LIBRARY THE BELOVED ADVENTURER WRITTEN BY EMMETT CAMPBELL HALL And Produced as a Series of Fifteen Photoplays FEATURING ARTHUR V. JOHNSON AND LOTTIE BRISCOE By The Lubin Manufacturing Company PHILADELPHIA. 1914 COPYRIGHT, 1914 BY THE LUBIN MANUFACTURING COMPANY NATIONAL CAPITAL Punss, INC. BOOK MANUFACTURERS WASHINGTON, D.C. CONTENTS PAGE I. Lord Cecil Intervenes 5 II. An Untarnished Shield 15 III. An Affair of Honour 96 IV. An American Heiress 37 V. The Girl from the West 47 VI. The Golden Hope 56 VII. The Hold-up 66 VIII. A Partner to Providence 73 IX. Lord Cecil Plays a Part 84 X. Lord Cecil Keeps His Word 94 XI. The Serpent Comes to Eden 105 XII. Fate s Tangled Threads 117 XIII. Through Desperate Hazards 125 XIV. A Perilous Passage 137 XV. In Port o Dreams . . 149 ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE Arthur V. Johnson Frontispiece Lottie Briscoe 6 Betty Lottie Briscoe 7 Count Luco J. Robinson Hall 14 Lord WestonD. B. Bentley 14 "I will love you as I did my father," Rose said softly . . 15 Countess Lurovich Florence Hackett 30 Rose Middlehurst Jeanette Hackett 31 Mary Harris Ruth Bryan 46 Lord Cecil Arthur V. Johnson 47 "Betty told a wonderful tale" 62 Monte Carson Howard M. Mitchell 63 Jimmy Holt Robert La Monte 78 EUie Manning Josephine Longworth 78 "Have you done forgot how I took you . . . when nobody else would?" 79 "Cecil s face grew white as his eyes flashed over the tear- blotted page" 110 James Edward McLauchlin . . ,111 LORD CECIL INTERVENES Of all the men of England, to lx>rd Weston alone had it been given to put aside the veil of formally courteous but wearily cynical indifference with which Lord Cecil hid his true self from a world that would not have understood or would have scoffed. Wherefore between them was an awkward but sin cere friendship, and each, with that horror of emotional demon stration which is typical of their breed, and which is quaintly like the self-conscious and shrinking reserve of a boy in his teens, hid his affection for the other. It was only when Lord Weston, as he did at infrequent intervals, ran down to Croft- laigh for an idle day that their reserve was to some extent melted, and their tongues were silent or loosened with casual speech as the mood impelled. To Cecil, who despite the coax ing of calculating mothers of no less shrewd young ladies of wealth and station, had completely withdrawn from fashion able society, Weston s gossip was a refreshing relief from the somberness of his own thoughts. Lord Weston s acquaintance was as vast as it was catholic, ranging all the way from the highest dignitaries of the Church to the latest hopeful bruisers from the collieries, and from Princesses of the Blood to Prin cesses of the Gayety Chorus. Anything occurring in his world, to be outside his knowledge, must have happened within the last two minutes, if one might judge by his careless revela tions. How he maintained his position on practically nothing a year passed comprehension. The two men were strolling along the stream which marked the boundary of Croftlaigh, and Lord Weston nodded toward the roof of a handsome villa which rose above the tree tops on the opposite bank. 5 6 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER "Know your new neighbors?" he asked. "No didn t know the place had been let," Cecil yawned. "Was taken a month ago," Weston informed him. "Quite f.mazin that you haven t been added to the Countess* collec tion. Suppose it must be a matter of business before pleasure with her just now, or she may be holdin you in reserve for something big. You may be sure she knows you are down here, even if you didn t know she was." Cecil betrayed a faint interest. "Who or what is the lady?" he asked. "She is the Countess Lurovich," Weston explained. "Polish, or Serb. Husband about now and then met him in Vienna once, just before he snuffed out three officers, one after the other, for lookin too hard at the Countess. Sort of a diplomatic free lance, I ve heard, but has a nasty habit of callin out a man on the least provocation an* he never misses. The Countess is quite as deadly in another way. Her present specialty is mar- ryin* orphan heiresses to smooth blackguards she keeps handy. Rotten business." Lord Weston suddenly stopped and looked at Cecil earnestly. "By Jove!" he exclaimed, "I was near forgettin old Jimmy Middlehurst Bengal Government was a particular friend of yours! Well, I was just hearin yesterday that the Countess had taken Rose Middlehurst under her wing, with the usual intentions. The girl will be of age hi a week or so, I understand, and come into a cool million. Guardian hasn t troubled him self much about her she has run about pretty much as she pleased, but she s said to be a sweet thing, an too good to be handed over to one of the Lurovich hangers-on. She s down here for a visit now." Cecil s face grew troubled. Middlehurst had indeed been his friend, and under conditions that proved that friendship to be no little thing. Rose he remembered as a dainty, coaxing child, Beit >/ Lottie Briscoe. LORD CECIL INTERVENES 7 her father s hope and pride, and even then giving promise of blossoming into a wonderfully fair flower of womankind. De cidedly she must be saved from the mean schemes of the ad venturess. Lord Weston noted with understanding the expression which had come into Cecil s eyes. "If I can be of any use, a wire to the club 11 reach me quick est, y know," he said casually, and Cecil nodded acceptance of what he knew to be an offer of cooperation to any extent. Cecil soon discovered that the Countess did not intend that any outside influence should interfere with her plans. Lord Weston had secured from one of his friends of doubtful status a letter of introduction for Lord Cecil, but when the latter called at Ashley Grange, the place which the Countess had made her country home, he was informed, with unmistakable decision by a footman who appeared over-intelligent for his position that the Countess was not at home. Nor could he obtain an interview with Rose. That there might be no pos sibility of his mistaking the rebuff, the Countess had strolled languidly from the house into the garden before Cecil had settled himself in his motor. "Looks rather bad, y know," Cecil reflected when he had pondered the matter for some hours. He rose and paced thought fully the length of the library. "It s likely the servants halls have been in communication," he continued aloud, and rang. The appearance of James, his discreet and faithful "man," was almost instantaneous. "What do you know about the establishment at Ashley Grange, James?" Lord Cecil queried. "It isn t a place where a gentleman s man would care to take service, My Lord leastwise so I understand," James replied, with an uncertain glance at his master. Cecil nodded. 8 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER "A very comprehensive analytical commentary, James," he observed. "Pray continue." "None of the local servants some ad been servants at the Grange in the places of their fathers before them has been kept, My Lord, which is unusual when a place is took for a season only; Tim Meadows was the only one as was kept, him being the chauffeur where his father was coachman, and he quit his situation yesterday, not liking their foreign ways." "And why had Tim been kept after the others?" Cecil asked. "Because they wanted a local man what knew all the roads hereabout leastwise that is what is supposed to have been the reason, My Lord," James explained. "There is an adver tisement in today s paper for a new local chauffeur." "Very good, James. You may bring a Scotch and soda and you need not remember my curiosity," Cecil said. "Certainly not, My Lord!" James responded in a tone which conveyed a subtle reproof. As he sipped his Scotch and soda Lord Cecil smiled whim sically. "If they knew of my scheme," he thought, "half the cart-tail speakers in England would stop denouncin me as one of the degenerate non-earnin aristocracy livin on the toil of the groan- in* masses an* curse me for takin* the bread out of the mouth of an honest workin man who, but for my brutal callousness might earn five pounds a week by drivin the Countess Luro- vich s motor." The plans of the Countess had worked as well as they us ually did, the only suggestion of trouble having developed when she had coolly informed Count Luco, the gentleman designated for the task of marrying Miss Middlehurst, that the Countess share of the spoils would be sixty and not fifty per cent. The Count s protest had been half-hearted he knew enough of the private history of the Countess not to care to LORD CECIL INTERVENES 9 seriously antagonize her, and, as she carelessly intimated, there were available quite a number of equally presentable gentlemen who would welcome the assignment with an even smaller share of the profits. After all, forty per cent of a mil lion sterling made a dazzling sum when figured in lire. Rose Middlehurst had been a guest at Ashley Grange for only a few days when Count Luco joined the small party, and proceeded to make love in a manner that fascinated even while it rather took one s breath. The Countess, with a delicacy which touched the girl, had hinted that, though charming to a degree, the Count was known for his should she say "roman tic" in this so difficult English career. It was whispered that sorrow still abode in the heart of even the Qu ; but one should not gossip, and Miss Middlehurst s cold little Eng lish heart would not readily disturb itself because of a pair of speaking eyes. And, having put the romantic young girl in a most receptive mood, the Countess contrived, while giving the appearance of earnestly striving to do otherwise, to leave Rose and the Count almost continually alone together. "It is, as you say, simple and most easy," the Count re marked to the Countess Lurovich a week later. "But sacre nom de Saint-Antoine! so is eating a bowl of mush and milk! And when one does not even hunger except for forbidden fruit!" His dark eyes rested upon her, and in their liquid depths there seemed to smoulder a flame. For an instant she stared at him doubtfully, then laughed. "My dear Luco, the world does not dream of its loss in that you are not upon the stage, but it is great, believe me. For an instant even I believed that you had gone quite mad. No wonder the little pink chit is ready to fly with you to that so beautifully pictured castle crowning the vine-clad hills in the sunny Southland. Be of cheer, man ami you can really 10 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER buy yourself a half-ruin in a sun-blistered vineyard, if the fancy takes you, after Tuesday." "Be assured that fancy will not possess me," Count Luco replied with decision. "But I grow weary, Countess, of this rural paradise and this playing the gallant to a bread-and- butter miss. May not the thing be done at once? As I have said, she would fly with me, evading your kind but rigid care, at a moment s notice." "And as I have told you," the Countess responded impati ently, "this girl is a ward in Chancery, and I have no desire to have the affair aired in court and there are certain pains and penalties which are visited upon one who ventures to marry such a minor. She will, however, be of age on Tues day, and free to marry as she may choose." "Then why the necessity of further play-acting, and the elopement you have so carefully planned?" the Count peev ishly demanded. "Because, my good Luco, there will remain other fish in the sea," the Countess replied cryptically, and changed the subject. "Does that new chauffeur know the roads, and can he care for his motor?" she asked. "Oh, he appears to know every cow-path, and seemed more concerned for his motor than he did for his neck or mine," Count Luco grunted. "I would recommend him highly as driver for any eloping couple, particularly if the elopers had needy heirs!" Lord Cecil, under the borrowed name of John Dobbs, had without difficulty secured the situation vacated by Mr. Tim Meadows. The danger of his recognition had been of the slight est, the difference of appearance given a man by changing from formal afternoon costume, such as he had worn upon the occa sion of his call at the Grange, to chauffeur s garb, being quite LORD CECIL INTERVENES 11 sufficient to render it practically negligible. His intention had been to disclose his identity to Rose at the first opportunity and warn her of the trap in which she was snared, but a single glance at the girl as she joined Count Luco for a drive had warned him of the futility of such a course. She was completely infatuated, and anything that he might have said would have had exactly the opposite effect from what he desired. His only course, therefore, had been to await developments. It was sheer luck that put him in possession of the plans for the elopement, in time to despatch an urgent wire to Lord Weston. The gray sky was just glowing into the rose of dawn when on Tuesday Lord Cecil brought the motor to a silent stop at the foot of the Grange drive. If John Dobbs had had any scruples about complying with the somewhat unusual orders of a guest of his employer, they had apparently been put to sleep by a five pound note the subsequent finding of which in a ditch came near to ruining for life a hitherto industrious hind who was never after able to free himself from the idea that if one five-pound note was found in a ditch there might be an other in a second ditch, and who therefore spent most of his waking hours in endeavoring to prove his theory well grounded. Presently Count Luco, yawning heavily, came from the silent house, and with ill-concealed impatience waited beside the motor. Very soon after, Cecil could see a girlish form hurrying toward them, and Rose was soon by Luco s side. At her appearance, the Count had at once assumed the manner of the eager and tender lover, and now gently urged her toward the machine. For an instant the girl hesitated, and looked into his face with frightened eyes. "You you will be very good to me?" she whispered, and he smiled tender assurance. "Can you ask it, beloved?" he replied softly, and lifted her into the car. 12 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER "Get on swiftly you have your orders," Count Luco said to the waiting chauffeur, and the machine moved rapidly away. Ten minutes later Cecil swung the car abruptly to the right, and Count Luco started up angrily. "You are off the road pig!" he cried. "It was the turn to the left. Stop, imbecile!" The only reply was a burst of speed that caused the Count to sink swiftly and ungracefully back into his seat and clutch at his hat. The car leaped forward, with sickening lurches as corners were turned, and a breath-taking swiftness on the straightaways. "Mon dieu he is mad!" the Count gasped, and with white face and starting eyes saw the reeling trees fly past. The half- formed idea of leaping from the car was quickly abandoned. "If we are killed, it will be together, beloved!" the girl whispered in his ear, but he pushed her away frantically. A village flashed up before them, and just beyond it the hard- braked car came to a skidding stop in front of the Red Lion Inn. "Had to come by here for something," the mad chauffeur said shortly, and hurried into the house. With shaking limbs Count Luco crawled to the ground. "For nothing on earth shall that fiend again have me in his power!" he swore, and wiped the cold moisture from his brow. Suddenly from the inn door rushed a young woman who, with a cry of mingled joy and reproach threw her arms about the Count s neck and kissed him loudly. "Oh, my usband!" she sobbed, and real tears cut littl* channels through the lavish makeup on her cheaply pretty face. "You won t be mad at me because I came, will you?" she continued plaintively. "I just ad to see you you ain t been near ome for weeks an* weeks, an the baby sick, an all!" LORD CECIL INTERVENES 13 Count Luco struggled to free himself, but the young woman only clung the closer. With blanched cheeks Rose Middlehurst climbed stiffly from the machine, and touched the woman on the arm. "Are you this gentleman s wife?" she asked painfully. The other turned indignantly. "Am I is wife?" she echoed. "Go s else wife would I be, I d like to know, an me with a blessed baby onie this minute! Respectable married I am, I d ave you know, wiv my certifi cate in a gold frame ung hup in the parlor, where it s been these two years! E won t dare for to deny is lawful wedded wife! "She it is a lie!" Count Luco screamed, but the bewilder ment upon his face might equally as well have been the con fusion of guilt, and Rose turned away, sick and giddy. From the single glance she gave him, the Count understood that be tween them all things had ended. With an oath he tore him self from the clinging arms of the self-declared wife, and sprang to the driving seat of the automobile. As the car sprang away, a gentleman strolled from the inn, and Rose looked at him with pathetic appeal. "Lord Weston please, oh, please, take me away from here!" she sobbed, as, recognizing her, he stepped quickly forward. "Come in, my dear," he said gently, and led her into the Red Lion. A half hour later, white faced but calm, Rose was waiting in a private sitting room of the inn. Lord Weston had promised to take her back to London, and she had already heard the sound of his motor. Lord Weston himself was, at this moment, engaged in expressing his thanks to Miss Mazie Conquest, of the Gayety Chorus, and slipping into her hand a twenty- pound note. "La, Lord Weston, I d a been glad to do it for you," Miss Mazie declared heartily. "Not but what the pony won t be 14 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER handy," she added frankly as she tucked the note into her breast. "She is a real pretty little thing," she suggested subtly, but Lord Weston smiled and shook his head. "I m countin on you, Mazie, to keep this under your hat," he said. "Just you be a good girl, an run back to town an forget all about it." Mazie looked coolly into his eyes, and then nodded satis faction. "Right!" she said cheerfully. "I don t know the game, but I know you, and mum s the word." Shortly after Lord Weston rapped at the door of Rose s sitting room, and entered smiling. The girl regarded him gravely. "There is something about this I do not understand, Lord Weston," she said quietly. "There was motive behind the chauffeur s action in bringing me here. Why did he do it?" "By so doing he saved you from much sadness, little girl," Lord Weston replied, and the girl nodded. "I know, and I am grateful but why? Tell me, if you know," she insisted, and he told her. "And he did this because he was my father s friend," the girl said softly, when she Ijad been told the truth, with a slight deviation to account for the opportune appearance of the woman she still supposed to be the Count s wife. "He must be like my father. You say he lives near will you not take me to him, that I may thank him, and tell him that if I may I will love him as I did my father?" And when, presently, she did so, with sweet gravity, Lord Cecil s heart threw wide its gates as to a weary child. II AN UNTARNISHED SHIELD Henry, Lord Cecil, eighteenth Earl of Swarthmore, frowned with annoyance as he re-read the note from Lord Weston which had arrived in the morning s post. The labored casualness of the communication was to him strong evidence that the matter was serious. "My dear chap," the missive ran. "Haven t you had enough ^f Croftlaigh for a while? Do run up to town for a day or so at least, just so that I may get a little relief from the lovely ladies who torment me with inquiries about you when I want them to at least pretend an interest in me. Several shows that are not at all bad. By the way, for a youngster Rodney seems to be doing wonderful execution. It is the talk of the club, the manner in which Mile. Dazia, of the Gayety, has taken him up. But this is probably no news to you. Better run up and bring back the smiles to the fair faces of Lady F and the Duchess of B ." "It isn t like Weston to gossip, y know," Cecil commented aloud, and took a restless turn about the old library. "The lx>y must be getting in no end of a mess, by Jove!" he added decisively. "Mile. Dazia is usin him, and I d give something to know for what. Just what use to her could he be?" A half hour s pondering brought no solution, and with a gesture of impatience, Lord Cecil pulled the bell cord. A few moments later his faithful and exemplary "man," James, responded. "You may pack for town, James," Lord Cecil informed him. "We will catch the morning mail at Ferncliff." 1.5 16 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER "Very good, my Lord," the man responded, and disappeared. Cecil lit a cigarette, and resumed his unsatisfactory specu lations. The possibilities suggested by Lord Weston s communica tion were, in truth, disturbing. Mile. Dazia was a person of international reputation, concerning whom much was known, but much more unknown. Of only ordinary beauty, with an inconsequential voice, and indifferent ability as a dancer, she nevertheless had in the brief years since she emerged from un- guessed obscurity to blaze a rocket-like course across the skies of Europe, set a half dozen capitals by the ears, and was just now the particular sensation of Ixmdon. Russian Grand Dukes, German princelings, French savants and Croesuses from the West had laid at her feet homage and treasures, and she had smiled upon all alike, and shown favor to none above another, taking greedily with both hands all that was offered, and some times that which had not been offered. It was entirely out of character for Mile. Dazia to single out, from the numbers, of rank and wealth, who clamored for recognition, a youthful soldier with an allowance not equalling in a year what any one of a score of her slaves would spend on "souvenirs" for a dinner graced by her presence. Besides Lord Cecil, his younger brother, Rodney, less than a year out of Sandhurst and now on duty, while awaiting as signment to a line regiment, as aide de camp at the War Office, was the only surviving member of his ancient line. An orphan since childhood, Rodney had been in Cecil s eyes more a son than a younger brother, and there had been lavished upon him an affection quite equal to that ever given by a father. The family fortune had dwindled sadly in late generations, but this was a matter which gave Cecil small concern except that it necessitated making the allowance granted the young soldier AN UNTARNISHED SHIELD 17 very modest indeed. Besides boyish good looks and likeable manners, there was nothing about Rodney to attract atten tion and these were not qualities which could be assumed to particularly interest Mile. Dazia. But Rodney was troubled with no such reflections. With the superb egotism of youth he accepted his favortism at the actress s court, and ever demanded more. It was his first affair, and, under the spell of her perfect arts he had already become fairly mad with desire for complete possession of this woman, who gave a little, and then fled, laughing and alluring, from his burning lips and hungry arms. "Corinna! You will drive me insane!" he cried wildly, when, once again, she allowed him for an instant to think that she had at last surrendered to his caresses, and then danced away with mocking laughter. He covered his white face with shak ing hands. "I will put an end to it!" he suddenly swore. "I will not stand this torture. Happen what may after, no hell could equal this." Corinna noted with the coolness of a chemist who allows his compound to boil to within a split second of the explosive point that the boy had ceased to tremble, and that into his voice had come a note of reckless desperation. "It is enough," she thought, "the young fool will be killing himself on my rug in a few minutes, and that would be incon venient." Hastily she crossed the room, and with caressing hands raised his face so that he might look into her glowing eyes. "Almost I believe that you do love me," she whispered, "and yet words are easy to say, and I have seen upon the stage as convincing agonies. I I would you could prove it to me," she added softly, and in her glance was a world of promise. 18 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER "I will prove it what proof do you demand?" the boy asked, with the light of hope returning to his face. Corinna appeared to ponder deeply, then clapped her hands with delight. "I will make it not hard for you oh, a little thing!" she said. "Listen. Among the jewels which my good friends have given me, there is no black pearl and I do so desire a black pearl! This, then, is a task for you, such as ladies of old set for their knights bring me tomorrow the black pearl called Night Rose, which old von Hagen is known to have, and you shall know happiness such as kings have sought in vain fail, and never more shall that door be opened to you. I believe you will not fail, and you may kiss me once as earnest of what will be." From that clinging kiss the boy drew away giddy with the mad leap of his blood. "I will get the pearl," he muttered, and stumbled from the room. Corinna yawned, crossed the apartment, and threw aside a heavy curtain. "I think my part is done, Baron Stronverg," she said. "And very well done, my child," Stronverg said admiringly. "He will go directly to von Hagen s shop, you think?" "Undoubtedly." "Then I had best follow," the Baron said, and gathered up his hat and cane. For some moments he paused, and eyed Corinna hungrily. "When all this is done, I also shall have something of love to say," he told her, and took his departure. Although it was well past midnight when Rodney ryshed impulsively from the actress s luxurious apartment, he pro ceeded directly to the quaint little shop of the jewel collector, von Hagen. He was quite without plans, and to his excited mind it did not occur that a black pearl of sufficient conse quence to be given a name would represent a fortune. AN UNTARNISHED SHIELD 19 A light burned in the jeweler s shop, and the old man did not appear to regard it as strange that a customer should choose such an hour for a call. He merely looked up inquiringly from the tray of unset stones which he was examining. "You have a black pearl, called Night Rose? " Rodney demanded. The jeweler nodded. "I have that pearl, and it is for sale. It s price is twenty thousand pounds," he said indifferently. For a moment the boy was stricken dumb. So, she had made a jest of him as well might she have told him to bring the very Crown to purchase this pearl w r ould strain the resources of the diminished family estate, let alone his scanty allowance. And she had known this, and had said "bring it to me!" As she knew he could not purchase it, had she meant ? With subconscious caution Rodney glanced through the window at the deserted street. The man was old a swift leap As though reading his thoughts before they were even shaped into concrete form, von Hagen slightly shifted his position, and Rodney saw that in his hand was a heavy auto matic revolver. "I bid you good evening, sir," the jeweler said quietly. "Should you decide to purchase the pearl, I will be pleased to sell it to you the price, as I said, is twenty thousand pounds." Without a word Rodney hurried out into the night, and, heedless of direction, rushed away. He took no note of a form which detached itself from the shadows and followed with silent swiftness. Presently the boy became aware of the fact that he was passing along the Embankment, which was silent and deserted. He came to a stand, and gloomily eyed the great river, which seemed to slip furtively along as though to steal unawares 20 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER under the arches of old London Bridge, the lights of which were like a string of low-hung stars. Rodney laughed wildly. "Why not?" he said bitterly, and with steady steps moved toward the water. As he paused upon the brink, a hand fell lightly upon his shoulder, and he wheeled to look into the face of a stranger. "Your pardon, sir," the man said courteously, "but you are young, and youth is prone to ill-considered haste. Perhaps some little thing has loomed large in your eyes. So often it is only a matter of money. Would life appear to you more desirable if I were to put into your hands twenty thousand pounds?" "You mock me, sir," Rodney said with a touch of dignity. "It ill becomes you to make a jest of one whom fortune has brought to a bitter pass." Baron Stronverg raised a protesting hand. "I do not jest," he replied quietly, and from his pocket pro duced a thick packet, which he offered for inspection. "There," he continued, "are Bank of England notes to the amount of twenty thousand pounds. They are yours for a trifling service. Give me your word that you will perform this service, and you may retain the notes in your possession, giv ing your further word that you will not spend the money until the service has been accomplished, which will be this morning the dawn is now breaking." The bank notes were crushed in Rodney s grasp, and his heart was pounding so fiercely as to prevent speech. This handful of paper meant life, life, delirious with triumphant love! No more could he have given up this strangely acquired wealth the price of the "Night Rose" than could a desert wanderer, dying of thirst, put aside untasted a brimming cup of sparkling water. Even before he knew the service to be paid, he had in his heart agreed thereto. "What is it you would have me do?" he at length muttered. AN UNTARNISHED SHIELD 21 "Only this," the stranger said softly. "As aide on duty at the War Office, you may pass unquestioned into the private office of the Chief of Intelligence. There is on his desk a wicker basket. Tomorrow morning a clerk will from time to time place in this basket packets of papers, for consideration by the Chief, who invariably arrives at his desk a minute or two after ten o clock. At exactly one minute to ten, there will be placed in the basket a sealed packet. This packet you will bring to me, unopened." "What will this packet contain?" Rodney whispered, but in his soul he knew that no matter what the contents, he would secure it. "That I can not say, and you need never know," the stranger told him. "Will you bring it me, or will you give me back my notes?" Rodney s clutch upon the notes tightened convulsively. "I will bring it," he muttered. "Where?" The hours that followed were passed by Rodney in a fever ish and tormenting eagerness. When he had changed to his uniform, there was nothing to do but wait, and until nine- thirty he tramped the streets, unfamiliar as a foreign city with their early morning bustle of tradesmen and servants. He shut from his mind, with a panic of fear, the thought of what he was to do, and concentrated his thoughts upon what the re ward would be. At a quarter to ten he entered the War Office building, and made his way to the wing occupied by the Division of Intelli gence, where, in the private office of the Chief he waited. From time to time a clerk entered, and without appearing to observe the officer, placed packets of papers in the basket on the desk. At length the clock upon the wall indicated one minute to ten. r "| Rodney s heart seemed to pause, and a cold dampness broke out on his forehead. The clerk again entered the room, 22 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER and with a scarcely discernible emphasis of action placed ia the basket a packet, wrapped in brown paper and closed with tape and wax seals. A moment later he had left Rodney alone. With a gasp the boy stepped swiftly forward, slipped the packet inside his tunic, and hurried out. Unmolested and apparently unnoticed, Rodney quit the building, and made his way to the address given by the mys terious stranger. The man received him in silence, but held out his hand, an eager gleam in his eyes. Silently Rodney placed in his grasp the sealed packet, and fled. The old jeweler, von Hagen, looked up without surprise as Rodney entered his shabby shop, and placed upon the counter a small box. "Here is the pearl give me the money," he said, and the exchange was quickly accomplished. Flushed with triumph, Rodney presently burst into Mile. Dazia s drawing room, and with sparkling glance the actress swept forward to meet him. "You have brought me it? * she cried, and broke into gurgles of delight as he placed the precious thing in her palm. "I can not stay I am on duty I must go," Rodney stam mered, not daring to follow his impulse to crush her in his arms. "Go now, but come tonight and demand what you will," she said softly, and the boy rushed away. As the door closed behind him, Corinna s manner changed swiftly. She glanced at the great pearl with quiet satisfaction, then moving briskly to an inner room spoke sharply. "Do not take time to pack the remainder of the things," she ordered, and the intelligent-faced maid nodded understand- ingly. "We leave on the instant." Suddenly Corinna laughed. AN UNTARNISHED SHIELD 28 "Fancy the sensation!" she exclaimed. "Can you not see the newspapers and the posters on the hoardings Mysteri ous disappearance of world famous actress! Mile. Dazia vanishes! It is a pity," she added regretfully, "for the world of fools has really thought me a great actress, and I must give up much. But, after all, the game has paid well." Upon Cecil s arrival in town, he made his way directly to the War Office, knowing that at this hour his brother should be on duty there. He was filled with an unaccountable foreboding which he was impatient to set at rest by seeing the boy, and proceeded at once to the Intelligence Division. General Sir John Harvey, the famous old soldier who had been his father s friend and who was now the head of this important office, greeted him with grave kindliness. "I am glad you are here, Henry," he said slowly. "I have just sent to Croftlaigh a wire begging you to come." "You w r ere my father s friend, and are mine, Sir John speak plainly," Cecil replied quietly, but his heart was in the grip of a numbing horror. The General suddenly raised his eyes and spoke with rapid terseness. "One hour ago," he said, "there was stolen from this desk a sealed packet containing plans of the secret harbor defenses the submarine mine maps of every gateway to England. The man who placed that packet in the hands of the enemy has laid open to invasion, should the navy but be drawn away, the very heart of his country." "This packet it has not been recovered?" Lord Cecil s \vhite lips whispered. "It has not, nor will it be. England does not guard her secrets so poorly that the plot of foreign spies, the connivance of a clerk, and the treachery of a subaltan may violate them. 24 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER The stolen plans are false, and if acted upon will prove a deadly snare, but this is known to you and me alone." The old soldier pondered sadly. "We are in a calm that is the forerunner of the hurricane, Lord Cecil," he said. "God knows when the storm will break! It is not expedient that any official notice be taken of this thing the spies shall leave England unmolested the clerk shall go his way with his purchase price none but those who will shut the secret in their hearts will know that an officer of the King has been a traitor, no less base because the effect of his act is discounted. So far as he is concerned it is the same as though the country he had sworn to serve lay in smoking ruins under the bloody heel of the enemy. My Lord Cecil, that man is your brother, and the honor of your house is in your keeping." Lord Cecil bowed gravely. "Sir John, I thank you," he said. At this moment Rodney entered the room, and a quick smile of pleasure lighted his face at sight of his elder brother. Sir John glanced at the young officer with expressionless eyes. "Lieutenant Cecil," he said quietly, "you will at once pro ceed to Croftlaigh Manor, remaining there until further orders. My Lord Cecil, I bid you good morning." "Come," Lord Cecil said, and followed by his bewildered and rebellious brother left the room. Five hours later the brothers sat in the old library at Croft laigh. Apparently unmoved, Lord Cecil rested unwavering eyes upon the stricken white face of the boy, and heard to the end the broken flood of agonized confession and repentance that poured from his lips. When the other had sobbed himself to silence he spoke gravely. "While in my keeping is the honor of this house, no stain may dim its untarnished shield," he said, and the boy slowly raised his head, while the pride and courage of*a noble race AN UNTARNISHED SHIELD 25 fought to banish the weakness and cowardice that had so strangely usurped their place. At length he spoke, and his voice was firm. "I now remember that in my keeping also is that honor, my brother," he said. Silently Lord Cecil took from its drawer and placed upon the table a heavy revolver of dull blue steel, and without an other word walked slowly from the room. In the famous old rose garden, the first plants for which had been brought from the far Holy Land by that ancestor who rode by the side of Richard of the Lion s Heart, Lord Cecil, last of his ancient line, stood and stared unseeingly at the full blown blossoms, while lines as of age etched themselves swiftly upon his white face. "And oh, how I loved him!" he whispered, and the words seemed to echo, as they would through long years, in his empty, aching heart. Ill AN AFFAIR OF HONOUR The sun of late Spring was streaming warmly into the apart ment in shabbily respectable Saxton Square, which, because of shrinking rent-rolls and prodigally heedless benevolences, had come to represent the "town house" of Lord Cecil, Peer of England. The great mansion that for an hundred years had been the abiding place of his family during "the season" still stood in Portland Place, but some person of no consequence at all, a millionaire tradesman of the City, the disdainful James, Lord Cecil s "man," believed it was, now held state in its famous Long Drawing room, which, from end to end, was fifty full paces for a Life Guardsman. Thinking of these things, the excellent James barely checked an audible sigh as he glanced about the room. Despite his best efforts, it, like the Square outside, was shabby, and the clear sunshine pitilessly revealed how worn and threadbare was the old furniture and faded carpet. By miracles of skill and loving patience was James enabled to send his master forth each day with garments irreproachable in aspect, despite long wear, but the furnishings were beyond him. Cecil being occupied with the morning s post, James was at liberty to shake his head with loving mournfullness. For James, this was demonstration of emotion quite extraordinary. From the score of invitations and tradesmen s bills, which were indifferently pushed aside, Cecil selected a letter, the handwriting of which he recognized with a smile of pleasure. It was dated from the Horse Guards Club, and from the strong, careless scrawl one might readily surmise something of the character of Lieutenant Robert Whitmore Burton Stanley, aged twenty-two. 26 AN AFFAIR OF HONOUR 27 "Dear Uncle," the note read. "At last Rose has promised to marry me, and I am the happiest man alive, though she makes some foolish conditions as to no gambling, and I mustn t even look at another girl. She leaves town this afternoon, for the summer. Y r affect, nephew, Robt. Stanley." A glow of real happiness came into Cecil s kindly eyes. Of all the world, since the death of his beloved younger brother, the dearest to his lonely heart had been the impulsive, care free young soldier, and Rose Middlehurst, as fair and sweet as an English primrose, who cherished for Lord Cecil a love such as she would have given her dead father. Cecil s pleasant dreams were broken by a slight altercation at the door the faithful James was barring the way of an importunate visitor. "You may show the lady in, James," Cecil said quietly, and there entered a woman of shabby-genteel appearance whose first words disclosed the professional beggar. "Give the lady five pounds, James," Cecil directed, inter rupting a plaintive tale with a courteous bow, and resumed the reading of his letter. "I said five pounds, James," he presently remarked mildly, without looking up, and that worthy servi tor, who had vainly attempted to dismiss the woman with an economical five crowns, sighed hopelessly as he complied with the order. Cecil was reading the postscript of Robert s note. It ran: The beastly bank people keep writing that I have over drawn 400, just when I need new polo ponies. Add that much to my allowance this quarter, like a good old Nunkie, will you? Bob. Cecil rose, glancing at James, and his hat and cane were im mediately placed in his hands. Then he strolled out, an indul gent smile hovering about his lips, but James, examining the contents of a battered cash-box, sighed and shook his head in troubled thought. 28 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER At the comfortable house which Rose had maintained since her majority a year before, with the nominal chaperonage of an ancient and vague relative and an independence which would have been deemed scandalous in a young lady of smaller for tune or less distinguished connections, Lord Cecil was affec tionately greeted by the happy girl. A few minutes afterward, Robert entered, and Rose hurried away to prepare for her journey to the country. "Aw, that bank thing, y know, Uncle," Bob suggested casu ally. "The silly asses have sent me another notice its positively a nuisance. By Jove, one would think they needed the money!" "Thanks, awfully, sir," he said a few minutes later, as he carelessly pocketed the check Lord Cecil handed him. "If Rose doesn t hurry, we shan t catch the express I m goin to see her on, of course. Only wish I could run down with her, but I m on duty this afternoon." Just ten minutes later Rose entered, and was conducted by the two men to the waiting cab. Cecil said goodbye and walked away, his heart, in its own peculiar way, as light as that of the laughing Bob. When off duty that evening, Bob sought his club. Since the departure of Rose, the city seemed remarkably empty, and his bubbling spirits demanded companionship. The center of interest in the smoking room appeared to be a guest, about whom a jovial group had gathered. Someone called to Bob, and he was introduced to M. Lemoine, who greeted him with an easy and polished cordiality. "Don t know who he is, really, but seems to be a gentleman," a young Lancer informed Robert. "Count, or Baron, or some thing, I believe. Rather good fun." Into the careless conversation someone dropped the name of^the Countess Lurovich, and M. Lemoine broke into spark ling smiles. AN AFFAIR OF HONOUR 29 "The Countess! Ah! The woman glorious! Of a charm, I assure you, and of camaraderie to make one of delight! You do not know her? Then I shall present you! At once! She honours me with her friendship, and her friend s friends are hers, this so wonderful woman!" "Shall we try it on?" the Lancer asked aside, grown suddenly reserved. "Might be somethin of a lark," Bob replied. "I m for it." "Right, O!" the Lancer acquiesced, and a few moments later M. Lemoine was gaily conducting a small party from the club. Robert was not soon to forget^his first meeting with the woman who, moving in that peculiar world which, without being of it, touches garments with the world of rank and fashion, the doings of which sway thrones and trouble nations, but concern ing which few know ought, and these have bought knowledge with sorrow. In a burst of confidence, a Certain Royal Per sonage had once described the Countess as the most fascinat ing woman hi Europe, and the one most desirable to avoid. On the latter point the Certain Personage seemed sadly posi tive. To Robert, aglow with youth and love that can even see a diamond in a bit of broken glass shining in the gutter, she was simply glorious unknowingly, he was adding to her very real charms all those of his sweetheart. As the Countess looked into his eyes, a strange thing hap pened. For the first time in her life, this woman, for whom a hundred men had broken their hearts, and suffered shame, and death, felt a swift, burning thrill of passion, and the flame of it wrapped the boy as in a garment. But even as she shook with new emotion, the keen, cold brain of the Countess worked swiftly. "He is in love with love, and some girl, not you," it whispered. 30 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER "You must bind him with other chains than those of a momen tary passion due to chance circumstance." "We will sit here a while, mon ami, and become acquainted," she smiled, and led the way to a screened divan. On a table within easy reach were glasses and liquors. "Drink, young war rior," she laughed, and sank down languidly, motioning for Robert to take his place beside her. And the most fascinating woman in Europe exerted herself as never before, even in those days when crowns had been pawns in her games. Also the liquors were potent, and Bob drank deeply. Suddenly the Countess freed herself from his embrace the game was fairly in the snare, but the trap was not yet closed. "We had best join the others, now," she said softly. "An other time " her voice trailed into a silence that breathed promise. "They play a little game, for friendship. We will try our fortunes," she added, and Robert followed, dazedly, to the small adjoining room from which came the whir of a roulette wheel. ;^"I tell you, I don t want to play," Robert declared sullenly, but the Countess pouted, and peevishly he placed a small bet. "Welcome, mon brave!" Lemoine called merrily. "Behold, I am what you would say? run this game!" And he spun the wheel. Swiftly the lure of the game clutched upon Robert s senses. His stakes became larger. The hour grew late, and the guests had dwindled to a handful. The young lancer, for the second time, suggested the propriety of departure, but, when Robert angrily shook his head, shrugged and went away alone. Still the wheel spun enticingly. Three hours later Bob awoke as from a fevered dream, and from blood-shot eyes stared at Lemoine, who swiftly ran up a column of penciled figures. efifs Liiroricli Florence Hackett. Rnse MiddlehurstJe&nelte Hackett. AN AFFAIR OF HONOUR 31 "Monsieur owes the game 3,800," he said quietly. "Does he wish to place another bet?" Bob laughed recklessly. "I ll go you once more, just to see if the luck will turn my bet is two hundred pounds." he said. The wheel spun. "Monsieur is unfortunate tonight," Lemoine smiled- "An other occasion, perhaps! Meanwhile " he shrugged slightly, and offered Robert paper and fountain pen "Monsieur s note of demand will be entirely adequate." Almost stupidly Robert took the proffered pen and wrote an I. O. U., payable on demand, for 4,000. The trap had sprung. As he was leaving, the Countess Lurovich whispered in Robert s ear: "Do not worry for the little debt he follows my commands, and will not press for payment, for thou art to be my dear friend." The Countess promise that the debt would not be pressed was to Robert like a reprieve to a condemned man, and his spirits rose instantly. Gratitude served to revive his failing interest in the woman. They parted silently, but her eyes were eloquent. The "affair" of Robert and the Countess was very shortly the subject of merry jest in the clubs, and news of it presently reached Cecil. To him it was a matter of crushing bitterness. He knew that, at best, it would end in misery, for both Robert and Rose, and possibly, for the boy, disgrace, if not death. The Count Lurovich, who had for some time past been abroad, was a notorious duelist, a dead shot, and madly jealous. Of the debt Robert had incurred Cecil as yet knew nothing. As preliminary to any action toward ending the affair, Lord Cecil arranged that he be presented to the Countess. During his 32 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER formal call no reference whatever was made to the young Guardsman, and it was apparently without result. Yet, in subsequent events, it was of tremendous consequences, for he was seen by Baron von Mayer as he left the Countess house. Robert had already sickened of the affair, and impulsively, when thoughts of Rose had grown unbearable, because of the shame they entailed, he hurried to the Countess, and with boyish brusqueness blurted out the truth. "There s got to be an end to this it isn t right or decent!" he declared, a heavy flush upon his cheek. For a moment the Countess was shaken by astonishment and fierce anger, but her clear brain still whispered cold coun cil, and she gained a momentary control of her emotions. With all the wiles of an actress and a woman she strove to coax him to a tender mood, but when all had failed and Robert turned sullenly away, her outraged pride burst into screaming life. An ornamental dagger, caught up from a nearby table, flashed in the air, and only in time did Lemoine, w r ho, entering, had paused in the doorway, spring forward and catch her arm. Filled with disgust of the woman and himself, Robert hurried away. In an instant the Countess became calm, but it was a calm more menacing than her rage. "Nevertheless he shall die but first shall he be disgraced," she said softly. "You, Lemoine, attend my orders." Later the same evening Robert found his way to the club, seeking desperately to banish from his mind recollections of the past week. He observed but avoided Lord Cecil, who sat alone, with blank face, lost in painful meditation. A few mo ments later Lemoine entered jauntily, and advanced with friendly smile to where Robert talked with a group of officers. Carelessly Lemoine extracted from his pocket and offered a scrap of paper. AN AFFAIR OF HONOUR 33 "Will Monsieur be so kind as to redeem this little I. O. U.?" he said, and the low tone carried all over the room. There was an uncomfortable movement, and glances of displeasure. In stinctively Robert put out his hand, but, stammering and miserable, withdrew it without touching the proffered slip. Lemoine raised expressive eyebrows. "Surely Monsieur does not intend to refuse his paper a debt of honour? He does not desire that it be, what you would say, protested for default?" Though the man spoke with careful courtesy, his eyes gleamed with malicious triumph. Lord Cecil rose languidly, and joined the group. With an air of bored indifference he asked the amount of the note, and, with stiff lips, Robert whispered, "Four thousand pounds." Among the uncomfortable onlookers there was a start of surprise, but Lord Cecil merely nodded, and scribbling a check, handed it to Robert, and strolled away. Robert, with white face, passed the check to Lemoine, and received the I. O. U. That he was bitterly chagrined Lemoine concealed with ad mirable skill. Airily expressing regret that it should have been necessary to trouble one for so trifling a matter, he took his departure. The next afternoon Lord Cecil received from Brownelowe & Co., Ltd., Bankers, a statement to the effect that his draft for 4,000 had been duly cashed; that, as per instructions, a mortgage for that amount had been added to the encumbrance on Croftlaigh Manor, and that the total value of all remaining securities in the bank s hands was some 2,000. If Lord Cecil was concerned, it was not apparent from his bored expression as he read the letter. Securing his hat and cane, he started to walk to Robert s apartment. On the same day, the Count Lurovich returned to London, and within an hour had found upon his wife s dressing table 34 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER the following note, composed by the Countess and carefully forged by the many-talented Lemoine. MY DARLING I will call you that, for you shall be mine, and I cannot think of you as "the Countess Lurovich." Despite your cold rebuffs, I adore you, and will yet compel your love. THINE ONLY, ROBERT STANLEY. The Count was a man of prompt action. Within an hour he had requested the assistance of Baron von Mayer, and that gentleman had presented himself at Lieutenant Stanley s rooms. F Lord Cecil had arrived a short time before, and, not finding Robert, had decided to await his return. Robert s man had gone upon an errand, and it was Cecil himself who opened the door to Baron von Mayer s knock. And now it was that Cecil s call upon the Countess Lurovich assumed an important position. The Baron addressed himself to Lord Cecil as to Lieutenant Stanley, and delivered the message with which he had been charged. When he had con cluded, Cecil bowed gravely. "I am sure that, as you suggest, a little trip to Fance would prove most agreeable," he said, and the Baron departed highly pleased. "One gets so out of practice, y know. I wonder " Cecil remarked aloud, and rummaged until he had unearthed a heavy service revolver. At the opposite end of the room he placed two small whiskey glasses. With every appearance of carelessness he fired twice in rapid succession, and the shattered glass tinkled upon the floor. Lord Cecil smiled faintly, care fully put away the revolver, and was about to leave when Robert entered, AN AFFAIR OF HONOUR 35 "No, can t stop any longer," he replied to the other s con strained invitation. At the door Cecil hesitated, and coughed hesitantly. "You might, aw, give my love to Rose when you run down to see her, tomorrow,", he said, "and, er, it doesn t do one any good to know anything one doesn t have to, y know." He stepped through the door, but as he gently closed it, he added softly, "An I think everything will come out right, Bob, if you play the game." Late the following afternoon a straggling group formed in a park-like wood on the coast of France. With gravity a space was measured upon the ground. Lord Cecil smiled gravely at the blue sky, then lowered his eyes to meet those of the Count Lurovich, and in them read deadly hatred. A voice counted slowly, and was silent. Lord Cecil raised his hand, and fired into the sky at which he had smiled. A second report rang out, and Cecil quietly shifting his pistol to his left hand, pressed a handkerchief to a spot of crimson that spread swiftly over his breast. Then he sank slowly to the firm, green sod. A month later Lord Cecil, still weak, but otherwise recovered from his wound, lay upon a couch in the shabby rooms on Sax- ton Square, and, with some satisfaction visible on his features, read under "Army Notes" the following paragraph: Lieut. Robert Stanley, of the Horse Guards, has at his request been transferred to a line regiment ordered to India, and will receive a Captain s commission. His bride, formerly Miss Rose Middlehurst, will accompany him to his new station. As Cecil laid aside the paper, Robert himself entered. Evi dently he had nerved himself for an ordeal, and with red-faced awkwardness he plunged to the heart of the matter, but Cecil interrupted hastily. 36 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER "I say merest trifle, y know; wish you wouldn t mention it," he protested, in vast discomfort. "Everything is perfectly all right, so long as Rose knows nothing about it. On her ac count I couldn t possibly have allowed you to be killed, and it semed that the fellow really was entitled to shoot at some one, y know!" IV AN AMERICAN HEIRESS Since a year before, when, for the sake of his family honour, and the happiness of Rose Middlehurst and his nephew Robert Stanley, Lord Cecil had made good the young officer s reck lessly incurred obligations, his financial affairs had gone steadily from bad to worse, until the climax of annoyance was reached in the letter which he now held in his hand. "My Lord Cecil," the communication ran; "we regret to inform Your Lordship that your account is overdrawn by 610, 9s. Your Lordship s only remaining property, Croft- laigh Manor, is mortgaged to the limit. As your agents, we have complied with the insistent demands of a number of your creditors, and arranged that they shall call upon you this morning, to effect, if possible, a settlement." Followed the signature of Messrs. Brownelowe and Co., Ltd., Bankers. With an expression of infinite boredom Lord Cecil addressed the faithful James, who, with the skill of long practice w r as engaged in repairing a ripped seam in a well-cut but equally well-worn frock coat. "A number of, ah, persons, will presently present themselves," he said wearily. "You will, James, upon this occasion, admit them, although, as your discerning eye will at once determine, they will be those banes of existence known as Creditors. Since Brownelowe and Company have seen fit to arrange an inter view for them, without consulting my convenience, I appre hend that these are money-changers of importance in the mar ket place. Kindly restrain your natural and admirable in stincts, however, James, and do not throw them down the stair. When one comes to consider the matter, James, it ap- 37 38 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER pears that even a Creditor may not unreasonably expect that he be given some assurance that he may at some time receive his money." James stifled a heavy sigh. Times were indeed out of joint when the only nobleman in all Britain, who, through immemo rial right, might address the King as "My Lord," complacently received importunate trades-people. Stain upon honour there must be, and as that of his master was beyond the possibil ity of such a thing, James felt that his own must suffer the reproach. Sadly, but with deftness, he arrayed Lord Cecil in the repaired frock coat, and opened the door to impatient knockers. Before the cold courtesy of Lord Cecil s greeting the somewhat blustering manner of the visitors swiftly vanished. Almost apologetically the spokesman for the party informed him that their combined claims amounted to 5,000, and that they needed the money. "Aw, but I haven t it, y know!" My Lord Cecil remarked dispassionately, and stared vacantly at the visitors, who shuffled uncomfortably, but made no helpful suggestion. An uneasy pause ensued until, with the air of one who makes a satisfying discovery Cecil announced cheerfully: "By Jove, I have it! I ll marry an American heiress, y know, and pay you all. I give you my word!" The creditors exchanged glances of relief, and nodded their admiration at His Lordship s brilliant solution of the problem. "That will be most agreeable, Your Ludship," the spokesman declared. "Your Ludship is most kind. We will be appy to await Your Ludship s marriage, though we venture to ope it will not be long before the appy occasion takes place." With bows the visitors moved toward the door, their spirits much improved, but were brought to a sudden halt by Lord Cecil s next words. AN AMERICAN HEIRESS 39 "But I ll need funds for the trip to America, y know," he suggested. Sorrowfully the creditors exchanged glances, nodded, and produced rolls of banknotes. James disdainfully accepted the proffered collection, and with stern glance silenced one stout tradesman who muttered in his throat something that sounded like "sending good money after bad." "Pack at once, James," Lord Cecil directed when the door had closed behind the departing visitors, and cheerfully lit a cigarette. Two weeks later, Thomas M. Harris, Esq. Old Tom Harris in the days not long gone, before he grasped the fact that three ounces of peanuts, ten ounces of selected wheat bran, and three ounces of cotton-seed oil make a pound of Al, Extra Choice Peanut Butter coatless and shoeless, sat in the ornate library of his half-million dollar "cottage," and chuckled over the comic section from last Sunday s paper. Upon his content ment entered Martha, his wife, and under her glare of horrified reproof he fumbled on his coat and painfully began to draw on his over-tight shoes. A step sounded at the door, and Martha made a frantic sign. The comic paper became instantly a cur tain for the unshod foot as there entered a gorgeously liveried personage, who placed newpapers upon the reading table and majestically withdrew. Even Martha could not conceal her awe, and Pa Harris sighed. "Can t get used to that fellow waitin on me, somehow," he muttered. "Always feel like I oughter ask him to have a cigar an a drink." Mrs. Harris disdained to make reply, if she heard. She was already devouring the "society notes" in one of the papers, and now, with eager interest read aloud : 40 THE BELOVfiD ADVENTURER LORD CECIL COMES A-WOOING There is much excitement in high society over the arrival today of Lord Cecil of England, whose famous title dates from the Norman Conquest, and who is the only living representa tive of his distinguished family, through the male line. Lord Cecil, who has the unique and envied hereditary right to address the King as "My Lord," frankly admits that he is here to wed an American heiress. He is registered at the Hotel Triumphant. With breathless eagerness Mrs. Harris looked at her husband, who, it must be admitted, had not heard a word, his entire attention being given those tormenting shoes, and with mount ing color, and a happy realization that at last she had the opportunity to use the line which she had so much admired as it sprang from the lips of the heroine in "How Angeline Won Her Way," or, "From Chorus Girl to Duchess," seen at the town hall in Redbank, twenty years before, declared trium phantly : "This is the chance of my life!" "Aw right, Ma," Mr. Harris assented uninterestedly, and wistfully handled an old pipe. "Do you remember the English Lord we met when we were in Baden the gentleman who straightened things out for you when you wanted to fight the waiter because you thought he was giving you short change, when he was only holding out his tip?" Mrs. Harris lowered her voice impressively as she added meaningly: "But even if you do not, I do, and he is in this country has come to marry an American heiress!" "Well, let him. I don t care," Pa Harris responded indif ferently, and was utterly unaware of the look of withering scorn which his better half cast upon him as she swept to a desk and began the careful composition of a note. AN AMERICAN HEIRESS 41 Two hours later there was delivered to Lord Cecil the fol lowing missive: MY DEAR LORD I am so glad to hear that you are in America, because you promised, when we met you in Baden, last year, that you would visit us if you ever came to this country. Let me know if you can come, for as long as you will, and I ll send the motor for you tomorrow morning. Sincerely Mrs. THOMAS M. HARRIS. "The man he appears a very proper sort of footman, My Lord is to wait for an answer," James informed his master. "You might look up these people, at all events, James," Cecil suggested, and handed over the note. A few minutes later his attention was attracted by a discreet cough, and he read with sudden quickening of interest the paragraph James pointed out in a volume entitled "Social and Financial Regis ter." "Harris, Thomas M. (The Peanut Butter King )," the item ran. "Age 50. Clubs: Commercial and Wholsesale Grocers . Fortune $5,000,000. Wife, Martha Jane. Daughter, Mary, age 20, sole heiress." Lord Cecil nodded with satisfaction. "You may tell the man they may send the motor," he in structed the attentive James. The next day s sun beamed warmly, and the flowers of the extensive Harris gardens did due credit to the expensive im ported gardner and his nine assistants, but neither sunshine nor flowers could coax from Mary Harris a smile. If the truth must be told, she was pouting sulkily, and stamping her small foot upon the well-rolled gravel. Then loud hammerings from the "cottage" in course of construction on the adjoining plot 42 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER attracted her attention she raised her violet eyes her red lips curled into joyousness, and, after a careful look about, she waved her handkerchief. The distance was considerable, but the youth with blue-prints in his hands evidently had sharp eyes. He also waved his hand, and hurried toward a certain sheltered nook, which, as Mary had on a previous occa sion pointed out, possessed the strategic advantage of allowing occupants thereof to command a clear view of the Harris castle while they themselves were safely invisible. They met in what seems to be the accepted manner of lovers meetings, in sheltered nooks. Presently Mary freed herself and with tragic eyes and trembling lips whispered the dread tidings. "Mother is going to marry me to a horrid old Lord!" she said. Horror banished the smile from Tom s face. He blanched, but heroically rose to the occasion. "Fear not! I will save you!" he cried, with a very creditable imitation of the hero in Broadway s latest romantic success. Mary pouted. "Don t be silly," she said ungraciously. "You know you can t do anything you are too poor." In sorrow he bowed his head. "You re dead right not a chance!" he groaned. "Might get by the old gentleman he knows a fellow doesn t have to stay poor but your mother! No hope at all!" "But you know I will always be true?" Mary demanded. This acceptance of defeat seemed tame. "Will you?" he asked eagerly, and somewhat pettishly Mary nodded. Just then, however, a slight confusion, a scurrying of liveried servants, and a stopping motor attracted her eyes to the front of the palatial cottage. An excited flush sprung into her cheeks, and unconsciously her hands flew to her slightly disordered hair. AN AMERICAN HEIRESS 43 "Gracious! He s come!" she said, and with scant adieus hurried away. "Oh, adored but fickle heart!" Tom murmured. Just then he observed that he was standing upon his blue prints, and hastily picked them up, carefully smoothing out the creases. He looked at his watch. "Great Scott!" he whistled, and swiftly returned to his labors. A week later there was published the announcement of the engagement of Miss Mary Harris to Lord Cecil of England. The social aspirations of Mrs. Harris and the financial needs of the groom to be had combined to bring the affair to a climax with beautiful directness. On the same day, Lord Cecil stood looking from his bedroom window. His range of vision included a garden nook well screened from every other direction. He could see with unmis takable clearness that the girl, weeping bitterly and clinging about the neck of a young gentleman of tragic mien was his promised bride. "Really, y know can t have that sort of thing!" Cecil re marked thoughtfully. "By Jove! It looks as though the little girl The sentence remained unfinished and he hurried from the room. As Cecil came upon them, the young couple drew quickly apart, but Mary faced him defiantly. "I don t care!" she asserted, while tears formed slowly in the violet eyes. "I love Tom, and he is going to Brazil, and I don t want to marry you, and I will die of a broken heart, I know I will!" For a few moments Lord Cecil pondered gravely, then, with a cheerful smile hurried away, first telling them to await his return. Mary, between fright and grief, just sniffled. Tom sullenly and uncomfortably shuffled his feet. They edged away from one another. 44 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER Between Thomas M. Harris and Lord Cecil there had devel oped a real, though unspoken friendship each had rightly seen into the heart of the other. Harris, however, was for a moment bewildered when Cecil, finding him alone, made the unique suggestion that had come into his mind. "You mean you don t want to marry Mary?" Harris de manded. "My wishes need not be considered. It is Mary s happiness that is in question. I, aw, did not know that she was in love with any one," Cecil said gently. Harris extended a rugged hand, and his voice shook. "Shake, sir!" he said. "By George, sir, knowin I found out how you need money, I m bound to say you are a white man! By Gum, sir, I m willin yes, I wiU, call you M Lord after this!" Cecil writhed in acute embarrassment internally. His face gave no sign. "As to your suggestion, I m afraid it won t work," Harris remarked thoughtfully. "I know that boy he s all right but Martha is set on bein mother-in-law to a Lord, and she is terrible set when she is set. However, maybe if you suggest it she will take to it. Let s get the children and see which way the cat jumps." It was a constrained little party that presently found itself in the commanding presence of Mis. Harris. Lord Cecil plunged to the heart of the subject. "Mary, y know, would prefer to marry this gentleman," he said, indicating the restless Tom. "We might just let him take my place at the wedding next week, don t you think?" For a moment Mrs. Harris was stricken dumb with amaze ment but only for a moment. Then it became most clear that she did not think the suggested substitution of grooms in the slightest degree desirable. Weeping, Mary sought her own AN AMERICAN HEIRESS 45 room. Sullen and obviously frightened, Tom departed. Mrs. Harris assured Lord Cecil that he had a noble heart, but that he should not attach so much importance to Mary s words that she was a foolish girl who didn t know what was good for her. Very courteously Lord Cecil agreed. A few days later a startled world to borrow a phrase from the paper which covered its entire front page with two photo graphs and forty-two words learned that the heiress to the countless millions of the Peanut Butter King had jilted an English Lord and had eloped with one Tom, who principally, it appeared, was an American that was the important point! Right out from the grasping clutches of the impover ished and effete aristocracy of Europe had this brave youth snatched the prize! The Eagle screamed in triumph. All of which the wrathful and weeping Mrs. Harris believed, but Pa Harris had his doubts. It was a great write-up, but what a story it would have made had the reporter only gotten the facts: how Lord Cecil neatly kidnapped his own fiancee, and deposited her, to her amazement and Tom s alarm in the lat ter s arms as he was about to board the steamer that would take him far away; how he had thoughtfully provided a mar riage license and minister, and how, almost as the gangplank was being pulled away, he had put into their timid souls the courage to seize their happiness, and the item that Mary had kissed him in a manner that made him momentarily regret that he was not the right man that would have been a story worth reading! Two days afterward Lord Cecil, back in his apartment at the Hotel Triumphant, read, with a blankly startled expression the following cablegram: News failure your marriage great disappointment creditors. Have arranged mortgage on Croftlaigh Manor be not fore- 46 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER closed for one month. Can you marry some other heiress be fore that time? BROWNELOWE AND Co., LTD. Rather slowly he put aside the cablegram. In the back ground the faithful James shook his head as he examined the few coins remaining in the familiar, battered cash-box, and with gloomy foreboding picked up a worn leather jewel case. "These, soon," he thought. Suddenly Ix>rd Cecil laughed. "I forgot all about needin the bally fortune, y know!" he said. Mary Harris Ruth Hryan. Lord Cecil Arthur V. Johnson. V THE GIRL FROM THE WEST The Landlord of the Palace Hotel gazed with open admira tion at his more or less permanent guest and intermittent friend their friendship being subject to sudden and violent lapses through conflicting claims to lootable strangers then rolled his eyes about the empty bar and office as though col lecting the attention of a scattered crowd. "Which I am bound to remark," he affirmed, "is that this here Monte is a honor to the State, and a plumb genius! The drinks is on the house," he added largely, and fumbled among the bottles. "Here s something special, Monte," he said, and set a full and sealed quart of rye before the other man. "Open her up," he continued, as he produced a second bottle from beneath the bar; "I ll stick to the old stuff cheaper, an good nough for me." Mr. Carson regarded him with cold displeasure. "I reckon I ll drink the same thing you do, Baylor," he re marked. Mr. Baylor appeared hurt. "Why, you can see for yourself she s bottled in bond stuff arid the seal ain t broke," he protested. Mr. Carson smiled. "Son," he said grimly, "if you ain t careful, I ll feel insulted. Why, I was the man that invented that trick drillin a hole big enough for a hyperdermic needle in the bottom of a sealed bottle. I used to plug the hole with a glass bead of the right color, stuck with shellac looked like a air-bubble in the glass." "You know I wouldn t try anything on a pal, Monte," Mr. Baylor replied reproachfully. 47 48 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER "No, you wouldn t, specially when you knew he was packin a roll big enough to bank a game like I m going to open up," Mr. Carson retorted unkindly. The landlord hastily changed the subject. "Takin Betty with you on this here war-path?" he asked. "Sometimes," Mr. Carson said dreamily, "I think this Bay lor person is a fool, an then again I allow he ain t he s just a idiot. Would a man go fishin and not take his bait along?" "Well, you re playin your own hand, Monte, but seems to me you ll get it tipped off if you ain t careful. It s seemed to me, here lately, that Betty was beginnin to get wise> just a little. I don t believe she d like it much if she knew she was bein used as a decoy these here young female girls is peculiar, that-a-way," the landlord warned. "When this trip is over, I won t care how wise she gets, or how she likes it," Carson declared. "I m going to make it a hog-killin ." The scheme which had stirred Mr. Baylor to open admiration was, like all master-moves, most simple. Mr. Monte Carson, professional gambler and confidence man, had grown impatient at the infrequency with which Eastern tourists, investors and other moneyed and credulous citizens drifted to the web he had spun for their reception at Salt Springs, Nevada. "It s like sittin on a rock, waitin for game to come up an ask to be shot," he complained to himself. Then the Great Idea dawned in his mind. "Do you sit around an wait when you want meat?" he demanded, and answered himself with a de cided negative. "No, sir, you go look for it where it lives!" W r herefore, Mr. Carson was going hunting in those fields where his particular game grew fattest and was most numerous. He was going to New York. And the stage that left Salt Springs on the day he had disclosed his plan to Mr. Baylor bore him and Betty toward the East. THE GIRL FROM THE WEST 49 Betty! But how tell of her? You have seen the little wind- flowers, the first of all to dare the fickle Spring; or a wild rose just unclosing its fragile blossom; or a young rock-maple, slender, with the buds just bursting, swaying in the gentler winds? To these and other things of beauty and fragrance had many men of hard lives likened her in their hearts, and for borne word or deed that would have brought a shadow to her wistful but softly smiling eyes. A cowboy, back from town, would ride into a round-up camp far out on the ranges, and when the pipes were lighted and the men settled about the flickering fire, would say, "I seen her. She smiled, an said Howdy, an rid on over the hill." Whereupon his comrades looked upon him with something of envy and something of respect, as it were in the East and a man said, "I have looked upon such and such a shrine." Such was Betty, just at the dawn of womanhood; an alien waif in this crude land whose lonely little heart beat proudly and unafraid; in whose veins, though she did not know, there flowed the daring blood of gallant Cavaliers who had ridden gaily to death on an hundred hope less fields. It was on the same day that Carson and Betty left Nevada, that Lord Cecil of England set foot upon the soil of America. The Master Dramatist, Fate, was bringing up, ready for their entrances upon the stage, the characters who were to play together the strange drama called Life. To Cecil, not a few matters were seeming, just at this time, to be of considerable consequence and decidedly annoying. His failure to marry the American heiress had roused his creditors to relentless action, and he was quite without funds. All other resources having been exhausted, he faced the humiliating necessity of selling what remained of his 50 THE BELOVfiD ADVENTURER family jewels. Even as he gloomily pondered the situation, the faithful James admitted to the apartment of the Hotel Tri umphant which Cecil still occupied, the agent of a famous establishment. While the jeweler examined the contents of the case set before him, James departed upon an errand, so that none observed how lingered the waiter who entered to remove a luncheon tray, or how his eyes gleamed with greedy cunning as the jeweler finished his examination and produced a checkbook. "We will give $25,000 for the lot, My Lord," the dealer said, and Cecil nodded in a manner of bored indifference. Very shortly afterward the waiter slipped away from the hotel and hurried to a somewhat shabby boarding house not far distant. Here he found Carson, to whom he hastily related his news. For a few moments Carson pondered craftily, then nodded. "Very well, if you think it is a good chance, we ll go for him. I d kinder like to bag a British Lord, any way; regular big game he d be. We ll try the gold mine scheme it s safe, be cause we really got a hole in the ground to issue stock on, and an Englishman 11 fall for a gold mine quicker an anything else. You tip off the other boys and keep an eye on your bird. I ll do my part, you can bet your bottom dollar!" The waiter departed and Carson knocked at and then opened the door to an adjoining room. Betty looked up a little appre hensively as he entered. There was upon his face an expression she had begun to vaguely distrust. "I want you to help me in a little deal, Betty," he said. "It ll be a barrel o fun for you. There s an Englishman I want to sell a mine to. It s a good mine an cheap at the price I m will ing to sell for, but these Englishmen have been fed up on won derful stories about this country until a plain, business prop osition don t wake em up long enough to sign a check. They THE GIRL FROM THE WEST 51 got to have a lot o romance seem to think a nice romantic story better an a certified assay and survey." "What do you want me to do?" the girl asked, and her eyes were troubled. "Oh, nothin much," Carson assured her lightly, and in in different manner outlined the part she was to play. "I I don t like it, Monte," Betty said slowly. "It looks- queer. I ve been thinking lately, about some of the deals I ve helped you with, and they haven t seemed square. I don t wish to go into this!" With considerable effort Carson controlled his anger, and assumed the air of one deeply hurt. "All right, Betty," he responded, and his voice was dull with reproach. "It is a square game, but never mind. Why, you talk like you think I ain t honest! But I won t urge you just leave it to your ow T n feelings. You w T on t help me now but / took you when nobody else would, and I have raised you the best that I could." The reproach cut deep into the heart of the sensitive girl. After all, she had no proof of her suspicions, and, she owed much to this man. The room in which they stood seemed to fade away, and she saw a rugged land of hills and water-worn gulches, and the raw gash of crude mining operations. Near a ragged tent several rough miners were carelessly completing the filling of a grave. To one side, a small girl, weeping miser ably, was trying to make a bundle of a few poor belongings. With a pitying catch in her throat, Betty realized that this child was she. Into the scene there came a jaunty horseman, and to him the miners explained that they had found this prospector all cashed in and had planted him, and were ready to go their ways. No, they hadn t figured out what was to become of the kid they couldn t pack her along with them why didn t he take her, if he was so particularly concerned? 52 THE BELOVfiD ADVENTURER Whereupon the jaunty horseman looked at the pretty child in speculative manner, nodded, spoke kindly, and lifted her to the pommel of his saddle, and the child sobbed her gratitude against his breast. And through the years that had followed, he had been kind, in his way, and had raised her the best he could far better, in fact, in the matter of schools and clothing than the other girls she had known. Surely he had a right to com mand some return. Betty looked up with tear-dimmed eyes. "I ll do it, Monte," she said simply. "I knew you wouldn t go back on an old friend, Betty," Carson replied, concealing the relief and satisfaction he felt. "Just you dress up like I told you, an it ll all be dead easy, an like I said, a barrel o fun." The next day Lord Cecil went for a stroll in the park, his mind more at ease than it had been for some time. With the $25,000 he could at least meet the demands of his more pressing creditors, or, in this land of opportunity and quick fortunes he could probably use it as capital for investment and soon acquire enough to pay all his debts. These reflections were cut short by a woman s scream, and Cecil looked ahead to see a girl struggling in the grasp of two men, who strove to force her into a closed taxicab. As the girl s cry for help again rang out, Cecil sprang forward there was a brief conflict, the two ruffians sprang into the cab, which sped away, and Cecil found himself supporting a slender form. "Oh, will you protect me?" the girl begged piteously. "Now, everything is perfectly all right," Cecil said sooth ingly, and led her to a seat. "What were those brutes up to?" An imp of mischief danced in the eyes that Betty kept care fully veiled by lowered and silky lashes. Despite her uneasy conscience, she was beginning to enjoy the game. She sighed with tragic intensity. THE GIRL FROM THE WEST 53 "It is but a part of the base conspiracy to rob my poor father of his fortune!" she said sadly, and stole a glance from the corner of her eye. Lord Cecil was interested, there was no doubt of that. Had she remarked that she expected to have roast beef for dinner he would have been interested, because it was she who said it, but this he did not yet realize. Betty felt the thrill of the artist inspired to do a perfect thing, and, with growing enthusiasm she told a wonderful tale of her poor father, who had discovered two wonderfully rich mines; how, because he would not sell them for a song, he was falsely accused of crime; how, having no money to defend himself in the bribed courts, they had been forced to flee; how they had hoped to sell one of the mines and thus -squire ready money to protect the father and develop the other mine the one would yield quite as large a fortune as they desired; how the father, ill, did not dare go forth to attempt to make a sale, the villains being close upon their track. She concluded abruptly, and stole another glance at Cecil. And she saw that he had believed her. Ton my word! Quite extraordinary, y know!" he gasped. "And now I must go," Betty said, and rose totteringly. "Goodbye." "But you can t, y know, really!" Cecil protested earnestly. "Those chaps may be lurkin about somewhere. May n t I "You are good, and brave 1 would like you to," Betty said softly, and leaned upon his arm as he led her away. Without adventure they reached the boarding house, and Cecil required no urging to meet and be thanked by the poor father. "I wouldn t mind so much, if it wan t for Betty," Carson said with touching effect, after he had wrung Cecil s hand in gratitude. "But it is hard on her, poor little girl, this hiding hi miserable hovels when she might be in a palace and you 54 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER see that even she is in danger. If they didn t follow so close, I could get out and sell one of the mines, and with the money fix everything all right either mine is enough for me, anyhow- worth a million." Lord Cecil heard but vaguely. His eyes had been fixed on Betty with a look that had caused her to turn quickly away, suddenly shamed and confused, but with a strange happiness dawning in her heart. Moreover, he was pondering a great idea, and it exploded in words. "By Jove, I have it! I ll buy one of the mines, y know, if I have enough money!" It was with difficulty that Carson concealed his elation. Betty half started from her chair, a protest upon her lips, but at Carson s look of stern reproach she sank back speechless. The amount which Cecil could pay appeared a great disap pointment to Mr. Carson, but ten minutes later he had, in return for a check for $25,000, properly endorsed, handed over the entire capital stock of the "Golden Hope" mine. Within half an hour after Cecil s departure, the check had been cashed. Very early the following morning Mr. Monte Carson, in whose pocket there nestled a thick packet of yellow bills, and Betty in whose heart was an aching pain, and from whose eyes the smile had gone, leaving only the wistfulness, boarded a train destined for the far West. Later in the same day, Lord Cecil, with somewhat rueful expression, read the following concise epistle: BROWN AND COMPANY MINING STOCK BROKERS Lord Cecil, NEW YORK Sir: Telegraphic inquiry develops the fact that the "Golden Hope" mine is worthless. We can, therefore, secure no loan on your stock. Very truly, BROWN AND COMPANY THE GIRL FROM THE WEST 55 Cecil put aside the letter and lighted a cigarette. As he smoked, he pondered, and a great light seemed suddenly to break upon him. "By Jove! I believe that whole story was a jolly, y know," he said aloud. "But she was certainly a rippin little girl!" he added tenderly. A few days later Betty sat upon a rock, with wistful eyes that stared unseeingly across the lonely Nevada hills, toward the East, and the ache in her heart was very sore. "He will think of me only to despise me," she whispered sadly, "and I will never see him again." In his apartment in the Hotel Triumphant, Lord Cecil also was dreaming, of the little girl who had come out of the West. He sighed. James, with troubled brow and hesitant manner came slowly forward. His master raised his eyes questioningly. "There are several accounts presented, and the cash-box is quite empty," the man said gravely. "What shall I do, My Lord?" Lord Cecil stared blankly. "I m sure I don t know, James," he said. "By Jove, I don t!" VI THE GOLDEN HOPE Lord Cecil, in his apartment in the Hotel Triumphant, was writing a letter. "Dear old chap," it ran. "Thanks for the marmalade they really can t make it in this country most extraordinary! "I rather think I have been done. Bought a mine, which a broker person tells me is worthless, but met a ripping little girl. It leaves me flat broke, so am going West to dig some gold; deuced bother." Cecil paused, then added: "Am sending this by James you might give him a situa tion. He presses trousers quite fairly." The letter was addressed and sealed as James entered the room. "You will take this letter to the Prince, James," his master said, and, because of a lifetime of training, the face of the servant gave no sign of the grief that sprang into his heart. The faithful dog that has followed his master over weary roads and is suddenly bade begone has not the art to keep from his eyes the hurt and despair, as had James. "Very well, My Lord," he said quietly. "There is a steamer sailing tomorrow , My Lord." "You will need passage money, James, and the hotel bill must be settled, and I ll want some money myself, for railway fare to the West," Cecil said, and his thoughtfulness provoked an anxious glance from his man. "Take all the studs an links, an er, things, that you can find and get what you can a hundred pounds I should fancy they will bring from some pawn-shop place, y know." 56 THE GOLDEN HOPE 57 "Yes, My Lord," James responded, and went softly about the task. Early the next morning Lord Cecil boarded the same train that, a few days before had borne back to the golden West the girl who had brought upon him dire misfortune, but who had left her picture in his heart. To Betty, the thought of the part she had played in the de spoilment of the clear-eyed, kindly stranger, was a haunting shame from which she could not escape, for she now fully understood and the understanding marked the day when the bud of girlhood became the perfect blossom of womanhood the degredation that had been put upon her, in that her youth and sex had been used, through an appeal to all that was most brave and kind in his nature, to decoy to his ruin that man who would not believe that a girl might lie. Mr. Monte Carson s return had been that of a conqueror. Had he not penetrated to the very heart of the enemy s country and returned laden with loot? Wherefore he celebrated vari ously, and no small part of Lord Cecil s $25,000 slipped through his careless fingers. Very shortly, however, his business in stincts reasserted themselves, and he was now engaged in a determined effort to repossess the money which he had so magnificently cast abroad among the citizens of Salt Springs. Following his usual method when doing business with the na tives, he was playing poker in the office-bar of the Palace Hotel. The game was a stiff one, and Carson s profits were mounting with pleasing rapidity. Opposite him, and the heavi est loser, sat a young miner, Davis. A jackpot was opened, and after the draw only Carson and Davis held their cards, the gambler s being barely visible above the edge of the table. The pipe which the young miner had been smoking fell to the floor; he stooped quickly to recover it, and Carson s fickle goddess of luck, laughing mockingly, deserted him. It 58 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER was the precise instant that Davis stooped that Carson chose to extract two cards from his bootleg. Davis straighted with a jerk, and as he leaned far across the table his blue eyes blazed. "You dirty cheating thief!" he snarled, and swiftly the crowding men sprang back from what they knew would follow. So swiftly that the eye might not follow the movement, Car son drew his revolver, but as swift as the rattler s strike was the dart of the left hand that fixed with iron grasp upon his wrist. The table collapsed between the straining bodies as the harmless bullet buried itself in the ceiling, and an instant later the gambler was crushed to the floor. A knife gleamed in the miner s upraised hand. It was at this moment of close-hovering tragedy that Betty entered, and for an instant too short to be measured, yet long enough for many thoughts to flash through her brain, and for Carson to grow white and limp as he looked into Death s own eyes, the girl stood motionless. Then she darted forward and caught the arm already beginning its downward swing. "Please, oh, please give his life to me!" she cried, and in her voice was so fierce a yearning that it reached even Davis rage-dulled brain. As he looked into the girl s appealing eyes, his fury slowly gave place to dazed bewilderment. "Shorely, Miss. Any little ole thing yo want," he stammered awkwardly, and returned Betty s smile of gratitude with an embarrassed but admiring grin. "You git up this here lady don t want yo to die," he added contemptuously to Carson, and the gambler rose tremblingly. "No, you can t buy no drink here!" was the greeting of his some-time friend, Mr. Baylor, the landlord, as Carson lurched eagerly toward the bar. "This here house don t serve no gent that gets caught cheatin ," he added with cold scorn, and with an expression of cowed fury the gambler hurried out, leaped upon his horse and galloped from the town. THE GOLDEN HOPE 59 Betty placed a small brown hand in the massive paw of the miner. "I thank you," she said simply, and then ran quickly up the stair. Suddenly there arose in the one street wild yells, and a horse man pulled his reeking mustang to a sudden stop in front of the hotel, from which the man came hurrying. "Gold!" the horseman roared. "They ve struck free gold in Sandy Gulch richer n Cripple Creek!" In an instant the town had stampeded, and when, a few mo ments later Betty came from the hotel, seeking to know the cause of the excitement, the dust of hasty departure was al ready settling. Not a man, apparently, was left in Salt Springs. Her attention was, however, attracted by the stage approach ing from the East, and she waited with idle curiosity to observe what manner of passengers it would bring. Lo, Betty. Where s everybody done gone at?" the driver asked curiously as he brought his team to a stop and rolled his eyes about the deserted village. "Struck it rich in Sandy Gulch!" a belated citizen yelled as he tore past, and without a word the stage driver leaped to the ground, swiftly cut free the harness of one of his horses, sprang upon its bare back, and dashed away. A single passenger was getting slowly from the coach, and Betty moved forward with casual indifference. "I fancy I am a bit ill, y know," Lord Cecil said, as with drooping head he leaned weakly against a wheel. "If you would be kind enough to get someone to assist me " The blood flew dizzingly to Betty s head, and her heart pounded wildly. The impulse to run away was almost over powering, but she fought it down, and faced him bravely, though her face burned. Cecil raised his eyes. 60 THE BELOVfiD ADVENTURER "You!" he cried, joyously, and held out his hand with an eager smile. Bewildered, Betty looked into his eyes, and saw neither the distaste nor contempt she had thought to find. What she did see caused her to grow suddenly shy and confused, while tears that were not of grief sprang into her eyes. Suddenly Cecil reeled, and would have fallen had not Betty sprang to his assistance. "I I will help you into the hotel there is no one else," she stammered. With the girl s aid Cecil reached a room, and collapsed upon the bed. Betty bent anxiously over him, but he was uncon scious. "He must have a doctor," she whispered, and hastened away. Fortunately the doctor had not joined the stampede for the gulch, and hurried with Betty to the hotel. Telling him where he would find the stranger, she herself walked rapidly away from the town. Not far out she met Mr. Baylor and his fellow townsmen, dusty and in deepest disgust. "Every claim was already staked!" they told her aggrievedly, but Betty indifferently passed on. At the end of a week Lord Cecil was still weak, but steadily improving. Mr. Baylor was troubled. A very careful examination of Cecil s scanty baggage had failed to disclose either money or articles of value. It was possible that the guest had hidden his roll during some lucid moment, but Mr. Baylor doubted. He decided to make a demand for money. "But I haven t any. You ll have to wait until I can dig some gold, y know," Cecil answered cheerfully, and after a moment of amazed paralysis the landlord exploded wrath- fully. THE GOLDEN HOPE 61 "You dead beat!" he roared. "Tryin to skin me, are you? Wait till you dig some gold? Yah! You ll pay up pretty soon or be kicked out, you bet!" The window of the room was open, and sounds carried well in the clear air. Betty, sitting beside her own window in the adjoining room, felt tears of anger and grief trickling down her cheeks. "And it is all my fault mine!" she whispered sadly. Cecil was distinctly annoyed. This landlord was evidently a person quite lacking in reasonableness. It would be vastly more agreeable to have the brute satisfied. He pondered for a moment, and then produced from his satchel a packet of stock certificates. "I say," he suggested, "suppose you take this Golden Hope mine in payment of your bill?" Mr. Baylor grunted in contempt. Golden Hope why, I wouldn t give you a plate o beans for that hole in the ground! You pay up in good cash, or out you go, an that pretty quick!" After which Mr. Baylor stalked from the room. There is a certain Eastern paper, much given to intimate accounts of the doings of nobility in Europe and society leaders in America, which has vogue and extensive circulation in those sections of the West which most loudly express their utter scorn and boundless contempt for both those ornamental classes. And fate willed that, almost simultaneously, a certain paragraph should be read by the excellent Mr. Baylor, Betty, and Mr. Monte Carson. Mr. Baylor was indulging his literary proclivi ties behind his bar; Betty sat beside her bedroom window, and Mr. Carson was leaning sullenly against the door frame of a saloon in a town some twenty dusty miles from Salt Springs. The paragraph was this: 62 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER LORD CECIL IN LUCK Gold-Brick Proves Pure Metal. Recently Lord Cecil, of England, purchased the "Golden Hope Mine," only to be told by mining experts that it was worthless. It now appears that the Hope is the choicest claim in Sandy Gulch, where incredibly rich veins have just been developed. Lord Cecil s mine is worth at least a million dol lars. The lucky nobleman is supposed to be in the West, inspecting his property. Mr. Carson was for some moments rendered inactive by the chagrin and rage that swept over him. He, the slickest article in Nevada, had euchred himself out of a fortune, and even now that unmentionable ass of an Englishman might be lugging sacks full of gold out of his, Carson s, mine! He leaped for his horse and galloped furiously toward Salt Springs. The excellent Mr. Baylor almost wept. He had refused to accept a million dollar mine in payment for a twenty-dollar board bill. Truly it was a cruel world. But, he suddenly re flected, it was not yet too late to retrieve that error his guest still owed the bill, and certainly he had not within the last half hour had any opportunity to gain information that would give him a higher opinion of the value of his stock. Mr. Baylor, trembling with eagerness, moved swiftly toward Cecil s room. "He doesn t know he might have given the stock away!" Betty gasped, and then her heart leaped joyously. It was all right, after all. Cecil would not think of her as a lying swindler, now that the truth exceeded even the promises of her fantastic tale to him. Then her head drooped wearily. "No," she whispered, "this good fortune is only chance he cannot forget that the intent was to rob him." From the adjoining room again came the voice of Mr. Bay lor, but it was now honey-sweet. "I reckon I was kind o mean a while ago, partner," he said, " Betty told a wonderful tale. (The Girl from the West.) Monte Carson Howard M. Mitchell. THE GOLDEN HOPE 63 "not to show no more feelin for a gent down on his luck. I ain t such a bad guy when you get to know me, an just to prove it, I ll take that stock an call the board bill paid." Like a darting bird Betty was out of her room and burst wildly into that of Lord Cecil. "No! No! Don t give him the mine!" she cried, and breath lessly told Cecil of the change that had come to his fortunes. "Aw," Cecil observed calmly, and turned to the landlord. "I guess I can t let you have the stock, after all, y know," he said. In sullen rage Mr. Baylor tramped heavily from the room. A whimsical smile flickered about Cecil s mouth as he turned to the girl, but before he could speak she covered her face with her hands. "No! Please, please don t!" she begged. "I know this doesn t change the other thing at all. But I am glad, glad!" she cried, and fled swiftly. Cecil s voice W 7 as very tender. "Jolly little girl, by Jove!" he said, "A little bit of all right what?" With lowering brow, on which the sweat was cutting grimy little channels through the dust, Mr. Monte Carson strode into the Palace bar. With a fine effort at indifference, and politely ignoring their last meeting, he addressed the landlord. "Heard there was an Englishman driftin around the country. Is he puttin up with you, Baylor?" he asked, and even his gambler s eyes could not avoid a viciously greedy gleaming. Mr. Baylor looked at him with a snarling laugh. "He s here, all right, but it won t do you no good," he in formed him maliciously. "That little pet o yourn s done tipped him off, else I d a had that mine by now he offered it for his board." Mr. Carson pondered craftily. 64 THE BELOVfiD ADVENTURER "Any folks know he offered you stock for board?" he demanded. "Yep, all the boys. I told em. They like to laughed their selves to death. Don t seem so funny now," the landlord replied gloomily. Carson drew nearer, and his voice was viciously low. "Well, he offered it to you again, an* you took it see? 5> he said, and with significance shifted forward his gun. "Fifty- fifty. You on?" "I always did say you was a honor to the State, Monte," Mr. Baylor declared. "I plumb admires you. Let s get it all fixed up before some galoot comes strayin in here." In the corridor outside her door Betty heard cautious foot steps and guarded whispers. Moving softly to the door, she applied her ear to the thin boards, and what she heard sent her back into the room with blanched face. A small but excellent revolver lay upon her dresser, and she snatched it eagerly, and, leaning from the window called with restrained eagerness. "Lord Cecil! At the window quick!" she whispered, and immediately Cecil s head appeared. "Take this and shoot first!" Betty said, and leaning far out, handed him the revolver. Barely had Cecil faced back into the room when the door was unceremoniously thrust open, and Messrs. Carson and Baylor, guns in hand, stood before him. Cecil laughed, and the little revolver spat viciously, twice. With duplicate howls and movements, the visitors dropped their guns and grasped at the right forearms, from which red blood was spurting. "You are not hurt, really, y know be all right in a fort night, I dare say," Cecil remarked dispassionately. "You may go," he added, with sudden boredom, and the two men, cowards at heart and thoroughly cowed, hastened to avail themselves of the permission. THE GOLDEN HOPE 65 The stage which left for the East next day carried Lord Cecil as a passenger, the now servile and cringing Mr. Baylor having most eagerly supplied such cash as his guest suggested he might require. There was need for haste on Cecil s part the time was very short during which he could raise money on his mine, and save from mortgage-foreclosure and sale Croft- laigh Manor. Betty, he had been unable to find since she had handed him the revolver, and so he was forced to depart with out saying goodbye. Nor did he see, when well out from the town, a slight figure that rose from its place of concealment beside the road and gazed with wistful eyes until the lumbering stage disappeared in the haze of distance. VII THE HOLD-UP The light locomotive began to labor as it breasted a long grade, and a spattering rain of soft-coal cinders soon made the rear platform even less inviting than the dusty and uncomfort able day coach. Lord Cecil, his bland optimism somewhat wilted by a thousand miles of cheap travel, turned and sought refuge in the car. As he dropped wearily into his seat, Cecil became conscious of an eager, wistful smile directed toward him, and auto matically his features assumed that blankness and his eyes that unseeing stare with which the Briton is w r ont to repel the ad vances of presumptuous strangers. The smile pathetically faded, and the stranger shrank humbly. Then Cecil observed how lined was the old face, toil and sorrow having graven deep, and yet not blotted out a sweetness and patience that lent dig nity to the rather weak mouth, and how neat was the shabby, old-fashioned clothing. That kindly smile, whimsically tender, well known to many children and womankind, but seldom seen by men, flashed into Cecil s eyes, and the old man quickly rose to take the place silently offered by Cecil s movement to the end of the seat. "You ll excuse me, stranger, but I m so full o happiness I got to let it bubble out to anybody that ll listen," the old fel low said, and his manner was quaintly boyish. Cecil nodded sympathetically. "My name is Silas Meggs. I was born an raised in Shady- dale we ll stop ther bout three hours from now," the old man gossiped. "You know Shadydale? No, I reckon you don t it ain t much of a place, after all, but it s might homey an THE HOLD-UP 67 restful when a feller goes back, after forty years, most nigh, of longin ." Almost shyly Silas produced from his pocket a small, worn case, opening it to disclose an old-fashioned portrait, some what faded except for the brightly tinted lips and cheeks, of a pretty girl, who, one would safely guess, would be sweet and gentle, but not strong except in the passive patience which is sometimes the rather terrible strength of the weak. "Jane, she was my sweetheart, near two-score years ago," Silas said softly, and paused to dream. "I was but a laborer, she was the banker s child," he pres ently continued. "I was an orphan, workin for day wages, an they pretty poor, for farmers round about. She was the belle of the village, and might a had her pick of twenty men, some of them the richest in the county, but, she loved me, and we d meet when we could unbeknown to her father. Course I didn t dare go to her house, me bein but a hired man, and old Henderson the rich banker. Out in the big world, he might n t a counted so much, but he was the great man o Shadydale, and terrible haughty. "How it all might have ended, I don t know. Old Henderson would never have dreamed of takin me into his family, an Jane was not the kind to defy him. Anyway, it all come to a sudden head through Lawyer Grady, that was old enough to be the girl s father himself, askin Henderson if he might have Jane for wife. Henderson was fair pleased, Grady bein rich, through mortgages on widows farms, and such like, and told Jane she was to take him. Soon as she could slip away, Jane came to meet rue, an* weep that she didn t know what to do. No more did I, when she said she didn t dare run off with me. She was crying in my arms when old Henderson came stormin up, followed by Grady, who had seen us together, and hurried to tell her father. He ordered her to go to the house and to her 68 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER room, and she went, and that was the last I saw of her, stum bling along, blinded by tears. Me, he drove off like I was a tramp, and I I just went. You see, I wasn t much more an a boy, an had always been made to feel humble, an he was the great man. "I went back to the place where I worked, bitter and heavy- hearted. My only comfort was the belief that Jane truly loved me. I thought my heart would just break when I read the note Henderson s hired man brought me. It was from Jane, and said as how, havin come to realize how degradin was acquaint ance with a person of my class, she would henceforth regard me as a total stranger, from whom any communication would be offensive. "I guess I was near crazy with anger and grief, an couldn t think, else I would have known that sweet little Jane never willingly wrote that note, that she would ha known would break my heart. The only thing I could think was to get far away, and in an hour I was ready, and on the road. As I tramped away toward the sunset, I mind I looked at the old hollow tree where we was used to hide notes for each other. I thought of the last one I had found there, and the words in it all love and promises to always be true and I laughed, and went on. If I had only looked in the hollow of that old tree ! "It was a weary road I followed, Stranger, for I carried a burden of sorrow that I could not lose. I could not forget. For nigh forty years I drifted about in the gold-fields of the West, growing old, and never forgetting. I never had much luck, but I didn t care. I never heard any news from Shady- dale. "At last I made a little strike not big, but enough to take care of me as long as I might likely live, and I felt suddenly tired out, and something kept pulling, pulling at me, drawin* me back to Shadydale. THE HOLD-UP 69 "At last I went, and the village was just the same, except for the folks I met. They were all different, and nobody knew me. I stopped to look at the old Henderson place, and a woman that must ha been a baby when I went away, was foolin about in the yard. She told me that old Henderson had died long ago had lost his fortune, every cent, and it killed him and that Jane Old Maid Jane she called her was still living had never married, but waited always for a lover who went away and never came back. "Then something seemed to snap inside, and my heart com menced to pound like it would choke me. Straight to the old hollow tree I went and it was just the same and in the old tin can hidden in the hollow I found a note, yellow and crum- blin in my fingers, but still to be read. Jane had written it as soon as she could after writing, as her father stood over her and told her the words, the note that had sent me away. It told me that she did love me, and always would that she knew I would realize that that other note was forced from her, and that I would look in the old tree for her true heart s message. And I had not looked! "I found her my Jane on the poor farm! Her hair was white, but to me she was as fair as on the day she first kissed me, forty years ago, and when I looked into her eyes, I saw the same light shining. "Now you ll understand, Stranger, why I m kinder foolish, maybe. It gets a feller sort of stirred up, bubbly like, to sud denly find that he is to be happy at the end of such a sad and long journey, when he wasn t lookin for anything but the same old aching pain. For we are goin to be happy, my old sweet heart and me. I ve sold my claim for enough to buy a snug little cottage, and take care o us, as long as we live. I ve got it right here in this old bill-book, the price of happiness, and peace, and rest, for me and Jane." 70 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER From his coat old Silas produced a fat pocketbook, patted it fondly, and carefully stowed it away. He lapsed into a happy revery. Cecil smiled, with moist eyes. On the seat just in front, a man sat with hat pulled low over furtive, glittering glances. This man was sometimes known as Sykes. However, he really was entitled to the honorary title generally bestowed his friends and admirers invariably referred to him as "Bad" Sykes. Bad Sykes thin lips writhed into a grin of eager greed. Ahead of the locomotive, a man suddenly stepped into the middle of the track and waved a red flag. The emergency brakes screamed, and the train came to a bumping halt. The erstwhile flagman covered the engine crew with two heavy Colts. Sev eral stubble-bearded gentlemen suddenly arose from the bushes alongside the track, and climbed into the express car as though on imperative business. At the first bite of the brakes Bad Sykes had thrown aside his mask of repose. He arose swiftly, with both hands "filled." "All hands up keep em up march out the back door an line up long the track!" he ordered, and was obeyed. Lord Cecil felt distinctly gratified. This was just the sort of thing one had a right to expect in America. Personally, he could suffer little from any number of hold-ups, his money being of such denominations and quantity as would have pro voked the contempt of a sneak-thief. Really, they would think it deucedly amusin at the club. Cecil was at the end of the line which had formed up along the right of way. Next him was old Silas. Mr. Sykes had begun at the other end, and worked his way down with despatch, the passengers dropping their valuables, almost with eagerness, it seemed, into the bag which was held to receive them. Silas contributed a small roll of bills with shaking hand. "Dig up that wallet, quick!" Mr. Sykes snarled, and his revolver menaced. Old Silas glanced about wildly, as though THE HOLD-UP 71 contemplating flight but the black muzzle stared unwink- ingly into his face. "Quick!" Mr. Sykes prompted, and about his eyes came the tiny puckers that just precede the tightening of a finger on a trigger. With the joy of life stricken from his face, old Silas dropped the wallet into the gaping bag. "An* that watch," Mr. Sykes prompted Lord Cecil, and the watch was added to the other booty. "Oh, God! My Jane I can t take you now always the poor-farm!" The broken, sobbing whisper was close at Lord Cecil s side. A flame seemed to leap through his veins, and for an instant a red veil obscured his vision. There was a movement in the line, toward the other end. "Keep still, there!" Mr. Sykes roared, and turned eyes and gun toward the disorder. To the point of the jaw, swiftly, Lord Cecil struck, and Bad Sykes dropped suddenly. In an instant Cecil had possessed himself of his guns. "Keep still, everyone! Tie this chap! Watch the bag!" he snapped, and ducked under the coach. With swift lightness, Lord Cecil ran the length of the train. As he slipped round the engine, the bandit guarding the crew sprang back with a startled yell, and his bullet cut a lock from Cecil s head. Then he pitched stiffly onto his face, and Cecil, a flaming weapon in either hand, was facing the storm of bul lets sent at him by the bandits leaping from the express car. Suddenly the battle was at an end. One of the men by the express car dropped with a stifled moan the engine crew, possessing themselves of the guns of the first dead outlaw had come valiantly to Cecil s support the remaining outlaws, the spirit gone from them, threw their arms upon the ground. Two hours later the train slowed down and came to a jolting 72 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER stop. Upon the rear platform old Silas Meggs grasped eagerly the hand that Lord Cecil extended. "I I d thank you, sir, if I could," he gulped. "And, Jane she ll be waiting for me she d thank you. It isn t only the money we ll owe to you, but the happiness for which we ve waited so long." Then upon Lord Cecil descended that shyness and horror of spoken thanks which is the hallmark of his caste, and on his face was that blankness with which the men of his breed are fain to hide what may stir their hearts. Abruptly he disen gaged his hand. "My good man, don t mention it," he said. "Really, there was nothing else to do the impudent^fellow^had taken my watch, y know." But Lord Cecil lingered upon the platform, in the rain of soft-coal cinders, until distance hid the waving ..hands of Silas Meggs and a sweet-faced old woman with softly shining eyes. VIII Jimmy Holt, cashier, "on the works" of the National Con struction Company, shut his day book with a cheerful smack, closed the safe, and switched off the light over his desk. "Ready to go no? Well, I m off g night!" he said, and departed whistling. "Overgrown cub!" Peterson, General Manager of Operations, muttered irritably, and dismissed Jimmy from his mind. Peterson s humor was of the blackest, and he now gave himself to a close scrutiny of his personal and very private affairs, with most unsatisfactory results. His need for money was really desperate the State penitentiary loomed unpleasantly near unless he could replace, before the accounting day now not far off, certain trust funds which he had lost in reckless specula tion, and his assets were totally exhausted. His gloomily brood ing eyes rested on the safe, and from speculation his expression quickly changed to furtive determination. Not long before the combination of the safe had been changed, and was now sup posed to be known to none "on the works" excepting Holt. Chance, however, had given Mr. Peterson an opportunity to learn the magic numbers, and with characteristic thoughtful- ness they had been jotted down in his pocket memorandum book. In a few moments the iron door swung open. "Not worth the chance," Peterson decided, when he had computed the small amount of miscellaneous cash. As he re- closed the safe, a sudden thought brushed the scowl from his brow and twisted his lips into a triumphant and malicious grin. It had occurred to him that the money for the pay-roll, five thousand dollars, would arrive by express on the following day, 73 74 THE BELOVfiD ADVENTURER and be placed in the safe over night. Instantly every worry left him the money was as good as in his pocket, and with very little trouble all danger to himself could be obviated. Cer tainly his luck had turned he would take advantage of this complacent mood of fortune to urge his suit with Elsie Man ning, who, he was compelled to reluctantly admit, had been strangely cold, considering her unimportance just a pretty little country person as compared to that of the General Manager of Operations of the National Construction Company, to say nothing of personal attractions that had, he flattered himself, hitherto proven irresistible. The moonlight lent romantic charm to the pretty cottage which was the girl s home, and as he drew near, Peterson was gripped by an emotion he had never before experienced for the first time he realized that he was passionately in love and not moved merely by a casual fancy. With quickened heart beat he hurried forward, only to come to an abrupt stop as he caught sight of two figures in the shadows of the veranda. There was no mistaking Elsie Manning was nestling close in Holt s embrace, and even as Peterson looked she raised her lips to meet his lingering kiss, A surge of primitive rage swelled in the onlooker s breast, and his teeth bared in a savage snarl as he swiftly drew his revolver. The impulse of the male animal robbed of the female of its choice, to kill, was strong upon him, but the cunning and caution of the man held it in check. "Be wise wait you ll get a safe chance, one way or an other!" they whispered, and Peterson pocketed his weapon. All sign of agitation vanished from his face, and, whistling cheer fully, he strode noisily forward. The figures hastily drew apart. "How do, Miss Elsie hello, Jimmy!" he said jovially. "Thought I might run across you here," he added cordially to A PARTNER TO PROVIDENCE 75 Holt, as they found seats, controlling by main strength the rage that again boiled as he noted the glow of happiness on the younger man s face, and the girl s shy joyousness. They drifted into general and idle chat. "Number Seven, eastbound, is just about due to pass, isn t she?" Holt asked, glancing down the hill to where the single track railway disclosed itself as parallel silver bars. "Yes, I can hear it," Elsie said. "It always reminds Mother to wind the clock," she added with a musical chuckle. "Seems seems like I hear a train coming west," Holt haz arded. "Guess not, of course, but He stopped, listening uneasily. There could be no doubt about it from the West came the roar of Number Seven as she swept down the long grade from the foothills, and from the opposite direction the panting of a big mogul as it breasted the slope. "Look!" Jimmy suddenly shouted, and sprang to his feet. As Number Seven train thundered into sight, passenger Number Nine, which should have been waiting upon the siding at Baxter Station, two miles east, tore round the shoulder of a hill and came on with undiminished speed. Lord Cecil, with fair measure of success, had been striving to forget the discomfort of the dusty day coach and the dis tressing roughness of the roadbed, in dreams of the future dreams into which there came a slender girlish form and wist ful eyes. Behind him lay curious adventures; before him, so far as a man might judge, lay a secure, flower-bordered path way, the progress along which would be made pleasant by wealth, and, recurring in his fancies, the companionship of a strange little girl with a face like a flower and a heart like a Knight of Arthur s round table. Suddenly his every sense seemed paralyzed by sounds and shocks beyond human imagining. He was vaguely aware of 76 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER splintering timbers, of shivering glass, of wild shrieks as pas sengers started up and were hurled from their feet then silent blackness, like deepest sleep, shut down, crushing him into unconsciousness. Almost before the two trains had met in mutual destruction, Holt, Peterson and Elsie had sprung from the veranda and were racing toward the scene of the catastrophe, hurrying im pulsively to lend what aid they might. Even before they had covered the comparatively short distance, however, smoke began to curl upward from the riven and overturned coaches, and a moment later leaping red flames dimmed the moonlight as the oil from the old-fashioned lamps spread quick destruction. When they reached the wreck it seemed that all the passengers had already extricated themselves, or been assisted to safety by those unhurt. As they stared in fascinated horror at a half crushed and blazing coach, however, a man crawled painfully forth, and Holt sprang forward to aid him. "I m a right!" the passenger gasped, "But there s a man in there I couldn t get him out!" He pointed toward the burning coach. "Come on!" Holt shouted, and without waiting for a reply climbed into the car. Peterson hesitated, and drew back. Under Elsie s scornful glance he writhed uncomfortably. "No use for two to go and we ve got to look out for your safety," he stammered, but the girl turned away, watch ing fearfully for the reappearance of her lover. Presently he came, stumbling through the smoke, bearing the body of a man. "Bring him to the house," Elsie said with eager pity, and gave Jimmy Holt a glance to win which he would have gone through ten times the dire peril he had just passed. She hurried ahead, and with Peterson s assistance, Holt carried toward the cot tage the unconscious Lord Cecil. A PARTNER TO PROVIDENCE 77 An hour later Cecil opened his eyes, glanced uncompre- hendingly about the simple bedroom in which he lay, and then smiled into the troubled eyes of the girl bending over him. "I don t know what it s all about, but I m sure you re awf ly good, y know," he said, and went to sleep, "He ll be all right now nothing the matter except shock and bump on the head," Holt said with cheerful relief. "He ll be up for breakfast," he added optimistically, and took his departure. While not quite so energetic a convalescent as Jimmy had declared, Cecil was moving about the next day without much difficulty, and, he assured Mrs. Manning and Elsie, would not need to impose upon their hospitality longer than was required to clear the railway line. In the afternoon he insisted upon making himself useful to the extent of carrying to Jimmy at the construction company s temporary office an invitation to supper. Half an hour before, Peterson had received the express package forwarded by horseman from the Junction con taining the five thousand dollars for the pay-roll, and had handed over the money to Holt, taking his receipt therefor. Holt wrapped the packet of bills in a sheet of brown paper, secured it with a rubber band, and placed it in the safe. He had then left the office to arrange with the foremen of the gangs for pay ing off the men on the following day. No sooner had Holt left the office than Peterson applied him self to the combination of the safe, and in a few moments had extracted the package containing the pay-roll money, replacing it with a dummy package of identical appearance, the latter maneuver being in case Holt should chance to look in the safe again that day. He hastily closed the safe and pocketed the real money-package as footsteps sounded alongside the build- 78 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER ing. A few moments later Lord Cecil entered and inquired for Holt, and was informed that he would find him on the works. Thither he therefore went, and found that young man wearing a slightly worried expression, which, however, vanished as Cecil delivered his message. The cause of Holt s concern was a brief conversation he had had with the Sheriff a few moments before, during which that official had warned him that a gang of yeggmen was believed to be in the region. Holt s thoughts had at once jumped to the five thousand dollars lying in the none too secure safe in the temporary building which served as office, and which was totally deserted after he and Peterson left in the evening. When Cecil had gone, Holt returned to the office, to find that Peterson had already left, a fact that afforded him some satisfaction, it being entirely agreeable to him that no one whosoever should know that he intended to carry on his person until the next day the pay-roll cash. The packet appeared to l>e as he had left it, and he carefully concealed it in an inside pocket, then hurried away to keep his engagement at the Manning home. Peterson, meanwhile, had been busy making arrangements with a couple of tramps whose camp he had discovered, and who, upon sight of the two twenty-dollar bills he produced, expressed every willingness to carry out his wishes, and as sured him, with corroborative anecdotes, of their entire com petency for such a task as he set them. "There will be enough loose cash in the safe to pay you for your trouble, aside from what I have advanced," Peterson assured them. "All I want you to do is to remove and destroy the brown paper package you will see. Have you everything you need?" "Just you leave it to us, Bo," one cf the pair told him re assuringly. "There s a flask o soup buried pretty close to " Have you done forgot how I took you . . . when nobody else would! " (Lord Cecil Keeps His Word.) A PARTNER TO PROVIDENCE 79 where you re standin , an Rags is got a cake o soap. Just you leave it to us." Mr. Peterson departed, to spend a wakeful night, and to trust devoutly, during the latter half, that no one besides himself had heard the muffled, knocking boom that came from the direction of the construction company s office. Such, however, had not been the case. At the very moment when the explosion took place, the energetic Sheriff was passing within fifty yards of the building which should have been dark and silent, but from which came this significant choked roar, and in which a candle was glimmering. Before the film of smoke had cleared, the Sheriff was inside the building, and two dis gusted gentlemen of the road, who were just on the point of removing from the doorless safe the petty cash, found them selves looking into the muzzle of a singularly large and con vincing revolver. Soon after daylight the Sheriff and the General Manager of Operations were in consultation in the disordered office. "But I tell you there wasn t no package in the safe," the officer declared positively. "I was here two seconds after she popped, an they didn t have a chance to touch a thing. There wasn t no package of bills nor no other package in that thar safe." Peterson thought swiftly. An element of mystery had en tered into the affair. The wrathful hoboes believed they had been the victims of a "plant," and were maintaining a sullen silence there was no danger to be apprehended from them if they accused him, no one would believe. But what had be come of the dummy package? Then the obvious solution flashed into his mind, and it was with difficulty that he restrained an exclamation of vicious triumph. His revenge safe, sure, and terrible was at hand. "Then there is but one conclusion," he said with apparent 80 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER reluctance and regret. The pay-roll money was removed from the safe before it was blown open. Mr. Holt, the cashier, is the only person to whom the combination in known. It is even possible that he arranged this safe-blowing as a blind though that, of course, may have been a coincidence. If the latter, he has probably skipped out if he was counting on this fake robbery, he will be around still, playing innocent." "Looks like you are right though I wouldn t ha thought it of Jimmy," the Sheriff agreed sadly. "We d better go look him up." Holt s boarding place lay on the further side of the Manning cottage, and as the Sheriff and Peterson hurried toward it, they observed Jimmy standing at the Manning gate, chatting gaily with Elsie and the now entirely recovered Lord Cecil. "You are out early looking for news?" Peterson greeted him sneeringly. "Yes, dropped by to see how my patient was coming on," Jimmy answered cheerfully, too joyous in his youth and tri umphant love to observe the other s manner. "Well, that gentleman s health is an important subject, of course," Peterson replied, "but there is something else you are likely to find more serious. The pay-roll money has been stolen." "How do you know the safe is locked!" Holt exclaimed, and looked searchingly at the Manager. "The safe was blown open last night, Jimmy," the Sheriff cut in, with obvious disapproval of the Manager s manner. "I know the pay-roll money wasn t in it, and Mr. Peterson says you must have removed it, you bein the only one who could open the safe." "Oh, I see!" Holt exclaimed, and his face lit up with delight. "By George, my hunch was real! When you told me about those yeggs being in the neighborhood, I got uneasy about the money in the safe, and thought it would be safer to pack it around A PARTNER TO PROVIDENCE 81 with me, if no one knew. Here it is, safe as a church!" he added triumphantly, and produced from his pocket a flat brown parcel. The concerned looks faded from the faces of the Sheriff and Lord Cecil, and into that of Elsie, which had grown white and pinched, the color flooded. "Course I knew it was all right, Jimmy," the Sheriff began apologetically, but Peterson interrupted with a sarcastic laugh. "Nice bluff," he sneered. "Think you can stand us off until you can make a get-away, now that your little trick has fizzled, eh? How do we know what is in that package? Show us the money." With eyes blazing with indignation Holt tore open the package. "Then look," he began, then stopped suddenly, amazement and chagrin spreading over his features. He had offered for inspection a handful of worthless paper cut to the size of bank notes. "I thought so," Peterson commented spitefully, and the Sheriff s expression grew stern as he stepped forward. "Reckon you better come along with me, he said coldly. With a heartbroken cry Elsie threw herself upon Holt s breast. "7 don t believe it, Jimmy boy! And I will love you always!" she sobbed. A flame of jealous hatred leaped into Peterson s eyes. Cecil caught the expression, and vague thoughts and recollections shaped themselves quickly. He stopped the Sheriff with a gesture. "I rather think, y know, that Mr. Peterson has the money in his pocket, Mr. Sheriff," he said quietly. For an instant Peterson stared wildly at this unexpected accuser, white panic tore at his brain. "Oh, I am glad glad!" the girl cried, and clung closer to 82 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER her sweetheart. With a snarl of fright and rage Peterson leaped back, drawing his revolver. "But I ll get you, if I hang for it!" he screamed, and leveled his weapon. With blazing eyes Elsie strove to cover the body of her sweetheart w r ith her own. The revolver cracked mur derously, but the bullet sped futilely toward the sky. As the assassin s finger had tightened on the trigger, Lord Cecil had sprung forward and caught his wrist with a steel-like grasp. An instant later the smoking revolver had been twisted from Peterson s hand. "You might, ah, remove this person, Mr. Sheriff," Cecil suggested, "but, to make sure, if you will permit me " he slipped his hand inside the coat of the now cringing man, and produced a brown packet, which he handed to the Sheriff with a smile. "If you think it worth while to open it, you will find my sur mise was correct," he added. Then suddenly boredom settled upon him like a fog. "It, er, is quite simple, y know," he drawled wearily, in response to the bewildered looks directed upon him. "Not in the least interestin . I happened to be passin the window of the office, an saw this person open the safe an change packages, an when I heard that Mr. Holt was the only one supposed to know the combination why, the deduction was too obvious to miss, y know." Three hours later an Eastbound train the line being again clear stood at Baxter Station. Lord Cecil shook hands cor dially with Jimmy Holt, and then, with a kindly smile, turned to Elsie. "I m sorry I can t stay to the weddin , but I wish you every happiness," he said gently. "You we will never forget you," the girl said, and tears sparkled in her eyes. "I don t dare to think of what might A PARTNER TO PROVIDENCE 83 have happened if you had not come into our lives, like like a partner to Providence!" Her cheeks grew rosy red, but she met his eyes bravely. Firmly she raised her arms, and drew down his head. "I am going to kiss you goodbye," she said. The train began to move, and Cecil swung himself upon the rear platform, and stood smiling back at them until distance blurred their forms. A partner to Providence by Jove, that was a pretty thing to say," he murmured, "an it was a pretty thing for her to kiss me like that ." His eyes grew dreamy he was thinking of the thrill of hap piness he would know if ever other lips he remembered as slightly parted in a little wistful smile should give themselves in soft surrender to his own. In the West, faintly seen, a thin line lay along the homon, and on this lightly penciled divider of blue-gray sky and gray- blue sea Lord Cecil fixed a dreamy gaze. Even as he looked, the line vanished, sea and sky blended, and the shores of America had slipped over the edge of the world. The gulls that had fol lowed the creaming wake circled, and with harsh cries of fare well, turned back. The throbbing beat from the heart of the ship seemed to fall to a lower note and a steadier rhythm, as though the great engines settled and steadied for the tireless toiling of the days and nights to come. Cecil turned toward the bow, and smiled contentedly. Off there, very far away, but nearer at each turn of the whirling screw, was England Home. For perhaps the first time in his life Cecil felt the stir of sentiment as he thought of Croftlaigh Manor, the ancient house of his people, from which he would soon lift the shadow of debt that had so long hung threaten ingly above it. That land which had sunk into the West had been kind to him, had not failed to realize for him those glow ing legends of fortunes to be swiftly won which in the Old World picture the New as El Dorado strangely, but lavishly, it had given him of its gold, and, as a munificent goddess might follow a great gift with one of priceless treasure, there had been granted to him the ultimate joy of love. Enshrined in his heart was a flower-like face, with wistful eyes, and in visions of the future he could see a slender, girlish form strolling be neath the old oaks of Croftlaigh, or hurrying with light step and shyly tender smile to meet him in the great hall, filling its som ber vastness w T ith the joy and brightness of her beauty and 84 LORD CECIL PLAYS A PART 85 youth. For thirty years no mistress had reigned at the Manor. Idly Cecil turned from his dreams, to observe casually but with interest the life about him. Though hidden carefully from the world which would have scoffed, there abode in Cecil s gentle, knightly soul a true affection for all mankind, and an impulsive charity which sometimes took quaint forms. There seemed to be the usual assortment of passengers from the remarkable similarity of the people to be encountered on trans-Atlantic steamers one might be tempted to the fancy that the same individuals spend their entire lives aboard the ocean ferries. Cecil observed with particular interest the chronically worried mother of the small boy who, her appre hensions to the contrary, was not in the least danger of tum bling over the rail; the stout gentleman from a small town in the Middle West who wore a yachting cap, addressed every uniform in sight as "Cap," and was at pains to respond "Aye, aye, Sir!" to any remark; the hurried-looking school teacher who was continually losing her place in a volume of Baedeker, and the two gamblers. The latter, who carefully posed as strang ers to one another, were so patently crooks of a rather low grade that Cecil wondered if it had already been "suggested" to them that they should not engage in any "friendly games." On the youthful bride and groom his eyes rested approvingly. They were so frankly in love. Harry Ashton was young, not only in years, but in charac ter, still soft clay, to be shaped and formed by the hand of life and subjected to the proving of the furnace of temptation and adversity. Whether he would emerge a fair vessel from the workshops of the Master Potter, or break upon the wheel, or in the flames, no man might say. In his own opinion, Harry was a man of the world, and quite capable of handling with credit any situation that might arise. To Ethel, his youthful bride, he was all that a man might hope to be. 86 THE BELOVfiD ADVENTURER Harry was upon a business trip to Europe, and had felt vastly complimented when his employers assigned him to the duty he was to accomplish. As a matter of fact, the business was of the simplest kind, the principal responsibility in connection therewith being the safekeeping of $10,000 in cash, which sum was to be used to pay customs duties at various minor ports where Harry s firm had no agents and were unknown. Besides this money, Harry had in his possession all his own savings, which were to be used for Ethel s expenses on the trip. The idea of making his necessary journey their wed ding tour had been a happy thought, and the marriage had been somewhat hastened in order that the plan might be carried out. The ship was already falling into the routine that would continue until land was again in sight. Harry and Ethel went to their stateroom to complete the unpacking of the baggage. Cecil wrapped himself in his dreams. The crooks, known to many police departments by several names and to a few by their true ones, Badger and Marks, drew together for a furtive conference. "Poor pickin s," Mr. Marks asserted gloomily. "Do well to get back car fare," Mr. Badger agreed. "Might get cigarette money from that newly-wed," Marks suggested disconsolately. "Shall I pick him up?" "Might as well nothin else in sight," his partner nodded gloomily. An hour later when Harry appeared on deck alone he made the acquaintance of the jovial Mr. Marks a bit crude per haps, but evidently a good, plain fellow. A short while after it had happened that Harry had come to know Mr. Badger, and in the most natural way in the world it came about that Harry introduced Mr. Badger to Mr. Marks. Evidently these were men of perception and knowledge of the world, for they LORD CECIL PLAYS A PART 8 r < valued Harry and his opinions at quite their true worth, some thing that many men older than himself were not always prone to do. The trio drifted into the smoking room, and a friendly argument between Messrs. Marks and Badger as to who should pay for the drinks was settled by the matching of coins. Matching for the coins themselves followed, and it was Harry s suggestion that the jesting game be made three-handed. An hour later they rose from the table, the boy feeling somewhat the effect of the half-dozen drinks, and striving to appear indifferent to his winnings about twenty-five dollars. "You must give us a chance to get back at you," Marks laughed jovially, and Harry nodded. "Sure, old man!" he promised, and swaggered away. "He s hooked," Mr. Marks yawned. "Yep nothin but a minnow, though," Mr. Badger agreed. Had Ethel been of greater perception or wider experience, Harry might still have been saved from the trap into which he had walked, but the girl had become annoyed at what she was pleased to regard as her husband s cold neglect in absenting himself for two whole hours. Moreover, in her eyes he had been gambling, and she was genuinely shocked and grieved, out of all proportion. Her tearful reproaches produced only irritation which expressed itself by sulky silence, and an inward wrathful declaration of independence. The vapor obscuring their sun was but a tiny shadow which a smile could have banished, but to them it was the black cloud of domestic tragedy. The unexpected did not happen. On the contrary, events were quite as two of the participants therein intended them to be. Harry duly gave his friends the opportunity to get back at him, and a card game was voted to possess more interest than the childish matching of coins. As the game progressed, with steadily mounting stakes, the boy drank freely, and his excitement grew to fever heat. Idling through the smoking 88 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER room, Cecil observed the affair with keen displeasure, and when his opinion of Messrs. Marks and Badger was confirmed by a swindle as crudely executed as it was flagrant, his indig nation sent him forward a step. Second thought checked the impulse to interfere. "Probably wouldn t believe it," he reflected. "Besides, he must learn his own lesson, and that game isn t stiff enough to ruin him." With a slight shrug Cecil strolled away, and a few moments later Harry sat staring dazedly at his friends, grown suddenly contemptuously indifferent. "Broke, huh?" Mr. Marks commented. "Say, you pack a roll most as big as a kid takes to Sunday School. Course I was foolish, but I thought you had enough to sit in a man- sized game." With a yawn he turned away. Mr. Badger followed, without deeming their late opponent worthy of any remark whatso ever. For some minutes Harry sat still, his fever steadily mount ing, as his brain, no longer concentrated on the game, felt the full effect of his drinks. A furious resentment began to boil in his breast. Took all his money, and then laughed at it, did they? Couldn t sit in a man-sized game, couldn t he? He d show them a thing or two! He d flash a roll that would scare em to death, then he d win back his own money and every cent they had. Why, if it hadn t been for a streak of fool luck that was just due to break, they wouldn t have won a pot! He d make em sing small! Hurrying to his stateroom Harry tore open his shirt and from a concealed money-belt took a thick wad of bills, his move ments furtive. The clay was crumbling there would be cast out from the furnace a distorted, ugly thing a criminal. Sud denly the door opened, and the boy shrank bak with a cry as LORD CECIL PLAYS A PART 89 Ethel entered. In one swift glance the hideous truth was re vealed to her, and with a cry of horror she caught at his arm. "For God s sake, Harry, don t!" she cried, and then followed a wild jumble of prayers, accusations, and entreaties. "Think what you are doing! You will be an embezzler a thief!" Sobbingly she paused for a moment the boy was sw r ayed by reason and conscience, and all might yet have been well had the distracted girl not gone on. "You will be disgraced I will be the wife of a convict no, I will not, I will leave you! If you go out of that door I will leave you despise you leave you!" she gasped. His anger flared blindingly. "Leave me! I wish to God you would good riddance!" he snarled, and brutally throwing her aside, dashed from the room. For a few moments the girl remained as though frozen, the sobs choked back. Then with white face and tragic eyes she hurried out. It was already late, and Cecil was the only passenger re maining on the moonlit deck. Suddenly he started up, leaped forward, and grasped the form of a girl as she poised on the rail. With gentle firmness he drew her to a chair and sat down beside her. "Oh, why did you stop me? It would have been over now!" Ethel cried, and buried her face in her hands. Cecil placed a soothing hand upon her arm. "It probably isn t so bad as all that," he said gently. "Just you tell me the whole story." And presently she had done so. Cecil s face was very grave and troubled, but her head was bowed and she did not see. He spoke with firm and convincing encouragement. "I ll straighten this up, some way I give you my word I will," he said. 90 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER "Yes," she answered, with the faith of a child, and being utterly worn out, slept. Meanwhile Harry had found Messrs. Badger and Marks, and those gentlemen had exchanged glances of delight as they observed the denominations of the bills the boy ostentatiously displayed. And even as Lord Cecil was gently drawing a rug over the girl asleep on deck, Harry, with starting eyes and reel ing brain, stumbled into his stateroom, and fell in a stupor upon the floor. Messrs. Badger and Marks had made a clean-up. At dawn Cecil sent the girl below, and her coming roused Harry to a full realization of all that he had done. The boy was utterly crushed and cowed, and the girl forgave him, but she realized, as he knelt at her feet, sobbing out his shame and repentance, that unless by some miracle he could again appear before her as a man, her love, and the joy of life, were done and dead. Cecil, at the earliest opportunity, obtained from the smoking room steward a deck of cards, and with them retired to his stateroom. He had previously noticed that all the cards car ried in stock had backs of sim lar design and color. He now proceeded to carefully mark the deck he had purchased. His intent was to meet the enemy with the enemy s own weapons, and he felt no stain upon the honor beside which life was to him a trivial thing. It was a matter of slight difficulty to engage the complacent swindlers in a game, very early in which Cecil substituted his marked cards for the deck in play. At the end of that game Cecil had in his possession the three times stolen $10,000, and the professional crooks were staring at each other in sodden daze. "What happened?" Mr. Marks gasped, when their unexcited opponent had departed. LORD CECIL PLAYS A PART 91 "Ask me!" Mr. Badger replied scornfully. His gloomy glance rested upon Cecil s chair, and with a snarl of fury he seized upon the deck for which Cecil had substituted his marked cards. "He done us, the cheat! He switched the deck on us!" Mr. Marks hissed. His features grew livid, and he leaned forward to whisper with venomous emphasis: "But we will get the money back and maybe Mr. Englishman won t get well of what will ail him!" Quietly Cecil returned the money to Harry Ashton, who was too completely sunk in misery to feel any emotion, even sur prise. Any thanks that he might have attempted to utter were cut short by Cecil s cold comment. "You have been a silly child and a brutal cad, y know," he told him, for his soul s good, and left him. Cecil soon understood that his self-assumed duty as special providence was not yet finished. He chanced to overhear, as she unconsciously spoke them aloud, words which revealed the ache in Ethel s heart. "His folly and crime my love would forgive," she had moaned "if I could again think him a man!" And Cecil went away troubled. Long pondering evolved but one possible plan, and he sighed. "It s a beastly job, but I ve got to see the thing through," he thought. "It will mean happiness for the little girl, if he has a spark of manhood in him. It s worth the chance." Suddenly he smiled with gentle whimsicalness, and spoke aloud. " You would want me to do it, Betty, wouldn t you?" On deck Cecil found Ethel Ashton, and induced her to walk with him, though the girl seemed listless and weary to the point of exhaustion. In a deserted spot he had located Harry, sulking bitterly, and toward this spot he led the way.. When 92 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER near and in plain view of Harry, he suddenly caught the girl in his arms, and despite her amazed and angry struggles, kissed her passionately. In a moment Harry had covered the distance between them, and furiously jerked Cecil away. "What do you mean, you " he began savagely, and Cecil laughed mockingly. "Oh, you," he said. "Don t bother me or, what are you going to do about it?" "This!" Harry raged, and struck straight for Cecil s face. The blow staggered him, and a dark blotch appeared on his cheek, but without a word Cecil turned and hurried cringingly away. Ethel stared wonderingly, then a great joyousness swept over her face. "Oh, Harry," she cried, and laid her head against his breast. In his stateroom Cecil gravely inspected his bruised cheek. Suddenly the pupils of his eyes contracted reflected in the glass, he had seen the door behind him silently open, two crouching figures glide in, and the door close. The figures crept toward him in the hand of one was a vicious knife, and the second man was raising a blackjack for a stunning blow. Cecil s hand shot out, and he stepped aside and turned at the same instant. A second later Messrs. Marks and Badger were looking into the muzzle of an unwavering revolver. Without a word Cecil disarmed the would-be assassins, locked the door, pocketed the key, and snapped shut the lid of a steamer trunk in which he had placed knife, blackjack, and his own revolver. A look of savage joy came over the faces of the crooks as they realized that, two to one, they were locked in the room with Cecil, unarmed. They crouched, and crept forward. "All ready," Cecil said grimly. Twenty minutes later Cecil unlocked the door and allowed LORD CECIL PLAYS A PART 93 to crawl out two bloody, battered wrecks, too sick to even wonder at the meaning of his parting remark, his almost apologetic, "I think I really owed myself that, y know." When alone, Cecil surveyed the devastated stateroom with a grim smile then the grimness vanished, and the smile was very tender. A sweetness filled the disordered place with illusive perfume, a slender, girlish form, with shining eyes stood mistily beside him, and he seemed to feel upon his bruised cheek the light touch of cool, soft lips. LORD CECIL KEEPS HIS WORD Mr. Monte Carson, his right arm in a sling, sat in the con veniently amalgamated office-lobby-bar of the Palace Hotel and indulged in gloomy reflections. "It makes me plumb ashamed," he growled, and rolled a challenging eye toward the excellent Mr. Baylor, landlord. "Me to be done by a Englishman] Yah!" "It was luck just fool luck, Monte," Mr. Baylor asserted conciliatingly. "You done the first trick beautiful an twenty- five thousand dollars is a pretty good pot, after all." Mr. Carson cast upon him a look of contempt. "Yes, mighty good pot to have sold a million-dollar mine for," he sarcastically agreed. "But I ain t out of the game yet, not by a long shot!" he added with sudden fury. "I ll et that mine back if I have to twist his neck! I m a curly haired ole he- wolf, I am hear me howl!" Mr. Baylor did not seem vastly impressed. He regarded his own bandaged right arm, and shook his head. "I reckon this here Lord Cecil person is a right good party to let alone, Monte," he opined. Mr. Carson merely grunted wrathfully, and, slipping his arm from its sling moved it up and down tentatively. "Bah! There won t be any shootin -irons in this," he said. "Most any fool can shoot. This here game is goin to be played W 7 ith brains," he explained loftily, and tramped heavily up the stair. "At that I ain t backin your game, none to speak of," Mr. Baylor commented inaudibly. 94 LORD CECIL KEEPS HIS WORD 95 Mr. Carson entered Betty s room with frowning aggres siveness, but the look of cold defiance which flashed into the girl s eyes warned him that he had no longer to deal with an unformed child. Just what was the change in Betty he was unable to say, but his instinct told him that diplomacy must now supplant the moral intimidation that had hitherto served to bend her to his will. It was through her sense of gratitude alone that he might hope to command her obedience. There fore he opened the conversation with reproaches for her dis loyalty. "I never would ha* thought it of you, Betty," he said slowly. "Ain t I always done the best I could for you? Have you done forgot how I took you, when you was a baby, and nobody else would, and raised you like you was my own child? And then, when I was just tryin to get back the mine that I d been swin dled out of, you turn against me, an put into the hands of the man that had robbed me, the gun I had given you! I wouldn t ha thought it, girl." Betty s eyes were cold, however, and he knew his appeal had failed. "Monte," she replied, and her smile was bitter, "it isn t any use to keep up the pretense. I know now just what you are a cowardly, cheating thief. It is true you reared me, as a speculation to serve as your decoy and the investment has returned a profit. I saved your life when it was forfeited to Davis knife, and squared accounts. I owe you nothing." With a terrible effort the gambler controlled the rage that almost choked him. He still needed this girl, and hatred must not be allowed to interfere with business. There would be time enough, when she could no longer be made of value, to settle personal accounts. His mind worked swiftly. He would even tell the truth to win a victory, and the truth appeared now to be his best weapon. 96 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER "When I tell you it was your mine," he sneered, "which I had no right to sell, you will be willing enough to help recover it, I reckon, and become a millionairess! He has no title. I can get it back, and will, but it would be easier with your help." Betty looked at him with widening eyes. "You mean ?" she whispered. "I mean what I say. The mine was, and still is, yours. It was your father s claim, an not being your legal guardian, I couldn t convey title. Of course he could make a lot of trouble but he won t he ll give up quick enough when I hand back the $25,000 he paid, and spin him a yarn the fool!" "Tell me your plan," Betty said eagerly, and he did so, speaking now as one artist to another. He was quite satisfied. The girl had tumbled from her high and mighty perch, as his opinion of human nature had convinced him she would, when she discovered that her own interests were at stake. It would simplify matters to have her a willing assistant, rather than a blind dupe. Betty appeared to listen closely, but her mind was really otherwise engaged. Ardent impulses, daring hopes, and strange emotions were stirring in her breast. Suppose she were to give up the fortune to Lord Cecil? Surely he would be grateful perhaps he might even come to love one who would do so much! Or, if she kept the mine, she would be very wealthy, and per haps, for the sake of her fortune he would . Betty s was a proud little heart, above the false shame of small souls. Why should she lie to herself if this man had won her love? "How soon can you be ready to start for England?" Mr. Carson concluded. "Right away!" she cried joyously, and as Carson, crafty satisfaction in his eyes, left the room, she began to swiftly pack her simple belongings, and she and Carson were passengers LORD CECIL KEEPS HIS WORD 97 aboard the steamer which sailed next after that which had borne Lord Cecil home. Cecil s arrival in England had been followed by an activity and attention to business details which reduced him to the last degree of boredom. Five minutes before the property would have been sold under the foreclosed mortgages, he reached Croftlaigh, and presented to the minor legal official in charge of the proceedure the following letter from his bankers: MY LORD CECIL: The 10,000 shares (entire capital stock) of "Golden Hope" mine have been deposited to your credit. You may draw upon us for any amounts up to 100,000. Your obt. svts., BROWNELOWE & Co., LTD. The sympathetically deferential manner with which the official had received the nobleman whose ancient seat was about to be sold gave place to one of humble and eager servility. "It is of course Your Lordship s wish that these, ah, pro ceedings be terminated," he said. "Your Lordship need have no concern I will see that the matter is adjusted with the ah, claimants. Might I venture to congratulate Your Lordship?" "You might, but don t er trouble to do it, please," Cecil responded, and the man bowed gratefully. "Certainly, My Lord thank you, My Lord!" he said, and Cecil made his way into the house of his fathers. Why it should be the faithful James who answered his ring from the library, how the man had informed himself of his master s return to England, or by what means he had material ized himself upon the rug by the door, Cecil did not trouble to speculate. It was proper and sufficient that he was there. "A Scotch an* soda, James," he ordered. 98 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER "Yes, My Lord," James gulped, and as he passed out fur tively wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. The week which followed was, probably, the most happy which Cecil had ever known. The breeze from the sea that beat against the cliffs a mile away gave freshness to the per fumed airs of the English summer. Perfect peace seemed to brood over ancient Croftlaigh. Cecil went through the days idly dreaming, and into his dreams there came with growing frequency and more compelling charm the face of a little girl with wistful eyes, so that, on a still afternoon he put be hind him the traditions and conventions which to so large an extent governed his life, and began a letter. "Dear Miss Carson," he wrote. "The enforced haste of my departure prevented me from expressing my deep gratitude for your kindness, and my poverty prohibited declarations of other emotions you had stirred. May I return, to thank you, and ask you to accept my love and share the fortune " He broke off abruptly at the entrace of James, followed by a youthful lout whom Cecil recognized as a stable-boy from the Red Lion Inn, situated a half-mile from Croftlaigh s gates. "He has a note, My Lord, which he says is to be given into your Lordship s own hand, and no other," James explained, with a slight sniff of disapproval. "Very well," Cecil said, and gave the boy a coin in exchange for the letter he had so zealously guarded. Indifferently he tore open the envelope. "Lord Cecil," the missive ran; "I have discovered that I had no legal right to sell you the Golden Hope. The mine belongs to an orphan, Elizabeth Lee. On her behalf, I appeal to your honesty to restore the property. I will at once refund the $25,000 which you paid me. I will call tomorrow." The signature was "George Carson." For once in his life the brave, patient soul of Lord Cecil LORD CECIL KEEPS HIS WORD 99 became weary and disheartened, and his kindly face seemed suddenly older. Slowly he tore into tiny fragments the letter he might not now send to the little girl in the far off West, and made his way from the house which seemed to have suddenly fallen mto a glooming silence and to be bowed beneath the w r eight of its centuries. Cecil walked slowly, seeing nothing of the hawthorne hedges that kept the quiet lane prisoner between walls of white blos som. And then, as though his thoughts had drawn her across the thousands of miles of land and sea, Betty stood before him. "You!" he cried with joyous amazement, and though shy, her smile was frankly happy. They strolled on through the pleasant fields, together. He did not ask how or why she was there that she was was suf ficient. The years seemed to slip from him because no other woman had ever filled his heart, he was now as a boy thrilling and yearning with the nearness of his first sweetheart. They found a shaded spot, and sat for some time silent. The unex pectedness of the meeting with Betty, the thought that unkind fate made it now impossible for him to ask her to share his poor fortunes, the unconcealed tenderness of the girl, and the joy of their hour together, all contributed to bring Cecil s love to a pitch demanding expression, though he felt that he should be silent. At last he spoke, as though against his will. "I was coming back to America, to tell you I loved you. Now the fortune I thought I had won is no longer mine, and I can not ask you to share the mean poverty I must endure." He turned away, striving desperately to attain that un emotional blankness of expression with which he was wont to mask his heart. The girl looked at him with an almost fierce tenderness, and rising, placed her hands upon his shoulders, forcing him to look into her eyes. 100 THE BELOVfiD ADVENTURER "I love you," she said simply. "Will you not marry me today?" A glow of dazed happiness spread over him, hut he struggled against the impulse to take her into his arms. "Do you realize, Betty," he said, "that I am no longer young a man untrained to any work; that I will be desperately poor must try to begin life all over again, in some new, hard land?" "I love you," she repeated gravely, as though in this were the answer to all things. "May God forgive me if I do wrong, but, oh, little girl, I love you so!" he cried, and with reckless happiness took her in his arms. Three hours later, across the Scottish border, they were married, by the kilted blacksmith-parson at Gretna Green. When, in the soft twilight, they again drew near Croftlaigh and the Red Lion Inn, Betty motioned for the machine in which they had made their momentous journey to be stopped. They alighted, and the chauffeur, grinning a friendly goodbye, drove away. "We will keep our marriage secret, dear, for a little while," Betty said. "I wish it so. Now kiss me, and let me go until all things are clear my husband." She slipped from his embrace and hurried away toward the Red Lion, and Cecil, with the faith of unquestioning love, turned back toward the house that awaited its mistress. Next day Mr. George Carson "Monte" had seemed to him scarcely to harmonize with the staid English atmosphere presented himself at Croftlaigh and was at once conducted to the library. Mr. Carson was nervous, and the bullying manner with which he attempted to cover this fact wilted before the impersonal blankness of the gentleman whom Cecil described LORD CECIL KEEPS HIS WORD 101 as a court official called in as a witness, and the lazy conde scension of Lord Cecil himself. "There is nothing to discuss," Cecil said wearily. "If you have brought the $25,000, deliver it to this gentleman, and I will give you an order for the mine stock." For an instant Carson hesitated, then handed to the official a thick packet of notes. From Cecil, Carson received a sheet of paper which he grasped with gleaming eyes. The document read: BROWNELOWE & Co., LTD. BANKERS, LONDON. GENTLEMEN: Upon proof of her identity and title thereto, you will deliver to Elizabeth Lee, personally, all stock of "Golden Hope" mine held in my name. HENRY, LORD CECIL. Into Carson s eyes came a glare of bafflled rage, and from his lips poured fierce protests. "His Lordship s action is quite correct," the official said coldly, "and you, my man, are most lucky that His Lordship does not care to prosecute you for fraud. I do not doubt the courts of New York would act with vigor." Carson had a most wholesome respect for the law of regions so peculiar as to regard homicide as a serious crime, and he now departed swiftly. Moreover, affairs were not in so bad a way, after all. He could, he was sure, soon acquire possession of the Hope. The next day a gloomy assemblage was convened at the banking house of Brownelowe and Co., Ltd. It was composed of the creditors of Lord Cecil, to whom word had been given that the rosy expectations of that disappointing nobleman had again dissolved. They were awaiting with a sort of impatient 102 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER hopelessness the distribution of an inadequate sum which they understood to be 5,000. At length Lord Cecil entered the room, accompanied by no less a person than Mr. Brownelowe himself. Lord Cecil bowed gravely. The banker smiled beamingly, and rubbed his hands benevolently. "Gentlemen," he said, "you will recall that some time ago Lord Cecil gave you his word to marry an American heiress." Cecil s face remained unchanged, but for a tightening of his thin lips. The banker continued : "I have just learned that his word has been kept. All who desire to do so may draw on this bank for the full amount of their claims against Lord Cecil." A quick murmur of astonishment and satisfaction broke out in the crowd, but Cecil touched the banker on the arm. "I am sorry, sir, but you have made a mistake. I did not keep my word," he said gravely. "My Lord," Mr. Brownelowe smiled, "I am a banker- bankers never make mistakes. Will you have the goodness to accompany me?" Wearily Cecil followed the banker into an adjoining office, and his eyes lit up joyously at sight of Betty. "This is Lady Cecil, sir," he said, "but you have been mis informed as to her financial status." Mr. Brownelowe chuckled. "My Lord," he declared, "Brownelowe and Co. is never mis informed as to one s financial status. Did you, My Lord," he questioned whimsically, "look at the marriage register after Lady Cecil had signed? I wager and bankers always win wagers that you did not. Therefore you are unaware that Lady Cecil s maiden name was Elizabeth Lee, and not Betty Carson, as, ah, circumstances, apparently led your Lordship to suppose. Lady Cecil and I" Betty shyly returned his LORD CECIL KEEPS HIS WORD 103 kindly smile "became friends some hours ago, when I declined to deliver to Mr. er, Carson, certain mine stock. He, by the way, is doubtless now being carefully conducted aboard a steamer and being informed by a representative of Scotland Yard that the climate of England is not recommended for persons of his kind. But all this would be much more interesting from Lady Cecil, I am sure," he concluded hastily, and beam ingly withdrew. With shining eyes Betty came toward Cecil. "I am glad we were married before you knew it would mean a fortune for you, beloved," she whispered. "Now I know that you love me, just me." "Yes, I love just you," he answered softly. Then a mis chievous smile touched the grave, kindly mouth, and he added: "But, at that, the fortune is going to be jolly handy to have around, y know!" XI THE SERPENT COMES TO EDEN Twice since she had become Lady Cecil had Betty seen the soft summer moon reach its fullness, spread over ancient Croftlaigh a mantle of silvern glory, and work sweet magic in her heart, even as it had in a wonderful Garden when time was young. Throwing a filmy scarf about her bare shoulders, Betty now stole out to the terrace that overlooked the sunken garden where heavy-headed roses weighted the air with perfume. Lean ing dreamily against the balustrade was the figure of a man, and with a tender smile the girl moved softly to his side. His hand closed over hers, as, without taking his eyes from the silent beauty spread before them, he quoted softly: 1 The moon shines bright: in such a night as this, When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees And they did make no noise, in such a night Troilus methinks mounted the Troyan walls, And sigh d his soul toward the Grecian tents, Where Cressid lay that night. Into the girl s eyes came a shadow, and her lips parted for a little wistful sigh. "I I cannot say back anything that would be pretty and fine," she whispered. "Out in Nevada they thought me well educated I even went one year to boarding school in Den ver but I can t say those pretty things, as you do, even when I feel them in my heart. You won t ever be ashamed of me, will you, dear, even when you take me among beautiful women who know all the things I do not? I think 1 would just die if you ceased to love me, but if you were ashamed of me, that 105 106 THE BELOVfiD ADVENTURER would break my heart, and that would be worse than dying." Cecil took her into his arms and looked tenderly into the wistful eyes raised to his face. "Sweetheart," he said gravely, "among the fairest and most brilliant of all the earth you would be to me as that moon is among the paling stars." "Then you will never regret you are happy, beloved?" she murmured, and nestled closer in his arms. "Could one regret entering into paradise?" he asked ten derly; "a paradise more perfect than he had ever dreamed might lie even beyond the skies? Nights and days of so per fect joy as to make one s heart almost afraid joy most like devine Of all I ever dreamt or knew, To see thee, hear thee, call thee mine,- Abruptly he paused and drew her closer to his breast. A strange chill seemed to creep like a menace into the perfumed warmth of the night, stirring the old oaks so that they sighed that further line which he had thought to banish: "O, misery! must I lose that too?" The girl shivered in his arms. "Let us go in. I I am afraid!" she whispered. It was at this moment that Mr. Monte Carson, for the second time, set foot upon the shore of England. Mr. Carson s departure from the island, on the same day that Lord Cecil learned that in following the dictates of his heart he had won for his bride not only the girl he loved but an American heiress such as he had given his word to wed, had not been voluntary, but at the urgent suggestion of a compe tent representative of Scotland Yard, and his temper had not THE SERPENT COMES TO EDEN 107 been sweetened, nor his determination to possess for himself the now famous "Golden Hope" mine in any degree abated. By good chance he made the acquaintance of two gentlemen of his own profession, Messrs. Marks and Badger, who had on one occasion encountered Lord Cecil, to their discomfort, and from them obtained letters of introduction to co-workers in the country he had just left, the most consequential being one to the Countess Lurovich. Upon landing in New York, Mr. Carson promptly changed his name and clothing, and pur chased a passage on the next outward-bound steamer. In the Countess Lurovich, Carson found a ready confeder ate, for twice had the adventuress s schemes been upset by Lord Cecil, and her hatred of the nobleman was intense. She still maintained her country home at Ashley Grange, which place, adjoining Cecil s estate, afforded an excellent base of operations. Carson was installed as a guest, his presence being kept a secret, while the Countess reconnoitered and laid her plans. As the summer wore on, Betty s happiness became vaguely clouded. Since her marriage she had not left her new home, and the scores of invitations to country houses and Scotch fishings which had poured in after the public announcement that once more a mistress ruled at Croftlaigh, had, at Cecil s suggestion, been declined. To Betty it seemed incredible that one who might walk with the most noble and famous and re ceive the homage granted high birth and present wealth should by preference absent himself from what she romantically fancied to be a world of joyous splendor. It was not possible for her still child-like heart to see life through Cecil s disillu sioned eyes, or to understand that these Arcadian days were to him of so perfect a happiness that the suggestion of exchang ing them for the banal artificialities of "society" seemed a prof anation. It was not on her own account, but on Cecil s, that 108 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER her eyes grew troubled as the secluded life continued. Was it that he was ashamed to present her to the people of his class? This was the thought that from an intangible beginning grew to be a haunting shadow. More and more frequently she stole away from the old house, to wander alone in the blossoming fields. It was on such a roaming expedition that Betty encountered the Countess Lurovich, who, at sight of her, advanced smilingly. "I am afraid I have missed my way can you indicate the most direct route to Ashley Grange?" she said. Betty shook her head. "No I guess not. I don t yet know this range very well, myself," she responded with the frank friendliness of her Western land. "It lies off this way, but that is all I know." The Countess surveyed her with friendly insolence. "Oh, I see you are a stranger. A new servant at Croft- laigh, I presume?" The girl s face did not change, but the Countess keen eyes noted with satisfaction the tinge of added color that crept into her cheeks. "I am Lady Cecil, madam," Betty said quietly. "My dear child, forgive me!" the Countess cried with per fect simulation of embarrassed confusion. "One is so apt to be misled by appearances that is, I should say, I had fancied Lady Cecil er, older, y know. You must really pardon me Lord Cecil would never forgive such a silly mistake, and we ve been awf lly good friends for the longest! I am the Countess Lurovich, y know, and I ve told Henry Lord Cecil I should say not less than a dozen times within the past month to bring you over whenever he is dropping in for tea, but he always makes some silly excuse! You won t mention my meet ing you and making such an absurd mistake, will you, my dear child?" THE SERPENT COMES TO EDEN 109 "No, I will not mention the incident," Betty responded gravely. "I am sorry I can not direct you to your path. Good afternoon," she added, and hurried away that the other woman might not see the tears of mortification that she could no longer restrain. Smiling with satisfaction the Countess strolled through a plantation of young trees and joined the waiting Mr. Carson. "The game is well begun," she said, "and if I know anything of character, it will be short. That little chit is a fool, but a proud one." "She won t be so proud when I ve finished with her," Carson grunted maliciously. "And the thing can t be ended up any too soon for me," he added glumly. "I ain t what you would call enjoyin myself, duckin around through ths hedges in this here ready-to-wear country. Is that maid of Betty s all fixed?" "The maid can be depended upon, "the Countess assured him. "This very evening she shall play her little part in the comedy. I will instruct Lemoine at once to write a suitable letter, and will wire to town for the actor of whom I spoke I have been at some pains to keep him from securing an engagement in his regular line he is a very good actor." "All right, then. An you ll be well paid for your trouble when the thing is all fixed don t you worry about that," Carson declared. "I am usually well paid," the Countess observed dryly. For a long while after she left the Countess, Betty wandered miserably, unable to return to the old house that had shel tered her now dead happiness. Her proud little soul had suf fered a terrible wound all her vague fancies had been crystal lized into a sickening fact that Cecil was ashamed of her, and, since this Countess who was his intimate friend had mistaken her for a servant, he was undoubtedly justified. That as she was convinced he did Cecil still loved her, took nothing 110 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER from her bitterness, but rather was an added shame. That he should love one whom he could not proudly present to all the world but must fondle in secret degraded and tarnished that love. Yet, after all, perhaps she was mistaken perhaps supersensativeness exaggerated trifles and misunderstood what were merely the habits of a society with which she was unac quainted. She would wait for further proof before allow ing the joy of life to be strangled by this thing. With that de termination, Betty returned to the manor house. As she hurried to her room to dress for dinner, James, the faithful valet, in tercepted her. "If your Ladyship pleases, "he said, "My Lord Cecil directed me to say that he would not return to dinner he was suddenly called to Cantlebury in a matter of some ampers of game thought to have been poached from Croftlaigh covers, and Your Ladyship couldn t be located before he left." "Very well, James," Betty said, with a sudden sense of lone liness. "They need not serve dinner. Have some tea brought to the library." James bowed, but with troubled face, for he loved this young mistress. "If I might make so bold, My Lady," he said diffidently, "the cook will be rare disappointed. E read in Tit-Bits as ow in America no one ever ate anything but fried beefsteak and prunes, and he has prepared some e found out how to do it by writing to a cousin in St. Louis, America as a surprise for Your Ladyship." Betty smiled. "You will thank the cook, James, and tell him he must pre pare me an American dinner some other time tonight I am not hungry," she said gently, and passed on to the old library. Rather listlessly Betty sank into the chair in front of Lord Cecil s writing table, and rested her chin upon her clasped Cecil s face grew white as his eyes flashed over the tear-blotted page. James Edward McLauchlin. THE SERPENT COMES TO EDEN 111 hands. Presently she became aware that she was subconsci ously reading what lay under her eyes the second sheet of an unfinished letter, in her husband s hand, left carelessly upon the desk. Before she realized, her brain had taken the meaning from her eyes. " a good business preposition, anyway, as it turns out. She has a million dollars, you know. Of course 1 can t present such a little Wild West savage to my friends ." The writing stopped abruptly, as though the writer had been inter rupted. Betty rose stiffly, her face white. "There can be no further doubt," she whispered, and made her way slowly toward her bedroom. No sooner had Betty left the library than a pair of curtains parted cautiously, a maid stole into the room, quickly removed the paper from the desk, and hurried out. Early the following morning Lord Cecil again departed for Cantlebury, in connection with the poached game, and Betty hurried into the open, as had always been her wont when her heart was burdened. She felt that she must reach some decis ion she could not continue to live in the humiliating posi tion of a wife of whom the husband was ashamed. As she turned the corner of a lane, Betty was astonished to come face to face with Mr. Monte Carson, who greeted her with a smile of mingled affection and sympathy. "What are you doing here?" the girl demanded coldly. Mr. Carson appeared grieved. "For what would I be here, except to help you, Betty?" he asked in reply. "To help me that is likely!" the girl laughed bitterly. "Have you discovered that I am the owner of another mine which you wish to steal?" He looked at her reproachfully. 112 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER "Betty," he said gravely, "I know I ve done some crooked things in my life, but I always done the best I could by you, an* I ve come back here to prove I m a friend and don t bear no hard feelings, even after the way you turned on me for the sake of your husband. I was only tryin to take care of you, Betty." Despite her judgment, Betty s heart softened. Whatever had been his motives, this man had in his way been good to her he was the only one who had ever cared whether she lived or died, went shelterless or slept beneath a roof. Since her early childhood he had assumed the place of her father, and the thought-habits of youth are not easily broken. "You your actions looked pretty bad, Monte," she said slowly. "I did not mean to be unjust, ever, but you had given me cause to distrust you. What is it you have to say now?" "I know you are proud, Betty, but I want you to hear me out," Carson told her. He seemed to ponder what would be the least painful words, and then continued: "Pretty soon after I got back to New York I met a man who knew all about Lord Cecil and what I heard brought me back here as quick as I could come. He hasn t played square with you Betty. He " Betty s eyes flashed fiercely. "I will hear nothing against my husband," she said quietly. "Where is he today?" Carson asked, with a sudden change of tone. "He has gone to Cantlebury," the girl replied shortly. "What of it?" "He has not gone to Cantlebury he is with the Countess Lurovich, as he is almost every day," Carson announced calmly. "It hasn t taken me many days to get a line on your nobleman. Not only is he ashamed of you, but he is making love to another woman." THE SERPENT COMES TO EDEN 113 Every sign of color drained slowly from Betty s face, and her soft lips closed in a hard line. "Did I ever break my word, Monte?" she asked softly. "You shore never did, Betty," Carson declared gravely. "Then listen. If you have lied to me, I swear I will kill you as I would a rattler. I must know the truth, now, and all of it." "I m plumb sorry, Betty," Carson said sympathetically, "I shore am, but there ain t no doubt. Come with me." In silence they walked rapidly along a mile of hedge-walled lanes. Presently they drew near the small stream that was the boundary between Croftlaigh and Ashley Grange, and Carson, drawing the girl into the shelter of a clump of shrub bery, pointed to the opposite bank. Strolling in lover-like con verse were two figures, one the unmistakable figure of Lord Cecil, the other the Countess Lurovich. Even as Betty watched with burning eyes, the woman paused and raised her face, and the man crushed her in his arms as he pressed his lips to hers. Betty drew back without a word, and walked away. Carson, with a triumphant smile hurried after her. "You wont want to stay, I reckon, Betty," he said as he overtook her. She did not raise her eyes, but nodded. "No- I will go away," she said dully. "I knew you would. I m goin to look out for you, little girl. I reckon you don t want to see him before you go," Carson suggested. "No, I do not wish to see him," she replied in the same lifeless voice, so unlike her own. "Please take me away now, Monte." "All right, Betty, you can count on old Monte," he said soothingly. "Everything is fixed I knew you d want to go. Just you slip into the house and get your things, and I ll meet you at the foot of the drive in half an hour, with a machine. Don t you care he^ain t worth it." 114 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER At the same moment the Countess Lurovich was looking up archly into the eyes of a man whose clothing duplicated that worn by Lord Cecil that day and whose figure was identical. His face was carefully and expertly made up to a portrait-like reproduction of the features of the nobleman. "Do you always put so much spirit into your acting, M. Devoeux?" the Countess laughed. "My lips are crushed! Not quite, as yet ." The actor swore softly as Carson s hurried entrance inter rupted the little scene. "It s all fixed," Carson informed the Countess with savage satisfaction. "I ll take the machine and pick her up at the end of the drive, and if ever that staring fool sets eyes on her again, I hope to be shot for a Greaser!" "You very probably will be shot for yourself if ever he sets eyes on you, my friend." the Countess commented, "so see to it that he doesn t." An hour later a motor was speeding swiftly toward White- haven. In it sat Betty, with pale, drawn fare, and M?. Monte Carson, on whose vindictive and greedy features was a grin of gratified triumph. It was near the dinner hour win n Lord Cecil returned from Cantlebury, where the matter of the poached game had been finally concluded, and with an eager light in his eyes hurried into the manor house. As he moved toward the stair, James came quietly forwa-rd and stopped him with a bow. "Her Ladyship has gone out, My Lord," he said, and in the man s voice Cecil caught a troubled note. "She left a note in the library. My Lord." With a vague sensation of impending disaster Cecil hurried to the dim old room and ripped open the envelope lying upon his writing table. His face grew white as his eyes flashed over the tear-blotted page. THE SERPENT COMES TO EDEN 115 "Beloved," he read, and seemed to hear the soft caressing voice that was used to whisper the endearment in his ear. "I have gone away, and you will never see me again. I know that you love another, and that you are ashamed of me. I tried so hard to make you happy. There is but one thing more I can do for you. You will find in the safe a deed of gift for the Golden Hope. I hope you will be very happy. You did love me a little, for a time, did you not, my husband? Goodbye." And then at the end, the little scrawl, "Betty." Slowly Lord Cecil placed the note in the pocket of his coat. "I will find you, my own, though it be at the ends of the earth, and shut you up in my heart," he whispered. "And as for whosoever has done this thing " The words were checked, but in his smouldering eyes was death. XII FATE S TANGLED THREADS Suddenly, as the sunshine of a day in June may be blotted out by the thunder-cloud that rolls inward from the sea, the joyousness that had lighted up the ancient halls of Croftlaigh was smothered beneath a pall of sorrow and mysterious fear. The servants, who had quickly come to love the young mistress who brought to the old Manor happiness and prosperity, when both had long been absent, moved about silently, and questioned each other with frightened eyes, for none knew or could guess the nature of the calamity that had befallen, and not even James dared to mention to the haggard master the name of the vanished mistress. All day long Lord Cecil, with blank and drawn face, sat in his library, and telegraph messengers came and went ceaselessly, as well as men whose brisk steps and sharp, cold glances were evidence to the observing of their trade. But one order had been issued to the domestics that absolute silence concerning affairs at Croftlaigh should be preserved, and so well had the veil of secrecy been maintained, that no hint had reached the world that Lady Betty Cecil had disappeared. Almost heartbroken, tormented by fear of what might have befallen the girl, absolutely without clue to her intentions or whereabouts, knowing only, through the confession of the maid, that Betty had been the victim of a malignant conspiracy engineered by the Countess Lurovich, Lord Cecil was forced to an agonizing inactivity, while a score of the best private de tectives in England maintained a relentless but fruitless search. Since the hour of her flight from Croftlaigh, following what 117 118 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER she believed to be the discovery of the fact that Cecil not only did not love her, but regarded her as a cause for shame, to be hidden from his world, Betty had been sunk in the apathy of utter misery. Her fate was to her a matter of complete in difference, and without interest or question she allowed herself to be borne away by the gloating Mr. Carson, whose satisfac tion at the thought that he would soon have in his control the "Golden Hope" was scarcely less than that he would wreak a deadly revenge upon Lord Cecil, and that Betty, whom he regarded as a traitor and ingrate and hated with all the malice of which his mean soul was capable, was now completely in his power. It was his full intention, once the mine was safely and finally in his possession, to abandon her to the most terrible fate he could provide. Meanwhile, he played to perfection the part of the faithful and forgiving protector played it so well that Betty, her mind dulled by grief, accepted him as she had when a child, as a kind foster-father, and reproached herself that she had ever doubted him. She took no note of the country through which the speeding car passed, nor did she trouble to ask the name of the city which they presently en tered Whitehaven. Neither did she concern herself that the mean little hotel to which Carson proceeded directly, and where they were evidently expected, was situated in a section along the waterfront which eveu a stranger would have recog nized as a region of sordid poverty and a breeding place of crime. Once within this house, Betty was, though unaware of the fact, a closely guarded prisoner. Believing that all regular transportation routes would be watched, it was Carson s intention to remain in hiding for a while, and then with Betty steal away on some tramp vessel of such character that motives and methods of passengers would not be questioned. Such an one, he had been informed, was almost ready i. to put to sea. Meanwhile he set himself to the task of fixing in Betty s FATE S TANGLED THREADS 119 mind the idea that, while he would otherwise be rejoiced at her leaving him, Lord Cecil would, for the sake of her fortune, make desperate efforts to find her and drag her back to lead the humiliating existence cf a despised and hidden wife. "No, he wouldn t want me back- -there would be no need," Betty said dully. "I left for him all he wanted of me the Golden Hope. " It required all his gambler s training to keep the panic, fury and greed which suddenly swept through Carson from being mirrored in his face and sounding in his voice. Betty, sitting with bowed head, did not observe the struggle, or the pause before he said in an easy manner: "Left him the Hope ? What do you mean, Betty?" The girl did not raise her eyes. "I left it for him," she responded, "because I loved him. I gave it to him. I left a deed of gift, and an order to the bank. I didn t want it what would a fortune do for me, since it did not secure the only thing in all the world I desired his love?" It was a frightful blow to Carson to learn that, instead of being a millionairess, Betty had made herself penniless, yet the mind of the most successful confidence man in Nevada worked swiftly, and in an instant was engaged in rearranging his plans. No longer valuable for herself, Betty might still be worth much for what she would bring. Lord Cecil loved her, and would strip himself of his wealth in order to regain her. Obviously, therefore, the thing to do was to get to a remote and safe place, and hold Betty for ransom. Meanwhile, she must be duped into believing that secrecy and flight were necessary. Mr. Carson assumed a sympathetic manner. "Never you mind, Betty," he said soothingly. "Old Monte always has stood by you, and he won t quit you now. We got to be mighty careful, though, and slip out of this country first chance we get. You wouldn t w r ant him to make you go back 120 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER and live at Croftlaigh, knowin how he feels about you, would you, now?" "I would rather die!" the girl cried bitterly. Course you would any girl with a mite o pride would!" Mr. Carson agreed. "But," he addei, "this here Lord Cecil, the way I figure it, would rather have you there keep you hid down in the country while he galavants all around than have folks ask where is his wife and he not be able to say. Sure as a gun s iron, he ll try to find you and make you go back, and now that you know all about the way he carries on, he wont take the trouble to hide it, like he done before." She looked at him with miserable appeal. "Then he mustn t find me, Monte," she said miserably. "I couldn t, I couldn t stand it, to have him look at me, and feel that he despised me!" "That ll be all right then," Mr. Carson told her, with inward satisfaction and outward sympathy. "I wont let him find you, if you just stay here in your room till I get things fixed for us to slip away. You better get rid of them clothes there might be a description out. Give em to the maid. I ll buy you a suit that ll stand travel better." "All right, Monte," Betty responded wearily. The days dragged miserably along at Croftlaigh, with no word of the vanished mistress, though Cecil had increased to 5,000 the reward offered for information as to her whereabouts, and there was no reasonable doubt that she was still in England; as Carson had surmised, every passenger steamer sailing from the kingdom had been watched. Slowly the horrible thought that she might be dead began to force itself upon Cecil, leaving him pallid with silent agony. As he sat thus, waiting for the news that did not come, a sudden commotion outside the house caused him to spring to his feet, every nerve tense. An instant FATE S TANGLED THREADS 121 later there burst into the room an aged woman whom he recog nized as the holder of one of the ancient cottages of his estate, and who cast at his feet the bundle of unthreshed grain which she carried, and fell upon her knees. "Succor, Lord! The Sword of Swarthmore is Croftlaigh s Shield!" she cried, and, instinctively, as had done his fathers for six hundred years, the eighteenth Earl of Swarthmore placed his hand upon her head, and responded as they had done to the feudal appeal: "Swarthmore shields! In seed, in stalk, in ear and sheaf, the Croftlaigh corn is mine to keep. Speak on." It was a commonplace tale, to tell which the old woman had invoked the ancient right of Croftlaigh s people to instant speech with their overlord Meg, the old woman s daughter, had been stolen away. Lured and coaxed by an artful stranger, she had jilted Ned Alwine, a Croftlaigh man and Cecil s chauffeur, and had promised to run away, but at the last moment her fears and conscience had triumphed, and she had refused. Then the stranger and another had seized upon her, by force had dragged her, struggling and crying, to the waiting motor car, and sped away. Cecil recalled the girl sweet and fair as a hawthorne bud, with the clean heart and gentle ways of the maidens who glean in the Westmoreland fields. His eyes blazed with sudden fire. "Touch not the Croftlaigh maids," was a saying when the men-at-arms of raiding barons were wont to give each other good advice some centuries before. "By force they took her?" he demanded. "I swear it, My Lord! The child fought, and cried to me and I could not save her! The west road they went, My Lord!" Cecil turned away sharply. "The motor at once!" he ordered, and James, who had not dared prevent the entrance of one bearing the symbol of the Iv2 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER unthie-,htd grain, but who had hovered uneasily in the back ground, hurried to transmit the order. "Be comforted. The maid shall come back to you, un harmed," Lord Cecil said, and strode out, leaving the old woman muttering blessings. For the time being, Cecil s own sorrows were forgotten. The traditions and instincts handed down through the ages had cast their commands upon him to abandon all else until he had rendered the protection demanded of his lordship, though the one in peril might be the meanest of his vassals. Not five minutes had elapsed before Lord Cecil s motor was roaring along the road toward the coast, with white faced Ned Alwine gripping the wheel. Mile after mile the chase continued without the quarry being once sighted, but at each village and hamlet Cecil was told that a speeuii a car had preceeded him by a quarter hour by ten minutes by five minutes. Fast as the fugitives were moving, they were being overtaken. In Kenswick an outraged con stable pointed to the dust that hung in the air, and by Derwent Water the machine was in sight, and evidently aware that it WPS being pursued, for its speed was increased. Slowly, however, the distance between the racing cars was cut down until not more than fifty yards intervened. Suddenly one of the occupants of the leading machine rose, knelt upon the seat and rapidly emptied a revolver. Cecil could hear the bullets humming harmlessly above his head. One, however, was not high, but found its mark and the speeding machine yawed wildly as the tire exploded. A yell of triumph came back as the fleeing car disappeared over the next hilltop. Despite the delay necessary to change the tire, the pusuit remained a hot one, though the quarry was not again sighted until the suburbs of Whitehaven were reached and speed was reduced to the legal requirements, the abductors not daring to FATE S TANGLED THREADS 123 risk attracting the attention of the police, and perhaps thinking Lord Cecil had not been able to make up the time lost. Before the latter could close up, they were in the heavy traffic of the city, and it was only possible to keep the fugitives in sight. At length the chase drew into the squalid region near the waterfront, and Cecil turned a corner just in time to see the form of a girl lifted from the machine and borne quickly into a small and repellent hotel by the man who had used his revolver, the car itself moving swiftly away. Followed by Ned Alwine, Cecil dashed into the forbidding house, unopposed, and, following the sound of stumbling foot steps, climbed to the second story, gaining the head of the stair quickly enough to note the room into which the girl they sought was carried. As they burst open the door, the abductor crashed through the window, in frantic determination to escape. The girl Meg lay where she had been dropped upon the floor. "Take her up and carry her to the car," Cecil ordered, and sprang to the window, which looked directly upon the wharves. The abductor had disappeared, but Cecil caught his breath chokingly as his eyes fell upon another figure. Betty was just seating herself in a shabby motorboat, into which Carson also was lowering himself. "Betty!" Cecil cried wildly, and for an instant the girl raised her eyes to his, then quickly turned her head. Carson, with a startled oath, spoke sharp y to his ruffianly pilot, and the next instant the motorboat shot away from the shore. Cecil was hah* out of the window before Ned Alwine s re straining grasp fell upon him. "Don t, M Lud!" the man implored; "It is too igh! Take the stair, M Lud!" Cecil stared dazedly for an instant, then turned his eyes toward Meg. "Take_the girl home!" he ordered, and dashed from the room 124 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER "Aye, I ll take thee home, lassie, and God be thanked thee s saved to me," Ned muttered, and raised the girl in his arms. Her eyes suddenly opened wide with terror, but closed in con tent when they had rested upon the kindly face bent low above her own. "I knew thee d come, Ned," the girl murmured softly. "Kiss me, laddie, for thou art my own true love, and I will be a good wife to thee if thou art still of mind to wed." It was a matter of but moments before Lord Cecil had left the house and reached the dock at the rear, but already the motorboat had disappeared in the crowded shipping and the growing darkness. XIII THROUGH DESPERATE HAZARDS Night settled swiftly over the harbor of Whitehaven, making mystery and fairyland of the dark water and crowded shipping on which the riding-lights were already gleaming. Here and there motorboats moved swiftly, but whether any one of these was the one in which he had seen the wife who was blindly fleeing from his love, Lord Cecil s straining sight could not determine. Effort seemed futile, yet inactivity was impossible, and without any coherent idea, he left the pierhead on which he had stood in agonized uncertainty and hurried along the line of deserted wharves. Suddenly Cecil s searching eyes fastened upon the figure of a woman, near the end of one of the piers, silhouetted darkly against the faint glow that still lingered in the sky above the Irish Sea, and his heart leaped as for an instant longing gave color to actuality and the stranger appeared in the shape of Betty. A moment later he realized his mistake and was about to hurry on when some unaccountable impulse caused him to turn sharply and move swiftly but silently toward the woman, who was oblivious to his approach. As he drew near, he could see that she was no longer young, and weeping had disfigured her patient, lined face. The neat, cheap garments of a past fashion marked her as of the fiercely respectable and finan cially pinched middle class a teacher of music, or the keeper of a notion shop possibly, in some country town. She was praying silently, with clinched hands and tightly shut eyes. Suddenly, with a gasp of terror, she stepped to the edge of the planking, and for an instant wavered on the brink below * 125 126 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER which the black water lapped sullenly against the piles. With a flash of comprehension, Cecil leaped forward. In all the forty years of her drab-colored life nothing of poetry or romance had come to Sarah Gray. Sunshine itself seemed to stagnate in the dull little town, and the souls of the villagers were as cramped and prosaic as the existence they led. No one remembered that Sarah Gray had once been a girl, or could have dreamed that her heart still hungered fiercely for the love that had never come its way, and that in the seclusion of her poor little chamber her faded cheek still could glow rosy red as fancy placed softly upon it a lover s kiss such as it had never known. Day after day she trod with outward resignation her appointed path, striving with pathetic earnestness to kindle in grubby little girls the divine flame of music of which she herself had but a tiny spark; tending her aged and half invalid mother, and saving always saving, pinching pence from scanty shillings against the time when she could earn no more. Always dogging her footsteps was that horror which besets friendless women of her age and station the terror of penniless and dependent old age. The cottage in which she and her mother made their home was her own, a legacy from her dead father s brother, and even pence when faithfully gleaned for twenty years mount into guineas. The value of the cottage and her savings together amounted to some 800, a sum sufficient to guarantee comfort to the old mother as long as she might live and to give reasonable assurance that Sarah herself might maintain her skimping independence until the end. Sarah Gray was eminently respectable, even according to Dullwich standards. Once each quarter the curate took tea at her cottage, and the banker remembered her name and pompously bowed when he met her upon the street. Her THROUGH DESPERATE HAZARDS 127 familiar conduct with the stranger was therefore as inexplicable as it was shocking. The man was obviously a foreigner, which fact, as the wife of the greengrocer pointed out, made the affair patently disgraceful, Sarah Gray being old enough to know what sort of morals foreigners had. Within a week the music teacher was without pupils. The stranger had appeared, from no one knew where, and lodged himself at the White Falcon Inn. His name, he had given Landlord Higgs to understand, was Captain Lars Pieter- son. His business he kept to himself, which, in Dullwich, was highly suspicious if not actual proof of rascality, and the facts that he was handsome, with a taking way, and apparently possessed of money in abundance counted heavily against him. By what bold means he made the acquaintance of Sarah Gray could not be learned. In fact, the first intimation of the scandal was the breath-taking spectacle of the stranger calmly entering the Gray cottage, at the door of which he was warmly greeted. To Sarah those were dream-days. To her at last had come romance. Incredible, almost terrifying, unimaginably sweet, love had swiftly developed from an apparently chance acquain tance w r ith Captain Pieterson. That he, handsome, traveled, and seemingly wealthy, should find her desirable filled Sarah Gray with amazement and tender gratitude. She was abso lutely indifferent to, almost unconscious of, the stern disapproval of Dullwich, and listened with beating heart to the masterful plans of her lover. They would go to America, he told her, where he had large interests and where he desired to establish his permanent home. Her old mother would be left in the care of some good people at Dullwich until they had established themselves, when they would return for her. Sarah would sell the cottage, draw her savings from the bank, and meet him in Whitehaven, where they would be married and then sail in his 128 THE BELOVfiD ADVENTURER own ship to the land of wealth and happiness. And then he went away, telling her to follow as soon as she had arranged for her mother and disposed of the cottage. Unquestioningly Sarah Gray carried out the suggestions made to her. The cottage was sold, and arrangements made whereby the new owners would keep the old mother as a boarder until the daughter returned for her. Then, with nearly 900 in her handbag she hurried joyously to White- haven, and there occurred what one more worldly-wise than Sarah Gray would have guessed would be the end of her belated romance. It was a good scheme, Captain Pieterson had frequently asserted to his intimates, and one which he invariably worked when his tramp schooner lay long enough in any port of the Seven Seas, to make love to an old maid with a little money, get the money in his pocket, and then brutally give the woman to understand that she had been tricked. Generally they drowned themselves, and matters were satisfactorily concluded. It wasn t often that one tried to make a fuss, he having a pretty talent for selecting those who wouldn t, and if they tried it they found it difficult to procure sufficient evidence to move the authorities to a world-wide search, and he always waited until his schooner was raising her anchor to let the woman in on the joke. Sarah Gray, it seemed, belonged in the category of those who drowned themselves the contemptuous crushing of her love, the loss of the little fortune that represented the painful pinching of half a lifetime, the knowledge that never again could she earn a shilling in her native place, the thought that her old mother must die in the poor-house, to which she herself would in the end be forced to turn for refuge combining to make life a horror compared to which death in the black water seemed a happiness. THROUGH DESPERATE HAZARDS 129 It was Sarah Gray whom Lord Cecil snatched back from the edge of the pier, and from whom he soon extracted the essential facts of her pitiful story. "This man s ship has not yet sailed?" Cecil asked, his lips drawing into a hard line. "Not yet, I think," she answered dully. "There has not been time for Captain Pieterson to get aboard. He had just left me when when you came, and went in a rowboat. The ship The Najhoy was anchored far out, I heard him say." "Then come!" Cecil ordered, and hurried the unresisting woman away. Further along the line of wharves a waterman was just mooring his nondescript motorboat. He nodded indifferently when Cecil demanded if his craft was for hire, and cast off the line he had made fast. "Where to?" he grunted as Cecil and Sarah Gray seated themselves on the uncushioned boards. The woman seemed to have resigned herself to Cecil s charge, and docilely and without question followed his directions. "Alongside The Najhoy, schooner in the outer harbour," was the direction given, and the boat slipped away at a speed somewhat better than her appearance would have led one to hope for. Before the motorboat had reached the outer anchorage, however, The Najhoy s captain had climbed aboard, the an chor had been brought home, and the schooner had started to beat out to open sea. By the time she was sighted, she was clearing the harbour mouth and with all sails drawing was slipping away at a good speed into the southwest. "She be gone," the waterman remarked indifferently, point ing to the receding vessel. "Can you catch her?" Cecil demanded, the ominous tighten ing of lips still in evidence. 130 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER "For ten pounds, belike," the boatman responded, with a calculating gleam in his eyes, "but not before un be ten mile off shore." "Do it," Cecil ordered shortly, and the man s fingers closed greedily upon the ten-pound note thrust into his hand. "Be n t no boat in harbour can touch un," the man said pridefully. "Now you watch un go!" The launch carried no lights, and the underwater exhaust was practically silent. Like a swift shadow it sped on after the schooner, now distinguishable only by the gleam of her lanterns between the darkness of sea and sky. The waters were at rest, only gentle, unbreaking swells undulating the surface. It would be possible to run alongside the schooner as easily as though she lay at anchor in an inland lake. "I wish to get aboard without being seen run alongside, and be silent," Cecil whispered, when the dark mass of the ship was not fifty yards ahead, and the boatman, greedily thinking that this night s work might yield still another ten pounds if he rightly played his cards, nodded, and reduced the speed of his motor so that his craft was barely exceeding in its rate of progression that of the schooner. A few moments later the side of the vessel towered above them, and as they slid along it, Cecil s outstretched hand touched the planks. Presently his fingers closed upon a rope, and he realized with satisfac tion that it was one vertical of a boarding ladder which had not yet been taken up. In an instant he had grasped it and lifted himself clear of the motorboat. "Wait!" he ordered, and clambered swiftly over the schooner s rail. The deck was deserted, except for the lookout forward and the man at the wheel, and the eyes of the latter were aloft. Cecil stole along the shadow of the deckhouse toward a window from which came a bar of light and the sound of voices. Cau- THROUGH DESPERATE HAZARDS 131 tiously peering in, he could see a man wham he correctly judged to be Captain Pieterson and another whom he took to be the mate. "Usual luck ashore, Cap n?" the mate enquired with a leer. "Not so bad not so bad," Pieterson responded with a chuckle, and tossed a packet of banknotes upon the shelf under the window. "Eight hundred and seventy pounds that ll mean four thousand three hundred and fifty good dollars when we tie up at New York." "I reckon you ain t takin that powder in the forward hold to New York?" the mate suggested casually. Captain Pieterson eyed him with sudden suspicion. "We cleared for New York, didn t we?" he demanded. "Oh, I wasn t tryin to horn in don t make no difference to me where we go I draw my pay by the month," the mate hastened to declare. He turned to go, and Pieterson followed him with his eyes. Instantly Cecil s long arm was thrust through the window, and as quickly withdrawn, with Sarah Gray s fortune grasped in his hand. Swiftly he moved back to the rail at the point where the ladder hung, and was in the act of climbing over when a wild yell of fury burst from the deck house, telling that Captain Pieterson had discovered his loss. At the same instant powerful hands seized upon Cecil from behind. "I got im, Cap n here be the thief!" a voice bellowed at his ear. Vainly Cecil strove to free himself from that iron grasp. Men were rushing from every direction, and an unmuffled volley of oaths told that Pieterson had gained the deck. Forced against the rail, Cecil was directly above the motorboat, and could see Sarah Gray looking up at him with frightened eyes. He dropped the packet of notes into her lap. "It s your money get away go!" he shouted, and the 132 THE BELOVfiD ADVERTURER waterman, desiring to get well clear of the trouble that had broken out aboard the schooner, opened his throttle wide. The launch leaped forward and disappeared. Captain Pieterson was charging along the deck, bawling curses and waving a revolver. Suddenly he stopped as though paralyzed, and the weapon dropped unheeded from his nerve less hand. A shrill cry had cut through the confusion like a lightning flash, thrilling with terror: "Fire in the for d hold!" Even as the cry rang out, a column of smoke poured from the still open forward cargo hatch. "To the boats! For your lives! The for d cargo is powder!" Lars Pieterson shouted, and led the panic-stricken rush that followed, by which Cecil, forgotten, was hurled aside. With incredible swiftness the schooner s two boats were lowered, the men tumbled in, and the oars tore the water into foam. Already the flames, feeding on some highly inflammable material, were leaping from the hatch, and the explosion of the powder might be expected at any instant. Cecil looked about hastily with the idea of securing some article which would serve as a support in the water, and tore open a deck house door with the intention of wrenching it from its hinges. Fac ing him from the interior of the cabin was Betty, her eyes wide with alarm and uncertainty. Before Cecil could recover from his astonishment the girl sprang forward and pushed him violently aside. At the same instant a revolver cracked behind him, and the bullet brushed his temple. Whirling about, Cecil recognized the malicious face of Monte Carson, contorted by rage and lit up by the red glare of the fire forward. It was The Najhoy that Carson had selected for the escape of himself and Betty from England, and, as a precaution, both had kept to their cabins since coming aboard. Carson, feeling THROUGH DESPERATE HAZARDS 133 that the strain was over and that the immediate future did not require his close personal supervision, had immediately indulged in a quart of Irish whiskey, with the result that he did not immediately rouse at the noise on deck, appearing only at the same instant that Cecil opened the door to Betty s cabin. To Carson s befuddled mind there came but one thought that by some means Cecil had tracked them and was about to recover possession of the girl, and that he, Carson, would again suffer the humiliation of defeat. Also, vaguely, he realized that if Cecil should be killed, Betty, as his widow, w^ould re cover the fortune she had thrown away. It would be gratify ing to his hate and advantageous to his interest to kill Cecil, and the opportunity seemed to present itself. His first mur derous shot failing its mission, Carson took refuge behind the charthouse. "He will kill you! Shoot him!" Betty cried, and stretched out her hands to Cecil in an agony of appeal. "But I haven t a gun, y know!" Cecil stammered. "Oh, Betty girl From his cover Mr. Carson tried another shot, and Cecil s left arm went suddenly limp and useless. "Oh, God!" Betty moaned. Her despairing eyes flashed frantic searching glances about the vessel, seeking for some thing that might serve as a weapon. On the open deck, gleam ing in the light of the flames, was Pieterson s revolver, and with a choking cry that was a prayer of thanksgiving she sprang forward and caught it up. "Now!" she panted, and thrust the weapon into Cecil s hand. "Don t look, beloved," he whispered gently, and sprang across the deck so that the corner of the house no longer gave shelter to the gambler. Two shots blended their reports, and 134 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER Monte Carson crumpled and fell, a bullet through his heart. Cecil threw aside his smoking revolver, and with a happy smile turned to Betty, and held out his one good arm. "It is over," he said simply. "For what he has done to you he deserved a hundred deaths. Now you must come back to my heart." Slowly she drew near until, leaning against his breast, she looked deep into his eyes. Suddenly her own filled with tears, and she clung to him, sobbing happily. "You do love me, my own," she whispered, "and I have never caused you shame. I would have known, if I had waited to look into your eys. I do not understand it all, but I do know I have been deceived, and that I will never doubt your love again as long as we live." "We are not to live, sweetheart," Cecil told her tenderly. She did not blanch, but pressed closer against him. The flames forward were now leaping high. "You mean we can not escape from the ship?" she asked. "I am not afraid, and we will be together," she added softly. "How long will it be before it comes?" "At any moment," he told her gravely. "If I were not wounded I might save you, but with one arm, I can not. Kiss me, be loved, and we will await it with a smile." Instantly her arms were about his neck in a clinging caress, and her lips were pressed to his. The motorboat had not gone a hundred yards from the schooner s side when the cry of fire and the following panic- stricken departure of the crew caused the waterman to urge his motor to its highest speed in order that he might be at a safe distance when the explosion which seemed to be expected oc curred. At a quarter mile vantage he came to a stop, in order to watch what promised to be interesting developments. The reports of revolvers came faintly, and he scratched his head THROUGH DESPERATE HAZARDS 135 wonderingly. Then, as the flames mounted, there could clearly be distinguished the forms of Lord Cecil and Betty, and the waterman gasped. "They uns didn t get away him as come wi us, an a lass," he said. "They ll be blown up, belike!" Sarah Gray stared at the burning ship with horror. "We must save them he went there for my sake!" she cried. "Go back!" The waterman stolidly shook his head. "Ship may blow up any minute," he declared. "I wouldn t go along side, not for fifty pound!" "I will give you a hundred see?" Sarah Gray cried, and thrust before his dazzled eyes a handful of bank notes. Without a word he seized the notes, crammed them into his pocket, and started the motor. "Every man must die sometime," he muttered, "an* might as well be for a hunner pound as for nothin at all, mayhap!" As the boat shot into the illumination cast by the flames, Cecil tightened his clasp about Betty s shoulders, and a smile lit up his face. "After all, sweetheart, we may live," he whispered, and hur ried her to the ladder that hung over the rail. Three minutes later, when they were half a mile away and headed for Whitehaven port, a great pillar of flame leaped into the sky, and then, where had been the burning schooner was only^the black water. XIV A PERILOUS PASSAGE Three months had passed since Lord Cecil and Betty re turned to Croftlaigh and a happiness even greater than that which they had known when they had first entered the old house hand in hand. Then they had been wrapped in the thrill ing mantle of tender passion and mutual adoration, but at their second home-coming stronger and deeper emotions, as like the first as the broad river sweeping majestically to the sea is like the leaping mountain torrent, enfolded them in a glory of happiness. In those moments when, clasped in each other s arms, they had stood upon the deck of the burning ship and thought that death was at hand, the soul of each had stood clearly revealed, and now between them was a com plete and perfect understanding which would endure to the end of their lives. On a day when the leaves of the ancient oaks were drifting lazily down to lie in rustling heaps of brown and gold, Cecil entered the library where Betty sat reading, and with an air of delighted mysteriousness asked her to come out and welcome a visitor. "But we don t want any visitor. We are more happy when ju.st we are here," Betty pouted. "I fancy you ll want this one, but he doesn t have to stay if you don t, y know," Cecil said smilingly, and with his arm about her shoulders led her from the room. "You were fooling me!" Betty declared indignantly, when they had reached the front of the house and no one appeared upon the steps or lawn. Suddenly she caught her breath in a little gasp of delight and astonishment. 137 138 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER "Oh, you darling! It s Pinto!" she cried joyously, as her eyes fell upon a pony wearing the saddle and bridle familiar to the cowboys of the Western world. Gurgling with pure happiness she danced forward and threw her arms about the horse s neck. "How did you ever guess I missed him?" she demanded, as Cecil lazily joined her. "He was the only bit of the old life I longed for," she added softly, "and now you have brought him to me, all the way from Nevada, and across the ocean!" A little line of worry appeared on her brow. "I hope he likes England," she said anxiously. "/ do, of course, because I have you, but a pony used to going fifty miles straight across country without hitting a fence is going to feel awfully cramped here!" However, Pinto seemed a contented emigrant, and cheer fully enough reduced his gallop of the old days to an easy lope as more adapted to the hedged lanes and park-like bridle paths about Croftlaigh. Betty readopted the quaint little frontierish riding garb, contending that Pinto liked her better so, and a coiled lariat hung from the saddle. Every day she rode for an hour, usually alone, Cecil being deeply engaged in the task of straightening up his involved financial affairs and negotiating for the purchase of lands sold by the family during the past three generations, it being Betty s wish that all the wide acres which had once belonged to Croftlaigh should be recovered. "Lady Betty" was known and loved by every cottager within a radius of ten miles. Ready for one of her rambling rides, Betty, as usual, went to the library, where Cecil was accustomed to work, to say good bye. As she entered the room, she realized that Cecil was not alone, and would have withdrawn had he not called her name. With a sinking heart she noted that his face was grave and troubled. Collapsed miserably in a chair was a handsome, sun- A PERILOUS PASSAGE 139 tanned young man who pulled himself together with an effort and rose as she came forward. Cecil placed his hand upon the other man s shoulder with a kindly smile. "This is my nephew, Bob Stanley, Betty," he told her. "He is in serious trouble, and I wish you to hear all the facts. We will call it a family council," he added, smiling a little sadly. When they had seated themselves, Cecil nodded gravely to Bob. "I only understand the general situation," he said. "Please begin at the beginning, and tell us the entire tale." Briefly, the story was as follows: Captain Robert Stanley had, two months before, been the senior surviving officer when the ragged remnants of a British column cut its bloody way to the heart of the fierce little out law kindgom of Gokaral, hidden away in the Himalayan Mountains, and stormed the palace from which had eminated the orders that had spread desolation along the Border, and it was to Captain Stanley that the Maharajah gravely offered his jeweled sword. Now, it is not god for the future peace of the Indian Empire that such an one as the Bang of Gokaral, who had a son that would reign in his stead, should be unduly humiliated, and Captain Stanley, devoutly trusting that his unauthorized act would meet the approval of the Powers that were, begged His Majesty to keep his blade as a boon from the Emperor of India. The Maharajah returned the steel to its gold sheath. "Had you touched it," he said, "mine honour would have been touched, and my son, the Maharaj, and his sons after him, would have continued a blood-feud against the English. You serve your King and Emperor wisely as well as with a stout sword. Wherefore you are fit to bear the message and 140 THE BELOVfiD ADVENTURER token of a King to a King. And the message is this: Be cause it is obviously the will of God seeing that your hand ful have overcome my thousands that the Emperor of In dia be overlord of Gokaral, the Maharajah will be faithful vassal in the Emperor s palace, though still King in his own. And for token I will send the Star of Gokaral. Take it and go, and bring me back the answer of my liege lord, the King of Great Britain and Emperor of India." Captain Stanley was almost dazed at the completeness of his triumph. To have carried to a satisfactory conclusion the puni tive expedition in face of the resistance offered was much to return bearer of the allegiance of the kingdom that had de fied authority from the earliest days of English occupation was a dazzling consummation made the more astounding by the token he was to bear. Not a man in Asia but had heard of the Star of Gokaral. It was not merely a State jewel it was the embodied authority of the State. Where it rested abode the fealty of Gokaral. The fact that it was a jewel of inestimable value, consisting of nineteen perfect blue diamonds, each as large as the Star of India, was a small matter compared to its political significance. When Captain Stanley had buttoned the flat case containing the glittering thing inside his jacket, he realized that over his heart was that for the possession of which the great empire to the North would have given the lives of a half million men and treasure heaped beyond all dreams. What he did not know was that before he had turned his back on the palace, a spy of the Empire of the North was speeding to give the word that the Star had been given into the hands of the English Captain Stanley. The Government of India was good enough to express itself as officially pleased at Captain Stanley s verbal report, and in due course he departed for England to deliver the royal message and token. The latter would disappear forever from the sight A PERILOUS PASSAGE 141 of man, being consigned to a certain safe which is the grave of many wonderful things, but its power would extend with un- diminished force across the seas. The Government of India would have preferred a courier of its own selection, but one does not run the risk of irritating a newly won kingdom by substituting another for a messenger who has been personally delegated to bear the word of its king. Messenger and token might have disappeared en route. Though he felt vaguely that he was being watched, Captain Stanley encountered no unusual experience upon his long voy age, and assumed the watchers, if any existed, to be agents of the Indian Government assigned to the task of secretly afford ing protection to that which he carried. Some of them were, which accounted for the uneventful voyage. Captain Stanley duly landed in England, and heaved a sigh of relief. His responsibility had lain heavily upon him, and he felt that now practically all danger was past. He hurried from the dock, intent upon catching an early train to London. As he stepped into the roadway a motor car charged swiftly, and to avoid being run down he stepped hastily back, directly into the path of another which sprang forward from the op posite direction. Rendered unconscious by the blow received from the second motor, he fell to the pavement between the cars, both of which had come to a quick stop. From the first alighted a handsomely gowned woman, who for an instant knelt beside the prostrate man, apparently in solicitous examina tion. Seemingly satisfied that he was not badly hurt, she returned to her machine and had reseated herself by the time an officer reached the scene of the accident. The occupant of the car which had struck down the soldier appeared to be over whelmed with regret, and at the same time anxious that no one else should be held in the slightest degree responsible for the affair. At his suggestion Captain Stanley was placed in his 142 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER car, the police officer also getting in, and the car was driven rapidly to the nearest hospital, where examination disclosed the fact that Stanley s injuries were not great, and that he would probably regain consciousness in an hour or so. The gentleman then gave his card to the officer, and was allowed to depart. Of these latter facts, Stanley had been informed by the of ficer himself, who had not considered it necessary to take the name of the woman in the second automobile, the gentleman having assumed all blame for the accident. It was later dis covered that no such address as that appearing on his card existed, and the name also appeared to be fictitious. The im portant point was that the Star of Gokaral had disappeared. It had obviously been taken by the unknown woman, and as obviously the whole affair had been a cleverly executed plot. Before reporting the loss of the token to his superiors, Bob had hurried to seek the advice and support of his uncle, Lord Cecil. "It is evident that those people knew I had the Star, and no common criminals could possibly have known. They must be the secret agents of the only government that could possibly desire the thing. This may mean a terrible calamity to the Empire," Bob groaned. "My God! What is to be done?" he added wildly, and his appealing eyes rested first on Lord Cecil and then upon Betty. "By Jove, I don t know!" Cecil answered in helpless distress, and lapsed into troubled pondering. Bob seemed sunk fathoms deep in miserable musing. Unnoticed by either of the men, Betty rose and slipped from the room. She felt that if any idea was to come to her, it would come the more readily in the open air. She would, she thought, ride, as she had originally planned, and leave some medicine at the cottage of a sick laborer. Instead of mounting, Betty thrust her arm through the pony s A PERILOUS PASSAGE 143 rein, and walked slowly, lost in thought. She passed out of the grounds, presently, into a lane which was a passage deeply carpeted with turf and walled high by hedges. The horse s and her own footfalls were silent, and the thick hedges completely concealed them from view by anyone not in the lane itself. Suddenly she came to an abrupt stop, her face white with hatred. From the other side of the hedge came a mocking voice that she recognized that of the woman who had come so near, with the aid of the dead Carson, to breaking the hearts and ruining the lives of Lord Cecil and herself The Countess Lurovich. "My dear Duke, calm yourself," the Countess was saying. "The affair has been wonderfully successful, and I am sure that we were not recognized. From here we must walk through the fields to the cliffs. The boat which will convey you to the yacht is hidden hi a little fjord. When you step into that boat, and not before, I will place in your hands the Star of Gokaral, as w r ere His Majesty s orders. The pretty thing! It is a pity that it is of so much political importance I would like to wear it." "For heaven s sake, be careful what you say, and let us get on to the boat!" a man responded nervously, and then the voices receded. Betty s heart leaped. Fate had placed it in her power not only to wreak a just revenge on this woman, but to serve her husband s country and his nephew whom he loved, by recov ering the stolen Star of Gokaral. Or had she this power? Betty s first impulse was to mount Pinto and gallop to the Manor for Cecil and Bob, but before she touched a stirrup the idea was abandoned. It was but a short way to the cliff-lined coast, and there were a hundred fissures and canyon-like inlets where a boat might be hidden. Before she could secure aid 144 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER and locate the particular fjord for which the conspirators were heading, they might make good their escape. There was nothing to do but follow them, and trust to circumstances to afford her an opportunity for successful action. Bitterly she regretted the absence of the little revolver that had swung at her hip in the old days in Nevada. To one who had stalked antelope on almost leafless and table-like plains, there was no difficulty in following closely and unobserved through this hedged and ditched land. Very soon Betty saw the Countess and her companion disappear as though they had been swallowed by the earth, and she knew that they had descended one of the steep paths leading to the bottom of the cliffs. Hurrying forward and choosing her path so that Pinto s hoofs would not ring on the outcropping stone, Betty approached the edge of a wide fissure and cautiously peered down. Directly below, a small boat was moored against a ledge, and at the edge of the water, which was as smooth in this deep cove as that of a woodland pond, was a group of five persons the Countess, the man she had called Duke, another in the uni form of a yacht officer, and two sailors. Their voices came dis tinctly, but in a language which Betty could not understand. It was evident, however, that the Duke was eager to depart, and the officer was assuring him that the yacht to which he was to be conveyed was waiting. The Countess drew from her breast a small packet, and with a sigh of regret delivered it to the Duke, who hastily thrust it inside his buttoned coat. Betty realized that in another moment the Star of Gokaral would be forever lost to Britain while she looked helplessly on. Then, with a flash of inspiration she sprang back and caught from the saddle her coiled lariat, fastened one end to the horn of the saddle, and crept back to the edge of the cliff. As the Duke prepared to step into the waiting boat, a rope A PERILOUS PASSAGE 145 dropped, apparently from the sky, and the loop of a lasso gripped his body. The next instant, as Betty cried an order and the cow-pony lunged forward, the man was snatched from his feet and drawn rapidly up the face of the cliff. When her cap tive was within arm s reach of the top, Betty again shouted, and Pinto stood still. Lying flat upon her face, Betty reached down and from the man s breast pocket extracted the case containing the precious jewel, and from a holster swung under his armpit, a revolver. The Duke made no effort to prevent this despoilment with both hands he clutched frantically at the rope by which he dangled. With a laugh of triumph Betty sprang up, and, feeling se cure with the revolver in her hands, gave Pinto a word which caused him to drag the dangling man to the safety of the cliff top. Betty began to move tow r ard the pony, but before she had reached it there was a quick rush of feet, and the Countess, followed by the officer and sailors sprang up the path. Each held a ready weapon, and at sight of Betty, the Countess raised her revolver and fired. As Betty turned to face this attack, the Duke, who had disentangled himself from the coils of the lasso, dashed past her, reached the horse, and struck him with the flat of his hand upon the flank. With a snort of astonish ment, Pinto galloped away. Again the Countess fired, then the officer and sailors, and Betty could hear the bullets hum about her like angry bees. A little in her rear Betty saw she could find cover, and re treated hastily. There were five of the enemy, and as she had but five cartridges she was not minded to waste them. How ever, it was necessary to temporarily check the advance of the Countess party, and the girl paused to fire once. With a cry the officer dropped his revolver and staggered, clutching at his shoulder. During the confusion that followed, Betty gained the shelter of stone and furze for which she was striving. 146 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER The attackers now advanced cautiously, the Duke having possessed himself of the wounded officer s weapon, all ex cepting the Countess seeking the cover of the rocks. She stood defiantly in the open, watching for Betty to expose herself to a finishing shot. Three times Betty rested her revolver upon her rocky rampart and drew a fine sight upon the Countess breast, but each time she lowered it. "She deserves it, but I cannot do it," Betty whispered. "I can not!" The Duke and the two sailors continued their cautious ad vance, firing as they moved. Meanwhile Pinto, disdaining roads, had cut straight across the fields to Croftlaigh, and had spread wild alarm as he passed. A score of laborers recognized the pony, and were filled with horror as to what the empty saddle might bode. They hastened in the direction from whence Pinto had come. "Are you afraid of a girl?" the Countess taunted the men who still crept cautiously from rock to rock. "You, Duke? I have seen you brave enough to wear out a dog whip on a girl ere this. See, I stand in the open and do not die!" "But he can t" Betty muttered fiercely. Stung by the Coun tess scorn, the Duke incautiously raised himself, and a bullet burned a red welt across his cheek. "Charge!" the Duke yelled fiercely, but the Countess screamed a warning, and pointed inland. Rushing toward them were a score of stout rustics, and as Betty s voice rose in a cry for help, the yokels burst into a yell of fury and redoubled their speed. "To the boat!" the Countess gasped, and they fled along the edge of the cliff toward the path leading down to the water. Then occurred an incident common along the English coast, where, year by year the chalk-like cliffs are undermined by the beating waves and sucking tides. With an earth-shaking roar A PERILOUS PASSAGE 147 a great slice of the cliff face gave way under the flying feet of the conspirators, as though the very soil of Britain had been stirred to revenge upon its secret foes, and the Countess Luro- vich, the nameless Duke, the wounded officer, and the two sailors went down to death, buried forever from the sight of man. An hour later Betty softly entered the old library at Croft- laigh, where Lord Cecil and Bob still sat in dreary and hopeless conference. On the table in front of the young officer she placed a small case. "Open it," she said gently, and dully he obeyed. As his eyes rested upon what was disclosed, Bob staggered wildly to his feet, his face white. "What is it, Betty?" Cecil cried, startled at the amazing effect produced upon his nephew, whose breast was now heav ing with sobs. It was Bob who answered, as he dropped upon his knees and pressed Betty s hands to his lips. "It is the Star of Gokaral!" he whispered. XV IN PORT O DREAMS Winter had come and gone, and summer again threw its mantle of sunshine over ancient Croftlaigh and the ten thou sand broad acres of which, as in bygone years, the Earls of Swarthmore had been lords. To have been the means of re storing to her husband s house those great estates which the pinching fingers of poverty had filched away, was to Betty a source of ceaseless delight. To Lord Cecil, life was now a golden dream of love and con tentment, and Betty was happy beyond even the vague and wistful fancies that had stirred her girlish heart in the far away, lonely land of her youth. But a single cloud drifted across the blue sky of her existence and at times cast in her path a shadow. Proudly indifferent, so far as she herself was concerned, Betty, jealous for her husband s honor, could not help observing what the serene egotism of high station hid from him that no effort was made by his social equals to dis turb the seclusion which Lord and Lady Cecil had sought. A flood of invitations had followed the first announcement of Lord Cecil s marriage, but these had abruptly ceased to come, and Betty realized the significance of this that the world of society had hastily rectified its error of assuming that the woman whom the Earl of Swathmore had married could not but be a person of noble blood and high station. For herself Betty desired no social preferment the simple life which she led was all sufficient to her happiness but as Lady Cecil she could not help but feel that the noble society of which a Peer of England and his wife were naturally members simply ignored her. That her husband might in time realize this 149 150 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER fact and be shamed thereby was Betty s only fear for the future. Her native intelligence was too great for her to resent what she knew to be class prejudice cultivated and handed down through long centuries; she was quite capable of realizing that from the point of view of the Duchess of Drex, for instance, she, Betty, was a little nobody whom it would be quite impos sible to admit to social existence without violating the most sacred of the laws whereby the Duchess held her own exalted station. Just wherein lay the extraordinary influence, amounting al most to social despotism, exercised by the Duchess, would have been difficult of explanation by her most faithful sub jects, but the fact remained that to receive a nod of approval from this rather terrible old lady was to have opened to one the most jealously guarded drawing rooms of the kingdom, and not even the Queen s favor was so zealously cultivated. To be able to claim most distant blood relationship with the Duchess was sufficient to elevate a mere Baronet to the social peerage, this being perhaps largely due to the fact that such claims to relationship were very few. In her old age, the Duchess, fiercely proud, hid a lonely heart. Long years before, tragedy and sorrow had rested a heavy hand upon the haughty head of the Duchess, which had stub bornly remained unbowed, and as she never spoke the name of her daughter, her youngest child, nor those of her sons, the world had forgotten both her tragedy and her grief. But the Duchess had not forgotten that bitter day when the news came that her two gallant sons, soldiers born, and fighting for the liberty of an alien land, had died at the head of that terrible charge which made it free. Nor had time dimmed the anguish, though it had obliterated the blind rage, of that day when the Duchess had turned from her door the daughter whose love for the son of a simple country IN PORT O DREAMS 151 gentleman had bade her defy the will of her stern and ambitious mother. Since that stormy scene, the Duchess had spoken the name of her daughter, Elizabeth, to but one person, and not a word as to the girl s fate since she went away clinging to the arm of her chosen husband had reached the mother s ears. As time passed, however, the mother s heart softened, and as her head grew white, an irresistible longing for her child filled her heart. At length a trusted lawyer was called and given in structions. He was to trace the Duchess daughter, and report all facts concerning her, without, however, disclosing his iden tity or that of his employer. On receiving his report the Duchess would decide whether or not she would send word to that daughter to return to her arms. The lawyer s search was neither simple nor brief. It had been twenty years since Robert Lee and bis bride started out to face life together, and the world, not knowing that the girl ish wife was the daughter of the Duchess of Drex, had con cerned itself not at all as to their movements, and they had left but a faint trail. In the end, however, patience and money resulted in success. The lawyer followed their track across the sea, and from the Atlantic seaboard of the United States into the West. At Chicago, in Illinois, he found recorded the birth of a daughter to Robert Castleton Lee and his wife, Elizabeth, both of Westmoreland County, England, and in a Colorado mining town an aged minister led him to a neglected little churchyard and pointed out a stone on which could be read the words : "Elizabeth, wife of Robert C. Lee. Aged twenty-four years." Thus had ended the romance of the daughter of the Duchess of Drex, who might have been, had her heart not ruled other wise, the Princess of Schloss-Holenburg. The lawyer hesitated, but his orders had been to report 152 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER "all concerning" the daughter of the Duchess, and, thinking of the birth record in Illinois, he again took up the search, which now led him from city to mining camp and back again as he followed apparently aimless wanderings. Old miners and pros pectors sometimes nodded when he questioned them, spat reflectively, and said: "Bob Lee? Oh, yes, he was round here fifteen or twenty years ago had a little gal with him. He was prospectin , but never seemed to have no luck." Finally he came to the Palace Hotel, in the town of Salt Springs, Nevada, and there gleaned facts which sent him straight back to England. The lazy warmth of harvest time lay upon the land, and at Croftlaigh the tea-table had been spread in the famous old rose garden, and Betty herself was like a faintly pink rose among the other blossoms. A motor horn sounded from the drive, and the pink rose pouted. "Now who do you suppose that can be?" Betty demanded. "I don t care who it is, I m not going in," she added, and spoke to the hovering footman. "Timmons, you will bring any callers here," she said, and with a bow Timmons departed. "Couldn t say, really. Shouldn t think you would. Clever idea, by Jove quite rippin , y know!" Lord Cecil drawled. Betty stared. "Couldn t say what, and shouldn t think I would what, and what is a clever idea?" she queried. "Er, all those things you observed, my dear," he replied lazily. At this moment Timmons reappeared, and, achieving the impossible, announced with even more than his usual solemnity : "Her Grace, the Duchess of Drex!" IN PORT O DREAMS 153 The next instant the Duchess was advancing briskly, and Cecil and Betty rose to greet her. "How do, Cecil," Her Grace remarked with a casual nod toward that nobleman, and then turned with a smile toward Betty. "So this little girl is Lady Cecil," she said, and retained the hand which Betty gave her. "I had an hour to spare," she continued, "and so ran over from Drexford Castle to get ac quainted, my dear. I can t stop a minute some tiresome Prince of, I forget what, is due this afternoon, and I have to be on hand, of course." The Duchess hesitated, and looked deep into Betty s rather puzzled eyes. "I am going to kiss you, my child," she said suddenly, and her own eyes seemed misty. "I have more or less of a right to," she added whimsically, "because I am you grand mother, y know." Betty could only gasp at this startling announcement, but Cecil found words. "Oh, I say, Your Grace really, y know by Jove!" he pro tested. "You couldn t be Betty s grandmother, y know, be cause then she d be your granddaughter, by Jove!" "Well, that is just what she is!" the Duchess retorted sharply. "She is the child of my daughter, Elizabeth." Suddenly her voice grew tender, as she again turned to the girl. "I am glad you have your mother s name, my dear," she said. "I would prefer that my heiress should be so called. I can see you are perfectly happy, and so won t care, but there will be a couple of million pounds when I am gone, and there is no one to have it all but you. And I want you to try to love me a bit, my child. I am an old woman, and very lonely." 154 THE BELOVED ADVENTURER "I will indeed!" Betty cried, with a sudden rush of pity and affection, and put her arms about the old lady s neck. "There, there, now!" the Duchess exclaimed, abruptly with drawing from the embrace. "I ll have to get back to my both ersome Prince of what-y -may-call-it, but you must run over and see me soon, Betty. And you, Cecil!" she added sharply, "you are to bring her up to London when the season opens. I want to have the pleasure of creating a real sensation by pre senting at. Court a young woman with some claim to good looks!" Whereupon the Duchess of Drex hurried away, lest she should outrage the conventions of her caste by a display of the emotions that filled her heart with happiness. Still scarcely comprehending, Betty stared after the depart ing Duchess, and Cecil dazedly lighted a cigarette. "Quite extraordinary, y know by Jove, yes!" he observed with firm conviction. A month later, when the autumn sun shone straight down through the reddening leaves of the giant oaks, a silent throng gathered on the lawn before the doors of Croftlaigh villagers and cottagers, plowmen and woodsmen, all who held land under the Earl of Swarthmore were there, awaiting the fulfil ment of an ancient rite. As the clock in the distant village spire boomed the hour of noon, the portals were thrown open, and Lord Cecil stood before them. "Men of Croftlaigh," he said, "as of old time custom, and that you may know this House shall endure through the years to come, I present to you him who shall in the pleasure of God be Nineteenth Earl of Swarthmore!" He raised his hand, and into the sunlight stepped James, the body servant of His Lordship, who held upon his hands a bas- IN PORT O DREAMS 155 ket, in which lay a baby asleep in a nest of lace, undisturbed by the crashing cheers. Lord Cecil removed his hat, and once more spoke. "And to Her Ladyship," he said, "who has blessed this House with an heir, do we all give thanks and homage." Glowing like a pink pearl against the darkness of the great hall behind her, Betty came shyly to her husband s side, and took his hand and bowed, as once again the ringing cheers burst forth. "Men of Croftlaigh, I thank you," Lord Cecil said, and with the Lady Cecil upon his arm, turned to re-enter the abode that had sheltered his ancestors, and would shelter generations of his name yet to come. A 000 757 851 i