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Under SEALED ORDERS a ilotjel of 3Lo\je anli atiVimture By GRANT ALLEN Author of *' Linnet, ^^ "Miss Cay/ey's Adventures,^' Etc. gillujsitrateD b? i^» C. (EDtpatDjai GROSSET 6f DUNLAP PUBLISHERS : : NEW YORK PZ — ) CARMMMI/I Copyright 1896 BY NEW AMSTERDAM BOOK COMPANY. 67?76 UNDER SEALED ORDERS CONTENTS L na BID OOVTAttI —.«««„ ^ 1 n. A MTSTEBIOUI VniTOB — — •»■• f m. OUAIDIAH AND WABD «. ^ ^ «, If IT. DIFLOlfATIO DISOIPUNl ^ ^ ^ ■, 11 T. 'OHBROHll LA fBlUU' ^ ^ «• ^. 17 Tl, A ORITIOAL ITINIKa «, ^ ^ ^14 ▼n. A PUOTOOmAPHIO STDOr -. •• ^ 41 Tin. DANOSB AHIAD — t «• «■ Ag IX. TAMILT BUBIim* .«■•«, ^ 50 Z. AN VNBXPSCmD BNOOUMnB «. .« ^ (| XI. MAN PBOFOSM -. «. ^ 7t XII. TINS ABT .« „_, ^ ^ yg Xin. THB HIOHBB BDUOAnON OP WOMBB •, ^ 82 XIT. ION* IN XNatAND — ^ «, ^ •■ XV. AN INVITATION — «, ^ ^ Q| XVI. AT LADT FjSAUMONT'b — ■■ ■« 101 XVU. IN THB 00UB8B Of BDdUrMB ^ ^ Z 108 XVin. THB NIHILUT OHIBV ^ ^ lie XIX. 00M8PIBA0T —■■■•», \ IJl XX. aOBB TBMFTED ...-.«, ^ ^ 127 XXI. THB BQCALITT 0» WOMAN «. ,^ ^ «. llf XXn. THB NBMK8I8 0»' OCLTOBB . lAt ^ MB MM (M Xfti XXin. THB PAI'H Of DDTT «, ^ j^j XXIV. PALTFAIN* WITH BIN -■•■•■"" 1 65 C0NTBNT8 XXT. A* AWrOi 80MMTI0K — XIVI. TH» 0W8I8 OOMM — XXVIL OW«N DBBATB8 ^ •— XXVin. THB BUBBLl BUBBT8 (M ZXIZ. BWHNNINO AIMSH .« XXX. THl BULB OF THB OBDKB ^ XXXI. SHADOWS or OOMINO BVII. XXXn. OOOD-BIB ••• —• VXXin. A SIBAHOB BUOOBSTION — UXIT. BBHTBNOB OF DEATH -» XXXT. DIBOIPUNB — — XXX' A. 'HOO **^' ^" VOTIB* ZXXm. AH DKHAVPT AFOBTATB ^ zzxvm. BAD wews from kikff «. SXXIX. fOKTONB'B WHBBL ^ XL. •OOOD-BTB— FOB IVBBr .« XII. LAUBBL-LEAVES m> — • XUl. BAD MATBRIAli mm •— XUn. TO MOSCOW — "• XUV. TBAFS FOB FOXBS — XtV, 1 LA BU8SB .^ "• XtVl. 0B08BIN0 THB BUBIOOS -. XLVII. A SINOUIAB INCIDENT — XIVIII. THE VALLBT OF THB SHADOW XUX. AT THE THIBD SECTION ... L. BUBIC BBASBOFF'B IIABTTBDOII U. AND AFTBB! — •-» m. AWAT oYii ni maLMTO — les 170 177 188 189 196 201 207 211 217 223 228 233 239 245 251 257 263 , 269 . 276 . 280 . 286 , 291 . 297 . 802 - 807 • 811 . 817 UNDER SEALED ORDERS CHAPTER L TKB BED OOTTAQB. All these fine things were to be seen in Saoha's stndio. Now, Saoha's studio was allowed to be the preiitiest room in all the house. Sacha said so herself, indeed, and she was an authority on decoration. And she said the truth. Such a queer little lop-sided, five-cornered, irregular nook of a room you never saw in all your life. It was built out from one angle of the external wall, and lighted up from the north side by a big square bay- window, which projected cornerwise, anyhow, into the lawn and orchard. It was quaint because it never aimed at quaintness ; it achieved it unconsciously. And the outlook was charming, too, over the brook and the hillside ; no more satisfying view, Sacha held, among the Surrey hills than the larches above and the pear- trees below as seen across the foreground of lavender and poppies from her studio window-seat at the Bed Cottage. Throw in an easel or two, carelessly posed, a few soft Liberty draperies, a Lewis Day wallpaper, an Oriental rug, a great Japanese screen, and Aunt Julia's black silk gown (with Aunt Julia inside it) to give dignity to the foreground, and there, as well as this poor band can draw it, you have a fair rough sketch of Sacha Cazalet's sauctom* UNDER SEALED ORDERS 11 ' For my part,' said Owen, straightening his arm and then bending it so as to display the biceps, ' I shouldn't mind a little rain. The heavier the ground is, the better my chances.' Sacha looked up at him in his becoming running suit ; he'd been sitting, or rather posing, for her as joint winner at the tape in her spirited picture of ' A Dead Heat — the Finish,' and she thought to herself as she looked, though he was her own brother, that a handsomer or finer-built or stronger-looking young man wasn't to be found that day in the length and breadth of England. She drew a deep breath, and added a delicate touch to the stiffened muscle of the straining forearm. ' But it'd be a pity,' she said, stepping back a pace and surveying her own work critically, * if it rained whilo we're actually on the ground to-morrow. You men have no thought. Consider our nice new gowns, and hats, and feathers.' ' It's a dreadful waste of time,' Aunt Julia interposed, smoothing her immaculate white hair behind her blame- less lace head-dress. ' I shall be glad when it's all over, I'm sure, and you get back to your books again, Owen. Young men of twenty ought to have something else tc busy themselves about In the world, it seems to me, besides high jumps, and hundred yards, and half-miles, and hurdle races.' Aunt JuUa mentioned the very names of those offensive exercises with a certain high-sniffing dislike, and as if between unwilling quotation marks. A model district visitor. Aunt Julia, if ever there was one ; a distributer of tracts and good counsel gratis ; a pillar of orthodoxy; a prop of the University Central African Mission. 'Mr. Hay ward approves of them,' Owen answered with the air of a man who stifles opposition by citing a crushing authority. * I suppose you don't want me to neglect Mr. Hayward's wishes ? He says what he desires above all things is to see me a typical English gentle- man. Now, there's nothing more English than athletics, vou'll admit. Aunt Julia. He's always delighted when he finds me going in hot and strong for cricket, and foot* ball, and boating. *' Be cosmopolitan in your ideas," h# THE RBD C0TTA6B $ •ayi to me always — " as cosmopolitan as you can make yom^elf ; bnt be English in your pursuits, your costume, your habits." ' ' I don't think he need be much afraid of that,' Sacha put in with a smile, washing her brush out in chloroform. * You're English to the backbone, Owen ; I could tell by the very build and set of your limbs you had true English blood in you.' * Well, if it rains to-night,' Owen went on, releasing himself from his fatiguing pose, and flinging himself down like a young giant on the capacious window-seat, ' I shall puU off the mile ; and, after all, that's the only event of the whole lot I really care twopence about.' Aunt JuUa's curiosity was so fully aroused by this un- expected avowal that she deigned for a moment to display a passing interest in athletics. 'Why, I thought,' she cried, astonished, 'you were certain of the long jump, and the half-mile, and the cricket-ball.' ' That's just it,' Owen replied, stretching his left arm in turn, and then retracting it suddenly. 'I'm safe as houses for those, and so I don't mind a bit about 'em. But I'm no good at all for the mile imless the ground's heavy. On light ground Charlie Skene's sure to beat me. If it rains there'll be a good race — like Sacha's picture there — and that's just what I love — won by a neck at the finish.' And he glanced at his own shapely limbs on bis sister's canvas with not unnatural approbation of her handicraft or her model. ' Better go and put on your other clothes now,' Aunt Julia remarked with an undercurrent of doubt. She was never quite sure in her own mind whether it was exactly right for Sacha trt pamt even her own brother, let alone the professional model, in so light and airy a costume ; besides which, those short sleeves must be conducive to rheumatism. Aunt Julia pinned her faith on the protec- tive virtues of red flannel If she'd had her own way, she'd have cased Owen from head to foot in that triple armour against assailing chills. But there I what can one do ? Toung peopls cowAdays are so self-wiJUed and obstinatt 1 UNDER SEALED ORDERS i ! Owen rose from the window-seat and shook himself like a big dog just released from the kennel. ' Well, they are rather chilly to sit in/ he admitted, reading Aunt Julia's mind, which, for the rest, was an open book with very few pages in it. * I don't mind if I do go and put on my toggeries ; but I'll just take a sharp trot first round the meadows to warm me.' He stood with his hand on the door, on the point of starting, when a timid knock outside made him open it suddenly. Martha was standing there with an envelope on the salver. A well-trained servant, Martha. She knew it was as much as her place was worth to burst into the studio without leave while Miss Sacha was painting there. If there's anything on earth that's destructive to a work of art, in pigments or words, it's continual inter- ruption in the midst of your working hours. And to dis- turb a model's pose, Sacha often remarked, is nothing short of criminal. ' What is it ?' Owen asked, taking the envelope from the salver. • Telegram, sir,' Martha replied. * Boy's waiting below in the 'all for the answer.' Owen read it, and bit his lips. ' Well, this is just annoying I' he cried. ' Who do yon think's coming down ? Mr. Hayward himself — and at twelve o'clock to-morrow.' A sudden silence fell all at once upon the little listen- ing group. They looked at one another and bit theu* lips in embarrassment. Clearly, some unexpected damper had been put at once upon all Owen's plans. Sacha was the first to break the awkward pause. ' At twelve,' she said musingly. ' And the sports, I think, begin at ten, don't they ?' • Nominally ten,' Owen answered, still regarding ihe telegram with a very rueful face, ' but that always means practically half-past ten or thereabouts. Punctuality's a virtue that hasn't been yet evolved. They take such a precious long time clearing the course and so forth.' Sacha consulted the card of the sports and then the local time-table. • You'd have time, if yoa liked, for the hundred yarls. THE RED COTTAGE S And perhftps the long jump, too, before his train gets in,* she said, with as doep an interest as if thousands were at stalie ; ' and even then you could go down to the train in your flannels to meet him. But you'd miss the mile, and that you say 's the only event of the lot you care about.' Sacha had lived long enough in an athlete's family, you see, to know that ' event ' was the propei word to apply to these particular engagements. Aunt Julia beamed horror through her scandalized spectacles. * Why, you don't mean to say, Sacha,' she cried with what breath she could muster up from the depths of her outraged bosom, • you thought Owen might go down to meet Mr. Hayward at the Moor Hill Station in those dreadful racing things ?' Sacha gazed up at her blandly. ' Yes I did, auntie,' she answered in that calm, soft voice of hers. ' That was exactly my idea. Why not ? They're so becoming.' The want of reverence for their elders in young people nowadays is positively something little short of appal- ling. Aunt Julia gasped. *Go . . . down ... to the station ... in thosa clothes?' she repeated, feebly gazing at Owen, open- mouthed. • Oh I Sacha, how can you ?' Owen watched his sister's face askance to see what she'd answer. But that imperturbable young lady had made up her mind by this time. • No, you had better not go, my dear,' she said promptly, after a short pause for consideration. ' Don't be at the station at all. Bun your races exactly as if nothing had happened. Mr. Hayward '11 be pleased that you've trained and gone in for so many prizes. There's nothing he likes better than seeing you a thorough Englishman. Never mind about him. I'll run down to meet him myself, and bring him up to the field to you.' ' Sacha 1' Aunt Julia ejaculated once more. It was all she could say. The situation was too dreadful Words failed her to express herseli 6 UNDER SBALBD ORDBR8 Bat her niece was not a young woman to be turned from her purpose by the interjectional application of her own Christian name. She knew it abready. She was three years older than Owen, and her character was more formed ; besides, she was a professional artist and earned her own living. Your independent woman is a feature of this age. She has acquired initiative. She thinks and acts for herself, without the need for a father, a husband, or a brother to lean upon. ' Martha,' the independent woman said briskly, turning round to the maid, ' bring me a telegraph form hrom the dining-room.' And Martha flaw down for it like one who knew that Miss Sacha at least would not be kept waiting. The mistress of the studio sat do?m at her desk and filled it in : ' Delighted to see you to-morrow. Owen bu3y athletics, Will meet you at station myself, unless rain. Wire back if you wish Owen to stop awaj. * Saoha Oaxaus.' She handed it across to her brother. ' Will that do ?' she said quietly. Owen stepped nearer and kissed her. ' Tou are a brick, Sacha,' he said, ' and no mistake t How splendidly you manage things ! That's just the way to do it.' * For my part,' Aunt Julia observed, glancing over his shoulder through her spectacles with the disapproving eye before which many a beer-absorbing labourer in the village had quailed in his shoes, ' I call it exceedingly disrespectful from a boy like Owen to a man in Mr. Hay- ward's position.' ' Oh, hd won't mmd,' Sacha answered, like one who knows her ground. ' He's a very odd man, of course. And be demands obedience. But he goes in above every- thing for making Owen athletic. It's the spirit, not the letter, Mr. Hayward cares about. He'll be delighted to come up to the grounds and see him run. Don't you be afr&id, auntie. I'll make things all right with him« I promise you, at the station.' ▲ ICYSTBRIOUS VISITOa OHAPTEB IL A MTBTBBIOUB VI8IT0B. Al the 12.4 train steamed into Moor Hill Station next morning Sacha was there, to her word, in good time to meet it. A handsome, upstanding, self-contained sort of a girl, Sacha Cazalet, not un worth"' in physique to be a orack athlete's sister. As she stood there on the plat- form, in her soft artistic dress and her wide-brimmed Bubens hat, with the calm, strong face beneath it, she looked as if she might have stepped that moment straight out of one of her own graceful and earnest pictures. The train pulled up with a jerk. ' Mer-ill, Mer-ill, Mer-ill !' cried the porters in chorus in their accustomed shorthand, and a passenger or two, divining by good chance that these cabalistic sounds represented Moor Hill in the vernacular tongue, descended slowly from the carriages with bags, rugs, and bundles. Amongst them was one noticeable man in a rough tweed suit — tall, thin, and time-worn, but a typical aristocrat as to mien and features, with a clear-cut, statuesque, intellectual face, olean-shaven all over but for its heavy black moustaches. He came down, it is true, in a third-class carriage, and he had nothing in his hand but a stout untrimmed stick, which he had evidently cut for himself on some black- thorn-covered common ; but he was none the less a gentleman confessed for all that — blue blood shone clear in his face, his walk, his tone, his gestures. The noticeable man took Saoha's hand cordially, with a certain stately condescension, yet as one who liked her. 'So "^ou came to meet me, Alexandra?' he said, smiling, ' That was awfully good of you. Your plan, of course. You did quite right to let Owen go off to his ■ports unmolested. I appreciated your telegram. But there 1 that's your way — you can always be depended upon.' *I wish ^ou wouldn't call me Alexandra,' the girl answered with a little shudder, yet taking his hand ai cordially as he gave it. ' You know I hate the nama, I alwayi lo much prefer to be known as Sacha.' 8 UNDER SEALED ORDERS Mr. Hayward turned towards the gate and gave up his ticket. « Alexandra's so much better, though,' he said slowly, in his soft, musical voice. ' It's good English now, since a princess brought it over. All English names come across to us in the last resort with a prince or princess. We haven't got a native one. WiUiam, and Henry, and John, and Eobert, came over with the Conqueror; Ernest, and Augustus, and Caroline, and Sophia, came over with the Georges ; Alexandra, and Olga, and Chris- tian, and Dagmar came over with the very latest royal importations. But English snobbery seizes on them and adopts them at once. That's the English fashion. Whereas Sacha carries date, as you say about your gowns. People are sure to inquire when they hear it in what country of Europe Sacha's short for Alexandra. And that,' he paused a second, ' would interfere with my views for Owen's future.' ' I prafer the name I've always been called by myself,' Sacha interposed quietly, and then closed her lips short. It was diamond against diamond with those two, both firm as a rook in their own fixed opinions. Mr. Hayward answered nothing — at least, not directly. < Owen Cazalet,' he murmured with a sigh, as if half to himself, rolling it over on his tongue — ' Owen Cazalet, Owen Cazalet. Couldn't have anything that would sound much more British than that, I flatter myself. Though Owen's Welsh, to be sure, when one goes to the bottom of things, and Cazalet's Huguenot. But British enough as times go nowadays — British enough, Owen Cazalet. • For myself, I confess, if it weren't for business pur- poses,' Sacha replied obliquely, ' I should much prefer in many ways my cwn family name. I hate disguises. But of course, as I've got to be known now as Sacha Cazalet to picture-buyers and publishers, I must stick to it for the future. As an illustrator my practice depends largely on the name. It's a good trade-mark for the purpose, thank Hep.ven t — distinctive and striking. And I can't change it naw unless some amiable young man chooses to oiler me his, which doesn't seem likely in the present state of society/ A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR • Well, I'm glad you can't change it, my child,' Mr. Hayward said, not unkindly, looking down at her with eyes of unfeigned admiration. He was old enough to be her father, and he spoke to her always with a certain old-fashioned paternal courtesy, much as a Louis Quinze marquis of the stately type might have spoken before the Court to mademoiselle his daughter. ' It would be a pity if any such suggestion of un-English antecedents were to stand in the way of my plans for your brother's advancement.' ' It would,' Sacha replied. * I admit it. I acquiesce in it.' They walked on together to the cricket-field, where the sports were to be held, Mr. Hayward stopping every now and then with genuine delight in the country to admire some pretty spray of young bramble or cluster of hart's-tongue in the hedgerow. He had an artist's eye for nature, like Sacha's own. The tangled richness of the stitchworts and red-robins by the wayside seemed to charm and impress him. 'It's a sweet country,' he said at last, pausing and gazing deep into the recesses of the bush-grown bank. * What exquisite depths of shade I What luscious rich- ness of foliage I' ' Tes,' Sacha replied, in the same tone ; ' such a struggle for life, too, isn't it ? Each fighting for his own hand ; each craning and straining to overtop the other. Like the world we live in.' * As it stands now,' Mr. Hayward assented gravely — < a tangled maze, a mere unorganized thicket. Yet some day it might become an ordered and orderly garden.' 'That would be so much less picturesque, though,' Sacha suggested, sighing. •Less picturesque? Yes, perhaps," Mr. Hayward cried, like one who sees some vision of delight. ' But, oht Sacha, what of that? More useful and more hopeful 1' As they reached the cricket-field Sacha glanced around for a moment to see where among the crowd of spectators Aant Julia was seat ad. Her quick eye soon picked out tJNDER SEALED ORDERS II II the Immaculate white hair among a little group of local dignitaries near the centre by the pavilion. Mr. Hay- ward advanced and lifted his hat to Miss Gazalet with that indescribable air of courtly chivalry that was well- nigh inseparable from his smallest action. Aunt Julia received the bow with mingled respect and distant dis- approbation. A strange sort of man, Mr. Hayward, not tone counted upon in some things; quite a gentleman in every sense of the word, of course ; but somehow, to Aunt Julia's district-visiting type of mind, extremely awe-inspiring and not a little uncanny. She was never quite sure, if the truth must be told, as to Mr. Hayward's principles. And principles were to Aunt Julia, as to the British matron in general, objecti of a distinct and almost idolatrous reverence. Mr. Hayward joined the group, and fell into the con- Tersation at once with the practised skill of a man of the world. They were discussing ' that dangerous book,' * A Bural Idyll,' by Margaret Forbes, which Aunt Julia considered ' undermined the very groundwork of our social morality.' Lady Beaumont, the county member's wife, lolling back on her chair, gave a languid e.ssent ; she'd read the story herself, and only remembered now she'd found it interesting ; but as Miss Gazalet disapproved of it, why, of course, as politeness demanded, she disapproved in concert. It was Miss Forbes thsy were talking about? Mr. Hayward asked, smiling curiously. Ah, yes, a very clever woman, too, and a bishop's daughter I What an irony of fate I He'd heard one or two good stories in town abou her. Mrs. Forbes, the bishopess, was quite proud of t te book's success ; but, as her daughter re- marked, ' If I hadn't written ilf mamma wouldn't have touched it with a pair of tongs, you know.' He kn>ew her then, Lady Beaumont suggested, with a •areless interest, from the chai beside Aunt Julia's. Mr. Hayward waved a graceful and half-deprecatory Begativs. I^o, he didn't exactly know her— that's to say, ■ot as OB visiting terms — but from time to time he ran ap against her in Londoa drawiog-rooms. Sooner o( A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR 11 Ifr. later, in fact, one ran np against almost everybody \( ortih knowing in any way. London's so small, you see ; and the world's bo shrunken nowadays. Lady Beaumont glanced the mute inquiry with her languishing eyes : * And, pray, who's your fine friend ?• Aunt Julia introduced him with a rather awkward con- sciousness : ' Lady Beaumont : my nephew's guardian — you've heard me speak of him — Mr. Hayward.' The county member's wife put up her long-handled tortoiseshell quizzing-glass, 'the aristocratic outrage' Sacha always called it, and surveyed Mr. Hayward for full fifty seconds with such a keen, searching glance as only your hardened woman of society dare ever bestow on a fellow-creature. A plain Mister, then 1 She'd imagined him a general at least, if not a baronet or an honourable. Mr. Hayward stood it out calmly, unmoved and unconscious, witn that imperturbable smile of his. Then he drew over a vacant chair with one well-bred hand, sat down upon it just behind them, and, as if on purpose to over- come some initial prejudice, began a delightful flow of the most amusing gossip. Even Lady Beaumont smiled often. He handled small-talk like a master. And how he knew his world, tool — Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Con- stantinople, the little German spas, the Norwegian fiords, the Dutch and Danish kurhauses, the Pyrenean watering- E laces. Who was there at Cannes whose whole domestic istory he hadn't at his finger-ends ? Who was there at Florence whose flirtations with the Marchese This or the Contessa That, as case and sex might be, he couldn't chronicle fluently? What family skeleton lurked secure in its native cupboard from his piercing scrutiny ? And it wasn't all mere scandal and gossip, either. There was history in it as well ; profound grasp of national life, profound knowledge of the twists and turns of human nature. For Mr. Hayward was a psychologist, and while he fitted his conversation to his hearers' intellects, he Always let you feel through it all that he himself was something higher and bigger than the world he der,cribed — ^that he laughed in his sleeve all the while at iti foiblei ftnditifollief. IS UNDER SEALED ORDERS I iS As for Sacha, sitting beside him and listening silently, as was her wont— for she was restrained of nature and little given to speech — to his brilliant flow of witty society talk, she couldn't help wondering to herself now and again how a man so intelligent and so able as Mr. Hay- ward could possibly lower himself to so feeble a level, could waste himseli contentedly on such an unworthy flow of pure human tittle-tattle. And Mr. Hayward, on his side, too, seemed to be conscious of her feeling, for with infinite tact, he managed to turn to her now and again, and add, as it were for her special benefit, a little aside containing some profounder reflection or some more interesting detail. Was it Madrid he was talking of? After he'd rattled on to Aunt Julia and Lady Beaumont of that famous bull-fight where the Duke of Medina-Goeli got his collar-bone broken, he went off at a tangent for ten minutes with a word or two to Sacha about the blaze of colour in the streets, or the Murillos in the Prado. Was it to Venice he'd got now? After describing, for the listening group in front, his adventure in a gondola with the editor of the Fanfulla and a Neapolitan prima donnft, he diverged into a little private disquisition behind on the mosaics of St. Mark's and the Athenian lion at the gate of the Arsenal. Altogether, ' A most well-informed man of the world/ Lady Beaumont thought to herself. ' Quite an acquisi- tion for the day in our society at Moor Hill, in spite of his principles,' Aunt Julia reflected inwardly ; and ' What a pity he wastes his talents so I' Sacha meditated with regret. But she was wrong, for all that. He wasn't wasting them — not a bit of it. That was his rdU in hfe. To be all things to all men — and all women, too — ^better- ing even the comprehensive apostolic injunction — was the secret of his profession. At last there came a pause, a sudden break in the flow- ing current. The mile was now on, and Sacha saw for herself that all the while, amid his gossip, though Mr. Hayivard was so fluent of varied experiences in all eomers of Europe, his eyes had none the less followed Owen perpetually round the field with quite as much eagerness and oonstanoy as her own had done. At tbt A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR i$ finish he bent his head forward for a moment in anxiety, then sprang from his chair in his joy. 'Bravo! bravo T he cried, clapping his hands with unaffected delight as the tape fell forward. * Owen wins I Owen wins I Well done, my boy I Well done I You must be proud of him, Miss Cazalet. A splendid race, and just carried by a fine spurt. I never saw anything better in my life than the magnificent way he did those last ten yards in I* He sat down again, quite flushed with vicarious pride in his ward's success. His face was beaming. ' I wish I'd brought my little snap camera with me,' he cried, * to take an instantaneous of that final dash-in. It was so beautiful, so perfect. The action of that boy's limbs, like a thoroughbred racer's — why, it's a picture to look at.' At the v/ords Lady Beaumont raised the class outrage once more, and took a second long stony stare at tha well-informed stranger. Could it be ? No, impossible 1 But, yes, she was sure of it. She couldn't be mistaken now. She'd suspected it from the very first, and in those words the man himself as good as admitted it. No colonel I No baronet I But a common man from a shop in London i ' I think,' she said very deliberately, in that glassy, cold voice of hers, * I've seen you before, Mr. Hayward. You say one knocks up against almost everybody in town, and I've knocked up against you somewhere. Haven't we met — at a photographer's shop, I think — in Bond Street r Aunt Julia quailed. Sacha leant forward curiously Lady Beaumont tapped her quizzing-glass on her knee with the air of a detective who unmasks a clever disguise. Mr. Hayward himself alone smiled on blandly as ever. • Yes, I remember it perfectly,' he said, with, if possible, a still more self-possessed and high-bred air and manner than before. ' At Mortimer and Co.'s in Bond Street. I had the pleasure of a sitting from you for the Gallery of Fashion. I edit the series. My name's Lambert Hayward; but in Bond Street I'm known under tha style and title of Mortimer and Co., photographers.' UNDER SBAtBD ORDERS il ■ There was an awkward panse, though only an in- finitesimal one. Lady Beaumont flushed crimson. But Mr. Hayward was too perfect a conversationalist to let even such a point-blank thrust from a very clumsy hand mar the effect of his caiiserie. He went on with the subject at issue as unconcernedly as though Lady Beau- mont were in the habit of dining every evening with her photographer. 'And instantaneous views are a perfect passion of mine,' he continued carelessly. ' I love to get a good subject, like Owen in that last spurt, or a yacht at the turning point, to catch a really graceful movement and record it in a lightning flash. You'd hardly believe, Lady Beaumont, how much skill and knowledge it requires to choose the exact instant when a figure in motion is at its picturesque best. But Sacha here knows it well. Even the most exquisite dancing has a great many intermediate points or passing attitudes that are artistically impossible. Only a few select poses are really useful for art, and those few must be discriminated and registered with incredible rapidity.' ' So I should think,' Sacha interposed, not unappre- ciative of the gracious tact of his tribute to her artistic taste, as well as the unusual concession implied in calling her by her pet name of Sacha ; ' and I've often noticed, indeed, how much all instantaneous photographs, except yours, Mr. Hayward, are wanting for that very reason m spirit and vigour. The others look wooden, ;^nd un- real, and angular — yours alone are instinct with actual life and motion.' Ah, you look at them with an artist's eye, you see,' Mi. Hayward responded quietly; 'the more we under- stand the difficulties to be encountered ard overcome in any art, however mechanical, the more do we learn to appreciate it and to respect its producers.' Lady Beaumont leant back in h^ rough rush-bottomed chair, and knit her brows abstractedly. The problem was not yot solved, it was only intensified. Who on earth could he be, then, this strange high-bred-looking man, with the manners of a diplomatist and the acquire- ments of a 8\ork?' Aunt Julia suggested, aghast— • his books, his reading, Mr. Hayward? Don't you think these things tend to unsettle a young man for •zamina* iions?* DIPLOMATIC DISCIPLINB K Mr. Hayward turned round and gazed blandly and benignly at her. • I should have read Owen's character very ill indeed,* he said with a curious smile, * if I thought anything could unsettle him from a resolve once made. He's true as steel, is Owen. If you want men to do well, first begin by trusting them. That's the freeman's way. The other is both ^he curse and the Nemesis of despotism.' What a very odd man I Lady Beaumont thought to herself ; and how sententiously he spoke 1 What a bore, too, if you saw much of himl For women of Lady Beaumont's type invariably think anybody a dreadful bore who makes a generalized remark, or who talks about anything else in heaven or earth but the gossip of (ht narrow little set they mix in. OHAPTEB IV. DIPLOMATIC DISOIPLINB. An hour or two later they were taking tea together in Sacha'a sacred studio, at the round table made out of the Gairene wood- work stand, surmounted by the old Moorish chased brass tray that Mr. Hayward had brought her on one of his voyages to Tunis. The treasures of the household, indeed, had been ran- sacked to do honour to Mr. Hayward. Aunt Julia had brought out the best silver teapot with the Cazalet arms on it, and the George III. apostle spoons that belonged to her grandmother fifty years ago in Devonshire. Cook had produced some of her famous brown rolls, and had surpassed her well-known skill in the home-made rusks and buttered Canadian tea-cake. Martha's little French eap was crimped and starched with unwonted oare, and her apron with the white lace was even more spotless than usual. Sacha herself had put the very daintiest of her sketches on the easel by the square bay-window, and festooned fresh sprays of trailing clematis and long stems of wild bryony from the Venetian bowl in hammered M fTNDBR SEAI^BD ORDERS copper that hung by a wrought-iron chain from a staple in the corner. The studio, in short, was as picturesque as Sacha knew how to make it; for Mr. Hayward's visits were few and far between, and all the household made the more of them for the rarity of their ocour- rence. Yet a certain visible constraint brooded over the whole party none the less while they drank their tea out of Sacha's Satsuma cups; for it was an understood thing that Mr. Hayward never came down to Moor Hill except for some good and sufficient reason ; and what that reason might be, nobody liked to ask him, though, till he chose to disclose it himself, they sat on tenterhooks of painful expectation. At last, however, Mr. Hayward laid down hie cup, and ruined for a moment to Owen. • And now, my boy,' he said quietly, as though every- body knew beforehand the plan he was going to propose, ' will you be ready to set out with me to-morrow morn- ing?' ' Certainly,' Owen answered at once, with a great air of alacrity. ' To-night, if you like. I can go and pack my portmanteau this minute, if necessary, or start with- out it.' Mr. Hayward smiled approval. ' That's right,' he said, nodding assent. * Quite right, as far as it goes, and shows promptitude in some ways. I'd half a mind to telegraph to you yesterday to come up then and there, just to test your obedience. But I'm glad now I didn't. It would have grieved me to have done you out of this morning's triumphs. This is all so good for you.' • If you had,' Owen said simply, ' I'd have come straight up, of course, though it would have been a wrench, I don't deny. But it's wrenches, after all, that are the true test of discipline.' Mr. Hayward smiled once more. • Quite so,' he answered, with evident pleasure. * You're a good boy, Owen — a boy after my own heart. And in most things I approve of you. But remember, paint d% Mils. Zeal often spoils everything. That was unneoei- DIPIX>MATIC DISCIPUNB •S Bary that yoa said just now, "to-night, if you like"; nobody asked you to go to-night. I said, to-morrow morning. A well-trained subordinate answers, "Ger* tainly; at what hour?" but never suggests to-night. That's no pajrt of his province.' He paused for a moment and gazed hard with searching eyes at Sacha. ' These things are important,' he added, musing, ' as disciplinary preparation for the diplomatic service.' ' I'll remember it, Mr. Hayward,' Owen answered sub- missively. ' For the diplomatic service,' Mr. Hayward went on, * a man needs for the most part not zeal, but discretion. Zealous subordinates you can find any day in the streets by the dozen ; a discreet one you may search for over two-thirds of Europe. Obedience you've learnt already, my boy ; discretion you've got to learn now. No offering to go and pack your portmanteau at once — it isn't demanded of you — still less, protestations of willingness to start without ona' He spoke austerely, but kindly, with a tender, fatherly ring in his voice, like one who would correct a fault with- out giving needless pain to the pupil. ' I see, Owen answered, abashed. * I was wrong, of course. I ought to have gone without a portmanteau at once, if you summoned me ; but not nave effusively offered to go without one when I wasn't called upon to do so.' Mr. Hayward's eyes sparkled with suppressed pride and pleasure. A very apt pupil this, quick to accept reproof where he saw it was deserved, and to mend his ways accordingly. He laid that friendly hand upon the young man's shoulder again. ' Quite right, Owen,' he said. * Tou'U make a diplomat yett . . . We shall see him ambassador at Constan- tinople before we die. Miss Gazalet. . . . But you haven't asked yet where you're to go to, my boy. Don't y»a want to know about it.' Owen hesitated a moment. ' I thought discretion dictated that I ■hould wait till I was told,' he answered, after a long pause) daring whioh Baoha'i eyei wero fixed firmly upon him. fl4 UNDER SBALBD ORDB&8 The Bond Street photographer smiled that itranga emile of success aud satisfaction once more. < Bight again, my boy,' he said, well pleased. ' Yoa answer as you ought to do. Then you shall know your destination to-morrow evening.' Aunt Julia gave a little start of surprise and regret. 'But aren't we to know where he's going, Mr. Hay ward?' she cried. 'Aren't we to know where we can write to him ?' Mr. Hayward turned round upon her with a coldly con* temptuous look in his keen brown eyes. His manner towards Aunt Julia was always markedly different from his manner to Owen and Sacha. Its stately courtesy never quite succeeded in concealing the undercurrent of contempt for the district visitor within her. ' It was in our bargain,' he said, ' Miss Cazalet — which Owen, at least, has always loyally kept — that I might lake him for a month at a time, twice a year, when I chose, to live with me, or travel with me wherever I liked, in order to retain such a hold as I desired both over hit education and over his character and affections. Xt was never specified that I should tell you beforehand when or where it suited me he should pass those two months with me. It was only arranged that at the end of each such holiday I should restore him once more to your own safe keeping. Two months out of twelve is eurely not excessive for me to ask for myself, espeoiallv as Owen is happiest when he's away on his trips with me.' The tears came up into Aunt Julia's eyes. Long since 6he had repented of that most doubtful bargaia She even wondered at times whether Mr. Hayward was some modern embodiment of Mephistopheles, ftnd whether she nad sold Owen's soul to him, as Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. It frightened her when she heard dim talk so much of running about Europe in traint de iuxe. It reminded her always of the Book of Job, and of the high personage who presented himself at the court of heaven ' from goin^ to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down m it.' ' I should certainly have liked to know when Owen DIPLOMATIC DISCIPWNB 95 was likely to be/ Aunt Julia murmured, sfcrugglinG; har*! with her voice and her tears. • It's a pull to give him up without even knowing where he's gone to.' Owen turned to her tenderly. * Well, but, auntie,' he said in his manly voice, always full of English cheeriness, ' you know I won't get into any harm with Mr. Hayward, and for myself, I really like best the element of adventure and surprise — the never knowing till I get there where it is I'm going to.' The love of adventure and surprise, however, is poorly developed in the British old maid or in the British matron. But Mr. Hayward had carried his point, and eould afford to relent now. ' Go upstairs, Owen,' he said, ' and put your things together at once. I'm not sure, after all, I won't start off this evening.' * And we've got dinner for you, and everything f Aunt Julia exclaimed appealingly. She'd made a cream pudding. Her housewifely heart was stirred to its depth by this bitter disappointment. But Owen ran upstairs with cheerful promptitude. It was clear Mr. Hayward had a very firm hold over him — ^ hold gained not so much by command as by affection. As soon as he was gone their visitor closed the door behind him. ' Miss Cazalet,' he said in that clear and very musical voice of his, * I've never been unreasonable. I made % bargain with you and Owen for Owen's clear advantage, but I've never abused it. While he was at school I took care not to break in upon his terms ; I even allowed his schooling to take precedence of his education ; I only claimed him in the holidays, and then he learned more from me in those two short months than in the other ten from his books and his masters. Since he left school I've been more irregular, but always for a good reason. I've a good reasor now, though I don't choose to com- municate it. However, I don't mind telling you privately where I'm going, if you and Alexandra — I beg your garden, my child, Sacha I mean — won't mention it to iwen before we start. . . . I'm contemplating a month'i iov in the moontainB of Moroooo.' I :«, :.,Ba* M UNDER SEALED ORDERS i I Eli 'I ,1 Annt Julia drew a deep breath of relief. She knew nothing about Morocco, to be sure, except the bare nnme ; and she had a vague idea that the majority of its inhabitants were engaged in the book-binding trade and the exportation of leather ; but it was a comfort io her, all the same, to know exactly on the map where Owen was going to. * Morocco/ she reflected, much consoled. ' Morocco. Morocco. And shall we be able to write to him while he's gone ? Will you give us your address there ?' 'There will be no address,' Mr. Hayward answered curtly. ' No addresses of any sort.' ' Not even poste restante P Aunt Julia interposed. Mr. Hayward smiled a broad smile. ' Not even poste restante,* he replied, unbending at the bare idea. ' We shall be up in the mountains all the time, among pathless wilds, and in small native villages. Posts are unknown, and inns of any sort unhoard of. I want ^o do some photography of the untouched Moorish world, so I shall make at once for the remotest interior.' ' Owen will like that I' Sacha put in, well pleased. ' It'll exactly suit him. There'll be mountain climbing, of course, and, as he says, an element of excitement and adventure.' •Precisely,* Mr. Hayward answered; 'just why I'm taking him there. I want to train his body and mind to familiarity with danger. Your father was a brave man, Sacha. I want Owen to be like him.' ' Owen is,' Sacha said proudly. ' As brave as they're made. He takes after his father in that. Or else your training's been successful' ' Well, it's a comfort to think, anyhow, that if anything goes wrong in Morocco while he's there,' Aunt Julia said with a sigh, ' we shall know at least that dear Owen's in the midst of it.' Which is a feminine form of delight, but a very common onoo 1^ •CBBRCHBZ LA FBMMB* CHAPTER V. *0HBB0HB2 LA FBMIO!.' GuABDiAN and ward stood on the deck of a Canard Medi- terranean liner before Owen had an inkling of their real destination. This uncertainty, indeed, exactly suited his adventurous athlete miud. He liked to set out not knowing whither he was bound, and to wake up some fine morning in a new world of wonders. Overflowing with life and youth and health and spirits, he found in such a tourist surprise party an irresistible attraction. He was wafted to his Bagdad as on some enchanted carpet. It would have spoilt half the fun for Llm if he knew beforehand where he was going, or why; and, besides, with Mr. Hayward he was always happy. He preferred this sailing under sealed orders. Oh, the change to him, since boyhood upwards, from Aunt Julia's petticoat regime and perpetual old-maidish restraint at the Bed Cottage to the freedom and breezi- ness of Mr. Hayward's holiday I For Mr. Hayward had designed it so, and had succeeded admirably. A boy hates to live under a woman's restrictions, and loves to have a man in authority over him. Mr. Hayward took advantage of that natural instinct of boy psychology to bind Owen to himself by strong ties of affection and grati- tude. With Aunt Julia education was one long c^ 3- gorioal ' Don't ' ; her sole part of speech was the impera- tive negative. Don't try to climb trees ; don't speak in that voice ; don't play with those rude boys ; don't wear out your shoes, or the knees of your knickerbockers. With Mr Hayward, on the contrary, education consisted in a constant endeavour to find out and encourage every native instinct : If that pleases you, my boy, why, do it by all means ; if that irks you, never mind, you can get on in the end very well without it. From Mr. Hay- ward, cr with Mr. Hayward, Owen had learnt French at odd times without being conscious of learning it ; he had Uamt history and politics, and knowledge of common ihiBgi ; optioB and photography, and all (he allied arfei m m m 1 I J ■ I, if 1 r t'i flS UNDER SEALED ORDERS and sciences ; geography in action ; a mass of general in- forriiation taken in at the pores, and all the more valu. able because acquired con aiuire. That was what Mr. Hayward meant by * not allowing his schooling to inter- fere with his education.' The boy had learnt most and learned best in his holidays. Obedience, if you will ; yes, Mr. Hayward desired the promptest obedience. But it was the willing obedience the disciple renders oi his own accord to the master he adores, not the slavish obedience a broken spirit tenders to a despotic martinet. Liberty first, order afterwards. Mr. Hayward would rather ten thousand times see Owen rebel than see him give in without a struggle to unreason- able authority. As a matter of fact, Owen often rebelled against Aunt Julia's strict ruleri ; and when he did so Mr. Hayward upheld him in it stoatly. On this particular journey , even after they got out- side the bar of the Mersev, Owen had still no idea whither on earth they were bound, save that their desti- nation was somewhere in the Mediterranean. He learned the exact place by accident. A fellow-passenger, leaning over the ta£&:ail, asked Mr. Hayward carelessly, * Alex- andria ?' * No, Tangier,' the mysterious man answered. ' My friend and I are going on a tour in the Morocco moun- tains. I want to do a little photography there — take un- hackneyed Islam.' Owen's heart leapt up at the sound ; but he gave no overt token. Mountaineering in Morocco I How delight- ful I How romantic ! Arabs, Atlas, Adventure I The very thing to suit him. ' Dangerous work,' the fellow-passenger observed, with a languid yawn, ' sketching and photographing. Shock these fellows' religious prejudices ;. and Jedburg justice is the rule. " Off with his head," says the Cadi.' * So I hear,' Mr. Hayward answered calmly. * They tell me you mustn't try to take a snap at a mosque, in particular, unless you can do it unobserved. If the natives catch you at it, they're pretty sure to resent the insult to their religion, and cut your throat as a work of vnobcruBiTe piety.' •CHBRCHEZ LA PBMMB ' What larks 1' Owen thought to himseU. * This is just what I love. A spice of danger thrown in I And I've iJways heard the Morocco people are fanatioal Moham- medans.' And, indeed, he enjoyed his first week or two on African soil immensely. From the moment he set foot in Tangier — that tangled Tangier — he found himself at once in a fairyland of marvels. More eastern than the east, Morocco still remains free from the vulgarizing ad- mixture of a foreign element which spoils Algiers and Cairo and Constantinople. But Owen had never touched on Islam at all before; and this sudden dip into pure Orient at one plunge was to him a unique and glorious experi- ence. He was sorry to tear himself away from the pic- turesque narrow alleys and turbaned Moors of Tangier, even for the promised delights of the wild interior. But Mr. Hayward's arrangements for his tour in the Atlas were soon completed ; the protection of the Shereefian umbrella was granted in due form, and they set out, after three days, for the mountains of the black country. Owen was not at all surprised to find as they journeyed inland, that Mr. Hayward spoke Arabic fluently. On the contrary, it would have astonished him much more if his guardian had proved ignorant of any known language, Oriental or Western. Mr. Hayward chatted easily with their Moorish escort, a soldier of the Sultan's, as they marched along single file, each mounted on a good native saddle-horse, through the narrow bridle-paths which constituted the sole roads in Morocco. The British (jonsul at Tangier had procured them the services of an official escort, and had further supplied them with a firman from his Shereefian Majesty, enjoin- ing on all and sundry to show them on their way every respect and kindness. Travelling was safe in the interior just now, the escort assured them ; for, Allah be praised t the Sultan's health was excellent. When the Sultan was ill, of course it was very different ; things got unsettled up country then, and it was dangerous for foreigners to venture too far from the coast and their consuls. In Bamadan, too, during the month of fasting, European! found it risky to travel about freely. The faithful of the m W m 1~ t ' : l!>i 6i ' 1^ 1 y UNDER SEALED ORDERS town got crusty with their enforced abstinence, and their religious feelings were deeply stirred at that time; they let Siem lootie, the escort remarked, with engaging frank- ness, on the passing infidels. Up country, you see, the people are so little accustomed to foreign effendis. At Tangier we are more civilized; we have learned to make trade with them. It had been hot at Tangier, for it was full summer in England; but up on the high mountains of the interior they found the season cool, with a spring-like freshness. Owen never enjoyed anything better than that free, wild life, climbing crags through the long day, camping out in quaint Berber huts through the short nights, with none but natives and their cattle for society. And the danger gave it zest, for, in spite of the Sultan's firman, they could only photograph by stealth or under constant peril of angry and hostile expostulation. About their fifth evening out from Tangier, an hour before sunset, as they were sitting in the court}' ard of a rude native inn at a place called Ain-Essa, where they pro- posed to pass the night, as guests of the village, they were surprised by the approach of a pair of travellers in the cos- tume of the country. One was a handsome young man in an embroidered Moorish jacket and loose white trousers, wearing a fez on his head, around which protruded great fluffy masses of luxuriant chestnut hair, reminding one somewhat of the cinque-cento Florentines. Though not more than the middle height, the stranger yet looked tall an^ well made, and Owen remarked at once with a profes- sional eye that he had in him the makings of a very toler- able athlete. The other, who seemed his servant, was an older, heavily-bearded man, clad in the common green coat and dirty white turban of the Moorish groom or stable-boy. The younger traveller of the two jumped from his horse very lightly. He rode well and sprang with ease, like an accomplished gymnast. As he flung his reins to his servant, he said, in decent French : *Tiens, take my horse, Ali; I'll go into the auberge, and see if they can give us accommodation this evening. ' The sound of a European tongue in that remote mouu* •CHBKCHSZ LA FBMMB' tain Tillage took Mr. Hayward aback. He rose from the divan where he sat, and, lifting his hat to the young man, crossed over to the servant, while the new-comer, with easy assurance, strolled into the front-room of the native inn. ' Monsieur est Fran9aiB ?' he asked the man who had been addressed as Ali. The Arab shook his head. ' Non, Anglaise,' he answered curtly. ' Anglais ?' Mr. Hayward corrected, thinking All's com- mand of French didn't extend as far as genders, and that he had substituted the feminine for the masculine in error. But Ali was not to be shaken so lightly from his first true report. ' Non, non,' he repeated ; ' Anglaise, vous dis-je ; Anglaise, Anglaise, Anglaise. It's a woman, not a man. It pleases her to ride about tbTOUgh the interior that way.' Owen looked up quite crestfallen. ' Tou don't mean to say she travels alone, without an escort, with nobody to take care of her except you ?' he asked the man in French. The Algerian — for he was one — nodded a quiet assent. ' 'Tis mademoiselle's fancy,' he said. < She likes to go her own way. And she goes it, I can tell you. Nobody would ever get mademoiselle to do anything she didn't want to.' Owen gazed appealingly at his guardian. ' This is too bad, Mr. Hayward 1' he cried. ' We've a soldier to protect us. And a girl goes alone. We must dismiss our escort. It's a shame for us to be beaten hke that by a woman.' ' You're quite right,' Mr. Hayward answered. ' If she can go alone, why, so can we. I'll dismiss our man to- morrow, and I'm glad you took it so.' In a few minutes more the stranger strolled out casually into the courtyard again. She had a £rank, free face, yet not really masculine when one came to look into it, and the great crop of loose, chestnut hair, blowing about it in the breeze, gave it a very marked air of loose grace and oarelessness. I>J I 'I m 41 4 F 31 < i U' ji UNDER SKATyBD ORDERS 'I beg yonr pardon/ she said in pure English, her Toice betraying at once the open secret of her sex, ' but T hear from the man who keeps this place you've got hia only two rooms. I'm sorry to interfere with you, but would you mind occupying one together, just this even- ing, to let me have the other. It's a long pull at thia hour of night to Taourist, the next station.' She spoke as calmly and familiarly as if she were in an Enghsh hotel, and as if a lady got up in male Arab costume were everywhere a common object of the country. Mr. Hayward glanced at her and smiled, rais- ing his hat the while with his usual stately courtesy. ' With pleasure,' he said, motioning her to a seat on the divan by the door. ' If there's anything at all we can do for you we shall be only too happy. You're English, of course, as I gather from your accent.' The problematical young person took a seat on the divan in the shade, and removed her fez for coolness, dis- E laying as she did so all the wealth of chestnut hair that ad before been but vaguely suspected by the fringe that escaped from it. ' More English than anything else, I suppose,' she said brightly, leaning back as she spoke and loosening her native sUppers ; ' though I haven't a drop of English blood in my body, if it comes to that. But I'm a British subject, any way ; and my native tongue's English. I'm a little bit of everything, I believe — except Turk, thank heaven 1 but my name's mostly Greek ; it's long Draco- poll.' ' A very pretty name, too,' Owen put in, half-abashed. * My friend's is Hayward, and mine's Owen Cazalet.' • Why, then, you must be Sacha's brother I' Miss Draco- poli cried, enchanted. ' You are ? How delightful 1 Sacha and I used to go to the School of Art together. Yon never heard her speak of me, did you — lonS Draoopoli ?' ' No, never,* Owen answered. • But she knows so many girls in London, of course,' he added apologetically. * You don't mean to say you're travelling alone in Morocco like this ? You've come all the way from TlUigie' with nobody but this servant ?' •CHERCHEZ I^ FEMME* as 'Notfiom Tangier,* Miss lone answered, enjo3dng his amazement immensely ; ' much further than that. All the way from Oran, in French Algeria. Yes, I've ridden across the mountains on my own hired horse, just with Ali to take care of me. Tiie French people at Oran talked a pack of nonsense about its being impossible for anybody to get along beyond the frontier without an escort. " Very well, then," said I to the sous-prefet or somebody — a fat. smiling old gentleman with a red ribbon in his buiton-hole and a perfect genius for shrugging his shoulders and saying, " Mais, non, mademoiselle, impossible" — "I never care to attempt anything myself unless it's impossible. What's possible's easy. What's im possible's amusing." He shrugged his shoulders again and said, "Another of these mad English. Thank heaven, if she's killed it'll be beyond the frontier." But he let me go, all the same.' And lone smiled, triumphant at the memory of the encounter. ' And you've had no difficulties by the way ?' Mr. Hay- ward asked, astonished. lone threw her head back and showed a very pretty neck. Her face was daintily rounded, and her teeth, when she smiled, were two rows of pure ivory. * Difliculties ?' she echoed. ' Difficulties? Dear me, yes ; thank goodness I've had nothing but difficulties. Why, what else do you expect? Where'd be the fun of coming so far and facing so much discomfort, I should Uke to know, if it were all plain sailing, like a canter across the Brighton downs ? It was the difficulties that drew me, and I've not been disappointed.' Owen stared hard at her and listened with profound interest and admiration. Mr. Hay ward, gazing alarmed, noted the sparkle in his eye. This was indeed a girl after Owen's own heart, he felt sure. So he registered a solemn resolution in his own mind to find out that night which way Miss Dracopoli was going on the morrow, and to start himself on the opposite one. For there's nothing more likely to turn a man froi n any fixed resolve in life than that first stumbling-blook of our race, from Adam I ■ * J w :il II UNDER SEALED ORDERS downward— a woman. And Mr. Hayward had far othez designs in his head for Owen Gazalet than to let him fall a tiotim betimes to any lond Dracopoli. 1i m •i 1; Flj lilj I CHAPTER Yt A OBITIOAL BTBNWO* Thbt sat there some time and talked, the pretty stranger in the Moorish costume detailing to them meanwhile in farther outline her chief adventures by the way — how she'd been refused at every native hut in the village here, and made to sleep in the open air, under the fig-trees, tiiere, and turned away altogether from whole tribal lands elsewhere. It was a curious, eventful tale, and once or twice it grew exciting ; but Miss lond herself, overflowing with youthful spirits, told it all, from the humorous side, as a capital joke, and now and again made them laugh heartily by the quaint drollness of her eommenta At the end of it all she rose, quite unabashed and imtroubled by her wide Turkish trousers, and, with an airy wave of the hand observed : * I must go inside now, and see what our landlord can do for me in the way of supper. I'm hot and dusty with my ride. I must have a good wash. There's nothing on earth so delicious, after all, when you've got beyond the Southern limit of tubs, as a big bowl of cold water at the end of a long day's journey.' As soon as she was gone, Mr. Hayward looked at Owen. •WeU? he said slowly. * Well ?' Owen answered, perusing his boots. *What do you think of her?' Mr. Hayward asked, trembling. * She's certainly pretty,' Owen admitted, hot and red. And neither said a word more. But Mr. Hayward felt an unwonted thrill of premonitory discomfiture. Half an hour later, lond emerged again. She had Iftken off her embroidered jacket meanwhilii Mid now A CRITICAI, EVENING 38 displayed underneath it a sort of loosa white shirt, of some soft silky material, which gave her a more feminine air, and showed olBf to greater advantage tlat full, smooth, snowy neck of hers. Her short but flowing hair rippled gracefully round her temples. She came out to them, trilling to herself a few bars of a joyous French song, * C'est ca-tarra-larra.' ' Weil, this is better,' she cried, looking roond at the pink glow of the Southern sunset on the bare white- washed walls, and shaking her locks free from her fore- head, on the faint mountain breeze. ' I'm cool again now. They'll give us something to eat out here before long, I suppose. Better here than in that stu% little living-room inside. I'm not particular as to furniture, or food either, thank goodness 1 but fresh air seems to oome rather expensive in Morocco.' She was like fresh air herself, Owen felt instinctively. Something so open and breezy about her face, her voice, her walk, her manner. The ideal of young Hellas oome to life again by a miracle in our workaday, modern, industrial world. She looked as if no taint of this sordid civiliza- tion of ours had ever stained or sullied her Greek Naiad nature. ' I've asked them to serve us what they ccin in the open oourt,' Mr. Hayward said dubiously. ' You're used to tbeir fare by this time, no doubt, so I won't apologize for it.' ' I should think so I' the girl answered, pulling her shiru loose as she spoke, with another sunny smile. ' Very good fare, too, in its way, though not luxurious ; dried figs and milk, and olive-oil, and cous-cous. It's such a comfort to feel one's left fish-knives and doiliea altogether behind one, and that there isn't a pair of asparagus-tiongs anywhere nearer than Oran.' ' Perhaps,' Owen began, rising from his seat, and look- ing timidly towards Mr. Hayward, ' Miss DraoopoU would prefer ' • I beg your pardon,' their new acquaintance put in quickly, interrupting him. ' T'm not Miss Draoopoli. I object to these meaningles*) pure oourteay titleib Mj namo's lond.' ' i '1^1 i ■■", m 3« UKDER SEAI^ED ORDERS * But I can't say lonS to a lady I never met in my life before to-night,' Owen responded, almost blushing. •Why not?' the pretty stranger answered, with most engaging frankness, 'especially as you'll mcst likely never see me again in your life, after to-ucrrow.' Mr. Hayward looked up sharply. h.& was glad to hear that welcome suggestion. But Owen only bowt i, and received the hint in regretful silence. * Well, if I were a man, you see,' Ion6 went on, com- posing herself on the divan in Owen's place, with her feet under her, Oriental fashion, ' I'd get other men, of course, to call me Dracopoli. But a girl can't quite do that. It's unfeminine, and women, I think, should always be womanly ; so the only way out of it is to say, frankly, lonS.' ' So universal a privilege is the less likely to be highly prized,' Mr. Hayward said sententiously. ' Exactly,' lonS answered, leaning forward, »?\ alert, and opening her palms before her demonstratively. ' That's just the point of it, don't you see? Tt .■: ■ 'enta stupid nonsense. I'm all for social free Jom myseh : '.nd social freedom we girls can only get when women ipsist in general society upon being accepted as citizens, not as merely women. What I've always held about our future ' But before she could get any further in her yolable harangue the landlord of the little inn, if one may venture to give the village guest-house such a dignified name, appeared in the court with the single tray which contained their dinner. He was the amine or headman of the little mountain community, and after serving the meal he and his friends stood by, as native politeness demands, not to partake of the food, but to do honour to their guests, and to enliven them witn conversation. From the talk that ensued, Owen, who, of course, spoke no Arabic, was wholly cut off; but Mr. Hayward and lonfi chatted away complacently. Every now and again, too, the amine would take up some cous-cous, or a morsel of roast kid, in his dusky fingers, and as a special mark of distinguished consideration thrust it bodily into their mouths—the Oriental equivalent for * Do let me tempt A CRITICAL EVENING S7 yon with ftnoth «r slice o' turkey.' Owen felt it a hard trial of his courtesy to gulp down these greasy morsels from those doubtfully washen hands; but he noticed with admiration that lonS Dracopoli received them all with every outward expression of appreciation and delight, and he marvelled much himself at the young lady's adaptiveness. • What a power of accommodating yourself to circum- stances you must have I' he cried at last to her, in an unobtrusive aside. 'I can't put on a smiling face at those great greasy boluses of his. How on earth do yoa manage it ?' lonS laughed lightly. ' Habit, I suppose,' she answered, with a sunny glance at the amine. ' That's how I rub along so well with these half-barbarous people. I'm accustomed to giving way to their crude native ideas, and so I seldom get into any serious bothers with them ; and though I travel alone, they never dream of insulting me, b/en if they're a bit churlish or suspicious sometimes. And then, besides, I dare say, my ancestry counts for a great deal I'm not BO particular about my food, you see, rs most regular English people. Even at my father's table in London, we always had black olives, and caviare, and all sorts of queer Greek dishes — nasty sloppy messes our visitors called them, much like this pillau ; but I was brought up on them, and I liked them.' ' And then you speak Arabic so well,' Owen went on enthusiastically. 'That's the Greek in you again, I suppose? Can you speak many languages? Most Eastern Europeans have such a natural taste for them.' ' Oh, yes, pretty well,' lond replied, with the careles? air of a person who describes some unimportant accom- plishment. ' English, and French, and German, of course ; those come by nature — one hears everybody speaking them; and then modern Greek, papa's business friends always spoke that in the house, and we picked it up unconsciously ; and anzient Greek — papa liked ub to know enough, you see, to read the New Testament and follow the Bervioe at church. Papa was orthodox, of vl ;v m ;. .1! i 1 3» UNDER SEALED ORDERS '11 I course, and we went to Petersburg Place ; and it wai such ftin to spell out Herodotus and Aristophanes and ^schylus. Men think you're clever ; though, when you speak modern Greek fluently, you know, it isn't the least bit hard to pick out the sense of Thucydides and Plato ; but I'm not learned, you must understand. I've only skimmed them through ju t as I'd skim Shakespeare or a French novel, or Dante's "Inferno."' And she helped herself to some curds with her fingers daintily. 'Then you know Italipn, too?' Owen interposed, still more open-mouthed. ' To read, not to talk — that is to say, not well. But I'd soon pick it up if I was a week in the country. That's how I speak Arabic, as she is spoke, you know — no better. I took lessons for a fortnight at Oran before I started, from such a funny old Moor, with a French wife and three native ones; they boarded me in the harem, and we jib-jabbered together from morning to night, and I get along splendidly now. So would you, if you took the trouble, and if you've a turn for languages.' ' I have,' Owen answered modestly. * I suppose that runs always with East European blood.* He paused and faltered, for in the midst of the amine's conversation, Mr. Hayward's keen eyes had darted a warning glance at him. Then he went on more quickly, as if to cover the slip : ' Your father's dead, I gather, from what you say. But have you a mother living ?' ' Oh, dear, yes,' lone replied frankly, without a shade of false reserve. * A dear old duck of a mother. She's Norse, my mother is, but Orthodox — Greek Church, I mean, you know. Papa married her at Bergen, when he was there in business, and she was received into the Church in London, after he was made a partner. That's why, though I'm practically English, I haven't a drop of English blood in my veins — thank Heaven I for I prefer to be original. I'm a cross between Nora Helmer and the Athenian of the age of Pericles, Sacha always tells me; and I'm proud of the mixtare. Stay-at-home English people are so conventional * too Philistine, too A CKITICAI^ QVHNINO afraid to trnst their own wingi. I'm not like that. Vm wild on freedom.' And she shook her straggliDg locks again, standing oat wavily on all sides, and let her full white shirt pone itself out as it would over her uncorseted bosom. * So I should think,' Owen answered, with a slight twinkle in his eye, though he admired her boldness immensely. ' But does your mother — * know you're out, he was half tempted to add, thoun^h he restrained himself with an ehurt, and finished the sentence — ' approve of your coming away aU alone by yourself like this to Morocco ? lond drew in her rich red lips with expression, and wiped them internally — since the feast knew no napkins. ' I'm an individualist,' she said briskly ; ' above every- thing, an individualist. I believe — it's a simple creeds in personal freedom, and I'm lucky in having a mother who's an individualist too, and who shares my confession of faith. When I was coming here, I said to her, *' Well, I'm going to Morocco." " All right, dear," she said ; *' alone ?" " Yea, alone, mother." " How '11 you travel, on foot?" "No, if possible, on horseback." " When do you start ?" " To-morrow." '♦ Very well, dear; take care of yoursoll" There's a mother for yon, if yon like. I think I've reason to be proud of her. I'm not conceited, I hope, but I flatter myself I've brought up my mother splendidly.' Mr. Havward, glancing sideways, would have given anything that moment to get rid of the amine. This con- versation was terrible. It threatened instant ruin to all his best-laid plans. Was ever Owen confronted with such ft dangerous pitfall ? And he oould do nothing — nothing to stop the full flow of this strange young woman's too attractive 3onfidenoe. He tried to draw hei into conversation with the amines but all to no purpose. long was much more interestingly engaged elsewhere. She Uked this young athlete with the great English limbs, who told her so modestly of his olimbs among the mountains — a man after her own heart, And so handsome, too, and so appreciative. She rattled on with him by the hour, now narrating her own adven- \i!.l Ml I7NDBR SEALED ORDERS ti tnres, now drawing out his. Long after the meal wai removed, and the amine had withdrawn gracefully to his evening devotiona (with a curse for the infidels), she kept those two there up talking continuously with her. Mr. Hayward himself, that heart of adamant, was hardly proof against her seductive charms. She was so frank, so adventurous, so bold, yet so innocent. * You mustn't think ill of me,* she said at last, ' if I've talked like a woman all the evening — and all about mysell I've a right to be garrulous. I've such arrears to make up — such arrears ; oh, dreadful I Just consider ; it's five weeks to-day since I've met a Christian soul to talk to.' Mr. Hayward stroked his chin and roped his big black moustache. The word Christian attracted him. ' And are you Orthodox, then, yourself,' he asked, * like your father and mother ?' lone laughed at the question. ' Orthodox I' she cried merrily, with a girlish toss of her pretty head— it was a true Greek head, oval, straight- nosed, and round-faced — ' not in any sense of the word. I'm a Christian, I hope, in essentials, if that's what you want to ask ; but Orthodox, no, no I Not at all my line that. I'm just a concentrated bundle of all the hetero- doxies.' And with that final Parthian shot she nodded good- night to them both, and tripped gracefully away into the narrow doorway of the sleeping-room. Before they retired for the night to roll themselves up in their own rugs on the smooth, mud-paved floor, Mr. Hayward whispered for a moment in a low voice to Owen. ' My boy,' he said, not angrily, but hke one grieved and surprised, laying his hand on the young man's shoulder with that kindly paternal air of his, • what a terrible slip about your East European blood I It took my breath away to hear you. How on earth did you ever come to doitr ' I'm sure I don't know,' Owen answered, abashed and penitent. ' It slipped from me unawares. I suppose I was off my guard, being so far from England. Mr. Hay- ward, you're too good I Don't 1 >ok at me Uke that, but do scold me — do scold me for it. I'd give worlds if you'd A CRITICAL EVENING 4« scold me sometimes instead of taking things to heart, so. Oh, how wrong of me — how silly ! What can I do to show you how grieved and ashamed I am ? . . . Dear friend, dear guardian, don't look at me like that. This time will be a warning to me. As long as I live, I promise you faithfully, I'll never do so again — never, never, never I* And to do him justice, he kept his word faithfully. CHAPTER VII. ▲ PHOTOGBAFHIO BTUDT. OwBN slept that evening much worse than usaal. Not that the externals of his resting-place at Ain-Essa differed in any essential particular from those of the other squalid native huts where he'd spent every previous night since leaving Tangier. The dogs didn't bark louder, the jackals didn't whine in a more melancholy monotone, the fleas didn't bite with any livelier persistence, than in all the other sparse Berber villages on the slopes of Atlas. But Owen slept a great deal less than his wont, for all that ; and the reason was — he was thinking of lond. She was separated from him only by a thin wooden partition ; for these native North African guest-houses are far from luxurious. Indeed, it is the fashion to make a single building serve the double purpose of an inn and of the village cow-house. At one end of the guest- chamber rises a broad wooden platform, under which the mules and cattle are stabled, their heads projecting through an opening into the room one sleeps in. But to this arrangement, which carried his mind away at first to the inn at Bethlehem, Owen had by this time grown perfectly accustomed ; what he hadn't grown accustomed to was long's close proximity. For the room was divided transversely by a thin layer of pine planks ; and through the chinks of the boards, as well as through the open space at the far end where the cattle were tethered he oould h^AT lond's deep breath, long and regular lik« n ;i! 'til :,il 1 T7NDBR SEALED ORDERS i child'!, rise And fall with each movement of that inTisible bosom. He thought muoh of lonS, therefore, and of the ohanca that had thrown them thus strangely together. She'd come there for amusement, ehe Baid ; for amusement alone, and perhaps, when she got back, to write a book about it. If he'd read that book in London, it would have been nothing, nothing. But meeting loni out there, in the flesh, among the wild hills of Morocco, in her masculine attire and with her free English spirit — for, after all, it was English— she seemed to him more like some creature from the realms of fairyland : some Hellenic nymph. Oread or Dryad reTived, in this alien world of woman-enslaving Islam. Not that lond seemed to think much of her own exploit herself. It was that that put the finishing touch to her singular character. She talked as though it were quite a matter of course for a girl of nineteen to be travelling alone in man's clothes through the mountains of North Africa. A mere detail of convenience on an out-of-the-way route. An accident of caprice. Owen admired her all the more for it. But she must have money, too. That was htX Or else how could she come such trips as this by herself ? Owen didn't dream of marriage yet — he was only just turned twenty — but he had a prejudice against money, especially in a woman. Most wholosome-minded men would prefer to work for the girl of their choice them- selves, and let her owe everythin3 to them, rather than put up with a wife who could keep them or help them, and make them lose their sense of perfect independence. At last he dozed off. Even so he slept but lightly. He was aware of the bite of each individual flea in all tliat populous room, and heard in his dreams the various droning notes of each responsive jackal. Earlier than usual. next morning Mr. Hayward waked him up with a gentle touch on his shoulder. > I I'm sutb It must have been in one of the studios, I expect, on Show Sunday.' Madfi,me Mireff hunted it up in the catalogue — a rare honour at her hands, for her taste was fastidious. ' Aspasia's School-days,' she read out, * Alexandra M. Cazalet.' ' Oh dear yes, to be sure I' Lady Beaumont cried, with a sudden flash of reminiscence. ' How stupid of me to forget 1 I ought to have remembered it. I'm glad xVrthur wasn't here ; he'd be vexed at my having for- gotten. A county member's wife, he says, should make a point of remembering everybody and everything in the whole division. And I saw it till I was sick of it, too, in her studio at Moor Hill. So it is, I declare, Sacha Cazalet's picture.' Madame Mireff caught at the name with true Slavonic quickness. ' Sacha,' she repeated — * Sacha Cazalet I Why, she must be partly Eussian. That's a Eussian word, Sacha — it's short for Alexandra, too — and her name's Alex- andra. Her mother must be a Slav. . . . And that's no doubt why I like her work so well There's Eussian feeling throughout, in both subject and execution ; such intensity, such fervour, such self-restraint, such deep realism.* * She lives down our way,' Lady Beaumont remarked, with a casual glance at the intensity. * She's a queer, r9«£?rved girl, self-restrained, as you say; a little too nuo), so, perhaps, for me ; and she has such a dreadful old woman for an aunt — old maid — you know the type ; shedding tracts as she goes ; red flannel ; Dorcas meet- ings. Oh, quite too dreadful for anything in her black Bilk dress and her appalling black bonnet, with a bunch of mauve flowers in it. But there's no avoiding her. In the country, you see, a member of Parliament's wife must know the most ghastly people — you can't imagine what a trial il is. A smile and a kind inquiry — so — after rheumatics or babies — for every old frump or old bora vou meet on tlio footpath. Ugh 1 It's just too sicken- mg. . . . But I u'jver hoard anybody say Sacha Oaiialet wad u EuuuiuQ.' FINB ART 19 * What.'«» the annt's name?' Madame Mireff asked Rud- dojily, fc no reason iu particular, except that 'twas part of licr mission to follow up every clue about every known or suspected Russian family in England. ' Why, Cazalet, of course,' Lady Beaumont answered at once, without pretending to any great interest either in person or picture. * They're all three of them Cazalets.' • Then they're her brother's children, whoever they ire,' Madame went on rapidly, ' this Miss Sacha and the rest ; or else, of course, their name couldn't be Cazalet, too. Who was their mother, I wonder ?' Lady Beaumont paused and stood still. It was too much effort for her to walk anJ think at the same time. ' Well, I never thought of that before,' she said, look- ing puzzled for a moment. ' You see, they're not in our Bet exactly ; we only know them as we're obhged to know everybody in the division — on political grounds, that is to say — garden-party once a year — hardly more than what you might call a bowing acquaintance. But it's odd her name's Cazalet, too, now you suggest it, for I've always understood Sacha's mother and the old lady were half-sisters or something. . . . Perhaps she mariied a cousin, though. . . . But at any rate they're Cazalets, this girl and her brother Owen, a great giant of a fellow wh J gets prizes at sports for jumping and running.' ' And yet they call her Sacha,' Madame ruminated, undeterred. * Well, that's certainly odd ; for Sacha's real Russian. Though, to l)o sure, in England nowadays you call a girl anything. No language is safe from you- I'vo met a dozen Olgas at least since I came to London. . . . And how old's this Sacha Cazalet ? She paints beautifully, anyhow.' • About twenty-five or twenty-six, I s'hould say,' Lady Beaumont answered at a guess. • And Owen must be twenty or a little over. Let me see ; he was a baby in arms when he first came to Moor Hill, the year our Algy was born. /Igy'rf tw(Mity in August, The little girl was four or live then ; and that's just twenty years •go.' Madame Mireff a'il the while was eiamining the picture •losely. w UNDER SEAI^BD 0RDBR8 m V i " i \f: I'' ' ■li' Hh ! . '11 k i ! n ' Very SlaTonio,' she said at last, drawing back and posing in front to take it all in ; ' vary Slavonic, certainly. . . . Pure Verestohagin, that girl there. And you say they came to Moor Hill twenty years ago now. Hov ? — from where? — with whom? — was their mother with them ?' She spoke bo sharply and inquisitively, in spite of her soft roundness of face and form, that Lady Beaumont, with her society languor, was half annoyed at such earnestness. ■ comes very seldom. I saw him there this s-i. » or, iihough. A very odd man, with the manners of a , I'nce, who's been everywhere in the world, ind knc'> 3 absolutely every- thing.' 'A foreigner?' Madame asked, adopting the English phraso and applying it with tentative caution to her own oonntrymen. • Oh dear no, an Englishmau At least, lo they said. I I FINE ART 8l i 1 His uftme'i Hayward, anyhow, and that's English enough for anybody, I should think. He'q nobody in particular, either — just a photogi'apher in Bond Street. He calls himself Mortimer and Co. in business.' Madame made a mental note of the name at once. ' I'll go there and get photographed,' she said. ' I can ask about them then. Beskles, I'm in want of a new portrait just now. I haven't got any in stock. Lord Caistor asked me to give him one yesterday.' And she subsided into a seat, holding that plump hand up to her round face coquettishly. ' They sa^ he's quite a conquest of yours,' Lady Beau- mont suggested, with a mischievous look. ' Oh, my dear, they'd say anything. Why, they say I'm an emissary of the Czar's, and an unaccredited agent, and a spy, and an adventuress, and I'm sure I don't know what else. They'll be saying I'm a Nihihst next, or a princess, or a pretender. The fact of it is, a Eussian lady can't show the faintest patriotic pride or interest in her country in England without all the newspapers making their minds up at once she's a creature of the Government.' And Madame crossed one white hand resignedly over the other. ' That's a lovely bracelet, Olga V Lady Beaumont cried, turning with delight at last to a more congenial topic. Madame unclasped it and handed it to her. * Yes, it's pretty,' she answered ; ' and, what I prize still more, it's through and through Eussian. The gold is from the Ural mines on General Selistoff's property. The sapphires are Siberian, from my uncle's government. The workmanship's done by a famous jeweller in Moscow. The inscription's in old Slavonic- our sacred Russian tongue. And tlio bracelet itself was given nie by our dear good Empress. Ilayward — no, Mortimer and Co. — • photographers, Bond Street. I won't forgot the name. Here's her miniature in this locket. Shu was a darling, our Empress 1' ' You belonged to her houK uhcld ouco, I think ?' Ladj Beaumont murmured, 4 i UNDER SEAIvED ORDERS . :i ' ;! II The remotest fringe of royalty interested the county member's wife profoundly. ' I belonged to her household once — yes. I was a lady-in-waiting. The Imperial family has always been pleased to be land to the Mireifs. Prince Ruric Brassoff was there, too, in my time. Well, it's a beautiful picture, Sacha Cazalet's. Let's go away now, Anastasia. After that dreamy Eussian vision I don't care to look any more at your stodgy English middle-class portraits.' CHAPTER XIII. ■:|i ' i il 1 !' i li THE niGHER EDUCATION OP WOMEN. A WEEK later Owen ran up by morning train from Moor Hill to see Sacha and her friends installed at their ease in their own new flat a little behind Victoria Street. Tlie Ab'" itself, to be sure, with most of its inorganic contents, ^e had fully inspected already. It was daintily pretty in its modern — its very modern — way, with high white frieze of lincrusta and delicate yellow wall-paper ; and Sacha had expended upon it with loving interest aU the taste and care of an authority on decoration. But this morning he came rather with somewhat trembling heart, to view ' the elective family,' as Sacha called it — ' the miniature phalanstery,' Owen christened it himself — settled down in its new abode, and to face the ordeal of a first meeting with lone Dracopoli in the ordinary everyday garb of feminine Christendom. Ho touched the electric bell at the outer door with one timid finger. It flew open of itself, after our modern magic fashion ; and Sacha's voice was heard from a dim distance down the passage crying out, ' Come in,* in most audible accents. Owen followed tiie direction of the voice towards the drawing-room at the end, and entered the pretty whito-and-yellow apartment in a flutter of ex- pectation. Hii iiriit feeling on looking round wtis a^ vaj^ue oon- THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN 1^ Bciousness of relief. lonS wasn't there. How lucky 1 And how provoking ! Sacha jumped up and greeted him with a sisterly kiss. Then she turned towards a long wicker chair with its back to the door. ' This is Blackbird/ she said simply, waving her hand in that direction ; and Owen bowed his most distinguished consideration. ' What a shame, Sacha 1' a full rich voice broke out from the depths of the chair, where Owen at first hadn't noticed anybody sitting ; ' fancy introducing one that way 1 This is your brother, I suppose ? But please don't let him think my name's really Blackbird.* Owen peered into the long chair whence the voice proceeded, and saw a frail little woman stretched out in it lazily — a frail little woman who ought to have been eighteen, to judge by her development, but who, as Sacha had already informed him, was really twenty- seven. She was tiny, like a doll — not short, but small and dainty ; and as she lounged there at full length with two pallid hands clasped loose behind her shapely head, and neck thrown back carelessly, she looked too fragile for this earth — a mere delicate piece of semi-transparent Dresden china. Blackbird was dark and large-eyed ; her eyes, indeed, though by no means too prominent, seemed somehow her most distinct and salient feature. Such eyes Owen had never seen in his life before. They were black and lustrous, and liquid like a gazelle's ; and thej turned upon him plaintively and flooded him with sad light every time she spoke to him. Otherwise, the frail httle woman was neither exactly pretty nor yet what one could fairly describe as plain. She was above all things interesting. A profound pity for her evident feebleness was the first feeling she inspired. ' Poor wee little thing I' one felt iucliiioi to say as one saw her. A fatherly instinct, indeed, would have tcjjipted most men to lay one hand caressingly on her smooth black hair, as they took her pale thin fingos in their own with the other. But lier smile was tiweot, tliou;i,li very full of ponsiveuess. A weary hUic soulj O ^cu thought to him- Ift ll im'X % ! 3 H i I! 84 UNDER SEALED ORDERS Belf as he gazed, weighed down by the burden of Udf age's complexity. ' No, her name's not really Blackbird, of course,' Saoha responded quietly, in her matter-of-fact tone, looking down with a motherly glance at the shrinking figure in the low wicker chair. ' Her name, to be official, is Hope Merle Braithwaite. There, now — is that definite enough? Mr. Cazalet — Miss Braithwaite. You know her songs, Owen — and so you know herselt She is all one song. She evaporates in music. That's why I call her Black- bird, you lee ' — and Sacha smoothed her friend's head lovingly ; ' she's so tiny and so dark, and she's got so much voice in her for such a wee little bit of a thing. When she sings, she always reminds me of a blackbird on a thorn-bush, pouring its full throat in a song a great deal too big for it. You know the way their throati seem to swell and burst with the notes ? Well, Black- bird's throat does just the same. She wastes herself ui music' Blackbird unclasped her hands from behind her neok, and shook her head solemnly. Owen observed now il was well shaped, and covered with straight glossy hair^ as black and as shiny as her namesake's plumage. * Pure poetical fancy, evolved after the fact,' she said, smiling sadly, with the air of a woman who shatter! against the grain one more cherished delusion. ' Th« reality's this : My parents were good enough to christen me Merle, after my Swiss relations, the Merle d'Aubign^s; and I'm called Merle at home, though I was Hope at Oxfo-rd. And when Sacha heard the name, she thought it extremely appropriate to my dark hair and eyes, and (iiiu Englished it as Blackbird. That's the whole truth of the matter. All this other imaginative nonsense about pouring my throat in song came ex post facto. It has nothing to do with the name. 80 there's how myth grows.' And she folded the two pale hands resignedly in front of ler. Owen noted tnat ' ex poat fixto' with bocoining awt. Mot for nothing had Blackbird studied dead tongues ftl Oxfoi'd. i fv 1 THR Hir.TTKR KDUCATION OF WOmjN 85 I * WoU, what do yon ihink of the flnt?* Sacha asked, with a co\v\passionato glance at the prwjr weak little penaiiuiak. ' We've got it up nicely into form now, hrtvou't we? Take a good look round the room, and thcni come and soo my studio.* ' You've done wonders,' Owen answered, gazing about him, well pleased. ' And it's charming — charming I How lovely you've made that corner there, Tjith those draperies and pipkins, and my Morocco mud-ware, too ; BO deliciously Oriental. That's Miss Braithwaite'i, I suppose, the grand piano in the corner ?' The frail girl looked up at him with those great sad eyes. * Not Miss Braithwaite,' she said calmly. And Owen noticed now at once a certain obvious disparity, as Saoha ht\d suggested, between the full musical voice and the slender frame that produced it, ' Not Miss Braithwaite, if you please. Sacha's arranged all that already. She's a splendid hand at arranging things — Sacha ; she bosses the show, lone says, and I must admit she bosses it beautifully. So nice to have all the bother of living taken off your hands by a capable, masterful, practical person. That's what I admire so in Sacha. Well, she's decided that we're all to be one family here — a pantiso- cracy, lon^ calls it ; no Miss and no Misters. You're to be Owen, and I'm to be lilackbird. loae's cook — she's out marketing now ; and Sacha and I've just washed up the breakfast things. So, of course, it's absurd, in such a household as this, to think of calling one another Mr. What's-his-name or Miss So-and-So.' ' I don't Boe why, I'm sure,' Owen answered, much amused. * A Wly's none the less a lady, surely, because she can do souioLhing useful about her own house, as our grandmothers used to do.' 'But our grandmothers knew no Greek,' Blackbird replied, going oil" at a most illogical tangent. ' It's fclm combination that kills us, you know — Greek imd house- hold drudgery.' ' Gome and see my studio,' Saoha interposed cheerily, leading the way to the next room. It was Sacha's business to cut the littlo pessimist ihorfc ji! Hi M I ' * r ! i i 86 UNDER SBAI^ED ORDERS whenevar possible. And when the studio had been dnly inspected they went on to the dining-room, and the bed- roorns, and the kitchen, and the pantry, and the little scullery at the back, and a stone-floored oflice behind, frill of chemical apparatus. ' Why, what's this ?' Owen asked, surprised. * Is Miss Dracopoli scientific, then, as well as literary T ' Oh dear no I' Blackbird answered with a languid drawl, but always in that same rich voice ; ' lone's nothing on earth. Like Du Maurier's Postlethwaite, she's content to " exist beautifully.'' This is my laboratory, this room. But I've promised the girls never to make any dreadfully odorous stews in it. I couldn't get along without a laboratory, you know. I must have some- where to do my chemical experiments.' Owen scanned the frail little body from head to foot, alarmed. Was this what female education was leading our girls to ? 'Greek — music — chemistry I' he exclaimed, gazing down upon her five feet two from the calm height of his own towering masculine stature. ' You don't mean to say you combine them all in your own sole person ?' ' And not much of a person at that I' Blackbird answered, with a faint sigh. 'Yes, that's how I was brought up. It's the fault of the system. My raw material all went oflF in brain and nerves, I'm afraid, I worked those so hard, there was nothing at all left to build up blood and bone and flesh and muscle.' ' But why on earth did you do it ?' Owen couldn't help exclaiming ; for Blackbird's frank remark was so obviously true. It might be rude of him to admit it, but he didn't feel inclined to contradict a lady. ' I didn't do it,' Blackbird answered piteously. * It was my people who educated me. You see, they thought I was clever — perhaps I was to start with ; and they crammed me with everything on earth a girl could learn. Latin, Greek, modern languages, mathematics, natural science, music, drawing, dancing, till I was stuffed to the throat with them. Je suis jusque Id,^ and she put her hand to her ohin with some dim attempt at feminine playfuluegf, * Like Straslrourg geese,' she added slowly THB HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMBN 87 in a melancholy after-thought ; * it may be good for the brain, but it's precious bad for the body.* Owen stretched his big shoulders back, and expanded his chest involuntarily. The mere sight cf that weak frame seemed to make him assert his own physical prowess by automatic contrast. ' But why do you go on vith it now ?' he asked simply. ' Why continue to work at this chemistry, for example ? In poky London rooms you want all the fresh air you can get, surely. Howinfinit3ly better, now, instead of chemistry, to join a lawn-tennis club 1' Blackbird shrank back as if terrified. 'A lawn-tennis club?' she cried, all amazed. *0h dear I they'd be so rough. They'd knock one about 80. I can't bear being buUied. That's why I like Sacha and lond so much ; they're strong, but they don't bully you. Oh dear I oh dear 1 I could never play tennis. I've been brought up to mix chemicals, and read books, and compose music : and it's like a reflex action now. I compose automatically ; I test for acids like a machine. I've learnt to do these things till I can't get on without doing them.' Sacha turned to him quickly, and said something short in a language which Blackbird didn't understand, good linguist though she was. But Owen knew that the Bussian sentence she uttered so fast meant this in effect : ' That's just why I took her to live with us here She's 10 frail and frightened; she needs somebody bright to put sunshine in her life — somebody strong and strong- willed to protect her and encourage her.' ' My own people are strong, you know,' Blackbird went on in the same plaintive voice, watching a still as she spoke, ' and they always bully me. They're Phihs- tines, of course ; but, do you know, I think Philistines are really the very worst on education. From the day I was born, almost, they kept nio constantly at it. Papa's a colonial broker, though I'm sure I don't know what he brokes, or what broking is ; but he decided from the time I was a baby in arms I was to be thoroughly well •duoftted. And educated I was— oh my, it's just dreadful ^ ^^.^< IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) .'Aerest ; and we've admired Miss Cazalet's Greek girls at the Academy. And though Mr. Braith- waite gave us, perhaps, a somewhat unfavourable version of your aims and ideas — indeed, threw cold water upon them — I may venture to say we sympathized with your desire for a simpler mode of life.' He glanced down at his spotless shoes with a sort of mute deprecation, and Eew more inarticulate still as the subject closed in upon m. ' In point of fact,' he went on, growing red aiid ■tammering worse than ever, * we both admired you all lor it immensely.' * And so?' Sacha said interrogatively. 'And so ' Mr. Gardener went on, looking at his friend for assistance. 'Now then, you help me out, Henley 1' Mr. Stokes, thus dragged into it, grew red in the face in turn, and responded in his place : ' Well, Trevor said to me, " It's a shame, if these ladies want to start a new household on rational principles like that, they should have to do all the rough work of the house themselves, isn't it, Henley ?" And I said : " So it seems. It's not woman's place to bear the brunt of hard work. I wonder what they'd say, now, if you and I were to step round and assure them of our — well, our Bvmpathy with them in this new departure, and ask 'em if they'd allow us to call in every morning — before they got up, don't you know — without necessarily meeting them or knowing them socially at all— just to light the fires, and clean the grates, and black the boots, and polish the knives, and all that sort of thing." And H UNDER SEALED ORDERS Trevor said, " Capital 1" And bo we decided we'd ask. And now — well, now, if yon please, we've come romid to ask yon.' Sacha looked at lone. lone looked at Sacha. Black- bird looked at both. And then all three together burst out laughing unanimously. That laugh saved the fort. Owen joined in, and so did the young men, who really seemed, after all, like very good fellows. They laughed for twenty seconds without answering a word. Thei« Sacha mustered up gravity enough to say, with a little burst : * But, you see, we don't know you I' 'Oh, we're very respectable,' Mr. Gardener put in, gazing down at ms gardenia. < In fact, that's just it ; we're a great deal too respectable. This monotony palls. And we thought it so brave of you to attempt an innova- tion. We can give excellent references, too, you know — in the City or elsewhere. My friend's an Oxford man; I'm a partner myself in Wilson, Gardener, and Isenberger — ^very well-known house. Eve's Court, Old Broad Street.' And he folded one gloved hand somewhat beseechingly over the other. ' But cracking the coal, you know ?' lond suggested, with a merry twinkle. ' You couldn't do that, now, could you, with those light kid gloves on ?' Mr. Gardener began hastily to remove one of the in- criminating articles with little nervous tugs. * Oh, they come off, you know,' he answered, with a still deeper blush. ' They don't grow there, of course. They're mere separable accidents. And, besides, we're so anxious to help. And we know Mr. Braithwaite. We can get letters of introduction — oh, just dozens of them, if you want them.' ' But we thought it best,' Mr. Stokes interposed, ' to call at once, and strike while the iron was hot ; for we were afraid — well, like the fellow at the pool of Siloam, don't ▼on know : while we waited, some other might step in before Oft* ! lONft IN BNGX^AND ^ 8aohft was practical She was also not too afraid of saying what she felt. • The best thing,' she suggested, after » moment's reflec- tion, looking the facts in the face, * would be for you both to stop to tea and help us get it. Then we might see how far you're likely to suit the place, and whether we can avail ourselves or not of your very kind offer.' 'That's capital 1' Mr. Henley Stokes replied, looking across at his friend, and peeling his gloves off instantly. * If you try us, I'm sure you'll find we're not such a bad sort, after all — not such duffers as we look. We're handy men about a house. And we're tired of being no use in the world to anybody anywhere.' And, indeed, before tea was over and dinner well cooked, the two young men had succeeded in making themselves so useful, so agreeable, and so ornamental as well, that even Owen's first prejudice died away by degrees, and he voted them both very decent fellows. lond remarked in an audible aside that they were bricks ; and Sacha declared with candour they could do more than she fancied. In the end, it was unanimously agreed the community should accept their proffered services for the present, and during good behaviour, and that they might begin if they liked by lighting the fires and blacking the boots at half- past six next morning. ' Hooray, Trev I' Mr. Stokes exclaimed in a tone of triumph, looking across at his friend. 'This is some- thing like progress i This is better than stockbroking.' • I'm sure we're very much obliged to you indeed,' Mr. Gardene added, with a cheerful glance at a coal mark on his othe^ wise spotless cuff. < And to show you we've no intention of intruding upon you in any way beyond what's strictly necessary in the way of br^iness ' — he took up his hat as hit spoks— ' we'll now b.d jou good-evening^' UNDER SEALED ORDEKS CHAPTER XV. AN HrVITATION. In a week or two it was clear to the memb«n of th« phalanstery the young men with the frockooats were an unmitigated success. ' Our Boys,' as lonS called them, turned out trumps in every way. In spite of their kid gloves and their buttonhole bouquets, they weren't afraid of hard work, but buckled to with a will at the rough jobs of the household. As a rule, indeed, the joint mis- tresses of the flat saw little or nothing of their amateur manservants. They went to bed at night, leaving the ashes in the grates, and their shoes at their doors, and woke in the morning to find everything cleared up, the rooms well warmed, and the house swept and garnished as if by friendly fairies. To be sure, this arrangement necessitated the entrusting of a latch-key to Mr. Gar- dener, the head-servant of the two — a step as to the wisdom and desirability of which Sacha at first somewhat hesitated. But the young men were so modest, so good- natured, so unobtrusive, and so kindly withal, that they very soon felt sure they were perfectly trustworthy. Ag Blackbird remarked, they were too simple-hearted to make it worth while sticking at conventions on their ac- count. Mrs. Grundy was not evolved for such as they were. Still, though the girls saw *Our Boys' but at rare intervals, when those willing slaves loitered late over the fires, or when the locks got out of order, or when the windows wanted cleaning, common gratitude compelled them from time to time to ask their benefactors in to afternoon tea, that mildest and most genial of London entertainments. The young men themselves, to be sure, protested with fervour that such politenesses were un- necessary ; it was for the sake of the principle they came, they said, not for the sake of the persons. Yet from a Tery early period of their acquaintance Sacha fancied she noticed Mr. Henley Stokes betrayed a distinct liking for fiUokbird'f Booiety; while Mr. Gardener, with the gar^ AN INVITATIOll f7 tht ^miak (a point of bonoor to the lastV, paid partimilar attention, she observed, if not to herself, at least to her pictures. A nice, honest young man, Mr. Gardener, aft least, and as unlike as possible to Sacha's preoonceiTol idea of the eternal and absolute typical stockbroker. So she said to herself, indeed, one day, when from tha recesses of Mr. Gardener's light overcoat, hung up in tb^ hall, there tumbled by accident a small rusHia-leathei'- bound volume. Mr. Gardener, with a blush, tried to pick it up unobserved and smuggle it back into its place again; but Sacha's eye was too quick for him. 8he read in a snoment the gilt lettering on the back. ' Why, it's poetry 1' she exclaimed in silipria?^ * It'a iS^eats I What do you do with him ?' Mr. Gardener stammered like a schoolboy discoTored in the flagrant crime of conceahng a cribi < I_er— I read him,' he answered, after a brief paOM^ with much obvious confusion. ' In the City ?' Sacha asked, smiling. Mr. Gardener plucked op ooQiage at her smile to eo^ fess the shameful truth. ' Well, a stockbroker, you know,' he said, ' has w> much time hanging idle on his hands when there's nothing going on in his office, and it's such an unsatis- factory sort of trade at the best, and you feel it does yon no good either spiritually or physicallv, or anybody else, either, for the matter of that ; so in the intervals of my work I try — er — I try to develop, as far as I can, my own higher nature. And in the mornings I come here to light the fires and all that ; and in the evenings I go down to my boys and girls at Stepney.' ' What's that?' Sacha asked quickly, catching the hini at once. * I haven't heard about them yet.' Mr. Gardener looked modest again. ' Oh, a fellow must do something, yon know,' he said, ' just to justify his existenoa And as I'm well off, and strong and healthy and all that, and society does so much for me, I feel bound in return to give a helping hand with those poor East-End people of mine, both in the way of organization and in the way of amusement' Baoha kwked al him mtii soma admiration. ThsM ? J ■! 98 UNDBR SEALED ORDBSB ii II wfts a sturdy honesty of purpose about this modest yonnfl man that touched her Eussian heart to the core. And she liked his reading Keats, too ; it was a point in hia favour. For he wasn't the least bit namby-pamby with it all, in spite of his blushes and his light kid gloves. She could see when he talked about his gymnasium at Stepney, a few days later, that he was a tolerable athlete; and he cleaned grates find split coal like no working man in London. When he proposed to lone that she and Sacha and Blackbird should come down to his hall at Stepney one evening to teach his lads to dance, they were all delighted ; and when they went there, and found themselves among these rough East-End young men, lonS, at least, thought it as jolly good fun as any Belgravia ball-room. ' You see, miss,' her first partner explained to her, in a confidential undertone, ' we chaps learns this sort o' thing a sight better from a lady than from our own young women. Ladies doesn't larf at us; and a chap don't like to be larfed at. Our own gals, they calls us " Now then, clumsy," and all such sorb o' names. But a lady'i more patient-like. You shows us the steps, and we can pay more attention then, coz we knows you ain't a-larfing at us.' * There's nothing to laugh at,' lonS answered gravely, surveying her stalwart young ccstermonger with not un- approving eyes. * We aU have to begin. I had to begin myself once. And as for laughing, you should have seen how the people laughed at me over yonder in Moroooo when first I dressed up in Moorish costume, like my picture in the paper there, and tried to ride as a man, does ! I laughed at myself, for that matter, till I thought I should never catch my breath again.' And she smiled at him bo sweetly that that young ccstermonger went horns perfectly sober that night, and talked to his ' gal ' about the faces of the angels in heaven, which naturally made his young woman jealous, for she knew at once where the unwonted suggestion had oome from. Sc for four oi five weeks events at the flat went oa 4 •'4. AN INVITATION §# emoothly enough, and Trevor ;prardcner and Henley Stokes grew gradually on the footing of friends of the family. They even ventured to drop in of an evening, when Sacha's work was done, and lone had washed up the dinner-things, to accompany Blackbird in one of her own plaintive songs, or to read Austin Dobson and Lang to the assembled household. They introduced Hope in- deed to the ' Ballade of Sleep * ; and the poor girl spent at least a dozen wakeful nights in composing apt music between the clanging hours for that congenial dirge ol dead and buried slumber. At the end of that time, however, an event occurred which stirred the deep heart of the flat to its profoundest recesses. Owen came up one day from Moor Hill, glad of so good an excuse, with a letter from Lady Beaumont, just received by post at the Bed Cottage. So gracious a letter from the county member's wife set them all wondering what on earth the great lady could want with them. ' Mtdbab Mb. CAZALST,'it began ('Quite affectionate,' lonS said, shaking out her chestnut locks round her head) — 'My dear Mr. Cazalet, Sir Arthur wishes me very particularly to write and ask you whether you could come up to my At Home on Wednesday next, for which I en- close a card for you and your dear sister. We expect Lord Caistor ; and as I know your desire to enter the diplomatic service, it can do no harm to make his ao- quaintance beforehand. Several of our artistic friends are so anxious to meet Sacha, too; and that, as you know, may be of use to her in future. One should always make frionds of the Mammon of Unrighteousness as represented on the Hanging Committee. And if you could persuade her two companions. Miss Draoopoli and Miss Braithwaite, to come with you both, we should be BO very much obliged to you. Many of our young men want BO much to know them. Apologize for me to Sacha ; I would have written to her direct, but I don't know the address of this fail.ous joint-stock flat of bars that everybody's talking about, it's made quite ft senea* UNDER SBAX^ED ORDERS tion among the advanced woman's rights ^omen. Thoy gay it marks an epoch. * In breathless haste, * Tours very sincerely, 'Anastasia Beaumont.* ' She wants to honize as,' lond cried, looking up with her very onleonine soft round face, ' and I refuse to bo lionized !' 'I never will sing in houses where I'm asked on purpose,' little Blackbird said wearily. < It's a rudeness to ask one just for what they think they can get out of one.' 'But what a clever woman of the world she is I' Sacha put in, with a w'ne smile. ' She doesn't say a word about what she wants herself, but what she thinks will attract us on the ground of our own interest. Lord Caibtor for Owen, possible patrons for me, admiration for you two — it's really very sharp of her.' • For my part,' Owen interposed, with a side glance at lond in her dainty girlish beauty, ' I think what they want is, first, the girl who rode through Morocco alone, and, second, to be polite to a possible future constituent.' * The question is, shall we go ?' Sacha asked, always practical. ' Apart altogether from their motives, is 11 worth our while to accept, or isn't it ?' 'Will you go?' lonS asked, turning point-blank to Owen. < wen felt his heart throb. Oh, Mr. Hayward, Mr. Hayward, this girl will be too much for you I 'xes, I think so,' he said slowly, 'to see Lord Gaistor.' 'Then I think I'll go, too,' lond answered, with a burst. 'After all, it'll be fun, and I love these big crushes. You always find somebody you can shock in them somewhere. If I was to go in my Moorish eostume, now — just fancy what a success I How Lady Beaumont would bless me I It'd b(3 in all the papers.' Owen's heart beat higher still. He knew lond wanted to go because lit would take her. And it nade him feel ■0 happy- and to Tery, very miserable. What would ■y.l AT LADY BBAUMONrS loz Mr. Hayward say if only he knew? Bat if tlUt ihb metal of which to mould a revolutionist ? For to Owen the Cause was a very real and a Tery ■acred thing. And he was imperilling its future, he knew but too well— for the sake of a woman. They talked much that afternoon, and hazarded many guesses as to why Lady Beaumont had bidden them all to her At Homa But not one of them came anywhere near the real reason of her invitation. For the truth was that Madame Mireff had said, in the most casual way, though with a sudden magnetic glance of those great luminous eyes of hers, * I wish, Anastasia, you'd ask that Sacha Somebody when you have me next at your house. Her name puzzles me so much. I want to hunt her up. I muBt get to the bottom of it' OHAPTBB XVI, AT LADT BBAUUONT'B. * Tou'ts heard of Prince Burio Brassoff,' Sir Arthur was half whispering to a thin little lady by his side as Sacha wedged her way into an unobtrusive corner, ' the famous leader of the Nihilists? You remember; five hundred thousand roubles set upon his head. Well, they say ■he's in England now on purpose to ferret him.' ' And if she found him ?' the thin little lady suggested in reply ; ' she couldn't do anything to him here.' Sir Arthur shrugged his shoulders. It was a foreign trick he'd picked up in Vienna when he was a military attache. 'Not openly,' he answered, with A dry little laugh. ' But poison, perhaps ; or a knife — these Bussians are so ttnscrupulous.' Saoha's calm eyes flashed fire ; for she could remember Petersburg still, and her martyred father. But she followed the direction which both their glances took, and ■he saw a large-built woman with very fully-developed oharms, who was talking witb graAt Koimation and wid«- II 1 1 UNDER SEALED ORDERS open eyes to Lord Caistor by the mantelpiece. Saoh« had never seen the Cabinet Minister before, to be sure, but she recognised him at once from the caricatures in Punch and the photographs in the shop- windows. Or, at least, if not the famous man himself, at any rate hia still more famous eyeglass. As for the lady who was chattering with him, a flash of intuition told her somehow, by the aid of Sir Arthur's words, it could be none other than Madame Mireff, the Bussian spy or unaccredited agent, currently believed to exert so curious an influence on Lord Caistor himself, and on that mysterious entity, his foreign policy. ' The Prince is very rich, isn't he?* the thin little lady by Sir Arthur's side asked curiously. * Was r Sir Arthur corrected. ' He had millions at one time. But he flung away half his fortune on thf> Cause years and years ago ; and the other half the Government very wisely seized and employed in suppressing it.' ' And is he known to be in England at all ?' the thin little lady went on, looking sideways at the presumed Madame Mireff. Sir Arthur shrugged his shoulders again. * How should I know ?' he answered, with a laugh. ' Quien sabe ? Quien sabe ? Prince Buric Brassofii' takes jolly good care, you may be sure, to keep well out of the way. He works like a mole underground. I'm told, indeed, it's fifteen years since his own Nihilist friends even have ever set eyes on him.' ' Then, lew do they know he's alive ?' the lady asked, with languid interest. ' Ah, that's just the odd part of it,' Sir Arthur replied, still gazing across at the stranger with his big speaking eyes. 'They say, though nobody ever sees him, he's still the active head of all the party in Western Europe, and the Bussian Government has constantly of late years intercepted letters and docun^ents signed in his hand* writing. But if he's to be found at all, you may be perfectly sure Madame Mireff will find him. She's keen as a bloodhound, persistent m a beagle. Bhe'i olevar enough for anything.' Saoha roM and moved nnobtrusively MroM the roon •ut^ AT LADY BKAVMONTS W$ to Owen, who was standing with lond near the doorway, in the opposite corner^ She had just time to mormur low to him in Bussian ; ' Owen, beware of the woman who's talking there to Lord Gaistor. She's a spy of the Czar's. She's come oyer here to look for some Nihihst refugee.' And even as these words escaped her lips, Lady Beaumont sidled across to her. ' Oh, Sacha, my child,' she said, quite affectionately, taking her hand with much warmth, like a good society hostess, ' I'm so glad you've come. There's a friend of mine here who's just dying to know you. And you have brought Miss Dracopoli, too, I see. I recognise you. Miss Dracopoli, by your likeness in the Graphic. How good of you to come round to my little gathering 1 I know you're so much engaged — everybody fighting for you just at present, of course — the tail end of the season 1 Gome over this way with me, and I'll introduce you to Lord Gaistor. And you must come too, Owen. Madame MirefF — one moment — excuse my interrupting you. This is the clever young artist whose picture you admired so much at the Academy the other day — Miss Cazalet, Mr. Gazalet.' Owen bowed low with an awkward feeling of unwonted restraint. Never before in his life had he stood face to face with an avowed enemy of the Gause — one of the bureaucratic ring — and he felt at once the novelty and difficulty of the position. As for Sacha, she held herself very erect and proud, hardly nodding her head ; but her breath came and went, and her face lushed crimson. 'I'm glad — my work — interested you,' she said, with an evident effort. She'd have given millions to get away ; the strain and stress of it was horribla But Madame Mireff only beamed upon her with those famous soft eyes, and said, with real kmdness of tone : * Yes, it was beautiful — beautiful. I picked it out at once from all the pictures in the room. It had soul in it — soul in it. It went sU^aight to my Bussian heart ; for you know Miss Gazalet, I'm before all things a Bussian, and everything about Bussia always thrilU me to the X04 UNDBR SBALBD 0RDBR8 finger-tipt. We Slavs feel the magic of our oommoB Slavonio ancestry far more, I believe, than any Western people. Bussia holds us by some spelL Cela notu entraine. Cela nous fascine.' Owen opened his eyes wide at this unexpected pro- fession of faith — ^the enthusiasm with which Madame spoke reminded him so exactly of Mr. Hayward's own in his moments of deepest patriotic fervour. Was it possible, then, that these bureaucrats even — ^the despots, the enemy — shared that same unquenchable Slavonio zeal that burned bright like a fire in the friends of the Cause— the lovers of their country ? But Sacha only answered coldly, in her very driest voice : * I fail to perceive the connection yon draw between my picture and Bussia.' Madame glanced back at her, all motherliness, with kind melting eyes, in spite of this first rebnJSi Her glance was mesmeric. ' Why, surely,' she said, exerting every spell she knew, ' the spirit at least — ^the spirit is pure inussian. I cried out to Lady Beaumont the momont I saw it, ** There's Slav in that canvas t" and Lady Beaumont answered me, " Oh, that's Sacha Gazalet's picture." So when I heard your name was Sacha, of course I took it for granted at once that your mother at least must have been more or less of a Russian.' ' You're mistaken,' Sacha * ^plied, in the same hard, dry tone. ' My mother, on the contrary, was m pure- blooded EngUshwoman.' ' Your father, then ?' Madame suggested qniokly. Sacha parried the blow at once. ' Beally,' she said, ' I don't admit my genealogical tree has anything at all to do with my pictures.' Madame left the false track sharply with a diplo- matist's instinct. ' Well, the painting's a lovely one, at any rate,' she said sweetly, ' and the quaUties in it that struck me as Slavonic are at least qualities of high ideahsm and pro- found moral truth. Whatever race inspires them, one surely ean't help admiring those, Miss Oaialei There's AT LADY BEAirM0NT»8 108 A freedom, a gracefulness, a vitality, an nnconvention- ality, about the lithe figures of your beautiful classical girls that took my fancy immensely. And Aspasia herself — in the centre — what a soulful conception I So vivid and intense I Like our best Bussian girls nowa- days : free as the air, keen as the wind, fresh as the morning dew, yet capable, one oould feel, of yielding her iUfe like water for any good cause that in after-days might demand it.' Owen listened astonished. The voice was the same, though the words were so different. Was this the true Bussian note, then ? La vi» yntr le Tsar, or Death for Freedom f Madame drew a vacant chair to her 8ide,and motioned Saoha into it. Against her will, as if drawn by some Bpell, Saoha sat down, burning inwardly. Owen stood by in his big manliness, and bent over them, listening. Then Madame began laying herself out as only a trained diplomatist and woman of the world could have done to make a conquest of Saoha. By slow degrees she led round the conversation to Sacha's art and her friends. She discussed lond with Owen, praising her beauty enthusiastically ; she discussed Burne-Jones with Sacha, finding something in common between the profounder Celtic and Slavonic temperaments. Gradually, bit by bit, even Sacha gave way. She admitted the fascination of the woman who had talked over Lord Gaistor and changed a foreign policy. Her eonversation was so easy, so alluring, so aimpatica. As for Owen, he bent over her, entranced, feeling the nameless attraction to a lad of a ripe woman of the world, ready and willing to deploy all her manifold charms of body and mind in one serried phalanx for his momentary eaptivation. lond glanced across once or twice from her artlessly girlish self-revelation to that amused Lord Caistor, and felt her heart give a jump of doubt and fear within her. That horrid great Bussian woman with the big, staring •yei was surely too muoh for any lad of twenty. 106 UNDER SBA:,ED ORDERS n i What struck Owen more and more, however, the aior* freely Madame talked, was the absolute identity (in fibre) of her Eussian enthusiasm with Mr. Hayward's. Though the Bussia of which she spoke was the Eussia of the tyrants, yet the devotion with which she spoke of it was the devotion of the patriots. It was Czar and Empress against Land and People. For the first time in his life it dawned upon Owen faintly that what he had here to deal with was in essence a temperament. Madame Mireff and Mr. Hayward saw the opposite sides of the same shield, according to their different points of view, but were both equally vehement and intense in the idea they formed of it. That's Eussia all over. Your Slav is, above all things, a dreamer and an enthusiast. At last, after much long and cleverly-guided discourse, Madame had succeeded in making even Sacha herself admit grudgingly in her own mind that the Czar's spy, in her private capacity at any rate, was an extremely agree- able, nay, well-meaning person. She had a rare gift of insi'nuating herself into your confidence, somehow; of taking such a deep interest in your mind and your feel- ings, that you couldn't help warming up in the end into some responsive expansiveness. Then, suddenly, in the midst of her easy-going talk, Madame turned round to her and fixed her with her glittering eye. ' In fact,' Rhe said, pouncing upon her with a strange foreign tongue, 'ae our Eussian proverb puts it, 'The smooth-worn stone on the river's bed can never under- stand why the pebbles on the bank find the sun's heat unpleasant." ' She said it in Eussian, as if she expected to be under- stood ; and even as she uttered the words, she fixed her Eiercing glance, full of inquiry, on Sacha's face. Owen ent over, still more attentive, wondering whether, thus attacked by so unexpected a flank movement, Sacha — that calm, imperturbable Sacha — would be taken off her guard or not. But the phlegmatic Slavonic temperament, almost Oriental in its passivity, stood her there in good ■tead. Sacha never moved a muscle of her quiet face, or fiianged colour for a second. • What does that mean ?' she asked languidly. * WiB ;: 11 J AT LADY BEAUMONT'S lov you kindly transUte for us? As yet, thank heaven, Russian isn't added to German and French as a necessary part of an English girl's education.' Madame's keen eye still rested on her like a hawk's. She translated it — wrong. * " The polar bear wonders the grizzly should think his climate cold," ' she answered, with a bland smile of child- like innocence. But even so, Sacha gave no sign. Just the faintest tinge of a contemptuous curl at the corner of her mouth alone betrayed, if at all, her consciousness of the at- tempted deception. ' Very true,* she said calmly , ' We can only sympa- thize to the full with the troubles and joys we've our- selves experienced.* Madame gave it up again for the present. This girl was too deep for her. It was only at the end of the evening, after talking to many of her willing skves meanwhile, that the unaccredited agent returned to the Gazalets with a charming smile and an outstretched hand. * Well, good-night,* she said. * Au revoir, that is — for I must meet you again. You remind me so of dear friends— dear friends of mine in Bussia. And your brother — when I saw him it gave me quite a little start. . . . He's so extraordinarily like poor Sergius Selistoff, of Petersburg.* It was a sharp home-thrust — their own father's name I —but Owen hoped he'd avoided it. He blushed and bowed. A young man may fairly blush when his personal appearance is under discussion. ' Au revoir, then,* he said, as frankly and unconcernedly as he was able. ' It's so kind of you to put it so.* As they went home to the flat in the cab, an unwonted ■ilence oppressed lonS. She said nothing for a long time ; then at last she observed, with much seeming insoticiance : * What a talk you had, Owen, with that fat Madame Mireff I She's handsome, too, isn't she — even now. Must have been beautiful when she was young! And what iyes Bhe made ^i you, and how Bhe stuck to you lik« » hi ;i. 108 UNDER 8BAI,BD ORDERS lesoh I It's a great thing to be six feet two — in Bussift^ apparently !' But at that self-same moment, Lady Beaumont, wearied out with the duties of her post, was saying, with a yawn, to her friend in the empty drawing-room : ' Well, Olga, I hope yon found out what yon wanted/ And Madame Mireff made answer : ' Part, at least ; not quite all. That is to say, not for certain. They're Bussian, of course, as Bussian as they can stand ; but whether they're the particular people X imagine or not, I don't feel quite sure just yet I must make further inquiries.' ' Ton won't get them sent to Siberia, I trust,' Lady Beaumont said, half seriously ; for she rather liked that big, handsome Owen. Madame drew back a step and surveyed her from head to foot with a sort of innocent surprise. ' Siberia i' she repeated. ' Siberia I Oh dear, that odious calumny 1 That ridiculous misconception ! Must I explain it every day ? Will you never understand us ? Siberic if to Bussia what Botany Bay was once to England. We send our criminals there. It's a penal settlement, not a Bastille nor place of exile for political offenders. But you English will never give us credit for anything of that sort — never, never, never I That's your thick-headed Teutonism, my dear. The French have more esprit. They see through all that blague. I assure you, Anastasia, I might just as well ask you not to let Lord Gaistor send me, without reason assigned, to PenU)B> yille or to Portland.' CHAPTER XVn. nr VHB OOXTBSB 3F BUSINBSI. Mb. Hatwabd smiled inwardly when, a day or two later, he received a formal note, couched in the third person, stating that Madame Mireff would be much obliged if Messrs Mortimer and Go. would kindly appoint an hoar between eleven and one o'clock on Monday next, toe her IN THB COURSB OP BUSINESS W9 to rik for her photograph. What an amusing rencontre, to be sure, between those two in such a relation ! It would interest him to watch how Madame was doing her work, and what presence of mind she might display under peculisur circumstances. He had heard, of course, from Owen of Madame's meeting with the Gazalets at Lady Beaumont's ; and his first remark to his young friend, when Owen mentioned their interview, was a fervent exclamation : * 1 hope you didn't betray any repugnance to her at first sight, as one of the tyrant's instruments ? That's immensely important. You must learn above all things, Owen, when you come to mix with that hateful world, to suppress all overt signs of the repulsion it begets in you.' ' I don't think I did, Mr. Hayward,' Owen answered truthfully. ' In fact, I rather flatter myself I managed to keep my feelings perfectly under control. My face was a mask. And besides, she talked so nicely, and seemed in many ways so Bussian, that to some extent, after a time —it may have been very wrong, but do you know, I almost liked her.' Mr. Hayivard's brow darkened a little. This was bad hearing in its way. Had he succumbed so readily ? 'She's a very insinuating woman,' he murmured in reply ; ' and on that account the more dangerous. Be- member always in this world the influence of women is a thing every noble cause has to fight against strenuously. I don't say they're always banded against every good thing ; our own society has receival some of its greatest aids from the devotion, the heroism, the self-sacrifice of women. In their place, they count for much. But still, they're a disturbing element in many ways, Owen — a dis- turbing element. Often they undermine principles that nothing else on earth could conceivably undermine. You know, my boy, I don't mean to preach to you ; I was never a humbug ; and, as always, I prefer to let your individuality have free play for itself. But if ever you see anything more of Madame Olga Mireff, I would say to you as a friend, regarding yon now as a fellow- worker and •nthosiast for the Cause, my advice is just this : Keeif IM UNDER SEALED OBDERS olear of entanglements, were it for practioe' sake only. Don't begin letting women twist jou once round theil lingers. The habit of yielding to them grows with indul- gence : it's instinctive in our virility from Adam down- wards. Even Samson gave way, and his story's a parable of the Strong Man for all time. What no force can over- come, no hostile power destroy, a woman's will can get over all too easily. . . . And now, are you going back this afternoon to the Bed Cottage ?' Owen blushed as he answered, with transparent truth- fulness : ' Yes ; but I'm going first to take tea at the flat with lone and Sacha.' Mr. Hay ward held his peace. That ill was too deep for words, a harm no preacher could heal. He could only hope and wish Owen might be delivered from so great a temptation. After all, individualism must have the fullest scope. We can but guide and direct. ' And we Nihilists at least,' he thought to himself with a stifled sigh, ' have no groun(^ to go upon if we are nol in all things consistent individualists.' So, at the appointed hour, when Madame Mireff was to visit the studio, Mr. Hayward, already divining the cause of her visit, and too confident of his own strength not to disdain weak subterfuges, made the running easy for her by setting out on his table three or four of his Morocco views, with Owen conspicuously posed as an accessory in the foreground, Madame Mire£f arrived to the minute, and was shown up at once, vid the lift, to the upper chamber, very high and glass-roofed, where Mr. Hayward presided over the mysteries of his art, as Mortimer and Co., of Bond Street. They took a good stare at one another, those two, as a preliminary investigation, each noting many small points m the other's external characteristics, before either spoke. Then Madame Mireff said sharply ; ' Are you Mi. Mortimer himself? because I want this photograph to be particularly good ; and if it's a success you can expose copies of it for 'sale in the shop* windows.' She was enough of a celebrity to rentoro upon thai IN THE COURSE OP BUSINESS ttl bribe. All London was talking just then of the beautiful, cunning Eussian and her mysterious influence over Lord Caistor's policy. Mr. Hayward smiled a quiet smile of superior know- ledge as he answered, with something of his grand society manner ; ' I'm the nearest approach to Mr. Mortimer that exists. I'm the head of the firm ; but it's a trade name only. There's no Mortimer now in the concern at all. My name is Lambert Hayward. I'll take your portrait my- self, if you'll be good enough to sit down there,' waving her with one lordly sweep of his left hand into a vacant chair. ' And, what's more, it'll be taken just fifty times better than any other photographer in London can take it.' Even Madame Mire£f was half over-awed by the im- posing dignity of his presence. Such an operator as this she had never before seen. She seated herself passively in the chair, and let him pose her as he would with his stately courtesy. Mr. Hayward arranged her hands and her draperies with self-respecting deference, as a court- painter of noble birth might arrange the attire of an empress who was sitting to him. ' Now, a thought more to the left,' he said at last, drawing a screen on the glazed roof over her head, so as to let a pensive light fall delicately on that too exuberant bust — for he had a true artist's eye for efiFects of light ; ' look about here ; that will do I ah, so — exactly. I'm venturing to pose you now, first as Madame Mirefif the diplomatist, the dame de la haut politique, the friend and ally of ambassadors. You lock it to perfection. After that I'll try to catch you as Madame Mire£F, the leader of gay society in Petersburg; and then as Madame Mire£f, the dreamer, the enthusiast.' At the last words Madame's expression altered slightly —and, quick as lightning, Mr. Hayward withdrew the cap and then shortly replaced it again. ' That was just what I wanted,' he said, a little trium- phant ; ' that intriguie expression, as of one searching in spirit the explanation of an snigma. It's so you musk look, Madame, when ycu play the high game of diplomacy ii» UNDER SEALED ORDERS il I y M with ous guileless English statesmen —keen to deteel their weak points, quick to scent the approach of any dangerous topic. That's why I said to you just then the word "enthusiast." It was to make you wonder how a photographer in a Bond Street shop ever oame to suspect such a trait in your complex character.' Madame looked up this time in naive surprise. The assistant meanwhile had slipped in another plate. ' There, so,' Mr. Hay ward cried again, lifting one warn- ing little finger. * Don't alter a muscle — a thought I Don't stir, please, or change expression ! Ah, capital ! capital 1 That's the bland, childlike smile of the perfect hostess. It's as you must have looked in the Governor's palace at Tiflis. Now again, please. Head thrown back a little more. Eyes looking up — yes, there I Less of the figure this time 1 More of the face and the neck f Think of Bussia and tho cause you have nearest at heart in your country. Think of the Slavonic enthusiasm of your earMost dreams I Think of your Czar, of your Empress I Forget yourself — and me — and this murky London ! Go back to Petersburg in your own soul — to Moscow — to Novgorod I' Madame sighed half involuntarily. What did he know of the cause she loved really best ? And if he knew, what would he think of it, that cold, unsympathetic English- man ? The thought reflected itself in her face, and, like an electric flash, Mr. Hayward fixed it. He replaced the cap with the sense of a work well performed. ' There, we have the three Madame Mireffs,' he said, stepping back and releasing her ; ' politician, grand$ dame, self-effacing patriot. And all. as you see, in rather less than ten minutes !' Madame let her breath go free after the suspense of the sitting. What a curious man he was, to be sure, thii photographer I Even sJie felt half afrv\id now to tackle nim about Sacha and Owen. He seemed to see through her so — touched such chords so easily I She talked for a minute or two with him on neutral subjects ; then in a casual way she moved over to the table. As her eye fell on Owen in the Atlas group sho gave an almost imper- oeptible start, but Mr. Hayward noted it — noted, i00| IN THG COUfiSB OP BUSIN]Q8S m that she Bhould have been proof against suoh betrayal of her feelings — and remembered it afterwGurds. ' Why, that's young Gazalet 1' she cried, drawing back. * Owen Cazalet I I know him.' ' Madame knows everybody/ Mr. Hayward anewered, smiling. * Owen Cazalet's a young friend of mine. He went with me to Morocco.' Madame gazed hard at the portrait. It was admirably characteristic. Slav, Slav to the backbone. Then she ventured to play a bold card. ' He reminds me of an old friend of mine,' she said slowly, as she looked at it. ' In Petersburg, long ago. The same eyes. The same big build. The same open expression. He might almost he a son of Ooimt Sergioi SelistofPs.' 'You think so?* Those cold eyes were fixed coldly upon her. Madame Mire£F flinched. ' Yes, very like him,' she answered, musing. There was a long, deep pause. Then Madame lookecL up with engaging frankness, and asked ai innocently as a child : ' Is he Russian by origin ? Mr. Hayward stroked his chin and regarded her in silence. At last he went off at a tangent : ' I've travelled a bit in Europe,' he said, ' and I know my way about the Continent. I've visited Petersburg. I remember the name you mention. There's a General Alexis Selistoff there— a head of the Third Section. . . . I suppose you know him. ... No doubt this Oonni Sergius Selistoff was the General's brother. . . .' Ht paused a moment. Then he broke in upon her fiercely, with a sudden lowering of his head between his shouldera and a quick clenching of his fists. ' And do you think, Madame I'Espionne,' ne cried, in a low voice between hie teeth, ' if these were really Sergius Selistoffs children, I'd give up the fact to an emissary of the Czar's and m creature of their uncle's at the Third Section T Madame Mireff drew back, wholly abashed. She was a woman, after all, and tears rose quick into her eyes. ^ r n4 UNDER SEALED ORDERS *Ton English will believe any evil on earUi of • Eussian,' sha murmured low, half remorsefully. * Then, you mean them no harm ?' Mr. Hay ward said, drawing back and scanning her close from head to foot. ' Heaven help me, no !' Madame faltered, losing her presence of mind for a moment at this onexpeoted attack. She seemed to hesitate one instant ; and Mr. Hayward noticed her hesitation with a disapproving eye. ' it's so hard,' she gaspod out slowly at last, * to be always mis- understood. The girl herself — Saoha the^ call her — ^mis- nndorstood me the other day. It's painful when one really wishes ^o do anyone good ' She broke oflf with » half-scarod look. ' Oh, we women are too weak 1' sht cried in gonuino distress. ' Too wed.k for oar work. Too weak for suol^ employment.' ' I think BO,' Mr. Hayward assented, with a eold, half- eontemptuous sneer. ' Olga Mireff, you are tried in the balance and found wanting. This is not what one would expect from ITicolas SerjgueyefPs daughter 1' Madame started again, still more visibly. She wai completely unnerved now. Shf3 clasped her hands Im hn astonishment. * Why,' what do yon know of iry father? she exekim^jd, •11 aghast at such omniscienca Mr. Hayward came close to her, seized her wrift la his hand, and addressed her in Russian. ' Olga Mireff,' he said, looking hard at her, * yon've been a useful friend of the Cause ; bat you've lost yoar head to-day. This is dangerous, very. Make no more inquiries at present about these young Gazalets, I tell you. You had no orders to meddle with the matter from headquarters, and this la a headquarters afbir. You've ventured to push yourself in where you were not needed, and you must abide the result. This interview between us shall be reported at once to Burio BrassotIL' At that name Madame Miroff gasped for breath. *Buric Brassoffr she repeated, appalled. 'Then, you're one of us ?' in Bussian. For it was even so. The dear friend of the Gsar, the trusted tool of General Belistoff, the onaooredited eijvoy lo the English Gabinet—wai henelf a Nihilist. And it "^_^ THIS NIHILIST CHI15F n% was for the sake of the good she could do the Ganse that she consented to play in outward show the hateful game of the tyrant's diplomatist. But Mr. Hayward only gazed back at her with im- a£fected scorn. * And you think me as weak as yourself, then I' he answered. * You think I wear my heart on my sleeve I You think I'll bare my bosom to the first person that asks me 1 Olga Mireff, this is bad. You hold your cards ill to expose their faces. You must answer for all this to Buric BrassofL' CHAPTER XVin. SHB NIHILIST OHIBF. It was with profound trepidation that Madame MirefF opened next morning, in her luxurious rooms at the M^tropole, a letter with a penny stamp on it, bearing the a ling postmark. For the address on the envelope she saw at a glance was in the handwriting of Buric Brasso£F's secretary, and she felt sure the mysterious photographer in Bond Street must already have related her indiscretions of yesterday to the head of the organization. And Buric Brassoff himself, as every Nihilist knew well, was not m man to be trifled with. ' Olga Mibeff,' the letter said shortly in Bussian, ' I learn from a faithful friend that your conduct of late has seriously imperilled several schemes for the good of the cause which I have much at heart ; and I feel so oon> vinced of the paramount necessity for explaining to yon the evil tendency of your inconsiderate action that I have determined to make an exception to my general rule, and to grant you aii last — what you have so long desired — a personal interview. Call on Saturday next, at four pre- cisely, at the same place where you spoke with a brothei of ours to-day, and ask to see Mr. Hayward, who wiU ooiiiduot you to my presence. ' Tours for Bussia, ' BURIO fiBABBOrV.' UNDER SEALED ORDERS >■! And this was Tuesday I Oh, cruel, cmel delay I Had Burio Brassoff, she wondered, arraii-^'^d it so ca purpose? Good subordinate as she was, and duly trained to obedi- ence, Madame Mirefif said many hard things in her own heart meanwhile about that in'^xorci.ble chief, who had given her four such days of sus^:)en3e and misery. She had longed to meet him again for years, and now — why, now she dreaded it. How difficult it was even to pretend to listen with interest to Lord Oaistor's long-winded anec- dotes of the turf, or Lady Beaumont's vapid society stories, with that appallin,^ interview hanging over her head all the while like the sword of Damocles 1 How difficult to dine out, and smile, anJ smirk, and sparkle, and fascinate, with the letter at her heart and blank terror in her soul I Oh, remorseless chief 1 Oh, pitiless organization I At last, however, the dreadful Saturday came, and, with what resolve she could muster up, Madame Mire^ drove round in her comfortable brougham to Mortimer and Oo.'s in Bond Street. ' To see Mr. Hayward,' she said shortly, without another word, to the fnzzy-haired young woman in waiting in the oljiae, and she was ushered at once into the photogra.pher's presence. ' What do you wish ?' Mr. Hay ward asked, rising and bowing, polite and inscrutable and courtly as ever. Madame thought of her instructions, and aniwered to the letter : ' I was told to ask for Mr. Hay ward.' l%te photographer smiled. ' Quite right,' he replied more approvingly, in an almost genial tone. ' And Mr. Hayward was to show you to . . . another persoa' He changed his expression suddenly as he added in Russian, dropping into it all at once, ' But the two are one. Olga Mire£^ don't you know me ? I am Burio Brassoff I' Madame rose in alarm from the chair where she had seated herself. Her head swam vaguelv. Her eyes grew dim. She clapped one hand to her forehead in amaze and bewilderment. * If this a trap?' she asked pitoously, gazing about her, allanntrTML vDo you want to take me in? You're not THB NIHILIST CHIBF IIT telliiig me the truth. I knew the man well. Tou're not Prince Rurio Brassoff.* ' Not the Prince. No, that's true. I ceased to be a prince long ago/ Mr. Hayward answered. * But Eurio Brassoff — yes, still the same as of old. Look hard, Olga Mireff, and see if you can recognise me I' Madame Mirei^ gazed intently at him. Her look was riveted on every part in turn Then she shook her head. * Not a trace,' she replied. ' Not a feature — the eyes — perhaps the eyes. But no, impossible, impossible 1' Mr. na3rward seized a pen and wrote a word or two in haste on a sheet of white paper. * Whose handwriting's that ?' he asked, with an air of demonstration. ' And this ?' he cried onoe more, writing flk^other line and handing it to her. Madame Mireff looked at it, amazed. * Another man's,' she answered, holding one hand on susae heart ; ' the same we've always been accustomed to eall yoar secretary's.' Mr. Hayward put his hand to his mouth, and, fiddling Slightly with his fingers, withdrew something hard from ihe side of the gums. His cheeks fell in a little. He was lasfl round-faced than before. ' Bo you recognise any likeness now ?' he asked, with a (j^^er in his voice. ' Hardly any. Well, perhaps — but, there I it's so slight. Oh no, so Illlike that handsome Buric Brassoff of the old dtiys ait Petersburg. More stately — severer — grander perhaps— but lees beautiful. He was fair. You're dark. He had a beard. You've none. His moustache and hair were light-brown, almost yellow. Yours are black.' And Bhe hesitated. ' Dya, dye — mere dye !' Mr. Hayward mused musically. ^ But the features I' Mad^ me Mireff exclaimed, incredu- lontai. ' The voice I No ; impossible ! A man can't change his );»ron!e, his build, his gait, his very tone. You're trying io mpose upon me, to lure me to some snare. I can never beJeve it ! You're not Eurio Brassoff 1' Mi\ Ha3^ard gazed hard at her. ' HttV6 jkiU the letter that brought you here?' he asked very qoietlj'. fit UNDER SKALBD ORDS&S ^ 8 ill ' ^Ta(1ame pulled it from her bosom. 1'he Nihilist took it, and shook his head solemnly. ' Wrong, wrong ; quite wrong,' he said with a despon- dent gesture, laying it down by the signature he had just written for comparison. * Who can work with such tools ? You carry this about with you I Why, you ought to have burnt it, of course, the moment you'd read it. Suppose you'd been run over by accident in the street, and such a thing had been found upon you I' He crumpled the note and held it up for one minute before his eyes ; then he lighted J, match and reduced it with the other paper by its side to ashes. She watched it burning. * Well, you saw,' he went on with a sigh, ' those are the self -same signatures. The letters you've been accustomed to receive — and obey — from Burio Brassoff, are letters from 9716 / That much you can make out with your own eyes, at any rate. And I'm n,ll of Euric Brassoff that yet remains, though time and privations no doubt have made me thin and lank. There's not enough left of me now for you to recognise, seemingly.' Madame Mireii' stared at him astonished. * How've you done it ?' she asked, wondering. * I sup- pose I must believe you're Buric Brassoff, since you say BO ; but how on earth have you managed so completely to di-^^guise yourself?' The Nihilist chief laid his hand on her shoulder with his parental air. * Listen, Olga Mireff,' he said solemnly. * You remem- ber what I was — how brought up — in what luxury. No young man of fashion in Petersburg was better dressed than I ; no soldier had more successes ; no companion was more sought after. I was rich, I was great, I was noble, I was powerful. Well, one day, with a sudden awakening, conscience smote me like a sword. There was a thunderstorm at Petersburg. I came to myself all at once in the midst of the tempest ; I realized my own nothingness in this vast teeming universe. I heard, as if with my own ears, the plaintive cry of our Bussian peasant ; you know that low cry, all stifled wailing smd lamentation in which centuries of serfdom and suffering seem concentrated. His squalid misery touched ' THE NIHIUST CHIBF Iff that great pathetic figure, broken down by toil, exhausted by hunger, worn out with exactions. I awoke to a new life; I felt my heart throb for him, this inarticulate, dumb, tortured thing, who can weep, hat cannot speak ; this endless crucified sufferer. Then I fell on my face before the Lord, like Paul on the way to Damascus ; I took in my heart a solemn oath to consecrate my life, my strength, my thoughts, my energies, to the liberation of that patient, voiceless, manifold people, which drains its life-blood eternally in order that we, the favoured children of privilege and wealth, may live at our ease in great towns, eat, drink, and wive us, and make merry on its sacrifice.' * I know it,' Madame answered, flushing red in hs? turn, and clasping her hands hard with emotion. * I, too —I have felt it.' * Well, and you know the rest in part,' the ardent Bevo- Intionist went on, with the Slavonic fire in his bosom now burning bright like a lamp. ' How I tore off those gilded clothes, that ate like vitriol into my flesh ; how I put on the rough coat and wooden shoes of the peasant ; how I wasted my vast fortune like water for the Cause ; how I herded with poor wretches, eating their black bread and drinking their poisonous vodki, that I might carry to them the great gospel of our age — the social revolution. What matter to me if the cut-throats of the Government laid hold upon my vile body ? What matter to me exile, death, torture, Siberia ? You and I shrink not from such sacrifice. We could meet the axe itself with a smile of pure happiness.' Madame Mireff clenched her hands still harder. * It is you I' she cried. ' It is you I I followed yon from the Court. I recognise there the true voice of Buric Brasscff.' Mr. Hayward's voice grew calmer. * In time, then,' he went on, relapsing once more into his accustomed self, ' I found, as you know, I could serve our great Cause better in the West than in Bussia, They stole my fortune, or all that was left of it. I came abroad, and determined no man should ever recognise again the head of the organization. It wai painful, bal p ill i i,- J ? i ■• 17NDBR SBAI veined — and snapped one slender middle finger against the thumb most daintily. In any other woman the action would have been trivial, nay, almost vulgar. In Black- bird it seemed so spirituaUzed and etherealized by the length and thinness of the fingers that Henley's heaii only sank at it. ' Love I' she cried, with a sudden outburst. * Love, love I What is it ? Pain I know and sleep I know — sleep less well than pain — but pleasure and love ? — in my world, they are not.' Henley Stokes gazed down upon her with eyes of infinite pity. This strange aerial creature, all music and thought, with no body to speak of, had yet a strange fascination for the well-dressed, well-to-do, simple-hearted man about town. She had the double attraction of novelty and contrast. She was not in the least like himself, not the least hke anybody. She was unique, unmatchable. But he hardly knew what to say, all the same, to so curious an outbreak. • Sleep you know 1' he murmured low. * And is that the very nearest you ever get to pleasure, Blackbird ?* The girl threw back her well-poised head, turned up her lustrous eyes, and displayed unconsciously to the best advantage that full and luscious throat which marks the vocalist's temperament. ' The very nearest I ever get to it/ she answered ■lowly. * Yes, the very, very nearest.' She clasped her blue-veined hands behind her head once more, and closed her big eyes dreamily. Henley longed to stoop over her and kiss the full throat, in his pure, warm passion ; but his heart misgave him. Blackbird drew a deep breath or two ; her bosom rose and fell. She sighed as naturally aa though no one were looking on. She was too modern, too weak, too frail to be afraid oL him. ♦ No, I don't often sleep,' she went on, as if two-thirds to herself. ' Mostly, now, I lie awake, and repeat those sweet Une8 from Andrew Lang's Ballade, that I set to musio : 10 6 ■^ M 'A 11 i ^ 1 1 ■ i 1 -! 1 i 1 11 ; i. i I4i UNDER SEAI^BD ORDEltS **8by dreams flit to and fro With shadowy hair dispread f With wistful eyes that glow, And silent robes that sweep. Thou wilt not hear me — no f Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep f But ■ometimes at last I doze off for an hoar or two; and then it's all so beautiful, so soft, so heavenly. Perhaps I may dream, and even dreams are delicious — for dream, too, is from Zeus, as Agamemnon says to Calchas, in the " Iliad." But oftener I fall asleep and lie like a log for an hour or two without knowing it at all — just the same as if I were dead ; and that's lovelies « of everything. Perhaps the reason I love Sleep so weh' is because he seems to promise Death, too, will be gentle.' • Oh, don't talk like that, Blackbird !' Henley cried, elasping his hands together in genuine distress. < When you speak bo it frightens me. At your age it isn't natural.' But Blackbird was now enjoying the one tremulous i'oy she really knew — that of pouring forth her sad soul ike a nightingale in the woods to a sympathetic listener -—and she wasn't going to be balked of ner amusement for 80 little. ' Just think how delicious it would be,' she went on, ■till dreamily, with eyes tight shut and head thrown back inert on the padded chair, 'to lie down like thii and grow drowsy, drowsy, drowsy ; and be dimly con- scious one need never wake up again, or move one's tired limbs, or get bothered with thinking. How delicious to feel, without even knowing it, the grass growing green above one's weary limbs ; to rest on a bed one need never leave ; to be at peace at last — all peace — and for ever 1' 'Blackbird I the young man said; 'if you talk so, you'll kiU me r 'What a service I should be doing you I' Blackbird answered, all at once opening her eyes, and gazing hard at him. ' Don't you think it i one of the worst miseries of our life here on earth to be told from time to time how others have died — this one first, and then that one — and to remember all the while that years upon yean may have to pass befora •▼or we can follow themf 1 THB NEMESIS OP CULTURF M7 Henley Stokes leaned across to her in genuine distress ; but he changed the key suddenly. ' Blackbird,' he began in a very abrupt tone — he loved to repeat that name, now he had once summoned up courage to call her by it — * don't you want to be loved? Don't you long, oh, ever so much, for someone to lov4 you?' To his immense surprise, Blackbird clenched her hands hard, and sat upright in her seat with unexpected energy. 'Long for it?' she cried, ft passionate wave surging over her pale face. 'Hionger and thirst for it I Fine and die for it I From my babyhood upward, Fve been yearning to be loved. I want somebody to sympathize with me, to pet me, to be fond oi me \* ' And now you've got it T Henley Stokei muimared slowly. 'And now I've got it,' Blackbird answered. (Was ever so strange a wooing?) She thrust her clenched little fists in her cheeks, and bit her lip till it bled. ' Oh, you r^oor — poor soul i' she cried ; * what on earth oah I say to you V ' Don't yor hde me T the young man asked, bending uver her. ♦ Like you ?' Blackbird echoed. ' If anyone will love me I could devour him, I could worship him I I could fall down before him and let him trample me to death I I could kill mysolf by slow torture for him I' Dimly even then, Henley Stokes was aware that, in the midst of these ardent protestations, true and heart- felt as they were, the poor child was thinking of herself all the time, not of him ; but he was too preoccupied for his own part with Blackbird's sorrows to 06 d^&nitely conscious of that strang able contempt. ' What ? Engaged to be married I . . Oh no, dear, dear friend I I never dreamt even of that. It's impossible. Impossible I "Wholly, wholly impossible !* * Why ?' Henley Stokes asked, all trembling. This riddle was too hard for him. What a grand creature she was, to be sure 1 He could never under stand her. Instead of answering him. Blackbird burst into a sudden flood of tears. • Oh, I can't tell you to-day,' she sobbed out, holding his hand and rising. 'I'm so happy — so happy! So mnoh happier than I ever was in my life before. Now I ksow ftt iMt whftt happiness means. Don't let m§ ? ♦ THB PATH OP DUTY t49 kill it outright — don't let me spoil it by telling yon why an ent];agement's impossible.' And she rushed over to the piano, throbbing and sobbing like a child, and took refuge in a weird piece of her own melancholy musio. CHAPTER XXm. THB PATH or DUVT. That evening lonS went back to town, and Owen was left by himself at the Bed Cottage. He had a bad half- hour, as soon as she was gone, with his accusing con- science. And, what was worse, the bad half-hour lengthened itself out by degrees into a sleepless night, in the course of which Owen tossed and turned, and got no rest for his poor brain, thinking feverishly of the Cause, and Mr. Hayward betrayed, and bleeding Russia abandoned to her fate, and . . . lond Dracopoli'B sweet imile of sunshine. Yes, try as he would, he couldn't get lond Dracopoli's pretty face out of his head for a minute. He knew it was wrong; but he couldn't help it. He was in love with lone, very deeply in love ; but to what end could it lead ? He was ashamed, himself, even to put the ques- tion. For, as he lay awake there in his bed, running over his hazardous rdle in life, he was conscious of one wicked, one backsliding preoccu])ation — he thought most now, not of betrayal to the Causae, but of rocks ahead for lone. That was, in truths the very head and front of his offending. He loved lone ; but how could he ever hope, even in the dim future, to marry her? He oughtn't to have allowed himself lo give way as he did to-day ; their lips should never have met ; those last fatal words of avowal should never have been spoken. For lone's sake not for the Cause's ; for this fresh Greek Circe was lead- ing him on into a hopeless love affair. He ooold never marry anybody, ha saw thai qoita elearly now. His jii- !l!^ ( ■(:. 1% m Km ' 1 7 ■ i \i ;| t ) it rm UNDER SBALBD 0RDBR9 whole life wis mortgaged. Jnst in proportion as h« loved lond did the feeling grow stronger from hour to hoar upon him that he could never ask any woman on earth to share his perilous fate with him. He must go through life with a halter round his neck ; he must tread the crumbling ash on the brink of a volcano. Any day he might be called upon to strike that blow for Bussia, and success must mean death — a felon's death, amid th« hushed, half-admiring execration of all civilized Europe. For himself that was nothing ; he had been accustomed to the idea in his own mind so long, and had heard iti glories painted in such glowing colours by the man he most respected and revered on earth, that it had no greater terrors for him ' \.an the idea of active service has for the born soldier. But for lon^ — ah, that was different — how different, oh, how different ! Gould he expose hor to such a risk, such a strain, such a catastrophe ? Happy, whole-hearted, easy-going English lad that he was, he had sat consciously without one qualm on a barrel of gunpowder. For the very first time in his life, however, on his bed that night, Owen thought the whole thing out to himself, quite definitely and in full detail. Let him get into the diplomatic service, for example, and be engaged to lonA. Suppose, then, the chance — that supreme chance of hie life to which he had been taught from childhood to look forward with eagerness — should arrive during the yean while he was still waiting for lond. He clapped hif hands on his eyes, pressing the pupils hard, and pictured the whole scene to himself vividly, graphically. He saw it unfold itself before his mental vision in long panorama as it might actually occur. He realized his mission witk intense actuality. He stood in a ballroom at Vienna, he would suppose, or no, in a great hall of the palace at Laeken, on the hill behind Brussels, some early summer evening. Princi- palities and powers floated before his eyes, glittering witk such garish decorations as the essentially barbaric royal mind delights in. Men in uniform clustered in groups with gay ladies in Court dress. He saw the glare of diamoBOf, the flash of scarlet faoiiigs. Aides-de-eamp TEB PATH OP DUTT : and ohamberlains jostled page and laekey. At one end embodied Belgium stood, awkwardly regal, with All the Bussias by his side, among a tinsel throng of blazing stars and orders. Every gewgaw that makes majesty for the vulgar mind contributed its part to that brave show — dress, feathers, swords, music, the loud blare of the band, the dazzling splendour of electric light, the pomp of sewer and seneschal, the powdered cheeks and scented bosoms of beautiful women. And through the midst of it all, as in a prophetic haze, Owen saw himself strolling calmly in his Foreign Office uniform — an alien element, tall, broad -built, con- temptuous, looking down from his stately eminence of ■ix feet two, as was his wont, on the surging mob of smaller folk around him. He crossed the floor again and again, with his easy gliding tread and a smile on his lips, stopping here to murmur a word or two in his purest Parisian to an ambassador's wife, or there to address a few guttural compliments to a high well-bom countess or a serene altitude. Then, all of a sudden, a pause, ft hush, a movement. All the Bussias, star-bedizened, strides slowly down the midst, through a lane that opens differential, spontaneous, automatic — a Queen Consort on his arm — there, before him., the enemy I . . . Owem stands by and sees the chance arrive. The victim passes close to him. Quick as thought, out with the sword — no tailor's toy, but a serviceable blade hanging tmsty by his side — or else, still better, up with the avenging revolver from his waistcoat breast, and . . . crash . . . it buries itself in the tyrant's bosom. Then a noise, ft commotion, a rushing up on all sides. Blood gargles from a wound, angry hands lie hard on the avenger's shoulder. Owen lets the revolver fall and stands, arms crossed, smiling scornfully. Let them do their worst now. Bussia is vindicated, and Justice has wreaked her will on the chief executioner. He had seen that picture before — more than once in his day-dreams — but never at all so dearly. He had watched the man drop ; he had stood so, bolt upright, tall, strong, calm, triumphant, conscious of right on his side, a wuling martyr to a great Cause, looking down li'i- i!i ' y'\ ■ 1^ m t.,!» < ill III l! i iji UNDER SBAI^ED ORDEAS with oold disdain on scared flankeys around him* But never till to-night had he notioed so plainly blood oozing out of the wound, horrid filth on the floor, the terrified faces of pale women behind, the hateful physical accom- paniments of a political assassination. He had thought of himself always till then as the central figure of the scone — avenging democracy personified and victorious. To-night he was somehow more conscious of his victim as well, and though he recognised the man still as a criminal to be punished without fear or remorse, he remembered for the first time in his liic that even an autocrat is human, built up of red blood and warm flesh, as we are. But that wasn't the point, either, that made him p'/^asa the most. You may wonder at it, of c urse ; but ocui' sider his upbringing I It was lone he thought of aow. What would Tone say of it ? Could he fancy himself so loving her, engaged to her, bound to her — yet committing that act, and bringing all that misery on her innocent head ? For see what it meant ! lone in London — lond walking do^vn Victoria Street 1 A placard at the crosi- ing, laid flat on the muddy ground I ' Assassination oJf the Czar,' in great, flaring red letter's I She buys a paper, tears it open, then and there, all trembling. That laughter- loving face grows white as death ; those plump hands quiver horribly. ' Owen Gazalet, an attaohi at the English Embassy. Cause of crime unknown. Sus- pected madness.' She clutches the nearest railing with one hand for support. Owen caught and arrested I So that's the end of her cherished love dream t And then, a long trial. Accomplices, prmcipals. Mr. Hayward, of Bond Street, a Bussian Nihilist in disguisa, in correspondence with the prisoner. All the world looks en eager. But where's the glory of it now ? Who carei for martyrdom, who oares for death, who cares for duty, who cares for Russia free — if lond sits white in tha crammed court, meanwhile, waiting pale aa a corpse for that inevitable sentence ? Exe'^ution I Triumph I And Ion6 left miser^oia and heart-broken behind I Oh , why did he ever meet her ? WhT did he ever allow himself liha^ day to be dragged into il I THE PATH OF DUT¥ tS3 Take hands, and part with laughter ; touch lips, and jpart with tears. They two had touched lips, and this would be the upshot. Or, perhaps, it might come later; for Mr. Haywava had warned hii never to count upon the chance as certain, or to seize it prematurely, but to watch and wait with nat ence, till opportunity brought occasion pat round ai the one apt moment. He might have got on by then, let ub suppose, and have married lone. But how marry any woman with such a hazard as that ever Taguely in store for her ? How jeopardize her happiness every day of one's life ? How trust her, even, to keep the awful secret, and not interfere to prevent the realiza- tion of his purpose ? Mr. Hayward was right, after all. A woman's a delusion. Man should keep his hands free to do the work that's set before him. How serve your country or your cause if you know success must mean red ruin and the breaking up of home to your wife and children, or to the girl who loves you ? Better by far keep out of love altogether. But then — he hadn't kept out of it. lond had stormed his heart ; and even while his head told him in very clear terms he owed it to her and the Cause to break all off at once, his heart was beating hard to the recurrent tune of ' lond, lond, lond, lond I' She was so bri^rht, so lovable, bo exactly what he wanted. And Bussia was so far away, and lond so near him. Then suddenly the thought came across him — the wicked, traitorous thought — did he really want to kill the chief criminal at all ? Were it not bettei to stop at home at his ease, and make love to lonS ? Appalled at the ghastly temptation, he sat up in his bed, and oast it from him bodily. He cast it from him, in the most literal and physical sense, with his two hands stretched out and his face averted. He cast it from him, horror-struck, with all the force of his strong young Arms, and all the intensity of his inherited Russian nature. Qet thee behind me, Satan ! He rejected it and re- pudiated it as a young man, otherwise trained, might lejeot And repudiate the most deadly Bin. Tom his back ■'(•■■I ■3i 154 UNDBR SCALED ORDERS I I upon the Cause? Prove treacherous to his nurture ami admonition in the faith? Disappoint all the dearest hopes of those who had been kindest and best to him ? Oh, Mr. Hayward ! Mr. Hayward I Perish the thought for ever 1 In an agony of remorse and shame tbe poor lad flung it away from him. Yet it haunted him still, that instigation of the devil 1 !From all sides it haunted him. The turning-point of youth had come — the critical age of doubt, of delibera- tion, of reconstruction, of resolution. Russia. — the burn- ing wrongs of that tortured country ; his father's blood, that cried from the ground like righteous Abel's for vengeance; his mother's fate, wandering mad through the streets of Wilna; the crowned and terrified ab- straction that sat aghast, clutching hard, on its tottering throne-"-and, weighed against them in the balance, louo — loni — lon^ Dracopoli I O God I for light, for help, for guidance I The young heart within him throbbed fierce with love. He rose and paced the room, and lighted his candle in his agony. A photograph smiled down on him from the mantelpiece in front — smiled sunnily and innocently. He took it up and kissed it with hot feverish lips. It was Mr. Hay- ward's portrait of lonfi in her Moorish costume. Mr. Hayward's — of Ion6 I There stood, as in one magnet, tlM two opposite poles of his oscillating devotion. lond —Mr. Hayward ; Mr. Hayward — lon6. Oh, Euric Brassoff, Buric Brassofif I you said truly that day on the Morocco hills, ' Love is a great snare ' ; and wisely, too, you said, ' Keep your head clear if you can, and let the Cause have the heart of you.' But now lond Dracopoli had Owen Gazalet's heart, and the Cause — why, the Cause, as Owen would have phrased it himself, though it still had his head, was just nowhere in the running. For it was no longer Rossia, that bleeding, distracted country that Owen balanced in the ftoale against lone's love ; it was Mr. Hayward's aspirations, A cause, after ftll, it a very abstract entity, especially when you're only jvst turned one-and-twentv. But a person is a very different thing ; and O^qh loved Mr. Hayward. No son PALTERING WITH SIN Qi -ver lovecl and revered his father aa Owen loved and revered that earnest, austere, single-hearted NihiUst. He admired him with all hia souL He couldn't bear even to harbour a tliought that might displease him. For Mr. Hayward's sake he must go on and persevere. He must . . . give up — O God I he must give up But no — not even in word — he couldn't give np lor a And so, on the rock between love and duty, as he understood tliose two, Owen Cazalet passed a night of unearthly striig;^le. Every throb of his pulse, every tick of the clock, seemed to oscillate in unison with those con- flicting claims : lone — the Cause ; his own heart — Mr. Hayward. One or other must go. "What poor stuff for a martyr t He felt his own great limbs in contemptuous self-judg- inent. To think he could be so weak, who waa bred for aNi^iliatl CHAPTER XXIV. FALTERING WITH BIN. Next morning, early, Owen tubbed and dressed, bathed hia eyes many times to look as fresh as possible, and came down to ask for breakfast lialf an liour before the usual time. He was going to run up to tow a, he said. He'd like to catch the 8.60. J^unt Julia glanced hard at hira, all old-maidish sua- jpncicA. She was accustomed to these sudden shocks, to be sure ; and the worst of it was, thougli she might dimbt the reason, she could never interfere lest it might, peradventure, prove to be one of that dreadful maa'i sealed orders. • To see Mr. Hayward ?' she asked, hesitating. ' No,' Owen answered, with a fervent prorrrptitudt which av once reassured her mind on that scora at least. *JNot to ree Mr. Hayward.' After ivhioh he shut iiis mouth close. It was an odioaB way the boy had. He d picked it up, Aunt Julia n if l:^ \ \ ! m I . igf UNDER SEALED ORDERS tboagbt, fron that dreadful man himselt They were Always 80 close, both of them, about their plani and Iheir projects. * Where to, then 7 Aunt Julia ventured to inquire once more, after a long silence. And Owen answered : • To Sacha's.' ' Oh t' Aunt Julia replied. It was the Oh argumentative and enbinterrogatory, not the Oh purely assentative ; it meant, * What to do, or whom to see f But Owen took no notice of it. So after a discreet interval Aunt Julia tried again. 'It's odd you should go up to-day,' she objected, • when you saw Sacha yesterday.' 'Things have occurred since yesterday,' Owen re- fponded dryly. This was too much for Aunt Julia. She opened her •yes wide at that oracular utterance. ' How could they ?' she exclaimed in surprise. ' No- body's come or gone. Why, even the post's not in yet this morning.' 'Things may occur in the night,' Owen answered, ■omewhat gloomily ; for how could he so much as speak of such high matters to Aunt Julia ? ' The vision of my head on my bed, perhaps. ... I want to talk certain points over, anyhow, with Sacha.' ' It isn't Sacha you want to see, Owen, I'm afraid,' Aunt Julia burst out severely, shaking one lifted forefinger. * It's that other queer girl — the one that rides astride like ft man, and frequents strange harems.' ' But I saw lone, too, yesterday,' Owen answered, ■railing grimly, for he loved to mystify her. * I wonder, if it comes to that, you don't say Blackbird.' Aunt Julia drew back, almost shocked. ' Well, I should hope you'd have the good taste to say nothing to her,' she observed with dignity. ' Not only ftre her views extremely unsound, but there's insanity in Iht family, of that I'm certain.' ' Insanity in the family 7' Owen eoboed. ' Why, who lold you that, Aunt Juha*^ ^ PALTERING WITH SIN »5? The prop of orthodoxy sat tip very stiff M ehe aBfwered« with some warmth : * I saw it for myself. The girl's mad : I'm sure of it f * How do you mean ?' Owen asked again. * Why, you rememher one day last year Sacha asked her down here for lunch ? — oh, no t of course, you were with Mr. Hayward. Well, we went out in the afternoon, and up on the knoll till evening. As we were sitting by the summer-house, and I was talking to her of her state, there was a very pretty sunset, and I saw to my surprise, the girl was crying. " What's the matter, my dear ? Is your heart touched ?" I asked her. And she answered, « Oh no, Miss Gazalet I I'm only crying because the sunset's so beautiful." WelL she must be mad, yon know, before she'd talk like that. And nobody has a right to fall in love with a girl who has insanity im the family.' 'People can't help falling in love sometimes/ Owen mused, smiling again that grim smile. And Aunt Julia stared hard at him. ' Not that I'm going to fall in love with poor little Blackbird,' he went on quickly, seeing Aunt Julia's brow darkea ' There's not enough of her, poor thing I for one to fall in love with. You may make yourself perfectly easy on that score. I should nevtr even think of her.' And he went on eating his porridge in gloomy silencte. The 8.50 train took him straight up to Victoria, and ten minutes' walk landed him at the flat off Victoria Street, lond opened the door for him — she was the recognised housemaid. His heart came up into his mouth at sight of her ; but he had made up his mind beforehand not to lean forward and kiss her; and he almost kept to It. The flesh, however, is weak. lond smiled at him so sweetly, and held her hand out so frankly, that as he took it the blood leapt to his face at the touch, and tiis heart beat wildly. Before he knew it, the man within him had done what he had sworn to avoid. His lipt hiid touched hers, and he drew back all at once, abashedi ashamed, and penitent. 'Where's Saoha?' he asked, holding hii breath. *l oame ujp to see hfc.' W m &\ »l ] ! i ; fgl UNDER SEALED OKUISKS 'Ah, family affection/ lond answered, with laughing eyes, yet flushing red with pleasure. She took the kiss as her due, after yesterday, of course; but she was well pleased, none the less (as what woman wouldn't be?) that Owen couldn't rest one day without coming to see her. 'Sit down in the drawing-room here, Owen, and I'll run and fetch her.' Owen followed where she led. In the drawing-room Blackbird lounged lazily, as usual, in the long wicker chair, but still paler and whiter than her wont ; while her eyes looked very red, as if from cry- ing or sleeplessness. She rose as Owen entered, gave a distant little bow, and left the room precipitately. But the book she'd been reading lay open on the chair. Owen took it up and glanced at it in a vacant sort of way, while lone was gone. He didn't observe it much, or pay any great attention to it. But the book was ' Maud ' ; and an orchid and a laurel-leaf were pressed at the point where Blackbird had been reading. The verse ■gainst which the orchid rested its petals was thii : * Oh, may the solid ground Not fail beneath my feet, Before my life has found What some have found so sweel f Owen knew the lines well, and remembered the Bome« thing they spoke of was love. But he never troubled to inquire why Blackbird had been reading them. A most pessimistic poem, only fit to give poor Blackbird gloomier views than ever. But young life is self-centred. The verses brought back to Owen— just himself and lonfi. The orchid, he knew, must be one of Henley Stokes*. And as for the laurel-leaves, why. Blackbird was always messing about, Sacha said, with laurel-leaves in the laboratory. She wanted to extract poetic inspiration from them, perhaps, for her melancholy music. At any rate, she wa& always distilling, distilling, distilling away at them. It was love and death. But Owen didn't know it. As he thought such things vaguely, Saoha came im to him from the studio, brush and palette m hand. PALTERING WITH SOT out there and call her.' And Owen, all on fire, feeling a consciousness of wild guilt, yet a burning delight that he might speak to lonl^ went out and called hdb AN AWFUI< SUGGESTION ^ CHAPTER XXV. AN AWFUL SUa3ESTI0N. loNfe in her kitchen costume, was leaning ovar the fire, preparing the soup for kinch, as Owen entered. She looked up at him by the doorway with ttose merry, laughing eyes of hers. ' Do you know,' she said, pointing her remark with an impatient wave of her iron spoon, * this picnicking sort of life's all very well for the East, or anywhere else you choose to try it out of England ; but now the novelty's begun to wear off a bit, I'm getting to believe it doesn't go down in London. Even with Our Boys to holp us, I really feel before long — it's a confession of failure, I know — but — we must engage a kitchenmaid.' ' You think so,' Owen answered, without paying much heed to her words. ' That seems rather like rounding upon one's principles, doesn't it ? Putting your hand to the plough, and then looking back again.' long tasted the soup from her big spoon with a very critical air, and pouted her lips prettily. ' Well, there's a deal of backsliding about us all, I fancy,' she said with e&sy insouciance, pulling her kitchen apron straight — and how dainty she looked in it 1 ' You can't live up to anything worth calling principles in the world as it stands ; the world's too strong for you. Individualism's all very well in its way, of course ; but society won't swallow it. It isn't organized that way, and we must give in to the organization.* ' You mean it seriously ?' Owen asked, now much interested by the curious way her observations came pat with his own thoughts. ' You begin to believe in back- Rhding V lonS took down a dredging-box from the dresser hard by, and proceeded to flour the loin of lamb on the table beside her. ' Well, partly I do, perhaps,' she said. ♦ And partly I'm still of the same old opinion. You see, the point's this: You oan't dissever yourself altogether from the ■"'! i 1 '' hi iii+'l jh UNDAB. 8BALBD ORDERS ■ocial environment, as Blackbird calls it ; you've get, whether you like it or not, to live your life in your owb century. It's dull, but it's inevitaule. Now, when we first came bpr^, Sacha and I'd got tired of the pro* vincialiB'iu of living always in the nineteenth century, and ve tried all by ourselves to inaugurate the twentieth or the twenty-first, or something. But somehow it doesn't seem quite to answer. The rest of the world still sticks to its own age most provokingly in spite of us So there comes the difficulty. Of course, if everybody else did exactly as we do, there'd be nothing odd in my running to open the door with my sleeves tucked up and my fingers all floury, or in Blackbird's being discovered with a dustpan in her hand, down on her knees on the floor sweeping the drawing-room carpet. But the bother of it all is, as things stand at present, we've got to run both concerns side by side, as it were — we've got to be servants at home and ladies in society.' ' It's a tax, no doubt,* Owen answered, putting off an evil hour. ' You'd like to be free thiu morning. Can't I help you at all, lone ?' lonS looked up at him with a merry twinkle in her eyes. ' Not in that nice black cutaway coat,' she replied, holding out her floury hands towards him and pretending to make clutches at his impeccable sleeves, ' unless you want the evidences of your guilt to be patent to every observer. They'll say, if you do, you've been flirting with the scullerymaid.' And she made just a tiny dao of flour on his cuff by way of solemn warning. • You see, there it is again,' she went on, bustling about the kitchen as she spoke, with Owen's admiring glance following her round at every turn as an iron filing follows a powerful magnet. ' That's the crux of the situation. You can't help in a kitchen and yet wear the ordinary black clothes of London respectabihty. Even Out Boys, whose frock-coats are the mirror of fashion of an after- noon in the Park, put on long hoUand smocks in the early morning when they come to crack the coals and light the kitchen fire for us.' *I suppose you're right,' Owen assented, sighing. AN AWFT7L STGGISSTIOIT ill *It'8 harfl to have to live by two standarii at ii 1 pi 1 m h ; ! I 1 I I ! fee sftld it was a question-be^'^ing epitfiet, inapp^icf »>T^ to the minister of a political sentence against a notorious criminal. But lon^, having once discovered by actddent how hard it hit him, stuck to her phrase womanfuUy to the bitter end, and made it do good duty as a mental lever in her deliberate operations against Owen's totter- ing conscience — f'r conscience it was, though not of the common stamp. There be creeds and creeds, and each creed begets its own appropriate moral sentiments. Is it murder to shoot a Czar ? Or should we rather deem it a noble act of self-sacrifice for humanity's sake ? God knows : I don't ; and with the fear of the Lord Chief Justice for ever before my eyes, I refuse to discuss the question — at least in public. These matters, I hold, are best debated in camera. I may even venture to say, in camera obscura. Poor Herr Most got twelve months for deciding the abstract point at issue in the second of the two senses above considered. Twelve months in gaol, my medical authority assures me, would be bad for one's hea'' ii ; and it would deprive one of the society of one's frienas and family. But to Owen, less well brought up, the struggle was a painful one. He had been taught to regard Mr. Hay- ward's opinion as the ultimate court of appeal in all questions of ethics. No Jesuit was ever more successful in the training of neophytes than Burio Brassoff had been with Owen Cazalet's conscience. Whether it be right or wrong to kill one man for the good of the people, Owen at least was quite as firmly convinced by his whole early training it was hiti bounden duty to shoot a Czar, wherever found, as he was firmly convinced it was wholly and utterly indefensible to shoot a grouse or a pheasant. He had been instructed by those whom he most r'^vered and respected that to take life in sport, be it man's or beast's or bird's, be it Zulu's or Turcoman's, is a deadly sin ; but that to take life for tlio protection of life and liberty, be it a scorpion's or a wolf's, be it a Czar's or a tiger's is a plain and indubitable moral duty. No wonder, then, ho clung hard to this original teaching, which supported for his soul the whole superimposed labrio of ingrained mor'ality. h THB CRISIS COMES tn By Christmas, however, as I said before, his mood nad begun to weaken. He wasn't quite as firm in the Niiiilist faith as formerly. Still believing without doubt in the abstract principle that Czars should be shot down^ on every possible occasion, like noxious reptiles, he was a trifle less clear in his own mind than of old that he was the particular person specially called upon by nature and humanity to do it. A rattlesnake should be killed, no doubt, by whoso comes across him — say in South Caro- lina ; but are you therefore bouud to take siiip to Charleston on purpose to find him ? Must you go out of your way, so to speak, to look for your rattlesnakes ? Yes, if you've been paid for it, brought up for it, trained for it. Yes, if the path of duty Ues clear that way. Yea, if you've engaged yourself by solemn contract to do it. 'But you were a minor at the time,' objects lonS; ' you didn't know your own mind. Now you've come to man's estate, you think it over at your leisure, and repu- diate the obligation.' Ah, yes ; but how return, not the money alone, but the pains, the care, the loving interest? That was what bothered Owen now. The black ingratitude, the cruelty I Above all, how break his change of mind to Mr. Hay- ward ? From that ordeal he shrank horribly : yet sooner or later, he felt in his soul, it must come. He began lo see that clearly now. He had passed all the Foreign Ofl&ce examinations with credit, and had further been excused his two years of residence abroad, as his knowledge of colloquial French was pronounced to be simply perfect ; and he was only waiting at present to receive his appoint* ment. But how live in this hateful state ? It snamed him to take another penny of Mr, Hay ward's money. Early in January, however, an event occurred which compelled him to hasten his decision one way or the other. Tt was a foggy day in towD.. BlacJc mist veiled all London. The lamps burned yellow. Carriages crawled slow through melting slusri in Bond Street. Tno frost had paralyzed tLafiio alon^ ue main thoroughfares ; and the practice of photograj|juy was suspended for th« r ft '.iir^' ' ' ; t: ^74 UNDER SEALED ORDERS moment by thick gloom that might be felt in Mortimei and Co.'s studio. As they lounged and bored themselves, a lady came to the door, who asked to see Mr. llayward. She was a lady of a certain age, and of a certain girth, too, but still handsome and buxom with ripe matronly beauty. The young woman with the tously hair, in the shop down- stairs, passed her up languidly to the oflice. The joung man in the office, twirhng his callow moustache, remem- bered to have seen her before, and to have sent home her photographs to a private room at the Metropole. It was difficult indeed for anyone to forget those- great magnetic eyes. Madame Mirett", he recollected, the famous un- accredited Eussian ;,geut. So he showed her up to the sanctum with much awed respect. "Was she not known to be some great one, acquainted with peers, nor unfami- liar with royalties ? Mr. Hayward sat at the desk, writing letters or making notes, as Madame Mireff entered. He rose to receive her with that stately civility of his younger Court life which twenty years of English shopkeeping had never yet got rid of. She took his hand with warmth ; but his very manner, as he motioned her gracefully to the big easy- chair, warned Madame at once of the footing on which they were to stand in their interview to-day. No more of Euric Brassoif or of incriminating disclosures. She was a lady of rank ; he was plain Mortimer now, the Bond Street photographer. • Good-morning, Madame,' he said in French, leaning carelessly forward to scan her face close. ' How well Yoa're looking 1 And how gay — how lively I That's lucky for me. I can see by the smile on your face, by this air of general content, by this happy expression, you've buo- ceeded in your object.* Olga MircfT looked radiant indo(>d. * Yes,' she answered with conscious pride, ' I've beeo able to do somtthing at last {)r our counnon country'— but she faltered as she spoke, for Mr. Hayward frowned. ' I mean, that is to say ... for your young friend,' she added hastily, corrocting herself, with that deep blush on her roaudid cheeka that bo well became her. k. \n THE CRTSIv<5 COMKS ns •Better no* "Nfr. 11 ^y ward replied in a low voice. ' BeMor »o, M.»divmc Min^lT. Yon \' >w mynile. Miuiinlsr. ih6 a'h'crnc chre, I must decline, even in my private capacity, to bold any communication with you on so official a subject. I am not even aware inyself what Belection may be made for this vacant post- the matter lies mainly with my undersecrotary — nor would I »illow Sir Arthur Beaimi nt to mention to me your pniti'ii4'i name, lest I should be prejudiced against him ; but you will find the announcement of the fortunate candidate in the Gazette at an early date. K«?grettirig that I am un» nt UNDER SEALED ORDERS ftble to serre yoa in this matter, I remain, as ever, with the profoundest respect, • Yours very sincerely, ' Gaibtob.' Mr. Hayward put the letter down with a deep sigh of reliel ♦ Then he's got the honorary attach6ehip at Vienna,' he said, almost gasping. ' Nowhere else could be better. It's splendid — splendid I' For those two knew well how to read and speak the diplomatic dialect. Tears stood in the chief's eyes. He brushed them away hastily. Tears stood in Madame Mirelf s. She let them roll down her cheeks. ' Have I done well ?* she faltered timidly. And Euric Brassoflf, seizing her hand, and pressing it hard in both his own, murmured in answer : ' You have done well You have deserved much of humanity.' There was a moment's pause. Then Madame rose and stood irresolute. Short shrift is the best rule in revolutionary affairs. She held out one trembling hand. ' That's all,' she said regretfuUy, half longing to stop, half fearing to ask for respite. And Mr. Hayward, inexorable, taking the proffered hand, answered in his mechanical business voice onoa more : • That'i all. No further now. I shall write to Owen to-day. . . . He'll need two hundred pounds at once, of course, to enable him to take up so important an appointment.' ' You would . . . permit me to lupply it ?' Madama ▼entured to ask timidly. The chief shook his head and smiled. ' Keep your money,' he answered, in a cold tone of eommaud. ' I have no need for it now. Funds are plentiful at present. You offer too freely, Madame. When I require aught from any of you, rest assured, I ihall ask for it.' He rose and motioned her out with princely dignity. OWBN DEBATES til For a second he held the door ajar, and spoke in English, audibly, as he bowed > .smissal. ' I regret very much,' he said, * we should have mis- nnderstood your instructions. No more of the platino- types shall be exposed for sale till we've altered the inscription. I apologize for our mistake. We'll with- draw them altogether, in fact, if you think them in any respect unworthy our reputati( n.' $ ill!' I I CHAPTER XXVII. OWEN DEBATES. At Moor Hill next morning Owen was busy at his favourite winter pastime of boxing a stuffed sack sus- pended from a beam, when the postman entered. His room overlooked the garden gate, and his imaginary op- ponent dangled sideways to the light not far from the window, so he commanded the situation, even while busily engaged in his punching and pummelling. As a man of peace, indeed, Owen disapproved of boxing, ex- cept with gloves and muffle ; but from the point of view of pure exercise, he delighted in the muscular play of it, and was an expert in the art, as in so many other branches of athletic practice. He had just dealt his swinging antagonist a vigorous blow between the eyes, which sent him reeling into space, when he caught sight from afar of a certain square blue envelope in the post- man's hand of a most familiar pattern. He knew it at a glanca It was the business envelope of Mortimer and Co., photographers, in Bond Street. In a tumult of expectancy he rushed down to the door, in jersey and drawers as he stood, his strong arms all sleeveless, and his brawny neck all bare, to Aunt Julia's infinite horror, on grounds alike of health and of modesty. ' You'll catch your death of cold one of these fine winter days, going to the door like tbat in bitter frosty weather.' He took the note from the postman's hands and tore it 12 ^ ^\^ w^^ IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I 11.25 ■tt Ui2 12.2 WMU U |l^ Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 Vtftil MAM STRUT WIISTm,N.Y. 14SM (7U)l7a-4S03 i rfi tNDBR SBAIvBD ORDERS open hnrrie31y. Yet so deoply was respect for Mr. Hay- ward ingi-aiacd in the youn.j man's nature tli?.t he laid the more envelope down on the table with reverent care, instead of tosiQinc; it into the fire at once, as was his invariable wont with bss sacred comraunioationB. As he read it, however, his face fiuoLed hot, and his hoart fluttered vioUjntly. Oh, what on earth should ^q do now? A bolt from th ti bl ao had fpllon. Ho stocu f:'.ca to face with his grand dilemma at last. He must cast his die once for all. He must cross — or refuse to cross— his dreaded Bubicon. * My deab Owen,' Mr. Hayward wrote, ' I have good news for you to-day, after lon£», long waiting. An in- fluential friend of mine — one of our own, and most faithful — has just informed mo your appointment's as good as made, the attaohesliip ab Vienna. It'll be gazetted at once, so Lord Caistor implies, and probc\biy by the same post with this you'll receive the oLicial an- nouncement. Come up to town direct, as soon as ever it reaches you, and bring the Fortiigu Ofllce letter along in your pocket. I've placed iwo nuadred pounds to your credit at once at Drummonds, Coatcs and Barclay's, and have asked them at the same time to let you have a cheque-book. But I must tako you round there when you run up, to introduce you to the firm, and to let them see your signature. For the rest, attaches, as you know, get nothing at all in the way of salary for the first two years ; so you must look to me for an allowance, which I need hardly say will be as liberal as necessary. I can trust you too well to fear any needless extravagance on your part. On the coucrary , what I dread most is too conscientious an eooni>my. Thib you. must try to avoid. Live like others of your ciiiBt, ; dross well ; spend freoly. Bemember, in high posis uiuch is expected of you. Bui all this will keep till wo meeii. On your account, I'm overjoyed. Kindest regards to JMiss Cazalot. * jTour atiOa\I9 eotint ' — abo^e all, ' in high posts, much ii expected of you.' The double meaning in that phrase stung hie con- science like a snake. Much was expected, no dcubt ; oh, how little would be accomplished ! ' May I look ?' Aunt Julia asked, seeing him lay the note down with a face of abject despair. And Owen, in his lonely wretchedness, answered : ' Yes, you may look at it.' It wa& intended for the public eye, he felt sure — an official communication — else why that unoa'^od for • Kindest regards to Miss Cazalet ' ? Aunt Julia read it over with the profoundest disappro- bation. ' Vienna t' she cried, with a frown. ' That's so far ofTl Bo unhealthy f And in a Catholio State, too I And they say society's loose, and the temptations terrible. Not at all the sort of Court that I should have liked you to mix with. If it had been Berlin, now, Owen, especially )ja. the dear, good old Emperor's days — he was such a true Christian 1' And Aunt Julia heaved a sigh. Vienna indeed I Vienna I That wicked great townl She remembered Prince Budolph. ■ It's awfully sudden,' Owen gasped out. "Wonder seized Aunt Julia. Though not very deep, she >»vas woman enough to read in his pallid face the fact that he was not delighted. That discovery emboldened her to say a word or two more. A word in season, how good it is I ' Aiid thav certainly isn't the way a person of mature years ought to write to a young man,' she went on ■everely. ' Just look at this : " Live like others of your elasfl ; dro^b well ; spend freely .*' Is that the sort of ad- vice a middle-aged man should offer his ward on his entrance into life? •• Dress well; spend freely." Dis- Saceful t Disgraceful I I've always distrusted Mx ayward's principles. • Mr. Hay ward understands character, Owen answered, kndling M^. As Hbual, Aunt Julia had defeated her own end. Opposition to Lis idol roused at once the rebellious Bossukn element in her nephew's soul. And, boBidee, be lai UNDER 8BALBD ORDERS knew the eompliment was well deserved, that too eon* Bcientious economy was the stumbliug-block in his case. ' I shall go up to town at once, I think, without waiting to get the o£^oial letter.' 'Mr. Hayward won't like that,' Annt Julia put in, ooming now to the aid of what was, after all, duly con- stituted authority. Owen was too honest to take refuge in a subterfuge. ' I didn't say I'd go to Mr. Hayward,' he answered. * There are more people than one in London, I believai. I said, to London.' ' Where will you go, then ?' Aunt Julia asked, marrel- Kng. And Owen answered, with transparent evasiTeneyi : ' Why, to Sacha's, naturally.' On the way up, the last struggle within him went ob nninterrupted. They were front to front now ; love and duty tooth and nail. He grew hot in the face with the brunt of the combat. There was no delaying &. longer. He couldn't accept Mr. Hayward's two hundred pounds. He couldn't take up the diplomatic appointment. He couldn't go to Vienna. Black ingratitude as it might seem, he must throw it all up. He must tell Mr. Hay- ward point-blank to his face it was impossible for him now and henceforth to touch one penny more of Kihiliit money. Owen had doubts in his own mind indeed, if it oame to that now, as to the abstract rightfulness of political assassination. Time works wonders. Love is a great political teacher. As fervently Bnssian and as fervently revolutionary in conviction as ever, he was yet beginning to believe in educating Czars out instead of cauterizing them with dynamite. It was a question of method alone, to be sure, not of ultimate object. Still, method is some- thing. Not only must the wise man see his end clearly ; he must choose his means, too, with consummate prudence. And lonfi's arguments had made Owen doxibt, even against Mr. Hayward's supreme authority^ whether •hooting your Czar was the best possible meaub ot utilizing him tor humanity. How much grander, how ■snch more impressive, it would be, for example— to OWBN DEBATBt •OBveri him I That was a splendid idetk What a vista opened there I Bat Mr. Ilayward? His heart sank again. Mr. Hayward wouldn't Bee it. Arrived at the fiat off Yiotoria Street, he didn't even go through the formality of asking for Sacha. He flung himself, full face, into lond'a arms, and oried oat in the bittemesB of his soul : ' Oh, lond, lond, I've got my appointment.' lond took hie kiss, and started back in dismay. Her face went very white. She didn't pretend to eongratn- late him. * Then the oriaie has oome,' she said, trembling. * Toa must decide — this morning.' Owen followed her blindly into the drawing-room, and handed her the letter to read. She took it in mechani- cally. Then she let her hand drop by her side, with the fatal paper held loose in it. * And what will you decide ?' she asked, told at heart •nd sobbing inwardly. •Whatwws^I, lonfi?' She girl shook like a lea! in the wbd. * It's for yon to say, Owen,' nhe answered. * Donl let flM stand in your way—or Russia's either. What am I that you should doubt? Why make me an obstacle? Yoa may be secretary in time—envoy — mioistflc — ambas- sador.' 'Or Bnssia'ft either.' Owen repeated, musing, and BsiKing her hr.nd, more in doubt than in love, just to steady bimstlf internally. ' Oh, darling, I'd have thought it treadon even to think so once. But it's horrible, it's wicked, it's inhuman of me to say it ; lond, for your sake, rather than oause your dear heart one moment's pain, I'd — I'd SMjriCico RuGsia.' 'It ian't inhuinan/ lend answered, flushing red in a mdden revulsion of feeling from despair to hope. * It's liaman, human, hmnan—that's just what it is; it's knman.' Owen held her hand tighi It seemed to give him finngth. * Tes, Russia,' he said slowly. • I eoold Merifiee thai | b«t Mr. Hayward— Mr. Hay ward I' UNDER 8BALBD CRDBAS • Obey your own heart/ lonfi answered ; but she pressed his hand in return with just the faintest little pressure. • If it bids you do so, then sacrifice me, by all means, to Mr. Hay ward.* •Icnfi" He looked at her reproachfully. How could she frame tuch a sentence ? Surely she knew it was duty, and, oh 1 BO hard to follow. lone flung herself upon his shoulder, and burst wildly Into tears. * Darling,' she cried, sobbing low, * I don't want to in- fluence you against your conscience and your convic- tions. But how can I give you up to such a dreadful future ?• Owen felt it wjs all up. Her arms wound round him now. Could he tear hiroself away from them and say in cold blood, * I will go to my death, where duty calls me * ? That was all very well for romance ; but in real, real life lone's tearful face would have haunted him for ever. Very vaguely, too, he felt, as lone had said, that to yield was human. And what is most human is most right ; not Spartan virtue, but the plain dictates of our common inheritfd emotion. That is the voice of nature and of God within us. Those whom we love and those who love us are nearer and dearer to us by far than Kussia. Supreme devotion to an abstract cause is grand — in a fanatic; but you must have the fanatic's temper, and fanaticism roots ill in so alien a soil as the six feet two of A sound English athlete. He clasped her in his strong arms. He bent over her and kissed her. He dried her bright eyes, all the brighter for their tears. ' lone,' he cried in decisive accents, ' the bitterness of death is past. I've made my mind up. I don't know how I'm ever to free Mr. Hay ward. But sooner or later, face him I will. I'll tell him it's impossible.' ' Go nowi lond said firmly. ' Strike while the iron's hot, Owen.' The very thought unnerved him. ' But what shall I say about the money Pve had — the ■ohooling — the care?' he asked, pleading mutely for OWBN DBBATB8 tfi delay. ' He's done bo much for me, darling. He's been more than a father to me. It's too terrible to diBiUusion him.' long stood up and faced the falterer bravely. ' You oughtn't to let him wait one minute longer, then,' Bhe said with courage. ' Undeceive him at. once. It's right. It's manly.' ' You've touched it,' Owen answered, driven to action by tlie last word: * If I've got to do it, I must do it now. Before the appointment's made. I mustn't let them gazette me.' lonS drew back in turn, half afraid. ' But your future ?' she cried. * Your future ? We ought to think about that. What on earth will yoa do if you refuse this attocheship?* Owen laughed a gnm little laugh. ' We can't afford to stick now at trifles like that,* he said bitterly. • If I'm to give up this post, I must look out for myself. I'm cast high and dry — straudei?.' He glanced dovm at his big limbs. • But anyhow,' he added, with a cheerful revulsion, *I can break stones against any man, or sweep a croBsing.' CHAPTEB XXVHL VBB LUBBLB BCliSTB. Ok any other day Owen would have taicen a cab to Bond Btreet. This morning he walked, thougn with fiery haste. For every penny he spent now was Mr. Hay ward's and the Nihilists'. So in had always been, of course, but ho felt it ten tiUousand times more at present. The dead weight of iu-t ^ast debt nung round his neck like a mill- stone. jNOb ior worlds would he have increased it, ae things stood mak aay, by a twopenny omnibus fare. Mr. Hayward met liiia at the door of the photographic sanctum, and j^-.aapatl ins Uand warmly. "The pressure went straight to Owen's neart like a knife. If only he nau oeei- cold to L!m I Bxic this k.udlinosB was killing. * Wtill,' me elder ma^ cand, beaming, and motioning 'F jII VMDSR SSALBD 0RDBK8 his wiurd iiuio » ohair with that princely wave <^ hli } ' they've been prompt about the announoement, then. Tou got the odioial note by the same post as my letter?* Owen's tongue misgave him. But he managed to falter out, with some little difficulty : ' No, it hasn't come yet, Mr. Hayward. I — ^I wanted to anticipate it.' The chief's face fell ' That was not in my orders, Owen,' he said with in- flexible gravity. ' What a stumbling-block it is, this per- petual over-zeal I How often shall I still have to warn my most trusted subordinates that too much readiness if every bit as bad and as dangerous as too little ?' ' But that wasn't it, Mr. Hayward,' Owen answered as well as he could. ' I had a reason for anticipating the ofBoial announcement. I desired to prevent the gazetting of the appointment. I may as well tell you all first as last ' He was shaking like a jelly. ' Mr. Hayward — oh, I can't — yet I must This is terrible.' He blurted it out with a gulp. * I don't mean to go at all into the diplomatic service.' The shock had not yet come. Mr. Hayward, gazing blankly at him, failed to take it all in. He only looked and looked, and shook his head slowly as in doubt for a minute. Then he ejaculated ' Afraid ?' in very unemo> tional accents. This word roused Owen Gazalet's bitterest contempt. ' Afraid 1' he cried, bridling up in spite of his grief and remorse. ' Afraid I Can you think it ?' and he glanced down involuntarily at those fearless strong hands. ' But I have doubts in my own mind as to the rightfulness of the undertaking.' Mr. Hayward looked through him, and beyond him, as he answered as in a dream : ' Doubts— as to the desirabiUty of exacting poniehment upon the chief criminal?' ' Doubts as to how far I am justified — an Englishman to all intents and purposes, and a British subject ' ' In avenging your father's death,' Mr. Hayward cried, iuterruptin^ hua, ' your molh«r'g madness, your gigttr'i THB BUBBLB BURSTS exile, Owen Gazalet ; Sergius Selistoff, ia that whiA jou mean ? You tuiii your back now on the Cause, and on martyred Bussia T His expression was so terrible, so pained, so injured ; there was such a fire in his eve, such a tremor in his Toice, such an earnestness in his manner, that Owen, now face to face with the cherished and idolized teacher, and away from lond, felt his resolution totter, and his knees sii:^ under him. For a moment he paused ; then suddenly he broke forth, this time in Bussian : 'Lambert HaywardI he said, using the familiar Bussian freedom of the Christian name, ' I must speak oat. I must explain to you. For weeks and weeks this crisis has been coming on, and my mind within me grow- ing more and more divided. I'm a man now, you seo, and a man's thoughts rise up in me, and give me doubt and disturbance. Oh, for weeks, for your sake, I've dreaded this day. I've hated the bare idea. I've ^runk from telling you. If it hadn't been for this special nec^d I could never, I believe, have made up my yiind to tell you. I wish I could have died first. But I can't— 1 oan't go into the diplomatic service.' Mr. Hayward gazed at him still, riveted in his revolving ehair, with glassy eyes like a corpse, and white hands, and rigid features. The change that was coming over him appalled and terrified Owen. He had expected a Seat suock, but nothing so visible, so physical as this. r. Hayward nodded his head once or twice like an im- becile. Then with an effort he answered in a very hollow voice : < For my sake, yon say, only for my sake, for mine. But how about Bussia — noly martyred Bussia ?* Owen felt, with a glow of shame, that in the heat of the moment he had wholly forgotten her. But he didn't wound his friend's feelings still more deeply than he need by admitting that fact. ' I would do much for Bussia,' he said tlowly, * yery much for Bussia.* * Yon ought to,' Mr. Hayward interjected, raising one bloodless hand, and speaking in the voice of a dying man, * lor 70a owo everythmg to her — your birth, your blood, 41 tm UNDBR SEALED ORDERS your fine brain, your great strength, your training, your education, your very exiatcnce in every way.' * Yes, I would do much for Ptvissia,' Owen went on, ])icking his phrase with difficulty, and feeling his heart like a stone — for every word was a death-knell to Mr. Hay ward's hopes — 'if I felt certain of my end, and of the fitness and suitability of my means for producing it. But I've begun to have doubts about this scheme for — for the punishment of the chief bureaucrat. I am not so sore af I once was I should be justified in firing at him.' Fc. a second the old light flashed in Mr. Hayward'i eyes. ' Not certain,' he eried, raising his voice to an un- wonted pitch — but they were still speaking Russian — * not certain you would be justified in striking a blow al the system that sent your father to the mines and your mother to the madhouse? Not certain you would be justified in punishing the man who sits like an incubus at the head of an organized despotism which drives the dear ones whom we love to languish in the cells of its central prisons, and wrings the last drop of red heart-blood daily from a miserable peasantry ? An Englishman, you say, and a British subject. How can you be happy here, in this land of exile, while in the country where you were born people are dying of hunger by the hundred at a time, because a Czar snatches from them their last crust ol bread and confiscates the very husks under the name of taxes? Is it right? Is it human? Owen Cazalet — Sergius Selistoff — you break my heart— I'm ashamed of your Mr. Hayward ashamed of hitn t Owen bent down hia head in horror and remorse. His friend's words went right through him like a keen sharp sword. For the worst of it all was, in the main, he admitted their justice. He, a Bussian born, son and heir of a Russian martyr, nursed on Nihilist milk, fed on Nihilist bread, L'oared with care by the great head of the Nihilist Cause ia England — how could he turn his back now upon the foster-mother faith that bnd 'suckled and nurtured him? If only he could have kept to his childish behef 1 if only he oottld have drunk in all those lessons as he ought 1 THB BUBBLB BURSTS 10§ Bnt, alM t h« couldn't. Take it how yon will, ao good Nihilist can be reared on English soil. Yon need the near presence of despotism in bodily form, and the horror it awakens by direct revulsion, to get the conditions that produce that particular strain. Such organisms oan evolve in no other environment. Ashamed and disgraced and heart-broken as he felt, Owen couldn't have fired one shot at a concrete Czar if he'd seen him that moment. He may have been right. He may have been wrong. But facts are facts ; and at any rate he couldn't. He gazed at Mr. Hayward in an agony of remorse. Then he hid his face in his hands. The hot tears ran down his cheek, big strong man as he was. ' Oh, this is terrible,' he said — ' terrible 1 It cnts me to the heart, Mr. Hayward, that I must make you so miser- able.' The white-faced chief stared back at him with a stony pallor on those keen, clear features. ' Make me so miserable I' he cried again, wringing his numbed handa in despair. ' Every time you say that vou show me only the more how little the Cause itself has ever been to you.' He seized his ward's hand sud- denly. ' Owen Gazalet,' he exclaimed, gazing hard at it, * listen here ; listen here to ma For twenty years, day and night, I've had but one dream, one hope, one future. I've ilived for the day when that great strong hand of yours should clutch the chief criminal's throat, or bury a knife in his bosom. . . . For twenty years — ^twenty years, day and night, one dream, one hope, one future. . . . . .nd now that you break it all down with a single cruel kIow — not whoUy unexpected, but none the less cruel and crushing for all that — is it of myself I think— of my ruined life— of my blasted expectations ? No, no, I teU yon, no — ten thousand times no ; I think only of Bussia — ^bleeding, martyred Bussia. I think how she must stiU wear the chains you might have struck off her. I think how her poor children m'ist sicken, and starve, and die^ and languish in gloomy prisons or in stifling mines, because you have been untrue to your trust and nn- (aitlful to your promisa I think but of her— whil^ y«r iM Xrs&Sti SBALBD ORDBRS think of me. Let my pooif body die, let my poor soul burn in bomiEg hell for ever ; but give freedom, give hie, give hope, and bread, and light, and air, to Russia.' As he spoke his face was transfigured to an unearthly beauty Owen had never before seen in it. The enthusiasm of a lifetime, crushed and shattered by one deadly blow, seemed to effloresce all at once into a halo of martyrdom. The man was lovely as one has sometimes seen a woman lovely at the moment of the consum.mation of a life-long love. But it was the loveliness tik despair, of pathetic resignation, of • terrible, blighting, despondent disiUus- Bion. Owen gased at him, and felt bis own heart grow cold tike a stone. He would have given worlds that moment to feel once more he hungered and thirsted for the blood of a Czar. But he didn't feel it, he couldn't feel it, and he wouldn't pretend to it. He could only look on in silent pity and awe at this sad wreck of a great hope, this sudden collapse of a life-long enthusiasm. At last Mr. Hayward spoke again. His voice was thick and hard. *lBit this girl?' he asked with an effort — 'this lond Dracopoli?' Owen was too proud to tell a lie, or to prevaricate. * It is,' he said, trembling. ' I've talked it all over with lend for weeks, and I love her dearly.' The chief rose slowly, and groped his way across the loom towards the bell like a blind man. * Talked it over with lone V he cried aloud. * Talked it over with a woman I Betrayed the Cause I divulged the secret I Owen Cazalet, Owen Gazalet, I would never have believed it of you 1' Half-way across the room he stopped and groaned aloud. He put his handkerchief to his mouth. Owen rushed at him in horror. It was red, red, red. Then he knew what had happened. The strain had been too much for Mr. Hayward's iron frame. God grant il hadn't killed him 1 He had broken n blood>f esseL 1 .11 .^1 : ! ' m ■'■'& i I ui. 1 -M l.i;r MV I'OOK IIODV DIK; HIT (JIVK FUKKDOM, (ilVK l.IFK, (IIVK IIOI'K, AND liUKAl), AMI l.ltlllT, AM) AlU, TO Kl SSIA."- Plll,'l' 188. BEGINNING AFRESH OHAPTEB XXIZ. BBeiNNINa AFBI8B. In a yery few minutes a doctor was on the spot. Large blood-vessel on the lung, he said. It mljht of couree be serious. Patient mustn't on any account go down to Ealing, where he lived, that night. Would it do, Owen asked, to take him round in a hansom to a flat near Victoria Street ? The very thing, the doctor answered. Only carry him up the stairs. So in less th'r.n half an hour the phalanstery was increased by a new member, and Mr. Hayward found himself comfortably tucked up in long's pretty bed with the cretonne curtains. Oh, irony of fate ! And lond was the Eve who had ruined Eussia ! He remained there a week, and Owen stopped on with him. lonS and Blackbird shared a bedroom together meanwhile ; but Owen slept out at a house round the comer, spending the day and taking his meals all the time with the community. There was no lack of nurses, indeed. Owen himself was assiduous, and Mr. Hayward, in spite of his deep despondency, still loved to have his pupil and ward beside him. It pleased him a little, very little, to see that, even if Owen had fallen away from his first love for Russia, he retained none the less his personal devotion to his friend and instructor. Then there were long and Sacha and Blackbird as well» all eager to attend to the sick man's wants ; for strange to say, now th<^ worst, as she thought, was over, lond felt no repugnance at all to the terrible Bussian who had been so long her bugbear; on the contrary, in her womanly way, she really pitied and sympathized with him. And Mr. Hayward, though he regarded lond as the prime mover in the downfall of his life-long hopes, yet felt very strongly her personal fascination; so strangely constituted are we, so complex, so ma,ny- stranded, that, as he loved Owen himself, so he couldn't help loving Ion3 too, because she loved Owen, and because Owen loved her. In the vMt blank left by th UMDBR SBALltT) 0RDBR8 you don't know. And as for Owen and Saoha, I'm tan t.hty never want, as long as they live, to meet you.' It wasn't polite, but it was straight as a die, for lond'i one wish was to keep the Bussian spy from entering the premises. Meidame Mireff, however, sympathized with the girl's feelings too well not to be thoroughly prepared for this sharp reception. She smiled once more, and once more tried all her spells (in vain) on lonS. ' My child,' she said kindly, • you're mistaken — quite mistarken. I come as a friend. I ask for no one. I only beg you to take my card in as I say, and show it to everyone in all your household.' lond hesitated. No harm in taking it, after all; indeed, till Mr. Hayward had seen it, she hr«rdly knew what to do. But she wasn't going to leave the strange woman out there alone, unwatched and unguarded. ' Blackbird T she called aloud, ' just come out here a minute. . , .' Then, in a whisper : * Look here, stand there, and keep an eye on this dreadful woman. Don't let her come in. If she tries to pass you, ^.hrow your arms round her at once, and cling to her for dear life, and scream out at the top of your voice for Owon.' Poor Blackbird, somewhat startled by these strange directions, took her place timidly where she was told, and kept her own eyes fixed on the large-eyed woman. Mesmeric, she fancied, the kind of person to send you into a deep, a delicious long sleep where no Greek verbs would trouble your brain, no dreams disturb you. But Ion§, tripping scornfully in, carried the card in her hand to Mr. Hayward's bedside, and held it before him without a word, to pass his own judgment on it. A wan smile came over the sick man's pale face. < What ? Olga, dear Olga !' he said, like one pleased and comforted. ' Show her in, Ion6.' • But she's a Russian spy,' lone objected imprudently. Mr. Hayward looked up at her with a white face of horror. ' What do ycyu know about all this ?' he asked sternly. This is treason. This is betrayal I' Poor Ion3 1 The words came upon her like a shook o( BEGINNING AFRESH 193 eold water. She had been thinking only of protecting him ; and this was how he repaid her. But even so, she remembered first her duty to Owen. ' He never told me,' she said proudly. ' He never betrayed you. You betrayed yourself. I found it out, all by guess-work, that first night in Morocco.' Mr. Hayward ran over with his glance that pretty chestnut hair, those merry frank eyes, and groaned in- wardly, audibly. He had let out his secret, then, him- Belf to babes and sucklings. He had betrayed his own eause to a girl, a woman. * WeU., I'll hear more of this some other day,* he mur- mnred, after a short pause. ' It's all terrible, terrible I Meanwhile, show her in. I should Uke to see Olga.' lonS, all trepidation, went out and fetched the spy in. Madame Mireff, without a word, took the master's hand in hers and pressed it warmly. Tears stood in the eyes of both. . What it all meant, lonS knew not. But she eould see at a glance both were deeply affected. And even when they began to speak she couldn't make out a word, for it was all in Bussian. *A bloodvessel, they tell me, dear friend,' Madame whispered, leaning over him. Pnnce Borio Brassoff sighed. ' A bloodvessel 1' he answered with intense scorn. ' If that were all, Olga, it could soon be mended. No ; ruin —betrayal — treason — despair — my life-work spoilt, my dearest plans shattered I' Olga MirefiF clasped her hands in silent awe and alarm. * Not Sergius Selistoffs son 1' she cried. The despairing Nihilist gave a nod of assent. * Tee, Sergius SelistofTe son,' he answered. ' In love with a woman.' * And he refuses to go ?' Madame asked warmly. ' And he refuses to go,' Burio BrassoJQf repeated in a dreamy voice. ' He refuses to go. Says his conscience prevents him.' * Has he told her V Madame gasped out * I don't know. She swears not. And I think sbe ■peaks the truth. ThaVi she that stands thore by the bed beside yen.' 18 f| . i r