p n " . 
 
 " e
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 MONSIGNY
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 JOURNEYS END 
 THE GARDEN OF LIES
 
 Copyright, lyoz, by 
 Ess Ess Publishing Company 
 
 Copyright, iox>?, by 
 
 Doubleday, Page & Company 
 
 Published, August, 190? 
 
 An abridged version of this story was published in The Smart Set, and it 
 is issued in book form as originally written by courtesy of the publishers.
 
 TO 
 MOTHER
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter I. . . . 
 
 3 
 
 Chapter II. 
 
 . 13 
 
 Chapter III. . 
 
 o e 35 
 
 Chapter IV. , 
 
 > S3 
 
 Chapter V. . 
 
 . . . . 67 
 
 Chapter VI. . . 
 
 93 
 
 Chapter VII. . 
 
 . 113 
 
 Chapter VIII. . . 
 
 ." . . . . 133 
 
 Chapter IX. . 
 
 . 151 
 
 Chapter X. 
 
 . . . . . 165 
 
 Chapter XI. 
 
 179 
 
 Chapter XII. . 
 
 . 191 
 
 Chapter XIII. . 
 
 . 209 
 
 Chapter XIV. . 
 
 . 221
 
 LIST OF 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 " Save for her yellow golden hair, the woman in the 
 picture might have been painted with absolute 
 fidelity from the Isabeau whom he knew." Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 " They went down the curving marble steps and 
 
 stood by the little oblong pool." ... 47 
 
 " . . . knelt down beside the tomb, and said a little 
 
 prayer for the soul of her mother." ... 91 
 
 " She found herself lying upon the turf by the 
 roadside, and young Beresford on his knees 
 beside her." 174
 
 MONSIGNY
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 WHEN the twenty-first Marquis de Mon- 
 signy died, in 1875, the title lapsed, 
 since there was no male heir, but 
 Chateau Monsigny, near Versailles, and the 
 fortune, which was large, passed to the Mar 
 quis s young daughter Isabeau, who had 
 married, but a few months before, Richard, Vis 
 count Stratton, eldest son of the Earl of Strope. 
 
 This marriage was, from a worldly point of 
 view, by no means a proud one for an heiress of 
 one of the oldest houses in France, but it was a 
 love match, and the Marquis, who was an old 
 man, made very gentle by great suffering, and 
 come, moreover, to the years when all matters of 
 rank and title seem but petty things, would not 
 oppose it, but gave his ready consent, stipulating 
 only that the young couple should make Chateau 
 Monsigny their home, rather than Strope Manor, 
 even when, in course of time, the Viscount should 
 succeed to his father s title; so that, though the 
 Monsigny name must die, the chateau might not 
 
 3
 
 4 MONSIGNY 
 
 pass from Monsigny blood into strange and care 
 less hands. 
 
 And so, when the old gentleman was at last 
 carried away swiftly by one of the ailments that 
 wait upon extreme age, Richard Viscount Stratton 
 and Isabeau, his wife, settled down in the ancient 
 home of her fathers, to the stately, quiet life of 
 French aristocracy, seeing little of that Paris 
 which lay so near at hand, but taken up wholly 
 with the great passion of love which they bore 
 each other. 
 
 They were a strange couple in many ways; 
 they seemed strangely mismated, for the English 
 man was a strong, silent, cold man, iron-faced 
 and sparing of speech ; while Isabeau de Monsigny 
 was all tenderness and soft affection, all melting 
 glances and caressing words. One would have 
 prophesied two broken hearts at the end of a 
 month, but those few who were privileged to visit 
 Chateau Monsigny at this time have said that 
 the happiness of the two was something more won 
 derful than may be told. They have said how Lord 
 Stratton s hard, grim face was wont to soften 
 most strangely when his wife was by, and his eyes 
 to follow her as she moved about, and his voice 
 to take on a certain low tone when he spoke to her. 
 
 They have said how Isabeau was wont to start
 
 MONSIGNY 5 
 
 and flush a little when her husband spoke, and 
 how she could never go near him without laying 
 her hand upon his arm touching him somewhere, 
 leaning, for an instant, against his shoulder. 
 They have said how the two would walk together 
 in the dusk or by moonlight, up and down the 
 terrace to the south of the chateau, or, of a morn 
 ing, in the rose gardens, and how, when they 
 thought no one was looking, Isabeau would walk 
 a half pace before her husband, leaning back so 
 that her head and shoulders lay upon his breast 
 and his arm held her from falling. 
 
 They have related many such little things in 
 trying to picture a love far too great to be pictured, 
 and have shaken their heads when questioned 
 further, saying in awed, hushed tones that such a 
 love is for no man to attempt to probe or to 
 describe. 
 
 Then, since it is not allowed that a perfect joy 
 shall endure here below, Isabeau de Monsigny, 
 when she had been two years married, bore a 
 daughter, and, after lingering between worlds for 
 another year, died with her beautiful head upon 
 her husband s shoulder, and was laid in the old 
 chapel of Chateau Monsigny with the others 
 of her name. 
 
 Men said that Lord Stratton was altered very
 
 6 MONSIGNY 
 
 little outwardly. His face went a little thinner 
 and more impassive and grim, and his hair turned 
 a bit gray, but no one ever saw him show signs of 
 grief. He shut himself up in the chateau with 
 the child and a few servants, and for fifteen years 
 he lived a virtual hermit, seldom leaving the 
 estate, save that now and then he was compelled 
 to go to England for a few days upon affairs 
 connected with his property there. 
 
 And as time went on, his father, the old Earl of 
 Strope, came to spend a great deal of his time at 
 the chateau, partly because he was much out of 
 humour with the political trend in his own country 
 and considered that the British Empire was, 
 notwithstanding his warnings, on the broad path 
 to ruin, and partly because he was genuinely 
 fond, in his gruff, undemonstrative fashion, of his 
 eldest son, whom he persisted in considering an 
 irresponsible child. 
 
 The two men were, even at this time, singularly 
 alike in almost every way, and they grew more so 
 with each succeeding year till the very end of the 
 Earl s long life. They were tall men and in this 
 matter the elder had the advantage of an inch or 
 so, for he must have been quite six feet two or 
 three loose-boned and lean, but very broad in 
 the shoulders and long in arms and legs. They
 
 MONSIGNY 7 
 
 had thin faces with a strong, hooked nose, and 
 deepset eyes, and a square jaw, and they both 
 wore a rather heavy drooping mustache, and a 
 mouche beneath the lower lip. The Earl s 
 hair and mustache were almost entirely white; 
 there was the slighest tinge of reddish colour in 
 them, though his hair had been, in earlier life, a 
 pale yellow, and not red. The Viscount s hair 
 was grizzled, yellow and gray. Further, the old 
 Earl had extremely heavy and projecting eye 
 brows, with a trick of working them up and down 
 in a most surprising fashion. He was an enor 
 mously powerful man physically much more so 
 than his son, and became in his old age rather 
 vain of his strength, and fond of performing feats, 
 though he often forgot how strong he was and 
 broke things about him quite unintentionally, 
 or nearly crushed the hand of a friend in an 
 absent-minded grip. 
 
 It must have been a very strange life that they 
 led at Chateau Monsigny during those years, the 
 two silent, stern men and the child with her 
 governesses and tutors English and French 
 women. The child, as she grew into girlhood, 
 came to be like her mother to a startling degree. 
 
 "She is all Monsigny; there is nothing Stratton 
 about her, thank God!" the Viscount had said
 
 8 MONSIGNY 
 
 one day to his father as they stood on the high 
 south terrace of the chateau and watched her 
 rolling about in the dust of the drive below with 
 a certain shaggy puppy with whom she was on 
 terms of intimacy. 
 
 The old Earl laughed. "Yes, thank God!" 
 said he. "It would have been a pity if she had 
 resembled us. We should not make very hand 
 some women, you and I. She is all Monsigny, 
 but her hair is paler than her mother s. " 
 
 And this was true. Isabeau de Monsigny the 
 elder they had named the child after her mother 
 had had very beautiful yellow hair, but the 
 little girl s hair was so pale that it was almost 
 white. While she was very young it bade fair 
 considerably to lessen her beauty, and the women 
 of the chateau were wont to shake their heads 
 over it sadly, but later, when she was old enough 
 to dispense with braids and to coil the pale mass 
 upon her head, they saw, all at once, how amaz 
 ingly beautiful it was in contrast with her very 
 pink skin and her dark eyebrows and purple eyes. 
 
 It must have been a strange life and very 
 lonely, for hardly any one was asked to the 
 chateau or dared pass its gates uninvited. The 
 child was busy with her lessons and with her 
 play, and the two men occupied themselves with
 
 MONSIGNY 9 
 
 the management of the property, or, if it was 
 the season, shot or fished over the coverts and 
 streams of the vast estate. 
 
 But when the child began to grow tall and 
 slender and to lengthen her skirts, and ceased 
 rolling about in the dust with the puppies; when 
 it became very evident that she was a child no 
 longer, the Viscount seemed to waken with a 
 start from his long apathy. He saw that his 
 responsibilities must now be heavy, that his 
 daughter might no longer be left in the care of 
 servants and governesses, and that this life 
 of utter seclusion must come to an end. 
 
 He sent first for a certain French woman, 
 Madame de Brissal, a widowed relative of his dead 
 wife, a drab -coloured individual who wore caps 
 and knit impossible articles of gray wool which, 
 when finished, were never again seen; and this 
 woman who was, withal, a kindly and motherly 
 old soul, he installed at Chateau Monsigny to lend 
 the girl countenance in the event of the coming, 
 from time to time, of visitors. 
 
 Also he took his daughter occasionally to Paris, 
 where he saw to it that she was properly outfitted 
 by the proper people. It gave him a little shock 
 of keen pleasure, not unmixed with as keen a pain, 
 to see that she had her mother s judgment, almost
 
 io MONSIGNY 
 
 amounting to genius in its originality, about 
 matters of dress, though he was not a man who, 
 as a rule, noticed such things in women. 
 
 Being an Englishman and without the conti 
 nental conservatism, he also took her, when they 
 were in town, to the opera and to certain of the 
 less objectionable plays at the theatre, and he 
 drove with her on fine days in the Bois or up the 
 Champs Elysees and into the Avenue. And, 
 late in the winter, when the tide of people 
 was turning southward to escape the wind and 
 cold rain, they would go for a month to Nice 
 or to Cannes or to Mentone, where he had a 
 villa, or even to Rome. 
 
 " For, " he said once or twice to the girl, " though 
 you are all French and never will be anything but 
 French, I don t want you to grow up the ignorant 
 fool that other French girls are. You might as 
 well become used to seeing a man without palpita 
 tion of the heart, and to realising that the world 
 is not bounded by the walls of Chateau Monsigny. 
 I am not certain that those queer American young 
 women are not worth learning a thing or two 
 from all but their voices, that is. " 
 
 So the heiress of one of the oldest, proudest 
 houses in all France came, in due time, to twenty 
 years, with an endowment of beauty probably as
 
 MONSIGNY ii 
 
 extraordinary as any woman in Europe could 
 boast, and with a knowledge of the world or at 
 least such aspects of the polite world as a girl 
 may safely see, which might well have caused 
 the twenty-one Marquesses of Monsigny to turn 
 protestingly in their ornate tombs.
 
 CHAPTER II
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 TOWARD the middle of the summer in which 
 Isabeau reached her twentieth year, Lord 
 Stratton had asked a few people out to Chateau 
 Monsigny from Paris, for a fortnight. Three of 
 them had, greatly to his annoyance, been called 
 across the channel at the eleventh hour, but the 
 other two, a certain English widow whom he had 
 met the preceding winter in Cannes, and a young 
 man, the Honourable Ashton Beresford, had 
 accepted the invitation. Lord Stratton was 
 annoyed about the other people, because without 
 them the presence of the English widow, Mrs. 
 Marlowe, must bear a certain point which he 
 wished to avoid. He had relied upon the others 
 to cloak this opportunity of his seeing a great deal 
 of Mrs. Marlowe, day by day, without seeming 
 outwardly to pay her marked attention, for he 
 had come to the age when men consider many 
 things important which a younger and more 
 impetuous man would scorn. He believed him 
 self genuinely interested in this woman, for she 
 appealed to him in almost every way, and he had
 
 16 MONSIGNY 
 
 begun to feel lonely. He realised that in time, 
 probably no long time, Isabeau must marry, 
 and he looked forward to a solitary old age with 
 great distaste. He had not a great love to offer, 
 he knew that well, for nearly all the love of his 
 life was bound within a certain marble tomb that 
 stood in the ancient chapel of Chateau Monsigny ; 
 but the past four or five years of moving about 
 among his kind, coming after his long seclusion, 
 had awakened in him a perfectly normal desire 
 to live as did others, to seek a companionship 
 sweetened by such love as he had left in him, 
 against the time when his daughter must leave 
 him alone. 
 
 He had written to Mrs. Marlowe, at her hotel, 
 a letter of direction as to what train to take from 
 the Gare St. Lazare to Versailles, telling her that 
 she would be met at the Versailles station, but this 
 letter she had mislaid and, after some hasty 
 inquiries at the hotel, hurried across the city to 
 the Gare Montparnasse, and took a train, over 
 the Chemin de fer de 1 Ouest, arriving at Versailles 
 at much the expected time but, naturally, at the 
 wrong station. Here, finding no carriage in 
 waiting, she drove over to the chateau, a matter 
 of half an hour, in a public fiacre, much to the 
 amusement of Lord Stratton, whom she found
 
 MONSIGNY 17 
 
 walking up and down the south terrace with a 
 pipe between his teeth. 
 
 " It is of no consequence except that it has been 
 uncomfortable for you," he said when she had 
 made her excuses. " Isabeau is waiting with the 
 carriage in Versailles, but she will return presently. 
 Perhaps you would like to walk about out here, 
 for a bit, till she comes. You see, Madame de 
 Brissal is with her, and I do not know where my 
 father may be in the gardens, I dare say." 
 
 They walked slowly up and down the stretch 
 of the broad terrace and Mrs. Marlowe looked 
 about her with a very obvious delight. She 
 was a pretty woman who might well have been 
 beautiful a few years earlier in life, for she was 
 quite five-and-thirty, and looked a bit tired and 
 worn, particularly about the eyes, as if long 
 unhappiness had robbed her of much of the beauty 
 which she might otherwise have preserved for 
 many years. She was of the very dark type, 
 with black hair, and what is curiously termed 
 an olive skin, and her eyes were uncommonly 
 fine gray and deep and changing with every 
 mood, though, as has been said, tired, as if 
 she had not been happy. She had a little girlish 
 trick, when very pleased, of clasping her hands 
 at her breast and smiling with flushed cheeks
 
 1 8 MONSIGNY 
 
 and parted lips and eyes wide open. It was 
 perfectly genuine and unconscious, and people, 
 particularly men, were used to call it forth upon 
 many pretexts for the pure pleasure of watching 
 it. She smiled now and clasped her hands as 
 she looked about her. 
 
 "How perfectly beautiful it is!" she cried 
 softly. "How beautiful it is! One ought to 
 be very happy here, Lord Stratton." 
 
 " It is beautiful," said Lord Stratton. " I have 
 always held that it is the finest chateau short of 
 the Loire country the finest in private owner 
 ship, I mean. Of course, Versailles and St. 
 Germain and even Fontainebleau are more im 
 pressive, but hardly so beautiful, I think. Yes," 
 he went on after a pause, "one might be very 
 happy here. I have been very happy here, and 
 very unhappy and I have been neither the one 
 nor the other, but quite apathetic for a long time. 
 That is much like every one s life, isn t it ? But 
 I am fond of Chateau Monsigny. I shall never 
 feel quite at home anywhere else, I think, not even 
 in Strope Manor. You see, I have lived here for 
 more than twenty years." 
 
 "Twenty years?" said Mrs. Marlowe thought 
 fully. "That is a long time. And you will live 
 here always, will you not?"
 
 MONSIGNY 19 
 
 "Not after Isabeau marries," said he, "and, 
 of course, she will sometime marry. Indeed, I 
 should be glad, in a way, if it could be soon. 
 Isabeau is twenty, and I believe in early mar 
 riages. One has the keenest capacity for happi 
 ness when one is young. Of course it will be a 
 great pain to me, a dreadful wrench when she 
 leaves me, but I wish her to be happy. My 
 father and I will make our permanent home then 
 in Strope Manor, I expect, though I should hope 
 very often to visit Isabeau here. Indeed, I know 
 my father would insist upon it, for he and Isabeau 
 are always together." 
 
 "Ah, the Earl!" said Mrs. Marlowe with a 
 little shiver. " I used to see him at Nice, though 
 I never met him, I believe. Do you know, I am 
 rather afraid of the Earl, he is such a fierce old 
 gentleman. His eyes seem to pierce fairly 
 through one." 
 
 Lord Stratton laughed. "Oh, you will get 
 over that," said he. "My father is not so fierce 
 by half as he looks. Indeed, he is usually the 
 mildest of men, though he takes strange dislikes 
 to people sometimes. He has aged greatly in 
 the past five years you know he is nearly 
 eighty so that he is at times a bit peculiar 
 not quite himself. Of course he is absolutely
 
 20 MONSIGNY 
 
 harmless, always; but when he is in one of his 
 spells he is a little inconsequent, and embarrass 
 ingly frank as to his opinions. I hope you won t 
 take offense at anything he may say. As a rule, 
 you know, he is as reasonable as you and I, and 
 his mental vigour is as astonishing as his physical 
 strength. I dare say you have heard of his 
 strength. It is almost unbelievable. He is 
 always forgetting about it, and breaking things. 
 I have seen him do the most amazing feats. He 
 is even now many times stronger than I, and I 
 am not weak. But we were speaking of Isabeau 
 and the possibility of her marrying." 
 
 "Why should you leave Chateau Monsigny 
 when she marries?" asked Mrs. Marlowe. "Oh, 
 I see ! It belongs to her, does it not ?" 
 
 "Yes," said Lord Stratton, "Chateau Mon 
 signy belongs to Isabeau, together with a very 
 considerable fortune. She is the only living 
 member of the family, though I hope there will 
 be many more." 
 
 "I suppose you have no one in view?" sug 
 gested Mrs. Marlowe, "no possibility as yet? It 
 would be a very important marriage, would it 
 not ? The Monsigny heiress and a great beauty, 
 too. One would be rather particular." 
 
 Lord Stratton hesitated. "Why," said he,
 
 MONSIGNY 21 
 
 after a moment, " I had intended saying nothing 
 about it, and have said nothing to any one else, 
 but I should be rather glad for Isabeau to marry 
 a young man who is coming here this evening. 
 I have known him for two or three years, and I 
 admire him more than any man I ever knew. 
 He has no fortune and no title, though he will 
 come into a title in a few years an Irish one, 
 alas ! But he is the sort of man one cares for. 
 I should be very sorry to see her marry any one 
 of the young men who bear the great old names 
 of France, for I know them all. This man has 
 stopped with us once, down in Mentone, and I 
 think he and Isabeau were much taken with each 
 other, though I gave them little opportunity to 
 be in each other s company. I wonder if you 
 will ever have met him ; his name is Beresford 
 Ashton Beresford. He has not been much in 
 
 Europe for the past few Why, what is the 
 
 matter? Are you ill? Are you faint? Let me 
 take your arm. It is the sun, I expect. I should 
 not have let you walk in it so long." 
 
 Mrs. Marlowe pulled herself up with a little 
 shivering laugh, and covered her eyes with her 
 hands for a moment. 
 
 "No," she said, laughing again, "it wasn t the 
 sun; it was that wretched little lizard that ran
 
 22 MONSIGNY 
 
 under our feet. I have a perfect terror of them 
 lizards and snakes and all those crawling 
 things. Don t be alarmed. Women have queer 
 dislikes sometimes, you know, and likes. What 
 were you saying? Oh, about this young man, 
 Mr. Mr. Beresford?" 
 
 "Yes, Beresford," said Lord Stratton. "I am 
 sorry about the lizard. I am afraid you will have 
 a bad time, for there are no end of them about. 
 They come out on the flagstones to sun them 
 selves, you know. It is very interesting to 
 study people s dislikes. Now, I have an entirely 
 uncontrollable horror of dead things. The unex 
 pected sight of a dead dog or cat, or even a rat, 
 will give me a nervous shock which will last for 
 hours, though I am not in the least a nervous 
 man. My father is afraid of snakes, but not, I 
 believe, of lizards; and with Isabeau, I think it 
 is spiders. Every one has some pet horror, and 
 in nearly every case it is something quite harm 
 less. Are you altogether recovered?" 
 
 "Oh, quite!" said Mrs. Marlowe. "It was 
 very silly of me. And this this Mr. Beresford ? " 
 
 "Ah, yes," said Lord Stratton. " I was saying 
 that Beresford had not been much in Europe 
 recently. He had an unfortunate experience 
 about five years ago, which embittered him con-
 
 MONSIGNY 23 
 
 siderably, and drove him to traveling for distrac 
 tion. I did not know him at the time, and can 
 speak of the thing only from hearsay; but he 
 became involved, I believe, in a rather widely 
 published divorce case. A certain Colonel 
 Travers named him in obtaining a divorce from 
 his wife. I think the general impression was 
 that Beresford was made a victim. Personally, 
 I am quite sure of it, for I know him well, and he 
 is not the sort of man to figure in divorce suits. 
 I dare say his silence over the matter was to 
 shield somebody probably the woman. At any 
 rate, I would trust him implicitly." 
 
 "I think," said Mrs. Marlowe, turning to look 
 at the gray stone fagade of the chateau, " I think 
 I remember something about the affair. I had 
 forgotten the names. Yes, I dare say your friend 
 was innocent. I believe people thought so at 
 the at the time. Yes, I suppose it has embit 
 tered him. It was rather hard on him. There s 
 the woman, though ! It was harder on her than 
 on any one, wasn t it ? Poor woman ! No one 
 pitied her, I expect. They d say it served her 
 right. They always do. Yes, the woman had 
 the worst of it." 
 
 "Pardon me," said Lord Stratton, "but I do 
 not agree with you at all. Divorces are never
 
 24 MONSIGNY 
 
 granted against a woman in England without 
 excellent cause. I am not an intolerant man, I 
 think, but I have no sympathy with that sort of 
 woman." 
 
 Mrs. Marlowe halted in her slow walk and 
 leaned against the stone of the chateau, warm 
 where the sun had been upon it. 
 
 "No," said she, with a little smile that seemed 
 a bit tired; "no, I didn t expect you would have. 
 No one has. And yet Oh, well, let us 
 talk about something more cheerful ! How has 
 Isabeau been since last winter in Nice ? What a 
 beauty the child is ! I wonder if she realises 
 how dreadfully cheap and commonplace she 
 makes the poor little charms of the rest of us. 
 I never saw another woman of just her type, I 
 think. That wonderfully pale hair of hers makes 
 such an amazing contrast to her dark eyes and 
 eyebrows, and to her pink skin. Other women 
 with that ashen hair have white eyelashes and 
 eyebrows, and china eyes, but Isabeau s eyes are 
 purple. I wonder if she stains her eyebrows." 
 
 Lord Stratton laughed. "Not unless she com 
 menced in the nursery," said he. "They have 
 always been dark. She is very like like her 
 mother." His voice changed a little, and the 
 woman looked up at him swiftly. "Only," he
 
 MONSIGNY 25 
 
 went on, "her hair is almost silvery instead of 
 golden. That is a debt she owes to a certain 
 fifteenth-century ancestress, a Bretonne, Yvonne 
 de Morlaix, who was carried off from her father s 
 chateau by a Marquis de Monsigny, between two 
 days, and made a marquise. The hair appears 
 every now and then, once in two or three genera 
 tions, possibly, and as a rule in the women of the 
 family. Yes, Isabeau is a great beauty. I 
 suppose she is the most beautiful girl in Europe. 
 The Grand Duke Michael was saying so, only last 
 winter. And, thank heaven, she is as lovely as 
 she is beautiful. I do not think she is a coquette 
 that is to say, more of a coquette than any 
 woman naturally is; and I know she is not vain." 
 He paused a moment to laugh. "It will be 
 reasonably evident," said he, "that I am a bit 
 proud of my daughter." 
 
 Then all at once he turned, standing at a little 
 distance, and looked very gravely into the 
 woman s eyes. 
 
 "It would be a greater pleasure to me than I 
 can express," he said, "if you and Isabeau should 
 become fond of each other." 
 
 Mrs. Marlowe flushed, and her eyelids drooped. 
 One of her hands rose uncertainly to the lace at 
 her throat. "I I don t know just what you
 
 26 MONSIGNY 
 
 mean," she said, very low. " I could not help 
 loving that beautiful child, if I would. I am 
 certain to become more and more fond of her if 
 if ever I am thrown much in her in her com 
 pany. I am not so sure of her as of myself. I 
 doubt if I am the sort to attract a girl. I have 
 not had a very happy life, Lord Stratton, and I 
 have lost all the girlishness I may ever have 
 possessed." 
 
 Lord Stratton moved nearer and took one of 
 her hands in his, looking down into her eyes. 
 
 "I am sorry," he said simply, and there was 
 something in his perfectly earnest tone, and in 
 the big quiet rugged strength of him, as he bent 
 from his height, that lent a value to the trite 
 words. "I am not an eloquent man," he went 
 on, " I am not at all good at saying things, but I 
 should like to help you forget that you have been 
 unhappy. It seems to me that fate is sometimes 
 very stupid in bringing grief to the wrong people." 
 
 "Do you think, Lord Stratton," said the 
 woman, looking up into his still, square face where 
 grief had been and left great scars and furrows, 
 "do you think that one can forget? Do you 
 think that one can put everything behind, and 
 build a new life oh, quite a new life?" There 
 was a certain great wistfulness in her tone and in
 
 MONSIGNY 27 
 
 her upturned eyes, a certain appeal as of weak 
 ness to strength, for reassurance and protection. 
 And the hand that lay in his firm grip trembled 
 a little. 
 
 "Yes," said Lord Stratton, looking down with 
 steady eyes, "yes, one may put everything 
 behind but love and sin, for a great love may 
 never be forgotten in this life nor, I believe, 
 beyond, and sin must be expiated here below. 
 But I think neither of these things has any part 
 in you. Everything else may be forgotten. 
 Will you let us help you to forget ? I do not like 
 to think of you suffering." 
 
 Mrs. Marlowe withdrew her hand quietly and 
 turned half away, looking across the tree tops to 
 the west, where the sun lay yellow upon the hills. 
 And there was a little tired smile at her lips. 
 
 "Everything but love and sin?" said she. 
 " Everything but love and sin ! I wonder if you 
 are right." 
 
 A bugle blew, to the eastward, very thin and 
 faint and sweet with the distance. 
 
 "Ah!" said Lord Stratton, "that will be 
 Isabeau returning from Versailles. The porter 
 at the lodge blows a bugle when a carriage enters 
 the gates. She will be here in a moment." 
 
 They moved to the outer edge of the raised
 
 28 MONSIGNY 
 
 terrace, and stood by the low balustrade watching 
 the avenue where it emerged from the gloom of 
 the fir-trees and swept across the open to encircle 
 the chateau, on its way to the stables beyond. 
 After four or five minutes for the avenue was 
 long an open landau, behind white horses, 
 appeared and drew swiftly up to the broad steps 
 of the terrace, and Lord Stratton went down to 
 assist his daughter and Mme. de Brissal to alight. 
 
 Isabeau, in a very fluffy pink-and-white sum 
 mer frock and hat, and armed with a surprisingly 
 ornate sunshade of the same material, went up 
 at once to welcome the visitor. The elder 
 woman gave a little gasp of sheer wonder. 
 
 "My dear!" she cried, "you are the most 
 beautiful thing I ever saw in the world ! You 
 grow more beautiful every day." 
 
 "Oh, please, please !" begged the girl, distress- 
 edly. "It it is so good of you, but so good! 
 But I I " 
 
 "Stop flattering my daughter," called Lord 
 Stratton from the foot of the steps. "You will 
 make her vain, and then there ll be no living with 
 her." He presented Mrs. Marlowe to Mme. de 
 Brissal, and told Isabeau to have the visitor 
 shown to her apartments. 
 
 " Propriety has kept us out here on the terrace,
 
 MONSIGNY 29 
 
 waiting for you, for nearly an hour," said he. 
 "Mrs. Marlowe will be thinking us heathen." 
 
 Then, when the ladies had gone inside, and 
 the landau had moved on toward the stables, he 
 fell again to pacing up and down the length of 
 the stone-paved terrace, with his head bent and 
 his hands clasped behind him. There was a deep 
 crease between his brows. 
 
 About half an hour later he saw the Earl 
 coming up from the stables toward the chateau, 
 and paused in his walk to watch him. The 
 crease between his brows disappeared for an 
 instant, and he gave a short laugh, as if some 
 thing amused him. 
 
 "What are you laughing at?" growled the old 
 gentleman, mounting the steps of the terrace, and 
 throwing his riding-crop into a chair. " Is there 
 anything funny about me? You have no man 
 ners at all." And his heavy white eyebrows 
 worked up and down in a quite intimidating 
 fashion. 
 
 "I was thinking, as I watched you come up," 
 said Lord Stratton, "how ridiculously alike we 
 are. I might be looking into a mirror at this 
 moment, except that your hair is whiter." 
 
 Indeed, the resemblance was amazing, and 
 evoked much comment wherever the two men
 
 3 o MONSIGNY 
 
 were seen together. The old Earl s hair, as Lord 
 Stratton had said, was whiter and a bit more 
 sparse, and his eyebrows had grown enormously 
 long and protruding shaggy penthouses for his 
 keen eyes. Also, his skin had taken on the 
 extreme glassy smoothness of old age, and the 
 veins rose under it very prominently. His great 
 shoulders had a slight stoop, but they were nearly 
 as powerful as ever. 
 
 His rugged old face relaxed a bit, and he gave 
 a little laugh, for he was very proud of this like 
 ness between himself and his son, as proud of it 
 as of his own great strength. He laid an arm 
 over Lord Stratton s shoulders, and the two 
 walked slowly up and down the terrace. 
 
 "Alike?" said the Earl. "Of course we are 
 alike. Why shouldn t we be? All the Stratton 
 men have been alike. It is a great pity, though, 
 that you are such a weakling. You will probably 
 die young. Now I dare say I shall live to a 
 hundred. Has that woman come?" 
 
 "If you mean Mrs. Marlowe," said Lord 
 Stratton, "yes, she came about an hour ago. It 
 is not very civil of you, though, to call her that 
 woman. " 
 
 "I don t like her," said the old gentleman 
 gruffly. "I don t believe she is honest. I used
 
 MONSIGNY 31 
 
 to see her about, down in Nice, and her eyes are 
 always scared. When you are a bit older you 
 will know enough not to trust any one with 
 frightened eyes. She is hiding something that 
 she is afraid people will find out. What do you 
 know about her, anyhow ? Nothing ! 
 
 "Oh, nonsense!" cried Lord Stratton, with 
 some heat. "I know, and you know, too, that 
 she was received everywhere in Nice, and there 
 must have been people there who knew all about 
 her. As for her frightened eyes, she has had an 
 unhappy life. It leaves marks, unhappiness. I 
 dare say she had a brute of a husband. If you 
 must be suspicious, for heaven s sake don t pick 
 out our guests for your victims." 
 
 The Earl gave an inarticulate growl and shook 
 his head. 
 
 " Who else is coming ? " he demanded presently. 
 
 "The Lawsons and Mrs. Lawson s sister, Lady 
 Eversham, were to have come," said the other, 
 "but they were called away to England at the 
 last moment. Ashton Beresford is coming. He 
 should be here in an hour or two." 
 
 "Ah !" said the Earl, in a tone of great satis 
 faction. "Young Beresford! Now, there is a 
 man I like. He is a very proper sort indeed, for 
 a mere boy. We shall be great friends. I was
 
 3? MONSIGNY 
 
 never entirely satisfied, at Mentone, as to which 
 of us was the stronger. I am glad he is to be 
 here. I shall make him stay a long time." And 
 the old gentleman rubbed his hands and smiled 
 in huge delight. 
 
 Lord Stratton halted, as if tired of his walk, 
 and sat down upon the broad stone coping of the 
 balustrade. The crease had come between his 
 brows again, and he stared off into the blue dis 
 tance from narrowed eyes. 
 
 "Isabeau will marry, sometime," said he, in 
 the tone of one who opens a discussion. 
 
 " Well, " said the Earl, " most people do. What 
 of it ? If only she would have the good sense to 
 pick out some one like young Beresford, it would 
 be an excellent thing, though she is not long out of 
 the cradle." 
 
 "And I," continued Lord Stratton, frowning 
 still into the blue distance, " I shall be left alone. 
 I shall be very lonely." 
 
 "Lonely!" growled his father, "lonely? Non 
 sense ! Am I of no account ? I am not thinking 
 of marrying or of dying either. I expect to out 
 live you. Besides, we should come here often to 
 visit Isabeau if we liked her husband." 
 
 But Lord Stratton shook his head. 
 
 "No," said he, "I should be very lonely. I
 
 MONSIGNY 33 
 
 have grown used to having Isabeau about, and 
 a life without a woman in it would be something 
 that I shrink from. It is no disloyalty to to 
 Her, but I cannot bear the thought of living 
 alone. I shall never love again not greatly, 
 .that is, and I shall never forget, but I dread being 
 left alone, more than I can say. What would 
 you think if I should marry again?" 
 
 The old Earl halted before his son, and his 
 strong jaw dropped in sheer amazement. 
 
 "Marry again?" he cried. "You marry 
 again ? Good God, you are mad ! You do not 
 know what you are saying. What should I 
 think of it ? I tell you I won t hear of it not for 
 a moment. I forbid it absolutely. I can t 
 think what has brought you to such an absurd 
 notion. Your brother has sons. Marry again, 
 indeed!" 
 
 "Of course," said Lord Stratton, laughing a 
 little, "the idea is new to you, and I am not 
 altogether surprised at your opposing it though 
 as to forbidding, that is just a bit extreme, is it 
 not ? I am not exactly a child, you know. I am 
 nearly fifty years old." 
 
 "Fifty? Nonsense!" cried the old gentleman 
 angrily. "You are a mere boy, and you are mad 
 into the bargain. I tell you, I forbid any such
 
 34 MONSIGNY 
 
 folly as you propose. I am the head of the house, 
 and I am your father. Let us talk no more about 
 it. It is out of the question." 
 
 "By all means," agreed Lord Stratton, "let us 
 talk no more about it. We have never quarreled, 
 seriously, and we must not commence it now. I 
 am glad you feel pleased about young Ashton 
 Beresford s coming here. I remember that you 
 two were great friends at Mentone." 
 
 The old Earl paused a moment near the door of 
 the chateau, and the keen eyes under their great 
 white brows rested thoughtfully upon the younger 
 man. 
 
 " I should like to know," said he, "if it is this 
 Marlowe woman who has put such extraordinary 
 notions into your head. If it is, you will be very 
 sorry one day. I tell you she is not honest. She 
 has frightened eyes."
 
 CHAPTER III
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE Honourable Ashton Beresford arrived that 
 evening barely in time to dress for dinner. Indeed, 
 the ladies were already at their toilet, and he was 
 received only by Lord Stratton and the old Earl, 
 the latter of whom exhibited a gruff warmth of 
 greeting most unusual with him. 
 
 Beresford was not a handsome young man; 
 indeed, he was almost ugly, but it was an ugliness 
 that attracted always rather than repelled, and 
 the strong ruggedness of his face, irregular as it 
 was, had no suggestion of coarseness. He was 
 not so tall by a very little as the two men who 
 were his hosts, being a trifle under six feet; 
 but, as the Earl of Strope had said, he was phe 
 nomenally strong, though he never made any 
 show of his strength when it could be avoided. 
 
 He was lean, like the Earl and Lord Stratton, 
 but dark-haired and gray-eyed. He had one 
 feature which seemed curiously at variance with 
 all his other outward characteristics, for his 
 mouth, set in a strong, stern face, eagle-beaked 
 and square- jawed, was the mouth of a woman, 
 
 37
 
 38 MONSIGNY 
 
 though he seemed by habit to have drawn its 
 curves into a straightness and hardness unnatural 
 to them. And this woman s mouth, so out of 
 place over its jutting chin, was a sort of outward 
 and visible symbol of certain very important 
 elements of character and of temperament that 
 were always at war with the man s nature, and 
 that gave rise to some very interesting results, 
 as such elements are apt to do. 
 
 The three men were standing in the great 
 central hall of the chateau when the ladies came 
 down to dinner. This hall was in the oldest 
 portion of the building and, being a rather cheer 
 less place, was seldom used save on very formal 
 occasions, for the newer wings, which had been 
 from time to time added to the ancient pile, were 
 far more comfortable. It was a very long room, 
 comparatively narrow and of great height, arched 
 over with stone in the ancient fashion, stone 
 walled and paved with flags of black and white, 
 worn with age and sunken here and there. There 
 was a balcony at one end, with mullioned windows 
 behind and under it, and in the gray stone walls 
 there were niches filled with marble busts of the 
 Marquises of Monsigny. 
 
 In a long row against one wall the armour of 
 all the heads of the house stood upon effigies, and
 
 MONSIGNY 39 
 
 their shields and weapons hung above. At night 
 the great room was lighted by lamps which hung 
 on chains from the high arches, but there was a 
 row of clere-story windows far up near the roof, 
 to let in the daylight. 
 
 A fire burned in the huge fireplace at one side, 
 and before it the three men stood talking, but no 
 fire could warm the great hall even in the heart 
 of summer. It was chill and damp and smelled 
 of the grave. 
 
 "We have only one other guest," Lord Stratton 
 was saying. "The Lawsons and Lady Eversham 
 disappointed us. I hope it won t be dull for you. 
 
 Mrs. Mar " But, just at that moment, a 
 
 servant parted the hangings from the arched 
 doorway and the three ladies came down the 
 room. 
 
 Beresford s gaze was fixed upon Isabeau de 
 Monsigny she was always called de Monsigny 
 because she was the heiress of that house and 
 he had no eyes for her two companions. She was 
 again in pink, for she knew that it suited her to 
 perfection, and her strange pale hair glowed silver 
 in the light from the hanging lamps. He thought 
 that he had never in all his life seen anything so 
 marvelously beautiful which was, in sober truth, 
 undoubtedly so; and the blood surged to his
 
 40 MONSIGNY 
 
 temples and beat there furiously while he took 
 her hand and looked down into her eyes, quite 
 oblivious of the fact that he should first have 
 greeted Madame de Brissal. 
 
 Lord Stratton was presenting his father to 
 Mrs. Marlowe. That lady changed colour a bit 
 under the glare of the old gentleman s piercing 
 eyes, and advanced a rather unsteady hand, which 
 the Earl promptly enclosed in a grip that would 
 have crushed a hand of wood. It immediately 
 evoked a very heartfelt scream. 
 
 "What is the matter?" he demanded. "Eh, 
 what, what ? Oh, I beg pardon ! Did I hurt 
 you? Didn t mean to do that. Beg pardon. 
 Don t look so frightened. Your eyes are always 
 scared. Nothing to be afraid of here, my dear, 
 if you haven t done anything wrong. Don t look 
 so frightened." And he turned impatiently to 
 Madame de Brissal. 
 
 Beresford had, by this time, so nearly come to 
 his senses as to pay his respects to the old 
 French woman, whom he genuinely liked, and 
 was inquiring of her after the well-being 
 of a certain great Persian cat which was, 
 next to Isabeau, the pride of her exist 
 ence, and which had been dangerously ill 
 the winter before in Mentone. But Lord
 
 MONSIGNY 41 
 
 Stratton took him by the arm and turned him 
 about. 
 
 "Mrs. Marlowe," he said, "will you allow me 
 to present the Honourable Ashton Beresford?" 
 
 Isabeau, who was watching young Beresford s 
 face for reasons of her own, thought that a sudden 
 slight spasm passed over it as he faced the other 
 guest, that the lips drew very tight for a moment, 
 and the eyes narrowed. Also, she was quite cer 
 tain that he quickly withdrew the hand he had 
 put forward, and she wondered if he could ever 
 have known this woman at some previous time, 
 or if she recalled to him something disagreeable. 
 But if, for the moment, he showed any slight sign 
 of emotion, it was gone at once, and his manner, 
 as he made some civil and commonplace remark, 
 was quite ordinary. As for Mrs. Marlowe, her 
 bearing was so altogether self-possessed that 
 Isabeau began to think she must have been mis 
 taken, and to call herself impolite names for 
 creating drama where there was nothing dramatic. 
 
 They went in to dinner at once, and the Earl 
 offered some slight divertisement during the soup 
 by breaking a flower vase. It had been set too 
 near his plate, and in attempting to remove it 
 he crushed the strong glass in his great hand and 
 spread a little lake of water out over the table.
 
 42 MONSIGNY 
 
 "Dear me!" said he. "That was very care 
 less. They really should not put fragile things 
 about where I can get at them. I am so cursedly 
 strong, you know," he apologised mildly, and fell 
 to muttering to himself over his soup in an 
 annoyed undertone. 
 
 "You must not mind grandpere," said Isabeau 
 to Ashton Beresford, who sat beside her. "When 
 he is in one of his forgetful moods he does the 
 most amazing things. He has been rather low 
 in his mind of late. I hope you will cheer him 
 up. He is tremendously fond of you, you know. 
 I think he has never before met any one as strong 
 as himself." 
 
 "It is not exactly flattering to be valued just 
 because one is a sort of a freak of nature," com 
 plained Beresford morosely. "One would like 
 to feel that one had personal qualities of a 
 sort if only one didn t know that one had not." 
 
 " Dear me !" said Isabeau with great sympathy. 
 "Have you nothing to recommend you but your 
 strength? I m so sorry! Still, you know," she 
 went on encouragingly, "it isn t every one who 
 has even the strength." Then she looked up into 
 his face for a moment, not smiling, and he saw 
 that the purple eyes were almost black by candle 
 light, and softer than any words might say.
 
 MONSIGNY 
 
 43 
 
 " Don t be silly ! " said the girl, very low. "As 
 if your strength mattered except to grandpere I 
 Still, do you know, it s rather nice to be strong. 
 Aren t you glad you are ? I don t think I could 
 ever care have much respect for a man who was 
 weak. I remember once, down at Mentone, I 
 came into a room, and a wretched little Italian 
 marchese ran to get me a chair. There was only 
 one chair in view, and it was rather a heavy 
 one. Would you believe it, that poor little 
 man could not lift it? I had to go and 
 help hint. Why, I could have carried the 
 thing myself ! And then," continued Mile, 
 de Monsigny pensively, "then the creature 
 actually tried to make love to me after all 
 that!" 
 
 "Now, if only I could have been there !" said 
 Beresford. 
 
 "Why why, yes!" cried the girl quickly. 
 "You could have carried the chair, couldn t 
 you?" 
 
 "Carried the chair?" said he. 
 
 "Why yes," said the girl. And he noted 
 that, at times, the contrast between her won 
 derful pale hair and her pink skin was greatly 
 accentuated. "What else?" said she, looking at 
 the table.
 
 44 MONSIGNY 
 
 "You said he made love to you," prompted the 
 Honourable Mr. Beresford helpfully. 
 
 "I said he tried to," she corrected. 
 
 "I wish I d been there," sighed Mr. Beresford. 
 
 The girl looked up for the smallest fraction of 
 a second, with a flash of purple eyes, and a 
 little oh, a very little ! dimpling smile. 
 
 " I think I wish you had been," said she. 
 
 "I am here now," he suggested. 
 
 "Grandpere will be so pleased," said she, and 
 Beresford developed a sudden interest in his 
 dinner. 
 
 "Of course we are all pleased," she stated 
 presently. 
 
 "Oh!" said Mr. Beresford. 
 
 Old Mme. de Brissal was, after her fashion, 
 delivering a placid monologue to the somnolent 
 and wholly inattentive Earl, and Beresford found 
 himself watching the other two at the table. 
 Lord Stratton seemed roused, to a most unusual 
 degree, from his habitual attitude of indifference 
 and reserve. He was leaning forward, with his 
 arms against the edge of the table, toward the 
 woman who sat at his right, and there was an 
 unwonted light in his deep-set eyes, and a slight 
 flush upon his cheeks. 
 
 He was talking in a tone of light banter, and
 
 MONSIGNY 45 
 
 when Lord Stratton descended to banter it meant 
 a great deal. 
 
 Beresford sat watching the two under puzzled 
 brows, and then, as he turned with a start of 
 recollection to the girl at his side, he saw that she 
 also was looking toward the other end of the 
 table, and that she was frowning slightly and 
 biting her lip, as if she could not make out the 
 situation. He ventured some commonplace 
 remark, and she turned to him at once, but 
 through all the rest of the dinner she was a bit 
 silent and distrait, and her eyes strayed often 
 down the table toward her father and the woman 
 who sat beyond him. 
 
 It was a warm and very beautiful evening, with 
 a moon, and a sky so clear that the stars seemed 
 almost near enough to be touched with the hand. 
 The whole party went out upon the south terrace 
 for their coffee. 
 
 Directly before the terrace, the avenue, broad 
 and white in the moonlight, swept past on its 
 course toward the stables; but across the avenue 
 the ground fell away swiftly toward the little flat 
 valley beyond, with its lagoon and its formally 
 arranged shrubbery and grass-plots and paved 
 walks. And in this steep bank, from which the 
 earth had been cut away to make place, a great
 
 46 MONSIGNY 
 
 fountain had been set, backed by a sculptured 
 wall of marble. There was a huge group of 
 mermen and Nereids with dolphins playing about 
 their feet, and the water spurted over them from 
 the wall behind, and from the mouths of the 
 dolphins. Shrubbery grew close and dark at the 
 sides, and hung over the wall from the bank 
 above, and there was a long pool of still water, 
 marble-curbed, that made an approach to the 
 fountain. Beyond the pool, terraced flights of 
 marble steps, and smaller fountains, swept down 
 to the plaisance below. Also, marble steps 
 ascended in a curve on either side of the great 
 fountain to the avenue and the south terrace of 
 the chateau. From the plaisance the view of 
 the whole, with the south fagade of the chateai 1 
 surmounting it, was very beautiful. 
 
 Mile, de Monsigny set her little coffee-cup down 
 upon the tray and crossed to the outer edge of the 
 terrace, where she stood by the marble balustrade, 
 looking down through the wide gap in the trees 
 to the moonlit lowland. 
 
 "Would you like to see the fountains in the 
 moonlight?" she said over her shoulder to Beres- 
 ford. "We think they are rather fine." There 
 was a gasp from the old Mme. de Brissal, and a 
 weak appeal as the two left the terrace.
 
 They went down the curving marble steps and stood by the little oblong pool
 
 MONSIGNY 47 
 
 " Not too far, Isabeau, ma fille! It it may be 
 damp, la bas." 
 
 " Pauvre tante!" laughed the girl as they were 
 crossing the avenue. "She is dying of horror 
 this moment. She never has forgiven father 
 for bringing me up like an American girl instead 
 of a French one. Father says that French girls 
 are fools, and I believe he is right. All the 
 French girls I know are fools, poor dears ! Still, 
 I m all French myself, except in behaviour. 
 I m all Monsigny." 
 
 They went down the curving marble steps, and 
 stood by the little oblong pool where the water 
 splashed and purled and gurgled, and where very 
 substantial, though somewhat moss-stained, 
 Nereids held off the overardent advances of their 
 companions. The place was chill and smelled of 
 dampness and rank vegetation and wet earth. 
 
 And they went farther down, along the ter 
 raced flights of steps, where there were no trees 
 to throw a gloom over them, and where the 
 smaller fountains tossed a lazy shower of diamonds 
 into the moonlight, down to the great lagoon, still 
 and black as a lake of ink, save where the moon 
 was mirrored upon it and the band of the Milky 
 Way gleamed dim across its surface. Frogs 
 croaked from the farther side, and a sleepy rook
 
 48 MONSIGNY 
 
 cawed in the wood beyond. A little night wind, 
 soft and cool and laden with odours, breathed in 
 their faces, and filmed from time to time the 
 broad surface of the water at their feet. 
 
 Then, at last, they turned to look back, and all 
 the vast ascending stretch with the chateau at its 
 crest lay, under the moonlight, strange and beauti 
 ful, like a dream picture very unreal, for there 
 came no sound of any sort from it, nor any move 
 ment, nor sign of life. 
 
 Young Beresford drew a little quick breath of 
 amazement and delight. It was his first proper 
 view of the chateau. He had had but a hasty 
 glimpse of it from the avenue on his arrival and, 
 from this point of view, and in the moonlight, it 
 really made an astonishingly beautiful picture. 
 
 That is magnificent ! said he. " Magnificent ! 
 You should always give people their first view of 
 Chateau Monsigny by moonlight, mademoiselle. 
 I don t know how fine it may be by day, but this 
 is wonderful. There are certain things that are 
 peculiarly fine at night with a moon, that is 
 the Colosseum in Rome begins the list, I believe. 
 What would the trippers do if they could not 
 write guide-book letters about the Colosseum? 
 And there s the Parthenon and Chateau Monsigny. 
 I insist it s the finest of them all Chateau
 
 MONSIGNY 49 
 
 Monsigny," he repeated thoughtfully. "It s a 
 page out of the history of France, isn t it ? It has 
 bred great men. It s an honourable monument. 
 And all yours, mademoiselle all yours." 
 
 The girl sighed, shaking her head. 
 
 "All mine," she said, "though it seems a bit 
 absurd. I think I m a little glad and I think I m 
 a little no, very proud. And I think I m a little 
 scared, maybe. It s so much bigger than I am ! 
 It has been so important for so long. It has been 
 such a page of history, as you say. Yes, I think 
 I m a little scared. I am the last Monsigny alive. 
 Wouldn t you be frightened just the least bit in 
 the world if you were I, monsieur ? " 
 
 Young Beresford laughed gently. 
 
 "Oh, I m frightened enough though I am only 
 I," said he. "See what a coward I am !" 
 
 "Frightened, monsieur?" she wondered. "Of 
 what, then?" 
 
 "Of you, mademoiselle," said young Beresford. 
 "There s a lot more in you to be frightened of 
 than there is in Chateau Monsigny." 
 
 "Frightened of me !" she scoffed. " I am per 
 fectly safe, monsieur very gentle, and I have 
 never in my life bitten anybody." 
 
 "Ah, now, it is a great relief to hear that," said 
 young Beresford. "Still I am afraid. You are
 
 50 MONSIGNY 
 
 such an impossibly important heiress, mademoi 
 selle, and you are so impossibly beautiful ! It all 
 makes such a barrier, don t you know, like royal 
 blood. The ordinary chap feels as if he oughtn t 
 to come near you till he s sent for, nor speak till 
 he s spoken to." He laughed again with a sort 
 of grave mockery, but Isabeau de Monsigny 
 turned toward him frowning. 
 
 "That is very great nonsense !" she said, and 
 Beresford almost laughed again, for the phrase 
 sounded so like the Earl or Lord Stratton. 
 
 " What difference does it make," she demanded, 
 " whether a girl is an heiress or not ? Nothing sets 
 up such a barrier as you speak of but royal blood, 
 and I ve none of that, as you know. And if a girl 
 happens to be to be pretty, what of that? 
 The humblest, poorest child in France may be 
 prettier. The head gardener here at Monsigny 
 has a daughter who is the most beautiful woman 
 I ever saw lovelier than one of his roses. Ah, it 
 is all great nonsense!" She put out one of her 
 hands for an instant and touched his arm as she 
 Stood before him in the moonlight. 
 
 "Don t talk of barriers and such, monsieur," 
 she said very low, and smiled up at him a bit 
 wistfully. "I have been looking forward so to 
 to your coming here ! We do not have many
 
 MONSIGNY 51 
 
 people here at Monsigny. I have been looking 
 forward to such a good time like Mentone. 
 Are you going to spoil it all?" 
 
 "Oh, mademoiselle!" cried young Beresford, 
 starting a little toward her. But the girl drew 
 back quickly with a nervous laugh, as if she were 
 afraid of what he might say. 
 
 "We must be going back," she said. "They 
 will think we are lost down here. Ah, we must 
 get back; come !" And young Beresford, breath 
 ing a bit quickly, followed her up the many flights 
 of steps, with a certain odd bit of verse running 
 in his head all about moonshine and madness. 
 
 But when they reached the top of the bank, 
 above the fountain, she paused an instant, under 
 the sheltering gloom of the trees. 
 
 "Oh, monsieur!" she cried in a little low 
 breathless voice. " Monsieur, I would not have 
 you be afraid! Do not be afraid!" and she 
 ran swiftly from him into the moonlight of the 
 avenue. 
 
 On the great terrace only Mrs. Marlowe was 
 standing beside the little iron coffee-table. 
 
 " My dear !" she called as Isabeau came up the 
 steps, "poor Mme. de Brissal has been taken ill 
 one of her dizzy spells, Lord Stratton says. 
 He wished me to ask you to come in to her as soon
 
 52 MONSIGNY 
 
 as you had returned. I hope it is nothing 
 serious?" 
 
 "Oh, no, indeed," said the girl. "Poor aunt ! 
 She has them so often. They pass in a few 
 minutes. Yes, I will go in. Is father there? 
 You will excuse me, Monsieur Beresford?" 
 
 She went quickly into the chateau, and young 
 Beresford was left face to face with the other 
 guest. He drew a long, deep breath. 
 
 Mrs. Marlowe set her little cup down upon the 
 tray. 
 
 "Well, Tony? "said she. 
 
 "Well?" said the Honourable Mr. Beresford.
 
 CHAPTER IV
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 "HAVE you had a pleasant walk, Tony?" she 
 asked with a queer little laugh. 
 
 "Very!" said the Honourable Mr. Beresford. 
 He had leaned back, half sitting, against the 
 marble balustrade of the terrace near the iron 
 table which held the coffee-tray, and the woman 
 came nearer, standing close before him, so that 
 she could see his face plainly in the moonlight. 
 
 "How pleasant, Tony?" said she quietly. 
 
 The Honourable Mr. Beresford lowered his 
 
 brows. "That does not May I ask if that 
 
 concerns you?" he inquired. 
 
 "Oh, yes," said the woman, looking into his 
 eyes. "Yes, it concerns me. Oh, it concerns 
 me rather intimately." She bent her head for 
 a moment, and fingered the cups and spoons and 
 the silver things on the tray beside her. Then 
 she looked up again, into his eyes. 
 
 "It was very strange our being asked here at 
 the same time, wasn t it? I didn t know you 
 were coming. I didn t hear of it until after I had 
 arrived this afternoon. You did not know about 
 
 55
 
 5 6 MONSIGNY 
 
 me, either, did you? I saw you didn t when 
 we met this evening in the hall. You have 
 admirable self-control, Tony. You always had 
 too much self-control, almost. I should have 
 screamed, I think." 
 
 " It was rather a bad moment," agreed Beres- 
 ford gravely. " Still," he went on, " now that we 
 are here, we must simply make the best of it, I 
 suppose. As a matter of fact, I see no reason 
 whatever for making the situation theatrical. 
 We shall have to be a bit careful about concealing 
 the fact that we that we have known each other 
 before, and that is all, I should think. Of course, 
 he said, after a moment s pause, and with an 
 obvious effort, "of course, if you greatly prefer, 
 I will go away to-morrow, back to Paris, on 
 business of some sort. I could arrange to be 
 telegraphed for." 
 
 The woman looked up eagerly. "Oh, if you 
 
 could ! " she cried. " That would be so much 
 
 No, Tony, no, you must not do that. I won t be 
 so seifish as to allow you to do it. No, that is 
 out of the question. Besides do you know, I 
 am not at all sure that that I am not glad you 
 
 are here. I It has been a very long time, 
 
 hasn t it ? Oh, Tony, Tony, my silly heart jumped 
 when I saw you, there in the hall ! You looked
 
 MONSIGNY 57 
 
 so so like you used !" She took a little turn up 
 the terrace and back again, and her fingers pulled 
 and twisted at the lace handkerchief she carried. 
 Then she faced him again with a sort of defiance 
 in her bearing and in her eyes. 
 
 "I came here to Monsigny for a purpose, 
 Tony," said she in an altered voice. 
 
 "Yes?" said Mr. Beresford. 
 
 "I. came here," said she, "to marry Lord 
 Stratton to make him want to marry me. He 
 does not know yet whether he wants to marry 
 me or not. In a week, or may be less, he will ask 
 me. I came here to marry Lord Stratton." 
 
 "Ah-h!" said Beresford, very low. The 
 woman leaned forward, scanning his face very 
 anxiously, as if she sought to know what his quiet 
 exclamation meant. 
 
 "I tell you," she cried after a moment, 
 "I am tired! I am worn out! You do not 
 know what I have been through. I started in 
 so bravely, Tony ! I thought I could make a 
 new life for myself. I changed my name for that 
 of a cousin who had died, and I thought I could 
 put all that that horror and disgrace behind 
 me. But, Tony, Tony, I can t ! It haunts me 
 day and night. I never go out on the street, or 
 to a ball, or into the casino at Nice or at Cannes,
 
 58 MONSIGNY 
 
 or to the Opera in Paris without quaking in a cold 
 fear that I shall come face to face with some one 
 who knew me before before the affair ; some one 
 who will call me by the old name, who will let 
 the people I am with know who I was. Some 
 times I do see them, the people who would know, 
 
 and then then Oh, Tony, the dreadful 
 
 panic the miserable subterfuges to get away out 
 of their sight into safety ! Do you know what 
 Lord Stratton said to me yesterday ? I was ask 
 ing him if one might forget troubles an unhappy 
 life and make a new happiness for oneself, and 
 he said that one might forget all save sin and love. 
 Sin and love ! Oh, it isn t true. It isn t true ! 
 One may forget ! I tell you I ve a right to forget. 
 It is monstrous that one s whole life should be 
 ruined, ruined just for one little year ! I tell 
 you " 
 
 "Wait!" said Beresford sharply. "Wait! 
 What do you mean by sin and one little year ? 
 Do you mean there was any truth in what was 
 charged at the time of the action ? Do you mean 
 that Travers had a right to his divorce?" 
 
 The woman fell back a step away from him, 
 stumbling a bit, and her hands flew to her mouth. 
 Her eyes were very wide and she seemed not to 
 breathe at all,
 
 MONSIGNY 59 
 
 "No, no!" she cried hoarsely. "No, Tony! 
 No, I say ! How can you ask such terrible things ? 
 You know there was no truth in it at all. You 
 must know it ! What did I say ? I never said 
 that I had sinned. Tony, don t look at me like 
 that ! Can t you understand how I feel about 
 it? You know what the world thinks about a 
 woman who has been divorced. She is an outcast 
 ever after. Is it so strange that I should come 
 to think the same of the Mrs. Travers who is dead ? 
 She is dead, Tony dead forever, but her ghost is 
 haunting me always, till I am half mad. I say. 
 you do not know what I have been through. 
 Why, I have even been poor. I have to contrive 
 wretched little makeshifts to dress decently, to 
 make an appearance. I can bear it no longer, 
 I tell you." 
 
 "You might have come to me for that part of 
 it, as well as for the other," said Beresford, and 
 his voice softened. 
 
 "Ah, Tony ! " she cried. " I could come to you 
 for neither. I had a little remnant of wretched 
 pride left me, and I made out, somehow. Had I 
 not done enough injury as it was? You were 
 dragged into that that disgrace, and your name 
 was sullied along with mine. I know how you 
 felt the injustice of it, Tony, You are the sort
 
 60 MONSIGNY 
 
 of man to feel such things. Only, the world is 
 more lenient with a man s honour than with a 
 woman s. They have forgotten your part in it 
 already, but they will never forget Mrs. Travers." 
 
 " If you had done as I asked at the time," said 
 Beresford, "you might have been spared all this." 
 
 "Yes, Tony," said she, "if I had married you 
 I might have been spared it all. Very often I 
 have wished that I had married you. We should 
 not have been happy, though. You did not love 
 me, Tony. You offered to marry me because, in 
 the world s eyes, it was you who had made the 
 divorce possible." She put out her two hands 
 upon his breast as she stood before him, and her 
 face bore a little wistful, tender smile, in the 
 moonlight. 
 
 "I wish you had loved me then, Tony, when 
 you asked me to marry you," said she. "You 
 had loved me a little before, hadn t you long 
 before? But you would not speak. You tried 
 to hide it because I was another man s wife. I 
 didn t appreciate your love then. Ah, but I d 
 have treasured it later!" 
 
 "Do you do you care for Lord Stratton?" 
 asked Beresford, and his voice was still gentle 
 and low. 
 
 She shook her head slowly. "No," said she.
 
 MONSIGNY 61 
 
 "No, I don t care for him not in the way you 
 mean. I don t love him, but I am very tired, 
 Tony, and poor and fagged out. I m a ship that 
 has had a stormy voyage, and I m sick for a port. 
 He would be kind to me very kind and tender 
 and indulgent. I should pass my days con 
 tentedly, I think happily, even. Ah, Tony, how 
 I long for peace, security, a good strong arm 
 to lean on ! I should make him a good wife, 
 honestly I should." 
 
 "And you ll tell him?" said he. But the fear 
 came into her face, and hurried her breath once 
 more. 
 
 "Oh, no, no! Oh, no, Tony!" she cried. 
 "Not that! No, I couldn t tell him. Do you 
 think I should tell him? No, I could not. 
 Listen ! It would only distress him make him 
 unhappy. Mrs. Travers is dead. Why dig her 
 up again? No one would ever know. I swear 
 to you that I would make him a good wife. 
 What does it matter who I was five years ago? 
 You ll not tell him yourself? You ll not ruin 
 me, Tony?" 
 
 "No," said Beresford, "I shall not tell him. 
 You know that. It is not my affair. Besides, 
 it is not as if you had been, in the least, in fault 
 at the time of the five years ago. A great
 
 62 MONSIGNY 
 
 wrong was done you. If you choose absolutely 
 to bury it, it is no affair of mine." 
 
 "No," said Mrs. Marlowe, looking over the 
 tree tops to the star-strewn sky; "no, it is not as 
 if I had been in fault." 
 
 Then, after a little silence, she came and sat 
 beside him on the coping of the marble 
 balustrade, with her hands clasped upon 
 her knees and her face turned up to the sky. 
 There was a little soft reminiscent smile at her 
 lips. 
 
 "Do you know, Tony," said she, "it wasn t all 
 so bad, in those days, was it ? In spite of all the 
 horror and the shame and the disgrace, it wasn t 
 all so bad. I had you. It was very good to be 
 able to lay everything upon your shoulders, to 
 feel how strong and cool and sure you were, to 
 know that you would do all that a man might 
 do, and that you would never save yourself by 
 hurting me. You held your tongue about many 
 things to save me, when by speaking you could 
 have cleared your own name, didn t you, Tony? 
 Ah, no, it wasn t all bad ! Sometimes, since, 
 when I ve been feeling very blue, and very 
 tired out, and very lonely, I ve wished those 
 days were back, terrible as they were, just 
 because they held you."
 
 MONSIGNY 63 
 
 She turned her head away from him with a 
 nervous laugh. 
 
 "You d be surprised, Tony," said she, "if I 
 could tell you how I felt this evening when I saw 
 you again after so long. It brought back a 
 queer great rush of recollections and and things, 
 a queer rush of them. Did it mean nothing to 
 you, when you saw me nothing but surprise? 
 Had you forgotten oh, everything save that I 
 brought a stain upon you? You you cared 
 a little, once, didn t you? Had you quite for 
 gotten, Tony?" 
 
 He made no answer, and Mrs. Marlowe sat a 
 long time silent, pulling and twisting at the bit 
 of lace in her hands. 
 
 "She s a very beautiful girl, Tony," said she 
 at last. 
 
 "Yes," said Beresford gravely. "She is a 
 very beautiful girl. She is the most beautiful 
 woman in Europe, I suppose." 
 
 "And very rich," pursued Mrs. Marlowe. 
 
 "And very rich," he agreed. 
 
 " Shall you marry her, Tony?" said the woman 
 in a low voice. 
 
 "That is an absurd question," replied Beres 
 ford. "I know Mile, de Monsigny very slightly. 
 I saw her for a few days in Mentone, last winter,
 
 6 4 MONSIGNY 
 
 and I have seen her for part of one evening here. 
 Your thoughts travel far ahead." 
 
 " Still, you would give your soul to marry her," 
 said she. "Have I not watched you with her? 
 And she cares for you, too. I could see that when 
 she looked at you during dinner. It is in her 
 face and in her voice." 
 
 Mrs. Marlowe rose suddenly from her seat, 
 and fell to walking up and down, in the moonlight, 
 with her hands pressed to her cheeks. 
 
 "Oh, I am a foolish old woman, Tony!" she 
 cried in a low voice. "And I am very nervous, 
 and I am a little mad, I think, for I cannot bear 
 to see you with that girl. I cannot bear to see 
 you look at her as you do, and to see her flush 
 and smile, and look into your eyes. I cannot bear 
 to hear her lower her voice when she speaks to 
 you, as a woman does for only one man in the 
 world. Do you think I am mad? I I cannot 
 bear it ! Listen ! You told me, five years ago, 
 that the rest of your life was mine to do with as 
 I liked. You said that, by some horrible series 
 of blunders, my name had been blackened forever, 
 and that you were responsible for it, innocent 
 though you were. You offered to marry me. 
 You said you would never marry any one else. 
 Oh, are you going to break your word now?"
 
 MONSIGNY 65 
 
 The Honourable Mr. Beresford rose to his feet, 
 and his face was very white in the moonlight 
 very white and drawn and tense. 
 
 " I have never broken my word in all my life," 
 said he. "I offered, in all good faith, to marry 
 you five years ago, and you refused and sent me 
 away. I offer it again, in all good faith. It was 
 through me, however innocently, that your life 
 was wrecked, and to give you my life is the least 
 I can do. I will marry you now, if you wish, 
 though you know that I do not love you. I had 
 no thought that you wished to hold me to my old 
 promise, for we have seen nothing of each other 
 in so long a time, and you had refused me once. 
 But wait !" He turned upon her with a puzzled 
 frown. "How can you wish to hold me to my 
 promise if you mean to marry Lord Stratton ? I 
 am afraid I do not understand." 
 
 The woman threw out her arms with a little 
 helpless gesture. 
 
 "Oh, Tony, Tony !" she cried. " Am I a man, 
 to feel and reason by logic ? Have I not told you 
 that I was a foolish old woman, and nervous and 
 overtired and a little mad? No, no, Tony, I 
 must not marry you. We should not be happy 
 together, you and I. We were never made to 
 be together long, and you you don t care any
 
 66 MONSIGNY 
 
 more. No, I must marry Lord Stratton, but 
 I cannot bear to see you with another woman. 
 I cannot bear to think of you loving her. You 
 will never understand, dear boy, because you are 
 only a man. Oh, yes, lam a little mad. Don t 
 mind me. Don t listen to me. I m mad and 
 foolish, and and jealous, a jealous old woman 
 who who can t altogether forget. Tony, Tony, 
 a jealous old woman !" 
 
 And just then Lord Stratton came out upon 
 the terrace. 
 
 "Mme. de Brissal is much better," said he. 
 "She has these spells of giddiness rather often. 
 They are not dangerous. I am very sorry to 
 have had to leave you. Isabeau will be out in 
 a moment."
 
 CHAPTER V
 
 WHEN Beresford came down the next morning 
 there was no one in the breakfast room. One of 
 the servants told him that Monseigneur and Milor 
 de Strope had just finished, and that mademoiselle 
 had breakfasted very early before any one else. 
 Madame and Mme. Marlowe were not yet down. 
 
 He breakfasted alone, and then went out into 
 the sunlight. The air was soft and fresh and 
 cool, and full of all sweet summer odours roses 
 from the gardens, and mignonette and heliotrope 
 and geraniums the acrid scent of firs from the 
 grove which hid the avenue on its way to the 
 gates, damp earth and growing things from the 
 fountains and the lagoon below; and, over it all, 
 the wonderful clean freshness of dew not yet dried 
 by the mounting sun. Birds cheeped and sang 
 and rustled among the trees or under the shrub 
 bery, and down beyond the stables somewhere 
 a cow lowed. 
 
 The Earl of Strope was coming up the avenue 
 from the stables. He was in breeches and an old 
 
 69
 
 70 MONSIGNY 
 
 shooting jacket, and he wore a very ancient deer 
 stalker s cap. 
 
 "Morning!" said he. "Shocking hour to get 
 up ! When I was of your age I used always to be 
 up by six." 
 
 "Yes?" said young Beresford politely. "I 
 think I remember my father telling me something 
 of the sort about himself. He used to tell it 
 me very often. I dare say that when I m 
 past middle age I shall say the same thing 
 to all the young men I know. It must be a 
 great comfort to look back upon an exemplary 
 youth." 
 
 The old gentleman laughed and worked his 
 great white eyebrows up and down. 
 
 "You have no reverence for age," said he. 
 "You re like all the other young people nowa 
 days. Only you are stronger. I really should 
 like to know which of us is the stronger. We shall 
 have a good opportunity to find out here. You 
 must stop a long time. Would you like to come 
 down to the dairy? I have a calf which I am 
 lifting each day with my arms to test the truth 
 of the old adage. They say, you know, that if 
 you lift a calf each day from the time it is bom, 
 you should be able to lift it when it is a cow. It 
 would be interesting at least to find out when one
 
 MONSIGNY 71 
 
 would reach one s limit. My calf is quite a heifer 
 now but I still can lift it." 
 
 They went down the smooth, well-kept drive, 
 past the stables where a pair of English grooms 
 were polishing harness in the sunlight, and through 
 the dairy houses to a small paddock where two 
 or three half-grown calves stood fighting flies in 
 a patch of shade. The pasture beyond was 
 dotted red and white with grazing cattle. 
 
 "That is the one," said the Earl, pointing to 
 a white heifer of mild aspect. He put a hand in 
 the pocket of his jacket, and the heifer came up 
 to him expectantly. 
 
 "I should have thought it impossible for any 
 man to lift that animal in his arms," said Beres- 
 ford. The old Earl laughed. 
 
 " I shall prove that it is not," said he, giving the 
 heifer a bit of sugar. He stepped to the animal s 
 side and put both arms under its body, planting 
 his strong feet well beneath it. Then he lifted 
 it till its hoofs hung several inches from the 
 ground. The heifer turned a mildly protesting 
 face and licked his ear with a sugary tongue. 
 
 "By Jove!" said young Beresford. "I ll do 
 that or die in the attempt. Will you give the 
 poor beast some more sugar?" 
 
 "I hope you will fail," said the old gentle-
 
 72 MONSIGNY 
 
 man, chuckling. "I shall tell everybody in the 
 house." 
 
 Beresford tugged desperately at the heifer and, 
 much to his surprise, duplicated the Earl s feat. 
 
 "Haven t you something really difficult?" he 
 inquired loftily. "This is mere child s play. I 
 wish, though, that when the beast is full grown 
 and you are still lifting it you would ask me down 
 here to look on. I should thoroughly enjoy seeing 
 you embrace a large white cow. There is a 
 certain humour in the picture." 
 
 The Earl growled. 
 
 "What do you think of that woman who s 
 stopping here?" he demanded abruptly, as they 
 were returning through the dairy "that Mrs. 
 Marlowe?" 
 
 "What do I think of her?" repeated Beresford 
 defensively. "Oh, I don t know. I ve not had 
 much of a chance to judge, have I ? She is 
 undeniably a handsome woman, and I should 
 fancy she might be an entertaining one. Why 
 do you ask?" 
 
 "I don t like her," said the Earl, with his 
 accustomed frankness. "She has frightened 
 eyes. She has done something bad, sometime or 
 other. And she s afraid of being found out." 
 
 Beresford laughed.
 
 MONSIGNY 73 
 
 "What a detective you would make, sir!" 
 said he. "Now, I dare say the poor woman 
 has merely had an unhappy life. Grief often 
 makes a woman s eyes look like that. After 
 all, the mere fact that she is a widow is reason 
 enough." 
 
 "It s not grief," declared the old gentleman 
 stubbornly. " It is fear. I know fear when I see 
 it. And what s more, I think she means to marry 
 my son. That would be a great folly." 
 
 "It might be a great happiness," submitted 
 Beresford. 
 
 A great folly, repeated the Earl. The silly 
 boy is afraid of being lonely in the event of 
 Isabeau s marrying. As if he would not still have 
 me ! I don t like the woman. I should oppose, 
 with all my strength, any such notion as his 
 marrying her. I don t wish him to marry again, 
 anyhow. There is no need of it. Alfred, my 
 other son, has two boys. The succession is 
 assured. I need Richard to bear me company. 
 He s a fool to think of marrying !" And the old 
 gentleman shook his head angrily, and shrugged 
 his great shoulders, as if he would have done with 
 a disagreeable topic. "I am going down, to the 
 lagoon to see about replacing a bit of loose stone," 
 he said. " Will you come ? "
 
 74 MONSIGNY 
 
 "Why er, thanks," said young Beresford. 
 " Thanks, I should like to go, but I I think I see 
 mademoiselle up in the rose gardens, yonder. 
 Perhaps I d best just speak a word to her, and 
 join you a bit later." 
 
 "Oh," said the Earl. "Yes, yes, of course! 
 Of course !" But he did not at once start away. 
 He hesitated a moment, frowning absently under 
 his great white brows. 
 
 "Old men have strange notions from time to 
 time," he said at last. "Sometimes they feel 
 coming events rather oddly. I have a strong 
 feeling that something is going to happen here at 
 Monsigny that there are events of moment 
 afoot. I am glad you are with us. You are more 
 of a man than most men. Yes, I think something 
 out of common is going to happen, and I believe 
 that woman will have a part in it." Then he 
 turned away, and went down the long slope 
 toward the lagoon, his great shoulders swinging 
 as he walked and his hair gleaming white under 
 the old deer-stalker s cap. 
 
 Beresford stood looking after him thoughtfully. 
 
 "I should say that you are very likely right, 
 sir," said he, under his breath. " The air is a bit 
 thick, and air has a way of clearing itself. I 
 wonder " He had a momentary impulse to
 
 MONSIGNY 75 
 
 follow the old gentleman and, in spite of his 
 promise of the night before, tell him the truth 
 as he knew it regarding Mrs. Marlowe and that 
 lady s unfortunate past, and his own connection 
 with the affair. He saw that the Earl was very 
 decidedly opposed to any idea of his son s marriage 
 to the woman, and he foresaw trouble and possibly 
 unfortunate disclosures if it should come to a 
 clash. But the habit of keeping his word, even 
 in the smallest matters, and a natural distaste for 
 meddling, held him silent. He turned about 
 toward the garden with a little sigh. Something 
 is going to happen here at Monsigny," he 
 repeated. "I should say that you were very 
 likely right, sir." And he shook his head 
 gloomily. 
 
 The rose gardens lay to the west of the chateau. 
 There were hedges of box and of laurel about 
 them, and down at the farther end, for the great 
 rectangle sloped gently away, were rows of glass 
 hothouses for forcing the flowers in winter and 
 spring. On the side opposite to the avenue there 
 was a little rustic summer-house, open to the air 
 but masked about by lilac trees, and a row of these 
 lilac trees stood all along the high stone wall that 
 shut out the cold winds from the north. 
 
 Beresford found a gap in the hedge and made
 
 76 MONSIGNY 
 
 his way in between two of the long straight rows 
 of bushes that drooped under dew-wet rose 
 buds. The air was heavy with fragrance 
 almost stupefying. Some one in a soft white 
 gown that clung to her when she moved under a 
 great drooping white hat that shaded all her 
 beautiful head stood still, up to the waist in 
 roses. 
 
 " Bon jour, monsieur," said some one, very low, 
 and made a little courtesy down into the roses. 
 
 "Bon jour, mademoiselle," said the Honourable 
 Ashton Beresford. " Do I intrude ? " 
 
 " Du tout, monsieur!" said she. "We are 
 honoured, the roses and I. What have you been 
 doing with my poor old grandpere, monsieur?" 
 
 "I have been lifting a calf," said Beresford. 
 "A white one." There were choked sounds under 
 the big hat. 
 
 "It is nothing to laugh at," he said with 
 dignity. " It is a feat. You couldn t have lifted 
 the calf," he boasted. 
 
 "Me? I couldn t lift even a wee little calf," 
 confessed the girl humbly. "It seems such an 
 odd way to spend a morning, though lifting 
 calves. Do you always do it ?" 
 
 "No, I don t," said he; "but your poor old 
 grandpere does, so you needn t be proud,"
 
 MONSIGNY 77 
 
 "Ah, well, I dare say the calf likes it," she con 
 ceded handsomely. "I should have loved to see 
 you, though!" And she made further choked 
 sounds. 
 
 Beresford rudely pushed aside the rose-bushes 
 and came into the path where she was standing. 
 She looked up into his face and the blood beat 
 at his temples. 
 
 "I m not so afraid in the sunshine," said he 
 to the purple eyes. Then he was granted an 
 extensive view of the top of the big white hat. 
 It was really a very handsome hat as hats go. 
 
 "You you have not said how you liked my 
 roses," ventured the girl, after awhile. 
 
 "Roses?" said he. "Roses? How is one to 
 say that one likes roses ? They are very beautiful 
 roses I dare say they are very proper ones. I 
 don t know anything about roses. The only 
 thing I can say of them is that they make the 
 properest sort of a setting for you. What do you 
 want to talk about roses for?" he demanded 
 irritably. "I wanted to talk about you." 
 
 "Well, I didn t!" said Isabeau de Monsigny 
 with a certain haste. 
 
 "What was it you wished to say about 
 about me?" she inquired presently of Mr. 
 Beresford s back.
 
 78 MONSIGNY 
 
 "I ve forgotten," said he brutally. "It makes 
 no difference, anyhow. You weren t interested." 
 "Oh, very well!" said the girl, and cruelly 
 maltreated an innocent rosebud that had never 
 done her any harm. Then, in a moment, she met 
 Beresford s eyes and they both laughed con- 
 sumedly for they were young and the morning 
 was a cup of wine and God was in His heaven 
 and all was right with their world. 
 
 Beresford threw back his head and drew a long 
 deep breath of the rose-laden air. A little flush 
 came up over his cheeks. 
 
 "I take it back!" he cried. "I lied. Oh, 
 mademoiselle, I lied ! I hadn t forgotten. I 
 wanted to tell you His eyes, looking into 
 
 hers, shifted a trifle and went beyond her, over 
 her shoulder to the upper end of the gardens, 
 where a strip of green turf, raised in a narrow 
 terrace, lay close under the walls of the chateau. 
 
 "Ah-h!" said he, and at his tone Isabeau 
 raised her eyes to his face and followed the direc 
 tion of his gaze. 
 
 "Ah !" said the girl; and her tone, like his, had 
 changed. "There is Mrs. Marlowe," she said 
 reluctantly. I suppose I should ask her to 
 come down and see the gardens, shouldn t I ? 
 One must be polite to one s guests, mustn t one ?"
 
 MONSIGNY 79 
 
 " I don t fancy you need bother just now," said 
 Beresford. "Lord Stratton is coming out to 
 join her." 
 
 "Oh, yes, yes, of course," said the girl slowly. 
 " Father is with her, isn t he?" And she looked, 
 watching the two, as she had looked the evening 
 before when she watched them across the dinner 
 table a bit puzzled and a bit thoughtful and a 
 bit disturbed. 
 
 " Shall we go over to the little summer-house ? " 
 she said presently. The sun is growing just a bit 
 warm here. It is cool in the summer-house, and 
 shady and comfortable, and one is higher up. 
 One can see all the gardens." 
 
 So they crossed over between the straight ranks 
 of rose-bushes, to the other side of the garden, 
 where the tiny rustic summer-house stood among 
 its lilac trees, under the cool shade of the wall. 
 And Beresford said no word as they went, for the 
 sight of the two people up by the house had quite 
 wrecked his mood, and had started his thoughts 
 along unpleasant channels. He thought of what 
 the old Earl had said so seriously but a few 
 moments before, and he thought of the past 
 evening, and of how Mrs. Marlowe had recalled 
 his old promise and had broken out in a fit of 
 woman s jealousy because he had talked with
 
 8o MONSIGNY 
 
 Isabeau. It could not be that she seriously 
 meant to hold him to his word that she meant 
 still to demand his allegiance. Her marriage 
 to Lord Stratton, provided it went forward, must 
 free him from all that. But what if she should 
 not marry the Viscount? What if the old Earl 
 should be able to prevent it, or she should deter 
 mine not to go on with it ? What if any one of 
 a thousand obstacles should materialise? He 
 would still be bound then ! He had given her his 
 life. What if she should refuse to give it back 
 to him? 
 
 He clenched his teeth as he walked between the 
 ranks of roses and said fiercely to himself that 
 this was all preposterous nonsense. She could 
 never take such an advantage. She was not that 
 sort. What if she had given way to a little 
 momentary spasm of jealousy she had laughed 
 at it herself. No, she was not that sort. 
 
 But, though he reassured himself very scorn 
 fully as his mind went over the thing, he could not 
 rid himself of an odd discomfort a premonition 
 of danger to come. It was so, he thought, that 
 the Earl must have felt when he said something 
 was going to happen at Monsigny something out 
 of the common. And Beresford shook his head 
 with a little sigh, for he knew that his happy,
 
 MONSIGNY 81 
 
 contented mood of the morning was gone beyond 
 recall. A film had come over the sunlight and 
 the rose gardens. 
 
 There were chairs in the little summer-house, 
 fashioned from gnarled and twisted branches, 
 and a small rough table placed at one side. They 
 sat down by the railing and looked out over the 
 splendidly kept gardens with their hundreds of 
 rose-bushes and, farther down toward the hot 
 houses, their beds and borders of other flowers 
 mignonettes and fuchsias and pinks and blazing 
 geraniums. A vine of climbing rose had mounted 
 the side of the summer-house and clung to the roof- 
 posts, heavy with pink blossoms, and a spray of 
 its buds hung by the girl s head, almost touching 
 her hair. The colour, Beresford noted, was 
 exactly the colour of her cheek, and the texture 
 was like it, too. He thought of telling her so, 
 but it seemed a very silly thing to say, even 
 though it was true very silly and very young, he 
 thought ; the sort of thing that one of the under- 
 grooms might say to the gardener s pretty 
 daughter of whom Isabeau had spoken the 
 evening before. He was quite out of humour 
 with compliments. 
 
 The girl s eyes still rested upon the two 
 people up under the walls of the chateau, and
 
 82 MONSIGNY 
 
 they were still thoughtful and a bit disturbed. 
 When the two rounded the corner of the west 
 wing and disappeared, she turned about to Mr. 
 Beresford with a little sigh. 
 
 "I suppose it is very, very rude and very im 
 proper not not quite to like one of one s own 
 guests, isn t it?" she inquired deprecatingly. 
 
 "Very !" said he by way of encouragement. 
 
 "And yet," she went on, "do you know, I can t 
 quite like her Mrs. Marlowe, you know. I never 
 could, not even in Nice. There s something about 
 her oh, I don t know." She looked away over 
 the gardens, but Beresford could see that the 
 colour heightened the least bit in her cheek. 
 "Father likes her I think. Perhaps I don t 
 know her well enough I think it s something 
 about her eyes." 
 
 "Ah!" said young Beresford, "that is very 
 odd." 
 
 "Odd? How?" she demanded, turning back 
 to him. What do you mean ? How is it odd ? 
 
 "Oh, nothing," said he, "nothing at all. I 
 was thinking of what some one else had said 
 about a woman s eyes. Yes, as you say, Lord 
 Stratton seems to like her. I noticed last 
 evening at dinner. Well, she is handsome, is she 
 not? And she is probably very entertaining."
 
 MONSIGNY 83 
 
 The girl looked up into his face with a certain 
 diffident curiosity. 
 
 "Had you ever met her before last evening?" 
 she asked. 
 
 Beresford hesitated for the fraction of a second. 
 
 "I do not remember," he said carefully, "ever 
 to have met any Mrs. Marlowe before. Of course 
 one meets no end of people and quite forgets 
 them. It is not a common name, I should think, 
 though hardly extraordinary. Why do you 
 ask?" 
 
 "Oh, nothing," said the girl, looking away 
 again. " Last evening, when you were presented, 
 I thought just for a moment, you know oh, 
 nothing, nothing at all ! Let us talk about 
 something else. I really must not sit here dis 
 cussing one of our own guests. What shall 
 we talk of, monsieur?" 
 
 "There is you," suggested Mr. Beresford, dis 
 passionately. 
 
 "No," said she, shaking her head, "I will not 
 be talked about. We shall talk about you. Why 
 have you turned all at once so grave and stern 
 and and bitter-looking, monsieur, with your 
 lips all in a hard little straight little line so ! 
 A few moments ago, down among the roses, you 
 were you were different."
 
 84 MONSIGNY 
 
 "Ah, mademoiselle, " said he, "that was in tne 
 sunshine and among the roses. It is shadow here. 
 There is a difference somehow. And I have 
 been thinking of things that were unpleasant. 
 The sun does not shine everywhere, mademoiselle." 
 
 But the girl put out her hand with a quick 
 gesture and touched his arm. Her eyes were 
 wide and distressed. 
 
 "Ah, monsieur," said she very low, " come back 
 into the sunlight ! If the sun does not shine 
 everywhere one may still go where it shines. I 
 I cannot bear to see any one unhappy or in 
 trouble. Is it just black butterflies, monsieur; 
 papillons noirs, or is it great trouble? Ah, I 
 would have sunshine always for everybody ! I 
 should die without the sun, I think. Am I very, 
 very foolish, monsieur?" 
 
 "No, mademoiselle," said Beresford gently, 
 "you are very, very wise; and it is only papillons 
 noirs not a great trouble." He stopped to 
 shake his head at her humorously, and he gave 
 a little whimsical laugh. 
 
 " Fancy anybody thinking of his troubles, with 
 you about !" said he. 
 
 "I might be one of his troubles myself," 
 suggested Mademoiselle de Monsigny. "Then 
 he d have to think of me to be polite. Am I
 
 MONSIGNY 85 
 
 one of your troubles, Monsieur Beresford?" she 
 demanded. 
 
 " You are," sighed young Beresford. "You re 
 a great trial to me. You kept me awake half of 
 last night." 
 
 " Oooh !" said she sorrowfully. 
 
 " But I ll forgive you," he went on, "for it was 
 no fault of yours. You can t help it, can you, 
 if presumptuous young men dare to lie awake 
 thinking about you." 
 
 " What was this particular presumptuous young 
 man thinking?" inquired Mile, de Monsigny 
 rashly. 
 
 A sudden little flash came upon Mr. Beresford s 
 face and his voice mounted. "What did he 
 think?" he cried. "Ah, I ll tell you what he 
 no, hang me if I will ! No, I ll not tell you 
 what he thought, mademoiselle," and he refused 
 to meet her eyes. 
 
 " I thought of your wit and beauty," he mocked 
 presently, when his voice was once more quite 
 calm, "but chiefly of your hair. Where did you 
 get your wonderful pale hair, mademoiselle? 
 There was never any like it in all the world. And 
 where did you get your purple eyes ? You know, 
 do you not, that they call you the most beautiful 
 woman in Europe."
 
 86 MONSIGNY 
 
 " Then," said the girl decidedly, "they talk very- 
 great nonsense, for I have seen many women who 
 are infinitely more beautiful than I am. My 
 hair is a great trial to me. It is tow colour, 
 monsieur no colour at all. I got it from Yvonne 
 de Morlaix, who was an ancestress of mine, a 
 Bretonne. Two or three others of the family 
 have had it since. Me, I do not like it. I wish I 
 had my mother s hair, as I have her eyes. It is 
 tow!" 
 
 "It is no such thing !" cried young Beresford, 
 indignantly. "Tow, indeed ! It is the very soul 
 of gold with all the cheap yellow taken away, and 
 just a creamy tinge of colour left to make it warm 
 and alive. You should see it in the sunlight ! 
 Tow ! Have you a portrait of this Yvonne de 
 Morlaix?" 
 
 "Yes," said the girl, "but it is a very crude 
 and poor one. Would you like to see it ? It is 
 in the west gallery with the others. There is a 
 very beautiful portrait of my mother by Carolus 
 Duran. I should like you to see that. Come, 
 we will go up to the house now." 
 
 They left the little summer-house and went up 
 through the gardens by a gravel path which ran 
 under the stone wall. Isabeau carried a great 
 armful of long-stemmed pink roses which she had
 
 MONSIGNY 87 
 
 cut. And they entered the west wing of the 
 chateau and made their way through suites of 
 high, splendid state apartments, shuttered and 
 darkened, the furniture and the mirrors covered 
 with white linen, to the long picture gallery where 
 the portraits of the Marquis de Monsigny and of 
 their wives and of their children hung in double 
 rows. 
 
 Isabeau rolled the shades away from the sky 
 light by cords which hung at hand, and led 
 Beresford to the portrait of Yvonne de Monsigny, 
 nee de Morlaix. It was, as she had said, a crude 
 work, and did probably scant justice to the 
 charms of the Bretonne who had been won in so 
 summary a fashion to the house of Monsigny; 
 but with all its old-fashioned stiffness it was 
 undeniably beautiful, and the painter had reveled 
 in his depiction of the strange pale hair. 
 
 "Yes, it is beautiful," said young Beresford, 
 "but you took little else than the hair from 
 Yvonne de Morlaix, mademoiselle. She was 
 pale, but you have a very pink skin, and she had 
 fair eyebrows, but yours are dark, and she had a 
 weak chin. I do not like people with weak 
 chins. May I see the portrait of your mother?" 
 
 "It is at the other end of the gallery," said 
 Isabeau; and, as they went along, she pointed
 
 88 MONSIGNY 
 
 out three other women of the family with the 
 Bretonne s ashen hair. 
 
 "That one is Jeanne de Monsigny, who married 
 a Due de Angoulesme," said she. "And that is 
 Marie Charlotte, who died a week before her wed 
 ding day, and that is Amelie, who married 
 a Marchese di Sant Agata." 
 
 Then they came to a great portrait in a wide 
 gold frame which seemed a window or a doorway, 
 for the woman pictured there was living and 
 breathing, smiling at one through the opening 
 in the wall. She sat upon a gray-and-gold couch 
 of the Louis Quinze style, and she was leaning 
 forward, in her white silk gown, with one arm 
 laid along the back of the seat, and the other 
 resting across her lap. She faced you, chin tipped 
 up a little, smiling. Her arms and shoulders 
 were bare, and there was a single pink rose, half 
 opened, at her breast. 
 
 Beresford stepped backward with a quick little 
 smothered cry. Save for her yellow golden hair 
 the woman in the picture might have been painted 
 with absolute fidelity from the Isabeau whom he 
 knew. The likeness was amazing. 
 
 "You are all Monsigny, mademoiselle," he said, 
 after a long time. "There is no Stratton about 
 you." It was what her father had said to the
 
 MONSIGNY 89 
 
 old Earl, years before, as they stood on the south 
 terrace and watched her rolling about in the dust 
 with her puppy. 
 
 "Yes," said she, "I am all Monsigny. They 
 say I am very like my mother, and I suppose it is 
 true. I am going to the chapel now, to put these 
 roses on her tomb. I take them there every day. 
 Would you like to go with me ? " 
 
 "Thank you," said he simply, "I should like 
 very much." 
 
 They went back through the great darkened 
 state apartments, and along many dim corridors 
 with doors upon either side, through what seemed 
 to be the oldest portion of the chateau, and so 
 into a little irregular court, flagstoned and sur 
 rounded on all sides by the crenated and time- 
 stained walls of the building. Gargoyles grinned 
 from the eaves, and a quaintly wrought pointer 
 of iron stood out from one of the walls, throwing 
 a finger of shadow upon the sun-dial chiseled into 
 the stone. In the centre of the court there was 
 a very ancient well, long disused, with a curb of 
 worn graystone and a rusted crank of iron for 
 raising the bucket. Little brown lizards were 
 sunning themselves upon the curb. 
 
 They crossed the court and entered the gothic 
 porch of the chapel. Ivy covered it almost
 
 90 MONSIGNY 
 
 completely, and hung in festoons across the 
 opening. The girl unlatched the heavy little 
 oaken door and went in. 
 
 Inside, the chapel was very cool almost cold, 
 in spite of the summer heat without, and the air 
 smelled of incense and burned wax and of dry 
 decay. It was gloomy, for the few windows were 
 of stained glass heavy blues and scarlets and 
 greens. From the rose window over the doors, 
 which faced the south, beams of light slanted 
 down through the dim air and fell in prismatic 
 lozenges across the flagstone pavement and 
 across the heavy pillars and upon the sculptured 
 tombs which stood on either side of the chapel. 
 The hanging lamp before the altar gleamed, a tiny 
 red spark in the shadows, like a lighthouse far 
 away at sea. 
 
 And under the great stone arches at the two 
 sides the tombs of the Marquis de Monsigny 
 stood bravely arow, each with his Marquise 
 beside him. Their sculptured effigies in armour 
 or in robes of office lay upon the covers, hands 
 folded, eyes closed, feet toward the nave; and a 
 little scroll at the foot of each tomb told, in 
 phrases of sonorous Latin, who each man was and 
 the deeds he had done. Pray for him ! 
 
 But there was one tomb which stood alone,
 
 "... knelt down beside the tomb and said a little prayer for the soul of her 
 mother "
 
 MONSIGNY 91 
 
 with an empty space beside it. It bore no effigy 
 upon its cover, only sculptured wreaths and vines 
 and flowers; and four little caryatides, cupids, 
 upheld it at the four corners. There was a cluster 
 of living roses upon the tomb, yesterday s roses, 
 scarcely withered in that cool, dark place. 
 
 The girl took away the flowers, laying in their 
 place the ones she had brought, and she bent 
 her knee, looking toward the high altar, and knelt 
 down beside the tomb, and said a little prayer 
 for the soul of her mother. Beresford stood near, 
 by one of the gray pillars, watching. It gave 
 him a curious and very sweet sense of intimacy 
 to see her so to feel that she had allowed him, 
 indeed, of her own accord asked him, to come here 
 with her. He watched the soft curve of her cheek 
 against the dark, the gleam of her wonderful hair 
 in the shadow the soul of gold, he had called it 
 all the beautiful strong young lines of her body 
 as she knelt beside the tomb ; and a great passion 
 of tenderness and of love took hold upon his heart 
 and shook him from head to foot a great passion 
 of love such as comes to strong natures only, and 
 it swept away in its fierceness all doubts and fears 
 and promises, all dangers and difficulties keen 
 as physical pain, and solemn as the ancient place 
 in which he stood. He bent his head to it and
 
 92 MONSIGNY 
 
 bowed his great shoulders in a sort of grave, awed 
 wonder. 
 
 And when they came out at last into the warm 
 sunshine of the little court he was very silent, 
 with a certain new look in his eyes which turned 
 the girl s cheeks to a deeper pink as she met it.
 
 CHAPTER VI
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 ON this same morning Lord Stratton found 
 Mrs. Marlowe in the breakfast room, finishing her 
 late meal alone. 
 
 " Oh, dear !" said she plaintively, " I know this 
 is a dreadful hour. I suppose all the others of 
 you have breakfasted long ago, but I am habitu 
 ally lazy. I shall make no attempt to conceal it. 
 I m an owl, Lord Stratton I like to stop up till 
 unseemly hours of the night, and sleep till an 
 unseemly hour in the morning if not till noon 
 itself. Are you quite disgusted with me?" 
 
 Lord Stratton sat upon the arm of a chair and 
 smiled across the table at her, the good, frank, 
 hearty smile of a man who is habitually grave. 
 
 "I am not disgusted at all," said he. "I am 
 amused. You shall get up at any hour you like 
 while you are at Monsigny. I dare say your 
 passion for stopping up of nights is the result of 
 having been made to go to bed early when you 
 were a child. I have known people who spent 
 their lives in conscientiously doing all the things 
 they were not allowed to do as children. They 
 
 95
 
 96 MONSIGNY 
 
 took a certain evil delight in it. However, if you 
 will come out-of-doors with me, I will make you 
 genuinely sorry that you were not up hours ago. 
 It is a very beautiful morning." 
 
 They went out upon the terrace, and Mrs. 
 Marlowe breathed in the freshness and the 
 mingled summer odours with a little cry of 
 delight. 
 
 " I am sorry !" she said. " I really am sorry 
 but I expect I shall be quite as late to-morrow. 
 An old woman doesn t change her habits easily. 
 Oh, isn t everything beautiful !" 
 
 "You do not look an old woman," said Lord 
 Stratton, laughing a little. "You look a very 
 young one. I have been told that old women, 
 or semi-old ones, dare not face the morning light. 
 If I am a judge, the morning light becomes you." 
 
 "I am six-and-thirty," said she, "and that is 
 old age. Don t flatter ! You are such a grave 
 and convincing person that one always believes 
 what you say." 
 
 "Six-and-thirty?" said he. "God bless my 
 soul, I am fifty !" 
 
 " Oh, a man !" she scoffed. "A man may be a 
 boy at fifty. He is most certainly a boy till 
 thirty, and sometimes later. But a woman ! 
 Save us ! She s different. Where does all this
 
 MONSIGNY 97 
 
 scent of roses come from? Are there gardens 
 near?" 
 
 "There are rose gardens at the west," said he. 
 "Shall we walk around the west wing of the 
 chateau? One has a very good view of them 
 from close under the walls, for the ground slopes 
 away." 
 
 They skirted the great west wing and came out 
 upon the narrow terrace of green turf. The 
 gardens swept away from under their feet to 
 the hothouses that winked and glittered in 
 the sun, far below. 
 
 "There is some one down among the roses," 
 said Mrs. Marlowe "two people. Ah, it is 
 Isabeau and and Ton and Mr. Beresford." 
 Her tone had changed very suddenly, but Lord 
 Stratton was watching the two young people, 
 and did not heed it. 
 
 "Yes," said he, "yes, it is Isabeau and Ashton 
 Beresford." 
 
 "He seems very devoted," she murmured, 
 and again he did not heed her tone. 
 
 "It is as I would wish," he said presently. 
 " There is no better man. He shall have my con 
 sent if he can win hers." 
 
 "And " said the woman, "and his old entan 
 glement, the story you told me of? You are
 
 98 MONSIGNY 
 
 you are not afraid?" Her face was turned 
 away, and it writhed and twisted so beyond her 
 control for an instant that she was frightened. 
 
 " No ! " cried the Viscount stoutly. " No ! He 
 is innocent of any wrong or of any meanness. 
 I ll swear it. I know the man. He may be 
 Quixotic but he would never be dishonest. Ah, 
 they have gone to the little summer-house where 
 it is shady ! Come, shall we walk ? Let me show 
 you the fountains down below the south terrace. 
 It is cool under the bank. On the hottest days 
 one may be cool there. Come ! " 
 
 They walked back to the south wing of the 
 chateau and crossed the avenue and went down 
 the curving steps of marble that disappeared 
 ahead of them into a thicket of green shade 
 firs overhead, shrubbery and ivy beneath. So 
 they came to the first terrace where the great 
 Nereid fountain was, with its long, still pool before 
 it and its sculptured marble wall all stained and 
 moss-grown, behind. And they went in along 
 the stone coping of the pool, in near to the 
 splashing fountain, and found a cracked 
 marble seat overgrown with ivy. 
 
 The trees stood close together, and under them 
 spreading shrubs. Vines and bushes hung from 
 the bank above, making the place almost a grotto.
 
 MONSIGNY 99 
 
 It was dim and very cool, for the sun never came 
 here, and the mossy earth underfoot was black 
 and damp. Through the vines and low-hanging 
 boughs they could see, as they sat, glimpses of the 
 formally laid out esplanade, where it swept down 
 to the valley, and of the blue lagoon at its foot. 
 Two or three men were busy at the near edge 
 of the lagoon, repairing, it would seem, the 
 stone margin. Among them towered the great 
 shoulders of the old Earl. 
 
 Mrs. Marlowe sank back in her seat with a little 
 sigh of restful content, and half closed her eyes. 
 
 "Ah, it is all so beautiful and peaceful and 
 idyllic here, my friend," she said in her slow, 
 lingering tones. " It is like old tales, romances of 
 another day, a story-book Eden of marble and 
 green things and antiquity and peace. It is like 
 one s dreams of fairy-story castles. Yes, peace 
 peace beyond telling ! I have not had much 
 peace. Oh, do you not dread leaving it ? Could 
 you be happy anywhere else after this ? I should 
 think you would want to imprison Isabeau in a 
 convent to avoid ever having to leave Monsigny." 
 
 Lord Stratton leaned forward, with his eyes 
 fixed upon the plashing water and the intertwined 
 figures of the marble group. He chafed his hands 
 together absently as he stared.
 
 ioo MONSIGNY 
 
 "I should dread ever leaving Monsigny, as you 
 suggest," he said slowly "and indeed in a way 
 I do dread it if it were not for for a certain 
 dream I have of late been dreaming about 
 another sort of happiness, a happiness which does 
 not depend upon place nor environment, which 
 goes with one wherever one moves. I have 
 dreamed, I wonder if it is foolishly, that my life 
 is not yet lived, that there might still be much 
 in it beyond an old man s portion of loneliness 
 and oblivion. I am only fifty, and I am not old 
 
 for those years. I wonder I wonder I -" 
 
 His voice stammered and trailed away into silence. 
 He had been speaking very gravely and thought 
 fully and low, as if quite to himself, and he 
 seemed not to notice when he ceased to think 
 aloud. 
 
 So, for a long time neither of the two spoke, 
 but the woman sat quiet in her place, pale and 
 wide-eyed, with a certain very curious expression 
 upon her face, and Lord Stratton stared at the 
 laughing Nereids, and softly chafed his hands 
 together. 
 
 Then at last, a little restless movement and a 
 sigh from Mrs. Marlowe seemed all at once to 
 rouse him. He sat up with a jerk, like one 
 wakened from sleep.
 
 MONSIGNY 101 
 
 "I I beg your pardon," said he. "I am 
 very rude. I fear my wits were wandering. I 
 have lived so much alone that sometimes I 
 forget." He turned about on the old stone bench 
 to see her the better, and his face was gentle and 
 somehow greatly softened. It was as if he had 
 grown, all in a few moments, much younger 
 had laid off the sternness and hard grimness that 
 grief and time had carved upon him. 
 
 "A little while ago," said he, "you were saying 
 that there had not been much peace in your life, 
 and yesterday also you told me what, of course, 
 I already knew in a vague way, that you had 
 been very unhappy. Will you tell me something 
 of your life? Will you make a friend of me? 
 Believe me, I do not ask in idle curiosity ! Some 
 times it is a sort of relief to unburden one s griefs 
 and sufferings to some one who is strong and safe 
 and who cares to help one. I think you know 
 that I care greatly. I should like to make your 
 life happier. Tell me what has been such a heavy 
 load of suffering upon you, for I think it can have 
 been no ordinary thing. How long have have 
 you been a widow?" 
 
 But the woman fell back in her seat, shrinking 
 away from him, and her hands quivered and 
 twitched, hiding her face.
 
 102 MONSIGNY 
 
 "Oh, no, no! Oh, no, I I can t! Don t 
 ask me anything!" she cried in a low choking 
 voice. "I can t speak of of it. Don t ask 
 me ! Don t ask me ! She had spent many hours 
 during the past five years in preparing for just 
 such an occasion as this. She had often rehearsed 
 what she would say, and with just how effective 
 a degree of womanly sadness she would tell the 
 plausible story; but, curiously enough, she had 
 almost never had occasion to refer to her past. 
 It had been understood, everywhere she went, 
 that she was a widow who remained unconsolable 
 over the death of her husband, and very few 
 people had ever even mentioned her early life. 
 So it was that she had fallen out of the habit 
 of holding herself in hand, ready for the emer 
 gency. Also, the life of constant fear and dread 
 which she had been through had sadly undermined 
 her strength, and now she found herself in a 
 nervous panic quite beyond her control, for the 
 moment. But she gripped her hands and set her 
 teeth very fiercely, calling up all her strength to 
 the need, and after a little was outwardly calm 
 again. 
 
 "Please forgive me," she begged, and her 
 voice still shook. " I I am not very strong, and 
 my nerves play me tricks sometimes. What
 
 MONSIGNY 103 
 
 is it you would know ? My husband ? He died 
 nearly four years ago. He he died under 
 peculiarly dreadful circumstances not disgrace 
 ful oh, not that ! But very terrible. It was 
 in in India. I did not greatly care for him 
 not as a man s wife should care, but his his 
 death was a very great shock. I I try to think 
 of it as little as possible. I try to put all that 
 part of my life behind me to act as if it had 
 not been. Do you understand ? Surely you can 
 
 see how I feel Ah, it was so dreadful, all 
 
 of it, all of it!" She broke off, sobbing, and 
 Lord Stratton laid one of his strong quiet hands 
 upon her arm. 
 
 "Do not say any more, I beg of you," he pro 
 tested, and his voice was gentle and pitiful. "I 
 should not have asked you to speak of it at all. 
 I I did not know how painful it was to you. Do 
 not think me guilty of mere curiosity. I have 
 never been a curious man. I wished only to share 
 the burden of your grief to help you, if I might." 
 
 He rose from his seat and fell to pacing up and 
 down the stone-edged margin of the pool, over the 
 damp earth . "I am a lonely man , Mrs . Marlowe , 
 said he gravely. "Even now I am lonely, with 
 my daughter and my father to keep me company, 
 and one day I shall be lonelier, for my daughter
 
 104 MONSIGNY 
 
 will marry and my father will die. I said I had 
 dreamed that my life was not done that there 
 might yet be more for me than an old man s 
 portion. I wish to marry again, and there is but 
 one woman, among all those I know, whom I 
 would choose. I have not the great fresh love of 
 a young man to offer her, for no one may love 
 twice as I loved Isabeau de Monsigny, but all my 
 care and strength and tenderness should be for 
 her. It may be that I could make her very- 
 happy." He turned to face Mrs. Marlowe, and 
 threw out his two arms in a little open gesture. 
 "You are the woman," said he. "You are the 
 only woman I should ever think of wishing to 
 marry. Am I too abrupt, too plain spoken? 
 Alas, I am a very simple man. It is many years 
 since I have had occasion to use words of love, 
 and they come awkwardly to my lips. I have 
 no eloquence, no complexities of wooing to offer 
 you, but I think I could make your life happier, 
 and I am very sure that you could make me 
 young again. Will you marry me ?" 
 
 Mrs. Marlowe had leaned back in her seat once 
 more, and her hands were pressed against her 
 cheeks, but over them her eyes were very wide 
 and sober, fixed upon the man s face. It had 
 come earlier than she had expected, his proposal
 
 MONSIGNY 105 
 
 of marriage, earlier even than she wished, for 
 every woman, though she be a widow and has 
 tasted great trouble, has yet in her a certain 
 girlish coquetry, a certain instinctive reluctance 
 to make her supreme surrender, though that sur 
 render be sweet to her. She had no intention of 
 refusing to marry the Viscount; indeed, as she 
 had said to Ashton Beresford, she had come to 
 Monsigny with the intention of marrying him; 
 but, now that he had spoken, she found herself 
 curiously unprepared, curiously unwilling to give 
 him his answer. 
 
 She stretched out one of her hands toward him, 
 and he took it between his. 
 
 "Oh, dear friend!" said she, looking up into 
 his face, "give me a little time to consider. You 
 take me by surprise no, see, I will be quite 
 honest with you ! I knew that it was coming, 
 this ; I felt that you would speak to me sometime, 
 but a woman puts such things off into the future. 
 She is never ready to meet them when they come. 
 Women are such foolish things ! Do not press 
 me to-day. Give me until to-morrow. I want 
 to go off alone oh, quite by myself and think. 
 You have done me a great honour. I must not 
 treat it lightly, even to accept it. Will you let 
 me be alone for awhile ? I think I shall take a
 
 io6 MONSIGNY 
 
 long ramble over the fields and through the 
 woods. I like to be out in the heart of nature 
 when I have great things to decide. Will you 
 let me be alone ? Do not wait luncheon for me. 
 I may be gone some hours." 
 
 Lord Stratton bent over the hand that he held 
 and kissed it. 
 
 "I will wait as long as you choose," said he 
 gravely. "I will not hurry you, though I must 
 confess to much impatience. Your answer means 
 a good deal to me a great happiness or a great 
 disappointment . 
 
 The sound of raised voices came up to them 
 from the margin of the lagoon far below, made 
 very faint and metallic by the distance. They 
 turned to look. Two of the working-men who 
 had been repairing the stone curb seemed to be 
 having a most spirited discussion, enlivened by 
 such gestures as only a Latin can accomplish. 
 Then, in a moment, the great figure of the old 
 Earl appeared from near by and seemed endeav 
 ouring to make peace. One of the fellows, who 
 must have been greatly carried away by passion, 
 would seem to have transferred his rage and 
 his gesticulations to the newcomer, but the 
 Earl s temper was somewhat widely celebrated. 
 He seized the man by the throat with one hand
 
 MONSIGNY 107 
 
 and by the scarlet sash with the other and, 
 lifting him from the ground as one might lift a 
 cat, threw him far out into the shallow water. 
 
 Lord Stratton laughed. "My father is not 
 exactly a safe man to oppose," said he. Then, 
 all at once, his eyes turned swiftly toward her 
 face, and were met by her own. It was quite 
 evident that the same thought had come to them 
 both. 
 
 " He will learn to love you when he knows you 
 better as any one must," said the Viscount 
 gently. "He is a rather grim old man. You 
 must not mind his odd ways. Now I must go. 
 It will seem very long to me till to-morrow." 
 
 He kissed her hand again and left her there by 
 the fountain, and went up the marble steps to 
 the avenue above. There were some small 
 matters to be looked after at the stables, and he 
 attended to these; and, after glancing idly into 
 the dairy, strolled back toward the chateau. He 
 felt very restless, curiously ill at ease, and none 
 of the many usual modes of employing his time 
 seemed to attract him. His mind was upon the 
 dead Isabeau de Monsigny and upon that life of 
 twenty years ago. He could not rid himself of 
 the thought, nor call his attention to anything 
 else.
 
 io8 MONSIGNY 
 
 It was rather naturally the result of the scene 
 through which he had just passed the speaking 
 again, after so many years, of words of love to a 
 woman, the awakening of a long-dulled heart 
 to responsiveness to a woman s voice and look 
 and touch. He had said to Mrs. Marlowe that 
 he was a simple man, and it was very true. 
 There was no complexity in him. He was like 
 the old Earl in mind as in body, strong in likes 
 and dislikes, plain of speech and single of view. 
 He had loved Isabeau de Monsigny with a passion 
 that was almost terrible in its single-hearted 
 earnestness, and he had no thought that this new 
 companionship which he sought should attempt 
 to fill her place or in any way be to him what she 
 had been. 
 
 Still, as he moved restlessly about the chateau 
 upon this day, the image of his dead wife persisted 
 strangely in his mind, and troubled him. He 
 wondered if, after all, he had not been wrong in 
 thinking of a second manage if there was not in 
 it a certain disloyalty to the only woman he had 
 ever loved. 
 
 He found himself, heedless of how he had come 
 there, in the little irregular sun-bathed court at 
 the north of the chateau, where were the old 
 well and the sun-dial, and where gargoyles with
 
 MONSIGNY 109 
 
 heads of beasts or of devils or of monks grinned 
 hideously from the weather-stained eaves. He 
 crossed to the ivied chapel and entered by the 
 heavy little oaken door. The gloom and the 
 incensed coolness of the place, the bars of coloured 
 light from the windows, the ancient stillness, 
 seemed good to him restful and soothing. 
 
 He went and stood in the dim shadow by the 
 tomb of Isabeau de Monsigny. It was covered 
 with fresh roses of the deep pink that she had 
 loved, and he knew that the younger Isabeau 
 must have laid them there that same morning. 
 He knelt beside the tomb and laid his arms out 
 across its top, bowing his face upon them, and 
 twenty years were rolled away like the rolling 
 up of a curtain that masks the stage. 
 
 He was back again in those cruel, bitter days 
 when the marble tomb beneath his arms was white 
 and new, when all the world was a pall of cold 
 horror, and life was ashes in the mouth. He had 
 used to come here a great deal then, in the first 
 keenness of his grief. He had used to come. 
 when all the servants were asleep and there was 
 no one to spy upon him, and spend the night 
 alone with her, talking to her as if she could hear 
 through that heavy carven slab of stone. 
 
 It came back to him for an instant with a great
 
 no MONSIGNY 
 
 rush of agony, a tidal wave of bitterness and 
 impotent rage at fate, and the sense of utter 
 solitude, but he took firm hold upon himself 
 with all his great calm strength, and shook it 
 off, knowing that it was only a moment s 
 breakdown of the nerves. 
 
 "Sweetest," he said aloud, "I wonder what 
 you would have me do. I wonder what you 
 would say if you could speak to me. If only you 
 could speak to me ! Sometimes I cannot bear 
 the thought of any one taking your place in any 
 respect. It is revolting. But she will not take 
 your place, my queen. She will only bear me 
 company as I grow old. You understand, do 
 you not ? I cannot love again and I cannot forget, 
 and, when I am dead, they shall bring me here 
 and lay me beside you as we agreed. But I am 
 very lonely, Isabeau, very lonely ! You would 
 not begrudge me comfort and a woman s care?" 
 
 His voice echoed and rang in the dark, empty 
 place, but he did not heed it, for he was very 
 greatly in earnest. It was like him to come 
 here, as it were to consult with the dead woman 
 whom he had so loved. It was like his simple 
 directness in all things. 
 
 "Show me some sign," he begged, still aloud. 
 "Give me some signal if you think I am doing
 
 MONSIGNY in 
 
 wrong, if you think it disloyal to you. Oh, 
 Isabeau, she will never take your place. I shall 
 never love again as we two loved." And so he 
 went on speaking, arguing, as it were, pleading, 
 assuring, as if the woman heard in her marble 
 tomb, till, after a very long time, his voice died 
 away, and he dropped his face once more upon 
 his outstretched arms, crushing the fresh pink 
 roses that she had loved.
 
 CHAPTER VII
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 BUT Mrs. Marlowe, when Lord Stratton had 
 left her, sat for nearly an hour, very quiet and 
 still by the splashing fountain, and stared out 
 over the terraced esplanade below her, to the 
 wood and the blue hills beyond; so quiet that, 
 after a time, a frog climbed out of the pool and sat 
 upon the stone curb blinking at her, and birds 
 fluttered down from the tangle of shrubbery to 
 hunt for worms in the damp earth under her feet. 
 
 Below, at the edge of the lagoon, the Earl 
 lingered a few moments, giving directions with 
 emphatic nods of his strong white head. The 
 woman shivered, involuntarily, as she watched 
 him, this terrible old man with his uncanny 
 strength and his fierce, piercing eyes that seemed 
 to see the nethermost corners of her quaking 
 soul. She was genuinely afraid of him, and she 
 had a strange feeling of certainty that he was 
 destined to work her ill. She shivered again as 
 she recalled to mind his throwing the man into 
 the water, and Lord Stratton s laughing remark 
 that his father was not exactly a safe person to 
 
 "5
 
 n6 MONSIGNY 
 
 oppose. She was quite sure that the Earl would 
 oppose his son s marriage to her, and the thought 
 of his antagonism filled her with an unreasoning 
 terror. 
 
 But presently the Earl went away, and all 
 but one or two of the working-men went away 
 also, and she fell to thinking of Lord Stratton s 
 offer and of the life which might lie before her if 
 she should marry him. There was peace and 
 quiet and rest an end to this life of fear and of 
 penury. There was happiness, it seemed to her, 
 for she knew that Lord Stratton would be very 
 kind; and indeed, she felt that any release from 
 the life she had led would be happiness. 
 
 They would live quietly, she said to herself, 
 sometimes here at beautiful Monsigny, some 
 times at Strope Manor, though as little as 
 possible, she thought, in England. There would 
 always be danger there, the danger of recog 
 nition, and she was very firmly determined 
 that Lord Stratton should never know about 
 her past. Yes, he would be kind to her, 
 she was certain of that, kinder than most 
 men, and very thoughtful; and he would not 
 demand too much, for he was not a young man 
 nor demonstrative. And, sitting there in the 
 cool shade, she made a very solemn vow to herself
 
 MONSIGNY 117 
 
 that she, on her side, would be everything to him 
 that a woman could be that, in return for the 
 many things he was offering her, she would use 
 every means in her power to make him happy 
 and contented. 
 
 "I can make him happy !" she cried softly to 
 the birds and to the blinking frog and to the 
 marble Nereids. "I know that I can make him 
 happy, and, oh, I shall, I shall ! I shall spend 
 all my days, all my thought and strength in 
 trying to make his life good to him. I shall be 
 
 all he has, for of course Isabeau will " Then 
 
 all at once she halted with a little catch of the 
 breath, and something took hold of her heart 
 and wrung it. 
 
 "Isabeau will marry Tony Beresford," she 
 whispered slowly. She will marry Tony. She 
 sprang to her feet with a little low cry that sent 
 the birds and the inquisitive frog back to their 
 coverts in a panic. Her hands shook and clenched 
 at her sides, and her face quivered. 
 
 "She shan t marry him!" cried the woman 
 fiercely. "She shan t marry him! It would 
 drive me mad to think of them of them, married ! 
 He swore that I should have all his life. He s 
 breaking his word. Oh, I dare not think of 
 them married! I dare not." She dropped
 
 n8 MONSIGNY 
 
 back into her seat, with her face in her hands, 
 sobbing. 
 
 "Tony, Tony !" she cried in a whisper, "you 
 must not do it. I ve borne a great deal from the 
 world : I can t bear any more. To see you forget 
 altogether, to see you making love to another 
 woman, to see her listening, to know what you 
 are saying to her when I cannot hear, to think 
 of you of you married to her. Oh, Tony, I 
 can t bear it ! I suppose I am a wicked woman," 
 she said after a long time, dropping her hands 
 listlessly into her lap and staring out again to the 
 blue hills. "I suppose I am a wicked woman. 
 I have nearly wrecked a man s life a man whom 
 I whom I loved, and now I wish to wreck it 
 altogether just for jealousy. Yes, that is it, just 
 jealousy," her hands clenched again, instinc 
 tively, and she caught her lip between her strong 
 white teeth "a jealousy so fierce that it burns 
 me when I think of it, sends little dagger things 
 all through me ! I d oh, I d commit crimes 
 rather than let you marry that girl, Tony ! I d 
 do anything, anything. It frightens me to feel 
 so, to know that I ve so little control over myself. 
 Ah, Tony, Tony, this love, it s a strange thing ! 
 And women are queer cattle, aren t they, boy? 
 They ll do more for their love than you men.
 
 MONSIGNY 119 
 
 I am a wicked woman ! I had not known how 
 wicked. I ve tried so hard not to be ! It isn t 
 that I want to be bad, but there s something 
 goes mad inside me when I think of you loving 
 any one else. Ah, why did I not marry you, 
 years ago, Tony? Maybe we should have been 
 happy together. I think not, but maybe we 
 should have been." And she fell to staring out 
 into the distance, with her hands clasping and 
 unclasping and twisting about each other on her 
 knees. 
 
 Then, after a time, she rose and took up her 
 broad hat which had fallen beside the bench, 
 and went out upon the open terrace where the 
 steps led down toward the lower esplanade with 
 its little fountains and urns and geometrically 
 laid out shrubbery, and to the broad lagoon. 
 She went slowly down the steps and through the 
 curving gravel paths to the water s edge, and she 
 turned to glance backward, up the splendid vista 
 to the chateau which crowned it all. There was 
 no one in sight; the labourers, who had been 
 working beside the lagoon, were gone, and the 
 old Earl was gone, also. 
 
 She turned to the left, skirting the pond, and 
 walked, at a leisurely pace, across the meadow 
 at its western end and over some little sparsely
 
 120 MONSIGNY 
 
 wooded hills beyond. She saw the stables and 
 the dairy houses far at her left, and the wide 
 pasture dotted with grazing cattle, red and white 
 and black and soft tan, but she held on over the 
 grassy rolling hills, across a little stream and along 
 shaded paths ; and the warm sweet summer peace 
 of it all was balm to her. 
 
 She came upon a little old peasant woman 
 in white cap and blue apron, gathering fagots 
 beside a woodland road. The woman courtesied 
 deeply. She was very much bent, and she had a 
 sharp nose and chin that seemed trying to meet, 
 and sharp cheek bones and bright little eyes that 
 seemed to have no lids, but peered out between 
 yellow folds of parchment skin. She called Mrs. 
 Marlowe "Madame la Marquise." 
 
 "But I am not Madame la Marquise," said 
 Mrs. Marlowe laughing. "I am only a visitor at 
 the chateau. Poor thing ! she is a little mad. 
 There has been no marquise for thirty years." 
 She took a piece of two francs from the wallet 
 which hung at her girdle and put it in the dry, 
 brown claw, but the old woman hobbled closer 
 and peered up into her face, sidewise, like a bird. 
 Her piercing gaze was so like the Earl s that 
 Mrs. Marlowe shivered involuntarily. 
 
 "Jfif /*//" said the little old woman, nodding.
 
 MONSIGNY 121 
 
 "A great sin, Madame la Marquise, a great sin ! 
 It is in Madame s eyes. A great sin ! Sins they 
 are paid for here, then in hell, but here first. 
 ///, madame has done a great sin 1" And she 
 turned about and hobbled down the woodland 
 road, clutching her bundle of fagots and shaking 
 her head. 
 
 "Oh, here, too?" cried Mrs. Marlowe in a 
 choking voice. "Shall I never escape it? Shall 
 I never find peace?" And she dropped down 
 upon a grassy mound under a tree, sobbing 
 very bitterly. 
 
 So she wandered on, alternately walking and 
 sitting on the grass under some tree, for a long 
 while. She had lost all account of time and 
 direction, save that she knew she was still within 
 the walls of the vast estate. She had much to 
 think about and a certain mental struggle to go 
 through, so that, of the things about her, she took 
 little heed. 
 
 "There is no use in trying!" she cried at 
 last, and threw out her hands with a helpless 
 gesture, as it were of surrender. "There is no 
 use in trying. I cannot see him married to 
 another woman not that beautiful girl, any 
 how. I shall do all I can to prevent it, and it will 
 be the most contemptible thing that any woman
 
 122 MONSIGNY 
 
 ever did." She sank down against a tree-trunk 
 with a weary sigh. 
 
 "I ve tried," she said aloud. "Oh, I ve tried, 
 but I m not strong enough. I wonder if any one 
 ever was so low. I love him, and yet I would 
 do anything in my power to wreck his happiness. 
 I must be very, very bad, quite bad, and yet 
 I wish I were not. I wish I might be like other 
 women, peaceful and dull and happy and and 
 good. Oh, good !" 
 
 It seemed to her that she heard very faint 
 cries from a little way to the right. She was so 
 absorbed in her own thoughts that, for a long 
 time, she did not heed, but at last she sat up and 
 listened. The cries were so incessant that they 
 beat through her dulled consciousness. It might 
 be only some wood-bird calling, but it sounded 
 like a child in pain. At last she rose to her feet 
 and followed the direction of the sound, for now 
 she was quite certain that the faint cries were 
 human. 
 
 A broad cleft in the earth, a ragged gully, 
 zigzagged through the wood, a little way beyond. 
 There were naked boulders and loose earth upon 
 its flanks, and a tiny stream trickled along its bed. 
 Mrs. Marlowe crept cautiously to the verge, lest 
 the earth might give way under her, and looked
 
 MONSIGNY 123 
 
 down. A little child of three or four years, in 
 coarse peasant s clothes, was lying at the foot 
 of the bank, about ten feet below. It would 
 seem to have been playing at the brink of the 
 gully and to have fallen upon the rocks beneath. 
 
 "The poor little dear !" cried the woman. 
 "Oh, the poor little crushed, wounded thing !" 
 She looked about for a better place to descend, 
 and finally made her way to the bed of the ravine 
 at the expense of bruised hands and soiled clothing. 
 Then she hurried to the child s side. 
 
 One of his legs was doubled under him, and 
 there was a cut on his cheek, and both his tiny 
 hands were bruised and bleeding. She lifted 
 him very tenderly and laid him upon a bit of soft 
 turf nearby. The leg seemed not to be broken, 
 but she thought that the ankle was sprained. 
 The other cuts and bruises were of no great conse 
 quence. She dipped her handkerchief in the 
 running water and washed the blood from the 
 pale little face and from the bruised hands and 
 knees. The child s great eyes followed her mutely 
 and he moaned from time to time, but wept no 
 longer, so that it was evident he was not in great 
 pain. 
 
 "Ah, what shall I do for your poor ankle?" 
 cried the woman, "It should be bandaged, but
 
 124 MONSIGNY 
 
 I ve nothing wait !" She raised her gown and 
 tore a great strip from the white skirt under 
 neath. Then she wet it in the cold water, and, 
 folding it so that the soft plain linen was under 
 neath, with the lace and embroidery above, 
 wrapped it about the injured leg. 
 
 The child cried out with the pain, and beat his 
 hands feebly against her, but she finished the 
 bandaging, and then threw herself down beside 
 him, gathering his tiny hands into hers, and 
 laying her face against his cheek. 
 
 "Oh, dearest, dearest !" she sobbed, "do you 
 suppose I want to hurt you ? Don t you know I 
 had to? Don t you know that it hurt me a 
 thousand times more than you ? It went straight 
 to my heart, every time you screamed. Poor 
 little baby child, all alone and wounded so ! 
 Dearest," she whispered, "you might be my little 
 child, mine, do you know ? My very own ! If 
 only I had a baby of my own, to care for, to live 
 for, to be good and brave and strong for, to hold 
 close to me till I felt his heart beat, to watch in 
 the night when he was sleeping ! Oh, dearest, a 
 woman with no child is such a pitiful thing ! Such 
 a lonely, mistaken, unnatural thing ! If I had 
 had a child like you, long ago, everything might 
 have been different, do you know? So beauti-
 
 MONSIGNY 125 
 
 fully, happily different ! A woman could not be 
 wicked with a little child to love. Ah, well !" 
 
 She rose to her feet and stood looking down the 
 ravine, with her brows drawn together in thought. 
 
 "What shall I do?" she said. "I don t know 
 where I am nor how far from the chateau. I 
 wonder if there is a lodge near by that he might 
 have strayed from. Surely he could not have 
 come all the long way from the chateau. What 
 shall I do ?" She went back and knelt beside the 
 child, who lay quite still, watching her with great 
 wondering dark eyes. 
 
 "Oh, dearest !" said she, "what shall I do with 
 you? I dare not leave you here while I go for 
 help. Indeed, I should not know where to go, 
 save to the chateau. Can t you tell me where 
 to go ? Who are you, dear ? Is there a lodge or 
 a cottage near by?" She had dropped into 
 French, in the hope of gaining some information 
 from the child, but he only stared at her, grave 
 and unwinking. 
 
 "Oh, I must carry you, baby !" she cried at 
 last. "I must carry you. It is the only way, 
 and I am not very strong. Will you be very, 
 very good, baby child, and not cry if I hurt your 
 poor ankle?" 
 
 She brought more cold water from the stream,
 
 i 2 6 MONSIGNY 
 
 holding her two hands like a cup, and she wet the 
 linen bandage afresh, and bathed the child s 
 feverish head. Then she gathered him up in her 
 arms, and started down the ravine to a point 
 where, she saw, would be the easiest ascent to the 
 bank. The child cried out with the pain at first; 
 but she kissed him and murmured to him in the 
 soft mother tongue which is a tone and not a lan 
 guage, and she held him very gently against her, so 
 that, after a moment, he fell silent once more and 
 continued staring up into her face, solemn and still. 
 
 It taxed all her strength to gain the high bank 
 with the injured child in her arms. Once she 
 nearly fell, but at the top she sank down upon a 
 great boulder and rested a little, till she had 
 regained her breath. Also, she called aloud 
 several times for aid, thinking that some one 
 might be near, but out of sight in the wood. 
 
 "There is nobody about, baby," she said to the 
 child. "We must get to the chateau, somehow." 
 And her heart sank, for she was not a strong 
 woman physically. 
 
 There was a little hill in a field close by the 
 edge of the wood. It appeared to be the highest 
 ground near, and she had the wit to take an 
 observation from it, leaving the whimpering 
 child at its foot.
 
 MONSIGNY 127 
 
 "Oh, baby, baby !" she cried joyfully from the 
 summit. "I can see the chateau ! It is not 
 more than a mile, I think. I must have come in 
 a great semi-circle. A mile is not such a great 
 deal. Courage, baby, we shall make it !" She 
 gathered him up in her arms and set out bravely 
 across the turf, but he was a heavy child, far too 
 heavy for her to carry any distance, and, as has 
 been said, she was not strong. She had to stop 
 very often and lay him down, while she regained 
 her breath and rested her aching arms and 
 back. Also, the day was hot, for it was, by 
 now, mid-afternoon, and the ground was, some of 
 it, difficult alternating bits of wood with open 
 field, and once even a brook which she boldly 
 waded, and where she stopped again to wet the 
 child s bandage and to drink a little of the cold 
 water. 
 
 "Oh baby, but it s harder than I thought I" 
 she panted. "You re such a heavy baby ! such 
 a terribly heavy baby, and my poor head is 
 going round, round, round !" 
 
 Once she thought she must have fainted, for 
 she came suddenly to herself and found the child 
 before her on the turf, whimpering gently, and 
 she herself was on her knees. "Courage, baby 
 dear !" she gasped, and tried to smile down upon
 
 ia8 MONSIGNY 
 
 him cheerfully, but the march had become a 
 dreadful nightmare, in which strange -looking 
 trees and boulders and miles and miles of green 
 turf dragged themselves by under her unceas 
 ingly, and everything above the level of her eyes 
 was black and noisy. 
 
 Then, when from a bit of high ground she had 
 seen that she was near the pasture where the 
 cattle grazed, when her knees shook under her 
 helplessly, and the constant buzzing noise in the 
 air had become almost unbearable, there came 
 crashing in the undergrowth she was among 
 trees and, of all men in the world, the Earl of 
 Strope appeared. 
 
 The woman swayed weakly to her knees and 
 laid the child on the ground before her she 
 nearly dropped forward across its body and 
 she fell to weeping, the tears of absolute exhaus 
 tion, nervous and physical. 
 
 "Eh?" cried the old Earl gruffly. "Who the 
 devil are you? What the devil are you doing 
 here?" and his heavy white eyebrows worked up 
 and down like a gorilla s. He had been deep 
 in thought, and, as often happens among old 
 people, he was slow in coming to complete 
 attention. 
 
 "What are you doing here?" he repeated.
 
 MONSIGNY 129 
 
 "And what are you sniveling about? Stop it! 
 Is that your child? Eh, what? You ve been 
 hurting it. It s all covered with bruises. Don t 
 look so scared. You re always looking scared. 
 I don t know who you are, but I ve seen you 
 somewhere before, and you are always looking 
 scared. You ve done something very bad. 
 That s why your eyes look so. Get up, get up !" 
 
 "Oh, don t you know me? Don t you know 
 me ?" cried the woman. She remembered, in the 
 midst of her exhaustion and faintness, what Lord 
 Stratton had said about the Earl that he was 
 not always himself, that he had "spells," and she 
 feared that he would do her or the child some 
 harm. 
 
 "Don t you know me?" she repeated, turning 
 her white face up to him. " I m Mrs. Marlowe 
 Mrs. Marlowe ! I am stopping at the chateau !" 
 
 "Eh?" cried the old gentleman, bending for 
 ward. "God bless my soul! So you are! 
 What are you doing here ? Whose child is that ? 
 You re ill, and the child is wounded. God bless 
 my soul !" 
 
 "I was walking," she said weakly, "and I 
 found the child in a ravine. He had fallen 
 and and was hurt. I didn t dare leave him, so 
 I carried him. I was trying to reach the
 
 1 3 o MONSIGNY 
 
 chateau, but I m Oh, I m so tired so 
 
 tired!" 
 
 The Earl bent over the child and looked at it 
 carefully. He touched the bandaged ankle, and 
 the child set up a wail of pain. 
 
 "It is one of the undergardener s children," 
 he said. "It must have strayed. There is no 
 great hurt, save for the ankle." Then he paused 
 and stared at the half -fainting woman. 
 
 " You have carried that heavy child all the way 
 from the ravine?" he said slowly. "You have 
 carried that child, you! By God, you are a 
 plucky woman ! It has nearly fagged you out, 
 hasn t it ? By God, you are a plucky woman ! I 
 should not have believed the thing possible. I 
 have never liked you. There is something about 
 you that I don t understand and don t trust, but 
 I think you are the pluckiest woman I have ever 
 met." 
 
 He took the child up and laid it in the hollow of 
 his great left arm, as if it had been a kitten. 
 
 "Come!" said he. "Pull up all you can. It 
 is not far to the chateau. Take my right arm 
 and rest all your weight on it. If it is necessary, 
 I can carry you easily." But Mrs. Marlowe, 
 trying to rise to her unsteady feet, fell over all at 
 once and fainted quite away.
 
 MONSIGNY 131 
 
 Ten minutes later the grooms and working-men, 
 gathered in a group before the stable door, were 
 amazed to see the old Earl of Strope come striding 
 in among them, bearing in his mighty arms a 
 woman, apparently dead, and across the woman s 
 body a whimpering, wide-eyed child.
 
 CHAPTER VIII
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THERE was little talk at the dinner table that 
 evening of anything but Mrs. Marlowe s adventure 
 with the undergardener s child, until that lady 
 who was of a genuinely modest temperament- 
 was ready to leave the room for sheer embar 
 rassment. She was still a bit pale, and looked 
 tired about the eyes, but a long sleep since mid- 
 afternoon had greatly recovered her from the 
 exhaustion and nervous strain through which 
 she had passed. Isabeau herself had met the 
 Earl as he reached the chateau with Mrs. 
 Marlowe in his arms, and had taken the fainting 
 woman to her own rooms, and there kissed and 
 wept over her, and rubbed her head with eau de 
 cologne till she fell asleep like a tired child. 
 
 "I think I have never so misjudged any one," 
 she said penitently to Ashton Beresford, at dinner. 
 "I could not bring myself to like her. I don t 
 know why. There was something about her 
 that repelled me. But now oh, I m ashamed 
 enough now. It was the pluckiest thing I ever 
 knew a woman to do. She must have carried
 
 136 MONSIGNY 
 
 that poor child more than a mile through the hot 
 sun, and it was a very heavy child, too. Wasn t 
 it splendid!" 
 
 "It was splendid!" said Beresford warmly. 
 She is a very brave woman. She probably saved 
 the child s life. A stronger woman of different 
 temperament could never have done it. Very 
 nervous people of the frail type often accomplish 
 surprising feats of strength. Where is Madame 
 de Brissal to-day? Not ill, I hope." 
 
 "Ah, the poor dear!" said the girl. "Her fit 
 of giddiness last night left her with a most 
 dreadful headache that has lasted nearly all day. 
 They are seldom so severe, her attacks. I must 
 go up to her for a little while after dinner. You 
 won t mind?" 
 
 " I shall mind a very great deal," said he, " and 
 you know it, but of course you must go to her 
 only, come down again later!" 
 
 "I shall come down again," she said. 
 
 Beresford and the old Earl took their cigars 
 down upon the avenue, and walked back and 
 forth in the moonlight where the cool night breeze 
 blew across their faces. Mrs. Marlowe and Lord 
 Stratton lingered beside the little coffee table on 
 the south terrace. 
 
 "I told you, Lord Stratton," said she, "that
 
 MONSIGNY 137 
 
 I would give you my answer to-morrow. I think 
 I will give it you now, for I am quite decided. 
 I went off alone, to-day, to think it over, to look 
 at it from every point, and before I found that 
 poor wounded child I had made up my mind 
 to marry you. You say that you are a lonely 
 man, and I think you know that I am a lonely 
 woman. We are neither of us very young, and 
 we have not a great young love to offer each other, 
 but I honestly think that we could be happy 
 together, very happy and very contented, for I 
 know that you would be infinitely kind to me, 
 and I oh, I should do everything, everything 
 that a woman could do, to make you a good 
 wife. I will marry you whenever you wish it, 
 Lord Stratton." 
 
 The Viscount moved toward her swiftly, with 
 a little impulsive boyish cry of gladness, but she 
 put out her hand, laughing softly, to check him, 
 and turned her head to where the two white 
 shirt bosoms of the other men gleamed in the 
 half light below, and the red ends of their cigars 
 glowed and paled. 
 
 "Perhaps it would be better," she said, "not to 
 to tell them quite yet, but let them come to 
 know me better. It will look so very sudden, 
 will it not ? They will be so unprepared,"
 
 138 MONSIGNY 
 
 "That shall be as you like," said he, "but I 
 think I ought soon to tell my father. He he 
 may be a bit difficult to win over. He does not 
 like the thought of my marrying again. How 
 ever, you have done more to-day to influence 
 him than all I could say or do. He admires 
 nothing so much as pluck and bravery, and your 
 bringing that great child home to safety has 
 impressed him more than you know. Shall we 
 join them, down there in the avenue ? We have 
 none of the moonlight here." 
 
 They went down where the two men w T ere 
 walking, and all four strolled slowly back and 
 forth on the smooth white drive. Lord Stratton 
 had, by chance, placed himself beside the old 
 Earl, so that Mrs. Marlowe walked with Ashton 
 Beresford. 
 
 "Let them get on a bit ahead, Tony," she said 
 in a low voice, "I want to talk to you. So ! Ah, 
 that is still better." A groom had approached 
 the two men, coming from the direction of the 
 stables, and evidently wished them to go there, 
 for they turned half about, waving their hands 
 toward Beresford and Mrs. Marlowe, and set off 
 briskly with the servant. 
 
 "Now, come down below by the fountains," 
 she said. "It is like daylight here." There was
 
 MONSIGNY 139 
 
 a certain air of subdued excitement in her manner, 
 but when they had descended to the lower terrace 
 and stood in shadow by a stained old marble 
 balustrade waist high, where, leaning, one looked 
 down upon all the moon -bathed loveliness of the 
 esplanade and the still lagoon, she seemed at a 
 loss for words, and a curious shyness came upon 
 her. 
 
 "I I saw you this morning in the gardens 
 with her," she said at last. 
 
 "Ah?" said he pleasantly. "Oh, yes, yes, I 
 was there. And I saw you up by the house 
 with Lord Stratton." 
 
 "Well, what of that?" she demanded with a 
 little sharpness in her tone. 
 
 "What of it?" said he. "Why, nothing of it, 
 at all, nothing more than of my being with 
 Mademoiselle de Monsigny. Why did you feel 
 called upon to mention that?" 
 
 But the woman made a quick little gesture in 
 the dark. "Ah, we must not quarrel, Tony," 
 said she. "We must not quarrel unless unless 
 we have to, not over little things, anyhow. Listen, 
 Tony ! I took a very long walk to-day, all alone, 
 because I wanted to think out some things, 
 decide them fight a bit, maybe, with myself. 
 And I came to a certain conclusion about about
 
 140 MONSIGNY 
 
 you and me. I tried to have it otherwise ; oh, I 
 fought hard, but I m only a woman, after all. 
 Women are weak in some ways. Perhaps I m 
 weaker than other women. I have not been 
 very happy. Ah, well, it s this. I won t give 
 you up, Tony ; I can t give you up. You you 
 must not marry that girl, nor, if you are 
 honourable, make love to her make her 
 care for you. You made me a promise, long 
 ago. You gave me your life. Well, I refuse 
 to give it you back. That is all. I hold you 
 to your word." 
 
 Beresford drew a very long deep breath, and, 
 in the dark, she heard the great muscles in his 
 arms and shoulders crackle gently as he took 
 fierce hold upon himself and held himself rigid. 
 
 "Yet you intend, I believe, to marry Lord 
 Stratton ?" he said in a very quiet tone. 
 
 "I promised this evening to marry him," said 
 she carelessly. Then, all at once, when it was 
 too late, she caught herself up sharply, with a 
 sudden gasp, for she had meant not to tell him 
 of her engagement till she had wrung some sort 
 of promise from him. Her mind was so intent 
 upon the main line of her thought that the words 
 had slipped out before she realised what she was 
 saying.
 
 MONSIGNY 141 
 
 "Ah !" said young Beresford slowly. "That 
 would be a rather strange thing, would it not? 
 Your holding me to such a promise though for 
 five years you have quite ignored it, and, only 
 yesterday, refused to marry me the while you 
 were betrothed to another man. You are a 
 curious woman, Margaret." 
 
 "I don t care, I don t care !" she cried tensely. 
 " You may call me what you will, and think of me 
 as you will. I m as contemptible as you choose, 
 but I cannot bear your making love to another 
 woman ! I would do anything commit crimes, 
 lie anything to keep you from it ! Oh, Tony, 
 Tony, have you forgotten so completely? Is 
 there nothing in me of the woman you you used 
 to love? Yes, yes, you did, you did, if it was 
 only a little ! I knew it. I could see it ! Am I 
 not the same woman, Tony? Have I grown so 
 old, so ugly, that there is nothing sweet in me 
 now? Tony, you can t have forgotten!" 
 
 She stretched out her white arms to him along 
 the marble balustrade and her voice shook in the 
 beginning of little sobs. 
 
 Beresford saw that her arms, where they had 
 touched the coping of the balustrade, were 
 covered with bits of earth and little twigs and 
 dust that soiled the soft, white skin. And he
 
 i 4 2 MONSIGNY 
 
 took out his handkerchief and brushed them 
 clean, with an exclamation of disgust. It made 
 him think of something he had seen two or three 
 years before in Africa. The hut of a Belgian 
 trading agent had been looted and his wife and 
 children killed. Beresford had been the first of 
 the relief party to enter the door next day, and 
 had found the woman lying upon her face on the 
 floor. She had been dragged by the hair some 
 little way, and her arms and one shoulder and the 
 side of her face were smeared with earth. It had 
 seemed to him more horrible, this disfiguring of 
 the white, smooth flesh, than the actual wounds, 
 and he had never forgotten it. 
 
 " I do not think you know what you are saying," 
 he declared gravely. "You are about to marry 
 another man. Surely that releases me altogether 
 from my promise. You have had a very exhaust 
 ing day, Margaret, and you are a bit nervous and 
 hysterical. Shall we not leave all this till 
 another time? if indeed it must be spoken of. 
 Of course, what you have been saying is quite out 
 of the question." 
 
 " It is not out of the question," she cried, " and 
 we will not put it off until another time. I 
 definitely hold you to your promise." 
 
 "And I," said Beresford, "definitely refuse to
 
 MONSIGNY 143 
 
 be held under such conditions. It is altogether 
 absurd. What in Heaven s name are you going 
 to do with me after you are married?" 
 
 "I won t release you!" she cried again, as if 
 she had not heard him. " I tell you I cannot bear 
 it. I have your promise, and I won t release 
 you" 
 
 "It is war, then?" said he. "War, Margaret? 
 I have the better hand, you know, if I choose to 
 show it. No, no, do not let us be absurd ! You 
 have your coming marriage to think of. Do not 
 try to interfere with me. Your engagement 
 leaves me quite free to do what I will with my 
 life." 
 
 But the woman came close to him in the dark, 
 looking up into his face. 
 
 "Don t try me too far, Tony!" she said in a 
 strained voice. "Don t try me too far. I warn 
 you, you will be sorry. I I told you that I 
 should do anything, say anything, lie, commit 
 crimes, to keep you from marrying that girl, and 
 I shall if you refuse to listen to me. Ah, Tony, 
 I am not responsible for myself when this jealousy 
 takes me by the heart. I go almost mad. Take 
 my warning please, please ! I beg of you. 
 Don t drive me desperate. Oh, I know how 
 absurd it all seems to you ! You re only a man,
 
 144 MONSIGNY 
 
 and you do things by reason. Women don t 
 reason, Tony, they feel. I shall do something 
 dreadful if you don t listen to me !" 
 
 Beresford made a little exclamation of impa 
 tience. He saw that the woman was becoming a 
 bit hysterical, and, like all men, he hated scenes. 
 
 "Come!" said he. "We must be going back. 
 It will look very odd, our disappearing so. We 
 will talk this over to-morrow. Nothing can 
 happen before then, you know." 
 
 They went back up the steps, silently, and out 
 upon the avenue. There seemed to be no one on 
 the terrace, but the two men were just coming up 
 the drive from the stables. 
 
 "It was a horse which had fallen in its stall 
 and injured a leg," said Lord Stratton to Beres 
 ford, as they met. "The grooms were a bit 
 anxious, as the horse is a valuable one. I dare 
 say it will come out all right. I am sorry that we 
 had to leave you." 
 
 The old Earl had placed himself beside Mrs. 
 Marlowe, apparently in a somewhat tardy attempt 
 to make himself agreeable, so that they walked 
 on ahead of the others, and after a turn or two 
 mounted the steps of the terrace to sit down, while 
 Lord Stratton and Beresford continued their 
 stroll, back and forth in the moonlight.
 
 MONSIGNY 145 
 
 Then, in five or ten minutes, Mrs. Marlowe 
 rose and went into the chateau; and presently 
 Beresford, seeing that Isabeau was not likely to 
 appear, excused himself to write a letter which 
 must be sent by the early morning post. 
 
 Lord Stratton mounted the steps of the terrace 
 and sat down opposite the old Earl who was 
 pouring himself a fourth cup of black coffee. 
 
 "I am going to marry Mrs. Marlowe," said he. 
 " I know you will not be pleased, but I am a very 
 lonely man and I want a woman s care. I am 
 going to marry Mrs. Marlowe." 
 
 "You are not," said the old gentleman 
 briefly, and poured a little cognac into his 
 coffee. 
 
 "I say I am," declared the younger man. "She 
 is a good woman and an attractive one. I think 
 she will be a good wife. I think I shall be much 
 happier married to her. She knows that I can 
 never forget forget Isabeau, and she will not 
 expect a boy s passion. She will not expect to 
 be to me what Isabeau was, but I think we shall 
 be happy. After all, your opposition is more 
 because the idea is new to you than for any other 
 reason. You always oppose a thing until you 
 have had time to grow accustomed to it." 
 
 "I do not believe that she is a good woman,"
 
 146 MONSIGNY 
 
 said the Earl, ignoring the reference to himself, 
 "and I do not believe you would be happy together. 
 What do you know about her, anyhow?" 
 
 "I know that she is a widow," said Lord Stratton, 
 "and I know that she has had an unhappy life. 
 Further than that, I know that she is accepted 
 in the best houses at Nice and Mentone, and 
 even in Rome among the Whites." 
 
 "Nice and Mentone !" cried the old gentleman 
 in disgust. "Who knows anything about any 
 body in Nice and Mentone? And who is not 
 received there? Your butler might set up for 
 a baronet anywhere along the Riviera and no 
 one would be the wiser. And as for the Whites 
 in Rome, they are a set of Anglomaniac curiosity 
 seekers. They will receive any one. Neither 
 Rome nor Paris has any society nowadays. 
 The Blacks are either dead or too poor to 
 entertain, and the Faubourg St. Germain is 
 the same. Who knows anything about this 
 woman s husband?" 
 
 "He died in India, four years ago, as I told 
 you this morning," said Lord Stratton. 
 
 "He did not," said the Earl. Lord Stratton 
 uttered a little exclamation of impatience, then 
 he laughed, for he was used to his father s way. 
 
 "When you told me this noon," continued
 
 MONS1GNY 147 
 
 the old gentleman, "that Mrs. Marlowe s husband 
 had died in India, I thought it very strange, for 
 I remembered distinctly that Lady Eversham 
 had told me, in Nice, the man died in America. 
 Mrs. Marlowe had told her so. No, it could not 
 have been a mistake. Lady Eversham is the 
 most painstakingly accurate woman I ever knew, 
 too much so altogether. I say, I thought it very 
 strange, and so, this evening, a few minutes ago, 
 I asked Mrs. Marlowe something about her 
 husband, leading up to it in some gradual way, 
 I have forgotten how." 
 
 Lord Stratton could not resist a short laugh. 
 He knew something of the Earl s "gradual" 
 leading up to a subject. 
 
 "I told her that I had heard he died in America, 
 and, at first she said yes, then she became very 
 confused and nervous and said no, it was in India, 
 and that she was with him at the time. Now, 
 I have been three times in India, as you know, 
 and I asked her enough questions to make it 
 quite clear that she had never been there. She 
 lied about her husband s death, and lied very 
 stupidly, too. She could easily have made up a 
 better tale. I say, as I have said before, she is 
 not to be trusted. She has done something 
 very bad and she is afraid she will be found out.
 
 i 4 8 MONSIGNY 
 
 You shall not marry her, anyhow, till we know 
 much more about her earlier life. I dare say 
 she never had any husband." 
 
 "That is quite absurd," said Lord Stratton 
 warmly. "What you say is certainly odd, but I 
 have no doubt she can explain it, and I have no 
 doubt that she will, at the proper time. Anyhow, 
 I won t have my guests cross-examined and 
 frightened. You probably frightened her till she 
 did not know what she was saying. We shall 
 find out all that is necessary, you may be sure. 
 You are too suspicious." 
 
 "I like her pluck," said the old gentleman, 
 shaking his white head. "She did a fine thing 
 to-day, but a man must ask for more than pluck 
 in the woman he marries." Then, for awhile, 
 they smoked in silence, each very thoughtful. 
 
 "Where is Isabeau to-night?" asked the Earl, 
 rousing himself at last. 
 
 "With Mme. de Brissal," said Lord Stratton. 
 "She said she would be down later, but I expect 
 madame was restless and Isabeau could not come 
 away. That is why Ashton Beresford went in so 
 early. I think they are greatly taken with each 
 other." 
 
 "I am very glad," said the old gentleman 
 heartily. "He is a man and that is rare in this
 
 MONSIGNY 149 
 
 generation. I think he will make a good hus 
 band. He is not the light-minded or fickle type. 
 He is almost as solemn as you or I. What was 
 the trouble he got into a few years ago ? I have 
 forgotten." 
 
 A divorce case, said Lord Stratton. "Colonel 
 Travers Sudan Travers. You knew him got 
 a divorce from his wife, and named Beresford. 
 No one believed that Beresford was in fault 
 except Travers, I suppose. Beresford took it 
 hard. It bowled him out seriously, I fancy. 
 Queer case, as I remember it. Beresford shut 
 up very oddly about a number of things that 
 were charged. They had witnesses who swore 
 to seeing Beresford about at places with the 
 woman hotels and the like. I don t believe it 
 was true, but he would not deny it. Shielding 
 the woman, I dare say. Probably there was 
 another man in the business. Anyhow, I would 
 trust the boy absolutely. You would, too, I 
 think. If he wants Isabeau he shall have her 
 if she cares for him, and I think she does." 
 
 The old Earl rose, laying down the end of his 
 cigar, and stretched his great arms till the muscles 
 crackled. And he nodded his white head to the 
 moon. 
 
 "I was telling Beresford this morning," said
 
 1 5 o MONSIGNY 
 
 he, "that something is going to happen here at 
 Monsigny something out of the common. I 
 feel it more strongly than ever to-night. Some 
 thing strange is going to happen. I wonder what 
 it will be. Of one thing I am sure. That woman 
 with the scared eyes will have a part in it. I tell 
 you she is not to be trusted."
 
 CHAPTER IX
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE next two or three days passed, for every 
 one at the chateau, under a pall of vague unrest. 
 The air seemed charged with premonition, 
 heavy with a sinister foreboding of ill, and they 
 waited, ignorant of what was to come, but certain 
 that something impended. The Earl s discom 
 fort seemed to have become contagious. 
 
 Mrs. Marlowe and Lord Stratton were together 
 during a great part of the day; but the woman 
 was moody, full of strange whims, full of little 
 bursts of affection and unexplained coldnesses 
 given to long fits of silence. Lord Stratton was 
 frankly worried. He had opened again, with 
 much delicacy, the old subject of her husband s 
 death, and she had told him a story of some length 
 about the occurrence, with no sign of nervousness, 
 dwelling upon its unusually horrible circumstances 
 and her consequent dread of recalling it to mind. 
 But even to Lord Stratton s simple and unsuspi 
 cious ears the tale rang false and unconvincing. 
 He would not, for the world, have admitted to 
 himself that he did not believe it, but it troubled
 
 154 MONSIGNY 
 
 him greatly and made him very unhappy. He 
 took to spending much of his time in the ancient 
 chapel, alone in the dim shadows with the wife 
 of his youth, and he prayed earnestly, as only 
 strong and simple natures may, for light and for 
 guidance and for peace of soul. 
 
 But the woman whom he meant to marry, left 
 thus alone, would wander off across the fields 
 and through the wood for hours together not, 
 as the Earl uncharitably suggested, in search for 
 further deeds of heroism to perform, but, like 
 Lord Stratton, for peace of soul. She made, in 
 those days, alone with the blue sky and the clean 
 sweet winds and the teeming earth, as brave a 
 fight against hopeless odds as ever any one made. 
 She was not, as she had so often despairingly 
 cried out, a bad woman by nature or by choice, 
 but she was stabbed and burned by a devil of 
 jealousy against which her frail strength was 
 altogether helpless a devil whose unsuspected 
 fury frightened and awed her. Under its influence 
 every normal feeling, every generous and good 
 impulse fell away till she was ready to use any 
 means to gain her ends. 
 
 Young Beresford, too, seemed visibly affected 
 by the spirit that was everywhere about Monsigny. 
 He had spent a nearly sleepless night after his last
 
 MONSIGNY 155 
 
 interview with Mrs. Marlowe on the lower terrace, 
 and he realised, though probably not to full 
 measure, that a woman so fiercely and unreason 
 ably moved by jealousy might be capable of 
 going to great extremes; so that he went about 
 gloomily like the others, fearful of he knew not 
 what, and avoided Isabeau as much as he could. 
 He spent the greater part of his time with the 
 old Earl, to that gentleman s huge delight. In 
 the morning they conscientiously lifted the white 
 heifer, which accepted its doubled indignities 
 with patient resignation, and during the day 
 they rode or tramped about the estate, superin 
 tending the necessary repairs and the gardening 
 and forestry. 
 
 But the girl went about her usual routine very 
 silently and making no comment, only she seemed 
 to grow a little pale and very patently sober, and 
 her eyes when they met Ashton Beresford s were 
 shadowy and bewildered and full of a strange 
 questioning pain that caught at his heart and 
 tore it. 
 
 Once it was toward the week s end she met 
 him alone in the avenue. He was on his way to 
 the stables to join the Earl, and he could not avoid 
 stopping to speak to her. 
 
 "You you have not seen the roses of late,
 
 i 5 6 MONSIGNY 
 
 monsieur," she said. "You liked them, once. 
 You have forgotten them, monsieur? You do 
 not care for roses any more?" And she looked 
 up into his face with a little sad smile. 
 
 "Oh, mademoiselle," said he, "how could they 
 help being beautiful as ever, with the care they 
 have? And how might a man forget them, 
 mademoiselle?" 
 
 The girl laughed softly eagerly. "Ah!" said 
 she, very low, "that sounds like like the old 
 times, monsieur, before this strangeness came 
 upon us all, so lately. What is it, monsieur? 
 What is it, this thing that hangs over Monsigny? 
 Me, I am cold always" she drew her shoulders 
 together with a little shiver "and my heart, it 
 is heavy as stone. Father goes about so silent 
 and gloomy, and Mrs. Marlowe, too. And you, 
 monsieur, you are always with grandpere, triste 
 and sober. Ah, what is it that has come to us?" 
 
 Beresford smiled down into her face, but his 
 heart beat fiercely. 
 
 "Black butterflies, mademoiselle," said he. 
 "Clouds in the soul; but clouds pass always, and 
 there ll be sunshine soon again. There shall 
 be !" he cried in a determined tone. "Alas, I 
 do not know what has come upon us all. The 
 Earl says that something is going to happen.
 
 MONSIGNY 157 
 
 It may be so. But clouds pass, always, always. 
 Oh, mademoiselle, do not look so sad ! I 
 
 cannot bear it. I He caught himself 
 
 up, very quickly, for his voice was shaking, 
 and his arms were going out toward her, 
 beyond his control. He made as if he would 
 pass her, going on toward the stables, but 
 his eyes met hers, and they held him with 
 chains. He raised his hands a little way and 
 dropped them again beside him. It bore a 
 certain air of surrender. 
 
 "Come and walk with me," said he. "I had 
 meant to ride with the Earl, but it seems so 
 very long since I have had more than a word 
 from you ! Come and walk with me. We will 
 go down by the fountains." 
 
 So they crossed the avenue, and descended 
 the curving marble steps to the first terrace. 
 And they went in beside the narrow pool to the 
 splashing Nereid fountain, and sat down where 
 Lord Stratton and Mrs. Marlowe had sat, a few 
 days before. 
 
 But when they were come there, an odd con 
 straint, a certain shyness, seemed to fall upon them 
 both, so that for a time they avoided each other s 
 eyes and were at a loss for words. 
 
 "Have you lifted the calf this morning, 
 
 I 

 
 158 - MONSIGNY 
 
 monsieur," ventured Isabeau at last, "you and 
 grandpere f " 
 
 "We have," said young Beresford proudly. 
 "It was much heavier than yesterday. We shall 
 not be able to lift it much longer a fortnight 
 possibly." He broke off all at once and his voice 
 altered in tone. 
 
 "Why," he said, as if to himself, "I shan t be 
 here so long as that I hadn t thought. Why, 
 I ll be gone ! " It was as if the idea were quite 
 new to him, as if he had not given a thought to 
 leaving Monsigny. 
 
 The girl made a little low exclamation under 
 her breath, and, for a moment, her hands pressed, 
 one upon the other, in her lap till the fingers 
 whitened. 
 
 "Gone?" she said aloud. "Gone from Mon 
 signy?" 
 
 "I wasn t asked for the summer, mademoiselle," 
 said Beresford, laughing. 
 
 "You were asked for so long as you might 
 wish to stay," declared Isabeau de Monsigny, 
 and she would not smile. "I had not thought 
 of your going so soon." 
 
 "Nor I, mademoiselle," said he gently. 
 "But you are very rash to say that I 
 was asked for as long as I might choose to
 
 MONSIGNY 159 
 
 stay. I should grow gray here, old and gray 
 and infirm." 
 
 "Not infirm," said she. "Never infirm, I 
 think. You will grow old like my grandpere 
 and that is a good way. You are like him even 
 now, save your mouth and what your mouth 
 betokens. The very first time I saw you, down 
 in Mentone, I thought that of you that you 
 were like my grandpere, and so, of course, like 
 my father. It was at the Contessa d Ariosta s 
 ball. Do you remember? Ah, monsieur, it was 
 ungallant of you ! I saw you and watched you 
 for an hour before you even noticed me and had 
 yourself presented." 
 
 "Wrong, mademoiselle," said young Beresford. 
 "Very wrong. A man may watch a woman 
 and a woman never know. I saw you when 
 you came into the room. I was there only 
 because I knew you were to come. Oh, wrong, 
 mademoiselle ! Why, I d followed you to Men- 
 tone from Nice, and to Nice from Paris. 
 Saw me before I noticed you, indeed !" 
 
 "What do you mean?" cried Isabeau de 
 Monsigny, staring at him. "Followed me from 
 Paris ? What do you mean ? 
 
 "Just that," said he. "I saw you for the first 
 time at the Opera in Paris. I knew who you
 
 160 MONSIGNY 
 
 must be, for I d heard of you, of course. There 
 could not be two such as you in the world. I had 
 met your father, too, once or twice in London, 
 but long ago. I watched you all through the 
 opera I remember it was Sanson et Dalila 
 and afterward I followed you to your hotel; it 
 was the Bristol in the Place Vendome. You 
 walked home, it was such a little distance, and 
 the night was fine. Then I went back to the 
 Caf 6 de Paris and sat for two hours making up a 
 plausible excuse for calling upon Lord Stratton 
 the next day. Alas ! the next day you went on 
 to Nice, and I after you. I gave up a trip to 
 India to do it." 
 
 He gave a gentle little deprecatory laugh, as if 
 he were condoning some rather amusing bit of 
 folly, but Isabeau de Monsigny leaned forward, 
 staring at the moss-stained Nereids, and her hands 
 clasped and twisted in her lap. 
 
 "Is that true?" she asked after a moment, 
 "quite true? It s the sort of thing men say to 
 women to please them the sort of thing one 
 reads in a book. Is it really true ? 
 
 "Very true, mademoiselle," said young Beres- 
 ford. "Mad, if you like, but very true." 
 
 "Mad?" she queried as if she did not under 
 stand.
 
 MONSIGNY 161 
 
 "I maintain," said Ashton Beresford, "that 
 the tides are mad to follow the moon across the 
 earth and back again. What good is it going to 
 do them? They ll never reach her. They ll 
 never do more than beat their heart out on an 
 unsympathetic and rock-bound coast." 
 
 "Then why follow me, monsieur?" she said in a 
 low tone. "Why didn t you go to India?" 
 
 "Alas, mademoiselle !" said he, sighing. "Why 
 don t the tides learn common sense ?" 
 
 He was laughing, half in mockery, but the 
 girl raised her head, meeting his eyes with hers, 
 wide and shadowy and purple. The laugh ceased 
 as if some one had laid a hand upon his throat, 
 and the old familiar heart-throb began in him, 
 the quickened breath, the rising flood of love and 
 tenderness which must, in a moment more, make 
 itself evident. He tore his gaze away from her, 
 and forced his thoughts in another direction, as 
 he had so often, of late, to do, for no man who 
 loves a woman with all his strength may look full 
 into her eyes and remain undisturbed. 
 
 "Monsieur," said Isabeau de Monsigny timidly, 
 and she still watched his face. "Monsieur, I 
 wish I knew I wish I might ask I suppose I 
 am too curious like a cat but there is some 
 thing strange that I would give much to under-
 
 1 62 MONSIGNY 
 
 stand. It is about you, monsieur. Sometimes 
 you are happy and and natural, and as you 
 used to be in Mentone. Then, all at once it is 
 as if you thought of something that you had, 
 for a little, forgotten you turn very bitter and 
 different. It is not just black butterflies, no. It 
 is more serious than that. Just now, a moment 
 ago, you changed. Is it nothing that can be 
 helped, monsieur? Can no one " 
 
 She broke off suddenly, for she saw that he 
 was not listening to her, that his eyes were fixed 
 beyond her upon something which she could not 
 see. He seemed to have gone a little pale, and 
 his brows were drawn together and his lips tight 
 ened into a hard straight line. 
 
 She turned about, wondering, and followed the 
 direction of his gaze. Some one was walking 
 alone down on the lower esplanade beside the 
 lagoon, some one in black with a wide hat 
 Mrs. Marlowe. The girl looked swiftly from 
 Beresford s face to the distant figure, and back 
 again. 
 
 "Monsieur !" she cried in a sharp tone. "Mon 
 sieur ! Is that it?" she said presently, half 
 whispering. "Is it she? I thought the first 
 evening, when you met her Then she 
 
 stopped again, abruptly, as if she realised that
 
 MONSIGNY 163 
 
 she had no right to say such things. But she 
 stared a long time at Ashton Beresford s frowning 
 heedless face. 
 
 "I think," she said after a time, "that we would 
 best go back up to the house. Yes ? Grandpere 
 will be waiting to ride with you. And me, I have 
 many things to do this morning. Shall we go, 
 monsieur?" 
 
 "Eh, what?" said young Beresford. "Oh, yes, 
 yes ! Just as you like." He rose with a sigh, 
 and they mounted the steps to the upper terrace 
 in silence. Beresford was too preoccupied to 
 notice that the girl had, all at once, acquired a 
 certain new air of reserve, almost of hauteur. 
 The sight of Mrs. Marlowe had as upon another 
 occasion, in the rose gardens broken roughly 
 and unpleasantly in upon his mood, filmed the 
 yellow glow of the sunlight, put him out of tem 
 per with the world. 
 
 But at the head of the marble steps he pulled 
 himself together for an instant. 
 
 "It is nothing, mademoiselle," said he with 
 a wry smile that could not seem genuine. 
 It is nothing but the cloud that is over 
 us all here. I do not know what it is. Clouds 
 pass." 
 
 The droop of the girl s averted head waked
 
 1 64 MONSIGNY 
 
 in him again a sudden little gust of love and 
 tenderness. 
 
 "Ah, there ll be sunshine again !" he cried 
 half fiercely. "There shall be !" 
 
 One of her hands long and white, blue-veined, 
 pink-tipped, rested upon the corner of the balus 
 trade beside him. 
 
 "There shall be, mademoiselle !" he cried once 
 more, and he took the hand to his flushed face 
 and held it there against his lips. 
 
 But when he had gone away toward the stables, 
 Isabeau de Monsigny stood a long time beside the 
 stair balustrade among the shrubbery, with her 
 face hidden upon her arms white and shaking.
 
 CHAPTER X
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE next morning he met Isabeau again, by 
 chance, very early. He had just finished his 
 breakfast and come out upon the south terrace 
 when he saw her leaving the chateau. She wore 
 the big white hat which had shaded her that 
 other morning in the rose garden, and she carried 
 a small basket on one arm. A great wolfhound, 
 ragged and dangerous-looking, a sullen beast, 
 marched beside her. 
 
 "Bon jour, monsieur !" she said cheerfully, when 
 she saw him. "You are up early, but so very 
 early ! Me, I am going upon an errand of mercy. 
 Figure to yourself ! An old nounou of mine, 
 who lives toward St. Cyr, is ill, and I am carrying 
 her certain things here in the basket. Do you 
 not wish you were a nounou, monsieur, and very 
 old and ill, and that you lived toward St. Cyr?" 
 
 "I do," said Beresford fervently. "I wish I 
 were anything you like, if only you would carry 
 me things in a basket and come to see me." 
 
 "Who knows?" said she, "when you are old 
 167
 
 1 68 MONSIGNY 
 
 perhaps," and she nodded her beautiful head 
 very encouragingly. 
 
 "But is it safe," he demanded, "all alone, so, 
 on the public roads?" 
 
 "Oh, as for that," said she, "it is but a little 
 way, hardly a mile, when one is outside the gate. 
 I go by the little gate to the north, beyond the 
 gardens, because it is so near. Moreover, the 
 road is not like ordinary roads it is not a high 
 road. There is seldom any one on it, because the 
 highroad is so much shorter between the two 
 villages. My road is little more than a sentier. 
 Also, for protection, I have Voyou here." She 
 patted the great hound on the head, and he 
 gave a sullen growl, moving impatiently 
 away. 
 
 "Comment, comment, toil" she cried in surprise. 
 "This Voyou, he is not in good spirits, ce matin. 
 HelasJ monsieur, he has the tristesse of all of us 
 here at Monsigny. It is contagious. No?" She 
 nodded her head to him, laughing over her shoul 
 der, and moved toward the gardens around the 
 west wing of the chateau. The hound followed 
 at her heels. 
 
 Beresford strolled on to the stables and found 
 the Earl there, arguing with a certain green 
 hunter which he meant himself to school, and
 
 MONSIGNY 169 
 
 which he was attempting to put over a low bar 
 at a leading-rein. 
 
 The two amused themselves with the horse for 
 a time, and when they tired of that repaired to 
 the dairy and lifted the long-suffering heifer. 
 After about an hour they turned back toward 
 the chateau. 
 
 "Where is Isabeau this morning?" inquired 
 the Earl. 
 
 " She has gone on a visit to an old nurse, toward 
 St. Cyr," said Beresford. "She is taking her a 
 small basket of things, I believe. She had a 
 precious ugly looking dog with her, for company." 
 
 " Dog ? " demanded the old gentleman. " Dog ? 
 What dog?" 
 
 " Hound called Voyou," said the other. " Sulky 
 beast ! Snarled when she patted him." 
 
 The Earl swore. 
 
 "I told that kennel fool not to let Voyou out, 
 nor to let any one near him !" said he. "The dog 
 has been acting very odd for some days. I don t 
 think it can be the weather, for the weather has 
 not been particularly warm. I suppose it is all 
 right," he went on, frowning rather anxiously. 
 "The hound has known Isabeau since he was a 
 puppy, and she has perfect control of him. Still, 
 I don t like it. I wish she had not taken him,"
 
 i7o MONSIGNY 
 
 Beresford glanced sharply at the old man s 
 troubled face. 
 
 "I think," said he, "that if you will direct me, 
 I will just go and meet mademoiselle. It may 
 be all right, but I d rather be sure." 
 
 "Ah, now, that would be a very good thing !" 
 said the Earl. "Here, take this dog-whip. I 
 expect the brute will be quiet, all right, but it s 
 best to be on the safe side. You know the little 
 gate, I believe. Just turn to the right as you go 
 out. The house is about a mile away, straight 
 down the road, past a little round point." 
 
 Beresford went quickly across the gardens 
 and out through the little gate in the high wall. 
 
 The road outside was, as Isabeau had said, 
 scarcely more than a sentier. It was narrow 
 and overgrown with grass a mere country lane. 
 He walked along it for half a mile, under the 
 shade of the overhanging trees, and through 
 lengths of open where the dust lay white like 
 flour. The great walls of the Monsigny estate 
 ran beside him for a space, but presently turned 
 off at a sharp angle, and there was open rolling 
 country on either side, dotted with trees and with 
 little white plastered red-roofed cottages. Far 
 off to his left were huddled roofs and steeples, 
 flanked by a great wood, and this he thought
 
 MONSIGNY 
 
 171 
 
 must be Versailles, though he could not see the 
 palace. 
 
 Then at last, when he was beginning to think 
 that the round point of which the old Earl had 
 spoken could not be far ahead, he heard the 
 barking and yelping of a dog. The road curved 
 before him and trees stood close beside it, so that 
 he could see only a little way, but he quickened 
 his pace, knowing that Isabeau must be just 
 around the bend. 
 
 "The hound is coursing a rabbit or something 
 of the sort," he said to himself. But, as he rounded 
 the curve, he saw that the great dog was not 
 coursing, but had treed something, and was 
 giving tongue at the foot of the tree, leaping up 
 into the air and snapping in a very strange fashion. 
 Sometimes, it took a little run away from the 
 tree and back again, or round in a great circle, 
 head upward and barking furiously. 
 
 Beresford halted for an instant, to watch the 
 hound s strange actions. He had never seen 
 a dog behave so over treed game. Then, all at 
 once, he dashed forward with a sudden cry of 
 amazement and horror, for he had looked up into 
 the low branches of the tree and had seen that 
 Isabeau de Monsigny clung there but a little dis 
 tance from the ground, and, furthermore, that the
 
 172 MONSIGNY 
 
 branch upon which she stood swayed and drooped 
 with her weight. 
 
 As he ran he threw from him the dog-whip, 
 with its leash, for he knew that it was useless, 
 and he caught up from the roadside a great stone 
 of five or six pounds weight. He had looked 
 about swiftly for a stick, or for anything with 
 which to strike a heavy blow, but the smooth 
 white road lay bare and empty, and the turf at 
 its flanks empty as well. 
 
 "Mademoiselle, mademoiselle!" he called as he 
 ran. "Courage, mademoiselle ! Hold on a little 
 longer, just a moment longer!" and her voice 
 came back to him promptly, faint and strained, 
 but very brave. 
 
 "Quick, monsieur ! Quick as you may ! I 
 cannot hold long. Quick, monsieur!" 
 
 The dog had halted suddenly at Beresford s 
 call, and stood beside the tree, head down and 
 foam trickling from the corners of its mouth. 
 The ragged hair about its neck and shoulders 
 bristled. Then, with a little eager whine, it 
 made straight at him, and Beresford hurled the 
 stone with both hands. 
 
 It did not strike the animal upon the head or 
 full in the breast, as he had meant, but struck 
 a glancing blow on one shoulder, and the hound s
 
 MONSIGNY 173 
 
 impetus carried him by, thrown out of course, but 
 not badly injured. There was no time to look 
 for another stone, for the animal turned sharply 
 with a snarl of rage, and came back. 
 
 By chance, young Beresford was wearing a 
 pair of unusually thick-soled and heavy boots, 
 for, if the morning were cool, he had meant to 
 take a long tramp over the estate, and it was this 
 chance which probably saved both his own life 
 and that of Isabeau de Monsigny, for, as the 
 maddened animal sprang for him, he kicked 
 with all his great strength and struck full under 
 its jaw, so that it turned quite over and fell, 
 snarling and twitching, upon its back in the 
 dusty road. 
 
 The beast s jaw was undoubtedly broken, for 
 no bone could withstand such a terrific blow, 
 but the vitality of any animal when maddened 
 is something amazing, and in an instant the 
 hound was on its feet and again springing for 
 Beresford s throat. This time his kick was not 
 swift enough and, missing the head, struck under 
 the lean body. 
 
 The girl, watching from the tree above, screamed 
 once, but, even as she screamed, she saw young 
 Beresford s great arms go out forward, and his 
 hands settle about the animal s throat, forcing
 
 174 MONSIGNY 
 
 it backward so that once more it fell to the ground, 
 this time with the man close above. And there, 
 writhing and struggling in the white dust, she 
 saw an almost unbelievable feat of strength 
 performed, for the man, with his hands set in 
 a vice-like grip about the hairy throat below 
 him, slowly choked the great mad hound to death, 
 and when he rose at last to his feet there was only 
 a quivering carcass stretched across the road. 
 
 Of what happened immediately afterward 
 she knew nothing till she found herself lying 
 upon the turf by the roadside, and young Beres- 
 ford on his knees beside her. She had fainted 
 quite away once the danger was over, and Beres- 
 ford had turned just in time to catch her in his 
 arms as she slipped from the low branches. 
 
 She lay for a long time silent, looking up from 
 shadowy half-closed eyes into the man s face, 
 and his face was very white and still, and the 
 brows were drawn a bit together, and his breathing 
 came fast and stormily. 
 
 "Oh, monsieur !" she said at last in a little 
 low murmur. "Monsieur, you were just in time. 
 I could have clung to the tree no longer. You 
 saved my life, monsieur." 
 
 "If I had not been in time !" he whispered 
 with strange little breaks between the words.
 
 She found herself lying upon the turt by the roadside, and young Beresford on 
 his knees beside her "
 
 MONSIGNY 175 
 
 "Oh, heart of my soul, if I had not been in time !" 
 But the girl raised one slim hand and laid it 
 upon his cheek. Under it the cheek flamed 
 suddenly crimson and paled again, and he caught 
 the hand in both his own and held it to his lips, 
 kissing it as if he would never leave off. The 
 girl s eyelids fluttered and closed. The great 
 white hat had fallen backward as Beresford had 
 laid her upon the turf, so that it made a sort of 
 pillow for her head, and the wonderful pale hair 
 the soul of gold had slipped a little from its 
 bonds and lay in soft, loosened coils about her 
 flushed face. 
 
 "Oh !" cried the man, "I love you so that I 
 cannot think nor speak so that my heart shakes 
 me from head to foot ! I love you more than 
 any one in all the world ever loved anything ! 
 If only I could tell you how I love you ! You are 
 the most beautiful thing that a man could dream ! 
 Ah, my heart, if you had been if I had come 
 too late I should not have lived, for I cannot 
 live without you." 
 
 He bent over her, kneeling, and held her head 
 between his two hands, as it lay on the soft turf. 
 Coils and strands of the soul of gold burned against 
 his fingers. And the girl put up her other hand 
 and, with the two, drew down his head, looking
 
 1 76 MONSIGNY 
 
 very steadily and gravely into his eyes, till his 
 face was against her own, and he kissed her 
 mouth with a quick catching breath. 
 
 "Oh, Lord of my heart," said she, against his 
 lips, "there is no one in all my world but you ! 
 Didn t you know? Ah, didn t you know?" 
 Then after a long time, "Dearest," she said, "was 
 there a reason why you why you avoided me 
 for so long why you would never be alone with 
 me, but went about so soberly and tristef For 
 I knew long ago that you cared just a a little, 
 pent etre. That first evening by the lagoon, I 
 knew, and the morning in the rose garden I 
 knew. I think I knew even last winter in 
 Mentone. Was there a reason, mon coeurf " 
 
 Beresford took her two hands, so slender and 
 white and pink-tipped, into his, and held them 
 against his cheek, and he smiled down upon her 
 with a certain resolute tightening of the lips, a 
 certain squaring of the strong jaw. 
 
 "Yes," said he, "there was a reason. I thought 
 there was a reason. Do not ask me it. But I 
 see now that there could be no reason strong 
 enough to hold us apart. I see now that I was 
 foolish, frightened by a phantom. There can be 
 nothing cruel enough to part us. Loveliest, we 
 can defy the world now !"
 
 MONSIGNY 177 
 
 He lifted her to her feet and, without looking 
 backward at the thing which lay stretched across 
 the dusty road, they turned their faces toward 
 Chateau Monsigny. 
 
 "Lord of my heart, we can defy the world 
 now," said she.
 
 CHAPTER XI
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 LORD STRATTON they found him alone on the 
 south terrace with a book turned very pale 
 when he was told of what had occurred, and 
 caught his daughter to him, suddenly, with one 
 arm, looking into her face as if, all at once, he 
 realised how dear to him she was. 
 
 "Isabeau owes her life to you," he said unstead 
 ily to young Beresford, "and I owe you more than 
 I owe to any one else in the world. There is noth 
 ing I can say to thank you, and nothing I can do 
 to even the obligation." 
 
 Beresford looked at Isabeau de Monsigny, and 
 Isabeau, turning suddenly crimson, looked away. 
 
 "Why why, as for that, sir," he said, "yes, 
 you can. You can give her to me, sir. She 
 says she is willing to come, and well, I love 
 her very dearly and all that, you know. Of 
 course, it is a great deal to ask, isn t it?" 
 
 Lord Stratton looked into his daughter s face, 
 laughing gently. 
 
 "He is better at saving lives than at making 
 speeches, this young man," said he. "But that 
 
 181
 
 182 MONSIGNY 
 
 is quite as well. I have been hoping, for some 
 time, that you two would decide you wished to 
 many." 
 
 He looked over his daughter s head, still holding 
 her with one arm, at the sound of a step on the 
 flagstoned terrace. Mrs. Marlowe was coming 
 up from the avenue. He called to her, and she 
 moved a little way toward them. 
 
 "I want you to be the first to hear some very good 
 news," said he. "My daughter Isabeau is to marry 
 the Honourable Ashton Beresford. He saved 
 her, this morning, from a very horrible death, 
 and he demands herself as a reward. Won t you 
 offer them your congratulations, and me as well ? 
 I think I am as pleased about it as they are." 
 
 But Mrs. Marlowe stood silent, looking from 
 one to the other of the little group, wide-eyed 
 and pale. And her fingers twisted and shook 
 at her breast. Then, all at once, she turned, 
 with a low cry, and ran into the open door of the 
 chateau. 
 
 Beresford looked after her, frowning and tight 
 lipped, but Isabeau and Lord Stratton gave voice 
 to their amazement. 
 
 "What what in the world is the matter?" 
 cried the girl. "Why should she act so ? Father, 
 what is the matter with her?"
 
 MONSIGNY 183 
 
 "God knows !" said the Viscount in a wondering, 
 shocked tone. "God knows! She has acted 
 very strangely of late, several times. What can 
 
 she Oh, she is very nervous, and not at all 
 
 well, and she has had an unhappy life. I suppose 
 the sight of other people s happiness is too much 
 for her. We must make allowances. She will 
 feel differently after a little. That was most 
 curious. I do not understand." 
 
 Mrs. Marlowe did not appear at luncheon, 
 much to the relief of the others save, perhaps, 
 Lord Stratton, who was anxious about her; but 
 they told the Earl what had happened on the 
 road to St. Cyr, and that Isabeau was to be mar 
 ried to Ashton Beresford. The old gentleman 
 was so delighted he could hardly contain him 
 self, and became quite humorous in his elephan 
 tine fashion. He brought a hectic flush to the 
 unaccustomed cheek of Mme. de Brissal by insist 
 ing upon kissing her in honour of the occasion, 
 after having nearly annihilated Isabeau in his 
 bear s embrace. And he drank to the health 
 and happiness of the two young people till any 
 other man but this iron veteran would have been 
 under the table. 
 
 After luncheon Beresford went up to his rooms 
 in search of a mislaid pipe. He came upon Mrs.
 
 i8 4 MONSIGNY 
 
 Marlowe in the upper corridor, and would have 
 turned into his room with only a nod, but she 
 followed him, and closed the door behind her. 
 
 "Is that true?" she demanded quickly, with 
 her back against the door. Her face was very 
 white, and her eyes burned. They seemed much 
 larger than common. 
 
 "That I am to marry Is Mademoiselle de 
 Monsigny?" he asked. "Oh, yes, that is true." 
 
 "After what I said to you last evening?" she 
 persisted. "After my refusing to release you?" 
 
 Beresford turned upon her impatiently. 
 
 "I deny your right to hold me to anything," 
 said he. "Must we go over all the argument 
 again? I begin to tire of it. You are to marry 
 another man. That fact, in itself, releases me." 
 He felt a curious sense of impotence in speaking 
 to her. It was as if he shouted to a deaf woman 
 or argued with some one who did not understand 
 his language. Men must arrive at conclusions, 
 or determine a course of conduct, by reason ; and, 
 being a man, he felt strangely helpless before this 
 woman to whom, in her overwrought state, 
 reason made no appeal whatever. He realised, 
 as he had not realised before, her oddly dual 
 nature, with its wholesome, sweet, womanly side, 
 normal and tender if weak, which could be so
 
 MONSIGNY 185 
 
 altered under the obsession of jealousy that 
 she was left a demon, unreasoning and 
 reckless. 
 
 His utter helplessness angered him. 
 
 " Oh, this is perfect nonsense !" he cried sharply. 
 " You are trying to make us both play an absurd 
 melodrama. I, for one, refuse to play. I have 
 as good a right to marry as have you or any one 
 else." 
 
 But the woman came up closer to him, looking 
 into his face with those great burning unnatural 
 eyes. 
 
 "Oh, be careful, Tony!" she said, very low. 
 "For Heaven s sake, be careful! I I warned 
 you, last night, that I was not responsible for 
 myself when that thing was stabbing me 
 through. I warned you not to try me too far, 
 but you ve done it. You ve done it as quickly as 
 ever you could. Now, have a care ! I love you ! 
 Good God, how I love you, sometimes ! And no 
 other woman shall have you. If I didn t know 
 that you would drive me mad in a week with your 
 coldness, if I thought there was any least spark 
 of love for me left in you, I should throw over 
 Lord Stratton and make you marry me. I shall 
 never have you for my own, Tony, but neither 
 shall that girl, for I m going to stop it, here and
 
 i86 MONSIGNY 
 
 now. I m going to tell them about you and 
 and Mrs. Travers." 
 
 Beresford gave a short laugh of utter amaze 
 ment. 
 
 "You are going to give yourself away?" he 
 demanded, still laughing. "Nonsense! Do you 
 suppose for an instant that Lord Stratton would 
 marry you if he knew you were Mrs. Travers? 
 Besides, you would not hurt me at all. They 
 know that I figured in that affair both Lord 
 Stratton and the Earl know it. You re mad, 
 Margaret!" 
 
 "I am not Mrs. Travers," she cried, in a fierce, 
 low tone. "I am Mrs. Marlowe, and they shall 
 never know that I was divorced, for you have 
 promised that you would not tell. You ll not 
 break your promise, Tony. You ll not betray 
 me, whatever I may say. You never broke a 
 promise in your life, and you d no more think of 
 betraying a woman than you would think of 
 murdering her. Oh, I have you, Tony ! I have 
 you, fast and strong ! I shall tell them that you re 
 not a fit man to marry Isabeau de Monsigny. I 
 shall tell them that you are bound to a divorced 
 woman and not free to marry, and you dare not 
 deny it, for you can t betray me. Oh, I have 
 you, my friend ! I can never marry you, but I
 
 MONSIGNY 187 
 
 can wreck you ! Tony ! Tony ! Tony ! Could 
 you not love me a little just the least in the 
 world? Have you no little bit of tenderness left 
 for me? See! I ll throw over this match with 
 Lord Stratton. We can go away together and be 
 married. Tony, couldn t you learn to love me 
 again just a little, just a little, boy?" 
 
 She had fallen over forward against him, catch 
 ing him with her hands upon his shoulders, and 
 her face was hidden upon his breast. Her voice 
 broke into great racking, painful sobs, and he felt 
 all her frail body shake with them. 
 
 He put her from him almost roughly, staring 
 into her eyes, and his own were wide with amaze 
 ment and horror and unbelief. 
 
 "You ll not do such a thing, Margaret?" he 
 cried in a whisper. "You ll not dare do such a 
 thing! Great God, it s unbelievable; it s mon 
 strous ! No, no ! No sane woman could grovel 
 so low. I won t believe it." 
 
 " I am not sane, Tony," she said, dully, and her 
 eyes fronted him unafraid. "I am quite mad 
 sometimes, when when I think of certain things. 
 Yes, I shall do it, and I am going to do it now. 
 I am quite desperate. Nothing you can say will 
 stop me. I know just how shameful and low and 
 contemptible I am, but I could no more stop than
 
 i88 MONSIGNY 
 
 any poor cornered animal could lie still, to be done 
 to death without fighting." 
 
 Beresford sprang forward, catching her by 
 the arm. "Stop!" he cried hoarsely. "Stop! 
 You must not go. You must not be so mad. I 
 tell you, you would die of the shame of it, after 
 ward. You must not do it. By Heaven, if you 
 do " 
 
 "What, Tony?" she asked, facing him again. 
 
 "I shall tell them, on my part," said he slowly, 
 "just who and what you are, and why you are 
 masquerading here under a stolen name. Two 
 can play at your game, my lady. If you ve a 
 mind to crawl so low, I shall do a bit of crawling, 
 too. Tell a word of what you have been threat 
 ening, and I shall expose you." 
 
 "No, you won t !" she cried swiftly, and she 
 came up to him once more till her face was close 
 to his and her eyes burned into his eyes. 
 
 "No, you won t, Tony !" said she. "Ruin a 
 woman ? No, not you. Some men might, but you 
 won t. Try it, my friend. Try to say the words 
 and your tongue won t move. Ah, I know you, 
 Tony, better than you know yourself. You d 
 let fifty women wreck your life, vilify you, lie 
 about you, ruin you, but you d never turn on one 
 of them ! Try it, Tony, try it."
 
 MONSIGNY 189 
 
 Then in a moment, and before he could stop 
 her, she had slipped out of the room, closing the 
 door after her. Beresford dropped into a chair, 
 covering his face with shaking hands.
 
 CHAPTER XII
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 How long he sat there he did not know; it was 
 probably not more than a few minutes, that might 
 have been hours, but he was roused by a knocking 
 at the door. A lackey entered, at his word, 
 saying that Lord Stratton wished to see him on 
 the south terrace. 
 
 "She ll not do it!" cried Beresford. "She ll 
 not dare. It was a wretched trick to get a 
 promise out of me. Nonsense ! Of course, she 
 won t do it." 
 
 He ran down the stairs, laughing at himself 
 for having given the thing a moment s credence, 
 but his heart beat fast for all that. 
 
 On the south terrace he found Mrs. Marlowe 
 and Isabeau de Monsigny and Lord Stratton. 
 The Viscount was walking nervously back and 
 forth, smiting his hands together. He frowned 
 a bit, and his eyes were anxious and a little 
 appealing as he turned to meet young Beresford. 
 
 "Ashton," said he, "I sent for you because 
 Mrs. Marlowe has has said that she knows some 
 thing very serious about you, something which
 
 194 MONSIGNY 
 
 must prevent your marriage with Isabeau." 
 He paused a moment, looking toward the woman, 
 and his eyes seemed to grow more anxious, more 
 pained and appealing. "I wanted you to be 
 present when she tells this because I am certain 
 that you can explain. I want to say that I have 
 perfect confidence in you perfect. It may be 
 it may be that Mrs. Marlowe has been misin 
 formed. I am certain that you can explain." 
 
 Beresford looked once at Margaret Marlowe, 
 and from her to Isabeau. The girl s face was 
 very pale, but she smiled a little, scornfully, and 
 her purple eyes were tender and full of trust. 
 There was no doubt or fear in them. Then he 
 drew a quick sigh. 
 
 "I am ready to hear what Mrs. Mrs. Marlowe 
 has to tell," said he. 
 
 The woman turned toward Lord Stratton and 
 began speaking at once. Beresford noted that 
 her face was cold and still she was holding her 
 self well in hand but that the hands hanging 
 at her sides shook violently, and that her chin 
 trembled sometimes so that she had to pause, 
 between words, to steady it. 
 
 " I think you know, Lord Stratton," she said in 
 a low voice, "that no one could regret more than 
 I regret being forced to to make a scene at
 
 MONSIGNY 195 
 
 your house, to denounce one of your guests, but 
 I have no choice. It is precisely because I am 
 one of your guests, because I owe you a debt of 
 hospitality, that I must not stand idly by while 
 a great wrong is being done you. If if I should 
 see a burglar attempting to steal the Monsigny 
 plate it would be my duty immediately to tell 
 you. It is still more my duty to tell you when 
 I see any one attempting to steal what is far more 
 dear to you. This this man is here on false 
 pretenses. He has no right to marry your daugh 
 ter or any other woman save one. He is not 
 free Lord Stratton would have interrupted 
 
 her, but she raised her hand to him, and went on, 
 speaking rapidly, and her eyes were wide and 
 dark and defiant, fixed upon young Beresford s 
 face. 
 
 "He is bound to another woman," said she, 
 "a woman who was divorced by her husband 
 on this man s account. Yes, you know of the 
 affair; you spoke of it, once. The woman is a 
 Mrs. Mrs. Travers. You thought, and other 
 people thought, that this man was innocent, that 
 he was wrongfully dragged into the case, but 
 that is not so. He was not innocent. When 
 the thing was over, he promised to marry the 
 woman, Mrs. Travers. He told her that the
 
 196 MONSIGNY 
 
 rest of his life was hers, that he would never 
 marry any one else. Then he went away. That 
 is the sort of man you were giving your daughter 
 to, Lord Stratton. That is the sort of man you 
 were welcoming in your house, a man who com 
 promised another s wife, and then, when the 
 woman was cast adrift, ran away lest he should 
 have to marry her!" 
 
 "How do you know all this?" demanded a 
 gruff, harsh voice behind her. "How do you 
 happen to have such a quantity of special knowl 
 edge about the Travers divorce affair?" 
 
 The woman swung about, white and gasping, 
 and it was the Earl of Strope who spoke. His 
 bushy white eyebrows were drawn down and 
 together, and the keen old eyes flashed at her. 
 For a moment she was off her guard, shaking in 
 a panic, for she feared the old Earl more than any 
 man living ; but she was herself again, directly. 
 
 "I know poor Mrs. Travers, since you ask, sir," 
 she said with a certain cold dignity. "She has a 
 little villa, near Tours, where she has hidden a 
 broken heart and a broken life from the world. 
 I visit her there sometimes, for we were friends 
 many years ago dear friends. She has been a 
 sinful woman, if you like, but she has been well 
 punished for it, and I, for one, will not turn
 
 MONSIGNY 197 
 
 against her." She looked again toward young 
 Beresford, and her voice mounted a bit. It was 
 wonderful acting. 
 
 "But," she cried, "if that poor woman was 
 sinful, what of this man betrayer and coward ! 
 Oh, it is quite time that some one showed him for 
 what he is." She turned to Lord Stratton, 
 lowering her voice. "When I came here," she 
 said, "I did not know that this person was to be 
 your guest. You told me of it soon after my 
 arrival, and, if you chance to remember, I had 
 some difficulty in hiding my feelings. I made 
 an excuse for losing my countenance. After 
 ward, I did not wish to make a scene I thought 
 it better not to do so, for it would be very unpleas 
 ant for all of you. I did not know his object in 
 coming here. To-day, when you told me that 
 he was to marry Isabeau, I could remain silent 
 no longer. I owed it to you to tell what 
 I knew. That is all, I think, Lord Stratton. 
 This man is not fit or free to marry your 
 daughter." 
 
 Lord Stratton drew his hand across his brow, 
 and his usually strong and iron face was a mask 
 of amazed incredulous horror. 
 
 "Ashton! Ashton!" he said appealingly, and 
 his voice shook. "This cannot be true. It can-
 
 198 MONSIGNY 
 
 not. I will not believe it. She she must be 
 wrong. Tell us that it is not true. Explain it, 
 Ashton ! Tell us it is not true !" His hand upon 
 young Beresford s arm shook like the voice. 
 
 "I tell you," cried Beresford fiercely, "it is all 
 
 all " His eyes met the woman s eyes, and 
 
 she moved closer to him, white-faced and somber. 
 
 "Can you deny it, Mr. Beresford?" she said, 
 very low. "Can you deny it ? Think a moment ! 
 Either it is true or I am the most contemptible 
 thing in all the world. Either I have been speak 
 ing the truth or I am what you would call, if I were 
 a man, a blackguard, and worse. Are you not 
 bound to that woman? Did you not promise to 
 marry her? And has she not refused to release 
 you from your promise? Are you free, Mr. 
 Beresford?" 
 
 A great wave of crimson spread up over Beres 
 ford s face and ebbed again, leaving him very 
 pale. His mind moved with a certain unnatural 
 swiftness, and he saw clearly what was facing him 
 the utter and lasting ruin of all that made his 
 life dear. Everything in him ached and struggled 
 to burst out in denunciation of the monstrous 
 charges this woman made, but he was curiously 
 helpless. His tongue stammered and would not 
 form the words. He remembered dully what the
 
 MONSIGNY 199 
 
 woman had said to him up in his room. " Try it, 
 my friend ! Try to say the words and your tongue 
 won t move. Ah, I know you, Tony, better than 
 you know yourself. You d let fifty women wreck 
 your life, vilify you, lie about you, ruin you, but 
 you d never turn on one of them ! Try it, Tony, 
 try it!" 
 
 Yes, she had known him better than he knew 
 himself. He could not turn on her. He was, in 
 some strange way, physically incapable of it. 
 
 "Can you deny it, Mr. Beresford?" she asked 
 again, close to his face. 
 
 Beresford dropped his head and made a queer 
 little helpless gesture with his two hands. 
 
 "I cannot deny it," said he. 
 
 But Isabeau de Monsigny ran forward, brushing 
 past the other woman, and caught him by the 
 shoulders, looking into his eyes. 
 
 "It is not true!" she cried fiercely. "It is a 
 frightful, horrible lie ! I won t believe it. No 
 one can make me believe it. Oh, say it is a lie ! 
 Tell them it isn t true. Why do you stand 
 there, silent ? Do you want to break my heart ? 
 Tell them it isn t true !" 
 
 "I cannot deny it," said Beresford again, and 
 his voice sounded very tired. There was no 
 life in it. He turned about to Lord Stratton,
 
 200 MONSIGNY 
 
 and the Viscount raised a haggard, sad face to 
 him. 
 
 "You cannot deny this?" he asked, wistfully. 
 
 " No," said Beresford. " No, I cannot deny it." 
 
 "Then," said Lord Stratton, "then " 
 
 "I know what you would say," broke in the 
 younger man, "I shall be leaving within the 
 hour, for Paris." He took the girl s hands from 
 his shoulders, not looking at her, and put her very 
 gently away from him. Then he bowed, and 
 went quickly indoors. 
 
 He packed the two large Gladstone bags that he 
 had brought with him to Monsigny and rang for 
 a servant to take them down. And he asked the 
 servant to have a trap of some sort sent around 
 from the stables to drive him to Versailles. Then 
 he sat down in a chair by an open window, with 
 his head in his hands, silent and motionless, for 
 a very long time. 
 
 The rolling of wheels on the gravel drive beneath 
 his window roused him at last. He looked out 
 and saw that it was the trap come to take him to 
 the station, and he gathered up his hat and gloves 
 and went down. 
 
 At the head of the stairs he had to step aside 
 to allow some one to come up the last of the 
 winding turns. In an instant he saw that it was
 
 MONSIGNY 201 
 
 Mrs. Marlowe, and he drew farther ^ack into the 
 shadows, hoping that she would not see him. 
 She was sobbing as she came, with her head bent 
 low, and this, with a very violent trembling which 
 shook her from head to foot the reaction from 
 the long nervous strain in which she had held 
 herself so calmly, made her approach slow and 
 difficult, so that she held to the wall with one hand, 
 and paused a little after each uncertain step. 
 
 Nevertheless, she saw him waiting there in the 
 shadows, and halted at the top of the stairs, 
 leaning against the wall. 
 
 "Oh, Tony, Tony !" she moaned, stretching out 
 an arm to him as she clung to the wall. "Oh, 
 Tony, I have ruined the one thing in all the world 
 that I loved. God help me ! I wonder if you 
 will ever understand, Tony ! I wonder if you 
 will understand!" But Beresford passed her 
 quickly and went on down the stairs, not looking 
 into her face again, and as he rounded the next 
 turn he heard her sobbing break out afresh. 
 
 Down by the steps of the terrace where the 
 trap was waiting he found the Earl and Isabeau. 
 Lord Stratton had disappeared. The old gentle 
 man seized the hand which he would have with 
 held and pumped at it vigorously. 
 
 " I want you to understand, " he growled, " that
 
 202 MONSIGNY 
 
 I don t believe a word of all that damned nonsense 
 not a word. I don t understand what is going 
 on, and, maybe, I never shall, though it won t 
 be for want of trying; but I know that woman is 
 playing you a nasty trick, somehow, and you re 
 such a cursedly Quixotic beggar that you won t 
 give her away. Just you mind my words ! We ll 
 have this thing cleared up or break our necks 
 trying. I know she s playing some sort of game." 
 
 Beresford shook his head, and tried to smile. 
 
 "I m afraid it can t be cleared up," said he, 
 "though, God knows, I m grateful to you for 
 feeling like this about it. No, it won t be cleared 
 up. I m I m done for, sir. " 
 
 But Isabeau came close to him, looking into his 
 face, and her eyes were very troubled and shadowy 
 and full of distress, and her lips quivered till 
 Beresford set his teeth and clenched his fists, at 
 his side, to hold himself in hand. 
 
 "Oh, dearest!" said she, "for the last time, 
 will you not answer me ? You have not said that 
 those things the the woman told were true. 
 Were they true, my heart? Were they true?" 
 
 " I cannot deny them, " he said again, very low. 
 
 "They were not true!" she cried. "Don t 
 you suppose I would know if they were true? 
 Don t you suppose I could tell ? Ah, if you would
 
 MONSIGNY 203 
 
 only speak!" Her voice broke a little, and the 
 beautiful head drooped, but she reared it again 
 proudly. 
 
 "You are shielding somebody," she said, in a 
 tone of certainty. " I know that you are shielding 
 somebody and taking upon yourself blame that 
 you do not deserve. If only we could clear this 
 dreadful thing up ! If only we could clear it up ! 
 But, dearest of everything, though you are going 
 away, and though I may not see you for a long 
 time, never forget, oh, never forget, that I 
 believe in you, trust you always, and and love 
 you, mon cceur, love you ! I think we shall know 
 the truth sometime, I feel it, but if not, why, if 
 not, still, I shall trust you. Good-by, my king, 
 good by ! Ah, no ; au revoir, that is better. 
 Listen ! If these clouds do not go, if you cannot 
 come back to Monsigny, if we cannot find out the 
 truth and lay it before my father, send for me, and 
 I will come to you. I will not lose you so easily ! 
 I will come to you anywhere. Au revoir, mon 
 cceur!" 
 
 She put out her two hands to him, but young 
 Beresford drew back, holding himself tight in 
 check. 
 
 "No," said he, "I will not touch you, now, 
 not while I am under this this shadow. If ever
 
 204 MONSIGNY 
 
 it is cleared away, I shall come back. Oh, God 
 keep you, my queen !" He climbed into the trap 
 beside the groom who was to drive him, and they 
 rolled swiftly away down the avenue. 
 
 But up at a window of the chateau, behind 
 filmy white curtains that hid her from sight, a 
 woman lay prone, watching for the last glimpse 
 of him before the trap was hidden among the 
 gloomy firs. And, when he was quite gone, she 
 dropped her face upon her arms, sobbing still 
 from sheer exhaustion, but dry -eyed, for she was 
 past tears. 
 
 "If I could unsay it, Tony !" she cried voice- 
 lessly. "If only I could unsay it ! Oh, how can 
 a woman so hurt the man she loves?" Then, 
 after a time, she raised her head again, looking 
 idly out of the window, and, as she did so, she 
 gave a sudden violent shiver, for her eyes had 
 fallen upon the old Earl of Strope, who stood just 
 below, at the edge of the terrace, with his grand 
 daughter. His grim, lean old face and his leonine 
 strength had never seemed to her so terrible, so 
 sinister. She was beginning to have an almost 
 superstitious fear of the man. 
 
 The Earl, meanwhile, was gazing after the 
 vanished trap and bending his white brows in 
 puzzled thought.
 
 MONSIGNY 205 
 
 "If only one knew where to begin in unraveling 
 the thing!" he growled. "If one had some 
 thing upon which to start ! Beresford won t 
 say a word, that is certain, and, as for the woman, 
 I suppose nothing could be frightened out of 
 her. Ah ! the other woman ! the Mrs. Travers ! 
 If one could find her, now !" But the girl looked 
 up suddenly, with so strange a change in her 
 expression, so swift a movement, that he broke 
 off in the middle of a word. 
 
 "I don t believe there is any other woman !" 
 said the girl in a quick, trembling voice. "I 
 believe she is Mrs. Travers, herself. No other 
 woman would have told her such things. She is 
 Mrs. Travers, I tell you ! Who knows anything 
 about her past life ? Where does she come from ? 
 Who was her husband? No one can tell you. 
 Oh, I m sure she is Mrs. Travers, grandpere / 
 
 "By Heaven !" cried the Earl, and his own 
 voice shook a little with the excitement. "By 
 Heaven, I believe you re right ! Why did none 
 of us think of it before? I have a notion that 
 I was near the idea myself when I asked her how 
 she knew all this stuff, but her confoundedly glib 
 answer about Mrs. Travers and her villa near 
 Tours quite upset my mind. By Jove, if you 
 should be right !" He paced up and down the
 
 2 o6 MONSIGNY 
 
 terrace, jerking his white head, and working his 
 bushy eyebrows excitedly. 
 
 "But how to find out?" he said. "How to 
 prove that it is so? The divorce was granted 
 five years ago. Wait, wait !" He stopped dead 
 in his walk and held up one hand. 
 
 "Those London weeklies!" he cried, "the file 
 of them in the library ! They run back more 
 than ten years ! The affair was much talked of, 
 at the time, I remember. Travers was well 
 known. They ll have it, the papers ! Oh, why 
 did I not think of it before ? I must be growing 
 old." 
 
 He was making hurriedly for the door, when 
 he almost ran into Lord Stratton, who was 
 coming out. 
 
 "Ah !" said the old gentleman, "I was wishing 
 to see you. Do you remember the month in 
 which that Travers divorce affair took place? 
 I have a reason for asking. Also, do you 
 remember anything peculiar about the case? 
 In particular, was any other man concerned 
 beside Ashton Beresford?" 
 
 "I am not certain," said the Viscount, "but I 
 believe the thing occurred during the early winter 
 December or January, I should say, possibly 
 November. I have no especial reason for remem-
 
 MONSIGNY 207 
 
 bering, save that I knew Colonel Travers. You 
 did, also, I think. I do not recollect that any 
 other man was concerned in the thing, except that 
 painter chap what is his name? Dimmesdale, 
 who was, and I believe is, a great friend of Beres- 
 ford s, was to have given certain evidence to clear 
 or partially clear Beresford, but didn t turn up 
 was ill somewhere here on the Continent. He has 
 a studio in Paris now, I believe. I have meant, 
 once or twice, to ask him out here. That is all I 
 remember of the case. As I said before, it made 
 no particularly strong impression upon me." 
 
 He turned half way, and stared gloomily out 
 over the tree tops. 
 
 "I am not given to emotion," said he, "as you 
 very well know, but this thing has cut me up 
 badly. I would have sworn by young Beresford 
 before almost any other man. Indeed, I can t 
 yet believe that he is all we have heard. I can t 
 help feeling that there is a mistake somewhere. 
 If only the lad would deny it ! If only he d deny 
 it!" 
 
 The old Earl passed on into the chateau, 
 nodding his white head. 
 
 "There is a bigger mistake somewhere than 
 you re reckoning for," said he grimly. 
 
 Half an hour later he came hurriedly out of the
 
 2 o8 MONSIGNY 
 
 house, and found his granddaughter sitting for 
 lornly alone in a corner of the terrace. There 
 were certain evidences that she had been indulging 
 in tears. The old gentleman s hands shook with 
 excitement as he held out to her a long narrow 
 strip cut from an illustrated paper. The strip 
 was a single column of print with two portraits 
 at the head reproductions from photographs. 
 One of the portraits was that of a man in uniform, 
 the other of a woman. 
 
 The girl gave a smothered cry. 
 " It s she ! Oh, it s she ! It s Mrs. Marlowe !" 
 " It is," said the Earl; " it is Mrs. Marlowe, if we 
 are to be civil and call her by her present nom de 
 guerre. Read the notice there ! It is not exactly 
 jeune fille literature, but the case is rather pressing. 
 Read particularly the last paragraph, about the 
 other man. That is the interesting part, the 
 other man. His name is Dimmesdale, and he is 
 a very well-known painter. I am going in to 
 Paris this evening to make a call upon Mr. 
 Dimmesdale,"
 
 CHAPTER XII!
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 YOUNG Beresford, when he reached Paris, put 
 his luggage into a fiacre and drove at once from 
 the Gare St. Lazare to his chambers in the rue du 
 Faubourg St. Honore. Then, since it was nearly 
 seven o clock, he proceeded slowly to dress for 
 dinner. He had steadfastly refused, since leaving 
 Chateau Monsigny, to allow his mind to dwell 
 upon what had happened. He had driven his 
 thoughts, by sheer force of will, into trivial chan 
 nels, into making plans for amusing himself during 
 the next few days, even to contemplating a fort 
 night s trip to Switzerland, and some climbing in 
 the Oberland. Of course he knew that this was 
 no more than a postponement of something which 
 must be gone through; that there was a very 
 black time ahead for him somewhere, which no 
 temporary distraction could hope to lighten; but 
 he shrank from the realisation of what had come 
 upon him as a man shrinks from the operating 
 table and the surgeon s knife. 
 
 He had no intention whatever of submitting 
 weakly to the absolute defeat of his hopes, to the 
 
 211
 
 2i2 MONSIGNY 
 
 absolute ruin of his character with the people for 
 whose good-will he most cared, for he was a strong 
 man and determined, and he loved Isabeau de 
 Monsigny more than most men ever love anything 
 in all their lives. But the woman had been very- 
 clever in dealing her blow. She had known him 
 so well that she had felt perfectly secure in trusting 
 to an almost Quixotic and extraordinarily rare 
 sense of chivalry which existed in him, and which, 
 five years before, had led him to take a stand 
 and to make promises as few other men would 
 have done. She had so phrased her denunciation 
 of him that to deny it, to clear himself, meant that 
 he must expose her; and this, she knew, he was 
 entirely incapable of doing. Her only mistake 
 was in failing to realise that danger might develop 
 from other quarters. 
 
 He had no intention, it has been said, of sub 
 mitting to his present condition, and he fully 
 purposed somehow to clear himself of the stigma 
 which had been put upon him, but he wished time 
 to consider, and for the immediate present he 
 wished not to consider at all. The blow had been 
 a very heavy one. It would have been interesting 
 to trace, if subsequent events had not, as they did, 
 hurried the affair to a conclusion without his 
 interference, just to what extremes a man of his
 
 MONSIGNY 213 
 
 temperament, strong and passionate and deter 
 mined, but handicapped always by a sense of 
 honour almost fantastic, would have gone to clear 
 his name and to gain the woman he loved, for he 
 would surely have gained her at the last by any 
 cost. 
 
 He stood a moment when he had dressed looking 
 down into the busy rue du Faubourg St. Honord, 
 where cabs passed in an endless double chain and 
 the pavement was crowded by homeward-bound 
 shoppers and working people. 
 
 "I think I will look up Dimmesdale," he said 
 at last. "He probably will not yet have left the 
 studio, and I mustn t be alone for the evening. 
 Good God, not that!" 
 
 He took a fiacre and drove across the river 
 along the broad Boulevard St. Germain and up 
 the rue de Rennes, and turned into the quiet 
 little rue Notre Dame des Champs, where 
 Dimmesdale s studio sat in the midst of a garden 
 behind a great wall with "Defense d* Afficher" 
 printed large across the stucco. Dimmesdale 
 himself came to the door in answer to his ring, 
 and greeted him with the quiet heartiness of long 
 friendship. 
 
 Dimmesdale was a rather tall man, very slightly 
 made, and he had the pallour of one little given to
 
 2i 4 MONSIGNY 
 
 sports or an out-of-door life. His lack of muscu 
 lar development showed at the neck and in the 
 wrists, and in the legs when the cloth of his 
 trousers was drawn tight over them. He had a 
 handsome face, but it was heavily lined and drawn 
 and a bit haggard. He could not have been over 
 forty or thereabouts, but he had the look of a 
 man ten years older, and his eyes were very weary. 
 
 "I am glad you chanced to turn up," said he, 
 "for I have been feeling just a bit seedy and at 
 odds with the world all day long. I was debating 
 a few minutes ago as to whether I wished to dress 
 and go out somewhere for dinner, or dine comfort 
 ably here in the garden, perhaps. I some 
 times have Jean bring me in a sort of dinner from 
 one of the restaurants near. What have you been 
 doing of late? Where are you from?" 
 
 " I have been stopping out in the country for a 
 few days," said Beresford, "at Chateau Monsigny, 
 near Versailles. Lord Stratton, the son of the 
 old Earl of Strope, married the daughter and 
 heiress of the last Marquis a long time ago, you 
 know. He lives there now with his daughter, 
 who is the present heiress, and with the old Earl. 
 It is a beautiful place. " 
 
 "Ah, yes!" said Dimmesdale, "I have met the 
 Earl. Heavens, what a splendid old type ! And
 
 MONSIGNY 215 
 
 I think I have met Lord Stratton. I saw the girl 
 once, here at the Opera. I rather think she is the 
 most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I should 
 like to paint her. Was there a party ? " 
 
 "No," said young Beresford, "only one other 
 guest. I I think I shall be wanting to tell you 
 something, a bit later, something very important, 
 an important difficulty. I could tell no one else 
 but you, for you already know many of the cir 
 cumstances connected with the thing. You 
 know or knew this other guest at Monsigny. 
 However, that will wait till after dinner. By all 
 means let us have dinner here, in the garden. 
 Afterward I think I am not sure, but I think 
 I should like to get very drunk or do something 
 else equally distracting. I need distraction very 
 badly, Dimmesdale. I m in a devil of a way !" 
 
 They dined under the trees of the garden, 
 with no light save the little candles on the table 
 and a half-dozen orange-coloured paper lanterns 
 strung over their heads. But, as the evening 
 advanced, it became cloudy and a warning drop 
 or two of rain splashed through the leaves, so that 
 the two men were driven back into the great 
 studio for their coffee and tobacco. 
 
 "It might be a good time," said the painter, 
 after the lamps were lighted and the coffee set
 
 216 MONSIGNY 
 
 ready to hand, with little decanters of cognac and 
 of coloured liqueurs, "it might be a good time 
 now to tell me about this other guest at Chateau 
 Monsigny, and about the difficulty you are in. I 
 take it for granted that the other guest was a 
 woman." He laughed, and struck a match to 
 light his cigarette. 
 
 But before young Beresford could answer there 
 came a knock at the studio door. Dimmesdale 
 went to open it, and at the sound of the voice 
 from without young* Beresford sprang up with 
 a smothered cry. 
 
 "Come in, sir," said the painter. "It is very 
 wet. You are Lord Strope, I think?" The old 
 Earl came into the room, setting his wet umbrella 
 near the door. 
 
 "Ah !" said he, as he caught sight of Beresford 
 beyond, "I am glad you are here. I thought it 
 quite probable that you might be. It is a very 
 wet night, very wet. These -fiacres are poor 
 things to be about in when it is stormy, even with 
 the top and boot up. " He sat down upon a great 
 divan, chafing his strong hands together and 
 working his eyebrows up and down in his curious 
 gorilla fashion. It was a trick he had when a 
 little excited or a little embarrassed. 
 
 "Will you not have some coffee, sir," asked
 
 MONSIGNY 217 
 
 Dimmesdale, "and a cigarette or a cigar? We 
 had just finished dining and were starting upon 
 the coffee." 
 
 " No coffee, thank you, " said the old gentleman, 
 "but a little glass of that brandy, if you will be so 
 good. No, I won t smoke. " 
 
 He drank the brandy slowly and in silence and 
 set down the glass, frowning as if he were at a loss 
 as to how he should commence what he wished 
 to say. 
 
 "Mr. Dimmesdale," he began finally, "we are 
 involved, out at Monsigny, in a very strange and 
 very serious tangle of misfortune which threatens 
 great danger to two ancient houses and great 
 unhappiness to several people. I think that you 
 are the only man who can extricate us, and I have 
 come here to ask you to do it. It may be I am 
 so mistaken as to certain facts that you have 
 not the power to help us, or it may be that you 
 will not be willing, but, as I have said, the happi 
 ness of a number of people depends, I believe, 
 upon you, and the honour of two houses." He 
 paused a moment, watching the painter s face, 
 and Dimmesdale frowned across at him attentively 
 with puzzled, uncomprehending eyes. 
 
 "My son, Lord Stratton, " continued the old 
 Earl, slowly, "wishes to marry a certain woman
 
 2i8 MONSIGNY 
 
 who calls herself Mrs. Marlowe, but whose real 
 name is Mrs. Travers, the divorced wife of Colonel 
 Travers, formerly of the African Service." 
 
 Dimmesdale sat down quietly in a chair which 
 stood near and leaned his head upon his hand. 
 Young Beresford gave another sudden little 
 smothered cry, and would have spoken but that 
 the Earl held up a silencing hand. 
 
 "This marriage, as you will readily see," he 
 went on, "would be most unfortunate for obvious 
 reasons. I may explain that my son is not aware 
 of the woman s real identity. He believes her to 
 be the widow she claims to be. Further, this 
 woman, this Mrs. Travers, has, actuated, I believe, 
 by jealousy, broken off an engagement between 
 my granddaughter, Isabeau de Monsigny, and 
 Ashton Beresford, by accusing Mr. Beresford, to 
 Isabeau s father and to myself, of an outrageous 
 course of conduct which, I think, is altogether 
 untrue. She accuses him of having betrayed this 
 Mrs. Travers, whom she claims as a friend of hers, 
 of having been responsible for her divorce, and 
 finally, of having evaded a promise to marry her. 
 These preposterous accusations Mr. Beresford, 
 through some fantastic sense of honour, I take 
 it, refuses to deny. Now, how I discovered the 
 identity of the woman I need not tell you. I
 
 MONSIGNY 219 
 
 need say only this, that in discovering it I came 
 also upon certain facts which led me to think that 
 you, and you alone, could, if you so desired, clear 
 away all these difficulties, free Ashton Beresford s 
 name from stain and prevent a most unfortunate 
 marriage." 
 
 Dimmesdale sat for a long time silent after the 
 Earl had finished. His face was hidden from the 
 light by the hand which supported his head. 
 Then, presently, he rose to his feet and took a turn 
 up and down the long room, and the two men who 
 sat watching him were amazed to see, now that 
 his face was in the light, how suddenly haggard 
 it had grown. 
 
 He halted at last before the old Earl, and he 
 threw out his hands with a curious little gesture 
 as if he were very tired. 
 
 "I will do anything you wish, sir," he said 
 simply,
 
 CHAPTER XIV
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 LORD STRATTON was pacing up and down the 
 long flagstoned stretch of the south terrace. 
 There was a brier pipe between his teeth which 
 he believed himself to be smoking, but he forgot 
 it every few minutes so that it went out and had 
 to be relighted, and after awhile he neglected it 
 altogether, biting at the stem and shifting it 
 between his teeth from comfortable habit. 
 
 Earlier in the evening it had been raining, but 
 the sky was at this time nearly clear again, save 
 for ragged masses of driven cloud to the south 
 ward, and the moon shone like a wash of silver 
 upon the wet leaves of the trees and upon the 
 wet turf and the shining little pools of water at 
 the margin of the avenue. 
 
 It had been a most trying day, and although 
 he was not an emotional man nor easily moved, 
 the events which had taken place had moved 
 him strongly, more strongly than he would have 
 believed possible. Isabeau s adventure and nar 
 row escape from death had been a great shock, 
 
 223
 
 224 MONSIGNY 
 
 for he loved his daughter very dearly. Then, 
 after the matter of her engagement to Ashton 
 Beresford was so satisfactorily arranged, had 
 come Mrs. Marlowe s denunciation of Beresford 
 and his inability to deny the charges. Beresford 
 had acted rather curiously, he thought. He had 
 not borne the air of guilt. Indeed, it seemed 
 impossible that the young man could have been 
 such a blackguard; he would have shown it in 
 other ways. Still, he had not denied the charges. 
 He had admitted their truth. No, he had not 
 done that. He had been careful not to do it. 
 He had said that he could not deny what was 
 charged. There might be something in that. 
 The Viscount took the pipe from his teeth and 
 paused a moment in his walk to consider. Yes, 
 there might be something in that. It was all 
 very strange. He wished that he could see Mrs. 
 Marlowe again to ask for more details. There 
 were certain discrepancies, certain unexplained 
 points in what she had said which he would like to 
 probe, for he was a careful man. 
 
 Mrs. Marlowe had not been down for dinner, 
 nor later in the evening. She had sent word that 
 a headache was confining her to her room. The 
 old Earl had eaten a hasty meal alone and very 
 early, after which he had dashed off to Paris on
 
 MONSIGNY 225 
 
 business of importance, so he said. He had 
 looked unusually alert and eager. So the other 
 three, Isabeau she would not make excuses and 
 stop away : she had her mother s spirit Mme. de 
 Brissal, and himself, had sat down to a very 
 silent and very miserable dinner. They had not 
 lingered at the table. 
 
 He pulled out his watch as he reached the little 
 patch of moonlight at one end of the terrace. He 
 thought it must be growing late, but was surprised 
 to find that it was but a little after ten. Just at 
 that moment the bugle blew, faint and clear, 
 from the lodge. 
 
 "That will be my father, back from Paris," 
 said Lord Stratton. "He must have driven 
 across from Versailles in a hired cab. I think no 
 trap is out of the stables." He waited at the 
 steps of the terrace for the vehicle to come up the 
 long winding avenue, but when it did at last 
 appear from the gloom of the firs a hired fiacre, 
 as he had surmised there were three men in it 
 instead of one. 
 
 The old Earl descended first, and Lord Stratton 
 lifted his eyebrows slightly as Ashton Beresford 
 followed him. The third man he recognised as 
 the painter, Dimmesdale, whom he had once or 
 twice met and rather liked.
 
 226 MONSIGNY 
 
 The Earl paid off the cocker and turned to his 
 son. 
 
 "There are certain very important matters 
 affecting us all," he said, "that must be settled 
 to-night; and certain dangers that must be 
 cleared away. I have asked these two gentle 
 men out here to help us in the affair. Will 
 you come inside?" 
 
 Lord Stratton led the way into his great book- 
 lined study without a word. He felt that some 
 thing momentous was about to happen some 
 thing quite beyond his knowledge or expectation, 
 for his father had spoken with more than his 
 usual earnestness, and he knew, moreover, that 
 the Earl would not have brought Ashton Beres- 
 ford and Dimmesdale out to Monsigny except for 
 an excellent reason. 
 
 He sat down beside the great square writing- 
 table which stood in the middle of the room, but 
 his father remained standing near at hand. 
 
 "You have been we have been," said the old 
 Earl, " very greatly deceived in a guest who is now 
 under this roof. She is not who or what she 
 claims to be, and the marriage arrangement 
 between her and yourself must be broken off." 
 
 Lord Stratton laughed shortly. "If that is 
 the result of all your mystery and activity," said
 
 MONSIGNY 227 
 
 he, "you might better have stopped at home. 
 The marriage will not be broken off." 
 
 "If you will touch that bell near your hand," 
 said the Earl, with no show of temper and from 
 that alone his son must have seen how much in 
 earnest he was "we will send a servant to call 
 her here. I am not speaking idly. I can prove 
 all I say." 
 
 "Nonsense!" cried the Viscount. "I shall do 
 nothing of the sort. I will not have my own 
 guest cross-questioned and browbeaten. I shall 
 not ring." 
 
 But the Earl took from his pocket a folded slip 
 of paper, the slip cut that afternoon from a 
 London weekly, and gave it to his son. 
 
 "Read that!" said he, "and look at the two 
 portraits at the top of the column." 
 
 Lord Stratton glanced at the heading and at 
 the two little portraits, and he drew a quick 
 shivering breath and closed his eyes for an instant. 
 Then he read the print through twice. After 
 ward he sat for a little time silent, with bent head. 
 Then he touched the bell at his side. 
 
 "Take my compliments to Mrs. Marlowe and 
 ask her to be so good as to come downstairs to the 
 study on a matter of importance," he said to the 
 servant. "And ask Mme. cle Brissal also to
 
 228 MONSIGNY 
 
 come. I will not have Mrs. Marlowe here without 
 another woman in the room to lend her coun 
 tenance," he added, turning toward his father. 
 
 The servant was absent for several minutes and 
 then returned to say that Mme. de Brissal 
 would be down at once, but that Mrs. Marlowe 
 begged to be excused for this evening, since she 
 was suffering greatly and was on the point of 
 retiring. 
 
 "Take my compliments to Mrs. Marlowe," said 
 Lord Stratton, "and tell her that the matter will 
 not admit of delay. Tell her that I am waiting 
 in the study." 
 
 But when the man had again left the room, he 
 rose and paced to and fro restlessly. He met the 
 old Earl s somber eyes and halted impatiently. 
 
 "What if this is true?" he cried, raising the 
 crumpled slip of paper. "What if she was Mrs. 
 Travers? It does not necessarily mean that she 
 was a guilty woman, nor does it clear his name !" 
 And he turned for a moment, frowning, toward 
 young Beresford. 
 
 But the Earl put a hand on his son s shoulder 
 and looked into his eyes, shaking his white head. 
 
 "She lied, Richard," he said very gently. 
 "She lied about others as well as about herself, 
 and for a reason that will be made plain later.
 
 MONSIGNY 229 
 
 She was a guilty woman and she has lied through 
 out. You must let me ask her the questions, for 
 I know many facts that you do not. I shall not 
 browbeat or abuse her, but I must make her tell 
 us the truth; then you will be convinced." He 
 turned to where Dimmesdale sat in the shadow. 
 "Will you step into the farther room beyond 
 those portieres?" he said. "It might be better 
 for you not to be seen till the proper time comes. 
 I shall call you." 
 
 Then, when the painter had retired through the 
 hangings, they sat down once more, not speaking 
 again, and waited through what seemed a very 
 long time, till there came a slow step outside and 
 Mrs. Marlowe s voice. 
 
 "Are you in here, Lord Stratton? Dear me, 
 your message was alarmingly imperative ! I 
 was quite terrified, you may be sure ! Have I 
 not been quick?" She stood in the doorway, 
 laughing gently and peering forward into the 
 dimly lighted room. She was dressed in a loose 
 trailing house-gown of black, open a little at the 
 neck and with sleeves of lace that came only to 
 the elbows. She was, as always of late, very pale, 
 and the circles under her eyes seemed darker 
 than their wont. Old Mme. de Brissal, greatly 
 wondering and half-frightened, hovered behind
 
 23 o MONSIGNY 
 
 her. Then, all at once Mrs. Marlowe saw the old 
 Earl and Ashton Beresford, and one of her hands 
 went suddenly to her breast. 
 
 "Oh," she cried, "I I thought I did not 
 know I thought Lord Stratton was alone." 
 
 The Earl came forward at once and pushed out 
 a chair for her. Mme. de Brissal had already 
 slipped into a chair by the door. 
 
 " Will you not sit down ? " he said, and there was 
 in his tone an absence of its habitual gruffness, a 
 curious change almost to kindness that sent a 
 sudden chill through her. Mrs. Marlowe had 
 always been afraid of the old man, terribly afraid, 
 but this new side of him terrified her afresh. 
 
 The Earl sat down opposite her at the big table, 
 folding his arms upon its edge. 
 
 "We asked you to come down," he began, 
 "because it is necessary that we should know a 
 little more about certain matters relative to what 
 occurred this afternoon and to other things. 
 Now, in the first place" he paused a moment, 
 looking reflectively toward Lord Stratton "my 
 son has told me that he wishes to marry you, that 
 he has asked for your hand, and that you have 
 accepted him. But a man in high position, Mrs. 
 Marlowe, a man who is of an ancient house and 
 who will, one day, be the head of that house and
 
 MONSIGNY 231 
 
 Earl of Strope, must think of many things in 
 marrying, many things beyond his inclinations. 
 He must, for one thing, know all about the woman 
 who is to be his wife and possibly the mother of 
 his children. Does it not occur to you that we 
 know very little about you? Will you not tell 
 us more about yourself ? You must see that it is 
 necessary. Tell us about your earlier life and 
 your husband and your people and where in 
 England you lived before your husband s 
 death. Let me see your husband died four 
 years ago, I think you said. In America, was 
 it not?" 
 
 "Yes," said the woman in a low voice; "yes, 
 in America, in Chicago. No, no, no, I say ! No, 
 not in America ! What am I saying ? It was in 
 India ! Surely I told you India, Lord Strope ! 
 Why did you say America?" 
 
 "That," said the old gentleman, "was a slip; I 
 meant India, of course. And his name? Ah, 
 I remember! John John Marlowe." 
 
 "Yes," she said again, not raising her eyes, 
 "John Marlowe." 
 
 "No, wait!" said the Earl; "wait a moment. 
 Am I not wrong again ? Surely, it was Charles 
 you told my son the other day. Why, yes, of 
 course, it was Charles."
 
 232 MONSIGNY 
 
 But the woman looked up swiftly with quivering 
 lips, and a white, hunted face. 
 
 "Oh, why why quibble about these little 
 things, Lord Strope?" she cried in a shaking voice 
 that seemed on the edge of sobs. "Why harry 
 me with with going over and over them? I 
 I suppose I am a very foolish nervous woman, 
 but I I cannot bear to talk about all that. It 
 is too too sad. Let me go to my room. I 
 will not be questioned so. My husband was John 
 Marlowe John John. And he died four years 
 ago in India. Now you have it all ! Let me go ! 
 John Marlowe, sir, John Marlowe!" 
 
 " Monseigneur, oh, monseigneur, " begged old 
 Mme. de Brissal, "be gentle, monseigneur. 
 Remember that madame is a woman, and not 
 well. Be gentle, monseigneur!" 
 
 " Not John Travers, madame, not John Travers/" 
 cried the Earl in a great stern voice, raising him 
 self half out of his chair and leaning across the 
 table toward Mrs. Marlowe, his fierce old eyes 
 glittering under their shaggy brows. 
 
 The woman gave a sudden, gasping cry and 
 fell forward against the edge of the table with her 
 hands under her. Then, in an instant, she had 
 whirled upon Ashton Beresford like a cornered 
 animal.
 
 MONSIGNY 233 
 
 "You told!" she cried, in a shaking whisper. 
 "You told, you coward! Ah, you contemptible 
 coward ! You broke your word and told them 
 to save yourself I" 
 
 "No," said young Beresford> quietly, "I have 
 told nothing. You know I would not tell to save 
 myself. " 
 
 "This told," said the old Earl; "this betrayed 
 you, Mrs. Travers. I cut it out of a weekly 
 paper." And he passed her the slip that Lord 
 Stratton had read a few moments before. 
 
 She looked at the two portraits and she read 
 the notice through slowly to the end. Then, as 
 Lord Stratton had done, she sat a long time 
 silent, with bowed head and drooping shoulders. 
 
 "Yes," she said at last in a tired voice, "yes, 
 I am Mrs. Travers. I will pretend no longer. 
 You have trapped me at last, run me to earth. 
 Aren t you proud of it? Isn t it something to 
 gloat over ? " She looked up with a sort of pitiful 
 sneering bitterness. "Aren t you proud of it?" 
 she said again, "three great men who ve harried 
 and hunted and driven from pillar to post a poor 
 woman whom another man had cast out from his 
 home ! Oh, it s a triumph, isn t it ? It s a capital 
 game, isn t it? Why had I not a right to my 
 life?" she cried in a mounting voice. "Why had
 
 234 MONSIGNY 
 
 I not a right to change my name and to live among 
 my own class who would have turned me out of 
 their doors if they had known who I was? 
 Was I not as good as they, the people I went 
 among ? Aye, better, better ! Oh, infinitely 
 better for you to know the lives that some of them 
 lead but no lying divorce bill has robbed them 
 of all that makes a woman s life sweet. " She 
 turned desperately to Lord Stratton, where he sat 
 in a great chair, his elbows on its arms and his 
 hands supporting his head, and she slipped down 
 on the floor so that she was kneeling before him, 
 and her hands clung to an arm of the chair. 
 
 "Oh, are you like the rest of them?" she cried, 
 sobbing a little. "Are you going to cast me out 
 to to God knows what, this time? Are you 
 going to cry shame after me and point your finger 
 at me because I was another man s wife and 
 people lied to him? What does it matter who I 
 was ? You have wished to marry me. You have 
 asked me to marry you and I am no different than 
 I was then. Oh, I "would make you a good wife. 
 I swear I would; I swear it ! I ve wanted so to 
 marry you ! It would be such a new life to me, 
 such peace and comfort and content ! You don t 
 know the hell I ve been through for five years, the 
 fear, the dread, the lying ! Ah, how I hated it all !
 
 MONSIGNY 235 
 
 Don t cast me off, Lord Stratton ! You said I was 
 the only woman you would think of marrying and 
 I m the same woman now. Am I not ? am I not ? 
 I could make you happy, you know I could. 
 Don t turn me away for a lying divorce bill !" 
 
 "Was it a lying divorce bill, Mrs. Travers?" 
 said the old Earl from the table. " Was it ? " 
 
 She swung about toward him and looked swiftly 
 from his face to Ashton Beresford s and back 
 again. Her eyes were wide and burning and 
 hunted, like those of an animal which is sore 
 pressed. 
 
 "Lying?" she whispered hoarsely, and waited 
 to steady her voice. "Lying? Yes, it was 
 lying ! Yes, yes, of course it was lying ! Did 
 you think I was guilty of what they said the 
 witnesses, those horrible witnesses? I was inno 
 cent, I say, innocent ! Oh, don t you believe me ? 
 Ask ask him ! Ask Ashton Beresford ! Tony, 
 Tony, tell them that I was innocent ! Oh, that 
 you could think such things ! I I swear I was 
 innocent !" 
 
 " Dimmesdale ! " said the old Earl, raising his 
 voice a little, "Dimmesdale!" The hangings 
 beyond parted for an instant to admit the painter, 
 who stood, white and haggard, behind the 
 Earl s chair.
 
 236 MONSIGNY 
 
 "Harry! Harry!" screamed the woman, and 
 sprang swiftly to her feet and started toward him ; 
 but she fell forward, tripping on her skirt, and 
 caught herself with her hands against the edge 
 of the table. And she clung there, shaking from 
 head to foot, her face hidden on her arms. 
 
 Mine, de Brissal left her chair by the door, 
 where she had sat frightened and silently weeping 
 through all the tense scene, and sank on her 
 knees beside the crouching woman, slipping her 
 arms about the bowed shoulders and murmuring 
 comfort into the heedless ears, as one murmurs 
 to a frenzied child. 
 
 But Mrs. Marlowe put her aside and lifted her 
 white face desperately. 
 
 "It s a lie!" she cried, choking with her sobs. 
 "It s all a horrible lie ! Don t believe what Harry 
 Dimmesdale has told you. He s lying, lying ! 
 He always was a liar ! He lied to me in the first 
 place, and when the thing all came out he ran 
 away, and he lied to me afterward. Don t 
 believe him. Ah, to think that I loved him once ! 
 I tell you, it s all a lie !" Then she dropped her 
 face once more upon her hands and fell to weeping 
 and shivering as she crouched beside the table. 
 
 Dimmesdale came forward a little from behind 
 the Earl s chair and looked toward Lord Stratton.
 
 MONSIGNY 237 
 
 "I was the man, sir," he said, in a low tone, 
 "who made it possible for Colonel Travers to 
 obtain his divorce. It was I who was seen by 
 the witnesses in company with Mrs. Travers 
 it was not Beresford ! It was I who ran away at 
 the time the case came up, leaving Beresford, 
 who was innocent, to face what I should have 
 faced. I was his friend, and I have continued to 
 be his friend outwardly since then, for he has 
 never known what I did. He has never known 
 that Mrs. Travers was guilty of what they charged 
 against her. That is why he offered to marry her, 
 because he thought that she was innocent and 
 that her life had been unjustly wrecked. He 
 offered to marry her and she would not accept 
 because she she loved me at the time and hoped 
 that I would marry her. She did not know quite 
 what a coward and blackguard I was ; or, knowing, 
 would not believe it. Afterward she came to love 
 him, Beresford, remembering what he had borne 
 for her. She cared for him more, I think, than 
 she ever cared for me, but she knew that he did 
 not love her. I suppose that is why she tried to 
 ruin him in your eyes. Women can be unbeliev 
 ably cruel to those they love. That is all the 
 story, sir. I have been a coward and a scoundrel 
 and worse. I have betrayed and deserted a
 
 238 MONSIGNY 
 
 woman and I have left a friend to suffer for my 
 sins, but I have not been altogether free from 
 suffering myself. I have lived in hell for five 
 years. Thank God, it is to come to an end, 
 this living lie, this whited sepulcher of a life !" 
 
 He had fallen to pacing up and down the room 
 and his calmness had given way to an excitement 
 that was on the verge of hysteria. His hands 
 worked and twisted and his forehead shone wet 
 in the cross light from the candles. 
 
 "Thank God, it is over !" he cried again. "At 
 least, I can be honest and open in my villainy 
 now. I can be known for the blackguard that I 
 am. I tell you that I have lived in hell ! I could 
 not have borne it much longer. Thank God 
 that in unmasking I can be of actual service where 
 a service is needed!" He turned with bowed 
 head and went out of the room, and young 
 Beresford, catching the Earl s eye, rose and 
 left the room also. 
 
 Then for a long time no one spoke, and nothing 
 broke the silence In the room, save that now and 
 then the woman, crouching at the end of the table, 
 sobbed and moaned softly to herself, or Mme. 
 de Brissal, weeping by the doorway, spoke aloud 
 in little protesting murmurs. But at last the old 
 Earl raised himself with a sigh.
 
 MONSIGNY 239 
 
 "Is this true, Mrs. Travers?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes," said the woman, in a low, dead voice; 
 "oh, yes, it is true. Why should I lie any 
 further?" 
 
 "Then," said he gravely, "this marriage can 
 not take place." She must, of course, already 
 have realised this, but the words brought her head 
 up with a desperate cry of protest. 
 
 "Ah, no, no!" she cried; "don t say that! 
 Ah, give me a chance to prove that I ve left behind 
 me all that would soil or degrade a woman. Give 
 me a chance some hope, some little hope ! I am 
 not a bad woman, Lord Strope. Oh, I m not ! 
 I m a better woman than many you know and 
 meet and like. If I if I was wicked long ago, 
 it was because I was tempted, was offered a love 
 that that I knew better than to hope for at 
 home. God in heaven ! have I not suffered for 
 what I did? Do you know how I have suffered 
 for five years ? You never suffered so in all your 
 long life. Oh, why is a woman blackened and 
 stained forever, degraded because she has sinned 
 once? Can she never be clean again? Can she 
 not repent, oh, bitterly? Why is the woman 
 damned and the man forgiven, sir ? No, no, no ! 
 Don t cast me off utterly because of what I was. 
 I m not that sort of woman now, I swear to vou
 
 2 4 o MONSIGNY 
 
 I m not. If I ve lied to-night, it was to save 
 myself from just what you are threatening now. 
 You don t blame a trapped, cornered animal for 
 fighting. Don t blame me for lying. I I was so 
 eager to put away all that past horror, to forget 
 it, to make believe it never had been. I wanted 
 to start a new, clean, peaceful life. That isn t so 
 much to ask ! Ah, don t refuse me ! Give me a 
 chance to show that I m a good woman, that I 
 can be faithful and pure and constant like other 
 women. Oh, are you all so immaculate that you 
 can turn a woman out into the world, out into 
 despair and hopelessness, because she has erred 
 once, long, long ago?" 
 
 Her sobbing had risen again with her voice 
 until it shook all the frail body piteously. 
 
 The old Earl raised his head and his face was 
 very sad, but it was stern and inflexible. 
 
 "I did not make the law, my child," said he, 
 the great and ancient law which condemns the 
 woman but not the man. Perhaps I should have 
 made it differently, perhaps not. It is the law, 
 and we who live here must obey it. " 
 
 "Monseigneur is right, ma pauvre," said Mme. 
 de Brissal, from her chair near the door. She had 
 ceased weeping, but her voice still trembled and 
 broke from time to time, for she was very much
 
 MONSIGNY 241 
 
 moved. "Monseigneur is right, ma pauvre. Sin 
 is a terrible thing, whether in a man or in a woman, 
 but, I think, justly more terrible in a woman, foi 
 we are of finer flesh and we live not so exposed a 
 life. They have a right, the men, to demand that 
 the mothers of their sons and daughters shall have 
 been honest women, and it would be a monstrous 
 thing for a man to give his future innocent children 
 a mother whose life had been impure." She 
 crossed the room and stood beside the woman 
 who crouched there, stroking the disheveled 
 hair and the hot cheeks with her trembling 
 old fingers. 
 
 "You are still a young woman, my child," 
 she continued. "If you should marry Richard 
 you might well expect to bear children. Dare 
 you think of becoming the mother of Earls of 
 Strope? Dare you think of bringing into the 
 world daughters to be tainted by your early life ? 
 No, this marriage must not take place. They 
 come of a proud old house, Monseigneur and 
 Richard. They bear a proud old name, and it 
 lays on them obligations. Oh, my child, it wrings 
 my old woman s heart to say these things, but 
 they are as true as death. The marriage must not 
 take place." 
 
 But the other woman turned, still kneeling, and
 
 242 MONSIGNY 
 
 clasped the knees of the man she had promised 
 to marry. 
 
 " Do you, toe , cast me off, Richard ? " she asked, 
 very low, and she seemed to have gone beyond 
 tears and sobbing into a place of deeper and more 
 terrible grief. "Have you, as well, no pity? 
 Are yon, also, cold and just, terribly just? And 
 do you cling to the law which sees only one side ? 
 Oh, Richard, Richard, I should make you a faith 
 ful wife ! I should bring you comfort and content 
 and, I think, happiness. Do you cast me off, 
 Richard ? Aye, I know of what you are thinking. 
 I loved Ashton Beresford. See ! I am quite 
 honest I love him now, but he does not love me 
 and I could not marry him. You cannot under 
 stand because you are a man. Oh, Richard, I 
 should be a good wife to you, and I long so for 
 peace peace and quiet ! Do you cast me off, 
 Richard?" 
 
 Lord Stratton raised his face, white and drawn 
 and haggard, and caught his father s eye. 
 
 "Leave us," he said; "leave us for a little." 
 But the old Earl came and stood over him, looking 
 down very keenly into the younger man s face, 
 and he put out a hand upon the broad shoulder. 
 
 "There will be no weakening, no giving way?" 
 he appealed.
 
 MONSIGNY 243 
 
 " There will be no weakening, " said Lord Strat- 
 ton. Then the Earl straightened up with a quick 
 breath and, together with Mme. de Brissal, 
 went softly out of the room, closing the door 
 behind them. 
 
 They found the others, who had preceded them, 
 in the salon with its white-and-gold furniture and 
 the great mirror over the mantel-shelf. The old 
 gentleman laid an elbow upon the mantel and 
 rested his white head on his hand. 
 
 " It is a cruel law, " said he, after a time, "but it 
 is the law. All law is cruel. What will become 
 of her? I have never liked her, but I am sorry 
 for her, now. What will become of her?" 
 
 " I shall try to persuade her to marry me," said 
 Dimmesdale. " I have always loved her as much 
 as such a man as I can love. I was too much of a 
 coward and too selfish to marry her before. 
 After a time not now but after a time I think 
 she will marry me. It is the only reparation I 
 can make. Perhaps we shall be able, after all, to 
 patch together something of a life. She is a good 
 woman by nature. She told the truth about 
 that." 
 
 Young Beresford had wandered restlessly out 
 of the room, into the little hall that led out to the 
 south terrace. Some one was coming down the
 
 244 MONSIGNY 
 
 stairs from above, some one all in white with 
 certain roses. She halted a moment as she saw 
 him in the dim light, and then ran to him with a 
 little cry. 
 
 "Ah, you have come back to me, my heart? 
 You have come back to me?" she said. And she 
 pressed close to him, holding him by the lapels of 
 his coat staring up into his face with great glad 
 eyes. " You ve come back to me ? " she whispered 
 again, trembling, and she said the words over and 
 over again as if she could not realise that it was 
 true. 
 
 Then a sudden burning flush swept over young 
 Beresford s cheeks and his arms went around the 
 girl, crushing her till the breath caught and gasped 
 between her lips, lifting her from the floor till her 
 eyes were close to his, for in the moment he had 
 forgotten, like the old Earl, how terribly strong 
 he was. 
 
 When, after a time, he set her down again, they 
 were both shaking a bit and very pale, and no 
 words would come to their lips, only stammerings. 
 Isabeau broke into a strange little hysterical fit 
 of laughter. 
 
 "It is over, sweetest," said young Beresford 
 at last. "The trouble is over and done with. 
 There is nothing between us now." He raised the
 
 MONSIGNY 245 
 
 girl s two hands, palms upward, in his, and laid 
 his face in them. It was like laying one s face 
 in flowers. 
 
 "There is nothing between us now," he said 
 again. 
 
 Isabeau s strange little nervous fit of laughter 
 stopped short. 
 
 "What has happened?" she cried swiftly. 
 "What has she done? Did they make her 
 did grandpere make her tell the truth? Ah, I 
 was afraid she would never confess ! Is that 
 what you were all about in the study? I heard 
 strange voices and cries and some one weeping 
 aloud. I did not know what it was all about. 
 Ah, you re free, mon cceur, quite free?" 
 
 Young Beresford slipped an arm about her 
 waist and turned toward the door which gave 
 upon the south terrace; and she, moving a half- 
 pace before him, rested her shoulders and her 
 beautiful head against his breast, so that as they 
 walked it was, unconsciously, as the other Isabeau 
 de Monsigny had loved to walk with her husband 
 more than twenty years before. 
 
 They went out together into the cool sweet 
 moonlight which silvered the flagstoned terrace. 
 There was no evidence left of the evening s rain 
 save a little shining pool or two beside. the gravel
 
 246 MONSIGNY 
 
 drive. There were stars in a sapphire sky, many 
 millions of them, and a warm breeze bore up from 
 the west with a burden of roses, and brought from 
 the stables the sound of a voice that sang to a 
 mandolin, old songs, old as the walls of Chateau 
 Monsigny. 
 
 Beresford glanced backward over his shoulder 
 at the gloomy doorway from which he had come, 
 and he looked before him at all the silver splendour 
 of the moonlight. It seemed to him, though he 
 was little given to abstractions and imaginings, 
 curiously symbolic out of the shadow of sin and 
 bitterness and intrigue and jealousy into a moon- 
 bathed garden that was full of the scent of roses 
 and the lilt of a voice that sang. 
 
 Isabeau de Monsigny stirred her head where it 
 lay in the hollow of his shoulder and "the soul of 
 gold" brushed his lips lay soft against his cheek. 
 
 "Where are the black butterflies, monsieur," 
 she whispered. " Where are the clouds that were 
 on our souls? Where is the tristesse that hung 
 over Monsigny?" 
 
 "Oh, gone, my queen!" cried Ashton Beres 
 ford; "gone, gone!"
 
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 353