one thing certain in the world, it is
that you never will.”
“Don’t you think that’s rather tantalizing?”
he suggested.
“And she looks the part so splendidly,” said
Lucilla. “She can’t be more than two or three
years older than I, but she’s petite, and altogether
lovely and marvellously fair. I would give
anything to be fair! I shall never forget the
first time I saw her—in the sea, before breakfast.
She was a wee bit distressed ”
“I suppose you mean that you saved her
life ? ” asked Valentine.
“Oh dear no! Nothing nearly so heroic. I
have always been the most prosaic, jog-trot sort
of person.”
“Now,” he urged, “you would like to alter
all that by going on the stage?”
“I should like such a heap of things,” she


36 THE SILVER BAG
admitted, with a sigh. “If only you knew, you
would think me horridly greedy and envious.
But I was telling you about my Good Fairy.
Though she wasn’t really quite out of her depth,
the sea was strong; she grew breathless and
frightened, so that I swam towards her and
helped her ashore. She was ridiculously grateful
when we met the next morning on the front,
and for a fortnight afterwards scarcely a day
went by without our speaking. Before she left
Brighton she gave me her address in London
and asked me to call. I promised that I would,”
said Lucilla, “but my father died shortly after-
wards, and I hadn’t the heart to go to see
anybody.”
“Still, you were obviously destined to meet
again,” suggested Valentine.
“ To my great good fortune. I felt so utterly
wretched at Clapham that I put my name down
at a Governess’s Agency in New Bond Street,
though goodness only knows what I could have
taught.”
“ How was it,” asked Valentine, “that you
didn’t have a shot at the stage?"
Lowering her eyes for a moment, she began to
trifle with her dessert knife.
“Oh, I don’t know. I suppose the truth
was I hadn’t enough courage,” she explained.


THE SILVER BAG 37
“I used to invent all manner of excuses,” she
rather hastily continued, “to get to the Agency,
but though I went time after time nothing came
of it, and I was beginning to feel thoroughly
hopeleSs when one afternoon as I walked away
from the door I saw—”
“ Your Good Fairy,” Valentine interrupted.
“Was she riding in a coach fashioned out of a
pumpkin?”
“ A taxi,” said Lucilla. “ I dare Say,” she added,
“it sounds very idiotic, but anyhow that’s how
I have thought of her ever since and how I
always shall. She insisted on taking me home
with her, though I’m not going to let you know
where, and before I left the house she had made
me tell her everything. She seemed to under-
stand at once. That is the best of her. She
always understands. She offered me exactly
what I wanted.”
“But you have been hinting that you longed
for something more exciting than a situation as
a governess,” answered Valentine.
“Oh, my longings have no limitation,”
she murmured. “Yours, of course, are all
satisfied!”
“ You think they are?”
“Haven’t you everything in the world a man
can desire?” she demanded, with her eyes fixed


38 THE SILVER BAG
expressively on his face. “A second successful
play; a third to follow it; goodness knows how
many companies on tour. You have simply
everything.”
“Oh no, not quite everything,” said Valentine
quietly.
“ What else do you want?” she whispered.
“Upon my word that’s more than I can tell
you,” cried Valentine, with a laugh.
“I suppose,” she returned, “you’re something
like a spoiled child. You have so many toys
that you don’t know which to play with first.”
“Can’t you imagine," he suggested, “that
there may be times when one feels rather sick
of playing P ”
“I never should,” she insisted. “ Things seem
so abominably unfair. I see heaps of girls of my
own age having such a splendid time; and what
have I done to be left out? But I wasn’t
engaged as a governess,” she explained. “ There
were no children in the house. She wanted a
sort of companion, so she said; but, of course,
she only thought of the best way to help me. It
was positively absurd—the way she exaggerated
my small service in the sea at Brighton.”
“What did your aunt have to say about it?"
asked Valentine.
“You should have seen her face when I told


THE SILVER BAG 39
her,” said Lucilla. “I had been away for hours,
and she was just telling the Wesleyan minister
how anxious she felt about me. Really,” Lucilla
continued, “my Aunt Hannah is a very good
woman, wonderfully liberal to people a long way
off and that sort of thing, but dreadful to live
with in the same house. I fancy she regarded
me rather in sorrow than in anger. She heaped
coals of fire on my head, insisting that I should
soon find out my mistake, and that her door
would be always open to me.”
“You haven’t found it out yet?” suggested
Valentine.
“I’ve had the loveliest time,” was the reply.
“I am treated like a guest. I have scarcely
anything to do but look after the flowers, change
the library books, and dust a few ornaments. I
often go to the play, and if only this sort of thing
could last for ever I shouldn’t wish for anything
better. But, naturally, it can’t,” added Lucilla.
“ However kind these people may be, I shall be
bound to turn out some day.”
“ Then there are more Good Fairies than one ? ”
said Valentine.
“Sooner or later,” she continued, noticing his
remark only by a shrug, “I shall have to fend
for myself again, and as soon as I knew I should
be introducing myself to the author of one of the


40 THE SILVER BAG
most popular plays in London I determined not
to waste the opportunity. But," cried Lucilla,
“it is time I was getting home again.”
“Without having achieved your object in
coming P ” said Valentine.
She looked at him across the table through
half-veiled eyes.
“Rome wasn’t built in a day,” she retorted.
“I flatter myself I’ve done a little useful spade
work this morning, anyhow. Next time I may
be more successful—if there ever is a next
time.”
“Suppose we arrange it now,” urged Valen-
tine.
“It is a wee bit difficult, you know,” said
Lucilla. “I have to make the most barefaced
excuses. To-day I was bound to say I was
going to Clapham Common, the last place in
the world I should ever dream of going to
willingly."
“Of course," answered Valentine, “you must
see that it’s inevitable I should jump to the
conclusion that your Good Fairy was the owner
of the silver bag ! ”
“That will not help you much," she insisted.
“ You have no more idea who she is than before.
I can assure you that you are never likely to
have."


CHAPTER VI
N Wednesday afternoon Valentine was
0 standing by one of the windows of
his sitting-room on the third floor of
No. 3 Parliament Court, gazing out on the
barges drifting down the river on the ebb-tide,
when, hearing the hell, he went to the outer door
and saw Lionel Windermere, looking more than
ever like a man who did not sleep 0’ nights.
He was as usual very carefully dressed,
wearing a black coat and top hat just as he had
come from the City. There was something a
little formal and dignified about Lionel Winder-
mere, and in this regard he differed from
Valentine, who seemed to live and move and
have his being in a rough tweed suit, usually of
a somewhat pronounced pattern.
“ I’ve been going to look you up once or twice
since we met the other day,” said Windermere,
as soon as they entered the sitting-room.
“Why the dickens didn’t you?” exclaimed
Valentine, offering cigars and cigarettes, which
were rather peremptorily refused.
4:


THE SILVER BAG 43
“For one reason,” Lionel explained, “I have
been bothered out of my life in the City. Besides,
to tell the truth, I didn’t want to make too much
of a fool of myself.”
“ Is that what you’re going to do now P ” asked
Valentine, with a laugh.
“ Heaven only knows!” was the answer.
“ That’s the sort of problem I always seem to be
trying to solve. Val, old man, there are times
when I almost feel it’s all the product of my own
morbid imagination; at other times the whole
thing’s only too objective.”
“ Upon my word, I haven’t the faintest notion
what you’re gassing about,” suggested Valentine.
“I think I must be the most miserable beggar
on God’s earth,” muttered Lionel, sitting down
on the edge of the sofa, leaning forward and
burying his fingers in his bushy, black hair.
There was not much dignity about him now.
“ You remember,” he added, suddenly raising his
eyes, “telling me about that girl?”
“Where on earth does she come in ? ” exclaimed
Valentine, with a start.
“You said you didn’t know who she was or
anything about her!” Lionel persisted.
“Anyhow, I’ve improved on that to some
extent,” was the answer. “At least I’ve dis-
covered her name.”


44 THE SILVER BAG
“ What is it ? " asked Lionel eagerly.
“ Lucilla Knowles."
“I’ve never heard it in my life,” murmured
Lionel after a short silence.
“ How should you? " said Valentine.
“You told me that she came to fetch a silver
bag which some—some woman had left in your
flat," returned Lionel, starting to his feet and
pacing restlessly about the small room. His hair
was roughened, and his eyelids blinked as if even
the dim light this late afternoon were too strong
for them. “ I can’t get the idea out of my head,"
he continued. “I wake thinking of it in the
night. I lie tossing about for hours. Val, I
could swear that Chalmers’s visitor was my wife.”
For the moment Valentine was speechless.
He blushed vividly at the accusation. During
the last seven or eight years he had seen more
of Lionel and Margaret Windermere than of his
other early friends, and it seemed deplorable that
they should have come to this. He had known
her before her marriage when she was living in
Constable Street, Mayfair, with her mother. As
Soon as there was a prospect of her younger
daughter's leaving home, Mrs. Rattray wished to
get the house off her hands, and Lionel, eager to
do anything to gratify her in those days, had
taken over the lease, bringing his bride to live


THE SILVER BAG 45
there. It seemed from the outset that they had
everything to make them happy, as if they dis-
agreed from sheer “cussedness.” Matters might
have grown worse of late in consequence of
Lionel’s state of health; but, whatever the ex-
planation, Valentine was appalled to hear him
speak in this way of his wife.
“I think that’s the maddest suggestion I have
ever heard,” he said.
“ Perhaps I am going mad,” answered Lionel.
“Sometimes I think I must be.”
“What connection can conceivably exist
between Margaret and Lucilla Knowles?” de-
manded Valentine. “ You saw the girl without re-
cognizing her. You don’t knowthe name. Besides,
what right have you to accuse 01d Derrick ? ”
“Anyhow,” said Lionel, “you know he was
pretty far gone on Margaret before we were
married.”
“So were any number of men. I was one
of them.”
“ Oh, you!” retorted Lionel rather contemptu-
ously. “You were just a kid. You hadn’t a
penny to bless yourself with in those days; who
could have imagined you were going to set the
town laughing! Margaret never cared a dash
for you, Val.”
“ If she cared for Derrick, why do you imagine


46 THE SILVER BAG
she didn’t marry him instead of you P” demanded
Valentine.
“You know the sort of old campaigner Mrs.
Rattray was,” said Lionel. “I suppose she
backed me for what I was worth."
“Still, you can’t have the slightest scrap of
evidence against Derrick ! ”
“He used to come to my place a good deal
oftener than I liked,” replied Lionel. “Then he
dropped it suddenly. That was about a couple
of years ago, and I wondered at the time.”
“Take my tip,” urged Valentine, clapping a
friendly hand down on Windermere’s shoulder;
“get away for a spell. That will soon set your
mind in order.”
Lionel took a few more turns about the room,
and Valentine silently began to load his pipe.
“That infernal silver bag,” cried Windermere,
stopping abruptly in front of him, “was left here
last Monday week. What was the time P ”
“Goodness knows! Derrick went away about
half-past eight.”
“The hall porter,” suggested Lionel, “might
be able to tell us.”
“He can’t tell us anything,” said Valentine.
“He had been off duty for the afternoon, and only
just come back when Derrick passed through the
hall."


THE SILVER BAG 47
Lionel sat down again, keeping his face hidden
in his hands and remaining silent so long that
Valentine began to wonder whether he intended
to refer to the painful subject again.
“Val!” he exclaimed at last. “The fact is
that Margaret and I had a—a flare-up that
Monday afternoon.”
“ Oh, my dear fellow!” muttered Valentine,
puffing vigorously at his pipe.
“If I don’t talk to some one I shall lose my
senses,” Lionel persisted. “ It was a little after
five when I got home, with the most maddening
attack of neuralgia in my head. Things had been
infernally critical in the City for the previous
week—oh, we’re pulling through all right,” Lionel
continued, “but that Monday—well, I didn’t
know what might not be going to happen.
Before I had been in the house five minutes,
Margaret came to own up about some confounded
bills. The people were dunning her, and she
wanted a cheque. I admit I lost my temper. I
admit I said things no man ought to have said.
She took it badly. She flounced out of the room,
and a few minutes later I heard the street door
slammed.”
“I suppose that brought you to your senses,”
said Valentine.
“I realized that I had gone too far,” Lionel


48 THE SILVER BAG
confessed. “ I knew that no woman in the world
could be expected to take what I had said sitting
down. I ran upstairs and found the maid. She
told me that Margaret had dashed into her bed-
room, flung on her hat and coat, and snatched up
her bag—her silver bag—and left the house."


CHAPTER VII
“ HAT about the youngster ? ” demanded
Valentine.
“If only he had been at home,”
said Lionel, “it might have made a difference.
He was staying with Mrs. Rattray at Tunbridge
Wells. It was,” he continued, “half-past five
when Margaret left the house. A quarter of an
hour later, rain began to fall in a deluge. I
waited and waited till past seven, then I couldn’t
stick it any longer. I went to Grosvenor
Gardens.”
“ To your sister-in-law’s ! ”
“I hoped that Margaret might have gone to
Lydia,” Lionel explained. “ But she hadn’t been
near. I hurried back to Constable Street.
There was no sign of her. I imagined all
manner of things. She might put an end to her
life! I spent a couple of hours in hell. By a
few minutes past eight I was back at Lydia’s. I
learnt that Margaret had arrived only two minutes
earlier. But she wouldn’t consent to see me.
Lydia couldn’t induce her to return home. I was
4


50 THE SILVER BAG
afraid she had done with me for good, and then,”
said Lionel, “I thought of Evelyn.”
“ Who is Evelyn P” asked Valentine quietly.
“Evelyn Stainer. One of Margaret’s school-
fellows. They had not seen much of one another
for some time till she came to live in London.
That was two years ago. Her father used to be
the Dean of Chesterborough. I wish to goodness
more of Margaret’s pals were like her. She had
just finished dinner, and of course I had to make
a clean breast, though Evelyn’s one of those
sympathetic souls who jump to an understanding.
She didn’t lose an instant, and slipping a cloak
over her frock we were off in a jiffy. She sent
me home while she went on to Grosvenor Gardens.
I thought I should lose my senses during the
next hour or so,” said Lionel, “ but at last, when
I had almost given up hope, she brought
Margaret back. She refused to see me that night,
but Evelyn called me over the coals pretty
thoroughly, and she said that Margaret had spent
the two hours and a half between the time she
left Constable Street and her arrival at Grosvenor
Gardens wandering about in the rain. According
to Evelyn, her first impulse had been to go to the
youngster at Tunbridge Wells, and she actually
got to the Strand before she changed her mind.”
“Though you entertain such a high opinion of


52' THE SILVER BAG
theory won’t hold water for an instant. You
ought to know old Derrick fairly well by this
time. You know the headstrong, impetuous
fellow he is. You assume that he and Margaret
were pretty keen on one another or she would
never have come to him, frenzied or not. You
may take your oath about one thing,” said
Valentine. “ If she had come here, thrown herself
into Derrick’s arms, he would never have let her
go again. He's not that sort. They would have
been off together like a shot. Margaret wouldn’t
have returned to Constable Street that night."
“She wouldn't in any case," Lionel insisted,
“if it hadn't been for the arrival of Mrs.
Chalmers’s telegram. I’ve thought it all out—
good heavens! I can’t think of anything else.
I can picture them here—Chalmers and Margaret ;
and I scarcely know how to control myself. I
can see them making their plans together—their
plans to go away that Monday night; then I seem
to hear the ring at the bell. Chalmers goes to
the door and sees the boy with the wire. Then
he was between the devil and the deep sea. How
could he go off with Margaret while his mother
was lying between life and death? No man on
earth could do it. I can picture everything as
plainly as if it were actually taking place before
my eyes. There’s only one missing link.”


THE SILVER BAG 53
“ What is that? ” demanded Valentine curtly.
“ What I have to do before I can take a single
step,” answered Lionel, " is to find out something
more about your friend Miss Knowles.”
“ Not from me,” said Valentine. “ I have done
my level best to find out where she lives. It was
of no earthly use.”
“ Still, she told you her name! ”
“Nothing more. She drew the line at that,”
was the reply. “She positively refused to give
me her address.”
“If only I could establish a connection between
her and Margaret,” exclaimed Lionel, “ there
wouldn't be a single doubt remaining. I would a
thousand times sooner know the worst than live
in this infernal suspense. I don’t feel I can live
in it much longer."
“My dear fellow,” urged Valentine, “ it’s just a
case for bromide of potassium and a few weeks’
holiday. The best thing you can do is to follow
Bendicott’s advice and clear out before it’s too
late,” he added, wishing to goodness that he
could feel a little more of the confidence which he
expressed.
Lionel was obviously in an unstable neurotic
condition, and it was impossible to tell what he
would do next. It seemed unlikely that he would
rest without an effort to obtain further informa-


54 THE SILVER BAG
tio'h, and it was humiliating for Valentine to
realize that he was in a sense the cause of the
mischief. If he had never told Lionel how he
made Lucilla’s acquaintance, there would have
been no suspicions; but, as it was, Valentine
felt responsible for the issue, and it was up to
him to see that things did not go from bad to
worse.
It would be impossible to convince Winder-
mere of his wife’s inviolability without proving
that some other woman had left the silver bag at
Parliament Court. To accomplish this it would
be necessary to discover the identity of Lucilla’s
principal, who might, however, as Lionel sug-
gested, be in touch with Margaret. In that case
there would seem to be a kind of presumptive
evidenceof Mrs. Windermere’sguilt; but Valentine
hoped for better things.
As Lucilla refused information concerning her-
self, he began to look forward to a visit from
Derrick Chalmers, of whose present address,
however, he was ignorant. In former days
Valentine had been constantly in and out of Mrs.
Chalmers’s house in Upper Brook Street, but a
few years ago she had given it up and taken to
wandering from one watering-place to another in
quest of health. Derrick must obviously be in a
position to tell Valentine what he wanted to


THE SILVER BAG 55
know, but whether or not he would speak out
was another matter.
He came to Parliament Court shortly before
noon on the day after Lionel’s accusation of
Margaret.


CHAPTER VIII
conspicuous appearance, being about the
same age as Lionel Windermere and
three or four years older than Valentine. He
was well over six feet in height, with noticeably
broad shoulders and small hips, an erect carriage,
rather demonstrative gestures, and a habit of
twirling his prominent, reddish moustache. His
free, expansive manner led fresh acquaintances to
think what a frank, confiding fellow he was,
although they generally discovered a year or two
later that they knew no more about him than at
first.
For the last eighteen months he had no fixed
abode in London, sometimes staying at one of
the larger, more modern hotels, sometimes in
lodgings in the neighbourhood of jermyn Street.
Happening to meet Valentine a week or ten days
before the visit to Paris, and remarking that he
was on the look-out for fresh quarters, he had
been offered the use of the flat, and promptly
accepted.
DERRICK CHALMERS was a man of
56


THE SILVER BAG 57
Derrick had knocked about the world a great
deal and published two or three fairly successful
books of travel. Moreover, he had sat in the
House of Commons during half a session, and
would no doubt have been a member at the
present time if his constituency had not shown
the bad taste to prefer a local magnate. He still
lived in hope of a reaction in his favour, and
meanwhile he was entering Valentine’s flat, ex-
plaining that he really had not two minutes to
spare, as indeed it appeared he seldom had.
“But, you see, my dear Val,” he continued,
throwing back the lapels of his overcoat and
thrusting his hands in his trousers pockets, “I
felt bound to come and offer ten thousand
apologies for leaving you in the lurch. Only my
dear old mater lay betwixt life and death, and
what in the world could I do but cut away with-
out losing a second?”
"I hope she’s better by this time?” said
Valentine.
“Ah, the poor soul, I’m beginning to wonder
whether she’ll ever be better in this world,” was
the reply.
“ Then the operation wasn’t successful?”
“It was the only way to save her life at the
moment,” Derrick explained. “Val! It’s a
ghastly business to know that anyone you’re fond


58 THE SILVER BAG
of is being hacked about in that manner. She’s
in a nursing~home at Eastbourne—can’t bear me
out of her sight. I feel the most dreadful brute
for leaving her alone as I’ve done the last year
or so. Anyhow, I’m off again this afternoon, and
I’ve come straight here from Victoria."
“You’re going to stay to lunch?” suggested
Valentine.
“ Thanks very much, I should like it immensely,”
said Derrick, “but to tell you the truth I’ve one
or two places I’m bound to go to, though I
couldn't pass through without looking in to thank
you for the flat.”
“By the by," exclaimed Valentine, “you left
something behind you, on the shaving-table. . A
wristbag—a small, silver wristbag.”
“ Oh, ah, yes,” said Derrick, with an elaborate
twirl of his moustache.
Valentine found himself, for the first time in
his life, deliberately keeping his interlocutor under
close observation. Derrick did not for an instant
pretend to misunderstand the reference. As he
was obviously not in the least surprised, it
seemed to follow that he must have been in com-
munication with the owner of the bag since he
left London.
“Some one came to fetch the thing,” Valentine
persisted.


THE SILVER BAG 59
“Yes, yes, my dear Val. That’s quite all
right,” returned Derrick, with the air of a man
who wished to put the subject on one side and to
say no more about it.
“ Miss Lucilla Knowles!” suggested Valentine.
“Suppose we take it as read,” said Derrick.
“ There’s not the least need to worry yourself.”
Now Valentine hesitated for a moment, doubt-
ful whether to enlighten Derrick concerning
Windermere’s suspicions or not. Having already
made the mistake of saying too much, however,
he determined on the present occasion to keep
Margaret’s name out of it. In any case, it
appeared probable that Derrick would deny her
connection with the affair. If she had never had
anything to do with the silver bag, of course he
would say so, and if she were its owner he would
naturally say precisely the same. Derrick was
not the man to kiss and tell.
“I wonder,” said Valentine, adopting different
tactics, “whether you would mind giving me
Miss Knowles’s address P ”
“ Did she refuse it ? ” asked Derrick.
“ Why, yes—”
“My dear Val,” was the answer, “upon my
word that’s not playing the game, you know.
Trying to go behind the young woman’s back—
what! Not that you’ll find out from me.”


62 THE SILVER BAG
get off again. It’s so frightfully difficult to give
anything like a plausible excuse. This is the
second Monday I am supposed to be at my
aunt’s. If I’m not careful my—my Good Fairy
will begin to think I’m pining to go back to
Clapham Common, and that would be positively
fatal. I could never endure it after the last
few months.”
“Do you really mean to insinuate that this is
to be our last meeting?” suggested Valentine.
There was so little regret in his voice that
Lucilla lifted her dark eyebrows.
The fact was that Valentine had been calling
himself to account. It was impossible to remain
blind to the circumstance that she showed a
“coming-on disposition,” and while this in itself
was flattering, and by no means unpleasant, he
could not quite see where it would lead. No
man could be much less of a Lothario, and the
occasional quickening of his pulses under her
influence served to make him careful.
“I don’t believe you would mind very, very
much if you never saw me again!” she
murmured, leaning forward across the small
table and looking full into his eyes. As he did
not answer at once, she continued, “I will tell
you what I’ll do. Suppose we leave it an open
question, and I will see how the cat jumps. I


CHAPTER IX
“ RS. TEMPEST presents her compli-
M ments to Mr. Valentine Brook, and
would be pleased if he could make
it convenient to call at 3 o'clock on Monday
afternoon. If this time should not suit Mr
Brook, Mrs. Tempest would be much obliged
by his making some other appointment.”
The few lines were written in a rather old-
fashioned, waving hand, on a correspondence
card, which Valentine stuck in the frame of the
looking-glass with one or two bills and other
pieces of paper. He did not know the woman
from Eve, nor had he the slightest inclination
either to accept her invitation for Monday
afternoon or to make another appointment.
His sudden success might, perhaps, excuse a
slight tendency to swelled head, though nobody
could really accuse him of taking himself or his
plays much' too seriously. But he had been
freely photographed and paragraphed during
the last twelve or fifteen months, and one or
two enterprising hostesees had sought him out.
4


THE SILVER BAG 65
Mrs. Tempest’s was by no means the first
invitation which he had received from unknown
members of her sex.
Although he stayed indoors till four o’clock
on Thursday afternoon, the telephone hell did
not ring, nor was there any word from Lucilla
on Friday, when, however, Lionel Windermere
looked in on his way home to Constable Street.
“I wish to goodness,” he exclaimed, pacing
the sitting-room excitedly, “I could do one thing
or the other. I wish I could prove either that
Margaret was here with Chalmers or that she
was not. This infernal suspense will be the
death of me.”
Coming to a standstill before the gas fire, he
rested his elbows on the mantelshelf, burying his
fingers in his black hair. For some seconds he
was silent, then raising his eyes suddenly, he
continued:
“If only I could find out more about that
young woman of yours, whatever her name
IS ”

“ Lucilla Knowles ! ”
“My memory’s dreadful,” said Lionel.
“Hullo!” he cried, taking a step backwards.
“What in the world is this? ”
“What’s what? ” asked Valentine.
“This card,” Lionel continued. “Sorry, Val!
5


66 THE SILVER BAG
I couldn't help seeing the name and address—
Mrs. Tempest, 7 Champion Place.”
“One of the tribe of Mrs. Leo Hunter,” said
Valentine, with a rather self-satisfied laugh.
“Not she ! ” Lionel insisted. “ Val, old fellow,
for Heaven’s sake tell me what she has to say
for herself. What on earth is she writing to
you about P”
Taking the card, Valentine handed it to
Lionel, who for a few moments stood staring at
it in silence, as if he were learning the words
by rote.
“This settles it ! ” he exclaimed at last. “ I’ve
done my best to keep my suspicions under, but
this must be enough to convince even you."
“To convince me of what?" demanded
Valentine.
“A thousand to one," Lionel retorted, “that
Mrs. Tempest wants to see you about what took
place here that wretched Monday evening.”
“My dear chap, how you twist and turn every-
thing about,” said Valentine. “What connection
can there possibly be between the writer of this
note and your obsession P ”
“ I told you," cried Lionel in a state of extreme
agitation, “that Evelyn Stainer was one of
Margaret's schoolfellows. It was she who per-
suaded my wife to return to me.”


THE SILVER BAG 67
“Where in the world does Evelyn Stainer
come in?” asked Valentine. “What has she
to do with Mrs. Tempest?”
“Anyhow,” muttered Lionel, “She lives in the
same house. You can’t get over that.”
“Oh, good Lord!” said Valentine, and during
the next few minutes he felt almost as suspicious
as Windermere himself. It must be admitted
that things were beginning to look black against
Margaret. He could no longer feel perfectly
satisfied that Evelyn Stainer’s housemate had
sent an invitation without some definite purpose
behind it.
“Perhaps,” he suggested, “you’ll tell me who
Mrs. Tempest is.”
“For that matter,” was the reply, “she’s one
of the very nicest women I know, though it’s true
I don’t know her particularly well. I told you
that Evelyn’s father was the Dean of Chester-
borough. He left her a good deal of money,
and a year after his death Mrs. Stainer married
again. Evelyn couldn’t hit it off with Canon
Holmes, her stepfather, and when Mrs. Tempest
lost her little girl a couple of years ago she made
an arrangement to share the house in Champion
Place.”
“ How about Tempest?” asked Valentine.
“ A rotten bad egg,” said Lionel. “Mrs.
Pz'liiztr. -
(u- T.
I-‘FZL' _
L4~.- .


68 THE SILVER BAG
Tempest allows him so much a year to keep
away. It’s one of life’s little ironies," Lionel
continued, “that such a woman should be living
apart from her husband.”
“Couldn’t she divorce him?" suggested
Valentine.
“Oh well, she has some sort of religious
scruples," Lionel explained. “A rather old-
fashioned type, although she doesn’t look it.
She’s devilish particular about appearances and
conventions and that sort of thing. The kind of
woman a man might like to choose for his mother
or sister.”
“Not for his wife ? ”
“A bit too cold, perhaps," said Lionel, be-
ginning to walk excitedly about the room again.
“ Why in the world should she send for you," he
demanded, “unless she means to say something
about the silver bag? You’ll see! She will
warn you to keep me in the dark.”
“I wish to goodness I had,“ murmured
Valentine.
“One thing’s pretty certain!” exclaimed
Lionel. '
“ What’s that? ”
“She knows your friend—Miss Knowles,”
Lionel insisted.
“Not a bit of it,” was the answer. “Lucilla


CHAPTER X
VALENTINE no longer felt the slightest
doubt about the acceptance of Mrs.
Tempest’s invitation. It appeared ex-
tremely probable, on reflection, that it had some
connection with the silver bag, which in that
event must belong, he was afraid, to Margaret
Windermere.
Lionel’s intermediary had been Evelyn Stainer,
who had succeeded in persuading Margaret to
return to her husband’s house. The question for
Valentine was this: Could it be possible that
Evelyn Stainer, also, was Lucilla's Good Fairy?
There was, be perceived, not a particle of
evidence that Lucilla had ever seen either Mrs.
Tempest or Miss Stainer, or that she had ever
entered Champion Place. Still, the fact remained
that Evelyn had been in close contact with
Margaret Windermere that Monday evening.
If Margaret had, indeed, been reckless enough
in her desperation to go to Parliament Court, and
in the excitement of the arrival of Mrs. Chalmers’s
telegram and the consequent thwarting of her
70


THE SILVER BAG 71
designs had forgotten the silver bag, what could
be more probable than an appeal to Evelyn to
recover it?
Evelyn’s housemate had now made an appoint- _
ment with Valentine, who had handed the bag
to Lucilla; and if it should turn out, as Lionel
insisted, that Miss Knowles actually lived in
Champion Place, well, then, it appeared that
Valentine was asked to go to the house to receive
some kind of explanation. For why, otherwise,
should Mrs. Tempest, acting presumably for
Miss Stainer, desire to see him?
In any case Valentine, thinking the matter
over once more on Sunday evening, came to the
conclusion that his own course was perfectly clear.
It was a little after half-past six ; a balmy evening
for the month of March. He had brought a
chair close to the window and lighted a pipe.
Leaning back, with his legs comfortably crossed,
he told himself that, whether the anticipated
explanation were forthcoming or not, his first
duty was to seize any opportunity to discover the
degree of Margaret Windermere’s complicity.
Whether she deserved condemnation or not,
no attempt 'must be spared to allay Lionel’s
suspicions. If it could be proved that she had
never entered Parliament Court, so much the
better, but, if on the other hand there were reason


72 THE SILVER BAG
to believe she had gone to Derrick, even then
Valentine’s intention was to do his best to throw
dust in her husband’s eyes.
The first thing, however, was to see what
happened at Champion Place ; and then Valentine,
smoking by the window which overlooked the
river, while the church bells were ringing for the
evening service, began to wonder whether there
could be any connection between Mrs. Tempest's
letter and Lucilla's failure to ring him up as she
promised.
Lucilla had intended to make another appoint-
ment for him to take her out to luncheon, and it
was difficult to believe that she had allowed any
trivial difficulty to interfere with her plans. Just
as the bells ceased to ring, and one or two clocks
were striking seven, some one came to the door.
“That’s old Lionel ! ” murmured Valentine as
he rose from his chair, but a minute later he stood
face to face with Lucilla.
For the first time in his experience she showed
signs of embarrassment. Hitherto he had always
been struck by her almost provocative air of self-
possession, but this evening she held out her hand
in silence, and he saw that she was carrying a
small Prayer Book.
“I have really no business to be here,” she
said, looking up rather pitifully into his face, as


THE SILVER BAG 73
they stood on the hearth-rug. “I scarcely know
why I have come. I am supposed to be at
church.”
“You didn’t ring me up as you suggested,”
answered Valentine.
“ I—I was seen at Bernasconi’s the last time ! ”
she exclaimed.
“ I hope to goodness you haven’t been getting
into trouble,” he said.
“’Oh well, it was all rather horrid,” she ad-
mitted. “ Naturally one’s sorry to be found out.”
He was alarmed to see that her lower lip was
trembling like that of a child on the verge of
tears. Good Lord! She was on the verge of
tears, though he could not imagine the reason.
Raising her gloved hands, Lucilla covered her
face, and Valentine had never felt quite so helpless
in his life.
“Oh, I say, you mustn’t fret, you know," he
urged, standing close to her side.
“ I know I’m dreadfully stupid,” she murmured,
“ but I—I can’t help it.”
“You must try to buck up a bit,” he persisted,
and as if to lend force to his words Valentine,
feeling very sympathetic at the moment, rested a
hand on her shoulder.
Holding her head on one side, she caused her
cheek to touch his fingers, and, a little later, by a


74 THE SILVER BAG
gradual process which he never precisely under-
stood, it rested on his shoulder, her eyes, un-
covered now, being fixed languishingly on his
own, and her lips temptingly close.
There are situations in which no man can
place himself with impunity, there are temptations
which it appears almost feeble to resist. The
only judicious plan is to keep away from them.
In short, Valentine Brook accepted the conditions
not of his own seeking. He kissed Lucilla’s lips.
The result proved immediately curative. She
dried her eyes. She took off her gloves, and
standing before the looking-glass began to
straighten her hat.
As Valentine watched her, he was already
experiencing regret. His mood changed with
the cessation of Lucilla’s tears, and he addressed
her in a quite business-like tone :
“Won’t you sit down and tell me why you
came here instead of going to church P ”
“I have told you,” she answered, a little re-
proachfully. “We were seen together at the
restaurant last Monday.”
“By Mrs. Tempest?” he asked, drawing his
bow at a venture.
“Then she actually did write to you!” ex-
claimed Lucilla. “I wondered whether it was
only a threat.”


THE SILVER BAG 75
“ I’m immensely sorry she spotted us, anyhow,”
said Valentine, feeling terribly afraid now that
Lionel’s suspicions would prove to be justified.
“ She didn’t,” was the reply.
“Was it Miss Stainer by any chance?"
Valentine persisted.
Lucilla looked thoroughly astonished this time.
“Surely,” she said, “ Mrs. Tempest didn’t
mention her name.”
“Why, no,” Valentine admitted.
“Then how did you hear it P ”
“When I received a letter from an unknown
correspondent,” he explained, “ I naturally wanted
to find out who she was and all about her. I
made inquiries, and the result was I learnt that
Miss Stainer lived at 7 Champion Place.”
“How did you know,” asked Lucilla, “that
Mrs. Tempest’s letter had anything to do with
me?”
“To tell the truth, I didn’t,” said Valentine.
“I made a chance shot, though of course I put
this and that together. She wants me to go
and see her at half-past three to-morrow after-
noon.”
“Are you—are you going?” cried Lucilla,
leaning eagerly forward in her chair.
“ It seems the civil thing to do.”
“Oh yes, I think it does,” she answered.


76 THE SILVER BAG
“You will not attempt to deny," he said, “that
Miss Stainer is your Good Fairy?"
“What would be the use ! ” she exclaimed.
“But I never dreamed you would see her.
There’s a Mrs. Fairford,” Lucilla continued, “a
friend of hers, who lives somewhere at St. john’s
Wood. She recognized me at lunch last Monday,
and while I was telephoning to you from Victoria
on Wednesday, she came to Champion Place and
told Miss Stainer. You were recognized too.
The penalty of fame, you know! As soon as I
got home, Miss Stainer tackled me, and I had a
rather bad quarter of an hour, because I had said
I went to see Aunt Hannah.”
“What did Miss Stainer say?" asked
Valentine.
Lucilla paused for a moment. He fancied she
was eyeing him askance.
“ Oh well, she insisted that a girl in my position
was very foolish to have anything to do with a
man in yours,” said Lucilla. “ She wanted me
to promise never to speak to you again.”
After all, especially in the face of the recent
emotional experience, this might be the wisest
dénouement. Valentine dreaded anything of the
nature of an anti-climax, whereas he felt incapable
of remaining at the altitude which, it seemed, he
had reached a few minutes ago.


THE SILVER BAG 77
“ I suppose there’s no help for it,” he answered.
“One must bow to the inevitable.”
“I hate to jump to conclusions,” said Lucilla.
“ I didn’t feel certain it was inevitable.”
“Do you mean that you refused to commit
yourself P ” asked Valentine.
Lucilla slowly nodded her head.
“ So she said she should appeal to you.”
“Oh, Lord!” cried Valentine. “ But I
thought,” he added, “that Miss Stainer was
anxious above everything that I should not
discover her identity?”
“ Not above everything—-—-”
“I’m beginning to feel rather bewildered, you
know,” said Valentine.
“ I am fated to show myself to you in an odious
light,” exclaimed Lucilla. “ It is quite true she
hated your knowing that she had anything to
do with me.”
“Then why in the world have I been asked
to go to the house?”
“Oh, it is impossible to explain,” murmured
Lucilla, lowering her eyes, only to raise them
again very expressively to his the next instant.
“I suppose,” suggested Valentine, “ she felt so
anxious to prevent me from meeting you in the
future, that she put aside her own feelings and
asked Mrs. Tempest to write? ”


78 THE SILVER BAG
“ Of course,” said Lucilla, holding herself erect
and looking prettily dignified, “you are a man!
You are a free agent; you can do as you please.
You are not obliged to come."
“ For the doubtful satisfaction of being warned
off,” he returned, with a laugh. “Anyhow,” he
continued, “ I shall certainly put in an appearance,
if only in the hope of hearing something about
the silver bag.”
“There’s not the slightest chance of that,"
Lucilla insisted, with a pout.
But he would scarcely have kept to his intention
of accepting the invitation unless, in spite of her
assertion, he had believed there might be a
possibility of learning more about Margaret
Windermere.
Although Lucilla was the ostensible cause of
the summons, it still appeared possible that the
other matter—which had first brought her within
his ken—might be touched upon during his visit,
especially as Mrs. Tempest and Miss Stainer
must know that he was an old friend of Derrick’s.
“I suppose,” said Valentine, when Lucilla rose
presently to go away, “ it's not very likely I
shall see you to-morrow.”
“Oh dear no. I shall be sent out of the way,”
she answered. “ Perhaps,” she added, with a
quite pathetic break in her voice, “you will never


THE SILVER BAG 81
“I am not going to offer any apology,” she
began in a low, well-modulated, and altogether
agreeable voice. “I am old—fashioned enough
to feel a responsibility for every member of my
household, and I really couldn’t allow Lucilla to
go along as she obviously has been doing. I
don’t know what she may have told you about
herself——”
“ Oh well, she has said a great deal about your
kindness to her,” said Valentine.
“Not mine,” was the answer. “I have done
nothing. It was Evelyn—Miss Stainer. I
suppose,” she continued, with a half-humorous
lift of the eyebrows, “you are what they call a
man of the world.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Valentine,
feeling she did not intend to pay him precisely a
compliment.
“But Lucilla is an inexperienced girl. Yes,”
Mrs. Tempest insisted, as he began to stroke his
chin, “an inexperienced girl who fancies she has
nothing left to learn. You must admit that these
clandestine meetings show a lack of discretion—a
lack of dignity.”
“ You seem to insinuate,” suggested Valentine,
with a return of his earlier embarrassment, “ that
I have been taking something like an undue
advantage—”
6


82 THE SILVER BAG
“I believe you have a sister, Mr. Brook! I
wonder whether you would like to know she was
in the habit of going about in the same way with
a man who was practically a stranger. Why do
you look amused?” she demanded abruptly.
“Oh well, if you knew Sibylla," he exclaimed.
“Your attentions may be quite innocent and
yet dangerous,” said Mrs. Tempest.
“ Doesn’t that sound rather paradoxical?” he
asked.
“Not in the least. You are a well-known
man. She is naturally flattered by your notice,
and very likely imagines it is due to some especial
attractiveness of her own. At her age it’s
difficult to realize the predatory nature of the
male! While you amuse yourself, she might
become seriously involved. I don’t wish to
labour the point. I am merely going to ask you
to promise not to meet Lucilla outside this house
in future.”
Valentine was prepared to satisfy Mrs.
Tempest at once, but before there was time to
reply she continued:
“On the other hand, you may see her here as
often as you please. There is not the least
objection to that.”
He remained silent for a few moments,
considerably taken aback.


THE SILVER BAG 83

“ It’s immensely kind of you ” he began.
But she hastily interrupted him.
“So you decline with thanks!” she retorted
in a rather less agreeable tone. “You shrink
from coming out into the light! You are afraid
to commit yourself! Of course,” she added, “I
see that I may appear to be trying to inveigle
you——”
“No, no, of course not,” he protested. “I
shouldn’t think that for an instant, you know.”
As he ceased speaking the door opened, and
glancing over his shoulder he dreaded lest he
should see Lucilla in person, at the moment when
he was trying to summon all his courage to
confess that he wished never to see her again.
But, instead of Miss Knowles, his eyes rested on
the Good Fairy. The description was really too
apposite to leave any loop-hole for a mistake.
No one could more delectably look the part.
Rather short, without being by any means
diminutive, her figure precisely suited her stature.
She ought not to have been in the slightest
degree stouter or more slender; she ought, in
fact, in Valentine’s opinion, to be in every respect
just what she was. He could not suggest an
improvement. He had never beheld any other
woman to be compared with her, while her
brilliant vivacity could scarcely have found a


84 THE SILVER BAG
more perfect foil than Henrietta Tempest’s
serenity.
Although her small features were delicately
moulded, perhaps her chief glory was her
colouring: the old-gold of her hair; the
turquoise-blue of her eyes; the carmine of her
lips! Her freshness, Valentine enthusiastically
told himself, was of the country, her frock of the
town. No doubt her appearance on the scene
had been carefully stage-managed. While she
had beguiled Henrietta into an interview which
a younger, unmarried woman might find more
embarrassing, she had still enough curiosity to
desire to see Lucilla’s admirer before he left the
house.
“Mr. Valentine Brook—Miss Stainer,” said
Henrietta.
Evelyn nodded a little distantly.
“ Of course,” she exclaimed, “ you are a friend
of Derrick’s! ”
It was a satisfaction to Valentine to be put on
this footing, rather than to be regarded as a
friend of Lucilla’s.
“Why, yes,” he answered. “I’ve known
Derrick for years. We were at Rugby together.
I’m afraid he’s immensely anxious about Mrs.
Chalmers.”
“When you came in,” said Henrietta, who


THE SILVER BAG 85
seemed to show a desire to keep to the point, “ I
was telling Mr. Brook that we should always be
pleased to see him.”
“You will generally find one of us at home
between four and half-past,” suggested Evelyn,
with scrutinizing eyes on his face.
“Thank you very much indeed,” murmured
Valentine. ~
“Oh, but Mr. Brook has not the least intention
to try,” said Henrietta.
He was almost overwhelmed by the perplexity
of the situation.
During the awkward silence which followed
Mrs. Tempest’s remark, he saw Evelyn’s short
upper lip grow shorter as if with uncontrollable
contempt. He understood that she would con-
temn him if he were to play short at this critical
moment. These two women were obviously
putting him to the test. If he refused their
invitation, they would assume that he had
nourished the worst intentions regarding Lucilla,
and certainly there would not be the remotest
prospect of meeting Evelyn again.
It seemed, indeed, that he stood little chance
of meeting her in the future unless he allowed
her to believe that he meant to cometo the house
after Lucilla, with whom his relationship would
become a little difficult after what passed on


86 THE SILVER BAG
Sunday evening at Parliament Court. One
desire, however, overcame every other. He was
being pressed for a prompt decision, and it
amounted to this: Was he to make certain of
seeing Evelyn again, or not?
It is true there still remained the desirability of
investigating the matter of the silver bag, in the
hope of proving that Margaret Windermere had
no connection with it. But since his eyes first
rested on Evelyn a few minutes ago, that seemed
to have become a side issue, of slight importance
compared with the Good Fairy herself.
At all costs he must secure opportunities of
seeing her as often as possible, and every diffi-
culty, every incongruity, must be left for sub-
sequent treatment. Still, Valentine was not for
an instant blind to the circumstance that his path
would be strewn with obstacles.
“Oh, but indeed,” he exclaimed, “that is an
immense mistake! I shall be delighted to be
permitted to come. Nothing in the world would
give me greater pleasure!”
As Henrietta shrugged her shoulders, Evelyn
held forth her hand with a smile of approval,
suggesting that she was sealing a contract rather
than bidding him farewell. Her contemptuous
expression gave place to one of warm approval,
but as Valentine left the house a few minutes


THE SILVER BAG 87
later he warned himself that he had put his foot
into it. Still he had achieved what had suddenly
become his principal object in life: he would be
able to see Evelyn again a few days hence.
He walked back to Parliament Court feeling as
if he had discovered the elixir of life. The world
had become a different place since he set forth an
hour or so earlier. On entering the building he
was brought back to reality by the sight of
Windermere’s haggard face. Lionel was walking
restlessly about the hall.
“I know you said I was to come after dinner,”
‘ he exclaimed. “ But it was no good. I couldn’t
wait. Val, old man, for Heaven’s sake tell me the
truth and get it over; tell me whether that girl
has anything to do with Evelyn Stainer.”


CHAPTER XII
“ OT another word!" cried Lionel.
N “She lives there! That's enough
for me—more than enough. Even
you can’t help admitting it must have been
Evelyn who sent Miss Knowles to fetch the
bag; it must have been either Evelyn or Mrs.
Tempest, anyhow.”
He stood on the hearth-rug with his back to
the unlighted gas fire, and he still wore his hat.
His face twitched spasmodically, nor did Valentine
know how to allay his excitement.
“Yes,” he felt constrained to confess. “I
suppose it must have been one of the two.”
“ Let me put it to you, Val,” exclaimed Lionel.
“ Does Henrietta Tempest strike you as the kind
of woman to have had the opportunity of leaving
the infernal thing on—on Chalmers’s shaving-
table?”
“I should say she’s the last person in the
world,” was the answer.
“With the exceptioaig of Evelyn Stainer,”


THE SILVER BAG 89
Lionel persisted. “ No man living could imagine
her in that galley.”
“Nor Margaret,” said Valentine significantly.
“I grant you that,” returned Lionel. “ In cold
blood she could never have done such a thing.
But she was off her head that afternoon. Don’t
make any mistake,” he continued. “ I admit that
I was to blame for that. Still, the fact remains.
Of course, I know you’re trying to put me off,
but the whole thing’s as clear as daylight.
Margaret left home with the intention never to
come back. She knew Chalmers was staying
here. She didn’t hesitate for an instant. If it
had not been for his mother’s telegram they
would have been off together; but in the face of
that he couldn’t refuse to go to Mrs. Chalmers,
and Margaret, left in the lurch, turned to her
sister. After Evelyn had prevailed upon her to
return to Constable Street, either the same night
or the next morning she missed her bag.”
“ There’s one thing you’re forgetting,” suggested
Valentine.
“What’s that?” demanded Lionel.
“When Lucilla Knowles came here on Tues-
day morning,” was the answer, “she expected to
find Derrick. I had that from her own lips.
But, if he and Margaret were prevented from
going away together by the telegram, it must


THE SILVER BAG 91
“Ah, but why?” cried Lionel. “just as a
blind! just to tide things over! But I’m
keeping my eyes open. I’m only waiting till I
see my way to bring the thing home. But
there,” he added, “what’s the use of talking?
You haven’t told me why Mrs. Tempest sent
for you."
“That was something altogether different,”
said Valentine. “She discovered that I had
taken Lucilla out to lunch once or twice.”
“She’s the sort of woman to disapprove of
that,” was the answer.
“Yes. She was anxious to tell me so.”
“So your friend Miss Knowles is to be left
in the cart,” said Lionel. “You didn’t see
Evelyn—”
“She came in just before I left,” returned
Valentine, realizing the inadequacy of the descrip-
tion of the epoch-marking event which had
actually taken place in Mrs. Tempest’s drawing-
room.
“You won’t be able to go again,” suggested
Lionel. “ That’s a pity. You might have picked
up some useful information.”
“ Hang the information ! ” exclaimed Valentine.
“Though, for that matter, I can go as often as I
like. Mrs. Tempest gave me a sort of general
invitation.”


92 THE SILVER BAG
“If you’re not careful,” said Lionel, “you’ll be
letting yourself in for a nice thing. You say that
Miss Knowles is a protégée of Evelyn’s! What
could be better than to marry her to one of our
most popular dramatists! When Evelyn Stainer
once takes a thing in hand, you may trust her not
to let it go again in a hurry. Anyhow,” he added,
“it's an ill wind that blows no one any good.
For goodness’ sake keep your eyes open.”


CHAPTER XIII
without rising. She had sunk down
in the middle of the enormous cushion
which answered the purpose of a settee, so that
to rise without assistance would have been a
work of difficulty. It was four o’clock on
Thursday afternoon, the earliest day on which
Valentine thought he could go to Champion
Place with decency.
“Oh, I am so very pleased to see you!” she
exclaimed, and, indeed, she looked quite un-
equivocally pleased as she sat gazing up into
his face.
“ Didn’t you expect to see me?” asked
Valentine, and it seemed strange that he felt
less embarrassed than he had ever done with
any woman before.
“Henrietta didn’t, in spite of your fervid
assurances,” said Evelyn. “She insisted we
should never have an opportunity again. We
had a heated argument about you."
Her manner was so light and vivacious that it
EVELYN STAINER held out her hand
93


THE SILVER BAG 95
Now, however, he began to think she was playing
him a scurvy trick. He had hoped that he might
be received on the footing of an ordinary
acquaintance, certainly not anticipating this de-
plorable reference to Lucilla at the outset.
An effort was requisite to realize that he
was regarded by Evelyn essentially as another
woman’s admirer, the only question in her mind
having originally been whether his intentions
were “honourable.” The possibility that he
might have no intentions of any kind apparently
did not occur to Miss Stainer, whose sole object
was obviously to safeguard the interests of her
protégée.
“It seems clear,” she persisted, “that matters
had gone rather farther than I thought when I
asked Henrietta to write to you, though I under-
stand that even now you and Lucilla are not
actually engaged to be married.”
“Oh, Lord, no!” cried Valentine. “ Nothing
of the sort.” '
“ Still,” said Evelyn, “after what took place on
Sunday evening——— ”
He wondered what in the world she assumed
had taken place; he marvelled that Lucilla should
have said a word about her visit to Parliament
Court, for, after all, it would have been by no
means the first time she had kept her own


96 THE SILVER BAG
counsel. Experience had scarcely led him to
suspect her of the possession of a peculiarly
sensitive conscience. Before he could think of
anything else to say, however, she entered the
room, wearing her hat as if she had just returned
from a walk. As she held out her hand to
Valentine, she glanced deprecatingly at Evelyn,
her cheeks being becomingly flushed.
“Lucilla,” cried Miss Stainer, “please help
me up.” ’
“Allow me,” said Valentine.
With a cheerful laugh she grasped his fingers.
“You will look after Mr. Brook,“ she ex-
claimed, once on her feet. “I really must not
stay another moment.”
He darted forward to open the door, and before
it closed the butler entered with the parlour-maid
and the tea-equipage.
“Well,” said Lucilla, sitting down at the table
as soon as the servants left the room again, “I
hope you admire my Good Fairy. A great many
people do, though they get very little encourage-
ment. Mrs. Tempest insists that if she’s not
careful she will die an old maid. There’s many
a true word spoken in jest, you know.”
“ Do fairies ever die? ” suggested Valentine.
“How splendidly you have caught the spirit
of the thing! ” cried Lucilla, with her eyes on his


THE SILVER BAG 97
face. “There really does seem something
ethereal about her, though I’ve heard people say
it’s a defect.”
“ To be more than mortal!”
“Oh well, you know what I mean,” said
Lucilla.
“Upon my word, I’m afraid I don’t.”
“Too good for human nature’s daily food—
that sort qf thing,” returned Lucilla, passing
Valentine’s cup.
“ You told Miss Stainer you had seen me on
Sunday,” he suggested.
For the moment Lucilla looked a little self-
conscious.
“ I felt so horribly guilty,” she said, “especially
after what had happened during the week. I
abominate anything of the nature of deception——
really! Besides she asked whether I hadn’t
been crying.”
During the next quarter of an hour the burden
of conversation rested mainly on Lucilla, and
when he rose to say good-bye she drew close
to him, so that he could not help feeling that she
looked for a warmer farewell than a mere hand-
shake. She asked when she might expect to see
him again, and his answer being unsatisfactorily
vague suggested Sunday.
“Wouldn’t that be rather soon?” he asked.
7


98 THE SILVER BAG
“ Dear me, no!” she answered. “These are
the most hospitable people in the world. You
can’t come too often, as far as we are con-
cerned.”
On the way home he was on the horns of a
dilemma, and while he perceived the wisdom of
giving the house a wide berth it was utterly
impossible to do so since Evelyn lived in it.
After considerable hesitation, and several
changes of mind, he set forth again on Sunday
afternoon, as Lucilla had suggested, and on
entering the drawing-room was startled to see
Derrick Chalmers, whom he had not known to
be in London. Standing before the fire, he was
apparently engaged in an earnest conversation
with Evelyn.
“ Of course you two know each other already ! ”
she exclaimed. “ Derrick is only in town for a
few hours. I confess we were talking about you,
Mr. Brook, for the simple reason that one always
knows when one interrupts a discussion of
oneself.”
Valentine was inquiring after Mrs. Chalmers,
who still lay between life and death in the nursing
home at Eastbourne, when they were joined by
Henrietta Tempest and Lucilla. As Derrick,
very much at home, stood before the fire, with
his coat thrown back and his hands in his trousers


THE SILVER BAG 99
pockets, talking to the hostess, he seemed to have
an eye on Valentine, who felt that he was the
cause of amusement. It was a relief when the
butler announced :
“ Mrs. Windermere.”;
78338.3


CHAPTER XIV
ARGARET WINDERMERE
M seemed at once to dominate the room,
and while each of the four women
who were present had her own share of attractive-
ness, many men might have given the palm to
the latest arrival. There was more of the woman
of the world about her, and while Henrietta seemed
to shrink a little into herself Evelyn and Lucilla
were too girlish to enter into competition.
Mrs. Windermere was tall, with a stately figure
and a great quantity of fair hair, not, however, so
fair as Evelyn’s. Having shaken hands with
Henrietta, she turned to Evelyn, kissing her first
on one cheek, then on the other. To Lucilla
she merely nodded, and when it came to Derrick’s
turn she barely touched his finger-tips.
“ Why, Val ! “ she cried, seated by his side,
while Derrick kept a more general conversation
going. “I didn’t expect to see you here. How
long have you known these good people? They
are really very good indeed, you see. I don’t
remember hearing them speak of you.”


THE SILVER BAG 101
“They might easily find a more interesting
topic,” he answered.
“ Sheer affectation ! ” she insisted. “ You know
very well that people talk about you, and naturally
you like it. Lionel tells me you are pining for
fresh worlds to conquer—is it to be with a
tragedy? Take my advice, Val! We have
quite enough of that sort of thing.” He noticed
that her lip trembled as she spoke, and in fact
he knew her well enough to be aware that her
manner was a little misleading. Although this
was apt to be overwhelming, she was in reality
sensitive and emotional. It was easy to under-
stand that she had lost her head under the weight
of Lionel’s invective. “You know,” she added,
“ I never hear your name without something like
a pang of jealousy.”
“In that case,” said Valentine, “Miss Stainer
was judicious not to mention it.”
“ I am sure,” returned Margaret, “ you see ever
so much more of my husband than I do.”
“Anyhow, I’ve known him longer,” said
Valentine, with a smile.
“Oh dear! What an age it seems since we
were all boys and girls together!” she cried, with
a sigh. “ Not that you are anything but a boy
even now. What wouldn’t I give to appear so
supremely young and ingenuous! But seriously,


102 THE SILVER BAG
I am thankful to meet you this afternoon,” she
said. “Don’t you think Lionel looks horribly
ill?”
“I thought so even before I went abroad," was
the answer.
“ He has been unlike himself for months,” she
continued. “If you want to do him a good
turn, you should persuade him to take a long
holiday.”
Valentine turned to look into her face. He
was almost ashamed of himself for wondering
whether she could have any secret purpose to
serve; whether, to put it plainly, she wished to
get Lionel out of the way by the time Derrick
could leave Mrs. Chalmers’s side.
“That’s what I am always doing—in and out
of season,” said Valentine.
“You can’t pretend you don’t have plenty of
opportunities,” answered Margaret. “If ever I
ask why Lionel is late home from the City, it’s
always the same excuse. ‘Oh, I just looked in
to see old Val.’ Derrick,” she exclaimed, “Val
and I have been talking over old times, when
you used both to come to Constable Street and
you three were inseparable. Why has Val never
married P ” she rather disconcertineg asked.
“I suppose,” replied Derrick, “he finds the
chase more exciting than the quarry.” He


THE SILVER BAG 103
glanced significantly at Lucilla. “ But never fear !
You’ll see him in at the death some day.”
“Oh, my dear Derrick, the death!” murmured
Evelyn.
When, a little later, Margaret said good-bye,
Henrietta followed her out of the room, and
before she returned Derrick insisted that he
ought to think about catching his train back
to Eastbourne. Valentine’s face clouded to see
Evelyn disappear in his wake, the evident de-
termination to leave him alone with Lucilla being
really too barefaced.
“ Is anything the matter?” she asked. “It’s
rather unusual to find you so tongue-tied.”
“Oh well, yot know,” was the answer, “you
haven’t been finding much to say for yourself
either.”
She had, indeed, scarcely spoken since
Margaret’s arrival.
“ Mrs. Windermere seldom condescends to take
the slightest notice 3f my existence,” said Lucilla.
‘Whenever she is here I feel rather out of
things.”
“The sight of Chalmers almost took my breath
away,” cried Valentine. “I was unexpectedly
confronted by every me who is associated in my
mind with that silver bag. Derrick, yourself,
Miss Stainer—”


104 THE SILVER BAG
He paused, hesitating whether to add Margaret’s
name to the list, but finally making up his mind
to refrain.
“Anyhow,” said Lucilla, “you can no longer
have the slightest doubt about me, can you?
Everything is so beautifully clear and straight-
forward as far as I’m concerned. I was merely
an unwilling instrument. I wish I had never
seen the thing, though in that case you would
never have seen me.”
“ Nor your Good Fairy," returned Valentine.
“ How stupid it is to give peorie nicknames ! ”
murmured Lucilla.
“ Scarcely, when they fit so admirably.”
“ By the by,” she remarked, when he held out
his hand, “I have to go with Mrs. Tempest to
a charity concert on Thursday afternoon. She
couldn't get out of taking tickets.”
The implication was, of course, that Valentine
would be wasting time if he were to come to
Champion Place that day, but ignoring the hint
he left the room, and on reaching the hall saw
Evelyn in the act of letting Chalmers out of the
house.
“ How very fortunate! ” she exclaimed. “ You
are just in time. Now you will be able to see
Derrick safely off from Victoria.”
A drizzling rain was falling, and as the three


THE SILVER BAG 105
stood together at the open door the outlook could
not have been much more dreary, even on a
Sunday afternoon in London.
“ Good-bye, Derrick,” said Evelyn, as Valentine
turned up his coat collar, and when the two men
walked away from the house, she still stood at
the door looking after them till they rounded the
corner.
“I thought you were off a quarter of an hour
ago,” suggested Valentine.
“ Oh well, I stayed gossiping,” returned Derrick.
“There was nothing to do but catch the train,
and I was rather earlier than I thought. So,”
he added, “you managed to find your way to
Champion Place after all.”
“ In spite of your efforts to prevent me!”
“ My dear Val, I didn’t care twopence one way
or the other,” was the answer. “Why in the
world should I? What earthly difference could
it make to me?”
“How long have you known Miss Stainer?”
asked Valentine.
“ Oh—four years or so.”
“ Before she came to live in London?”
suggested Valentine.
“If you want to know all about it,” said
Derrick, “I first saw her at Chesterborough.
I happened to be staying with the Willoughbys—


106 THE SILVER BAG
two or three miles away. Margaret Windermere
was there, and one morning she offered to drive
me into the town. We met the Dean and Evelyn
coming out of the cathedral, and the jolly old boy
offered to show us round.”
“Then,” said Valentine, “it was Miss Stainer
who introduced you to Mrs. Tempest P ”
“Right again! What a beggar you are for
spotting winners,” cried Derrick. “That was at
Constable Street soon after Evelyn settled at
Champion Place—about a couple of years ago.
Mrs. Tempest said I might call, and there you
have the whole story in a nutshell."
“ Have you ever seen Tempest?" demanded
Valentine.
“ No—never shall,” was the reply.
“ How’s that P "
“ The beggar’s dead.”
“I didn’t know that Mrs. Tempest was a
widow,” said Valentine.“
“As this is only the third time you’ve met
her,” returned Derrick, “I dare say there are
heaps of things you’re in the dark about.”
“ When did her husband die?” Valentine
persisted.
“ Last December,” said Derrick. “ Any other
questions, Val? Don’t be afraid to ask if there’s
anything else you would like to know.”


THE SILVER BAG 107
There were one or two things which Valentine
in his eagerness to allay Lionel Windermere’s
suspicions would have very much liked to know,
but he could scarcely hope for enlightenment
from his present companion. Moreover, his
anxiety concerning Margaret was to a consider-
able extent overborne by a desire to understand
the terms on which Derrick stood with Evelyn
—rather intimate terms, it seemed.
“I suppose,” he suggested, as they walked on
through the rain, “you have seen a good deal
of Miss Stainer lately ? ”
“The sort of young woman you can’t easily
see too much of—what? ” cried Derrick. “ I can
tell you one thing, Val! She takes an enormous
interest in you—and Lucilla Knowles.”
“ I take an enormous interest in her! ” answered
Valentine vehemently.
And now at least Derrick was obviously
startled.
“The devil you do!” he exclaimed, with a
twirl of his moustache.
“You see,” Valentine explained, “I’m in the
most awful quandary. Of course you know all
about it—why Mrs. Tempest wrote to me and
all the rest of it.”
“ So you went to scoff and remained to pray!”
suggested Derrick.


108 THE SILVER BAG
“Anyhow,” Valentine admitted, “I was trying
to tell Mrs. Tempest as decently as possible
that I should never enter her house again when
I saw Miss Stainer. That was a revelation
to me."
“By Jove, it would be a revelation to her,”
said Derrick. “I don’t mind telling you she
hopes to be present at your wedding.”
“You may bet your bottom dollar she will be
if ever I’m married,” was the answer.
“You might as well cry for the moon,” Derrick
insisted.
“Oh well,” said Valentine, “of course I know
I’m sinking deeper into the mire day by day.”
“ Yes, you’ll soon be up to your neck,” replied
Derrick, as they reached Victoria Station, “unless
you make up your mind to follow the only
judicious course and stand clear of Champion
Place as long as you live. You’re bound to be
found out sooner or later. Then—look out for
squalls.”


CHAPTER XV
HEN Lionel Windermere came to
\; Parliament Court late on the follow-
ing Wednesday afternoon, he was
wearing a neat black overcoat with a narrow
astrachan collar. Valentine was surprised to
notice that the right pocket had a tendency to
bulge, and that Lionel kept his hand over its
mouth. For the first few minutes, wonderful
to relate, he did not mention his wife, talking
about the weather and the improving state of
affairs in the City in a rather perfunctory
way.
“I know you’ll think I’m the most awful
rotter,” he exclaimed presently, “but I—I just
want you to look at this.”
As he spoke he took from his pocket a silver
bag, holding it out awkwardly for Valentine’s
inspection.
“You’ve got to tell me straight—no beating
about the bush—is this the infernal thing you
found on your shaving-table ? ”
“Let me see ! ” said Valentine, and taking the
"9


110 THE SILVER BAG
bag, he began to examine it, first on one side,
then on the other, as if he were reluctant to
make a mistake. “ Why, no, it’s not,” he insisted,
a few moments later.
“ You’re perfectly certain?” demanded Lionel.
“Absolutely. I’ve never seen this bag before
in my life. The other had a sort of fringe all
round it. This is quite plain.”
“ If only I could believe you’re right!”
murmured Lionel.
“How could I possibly be wrong P” said
Valentine. “ Do you think I’m a fool P Besides,”
he continued reflectively, “though I shouldn’t
care to swear to it, I believe this is an inch or
two narrower into the bargain.”
“By Jove! You’ve taken a weight off my
mind,” cried Lionel, sinking into a chair. “ What
an idiot I was not to bring the thing before, but
it was precious difficult to get hold of it. You
see, Margaret has been seedy all the afternoon,”
he explained, “and when I got home she said
she shouldn’t come down again this evening.
I spotted the bag in the drawing-room and seized
the opportunity. Goodness knows what she
would say if she knew. She would think I
was mad.”
“Well, now you have recovered your senses,
anyhow,” said Valentine, turning away to fill his


THE SILVER BAG III
pipe from a jar on the mantelshelf. Standing
there, he happened to look in the glass and saw
that Lionel was furtively watching him.
“Val,” he exclaimed, as their eyes met, “I
hope to Heaven you’re not trying to fool me!
Upon my soul, I don’t know whom to trust. I
suppose you feel bound to shield the woman!
Even if you had recognized the bag, a thousand
to one you’d swear you hadn’t.”
“ Oh well, if you refuse to take my word, what
else can I do?” asked Valentine, trying to look
dignified.
“I know what I shall do!”
“ What?” said Valentine.
“I shall tackle Evelyn Stainer. That’s what
I ought to have done a week ago.”
“ But didn’t Miss Stainer tell you that Margaret
meant to go to the youngster at Tunbridge Wells
and changed her mind at the last minute? If
you didn’t believe her then, why should you
believe her now?” suggested Valentine.
Lionel, however, made no pretence to be con-
sistent. He was in a condition to change his
mind every few minutes, but he left the flat that
Wednesday evening still insisting that he should
seek an opportunity to cross-examine Evelyn.
A difficulty was that he shrank from going to
Champion Place lest Margaret should hear of


112 THE SILVER BAG
his visit. Having succeeded in keeping her in
ignorance of his suspicions up to the present, he
wished above everything that the same state of
affairs should continue; partly no doubt because
the time was not ripe for showing his hand, but
partly also because of a still faint lingering hope
that he might be mistaken.
Meanwhile Valentine, being intensely eager
for an excuse to go to Champion Place at a
time when he knew that Henrietta and Lucilla
would not be at home, came to the conclusion
that Evelyn ought to be warned of the possibility
of a visitation from Lionel Windermere. Accord-
ingly he set forth at about four o’clock, and on
entering the drawing~room found her curled up
cosily on the large cushion before the fire, reading
a recently published book of poems.
She shook hands without attempting to rise,
and indeed a certain amount of caution was
necessary to set her feet on the carpet.
“Did you see Derrick off on Sunday?” she
inquired, without any sign of surprise at the visit.
“I suppose,” she added, “you know Mrs.
Chalmers? It’s rather strange that, having so
many friends in common, you and I should never
have met before.”
“You see,” was the answer, “though I’ve
known both Derrick and the Windermeres so


THE SILVER BAG I 13
long, I am quite out of their set. They were
born to greatness.”
“ But you,” she returned, with a radiant smile,
“have achieved greatness, and that is infinitely
better.”
“It’s true,” he confessed, “I have been
tremendously lucky.”
“ Do you set such store on great possessions ? ”
asked Evelyn.
“They’re not very great, you know. Still,
they’ve helped me to do one or two things I was
keen on doing.”
“Yes, Derrick told me,” was the answer.
“Oh, he has given you an excellent testimonial.
Where do your people live?”
“At Sycamore Road, St. john’s Wood.”
“I know it well,” she said. “ My friend Mrs.
Fairford lives in Avenue Road. I am going
there next week.”
“ Which day?” he asked eagerly.
“Tuesday,” she returned, after a moment’s
hesitation. “ Don’t you think,” she added, “that
Margaret used to be the loveliest girl in the
world—when she was Margaret Rattray?”
“Oh well,” answered Valentine, with a laugh,
“ there was a time ”
“If that signifies you were one of the count-
less disappointed swains,” said Evelyn, “ you have

8


114 THE SILVER BAG
obviously recovered as perfectly as Derrick
himself."
“You think that he has P”
“I have the most excellent reason for know-
ing,” she exclaimed, with a laugh.
“I’m afraid there’s one person in the world
who doesn’t share your confidence. Lionel
Windermere. I came to-day,” Valentine con-
tinued, as she sat more upright on her cushion,
“ expressly to talk about the fellow. I have heard
about the unfortunate disagreement in Constable
Street and Margaret's flight. You see, Lionel
knows that a silver bag was left at the flat—”
“ How did he know P ” demanded Evelyn.
“ The dickens of it was I told him.”
“Oh, how could you have been so—so very
indiscreet ! ” murmured Evelyn.
“Naturally, I had no idea I was putting my
foot into it,” said Valentine. “ But Lionel seems
to have jumped to the conclusion that his wife
was Derrick’s visitor."
“ Mr. Windermere must be a man of the most
ungovernable temper,” returned Evelyn.
“Oh well, he was always rather excitable,”
Valentine admitted, “and just now he is on the
verge of a nervous breakdown. You have only
to look at the fellow.”
“Yes, that was the line I took with Margaret,”


THE SILVER BAG 115
said Evelyn. “Those two are really very fond
of one another. I know she is rather reckless
and extravagant, but Mr. Windermere should,
surely, have dealt more frankly with her.”
“He insists,” Valentine explained, “that she
would have gone off with Derrick if it had not
been for Mrs. Chalmers’s telegram. He believes
she left her bag and asked you to get it back;
that you sent Miss Knowles. Yesterday he
actually brought Margaret’s bag and asked me
to identify it.”
“ But you—you didn’t! ” cried Evelyn.
Deep as Valentine’s anxiety was to prove
Margaret’s innocence, his attention was con-
tinually distracted by the charms of Miss Stainer’s
changing expression. He was coming to the
conclusion that Lucilla’s epithet, the Good Fairy,
was after all not strictly applicable. It seemed
to signify some one too doll-like, whereas every
time he saw Evelyn he became more convinced
that she possessed a will of her own. She was
not the kind of woman to be treated as a toy!
On the contrary, she seemed pre-eminently
companionable.
“Oh well, they’re all so much alike. Still,”
said Valentine, “ I thought it really looked pretty
well the same.”
“Then you actually told Mr. Windermere—”


116 THE SILVER BAG
“I’m afraid I told him a downright lie,” said
Valentine, noticing her expression of extreme
relief.
“Oh, thank you!” she answered; adding at
once, “I am sorry you had to do it. I know
how hateful it must have been. In a sense,
too, it was entirely unnecessary. If only Mr.
Windermere knew the facts as I know them, he
would admit at once that he had nothing in the
world to complain of. Now,” she added, “I
wonder whether you feel able to take my word
for that.” _
“For anything,” said Valentine, and saw the
quick colour dye her cheeks. “ But, surely, you
can go a step further and tell me who actually did
take the bag to Parliament Court.”
“I shall not say a word more,” she retorted.
“I can only repeat that Mr. Windermere has no
cause to feel the remotest uneasiness.” .
“He naturally will as long as he believes it
was his wife,” said Valentine.
“Then your splendid mendacity failed to
convince him ! ”
“ So completely,” was the reply, “ that he hints
at coming to cross-examine you in person.”
“ No, no, he mustn’t do that!” she exclaimed.
“You mustn’t let him. I count on you to keep
him away. Not that I should see him in any


THE SILVER BAG 117
case. I shall give instructions that I am not at
home.”
“Yet,” suggested Valentine, “a single word
would set his mind at rest for ever.”
“You must try to believe,” she said, “that I
have a good reason for not speaking it.”
“It can’t,” returned Valentine, “be a very
serious reason. It applied to me as well as
to Lionel, you know. Knowing I was his friend,
you wished to keep me in the dark also. You
told Miss Knowles not to mention your name or
even her own.”
“Lucilla,” said Evelyn cordially, “has been
most splendidly loyal.”
“She would never have given you away,” he
continued. “ Yet, quite gratuitously, you let me
into a portion of the secret by inviting me
here.”
“Yes, I dare say that seems inconsistent,”
Evelyn admitted. “ It’s true I should have
preferred to have nothing to do with you, but
then a complication arose. Lucilla’s interests
must be taken into consideration. I felt a
greater responsibility for the reason that it was
I who in the first place sent her to your flat.”
Valentine told himself that this would be an
excellent opportunity to dispel her illusion con-
cerning himself and Lucilla, but then he perceived


118 THE SILVER BAG
that, after all, it might not be an illusion as far
as Lucilla was concerned. Moreover, he felt as
much afraid as on the day he entered the house
for the first time that a frank disclosure Would
inevitably bring his visits to a sudden end.
“As regards Mr. Windermere,” said Evelyn,
“just one word more before we put the subject
aside. I have already told you that he has no
genuine reason for complaint. I want to insist
that you need not treat the affair too tragically.”
“But, don’t you see,” urged Valentine, “that
for Lionel it threatens to develop into a tragedy.
He is keeping his wife under close observation,
hiding his time till he can accuse her to her face.
He is capable of anything—an action in the
Divorce Court, for instance.”
“ Of course, he must never be allowed to go so
far as that ! ” exclaimed Evelyn.
“You can prevent anything of the kind by
simply telling him the actual facts of the case.”
“Naturally, that is what I should have to
do,” she admitted. “I should have to insist
on making everything perfectly clear. Frankly,”
she continued, “I am immensely disappointed
that Mr. Windermere has heard a single word
about the affair. He wouldn’t if you hadn’t told
him, you know. Now, by way of an amende,”
she entreated, “please do your very best to


THE SILVER BAG 1 19
prevent him from coming to ask me a lot of
tiresome questions.”
As she ceased speaking, the door opened and
Henrietta entered, followed by Lucilla. They
both looked surprised to see the visitor, who
stepped forward a little self-consciously, offering
his hand to Mrs. Tempest.
“ I hope you enjoyed the concert,” he said.
“Not well enough to stay till the end,” she
answered.
He turned to Lucilla.
“So you didn’t really forget we were going!”
she exclaimed, with a lift of her black eyebrows.
“Nor,” said Henrietta, as he looked embar-
rassed, “ that we should soon be coming home.”
Valentine walked away from Champion Place
that afternoon with one idea which for the time
thrust every other out of his mind. Evelyn had
asked him to do something for her. She was
obviously anxious that Lionel Windermere should
not come to the house, and accordingly Valentine
determined to spare no effort to keep him away.


CHAPTER XVI
Friday afternoon, “I pretty well put
my foot into it on Wednesday. I
told you that Margaret said she shouldn’t come
downstairs again that evening. I thought I
should be safe in nailing her bag for an hour or
so. When I got home from here I went straight
to the drawing-room to put it back, and there
she was, lying on the sofa. Her head was better,
she had come down, and what was more, she had
wanted a letter she had left in the accursed thing.
Of course it couldn’t be found.”
“Why, no, as it happened to be in your pocket,”
said Valentine.
“You see,” Lionel explained, “unfortunately
it was in my hand when I went to put it back
from where I had taken it. Margaret spotted it
at once ”
“You don’t mean to say,” cried Valentine,
“that you told her what you had been up
to!”
“Upon my word,” said Lionel, “I didn’t quite
“VAL,” exclaimed Lionel Windermere on

I20


THE SILVER BAG 121
know what to do for the moment. I was bound
to make some sort of an excuse, and I said I had
been buying her a new bag—a gold one, for a
present, you know. I explained that I had taken
the other as a pattern.”
“Not particularly convincing,” suggested
Valentine.
“ Oh, she believed me all right,” said Lionel.
“Although you hadn’t bag number two about
you ! ”
“I had to say it was going to be sent home
in the morning,” was the answer. “I took care
to buy it on my way to the City ; but I’m fed up
with this sort of thing!” exclaimed Lionel ex-
citedly. “ If only I could feel certain I’m wrong,
upon my soul, I believe we might make a fresh
start. But this infernal suspicion’s everlastingly
cropping out. I go to bed thinking of it. I lie
awake hours in the night. I get up in the
morning feeling I can never get through another
day without blurting it out.”
“ My dear fellow,” Valentine insisted, “what-
ever you do, you must consume your own
smoke.”
“ I’m going to tackle Evelyn,” said Lionel.
“ And spoil everything! Only leave it to me,
and I fancy I may soon be in a position to satisfy
your mind.”


122 THE SILVER BAG
“Good Lord ! You've heard something fresh ! ”
exclaimed Lionel eagerly.
“ Enough to convince me-———-
“ To convince you of what P ”
“That Margaret has never been inside this
building. That you have no earthly reason
for dissatisfaction with anything she has
done.”
“ What's the use of telling me that P ” demanded
Lionel. “Generalities are no good. I want
something definite.”
“You can’t have it yet.”
“ Shall I ever have it?” cried Lionel, burying
his face in his hands.
“Yes, if you don’t put your oar in,” was the
answer. “I am on the job. I am by way of
getting to the bottom of it. I’ve already learnt
something ”
“There’s only one thing that matters,” Lionel
insisted. “ Nothing else will convince me that
Margaret wasn’t here that Monday evening.
Tell me the name of the owner of the bag.”
“ Not to-day,” said Valentine. “ I haven’t got
so far as that yet, but I shall before long. Mean-
time I give you my word. When you know all
the facts, you will be the first to admit that your
wife was not to blame for anything that happened
after she left Constable Street.”
I!


THE SILVER BAG 123
With the most perfect confidence Valentine
was quoting Evelyn. He realized, however, that
her assurance might not appear so convincing to
Windermere as it had done to himself.
Lionel, indeed, left Parliament Court that after-
noon still under the impression that there was a
conspiracy to shield Margaret, though he promised
to leave Evelyn alone for the present. Accord-
ingly, Valentine persuaded himself that the least
he could do was to set her mind at rest, and it
was disappointing to hear that only Lucilla was
at home.
“Did you want to see Miss Stainer very
particularly?” she asked, when he hinted at his
reason for coming this afternoon.
“Why, yes, I did, rather,” he admitted.
“Can I give her a message?” suggested
Lucilla; adding impulsively, “You can’t imagine
how curious you make me feel. You have only
seen her two or three times, and I wondered
what in the world you could find to talk about
all the time you were here while I was at the
concert on T hursday.”
“Oh well, we were discussing the silver bag,”
said Valentine.
“ Then that accounts for it! ” cried Lucilla.
“ Accounts for what? ”
“Now I begin to understand why she told-


THE SILVER BAG 125
“I am afraid' one gets led on,” he answered,
wishing that he had been more cautious.
“Then,” said Lucilla reflectively, “Mr Winder-
mere suspects it was his wife who left the bag
at Parliament Court that Monday.”
“Oh well—since you’ve hit the right nail on
the head,” Valentine reluctantly admitted, “ I
may as well tell you that he swears there would
have been an elopement if the god in the machine
had not taken the form of a telegraph boy.”
Lucilla was silent for a moment.
“After all,” she said slowly, “there may be
some sort of method in Mr. Windermere’s mad-
ness.”
“ That is absolutely impossible,” Valentine pro-
tested.
“ How can you be certain of that?” demanded
Lucilla.
“ I am—perfectly certain.”
“ Why?” she exclaimed, with her eyes on
his face.
“ Because Miss Stainer assured me that if only
Windermere knew all the circumstances he would
see there was no reason to blame his wife.”
“ That is quite likely,” said Lucilla.
Valentine noticed that she was breathing
rapidly. Her face was unusually flushed, and she
seemed to be struggling to control her excitement.


126 THE SILVER BAG
“ Upon my word,” he answered, “you are
making confusion worse confounded. Although
Miss Stainer insisted that Margaret Windermere
was not to blame, you still declare that Chalmers
would have gone off with her if it had not been
for the telegram from his mother.”
“I said nothing of the kind!" cried Lucilla.
“ Mrs. Windermere may be the most innocent
person in the world, and yet Mr. Chalmers may
have been on the brink of an elopement.”
“ After all, it takes two ”
“Yes,” she interrupted. “ But Mrs. Winder-
mere need not have been one of them.”


CHAPTER XVII
O. 22 is one of the smaller houses
N in Sycamore Road, St. John’s Wood;
a square-looking box of a house,
the stucco front never having been painted.
On three sides of it is a fair—sized garden,
shut in by a brick wall and a row of lime-
trees, recently pollarded to allow Mrs. Brook to
see the few vehicles which pass that way.
She never left her room, the pleasant, light-
papered bedroom on the first floor: a grey-haired
woman, not very old, buter many years seldom
free from pain. Nevertheless she was usually
able to greet Valentine with the ghost of a smile.
The difficulty was to keep her mind employed,
since she seemed unable to concentrate her
thoughts on a book or any description of fancy-
work. She would sit for long hours with her
hands idle in her lap, without speaking, although
she found a resource in Nurse Watson, a small,
dark-haired, middle-aged woman, whose gossip
bored Sibylla to death.
Sibylla, however, had revived in the most
121


128 THE SILVER BAG
remarkable way since the removal to Sycamore
Road, the first fruit of her brother's success.
The colour had returned to her cheeks again,
the brightness to her eyes, and although she had
been disappointed by his departure from home
in favour of the bachelor flat at Parliament
Court, he never left her many days without a
Vistt.
At four o’clock on Tuesday afternoon he was
waiting in Sibylla’s drawing-room until Nurse
Watson brought word that Mrs. Brook was
awake after her siesta. The room had a window
opening on to the back garden, than which
nothing could look much more melancholy this
wet afternoon. Rain was falling in thick, slanting
lines, broken now and then by a stronger gust
of wind.
In one corner of the room stood a small grand
piano, and on the overmantel a few photographs :
one of Lionel Windermere, another of Margaret,
a third of Derrick Chalmers, all taken three or
four years ago, and left behind by Valentine.
Already Sibylla had been told about Evelyn
Stainer and the episode of the silver bag, although
Valentine had experienced a little embarrassment
in treating of Lucilla’s connection with it. Sibylla
found it difficult to understand his reason for
cultivating Miss Knowles’s further acquaintance,


THE SILVER BAG 129
and when he suggested that it was “Oh well,
just a bit of a lark, you know ! ” she reminded
him, in her elder-sisterly way, of the fable: “It
was play to the boys and death to the frogs,
Val!” “Yes, I know, but which is which?” he
answered, with a laugh.
In any case Sibylla took the warmest interest
in the episode, which Valentine, this Tuesday
afternoon, insisted was becoming more compli-
cated than ever.
“To begin with,” he said, “Lionel pretty well
convinced me that it actually must have been
Margaret. I never felt so sorry for anything in
my life as for having opened his eyes. But then
Evelyn put a different complexion altogether on
the business. She went out of her way to repeat
that if Lionel knew all the facts of the case he
would admit that he had nothing to complain of.
Now, Lucilla, who must be in the know, admits
that old Derrick was on the verge of bolting with
some woman or other, while yet she seems to
leave Margaret out of it.”
“Is it possible,” asked Sibylla, “that the
woman could have been Miss Stainer?”
“ No, it isn’t,” was the peremptory answer.
“My dear girl! You don’t know what you are
saying. It’s rank blasphemy, though of course
you have never seen Evelyn. Good gracious!
9


130 THE SILVER BAG
If she and Derrick cared for one another, why in
the world shouldn’t they get married in the
ordinary way? I would stake my life she has
never been inside Parliament Court. She wasn't
dragged into the affair till Lionel fetched her from
Champion Place at half-past eight or so that
Monday evening. By that time Derrick must
have started to Eastbourne.”
“Still,” urged Sibylla, “I don’t see how you
can be so positive. You don’t know what Miss
Stainer was doing between half-past five, when
Margaret left Constable Street, and eight o’clock,
when she reached Grosvenor Gardens.”
“My dear girl, you’re talking through
your hat,” said Valentine. “I only wish you
could see her. You would soon change your
tune.”
“I feel immensely curious to see her,” Sibylla
admitted. “ Lucilla Knowles too. I can’t imagine
how you are going to manage between them.
Every time you go to Champion Place you must
make Miss Knowles more confident; yet it
doesn’t appear that you can see Miss Stainer
without going.”
“Anyhow,” exclaimed Valentine, “I hope to
see her this afternoon. She let out that she was
coming to Avenue Road—to Mrs. Fairford’s.
I’ve looked up the number, and as soon as I’ve


THE SILVER BAG 131
had a peep at the mater I mean to walk up
and down in front of the house till Evelyn
comes out.”
“Well,” cried Sibylla, with a laugh, “you
must be keen to walk up and down anywhere in
this rain. She is certain to guess what you are
doing—if she should come on such a day.”
“I shall stand a chance of seeing her home,”
he answered.
The next moment he was rising to shake
hands with Nurse Watson, who presently led the
way upstairs to Mrs. Brook’s room. Having
spent ten minutes talkinggto his mother, Valentine
explained that he had an important engagement,
and going down to the hall, put on his overcoat,
turned up the collar, and declined Sibylla’s offer
of an umbrella.
“ What a saturating afternoon ! ” she exclaimed,
letting him out of the house and standing under
the porch while he crossed the front garden to
the wooden gate, intending to turn to his left in
the direction of Avenue Road. But before he
had time to shut the gate behind him he darted
eagerly forward. There was Evelyn, wearing a
long mackintosh coat and carrying an umbrella,
walking quickly towards the house.
“Oh, what a dreadful day! ” she said, coming
to a standstill. “ Henrietta tried to persuade me


I32 THE SILVER BAG
not to go out, but I was obstinate, and I am
punished accordingly. I couldn’t see a taxi
anywhere.”
“ I—I wonder,” suggested Valentine, “ whether
you’re prepared to make for any port in a storm !
You might come in and see my sister,” he added,
“ while I find you a cab.”
“That would be giving you so much trouble,”
she murmured hesitatingly.”
But he had already pushed the gate farther
open, and saw that Sibylla was still standing
under the porch. He took Evelyn’s umbrella,
holding it over her as she accompanied him into
the garden, and while she was still a yard or two
from the house went through a form of introduc-
tion. A few minutes later she was standing
before the drawing-room fire, while Sibylla, at
once favourably impressed, kneeled down on the
hearth-rug by her side.
“I feel that I have fallen among friends,” said
Evelyn, with a glance round the room.
“Oh well, I think you have, you know,”
returned Valentine.
“I wasn’t thinking of you and Miss Brook,”
Evelyn explained, with a laugh. “ But the
moment I entered my eyes fell upon Derrick
and Margaret Windermere and her husband—”
As she was speaking the door opened, and


THE SILVER BAG 133
Nurse Watson entered with an expression of
mystery on her face.
“Might I speak to you for a moment, Miss
Brook?” she asked.
Murmuring a word of apology, Sibylla left
the room.
Valentine stood watching the guest as she
rested a foot on the fender, without being able
to find a word to say for himself. The rain was
still beating against the window, and the after-
noon was rapidly darkening. Sibylla looked a
little embarrassed on her return a few minutes
later.
“ My mother,” she explained, “heard that we
had a visitor. Although you would think she
takes so little interest when anybody but Val
talks to her, she seems to know whenever we
are not alone.”
“Did you tell her who was so astonishingly
here?” asked Valentine.
“Yes, and of course she wanted to know who
Miss Stainer was, and all about her. I am
afraid,” said Sibylla, with a glance at Evelyn,
“her curiosity isn’t yet quite satisfied.”
“ I think I understand ! ” cried Evelyn. “ Mrs.
Brook has so few interests left in life that little
things excite her. Do you mean that she would
like to see me?”


134 THE SILVER BAG
“Why, that is just what she is longing for,”
was the answer, “if you would only let me take
you to her room for a few minutes.”
“ While you are upstairs,” suggested Valentine,
following them into the hall, “ I suppose the best
thing I can do is to look for a taxi."


CHAPTER XVIII
O find a taxi-cab on such a wet afternoon
I did not prove an easy task. Valentine
had to walk as far as St. john’s Wood
Road Station, and on returning to the house he
was admitted by his sister, who explained that
Evelyn was still upstairs.
“It was really a wee bit awkward,” she con-
tinued. “Poor mother! She seems to think
that you and Miss Stainer are by way of being
half engaged ”
“Good Lord!” cried Valentine. “She didn’t
say so right out?”
“ Well, she hinted at it rather broadly. Good-
ness knows what nurse had been telling her
before I took Miss Stainer up. But mother
generally confuses things, and she calmly
announced that a good son invariably made a
good husband.”
“How did Miss Stainer take it?” asked
Valentine.
“Charmingly,” said Sibylla. “Everything is

135


136 THE SILVER. BAG
charming about her. She can’t get away because
mother is clinging to her hand.”
“She didn’t seem to be offended?” urged
Valentine.
“ Oh dear no!” said Sibylla.
At that moment Evelyn came downstairs
attended by Nurse Watson.
“There was only one taxi to be had," ex-
claimed Valentine. “I thought, perhaps, you
would let me drop you at Champion Place.”
Without offering the least objection, Evelyn said
good-bye to Sibylla, who stood beneath the porch
nodding and smiling till the others entered the cab.
“What a dear old lady Mrs. Brook is,” said
Evelyn, as they were driven away from the door.
“And how highly she thinks of her son! It
must be splendid to feel you are able to make
her so comfortable.”
“I was unfortunate enough to miss you the
last time I came to Champion Place,” remarked
Valentine.
“Oh well, that scarcely mattered, as you saw
Lucilla,” was the answer.
He remained silent for a few moments at this.
“Anyhow,” he said at last, “I came expressly
to tell you that you’re not likely to be bothered
by Windermere for the present.”
“ How did you manage to pacify him P”


138 THE SILVER BAG
As she spoke she drew her wet mackintosh
more closely about her, edging farther into her
corner. Her eyes were fixed resolutely on the
driver’s broad back, and she sat extremely erect,
as if she wished above everything to avoid con-
tact with her companion.
“We won’t be egotistical,” she said. “We
will talk of something other than ourselves—
about Lucilla, for instance.”
To his chagrin she continued to do so per-
sistently, his only consolation being that at least
she must have some suspicion of what he had
wished to say. In the face of her attitude, how-
ever, it seemed almost worse than useless to
continue, and, as a matter of fact, Valentine
scarcely spoke again until the cab turned the
corner of Champion Place. As it stopped at
No. 7, Lucilla was coming out of the house, and
for a moment the three stood in a group on the
wet pavement, regarding one another in silence.
“I have had a quite adventurous afternoon ! "
cried Evelyn, the first to speak. “As I was
coming from Mrs. Fairford’s, whom should I see
but Mr. Brook! He was chivalrous enough to
protect me from the storm, or else I should be
even wetter than I am.”
“Can I give you a lift anywhere?” asked
Valentine, turning to Lucilla.


THE SILVER BAG 139
“Oh, thank you,” she answered, in an un-
naturally high-pitched voice. “I am only going
just a few yards to the chemist’s.”
“Then I think I’ll be getting along,” he said,
and as Evelyn entered the house and Lucilla
walked stiffly away, he took his seat in the
taxi-cab.
On the whole, Valentine passed the next few
days in higher spirits than usual. ' Although so
little had been said, the fact that Evelyn had
prevented him deliberately from saying more
seemed, in a way, a good omen. Hitherto one
of his difficulties had been the conviction—as he
assumed—on her part that he was an admirer
of Lucilla’s. He felt certain now, however, that
her eyes were open, and in spite of her attitude
during the journey home he had the impression
that she was by no means irrecoverably annoyed.
His hopes ran riot, and it remained for Henrietta
to cast them down.
He met her a few doors from his club in Pall
Mall, on her way, she explained, to Regent
Street. The weather had turned delightfully fine
after the recent heavy rains, and having gone in
the first place to the Army and Navy Stores
Mrs. Tempest had walked across St. james’s
Park.
“This is precisely the opportunity I longed


140 THE SILVER BAG
for!” she exclaimed. “I wonder whether you
have a quarter of an hour to spare. I have
something really rather important to say to you.”
“I hope,” answered Valentine, turning to walk
by her side, “ that I haven’t been putting my foot
into it.”
“I’m afraid you have. The only question is,
whether you have failed to see exactly where you
were going.”
“Well, now, what have I done?” asked
Valentine, as they rounded the corner of Waterloo
Place.
“Anyhow, you have made Lucilla miserable,”
was the answer. “ If you don’t mend your ways,
you will end in the same state. You will fall
between two stools. She is horridly jealous."
“ Jealous—Lucilla! ” cried Valentine.
“Oh, please don’t try to look so provokingly
ingenuous ! ”
“Upon my word it was sheer astonishment,”
he protested. “Astonishment, too, that Lucilla
should confide her sentiments to you.”
“ Of course,” said Henrietta, “she does nothing
of the kind. But I have eyes in my head, and
the other evening, when you brought Evelyn
home in a taxi, proved the last straw.”
“Does Miss Stainer know you are tackling
me?” asked Valentine.


142 THE SILVER BAG
“Perhaps,” was the reply, “you are merely
entertaining yourself with Evelyn in her turn.”
“Ah, no,” murmured Valentine, with a good
deal of feeling; “ you mustn’t say that, you know.”
“Surely,” said Henrietta, “you can’t imagine
that she could ever, in any conceivable circum-
stances, give you a second thought. Lucilla has
done nothing amiss. You have succeeded in
making her fond of you. You can’t leave her in
the lurch without earning Evelyn’s contempt.
To hint that it was she, herself, who had been
the cause of your defection, would be the un-
pardonable sin.”
For a few minutes they walked along Regent
Street in silence, which Valentine was the first
to break :
“I suppose you have some definite purpose in
dropping on me this afternoon.”
“I hoped that a word in season might bring
you back to your allegiance,” she returned.
“I owe none to any woman in the world but
Evelyn,” he exclaimed.
“Nothing would ever induce her to accept it,”
said Henrietta. “To tell you the truth, you
have rather disconcerted me by showing your
colours so plainly.”
“ Isn’t that generally the best thing to do P”
“Y—es, perhaps,” she answered. “Yes, I


THE SILVER BAG 143
dare say it is, but there are certain inconveniences.
I must take time to think things over. At
present there seems only one certainty.”
“What is that?” demanded Valentine.
“For everybody’s sake—your own, Lucilla’s,
even for Evelyn’s—”
“ For Evelyn’s!” he murmured.
“Oh, pray don’t misunderstand me. For the
sake of saving her annoyance merely. For every-
body’s sake we mustn’t go along in this way,”
Henrietta insisted, and coming to a standstill at
the corner of Hanover Street she held out her
hand.


CHAPTER XIX
AVING seen Mrs. Tempest cross the
H road, Valentine hesitated for a few
moments, then instead of retracing his
steps to the club he walked to Oxford Circus and
boarded a motor-bus for Sycamore Road. There
he spent a quarter of an hour with his mother,
who tantalized him by innumerable inquiries
concerning Evelyn, then went downstairs again
to Sibylla and lighted a pipe.
Walking about the room with his hands deep
in his trousers pockets, his flushed face boyishly
eager, he repeated the substance of his recent
conversation with Mrs. Tempest.
“What I can’t quite make out,” he continued,
“is how she managed to see what was going
along. I could have sworn I had succeeded in
keeping my end up.”
“Ah,” said Sibylla, “but perhaps you told
Derrick—”
“ What has that got to do with it P ” demanded
Valentine.
“He may have told Mrs. Tempest or Miss
144


146 THE SILVER BAG
hinder you from making a fresh start? I really
don’t see that your case is utterly hopeless, and
after all you deserve a penance, you know, Val.”
Sitting down astride a chair, he rested his arms
on its back while he puffed at his pipe, and
gradually grew more cheerful. Sibylla possessed
an average amount of common sense, and her
advice was by no means to be disdained. He
would seize every opportunity which remained
to him at Champion Place to open Lucilla’s eyes—
gradually, as his sister proposed.
“Val,” she exclaimed abruptly, “ such a
curious thing happened yesterday. The new
vicar called. He is quite young and really nice-
looking. This is his first living. He used to
be a curate at a place called Colbourne, a small
Surrey village. While we were talking,” Sibylla
continued, “he caught sight of Derrick’s
photograph. ”
“ Does he know old Derrick P ” asked Valentine.
“Of course,” said Sibylla, “I insisted that he
must be mistaken.”
“ What in the world about? ”
“It seems scarcely possible that Derrick can
be married.”
“ Married ! Good Lord ! ” exclaimed Valentine,
with a sceptical laugh.
“Still, Mr. Wentworth ought to know,” said


THE SILVER BAG I47
Sibylla. “He declares that he performed the
ceremony.”
“When—where, in Heaven’s name?” asked
Valentine.
“Why, at Colbourne, where he was the curate.
He was perfectly certain, though it’s true he
didn’t even know Derrick’s name. He had
forgotten that altogether. Of course,” Sibylla
continued, “the photograph was taken some
years ago—”
“Derrick hasn’t altered a scrap,” Valentine
admitted—“not a scrap. He looks just the
same to-day.”
“And,” urged Sibylla, “he is too striking-
looking to be easily confused with anyone else.
His height, his wide shoulders and his moustache.”
“ When was this interesting ceremony supposed
to take place?” asked Valentine.
“On the last day of the year,” said Sibylla.
“By special licence. The Vicar of Colbourne
received a letter fixing the time, and he asked Mr.
Wentworth to officiate.”
“Was he able to describe the bride ? ” exclaimed
Valentine, after a short pause.
“ No,” was the answer. “He didn’t seem to
have the least idea whether she was tall or short,
dark or fair, young or old. The couple drove up
alone in a motor-car just as he was entering the


148 THE SILVER BAG
church to be ready for them. The bride wore a
loose coat, and only put back her veil as she stood
at the altar. They spent a few moments in the
vestry afterwards,” Sibylla explained, “then
shook hands with Mr. Wentworth, and drove off
again at once. He hadn’t given them another
thought till he recognized Derrick’s photograph
yesterday afternoon. I suppose,” suggested
Sibylla, “it would be possible to find out all
about it from the register.”
"I’m not going to pry into Derrick’s private
affairs in that way,” cried Valentine. “ I'm fed
up with that sort of thing as it is. If he had
wanted me to know, he would have told me.
A hundred to one Wentworth has made a
bloomer.”
Rising from his chair, Valentine came to the
hearth-rug, stooping to knock out his pipe in the
fire-place. Standing upright again, he gazed for
some time at Derrick’s photograph, while Sibylla
attentively watched her brother’s face.
“Val,” she exclaimed presently, “isn’t it
possible that if Derrick really is married his
wedding might have something to do with the
affair at Parliament Court?”
“ You are suggesting,” said Valentine, frowning
at the portrait, “that the visitor may have been
his wife.”


THE SILVER BAG 149
“ If he had one, what was more likely than that
she should have gone to see him? And Miss
Stainer insisted that Lionel had no reason to
blame Margaret.”
“What about Lucilla’s insinuation that another
woman was concerned ? ” demanded Valentine.
“ My dear,” said Sibylla, resting a hand on his
shoulder, “although you shrink from speaking of
it, I believe we have both the same notion in our
heads.”
“What, in Heaven’s name, is yours?” cried
Valentine.
“You told me that Derrick seemed to be on
very friendly terms with Miss Stainer— ”
“Good Lord!” Valentine impetuously inter-
rupted, “it wasn’t many minutes ago that you
were doing your best to persuade me my case
wasn’t hopeless. Now you suggest that Evelyn
is a married woman ! ”
“ Val,” murmured Sibylla, “the idea only
occurred to me while I was speaking. You
know how things flash across one’s mind. You
must admit that it would explain a great deal.”
“ But why on earth should they make a mystery
of it?” said Valentine. “ If Derrick and Evelyn
wanted to get married, what was there to stand in
their way? Why shouldn’t they have set about
it openly?”


150 THE SILVER BAG
“ At all events,” answered Sibylla, “ there’s
one thing you might quite easily do.”
“What’s that?” he demanded.
“ You could try to find out where Miss Stainer
was on the thirty-first of December.”
“ How could I do that?”
“Miss Knowles would know. You could ask
her without causing the least suspicion. If Miss
Stainer did not leave Champion Place during the
week after Christmas, if she did not go away even
for a single day, then, naturally, she couldn’t have
been married to Derrick in Surrey.”
“The whole thing is the story of a cock and
a bull,” Valentine insisted.
But Sibylla thought that he spoke without
conviction, and, as a matter of fact, he lost no
time in going to Champion Place, when, for once,
it was a satisfaction to find Lucilla alone.


CHAPTER XX
BITTER wind was blowing, and,
A although Valentine had walked briskly
to Champion Place, it was pleasant to
enter the well-warmed room and to sit down close
to the fire, holding out his hands to the blaze.
He felt unusually self-conscious this afternoon,
inasmuch as he had set forth with the deliberate
object of pumping Lucilla, who looked almost as
if she had something on her mind as she greeted
him. Valentine flattered himself that he led up
to the subject rather cleverly.
“The weather’s cold enough for Christmas,”
he exclaimed. “By the by,” he added, with an
assumption of carelessness, “ where did you spend
last Christmas?”
“Here,” she answered. “We didn’t have a
particularly merry day. We were entirely alone
—we three women.”
“I remember that Chalmers wasn’t with you,
anyhow,” Valentine persisted. “The fact is I
had lunch with him at his club, before I went to
finish the day at Sycamore Road. You would
:5:


152 THE SILVER BAG
have been jollier somewhere in the country,” he
suggested.
“Oh well,” cried Lucilla, “I did go to the
country afterwards.” She smiled as if at some
agreeable reminiscence.
“Where?” asked Valentine, trying to speak
without the slightest eagerness.
“Mrs. Tempest,” she explained, “had an
invitation to—somewhere in Warwickshire, I
think it was. Anyhow, before she started, she
insisted that as it was Christmas time I ought to
spend a week or so with my own family—in other
words, with Aunt Hannah. Miss Stainer,” Lucilla
continued, “had been awfully liberal in the way
of a Christmas Box, and although Mrs. Tempest
mentioned Clapham I really had ten days’ holiday
to go where I liked.”
“So you went off on your own?” said
Valentine, although her personal destination
possessed very little interest for him.
“ You see,” she answered, “ I had never stayed
at a big Hydro, and I always wanted to see what
it would be like. So the day before Mrs.
Tempest went away—— ”
“ When was that?” demanded Valentine.
“ I left here on the twenty-ninth of December,”
said Lucilla. “Till this day I am afraid she is
under the impression that I went to Aunt


THE SILVER BAG 153
Hannah’s. So I did, for that matter, but I didn’t
stay many hours. I went to Bournemouth and
had the time of my life.”
“Then what,” exclaimed Valentine, “hap-
pened to Miss Stainer during Mrs. Tempest’s
absence?”
“ Goodness knows ! ”
“Rather lonely here by herself,” suggested
Valentine diplomatically. “ I should have thought
she would have offered you a holiday while Mrs.
Tempest was at home.”
“Yes, I wondered at the time,” said Lucilla.
“But, you know, one likes to be left to oneself
now and then.”
“You have no reason to believe she left
London after you were out of the way?”
“Whatever makes you hint at such a thing?”
cried Lucilla. “The idea never occurred to me.
Why should it? She said she was going to stay
at home and, naturally, I assumed she was telling
the truth. I really don’t know what she did. I
don’t care. At Bournemouth it was simply lovely
—dances night after night. I am immensely
keen on dancing! There were private theatricals
too. I rather distinguished myself.”
Although Valentine had a tell-tale face, he
tried not to let it betray the disappointment which
he assuredly felt. He had hoped to hear that


154 THE SILVER BAG
Evelyn could not possibly have accompanied
Derrick Chalmers to Colbourne on the morning
of the thirty-first of December, whereas it seemed
obvious that she might have done so without
either Lucilla or Mrs. Tempest being any the
wiser. Knowing that Henrietta was going to
Warwickshire, she might have plotted to get
Lucilla, also, out of the way, in order to have
complete liberty of action for herself.
It seemed useless to pursue the matter further
at the moment, and the reference to private
theatricals at Bournemouth reminded Valentine
of Sibylla’s suggestion that he should seize every
opportunity to prepare Lucilla’s mind for the
disillusioning about himself which some day must
be inevitable.
“ By the by,” he remarked, “you have grown
less ambitious.”
“ Do you think I have?” she murmured.
“Once upon a time you were so keen to go on
the stage that you went out of your way, you
remember, to ask me to help you.”
“ Oh, but there are so many different ways of
helping,” she retorted.
“ Anyhow, I should be very pleased to do what
I can,” he persisted. “I might think of one or
two men who could be useful if you are still of
the same mind. After all,” he added, feeling


I 56 THE SILVER BAG
beginning to think it’s possible to carry what you
would call loyalty too far. I hate to give any-
body away, but there may be a point when it is
hopeless to keep faith with one person without
injuring another too cruelly.”
“If you want advice, I ought to know the
particular circumstances,” suggested Valentine.
Rising from her chair she drew nearer to the
fire, standing with her elbow on the edge of
the overmantel, as Valentine also found his
feet.
“ If there’s one thing I detest more than
another,” she said, “ it is being connected even in
the remotest way with the quarrels of married
people. I shall not have a moment’s peace while
I’m haunted by the fear that the breach between
Mr. and Mrs. Windermere is widening.”
“I am trying to hope it isn’t,” was the answer.
“I told him what Miss Stainer said—_”
“ What did she say P ” demanded Lucilla.
“That, when Windermere knew all the circum-
stances, he would not have the slightest reason to
complain.”
“ Was he satisfied with that?”
“Why, no; not entirely satisfied. Still," said
Valentine, “I believe the fellow is making some
sort of effort to suspend his judgment till the time
arrives for a full explanation.”


THE SILVER BAG 157
“I think the time has come,” exclaimed
Lucilla.
“ Upon my word, I’m tremendously pleased to
hear you say 50,” returned Valentine.
“Still, I shall make it in fear and trembling,”
she insisted. “If you repeat what I am going
to tell you to anyone besides Mr. Windermere,
you will get me into serious trouble. I am in
the most difficult position. I was entreated to
keep the secret. I promised faithfully never to
breathe a word. Until this moment I have kept
my promise. I should not speak out to-day if
you hadn’t told me that Mr. Windermere was
suspicious of his wife. But my conscience is
growing really unbearably reproachful,” Lucilla
added, “and, after all, it is the simplest thing in
the world.”


CHAPTER XXI
her chair, “that I begin the story
after luncheon that Monday—Monday,
the twentieth of February. We all went out
separately: Mrs. Tempest, Miss Stainer and I.
I came home first and had tea by myself in this
room at a quarter-past four. Miss Stainer had
said she was going to see Mrs. Fairford, and I
was surprised that she didn’t get back till eight
o’clock had struck. She came down to dinner
after Mrs. Tempest and I had finished our soup,
and just as she was rising from her chair Jenkinson
entered the dining-room to say that Mr. Winder-
mere wanted to speak to her.
“A few minutes after she had gone to him,”
Lucilla continued, “I heard her leave the house.
It must have been quite half-past ten when she
returned. I didn’t see her again that Monday
night, though I know she sat up rather late in
Mrs. Tempest’s room. I had a sort of feeling
that something extraordinary was going on, but
we all met as usual on 'guesday morning at the
“SUPPOSE,” said Lucilla, returning to


THE" SILVER BAG 159
breakfast table, and it must have been at a little
past eleven that Miss Stainer asked me to go to
her bedroom.”
“ Had Mrs. Windermere been here that morn-
ing ? ” asked Valentine.
“ Oh dear no. It would have been remarkable
if she had—before eleven.”
“ I suppose she could scarcely have come with-
out your knowing,” he persisted.
“ It would have been utterly impossible.”
“ She might have rung Miss Stainer up on the
telephone,” suggested Valentine.
“ She did nothing of the kind,” was the answer.
“I was constantly in and out of the room where
it stands. Besides, the bell can be heard all over
the house.”
“ Then you are certain there was no com-
munication between Mrs. Windermere and any-
body here that morning?”
“ Absolutely certain,” said Lucilla. “ Miss
Stainer locked the door as soon as we were inside
her room. You must understand that I had seen
a great deal of Mr. Chalmers since Christmas.”
“ Not before?” asked Valentine.
“ Though I had lived here three months,” said
Lucilla, “I had never seen his face until about
the middle of December. He seemed to appear
on the scene quite suddenly, but after I got back


160 THE SILVER BAG
from Bournemouth he came almost every day.
Of course,” Lucilla continued, “Miss Stainer
almost took my breath away. I was never more
astonished than when she told me to go to
Parliament Court directly after lunch and see Mr.
Chalmers.
“One thing is certain,” suggested Valentine.
“ Oh, everything!” murmured Lucilla.
“ Anyhow, Miss Stainer could not have known
about Mrs. Chalmers’s telegram ! ”
“I can’t say what she knew,” exclaimed
Lucilla.
“ But if she had been present when the wire
arrived, what would have been the use of asking
to see Chalmers on Tuesday?”
“All I can do,” returned Lucilla, after a
momentary pause, “is to repeat what she told
me. I was to go to the flat, to see Mr.
Chalmers, and ask for a silver bag which had
been left there. I rang ever so many times,”
she explained, “without getting an answer, and
on my way out I asked the hall porter what time
Mr. Chalmers was likely to be home. I heard,
of course, that he had gone away for good the
previous evening, but that you were expected
back from Paris some time on Wednesday.”
“What,” demanded Valentine, “did Miss
Stainer say when you told her that?”


THE SILVER BAG 161
“At first she seemed quite unable to say any-
thing. She looked most frightfully upset. but I
had no fresh instructions till late on Tuesday
night. Then she asked me to go again before
lunch the next morning and see you. No one
could have been more mysterious. She impressed
upon me the importance of keeping you in
ignorance, not only of her own name and address
but of mine. Not a word was to be said to give
you the faintest clue to the owner of the bag.
Of course,” Lucilla continued, “she really made
an immense mistake there. The fact is, she was
far too nervous and anxious to realize what she
was doing. If I had given you my name, you
would never have grown suspicious and all this
bother would have been avoided.”
“No,” said Valentine, “I don’t see that it
would have made an atom of difference. The
crux was our second meeting. If Windermere
had not seen you with me that afternoon outside
the Underground Station, and asked who you
were, he would never have heard a word about
the silver bag. Consequently, he couldn’t have
jumped to the conclusion about his wife.”
“He,couldn’t have made a more deplorable
blunder,” cried Lucilla.
“So I gathered from Miss Stainer,” said
Valentine.
II


162 THE SILVER BAG
“Ah, but I can give Mr. Windermere positive
proof,” was the reply. “Of course, I recognized
the bag the moment you brought it into your
sitting-room.”
“Do you mean you recognized it as Miss
Stainer’s property?” demanded Valentine, with
a start. ,
“I had seen it often enough,” said Lucilla.
f‘ It wasn’t very easy to make a mistake.”
“ Then,” urged Valentine, “it is actually here-—
in this house now?”
“Goodness knows! What does it matter?
I have not seen the thing since I gave it back
to Miss Stainer on Wednesday evening. No
woman could have looked more relieved.”
“You have no doubt,” suggested Valentine,
“that it was she who brought it to Parliament
Court ? ”
“Have you?” cried Lucilla, with a lift of
her black eyebrows.
“Why in the world,” muttered Valentine,
“should she want to go to the flat, as Chalmers
was in the habit of coming here so often?”
“ They could never count on seeing one another
alone in this house,” said Lucilla, with a shrug.
“Mrs. Tempest and I were always in and out,
you know.”
“You are insinuating,” returned Valentine


CHAPTER XXII
V ALE N TI N E’S face wore a portentously
solemn expression as he walked away
from Champion Place. Before he had
gone very far he discovered that he had taken
the wrong turning, and, when he had retraced his
steps to the right street, he kept his eyes fixed
so persistently on the ground that more than
once he narrowly escaped being run over.
On reaching Parliament Court he went up in
the lift without a word for the boy, who regarded
him as a crony. Letting himself into his flat, he
flung his hat on one chair and himself into
another, taking out his pipe and slowly filling it.
He put it into his mouth without striking a match,
however, and a few minutes later was on his legs
again, out in the corridor, and on the way to
Charing Cross Station.
Less than an hour and a half after he left
Lucilla Knowles in Champion Place, Valentine
was walking restlessly to and fro in the drawing-
room at Sycamore Road, excitedly pouring his
troubles into Sibylla’s sygnpathetic ears.
‘ 4


THE SILVER BAG I65
“I followed your advice,” he exclaimed. “I
pumped Lucilla about Christmas, and upon my
soul I wish I hadn’t.”
“Surely,” urged Sibylla, “it is as well to know
the truth, whatever it may be.”
“I’m not certain,” said Valentine. “I know
it’s true that Evelyn isn’t capable of the least
undesirable action. I am prepared to stake my
life on that. If anything appears to conflict with
that—well, I would sooner not hear it.”
“Did Miss Knowles tell you that Miss Stainer
was away on the thirty-first of December ? ” asked
Sibylla.
“ She was alone in the house with the servants,”
said Valentine. “ Lucilla went away for ten days
on the twenty-ninth. Mrs. Tempest was to leave
for Warwickshire the following day. Then
Evelyn was free to do as she pleased, to go
where she pleased, without anybody’s know-
ledge.”
“Val,” cried Sibylla, “you believe she sent
Lucilla away with a definite object!”
“ Good gracious! ” he exclaimed. “ Don’t you
see that’s just what I would do anything rather
than believe? Why should I? Why is it
necessary to imagine that Evelyn was not at
Champion Place all the time?”
" Still,” Sibylla insisted, “ there’s really nothing


166 THE SILVER BAG
to make it difficult to think she was married
at Colbourne ”
“ Nothing! ” shouted Valentine. “ Good Lord !
There’s everything.”
He wished it were not necessary to tell Sibylla
what he had heard from Lucilla about the owner-
ship of the silver bag, but whatever the con-
sequence might be he could not keep the know-
ledge to himself. She listened very attentively
while he explained that Lucilla had identified
Evelyn’s property, and then she came to his side,
taking his arm and bringing him to a standstill
in the middle of the room.
“My dear Val,” she said, “ you must
admit that the situation is really very com-
promising for Miss Stainer unless she is
Derrick’s wife. Of course that would explain
everything.”
“It wouldn’t explain the reason for secrecy,”
answered Valentine. ' “Upon my word,” he
added, “ you will drive me Out of my senses.”
“At least,” suggested Sibylla, “you will be
able to restore poor Lionel to his.”
Windermere’s interests had, in fact, been for-
gotten; but a few minutes after this reminder
Valentine went to the telephone and rang up the
house in Constable Street. Hearing that Lionel
was not at home, he left a message with the


THE SILVER BAG I67
butler, asking him to lose no time in coming to
Parliament Court.
On his arrival, Valentine made a strenuous
effort to put the last shadow of suspicion out of
Windermere’s mind.
“You’re bound to confess,” he recapitulated,
“ that you have been on the wrong scent from the
outset. Lucilla is prepared to swear there was
no communication between Champion Place and
your house that Tuesday morning. Even if there
had been it would scarcely matter, as she recog-
nized the silver bag as Miss Stainer’s property.”
“Why in the world didn’t the girl say so
before?” demanded Lionel.
“Simply for the reason that she had no idea
of what was passing in your mind. As soon as
she learnt that you suspected Margaret, she
determined to own up.”
“Anyhow,” said Lionel, “there must still be
something in the background.”
“The facts we’ve arrived at are quite enough,”
Valentine insisted. “ Either Margaret is absolved,
as Miss Stainer said she would be, or Lucilla is
lying. Why should she lie? What conceivable
motive could the girl have ? ”
“ Upon my soul, I begin to think you’re right,”
answered Lionel. “You must be right. I
suppose I’ve been making a confounded idiot of


168 THE SILVER BAG
myself. I shan't have a moment’s happiness till
I’ve owned up to Margaret and asked her to
forgive me.”
“I shouldn’t do that if I were you,” exclaimed
Valentine.
“My dear fellow,” said Lionel, “you don’t
understand. For weeks I’ve met my wife day
after day with this wretched thing between us.
Now, thank Heaven, it exists no longer. I want
to start afresh, and how can I do that without
making a clean breast P ”
“You feel pretty certain she doesn’t suspect
what has been tormenting you?” suggested
Valentine.
“ I’m absolutely certain
“Then, upon my word,” said Valentine, “ it
seems a pity to upset her mind. I should
imagine that, the moment you admit you were
capable of thinking she was on the brink of an
elopement with Derrick, the fat would be in
the fire. For goodness’ sake,” added Valentine,
“let sleeping dogs lie.”
N


THE SILVER BAG 171
really couldn’t resist coming to ask whether you
have seen Mr. Windermere.”
They were walking slowly towards the City,
and on their left the tram-cars were sweeping by
in close succession. On their right a number of
barges were carried down seawards on the ebb-
tide. Somerset House stood a little way ahead,
and the dome of St. Paul’s seemed to rise from
the central arches of Waterloo Bridge. Valentine
always thought it was one of the most impressive
views in London.
“ I saw him last night,” he answered. “I fancy
he is satisfied at last, though he still insists that
there’s something in the background.”
“About Miss Stainer?” cried Lucilla. “Oh,
that is quite likely.”
“Ah, now, I don’t care to hear you speak of
her in that tone,” was the answer. “You would
never have done so a week or two ago. What
has happened since? Then, you remember, she
was your Good Fairy. Nobody who knows her
can imagine she has the least little thing to be
ashamed of.”
“Anvhow,” retorted Lucilla, “she can’t have
a great deal to be proud of.”
“How in the world,” demanded Valentine,
“ can you bring yourself to put a—qa disgraceful
interpretation on her visit to the flat ? ”


172 THE SILVER BAG
Lucilla hesitated for a moment, and Valentine,
feeling he had almost reached the end of his
tether, turned to retrace his steps towards the
west.
“I should like to know how you can explain
it?” she murmured.
Not for the first time he fancied she was eyeing
him askance.
“It is possible,” he suggested, “that my infor-
mation is rather more complete than yours. You
don’t know that Derrick Chalmers is by way of
being a married man, for instance.”
Lucilla, in her obvious astonishment, came
almost to a standstill in the middle of the
pavement.
“ Mr. Chalmers—married ! ” she exclaimed.
As she walked on again, rather more quickly
than before, Valentine, finding it distressing to
keep up with her, explained what Wentworth
had told Sibylla. Lucilla, however, still looked
incredulous.
“It isn’t conceivable,” she protested, “that
Mr. Chalmers could be married without Miss
Stainer’s knowledge.”
“Perhaps,” said Valentine, “that condition is
fulfilled.”
“I believe you are suggesting,” cried Lucilla,
“ that she is actually his wife! ”


THE SILVER BAG I73
“Anyhow,” he urged, “you must see that in
this case her visit to Parliament Court would be
satisfactorily explained.”
Valentine had the impression that Lucilla’s
feelings were too deep for words. Although
he could not understand why she should take the
announcement of Derrick’s marriage so much to
heart, it seemed evident that she was reluctant
to discuss the subject, and when she stopped to
bid him good-bye, on drawing level with the
Underground Station, he began to wish that he
had not enlightened her.
Although he had felt extremely anxious to
answer her insinuations against Evelyn’s fair
fame, it is possible that Valentine might have
kept his own counsel if he had been quite him-
self. On reaching his flat, however, he wellnigh
collapsed, and the following morning only left
his bed to telephone to Sibylla. The first thing
she did, on entering his bedroom, was to take a
clinical thermometer from her bag and insert it
between his lips; and ten minutes later she was
ringing up Mrs. Brook’s doctor. Arriving just
before one o’clock, he diagnosed influenza, and
during the next three or four days Valentine did
not leave his room. Although Sibylla returned
to Sycamore Road every evening, she spent
several hours every day by her brother’s side,


THE SILVER BAG ' 175
since he was here. He wasn't able to leave
Eastbourne even for a few hours.”
“Or, naturally,” suggested Valentine, “he
would not lose a chance of coming to see you
again!”
“ What do you mean?” cried Evelyn. “ How
supremely ridiculous! Anyone would imagine
you had some kind of objection to his coming.”
“Not at all,” said Valentine, with the un-
comfortable sensation that he was making rather
a fool of himself, yet finding it extremely difficult,
now they were face to face, to put the point-blank
question. “It’s precisely what I should expect,”
he added.
“Well, so should I,” returned Evelyn, with a
laugh. “But I really don’t understand you to-
day. Suppose you tell me the latest news of
Mr. Windermerel”
“ At last,” said Valentine, and notwithstanding
his eagerness for enlightenment he felt almost
thankful for a respite, “ I’ve actually persuaded
him to go away.”
“To join Margaret?” asked Evelyn. “She
is staying with the Willoughbys, a few miles from
dear old Chesterborough, you know.”
“ He talked of Brighton,” was the answer.
“Of course, I know it’s quite the ordinary
thing,” murmured Evelyn, “but what a pity that


176 THE SILVER BAG
he should go in one direction and his wife in
another!”
“Anyhow, he looked a bit more cheerful before
he started,” suggested Valentine.
“Was that due to you P ” asked Evelyn.
As he sat watching her a few yards away, it
seemed impossible to regard her as Derrick’s
wife, while yet there remained the visit to
Parliament Court to be accounted for. Still, at
the moment, it appeared as if the strongest
evidence in the world would be unconvincing,
just as life would scarcely be worth living unless
she were destined for himself. However, he
would know the truth before he bade her good-
bye this afternoon.
“ I suppose it was,” he admitted.
“I should love to hear how you accomplished
it,” she urged.
“ Upon my word,” said Valentine, “I believe
I actually convinced the fellow at last that
Margaret has never been inside my flat.”
“Yes,” Evelyn insisted peremptorily, “but
how P ”
Before there was time to explain, the door
opened and Mrs. Windermere was announced,
Lucilla and Mrs. Tempest following her into the
room. As Valentine took Margaret’s hand, he
noticed that she was carrying a gold chain bag.


THE SILVER BAG 177
He was forming a habit of observing such things,
and this no doubt was Lionel’s subterfuge.
“This is an immense surprise!” exclaimed
Evelyn. “I was just telling Mr. Brook you
were staying with the Willoughbys.”
“So I was till yesterday morning,” said
Margaret. “And I’m off to Torquay to the
Mansfields’ to-morrow. I didn’t intend to come
to London, only I felt bound to have a peep at
jimmy.”
“How is Mr. Windermere?” asked Henrietta.
“ Not up to much, unless he has improved since
I saw him,” was the answer. “ Provoking person !
A week ago he protested that wild horses
shouldn’t drag him away. Now he is off to
Brighton, and I have just missed him. I had my
photograph taken at Chesterborough, at Garside’s
—you remember Garside’s, Evelyn,” Margaret
added, opening her bag and taking out an
envelope. “I got the proofs an hour before
I left.”
“Rather a decent bag,” Valentine could not
help remarking, as she handed the proofs to Mrs.
Tempest.
“I have never gone in for a metal bag,” said
Evelyn. “ I hate everything hard and unyielding
—from stools of repentance to human beings. I
love everything near me to be resilient.”
12


178 THE SILVER BAG
Valentine knitted his brows as he looked at
Lucilla. Her back was turned towards him, but
almost as if she could feel the effect of his gaze
she faced about, meeting his eye with a rather
sickly smile. When the proofs had been handed
round and admired, Margaret said she must be
going, and experience prevented Valentine from
being surprised to see Henrietta follow the visitor
out of the room. As he was closing the door
after her, Evelyn suddenly exclaimed, “Oh!” as
if she had forgotten something very important.
Now the opportunity of bringing her to book
to-day had gone, and Valentine found himself
alone with Lucilla.
“You must have heard what Miss Stainer
said,” he exclaimed, turning swiftly to con-
front her.
“I wasn’t particularly listening,” murmured
Lucilla, a little nervously.
“About metal bags in general,” Valentine
persisted.
“What—what was it?” asked Lucilla.
“That she had a dislike for such things, that
a she had never gone in for one.”
“Oh, very likely!” cried Lucilla.
“But you,” he returned, “told me that she
actually had one, that she brought it to Parliament
Court.”


THE SILVER BAG 179
“ I told the simple truth,” said Lucilla.
“ You imply that Miss Stainer didn’t!”
“ Naturally, she was trying to hide her tracks,”
Lucilla exclaimed. “It would be ridiculous to
blame her for that. You know,” she continued,
“ you quite took my breath away the last time we
met—how long ago it seems l—but since then I
seem to recollect a score of little things, quite
unimportant in themselves, but with a sort of
cumulative effect, you understand.”
“Then you are inclined to think that
Miss Stainer ought, in fact, to be called Mrs.
Chalmers?”
“ Aren’t you ?” demanded Lucilla.
But Valentine left the room without attempting
to explain what he was inclined to think, and
for that matter, perhaps, he scarcely knew. He
made up his mind, however, to return to the
attack.
The following 'day he would doubtless have
gone to Champion Place if the doctor had not
come to Parliament Court during the morning.
The result of yesterday’s expedition was pro-
nounced not to have been quite satisfactory, and
the patient must be contented to spend another
day or two indoors, especially while the present
cold wind continued.
There seemed to be no help for it, and two


CHAPTER XXIV
afternoon. Valentine stood at his sitting
room- window looking down at the river,
and waiting for the time to set out, when the bell
rang, and, on going to open the door, he found
one of the pages waiting to say that a “young
lady” wished to see him downstairs.
“ Did she give her name?” asked Valentine.
“ N o, sir,” answered the boy.
“ Why didn’t you bring her up?”
“ ’Cause she wouldn’t come, sir.”
“Where is she ? ”
“ In the drawing-room,” said the page.
Valentine thought that he ought to spare a few
minutes.
“ All right, I’ll be there directly,” he answered,
the message at once driving his thoughts un-
willingly to Lucilla. Save his sister, she was the
only conceivable visitor, but then she would
probably have shown no reluctance to come up
in the lift.
Going to the adjoiniqg room, he spent a few
IT was a dry, but dull, cold, tempestuous


THE SILVER BAG 183
a visitation myself. Even now I’m here I can
scarcely realize my surroundings, but when the
mountain would not come to Mahomet, Mahomet
went to the mountain, you know. I hope you
are feeling better,” she added.
“Oh yes, thanks, though I have been kept
indoors since I saw you last. I was coming this
afternoon,” he said. “ Now, you will let me give
you some tea.”
“Indeed, I won’t,” she insisted. “This is
strictly a business visit—”
“Still, you know, you can’t prevent it from
being an immense pleasure too. As far as I am
concerned, anyhow.”
“As it is private business,” she said, “please
find some nice quiet place where we can talk.”
“I wonder,” cried Valentine, “ whether you
would care to come up to my flat ? ”
“ No, I shouldn’t,” was the prompt reply.
There was an archway which converted what
had been originally two rooms into one, and,
taking her through this, he found a couple of
empty chairs near one of the windows. Sitting
upright in his, Valentine beamed at his guest,
who, he felt certain, could not have come on
any trivial errand.
“The last time you were at Champion Place,”
she said, lowering her eyes under his ardent gaze,


184 THE SILVER BAG
“you told me you had succeeded in convincing
Mr. Windermere that Margaret had never entered
this building.”
“Why, yes, I think I satisfied his mind—for
the time, at all events,” answered Valentine.
“But, of course, it’s impossible to tell how soon
he’ll change it again. The poor beggar’s in the
mood for that sort of thing.”
“But,” urged Evelyn, “you had given him a
similar assurance before.”
Not wishing to be overheard, she lowered her
voice, and Valentine, eager not to lose a word,
leaned forward, bringing his head close to her
own. This propinquity had the effect of making
it difficult to concentrate his thoughts on the
matter in hand, because even Margaret’s affairs
paled into insignificance in comparison with his
desire to arrive at the truth about Evelyn and
Derrick. There should be no mistake about it
this time.
A curling tress had escaped beneath the closely
fitting fur hat, standing out just beyond the tip of
her rosy ear. He could not help thinking how
much he should like to put it back, although at
the same time he admired it exactly where it
was.
“Yes—oh yes, any number of times,” he
answered.


THE SILVER BAG I85
“Mr. Windermere refused to take your word
on those previous occasions?” said Evelyn.
“ I beg your pardon—yes, he did.”
“Mr. Brook!” exclaimed Evelyn. “You are
not listening! ”
“ Upon my word,” he answered, “ I heard every
syllable ”
“Well, then, perhaps you will be kind enough
to tell me why Mr. Windermere believed you at
last after disbelieving you in the first place? ”
“I suppose I must have been in a more
persuasive mood,” suggested Valentine.
“You certainly seem to be in a prevaricating
mood this afternoon,” she retorted. “But I
imagine that hitherto you had very little faith in
your own statement.”
“There may be something in that, you know,”
he admitted, thinking that he had never seen
anything in the world more beautifully blue than
her eyes.
“But,” she continued, “for some mysterious
reason you were able to speak with greater
conviction.”
“ Why, yes, I suppose I was.”
“So that something must have happened to
change your mind,” Evelyn insisted.
“ They say that second thoughts are often the
best,” he returned.


THE SILVER BAG 187
seeing that you took elaborate precautions to
keep me in the dark———”
“Still, you flatter yourself you can see daylight
at last!” she answered. “ You think I may be
annoyed in consequence.”
“ You see, the most innocent person dislikes to
be found out,” said Valentine.
“Found out! That sounds as if I were not
quite innocent. So you require an indemnity?”
she asked, with a smile, which prevented him
from thinking of anything else at the moment.
“What form do you imagine my displeasure
would be likely to assume ? ” she added.
“I can tell you the worst,” he returned, lean-
ing eagerly towards her. “You might hide the
light of your countenance.”
“Oh well, I dare say I can promise not to do
that,” she whispered.
“ At first,” Valentine explained, “ I was inclined
to agree with Lionel that it was Margaret who
came to see Derrick; that she would really have
gone away with him if it had not been for Mrs.
Chalmers’s telegram.”
Evelyn was leaning back in her chair watching
Valentine intently, but now she broke into a quiet
and rather scornful laugh.
“How very, very little you understand your
friend l” she murmured.


THE SILVER BAG 189
Evelyn continued, “I should rather like to learn
what you thought the day before yesterday when
I told you I had never gone in for a metal
bag.”
“Oh well,” murmured Valentine, “I remem—
bered your approval of my own tergiversation
where Lionel Windermere was concerned.”
“Yes, but your deception was for somebody
else’s benefit,” she remonstrated. “ Mine would
have been to serve my own ends. Don’t you
think that makes a considerable difference?”
She was silent again for a moment or two,
then she added: “You can’t have forgotten
where the bag was found!”
“ It was I who found it, you know.”
“ On—on your shaving-table,” she said.
“I have not forgotten anything,” was the
answer.
“ Then it seems to follow,” she gravely insisted,
“ that you believe I put it there.”
He began to think he had been judicious to ask
for an indemnity. It was true that she looked
sorrowful rather than angry, more sorrowful than
he had ever seen her before. He realized that
he had made an unpleasant insinuation, whereas,
from the outset, the first article of his creed was
her complete inviolability.
Evelyn, however, seemed determined to spare


THE SILVER BAG 191
together,” Valentine admitted. “You see, so
many things would be accounted for.”
“ Such as what?” she demanded.
“Oh well, for one, the presence of the silver
bag on the shaving-table, you know,” said
Valentine, with an uneasy feeling that he was
beginning to flounder.
“My silver bag?” she exclaimed, with her
head slightly on one side and her eyebrows
raised.
“ Yes,” said Valentine, and thinking to turn the
matter off as a jest, although he had never felt
more serious in his life, he forced a smile.
“Then, pray,” she asked, “who, do you
imagine, is Mrs. Derrick Chalmers?”
Leaning back in his chair, he changed his
smile into an even more mirthless laugh.
“ Thou art the woman!” he said.
The same instant she was on her feet. Turn-
ing her back, without a word, she crossed the
thickly carpeted floor, pushed the door violently
open and hastened along the corridor without
appearing to be aware that Valentine was
following. Through the hall she hastened,
quickening her pace as he drew level; she
crossed the threshold without vouchsafing him
a glance, and made for the taxi—cab which she
had kept in waiting.


194 THE SILVER BAG
pretty strong reason for wishing to keep her own
counsel. Upon my soul,” he cried, flinging him-
self into the nearest chair, which creaked under
the impetus, “I don’t know what in the world to
think. One minute I incline one way, the next
the other.”
“ If Derrick were married to anyone else,” said
Sibylla, “surely it would be more improbable
than ever that Miss Stainer should have paid
him a visit.”
“I don’t care whether she paid him a visit or
not,” was the excited answer. “ I can swear that
whatever she did was just right. All I want to
know is whether or not she’s married. If she’s
not Derrick’s wife, I declare she shall be mine
before I’ve done. If she is—well, it doesn’t
much matter what’s going to happen.”
“Val,” said Sibylla, going to his side and
resting a hand on his shoulder, “when you talk
in that reckless way you make me feel rather
afraid ”
“ Good Lord ! What is there to be afraid of? ”
he demanded.
“Of that—that other woman!” returned
Sibylla.
“ Do you mean Lucilla?”
“ Yes,” said Sibylla.
“Poor little beggar!” he cried. “I’m half


THE SILVER BAG 195
afraid I may have got her into a scrape. Evelyn
is bound to guess who gave her away. If Lucilla
has to leave Champion Place I shan’t easily
forgive myself.”
“Suppose,” suggested Sibylla abruptly, “that
she has not been telling the truth ! Miss Stainer
declares she has never possessed a silver bag.
Miss Knowles insists that she has. A case of
one woman’s word against another’s. When I
come to think of it,” said Sibylla, “it seems strange
that you should hesitate which to believe.”
“I shouldn’t hesitate for a moment,” he ex-
postulated, “but the one has an axe to grind
and the other hasn’t.”
“Aren’t you arguing in a circle?” exclaimed
Sibylla. “If Miss Stainer was never inside
Parliament Court till this afternoon, she really
has not an axe to grind, you know.”
“What in the world,” he demanded, “would
Lucilla have to gain by telling a deliberate lie?”
“ To gain!” retorted Sibylla. “A husband,
perhaps.”
“By bearing false witness against Evelyn,”
said Valentine.
“If she had not thrown herself in your way,”
Sibylla insisted, “you would never have seen
her a second time. What she said about wishing
to go on the stage was probably a subterfuge—


196 THE SILVER BAG
an excuse for meeting you again. I dare say she
thought you were the sort of man whom a clever
woman could twist round her little finger. I’m
not sure she wasn’t right. She had reason to
believe she was meeting with a measure of
success.”
“ Not a bit of it,” returned Valentine. “ I've
never for an instant dreamed of marrying her.”
“Remember,” Sibylla continued, with quite
unusual insistence, “that Miss Knowles was not
in a position to understand your actual reason for
accepting Mrs. Tempest’s invitation. Most likely
she flattered herself she was succeeding until she
began to feel jealous.”
“Good Lord! ” cried Valentine.
“In order to prejudice you against Miss
Stainer, she may have pretended to identify the
silver bag,” said Sibylla.
But Valentine slowly shook his head.
“I don’t think you’re quite fair, you know,”
he returned, and then he hesitated. “It makes
one look rather a fool to say so,” he added. “A
bit of a coxcomb too. But I suppose after all
it’s just possible—--”
“ Possible,” said Sibylla, “that she fell in love
with you that first evening at the flat and
determined to follow you up.”
“Oh well,” suggested Valentine, “I don't see


THE SILVER BAG 197
the necessity to suppose that she only had her
eye on the main chance, you know. According
to you the girl’s a sort of adventuress. Upon
my word, I almost wish you were right.”
Both Evelyn and Mrs. Tempest had again and
again insisted that Lucilla was sincerely fond of
him, insinuating even that he had gone out of
his way to bring about this state of affairs. At
least, he had not been always perfectly judicious,
as witness that Sunday when he had tried to
comfort her at the flat. Although Valentine stood
in little danger of repeating the experience, the
conviction that Lucilla was pining for him no
doubt made him inclined to think of her a little
sentimentally at odd moments, and it may be that
he still felt agreeably flattered by her regard.
“ If I’m wrong,” Sibylla persisted, “it follows
that Miss Stainer was merely romancing when she
told you she had never possessed a metal bag.”
“I don’t blame her for that,” said Valentine
stoutly. “She may have the most excellent
reason.”
“ Well, the only one I can imagine,” returned
Sibylla, “is that she was married to Derrick on
the thirty-first of December by Mr. Wentworth
down in Surrey.”
Leaving Sycamore Road in an unenviable state
of mind, Valentine walked all the way back to


198 THE SILVER BAG
Parliament Court, stopping in Oxford Street to
get some dinner at a restaurant. He had not
been long at home and had lighted a pipe, after-
wards trying rather vainly to fix his attention on
a magazine article, when Lionel Windermere
arrived.
“By Jove! ” exclaimed Valentine, letting him
into the passage. “ You haven’t stayed long at
Brighton! ”
“It wasn't a scrap of good, Val!” said Lionel,
entering the sitting-room. “I simply couldn’t
stick it another day. I was a nuisance to myself
and everybody else. So I turned it up on the
spur of the moment and came home.”
“ Have you seen Margaret? ” asked Valentine.
“I just managed to miss her,” was the reply.
“She has gone to Torquay. On the whole, I
can’t pretend to be very sorry.”
“Good gracious! What a changeable fellow
you are!” cried Valentine. “The last time you
were here you were determined to own up and
declare everlasting peace.”
“ Peace!” answered Lionel, with a groan.
" Sometimes I feel I shall never know a moment’s
peace again as long as I live. How can I tell
that I’m not being fooled ? ”
“By me, do you mean?” asked Valentine.
“By the lot .of you! I want to get at the


THE SILVER BAG 199
facts. I don’t believe I’ve done that yet. You
say that it was Evelyn Stainer who came here
that Monday, but where’s your evidence? Why
did she come? What earthly motive could she
have? Tell me that, and I may be able to
believe you.”
Valentine began to hesitate. He had not
intended to say a word about what to himself
was the most important subject in the world.
But, in the first place, he was extremely anxious
to allay Lionel’s suspicions, which he felt con-
vinced, more firmly than ever, were entirely
without justification. In the second place,
Valentine began to think that he should like to
hear how the suggestion of Evelyn’s marriage
appealed to another mind. After a short silence,
accordingly, he told Windermere all that he had
heard from Wentworth through Sibylla, and
before he had finished Lionel was sitting very
erect on one of the easy chairs, gazing up into
Valentine’s face in ludicrous astonishment.
“ But, my dear Val,” he said at last, “you’ve
found a mare’s nest. As it happens, I saw
Evelyn on the afternoon of New Year’s Day.
She came to Constable Street—a Stock Exchange
holiday, you know, and I was at home. She
brought a New Year’s present for the youngster.”
“After all,” cried Valentine, “that wouldn’t


200 THE SILVER BAG
have prevented her from being married the
morning before. She might have been back
in Champion Place by the first of january.”
“Not much of a honeymoon,” returned Lionel.
“And why the dickens, if she had become
Chalmers’s wife, should she go back there at all?
Why should he part from her within a few hours
of the wedding day? No, that theory won’t hold
water, Val. About the most unlikely I ever
heard. There’s only one way to satisfy my
mind.”
“ What’s that P” demanded Valentine.
“ As I told you before, I’ve got to see Evelyn.
Whenever I hint at it, you seem anxious to put
me off. But now I’m going to have my own
way, whether you like it or not. How do I
know that she and your friend Miss Knowles
haven’t put their heads together to humbug us
both? I intend to have it out,” Lionel insisted.
“Of course, you’re just the sort of chap to be
duped by a woman, but they won’t find it quite
so easy to swindle me. I didn’t want to show
my face at Champion Place, but I can’t go on
in this way, and that’s really why I’ve come
back so soon.”


202 THE SILVER BAG
first thought was that there had been a quarrel
at Champion Place, though he hoped, very
ardently, that Lucilla had not come this morning
to drag him into it.
Here she was, however, and it seemed necessary
to rise and offer his hand with some show of
welcome. When he invited her to sit down, she
breathed a deep sigh as she sank wearily, it
appeared, into the nearest chair, looking up at
him quite pathetically. Never had her dark
eyes been more eloquent.
“ Mr. Brook,” she began, “I know I oughtn’t
to have come as well as you do. But you—
you have always been so good to me that I
couldn’t keep away. I feel so utterly wretched,
and—and there seemed no one else to turn to.”
Standing on the hearth-rug, Valentine listened
with a misgiving which might have been con-
siderably less if it were not for Sibylla’s warning.
It was rather alarming to think, as his sister
suggested, that Lucilla might be deliberately
trying to twist him round her little finger. But
if Sibylla’s suggestion made him feel extremely
uncomfortable on the one hand, it also tended
to make him a little more sympathetic on the
other. He hated to do any woman an injustice !
Moreover, it was really hard on the girl, grant-
ing her sincerity, that in this emergency, as yet


204 THE SILVER BAG
she came home yesterday afternoon,” Lucilla
continued, “she asked for me. She ran upstairs
straight to my room; then she simply flew at
me. She vowed she would never forgive me.”
“For what?” demanded Valentine. “What
had you done P”
“I had only told the truth. I had hesitated
and hesitated before I spoke. If I hadn't felt so
unhappy about the Windermeres I should never
have admitted it was Miss Stainer who left the
silver bag on your shaving-table. But she
wouldn’t listen to a word of excuse. She was
far too angry. She insisted she would never
speak to me again, and I don’t believe she will.
She even left it to Mrs. Tempest to say I was
to leave the house this morning.”
Seeing Lucilla’s lower lip begin ominously to
tremble, Valentine took two or three turns about
the room, casting apprehensive glances in her
direction. Although he was a good deal con-
cerned by the embarrassment of his own position,
it was impossible not to feel a certain amount of
sympathy as she sat there clasping and unclasping
her hands. It seemed a little autocratic to send
her away at a few hours’ notice!
“ I packed my trunks before I went to bed last
night,” she explained, after a short silence, “and
they sent for a taxi soon after breakfast this


THE SILVER BAG 205
morning. I was sent up to my own room just
as if I were a child in disgrace. I didn’t know
what to do or where to go. I changed my mind
goodness knows how many times, and at last I
told the man to drive me here in desperation.”
The appalling suspicion occurred to Valentine
that she looked as if she intended to stay. She
was in fact, at the present moment, taking off her
gloves, while any attempt to hurry her off the
premises would seem like hitting her when she
was down.
“Why in the world,” he demanded, feeling
rather brutal, “didn’t you go to your aunt at
Clapham Common ? ”
“Because it would be only waste of time,” was
the answer. “She would simply refuse to take
me in.”
“I thought you told me that her door was to
be always open to you ! ”
“Ah yes,” said Lucilla, “but that was weeks
and weeks ago. Ever so many things have
happened since,” she added, with a sigh. “Aunt
Hannah is all right, like so many other people,
if you let her have her own way. But she can’t
bear to be contradicted or proved in the wrong.
She expected I should repent having left her to
go to Champion Place—”
“She appears to have been wise in her genera-


206 THE SILVER BAG
tion,” suggested Valentine. “I suppose you do
repent.”
Again he saw her lower lip tremble, as she
looked up more reproachfully into his face.
“If I had never gone there,” she murmured,
“how should I ever have found my way here?
I couldn’t help it. I was sent. I had no choice.
I positively hated the errand. How, in my
position, was I to refuse? Aunt Hannah thought
I should go back almost at once and confess I
had been mistaken in going away. Then the
old, ghastly life would have begun again. When
she learnt that I was really happy and contented,
as I was before—before I knew you—”
“Oh, I say!” cried Valentine. “Isn’t that
putting it rather too strongly?”
Lucilla leaned forward in her chair, resting
her elbow on her knee and her chin on her
hand.
“Oh well,” she continued, “though I’ve some-
times wondered, I suppose that really, at bottom,
it must have been principally my own fault. I
ought never to have trusted you.”
“Trusted me!” said Valentine, feeling more
uncomfortable every moment.
“ I thought I might,” she persisted. “ Somehow
you looked as if you could be trusted. I had
known very few men. When you—when you-—


THE SILVER BAG 207
treated me as you did that Sunday evening, the
last time I was here, how was I to imagine you
were serving me as if I were some—some common
woman you had picked up in the street ! ”
“ Upon my soul,” cried Valentine, with his face
aglow, “ I don’t think that’s quite fair, you know."
“Oh, I wouldn’t be unfair for the world,” she
answered. “When I came this morning I didn’t
mean to utter a single reproachful word.”
“ As you thought so wretchedly of me,” urged
Valentine, “I wonder that you did come.”
“So do I l ” she exclaimed, starting to her feet.
“ But then I’ve never pretended to be consistent.
I’ve always tried to hope—-—-”
“ To hope ? ” muttered Valentine.
“ Yes, I’ve always tried to hope, in spite of
anything Mrs. Tempest could say about men and
the way they treat girls like me. She was right
after all! She always insisted that you were
only thinking of your own amusement. I couldn’t
believe it, after that Sunday evening here. Even
when you began to treat me so differently after-
wards at Champion Place, I tried to think every—
thing would come right in the end. On being
turned out of the house this morning I felt
entirely helpless. When my father died, I went
straight from Brighton to Clapham. I have
never been quite on my own before. If you


208 THE SILVER BAG
turn your back on me as the others have done,
I don’t know what will become of me. I don’t
care.”
Taking a few square inches of cambric from
the leather bag which she carried, she applied it
to her eyes, while Valentine, telling himself that
whether Sibylla’s theory were right or wrong he
was in a very delicate situation, knitted his brows
and tried to find a solution to the problem. It
seemed to become even more intricate when,
drawing closer, she rested a hand on his sleeve.
“Val dear,” she whispered, “please, please do
what you can to help me.” He did not fail to
notice the use, for the first time, of his Christian
name. “I will put myself absolutely in your
hands. I will do whatever you like—go wher-
ever you take me.”
The worst of it was that, when she stood close
and looked up at him in that way, he could not
help feeling lamentably self-conscious. Although
it was still perfectly true that there was only one
woman in the world for Valentine Brook, he
devoutly wished that this other were a thousand
miles away for safety.
Gently disengaging his sleeve, he walked to
his chair by the writing-table and sat down, leav-
ing her standing on the hearth-rug. It appeared
obvious, at least, that something must be done


THE SILVER BAG 211
“Yes, yes,” said Valentine. “ I’m just going
to tell the fellow where to take us.”
A moment later he was seated by her side,
and they were driven away together.
“I suppose,” cried Valentine, more cheerfully
now that his suspense was ended, “I had better
explain exactly what I am going to do.”
She edged a little nearer, so that her arm was
in touch with his own.
“I haven’t asked,” she murmured. “I wasn’t
going to. I have put myself in your hands. I
can’t help trusting you perfectly.”
“Anyhow, I am going to take you to my
sister,” said Valentine.
She drew farther away again, as if to obtain a
better view of his face. Looking into hers, he
found it impossible to tell whether she experienced
gratification or disappointment; and, for his own
part, he could not help feeling a little anxious
concerning her reception.
Sibylla had assuredly a surprise in store, and
he was about to take a, perhaps, rather shabby
advantage. She could not very well refuse to
receive a visitor, for a few days, in the house for
which he was mainly responsible. It was a case
of seeking any port in a storm.
Lucilla must, in any event, be disposed of. If
she were really as helpless as she insisted, she


21 2 THE SILVER BAG
would be safe at Sycamore Road, and if Sibylla’s
suggestions should by any chance be warranted,
why, then, Valentine perceived that he would be
safer! As, however, they were driven swiftly
along Baker Street towards St. John’s Wood, he
began to dread the impending introduction.
“What in the world,” demanded Lucilla, after
a long silence, “do you imagine Miss Brook will
say P ”
“ Anyhow,” he insisted, “ she will be delighted
to put you up and help you to find decent rooms
and that sort of thing, you know.”
“ You—you are not going to cut me altogether? ”
she urged. “You won’t turn me over to your
sister entirely P”
Now Valentine hesitated for a few moments.
He was a man who in ordinary affairs sometimes
found it difficult to say “ N o,” and this experience
struck him as extraordinary. Still, he took
himself firmly in hand; he made an immense
effort.
“To tell you the truth,” he said, “that is
exactly what I am going to do. As far as I am
concerned I don’t see how I can help you. I am
going to put you in Sibylla’s hands and ask her
to look after you as well as she can.”
Lucilla leaned back in her corner now, as the
taxi-cab turned into Wellington Road. For some


CHAPTER XXVI
SIBYLLA was astonished; very much
astonished indeed. Nurse Watson had
just finished setting her patient’s room in
order, and Mrs. Brook was lying in the middle
of a wide bed, with her head propped up by
several pillows. Sibylla, who still wore her hat,
having recently returned from her usual morning
shopping, stood by her mother’s side, explaining
that she had met Mr. Wentworth, whom, by the
by, she not infrequently saw on her way from the
butcher’s to the grocer’s, or the baker’s to the
dairyman’s.
Nurse Watson, with a checkered duster in her
hand, was looking out of the window, and if any-
thing exciting happened in the street, such as the
delivery of a telegram at one of the neighbouring
houses, or a fall off a bicycle, she would turn to
give a long account of the affair to her patient.
“ Dear me! ” she suddenly exclaimed.
“ What is it, nurse?” asked Mrs. Brook, always
interested in little things; hence, perhaps, such
:14


THE SILVER BAG 217
“Wait a minute,” Sibylla entreated. “Val,
you’re not going to leave us alone—you must stay
to lunch, anyhow.”
“ N o, no,” he answered. “ You’ll get to know
one another much better without me.”
“ But I really don’t want to get to know her! ”
“That will be quite all right,” he insisted.
“I’ll look you up sometime to-morrow and see
how you’re getting along.”
“I feel certain we shan’t get along in the
least,” said Sibylla, with a sigh.
“ Well, I’ll bring her in,” he exclaimed. “ Then
I musn’t lose a moment. Look here, Sibylla,
I’m off to Champion Place' at once. I can’t rest
till I’ve seen Evelyn, and I swear that nothing
on earth shall prevent me from asking her a
straight question this time.”
Sibylla could not think of Evelyn at present,
however. Although, on the whole, she was inclined
to admit that Valentine had taken the most
judicious course in bringing Miss Knowles to
Sycamore Road, she was appalled at the prospect
of entertaining such an uncongenial guest. But
Valentine was already in the hall, opening the
door, and the next moment she looked out at the
window to see him hastening along the garden
path to fetch Lucilla.


CHAPTER XXVIII
ND now for Evelyn. Valentine’s inten-
A tion on leaving Sycamore Road was
to make his way immediately to Cham-
pion Place without waiting for luncheon. He
left the house at St. John’s Wood with a sense
of intense relief. He had introduced Lucilla to
his sister, and in doing so felt that he was putting
aside his last responsibility. But, by the time he
was half-way to Mrs. Tempest’s, he realized that
he might find Evelyn in the middle of her meal,
and leaning out of the taxi he directed the driver
to his club.
Valentine Brook had never been in a more
determined mood. Whatever the future might
have in store, he intended to learn whether
Evelyn was Derrick’s wife or not before he
left her presence. In the end he approached
Champion Place more apprehensively than he
had ever done before. After the manner of her
departure from Parliament Court the previous
afternoon, it was impossible to feel very confident
concerning his reception to-day. He could not
218


THE SILVER BAG 219
even yet make up his mind whether her indigna-
tion had been due to a false statement or to his
discovery of the truth.
At least he could not be suspected of coming
to see Lucilla, and when he asked for “Miss
Stainer,” the butler took him to the drawing-room,
where as the door opened Valentine caught a
glimpse of her, leaning back pensively in an
easy chair, apparently lost in some not entirely
agreeable day-dream. She did not turn her head
till his name was announced, then, instantly on
her feet, she came swiftly to meet him with her
hand outstretched.
For whatsoever reason, Valentine could scarcely
question her pleasure at seeing him, and in fact
from the first moment he became aware of some
subtle difference in her demeanour.
“I was just thinking,” she said, “that I owed
you some sort of—of apology. I really don’t
very often lose my temper, but yesterday was
certainly an unfortunate exception, and you, poor
man, had to pay the penalty.”
“I wonder," answered Valentine, as she
withdrew her hand and returned to her chair,
“whether you realize how heavy it was. I
scarcely dared to show my face to-day. Yet,
since you left me without deigning even to say
good-bye, I couldn’t rest till I saw you again.


220 THE SILVER BAG
By the by,” he added, “I am not the only one
to be penalized. Lucilla turned up at my place
this morning.”
“Of course,” said Evelyn, with the slightest
of frowns. “That is a habit of hers, isn’t it?
F rankly,” Evelyn continued, “I shall not enter
into any explanation about Lucilla. Still, I don’t
mind admitting a certain curiosity to hear what
she said to you.”
“Oh well,” he explained rather impatiently,
“it appears that you tackled her directly you
reached home yesterday. You overwhelmed her
with reproaches.”
“What for?” demanded Evelyn.
“For telling me that it was you who left the
silver bag at Parliament Court. You vowed,”
said Valentine, “never to {speak to her again,
and you sent her away at a few hours’
notice.”
“Did you find it,” murmured Evelyn, “easy
to believe I was capable of turning another
woman adrift in that way?”
“ Then you didn’t P” cried Valentine.
“I was forgetting my self-denying ordinance,”
said Evelyn. “It’s rather difficult to hold one’s
tongue now and then.”
“Don’t you really think,” urged Valentine,
standing with his hand on the back of her chair,


THE SILVER BAG 22 1
“that it’s often a wasted effort? Haven’t we
done almost enough in that way? Couldn’t we
make this the beginning of a new order of
things?”
“I am not sure I should very much object,”
said Evelyn, in little above a whisper.
Although he was afraid to assume too much, it
appeared certain that a new epoch had already,
in a manner, begun. She was obviously putting
him altogether on a far more friendly footing, nor
could Valentine understand what had happened
to bring this delightful change to pass.
He was evidently forgiven for his rash state-
ment of yesterday, and the improvement followed
so closely on Lucilla’s departure from Champion
Place that it seemed almost there must be some
mysterious connection between the two occur-
rences. Yet it was difficult to understand why
a quarrel with Lucilla should make Evelyn so
much more friendly towards himself.
“Then, if you have no objection,” he urged,
“this is the time to make a clean breast of
everything.”
“Not at all,” she tantalizingly returned. “I
am in a mood to listen. So Lucilla told you I
had turned her out! What then? Is she still at
Parliament Court ? ”
“At Sycamore Road,” Valentine explained.


222 THE SILVER BAG
“I thought the best thing was to take her to
Sibylla.”
“ On the whole,” cried Evelyn, with a satisfied
smile, “you seem to have acted quite discreetly.
I suppose you have come to reproach me for the
hardness of my heart?”
“I hope sincerely,” he answered, bending over
her shoulder, “that it won’t be necessary. As a
matter of fact, I’m here to clear up the whole
situation. I can’t help suspecting,” Valentine
added, “that what took place between you and
Lucilla yesterday had more importance than I
imagined.”
Evelyn lowered her eyes for a moment. _
“Y—es,” she answered, after a rather long
silence. “I think it really was important. Very
important indeed.” She raised her eyes again,
and he had never seen such a perplexing
expression in them before. “I am not certain,”
she murmured, “that it was not the most im-
portant quarter of an hour I ever experienced.”
“You’re not going to be more explicit?” he
asked.
“ N ot—not at present.”
“Anyhow,” he insisted, “it seems to be the
beginning of a better regime, you know.”
“ How is that?” she demanded.
“Oh well, it’s almost as if you began to treat


224 THE SILVER BAG
that. There’s a degree of absurdity which is
really intolerable.”
“Then it is absurd to suggest such a thing?”
he exclaimed eagerly.
“If you haven’t grasped the fact,” she
murmured, “I am afraid I must give you up as
hopeless.”
“That,” he urged excitedly, “is the one thing
in the world you must never dream of doing.”
“ What?” asked Evelyn.
“You must never for an instant talk of giving
me up.”
“I have told you I don’t wish to talk about
anything,” she replied. “I much prefer to
listen.” ’
“Still, that’s a little one-sided,” he insisted.
“And, after all, it will be inevitable to answer
some day.”
“Oh well, some day, perhaps,” she said. “But
not this afternoon. I don’t know what has
become of Henrietta,” she added.
“ Is that a hint for me to go P ” asked Valentine.
“Going really doesn’t matter very much,”
returned Evelyn, “when one can come again
as—as soon as one pleases.”
“There is still something on my mind,” he
suggested.
“I should have thought,” cried Evelyn, with


THE SILVER BAG 225
a laugh, “that, if—if you have not been mis-
interpreted, your mind ought by this time to be
entirely unburdened.”
“Ah yes,” he answered, “I am beginning to
feel pretty well light-headed. But Lionel
Windermere is once more plunged into an
abyss of doubt. He couldn’t stay at Brighton.
He turned up at Parliament Court last night with
all his suspicions alive again. He insists there
was collusion between you and Lucilla——”
“At least,” said Evelyn, “you can easily
disillusion him on that score.”
“ just what it’s impossible to do,” Valentine
persisted. “Only one person in the world can
do that. He declares he will tackle you before
he is many hours older. I wonder you have not
had a visit from him before this.”
“Oh, I have,” was the answer. “He was
here quite early this morning. I refused to see
him ”
“And consequently made him more suspicious
than ever!” suggested Valentine. “Do you
know when Margaret will be home?” he added.
“Not for certain. But I don’t think she is
likely to be away longer than another day or
two,” said Evelyn.
“As soon as she’s back, look out for squalls,”
exclaimed Valentine. “ If Lionel doesn’t succeed

15


226 THE SILVER BAG
in seeing you, he is pretty certain to accuse her.
He will rush at it like a bull at a gate, and then
Margaret may rebel as she did before.”
A few moments later Valentine said good-bye
in the highest spirits, notwithstanding his concern
for the Windermeres, and as he made his way
downstairs he marvelled how he could ever have
been idiotic enough to torment himself by the
notion that Evelyn was married, or ever could
be married to any man but himself.
The butler opened the street door as he
reached the hall, and he was on the point of
leaving the house when Mrs. Tempest came forth
from the dining-room.
“ Mr. Brook,” she exclaimed, “ I wish you would
spare me a few moments.”


THE SILVER BAG 229
Even now, however, Valentine was eager to
believe that Lucilla was being too harshly judged.
“Are you sure,” he urged, “that there is no
possibility of a mistake?”
“ How can there be?” Henrietta demanded.
“Anyhow,” Valentine persisted, “there is one
way to convince even Windermere, and only one.”
“ What is that?”
“ By stating who Derrick’s visitor actually was,”
said Valentine.
“As things have taken this turn, thanks to
Lucilla,” answered Henrietta, “I think it is due
to Evelyn that you should know she was not at
the flat. I am in a position to be certain,” she
added, as the colour mounted to her temples,
“ because—because I was.”
“You!” exclaimed Valentine, startled com-
pletely out of his self-possession.
“Yes, I was there,” she repeated. “Why
should that astound you?” she demanded.
“Why should a visit from me be more remark-
able than one from Evelyn?”
He could not very well explain that she
appeared the last person in the world to be
suspected of an assignation of the kind. At
least he felt that he had touched bottom at last.
She was not the woman to make such an
admission lightly. That Mrs. Tempest had been


230 THE SILVER BAG
Derrick's visitor Valentine could not for an
instant doubt, the only remaining question being
whether she was also Derrick’s wife. Having
said what she wished to say, however, she was
obviously eager for Valentine to go, nor could
he bring himself to add to her quite distressful
embarrassment. In fact, he felt almost as certain
as if he had been told, and still waters, evidently,
ran deep.
If Lucilla had not been at Sycamore Road,
Valentine would probably have gone to confide
his latest discovery to Sibylla the same afternoon,
but, as things were, he postponed the journey
till the morrow.
It was unusual for him to take that direction
in the morning, but for one reason he found it
impossible to attempt to work, and for another
it appeared just as well to let his sister know
the kind of woman Miss Knowles had proved
really to be.
“Then, of course,” exclaimed Sibylla, as soon
as she heard of Henrietta’s admission, “it is
Mrs. Tempest who is Derrick’s wife after all.”
“In that case,” suggested Valentine, “ she must
have married the fellow within a week or two of
Tempest’s death ! ”
“That,” Sibylla insisted, “supplies the ex-
planation. Now, the whole thing seems perfectly


232 THE SILVER BAG
stood convicted in his eyes, and he did not expect
that she would take any further notice of him
before he left the house.
“ I have not,” she said, however, “thanked you
for bringing me here and quite overwhelming
Miss Brook. I know I must be tremendously in
the way, though she makes a superhuman effort
to make me believe I’m not. Anyhow,” she
continued, “I should love to stay just one more
night—”
“ First we must find somewhere else for you
to go,” suggested Sibylla.
“Oh, there won’t be much difficulty about
that,” said Lucilla, and stopped abruptly, raising
her eyebrows with a rather deprecatory expression
as she looked at Valentine.
To him, it seemed as if she were throwing off
some disguise for the first time since he had
known her. He could not help giving her credit,
at least, for a certain amount of courage, in what
was really her moment of defeat.


CHAPTER XXX
OW that Valentine’s own hopes ran riot,
N it is probable that he flattered himself
that he was going to have his own way
in every other regard—with Lionel Windermere,
for instance. It was true that he would find it
necessary to eat his own words, having insisted
that it was Evelyn who left the silver bag
in Parliament Court, whereas it would now be
essential to turn the responsibility over to Mrs.
Tempest.
So impatient did Valentine feel to settle
Lionel’s doubts once and for all, before Margaret’s
return from Torquay, that he rang up the office
in Threadneedle Street, insisting that Windermere
should not on any account fail to look in at the
flat on his way to Constable Street.
It was obvious at a glance that Lionel was in
an unusually bad temper, although Valentine felt
confident of speedily working an improvement.
The fact was, as he vehemently complained, that
he had paid three visits to Champion Place with-
233


234 THE SILVER BAG
out succeeding in seeing Evelyn. On the last
occasion, on his way to the City this morning, he
had asked in desperation for Mrs. Tempest, who,
also, was said to be “ Not at home.”
“Anyhow,” answered Valentine, “I saw her
yesterday, and I’m going to pass on what she
told me. You won’t have the slightest need to
go out of your way again. We’ve got to the
bottom of the mystery at last.”
“I thought,” said Lionel ungraciously, “you
insisted you had got to the bottom of it before,
though of course I knew you were talking
through your hat.”
“ I thought so too,” Valentine admitted. “ But
this time I have heard a plain, straightforward
confession.”
“ Whom from, in Heaven’s name?” demanded
Lionel.
“ Why, from Mrs. Tempest.”
“ What did she say ? ”
“She admitted without the least reservation
that it was she herself who came to see
Derrick——”
“ But Miss Knowles told you it was Evelyn ! ”
shouted Lionel.
“Yes, I know,” said Valentine. “She told a
lie.”
“So did Mrs. Tempest,” answered Lionel.


CHAPTER XXXI
exclaimed Evelyn when Valentine entered
her presence on the afternoon after his
disappointing conversation with Lionel Winder-
mere.
“I wouldn’t keep you waiting for the world,”
was the answer.
“But, seriously!” said Evelyn, settling down
comfortably in the middle of her cushion.
“ The more seriously, the better.”
“I feel immensely angry with Henrietta,”
Evelyn insisted. “ I hear she waylaid you in the
hall on your way out of the house yesterday.”
“ Upon my word,” cried Lionel, with a laugh,
“Mrs. Tempest gave me the surprise of my
life.”
“I really don’t see,” retorted Evelyn, “why
it should astonish you to hear she had done
something which in me you could take for
granted.”
“ You,” he said, “stand in a class by yourself,
you know. I confess tlaI‘at I left Mrs. Tempest
” I HAVE been positively longing to see you,"


THE SILVER BAG 239
entirely out of my reckoning. But now,”
Valentine added, “naturally I am able to carry
her adventures a step farther.”
“What I am longing to hear,” suggested
Evelyn, “is whether you have seen Mr. Winder-
mere.”
“Yesterday afternoon,” returned Valentine.
“Of course, you told him what you had heard
from Henrietta. It is your foible to repeat things,
especially to him.”
“Anyhow,” said Valentine, “I felt bound to
explain that it was, after all, Mrs. Tempest’s
bag which had caused his heart-burnings.”
“ Oh, but ”
“Good Lord,” cried Valentine promptly,
“you’re not going to tell me it wasn’t at this
time of day l ”
“You told Mr. Windermere,” she insisted,
“that Henrietta was Derrick’s visitor?”
“ Yes,” was the answer.
“What did he say to that?” asked Evelyn,
looking a little anxious.
“Frankly, he insisted it was—well, a lie. He
declared there had been a deliberate attempt to
beguile him : first by you and Lucilla, afterwards,
at the eleventh hour, by Mrs. Tempest.”
“ How provoking the man can be!” exclaimed
Evelyn. “Then you don’t think he is any


THE SILVER BAG 241
Walking to the farther window, he brought the
form and the blotting-pad.
“I think you will see a pencil,” Evelyn added.
Whereupon Valentine rested the pad on her
knees; and for the next few minutes she sat with
the end of the pencil between her lips. “ I think
I will send it!” she cried, as if she were still
in doubt. '
“ Whom to?” he inquired.
“Why, to Derrick, of course,” she returned.
“ I don’t know whether I ought really to consult
Henrietta; but no,” she murmured thoughtfully,
“I don’t think I will.”
The composition of the message occupied some
time, and she turned abruptly to ask how many
“m’s” there were in “immediately.” Valentine
came to the conclusion that the telegram would
cost several shillings, before she drew a deep
sigh as if the trying task were at last ended.
“Would you mind ringing?” she exclaimed;
and when the butler entered the room she held
out the telegram, insisting that it should be sent
to the post office, without an instant’s delay.
“Have you asked Derrick to come?” said
Valentine, when jenkinson had gone.
“Yes,” she replied. “The only question is
whether Mrs. Chalmers will let him. She seems
to be a rather exacting old lady.”
I6


CHAPTER XXXII
“ ISS BROOK,” exclaimed Lucilla, at
M half-past ten the same evening, “ you
have been extraordinarily good to
me, and I shouldn’t mind how long I stayed
here.”
“ I am not in the least hurry to get rid of you,”
said Sibylla, truthfully enough.
Since her visitor’s arrival, she had spared no
effort to win her confidence, encouraging Lucilla
to talk about her former home at Brighton, her
mother, and her aunt at Clapham Common.
Sibylla had formed the opinion that Lucilla might
easily go further astray than she seemed to have
done already if there were no judicious friend to
keep in touch with her. For her own part, she
was willing, even anxious, to do what she could,
and Lucilla was welcome to her hospitality until
some situation could be found.
“I have made up my mind to relieve you
of my presence to-morrow, anyhow,” returned
Lucilla. “ I am going early in the morning.”
“ Going where? ” asked Sibylla.
’43


THE SILVER BAG 245
from me in the world; that I could read every
thought that passed in his mind. He lived in
London,” Lucilla explained. “He used to come
to see me every other week; we wrote every
day. It seemed that we laid our hearts bare to
one another. For my part, I hadn’t a single
thought which he didn’t share—not one. When
I was left alone, I expected that we should be
married even sooner than we had arranged, but
the day after my father’s funeral I knew we were
never to be married at all. He stood at my side
by the grave, and said afterwards that he was
bound to hurry back to London that night. The
letter was posted on his way to the station. I am
not sure it wasn’t written even before he took
me in his arms and said good-bye. It was just
a question of money—nothing else. He had
believed I should bring him a few hundreds a
year. He said. that he could not marry me
without them.”
Lucilla sat silently gazing at the dying fire
for a few minutes, then she turned to Sibylla
again.
“I went to Aunt Hannah’s,” she continued,
“but you can’t imagine what life there was like.
Oh, she was kind enough in her way, only all the
pleasant things in the world were supposed to be
wicked. I tried to find something to do, but


THE SILVER BAG 247
_ 5-4;? m
Lucilla shook her head.
“ All that sort of thing was done with as far
as I was concerned,” she admitted. “But, if I
couldn’t get what Iwanted the most, I told myself
there were still heaps of other things worth
having: things which money could buy. As for
Mr. Brook, I simply thought of him as a kind
of Universal Provider. I believed I could make
him marry me and so get rid of my troubles-
all but the one I shall never get rid of. When
Mrs. Tempest sent for him and he came to her
house, I felt more confident than ever of having
my own way. And,” Lucilla hesitated, “ I should
if it had not been for Miss Stainer. Unfor-
tunately she spoilt my plans.”
“Unfortunately—you say that even now,”
murmured Sibylla reproachfully.
“I am telling the truth for once,” exclaimed
Lucilla. “I might have hated it in some ways,
but I should have gained a good deal in others.
I’m not certain it would have been unfortunate
even for him. I dare say we should have rubbed
along as married people seem to do. I should
have made him happy enough. But she drew
him away, and I wasn’t going to give in without
an effort. Of course I lied about her. I could
think of no other way of putting him off, and I—
well, I made a mess of it. I didn’t admit I was


248 THE SILVER BAG
beaten,” Lucilla admitted, “till we were on the
way here in the taxi. When he let me in at
Parliament Court the other morning, I still
thought I stood to win. But when he said he
meant to hand me over to you, why, then, I saw
the game was played out. I don't quite know
why I’m giving myself away,” said Lucilla.
“Perhaps I shouldn’t if I hadn’t the idea that
you’d seen through me already. I wonder
whether you had?”
“I think so,” Sibylla answered. “I could
never feel perfectly certain. But I hope,” she
added, “that is not your real reason for
telling me.”
“What other could there be?” demanded
Lucilla.
“ Remorse. A desire to make your confession
and a fresh beginning.”
“ N—o,” was the answer. “If I’m chastened,
it’s simply because ,I’m beaten. It may be a
form of repentance—I don’t know,” she added,
rather wistfully. “ I used not to be like this. It
doesn’t seem so very long ago since we were
all living so happily and ordinarily at Brighton.
I could no more have imagined myself acting as
I have done than you could imagine yourself
doing it to-night.”
“You must understand one thing,” Sibylla


THE SILVER BAG 249
insisted. “We are not to lose sight of one
another in the future. Clapham Common is not
very far, and when you feel bored to death
you must come here and we will see whether
we can’t find some little thing by way of a
change.”
“It’s immensely good of you,” said Lucilla,
“but really it’s not the least little bit of use,
you know. You and I are as different as chalk
from cheese. My great regret,” she continued,
“is that I ever saw that silver bag. If it had
not been for that I might have stayed on at
Champion Place for goodness knows how
long.”
“I may as well tell you one thing,” answered
Sibylla. “We know who was the real owner of
the bag at last.”
“ Who?” demanded Lucilla.
“ Mrs. Tempest,” said Sibylla.
Lucilla’s astonishment was obviously un-
feigned.
“ What in the world made you imagine that?”
she exclaimed.
“I have the best possible authority. Her
own,” returned Sibylla.
“You don’t know Mrs. Tempest?” suggested
Lucilla.
“ No, but she told my brother.”


250 THE SILVER BAG
“Do you mean to say,” cried Lucilla, “that
Mrs. Tempest told Mr. Brook she left the bag
on his shaving-table? ”
“ Certainly she told him.”
“ All I can say is,” said Lucilla, “that she told
him what was not true. I don’t believe for
an instant that Mrs. Tempest has ever entered
Parliament Court. Anyhow, she had nothing on
earth to do with the silver bag.”
“Then whom did it belong to?” demanded
Sibylla.
But Lucilla appeared to hesitate.
“I really think,” urged Sibylla, overcome by
curiosity, “that the kindest thing you can do is to
tell me—if you know.”
“Yes,” said Lucilla, “I certainly know.”
“Whose was it ? ” Sibylla insisted.
“Of course, it was Mrs. Windermere’s. When
I reached Parliament Court even the third time
I had no idea whom it belonged to,” Lucilla
explained. “ Miss Stainer seemed determined not
to tell me.”
“Then how can you speak so positively?
How do you know it was Mrs. Windermere’s?”
cried Sibylla.
“ Oh well,” said Lucilla, colouring slightly, “to
tell you the truth, I opened it. I couldn’t resist
the temptation. I opened it on the way back to


THE SILVER BAG 251
Champion Place. There was a card-case inside,
and I stopped beneath one of the electric lights
in Buckingham Palace Road to read the name
and address. It was Mrs. Windermere, 15
Constable Street, Mayfair.”


CHAPTER XXXIII
T was the following afternoon, and the sun
I was shining in at the windows of Valentine’s
sitting-room. He had not heard from
Sibylla since she listened to Lucilla Knowles’s
astounding explanation of the previous evening,
although his sister was looking forward eagerly
to see him.
Meanwhile, at a little before half-past three,
Valentine was pacing the floor with impatient
eyes on the clock. On the writing-table stood a
new top-hat with a pair of pale grey gloves—
equally new—lying across the brim. He wore
a black morning coat, in which he did not feel so
comfortable as in his customary tweed jacket, and
his dark trousers were carefully creased. Every
now and then he stopped before the looking-glass
to make certain that his tie was precisely in the
right place. Valentine was, in fact, waiting for
the hour, or rather the half—hour, to strike.
He did not consider that he could suitably
present himself in Champion Place earlier than a
quarter to four, but he was determined not to
252


THE SILVER BAG 253
arrive a moment later. Events appeared to have
followed one another swiftly during the last few
days. Before he slept to-night, he was intent on
putting his fate to the touch, and a few minutes
more would see him on his way.
“Oh, hang!” he suddenly exclaimed, as the
bell rang.
His first impulse was to let it ring. He would
take no notice. Any kind of delay, now that he
was on the point of setting forth on this most
important errand of his life, appeared intolerable.
If he did not go to the door, the visitor, whoever
he might be, would assume that he was not at
home and go away.
A second ring!
Thrusting his hands in his trousers pockets,
Valentine scowled. There was a clogged ex-
pression on his face as he stood on the hearth-
rug ; and after a short period of perfect silence he
hoped the fellow had given it up as a bad job.
just as Valentine was congratulating himself,
the bell began a third time, but now it did
not cease ringing. The visitor was showing in-
convenient persistence. He was no doubt stand-
ing with his finger on the button. In Valentine’s
highly-strung nervous condition, the continuous
ringing had a peculiarly irritating effect. Instead
of wishing to ignore the visitor, he became


254 THE SILVER BAG
possessed by a desire to deal with him promptly
and effectually. He supposed that he would have
to go to the door.
If the hour had been a little later he would
have expected Lionel Windermere, but it was too
early for Lionel to be on his way home from the
City; moreover, he was counting on Margaret’s
return from Torquay.
The Windermeres had been much in Valentine’s
mind since the previous day. In spite of Mrs.
Tempest’s admission that she had been Derrick
Chalmers’s visitor on Monday, the twentieth of
February, there must be still room for a further
explanation.
Evelyn had sent for Derrick from Eastbourne,
and confessed to her anxiety that he should reach
London before Lionel saw his wife. Could it be
Derrick whose finger was still pressing that
confounded bell-button!
On reaching the passage, Valentine suddenly
stopped, turned back into the room, put on his
hat, and took his gloves and stick in his hand.
In the event of finding a casual visitor at the
door, these appurtenances would serve as a hint
that Valentine was going out. The next moment,
however, he stood face to face with Lionel
Windermere, and in all Valentine’s experience he
had never seen any man look quite so wretched.


THE SILVER BAG 255
“ What on earth’s the matter?” he demanded.
Without an answer, Lionel walked to the
sitting-room, and standing in the middle of it,
flung out his arms with a hopeless, helpless
gesture.
“Val, I’ve left my wife!” he exclaimed, and
sinking backwards into the nearest chair leaned
forward, covering his flushed face with his
hands.
Valentine felt afraid the man was weeping.
“Oh, come, old fellow,” he said, with a hand
on Lionel’s shoulder, “it can’t be so bad as all
that.”
“By Heaven,” muttered Lionel, “it couldn’t
conceivably be worse.”
“Look here, let me give you a whisky-and-
soda,” suggested Valentine, taking a step towards
the sideboard. He could not think of any other
form of consolation at the moment.
“No, no, don’t tempt me,” answered Lionel,
raising a haggard face. “I’ve had too much of
that as it is. I’ve been kicking my heels at home
the whole blessed morning. I knew Margaret
was coming soon after lunch. I put off going to
the City. I couldn’t stick it any longer. I vowed
I would go thoroughly into things; that I would
implore her to tell me how she spent those
wretched two hours and a half after she left


THE SILVER BAG 257
satisfied about Chalmers. I always suspected
there had been a good deal more between him
and Margaret than anybody imagined. But,”
Lionel continued, “I tried to persuade myself
it might be a morbid fancy—”
“ Exactly the fact,” Valentine interrupted.
“I know,” said Lionel, “I’ve always had a
wretched tendency to that sort of thing. Any-
how, I meant to go gently to work this
afternoon. But there was Margaret, beautiful,
smiling, pleased to see me, so you might have
thought. I couldn’t help reminding myself she
had been able to turn to Chalmers, and that if
it hadn’t been for his mother’s telegram she
would in all probability have been with him at
that moment—”
“My dear fellow,” Valentine expostulated,
“you are talking the most complete rot.
Haven’t I told you that Derrick was married
on the last day of December!”
“Oh yes,” retorted Lionel, “ you told me.”
"‘ Don’t you believe it?” demanded Valentine.
“It doesn’t make an atom of difference,"
Lionel insisted. “Whether Chalmers was
married or single doesn’t matter a hang. It
was my wife who came here that afternoon."
“Nothing of the kind,” exclaimed Valentine.
“It was Mrs. Tempest, or, as I’ve not the
I7


258 THE SILVER BAG
slightest doubt she ought to be called, Mrs.
Derrick Chalmers.”
“I don't care what Mrs. Tempest ought to be
called,” said Lionel excitedly. “I don’t care
where she went or what she did. It was
Margaret who left the silver bag in your room.”
“I will swear that she has never entered this
flat in her life,” cried Valentine.
“ Then why in the world did she say she had ? ”
demanded Lionel.
Valentine took a step backwards. He took
off his hat and laid it on the writing-table.
“ Say she had!” he echoed.
“Good Heaven, Val, don’t you understand!
Margaret has owned up ”
“Owned she was here with Derrick that
Monday ?” faltered Valentine.
“ Without a moment’s beating about the bush,”
Lionel explained. “I’ve as good as told you
I lost my head. Before she had been five
minutes in the house she was going to ring the
bell for the youngster. I asked her to wait a
bit and come to my den. As soon as the door
was shut, I blurted it out. I didn’t pick my
words.”
“ Try,” urged Valentine, “to tell me precisely
what you said.”
“I looked straight into her face,” answered


THE SILVER BAG 259
Lionel. “She seemed pretty well scared. ‘I
know where you went when you left home that
day in February,’ I told her. ‘Your friends
have been trying their hardest to protect you,
but it’s no good. I’ve found you out,’ I said. ‘ You
went to Chalmers at Val’s flat. Deny you were
there, if you can ! ’ ”
As Windermere was speaking he rose from his
chair, walking excitedly about the room, while
Valentine, scarcely less agitated, stood leaning
against the writing-table.
“ She can never have admitted—you must
have misunderstood her,” he suggested.
“Misunderstood!” exclaimed Lionel con-
temptuously.
“ What did she say?” asked Valentine.
“ She drew herself up with the air of a tragedy
queen. You know how magnificent she can
look! She stared me full in the eyes. ‘Yes,
I was there !’ she said.”
“But there must have been some explanation
—some qualification ? ” urged Valentine.
“I didn’t wait to hear,” cried Lionel. “That
was all I wanted. Don’t you think it was
enough? What qualification could there be?
I knew everything, God help me! I left the
room at once. She followed me up, followed
me into the hall, but what was the use of piling


262 THE SILVER BAG
“What the dickens is the use of creating a
scandal?” urged Valentine. “What satisfaction
will it give you to drag Margaret’s name through
the mire?”
“Anyhow, what do you expect me to do?”
demanded Lionel. “ Do you think I’m the man
to take this sort of thing without a word?
You’ve learnt precious little about me all these
years if you imagine that!”
As he was speaking, the bell rang again.
“Val,” exclaimed Lionel, “you’re not expect-
ing anybody ? ”
“No, no! I’ll go and see who it is,” said
Valentine, turning towards the sitting-room door.
“For goodness’ sake don’t let anyone in,”
Lionel insisted. “I can’t stick it. I’ll go to
your bedroom.”
“Stay where you are. That’ll be all right,”
answered Valentine. “Whoever it may be, I’ll
soon get rid of him.” He reckoned without
his guest, however, for on opening the outer
door of the flat he found himself face to face
with Derrick Chalmers.


264 THE SILVER BAG
situation. He could think only of the immediate
necessity to keep the two men apart. It was
certain that it would never do to let them come
into contact, whereas Derrick, already well within
the passage, would continue his way to the sitting-
room as a matter of course. Another minute and
he would be entering it!
The wisest course, it appeared, would be to
take his arm, whisper a word of explanation, and
either induce him to leave the flat before Lionel
became aware of his arrival, or to convey him
secretly to the bedroom.
Without staying to shut the outer door, lest
this latest visitor should incontinently slip past,
Valentine planted himself in the middle of the
passage as if to bar the way.
“ Hullo, Val, what’s up?” demanded Derrick,
with a laugh, which, surely, could not fail to
reach Lionel’s ears. “Upon my word, your
hospitality isn’t overwhelming. Got some one
there—what P”
Suddenly Derrick’s laughter ceased, while
Valentine turned to see Windermere on the thres-
hold of the sitting-room, looking for all the world
as if he were preparing for a spring.
“It’s you, you infernal scoundrel, is it?” he
cried.
The next instant he was making straight for


THE SILVER BAG 265
Derrick, Valentine standing as a buffer between
the two.
“ Yes, it’s I, right enough,” answered Derrick,
giving his moustache a ferocious twirl. “Still,
you needn’t go out of the way to call names,
you know.”
“Call names!” shouted Lionel. “I’m going
to do more than call names. I’m going to give
you the soundest hiding you’ve ever had in the
whole course of your life. Out of the light,
Val! Out of the light, I say! Let me get at
him!”
Lionel, by this time, was pressing close upon
Valentine, who shot out his left hand to fend off
the assailant, who, in the meanwhile, tried to
press forward, aiming at Derrick over Valentine’s
shoulder.
“Steady on!” cried Derrick; and as Lionel
still tried to get at him, he added, “If you want
it, by jove, you shall have it!”
But Valentine perceived that the time had
come for prompt and decisive action. Turning
his back on Derrick, he gripped both of Winder-
mere’s arms, forcing him with considerable diffi-
culty back towards the open sitting—room door,
Chalmers following up the struggling pair, on the
watch lest Lionel should succeed in his strenuous
efforts to break away.


266 THE SILVER BAG
“ Let me go, Val, confound you!” he ex-
claimed.
But Valentine had him as if in a vice. Little
by little Lionel found himself being forced along
the passage, and into the room, whereupon his
captor dexterously got a leg behind him, and he
subsided into a chair.
“ Now look here, you fellows,” said Valentine,
standing over his victim as he pulled down his
coat sleeves, “I’ll tell you straight. I’m not
going to have a shindy here. If you want a
scrap, you can go somewhere else. No, you
don’t,” he added abruptly, as Lionel regained his
feet, only to be pushed back into the chair the
next instant.
“ Get out of the way ! ” shouted Lionel. “ You
don’t give me room to breathe.”
“I am not going to move,” was the answer,
“till you promise to behave yourself decently.
Not if it’s all day.”
“You talk of behaving decently,” returned
Windermere, while Derrick, with rather pro-
vocative coolness, stood with his hands in his
trousers pockets, and his back to the fire—place.
“ What about this—”
“ I quite agree with Val,” Chalmers interrupted.
“ We don’t want a row. For that matter I came
up from Eastbourne this morning, at some in-


268 THE SILVER BAG
up into Derrick’s face. “Can you deny,” he
demanded, “that my wife came to you in this
flat on Monday—Monday, the twentieth of
February P”
“Why, no, I can’t,” said Chalmers. Seeing
Lionel half rise from the chair, Valentine stepped
hastily towards him. “But,” added Derrick,
“though it’s true she was here, she wasn’t alone
with me for half a second, if that’s what you’re
driving at.”
Lionel’s face expressed the most withering
contempt.
“ You admit she came to you P” he insisted.
“ To put it more precisely,” returned Derrick,
“ she was brought.”
“ Brought ! ” shouted Windermere, while Valen-‘
tine looked anxiously from one of his guests to
the other. “Who in the world brought herP”
he demanded.
“Oh well—my wife,” said Derrick. “Henri-
etta, you know. If you’ll only try to keep your
hair on,” he continued, “ I’ll tell you all about it.
Isn’t that what I’ve come to London for? It’s
true, I didn’t expect the pleasure of seeing you
face to face. This is an unrehearsed effect. I
went from Victoria to Champion Place and, after
some discussion there, Evelyn suggested that I
should deal with you through Val. Of course


THE SILVER BAG 269
I meant to hold myself in readiness for a personal
explanation if you wanted it.”
“ I certainly do want it,” Lionel insisted.
“ My dear chap, you shall have it,” said
Derrick, and then he turned to Valentine. “ For
goodness’ sake, give me something to drink, and
then I’ll make a start,” he cried.
Thinking that it would be safe to turn his back
on Lionel now, Valentine went to the sideboard,
taking out some tumblers, a decanter of whisky
and a siphon. Having mixed three pegs, he
handed two to his visitors, though Lionel took no
notice of his.
Windermere’s mind was in a ferment. While
it was true that Derrick’s words, and perhaps,
more particularly, his manner, went some way
towards tranquillizing him, for his life he could
not see how it was possible that a convincing
explanation could be forthcoming. It was ad-
mitted that Margaret had been at Parliament
Court that Monday afternoon, but since her
presence could no longer be denied, it seemed that
an effort might be made to invent some plausible
excuse to account for it.
On the other hand Lionel found it impossible
to smother entirely the renewed hopes which
were yet almost torture. He had only a little
while ago left Constable Street, with the con-


THE SILVER BAG 271
She had already been separated from Tempest
more than twelve months. I must tell you,”
Derrick continued, “that she is a woman with
the strongest religious scruples. I admit that I
did my level best to overcome them, but no
power on earth could have induced her to take
steps to obtain a divorce. Her fervent belief was,
that as long as Tempest lived, whatever his
conduct might be, she was his wife in the sight
of God. Nothing could shake it. At first,” said
Derrick, “I thought she was a widow. I can’t
tell you why, but that was my impression. I
went to Champion Place so often during the few
weeks after our introduction that Evelyn Stainer
thought it judicious to open my eyes. Well, it
was a rather painful awakening for me, and from
the afternoon Evelyn took the job in hand she
and I became the warmest friends. She begged
me to leave Henrietta alone, and not to go to
the house again, but I stipulated for a farewell
interview. At least that served to remove any
misconception between Henrietta and myself.
I left the house tantalized to know that she loved
me, but that, for the reason I have explained, she
could never become my wife. For nearly two
years,” Der-rick continued, “we scarcely met a
dozen times, never without an effort on my part
to break down her determination. Then one


272 THE SILVER BAG
morning during the first week of December I
had a letter from Evelyn —”
“ To say that Tempest was dead! ” suggested
Valentine.
Lionel sat upright in his chair, his clenched '
hands resting on his knees, his eyes fixed intently
on Derrick’s face.
“To say that Tempest was dead,” was the
answer. “ Now, the outlook was entirely
different. Tempest had died in the south of
England. He had behaved too villainously for
any pretence at sorrow. Henrietta consented to
see me on the day after his funeral. She was
prepared to marry me in six months’ time. But
she had not seen Tempest for three years, and I
gave her no peace. It soon became obvious that
her real objection to fall in with my wishes was
what her friends would say. She pleaded that
such a hasty marriage as I was insisting upon
would cause a scandal. I would not listen. I
won Evelyn over to my side, and we both swore
that no one should ,be allowed to have the
slightest suspicion but the three of us. I want
you fellows,” said Derrick, “to understand that I
am not using a figure of speech.
“The weeks after Tempest's funeral were full
of storm and stress. Henrietta, I have said,
would infinitely sooner have waited. I was mad


THE SILVER BAG 273
to make her my wife without an instant’s delay.
I believe that her own feelings really played into
my hands, and that her only actual objection was
public opinion. When I say that we swore that
the marriage should be kept a secret for six
months, I mean it. I can see the room now,
with Henrietta standing between us, solemnly
pledging first Evelyn, then myself, to absolute
secrecy. After that,” exclaimed Derrick, “no
time was lost. Lucilla Knowles was got out of
the way, Henrietta was supposed to be going on
a visit to some friends. I picked her up early in
the morning of the last day of the year, and we
were married at Colbourne, a village in Surrey
where I had spent a holiday one summer as a
boy. From there we went on a short honey-
moon, then my wife returned to Champion
Place.
“And now,” said Derrick, with a smile at
Lionel, who still looked intensely solemn, “I’m
coming to the point. All this is merely by way of
an introduction—a necessary introduction to satisfy
your mind, Windermere. But at last we come to
that Monday afternoon, the twentieth of February.
Perhaps you remember the sort of day it was!
Rain had been threatening all the afternoon, and
at about half-past five it came down in a deluge.
Val had lent me this flat while he was abroad,
18


CHAPTER XXXV
ing forward, with his face buried in
his hands, while Valentine, free from
apprehension at last, flung himself on to the sofa,
and began to load his pipe. Derrick helped
himself to another cigarette.
“ It was astonishing enough to see Margaret,”
he continued. “But what made the deepest
impression on me at the moment was that any-
thing on earth should have induced Henrietta to.
give away the show. Obviously that was what
she had done in bringing Margaret to the flat.
She could scarcely do that without admitting she
was my wife, whereas she had always insisted
that no one was to know until six months had
passed. Then, her idea was that we should go
away together, and publish the belated news.
“ I guessed on the instant,” Derrick explained,
“that something desperate must have happened
to lead Henrietta to act as she was doing. In
fact, I knew that only one motive could have
influenced her, and that was Margaret’s dire
LIONEL WINDERMERE was now lean-
275


THE SILVER BAG 279
people at Champion Place had no notion you had
left London?”
“ Not till the afternoon post on Tuesday. I
had no time to wire on my way to Victoria, if
I wanted to catch the train. When I got to
Eastbourne I had too many things to look after.
As a matter of fact,” Derrick added, “I wrote to
Henrietta late on Monday night—too late for
her to receive the letter by the morning post.
Meanwhile, Henrietta, on the way to Grosvenor
Gardens in the taxi, had insisted on secrecy about
our marriage. It was only when Margaret was
parting from Evelyn, after ten o’clock at Constable
Street, that she missed the silver bag. Even
then Margaret couldn’t recollect where she had
left the thing.”
“If only I had been told the truth at once,”
exclaimed Lionel, “what a world of misery I
should have been spared ! ”
“Ah well, my dear fellow, I’m not certain,”
said Derrick. “Some people go about looking
for it, you know. Of course, you would have been
told if Margaret had known what was passing in
your mind. But she didn’t know. Neither did
Evelyn, till she was enlightened by Val. She
hoped even then that he would be able to satisfy
you. She hoped that Margaret might never have
to learn that you could suspect her. Besides, to


282 THE SILVER BAG
world could convince me. I knew the bag was
my wife’s. I was right so far. Thank God, I
was wrong in everything else.”
With that he turned towards the door, and
Valentine, with a glance at Derrick, followed
him into the passage.
“Val,” he said, standing on the threshold,
“ I’ve got a bit of an ordeal in front of me still.
Upon my soul, I don’t know how to look
Margaret in the face. You see, old fellow, it was
all my fault from the beginning. I drove her out
of the house that Monday, and she did just the
natural thing. She turned to the youngster. As
soon as she learnt what was in my mind, she said
she had been here, but I refused to listen to
another word of explanation. I don’t seem to
have a leg to stand on.”
“The best thing you can do,” suggested
Valentine, “is to get away for two or three
months—another honeymoon, you know.”
“If she only would!” cried Lionel.
“ I’ll bet you twenty to one,” said Valentine, as
Lionel walked away towards the lift.


CHAPTER XXXVI
“ LL’S well that ends well!” exclaimed
A Derrick, as Valentine rejoined him a
few moments after Lionel Windermere’s
departure. “By the by,” he added, “according
to Henrietta, who is generally right, you’re by
way of making a fresh beginning.”
“ Where are you off to now ? ” asked Valentine,
rather hastily.
“ Back to Champion Place,” said Derrick, with
a glance at his wrist watch.
“Then suppose we go together. I was on
the point of starting when Lionel put in an
appearance.”
“Well, now,” cried Derrick, resting a hand
on the other’s shoulder, “if you wouldn’t very
much mind putting off your visit for an hour
or so-——”
“My dear fellow,” Valentine interrupted, “I
seem to have been put off for goodness knows
how long already.”
“That’s all right,” said Derrick. “Another
hour can’t make much difference. The fact is,”
283


284 THE SILVER BAG
he explained, “I’m going to carry Henrietta
away to Eastbourne. I’ve wired for rooms at
the Cavendish. She’s a bit shy about it, and
I fancy she would rather get away without
seeing anyone but Evelyn. Give us a fair start,
and you’ll find the only person you really care
to see alone.”
Insisting that there was not another moment
to spare, Derrick lost no time in setting forth
to Champion Place.
Valentine followed him as soon as an hour
had passed.
“Well,” he asked, as he entered Evelyn’s
presence, “have they got safely away?”
“A quarter of an hour ago,” was the answer.
“ Henrietta looked as if she had committed the
unpardonable sin. She is always a wee bit
over-anxious about what people will think of
her, you know. She allowed Derrick to sweep
her off her feet just before Christmas, but really
I believe she repented the instant she had given
her promise. Anyhow,” Evelyn added, “poor
Mr. Windermere is satisfied at last!”
“ Oh yes, Windermere is satisfied
“ That sounds almost as if you were not! ”
“I’m still rather perplexed about one thing,”
Valentine admitted.
“What is that P” she demanded.
”


THE SILVER BAG 285
“I have never been able to understand what
happened between you and Lucilla to make you
suddenly treat me—well, so much more decently,
you know.”
“Did—did I?” asked Evelyn, in little above
a whisper.
“ Oddly enough,” he persisted, “the change
seemed to date from the moment you discovered
that she had given you away.”
“ You admired her very much,” suggested
Evelyn in a louder voice—“ very much indeed!”
“I am afraid,” he explained, “that I was
merely out for a-for a lark. The mistake you
made was in thinking I ever took the affair
seriously.”
“Perhaps,” said Evelyn, “ you are the kind
of man not to take any ‘affair’ very seriously!
At least you must admit that your conduct was
rather misleading. When Henrietta tried to
make it more regular, you certainly showed very
little reluctance. If you had no serious intentions
-—isn’t that the correct phrase—towards Lucilla,
why did you accept our invitation ? ”
“I imagine that you know as well as I,”
answered Valentine, with a smile. “I imagine
Henrietta told you. Though,” he added, “you
have not told me the cause of your reformation
when you knew that Lucilla had given you away.”


286 THE SILVER BAG
“Suppose,” Evelyn faltered, “that it is im-
possible to explain without—without giving myself
away.”
“I hope to goodness that’s what you’re going
to do,” he replied, taking her hands.
“But, don’t you see,” she cried, looking up
abruptly, only to lower her eyes the next instant,
“that it would be absolutely out of the question
if Lucilla had not-—-”
“If Lucilla had not what?” he urged, as
Evelyn hesitated.
“ If she had not played false,” she murmured,
as Valentine drew her nearer. “How could I
ever have allowed myself to come between you
two?” she insisted. “She declared again and
again that she was fond of you. I believed her,
till she went out of her way to make you think
it was I who left the silver bag at your flat.”
“Then she put herself outside the pale,”
suggested Valentine. “You felt you had a
free hand!”
“Certainly not,” said Evelyn, as be pressed
her still closer. “At least not till I came home
from Parliament Court. Having deceived me
in the one respect, I thought she might be false
through and through. I determined to find out.
I succeeded in making an appeal to her feelings.
The girl is a curiousmixture. As a sort of