HER 
 
 FAITHFUL 
 KNIGHT 
 
 GERTRUDE WARDEN
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 University of California 
 
 IRVINE

 
 Her Faithful Knight 
 
 BY 
 
 GERTRUDE WARDEN 
 
 AUTHOR OX 
 
 " A STAGE HEROINE, " IN THE DARK -ARCHES, 
 "WHOSE WAS THE CRIME?" ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 STREET & SMITH, Publishers 
 
 238 WlUOAM StIEET '
 
 iffy 
 
 7, 
 
 // 7 
 
 Entered According to act of Congress in the year 1899 
 
 By Street & Smith, 
 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
 
 HER FAITHFUL KNIGHT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE HOUR AND THE WOMAN. 
 
 In no sense of the word can Great Russell street be 
 called a cheerful thoroughfare especially on a wet day. 
 
 The British Museum pigeons, huddled together in the 
 space before the grim, gray building, sacred to learning 
 and the arts, flap their soiled, wet wings disconsolately; 
 they are sober-minded birds at the best of times, perpetu- 
 ally weighted by a consciousness of their educational sur- 
 roundings. In the rain they look only a little less be- 
 draggled than the dreary file of waterproofed and mackin- 
 toshed readers, splashing their way toward the shallow 
 steps and heavy portico in search of food for their hungry 
 minds. 
 
 In fine weather it is not difficult to distinguish between 
 the patrons of the reading-room and the art students who 
 haunt the sculpture galleries. Among the latter a per- 
 centage is inclined to giggling and whispering, to beads, 
 bows, curled fringes, pigtails, and a chastened levity of 
 spirit. Undersized youths between the ages of sixteen 
 and six-and-twenty ; ill-dressed, unshaven, and apparently 
 unwashed, occupy a considerable amount of these young 
 ladies' attention. 
 
 On a wet May morning, Aylmer Read, a big, fair- 
 haired young man of seven-and-twenty, sauntering up
 
 6 The Hour and the Woman. 
 
 Great Russell street under an umbrella, thinking out an 
 article he meant to elaborate by the aid of certain vol- 
 umes in the Museum library, beheld none of these social 
 amenities, and decided that a plainer or more depressed 
 looking lot of people, even for a rainy day, than these 
 students and readers, he had never yet considered.. 
 
 "What ugly girls ! Upon my word, they have need to 
 study the beautiful ! It should lead to smashed looking- 
 glasses at home, though." 
 
 After seven years spent in the chief newspaper office of 
 a northern manufacturing town, Aylmer Read had seized 
 the chance of a position in London, and rather hoped on 
 his return thither to find every provincial goose ex- 
 changed for a metropolitan swan. Born and reared in 
 London, he did not hope to see the streets paved with 
 gold, but what he did eagerly anticipate was a larger in- 
 tellectual life, greater possibilities for cultured social in- 
 tercourse, and, chiefly, for acquaintanceship with women 
 in his own rank of life, who combined education with 
 grace and beauty. 
 
 Up in Clofield his brother journalists had mated con- 
 tentedly with their landladies' daughters, with barmaids. 
 or with chance young women encountered on their year- 
 ly outings ; and these ladies had, according to their sev- 
 eral lights, cooked and mended and managed for them, 
 provided them with families, nagged at them, gossipped 
 about them, cordially admired their abilities and deplored 
 their increasing love for strong drinks, and made 
 wretched the lives of sundry overworked and underfed 
 "helps" in the kitchen and the nursery. 
 
 With such a helpmeet, Aylmer Read, at seven-and- 
 twenty, with a digestion which so far defied bad cookery, 
 could by no means be satisfied. Although he lived in the 
 latter end of the nineteenth century, he cherished feelings 
 of romance and chivalry. Outwardly calm, matter of
 
 The Hour and the Woman. 7 
 
 fact, and conventional, he alone suspected his own latent 
 capability for making a fool of himself about a woman. 
 In Clofield his work had been ill paid, his time fully occu- 
 pied, and the women he met few and unattractive. Here 
 in London all these conditions were altered. He was to 
 have more money and more leisure, and the exact psycho- 
 logical moment had come when, given the woman with 
 the necessary magnetic power over him, he was bound 
 to fall fathoms deep in love with her. 
 
 The birds of Venus were shaking the raindrops from 
 their soot begrimed feathers in the Museum courtyard. 
 Possibly the Sea-born herself may have hovered above 
 the fog and rain-clouds in the vicinity of the Parthenon 
 fragments, and, ever intent on securing votaries and vic- 
 tims, may have directed Aylmer Read's vision up a cer- 
 tain side street, down which a woman in blue serge was 
 coming toward him. 
 
 The woman was young and shapely; she carried her- 
 self well and gracefully, even though hampered by an um- 
 brella, a handbag, and a skirt which was too long at the 
 back, and had to be lifted above a pair of beautiful feet in 
 cheap walking shoes. To be graceful under such cir- 
 cumstances was in itself an exceptional thing, and de- 
 noted a unique equality in this young woman, distin- 
 guishing her among others of her age and sex. To the 
 injury of his peace of mind, Aylmer had to learn that this 
 woman could not ever look ungainly, so admirably sym- 
 metrical were her proportions. While yet her face was 
 concealed by the umbrella his heart began to beat a very 
 little faster, so certain was he that her features would 
 prove as wholly charming as her gait and carriage. A 
 gust of wind came at his unspoken prayer, and, as she 
 crossed the street and passed close to him, her umbrella 
 was blown sufficiently on one side to enable him to take 
 a long look at her face.
 
 8 The Hour and the Woman. 
 
 She was very beautiful, as he knew she would be, pale 
 and fair, and somewhat thin, but not unhealthy looking ; 
 in age, apparently twenty, and in expression, serious and 
 a little sad. Her eyes were gray and luminous, set off by 
 dark lashes and straight, well marked eyebrows ; her fea- 
 tures were delicate and her lips very firmly closed. Light 
 brown hair that only asked for sunlight to shine golden, 
 crowned the pale, pink fairness of her skin ; in figure she 
 was rather tall, and larger in the waist than a fashionable 
 dressmaker would have permitted. Her clothes were 
 cheap and plain ; shabby and dowdy they might have ap- 
 peared on a less beautiful woman ; but in Aylmer Read's 
 eyes the cestus of Venus could not have more admirably 
 set off her charms. 
 
 He knew instinctively that she was going to the Mu- 
 seum, and this not by reason of any resemblance between 
 her and the students and readers who had gone before, 
 but because he felt romantically certain that she was des- 
 tined to come under his particular notice, and to play 
 from henceforth an important part in his life. 
 
 The long look he had taken into her face seemed to him 
 to establish already a relationship between them, al- 
 though she had passed by as though unaware of his pres- 
 ence. A woman so beautiful as she imperatively de- 
 manded a chivalrous protector to follow at a distance and 
 guard her from the undesirable attentions her attractions 
 might provoke in a great city. Already he had forgot- 
 ten the object which brought him to Great Russell street, 
 but he followed the beautiful ill-shod feet across the 
 courtyard and past the dripping, shining pigeons up the 
 steps and into the Museum. 
 
 Here a check awaited him. The beautiful unknown 
 wrote her name in the students' book and disappeared to 
 remove her hat. By this time Aylmer recalled the fact 
 that he was a reader and not a student, and that his way
 
 The Hour and the Woman. 9 
 
 lay far from hers. He was a man of resource, and ac- 
 customed by his sub-editorial work on a great newspaper 
 to keep his wits about him in an emergency. There was 
 only one course open to him he must become an art 
 student. 
 
 Aylmer Read could not draw. He could criticise other 
 men's drawings, but would have been sore put to it to 
 rival the productions of even an inferior pavement artist 
 in colored chalks. He resolved to make a tour of the 
 sculpture galleries to discover for himself how much tal- 
 ent was displayed by the embryo Raphaels and Michael 
 Angelos assembled there, and to learn whether such ele- 
 mentary attempts as his were likely to prove would be 
 startlingly conspicuous. 
 
 The students were trooping through the galleries, mak- 
 ing first for a room off the corridors devoted to Assyrian 
 bas reliefs in search of the easels, drawing boards, and ob- 
 long wooden boxes which served as seats and were 
 stacked there. Aylmer's fair lady came thither in course 
 of time. She had removed her hat and scarf, and the 
 light from the glass roofing fell on her hair which even on 
 this dullest of days lent color and brightness to the scene. 
 Fine, glossy, and abundant, typically English gold-brown 
 hair it was, beautifully brushed, and twisted into shining 
 coils with care more suggestive of a French than an 
 Anglo-Saxon maiden. The outline of her broad, white 
 forehead was softened by a wave of fair hair, but Ayl- 
 mer's lady wore no set "fringe," and he found himself 
 wondering how he could ever have admired any girl 
 whose coiffure was destitute of parting and who sported a 
 curled "bang." 
 
 She passed him again, easel in hand, on her way to the 
 Greek sculptures. Following her was a sharpfaced un- 
 dersized youth, against whom Aylmer instantly conceived 
 a violent dislike, for he was carrying her drawing board
 
 io The Hour and the Woman. 
 
 and her boxes, and winking in triumph at a group of his 
 companions. That anything in masculine shape should 
 wink while doing her a service was an outrage. It was 
 clearly necessary that Ayliner should at once become a 
 student in order that she might be waited upon in a 
 proper spirit of reverence. 
 
 The gallery in which Aylmer's lady took her place was 
 long and narrow, at one end was a fine figure of Hermes, 
 and this it was that she had come to copy. 
 
 Aylmer strolled through the galleries, feigning deep in- 
 terest in the broken statuary, and unconsciously exciting 
 much fluttering attention in the minds of the loose-haired, 
 corsetless young ladies, who, having taken up their study 
 of the human form from antique models, could duly ap- 
 preciate his fine proportions. 
 
 "Isn't he splendid? A figure like Hermes. And his 
 head is beautifully put on his neck." 
 
 "He J ll grow beefy when he's middle-aged. Those big, 
 fair men always do." 
 
 "All the same, wouldn't you like to be as tall and broad 
 as that, Mr. Smith ?" 
 
 "No, thynks. It's all wyste material. A small body 
 and a big brain is what's wanted if one has to make one's 
 way in the world." 
 
 Such were among the comments which Aylmer's ap- 
 pearance excited among the art students. But Mr. Smith, 
 the sharp-faced cockney youth who had been the last 
 speaker, looked, as he was, very good-natured, and pres- 
 ently Aylmer, after making a tour of the Elgin marbles, 
 addressed himself to him for information. 
 
 "I should very much like to make some studies from 
 these statutes," he said. "May I ask what qualifications 
 are required for students here?" 
 
 "You don't want to get into the Akedemy, I suppose ?" 
 suggested Mr. Smith. "Most of us are droring for passes
 
 The Hour and the Woman. n 
 
 into the Akedemy schools, you know. Once we get in, 
 which 'arf of us won't, we hope to be sent to Rome on 
 account of our remarkable talent." 
 
 "And what would you do in Rome ?" inquired Aylmer, 
 amused by the humorous little cockney albeit he had 
 been guilty of winking as he carried beauty's drawing 
 board. 
 
 "Oh, tike in art at the pores, and come 'ome Corregios. 
 Seems a large order, don't it ?" 
 
 Mr. Smith was most ready with his information. If 
 Aylmer obtained a ticket there was no reason why he 
 should not "dror" statues all day if his tastes lay in that 
 direction. The slight measure of proficiency which was 
 needed in order to insure admittance as a student was 
 a drawback in his case, certainly, but might be overcome. 
 
 "As to your droring badly," said Mr. Smith, "lots of 
 us do thet. I've seen that blessed Satyr with cymbals 
 caricatured to that extent it was enough to mike him 
 turn on his pedestal. Get your ticket, and you're free to 
 spoil as much good droring paper as the best of us." 
 
 Aylmer thanked him for his advice and encouragement 
 and made his way back to the room where the girl in the 
 blue serge was copying the Hermes. Standing in the 
 doorway he could watch her profile without attracting 
 attention. As she became absorbed in her work he noted 
 an eagerness in her expression quite unlike the thought- 
 ful sadness which he had first seen in her face. 
 
 The hands with which she dexterously wielded char- 
 coal, chalk and bread, were slender, well shaped and 
 strong, and something in the curve of her wrist inspired 
 in Aylmer an insane wish to cover it with kisses. The 
 back of her neck, just above the collar of her gown, was 
 likewise distracting, of a warm, creamy fairness, shaded 
 by stray tendrils of soft, fair hair. It seemed wonderful 
 to Aylmer that the male students in her vicinity should
 
 12 The Hour and the Woman. 
 
 waste their pencils on unresponsive marble with this love- 
 ly model before their eyes. He was even conscious of 
 surprise at the unmoved calm of the curator who sat in a 
 corner of the gallery nursing his wand, and hardly glanc- 
 ing in the fair-haired lady's direction. An overpowering 
 desire to make her look at him, to meet the full gaze of 
 her gray eyes fixed on his, impelled Aylmer to walk a 
 little way down the gallery, and then pause for a moment 
 in front of a marble group near her seat. 
 
 As he did so the girl turned her head a little to the 
 right, and their eyes met for the first time. It seemed to 
 him that no woman had ever looked at him before, and 
 that they two were as much alone and separate from the 
 rest as the first man and first woman together in Eden. 
 She looked at him half wonderingly under contracted 
 brows, as though trying to recollect where she had seen 
 him before. Her eyes were very brilliant, of a peculiar 
 hazel-gray that looked almost green in the strongest 
 light ; his were brown, and in their direct, steadfast gaze 
 the least of vain women could have read something 
 stronger than admiration, while the most modest need 
 not have shrunk from their unspoken homage. Clearly, 
 the lady in blue was not annoyed With him for staring at 
 her, for even when, with a deep blush, she looked away 
 from him to her drawing board there was nothing in her 
 expression that betokened displeasure. 
 
 That long look, given and received, was to Aylmer's 
 thinking a most hopeful beginning to his courtship. At 
 least, she would remember him again, and if his eyes pos- 
 sessed half the eloquence he desired, she would know that 
 he had fallen in love with her. 
 
 Such a first impression was too precious to be inter- 
 fered with, and after a few more inquiries at the entrance 
 as to the coveted student's ticket, Aylmer Read left the 
 building.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A MOONLIGHT WALK. 
 
 Prepared with the necessary ticket, Aylmer Read a few 
 days later went to the British Museum, inscribed his name 
 in the students' book, selected his easel and board, and 
 strolled down the galleries in search of something easy to 
 draw. 
 
 .To his intense disappointment and vexation the divinity 
 in blue serge did not appear, and after wasting three hours 
 in making strange hieroglyphics on the paper before him 
 and promptly rubbing them out before anybody saw 
 them, the new student left the galleries in disgust, and 
 did not return until two days later. In the interim he had 
 searched the neighborhood for her in vain ; but on a 
 sunny morning in early June he entered the Hermes Gal- 
 lery and noted with delight how the strong light from 
 above made an aureole of a -girl's bright hair, as she bent, 
 seated, over a sketchbook. 
 
 As though to add a finishing touch to his utter subju- 
 gation, she wore new shoes, cut low in front, and a pink 
 cabbage rose pinned near the neck of her gown, contrast- 
 ing with the paler pink fairness of her face. She did not 
 appear to notice his entrance, and went on quietly sketch- 
 ing in pencil a broken statuette of Eros, while Aylmer, in- 
 different as to his subject, gravely set up his easel before 
 the bust called "Clytie." 
 
 Hardly, however, could he even pretend to study the 
 features of Phoebus' unhappy love except to compare 
 them with those of the girl in blue. "Clytie" was fat and
 
 14 A Moonlight Walk. 
 
 commonplace, her brow was too low for intelligence, and 
 her locks were evidently artificially curled. The face of 
 the girl in blue, on the other hand, grew momentarily 
 more interesting by reason of the mingled strength and 
 weakness which he seemed to read there. Her uncon- 
 sciousness of his presence he discovered early to be a 
 sham ; more than once she looked at him curiously when 
 she thought him fully occupied by his work only once, 
 though, did she meet his eyes, and then she instantly af- 
 fected to be absorbed in a piece of sculpture beyond him. 
 
 Her face as a possible index to her character was per- 
 plexing and contradictory. Those quickly glancing, bril- 
 liant eyes, the color of which seemed to constantly vary, 
 were sympathetic, and would have been even coquettish 
 but for a set, resolute hardness in the closing of the beau- 
 tiful mouth. The chin was white, well rounded and emi- 
 nently kissable, curving in temptingly under the lower lip ; 
 but the pure lines of her profile were almost coldly classic 
 in outline. Cold, too, was her bearing, and very cold, 
 even icy, her voice when a certain would-be Lothario 
 among her fellow-students tried to enter into conversa- 
 tion with her on the pretext of some borrowed bread. 
 
 She did not stay very long in the gallery, but having 
 completed her sketch, left her seat and walked away to 
 another part of the building. Something fell from her 
 sketchbook as she rose, and, after being dragged a little 
 way in the train of her gown, became free of it within a 
 yard of Aylmer's feet. It was a cabinet photograph, and 
 as Aylmer lifted it from the ground with the intention of 
 returning it, he saw at once that it was a portrait of her- 
 self, and that underneath was written in a large, clear 
 lady's hand : "Miss Phyllis Knight." 
 
 The picture did not do her justice; but it lay in Ayl- 
 mer's hand; no one was looking, and all is fair in love. 
 These considerations influenced him as he deliberately
 
 A Moonlight Walk. 15 
 
 turned it over and read the number of the card and ,the 
 name of the photographer on the back. Should he place 
 it in her hands at once? It would seem a good oppor- 
 tunity for addressing her, but Aylmer decided that the 
 right moment for so doing had not yet arrived. He had 
 no wish to be treated in the same frigid style as the gen- 
 tleman of the bread incident ; he would wait his time, and 
 meantime place the portrait on the seat where its owner 
 had been sitting. 
 
 Meanwhile he could not wait until he got home be- 
 fore writing to the provincial photographer, whose ad- 
 dress he had mentally registered. Quitting the Museum, 
 he struck into Oxford street, and ordering lunch, and 
 pen, ink and paper, at the nearest restaurant, he requested 
 the man to send, in return for the P. O. O. inclosed the 
 portrait of Miss Phyllis Knight, of which he gave the 
 number, and to inform him whether he had taken any 
 other pictures of the lady. Once this letter was stamped 
 and posted, Aylmer returned to the study of art in the 
 highest spirits. The Hermes Gallery appeared deserted, 
 save for the curator dozing over his wand in his seat in 
 the corner. The luncheon hour was, as a rule, devoted to 
 sandwiches and strolling visits. The afternoon was hot 
 and inducive to indolence. But before one easel a tall, 
 charming figure stood, with her back to Aylmer, her 
 hands clasped behind her, her fair head a little inclined to 
 one side, considering the work before her; and with a 
 strong inclination to laugh, Aylmer realized that the girl 
 in blue serge was criticising his attempts to draw the 
 "Clyde." 
 
 The gallery was perfectly still and quiet. Aylmer ad- 
 vanced slowly and softly, and the girl in blue thought she 
 was alone, save for the sleeping curator. As she con- 
 templated Mr. Read's attempt to reproduce the Clytie's 
 features, her sense of humor overcame her ; she burst into
 
 1 6 A Moonlight Walk. 
 
 a low laugh of intense amusement, girlish, spontaneous 
 and infectious. In the middle of it she turned her head 
 sharply at some slight sound, and found Aylmer standing 
 a few feet behind her, laughing also. In a moment she 
 had blushed deeply, composed her features and walked 
 sedately away with head erect, humming a tune in the 
 most indifferent way in the world. But her laughing 
 face had been a revelation of lovely gaiety and shining 
 white teeth to the young man, and he realized instantly 
 that her coldness of look and manner were assumed, and 
 that under that veneer of dignity she was nothing more 
 than a light-hearted girl. 
 
 Not another glimpse of her did he catch that after- 
 noon, during the course of which he received some can- 
 did criticism on his debut as an art student from the irre- 
 pressible Mr. Smith. 
 
 "So that's your idea of the Clytie," observed that young 
 man, arriving inopportunely, before Aylmer had had 
 time to completely erase his efforts. "A bit 'off' in the 
 matter of droring, isn't it? We've been having a discus- 
 sion about you, some of the fellers and I. Some of 'em 
 think you dror so badly you must be founding a new 
 school. One chap thinks you're a private detective, wait- 
 ing here to spot somebody ; but as none of us have done 
 anything worse than leave our washing bills unpaid, that 
 don't seem likely either. Unless Miss Knight's murdered 
 some one who was trying to mike up to her. She looks 
 as if she could do it sometimes." 
 
 "Who is Miss Knight?" 
 
 "Dont' tell me you don't know the nime of the prettiest 
 girl in the galleries. The one with the fair 'air and the 
 rippin" figger in blue serge, of course. The girls here 
 call her 'Diana the Disdainful.' She don't dror at all 
 badly, and earns her living by it, which is more than most 
 of us can do. Does designs and sketches and things, not
 
 A Moonlight Walk. 17 
 
 'arf bad some of 'em ; but don't she think a lot of 'erself, 
 that's all! The others are all 'ugging each other, and 
 kissing, and arm round each other, and telling spiteful 
 stories about each other all day. But she, she don't take 
 any more notice of 'em than if they were so many flies. 
 She isn't my style too much of the stined glass window 
 line for me. I like something a bit lively, that can cheek 
 you back. But there's no denying that her modeling's 
 first rate and her flesh tints simply A 1." 
 
 Aylmer subdued a great longing to take Mr. Smith by 
 the scruff of his neck and summarily eject him from the 
 Museum. In order to divert his sacrilegious talk to some 
 less precious topic he gravely informed his cockney ac- 
 quaintance that he fully intended taking up art as a pro- 
 fession, and relied upon his total inability to draw as his 
 most promising stock in trade. 
 
 "I shall call myself an impressionist," he said. "I shall 
 get a schoolboy nephew of mine, who has a box of paints, 
 to color my designs. Then I shall put them in eccentric 
 frames, hire a gallery, and give a 'one man' show. If I 
 am remonstrated with, I shall say I only paint as I see. 
 The new journalists will discover that I am an artist of 
 strong natural genius and individuality, who has the cour- 
 age to cast aside the trammels and conventions which 
 hamper art in England." 
 
 Mr. Smith laughed and winked. The new student 
 wasn't a bad sort, he decided, and forthwith marked his 
 approval by asking the loan of half a crown. It was pat- 
 ent that the farce of art studies could not be kept up much 
 longer, and that Aylmer's one object in playing it, the 
 chance of making the acquaintance of the girl in blue, 
 must be speedily accomplished if he wished to spare her 
 fellow students' charring comments. 
 
 Chance, as some would have termed it, or fate, as Ayl- 
 mer himself considered it ; unexpectedly assisted him.
 
 18 A Moonlight Walk. 
 
 His sub-editorial work on a London daily newspaper kept 
 him employed from a little before nine every evening un- 
 til about four on the following morning. At the present 
 time he was staying in bachelor apartments situated con- 
 veniently near his club off the Strand and the office of his 
 newspaper in Fleet street. Saturdays were entirely free, 
 and on the following day, which was a Saturday, Aylmer 
 was asked to appear for an absent dramatic critic at the 
 first performance of a new play at a fashionable comedy 
 theatre not far from Piccadilly Circus. He was glad of 
 the work as a change from the office routine, although at 
 this present time he was so deeply in love that he would 
 rather have spent the evening in roaming the streets in 
 the neighborhood of the Museum, in the hope of meeting 
 the lady of his thoughts, than have enjoyed the finest play 
 ever performed on any stage. 
 
 Perhaps, in consequence of this exceptional frame of 
 mind, the new piece failed to interest him. There was 
 not enough love in it, and the leading lady was extremely 
 unlike his ideal in appearance. 
 
 "Either the piece and the acting are mediocre," thought 
 Aylmer, "or this love is making such a fool of me as to 
 incapacitate me from enjoying anything in life." 
 
 He had fully made up his mind to ask Miss Knight to 
 marry him on the first possible opportunity ; but such a 
 request requires a little leading up to, and her bearing 
 was so fenced about with chilling dignity that he dared 
 not injure his possible chances by appearing officious and 
 premature. Under this system, Aylmer, a naturally 
 pleasant tempered man, was growing absent-minded, cap- 
 tious and irritable. Her image dominated his dreams, 
 spoiled his meals, and never for a moment left his waking 
 mind. He was conscious that such a state of things could 
 not go on, and longed to bring matters to a crisis. Who 
 and what she was, what position in life her parents and
 
 A Moonlight Walk. 19 
 
 relations occupied, what was her history, her education 
 on all these subjects Aylmer was as thoroughly indiffer- 
 ent as only a man of strong and long-repressed feelings, 
 thoroughly in love for the first time, can be. He did not 
 suppose the gray-eyed girl an angel, but he knew that she 
 was the first woman he had ever met capable of inspiring 
 in him an overmastering passion, and that, as a conse- 
 quence, she must be his wife. 
 
 Through the course of the more or less trivial story 
 which was being represented before him by ladies in ex- 
 travagantly priced gowns, with many smart speeches to 
 deliver which only the older members of the company 
 made audible to the body of the house, Aylmer Read 
 planned in his head a dozen different ways by which he 
 could make himself known to Phyllis Knight, and chafed 
 at the conventions of the age in which he lived as con- 
 trasted with the free and easy wooing practiced in the 
 brave days of old. 
 
 Between the third and fourth acts he smoked a cigar- 
 ette in the broad street on which the front of the theatre 
 opened, and thought out the matter. 
 
 "In a primitive community I should merely have to 
 squat at the door of her father's wigwam, mention my re- 
 quest, give the old gentleman some little present of oxen, 
 or some other useful trifle, and bear my bride away. As 
 it is, I absolutely stand hour after hour within a few yards 
 of her and dare not even speak to her. It is a monstrous 
 absurdity." 
 
 He strolled along the moonlit thoroughfare, his over- 
 coat open, his hands clasped behind him, thinking. 
 Down a side street, at right angles with the front of the 
 theatre, and which led round to the stage door, a young 
 woman was hurrying; a thick, black veil concealed her 
 features, but the beauty of her figure was clearly shown 
 by her close-fitting blue serge gown, and under her bon-
 
 ao A Moonlight Walk. 
 
 net bright fair hair shone in the light from the street 
 lamps by the way. 
 
 Something of the pose of her head and the quick grace 
 of her movements attracted Aylmer's attention. He told 
 himself that his thoughts were so set upon one particular 
 woman that he was ready to detect a resemblance to her 
 where none existed ; but he crossed the road in her track 
 in order to get a better look at her. 
 
 As she turned into Waterloo place, three young men in 
 evening dress, walking arm in arm, came round the cor- 
 ner so quickly as to almost run into her. Instead of let- 
 ting her pass on, they blocked her way, overwhelming her 
 with unnecessary apologies. As Aylmer came nearer he 
 could see that she carried a small portfolio under her arm. 
 and at sight of it his heart began to thump against his 
 side. Nearer yet he came, covering the ground with long 
 strides. The group ahead were close under the light of a 
 gas lamp, and the three men who, if not exactly intoxi- 
 cated, had at least been dining freely, were clearly visible 
 to Aylmer. The eldest among them, a red-faced, gray- 
 whiskered man, with bold, bloodshot eyes, peered into the 
 girl's face, complimented her upon her looks, and as she 
 tried to brush past him, laid a detaining hand upon her 
 arm. The girl shook him off with a little cry of indigna- 
 tion, which had scarcely left her lips when she was joined 
 by a tall, broadly built young man in evening dress, and 
 a light overcoat, who drew her hand through his arm 
 and turned threateningly upon her tormentors. 
 
 "May I see you to a cab, Miss Knight ?" he said, as the 
 men reeled away, laughing. "The streets of London at 
 eleven o'clock are not pleasant for an unattended lady. I 
 am so glad I happened to see you. Being a fellow stu- 
 dent of yours at the British Museum, I felt I had a right 
 to protect you from annoyance."
 
 A Moonlight Walk. 21 
 
 "Mr. Read!" she exclaimed, looking up at him won- 
 deringly. 
 
 At least, she had taken the trouble to find out his name, 
 and that of itself was an encouraging sign. 
 
 "I was seeing the new piece," he explained. "I was 
 smoking a cigarette outside when I caught sight of you 
 crossing the street. It is very late for you to be out. 
 You will let me see you to your home, will you not ?" 
 
 "Thank you, I am really quite able to take care of my- 
 self," she said, in her little cold manner, withdrawing her 
 hand from his arm. "Please don't let me take you from 
 the theatre. The last act had not begun when I left. I 
 was sketching the dresses in the green-room and the cur- 
 tain will hardly have risen yet. I know my way perfectly 
 and am not likely to be annoyed again." 
 
 Her voice, in spite of the studied restraint of its ac- 
 cents, delighted him. It was eminently the voice of a 
 lady, sweet and low-pitched, and wholly free from the 
 shrill and unpleasing inflection at that time popular 
 among would-be "smart" folk. 
 
 "I can't leave you now," he said, gently. "I must de- 
 cline to be dismissed until I have put you in your cab or 
 omnibus." 
 
 "I cannot ever afford to take a cab," she returned, sim- 
 ply, "and I generally walk until my omnibus fare is two 
 pence." 
 
 "Let me come with you as far as the two-penny limit," 
 he urged. "Why, Miss Knight, should you treat me as a 
 roaring lion, seeking whom I may devour, simply because 
 I am a man and you are a young lady ? If you insist on a 
 formal introduction, I will supply it. My name is Aylmer 
 Read ; my father is dead ; my mother has married again. 
 He was a writer; I am a journalist. For seven years I 
 lived at Clofield, and for about as many weeks I have been
 
 22 A Moonlight Walk. 
 
 on the staff of the Daily Post in London. My duties be- 
 gin about nine p. m. and finish about four a. m. I lodge 
 in Hereford street, am a member of the Wigwam Club, 
 owe no man anything, have in London no relations and 
 very few friends, and am entirely my own master. Also, 
 I have never been in any sense a gay Lothario, and I 
 wish I had a sister that she might tell you that I reverence 
 women." 
 
 Aylmer Read's tones were deep and mellow, as befitted 
 his large, deep-chested frame. Miss Knight listened to 
 them with a sense of pleasure, and had she been the least 
 vain of women she could scarcely have failed to be 
 touched by the gentle and even tender cadence of his 
 voice as he uttered her name. She let him walk on by her 
 side a few moments, and then said quietly : 
 
 "Thank you for your frankness, but I am not going to 
 emulate it. No doubt it is absurd for me," she added, 
 rather bitterly, "to have any conventions left, since I am 
 less than nobody, and very poor. But I used to have 
 parents and friends once, and lived in a great house, sur- 
 rounded by servants and beautiful things to look at, to 
 eat, and to wear. I actually drove daily in a carriage, too. 
 and rode my own horse in the Row. Whereas now I am 
 glad to walk until my omnibus fare is two pence. But I 
 don't think mine is a singular case in these days when 
 most people live beyond their incomes. Only the chil- 
 dren born with silver spoons in their mouths come to 
 look upon them as their right, and never properly appre- 
 ciate the flavor of pewter." 
 
 She had a demure little way of making any remark ap- 
 proaching the humorous that charmed her companion. 
 In spite of her assumed prim coldness there was an in- 
 tense femininity about her that would have made even a 
 plain woman attractive to a man. Her eyes and voice 
 were appealing and sympathetic, even, if her words were
 
 A Moonlight Walk. 23 
 
 meant to be matter of fact and hard, and the longer the 
 two went on talking the more soft and natural her man- 
 ner became. 
 
 "Are you getting on well with your art studies?" he 
 asked. "I should think it must be very difficult to really 
 make a living by designs." 
 
 "It is," she assented, readily. "But luckily I work 
 very quickly, and lately hand-painted cards and albums 
 have been the fashion. The black and white I can do at 
 night, and as I cannot afford models, whenever I have an 
 hour to spare I draw from the antique at the Museum." 
 
 "I am afraid," he said, with imperturbable gravity, 
 "that you did not admire my rendering of the Clytie which 
 I found you examining yesterday ?" 
 
 She glanced at him quickly. Then she laughed. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, Mr. Read," she said, "but I sup- 
 pose, as you are a writer, you are composing articles about 
 the Museum, and only pretend to draw ? Isn't that why 
 you come to the galleries ?" 
 
 "No," he answered, steadily. "That is not my reason. 
 I became an art student so that I might meet you." 
 
 She did not seem nearly so much surprised as he ex- 
 pected. They were walking along Piccadilly by the 
 Green Park. Lights in cabs and carriages stretched in a 
 long line before them like a bright caterpillar up and 
 down the slope, but not many pedestrians passed them. 
 Miss Knight stopped short in her walk. 
 
 "Mr. Read," she said, gravely, but without acrimony, 
 "I shall be very much disappointed in you if you take ad- 
 vantage of this accidental meeting to talk in a way I do 
 not like." 
 
 "Miss Knight," he said, "I am sorry if you do not like 
 what I say, but I must speak the truth. The chief wish 
 of my life is to know you and become your friend."
 
 24 A Moonlight Walk. 
 
 "You will never be that if if you try to talk sentiment 
 with me." 
 
 "Have I been very sentimental yet?" 
 
 They stood facing each other in the broad pathway. 
 She had thrown back her veil, and in the clear moonlight 
 her face looked fairer and purer than ever. But she 
 blushed under his long look and began to walk on faster 
 than before. 
 
 "Can we not be real friends?" she said, impulsively. 
 "I mean friends without any silliness or sentiment." 
 
 "You mean platonic " he began, but she cut him 
 
 short, shaking her head impatiently. 
 
 "No, no! The word platonic always suggests spins- 
 ters of fifty, ladylike curates, or something stolid and Ger- 
 man. But now and then I find myself wishing I had a 
 real man friend, to whom I could go for advice, and who 
 would give it me, forgetting that I was a girl at all." 
 
 "You wouldn't like it a bit, Miss Knight," he said, de- 
 cisively. "No woman respects a man for being indiffer- 
 ent to her. " And your proposed friend would certainly 
 have to be an octogenarian and blind to adopt such an 
 attitude toward you." 
 
 "Friendship, real friendship, I mean, between a young 
 man and a young woman is, in your opinion then, im- 
 possible?" she said, curling her mouth disdainfully. 
 
 "When the woman is you, and the man loves her 
 yes." 
 
 He spoke very low, but she heard him perfectly. She 
 caught her breath for a moment. She was in part sur- 
 prised, in part annoyed, and yet secretly a little pleased 
 He was so big and protective looking, and went so 
 straight to the point, this last quality being the surest to 
 excite a woman's approbation in a wooer. With all her 
 demureness, coquetry was latent within her, for she looked 
 up quite simply and said in unmoved tones :
 
 A Moonlight Walk. 25 
 
 "I am sorry we can't be friends, Mr. Read. I think I 
 will take the omnibus here." 
 
 "The two-penny limit is not reached until Sloane 
 street," he observed, in accents as sedulously restrained as 
 her own. "It would be very unfair to me, Miss Knight, 
 to leave me at this juncture. It would be indeed telling 
 me that I had seriously offended you ; and I would not do 
 that for the world." 
 
 They walked on a little while in silence! Then she ex- 
 claimed energetically : 
 
 "I hate this lovemaking element, which will come in 
 and spoil everything." 
 
 "It is the one thing which idealizes life and makes it 
 worth living. And you will find it out some day." 
 
 "Why should you suppose so? Women can get on 
 without men a great deal better than men imagine. I 
 think the silliest line in all poetry is Byron's, about love 
 being a woman's whole existence. It may have meant 
 something in his time, when girls did nothing but play 
 the harp, make wax flowers, and pose in ringlets for 
 Books of Beauty; but at this end of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury, hundreds of English women have to be breadwin- 
 ners, and have no time to press dead flowers and weep 
 over love letters tied up with blue ribbon." 
 
 "Breadwinning doesn't prevent men from falling in 
 love," he retorted. "Why, then, should it crush all ten- 
 der feeling out of women? Believe me, Miss Knight, 
 only a woman can make a man happy, and only a man 
 can make a woman happy." 
 
 "I am happy," she exclaimed, indignantly turning on 
 him her shining gray eyes. "At least," she faltered as 
 she met his gaze, "I I am very busy and quite contented. 
 The two-penny limit is reached. Here is Sloane street. 
 Thank you, and good-by." 
 
 "Good-by," he said, holding, for the first time, her
 
 26 A Moonlight Walk. 
 
 slim, strong hand in his. "But we shall meet on Monday 
 at the Museum, shall we not?" 
 
 "Who knows what a day may bring forth?" she re- 
 turned enigmatically, and sprang into her omnibus, little 
 guessing the deep significance which after events would 
 attach to her light words of farewell.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE OTHER MAN. 
 
 Monday's post brought to Aylmer a letter from the 
 provincial photographer who had taken the portrait of 
 Miss Phyllis Knight. The man inclosed a copy of the 
 picture, the number of which Aylmer had forwarded, and 
 offered to send on several others of the lady "in stage 
 costume." 
 
 "Miss Phyllis Knight's appearance was so extremely 
 prepossessing," the photographer declared, "that I asked 
 permission to take her in several attitudes when she first 
 passed through this town with the 'Settled for Life' com- 
 pany about a year ago. I shall be all the more ready to 
 send you specimens to choose from, as I have a great 
 many copies on my hands, printed by order of the gen- 
 tleman to whom Miss Knight was united in marriage dur- 
 ing the course of her last visit." 
 
 Aylmer put down the letter at this point. He had read 
 enough. 
 
 "What a fool what a miserable fool I have been," he 
 exclaimed, rising and going to the window, out of which 
 he stared blankly at the houses on the opposite side of 
 the street. "Just because she didn't wear a wedding ring 
 I never supposed that she was married, and even now," 
 he added, thoughtfully, "I can't believe it." 
 
 He was striving to recall her every look and gesture. 
 He could not, and would not, readily believe that she 
 could be another man's wife. And yet here before him 
 lay the photographer's letter and the portrait, upon which 
 her name was printed.
 
 28 The Other Man. 
 
 With a feeling that his castle in the air had fallen in 
 ruins about his head, he again took up the photographer's 
 letter. 
 
 "No doubt newly married people indulge at first in ex- 
 travagances which they afterward repent," the man con- 
 tinued, "and so Miss Knight's husband, I daresay, for- 
 got the cost when he ordered six dozen of her photo- 
 graphs in different positions. That was more than six 
 months ago, and when I sent the copies to the address 
 which he furnished me, they were returned, marked 
 'name unknown.' This, sir, has been a serious loss to 
 me, and in case you should meet Miss Phyllis Knight, or 
 her husband, Mr. Sergius Trevelyan, I should be deeply 
 indebted to you if you would remind them of their order, 
 as I am not in a position to stand the serious loss of time 
 and money involved in the affair." 
 
 Aylmer Read's breakfast was brought to him at this 
 juncture by the elderly woman who "did for" the single 
 gentlemen in the Hereford street Chambers. This par- 
 ticular single gentleman astonished her by immediately 
 clapping his hat on his head and marching out of the 
 house. A "facer" such as this must be confronted in the 
 open air, free from the all-pervading smell of the per- 
 petual bacon and eggs which adorned his bachelor break- 
 fast table. 
 
 Outside he made his way mechanically to the Embank- 
 ment, and watched the gray, barge-laden tide as he told 
 himself again what a fool he had been. 
 
 A married actress ! 
 
 He had waited until seven-and-twenty to find his ideal 
 in Phyllis Knight, who was ashamed to wear her wedding 
 ring, and whose husband, with the fanciful, theatrical- 
 sounding name, neglected to pay for goods he had or- 
 dered ! 
 
 But Aylmer's disloyalty was short-lived. It was not
 
 The Other Man. 29 
 
 the fault of his fair-haired ideal if her husband was un- 
 worthy of her, as he somewhat hastily decided that Mr. 
 Sergius Trevelyan must be. He felt certain that such a 
 woman would never discontinue to wear her wedding 
 ring without good cause. Perhaps her husband had al- 
 ready deserted her; if not, how was he so remiss as to 
 permit her to walk home through West End streets un- 
 attended? She was very poor and very hard-worked. 
 Why did he let her strain every nerve, rising early and 
 working late, when he should be supporting her in that 
 comfort and elegance to which she had been accustomed ? 
 
 Aylmer's heart burned with pity for her and with indig- 
 nation against her husband, as he recalled the thinness of 
 her beautiful face and the tired shadows under her eyes. 
 His heart ached for his own disappointment, but he felt 
 desperately anxious to help her in her troubles. In his 
 position as journalist, constantly meeting with other men 
 in the same profession, it occurred to him that he might 
 be the means of putting work in her way. There was no 
 effort he would hesitate from making in his longing to be 
 of use to her and to prove to her the possibility of a dis- 
 interested friendship, which he had owned to be impossi- 
 ble so long as he had believed her to be free. She had 
 often wished for a real man friend, Had she not said so ? 
 And the extreme difficulty and delicacy of the position *of 
 friend to a young, lovely and neglected married woman 
 did not for the moment occur to him. 
 
 He hied himself at once to the Museum. Her cold 
 manner, her attitude of reserved self-defense were at once 
 explained by her unhappy married experiences. It was 
 not as if she had in any way encouraged his attentions or 
 endeavored to pass herself off as an unmarried woman. 
 Had she loved her husband, Aylmer argued, she would 
 assuredly have worn her wedding ring openly before the 
 world. She was not even in mourning ; he could not hug
 
 30 The Other Man. 
 
 
 
 the hope that blue serge represented the costume of a 
 widow for a man who had been alive a little more than 
 six months ago. It was an intensely painful and disa- 
 greeable thought to remember that she had been mar- 
 ried at all, and seemed to prove that he had greatly over- 
 rated his powers of perception when he believed that he 
 had read in her face not only childlike innocence, but an 
 unconsciousness of the very passion of love. 
 
 The knowledge of her profession was also an ugly reve- 
 lation. Aylmer was too sensible to connect her calling 
 with any reproach or slur upon her character, but he 
 greatly disliked the thought that her mingled demure- 
 ness and impulsiveness were the result of a dramatic 
 training and not the natural expression of her feelings. 
 At the same time, the fascination that she exercised over 
 him was so strong that even now, when all hope of win- 
 ning her seemed to be utterly swept away, he felt that life 
 would be impossible without, at least, her friendship, and 
 that no woman would ever succeed in wholly effacing her 
 image from his mind. 
 
 Ten o'clock found him in the Museum sculpture gal- 
 leries, but no opportunity for exercising his capability for 
 disinterested friendship was offered him. The girl in blue 
 serge came not that day, or the next, or yet the next 
 again. Days grew into weeks, and Aylmer left off haunt- 
 ing the galleries, contenting himself with occasional sur- 
 prise visits, in the hope that she might have returned. 
 He searched the Museum attendance book, and even 
 made inquiries of the curators, but all to no effect. Miss 
 Knight had not come back, and the British Museum 
 knew her no more. 
 
 All that Aylmer could be sure of was that a Miss Phyl- 
 lis Knight or Mrs. Sergius Trevelyan lived or had lived 
 somewhere within a two-penny omnibus drive from 
 Sloane street, presumably, therefore, in the Hammer-
 
 The Other Man. 31 
 
 smith or West Kensington districts ; that she was bewil- 
 deringly beautiful and extremely fascinating, very poor, 
 very reserved, and that she earned her living by acting in 
 small theatrical touring companies and by executing 
 sketches and designs. Had sne been single, he would 
 most certainly have followed up such slight clues as were 
 in his possession. But of what use to track down a mar- 
 ried woman, and one, too, whom he could not see with- 
 out emotion? Rather ought he to rejoice that such a 
 disturbing element had been removed from his life, and 
 to take up its monotonous threads with a feeling of relief 
 at trouble and turmoil escaped. 
 
 And yet, however he might philosophise, Aylmer knew 
 that in his secret heart he cherished the conviction that 
 fate would throw them together again, and that some day 
 he should be called upon to answer the appeal for help in 
 her luminous gray eyes.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE WANDERER'S RETURN. 
 
 After Miss Knight parted from Aylmer Read on that 
 eventful Saturday night and entered a Hammersmith om- 
 nibus, she waited until her cavalier was out of hearing 
 before giving the direction "Severn Road." 
 
 Her mouth curved into a half smile of approbation as 
 she peeped discreetly from the door and saw her erstwhile 
 companion standing on the curb in the moonlight, raising 
 his hat from his curly fair hair in a parting salutation. 
 
 "Delightfully big he looks,"' was her mental comment. 
 "I expect living all these years in the country has made 
 him so nice and chivalrous. His face is not exactly hand- 
 some, but his figure makes up for it. I like that yellow 
 mustache ; but it's almost a pity his eyes are so dark." One 
 can see the emotions in light eyes. Brown are merely like 
 so many brandy-balls." 
 
 From which criticisms it may be inferred that in spite 
 of her classic profile and the mingled adoration and rever- 
 ence she had inspired in Aylmer Read, Miss Knight was 
 still to some extent youthful and frivolous in her ideas. 
 
 She leaned back in her seat, a little tired, but in a 
 pleased and happy humor, until, the Albert Hall, Kensing- 
 ton Church, Holland Park and Addison Road having been 
 successfully passed, the omnibus drew up at her destina- 
 tion. 
 
 Severn Road was an extremely uninviting thorough- 
 fare, given over to advertisement-covered hoarding and 
 half-finished blocks of staring red brick residential flats ; a
 
 The Wanderer's Return. 33 
 
 considerable space of uneven waste ground intervened be- 
 tween these erections, speculative builders having begun 
 them on a large scale and come to grief before their com- 
 pletion, and two large and ugly blocks of board schools 
 likewise disfigured the locality. Here, hidden behind an 
 open space inclosed by a tall wooden fence, given up to 
 huge, colored posters advocating popular medicines and 
 plays, two blocks of unpretending one-storied, semi-de- 
 tached houses, bordered by gardens back and front, and 
 facing a row of smaller and meaner dwelling places, stood 
 in a "left behind by the tide" fashion, awaiting the in- 
 evitable moment when they should be swept away by some 
 enterprising builder, and the site devoted to other massive 
 red brick mansions of the most approved modern style. 
 
 "Lockhart Cottages" was the name painted on the wall 
 of that particular one of these little old houses which was 
 nearest to the high-road, from which, however, they were 
 completely concealed. As if to emphasize their unsuit- 
 ability among these recent palatial surroundings, the ab- 
 surd little houses stood a long way back from the Severn 
 Road, and their front garden gates opened only on a rough 
 piece of ground leading to a mews, and rendered intoler- 
 ably noisy out of lesson hours by the shouts of the children 
 from the schools adjoining. 
 
 But the way was quiet enough at midnight as Miss 
 Knight hurried by the towering blocks of flats and the 
 waste ground and the hoardings until she reached the most 
 distant of the four semi-detached cottages, divided by a 
 high brick wall from the Board Schools, and shut in as 
 carefully both at the back and at the front, with walls 
 edged with broken glass bottles, as though the house 
 within was of great value and importance, instead of being 
 a modest relic of the past, at a rental of 26 a year. 
 
 Through a space of lattice work at the top of the door 
 in the garden wall Miss Knight could see a light shining
 
 34 The Wanderer's Return. 
 
 through the red curtains of the sitting-room window. 
 Those Turkey-red curtains were an idea of hers, to give 
 a homelike warmth and "color to the little house when the 
 lamps were lit at night, for Lockhart Cottages had ever 
 been innocent of gas. Miss Knight lifted the latch and 
 entered a small, well-kept garden, in which young ash 
 trees and ivy fought for all sustenance from the ground, 
 and made life a hard struggle for the geraniums, pansies, 
 daisies and forget-me-nots in the tiny flower beds. After 
 carefully drawing the bolt in the gate, Miss Knight 
 slipped her latch-key as noiselessly as possible into the 
 dark-green door of the house. Evidently she was anx- 
 ious not to disturb someone, for she fastened the door 
 with the same care and quiet, and passed softly into a 
 little front sitting room, where, upon a round table by the 
 window, her supper was waiting for her on a snow-white 
 cloth. Bread and butter, watercress, cheese and filtered 
 water formed the simple fare provided ; but Miss Knight 
 had a healthy girl's appetite, and ate her supper thank- 
 fully, while she read through a daily newspaper in the 
 first spare half hour of a busy day. 
 
 A cottage piano stood in one corner of the room, of 
 which the furniture was cheap and simple in the ex- 
 treme, but not without traces of refined and cultivated 
 tastes of its inmates. Book-shelves of plain deal, neatly 
 bordered by leather and brass nails, abounded, closely 
 packed with well-worn volumes in English, French and 
 German ; poems, novels, educational works, paper-covered 
 plays and several books of reference on art. On a small 
 side table a paint box and sketching block suggested the 
 nature of Miss Knight's home employment, as did the 
 hand-painted flower panels which beautified the door, and 
 some spirited black-and-white drawings hanging on the 
 walls. 
 
 The young artist seemed by no means anxious to retire
 
 The Wanderer's Return. 35 
 
 to rest, in spite of the lateness of the hour. After finish- 
 ing her supper, she removed the cloth and plates to the 
 kitchen, at the back of the house, and, returning to the 
 sitting-room, put pen, ink and paper on the table and sat 
 down to write. 
 
 Before doing so, however, she slowly drew out, one by 
 one, the many hairpins which held in place the twists and 
 coils of her daintily dressed hair until it tumbled in soft, 
 brown waves, shining golden in the high lights, about her 
 shoulders and far down below her waist. She uttered a 
 little sigh of relief as she finished this task. She could 
 think more freely with the weight of luxuriant tresses 
 lowered from her brain, and she smiled in anticipation of 
 what she was about to write as she sat twisting her hair 
 into a loose plait to hang down her back for the night. 
 
 "My own darling," so her letter began. 
 
 "It is getting on one o'clock. Cresswell is in bed and 
 the house is wonderfully quiet, but I must write and tell 
 you of a little thing which happened to me to-day, as I 
 know you will be interested and amused, and I shall have 
 no time to-morrow. My story is about a Man. Actual- 
 ly. Don't be alarmed. He is really a stranger. I don't 
 think I mentioned in my former letters a very big, splen- 
 didly-made, fair-haired male student who recently came to 
 draw at the British Museum, and stared at me a good 
 deal. Words altogether fail to describe the nature of his 
 attempts at art. The white chalk objects in three-cor- 
 nered hats with which the Board School children decorate 
 our garden wall show infinitely more artistic power than 
 this big young man possesses. Until I looked at his al- 
 leged copy of the 'Clytie' I did not believe that any sane 
 person could draw so badly. But perhaps you will say 
 before I come to the end of my story that this young man 
 is not sane."
 
 36 The Wanderer's Return. 
 
 At the point the writer paused and looked up quickly, 
 listening intently. 
 
 Of course it must only be fancy, she told herself. And 
 yet it seemed as though her own name, uttered in faint, 
 wailing accents, hung upon the night air. 
 
 The sound died away. Miss Knight decided that she 
 was tired and nervous, and that her imagination was play- 
 ing her tricks as she settled herself to her letter again. 
 
 "I told you in my last that I had some work promised 
 me on the Morning Illustrated on the strength of some 
 pen-and-ink drawings of street scenes I took up to the 
 office. They suggested that I should send in some 
 sketches of the costumes worn in 'The Hermit' the new 
 play at the Grassmarket Theatre, produced to-night. 
 Well, I did the work, and it was very interesting. I will 
 tell you all about it in another letter. But, as I know you 
 are always more interested in anything approaching a ro- 
 mance than in serious subjects, I will get on to what hap- 
 pened when I left the theatre after the third act, as the 
 principal characters did not change their dresses in the 
 fourth. Close to the entrance some horrid, tipsy young 
 men tried to prevent me from passing. I had my old 
 serge gown on and a thick, black veil, but I suppose my 
 portfolio showed these polished gentlemen that I was a 
 working girl ; and in any case ladies of education and re- 
 finement are not expected to be abroad at night in our 
 highly civilized capital without being insulted. But quite 
 suddenly, as I was growing desperately frightened and 
 mad, a guardian angel in evening dress and a light over- 
 coat swooped down, dismissed my persecutors with a 
 wave of his magic walking-stick, and lo ! I was marching 
 along Piccadilly, arm-in-arm with a gentleman who ad- 
 dressed me by name, but whom I had never before spoken 
 to none other than my big fellow-student at the Mu- 
 seum."
 
 The Wanderer's Return. 37 
 
 Miss Knight was warming to her work. Her pen flew 
 over her paper as she bent over her letter, a smile of 
 amusement hovering about the corners of her mouth, the 
 lamplight falling obliquely under a green shade upon her 
 glossy hair. Lockhart Cottages after midnight were 
 wonderfully quiet, save for nomads of the feline race and 
 the faint rumble of passing vehicles in the main road. 
 The charwoman, the lady who mangled at home, the 
 shoemaker and the chimney sweep inhabiting the mean 
 little terrace opposite were all sleeping off the libatiofts 
 which marked Saturday pay-day. And yet the girl in 
 blue serge, sitting up to write her letter, could not rid 
 herself of the conviction that somewhere near to her some 
 one was feebly calling on her name. 
 
 Rising suddenly, she went to the hall door and listened. 
 She did not dare to open it, having a great fear of burg- 
 lars, although there was little indeed in the house worth 
 stealing. Hearing nothing, she crept upstairs and lis- 
 tened outside Cresswell's door to the heavy, regular 
 breathing of the old servant within. Then, reassured by 
 the consciousness of some one within call, she opened the 
 back door and looked out into the garden. 
 
 Through the broad leaves of the chestnuts she stared 
 up at the moon sailing in a silver sea of cloud ; it was a 
 night for tenderness, for lovers' meetings and faltering 
 love-vows; but this girl with the changing hazel-gray 
 eyes, supple form and shining hair, dared think of none 
 of these things as she gazed into the peaceful sky above 
 her. Yet a sense of something wanting in her life made 
 her heave a little sigh as she closed and fastened the door 
 before returning to her letter. 
 
 . "I couldn't very well send him away," she wrote on, 
 "for he was very kind, and a gentleman. I should like 
 him for a friend, but I suppose that isn't possible, for on
 
 38 The Wanderer's Return. 
 
 the way home he actually told me that he loved me. Of 
 course I was very angry with him." 
 
 Miss Knight put down her pen at this point. 
 
 "That isn't true," she said to herself, reflectively, as she 
 reread her lact statement. "I was not in the least angry 
 with Mr. Read." 
 
 Leaning her elbow on the table, she rested her cheek on 
 her hand, and began to think about him. In spite of her 
 nickname of "Diana the Disdainful," it is to be feared that 
 Miss Knight was by no means so adamantine where the 
 other sex was concerned as she appeared. Over her fair 
 face one very becoming blush followed another as she re- 
 called the look in Aylmer's eyes when they met her own, 
 and the sound of his voice as he spoke of his love." 
 
 Of course it was a mere fancy on his part, this love at 
 first sight, she told herself. Mr. Read was doubtless an 
 impressionable young man and would speedily forget all 
 about his sudden infatuation. 
 
 "Meantime I have to face him on Monday," she re- 
 flected, not as though she disliked the idea. "I wonder 
 how it will end ?" 
 
 Her letter lay before her unfinished. She was tired and 
 sleepy, and almost inclined to conclude it in the morning 
 when a sound, unmistakable this time, struck upon her 
 ears in the night silence. 
 
 "For heaven's sake let me in !" 
 
 Hoarse, broken though the voice was, she knew fhe ac- 
 cents well. With a blanched face she sprang to her feet, 
 slipped the chain and bolts of the front door, and flew to 
 the garden gate. Turning the key with shaking fingers, 
 she stretched out her arms, peering into the darkness with 
 eyes accustomed to the light. 
 
 "My darling ! Where are you ?" 
 
 "Here, here!" 
 
 By the gate, wrapped in a long cloak, bowed and bro-
 
 The Wanderer's Return. 39 
 
 ken, there cowered a trembling figure which seemed to 
 shrink from the touch of her encircling arms. With a 
 terrible stab of pain and apprehension at her heart, Miss 
 Knight raised the crouching form, and, with the words of 
 welcome frozen upon her lips, pushed open the door of 
 their home.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A STORY OF LONDON. 
 
 "Dorothy !" 
 
 "Phyllis !" 
 
 The sisters were seated together on the sofa, clasped in 
 each other's arms, the younger shaken by a convulsive 
 outburst of weeping, the elder striving to soothe her and 
 to keep back her own tears. 
 
 It was eight months since they had parted ; yet in that 
 comparatively short space of time a terrible change for the 
 worse had taken place in Phyllis Knight's appearance. 
 
 So greatly, indeed, had she altered that the likeness be- 
 tween the sisters, normally so great as to be bewildering, 
 seemed almost lost in the contrast between the clear, pink 
 pallor of the young artist and the ashen-gray of her sis- 
 ter's face. In spite of the warmth of the summer night, 
 Phyllis' hands were cold; Dorothy slipped on her knees 
 before her, and tried to warm them with her lips. 
 
 "My poor child! My poor darling! You have been 
 ill, terribly ill, I can see ; and you did not tell me ! How 
 could you keep it from me ?" 
 
 "It isn't that, Dorothy," her sister whispered. "It is 
 my heart" she pressed her thin hands against her breast 
 as she spoke "my heart is broken." 
 
 Her gray eyes were distended with despair. Incessant 
 weeping had destroyed all control of her features, and her 
 mouth quivered pitifully even while she was not speaking. 
 
 "Oh, Dolly! Dolly!" she moaned, stretching out her 
 arms, not round her sister, but in the empty air above 
 her. "What shall I do? What shall I do ?"
 
 A Story of London. 41 
 
 She was a little taller than Dorothy and less regularly 
 beautiful. Her pretty mouth, now all blurred with weep- 
 ing, was far smaller than her sister's, and the look of ap- 
 pealing femininity, which now and then softened Miss 
 Knight's pure loveliness, was far more strongly empha- 
 sized in Phyllis, her junior by one year. In complexion 
 Phyllis was less fair, and her hair, by nature brown, had 
 been dyed to a pale gold color, at variance with her dark 
 eyebrows and eyelashes. Her dress was of black alpaca, 
 ill-fitting and shabby in the extreme, and the cloak she 
 was wearing was of the commonest black material, and 
 wholly inappropriate for a day in June. 
 
 Dorothy's eyes noted these details with acute anxiety. 
 As Phyllis stretched her arms above her head she caught 
 sight of a thin line of gold on the third finger of her left 
 hand. 
 
 "You are married !" 
 
 Something of reproach, but something of relief also, 
 rang through Miss Knight's tones. Nothing short of a 
 tragic catastrophe could have transformed dimpled, co- 
 quettish, laughing Phyllis into this worn and despairing 
 woman. But there are sorrows and sorrows. If only it 
 should prove that Phyllis had a bad husband, or that he 
 was dead, it would be terrible, but 
 
 "That wedding ring means nothing," whispered Phyllis, 
 faintly. "Don't look at me like that, Dorothy. Only 
 listen first before you judge me. Let me tell you every- 
 thing from the beginning before my mind begins to wan- 
 der, as it so often does now. And don't go away from 
 me. Sit here by me and hold me to you. Oh, Dolly! 
 Dolly ! Why did I ever leave you ?" 
 
 Dorothy wrapped her arms about her sister, and pil- 
 lowed her cheek upon her heart. Her pharisaical instinct 
 had been but momentary ; she was an intensely proud girl, 
 to whom honor was far dearer than life, but she loved her
 
 42 A Story of London, 
 
 sister more dearly than any living thing. Phyllis had 
 the weaker, gentler nature of the two ; sisterly love, ambi- 
 tion and art had never proved enough for her ; vain, trust- 
 ful, emotional and innocent, it would seem that nature 
 had marked her out as the victim of a man's treachery 
 and her own folly. 
 
 "Oh, it is so good to be with you again," she mur- 
 mured. "If I could only die now, this moment, as I 
 soon shall do ! Dolly, if it was wrong of me to deceive 
 you, you can't think how I have been punished. To- 
 night, do you know, I have walked all the way from 
 Richmond here. I have worn out my boots, and my feet 
 are so sore. I shall limp for days. I had to come at 
 night lest people should laugh at me ; I looked so silly in 
 these clothes. They are my landlady's. She let me have 
 them because I gave her all my own pretty things for 
 rent. And, after all, it doesn't matter how I look now, 
 Dolly. For I am deserted and cast-off, and dying, dear, 
 dying. Thank goodness for that !" 
 
 Tears rolled down from Dorothy's eyes over her sis- 
 ter's thin face. Phyllis stretched up her hand and stroked 
 the other's cheek. 
 
 "I knew you would be sorry," she murmured; "and 
 when I felt as I crawled along, all through Kew, Chis- 
 wick and Hammersmith to-night, that my feet could not 
 carry me farther, I told myself, 'Dolly will be sorry.' No 
 one has been sorry for me yet. They seem to think it 
 was all my own fault. But you will listen to me and you 
 will understand." 
 
 "I will try, dear. But you are not strong enough to 
 talk. Come to bed now and tell me all in the morning." 
 
 "No, no! You must hear everything," Phyllis ex- 
 claimed excitedly. "I couldn't sleep without telling you. 
 I have deceived you all the time. You know I pretended 
 that I should be playing at Christmas time? That was
 
 A Story of London. 43 
 
 not true. We had a fortnight's vacation, and I spent at 
 the Hotel Metropole, at Brighton, what I thought was my 
 honeymoon." 
 
 "What you thought ?" 
 
 "Yes, yes ! I am going to tell you everything from the 
 beginning. But before you can forgive me, try to under- 
 stand the awful dullness of a theatrical tour with a suc- 
 cessful London piece. People think that stage life is so 
 amusing; of course I thought it would be when I would 
 become an actress two years ago, in spite of all your pray- 
 ers. I expected excitement, fun, love-making, flirta- 
 tions, splendid offers of marriage, brilliant successes and 
 heaps of money, my portraits in all the shop windows, 
 and an earl at my feet. What a fool I was ! I can't tell 
 you how dull, how dreary, this touring life has been. Of 
 course, I wouldn't own it to you in my letters, because 
 you would have wanted me to leave the stage, and I still 
 hoped to be another Neilsdn. You saw the 'Settled for 
 Life' company at the railway station last September. 
 You yourself thought the men looked common and odd, 
 with their blue chins and green overcoats and schoolboy 
 noisiness. You yourself would have said that he Mr. 
 Trevelyan, I mean looked very different from the others 
 if you had seen him." 
 
 "Sergius Trevelyan," exclaimed Miss Knight. "That 
 was the name of the man who played a small part, and 
 was to join the company at Liverpool, wasn't it ?" 
 
 "Yes. There were four married couples, and an old 
 woman who got tipsy sometimes, and Mr. Trevelyan and 
 I. I tried to lodge with the old woman, but she got 
 angry with me because I would not spend money on 
 spirits for her. Nobody liked me. The women said I 
 gave myself airs and called me 'Miss Innocent,' because I 
 would not laugh at the disgusting stories they told each 
 other in the dressing rooms and in the train. That trav-
 
 44 A Story of London. 
 
 eling on Sunday is dreadful. The men smoke and play 
 cards, and excite attention, and contempt, too, I think, at 
 the railway stations by making themselves conspicuous 
 and talking very loudly. And except when they are tell- 
 ing coarse stories, the only things they all talk about are 
 the lodgings they are going to have at the next town and 
 the lodging they had at the last, and what the cooking 
 was like, and how much they had to pay. Sometimes, 
 too, they talk about the extraordinary hits they each and 
 all of them have made in different parts, and how dread- 
 fully the stage is going down. But in general it is lodg- 
 ings, lodgings all the time. Because I had been acting- 
 only two years they all looked down upon me, as though 
 that fact were something to be ashamed of, and called 
 me every day 'novice' and 'amateur.' I am dwelling on 
 all these things, Dolly, because I never would own to 
 you before that the life was anything but delightful, and 
 because, too, I almost wanted to put off the dreadful 
 part of my story as long as possible." 
 
 She paused. A faint flush had come into her cheeks, 
 but her lips were still colorless. Dorothy looked at her 
 with ever growing apprehension. 
 
 "If only you would try and eat something," she whis- 
 pered, coaxingly, "you would feel stronger to tell me 
 everything. My poor child, you look half starved !" 
 
 "I haven't cared to eat for several days now," Phyllis 
 returned, shaking her head wearily. "I have only just 
 taken enough to keep me alive to come to you. I want 
 you to put yourself right in my place, remembering that 
 I am not clever like you, and that I cannot live without 
 some one to love me." 
 
 "Don't I love you, Phyllis?" 
 
 "Indeed, indeed, you do. But I wanted another kind 
 of love, too. It was not that I wanted to be married yet, 
 but I wanted a little kindness, a little admiration, a little
 
 A Story of London. 45 
 
 petting I was so lonely, so wretchedly lonely, in those 
 ugly, black, northerly towns. What could I do with 
 myself all day in lodgings at ten shillings a week? The 
 men of the company, all but Mr. Trevelyan, seemed to 
 pass their time in going about in bands from one hotel 
 bar to another. The married women made friends with 
 their landladies, or called upon each other to talk about 
 their lodgings, and their parts, and scandal about me, I 
 suppose, as I was the only young woman in the com- 
 pany. But none of them came to see me, and you know, 
 Dorothy, I cannot bear to go about by myself. In some 
 of the rougher towns the people are almost ready to 
 stone anybody who is in the least well dressed. There is 
 nothing to see, nowhere to go, no one to speak to, noth- 
 ing to do but sit on horsehair chairs in mean lodgings, 
 staring at the cheap vases and wax flowers on the man- 
 telpiece. Oh, Dolly, it isn't as if I had had art to com- 
 fort me. What art and what hope of getting on is there 
 in going down every night before seven to a dirty, 
 draughty theatre and painting one's face and changing 
 one's dress just to go on and say, 'Yes, papa,' and 'Here 
 is Frank,' and 'Good gracious!' and 'Quite well, thank 
 you,' at intervals, three hours every night for days and 
 weeks and months together? And then the coming 
 home that is the worst part of it! The rush home, 
 frightened by the coarse remarks of shop boys hanging 
 about the stage door. Home ! What a word to use ! 
 A cloth laid, and a familiar, prying landlady, or else the 
 cloth without the landlady. I know these details sound 
 trivial and silly, but they mean so much in the end. 
 Think how much in a life of that kind tenderness and 
 sympathy and laughter and fun and brightness, and the 
 companionship of some one who understands you, some 
 one of education and in your own rank of life, with some- 
 thing else to talk about besides lodging and parts would
 
 46 A Story of London. 
 
 mean ! To be taken to and from the theatre, to know 
 when one came out, tired and hot, into the night air, 
 some one would be waiting to wrap a shawl round one's 
 shoulders, draw one's arm through his and take one 
 home ! Or, on clear moonlight nights, away from he 
 ugly theatre and the ugly town, with its chimneys and 
 its factories, to the open country, sometimes, best of all, 
 to the sea ! The change from the flare of the gas lights, 
 the dust, the paint, the sneers and stories of the women, 
 to the cool, pure moonlight shining on the waves as they 
 break in upon the shore. 
 
 "Can't you fancy what all this would mean? Some 
 one talking poetry, literature, prettily turning compli- 
 ments, or bright nonsense, some one to buy you fresh 
 flowers daily, and books and bonbons, some one with 
 whom to take long country rambles, talking about alll 
 the things one likes best, and, most of all, dear, of you. 
 Yes, you must not shake your head like that. I know it 
 has all been a miserable, ghastly failure, but he has never 
 tired of hearing and asking questions about you. He 
 made me angry by stealing a portrait of you from my al- 
 bum and refusing to give it back, and he would sit con- 
 stantly staring at your picture in my rooms without 
 speaking, until I kept it hidden away from jealousy. 
 
 "You see, I fell in love with him ; but, Dolly, wasn't it 
 natural? He was always so gentle and so kind. He 
 could not make companions of the men in the company, 
 he said. He had a contempt for actors, which I was 
 ready to share. He did not act very well himself, in- 
 deed, he did not seem to try to ; but he was so handsome 
 that at every town the stupid girls, factory hands and 
 all sorts of women, used to send him the most wonderful 
 ill-spelt love-letters and watch for him to come out of 
 the stage door. It was a petty triumph, perhaps, to find 
 that he had eyes for no one but me. He seemed not to
 
 A Story of London. 47 
 
 remember that there was another woman living but my- 
 self, yet all the women in the company liked and ad- 
 mired him, while the men detested him. They used to 
 call him Cupid, which made me very angry, though I 
 hardly knew why. He had great blue eyes, with curled- 
 up dark lashes, beautiful features, a black mustache, and 
 short, curly black hair. His figure was tall and graceful, 
 and he moved and dressed so well that he made the 
 other men look clumsy. 
 
 "Of course, all the company began to chatter when 
 Mr. Trevelyan and I were constantly together. Sergius 
 told me not to mind; he said their coarse minds could 
 not understand a friendship of souls such as ours, and I 
 agreed with him. Long before he ever told me he loved 
 me, he would sit by my side reading aloud to me, in a 
 beautiful voice which thrilled with feeling passages from 
 Tennyson and Mrs. Browning, and Matthew Arnold and 
 Shelley. He considered Robert Browning coarse, and 
 Swinburne animal, he said. I never met any man who 
 seemed to have such tender, delicate susceptibilities. 
 
 "One of the married women had to leave to go home 
 to nurse her child, and in her place a girl was engaged 
 who speedily gave the whole company something to talk 
 about. She was very pretty, I suppose; at least, all the 
 men thought her so, and she flirted with them all under 
 the eyes of their wives, and laughed at them, and used 
 bad language when she got excited. But she used to 
 have champagne in the dressing-room and offer it to 
 the others, and all the women, although they pretended 
 to be shocked, liked her very much better than they 
 did me. 
 
 "Miss Montgomery, for that is what she called her- 
 self, fell in love, or pretended to fall in love, with Mr. 
 Trevelyan. He did not seem to take any notice of her, 
 but I got dreadfully unhappy and jealous, so jealous and
 
 48 A Story of London. 
 
 so afraid of losing him that one miserable rainy day last 
 winter, as I sat shivering over a smoking fire in a red 
 brick cottage in Oldham, Sergius found me in just the 
 mood he had been hoping and waiting for. 
 
 "I did not hear him come in. He opened the front 
 door himself and slipped in so quietly into my sitting 
 room that I did not know he was there. I had my 
 head lowered in my hands, and I was crying. Suddenly 
 I felt his kisses upon the back of my neck, and the next 
 moment he was kneeling beside me, clasping me in his 
 arms and calling me his queen, his pure, white dove. 
 I did not repulse him how could I, Dolly, when I was 
 so lonely and miserable, and when I loved him? You 
 can't understand now ; but some day you will know how 
 a woman feels when she really loves a man and has his 
 arms around her for the first time. It means perfect 
 happiness and perfect rest there is nothing like it in the 
 whole world." 
 
 She ceased speaking. Tears rolled fast down her 
 pretty, worn face. Dorothy's mouth was firmly set, and 
 in her eyes there shone already a light of fierce indigna- 
 tion. 
 
 "Go on, my dear," she said presently. It made her im- 
 patient that Phyllis' memory should even now linger too 
 regretfully over her lost happiness, and she wanted fuller 
 justification for the feelings of burning resentment which 
 already smouldered in her heart against Sergius Tre- 
 velyan. 
 
 Phyllis, awakening from her brief dream, wiped her 
 eyes, sighed, and obeyed. 
 
 "I never tried to disguise from Sergius that I loved 
 him. He spent all the time with me until we went down 
 to the theatre, and it was on our way there that, for the 
 first time, he said something which hurt and startled 
 me.
 
 A Story of London. 49 
 
 "It was about you. Of course, I wanted to write and 
 tell you that Sergius and I were engaged, for, although he 
 had not said in so many words, Will you marry me? he 
 had declared he could no longer live without me, and I 
 thought that was the same thing. 
 
 "As we reached the stage door, I turned to him. 
 
 " 'I must write to Dorothy to-night,' I said, 'and tell 
 her. I have said very little about you in my letters as 
 yet, but I will make up for that to-night.' 
 
 "I could see his face change. 
 
 " 'Don't write until we have another talk,' he said, and 
 that night when he saw me home he begged to be al- 
 lowed to come in, and, as he said, explain things, and 
 grew vexed and reproachful because I said it was too late 
 for visitors, and insisted on parting from him at the door. 
 
 "I was happy that night, thinking of Sergius and his 
 love, but I could not bear the idea of keeping anything 
 from you. At one moment I thrilled all over with a 
 warm delight as I recalled his tender caresses and pas- 
 sionate words, and the next my heart grew chilled with 
 uneasiness as I remembered his admonition against writ- 
 ing to you until he had explained. Explained! What 
 was there, what could there be to explain? Even if he 
 was badly off and not in a position to marry yet, I would 
 gladly wait for him. There seemed to be a discrepancy 
 between the impetuosity of his love avowal and his wish 
 to 'explain things' before I wrote to you. 
 
 "Next day he came early, before, indeed, I had had my 
 breakfast. If anything, he was more impassioned than 
 ever. He covered my hands and face with kisses and 
 swore that I was his ideal the woman he had all his life 
 waited for and should be his guardian angel. I was so 
 glad to find he had forgiven my refusal to admit him 
 on the preceding evening that at first I almost forgot
 
 50 A Story of London. 
 
 what I had to ask. At last, in the middle of his vows 
 and protestations, I said : 
 
 " 'Why may I not tell my sister that you love me and 
 that we are engaged ?' 
 
 "His arm was round my waist, but as I spoke he with- 
 drew it and sighed deeply. Then he got up and walked 
 away from me. 
 
 " 'I thought you so different from other women,' he 
 murmured, half to himself. 'The tie that binds us is 
 that of soul to soul. We want no conventional engage- 
 ment, no vulgar remarks and congratulations. Sim- 
 ply to know that you are mine and that I am yours 
 that would be enough for me.' 
 
 "Of course, he made me feel small and conventional 
 and ashamed of myself; but something within me told 
 me I was right, especially as he immediately began to 
 walk about the room and inveigh, not only against en- 
 gagements, but against the marriage tie, declaring it to 
 be an effete and vulgar institution, suitable only for bour- 
 geois minds, to whom true love and the communion of 
 spirit with spirit was unknown. 
 
 "I felt the ground slipping away from me; but I 
 thought of you, Dorothy, and what you would have said, 
 and that gave me courage. 
 
 " T am sorry, Mr. Trevelyan,' I said ; 'very, very 
 sorry. But if I had known that those were your opin- 
 ions, I should never have let my heart go out to you 
 as it did yesterday.' 
 
 "He stopped in his walk and stared at me, half sorrow- 
 fully, half scornfully. 
 
 " 'Have I been so mistaken in you then ?' he asked. 
 'And in your case, also, is marriage and not love the 
 absorbing idea of your mind ?' 
 
 "I grew hot and miserable under the implied sneer, 
 but I told him that love and friendship were in my opin-
 
 A Story of London. 51 
 
 ion different, and that I would not willingly give the for- 
 mer to a man who did not love me well enough to make 
 me his wife. Then I said that we had both been mis- 
 taken, and that for my part, I should behave to him in 
 future as if yesterday's interview had never taken place. 
 Only I would rather see as little of him as possible for 
 the rest of the tour. 
 
 "I was leaving the room as I finished speaking, very 
 miserable and humiliated, and dreadfully excited, al- 
 though my voice sounded quiet enough, when he flung 
 himself between me and the door, and, going down on 
 his knees at my feet, swore that he had only talked in that 
 way to try me and see what my affection was made of. 
 He was a strict Roman Catholic, he declared, and it 
 was against his most cherished convictions to marry a 
 heretic; and, besides that, his mother and father, who 
 were people in a magnificent position, had chosen a 
 beautiful heiress for him to marry, and would disinherit 
 him if he disobeyed them. 
 
 " 'The more reason,' I cried, trying to wrench my 
 hands from his clasp, 'for parting at once. I certainly 
 will not stand in the way of your fortune and your 
 career.' 
 
 " 'I love you better than fortune, career, or life itself!' 
 he exclaimed, covering my hands and the folds of my 
 dress with kisses. 'I will sacrifice everything for you, 
 since you insist upon it. But if I do this, you must 
 promise me faithfully to keep our engagement a solemn 
 secret until such time as I can prepare my parents' minds 
 for the news. No one must know ; it must be a precious 
 secret between us ; I will not have it shared by your 
 sister.' 
 
 "In the end he wrung from me a reluctant consent to 
 this arrangement. I know you will say it was very 
 wrong and silly of me, but you must remember that I
 
 52 A Story of London. 
 
 had no one to advise me, that I loved him very dearly, 
 and that he is quite extraordinarily eloquent and per- 
 suasive, and has a voice which can make one do any- 
 thing. 
 
 "From that moment he spent all his time with me. 
 When I came down to breakfast in the morning I used 
 to find him there, and he never left me until he had seen 
 me home from the theatre every night. He seemed re- 
 luctant to let me go out of his sight, and constantly re- 
 proached me for not allowing him to come in to supper 
 with me, as he declared he spent the greater part of 
 each night walking up and down outside my lodgings. 
 As we only stayed a week in each town, he complained 
 bitterly that our marriage would be impossible until 
 the tour broke up for a fortnight's vacation at Christmas 
 before going on for another twenty weeks in the new 
 year. At last, quite unexpectedly, through some dis- 
 appointment about a date for a theatre, Sergius learned 
 from the manager that we were going to play for two 
 weeks in Sheffield, instead of a week, as was at first in- 
 tended, so that he would have time to give the fortnight's 
 notice of residence necessary for the marriage license. 
 
 "But here came another difficulty which well nigh up- 
 set his plans. The marriage, so Sergius told me, must 
 be kept a profound secret, not only from my relations 
 and his own, but also from all the members of the 'Set- 
 tled for Life' company. 
 
 "At first I thought he must be jesting, the request 
 seemed so preposterous ; but when I realized that he 
 was thoroughly in earnest, I became very angry, and re- 
 fused to take him on such terms. We had a stormy 
 scene ; he accused me of breaking his heart and ruining 
 his career with my puritanical folly and selfishness. I 
 had sent him mad by my coquetry, and he swore that 
 whatever crime he might commit would lie at my door.
 
 A Story of London. 53 
 
 "That evening he did not appear at the theatre, but a 
 messenger came in haste to inform the manager that Mr. 
 Trevelyan was lying at his lodgings dangerously wound- 
 ed by a pistol shot in the head. Every one looked at 
 me, the men with interest, the women with open hostili- 
 ty. I felt sick with anxiety and self-reproach, yet how 
 could I have acted differently? 
 
 "That night I called at his lodgings;- he was delirious, 
 the landlady assured me, and calling constantly on my 
 name. She begged me to see him. In her presence I 
 did so. Sergius was deadly pale, and his head was cov- 
 ered with a blood-stained bandage. It was only a flesh 
 wound, as I afterward ascertained, but at the time I 
 thought he was dying, and wept bitterly, as did the land- 
 lady. He had meant to kill himself, he told me, being 
 unable to endure the thought of life without me, and he 
 should certainly die that night unless I solemnly prom- 
 ised I would marry him when we arrived at Sheffield in 
 ten days' time. 
 
 "Even then, when I believed his life hung in the bal- 
 ance, I entreated him to let me confide in you. But he 
 would not hear to it, and became so terribly excited that 
 the landlady upbraided me for my cruelty in being hard 
 on a dying man. The woman knew quite well what I did 
 not know, that he was not dying at all, or even seriously 
 injured; but Sergius easily acquired the sympathy and 
 affection of all women who personally attended upon 
 him. 
 
 "Before I left the house I had consented to become 
 his wife on his own terms, and on the last day of our 
 stay in Sheffield we were married very quietly early in 
 the morning at a church in the town, the only witnesses 
 being the clerk and a pew-opener. 
 
 "At first Sergius appeared absolutely happy and con- 
 tented. He loaded me with caresses, showed an inex-
 
 54 A Story of London. 
 
 plicable and morbid jealousy if I so much as mentioned 
 another man's name, and hardly left my side. We spent 
 the vacation together at Brighton, as I told you, going 
 about as Mr. and Mrs. Trevelyan, although he told me 
 it was not his real name. By descent he came, he de- 
 clared, from the ancient Italian nobility on his mother's 
 side, and the kings of Ireland on his father's side. Yet 
 he preserved a singular and, as it seemed, unnecessary 
 mystery on the subject of his name and his former life, 
 and very soon began to make me jealous and unhappy 
 by alluding darkly to many women who had loved him, 
 and whose photographs and letters he had preserved. 
 
 "Brighton was delightful, but our return to the com- 
 pany, for many reasons unpleasant and painful. Nat- 
 urally, I was obliged to mention my marriage to the 
 actresses, as Sergius and I took lodgings in the same 
 house. I knew they all disliked me, but I was hardly 
 prepared for the dead silence in which they received the 
 announcement, or for the sneering whispers, intentional- 
 ly audible to me, which immediately followed. It is 
 true that I did not like them, but still they were women, 
 and women are usually interested in a marriage. My 
 heart ached, and a lump came into my throat at their 
 behavior, which they followed up by a studied, scornful 
 coldness and constant allusions to 'the quiet ones being 
 always the worse/ which were at the time incompre- 
 hensible to me. 
 
 "Gradually, as I could not fail to see, Sergius' first ar- 
 dor cooled. Letters in a woman's handwriting, which 
 he read and reread in my presence, came for him daily. 
 He began to leave me alone for hours, just when I was 
 beginning to feel most keenly the necessity for sympa- 
 thy and affectionate companionship. When my health 
 gave way and I was no longer able to take long ram- 
 bles with him, he seemed to think himself badly treated.
 
 A Story of London. 55 
 
 Spasmodically he was tender and effusive, but at last he 
 assumed a pitying instead of a loving tone, and openly 
 lamented the possibility of increased expenses. This 
 conduct especially was very, very hard to bear. He was 
 deeply in debt, and our united salary of four pounds ten 
 a week scarcely met our expenses, so that I dared not 
 leave off acting. 
 
 "Every day my heartache grew. I longed passion- 
 ately for you, for the touch of your hand, the sound of 
 your voice; but Sergius would not hear of my sending 
 for you, and in what seemed like an excess of his former 
 fervor, he asked me if his love were not enough for me, 
 and declared himself bitterly jealous of my affection for 
 you. 
 
 "At last, one night in the dressing room, just two 
 months ago, one of the married women, who meant, I 
 think, to be kind, asked me if I did not consider it time 
 to stop the 'sort of thing that was going on between my 
 husband and Lelia Montgomery.' At first I could not 
 understand her, but as she went on talking I recalled 
 little incidents, things that had puzzled me, and which 
 might have opened my eyes earlier to the true state of 
 the case. Still, I could not, I would not, believe my 
 husband false to me. 
 
 " 'Here is Lelia,' whispered my informant ; 'she has 
 been out driving with Mr. Trevelyan, and he has brought 
 her to the theatre.' 
 
 "Dorothy, try to put yourself in my place and live 
 through the scene that followed. 
 
 "The girl came in, showily dressed, laughing, trium- 
 phant. I dare say I was a little hysterical, for I turned 
 to her before them all and asked her whether it was 
 true that she had been out with my husband. 
 
 "She looked at me from head to foot, and burst into a 
 fit of coarse laughter.
 
 56 A Story of London. 
 
 " 'Out with your husband !' she repeated. 'Not me ! 
 I've been out with your young man; though, for that 
 matter, he's as much mine as yours.' 
 
 "I thought she had been drinking and drew back. 
 
 " 'You cannot be in your right senses,' I said, 'to ad- 
 dress such language to Mr. Trevelyan's wife.' 
 
 "She laughed again, louder than before. 
 
 " 'His wife !' she shouted. 'Girls, that's good, isn't 
 it? Sergius Trevelyan's wife is in America, as you and 
 I and all the company know quite well ; that farce of be- 
 ing married to him is played out now. Anybody can 
 see he is sick of it and you, too.' 
 
 " 'I shrank with horror from the woman, and glanced 
 round at the other women's faces. They were inter- 
 ested and inquisitive, but not one showed the least sym- 
 pathy with me or desire to defend me from such a foul 
 attack on my name. 
 
 " 'You all of you know,' I said, as steadily as I could, 
 trying to stifle a horrid fear that was gathering at my 
 heart, 'that I was married to Mr. Trevelyan, at Sheffield, 
 before last Christmas.' 
 
 "There was a pause, filled up with Miss Montgom- 
 ery's mocking laughter. Then the woman who had first 
 told me about her spoke in tones that were not unkindly. 
 
 " 'We all know,' she said, 'that Mr. Trevelyan went 
 through some sort of ceremony with you, because he 
 told us so, and asked us to treat you as his wife, as you 
 were so madly in love with him you couldn't live without 
 him, and had some idea that even an illegal marriage 
 was better than nothing at all.' 
 
 " 'He my husband told you that !' I gasped. 
 
 " 'Every one of ous. He said he was in for it, even if it 
 was a bigamy case, because, although you knew quite 
 well he was married, it was a fad of yours.'
 
 A Story of London. 57 
 
 "I was stunned by her words, but I could see by the 
 faces of the others that she had told the truth. I tried to 
 speak, but something seemed to snap in my heart, my 
 limbs gave way under me, and I fell face downward on 
 the floor."
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A RUINED IvlEE. 
 
 Phyllis ceased. Her lips were parched and dry, but a 
 feverish excitement glittered in her eyes. Dorothy 
 could not trust herself to speak, but gently disengaging 
 herself from her sister, who had held one of her hands 
 tightly while recounting her unhappy story, she fetched 
 from a cupboard in the adjoining room a little brandy 
 and water, which she gently forced Phyllis to drink be- 
 fore continuing. 
 
 The effort of so much talking had tired the girl's weak 
 frame, but her longing to confide every detail to her sis- 
 ter sustained her, and she was impatient to proceed. 
 
 "I don't know how I got back to my lodgings that 
 night," she went on; "I afterward heard that the girl 
 Montgomery got a cab and sent me home in it, while 
 the actress who appeared in the first -piece, and was my 
 understudy, undertook to play my part. When I re- 
 covered consciousness I was lying on the sofa in the 
 sitting-room. Sergius was standing by the table on 
 which the cloth was laid for supper, helping himself to 
 whisky. 
 
 "I tried to sit up and utter his name. I did not at 
 first remember what had happened, but his first words 
 brought it all back to me. 
 
 " 'What in the world induced you to make a scene at 
 the theatre to-night, and give yourself away before Miss 
 Montgomery and the other women?' he asked, irritably. 
 
 "I sprang up from the sofa. 
 
 " 'Sergius,' I cried, 'it is not true, is it ? What they
 
 A Ruined Life. 59 
 
 told me, I mean. It is impossible. You would not be 
 human if you were so wicked. I am your wife, am I 
 not? And you love me? That story that you were 
 married. before is a lie, is it not?' 
 
 "I had seized him by the arm; I was half mad with 
 anxiety. To my horror he did not answer me directly, 
 but began to stroke my hair and tell me to be a good 
 girl and not to make a fuss about nothing. 
 
 " 'You know, my dear,' he said, 'I never desired this 
 marriage; you forced it upon me. You were breaking 
 your heart about me, and I was so touched by your in- 
 fatuation that I agreed to what was a very risky busi- 
 ness for me.' 
 
 "I could do nothing but stare at him. He actually 
 seemed to believe what he was saying, and spoke in an 
 injured tone. 
 
 " 'It is all your own fault, giy child,' he went on, 'and 
 due to the silly, puritanical way in which you have been 
 brought up. Love is not a thing to be cabined and con- 
 fined by a wedding-ring. If it had not been for that ab- 
 surd and meaningless ceremony which you insisted upon 
 at Sheffield, we shouldn't have been half so tired of each 
 other as we are now.' 
 
 "I hardly noticed the words in which for the first time 
 he told me that he was tired of me in my horror at his 
 allusions to our marriage as a 'meaningless ceremony.' 
 I had sunk on the sofa again. My mind was torn be- 
 tween a growing despair and a tendency to hysterical 
 laughter at the sight of Sergius, who had certainly been 
 drinking more than usual, seated at the table, preaching 
 philosophy and resignation over his whisky and water. 
 
 " 'If I am not your wife,' I said at last, 'what am I? 
 What shall I be ? What will the world think of me in a 
 little while?' 
 
 "Sergius rolled a cigarette while he answered :
 
 60 A Ruined Life. 
 
 " 'Think ? Oh, they'll think you are a charming young 
 lady who has had an experience,' he answered, 'and I 
 daresay, in the Bohemian circles in which you are likely 
 to move, it won't stand in the way of your getting mar- 
 ried regularly some day, which appears to be the height of 
 your ambition. But I really wish, Phyllis, you wouldn't 
 use that conventional expression, "what will the world 
 say or think of you ?" My dear child, people who haven't 
 any money or position haven't any "world." These ex- 
 cellent stage persons, mostly recruited from the back- 
 shop, hardly constitute what is called society. All this 
 scene to-night was very silly. We have had our little day 
 of love and sunshine, and when we part it must be as 
 friends.' 
 
 " 'Dear,' I cried at last, 'you or I must be mad ! You 
 cannot in your sober senses be sitting there before me, 
 telling me that you have utterly ruined me and wrecked 
 my life for the sake of a vicious, transient fancy. Try to 
 realize for one moment what your words would mean if 
 they were true. I have loved you, trusted you. I have 
 been your devoted wife, believing in your love for me; 
 you persuaded me to marry you, forced me to keep our 
 marriage a secret from my dear sister, because you made 
 me believe that you were dying for love of me. You 
 have often told me how it pains you to see any one suffer- 
 ing and to relieve them. Think what I am suffering now. 
 How can I return to my sister so the purest, sweetest 
 woman in this world. The very thought of such a thing 
 makes me sick with shame. When I have spoken to you 
 of our hard, struggling lives since our father's death, 
 Dorothy's and mine, you have seemed deeply touched, 
 and have told me you would have given all you had to 
 have worked for us, helped us, and protected us. You 
 have been moved to tears by the account of our poverty 
 and trials. How can you, then, even in jest, suggest the
 
 A Ruined Life. 61 
 
 possibility of breaking my heart, ruining my life, betray- 
 ing and deserting me, in so vile and cold-blooded a man- 
 ner?' 
 
 "As I stood by the table looking across at him I per- 
 ceived that he had tears in his eyes as he stared into his 
 empty glass. 
 
 " 'I was thinking,' he said, 'of Swinburne's wonderful 
 lines : "For love has no abiding, and dies before the 
 kiss." How true they are, and how sad that love, the 
 sweetest thing on earth, should be so short-lived !' 
 
 "He had not even heard me. 
 
 "Dorothy, as I looked at him with new feelings in my 
 mind, I seemed to understand him for the first time. 
 Suffering made me clever. I began to realize the awful 
 mistake I had made in supposing that this vicious, shal- 
 low sentimentalist was a man of heart and feeling. There 
 was nothing to be hoped for from him, and yet I had put 
 myself utterly in his power. Just because he was a man 
 and I was a woman he could injure me beyond all repara- 
 tion, and I could do nothing. 
 
 "Presently, while I was still watching him, Sergius's 
 head dropped upon the table, and he fell fast asleep. 
 
 "I must have lost my senses, I think, for I can remem- 
 ber hardly anything until I found myself at the railway 
 station without my hat, crying out wildly that I wanted to 
 get back to London to my sister that very night. My 
 address was found on an envelope in my pocket, and 
 I was taken back to my lodgings, where I lay danger- 
 ously ill with brain fever for six terrible weeks. 
 Long before I recovered Sergius had left the town with 
 the rest of the company. My illness upset his nerves, so 
 my landlady informed me. He had left five pounds in her 
 hands, with instructions to keep me as long as possible. 
 When the money was gone she was to apply to him,
 
 62 A Ruined Life. 
 
 finding the address of the 'Settled for Life' company in 
 the theatrical newspapers. 
 
 "As soon as my senses came back to me I resolved to 
 find him out. At least, I must have some proof as to 
 whether my marriage was or was not illegal, and not for 
 my own sake alone. I was at first so strangely ill and 
 weak that I could hardly cross the room, and constantly 
 lost my identity; but as soon as the doctor said that I 
 was well enough to travel, I followed the company from 
 the midland town where I was taken ill to Richmond in 
 Surrey, a long, hot and tiresome journey, to defray which 
 I had to sell my trinkets, my theatrical wardrobe, and 
 even the clothes I was wearing, taking some discarded 
 ones of my landlady's in exchange. 
 
 "I reached Richmond in the evening, and saw the bills 
 of the company about the town. I had only a few shil- 
 lings left, and nothing that I could sell. I know quite 
 well you will say to me : 'Why did I not apply to you ?' 
 Remember, dear, I did try to come to you that night 
 when I first learned that dreadful story; after that, for 
 many days, I did not even know who or where I was. I 
 have always been such a shocking correspondent that I 
 knew my long silence would not trouble you ; and, be- 
 sides, how could I write you such a hideous and shameful 
 confession? And how could I bear to take your money 
 when I know how hard you work, and how you have 
 kept the home going and paid Cresswell's wages and 
 everything? Since I married Sergius I had never sent 
 any money home. The two pounds ten a week I earned 
 hardly did more than pay for his cigarettes and whiskies 
 and sodas, and the getting up of his linen, about which 
 he was most particular, for he had in everything extrava- 
 gant tastes, and wore trie most beautiful and expensive 
 clothes. 
 
 "At Richmond I dared not openly ask for Sergius.
 
 A Ruined Life. 63 
 
 That dreadful feeling of being disgraced and deserted be- 
 fore the eyes of the whole company ate into my heart 
 when I thought of the women's unfriendly curiosity and 
 coarse jesting. I was so shabby, too, that even for that 
 alone I could not bear to face any one of them. So I 
 hung around the river path outside the theatre, and 
 watched the moonlight upon the water until I had to tear 
 myself shuddering away. For perhaps it was that I had 
 not had any food for a long time, and was growing light- 
 headed but that silver flickering pathway seemed to 
 draw my feet to it as a magnet. 
 
 " 'At the best/ a voice seemed to whisper in my ear, 
 'the man you loved, the man who has been your husband, 
 is a scoundrel, and is tired of you. Has he not told you 
 so ? And if it be true that he was already married when 
 you first met him, you will never be able to hold up your 
 head again. What should be the crowning glory of a 
 woman's life will be to you a misery and a reproach, a 
 nameless child, whose very existence must be explained 
 away from the prying, disdainful eyes of the world. Even 
 your sister, if she knew all, would find it in her heart to 
 say that you were better dead.' 
 
 "Under that bright pathway was forgetfulness and 
 peace. For the third time my footsteps turned in the di- 
 rection of the river, when, just as I stood on the brink, a 
 hand clutched my arm, and a voice I knew spoke in my 
 ear. 
 
 "As I started and turned, Leila Mongomery, for it 
 was she, uttered an exclamation of surprise as she caught 
 sight of my face. 
 
 " 'Miss Knight Mrs. Trevelyan ! How did you get 
 here? How ill you look ! Is Sergius with you?" 
 
 "I wanted to hurry away, but she insisted on following 
 me, and was exceedingly kind in her rough way. She 
 informed me that Sergius had quitted the company unex-
 
 64 A Ruined Life. 
 
 pectedly a few days after I had been left behind, declar- 
 ing that he was going back to 'the only woman who had 
 every really loved him.' 
 
 " 'Of course, we all thought it was you,' pursued Miss 
 Mongomery, 'though he is a regular Don Juan, I must 
 say ! It was me had the sending off of him chiefly. The 
 more I thought about you, the more I felt you were 
 speaking the truth when you and I had that flare-up, and 
 that you really didn't know he was married to Millie 
 Clements On a singing tour in America three years ago. 
 You were so stuck up in the dressing-room, and so close 
 about your affairs, that nobody told you anything. But 
 when he left you behind like that, we all thought it pretty 
 mean of Trevelyan, and as I'm never too particular what 
 I say, I slanged him before the whole company on the 
 stage one night when he was trying to make up to me, 
 and let him know what I though of him for his treatment 
 of you. Next day he was gone, without so much as giv- 
 ing notice or asking for his week's salary, and not one of 
 us has heard anything of him since. I rather think I 
 made my gentleman ashamed of himself. And do you 
 really mean to tell me he didn't go back to you after all ?' 
 
 "Any flicker of hope I might have had, and it could 
 only have been a very little, died right out of my heart 
 while she was speaking, and it seemed as though the very 
 bitterness of death passed over me. She wanted to help 
 me, but I hardly heard her. I just remember thanking 
 her, and telling her that I required no assistance and was 
 going back to my home and my friends. Then, before 
 she could stop me, I left her and ran away along the tow- 
 ing path. By the arches of the bridge a rough group of 
 watermen were talking and laughing loudly. You know 
 what a coward I have always been, Dolly, and how I 
 would always rather run a mile than face a drunken man. 
 I turned away from the river and crawled up the stone
 
 A Ruined Life. 65 
 
 steps of the bridge. There I found a recess and a stone 
 seat. I sank upon it, with my head against the coping, 
 and I suppose I must have fainted or fallen asleep, for a 
 blessed pause came in which I remember nothing. 
 
 "Before I opened my eyes, I heard the wind rustling in 
 the poplars and the river swirling under the arches below, 
 and I listened at first without understanding. Then it 
 seemed to me that someone was telling me a story about a 
 poor, wretched girl who had been vain, and self-willed, 
 and silly, and thought to make her fortune on the stage, 
 and how she came to utter shipwreck and lay dying of 
 starvation and a broken heart on Richmond Bridge, un- 
 der the stars with the sound of the water and the rustling 
 trees in her ears : 
 
 " 'Girls should be able to take care of themselves. 
 Don't tell me the fault was all on one side.' 
 
 "I could hear their shrill women's voices on the one 
 side, and on the other a minority of those professional 
 philanthropists who would want to make a lost sheep of 
 her, and pet her and pry into her past experiences, and if 
 only they were dark enough, desire to make a public 
 show of her as a converted sinner. But between the two 
 sets of women I could see no sympathy for such a girl 
 as this, who had believed herself a wife, and had placed 
 such faith in the solemn service of the Church that she 
 could not see wherein she had sinned at all. 
 
 "But it was all like some one else's story. How could it 
 affect me, Phyllis Knight, Dorothy's sister, except that I 
 was very sorry for the girl ? 
 
 "A light flashed into my eyes and brought me back to 
 wretchedness and reality. A policeman was holding a 
 lantern before my face and telling me I could not sleep 
 all night upon the bridge. When he saw that I was al- 
 most too weak to statnd, he was very kind, and took me 
 to his wife, who made me up a bed and gave me food, and
 
 66 A Ruined Life. 
 
 was very good to me. But they were poor people, with 
 a large family, and were naturally curious about me; so 
 while the woman was out marketing in the evening for 
 Sunday I put a few pence I had left on the table, and be- 
 gan very slowly, by easy stages and waiting for nightfall 
 to make my way home. 
 
 "Just to die in your arms, Dolly, dear. I knew, I felt 
 sure, my strength would hold out long enough for that. 
 But you must put over my grave: 'Phyllis, wife of S. 
 Trevelyan;' Dolly, be sure you do that. I don't know 
 whether it will make much difference in the next world ; 
 but, oh ! it makes so much in this. And there will be no 
 slur upon you, then, dear, and Cresswell need never 
 know. 
 
 "There ! It is all told now. Kiss me, Dorothy, and I 
 shall know you are fond of me still. And now let me 
 sleep."
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 WAYS AND MEANS. 
 
 For a long while after Phyllis had fallen asleep, Doro- 
 thy lay awake in her trim white bed in the little room she 
 had occupied for the past three years, thinking deeply. 
 
 The two things in her sister's story which she found 
 herself unable to understand were, first, that Phyllis 
 should ever have loved such a man as Sergius Trevelyan, 
 and second, that she had not tried to kill him when she 
 discovered the full measure of his villainy. 
 
 Dorothy's whole form grew hot with burning indigna- 
 tion, and her fingers clenched instinctively as she thought 
 of him. She was already fully determined to find him 
 out, in order to have absolute proof of his statement con- 
 cerning a former marriage, as well as to wreak vengeance 
 upon him for his infamous conduct toward her beloved 
 sister. How she was to effect this latter project she hard- 
 ly knew. Of course, the law would not help her, as 
 Phyllis would naturally shrink from the shame and pub- 
 licity of prosecuting him for bigamy ; but Dorothy nour- 
 ished vague projects of denouncing him to his relations 
 and friends, of branding him as a coward and a felon, or 
 even, if it were possible, striking him across the face with 
 a horsewhip, since, as she told herself bitterly, "we have 
 no man to protect us and avenge our injuries." 
 
 At this moment, indeed, the very name of man was 
 hateful to Miss Knight. Before she came to bed she 
 had scornfully destroyed the long, bright letter she had 
 been writing to Phyllis when the latter's cry disturbed
 
 68 Ways and Means. 
 
 her. Lying here in the darkness Dorothy blushed hotly 
 as she recalled her own foolishness in letting her thoughts 
 dwell for awhile upon a man of whom she knew nothing 
 at all but what his own bare word afforded her, and who, 
 in all probability, she told herself as she dismissed Mr. 
 Aylmer Read from her mind, had in his own time and 
 fashion broken the hearts of such girls as were silly 
 enough to believe in him. 
 
 "But not mine!" she whispered to herself fiercely 
 through her clenched teeth. "No man shall break my 
 heart, please heaven!" 
 
 The character of Artemis was one Dorothy believed 
 congenial to her, and strove to emulate, although Nature 
 had cast her in far too womanly and impulsive a mold to 
 enable her to play the part. She could hardly lie still in 
 her bed, so hotly did her blood boil with fury against the 
 destroyer of her sister's peace. Her imagination, always 
 vivid, pictured the poetic appearance which had first 
 caught Phyllis' attention. In the air before her she 
 seemed to see Sergius Trevelyan's large eyes, long lashes, 
 curly, black hair and mustache, and graceful figure. She 
 even fancied, so strong was her ecstacy of hate, that she 
 could hear that melodious voice which had so charmed 
 her sister's ears, reading aloud selections from his favor- 
 ite poets, and becoming maudlin and sentimental under 
 the combined misfortunes of an empty whisky bottle and 
 the decline of love. 
 
 "Miserable snake ! I wish I could kill him ! My poor, 
 poor girl !" 
 
 Tears gushed from her eyes and rained down her face 
 as she recalled her sister's former dimpled prettiness of 
 the true fascinating order, alluring in the audacious co- 
 quetry of perfect innocence. That a man should crush so 
 sweet a flower for his evil pleasure produced in Dorothy's 
 mind a temporary feeling of hostility against all men. To
 
 Ways and Means. 69 
 
 say that Phyllis was sadly changed would be to under- 
 state the case ; these few weeks of sorrow and suffering 
 had transformed a light-hearted, willful little beauty of 
 nineteen into a worn and saddened woman, who might 
 from her looks have been fully ten years older. 
 
 Sleep was not to be thought of by Dorothy that night. 
 She had much, very much, to arrange for the morrow. 
 Hers was always the managing brain of the household, 
 for Phyllis liked to have everything arranged for her, and 
 Cresswell, beyond a limpet-like fidelity, possessed few 
 marked characteristics of any kind. So that Dorothy, 
 placed too early in a position of absolute authority, had 
 been led to exaggerate her own firmness of character, 
 and to confuse strength of feeling with strength of will. 
 
 One great trouble loomed darkly before her the ques- 
 tion of money. 
 
 It was impossible not to see that Phyllis required most 
 careful nursing, nourishing diet, and the best medical 
 skill procurable. Failing these, in her state of physical 
 and mental prostration, there seemed little likelihood that 
 she would preserve her life and reason through the trial 
 which lay before her. 
 
 And Dorothy had no money at all. 
 
 The rent of number one, Lockhart Cottages, was but 
 ten shillings a week, and the patient Cresswell was per- 
 fectly willing to work without wages. For the past eigh- 
 teen months Dorothy had been very busy executing 
 hand-painted cards and album pages for a city firm, and 
 regularly once a week she had taken her way to the 
 neighborhood of Smithfield in order to deliver a bulky 
 parcel of work, and receive in return from five-and-twenty 
 to five-and-thirty shillings, according to the low rate of 
 pay given for that class of art work. Recently, how- 
 ever, the demand for hand-painted figures and flowers 
 had dropped, and, to her dismay, Miss Knight had
 
 70 Ways and Means. 
 
 learned that the particular firm who employed her pro- 
 posed shortly to dispense with her services in that direc- 
 tion. The girl's British Museum sketching had been 
 undertaken solely with a view to supplementing her 
 knowledge of figure drawing, as she had no money to ob- 
 tain lessons, and her experience as an artist behind the 
 scenes of the Grassmarket was the first of its kind, so 
 that she could not yet know whether her sketches would 
 be accepted. 
 
 Meantime Phyllis, whom she had believed to be happily 
 in the receipt of two pounds ten a week until the ap- 
 proaching midsummer, was absolutely penniless, heavily 
 in debt, without even suitable clothing, and in need of im- 
 mediate help; there was hardly anything in the house 
 worth selling or pawning, and all the money which Dor- 
 othy possessed in the world was thirty-three shillings in 
 hand and one pound five in the Post Office Savings 
 Bank. 
 
 Racking her brains in the endeavor to see a way out of 
 their difficulties, Dorothy decided that the business of 
 eating "humble pie"' to their own wealthy relative was so 
 eminently repugnant that it must only be undertaken as 
 a last resource. The personage in question was not even 
 a blood relation, but only a great-aunt by marriage. 
 Dorothy had not seen this lady for some years, but knew 
 that she was greatly incensed against the late Mr. Knight. 
 Help for Phyllis was hardly likely to come from that quar- 
 ter, she decided, almost with relief, for the notion of 
 humbling herself before a consequential and purse-proud 
 woman was intensely distasteful to her. 
 
 Meantime, a doctor must be found at once. The sis- 
 ters' health through all their trials had been so uniformly 
 good that it was necessary to discover a physician who 
 would undertake the case. 
 
 At seven o'clock, when Dorothy rose, Phyllis was still
 
 Ways and Means. 71 
 
 sleeping heavily the dead, motionless repose of utter ex- 
 haustion. In the morning light her face looked paler and 
 more hollow in the cheeks than on the preceding evening. 
 Like a lifeless thing she lay, her long, dark lashes in sharp 
 contrast against her white skin, and the aureole of pale 
 straw-colored hair tossed over the pillow and toning to a 
 natural dark-brown for half an inch above the roots. 
 
 Dorothy tenderly kissed her sister's wasted hands, try- 
 ing vainly to restrain her tears, and registering anon in 
 her heart a vow of vengeance against Sergius Trevelyan. 
 
 In her anxiety on Phyllis' account she decided that the 
 best-known doctor of the neighborhood should attend 
 upon her. The man with the largest house and door- 
 plate and practice would be also, in all probability, better 
 able to wait a little while for his money at least, until 
 Dorothy had a chance of earning it. Acting on this con- 
 viction, Miss Knight found herself at half-past eight 
 o'clock before the door of Dr. Morgan, whose stately 
 man-servant scarcely troubled to conceal a yawn as he 
 stared superciliously on the shabbily-dressed matutinal 
 visitor. 
 
 Luckily for Dorothy's errand, the doctor himself came 
 down his broad oak staircase to breakfast while she still 
 parleyed with the man in the hall. Dr. Morgan was a 
 tall, well-built man of about sixty years of age, with a 
 fresh-colored skin, a short silver beard and mustache, 
 and singularly shrewd and kindly blue eyes. 
 
 The sweetness of his visitor's voice and the beauty of 
 her face arrested his attention, and, much to his servant's 
 disgust, he at once led the way into the consultation room, 
 listened with much kindness while she stated her sister's 
 case, and promised to come round to Lockhart Cottages 
 within half an hour's time. 
 
 Lockhart Cottages were not used to visitors of such 
 distinguished appearance, and the doctor found himself
 
 72 Ways and Means. 
 
 wondering greatly how a girl of refinement and education 
 came to live amid such humble and poverty-stricken sur- 
 roundings, the while the numerous brood of children, be- 
 longing respectively to the charwoman who lived next 
 door, the sweep who lived over the way, and the lady who 
 took in mangling, assembled to stare upon the great man 
 when he left his carriage and came up the paved way be- 
 tween the Board School buildings to Dorothy's door. 
 
 He was yet more interested when a second pale and 
 beautiful woman, singularly like his first acquaintance, 
 was introduced to him as his new patient. Phyllis was 
 with difficulty aroused from her heavy, lethargic slumber 
 nor could she easily be made -to understand the ques- 
 tions addressed to her. Dr. Morgan's practiced eyes in- 
 stantly took in the signs of cruel anxiety of the mind and 
 semi-starvation of the body which the invalid only too 
 plainly showed. Drawing Cresswell apart, as the oldest 
 woman present, he began to question her about her young 
 mistress. 
 
 But Cresswell burst into tears. She was a short, thin 
 woman of fifty, with handsome aquiline features, which, 
 together with a habitual gravity and taciturnity, im- 
 pressed observers with a sense of dignity and intelligence 
 which she was far from possessing. 
 
 "Don't ask me, sir," she cried, nervously. "Ask Miss 
 Dorothy. Miss Phyllis only came back last night while I 
 was abed and asleep. When I found her here this morn- 
 ing it gave me such a turn ; I can't get over it ! She is 
 that altered, too, I don't know her." 
 
 "Where is her husband?" 
 
 "Oh, don't ask me, sir. I didn't know she had one. 
 Leastways, don't take it from me. She may have got 
 married without telling us. But she'll get well, won't 
 she, sir?"
 
 Ways and Means. 73 
 
 "Ask your mistress to come down and speak to me," 
 was the doctor's only answer. 
 
 In the little front sitting-room Dorothy found him 
 studying the contents of the book shelves with his back 
 to the door. Turning as she entered, he fixed his keen 
 blue eyes upon her. 
 
 ''Your sister is in a very bad way," he said, abruptly. 
 "Where is her husband?" 
 
 Dorothy grew red and white by turns. 
 
 "He is in the country," she answered, constrainedly. 
 "I don't know his address, and my sister is too ill to tell it 
 to me," she added quickly. 
 
 "I hear she only came here last night. She was not in 
 a fit state to travel." 
 
 "She walked here from Richmond," burst from Dor- 
 othy, who forgot her reserve in her anger. 
 
 "Walked ! Good heavens !" 
 
 He turned his back upon her quickly, and stood before 
 the book-shelves again, that he might not see the passion- 
 ate indignation and pain on her face. He already guessed 
 as much of the case as Dorothy could tell him. 
 
 "Dr. Morgan," she said, as soon as she could control 
 her voice, "my sister is only nineteen. While she was 
 away from me last year she had the ill-fortune to meet 
 and marry a cowardly scoundrel, who has deserted her 
 and left her to starve. Thank Heaven, she managed to 
 make her way back to me. I know her heart is broken, 
 but you can save her life, can you not ?" 
 
 The doctor looked kindly down into the girl's beautiful, 
 eager face. It was a terrible pity, he decided privately, 
 for girls to be so poor, and at the same time so remarka- 
 bly handsome. Theirs was not the safe, statuesque beau- 
 ty such as a man may comfortably worship from afar, or 
 happily give in marriage to another man ; but essentially 
 soft, feminine, and innocently alluring. Even Dr. Mor-
 
 74 Ways and Means. 
 
 gan felt more cousinly than fatherly as he contemplated 
 Miss Knight's lovely flushed face, appealing grey eyes 
 shining through tears, and parted rose-pink lips. Girls 
 of that type were bound to be worried with passions and 
 romances and tragedies if they were not married off 
 young, and the only wonder in the doctor's mind was that 
 it was the younger and by far the less good-looking of 
 the two, who was the sufferer on this occasion. 
 
 "I will do my utmost for your sisler," he said kindly. 
 "Get this prescription made up immediately; she must 
 take it every two hours. A little weak brandy and water 
 and some beef tea must be given at frequent intervals dur- 
 ing the day. I will call again in a few hours' time. Your 
 sister has simply no pulse at all. She will require con- 
 stant watching and attendance night and day. From what 
 I have seen of your old servant she does not seem a suit- 
 able person to have in a sick room, and you yourself don't 
 look too robust. A trained nurse should be engaged at 
 once." 
 
 "I can undertake the night-work," faltered Dorothy, 
 "but during the day I generally have a good deal to do 
 and cannot be always at home." 
 
 She already saw beggary staring them in the face. 
 Two pounds eighteen would certainly not go far with a 
 trained nurse in the house demanding two guineas a week 
 and her food, and with no more painting orders coming 
 from the city. Something of the consternation she felt 
 must have shown itself in her face, as Dr. Morgan's next 
 words proved. 
 
 "Perhaps," he suggested, "you have relatives or friends 
 in London? They should certainly be informed of your 
 sister's condition, and of the care and necessary expense 
 required in such a serious case as hers. I will not dis- 
 guise from you that her life and her reason are equally in 
 danger at the present time. The body is absolutely ema-
 
 Ways and Means. 75 
 
 ciated, and the mind crushed by some terrible shock or 
 strain. Neither one nor the other is in fit condition to 
 pass safely through the ordeal before her, and " 
 
 "Don't !" cried Miss Knight, suddenly pushing out her 
 hands with an imploring gesture. "I can't bear to hear 
 it ! I beg your pardon, Dr. Morgan," she added in a low 
 voice, while a deep flush passed over her face, "but I 
 can't quite explain what my sister is to me. Our mother 
 died when we were very little children, and our father 
 three years ago. Our only brother left England years 
 ago. We do not know what has become of him. Phyllis 
 is all I have in the world. You cannot tell by seeing her 
 now what she was only a few months ago. And per- 
 haps the poor darling's wretchedness may have given you 
 a wrong idea before last Christmas she was married to 
 an actor in the same company with her in the town of 
 Sheffield. I have never seen him, but he must be the 
 lowest and vilest thing on earth to have treated my sister 
 so cruelly. You don't know how sweet, and good, and 
 bright, and pretty she has always been. Of course," she 
 went on, turning sharply away, and pressing her handker- 
 chief tightly against her eyes to force back her tears, "I 
 ought not to bother you with these details. My sister 
 shall have just what you order, Dr. Morgan. I will take 
 your advice and consult with our relatives. For we have 
 quite rich relations," she continued, with a little nervous 
 laugh, "although it seems difficult to believe of people liv- 
 ing in Lockhart Cottages, and we used to live decently 
 ourselves once. But that time passed away three years 
 ago. Please let me know where to go for the nurse. My 
 sister must have everything she requires and I am sure 
 you will save her if any one can." 
 
 She turned the full gaze of her clear eyes trustfully upon 
 him. Dr. Morgan was deeply interested in this beautiful, 
 emotional creature, over whose face the course of every
 
 j6 Ways and Means. 
 
 feeling was plainly shown. Her pride and weakness, her 
 repellent coldness and appealing gentleness alternately 
 combined to make up a personality as fascinating as it was 
 out of the common run of his experiences. He thought 
 about her for fully half an hour after he had returned to 
 his spacious, solemn house, presided over by his widowed 
 sister. But a fashionable doctor has many demands upon 
 his time, his skill, and, above all, upon that quality which 
 some call sympathy, and others magnetism. Between his 
 first and second visit to Lockhart Cottages upon that par- 
 ticular Sunday, Dr. Morgan was successively called to the 
 bedside of a wealthy paralyzed octogenarian, an anemic 
 schoolgirl, and a middle-aged dipsomaniac, and the keen 
 edge of his sympathy was by necessity blunted by such 
 exhausting contact. On the occasion of his second call 
 upon his new patient her sister was absent, having per- 
 force summoned up sufficient endurance to face an inter- 
 view with Mrs. Julia Knight, of Belvidere Gardens, Hyde 
 Park, the wealthy widow of her father's uncle. 
 
 Mrs. Julius Knight lived and dined in a spacious stucco 
 mansion in Bayswater. Advisedly be it mentioned that 
 she dined, for dinner to Mrs. Knight a perfectly served, 
 admirably cooked dinner was the aim and end of exist- 
 ence. To entertain friends at the evening meal, to dazzle 
 them by the expensiveness of her silver and her hand- 
 painted dessert plates, the excellence of her chef's entre- 
 mets and the bouquet of her wine cellar's treasures, these 
 were the chief joys of Mrs. Julius Knight's choosing, and 
 they ranked almost higher in her estimation than the 
 blessed privilege of wearing more expensive gowns and 
 better diamonds than any of her guests could afford to 
 display. 
 
 The late Mr. Julius Knight had been something highly 
 successful in the city. In middle age he had married a 
 plump, talkative and handsome foreign lady, who for ten
 
 Ways and Means. jj 
 
 years alternately snubbed and patronized him, while she 
 divided what affection she had to give between her favor- 
 ite dog and her favorite nephew, the latter being Harold 
 Knight, father of Phyllis and Dorothy. 
 
 Circumstances had intervened to severely test the par- 
 tiality shown by Mrs. Julius Knight for her husband's 
 nephew, and with the remembrance of them weighing 
 heavily upon her heart, Dorothy stood on the steps of her 
 great aunt's huge grey stucco mansion in Bayswater in 
 the afternoon of that midsummer Sunday, and asked the 
 pompous footman who opened the door to convey her 
 card to Mrs. Knight and ask if that lady could grant her 
 a few minutes' conversation. 
 
 This was the second time in one day that a footman had 
 looked down upon Miss Knight, with a fine contempt for 
 her shabby clothes effacing any possible admiration of her 
 beautiful figure and face. Dorothy felt this bitterly, 
 knowing quite well that her aunt's servant's "young wo- 
 man" would be much smarter on her Sundays out than 
 she herself could ever afford to be. 
 
 "Very sorry, miss, but Mrs. Knight's hout." 
 "You had better take Mrs. Knight my card." 
 The man glanced at it superciliously, but, seeing the 
 name, his expression changed, and he asked her to wait 
 while he "saw whether his mistress had returned." He 
 reappeared very shortly and conducted Dorothy to a little 
 boudoir on the first floor, one of Mrs. Knight's private 
 apartments, which included also her bed-room, her bath- 
 room and her dressing-room. 
 
 The boudoir was hung with pale blue quilted satin and 
 panels of looking-glass. The window opened out into a 
 small fernery, and the sunlight glittered on a shoal of 
 goldfish swimming round a marble basin, raised on slen- 
 der columns a few feet from the ground, and sporting a 
 little splashing fountain. A small, white, long-eared dog
 
 yS Ways and Means. 
 
 sprang from a cushioned basket to bark furiously on Dor- 
 othy's entrance, and two black and white Persian kittens 
 stopped righting to stare at her with round, gray eyes. A 
 dainty coffee service of eggshell china, set in filagree sil- 
 ver, stood on a little inlaid table before a luxurious sofa 
 plentifully supplied with embroidered cushions, while a 
 chased gold box of cigarettes testified to the foreign tastes 
 of the mistress of the house. Every now and then the 
 room was filled with clear, shrill outbursts of song from 
 one or other of the canaries in gilded cages, of which 
 three were suspended from the ceiling ; a half-cut French 
 novel in a yellow paper cover lay on the table, closed 
 upon a jeweled toy of a paper-knife, and the observation 
 of this last expensive trifle seemed to fill up the measure 
 of bitterness which had been accumulating in Dorothy's 
 heart ever since she had set her foot within the house of 
 her wealthy relative. - 
 
 The paper-knife was of oxidized silver, set with tiny 
 pearls and turquoise, and as her eyes fell upon it, Dor- 
 othy saw in her mind that picture of a deserted, half- 
 starved woman, huddled on a bench of Richmond Bridge, 
 with her wan face upturned to the stars. 
 
 A stifled sob rose in her throat ; she left the seat and 
 stood with her back to the door, trying to force down her 
 tears. A rustle of stiff silk skirts made her turn suddenly 
 to find her great-aunt looking at her critically through a 
 pair of long-handled tortoise-shell eyeglasses, on which 
 her monogram was written in diamonds.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 DOROTHY VISITS HER AUNT. 
 
 Mrs. Julius Knight was a very tall, very stout woman 
 of sixty, who still retained some pretentions to beauty of 
 a mature and fully-developed order. Her elaborately 
 dressed hair was only a little streaked with gray, and her 
 well-opened black eyes, of naturally quick and even bel- 
 ligerent expression, looked out upon the world almost as 
 brightly as they had done thirty years before. Her din- 
 ner gown was of pink and gray brocade hung with costly 
 white lace, and upon the ample surface of her neck, in 
 her ears, and on her fingers, diamonds and sapphires 
 flashed and gleamed. 
 
 "So !" she exclaimed, in a loud, clear voice and strong 
 foreign accent, "it is my niece Dorothy. At last she gives 
 herself the trouble to come and see her aunt. It is to ask 
 a favor, hein ? Do not tell me ; I know the world. When 
 one neglects one's best friends for three or four years one 
 comes not in to say: 'What fine weather we have to- 
 day!'" 
 
 Dorothy's eyes were lowered, and a deep flush of shame 
 spread over her face. 
 
 "I did not think, Aunt Dorothea, that you would care 
 to see me." 
 
 "Oh, well, I do not say I am proud of the connection," 
 Mrs. Knight returned sharply. "My nephew Harold, 
 your father, who cheated me out of five thousand pounds 
 of my money, and then put a bullet through his head be- 
 cause he could not square his clients' accounts that is
 
 80 Dorothy Visits Her Aunt. 
 
 not a relation to be very proud of, hein? It is not very 
 good for one's name in the world to have a nephew like 
 tnat." 
 
 Dorothy had grown very pale, but her eyes flashed 
 ominously. 
 
 "Perhaps," she said, trying to steady her voice, "it has 
 been a little hard for his daughters, too." 
 
 Mrs. Knight looked at her quickly for a moment, then 
 she shrugged her plump shoulders. 
 
 "After all," she said, "you were such children, not much 
 more than sixteen and seventeen, and your father, in spite 
 of the muddle he had made of his affairs, left, so they told 
 me, a few thousands." 
 
 "Every penny of which was paid to his creditors within 
 a few weeks of his death," Dorothy returned, looking her 
 relative proudly in the face. "Mr. Sutcliffe, our father's 
 lawyer, could have told you that had you asked him." 
 
 Mrs. Knight was silent for a few seconds, and some- 
 thing like regret swept over her face. 
 
 "Enfin ! How, then, have you lived ?" 
 
 "We haven't lived, Aunt Dorothea. We have existed 
 only, as best we could. I raised about eighty pounds by 
 selling some trinkets of mamma's, and poor Cresswell, 
 who would not leave us, lent us thirty pounds. I took a 
 cottage near Hammersmith, after hunting a long while 
 for any place cheap enough for us, and we have managed 
 somehow until now with teaching drawing and music, 
 and with my designs, and other work." 
 
 She hated to have to relate her sister's story, at least 
 until her great-aunt's pity and interest had been aroused. 
 
 "Tut, tut !" muttered Mrs. Knight, beginning to rustle 
 restlessly about the room. "It is absurd! I never 
 through well, why did you not come to me ?" 
 
 "How could I ?" burst indignantly from Dorothy's lips, 
 "after the angry letter from you which poor papa received
 
 Dorothy Visits Her Aunt. 81 
 
 on the very day he died, telling him not to hope for any 
 help from you for himself or for us ? I believe that letter, 
 coming as it did just when he was half mad with worry 
 over his losses and his mistakes " 
 
 She stopped abruptly. Mrs. Knight stood before her, 
 her dark eyes ablaze with anger. 
 
 "So!" she exclaimed, "you are come here to-day, my 
 dutiful niece, to tell me that I killed your father? that I 
 am a murderess ?" 
 
 "I came to say nothing of the kind," rang from Doro- 
 thy, half-distracted. "I came to ask for help for my sis- 
 ter, who is half-starved and dying !" 
 
 The words "half-starved" impressed Mrs. Knight more 
 strongly than any others Dorothy could have chosen. 
 
 "Not half-starved !" she exclaimed, in a low, shocked 
 voice ; "do not say that, my niece !" 
 
 "Yes, it is true ! Half-starved and dying on Richmond 
 Bridge only two nights ago. Desperately ill, and de- 
 serted by her husband. Think of it, Aunt Dorothea. I 
 would never have come to you for help for myself. I 
 am quite well, and I can work. But the doctor has seen 
 Phyllis to-day, and he tells me that she will be very, very 
 ill for many weeks yet; that her life and her reason are 
 both in danger, and that she must have good wine and 
 soups, and nourishing food, and expensive medicines, and 
 a trained nurse to be with her night and day. And I 
 I haven't three pounds in the world !" 
 
 She broke down at last, and, covering her face with her 
 hands, wept bitterly. 
 
 Mrs. Knight looked at her, fidgeted about the room, 
 and then, coming up behind her, shook her roughly but 
 not unkindly by the shoulders. 
 
 "Do not cry do not cry!" she said. "Of course I 
 will help you. I will send you some good wine and good
 
 82 Dorothy Visits Her Aunt. 
 
 soups. It was very silly not to come to me before. It 
 was your naughty, stupid pride, and I will pay the doctor, 
 the nurse everything. Leave off crying, do you hear? 
 It upsets me and makes me ill to see crying, and in half 
 an hour my guests for dinner will arrive Sir John Simp- 
 son and his wife, and the Baroness Wiegenthurn, and 
 Dr. Westall, and Alderman Jackson. If you cry you will 
 make me cry, too, and that will spoil my looks and make 
 me ill. Now, sit down by me and tell me the truth. How 
 did you allow your sister to leave you and get married? 
 And who is her husband? What is his name? Where 
 did she meet him ? Why was I not told ? All this is very 
 serious, and I must hear the truth all the truth." 
 
 She settled herself comfortably among the cushions of 
 the sofa and motioned Dorothy to a place beside her, tak- 
 ing the girl's thin hand between her plump, bejeweled 
 fingers. Thus encouraged, Miss Knight dried her tears 
 and began her story. 
 
 "Two years ago, when Phyllis was seventeen, I wanted 
 her to become a governess; but she hated the idea, and 
 would go on the stage." 
 
 "Ah ! surely you did not let her ?" 
 
 "I tried to prevent it. But she got an engagement at 
 a guinea a week in London, and then a year later another, 
 at thirty shillings. We were very glad of the money. 
 In the autumn of last year Phyllis went away to travel for 
 two seasons of twenty weeks each with a great London 
 success. She was to have two pounds ten a week, and it 
 seemed a fortune to us. For eight months I did not see 
 her. I wrote constantly, and she answered sometimes. 
 I hoped to see her at Christmas, but well, it doesn't mat- 
 ter now. Aunt Dorothea, remember, last year she was 
 only eighteen ; she had never been away from me before, 
 and the people on the tour were common, selfish and un- 
 congenial. She had no companions or friends except one
 
 Dorothy Visits Her Aunt. 83 
 
 man, very handsome, and educated as a gentleman. He 
 tried his utmost to make Phyllis fall in love with him, and 
 at last he succeeded. 
 
 A hard look came about the corners of Mrs. Knight's 
 mouth. She had never been in love herself, and had 
 little sympathy with victims of the tender passion. 
 
 "What was the *nan's name?" she asked coldly. 
 
 "He called himself Sergius Trevelyan." 
 
 "Called himself! What do you mean?" 
 
 "On the stage, aunt, people generally take other names. 
 Trevelyan was not his real name." 
 
 "What was his real name, then? I do not understand 
 these theatre customs." 
 
 "I I don't know." 
 
 "You don't know the name of your sister's husband!" 
 
 Mrs. Knight's round, black eyes opened wider than 
 ever. 
 
 "Don't you understand, Aunt Dorothea?" cried Doro- 
 thy in desperation. "Phyllis is half-delirious from ill- 
 ness, and can tell me nothing. She only came home to me 
 last night very late, having walked all the way from Rich- 
 mond, although she was almost too weak to stand. To- 
 day she hardly knows me, and cannot speak above a whis- 
 
 
 
 per. 
 
 "And where is her husband ?" 
 
 "She does not know." 
 
 "Allons!" exclaimed Mrs. Knight impatiently. "It is 
 too absurd this husband who has no name and no home ! 
 Dorothy," she went on sternly, "I hope that you do not 
 deceive me. I hope that he exists, this wonderful hus- 
 band." 
 
 "How could you suspect Phyllis of doing anything that 
 is not good and pure?" exclaimed Dorothy, starting up 
 from her seat and beginning to walk up and down the
 
 84 Dorothy Visits Her Aunt. 
 
 room with hand interlocked. "Phyllis was married to 
 this Trevelyan at Sheffield last November." 
 
 "Why did you not tell me she was married?" 
 
 "It was a secret, Aunt Dorothea. He made her prom- 
 ise to let no one know. I only learned the truth last night. 
 And he has cruelly, shamefully deceived her. Two 
 months ago she was informed that when he first met her 
 he was already married, and when she taxed him with it 
 he did not deny it." 
 
 "You mean to say," Mrs. Knight put in, looking harder 
 than ever, "that your sister is not the wife of this mys- 
 terious person ; that she is, in fact, not married at all ?" 
 
 Dorothy bowed her head, her cheeks hot with blushes 
 for the undeserved shame which shadowed her beloved 
 Phyllis. 
 
 "Then I tell you," exclaimed her aunt, rising also and 
 speaking with much emphasis and vigor, "that your sister 
 is deceiving you, and that she has not been married at all ? 
 Bah ! Do not tell me a man commits bigamy for the sake 
 of a girl like Phyllis Knight ! She was never a favorite 
 with me she was too vain and too pert. You and your 
 father spoiled her. Now you, if you had a little more 
 embonpoint, would be a very pretty girl indeed. But 
 Phyllis no! It is a fairy tale, this unknown husband 
 and this Sheffield marriage. I have no sympathy, I, with 
 such girls. A girl who is a lady should know how to 
 make herself respected. If she fails, peste ! men are men, 
 and she knows what she has to expect. Look at me. I 
 have been beautiful, much, much more beautiful than your 
 Phyllis, and I have also been eighteen and alone in the 
 world. But do you think I would have let a man make a 
 fool of me? No! And nor would you, my niece, Doro- 
 thea ! As to Phyllis, I cannot sympathize, and I will not 
 see her. She is the daughter of her father, and a disgrace 
 to you and to me. You will do well to put her into a
 
 Dorothy Visits Her Aunt. 85 
 
 hospital and forget all about her, lest she make you lost 
 and bad like herself !" 
 
 "Stop!" cried Dorothy, trembling with anger. "I can- 
 not allow you or any one to speak in such terms of my sis- 
 ter Phyllis. What has happened to her might happen to 
 any woman, however good to you yourself as well as any 
 other. The sanction of the church is the one and only 
 safeguard a woman has against a man's wickedness. 
 Such a man as this Trevelyan knows quite well that a 
 woman like Phyllis would never make her wrongs public 
 by prosecuting him for bigamy. She is too gentle and too 
 soft-hearted to desire the punishment of any one she has 
 once loved and trusted, however much he may have in- 
 jured her. She cannot hate as I can. But every true 
 woman should surely help and protect her now, when by 
 a man's wickedness her heart has been broken and her 
 whole life spoiled." 
 
 "A man's wickedness," Mrs. Knight repeated im- 
 patiently. "Bah ! You speak as a child, my niece. That 
 sort of wickedness is half-and-half. I have not a doubt 
 Phyllis has deceived you. She went on the stage, she got 
 into bad company, and she invented all this charming little 
 story of a false marriage to account for the result. It is 
 a fairy tale. If she had really been married, think you 
 she would have kept it a secret from you? I know hu- 
 man nature girl's nature. If a girl gets an offer, presto ! 
 she writes to a hundred particular friends ; but if she gets 
 married, even if it is to a pauper with one eye, what does 
 she do but advertise in all the papers, and send out cake 
 and cards so that all the world may know she has at 
 length got a husband ? No ! Phyllis is a silly girl, and a 
 bad girl, but her lies are of no use with me !" 
 
 "I will not stay to hear my sister insulted !" cried Miss 
 Knight, her eyes ablaze. "Good-by, Aunt Dorothea, and 
 I will pray God to send you a little charity."
 
 86 Dorothy Visits Her Aunt. 
 
 "Ah, a propos! Charity is what you came for," re- 
 turned her aunt, getting angry, too. "Beggars, Doro- 
 thy, must not be choosers of the words they receive with 
 their gifts." 
 
 "I would rather we both should starve than that we 
 should accept anything from you now," retorted the 
 younger woman, and without another word she had 
 walked down the two flights of stairs and out at the front 
 door of thirty-seven Belvidere Gardens in rather less time 
 than it takes to relate it, leaving her great-aunt in a state 
 of high indignation and considerable astonishment. 
 
 To her credit, be it said, that after forty years of pam- 
 pering and flattery, Mrs. Knight felt exceedingly uncom- 
 fortable on the subject of her young relative, and not 
 without a secret admiration for the girl who, while pos- 
 sessing on her own confession less than three pounds in 
 the world, could yet resent so fiercely any attack on her 
 sister's good name from the woman whose help she came 
 to crave. 
 
 Within a very few minutes of Dorothy's hasty depart- 
 ure, one of Mrs. Knight's servants was sent in search of 
 her, with orders to bring her back immediately. His 
 mistress meanwhile wrote out a check for fifty pounds, 
 payable to Miss Dorothy Knight, which gift, however, 
 was never destined to reach that young lady. The lazy 
 and supercilious footman greatly resented being sent out 
 on Sunday evening in chase after a shabbily-dressed 
 young woman ; he did not see her, nor did he try to do so, 
 but he returned after half-an-hour's pleasant stroll in the 
 park to report that she had completely disappeared. 
 
 Mrs. Knight for once failed to enjoy her dinner, and 
 on many subsequent days her thoughts flew to the two 
 sisters, leading their struggling, starving existence in the 
 little cottage near Hammersmith, in which unfashionable 
 neighborhood Mrs. Knight's fat carriage horses were fre-
 
 Dorothy Visits Her Aunt. 87 
 
 quently to be seen about that time. But although she told 
 herself that the girl's pride would of a certainty give way, 
 and that they would then again apply to her, her expecta- 
 tions were unfulfilled, and to the last day of her life she 
 was never fated to again behold Harold Knight's orphan 
 children. 
 
 As to Dorothy, long before she reached home she knew 
 what a mistake she had made, and bitterly reproached her- 
 self for letting her temper get the better of her judgment. 
 She tried to comfort herself by determining to devote the 
 whole of the next day to seeking fresh employment in 
 drawing. It was also absolutely necessary, as she told 
 herself with a shudder of repugnance and disgust, that 
 she must find out where this Sergius Trevelyan was hid- 
 ing, and have an interview with him. He must be forced 
 to give names, dates and proofs with regard to his pre- 
 vious marriage, if such indeed had taken place at all. His 
 real name must also be found out and his relatives com- 
 municated with, so that he might be forced to provide for 
 Phyllis. Perhaps even his wife, Millie Clements, whom 
 he had met on a singing tour in America, might be in- 
 duced to divorce him since desertion and bigamy could be 
 proved, in which case Phyllis might still be legally mar- 
 ried to him. 
 
 "If, indeed, she desired such a position," Dorothy 
 thought, with lip curled in disdain. "For my part, I 
 would die rather than accept the name of such a cur. But 
 my poor darling does not take things as I do." 
 
 The nurse chosen by Dr. Morgan arrived that same 
 evening, a kindly, business-like person, in whom Dorothy 
 at once placed entire confidence. Phyllis was desperately 
 ill; youth and a clear health record were upon her side, 
 but Dr. Morgan's questions elicited the fact that Mrs. 
 Harold Knight had died of heart disease, and there were 
 sure signs of heart weakness in her younger daughter.
 
 88 Dorothy Visits Her Aunt. 
 
 Half the night Dorothy spent in her sister's room, and 
 half on her knees at her own bedside. She dared not put 
 her prayer for her sister's life into articulate speech; a 
 superstitious terror lest her entreaty should seem impious 
 restrained her. If such terrible misfortunes had unde- 
 servedly fallen upon Phyllis in spite of her sister's nightly 
 prayers, might she not just as undeservedly, as it seemed 
 to one who loved her, be cut off from life itself ? 
 
 But with a hearty vindictiveness worthy of the days 
 of kings and chronicles, Miss Knight prayed that Sergius 
 Trevelyan might be punished for his crime, and that so 
 hard a measure, and more also, might be meted out to 
 him.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A NEW CAREER. 
 
 Shortly before the doors of the British Museum were 
 opened to the students and readers, among whom Aylmer 
 Read took his place to watch eagerly for Miss Knight's 
 appearance, that young lady was already on her way to 
 Smithfield on foot, economy being now, more than ever, 
 a necessity with her. 
 
 All thought, save of her sister's welfare, she resolutely 
 banished from her mind. She was ready to undertake 
 any work, however exhausting, to earn money for 
 Phyllis' needs; but, alas! the manager of the firm who 
 had so long employed her and other ladies on hand-paint- 
 ing could only reiterate his former statement that "just at 
 present, at any rate, no more work could be given out." 
 
 "I don't mind doing it for much less pay," suggested 
 Dorothy timidly, with tears in her eyes. 
 
 "Very sorry, but we have a great deal more hand- 
 painted stuff on our hands than we know how to dispose 
 of. The demand for it has almost ceased. Your designs 
 were the best we had. You will easily get other work to 
 do. We will give you any reference in our power." 
 
 Sick at heart, Dorothy left the warehouse and repaired 
 to an address furnished her of another firm. Here the 
 same ill success awaited her. It was too late in the sea- 
 son, she was told, to take on new hands. If she called in 
 the autumn something might perhaps be done. After a 
 third venture, which brought her a recommendation to 
 "try painting in oils instead of water-colors," Dorothy
 
 90 A New Career. 
 
 set her pale face westward with tears burning under her 
 eyelids. 
 
 She had not the least idea what to do to raise the neces- 
 sary funds, and yet the money must be found. A des- 
 pairing rage against the man who brought her sister to 
 this helpless condition filled her heart. If she could find 
 him, stir even his craven soul to remorse and shame, it 
 would be something achieved. Dorothy knew very little 
 about the stage, but she was aware of the existence and 
 the addresses of several theatrical agencies, and it oc- 
 curred to her that through the help of these she might 
 happily be able to track down Mr. Sergius Trevelyan. 
 
 Down Chancery lane she turned from Holborn in the 
 moist, still warmths of a mid-summer noon. She was hot 
 and tired ; she had breakfasted long ago off dry toast and 
 tea, and had tramped many miles since that time ; but her 
 youth and perfect health triumphed over fatigue, and nine 
 men out of every ten who passed her turned again to look 
 after the beautiful figure in worn blue serge, and the 
 lovely, troubled face under the cheap, shady black hat. 
 
 The dramatic agent's office was in the neighborhood of 
 Covent Garden, up a flight of stairs. Round about the 
 doors and in the passage outside, a few men and a great 
 many young women were assembled, most of them talk- 
 ing and laughing with much apparent gayety, and indulg- 
 ing freely in the slang of their profession, which to Doro- 
 thy was absolutely unintelligible. 
 
 "I hadn't got a dress, my dear, so I just faked one." 
 "When I sang that song they positively got up and eat 
 it!" "Study! Not me! I never study a part for a 
 matinee. I just wing it." "Stupidest part you ever read, 
 my boy. As it was given to me it hadn't a laugh in it. 
 But I've worked a few old pantomime wheezes, and I for- 
 get a little more of the author every night, so it's grow- 
 ing really funny.'*' "Yes, I was afraid they'd guy the
 
 A New Career. 91 
 
 piece the first night, and a fortnight later, when I passed 
 the doors, and saw : 'House full ; standing room only,' I 
 knew it was on its last legs. But I'm sorry you're out of a 
 shop." 
 
 Most of the young women wore fair hair, rather dark 
 at the roots, and all of them had dark eyebrows and eye- 
 lashes. Perhaps they were not more painted than are 
 fashionable London belles toward the end of a season ; but 
 there was a difference. The "make-up" was cheaper in 
 quality, and there was less attempt to conceal it. All were 
 gayly, in some cases very tastefully, dressed, and the 
 greater portion of the faces showed unusual vivacity and 
 intelligence. Dorothy's appearance excited some curi- 
 osity, for those present had nothing to do but gossip and 
 stare about them, with their eyes ever and anon fixed upon 
 the private door of the room where the agent whose ser- 
 vics they had come to seek was understood to be shut in 
 with a manager. 
 
 An elderly man, with a yellowish, greasy-looking face, 
 who was seated in a corner of the well-filled room, with an 
 air of deep dejection, presently rose, and with much polite- 
 ness, gently insisted that Dorothy should take his chair. 
 The girl was very tired, and gratefully accepted the atten- 
 tion. From the talk of those about her she presently 
 learned, to her great surprise, that the elderly man in 
 question, who had taken up his position in a farther corner 
 of the room, leaning gloomily against the wall with his 
 arms folded, was the "funniest actor in London," who 
 had just made a hit in a preposterous character in bur- 
 lesque, and who every night caused shrieks of laughter by 
 his whimsical antics. 
 
 While she was still gazing curiously across the room at 
 the sad-faced comedian, the outer door of the waiting- 
 room opened with a flourish, and a gentleman entered, at 
 sight of whom the clerk rose obsequiously, and coming
 
 92 A New Career. 
 
 from behind his desk, began to carry on a whispered con- 
 versation with him. 
 
 From where they stood, Dorothy, seated near the door 
 leading to the inner office, was immediately within their 
 line of sight; both men looked at her as they spoke, the 
 new-comer, who was by far the taller and more distin- 
 guished-looking of the two, with a fixed intentness which 
 was somewhat decomposing. She, on her part, looked 
 up and back at him, irritated at last by the fixity of his 
 gaze. Meeting his eyes gave her nothing of that sense of 
 friendliness and security, and even of previous acquaint- 
 ance, which she had experienced after that first exchange 
 of glances with Aylmer Read in the sculpture galleries of 
 the British Museum. The stare of this man to-day in- 
 spired in her nothing but impatience, nor was there any- 
 thing in his face which she found to be sympathetic or in- 
 teresting. 
 
 Very few women would have agreed with her in thus 
 ignoring this man's claims to be considered interesting. 
 Dressed in deep mourning, of light, well-made figure and 
 singularly graceful bearing, the gentleman who at first 
 sight was so greatly fascinated by Dorothy's beauty, was 
 himself exceptionally handsome, although of somewhat 
 effeminate and youthful appearance. In complexion he 
 was strikingly fair and very pale; his face was clean 
 shaved and regular in outline, marred only by a slight, a 
 very slight, heaviness in the red under-lip. His brilliant 
 light eyes, under lashes long and curled as a woman's, 
 looked out with a gentle, appealing expression upon the 
 world, and his close-cut hair, in color of the palest al- 
 most silvery golden, completed a very agreeable and ex- 
 ceptional tout ensemble. 
 
 Presently the two men, still in conversation, moved 
 toward the agent's door, upon the panels of which the
 
 A New Career. 93 
 
 clerk tapped with his knuckles, and in response to a loud 
 "Come in," they disappeared within the inner office. 
 
 The buzz of conversation, interrupted by the latest ar- 
 rival, recommenced at once. Nobody knew the fair man, 
 and all were exceedingly curious about him. 
 
 Was he a "society actor," or a "toff going to take out a 
 company ?" He ought certainly to be a manager from all 
 the fuss made about him. Didn't his clothes fit him beau- 
 tifully, and wasn't he a darling altogether? 
 
 "It is no good, girls," put in a jolly-looking, red-faced, 
 elderly woman to a group of girls who were discussing the 
 new-comer in the above terms. "The Johnny had no eyes 
 except for that pretty girl in blue serge over there in the 
 chair by the door." 
 
 As though to prove the truth of her observations, the 
 door of the agent's office opened at that moment, and the 
 clerk came straight to where Dorothy was sitting. 
 
 "Do you want to see Mr. Whitlock?" he inquired. 
 "And is it about an engagement?" 
 
 "It is not about an engagement," she answered, rising. 
 "But I want to see him very much. I wouldn't keep him 
 more than a minute." 
 
 "Well, he can see you now, I think, if you will just give 
 me your name." 
 
 "My name is Knight ; but Mr. Whitlock has never heard 
 of me." 
 
 When Dorothy was shown into the inner office she 
 found the agent, a small, slight man, with fine dark eyes 
 and curt, offhand manners, seated behind a desk in the 
 middle of the room, the walls of which were completely 
 covered by frame photographs of actresses in nearly 
 every possible dress and attitude. Standing with his 
 foack to her, studying these, was the fair-haired young 
 gentleman whose appearance had caused so great a flutter 
 among the ladies on the other side of the door.
 
 94 A New Career. 
 
 Dorothy at first hesitated at sight of a third person, but 
 at a gesture of autocratic encouragement from the little 
 agent she approached the desk. A good deal to her sur- 
 prise, Mr. Whitlock shook hands with her across it. 
 
 "You don't seem to remember me," he said. "But I 
 got you your first engagement at the Thespian theatre 
 rather more than two years ago." 
 
 "That was my sister, Miss Phyllis Knight." 
 
 "Great Scott! What a likeness! I can see now, 
 though, you're much better looking. Well, Miss Knight, 
 what can I do for you? Things theatrical are in a very 
 bad way. By-the-bye, how is your sister?" 
 
 "Very, very ill. Dying, I am afraid," Dorothy an- 
 answered in a low voice. "But I haven't come to talk 
 about either my sister or myself, Mr. Whitlock. I know 
 your time is valuable, and that very many people are 
 waiting to see you. I have come to ask if you can give 
 me the address of a Mr. Sergius Trevelyan, who was a 
 member of the 'Settled for Life' company until about two 
 or three months ago." 
 
 Mr. Whitlock leaned back in his chair and gave a 
 short laugh. 
 
 "A good many people have asked me for Mr. Sergius 
 Trevelyan's address lately," he observed. "I suppose he 
 borrowed money from your sister, as he did from most 
 people? I'm sorry I can't help you. I've got a West 
 End address which the fellow put on our books a few 
 years ago, but where he is now I haven't the slightest 
 idea." 
 
 "I beg your pardon !" 
 
 Dorothy and the agent turned in the direction of the 
 third occupant of the room, who now advanced and 
 gravely bowed to Dorothy. 
 
 "The Honorable Darcy Derrick Miss Knight," put 
 in the agent.
 
 A New Career. 95 
 
 The Hon. Darcy Derrick looked very earnestly at the 
 girl as he returned her chilling acknowledgment of the 
 introduction. 
 
 "Pardon me for breaking in upon a private conversa- 
 tion," he said gently; "but I could not help hearing the 
 name of a certain scampish distant connection of mine 
 a very distant connection by marriage only," he added 
 quickly, catching an unmistakable look of aversion' on 
 Dorothy's face. "I hope you will believe that I am in 
 no way proud of knowing such a man. But I think I 
 can tell you what has become of him." 
 
 "Where is he, then?" asked the agent. 
 
 "First let me tell you what I know about him. I have 
 been out of England for some years, as you may have 
 heard, and only returned on my father, Lord Derrick's, 
 death, not long ago. Before I left Italy I received a let- 
 ter from this fellow, Trevelyan, whom I had never heard 
 of before, claiming my help to pull him out of some hole 
 he had got into, on the score of being the son of a third 
 cousin of my mother's, or something of that sort. I un- 
 derstood from his letter that he was an actor, and he 
 asked for money to enable him to go out to America to 
 join his wife, who, he said, was earning enough money 
 there in some singing company to keep him." 
 
 "Ah !" burst from Dorothy's lips in uncontrollable in- 
 dignation. 
 
 "Well, did he go ?" asked Mr. Whitlock. 
 
 "Presumably. Anyhow, his next letter, which I re- 
 ceived about two months ago, bore the Liverpool post- 
 mark, and in it he thanked me for enabling him to book 
 a berth on an Allan line steamer, which sailed early the 
 following morning." 
 
 "Then Mr. Darcy has been able to tell you just what 
 you want to know," remarked Mr. Whitlock briskly, 
 turning to Dorothy. "I'm afraid it is only throwing
 
 96 A New Career. 
 
 good money after bad to try and dun the fellow. I've 
 had several applications about him, chiefly from young 
 ladies to whom he had promised marriage." 
 
 The agent laughed, but Mr. Derrick looked much dis- 
 tressed. 
 
 "A man cannot be responsible for the faults of his 
 mother's fourth cousin," he said "Still, if I had the least 
 idea of the fellow's antecedents, I certainly wouldn't have 
 helped him to get out of the country." 
 
 Mr. Whitlock meanwhile was crossing the name of the 
 defaulting Sergius Trevelyan out of his books. 
 
 "Is there nothing else I can do for you, Miss Knight?" 
 he asked, for he saw the young lady turn toward the door. 
 
 "No, thank you. Good morning." 
 
 Her hand was on the door when the Hon. Darcy whis- 
 pered something quickly in the agent's ear. The latter's 
 face at once dropped something of its surly, bored ex- 
 pression. 
 
 "Ah, don't go just directly, please, Miss Knight; I 
 may be able to be of use to you. Would you kindly 
 wait in the next room a few minutes until I can speak to 
 you?" 
 
 Much surprised, Dorothy bowed assent and left the 
 room. After an interval of about five minutes, Mr. 
 Whitlock thrust his little dark head out of the door and 
 beckoned her into his officeagain. This time he was the 
 only occupant of the room, the Hon. Darcy having 
 passed out through the other door. 
 
 "Sit down, Miss Knight," Mr. Whitlock began, indi- 
 cating a chair with a wave of his pen, while he re- 
 sumed his former place behind the desk. "How would 
 you like to go on the stage?" 
 
 "Not at all. I have neither the wish nor the aptitude 
 for it." 
 
 "You're the first girl I ever met who didn't think she
 
 A New Career. 97 
 
 could act. Well, I'll put it another way. How would 
 you like to earn some money?" 
 
 "Very much, indeed!" 
 
 "Eight or ten pounds a week, for instance?" 
 
 Dorothy stared at him in astonishment. From her sis- 
 ter's experience she knew quite well that a guinea a week 
 was quite as much as a beginner without money, posi- 
 tion, or influence could hope for. 
 
 "Mind, it's only for a six weeks' summer tour in the 
 seaside towns," Mr. Whitlock said. "The fact is, the 
 Hon. Darcy Derrick, whom you saw here just now, has 
 come into some money on the death of his father, Baron 
 Derrick, and by way of investing it, he intends taking 
 round a company in a play he's written himself.^ 
 
 Here Mr. Whitlock stopped to laugh at what he evi- 
 dently considered a humorous notion. 
 
 "Whether he loses his money or not is his business, 
 not mine," he went on. "He has asked me to book the 
 tour and engage the company. It will be called 'Mr. 
 Darcy's Comedy Company,' on account of Lord Derrick 
 being so recently dead. The heroine's a very good part 
 at least, so the author tells me. I haven't read the 
 piece yet, but I suppose I shall have to, sooner or later, 
 for my sins, and Mr. Derrick had thought of engaging 
 Miss Ella Carisbrooke ; have you seen her? A great big, 
 handsome, yellow-haired girl, who made rather a hit by 
 her looks in that failure at the Embankment Theatre. 
 Anyhow, when he met you here this morning he thought 
 your face and figure would suit the part, and besides that 
 he seems a sentimental young gentleman, and distressed 
 to hear you had a dying sister who had been cheated out 
 of some money by that disreputable connection of his 
 he'd helped out of the country. So he's told me to offer 
 you the part of Zara, in 'Love's Right,' as he calls his con- 
 coction. As to the terms, he leaves them to you, and as,
 
 98 A New Career. 
 
 of course, you will take me for your agent in the matter, 
 on my usual ten per cent commission up to the amount 
 of the first week's salary, I should fix them at ten pounds 
 a week." 
 
 "Ten pounds a week," Dorothy repeated blankly. 
 "But, Mr. Whitlock, I can't act !" 
 
 "Lots of people make twice that in London theatres 
 who can't act and never will. If Mr. Derrick is such a 
 
 f I mean, if Mr. Derrick is willing to pay you such 
 
 terms, and can afford them, you take them, and leave the 
 public to find out whether you are worth it. Sixty 
 pounds in six weeks is something in these hard times, 
 even deducting my commission." 
 
 "But there are dresses to be got " began Dorothy, 
 
 when the agent cut her short. 
 
 "Oh, I should make him meet you about those. Tell 
 him you haven't got the money to do justice to the part 
 in the matter of dressing, and he'll shell out right 
 enough." 
 
 "Shell out?" 
 
 "Yes, plank down the oof oh, Miss Knight, you have 
 much to learn on the stage, but I really haven't time to 
 teach you. Come, is it a bargain? The Hon. Darcy is 
 coming back in half an hour to know if it is all settled. 
 He's doing the thing in style. You start rehearsing 
 Wednesday at Hastings ; rehearse ten days' open Satur- 
 day. Company travels four o'clock train to-morrow from 
 Charing Cross Station. If you call here ten o'clock to- 
 morrow morning I'll have your agreement drawn up, get 
 it stamped, and, whether you can act or whether you 
 can't, he'll have to pay you sixty pounds." 
 
 "It is impossible," cried Dorothy in bewilderment. "I 
 cannot stay away from home for ten days. It would be 
 very expensive." 
 
 "He'll pay half salaries for ten days' rehearsals, and
 
 A New Career. 99 
 
 if you agree I am authorized to give you a check for 
 whatever sum you may at present require." 
 
 "Ten pounds!" gasped Dorothy. 
 
 Visions of doctor's and nurse's fees, of port wine, soups 
 and tonics for her sister, flitted through her brain. 
 
 The agent forthwith wrote a check. 
 
 "There you are !" he said, cheerily ; "and there," hand- 
 ing her a roll of type-written sheets' in a brown paper 
 cover, "there is the part of Zara in 'Love's Right,' for you 
 to study. Call here at ten sharp to sign the contract. 
 This way out. Ta, ta, Miss Knight !" 
 
 And so, much against her intention or desire, Dorothy 
 became an actress.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 MR. DARCY'S COMliDY COMPANY. 
 
 Hastings, Brighton, Eastbourne, Margate, Ramsgate, 
 Bournemouth, and Plymouth. 
 
 The names alone, to a girl who loved the sea, and who 
 for more than three years had not feasted her eyes upon 
 it, sounded refreshing in the extreme. The last week in 
 June, the whole of July, and Bank Holiday week in Aug- 
 ust, were to be taken up by the tour. Parting from Phyl- 
 lis so soon after the sisters had been reunited was very 
 hard to Dorothy ; but Dr. Morgan had promised to look 
 in at Lockhart Cottages at least once a day, the trained 
 nurse was in every way satisfactory, and Dorothy had 
 been very careful to leave behind her fifty envelopes, al- 
 ready stamped and addressed to her at the different thea- 
 tres where she would be acting, in order that she might 
 hear daily from the nurse or Cresswell of her sister's 
 progress. 
 
 Hour after hour Phyllis lay perfectly still, listening to 
 the nurse's pleasant voice as she read aloud novel after 
 novel from a neighboring library to which Dorothy had 
 paid a subscription. Extreme weakness, utter collapse of 
 the nerves, and an anaemic condition of the heart and 
 brain, such were the terms in which Dr. Morgan spoke 
 of her case; perfect rest from all trouble, worry, and 
 excitement, careful nursing and nourishing food, were the 
 chief things needed. She hardly seemed to understand 
 when Dorothy, trying to laugh through her tears, waved 
 a banknote before her eyes, and whispered that she was
 
 Mr. Darcy's Comedy Company. 101 
 
 going away "just for a day or two, to earn plenty more 
 money very easily." 
 
 "So have just what you like, my darling. I have 
 brought you some strawberries and a great bunch of 
 roses and white lilies. We are quite rich now, and what- 
 ever you want you shall have." 
 
 As Phyllis's eyes turned to the flowers the shadows on 
 her face deepened. 
 
 "Lilies are not for me," she murmured, and then re- 
 lapsed into silence, staring at the flowers, and apparently 
 oblivious of Dorothy's presence. 
 
 But when, on the day following, the moment of part- 
 ing came, and Dorothy, beautiful in new clothes, bent 
 over her to kiss her good-by, Phyllis threw her thin arms 
 around her sister's neck in sudden excitement. 
 
 "You are going to find him, are you not?" she whis- 
 pered eagerly. "To put things right and prove that I 
 am married. Oh, Dolly, prove that, prove that !" 
 
 It was a cry of anguish which rang out in the last 
 words. Tears rushed from Dorothy's eyes. How could 
 she tell her of Sergius's flight to America, and, above all, 
 of his statement that he was "going back to his wife" 
 there ? 
 
 Embracing Phyllis fondly, she laid her head back upon 
 the pillows. 
 
 "I will do all I can, you know, darling," she said. "I 
 am only going away because of you, because I want you 
 to have everything you require. You will forgive me for 
 leaving you, will you not ?" 
 
 Phyllis's soft eyes were fixed upon her with a look of 
 appeal in them, which it cut Dorothy to the heart to see. 
 All her love was lavished on her sister, and Dorothy's 
 was a nature strong both to love and to hate. In those 
 crucial years of a woman's life, from seventeen to twenty, 
 when distant thoughts of love-making and romance creep
 
 102 Mr. Darcy's Comedy Company. 
 
 into a young maid's day-dreams, making her soft and 
 self-conscious, Dorothy's mind had been perforce ab- 
 sorbed by the problem of how to live, how to make 
 enough money to feed, clothe, and keep a roof over the 
 little household in Lockhart Cottages. That was clearly 
 her first duty, and left her no leisure for dreaming. But 
 on Phyllis, whose nature was weaker, and who had always 
 been a little spoiled, the burden of responsibility had never 
 been allowed to fall, and even now, as she lay exhausted 
 upon her pillows, with clouded brain and sad eyes fixed 
 upon her sister, the comforting thought crept into her 
 soul that Dorothy would make it all right, just as Dor- 
 othy had miraculouly produced bank-notes when money 
 was most needed. 
 
 Dorothy would prove her marriage, would even turn 
 Sergius from the error of his ways, and force him to jus- 
 tify Phyllis's first belief in him, and with this hope at her 
 heart the invalid's eyes closed in sleep. 
 
 On that same memorable day when Dorothy started 
 on her stage career, she was destined to behold again the 
 only man who had ever so far inspired in her any strong 
 feelings of interest. Even to herself she would hardly 
 own her disappointment, when, as she drove in the un- 
 wonted glory of a cab toward Charing Cross Station, she 
 caught sight of the tall, broad-shouldered figure of Ayl- 
 mer Read entering the post office by Trafalgar Square, 
 and could not, by the intentness of her gaze in his direc- 
 tion, make him turn and see her. In all probability the 
 entire course of her future life and of Aylmer's also would 
 have been altered could she have succeeded in attracting 
 his attention. Had she only known it, he was buying a 
 post office order to send to that same provincial photo- 
 grapher who had offered to supply him with other por- 
 traits of "Mrs. Sergius Trevelyan, nee Miss Phyllis 
 Knight." Even if he was not fated to meet her again at
 
 Mr. Darcy's Comedy Company. 103 
 
 the Museum, even if she was the wife of another man, 
 that was no reason why he should not feast his eyes upon 
 the features of his ideal, however uncomplimentary the 
 camera had been in reproducing her charms. Hence his 
 visit to the post office, with a view to buying pictures of 
 Dorothy's sister, while Dorothy herself was passing in a 
 cab within a few yards of him. 
 
 He had only to turn his head to see her, looking pret- 
 tier than he had ever seen her look yet, in a ready-made 
 gown of tweed, bought in High Street, Kensington, on 
 the previous day for the modest sum of two guineas and a 
 half, and easily fitted to her supple figure. More than 
 that, she, being a creature of moods, had by this time ex- 
 perienced a revulsion of feeling in his favor, and after ve- 
 hemently hating all men for her sister's sake during the 
 course of about sixty hours, had suddenly veered round 
 and decided that some men were possibly not quite so bad 
 as others, and that among the "not-so-bads" Aylmer 
 Read might be counted. 
 
 The Hastings train started at four o'clock. It wanted 
 yet five-and-twenty minutes to that time, as Dorothy saw 
 by the post office clock. A strong impulse, the na- 
 ture of which she did not in the least understand, tempted 
 her to stop her cab, spring out, and, following Mr. Read 
 into the post office, hold out her hand to him and hear 
 him say "God-speed" to her journey. 
 
 She hesitated, grew hot and cold, red and white, 
 thought of his steadfast brown eyes alight with love, 
 thought of his honest directness, his chivalrous courtesy, 
 remembered the warm, close pressure of his hand at part- 
 ing, and the tone of his voice as he said : 
 
 "Only a woman can make a man happy; only a man 
 can make a woman happy." 
 
 Then, back upon her mind rushed the memory of her 
 sister's cruel story ; of love and trust betrayed, of health,
 
 104 Mr. Darcy's Comedy Company. 
 
 hope, honor, all destroyed "for one man's pleasure ;" and 
 Dorothy, being essentially feminine and unreasonable, 
 froze her heart against Aylmer Read, because Sergius 
 Trevelyan had been found wanting. 
 
 "Men's love is worth nothing at all," she whispered to 
 herself, angry at sight of her own blushes reflected in the 
 looking-glass slips of the hansom. "Women are right 
 who just marry for money or position, if they must marry 
 at all. What men call love merely depends upon our 
 good looks, and when those fade, is easily transferred to 
 some younger and prettier woman. I am glad that there 
 exist women, cruel, grasping, and clever, who can make 
 men suffer. I cannot do that, but at least they shall never 
 break my heart as they have broken my poor darling's. 
 It was contemptible of me even to think for a moment of 
 saying good-by to Mr. Read, who would only have 
 amused his colleagues at his office by telling them of the 
 conquest he had made. But no man shall talk like that 
 of me!" 
 
 So Dorothy, aghast at her sister's fate, argued down 
 the promptings of her heart, and tried to persuade herself 
 that her stalwart admirer was a gay Lothario, intent on 
 subjugating the fair sex, and boasting of his triumphs. 
 The opportunity of speaking to him passed, and her cab 
 turned into the station. 
 
 Here the chief members of Mr. Darcy's "Love's Right" 
 Company were assembled, and directed curious glances 
 toward Mr. Darcy's leading lady as she stepped upon the 
 platform. Among them Dorothy was glad to recognize 
 the short, stout, yellow-faced man, reported inimitably 
 funny, who had given her his chair at the agent's office, 
 who had been engaged at a high salary for this six weeks' 
 seaside tour between two London engagements. Mr. 
 Marmaduke Strutt, as he elected to call himself, or "Old 
 Marmalade," as he was affectionately termed by irrever-
 
 Mr. Darcy's Comedy Company. 105 
 
 ent friends, was of dyspeptic habit, and invariably plunged 
 in gloom. He scarcely ever in private life ventured on an 
 original remark ; but on the stage, by some strange freak 
 of Nature, his every word was productive of uproarious 
 merriment, and the dullest of audiences were cheered by 
 his performances. Apart from his stage successes, he 
 was a kindly dispositioned man, to whom the letter "h" 
 had always offered insuperable difficulties ; a great stick- 
 ler for the proprieties, and admirer of what he considered 
 "gentlemanly" and "ladylike" conduct, and an excellent 
 judge of whisky. 
 
 The "leading juvenile," as the gentleman who plays 
 young lovers is termed in stage parlance, was a very tall 
 young man, known as Ernest Devine, with plenty of "go" 
 and a defective delivery, who for ten years had delighted 
 audiences "over the water" by vigorous representations 
 of such easy and straightforward parts as Hamlet, Robert 
 Macaire, Charles Surface, Romeo, and Coupeau in 
 "Drink." With him was his wife, a small, worn-looking, 
 overdressed woman, with keen dark eyes who was ever 
 ready and willing to play anything, from Cleopatra to 
 Little Buttercup, at twenty-four hours' notice. 
 
 The aristocratic portion of the troupe was represented 
 by another married couple, Mr and Mrs. Stourton-Chepe 
 (spelled with a diphthong). To these latter Dorothy was 
 at once specially introduced, and it was implied by the 
 Hon. Darcy that their companionship would be very val- 
 uable to her. Mrs. Stourton-Chepe was a handsome 
 woman of forty, with kindly eyes and a hard voice. She 
 could never forget Mr. Stourton-Chepe's titled relations, 
 or the dreadful necessity which compelled her and her 
 husband to tour about the country "like vagrants," as she 
 pathetically expressed it. Her husband was a whimsical, 
 little, dried-up-looking gentleman of vast unsatisfied am- 
 bition. He and his wife wrangled in public and private
 
 106 Mr. Darcy's Comedy Company. 
 
 as much as it was possible for well-educated people to do, 
 and it was the general opinion that they only accepted 
 joint engagements in order that neither of them might be 
 separated from their dog, an ugly and surly fox-terrier 
 with very bad manners. 
 
 A pretty and lady-like girl named Graham, and her 
 mother, a fussy old lady, who was plainly intent on 
 match-making where the handsome young manager was 
 concerned ; and Jack Wyverley, an old friend ot the Hon. 
 Darcy's, who had earned a great reputation as an ama- 
 teur actor, and who always looked as though he were get- 
 ting over a drinking bout, completed the company, with 
 the addition of the baggageman, and the acting-manager, 
 this last being another friend of Mr. Darcy's, tall, well- 
 bred and impassive, adorned with an eyeglass and a 
 squint, and known as "Bobby Coles." 
 
 The Hon. Darcy, Mr. Coles, Mr. Wyverley, and Mr. 
 Stourton-Chepe, between them imparted an extremely 
 smart appearance to the party, and did such justice to 
 their tailors that little Mrs. Devine, unaccustomed to such 
 sartorial splendor, commented upon it to her husband. 
 
 "My word, Ernest, aren't we taking a lot of toffs about 
 the country? All of 'em look like princes of the blood, 
 don't they? You and old Marmalade are the only ones, 
 who give away the show." 
 
 Mr. Devine looked mournful. 
 
 "A d lot of amateurs," he muttered. "Look at the 
 
 leading lady, Miss Dorothy Knight! Who ever heard 
 of her, I should like to know? Of course, she's some 
 fashionable novice playing at acting for the fun of it. 
 She'll queer my best scenes, and she's so good looking 
 that our masher manager's sure to take her part. Ugh ! 
 The drama's going to the dogs. Talent never has a 
 chance now." 
 
 "Remember, Erny, dear," whispered his prudent help-
 
 Mr. Darcy's Comedy Company. 107 
 
 meet, "that we've been out of a shop three months, and 
 the screw is tip-top. Only I do wish Mr. Darcy could 
 have written in a part for Dick." 
 
 Dick was the eldest hope of the Devines, a stolid lad of 
 eleven, who from the age of two had been called upon to 
 represent comic or tragic infants of either sex indiscrimi- 
 nately, and Mrs. Devine felt distinctly aggrieved that her 
 present manager had not seen his way to introduce a 
 child's part in order to show off her son's accomplish- 
 ments. 
 
 The ladies traveled together, and Dorothy was not slow 
 in discovering that a slight but definite feeling of hostility 
 existed against her in that she was a "novice," that worst 
 of crimes in the eyes of an old "professional," and yet in- 
 trusted with the leading part. Mrs. Devine felt that she 
 ought to have played Zara. Miss Graham inclined to the 
 belief that she could both have looked and acted it, while 
 her mother was boiling with indignation at the thought 
 that a "wretched amateur" had been put over the head of 
 her Mabel, who had been playing "juvenile" parts for six 
 hardworking years. Mrs. Stourton-Chepe knew herself 
 to be out of the running where young parts were con- 
 cerned, but she was the only woman in the company ac- 
 quainted with the Hon. Darcy's reputation in society 
 where women were concerned, and although she dearly 
 loved a lord, and greatly wished to ingratiate herself with 
 Baron Derrick's second son, Dorothy's remarkable beau- 
 ty inclined Mrs. Stourton-Chepe to look upon her with 
 suspicion. No young and unattended woman had a right 
 to be so handsome. Then, too, Dorothy was not related 
 to the Houghton-Knights of Cheshire, which was a dis- 
 tinct disadvantage ; worse than that, she did not seem to 
 want to be, but plainly stated that she had "no distin- 
 guished relatives." For a\[ these things Mrs. Stourton- 
 Chepe regarded Dorothy with little favor, while she de^
 
 108 Mr. Darcy's Comedy Company. 
 
 voutly hoped the girl would not "take it into her head to 
 flirt with dear Stourton. He is so impressionable where 
 a pretty face is concerned." 
 
 As to whether the women liked her or not or thought 
 about her at all, Dorothy cared not one straw. She was 
 there among them simply and solely in order to earn sixty 
 pounds to defray the expenses of her sister's illness ; she 
 meant to try her utmost to earn the money honestly, but 
 as she felt strongly convinced that under no circum- 
 stances would she ever be able to act, she knew that this 
 was probably the one and only occasion in which she 
 would be connected with the stage. This experience 
 came to her as something quite outside her life, and she 
 was so fully occupied in planning how best the money 
 could be laid out for Phyllis' advantage, that she became 
 lost in a reverie and entirely forgot her immediate sur- 
 roundings. 
 
 Hastings on a summer evening was warm with a moist 
 heat, which had lain all day in a blue-grey mist over sea 
 and land. The Stourton-Chepes gave Dorothy some ad- 
 dresses in a fashionable street near their own, but the 
 girl was so eager to save all she could from her personal 
 expenses that she walked about for over an hour until she 
 found for herself two rooms in a mean little red-brick 
 terrace at ten shillings a week t with a woman who did 
 not "object to taking in theatricals." 
 
 The question of lodgings being settled and an economi- 
 cal meal of tea and bread and butter disposed of, at nine 
 o'clock the balminess of the evening tempted Dorothy out 
 toward the sea. She did not wish to meet either mem- 
 bers of the company or visitors to the town. On the pier 
 and on the parade bevies of young women, chattering 
 and giggling, promenaded together, and endeavored by 
 shrill hilarity and many backward glances to attract the 
 wandering attention of youths in flannel suits and sand-
 
 Mr. Darcy's Comedy Company. 109 
 
 shoes, who likewise strolled in twos and threes, smoking 
 cheap tobacco. Miss Graham and her mother were tak- 
 ing a constitutional and looking out for the Hon. Darcy 
 and his two friends. Mr. Stourton-Chepe, who, to the 
 disgust of his wife, had struck up a friendship with Mar- 
 maduke Strutt, walked up and down, discussing the 
 drama with the melancholy-minded comedian, and Mr. 
 and Mrs. Devine were also on the parade, with their boy 
 Dick, who had been brought down in the hope that a 
 page-boy might be wanted for announcements, or the 
 comedy scenes lightened by juvenile acrobatic perform- 
 ances and imitations of popular actors. 
 
 But Mr. Darcy's leading lady was not among the gaily- 
 dressed, moving, chattering throng, and her absence 
 troubled her manager. The Hon. Darcy Derrick was not 
 so young or so inexperienced as he looked, and he saw 
 clearly that Miss Knight was not likely to find congenial 
 companionship among the members of the company. 
 He said as much to his two friends, Bobby Coles and Jack 
 Wyverley, as the three enjoyed an excellent dinner in the 
 best hotel on the Hastings sea front that evening. 
 
 "By Jove ! What a queen Miss Knight looked among 
 those people on the platform to-day !" he observed, after 
 a short silence, during dessert. 
 
 The other men laughed and exchanged glances. 
 
 "Gone again, eh, Darcy?" 
 
 "I hate that flippant way of talking of a woman," ex- 
 claimed the Hon. Darcy angrily. "I never think about 
 that girl without wanting to take my hat off." 
 
 "She is better looking than Ella Carisbrooke," said Mr. 
 Coles reflectively. "Better style and all that, of course, 
 and doesn't dye her hair. But Ella looks ripping from 
 the stalls, and and I don't myself care for your particu- 
 lar, ladylike sort of women on the stage. I like chic and 
 go, and I think the public does, too."
 
 no Mr. Darcy's Comedy Company. 
 
 "Don't talk about Miss Knight in the same breath with 
 Ella Carisbrooke !" cried Darcy, his Irish accent coming 
 out strongly as he became excited. "It's sacrilege." 
 
 "I agree with Bobby," put in Jack Wyverley, a short, 
 thick-set, old-young man, with a clean-shaved, red face, 
 dazzling teeth, and bloodshot blue eyes. 
 
 One of Jack Wyverley's characteristics was that after 
 he had imbibed a certain quantity of wine or spirits he 
 was invariably seized with an excess of truthfulness. 
 
 "You're just as bad as you were before you went 
 abroad, Darcy," he declared as he sipped his coffee and 
 liquer. "Five years ago you were raving about Mrs. 
 Lacy, and nobody might say before you she was anything 
 short of a cherubim. When her divorce case came on 
 last year the judge and jury weren't quite of your opinion. 
 Your periodical passions are so sultry while they last that 
 I consider it's a great pity you didn't engage Ella Caris- 
 brooke instead of Miss Knight to play in this piece of 
 yours." 
 
 "And why, pray?" 
 
 "Carisbrooke is married to old Jackson, the stage man- 
 ager at the Embankment Theatre. You'd have buzzed 
 round her without singeing your wings overmuch; her 
 language would have soon choked you off, and after a few 
 little bills for champagne and diamonds, you'd have come 
 out of it all right. But this Miss Knight appears to be a 
 very disdainful sort of young lady, and nothing less than 
 St. George's, Hanover Square, would be likely to satisfy 
 her." 
 
 "And why not, pray?" the Hon. Darcy asked again, 
 turning his lustrous eyes upon his friend unflinchingly. 
 
 Jack Wyverley stared, showed his handsome teeth in a 
 wide grin, and finished off his liqueur. 
 
 "I can only say that the future Mrs. Derrick, whoever
 
 Mr. Darcy's Comedy Company. in 
 
 she may be, will have my sincerest sympathy," he ob- 
 served enigmatically. 
 
 <4 It wouldn't be needed," protested Darcy. "No man 
 with a heart in his body can live without falling in love, 
 and if he has much heart, he falls in love often. But once 
 he meets a woman who is beautiful, refined, intellectual, 
 virtuous, and devoted to him, he always falls in love with 
 the same woman, and she is his wife." 
 
 "Here endeth the first lesson !" Mr. Coles intoned with 
 a yawn. 
 
 "It won't be Darcy's first, or his twenty-first either," 
 Wyverley asserted. 
 
 "The man who cannot love a beautiful woman isn't 
 worth knowing," retorted Darcy. "Miss Knight's figure 
 alone would make a woman with a plain face beautiful. 
 Every curve is perfection." 
 
 "Not enough flesh for me," Mr. Coles observed criti- 
 cally, as he lit a cigarette. 
 
 "Your tastes are coarse and earthy, Bobby. There is 
 something poetic and ethereal about Dorothy Knight. 
 But I'm aware that you cannot realize female loveliness 
 which weighs anything under twelve stone. The mo- 
 ment my eyes fell upon that charming girl's face at Whit- 
 lock's office, I said to myself : 'There sits the heroine for 
 my play, Zara Carewe.' " 
 
 "Let's hope she'll be able to act," Jack Wyverley sug- 
 gested. "It's an awfully risky thing trusting a leading 
 part to a beginner." 
 
 "What does it matter to me ?" inquired the Hon. Darcy 
 as he rolled himself a cigarette. "I was bound to give 
 my play to the world to show how dramas should be 
 written, and I was also bound to give myself the oppor- 
 tunity of seeing that adorable girl daily. Let's draw our 
 chairs to the window and watch the passers-by." 
 
 "On the lookout for the fajr Dorothy, eh?" laughed
 
 H2 Mr. Darcy's Comedy Company. 
 
 Coles, as the three men leaned out, smoking, from the 
 private room on the first floor of the palatial red-brick ho- 
 tel, where they had dined. 
 
 The strains of a band as it played the "Cavalleria In- 
 termezzo," then in its first emotional freshness, fell har- 
 moniously upon their ears; they had all dined well, and 
 the more or less direct admiring glances thrown by pass- 
 ing shop-girls at the three smart-looking young men in 
 evening dress, and in particular at the boyishly beautiful 
 face of Darcy, completed their sense of bodily satisfac- 
 tion. Through the crowds below them at that moment a 
 woman was passing, at whom all the men and a few wo- 
 men here and there turned to gaze with interest. In 
 movement she was exceptionally graceful, and in face and 
 figure too beautiful to walk about alone in an English 
 town, it being characteristic of a section of the male popu- 
 lation in England that they cannot distinguish between 
 those ladies who desire their attentions and those others 
 who do not. 
 
 More than one specimen of 'Any in a blazer had al- 
 ready turned in his course to follow Miss Knight in her 
 rapid walk toward the quieter portion of the sea front. 
 In her shabby old serge gown and dowdy hat and veil, 
 her good looks had been far less conspicuous ; but now 
 the Hon. Darcy, who from his place at table had been at- 
 tentively scanning the crowd for the past hour and a half 
 in search of her, instantly recognized her from a distance, 
 and, springing from his seat, seized his hat and light over- 
 coat, and, nodding a good-by to his friends, darted down 
 the stairs and out at the hotel door on his leading lady's 
 track. 
 
 Wyverly and Coles looked at each other and burst out 
 laughing. 
 
 "He's dotty!" remarked the latter, knocking the ash 
 off his cigarette on the window ledge.
 
 Mr. Darcy's Comedy Company. 113 
 
 "Crazy Derrick, he used to be called when we were at 
 Eton together," returned Wyverley. "Before he was six- 
 teen he had offered marriage to a barmaid in Windsor, 
 and I haven't the least doubt that he made love from his 
 cradle to his nurse. The joke of it is that he's always in 
 deadly earnest, and so sentimental over it." 
 
 "He gets to be rather a bore under the circumstances," 
 yawned Bobby Coles. "He believes in himself so pro- 
 foundly, you see, and won't be laughed at while it lasts. 
 Let's have a turn on the parade and give the girls a 
 treat." 
 
 "A brandy and soda first to drink success to Darcy's 
 latest love affair," suggested Wyverley, to which his 
 friend readily assented, and the two men, exchanging 
 highly amusing anecdotes concerning their former boon 
 companion and present manager, passed presently down 
 to mingle with the crowd. 
 
 Dorothy meanwhile pursued her way toward St. Leon- 
 ards, very little troubled by the attention she excited 
 among the seaside Lotharios. A soft breeze blew from 
 the sea, and the evening air seemed full of lovemaking and 
 laughter. After three years of dull overwork and Lon- 
 don streets the change was delightful; but Dorothy 
 turned hot with self-reproach as she felt her heart grow 
 lighter. 
 
 "How can I be so unfeeling when my poor darling is 
 lying between life and death at home?" she asked her- 
 self, and the elasticity went out of her walk, the bright- 
 ness from her eyes, at the thought. 
 
 Nearing St. Leonards, she met fewer pedestrians at 
 each step until, by the time the parade was passed, the 
 archway, and the unfinished works of a new pier, night 
 was falling, and she found herself at the uttermost end 
 of the sea front, alone. Here on a solitary bench she sat. 
 with hands clasped on her knee, watching the rising moon
 
 U4 Mr. Darcy's Comedy Company. 
 
 as it tipped with silver the curled edges of the waves 
 breaking on the beach. 
 
 "Oh, ye who have your eyeballs vexed and tired, 
 Feast them upon the wideness of the sea." 
 
 The words, uttered close behind her, and echoing 
 strangely her own thoughts, made her start violently and 
 turn to find Mr. Derrick a little way behind the bench 
 upon which she was sitting. As she recognized him he 
 threw away a cigarette he was smoking and came up to 
 her. 
 
 "Forgive me for breaking in on your reverie," he said 
 gently, "but I saw you from my hotel window pass down 
 in this direction, and as you seemed to be a good deal an- 
 noyed by the impertinence of seaside loafers, I ventured 
 to follow at a humble distance as a self-constituted watch- 
 dog for the time being." 
 
 She bent her head and answered with more than a 
 touch of sarcasm in her tones : 
 
 "I am much obliged to you, Mr. Derrick. But I am 
 not accustomed to an escort/' 
 
 "I hope you are not vexed with me?" he said anxiously. 
 
 "Not at all. I must be getting back to my rooms 
 now," she said, beginning to rise from her seat. He de- 
 tained her by an appealing gesture with his hand. 
 
 "I shall think you are very angry with me if you let me 
 drive you away like that," he said. "I meant to guard 
 you in silence, but Keats' lines seemed so appropriate 
 that they slipped out in spite of me. Sit here just for a 
 few moments ; I particularly want to speak to you about 
 the part of Zara before you first read it at rehearsal to- 
 morrow." 
 
 Somewhat unwillingly Dorothy resumed her seat- The 
 Hon. Darcy's fine eyes were fixed worshipfully upon her 
 profile as he, too, sat on the bench by the sea wall, and
 
 Mr. Darcy's Comedy Company. 115 
 
 racked his brains as to how to detain her. The moon- 
 light lent to her delicate features and firmly closed mouth 
 an almost icy purity. It was certain, he told himself with 
 a throb of delight, that this girl had never in her life cared 
 for any man, and her answer when he suddenly asked her 
 how she liked her new part confirmed him in this belief. 
 
 "I really don't know how to play it, Mr. Derrick. I 
 don't understand such a woman. For instance, the way 
 in which she speaks when she first meets the hero seems 
 so very strange to me. How could she feel all that for a 
 man she'd never seen before ?" 
 
 "Can you not understand?" he asked in a very low 
 voice, which vibrated with tremulous passion, "what it is 
 to fall in love at first sight ?" 
 
 "No," she answered frankly. Then she thought of 
 Aylmer Read and blushed. 
 
 "I have read of such things, of course," she added hur- 
 riedly, "and I can understand them, I suppose, in a man, 
 but not in a woman." 
 
 "You cannot understand a woman loving?" he asked 
 in a voice still lower than before. 
 
 She turned her head and gazed at him, saw his eyes 
 dilated and shining in the moonlight, and forthwith was 
 seized with a sudden and altogether unaccountable dislike 
 which for the moment amounted almost to hatred against 
 him. 
 
 It was as though an invisible hand had helped her to 
 rise, tall and stately, from her seat, and a voice which was 
 not her own, but strangely hard and sharp, spoke for her. 
 
 "No, Mr. Darcy, I cannot understand it, nor do I care 
 to discuss the subject. Good-night."
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 HER FIRST REHEARSAL. 
 
 Darcy Derrick did not follow Miss Knight to her door, 
 as she half feared he would do, nor did he utter on this 
 occasion another word in the attempt to soften her sud- 
 den resentment against him. 
 
 In this he acted most wisely. Knowing women's ways 
 he felt certain that long before she got home Dorothy 
 would blame herself for her rudeness to her employer and 
 manager, and would be inclined to meet him in a softened 
 mood on the morrow. So he remained quietly sitting 
 upon the bench she had left, and rolled and lit another 
 cigarette while he watched his leading lady's graceful fig- 
 ure until it w^s lost to view. 
 
 "That girl is my fate," he murmured half aloud, "the 
 type I have always longed to meet, and have always 
 known I should find irresistible There is a proud purity 
 about Dorothy which would repel many men, but which 
 attracts me far more than the open coquetries of other 
 women. She is not cold ; she is full of dormant fire and 
 passion, waiting only for the kiss of the prince to wake 
 into blossoming life. And I must give that kiss." 
 
 A smile shone in his long, light eyes as he turned them 
 again to the sea, and, presently, moved by his love fancies 
 and the quiet of the scene, he drew a notebook from his 
 pocket and wrote by the aid of the moon, and to the ac- 
 companiment of the plashing waves, some graceful and 
 tender verses in Dorothy's honor. For quite a long time 
 he remained polishing and correcting them, until their
 
 Her First Rehearsal. 117 
 
 smoothness so charmed him that he experienced a pang 
 of regret because his father's recent death would prevent 
 him from sending them immediately to a magazine in his 
 own name. 
 
 Meantime Dorothy took herself to task, as he had ex- 
 pected she would, over her unnecessary abruptness to- 
 ward him. 
 
 "As he seems the only person in the company inclined 
 to be nice to me, and as he is really overpaying me ab- 
 surdly out of pure good nature," she told herself, "it is 
 simply senseless of me to let myself be prejudiced against 
 him just because he looks sheepish in the moonlight. 
 But for this windfall in the shape of an engagement, 
 where should I be now ? Seeing my poor darling starve 
 to death for want of food I could not buy. Why, I ought 
 to be ready to black Mr. Derrick's boots out of pure 
 gratitude." 
 
 Still more reason had she on the following day to ap- 
 preciate her manager's benevolence toward her. Ac- 
 cepting the engagement as she had done, suddenly and 
 without time for reflection, solely as a means to provide 
 Phyllis with medical skill and the requisite nursing and 
 luxuries, it was not until Dorothy stood in cold blood 
 upon the small, ill-lighted stage of the local theatre that 
 the amazinzg difficulty of her undertaking flashed clearly 
 upon her startled brain. 
 
 To begin with, the part of Zara Carewe was longer than 
 that of Juliet, and to the full as emotional. Even Dor- 
 othy, unaccustomed as she was to dramatic compositions, 
 realized that the part was not only intensely difficult, but 
 also very ill-written and unnatural. The heroine of 
 "Love's Right," a Venetian of high rank and matchless 
 beauty, betrothed to an English member of Parliament, 
 was supposed to meet at a reception, in the first act, an 
 irresistible Irishman, addicted to blank verse quotations,
 
 n8 Her First Rehearsal. 
 
 feeble jokes, and long tirades on the subject of his down- 
 trodden country. Unable to resist such a combination of 
 attractions, the fair Zara was supposed to love the Irish- 
 man madly at first sight, and to own the same to him in 
 speeches of Swinburnian warmth and inordinate length. 
 Snatching a lace scarf from the back of a chair, she was 
 about to elope with him in a gondola when her flight was 
 intercepted by the return of her future husband, her father 
 and other members of her family circle. Nothing much 
 occurred in the second and third acts, save an immense 
 amount of talking, but finally, the fair Zara, after two 
 years of married life with the English member of Par- 
 liament, during which time her sole solace had been read- 
 ing her old lover's political speeches in the newspapers, 
 decided for the second time to elope with him, this time 
 through a French window in the drawing-room in full 
 evening dress. The English member of Parliament, 
 much upset by overhearing the above arrangement, op- 
 portunely arrived upon the scene as his wife and the 
 Irishman passed through the shrubbery by moonlight. 
 Promptly a duel was arranged, but the lady, rushing be- 
 tween the combatants, received her husband's shot in her 
 shoulder and proceeded to die at great length immediate- 
 ly under the limelight. Her last action was to throw her- 
 self into the Irishman's arms and kiss him, whereupon 
 the wicked and tyrannical husband, making a step for- 
 ward to interfere, was waved back into his place at the 
 left-hand corner of the stage by the lofty-minded Irish- 
 man, who effusively returned the lady's kiss as she turned 
 rigid in his arms, then, raising his right hand to heaven 
 while he supported her inanimate corpse with his left, he 
 murmured, somewhat enigmatically, "Love's Right !" 
 
 At the reading of the play the Hon. Darcy Derrick had 
 hardly been able to refrain from tears at what he con- 
 ceived to be the poetic truth and beauty of the denoue-
 
 Her First Rehearsal. 119 
 
 ment. As to the rest of the company, they had stared 
 blankly at each other and devoutly hoped that a long- 
 suffering British public would refrain from personally at- 
 tacking the actors. 
 
 "It's a lot of immoral rot," Ernest Devine had confided 
 to his wife. "But luckily we've got a contract for six 
 weeks signed and stamped, and as nobody's likely to come 
 in after the first night anywhere, we may escape catcalls." 
 
 But to the author, Mr. Devine spoke otherwise. 
 
 "It'll shape all right, I daresay, when the leading lady's 
 part's cut down a bit," he observed. "But my scenes 
 want a lot of working up. Couldn't you manage to let 
 me die, too, in the last act ? Like Romeo and Juliet, you 
 know. I've got a very realistic Romeo death which 
 always fetched 'em." 
 
 But the Hon. Darcy could not see his way to altering a 
 line of his masterpiece. 
 
 "I haven't the slightest doubt," he said sweetly, "that 
 the critics will hound it off the stage, and the ignorant, 
 pig-headed public will laugh in the wrong place. But by 
 the end of another fifty years or so they will be clamoring 
 for just such a play all pure passion, poetry, and senti- 
 ment, the hero swayed by the two great emotions a man 
 should feel, love of a woman, and love of his country no 
 vulgar plot, or trivial incidents, no more trite moralitv 
 preaching, but beautiful souls working out their destiny 
 oblivious of the world of fools outside that is drama. 
 And long after my play has been hissed off the boards the 
 world will find it out." 
 
 At the first rehearsal Miss Knight greatly increased 
 her manager's regard for her, by being the only member 
 of the company who did not apply to have her part altered. 
 She was too intent upon learning her words, and trying 
 to understand them to think of anything else, and her 
 serious intentness and parrot-like repetition of the lines
 
 120 Her First Rehearsal. 
 
 she had already committed to heart, were in marked con- 
 trast to the flippant and indifferent demeanor of the other 
 members of the cast, "not one of whom had glanced at his 
 or her part since the reading of the play in London a few 
 days before. 
 
 A dead silence fell suddenly upon Dorothy's fellow- 
 players as Zara made her first appearance, holding her 
 brown paper covered book face dowriward, proceeded to 
 recite, in slow, laborious tones, and blushing deeply from 
 self-consciousness, the heroine's opening speech. 
 
 "At last, at last, I am alone ! Ah, how my brain burns ! 
 Since leaning from my casement yester eve, I per- 
 ceived in a gondola that face, those eyes upturned toward 
 me, all the current of my life has turned, and stormy 
 waters seem ever and again to rush over my soul. This 
 marriage with Herbert Carewe, which up to now I have 
 regarded with indifference, fills me with dread, with loath- 
 ing ! Ah, could I but see that face again, to read my fate 
 there !" 
 
 These lines, enunciated with the halting consciousness 
 of a student of Mavor's spelling book by a lovely young 
 Englishwoman, who obviously felt that she was making 
 a fool of herself, caused an irresistible smile to spread 
 over the faces of the "Love's Right" Company. Only 
 Mrs. Graham from her chair at the side of the stage be- 
 trayed no amusement, but gave vent to her indignation in 
 a snort of disapproval. 
 
 "A raw amateur," she muttered to Mrs. Stourton- 
 Chepe, who was seated near her. "An incompetent be- 
 ginner in the leading part, and my Mabel, who has had 
 splendid notices in every newspaper in England, put off 
 with a mere walking lady !" 
 
 "My dear Mrs. Graham," her companion observed in 
 her customary acidulated tones, "preferment on the stage 
 does not go by merit. Miss Knight is very beautiful,
 
 Her First Rehearsal. 121 
 
 and that will no doubt, stand her in lieu of both ability and 
 experience." 
 
 "Beautiful!" repeated Mrs. Graham indignantly. "Do 
 you really call that beauty? She looks to me as if she 
 had been starving herself, as so many foolish young 
 women do nowadays, in order to keep their waist small. 
 But that can't be her reason, for her waist is quite un- 
 usually large even for a woman of her height. She must 
 measure fully two inches more round the waist than my 
 Mabel, and Mabel never tightlaces. Her slenderness, 
 which has been so much admired, is quite natural. I was 
 just as slim when I was a girl, if not slimmer." 
 
 "I believe large waists are the fashion nowadays," re- 
 turned Mrs. Stourton-Chepe, scanning Dorothy critically 
 through her double eyeglass. "Miss Knight is undoubt- 
 edly very handsome, both in face and figure, but, poor 
 girl, her attempts at acting are positively ludicrous." 
 
 After the rehearsal Marmaduke Strutt, who was en- 
 gaged as stage manager, took Mr. Derrick aside for a 
 short confabulation with Ernest Devine. 
 
 "It won't do, Mr. Darcy !" he said, shaking his head 
 oracularly. "It won't do to try a novice in the part of 
 Zara. The whole piece is so well, so unusual, and so 
 particularly risky that only the most careful and experi- 
 enced acting can pull it through. Now, Miss Knight ap- 
 pears to be an amiable and charming young lady, but she 
 simply doesn't know how to act. Zara requires an actress 
 of experience. Why not let her change parts with Miss 
 Graham or Mrs. Devine?" 
 
 "My excellent Strutt," returned his manager, tapping 
 him affectionately on the shoulder, "in the domains of 
 low comedy you are unequalled. I know of no one like 
 you for sitting on a chimney-pot hat and looking at it 
 in bland surprise, or for missing your chair and alighting 
 on the floor, or any such time-honored incentives to
 
 122 Her First Rehearsal. 
 
 British hilarity. But you really must let me, the author, 
 know the kind of personality I want for my heroine. And 
 let me assure you I do not want a little round-faced, 
 plump, wasp-waisted milliner's apprentice like Miss Gra- 
 ham, or a middle-aged shrew like the excellent Mother 
 Devine." 
 
 "Miss Knight will spoil your play, sir." 
 
 "Miss Knight realizes my ideal." 
 
 Mr. Strutt shrugged his shoulders and walked away. 
 Possibly he might have cherished resentment against 
 Dorothy, regarding her from the ordinary professional 
 standpoint as a conceited amateur, who was crowding out 
 experienced artistes to air her own incompetency, but that, 
 later on in that same day, he met her on the pier and held 
 some conversation with her which altogether changed his 
 views. 
 
 "I know you thought me very bad to-day, Mr. Strutt," 
 the girl said humbly. "I had no idea acting was such a 
 difficult business." 
 
 "Most stage-struck young ladies think it the easiest 
 thing out," the old actor observed stiffly. 
 
 "But I am not stage-struck," she said, turning her 
 clear, gray eyes upon him. "What made you think so, 
 Mr. Strutt?" 
 
 The comedian hummed and ha'd a little. 
 
 "Meeting you at Whitlock's agency," he said at last, 
 "and afterward here engaged to play the leading part in 
 this er drama, I naturally supposed that, like many 
 another pretty young lady who has grown tired of her 
 luxurious home, you had adopted the stage with the idea 
 of becoming a Bernhardt without either temperament or 
 training." 
 
 "Indeed, no!" she exclaimed earnestly. "I never 
 dreamed of going on the stage when I went to see Mr. 
 Whitlock on business of quite another kind. And when
 
 Her First Rehearsal. 123 
 
 he suggested that I should play this part I told him again 
 and again that I couldn't act until " 
 
 "Until you let yourself be persuaded? Well, well, 
 young ladies are naturally vain and fond of excitement 
 and change, and no doubt it will be an amusing experience 
 to you. But do you ever think, Miss Knight, of the hard- 
 working and needy young actresses whom the freaks and 
 caprices of rich young ladies like you keep from earning 
 their daily bread ?" 
 
 She looked at him with contracted brows and tear-filled 
 eyes. 
 
 "Mr. Strutt," she said suddenly in a low voice, "there 
 is something I must tell you, although you are almost a 
 stranger, and it concerns my private affairs. Instead of 
 being a rich young lady, I have had no money but what I 
 have earned for more than three years ; and I have taken 
 this engagement because my sister, whom I love more 
 than anything in the world, is very ill, and I want money 
 to buy her all she needs. You won't think so hardly of me 
 now, will you ?" 
 
 Marmaduke Strutt looked at her, read the truth of her 
 words in her face, and a sympathetic moisture came into 
 his eyes, too. For some minutes they promenaded the 
 pier side by side in silence. Then he turned to her and 
 said, very gently and reverently : 
 
 "I beg your pardon, Miss Knight. If I can in any way 
 help you with your part, you would be pleasing me very 
 much by consulting me." cr 
 
 After that little talk, the stage manager ceased to com- 
 plain of her, and from his long experience he was able to 
 give Dorothy many valuable hints in the technical part of 
 her work on such subjects as stage gesture, the pitch of 
 her voice, and other necessary points ignored by the stage 
 novice. 
 
 As to making her act, that was beyond him. As she
 
 124 Her First Rehearsal. 
 
 herself had surmised, Dorothy had no trace of the his- 
 trionic temperament. Although possessed of exception- 
 ally deep feeling and capable of going to extreme lengths 
 in the direction of either loving or hating, she was neither 
 amorous nor expansive. As a rule r the more she felt the 
 less she was likely to discourse on the subject, and the 
 struggle for life of the past three years had strengthened 
 and confirmed her in a habit of self-repression which, per- 
 haps, had not been originally a part of her nature. Until 
 this point of her life she had had, as she herself phrased it, 
 "no time for love affairs," and the feeling of liking and 
 interest with which Aylmer Read had inspired her was, so 
 far, the nearest approach to sentiment that had touched 
 her heart. The strain of keeping the little household at 
 Lockhart Cottages together, the constant anxiety as to 
 whether the rent and bills would be met, the incessant 
 work, and the feeling of grave responsibility which had 
 devolved upon her at little more than sixteen years of age, 
 had, to all appearance, changed a high-spirited, impulsive 
 schoolgirl into a thoughtful, serious and self-relying 
 woman. Yet in many ways Mr. Darcy's leading lady was 
 as guilelessly ignorant of the world as a child. All chance 
 of social pleasures, flirtations, dances and diversions had 
 been lost to the sisters before they had reached the age for 
 properly enjoying them, and alike by their temperaments 
 and education, they had been debarred from the transient 
 love affairs w ;h chance acquaintances which are the solace 
 of girls in a k nj . H Nation of life. 
 
 To the ill-written "^d rhapsodical part of Zara Carewe, 
 therefore, Miss Knignt brought inexperience of the pas- 
 sion of love, a keen sense of the ridiculous, a distaste for 
 acting, a preoccupied mind, and a total ignorance of the 
 requirements of the stage. Played by an actress of gen- 
 ius, the absurdities of the part might have disappeared in 
 the opportunities it afforded an emotional artiste of "let-
 
 Her First Rehearsal. 125 
 
 ting herself go." But as carefully recited by a beautiful 
 novice, Zara Carewe was comical where she was not tedi- 
 ous, and no attempt was made by the other players in 
 "Love's Right" to conceal their opinion of the leading 
 lady's performance. 
 
 "I wonder old Marmalade puts up with her," Devine de- 
 clared. "If I were stage manager I'd order her off the 
 boards. It's an insult to experienced artists to ask them 
 to support such an exhibition." 
 
 "Oh, she's mashed old Marmalade," returned his wife 
 snappishly. "That's why he lets her off so easy. Dick 
 has met them out walking together twice lately. I can't 
 think why she should take up with the silly old man, un- 
 less it's a try-on to make the manager jealous." 
 
 "She's a deep one, that's my opinion," said her husband. 
 "She knows as well as we do that Mr. Darcy is the Hon. 
 Darcy Derrick, with only an invalid brother between him 
 and the title, and that he came into a pile of money when 
 his father died. It's my belief, for all her Puritanical airs, 
 that Miss Dorothy Knight's come to this tour simply and 
 solely to hook him." 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Stourton-Chepe were of the same opinion, 
 for which reason the latter frequently invited Miss Knight 
 to tea, and entertained her by lamentations on th^ poorness 
 and meanness of the rooms in which hard fate compelled 
 her temporarily to reside. 
 
 "These terrible antimacassars, and wax flowers, and 
 horsehair sofas set one's teeth on edge," she complained. 
 "I must really apologize for inviting any one to see me in 
 such a place." 
 
 "It is quite a palace, in point of size, at least, to what I 
 am used to at home," Dorothy remarked simply, her frank 
 nature resenting all attempt at pretension. "I live in a 
 cottage, and, therefore, cottage lodgings seem perfectly 
 natural to me."
 
 126 Her First Rehearsal. 
 
 Mrs. Stourton-Chepe, who boasted a cheerless and un- 
 comfortable West End flat, up many flights of stairs, with 
 an imposing address, looked at the girl critically through 
 her glasses. 
 
 "You live in a cottage ?" she said. "How interesting ! 
 Then, of course, you live in the country ?" 
 
 "Oh, dear, no; in a very noisy part of Hammersmith. 
 There is quite a wrong impression in the company about 
 me, Mrs. Stourton-Chepe. I believe it is supposed that I 
 am a rich young lady acting for my amusement. It is 
 quite wrong. I have not a penny in the world but what I 
 earn. My parents are dead, and I don't suppose that in 
 all London there lives any one poorer or less distinguished 
 than my sister and I." 
 
 "You have a sister, then? Only one? And any 
 brothers?" 
 
 Dorothy hesitated. She did not feel inclined to speak of 
 Phyllis to this woman with the hard voice and worldly 
 notions. 
 
 "I have a sister," she said at last, rather coldly. "She is 
 very ill. And we do not know if our brother is alive or 
 dead." 
 
 "She seems a very superior, highly-educated girl," Mrs. 
 Stourton-Chepe afterward confided to her husband. 
 "And from what she told me she must be so miserably 
 poor that Derrick would be a magnificent catch for her 
 the chance of a lifetime, in fact. He is positively mad 
 about her, so Mr. Coles and Mr. Wyverley assure me ; and 
 he must be infatuated, indeed, if he can put up with her 
 acting. I feel really sorry for the girl, and I shall do all 
 in my power to bring Derrick to the point of proposing." 
 
 "H'm! Girls have fancies," her husband objected. 
 "Shall you think it your duty to tell Miss Knight all that 
 you know of Derrick's past?"
 
 Her First Rehearsal. 127 
 
 "What do I know of it?" his wife asked impatiently. 
 "You knew him at college. Afterward there was some 
 little trouble with his father. Derrick went abroad, and 
 now he has come back reformed. What is an escapade or 
 so on the part of a man when you consider a title and a 
 fortune on the one side, and on the other a tenement at 
 Hammersmith and grinding poverty ? I wonder you can 
 be so silly !"
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 darcy's sympathy. 
 
 Two days before the first public performance of "Love's 
 Right," as Dorothy returned from her limited and strictly 
 economical marketing, the landlady opened the door for 
 her and informed her, with a considerable air of mystery, 
 that a gentleman was waiting to see her in the parlor. 
 
 "Such a handsome young gentleman, the handsomest 
 ever I saw, and dressed like a prince," she vouchsafed in 
 a hissing whisper, with a smile that was almost a wink. 
 "I told him I didn't think you would be long, and he said 
 he didn't mind how long he waited, so affable and pleasant 
 like." 
 
 "It is some message from the theatre, no doubt," said 
 Miss Knight coldly, as she made her way to the small back 
 sitting-room looking out on a paved yard and a high brick 
 wall. 
 
 As she had half-guessed, the Hon. Darcy Derrick 
 awaited her. His back was turned to the door, and he did 
 not hear her light footsteps, being evidently deeply ab- 
 sorbed by some object upon the table before him, at which 
 he was gazing fixedly. A flush of vexation passed over 
 Dorothy's face as she perceived that he had taken down 
 from the mantlepiece a photograph frame, within the 
 closed doors of which she carried about a portrait of her 
 sister and herself, taken some two years before, with 
 Phyllis' head pillowed on her shoulder. 
 
 At the sound of her voice he started violently. 
 
 "Please give me my picture, Mr. Darcy."
 
 Darcy's Sympathy. 129 
 
 "Pray forgive me!" he stammered. "Indeed, Miss 
 Knight,- you would not look so angry over the liberty I 
 have taken in looking at your photograph and that of your 
 sister if you knew the deep, the intense interest, I take in 
 you both. Ever since, at Whitlock's office, I overheard 
 you speaking of her illness, I have been filled with a long- 
 ing to serve you both. A sister's love for a sister has al- 
 ways seemed to me a thing so beautiful in its utter purity 
 and unselfishness, that I was deeply moved by your words 
 on that occasion. You said then that she was very, very 
 ill, and I have hardly dared to ask you whether she is any 
 better yet. Especially amid the vulgar and tarnished sur- 
 roundings of a theatrical rehearsal I have hesitated to in- 
 trude upon a subject so sacred as your home life. But 
 you will tell me now if she is better, will you not ?" 
 
 Dorothy's back was turned toward him while she busied 
 herself in closing the doors of the portrait frame and re- 
 placing it on the mantelshelf, and the Hon. Darcy could 
 scarcely conceal the delighted admiration in his eyes as 
 they traveled over the graceful lines of her waist and 
 shoulders. 
 
 "It is very kind of you, I am sure," she said at last, 
 turning toward him, and speaking in rather constrained 
 tones. "I have heard this morning from my sister's 
 nurse, and she is at least no worse." 
 
 "She must miss you terribly." 
 
 Tears started to Dorothy's eyes. She turned quickly 
 away to hide them, and spoke again in the same reserved 
 tones. 
 
 "We have been parted before," she said. 
 
 "You must long for the tour to end and set you free." 
 
 "No, indeed, I do not," Dorothy was beginning earn- 
 estly, but there she checked herself. "When one works 
 for one's living one cannot always choose the locality," she 
 said. "I write to my sister every day."
 
 130 Darcy's Sympathy. 
 
 "And do you tell her about every little incident at re- 
 hearsal, about the people you meet in the company, and 
 so on ?" he asked, with some curiosity. 
 
 "Oh, no ! I hardly mention the theatre at all," she re- 
 plied. 
 
 She could not explain to him that she feared lest any al- 
 lusion to her theatrical surroundings might bring the bit- 
 ter past all too clearly before her sister's mind. 
 
 "Indeed, Mr. Darcy," she added, "I am not so proud of 
 my performance that I should be likely to talk about it. 
 I am afraid that everybody thinks I am dreadful, and I 
 suppose I am." 
 
 "You are perfect quite perfect as Zara !" he exclaimed 
 enthusiastically. "Entirely my ideal. And I am the au- 
 thor, and I ought to know. I admit to you, Miss Knight, 
 that it was my sympathy with you in your evident distress, 
 and my desire to atone for any wrong or trouble worked 
 against you by my scoundrelly connection, Sergius Tre- 
 velyan, that first induced me to engage you for this tour. 
 But your reading of the part of my heroine is so entirely 
 to my liking that I consider your engagement one of the 
 happiest inspirations of my life." 
 
 Dorothy flushed with pleasure. 
 
 "It is very good of you," she said simply, "especially 
 as I have several times thought I ought to resign the 
 part, as I seem to put everybody out so dreadfully, and 
 seem somehow to be so out of key with the whole thing." 
 
 "That is because you are refined and unconventional, as 
 Zara should be. Look at the way in which that Kean 
 from the Surrey side, Ernest Devine, gets what he calls 
 his 'effects' by unnatural pauses and false emphasis and 
 absurd exaggeration. Nothing could ever induce me to 
 act myself, as I consider it a monkey practice, beneath the 
 attention of men of thought and education. The author 
 is everything, the actor nothing but a living, painted pup-
 
 Darcy's Sympathy. 131 
 
 pet, who as often as not ruins the words by his want of 
 intelligence and stupid conventionality. Don't listen to 
 these people who tell you you are wrong in your render- 
 ing, Miss Knight. You are absolutely right, and I am 
 very much obliged to you indeed." 
 
 He spoke as if he meant it, and Dorothy was only too 
 glad to believe him. Already she was reproaching her- 
 self with having underestimated her manager's magnan- 
 imous kindness and chivalry, when it suddenly flashed 
 across her that he had not so far explained the reason of 
 his early call. It was indeed little more than ten o'clock, 
 and the rehearsal was fixed for eleven. 
 
 Almost as though he guessed the thought that passed 
 through her mind, Mr. Derrick took his hat and gloves 
 from the table. 
 
 "I must not forget the object of my visit," he said. 
 "But first, before I forget it, let me ask you one thing: 
 Are you still as anxious as you were to find out Sergius 
 Trevelyan ?" 
 
 A deep flush spread all over Dorothy's face, and a vivid 
 excitement flashed into her eyes. With difficulty she re- 
 strained the eagerness of her tones as she answered him. 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Darcy; I am just as anxious." 
 
 "Only to-day," he said, taking a letter from his pocket, 
 "I have had brought to me from my home this communi- 
 cation from a college friend of mine a very delightful 
 fellow who went the pace a bit, and was sent out on a 
 ranch in Texas. He- writes to me from some out-of-the- 
 way hole out West Carthage, I see it is called," he added, 
 showing Dorothy the heading of the paper, "the Grand 
 Hotel, Carthage some barn in a swamp, no doubt. Any- 
 how, he tells me something which may interest you. 
 Listen : 
 
 " 'Last night a theatrical company, passing through on 
 its way back to civilization, played "Madame Angot" here,
 
 132 Darcy's Sympathy. 
 
 and played it very well. We cowboys turned out in force, 
 and were rewarded, for the Clairette was a very handsome 
 woman, with the remains of a good voice and any amount 
 of go. It was Millie Clements, a name pretty well known 
 in the States, and we'd all have thrown our hearts at her 
 feet, but that she traveled with her husband, an awfully 
 good looking English chap, with a lot of curly black hair, 
 who it appears all the girls in the crowd are in love with ; 
 Cupid, they call him. He couldn't act a bit, but seemed 
 a decent sort of fellow and well connected, for the odd 
 part of it is he claimed a cousinship with you. I thought 
 it was bluff, but he seemed to know all about you and your 
 family, and even spoke of you as his best friend. His 
 name is Sergius Trevelyan, or at least that is what he 
 calls himself, though he darkly hints he's a duke in dis- 
 guise. When you write, let me know whether you've ever 
 heard of the fellow.' 
 
 "That is all he says on the subject," said Darcy Der- 
 rick, glancing through the rest of the letter before putting 
 it back into his pocket, "but, remembering the interest you 
 showed in Trevelyan at Whitlock's office, I thought you 
 might like to hear it." 
 
 "I have never seen the man," said Dorothy quickly. 
 "Beyond knowing that he is a cowardly villain, I know 
 nothing about him." 
 
 "You speak strongly " 
 
 "I feel strongly. Please, Mr. Darcy, do not speak of 
 the man again." 
 
 "I can't bear to think," he said, "that our first acquaint- 
 anceship should have been through someone you so evi- 
 dently, and doubtless for some good reason, dislike and 
 despise, or that you should ever associate me in your mind 
 with this fellow, who for your sake I detest without even 
 knowing why, and who evidently trades on his distant 
 connection with me. If he has,, as Whitlock suggested,
 
 Darcy's Sympathy. 133 
 
 cheated your sister out of any money, I do sincerely hope 
 you will relieve my mind by permitting me to make it 
 good to you. I have thought about this ever since I first 
 met you, and I feel that the honor of my family is at stake 
 in the matter." 
 
 "Thank you," she said with lowered eyes, blushing 
 painfully. "But my sister and I have no money to be 
 cheated out of by any one." 
 
 "I hope with all my soul," Derrick went on after a short 
 pause, speaking low and earnestly, "that the fellow did 
 not pay court to your sister, passing himself off as a single 
 man? I know him to be capable of such conduct from 
 what I have learned since I helped him out of the country. 
 But I do hope that in your sister's case " 
 
 "Have I not asked you," she said, turning upon him 
 proudly, "not to discuss Mr. Trevelyan before me? His 
 name is not fit to be mentioned in the same breath with 
 that of my sister !" 
 
 "I beg your pardon ! I wish I could make you under- 
 stand," he added, a little sadly, "how much I want to serve 
 and please you." 
 
 His humility touched her, and she turned round upon 
 him with a lovely smile. 
 
 "Indeed, you have pleased me very much," she said, 
 "by your most kind encouragement about my attempts at 
 acting. I should never have had the heart, I think, to go 
 through with the engagement but for you." 
 
 Darcy's pale face flushed with pleasure. 
 
 "Now that you have unbent just for a moment," he 
 said gleefully, with a sort of boyish exuberance, "I can 
 pluck up courage to say what I came for. The fact is, 
 my mother has come down strictly incognito, of course, 
 to see the first night of my play. Naturally, not a soul 
 must know of her presence in the town, on account of my 
 father's recent death. My mother and he were scarcely
 
 134 Darcy's Sympathy. 
 
 on speaking terms from one week's end to another; and 
 for myself, I hadn't seen him for years when he died. 
 But, for all that, an absurd conventionality supposes us 
 to be plunged in woe and crape, and we dare not go coun- 
 ter to it. One owes so much to one's position in society. 
 But my mother adores me, and takes the keenest interest 
 in everything that I undertake ; and so, dear soul, she has 
 come to see my play, not one word of which she will un- 
 derstand, but which she will think a masterpiece for the 
 sake of her boy." 
 
 "Is she so fond of you, then ?" Dorothy asked, looking 
 at him with interest. He had just the sort of good looks, 
 she decided, which would partake of the angelic character 
 in a child. Of course, he was wonderfully good looking, 
 but personally she preferred something more massive and 
 rugged in a man, a red-brown skin instead of that girlish 
 fairness, massive limbs in place of that slender grace, and 
 honest, brown eyes to those languishing blue ones but 
 here she stopped her thoughts, blushing ere they pictured 
 too clearly the face and figure of her museum acquaint- 
 ance, Aylmer Read. 
 
 "Will you tell me what you were thinking of when you 
 looked at me just now?" Darcy Derrick asked softly, 
 coming a little nearer to her. But Dorothy was not in 
 the least embarrassed, as he rather hoped she would be. 
 
 "I must confess that my thoughts were very far away," 
 she answered, smiling indifferently. Just so far as the 
 British Museum is from Hastings, she might have added, 
 but she did not think fit to do so. "You were speaking 
 about your mother ?" 
 
 Darcy was piqued and disappointed. For more than a 
 week he had seen the girl, with whom he had fallen pas- 
 sionately in love at first sight, during several hours daily ; 
 yet her gray eyes could meet his love-sick glances un- 
 flinchingly, and no trace of a blush passed over her clear,
 
 Darcy 's Sympathy. 135 
 
 pale, pink skin as he greeted her. Darcy was of an im- 
 patient nature, and felt that some decisive action was 
 needed. 
 
 "It is on my mother's behalf that I have called this 
 morning," he said. "Of course, I have talked to her 
 about you, and she is very anxious to know you." 
 
 "Really?" put in Dorothy as he paused, in quite unaf- 
 fected surprise. 
 
 He looked at her and decided that she must be acting. 
 She must know, as everybody did, that he was Lord Der- 
 rick's second son, and that his elder brother, the present 
 wearer of the title, was an invalid and a bachelor. She 
 must also have learned, from Mrs. Stourton-Chepe or 
 from other members of the company, that he had come 
 into a good deal of money at his father's death. Person- 
 ally, too, she must realize that he was not quite a Caliban, 
 and, taking all these things together, her attitude of calmly 
 ignoring his evident admiration must assuredly be as- 
 sumed. 
 
 So he reasoned, as even a less vain man might have 
 done under the circumstances, without taking count of 
 the fact that Dorothy was wrapped up in her sister, for 
 whose cruel fate she was inclined to abjure the entire 
 male sex, and that she was furthermore honestly absorbed 
 in the uncongenial task of trying to be worth ten pounds 
 a week as an actress. Moreover, the Hon. Darcy Der- 
 rick's personality in no way appealed to her particular 
 taste. She had but recently known a man who resembled 
 her ideal far more closely than the Hon. Darcy could ever 
 do, and whether the latter admired her or not was a sub- 
 ject to which she had given very little attention. 
 
 She listened, therefore, in surprise while her manager 
 proceeded to beg her to come and lunch that afternoon 
 with his mother and himself at the hotel where Lady Der- 
 rick was staying until the production of the play.
 
 136 Darcy's Sympathy. 
 
 "Mrs. Stourton-Chepe will bring you," he said. "She 
 and my mother have met in society some years ago, before 
 poor Chepe got sold up and had to go on the stage. Now, 
 you will come, will you not, Miss Knight? My mother 
 takes the deepest interest in what I have told her of you 
 and your sister, and she is extremely anxious to make 
 your acquaintance." 
 
 "You are very kind," Dorothy returned in rather re- 
 served tones, "but really, you know so very little of me or 
 of my sister either " 
 
 "Oh, but I have heard from other people of your de- 
 votion to each other/' he assured her warmly. "And I 
 think it most touching and beautiful. Years ago my 
 mother lost a sister whom she loved very dearly, and she 
 can sympathize with you." 
 
 Had he heard any of the true facts of the case, she won- 
 dered. But his face expressed nothing but a tender and 
 respectful admiration, and she was constrained, somewhat 
 against her will, to accept his invitation. 
 
 "You must forgive the short notice," he said. "My 
 mother's arival was altogether unexpected. I believe she 
 came, prompted by something I said in one of my letters 
 recently something about you," he added. 
 
 Dorothy looked across the table at him, clearly startled. 
 But before she had time to speak again he had caught up 
 his hat, and excusing himself on the plea that he should 
 have just sufficient time to acquaint his mother with her 
 acceptance of the invitation to lunch, he had thanked her, 
 and bowed himself out. 
 
 Dorothy was surprised to note the high value Mrs. 
 Stourton-Chepe placed upon this casual invitation. The 
 latter lady came down to rehearsal rustling in a new silk 
 gown, and grew quite effusive to Miss Knight over "dear 
 Lady Derrick's kindness." . 
 
 "Do you know," she said, "that there are dozens of
 
 Darcy's Sympathy. 137 
 
 girls in London who would give a very great deal to be in 
 your shoes?" 
 
 "Why should they?" 
 
 "Well, some girls would be a little bit pleased if one of 
 the handsomest men in London, with only a dying man 
 between him and the title, and belonging to one of the 
 oldest families in Ireland, was to fall victim to their 
 charms." 
 
 "Would they ?" asked Dorothy. "Not if they had other 
 and more important things to think about." 
 
 "Isn't he good enough for you?" asked Mrs. Stourton- 
 Chepe satirically. "Or are you perhaps waiting for a 
 prince of the blood?" 
 
 But Dorothy only laughed, and she might have attached 
 but little value to Mrs. Stourton-Chepe's sarcasms, but 
 for the fact, which was made patent to both ladies as soon 
 as they were shown into the presence of Lady Derrick at 
 the Prince's Hotel, that the Hon. Darcy had most cer- 
 tainly confided to his mother his passion for his leading 
 lady. 
 
 "I was sure from what Darcy told me that you must 
 be very beautiful," Lady Derrick exclaimed, taking Dor- 
 othy's two hands in hers and gazing at her earnestly. 
 "But I never guessed that you would be as beautiful as 
 this. May I kiss you, my dear child ?"
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 darcy's mother. 
 
 Lady Derrick was a woman of about sixty years of age, 
 who in early youth had been renowned for beauty of a 
 characteristic Southern type, an olive-complexioned, oval- 
 faced Madonna, with liquid, black-fringed eyes and a 
 lithe, slender figure. 
 
 During more than forty years of married life her hus- 
 band had spoiled her, and she had accepted his devotion 
 with languid grace, neglecting him and her other children 
 in order to lavish an unreasoning love upon her second 
 son, Darcy. 
 
 Darcy's good looks and gentle ways, Darcy's literary 
 and poetic gifts, his charming good humor and love of 
 feminine society, his horror of violence and vulgarity and 
 the deferential tenderness of his manner toward his 
 mother, delighted her, and were in striking contrast to 
 the peevish irritability of her sickly first-born and the un- 
 sympathetic tastes of her four other noisy fox-hunting 
 sons and daughters. 
 
 Darcy was not like a Derrick at all ; that was, no doubt, 
 why his father and his brothers and sisters failed to ap- 
 preciate him they were envious of his beauty, his genius, 
 and his extreme popularity among women. So, at least, 
 his mother" decided, and with the peculiar obstinancy of 
 certain very gentle-mannered women she had upheld her 
 favorite son in all his quarrels with his father and sup- 
 plied him with money until her private allowance was 
 practically exhausted.
 
 Darcy's Mother. 139 
 
 To Dorothy, who had known but little of a mother's 
 love, it was deeply touching to note the persistency with 
 which Lady Derrick's eyes dwelt upon the face of her 
 darling son, whose every movement she watched with 
 lingering tenderness. The whilom beauty had grown 
 fat and shapeless in figure, and her once clear olive tints 
 were now unmistakably sallow ; yet as her large, dark eyes 
 lit with a very passion of maternal love when they rested 
 on her son, it seemed to Dorothy that never in Lady Der- 
 rick's early bloom could they have appeared more beau- 
 tiful. 
 
 Her own position she felt to be sufficiently embarrass- 
 ing. After lunch Lady Derrick left her son to entertain 
 Mrs. Stourton-Chepe, while she drew Dorothy into the 
 embrasure of a window overlooking the sea and retailed 
 to her numberless anecdotes of her beloved Darcy's in- 
 fancy and early childhood. 
 
 "I tell you these things because they interest the women 
 who love him," she said with a gracious smile. "My poor 
 boy has been grievously misunderstood at home ; he and I 
 have been kept apart, and away from my influence, with 
 his romantic and affectionate nature, I have been con- 
 stantly anxious about his future. So you will easily un- 
 derstand my anxiety when his letters became filled with 
 praises of a beautiful young lady whom he declared he 
 loved as he had never loved before." 
 
 "Yes," put in Dorothy, feeling extremely uncomfort- 
 able, as Lady Derrick paused and looked at her archly. 
 
 "And I said to myself: 'Here is my dear boy, only 
 just restored to his home, his country and his mother, 
 under the influence of some unknown lady a professional 
 actress !' You must pardon me, my dear child, for telling 
 you just the true ideas that came into my mind. Many 
 actresses are honorable and well-bred women, but natu- 
 rally I thought my son, who has only to be seen to be
 
 140 Darcy's Mother. 
 
 loved by women of all classes, might have looked higher 
 and chosen either an heiress or some lady in his own rank 
 of life. But when I saw you " 
 
 "Me, Lady Derrick, when you saw me?" 
 
 "I realized," pursued the widow calmly, "that you are 
 beautiful enough to excuse any young man's folly, and 
 that you are a lady and have a face full of nobility and 
 goodness. And I thanked God that my boy had fallen 
 into such good hands." 
 
 "Indeed, Lady Derrick," cried Dorothy, "you are mak- 
 ing a great mistake, and you have been troubling yourself 
 without cause. Your son is nothing more to me than a 
 kind and courteous manager, and I am nothing more to 
 him than the actress who will play the chief part in his 
 piece." 
 
 "You need not fear any opposition from me," Lady 
 Derrick said, evidently unconvinced by Dorothy's out-, 
 burst. "I have always expected that Darcy would be un- 
 influenced by worldly considerations in his choice of a 
 wife. And I shall be so happy to know, that he is safely 
 married to a woman who loves him and who is worthy of 
 him." 
 
 "I sincerely hope you will, Lady Derrick," burst from 
 Miss Knight, "but it will never be to me !" 
 
 "You know that my son loves you?" 
 
 "Indeed, I do not! He has never hinted at such a 
 thing. Had he attempted to do so, forgive me for say- 
 ing so, but I certainly should not have allowed him to 
 proceed." 
 
 Lady Derrick drew back in her seat and gazed at the 
 young girl with cold suspicion. 
 
 "Have you some other attachment, or entanglement ?" 
 she asked pointedly. 
 
 "I cannot see that that has anything to do with it,"
 
 Darcy's Mother. 141 
 
 answered Dorothy, blushing hotly. "But, as a matter of 
 fact, I am not at all in love with any one." 
 
 "Not with my son ?" 
 
 Lady Derrick's tone was one of incredulous amaze- 
 ment. 
 
 "Not in the least with your son. Nor is he with me, I 
 should say. I am sorry you should have misunderstood 
 the position of affairs, Lady Derrick, and I hope I have 
 said nothing to pain you. But your son is perfectly heart- 
 whole so far as I know." 
 
 This was perhaps not absolutely veracious on the part 
 of Miss Knight. But the note of patronage in Lady Der- 
 rick's tone had incensed her. In the rather awkward 
 pause that followed her statement, Lady Derrick decided 
 that this girl must certainly be either exceptionally cold- 
 hearted or surprisingly untruthful. In any case, of course 
 her aim was to entrap the Hon. Darcy into a marriage 
 which, under certain existing circumstances, might not be 
 wholly a misfortune. With Darcy's impressionable, head- 
 strong nature and the memory of other escapades of his 
 on her mind, Lady Derrick would have been disposed to 
 welcome this lovely nobody as a daughter-in-law with con- 
 descending affectionateness, if not with effusion. With 
 his temperament, dear Darcy might have chosen so much 
 more unwisely. But Dorothy's cold attitude toward this 
 irresistible wooer disgusted his mother, and she was not 
 slow to communicate her sentiments to her son as soon as 
 the pair were left alone together. 
 
 "Isn't she exquisite? Isn't she Phidias' Diana flushed 
 into life? Tell me, truthfully, mother, did you ever see 
 a more exquisite skin ? It's like the first flush of sunrise 
 on snow. And her eyes, 'the grayest of things blue, the 
 greenest of things gray/ her wonderful, searching, shin- 
 ing eyes! They draw a man's soul out. Tell me now, 
 what do you think of her? With the exception of your-
 
 142 Darcy's Mother. 
 
 self, she is the most beautiful creature ever born into this 
 world. What do you think of her ?" 
 
 "She is very handsome," his mother owned ; "but I find 
 her cold and hard. Why, my dearest boy, she says and 
 she told me this, mind, told it to me, your mother that 
 she cares nothing for you at all, and has no reason to be- 
 lieve you are fond of her." 
 
 The Hon. Darcy smiled and appeared not in the least 
 discouraged. 
 
 "She will love me, though," he said, half to himself. 
 "I shall teach her, and the teaching will be divine. Which 
 is more exciting sport the game that flies or the game 
 that comes to meet you? I love her and she must and 
 shall love me." 
 
 But when on the following day he met Miss Knight at 
 the last rehearsal, he made no allusion to what had passed 
 between her and his mother, of whom, however, he spoke 
 with warm affection. 
 
 "Her love for me is amazing," he declared. "She lives 
 only for me. A mother's love is the most sacred and 
 beautiful thing in the world, almost the only thing which 
 survives through good report and evil report to the very 
 gates of death." 
 
 His eyes were fixed upon the darkened "flies" of the 
 theatre above his head, and Dorothy could see that tears 
 glistened in them. 
 
 "I hope Lady Derrick will enjoy the play to-morrow," 
 she said, after a long pause, feeling it incumbent upon 
 her to make some sort of remark. 
 
 "Oh, I have a piece of excellent news about that," 
 Darcy exclaimed, coming down to earth again. "Graham 
 North and his wife are staying in Hastings for a few days 
 and I'm going to have him in to-morrow night." 
 
 "Who is Graham North?" 
 . "Is it possible you have never heard of the critic of the
 
 Darcy's Mother. 143 
 
 Daily Leader? He has but little of the highest artistic 
 faculty, but he possesses a good honest tradesman's in- 
 stinct of what pays in the long run, which is as much as a 
 nation of shopkeepers requires from their favorite dra- 
 matic critic. He can practically make or mar a play or an 
 actor. It will be everything to have 'Love's Right' criti- 
 cised in the Leader by Graham North as a send-off." 
 
 "But I thought you despised critics?" 
 
 "I do, personally, but the paying public doesn't. And 
 I regret to say that North can make or mar an author, 
 too." 
 
 The redoubtable North was introduced to Miss Knight 
 on the stage a little later, and roared as gently as any 
 sucking-dove. A short, well-built man, with charming 
 manners, and thoughtful, humorous eyes behind pincenez. 
 He talked for a considerable time to "Mr. Darcy's" beau- 
 tiful leading lady, to the evident envy of the rest of the 
 company, and looked at her persistently with unconcealed 
 admiration. 
 
 "And what do you think of my leading lady?" Mr. 
 Darcy inquired, as he and Mr. Graham North, Wyverly 
 and Coles left the cool, dark theatre for the blazing sun- 
 shine outside. 
 
 "My dear Derrick, I don't know where you discovered 
 her, but she is one of the most absolutely lovely women I 
 have ever had the good fortune to behold. There is an 
 intense womanliness about her which appeals to all that is 
 best in a man. Upon my word I could watch her face 
 and listen to her voice all day, and imagine myself in a 
 poet's Heaven ! The man who wins such a woman's love 
 will be a lucky fellow." 
 
 "Yes, but how about the man who engages her to play 
 'lead' ?" inquired Wyverly drily. 
 
 "Ah, that remains to be seen," observed the great critic 
 diplomatically. "I am speaking of Miss Knight as a
 
 144 Darcy's Mother. 
 
 woman. I have yet to make her acquaintance as an 
 actress." 
 
 The first night arrived at length, a night of moist, melt- 
 ing heat. The paint and powder rolled in pellets off the 
 faces of the actors cooped up in the gas-laden space of 
 their stifling dressing-rooms and became caked in raised 
 white lines upon their upper lips. Dorothy had no notion 
 how to "make up," and on a first night every one was too 
 much excited to instruct her in the art. Fortunately her 
 skill as a painter taught her to avoid any of the startling 
 mistakes of beginners in that direction, and she contented 
 herself with slightly smudging the neighborhood of her 
 beautiful eyes and disfiguring her complexion by a very 
 little crude red and white color. Extreme nervousness 
 numbed her faculties and made her appear apathetic and 
 mechanical. Unused as she was to the theatre, it yet ap- 
 peared to her somewhat ominous that the audience never 
 applauded anything that she said or did, and the farther 
 she proceeded with her part the more keenly did she rea- 
 lize its many absurdities. "Old Marmalade" gave out his 
 lines with as great a display of rollicking unction as 
 though they were penned by the greatest humorist of the 
 age. The Devines, the Grahams, and even the Stourton- 
 Chepes and Jack Wyverly threw themselves into their 
 parts with unquestioning thoroughness, and reaped their 
 reward in the attention and occasional applause of the hot 
 and scanty audience. They were actors "theirs not to 
 reason why ; theirs but to act or die" but beautiful "Zara 
 Carewe," of the graceful movements and melodious voice, 
 caught herself thinking again and again that the whole 
 thing was an unreal and distasteful business, that her 
 words were ungrammatical nonsense, and that only her 
 dear Phyllis' necessities justified her in attempting any- 
 thing for which she so clearly felt herself unsuited. 
 
 At the end of the play there was a half-hearted call for
 
 Darcy's Mother. 145 
 
 the author from some of his friends in front, but before 
 the Hon. Darcy had time to take or refuse it, the wearied 
 audience had gladly made their way into the purer air out- 
 side the theatre, and every one knew that "Love's Right" 
 had, in the technical language of Mr. Ernest Devine, 
 "scored a frost." 
 
 Any doubts that might have remained on the subject 
 were dispelled by Mr. Graham North's verdict in the Lon- 
 don Daily Leader, copies of which were eagerly bought by 
 the entire company. 
 
 "Mr. Darcy," wrote the eminent critic, "whose curious 
 play, entitled 'Love's Right/ has just been produced at 
 Hastings on a trial trip before it is presented to London 
 audiences, has much to learn as a dramatist, but he has 
 even more to learn as a manager. Allowing for oc- 
 casional lapses into mere bombastical verbiage, and for the 
 strangely low, or we should rather say perverted, code of 
 morals which he expounds, the romance of his conception 
 and the occasional flashes of real wit and humor in his 
 dialogue would lead one to hope that with further experi- 
 ence he may yet write a strong and interesting drama. 
 But the best dramatist the world has yet produced could 
 not afford to entrust the chief burden of his work to a 
 totally inexperienced and incompetent performer. The 
 lady to whom the strongly emotional and difficult part of 
 'Zara Carewe,' in 'Love's Right,' has been entrusted, has, 
 we have no hesitation in saying, entirely mistaken her vo- 
 cation. It were kinder to Miss Dorothy Knight to urge 
 upon her to quit at once a career for which in every respect 
 save that of personal comeliness, she is obviously unfitted. 
 Grace of movement, beauty, and refinement do not atone 
 for a total lack of all dramatic instinct, a wooden and me- 
 chanical method, a parrot-like delivery, and a listless in- 
 difference to the exigencies of the scene, varied only by an 
 awkward self-consciousness at those very moments when
 
 146 Darcy's Mother. 
 
 a true actress would have been borne along by the passion 
 of the scene. Let the part of 'Zara' be entrusted at once 
 to an actress of even mediocre ability, and we may be able 
 to judge more favorably of the play and of the part; in 
 the hands of its present exponent it is frankly ridiculous."
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 PASSION AND POETRY. 
 
 The Hastings papers were not slow in following Lon- 
 don's lead. 
 
 Dorothy bought them all as they came out and scanned 
 them eagerly to see if any one of them offered her the 
 slightest encouragement. But, while condemning the 
 play as tedious and lacking action, one and all attributed 
 its signal failure chiefly to the incompetence of Mr. 
 Darcy's leading lady, and little as she liked her new pro- 
 fession, Dorothy could not help feeling deeply humiliated 
 and disappointed, and none the less so because the other 
 members of the company scarcely attempted, even in her 
 presence, to veil their triumphant amusement at the turn 
 things had taken. 
 
 "Serves her right ; coming here with her airs and graces 
 and a dressing-room to herself just because the manager 
 is fool enough to be in love with her. It's these imper- 
 tinent amateurs who crowd the stage and prevent sound 
 and experienced artists from earning a living." 
 
 Such was the opinion of at least four members of the 
 company on Miss Knight's fiasco. The Stourton-Chepes, 
 Jack Wyverly and Coles were more amused than anything. 
 It was just like Darcy, they said, to engage a novice be- 
 cause she had a pretty face. She would teach him an ex- 
 pensive lesson, which he much needed. Only Marmaduke 
 Strutt was sorry for Dorothy when he noted, through all 
 her proud and determined efforts at self-control, the red- 
 ness of her eyelids and the pallor of her cheeks.
 
 148 Passion and Poetry. 
 
 As to the Hon. Darcy, he bore his failure in sufficiently 
 light-hearted fashion, and stoutly declared that the critics 
 were all wrong. 
 
 "There's no rant and fustian in my play ; it soars beyond 
 the money-grubbing common-places of their dreary every- 
 day business ; that's why they condemn it," he said. 
 
 He was really considerably disappointed in that his 
 work had completely failed to shock those who had seen 
 it, and had only succeeded in boring them. 
 
 "Dorothy Knight is perfect," he maintained ; "a poem 
 in motion. Her very ignorance of acting constitutes her 
 greatest charm. Everything she does is so simple and 
 natural." 
 
 He sat in front every night in different parts of the 
 almost empty houses, leaning back in his seat and gazing 
 steadfastly upon his leading lady. Every night he sent 
 fresh bouquets to her dressing-room, always without a 
 name, so that Dorothy could keep the flowers with a light 
 conscience. And Dorothy, who loved flowers, filled her 
 shabby lodgings with them, and wished they would stand 
 the railway journey to London just as they were, and 
 picked out the best to pack in cardboard-boxes and send 
 them to her sister lying ill in Lockhart Cottages. 
 
 "I am getting on capitally, darling," she wrote. 
 "Flowers every night. Nurse tells me the roses arrived 
 quite fresh. To-morrow I will send you some more." 
 
 Meantime she was very far from hopeful. Brighton 
 confirmed the verdict of Hastings, and the chief paper 
 there went so far as to refrain from criticising her per- 
 formance, as "the subject was too painful." Under these 
 depressing circumstances, and the fact that she knew the 
 entire company were laughing at her, Dorothy acted, if 
 possible, worse than ever. Then a London evening paper 
 began to circulate in the theatre, in which a long and 
 highly laudatory notice of "Love's Right" appeared, spe-
 
 Passion and Poetry. 149 
 
 daily singling out for praise Miss Dorothy Knight's per- 
 formance of "Zara." 
 
 "All that this beautiful girl does," so ran the notice, "is 
 simple, refined and wholly admirable." 
 
 The Hon. Darcy himself brought the paper round to 
 Dorothy's lodgings, and read aloud to her the article in 
 question. 
 
 "I knew the critics would come round in time," he said. 
 "This man exactly expresses my own views on the mat- 
 ter." 
 
 "I am afraid I am dreadfully bad all the same," said 
 Dorothy humbly. "Everybody says I have spoiled your 
 play, and it is really very good of you to refuse to be- 
 lieve it." 
 
 The Hon. Darcy put the paper down and began to shake 
 all over. \ 
 
 "Do you think I would care," he whispered, "if even it 
 were true, and you had spoiled it ? Do you think I would 
 mind if you ruined me, reduced me to beggary, if only you 
 gave me sometimes one kind glance from those lovely eyes, 
 or let me hold that beautiful, soft, strong hand of yours in 
 mine? What is my money to me? Do you think I 
 wouldn't be penniless to-morrow if you would love me?" 
 
 There was no doubt of the strength of his emotion. 
 He was deadly pale, and his voice was tremulous, his eyes 
 alight with passion. His long, pointed, white hands 
 twitched as they hung at his sides, opening and closing 
 nervously as though they longed to seize her in their 
 grasp. But although this display of scarce-repressed pas- 
 sion stirred and excited Dorothy, who in her life had seen 
 very little of love-making, it was by no means in his favor 
 that she was moved. 
 
 "If you talk in that style to me, Mr. Darcy, you will 
 make it extremely difficult for me to stay in the company," 
 she said coldly, "and I shall certainly avoid seeing you at
 
 150 Passion and Poetry. 
 
 all. Already I know everybody thinks I ought to have 
 given up the part when the critics said I spoiled the play, 
 and I would have done so but that I wanted the money so 
 badly. But if you behave in this way I shall have to go." 
 
 Darcy sank into an arm-chair, limp and nerveless. For 
 some seconds he remained silent, staring at her and gnaw- 
 ing his red under-lip. Something about her icy purity, 
 her unconsciousness of and indifference to passion in spite 
 of the soft feminine allurement of her appearance, exer- 
 cised an extraordinary fascination over him. There she 
 stood within a few yards of him, an apparently defenseless 
 girl, yet so walled round by quiet dignity that the mere 
 vulgar methods of love-making were not to be thought of 
 where she was concerned. 
 
 "Forgive me for offending you," he said at last, speak- 
 ing in very low and subdued tones. "I would not will- 
 ingly hurt you for the world. And I cannot quite under- 
 stand why you should consider the declaration of my love 
 as an insult." 
 
 "I did not say it was an insult, Mr. Darcy. It is merely 
 something I don't want to hear." 
 
 "Ah ! How can you be so cold, so cruel !" he cried, 
 springing from his seat, and smiting his hands violently 
 against each other in his excitement. "Have you no pity, 
 no mercy? Can't you see I would give my life and soul 
 for you? Is the whole love of a man's heart nothing to 
 you, less than nothing, that you should treat me with such 
 disdain ? Am I hideous or crippled that you should turn 
 from me with loathing and contempt? Dorothy, turn 
 your sweet eyes on me for a moment, and say that you 
 pity me !" 
 
 "I am sorry, very sorry," she faltered, withdrawing 
 toward the door, "that you should waste so much affection 
 upon me. But as I cannot in any way return it, or, in-
 
 Passion and Poetry. 151 
 
 deed, feel anything at all about you, I do hope you will 
 now forget this fancy for me." 
 
 "Never!" he exclaimed. "It is part of my life. You 
 are the woman in the world created for me to love. I 
 cannot live without you." 
 
 "Please, please," she cried, "do not make it impossible 
 for me to keep this engagement ! Please go now at once, 
 and let me forget everything you have said." 
 
 "You must not forget ! Dorothy, is it possible that you, 
 with the heart of a woman in your sweet breast, can see 
 a man suffer as your coldness makes me suffer, and feel 
 nothing in return ?" 
 
 As he spoke he suddenly caught her hands in a fevered 
 clasp and tried to draw her to him. But in an instant 
 Dorothy's gentleness and reserve vanished, and she turned 
 upon him with flashing eyes at a white heat of anger that 
 would not have disgraced a queen of tragedy. 
 
 "Let go my hands this instant !" she said in a low, con- 
 centrated tone of intense anger. "I said just now that I 
 felt nothing about you. But when you touch me like this 
 against my will, I feel that I hate you !" 
 
 He released his hold in an instant. There was no mis- 
 taking the expression of absolute detestation which had 
 shone from her eyes. 
 
 The Hon. Darcy muttered something highly uncompli- 
 mentary to women in general as the door closed upon his 
 irate leading lady, who clearly was no more impressed by 
 his fervid love than she was by his position, prospects or 
 good looks. He had never met a woman so obdurate, nor 
 one who excited within him so ardent a longing. Yet he 
 was not wholly discouraged by his interview. The hate 
 which flashed into her eyes was far, far better than indif- 
 ference ; at least it was a passion with excitement and heat 
 about it, and as such he esteemed it less unflattering than 
 her former calm.
 
 152 Passion and Poetry. 
 
 "She shall love me," he said to himself as he left the 
 house. "She shall quiver with delight at my touch; she 
 shall listen and wait for my voice ; she shall feel my com- 
 ing before I appear. A woman who can hate can also 
 love." 
 
 But when he met her again on the platform during the 
 course of the Sunday migration of the company to East- 
 bourne, his manner was very humble and gentle, and he 
 contrived to ask for forgiveness for having "lost his head 
 a little" at their last interview. 
 
 "I am sure you would forgive me," he murmured, "if 
 you knew how bitterly I have reproached myself." 
 
 "Please say no more about it," Miss Knight said grave- 
 ly, but with a modicum of graciousness. 
 
 Since that little scene at her lodgings in Brighton 
 Dorothy had learned from Mrs. Stouton-Chepe that the 
 laudatory notice about her performance as Zara Carewe in 
 a London evening paper had been written by no less a 
 person than the Hon. Darcy himself. 
 
 "Could you not recognize his style?" Mrs. Stourton- 
 Chepe had inquired somewhat contemptuously. "We, all 
 in the company, knew it in a moment. He has been try- 
 ing to bribe the local critics to speak well of you by cham- 
 pagne suppers ; but frankly, my dear, they dare not praise 
 you. I am sure you will not mind my saying that you 
 had better distrust the genuineness of all favorable no- 
 tices you may receive. Darcy Derrick is doing his ut- 
 most to push you to the front, but, my dear Miss Knight, 
 you have mistaken your vocation, and I don't think it's in 
 the slightest degree probable that you will ever get an- 
 other engagement worth taking. The agent, Whitlock, 
 was in front at Brighton, and he said to me but perhaps 
 you would rather not hear?" 
 
 "Please go on. It can't be worse than what I have 
 heard already."
 
 Passion and Poetry. 153 
 
 "Oh, it was nothing very unkind. Only that he was 
 very glad for your sake that you had an engagement for 
 life offered you by the Hon. Mr. Derrick, as you would 
 not be able to secure another on the stage." 
 
 "It was most impertinent of him!" exclaimed Miss 
 Knight, flushing with anger. "What right had he to 
 make such a statement the first part, I mean ?" 
 
 "Oh, our handsome manager makes no secret of his 
 adoration for you. And I really fail to see what there is 
 about it to make you angry." 
 
 Mrs. Stourton-Chepe was beginning to feel somewhat 
 exasperated by Dorothy's continued indifference to the 
 splendid chance offered to her. It was true that the elder 
 lady knew but little of the Hon. Darcy Derrick, and that 
 that little included several discreditable stories connecting 
 his name with various women. But what of that? A 
 girl in Dorothy's position could not afford to be too par- 
 ticular. Darcy had come into twenty-five thousand 
 pounds on his father's death, which the latter had been 
 unable to will away from him ; if Dorothy married him 
 at once like a sensible girl she might at least assist him in 
 the spending of it, or, better still, she might insist, while 
 he was yet in the first flush of passion, that he should 
 settle a nice little yearly allowance strictly upon her. She 
 would then be the Hon. Mrs. Derrick, sister-in-law of 
 Lord Derrick, and daughter-in-law to a lady who num- 
 bered an Italian princess among her near relatives. 
 
 Disquieting news from home reached Dorothy during 
 the latter part of the week at Brighton. Phyllis, or "Mrs. 
 Trevelyan" as the nurse called her in her letters, was 
 certainly worse, delirious often, and suffering torments 
 from headache and neuralgia. Nurse Rose wrote full ac- 
 counts of her patient daily, and was evidently most as- 
 siduous in her care. She had indeed been surprised at the 
 willingness with which her ordinary fee of two guineas
 
 154 Passion and Poetry. 
 
 had been agreed upon, and the regularity with which it 
 was remitted to her weekly by a young lady coming from 
 a poor little place like Lockhart Cottages. This fee did 
 not include the nurse's food, "the best of everything," as 
 Cresswell wrote grudgingly, "and quite a fine lady she is, 
 too, for the waiting on she wants. Still, I suppose she 
 knows her work, and she do take care of poor Miss 
 Phyllis." 
 
 Every Saturday evening, upon receiving her salary, 
 Dorothy hurried to the postoffice and forwarded five 
 pounds to Cresswell. Her own expenses she cut down to 
 the smallest possible sum, but, alas, guard every shilling 
 as she would, she found to her dismay that, living as she 
 did alone, the rent of her rooms, the extra charges made 
 by grasping landladies, the necessary tips at the theatre, 
 and unavoidable small expenses, seldom amounted each 
 week to less than thirty-five shillings. 
 
 And then there were her stage dresses, three in num- 
 ber, the feather fan, and long evening gloves, stipulated 
 for by the manager, and the shoes to match her gown. A 
 cheap and clever little dressmaker had made her dresses 
 on credit, but Dorothy knew her to be a poor and hard- 
 working little woman, and every week she forwarded to 
 her a portion of the eight pound fifteen shillings arranged 
 for as the price of her simple costumes. Whitlock, the 
 agent, had promised that his client, Mr. Darcy, would 
 "meet her in the matter of the price of her dresses," and 
 the latter had readily promised to do so. But by this time 
 he had either forgotten his promise or was waiting for 
 Miss Knight to refer to it, a thing which she could not 
 bring herself to do. 
 
 The third week of the tour, therefore, found Dorothy 
 hard at work again with pencil and paint brush, executing 
 flower and figure designs on the chance of selling them, 
 rising very early to take a little much-needed exercise, and
 
 Passion and Poetry. 155 
 
 remaining all day penned up within her small, cheerless 
 lodgings, bending over her painting, while the other mem- 
 bers of the company enjoyed themselves on the pier, sands 
 and sea. 
 
 Now and then, as she raised her aching head, saw the 
 bright sunshine flooding the streets outside, and heard the 
 song of the birds and the laughter of passing merry- 
 makers, a little bitterness would creep into her heart. She 
 was only twenty, and, in spite of a life of fatigue and an 
 anchorite's diet, the young blood in her veins sometimes 
 leaped and sprang with longing for a little gaiety, a little 
 sunshine, a little love. 
 
 Then she would seize her brush in a fit of remorse at 
 her own selfishness. What were her trifling disappoint- 
 ments and worries compared with her sister's ruined life 
 and broken heart ? 
 
 At the end of the third week a letter came from Nurse 
 Rose that filled her with the deepest anxiety. 
 
 "Mrs. Trevelyan is still alive," wrote the nurse, "and 
 with the greatest care she may yet be saved. Pray don't 
 think of coming to see her at present. I will telegraph 
 should she take a turn for the worse. Above everything, 
 Mrs. Trevelyan must be kept perfectly quiet. The doctor 
 will not allow Mrs. Cresswell to enter the room, as she 
 has a habit of sobbing, which might disturb the patient. 
 You may rely on me to do all that can be done. Should 
 all go well, I hope to send for you in about a week's 
 time."
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 HOME AGAIN. 
 
 About ten days later Dorothy paid a flying visit to Lon- 
 don, and found the great city hot, dusty, and tired after a 
 season of sunshine, brown leaves ready to drop off black- 
 ened trees, rich Londoners intent upon their autumn plans 
 for fresh dissipation and enjoyment, and improvident poor 
 Londoners looking gleefully forward to. their annual week 
 of high-priced comfort at the seaside. 
 
 Lockhart Cottages looked smaller and meaner than ever 
 as Dorothy Knight approached them. The corner house 
 was awaiting the process of "selling up," and bills an- 
 nouncing the fact were posted over the side wall and front 
 gates of the little dwelling. As usual, there were a dozen 
 or more little children in dirty pinafores playing, scream- 
 ing and fighting in the broken piece of road before the 
 houses. On the other side of the way the sweep's good 
 lady was gossiping with her next door neighbor, who 
 took in mangling, while at the entrance to the adjoining 
 mews which was the lair of a private omnibus, the driver 
 and conductor stood beside the vehicle in conversation 
 with some horsey friends discussing the odds on a forth- 
 coming race. 
 
 It was all very sordid and very mean seen through 
 clouds of dust under the glaring sunlight. Living in 
 them, with her mind constantly absorbed in other things, 
 Dorothy had grown to lose sight of her ugly and depress- 
 ing surroundings. But now, coming back to them after 
 five weeks' absence, she felt her heart sink within her at
 
 Home Again. 157 
 
 the thought that she and Phyllis should be doomed to live 
 in such environment. 
 
 "If even," the thought flashed upon her as she passed 
 before her own gate, "if even I am able to keep this roof 
 over our heads." 
 
 In her absence the little garden had been neglected, and 
 already the grass had made incursions into the paths and 
 the daisies and forget-me-nots drooped, dead or dying, for 
 want of water. Dorothy sighed as she put her latchkey 
 in the door. Cresswell was the soul of unselfish faithful- 
 ness, but she possessed neither method nor memory, and 
 having spent her entire life until the past three years as 
 one of the many servants in a large and extravagantly 
 kept establishment, she could do nothing without orders, 
 and money seemed to melt through her fingers. 
 
 The slight noise of Miss Knight's entrance attracted 
 the attention of the old servant who was anxiously await- 
 ing her young mistress' return. She came now from the 
 kitchen to greet her and wept copiously as Dorothy kissed 
 her and asked for news of her sister. 
 
 "She's very poorly, miss, and that changed you'd hardly 
 know her. But it's no use asking me, miss, how she is, as 
 I hardly ever have as much as a glimpse of her. And it 
 does seem hard, after all these years, that me, who has 
 known Miss Phyllis and you since" you was babies, must 
 be turned out of the room by this fine lady nurse, and 
 sent to fetch her beer and cook her chops and steaks in- 
 stead. And it's no good my speaking to Dr. Morgan, for 
 he takes her part. 'Obey Nurse Rose's orders in every- 
 thing,' he says. But I says only my young mistress can 
 give me orders, and it hurts me, Miss Dorothy, that it 
 does." 
 
 Miss Knight soothed the old servant as best she could 
 and made her way to her sister's room. Nurse Rose had 
 written that Phyllis was asking constantly for her in her
 
 158 Home Again. 
 
 conscious and semi-conscious intervals, so although but 
 twelve days more would see the conclusion of the tour and 
 disbanding of the company, Dorothy seized the chance 
 of a cheap and early excursion from Bournemouth to Lon- 
 don to catch a glimpse at her beloved Phyllis. 
 
 Outside the sick room Nurse Rose stopped her. 
 
 "Your sister is terribly weak," she whispered, "and her 
 heart's action is so feeble that anything in the nature of a 
 shock must be avoided. I have been preparing her gently 
 for your visit during the past hour and she is quiet now. 
 She is quite conscious to-day and recognized your foot- 
 step. Try not to show surprise at her altered appear- 
 ance." 
 
 Dorothy bent her head and stole into the room. The 
 green blind was half lowered to protect the invalid's eyes 
 from the sun and its shade accentuated the unearthly pal- 
 lor of Phyllis' face. Her small, pale mouth seemed abso- 
 lutely large, so sunken were her cheeks, and her gray 
 eyes appeared of an unnatural size and brilliancy. Round 
 her waxen-white forehead short rings of dark-brown hair, 
 cut close as a boy's added yet another unfamiliar note to 
 her appearance. Her plentiful, soft hair which for stage 
 effect she had dyed a pale gold color, had been cut off 
 during her illness, and, womanlike, this was her first 
 thought after Dorothy had stepped gently to her bedside 
 and folded her in her arms. 
 
 "Oh, my dear, dear Dolly," she whispered feebly. 
 "How beautiful to have you here again. Do I look very 
 dreadful without my hair ? It made me so hot I was glad 
 to get rid of it. And it will never matter how I look 
 again now." 
 
 "Hush, my dear one. You don't know what you are 
 saying." 
 
 "Yes, I do. Is nurse out of the room ?" 
 
 "Yes, Phyllis, dear, don't try to talk."
 
 Home Again. 159 
 
 "Let me, before my thoughts go wandering off again. 
 Dorothy, they think they will save me, but I know that I 
 cannot live very long. Already things seem to be getting 
 a long way off even you don't seem really near me 
 your voice seems to come from a distance. I feel as if I 
 had grown into a shadow already. I have never thought 
 very much about religion, Dolly, not to worry about it, I 
 mean." 
 
 "Phyllis r 
 
 "Dolly, dear, you are not to cry. Death can't possibly 
 be worse than life. You don't know how I have prayed 
 for death when those dreadful pains in my head come on. 
 I've made such a muddle of it all. Only when you told 
 me about the sea in your letters I sometimes wanted to 
 get well to see it again." 
 
 "You can't think how lovely it looked this morning," 
 said Dorothy, anxious beyond everything to change the 
 current of her sister's thoughts. "So blue and brilliant it 
 made one's eyes ache to look at it. Last night I had a 
 walk along the cliffs after the performance. The sky 
 was almost as bright and clear as at midday, and to see 
 the little waves breaking in silver under the moonlight 
 was delightful." 
 
 "I should like to see the sea again," sighed Phyllis, a 
 wistful look coming into her great eyes. "I almost think 
 I should get better if I could see the sea." 
 
 "You shall see it, dear, if you want to !" cried Dorothy 
 impetuously. "You shall have anything you want if you 
 will only get well !" 
 
 Phyllis nestled her cheek against her sister's hand and 
 kissed it." 
 
 "I feel better already, now that you are back," mur- 
 mured she. "I think if I could lie still day after day, with 
 you beside me, looking out at the sea or on a ship, Dolly 
 wouldn't that be lovely? A ship that would sail away
 
 160 Home Again. 
 
 with us somewhere where there are no more pains and 
 worries and broken hearts I should get well then, quite 
 well." 
 
 Her head drooped heavily upon Dorothy's arm as she 
 finished speaking, and her eyes closed. She had fallen 
 asleep, worn out by the excitement of this meeting. 
 Gently disengaging her arms, Dorothy laid her sister 
 back upon her pillows, and went in search of Nurse Rose. 
 
 "The worst thing about Mrs. Trevelyan's case is that 
 she doesn't seem to want to live," the nurse said. "Of 
 course, being so very young is very much in her favor, 
 though, poor, dear thing, she might be thirty from her 
 looks now. Yet Mrs. Cresswell tells me that you and 
 your sister were formerly so much alike it was difficult to 
 tell one from the other." 
 
 Dr. Morgan arrived on his daily visit at this juncture. 
 The patient was going on as well as could be expected, 
 he said. 
 
 "I am very much afraid though, that even if we pull 
 her through this, she will never be a strong woman again," 
 he said. "Unfortunately, I can do but little to alleviate 
 the acute neuralgia from which she suffers, owing to the 
 enfeebled condition of her heart. What your sister really 
 requires is change of air and of scene. Of course, I don't 
 want to prescribe anything impossible, but if you could get 
 your sister to some warm seaside place when she is a little 
 stronger." 
 
 "Such as Plymouth?" 
 
 "Yes, Plymouth would be an excellent place for her in 
 about a fortnight's time, always supposing that she is 
 strong enough to be moved." 
 
 "I shall be at Torquay next week," said Dorothy. 
 
 "Next week might be rather premature. But a few 
 days later " 
 
 "You think it would save her life?"
 
 Home Again. 161 
 
 "It would certainly be conducive to her recovery. It is 
 not only her body but her mind that is in need of physic. 
 I have seldom seen a woman more utterly hopeless. May 
 I ask if you have had any news of her husband?" 
 
 "Yes," she answered fiercely ; "I have had news of him. 
 He is in America traveling about and enjoying himself, 
 while my poor darling is lying there more dead than alive 
 through his callous wickedness. Oh, what nonsense it is 
 to talk about the rights of women and any possible equal- 
 ity between women and men, while Nature herself is so 
 cruelly unjust and unfair ! For the man, all the pleasure 
 in life ; for the woman, all the pains and punishment !" 
 
 "You are arguing from an altogether exceptional case," 
 observed Dr. Morgan gently. "In a right and natural 
 order of things it is the man who bears the buffeting and 
 the anxieties out in the world, while the woman remains 
 sheltered in the home that he has provided for her. You 
 must not let your sister's sad experiences make you bitter. 
 Women are not all angels any more than men are all 
 devils, believe me." 
 
 "I dare say not," she returned. "But, Dr. Morgan, 
 all those set phrases about the male bird fighting for food 
 while the female bird stays warm in the nest don't apply 
 to us women who have to work and work harder than 
 men, competing with them at a disadvantage." 
 
 "It is a state of affairs which is not right," he said. 
 "Woman's place is the home, and she is happiest there." 
 
 "But woman's place will have to be wherever she can 
 make a living, while England remains overstocked with 
 women, and while English parents are too selfish to 
 borrow a hint from France and save up dots for their 
 daughters." 
 
 He laid his hand kindly on her shoulder. 
 
 "You are too young to argue," he said, "and too pretty.
 
 1 62 Home Again. 
 
 Why don't you marry, and get some nice man to provide 
 you with a comfortable home for yourself, and for your 
 sister, too? It is the happiest life you will find." 
 
 "I have found very little happiness in the other," she 
 said, smiling, but with tears in her eyes. "But these good 
 men who are anxious to lay their fortunes at the feet 
 of a penniless girl, and provide for her relations also, 
 don't grow on every hedge." 
 
 As she spoke she suddenly blushed. Was not one 
 man at least willing, nay, eager, to give her his name and 
 his fortune, and might he not easily be induced to provide 
 for her sister also ? 
 
 The doctor noted her change of countenance, and 
 laughed softly to himself, drawing his own conclusions 
 from it. 
 
 "The fault of pretty girls," he said sagely, "is that they 
 are too particular. That is why the plain ones get mar- 
 ried first." 
 
 "You talk," exclaimed Dorothy indignantly, "and all 
 men talk, as if getting married was the one end and aim 
 in every woman's life, the only thing she was created 
 for, the only thing she ever thinks about. But you are 
 quite wrong." 
 
 "I and the other men are right in so many cases that 
 we may well be wrong in exceptional ones," he said. 
 "Don't be too hard on the young man. Beauty soon 
 fades, and lovely women are apt to grow bitter. Good- 
 by, Miss Knight ; you may be sure I will take every care 
 of your sister until your return ; and, by the way," he 
 added, stopping in the hall as Dorothy was accompanying 
 him to the front door, "how are you getting on in your 
 theatrical career?" 
 
 "Hush !" whispered Dorothy, putting her finger to her 
 lips, "I wouldn't for the world that Phyllis should know,
 
 Home Again. 163 
 
 or Cresswell, who might tell her. But I am a failure 
 altogether. I cannot act a bit, and I fear I never shall." 
 
 Again the doctor laughed softly to himself. 
 
 "You are the first young lady I have ever met who 
 did not think herself an embryo Siddons," he said. "But 
 if you really are a failure, there is all the more reason 
 why you should not be hard upon that young man you 
 thought of just now the one who is ready to offer you 
 a nice home. Good-by, Miss Knight!" 
 
 Throughout the hot and dusty journey back to Bourne- 
 mouth in a third-class compartment full of workmen, 
 women and babies, Dorothy sat with set face and half- 
 closed eyes, trying to think out the problem of the future. 
 
 Poor Cresswell had been deeply hurt by the mere sug- 
 gestion that she could have saved anything out of the 
 five pounds a week Dorothy had sent her. The nurse's 
 fee, the rent, and charges for medicines made it a hard 
 enough matter to manage on the sum, she declared, and 
 Dorothy knew that it was useless to argue with her. 
 When the agent and the dressmaker were paid off at 
 the end of the tour Dorothy foresaw that barely a few 
 shillings would remain of that sixty pounds from which 
 she had hoped so much. She dared not think of the 
 doctor's bill, and her heart sank as she realized how im- 
 probable it was that she would obtain another theatrical 
 engagement, or that she would be able to meet her heavy 
 expenses by the exercise of her talent for drawing and 
 painting. 
 
 She felt weak and tired. She had not realized how 
 much late hours and early rising, working morning, noon 
 and night, and persistent semi-starvation had weakened 
 her. A healthy, well-built young woman of twenty can- 
 not live upon cheap fish, bread and butter, water and 
 tea, for any length of time without some loss, both of 
 flesh and spirit, and, leaning back now in the hard, un-
 
 164 Home Again. 
 
 comfortable seat of the train, with the scorching sun beat- 
 ing on her face, and the sight, smell and sound of the 
 cheap and dirty holiday humanity all about her, Dorothy's 
 brave heart seemed to melt within her. Tears burned her 
 closed eyelids, and presently stole, one by one, down her 
 cheeks. 
 
 One of the women with babies, a woman whose coarse 
 voice and language and aggressive cockney accent had 
 jarred intolerably upon Dorothy since the beginning of 
 the journey, developed an altogether unexpected kind- 
 ness and gentleness at sight of the girl's white, tear- 
 stained face. 
 
 "Change seats with me, missy. You'll be better by 
 the window." 
 
 Her other fellow travelers followed suit in kindness, 
 and Dorothy reproached herself for having condemned 
 them as noisy, vulgar and dirty. Still, it was a relief 
 when the train slowed down at Bournemouth, and came 
 at last to a standstill by the platform. 
 
 As she rose from her seat, her eyes fell upon the Hon. 
 Darcy Derrick, looking cool, "well groomed," and hand- 
 some, in a light gray suit and straw hat, smoking a cigar 
 on the platform, while he eagerly scanned the faces of 
 the passengers by the London train. Catching sight of 
 Dorothy, he threw away his cigar and hurried to the 
 door of her compartment to help her out. She noticed 
 that his hands were trembling, and, glancing quickly at 
 his face, she saw that his mouth was twitching and that 
 anxiety was written on his every feature. He composed 
 himself under her glance of surprise, and hurriedly asked 
 her if she had found her sister any better. 
 
 "Thank you very much. She is no worse." 
 
 "I cannot make you understand," he exclaimed, "how 
 desperately anxious I have been ever since I heard at 
 your lodgings this morning that you had gone to London
 
 Home Again. 165 
 
 to see your sister. I said to myself: 'As it is so near 
 the end of the tour, she would not go unless her sister 
 was very ill, perhaps dying. If she finds her dead I 
 believe it will kill her.' I tortured myself imagining the 
 scene until I was nearly mad. I came to the station and 
 began meeting trains from London two and a half hours 
 ago. 'Great heavens!' I said to myself, 'supposing that 
 she should not return that she should leave like this, 
 without a word of farewell !' " 
 
 "Surely, you didn't think I could be so ungrateful " 
 
 Dorothy was beginning, when he cut her short. 
 
 "Ah! don't talk of gratitude between you and me. 
 Gratitude is such a hateful, cold word, though I am grate- 
 ful to you for letting me adore you, even though you 
 hate me in return." 
 
 "I don't hate you, Mr. Darcy." 
 
 "Prove it by jumping into a fly and driving off to have 
 a little dinner with me at the hotel close to the theatre. 
 You look dreadfully pale; I am certain that in the ex- 
 citement of seeing your sister you forgot your lunch ?" 
 
 "I did; but " 
 
 "But you owe it to me, for I went lunchless, too, out 
 of anxiety about you. And you needn't worry about the 
 proprieties, for my mother is coming to this very hotel 
 to-morrow, and you will be lunching with her as soon 
 as she comes. You have only just thirty-five minutes 
 before you will have to dress for the theatre; it will do 
 you good, and make me so happy ! Here is the fly. Let 
 me help you in. And now, driver, the Carrington Hotel 
 as fast as you can go!"
 
 CHAPTER XVL 
 
 FOR J'HYLLIS' SAKE. 
 
 During the course of the well chosen and dainty menu 
 at the Carrington Hotel, Darcy Derrick was sufficiently 
 tactful to refrain from troubling his leading lady with 
 any reference to the state of his affections, and confined 
 himself to sympathetic inquiries about her sister, and 
 witty and amusing chatter on different subjects. 
 
 As soon as the tour was finished, so he informed her, 
 he intended hiring a yacht and cruising about in the 
 Mediterranean. 
 
 "Lying on deck all day," he said, watching her closely, 
 "with one's hands behind one's head and one's eyes fixed 
 on the blue sky above, and ears filled with the music of 
 the swishing waves. The only sensible thing to do in 
 August and September, isn't it?" 
 
 "Yes, for any one who can afford it," Dorothy an- 
 swered. 
 
 Her thoughts flew to Phyllis and to Phyllis' longing 
 for a sea voyage. Both sisters were passionately fond 
 of the sea, and at this moment Dorothy, hot and tired, 
 with an aching head and a heart weighed down by 
 anxiety and grim forebodings, felt that almost any sac- 
 rifice would be justifiable to secure rest and freedom and 
 fresh sea breezes for Phyllis and herself on just such a 
 trip as Mr. Derrick had planned. 
 
 "You look dreadfully pale," her companion suddenly 
 exclaimed. "Do let me give you some more Burgundy." 
 
 "No, thank you. I am not used to wine." 
 
 "Don't you like it?"
 
 For Phyllis' Sake. 167 
 
 "I used to. But I have not tasted it for quite three 
 vears now. In fact," she added reflectively, "I can hardly 
 say that I have dined for three years, although, of course, 
 I have had food of a sort." 
 
 He looked earnestly at her, and a moisture crept into 
 his large, blue eyes. 
 
 "It makes what I eat half choke me to think of it," he 
 said in a very low voice. "To think, I mean, of you and 
 your sister, beautiful and friendless, working your youth 
 and health away, facing starvation and death together, 
 and yet retaining that lovely, lily-like purity of mind 
 that sets you apart from almost all the women I have 
 ever known; I can't tell you how the thought of it 
 touches me. Now, I am not going to weary you by any 
 outburst of sentiment, so don't look at the clock and take 
 your gloves up. We have plenty of time to get across 
 to the theatre, and I must say one thing to leave in your 
 mind as a parting thought. It rests with you whether 
 you and your sweet sister go on leading these cruel, 
 wasted lives, or whether all your troubles and worries 
 cease at once forever. There! Don't look frightened. 
 I won't say one word more on the subject; but don't 
 forget my words." 
 
 She did not forget them. 
 
 She recalled them over her solitary supper in her mean 
 little lodgings that night ; she went to bed and lay awake 
 thinking of them; and, lying there in the darkness, she 
 owned to herself that had it been Aylmer Read instead 
 of Darcy Derrick, she would have accepted his offer with 
 a light heart, and even not without a certain tremulous 
 gladness. 
 
 It was not, she told herself, that she was in love with 
 Aylmer Read, whom in her life she had not met half a 
 dozen times. But, given sufficient time and opportunity, 
 she might well have become so. Something in the
 
 168 For Phyllis' Sake. 
 
 straight gaze of Aylmer Read's brown eyes and in the 
 deep, mellow sound of his voice had inspired in her a feel- 
 ing of restful confidence. She knew that he had loved her 
 at first sight, and that he had become an art student solely 
 that he might be near her; and she remembered almost 
 every word they had exchanged during that walk to- 
 gether from the Grassmarket Theatre to Sloane street. 
 
 All the Hon. Darcy Derrick's protestations availed less 
 with her than those few words spoken by Aylmer Read 
 three months ago. 
 
 "The chief wish of my life is to know you and become 
 your friend." "Love is the one thing which idealizes 
 life and makes it worth living, and you will find it out 
 some day." "Only a woman can make a man happy, and 
 only a man can make a woman happy." 
 
 Dorothy sighed as she recalled his words and tone, and 
 turned impatiently upon her pillow. She had thought 
 of Aylmer Read very often since they had parted, and 
 always with a hope, which amounted to a conviction, 
 that they would meet again. His was just the type she 
 most admired and felt most needful to supplement her 
 own. He was very brave and very firm, with strong 
 feelings held in check by a reverent gentleness for women, 
 and a keen sense of humor tempered by great kindliness 
 toward all men. A big, broad, manly man, of sweet, 
 even temper, and very slow to wrath a man she could 
 look up to, a man she could love. 
 
 While, as to Darcy Derrick 
 
 Truth to tell, Darcy Derrick's personality affected her 
 not at all ; or, if at all, unpleasantly. Now and then even, 
 she had been moved by his look or touch to sudden, 
 unreasoning hate, for which she had afterward reproached 
 herself. But Dorothy's deepest feelings were not easily 
 roused. In all the world she only truly loved one human 
 being her sister Phyllis. Her really great powers of
 
 For Phyllis' Sake. 169 
 
 loving one of the opposite sex had never yet been called 
 into play, although, with all her capability of hating as 
 strongly as she loved, she detested, for her sister's sake, 
 the unseen and unknown Sergius Trevelyan. 
 
 But at this juncture neither hate nor love was in ques- 
 tion. In a very few days' time she would be in desperate 
 straits for money, while her total failure as an actress, 
 together with her recent inability to sell her drawings, 
 had seriously weakened her belief in herself. Two other 
 persons her sister Phyllis and poor, helpless Cresswell, 
 depended upon her utterly, and looked to her for entire 
 support; and now, as a profession, marriage which, ac- 
 cording to Dr. Morgan, was a woman's only vocation 
 was offered to her marriage with a man young, hand- 
 some, well off, her superior in social station, passionately 
 devoted to her; a man, too, who had already shown her 
 the greatest kindness and generosity, and who had been 
 the means of providing her with remunerative work for 
 the past few weeks. 
 
 Every one seemed to think she ought to be touched by 
 Darcy Derrick's devotion, and hasten to accept him. His 
 mother had urged his cause, and Mrs. Stourton-Chepe 
 had done her utmost to dispose Dorothy favorably to- 
 ward him. In strong contrast with the secret and shame- 
 faced wrong of her sister by the villainous Sergius Tre- 
 velyan, the Hon. Darcy Derrick's infatuation for his lead- 
 ing lady, and her apparent indifference to it, was the 
 common talk of the company. He told every one he met 
 that he loved her and wanted to marry her. It had 
 even come to the ears of his invalid brother, Lord Der- 
 rick, who had written to remonstrate with his junior on 
 "throwing himself away upon an actress." Mrs. Stour- 
 ton-Chepe had seen Lord Derrick's letter and had quoted 
 it to Dorothy, who had tossed her pretty head and de- 
 clared that Lord Derrick need have no fear that she
 
 170 For Phyllis' Sake. 
 
 would enter his family or any other in which she was 
 not welcome. But, beyond all this, and an infinitely 
 stronger argument in Dorothy's favor, was his suggestion 
 of that yachting cruise in the Mediterranean which, if 
 Phyllis could but enjoy it also, might be the means of 
 restoring her to health. 
 
 Dorothy thought of all these things, tossing restlessly 
 upon her sleepless bed. She could not bring herself to 
 regard the absolute personality of Darcy Derrick, as a 
 necessary part of the bargain, with any sentiment but a 
 slight repugnance. The womanish beauty of his delicate 
 white hands, the transparent pallor of his skin, the lan- 
 guishing look in his long, blue eyes under their silky, 
 dark eyelashes, and, above all, the vivid red of his under- 
 lip which he perpetually gnawed when excited all these 
 things, and even his graceful figure and smooth, sweet 
 voice, which other women regarded as irresistible, inspired 
 in Dorothy a feeling of impatience and irritation. 
 
 Her nature instinctively revolted against allying her- 
 self with a type for which she had neither sympathy nor 
 liking, and although, owing in part to her mother's early 
 death and her sheltered home education, Dorothy under- 
 stood little more of the married state at twenty than she 
 had done at four, she yet shrank from the thought of 
 becoming the wife of a man for whom she could not bring 
 herself to care. She had been very well educated accord- 
 ing to the accepted ideas for the education of wealthy 
 young ladies of the middle class. She knew by heart 
 all the stock anecdotes of kings and queens which are 
 supposed to constitute the History of England ; she could 
 add up easy sums, play dance music more or less imper- 
 fectly at sight, read Goethe's "Faust" (revised) in the 
 original, make herself understood among intelligent 
 French people, sing Italian songs of moderate compass 
 moderately in tune, dance the waltz popular when she was
 
 For Phyllis' Sake. 171 
 
 at school, walk with head erect and toes turned at the 
 proper angle, and, best of all, she could speak her own 
 language without a trace of cockney and with only occa- 
 sional blunders in grammar. In a word, she was very 
 well educated. 
 
 But of the nature of man as man, and woman as woman, 
 of the difference between them, and the passions that 
 move them, she knew exactly nothing at all. Otherwise 
 she would never have decided before she fell asleep that 
 night that perhaps it was her duty to become the wife of 
 the Hon. Darcy Derrick. 
 
 Darcy's mother, when she arrived at Bournemouth on 
 the following day, tried vainly to reason with her son 
 on the subject of his infatuation for Miss Knight. 
 
 "Of course,, she is only hanging back to draw you on," 
 she said. "I wonder, dearest, you can let her play with 
 you. You are getting positively thin and worn with 
 worrying about her. And what is she, after all, but a 
 penniless nobody, besides being the very worst actress I 
 have ever seen." 
 
 "She is a goddess!" he murmured. "The most peer- 
 lessly lovely being ever born into this world." 
 
 "But you have talked like that of others," cried his 
 mother. "So many, many others, my dear son, whose 
 names you have by this time forgotten." 
 
 "No woman has made me feel as this one does/' he re- 
 turned. "Mother, I must have her I cannot live without 
 her!" 
 
 He caught his mother's hand in his hot, fevered clasp. 
 
 "I am going mad for love of her," he said. "Her very 
 coldness, her indifference, thrill me more than other 
 women's tenderest caresses. How exquisite, how raptur- 
 ous it will be to see the coldness turn to red-hot hate, 
 and from hate melt into burning love !"
 
 172 For Phyllis' Sake. 
 
 "Hate!" Lady Derrick repeated. "Do you mean that 
 she could hate you ?" 
 
 "She can, and will," he answered dreamily. "I know 
 her nature. Under that cold crust lies a pent-up volcano 
 of emotion. She is made of 'spirit, fire and dew,' like 
 Browning's 'Evelyn Hope.' Look at that exquisite, thin 
 face of hers, in which the least feeling shows through the 
 fine, pale skin, soft and clear as the inner petals of a 
 newly-blown blush rose. Look at the perfect modeling 
 of her arms, round without the least approach to fatness ; 
 all through the third act last night I never once took my 
 eyes off her arms a man might well sell his soul to feel 
 them clinging around his neck. There is something in 
 her voice, a cooling, caressing quality that allures irre- 
 sistibly, with every now and then a cold, almost hard, 
 note dropped in to pique a man by the sharp contrast. 
 I tell you, mother, Dorothy has all the fascinations of all 
 the women I have ever met and loved, and of others that 
 I have dreamed of, rolled into one." 
 
 "You are a poet, my darling," said his mother, fondly 
 stroking his brow, "and you talk yourself into these 
 frenzies of loving. Your eyes are quite haggard and your 
 hair is moist with excitement. How dare she be so hard 
 and cruel to my dear, handsome boy ? She ought to think 
 herself highly honored by your love, without any hope 
 of ever becoming your wife ! But to presume to refuse 
 that honor " 
 
 "Don't, mother, for heaven's sake ! If you adopt that 
 tone toward her my cause is hopeless. If you wish to 
 save my life and reason you must work with me in this. 
 All she cares for in the world at present until she has 
 married me is her sister. Play upon that. Tell her how 
 much I feel for them both, how much I have told you 
 about them " 
 
 "Have you ever seen the sister?"
 
 For Phyllis' Sake. 173 
 
 "I ? No. How should I have seen her ? But I believe 
 they are very much alike, so no doubt she is beautiful. 
 And Dorothy adores her." 
 
 "I cannot understand these ice-cold young English 
 women, who love their sisters better than their sweet- 
 hearts," observed Lady Derrick. "But if marrying her 
 will make you happy, why, you must marry her, I suppose. 
 And 1 will do anything in the world to help you, my 
 dearest one." 
 
 So she treated Dorothy, after lunch, to more anecdotes 
 of her son's infancy and boyhood, all tending to show 
 him in a heroic and irresistible light, and she dilated upon 
 his filial devotion and upon the persecution he had en- 
 dured for many years from his jealous brothers and 
 sisters and his unforgiving father persecution which had 
 driven him from his home and made an exile of him 
 in France and Italy for nearly seven years. Through all 
 that time she described, with tears in her eyes, how he 
 had never forgotten his poor mother, but had constantly 
 written to her and sent her flowers and little gifts in 
 token of his unswerving loyalty and love. 
 
 "And no doubt, my dear," Lady Derrick concluded, 
 with feminine astuteness, "it is his fondness for me which 
 makes him so thoroughly understand the love between 
 you and your sister. I assure you, Darcy has spoken 
 of it to me with tears in his eyes. He tells me he has 
 never even seen your sister, but he speaks of her as a 
 brother already." 
 
 All these sayings were not without their due weight 
 on Dorothy. But on the last night of the week at Bourne- 
 mouth the Hon. Darcy did much to imperil his chances 
 of success by his own indiscretion. 
 
 The theatre was less empty than usual in the more 
 expensive parts, it having got about among some of the 
 fashionable hotels in the town that "Love's Right" was
 
 174 For Phyllis' Sake. 
 
 rather immoral, that "Mr. Darcy," the author and man- 
 ager, was the late Lord Derrick's second son, and that 
 Miss Knight, his leading lady, was a singularly beautiful 
 woman. Mr. Derrick had been dining with some friends, 
 and came on with them afterward to a box, arriving half- 
 way through the performance. His friends, all of the 
 male sex, were enthusiastic in their appreciation of Doro- 
 thy's good looks, and during the third act the Hon. Darcy, 
 moved by love, excitement and champagne, left his' box, 
 and, going round to the stage, watched his lady love with 
 enraptured eyes from the wings. 
 
 When Zara Carewe's last exit arrived, Dorothy made 
 her way toward her dressing-room, carefully drawing her 
 long, tight gloves off her arms, which were too fair to 
 require the customary paint and powder. Suddenly, in 
 the passage from which the dressing-room doors opened, 
 she found herself seized in the grasp of a man who was 
 closely following her, and who, pinioning her arms against 
 her sides, pressed his hot lips on her bare shoulders. 
 
 In a moment, by a sharp movement, she had freed her- 
 self, and, bearing off the glove she was unfastening, had 
 struck her manager with it full in the face. 
 
 More than one member of the company witnessed the 
 incident as they hurried to their rooms to change their 
 costumes for the last act, and more than one heard, too, 
 Dorothy's exclamation in tones of unconcealed scorn and 
 anger : 
 
 "How dare you !" 
 
 For, at Darcy 's kiss, into the girl's heart there swept 
 an uncontrollable feeling of repulsion and disgust. She 
 could not even proceed with her stage toilette without 
 washing and scrubbing her white shoulders until the skin 
 was reddened and sore. She had begun rather to like 
 Darcy Derrick, to be touched by his devotion, and to 
 regard marriage with him as her possible fate at least with
 
 For Phyllis' Sake. 175 
 
 equanimity ; but that kiss made her for the time absolutely 
 hate him; nor would she exchange one word with him 
 during two or three days that followed. 
 
 At last, on the Wednesday of the Plymouth week, Mr. 
 Jack Wyverley, dispatched by his friend and manager 
 on a very important mission to Miss Dorothy Knight's 
 lodgings, found her painting materials ready on the table 
 of her sitting-room, but the lady herself absent. She had 
 gone, so the landlady informed him, to make a pencil 
 sketch of the shipping in the harbor from the Hoe. And 
 here Jack Wyverley found her seated, not far from 
 Drake's statue, not sketching, but staring out to sea with 
 a troubled look in her brilliant, gray-green eyes. 
 
 It was still early in the forenoon, and there was no 
 one else in sight. It was an admirable opportunity for 
 accomplishing his errand, and Jack Wyverley grinned 
 and showed his handsome white teeth as he took his 
 place on the bench beside her, after raising his hat and 
 bidding her good-morning. 
 
 "I have come as an ambassador," he began cheerfully. 
 
 "Oh ! From Mr. Darcy, I suppose ?" she said coldly. 
 
 "Yes. But I want to talk business. It isn't necessary 
 for me to say he adores you, and is simply dying for love 
 of you, because you know it." 
 
 "I have heard all about it," she returned wearily, "and 
 I don't want to hear any more. And if you are going 
 to talk business, Mr. Wyverley, I will tell you this frankly 
 that I know quite well it would be to my interest to 
 marry Mr. Derrick, but that I have tried hard to love 
 him sufficiently, and I simply can't." 
 
 "He doesn't hope for your love yet. Though you must 
 be awfully hard-hearted, I think, Miss Knight, not to be 
 sorry for him." 
 
 "Yes. But we don't love people just because we are 
 sorry for them."
 
 176 For Phyllis' Sake. 
 
 "Don't people say 'pity is akin to love ?' What is there 
 about Darcy you don't like? Most people think him a 
 regular Adonis." 
 
 Jack Wyverley had a bright "afternoon tea-table" man- 
 ner with women of education that inspired liking and 
 confidence. Dorothy turned on him with puzzled eyes. 
 
 "The odd part of it is," she said, "that I don't know 
 why I don't like him. He is very kind and very amusing, 
 and, of course, very good looking, too, in a style that I 
 don't in the least admire ; but I really can't describe it 
 the moment he begins to get in the least lover-like I posi- 
 tively hate him!" 
 
 Into Jack Wyverley 's prominent blue eyes there flashed 
 a sudden look of comprehension, and even of sympathy ; 
 but the next moment his red face appeared as expres- 
 sionless as ever. 
 
 "That's awkward, of course," he said briskly ; "but, as 
 your own dislike is altogether unreasonable and unfound- 
 ed, it's certain to pass away. Do you remember what 
 Mrs. Malaprop says about sympathy and aversion? 'As 
 both are sure to wear off, it's safer in matrimony to begin 
 with a little aversion.' Seriously, Miss Knight, poor 
 Darcy is in an awfully bad way, realizing that it's the 
 last week of the tour, and that he has somehow offended 
 you, and he's off his head for fear of losing you. So 
 he did me the honor of taking my advice. I've made a 
 glorious muddle of my own affairs, but I am Ai over 
 managing other people's. Now, I said this: 'As Miss 
 Knight is not to be moved by sentiment, come to business.' 
 We had a long talk, and agreed on a certain course, and 
 as a result I have been up to London, and I have brought 
 to you," he went on, drawing a bulky envelope from under 
 his coat, "a copy of the late Lord Derrick's will, which 
 you have no doubt already seen quoted in the newspapers, 
 by which twenty-five thousand pounds came into Darcy's
 
 For Phyllis' Sake. 177 
 
 possession a few months ago through the bequest of his 
 grandfather, and also the draft of a legal document by 
 which two hundred a year will be settled absolutely for 
 her life upon your sister from the moment that you be- 
 come the Hon. Mrs. Darcy Derrick." 
 
 "On my sister?" 
 
 "Yes. Darcv knows money is no temptation to you, 
 except for your sister's sake. He will come into fifteen 
 thousand a year, and the title and estates when his brother, 
 who is consumptive, dies. But, until that event, with his 
 present income of only about one thousand a year, and a 
 little allowance from his mother, I think myself it is rather 
 a handsome offer. If you accept it, a lawyer in this 
 town will be immediately sent to make it perfectly legal 
 and binding. Darcy says he knows he is rather extrava- 
 gant, and that therefore he would prefer that the money 
 for your sister's maintenance should be taken right out of 
 his control. Once your anxiety about her is relieved, he 
 feels that he may perhaps win your love." 
 
 Dorothy read through both papers carefully. When 
 she returned them to Mr. Wyverley tears stood in her 
 eyes. 
 
 "It is very, very good and thoughtful and generous of 
 him," she murmured, "and I am not in a position to refuse 
 such an offer. But you must tell him the truth, Mr. 
 Wyverley. I don't love him; but I will try and be 
 worthy of his unselfish love. I have no money and no 
 friends, and not even any talent," she added sadly, "or 
 I should even now say no. But I am in desperate need 
 of money. It sounds a mean thing to marry for that, 
 but as it isn't for myself I want it, it cannot be so bad. 
 If Mr. Derrick will take me on such terms, I will try 
 to be a good wife to him. And surely it will be easy to 
 love any one so good and generous, whose mother, and 
 whose friends, are alike devoted to him."
 
 178 For Phyllis' Sake. 
 
 Her clear, sweet tones, the truth that shone from her 
 tearful eyes, and the maidenly blushes that passed over 
 her sensitive skin all these things affected Mr. Jack 
 Wyverley strangely. 
 
 He felt his cheeks grow hot, and an unaccountable 
 impulse came upon him to hurl the papers in his hand 
 over the cliff into the sea which stretched, blue and 
 sparkling, many feet below. But after thirty-eight years 
 of checkered existence, he knew the folly of yielding to 
 impulses, and after a short pause he rose, raised his hat, 
 and left Dorothy alone with her thoughts. 
 
 Only where his heart, from the sentimental and not 
 from the anatomical point of view, used to be, he felt an 
 odd soreness. 
 
 "I've done a good many mean things for a pal before 
 now," he told himself on his way back to the Hon. Darcy's 
 hotel, "but I'm bothered if this isn't the meanest of 
 them all !"
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THK BLOW FALLS. 
 
 The last day of the tour of "Love's Right" had ar- 
 rived, and for the first and last time the part of Zara 
 Carevve was to be performed by an understudy. 
 
 For Miss Dorothy Knight, the original exponent of 
 the part, was to be married to her manager, the Hon. 
 Darcy Derrick, in St. James' Church, at half-past two 
 that day, and the happy pair were to start on a honey' 
 moon to Penzance and the Scilly Isles by the train which 
 left Plymouth at a quarter to four. 
 
 Everything, down to the minutest details, had been 
 settled with the most wonderful expedition. Some 
 charming rooms had been taken for Phyllis, and thither 
 she was to be transported, under Nurse Rose's care, in a 
 week's time, to await the return of Mr. and Mrs. Derrick 
 from their honeymoon. Afterward a cruise round about 
 the Cornish coast was to precede Darcy's triumphant 
 bringing home of his bride to Derrick Castle, and her 
 introduction to the other members of his family. 
 
 Aided by his trusty friends, Coles and Wyverley, Darcy 
 made his arrangements with such lightning celerity that 
 he left his fiancee no time for changing her mind. On 
 Wednesday morning she had finally accepted him, and 
 Wednesday afternoon saw the drawing up by a local 
 solicitor of the deed by which Phyllis was to enjoy two 
 hundred a year from the hour of her sister's marriage. 
 Wednesday evening found a diamond engagement ring 
 on Dorothy's finger. Thursday was spent by Darcy in
 
 180 The Blow Falls. 
 
 London, whence he returned to Plymouth with a special 
 marriage license in his pocket. Friday morning was 
 passed in shopping, and the afternoon in a long drive on 
 which, at Dorothy's insistence, Mr. and Mrs. Stourton- 
 Chepe accompanied the engaged couple, and when at 
 length Saturday morning dawned, it seemed to Dorothy 
 incredible that this should be indeed her wedding day. 
 
 Not once had she allowed the Hon. Darcy to be alone 
 with her from the moment when he had, on receipt of 
 Jack Wyverley's message, joined her on the sea front 
 and heard her own lips confirm her acceptance of his 
 offer. Something in his eyes startled and embarrassed 
 her, making her dread the inevitable moment when they 
 two should be left alone together. Meantime Mrs. Stour- 
 ton-Chepe was profuse in her congratulations. 
 
 "I never saw a man so madly in love in all my life," 
 she said. "You have played your cards very well, little 
 girl. That stand-off hauteur of yours wouldn't have 
 done with everybody, but it was very successful in Darcy's 
 case. Of course, he's extremely poor, considering his 
 position. But I'm told there's every probability of his 
 brother dying before he is forty, and then you will be 
 Lady Derrick." 
 
 It was useless to tell the true state of the case to Mrs. 
 Stourton-Chepe. Old Marmaduke Strutt, the melan- 
 choly, low comedian, was the only member of the com- 
 pany who guessed Miss Knight's real motive in marrying 
 her manager. When Marmaduke congratulated her, she 
 looked him straight in the face, while tears gathered in 
 her eyes. 
 
 "Mr. Derrick has been very kind and generous," she 
 said ; "but if I had not made such a terrible failure, or if 
 I were alone in the world, I would not do it." 
 
 She could not write and tell her sister that she was 
 going to be married to a man whose name she had hardly
 
 The Blow Falls. 181 
 
 yet mentioned. It would seem a reproach and a bitter 
 reminder to her, Dorothy thought, in Phyllis' neglected 
 and forsaken condition. So she merely told her that she 
 was going to Penzance, and that there was now no more 
 need for worrying about money, as she had accepted an- 
 other engagement which would last a long time. 
 
 "And so, as you want change, dear," Dorothy wrote, 
 "and Nurse Rose tells me in her letters that you will 
 be able to travel next week, I want you to come under 
 her care to some nice, bright rooms I have taken for you 
 opposite 1 the sea here, and to wait in Plymouth until I 
 come back to you, in a very few days' time. I am sending 
 twenty pounds instead of five this week, for I shall have 
 plenty of money in my new engagement, and you are to 
 have just everything you want, my darling." 
 
 But, although she wrote so brightly and appeared quite 
 cheerful and interested while shopping in the town with 
 . Mrs. Stourton-Chepe, there were moments many, many 
 moments when Dorothy felt she would give ten years of 
 her life to retract her promise, and be free again. Now 
 and then some look of this flashed into her eyes, and was 
 legible there even to the hard-voiced, worldly woman who 
 was her constant companion during those last two days 
 before the wedding. 
 
 "I do believe," Mrs. Stourton-Chepe exclaimed once in 
 a low voice, suddenly laying her hand on Dorothy's in 
 a glove-shop while the attendant was looking for some- 
 thing on the shelves, "I do believe you are really in love 
 with some one else all the time." 
 
 Dorothy blushed. 
 
 "I once met a man I think I could have loved," she 
 said. 
 
 "Nothing more than that?" 
 
 "Nothing more." 
 
 "Oh, well, of course we have all of us married women
 
 182 The Blow Falls. 
 
 met men we could have loved better than our husbands," 
 observed the elder lady, philosophically. "The great 
 thing is to meet them before and not after marriage. Pas- 
 sionate love wears off in a week or two in any case, and 
 it is really not well bred for a young girl to be in love 
 with any man before she marries him. There is a great 
 deal too much silly nonsense written about falling in 
 love, where we English women are concerned, at least. 
 Of course, a poetic and emotional creature like poor, dear 
 Darcy, without one drop of Anglo-Saxon blood in his 
 veins, goes to the maddest extremes of emotion. But 
 nineteen out of every twenty properly brought-up young 
 English women marry because they are uncomfortable at 
 home, or because they're afraid of being old maids, or 
 because they would like a house of their own, and ser- 
 vants to bully, or because they want money. The 
 twentieth marries because she loves the man, and in those 
 cases he generally gets tired first and neglects her, be- 
 cause he is too sure of her, and her jealousy worries him. 
 Your attitude of polite friendliness, and a sort of appre- 
 ciative liking, is the right one for a bride, take my word 
 for it." 
 
 Yet, in spite of Mrs. Stourton-Chepe's approbation and 
 encouragement, Dorothy, on the eve of her wedding, was 
 thoroughly unhappy. For several hours after retiring 
 supperless to her room she lay on her bed fully dressed, 
 face downward, burying her cheeks in a pillow soaked 
 with tears. Once or twice she even started up with the 
 crazy idea of dashing off somewhere anywhere, where 
 the Hon. Darcy would not be able to find her for the 
 ceremony of the following day. 
 
 It was the remembrance of the money which Darcy had 
 given her to send to Phyllis which restrained her. 
 
 "He has bought me," she whispered to herself in a fit 
 of passionate weeping. "It is cruel and cowardly of him !
 
 The Blow Falls. 183 
 
 He knows quite well I can't love him, and when he looks 
 at me in that horrible, snake-like way, as if he were going 
 to spring at me, I absolutely hate him! And yet he 
 forces me to marry him for Phyllis' sake. It is cruel 
 and mean !" 
 
 But in the morning an apathy which was akin to resig- 
 nation took the place of the night's excitement. She was 
 to be married from the hotel where Lady Derrick was 
 staying, Darcy's mother having arrived in Plymouth for 
 the ceremony in the afternoon of the preceding day, and 
 at about one o'clock Dorothy proceeded to the hotel in 
 a cab and made her way upstairs to Lady Derrick's rooms. 
 
 Miss Knight was entering into the married state with- 
 out love and with considerable trepidation, but she was 
 a woman, and a very womanly one, and no woman can 
 get married without a little excitement and a natural 
 desire to look her best. 
 
 Owing to the recent death of Darcy's father, the cere- 
 mony was to be strictly private, only the Stourton-Chepes, 
 Mr. Wyverley and Mr. Coles having been invited to the 
 church. But in a simply-cut, white serge traveling cos- 
 tume, with fine lace ruffles at the neck and wrists, a little 
 silver embroidery on the vest, and a tiny white bonnet 
 crowning her bright hair, Dorothy, pale, with bright, 
 frightened eyes, looked beautiful enough to justify any 
 infatuation. 
 
 Lady Derrick was, as Dorothy expected she would be, 
 all tears and effusion. 
 
 Dorothy would be good to her darling boy, she knew. 
 His devotion to her had been so wonderful and had 
 lasted so long a time Lady Derrick was clearly surprised 
 at this but with a poetic nature such as his, unlimited 
 sympathy and tenderness was necessary, and Lady Der- 
 rick hoped her dear Dorothy would be ready to humor 
 and study his peculiar temperament.
 
 184 The Blow Falls. 
 
 In similar discourse and much shedding of tears 
 Darcy's mother beguiled the time until, at two o'clock, 
 the Stourton-Chepes arrived, and all four proceeded to 
 the church where the ceremony was to be performed. 
 
 In after life the scene would often pass again before 
 Dorothy's eyes as a dream, and not as any waking ex- 
 perience. Lady Derrick, pale, stout and tearful, in her 
 crepe-trimmed gown, drying her eyes with a black-edged 
 lawn pocket handkerchief, and supported by Mrs. Stour- 
 ton-Chepe, in her best gray silk gown Mrs. Stourton- 
 Chepe, whose hard face took on a look that was almost 
 regretful when her eyes rested upon the bride. 
 
 Mr. Wyverley, Mr. Coles and Mr. Stourton-Chepe 
 stood close to the altar rails, looking very much alike in 
 their regulation tall hats, frock coats, gray trousers, light 
 gloves and white "button-holes" well groomed, well 
 bred, fresh colored and expressionless. Dorothy caught 
 herself reflecting that Mr. Coles' single eyeglass came 
 as a boon to enable his friends to distinguish him among 
 other young men. 
 
 The Hon. Darcy himself was lividly pale ; his hand, as 
 it touched that of his bride's, was cold and clammy, and 
 the contact sent a chill through her. Was it the light 
 from the stained-glass window, she wondered, as she 
 glanced quickly up into her bridegroom's face, that spread 
 so deathly a hue over his features and lit his eyes with 
 so strange a fire? 
 
 Wyverley was watching him, too, and wondering 
 whether the fellow would be able to get through the 
 service after the repeated brandies and sodas he had that 
 morning drained to "pull himself together." He had 
 looked, as Wyverley phrased it, "more like going to his 
 funeral than his wedding" an hour before a helpless, 
 nerveless, shivering wreck, and even now Wyverley feared 
 lest at any moment he might break down.
 
 The Blow Falls. 185 
 
 Wyverley could have wished also that the bride would 
 have looked more self-conscious and blushing, and like 
 an ordinary bride. That calm of hers had something 
 sacrificial in it, and one quick, strained look she gave 
 round the church on entering set him thinking of the 
 eyes of a trapped bird. 
 
 Darcy's voice, when he spoke the responses, was low 
 and thick ; that of the bride, on the other hand, was clear 
 and sweet. 
 
 She took her part in the marriage service with mechan- 
 ical correctness, hardly noting its progress, so strong was 
 the reaction after the excitement and fatigue of the pre- 
 ceding days, and so determined the self-control by which 
 she concealed her real feelings. 
 
 In the same passive fashion she endured the congratu- 
 lations and handshakings immediately after the ceremony 
 and the little natural subdued chatter and laughter during 
 the signing in the registry. She was glad that the drive 
 back to the hotel was so short, and that the streets were 
 full of people. Darcy was by her side so close to her 
 that she could feel his hot breath upon her ear and cheek 
 and she felt thankful that at least he could not kiss 
 her yet. 
 
 Once at the hotel the bridegroom seemed restlessly 
 eager to be off again to the station. He had the tickets 
 to take, he urged, and they must be at the station fully a 
 quarter of an hour before the train started, and he seemed 
 absolutely disappointed when his best man produced two 
 first-class single tickets to Penzance, and informed him 
 that he had already interviewed the guard and secured a 
 compartment for the bridal pair. 
 
 At the last the leave-takings were hurried. Dorothy 
 cut the cake, and the four guests and Lady Derrick tasted 
 it, while Darcy drained several glasses of champagne. 
 
 Then the bride hurried away to change, with the help
 
 186 The Blow Falls. 
 
 of Lady Derrick's maid, her white bonnet for a shady 
 straw hat, trimmed with white roses, which, with a long, 
 fawn-colored dust cloak, took away the bridal appearance 
 from her costume. 
 
 On her return to the sitting-room, she found Darcy 
 in a state of intense excitement and impatience to be 
 gone. 
 
 He hardly gave her time to say farewell to those as- 
 sembled before, drawing her arm through his, he made 
 her almost run down the hotel stairs and past the grinning 
 and bowing waiters and hotel servants into the open car- 
 riage which was waiting to take them to the station. 
 
 Something very like a curse escaped his lips as a few 
 grains of a well directed shower of rice trickled down 
 his neck from the open window of his mother's sitting- 
 room. 
 
 He had been biting his lips until they were cut through 
 and marked with blood. Dorothy noted this, and instinc- 
 tively drew away from him. 
 
 "We don't get to Penzance until nearly seven o'clock," 
 he whispered, "and from here we have an uninterrupted 
 run until we reach Liskeard at 4:32. So at last I shall 
 have three-quarters of an hour in which to tell you I love 
 you. Oh, I am so sick of all the vulgar fuss and show 
 and flummery, the publicity, the paganism, of a modern 
 wedding ! 
 
 "Does it all jar upon you as upon me? It is so hope- 
 lessly bourgeois and crude, this daylight dressing up 
 before hordes of leering strangers ! How much sweeter 
 it would have been to tap at your window one night, and 
 hold out my arms for you to come down into them and 
 nestle against my heart, and then to steal away under 
 cover of the darkness to some quiet spot where no one 
 knew us and we knew no one 1 Don't you feel that, too, 
 my Dorothy, my wife?"
 
 The Blow Falls. 187 
 
 "I am afraid I am not romantic," she returned with a 
 nervous laugh. She was trying to fight down her sick 
 dread of that long railway journey, shut in with this 
 man with the hot breath and shining eyes, whose property 
 she had now become. 
 
 The carriage stopped at the station, and her husband 
 helped her to alight. Their luggage was already in the 
 train, thanks to Jack Wyverley, who alone had been per- 
 mitted by Darcy to precede them at the station. There 
 were a good many people on the platform, and notably a 
 large contingent from a burlesque company playing at 
 Devonport, and over for the day. It had got about that 
 there was a bridal pair going by the train for Penzance, 
 and that Miss Knight and "Mr. Darcy" of the "Love's 
 Right" Company were the bride and bridegroom. 
 
 Considerable interest was in consequence taken in the 
 handsome young couple by the loiterers on the platform, 
 an interest which Darcy strongly resented, and which 
 he tried to evade by hurrying Dorothy into the compart- 
 ment reserved for them and pulling the blinds sharply 
 down. 
 
 Unfortunately for his plans, he had not been quite suf- 
 ficiently expeditious in his movements to elude the sharp 
 eyes of a little, over-dressed woman, with straw-colored 
 hair and heavily-blackened eyes, who suddenly pressed 
 forward as he was drawing up the window of the car- 
 riage and thrust in her ungloved and beringed right 
 hand. 
 
 "Why, if it isn't Cupid Cupid Trevelyan that we've 
 all lost sight of for months past ! No good your altering 
 the color of your hair and shaving off your fine mustache, 
 Sergius, my boy ! I should know you anywhere. Do 
 you mean to pretend not to recognize me Leila Mont- 
 gomery, of the 'Settled for Life' Company? It's too thin, 
 that's what it is! And I do declare, you have Miss
 
 188 The Blow Falls. 
 
 Knight in there with you! How do you do, my dear? 
 My! You do look pretty! So your beau's done the 
 honest thing by you, now he's free, and married you all 
 right for the second time ? I didn't think he had so much 
 good in him ; I didn't, indeed. Well, ta-ta, both of you ! 
 The train's moving off, and I wish you a happy second 
 honeymoon !"
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE TRUTH AT LAST. 
 
 The train began to move slowly out of the station. 
 
 Darcy left the window, and, throwing himself into a 
 corner seat, glanced across at Dorothy. Her features 
 looked white and hard, as though carved in stone, and her 
 distended eyes were fixed upon his face. 
 
 He took off his hat and busied himself placing it in 
 the rack. Then he passed his handkerchief over his 
 brow and upper lip, which had become suddenly moist. 
 
 "I am sorry, my dear one," he began, "that our tour 
 should have started with so unpleasant an incident as that 
 dreadful little painted person, whom I need hardly tell 
 you I have never seen before, should mistake me for 
 Sergius Trevelyan. I suppose she detected in him some 
 slight resemblance to my mother's family. I remember 
 the agent Whitlock thought I was rather like the fellow 
 when I first called at his office." 
 
 Dorothy did not speak, although he paused as if expect- 
 ing her to do so. She remained staring at him in just 
 the same attitude as before, with her hands tightly clasped 
 in her lap. 
 
 "It was odd that she should make a mistake about you, 
 too," he went on presently. "I should not have thought 
 from your portraits that you and your sister were so 
 much alike as all that. But I should say Miss Mount- 
 Graham, or whatever she called herself, had been lunching 
 too freely; don't you think so, too?" 
 
 Still no answer. His face grew wet again, and his
 
 190 The Truth at Last. 
 
 heart was thumping hard. Some other emotion had for 
 the moment driven passion from his mind ; but, glancing 
 across at Dorothy and seeing how still she sat, he re- 
 solved to disregard that ominous quiet of hers, and, cross- 
 ing to where she sat, he threw his arms about her and 
 tried to draw her to him. 
 
 "At last we are alone!" he murmured. "My bride, 
 my wife!" 
 
 "Wait!" she cried, as, exerting all her strength, she 
 thrust him from her. "Wait ! Sit over there, just oppo- 
 site, that I may see your face. And now tell me what 
 did that woman mean?" 
 
 "Why, what silly idea have you got in your head? 
 Just because a little, half-tipsy actress mistakes us both 
 for other people. Didn't you see her flushed face ? She 
 wasn't sober, and had no notion of what she was say- 
 ing " 
 
 "I did not see her face, but I saw yours. And yours 
 looked guilty!" 
 
 She breathed rather than spoke the last word. Her 
 throat was parched and dry, and an awful fear seemed 
 to pull at her heart. It was not possible; it was too 
 horrible ! The thought was a grotesque nightmare and 
 yet and yet it was fear she had read upon Darcy Der- 
 rick's face while that w,oman spoke to him ! 
 
 He had taken the seat facing her as she had bidden 
 him, half laughing and trying to carry the thing off in 
 a light-hearted and indulgent fashion, conscious all the 
 time of the unwavering stare of her gray eyes. He bent 
 over now and tried to take her hands. 
 
 "Of course, I was afraid," he said. "I am so madly 
 in love with you that for the past thirty or forty hours 
 I've been distracted with fear lest anything or any one 
 should come between us. You don't know what it is to 
 love as I love you. But I shall try to teach you."
 
 The Truth at Last. 191 
 
 Again he stretched his arms out toward her, and again 
 she pushed him from her, this time roughly, desperately. 
 
 She was thinking hard all the time as she sat there 
 silent. She was recalling the picture her sister's words 
 had painted of Sergius Trevelyan, the soft-voiced, sym- 
 pathetic, poetry-loving Adonis, and details she had for- 
 gotten sprang with sudden clearness into her mind 
 Trevelyan's hints as to his noble origin and banishment 
 from his rightful position, his half-Italian, half-Irish ex- 
 traction, his soft, musical voice, his large, blue eyes, with 
 their long, curled lashes, his delicate, white hands. 
 
 She sprang from her seat with a loud cry. 
 
 "Good heavens ! You are Sergius Trevelyan !" 
 
 Dead silence for a few seconds while bride and bride- 
 groom faced each other, and only the noise of the hurry- 
 ing train dinned in their ears the train which was bear- 
 ing them away to begin their married life together. 
 
 There had been no questioning note in Dorothy's cry. 
 It breathed the fullest, the most hideous, conviction. As 
 a lightning flash suddenly illumines a hidden horror, the 
 truth had appeared before her. She needed no further 
 corroboration; and Darcy knew this, and in the silence 
 was planning how to meet the situation. 
 
 Before she could divine his intentions, he was on his 
 knees and at her feet, lividly pale and shaking with ex- 
 citement, while he clutched at her gown as though begging 
 for mercy. 
 
 "Listen !" he cried in a choked voice. "Dorothy, don't 
 hate me ! You can't hate me when you know everything. 
 After all, I haven't deceived you much. I am Darcy 
 Derrick; you know my real position, my mother, my 
 friends. You are my wife, and I worship the ground 
 you walk on. Don't tear yourself away from me, Doro- 
 thy, for mercy's sake! Think, dear, how I love you!
 
 192 The Truth at Last. 
 
 You never asked me if I were Sergius Trevelyan; you 
 wouldn't have married me if you had known ; and I had to 
 marry you I couldn't live without you ! From the mo- 
 ment when I first sav: your portrait, nearly a year ago, 
 I knew, I felt, that you would belong to me some day; 
 that you were the one woman in the world for me, and 
 must be mine. Ah, don't look at me in that hard., stony 
 way ! What was that other woman that she should come 
 between us? All I cared for in her was her resemblance 
 to you. I used to sit and stare at your picture, and hang 
 over it and kiss and fondle it hour after hour, and I 
 would kiss her, too, because her mouth was like yours, 
 though not half so beautiful. She was as moonlight com- 
 pared unto sunlight, and water unto wine, compared with 
 you. She was dying for love of me, and lonely and miser- 
 able, and I took pity upon her ; but I have forgotten her 
 long ago, as a man forgets a partner with whom he has 
 danced away a stray half hour. Dorothy, you have never 
 loved yet; you don't know what love means. We must 
 both forget the past; it has nothing to do with us or 
 with our future life. You are mine now ; it is Fate ; you 
 \ere meant for me from the beginning, you and your 
 shining eyes and sunny hair and rose-pink skin and sweet, 
 white neck what wouldn't I have done to gain you? 
 For telling a few paltry, little lies you must forgive me 
 why, I would risk death itself in any dreadful form to 
 have you mine for half an hour. And now you are mine 
 for life!" 
 
 He sprang to his feet as he spoke and tried to fold her 
 in his arms where she sat, white and rigid with horror 
 which seemed to turn her dumb. But as she felt his em- 
 brace about her, disgust at his touch brought her back to 
 life, and with all her strength, which was considerable for 
 a woman, she flung off his enfolding arms. 
 
 "You are mad!" she whispered, staring at him under
 
 The Truth at Last. 193 
 
 frowning brows. "A mischievous, mad beast ! If I were 
 not sure that you are mad I would kill you !" 
 
 "You shall kill me if you like. I am yours to do what 
 you will with. But I am only mad with love for you, 
 Dorothy. Otherwise, I am as sane as you are. Now sit 
 down quietly, darling, and listen to me. I will promise, 
 if you like, not to touch you until we have talked this thing 
 out though you will have to get used to my touch soon, 
 and will grow to love it. There, I will sit right over in the 
 opposite corner. Before the train stops we must come to 
 an understanding." 
 
 She sat crouched in her corner, watching him. Deadly 
 hate and horror such as she might have felt against some 
 poisonous snake, fastened her fascinated gaze upon him. 
 To her his beautifully moulded, boyish-looking face was 
 the most hideous thing she had ever gazed upon, and 
 each movement of his slender hands filled her with a sick 
 repulsion. She knew now why her woman's instinct, that 
 sure guide and protector given to her sex, had repeatedly 
 warned her against this man, prompting her to disbelieve 
 in his apparent kindness and generosity, to resent his 
 touch, and to shrink from the love in his eyes. This was 
 the heartless villain who had broken Phyllis' heart, ruined 
 her life, and left her to starve ; even now she might well 
 die and he would be her murderer. Dorothy had to dig 
 her nails into the palms of her hands at the thought, so 
 passionately strong did the impulse rise within her to 
 fasten her fingers in that man's throat and force the craven 
 life out of him. 
 
 "We must look at things as a man and woman of the 
 world," he began in those slow, musical tones of his, which 
 poor Phyllis had so much loved. "Owing to my father's 
 unnatural conduct against me, for more than seven years, 
 ever since I was four-and-twenty, I have had to lead a 
 dog's life, utterly unsuited to a man of my birth and breed-
 
 194 The Truth at Last. 
 
 ing, herding with actors and singers and that sort of Bo- 
 hemian nobody, afraid to use my own name, and compelled 
 even to disguise my appearance, to stain my hair dark 
 with cosmetics, and use other theatrical tricks to elude 
 duns and writs and other things even worse. My mother 
 the only person in this world who really understands me 
 gave out that I was living abroad, but on the death of 
 my father, who was my worst enemy and persecutor, I 
 was able to come out of my obscurity and claim acquaint- 
 ance with my friends and equals. As to the twenty-five 
 thousand pounds, I must own to you, my dear girl, that 
 we shan't have very much of that. Just about five or six 
 thousand I may manage to snatch from creditors' jaws, 
 but not more. You see, I've dropped a good many hun- 
 dreds over this tour, but as it won you for me, you may 
 well believe that I don't grudge it." 
 
 She did not speak. He asked her permission to smoke, 
 and rolled and lit a cigarette with fingers that shook a 
 little while he proceeded to the second part of his dis- 
 course. 
 
 "When fate threw us together in Whitlock's office I 
 knew you would be mine. It was only a question of time. 
 Your sister's infatuation for me never moved me like your 
 indifference. I have been so much loved by women that 
 coldness fascinates me. Your very hatred of Sergius Tre- 
 velyan made you more attractive. To see you turn pale 
 with the strength of your dislike against him while you 
 spoke to me stimulated my passion and thrilled me with 
 excitement. I knew that you would love me, that you 
 would not be able to resist my love, and I looked 
 eagerly forward to the moment when, folded in my arms, 
 you would hear my confession and kiss away my self- 
 accusing words. You learned my secret too soon, but 
 sooner or later you would have to know it, for I never 
 meant to meet your sister. I am sorry, very sorry, for
 
 The Truth at Last. 195 
 
 her; but I do not wish ever to see her again nor will 
 you, I am sure, desire that I should do so. Of course, she 
 will never know that the man she, poor soul, loved so 
 madly is her sister's husband. There is no need for any 
 one to know that. Not one person in the 'Love's Right' 
 company ever suspected it, and that woman at the station 
 would never have recognized me but that she was once 
 very much in love with me, and jealousy gave her intui- 
 tion. My friends and equals don't know what became of 
 me all those years ; even my mother hardly ever knew any- 
 thing of my movements ; and as to Sergius Trevelyan, we 
 can forget him altogether, or suppose him to be still in that 
 charming health resort, Carthage, -in Texas, from which 
 you may remember my college friend wrote to tell me he 
 had seen him pass through with a theatrical company play- 
 ing in 'Madame Angot.' " 
 
 The Hon. Darcy smiled at this point. Clearly, he was 
 proud of his own cleverness in that matter of the letter. 
 
 "I happened to have a piece of the Grand Hotel, Carth- 
 age, note paper left, among other mementos of an ex- 
 tended pilgrimage in the States three years ago," he said, 
 while he lighted his cigarette, "so as I knew you would be 
 worrying for news of my friend Sergius, I wrote that let- 
 ter to myself to allay your natural anxiety. I don't at- 
 tempt to defend my action, except by the old adage, that 
 all is fair in love. I had to get you somehow, and I used, 
 and would use again, any and every means within my 
 reach. Love such as mine for you is the greatest motive 
 power in the world. Wherever you are I must follow; 
 your presence intoxicates me ; your touch, even in cold 
 friendliness, sends mc mad ! 
 
 "You need never be jealous of your sister; the affection 
 which I gave to her was prompted by pity, but chiefly by 
 her likeness to you, and, once possessing the original, I 
 shall never hanker after the pale and faded copy. Long
 
 196 The Truth at Last. 
 
 before I left the company on learning of my father's fatal 
 illness I had wearied of her, and I have the strongest pos- 
 sible wish and determination never to see her again. It 
 was not my fault that she loved me so much and that she 
 cannot forget me. I will do my best to help you to pro- 
 vide for her somewhere, though, of course, that mar- 
 riage settlement will be waste paper until my brother has 
 the decency to die ; but she has passed out of my life once 
 and for all, and so far as I am concerned, the past doesn't 
 exist. Life is all the future a future with you." 
 
 He seemed to have talked himself into a state of entire 
 calmness and self-control, and even to look more or less 
 happy and pleased with himself, as a man who, in the face 
 of great difficulties, has attained a much-desired object. 
 
 "So now," he went on again after a pause, "that, like a 
 good husband, I have made a clean breast of everything, 
 you will begin to understand me better. As I have al- 
 lowed nothing to stop me in my determination to win you, 
 so I shall stop at nothing in my resolve to keep you. The 
 dead past must bury its dead; you are my wife that is 
 enough for me." 
 
 "You forget," she said at last, in sharp, metallic tones, 
 "one important point in your vile, mad schemes. I am 
 nothing more to you, thank heaven ! than any stranger in 
 the street, for your wife, Millie Clements, is alive." 
 
 "My wife, Millie Clements, died in New York just three 
 months ago. You can have convincing legal proof on that 
 point. There is no woman alive who can dispute your 
 right to call yourself my wife, the Hon. Mrs. Darcy Der- 
 rick."
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE HONEYMOON JOURNEY. 
 
 A sense of impotent failure overwhelmed Dorothy's 
 mind. 
 
 She had set out two months ago, intent upon the dis- 
 covery and punishment of her sister's betrayer, and now, 
 by her very desire to serve Phyllis and to provide for her 
 future, she herself had fallen into his clutches. The gro- 
 tesque irony of the thing almost inclined her to hysterical 
 laughter; it seemed too preposterous to be taken seriously 
 that she should have become the legal wife of the man who 
 had posed as Sergius Trevelyan. 
 
 But as the facts of the case were gradually driven into 
 her mind, a strange fear crept over her, the fear not of 
 Darcy, but of herself. The knowledge of her sister's 
 cruel wrongs and of the hideous deceptions which had 
 been practiced upon Phyllis and herself by this smiling, 
 white-handed man who sat there, complacently rolling and 
 smoking cigarettes in the opposite corner of the compart- 
 ment, swelled her heart with a mad rage of which she had 
 never before deemed herself capable. 
 
 She knew that Darcy meant, in spite of all that had 
 been revealed, in spite of her horror and loathing, in spite 
 of his past relations v/ith her sister, to assert over her his 
 right as a husband to kiss and caress her at his will. She 
 knew that he loved her as such a man understands love, 
 and she knew, too, with an intensity of conviction, that at 
 his touch a very devil of hate would spring up within her 
 and lend a murderous strength to her resistance.
 
 198 The Honeymoon Journey. 
 
 At every moment that they were alone together the pas- 
 sionate desire to kill him grew stronger. Her teeth were 
 tightly set and her fingers clenched. She dared no longer 
 look at him lest she should fly at his throat. Gradually 
 the speed of the train was slackening. In a few minutes 
 they would reach Liskeard and then she would escape, 
 how and where she knew not. She cared little in what 
 direction her steps might lead her, so that she were freed 
 from the presence of this man and from that gnawing 
 temptation to kill him, and by one act revenge her sister 
 and regain her liberty. 
 
 He was speaking again, and at each word every nerve 
 in her body tingled with detestation and disgust. 
 
 "In a few minutes we shall stop at Liskeard, dearest, 
 and before then we must be friends. There are no secrets 
 between us now. It's useless to fight against fate. The 
 world, the law, the Church, everything is on my side. On 
 yours, only a silly prejudice, a silly jealousy about your 
 sister. We have buried Sergius Trevelyan and his name 
 shall never be mentioned between us again. Your part in 
 life is to be worshipped and learn to love me back. And 
 now, my bride, I have waited long enough; I must kiss 
 your sweet lips for the first time." 
 
 He began to move toward her. She held up her hand 
 forbiddingly. 
 
 "I warn you," she said in a low, strangled voice, "that 
 if you touch me I shall kill you !" 
 
 He laughed and made a sudden spring in her direction. 
 But her fingers were on the handle of the door and in an 
 instant she had flung it open. 
 
 "What are you going to do?" he asked, taken aback by 
 the suddenness of the movement. 
 
 She did not speak. She stood holding on to the side of 
 the door, watching bim. Never, he thought, had she 
 looked so handsome. The whole character of her face
 
 The Honeymoon Journey. 199 
 
 had changed, and instead of innocent English fairness it 
 was the dangerous beauty of a pythoness that lurked in 
 her clenched teeth, white cheeks and burning eyes. 
 
 "You lovely demon !" he whispered with an unpleasant 
 laugh. "Do you suppose that you can frighten me? I 
 was never afraid of a woman yet, and I am your husband." 
 
 As the words passed his lips by an agile spring for- 
 ward he seized the hanging strap of the open window and 
 drew the door to. But before he could turn the handle 
 Dorothy's fingers closed upon it, as she strove with both 
 hands to force the door open. 
 
 For a few seconds they struggled in silence ; then, sud- 
 denly releasing her hands, which still clung to the door 
 handle, Darcy clasped his arms round her waist with a 
 trumphant laugh. 
 
 "You little fool !" he said in her ear. "You don't sup- 
 pose I am going to let you give me the slip now !" 
 
 Without attempting to resist, she let him disengage her 
 hands and draw them up round his neck; the door was 
 still unfastened, and she knew quite well what she meant 
 to do. She saw his face, flushed and excited, come nearer 
 and nearer to hers ; she felt his panting breath upon her 
 face, and saw that over-red mouth she so hated bend close 
 over her own ; then, with all her force, she suddenly swung 
 round, changing places with him, so that he and not she 
 was against the door. 
 
 He divined her intention, and reached forward with a 
 muttered oath, as though he meant to strike her. Again 
 she flung him from her, and this time he slipped, missed 
 his footing, fell back against the open door, and with a 
 quick cry threw up his hands and was hurled backward 
 from the moving train. 
 
 Dorothy drew a long breath and sat down, pressing her 
 hand against her heart, which had almost ceased to beat 
 in the intensity of her excitement. She experienced no
 
 200 The Honeymoon Journey. 
 
 touch of contrition for what she had done. If Darcy were 
 dead, so much the better for the world ; he was not fit to 
 live. Her mood was such that she could have knelt down 
 and thanked heaven for delivering her from the hand of 
 her enemy, and so great was her relief at being rid of the 
 odium of his presence that a sensation of absolute gladness 
 crept over her heart. 
 
 She went to the window, carefully fastened the door and 
 looked out. The train at this point ran along the top of 
 an embankment, the steep, grass-covered sides of which 
 were bordered by a wood forming part of a nobleman's 
 estate. Dorothy wondered whether the fall would kill 
 Darcy. Here and there big stones peeped out ; would he 
 strike his head against these? She would like to have 
 been sure that he was dead and incapable of working any 
 further mischief. Supposing that he were merely stunned 
 or slightly injured, it would be some time, surely, before 
 he could make his way to Liskeard ; time enough, she 
 trusted, would be given to make good her escape to Lon- 
 don. 
 
 "But I hope and pray that he is dead !" she whispered. 
 
 She was conscious of no impiety in the thought. In 
 hating him it seemed to her that she was hating an em- 
 bodiment of all the evil and wickedness; the treachery, 
 falsehood, cruelty and vice that live in the hearts of men. 
 It never for a moment occurred to her to regard him in 
 any different light because of the ceremony into which she 
 had been tricked in the morning. To consider him as her 
 husband or in any way related to her never once came 
 into her mind. But at the thought of his mother, a sud- 
 den pity softened her eyes. 
 
 "Poor woman! If he is dead I am so sorry for her. 
 But how terrible to love so vile a thing I" 
 
 She was still standing by the window as Liskeard was 
 reached. Before the train stopped alongside of the plat-
 
 The Honeymoon Journey. 201 
 
 form she quickly drew down all the blinds, then seating 
 herself by the window she bent her head forward in order 
 to give any passing railway official the impression that 
 she was listening to the talk of some one facing her. 
 Then, just as the train began to move out of the station, 
 she sprang out on the platform. 
 
 "I find I shall have to go back to London, after all," 
 she said in quiet, composed tones to the porter who hur- 
 ried up. "How soon can I get there ?" 
 
 "London? There is no train to London but the night 
 mail, at 7.32, miss, and it don't reach Paddington until 
 four in the morning." 
 
 Dorothy looked at the station clock. It was ten min- 
 utes to five. Two hours and forty minutes had to be 
 passed before there was any hope of leaving Liskeard, and 
 all her life through she had reason to remember those 
 hours of waiting. 
 
 Like an ugly dream it all seemed when she afterward 
 recalled it the long wandering on weary feet throughout 
 a stifling summer evening, the dull market town, the 
 rough comment of the miners' wives and children on her 
 smart clothes and strange appearance, comments which 
 drove her out past the gray stone houses to moorland and 
 fields, beyond which the outline of the Carradon Hills 
 stood out dark against the evening sky. 
 
 At a quarter past seven, hot, tired, footsore and miser- 
 able, she crept into the station, took her ticket, and waited 
 for the London train. Concerning Darcy's fate she knew 
 and heard nothing, and not a sign was given at the sta- 
 tion to lead her to suppose that anything unusual had oc- 
 curred. No one expected the bridal pair at Penzance, 
 therefore their absence might not be noticed, and, in any 
 case, the mail by which she was to travel to London would 
 leave Penzance long before the arrival of the Plymouth
 
 202 The Honeymoon Journey. 
 
 train. Yet a touch of nervous apprehension made her 
 start and shiver when she heard the rumble of the distant 
 wheels. 
 
 She was traveling third class now. Her white dress 
 and long cloak were gray with dust ; extreme pallor and 
 red, swollen eyelids marred her beauty, and the day's ex- 
 periences seemed to have added ten years to her appear- 
 ance. Her head was racked with pain, so that she scarcely 
 dared to move it. Never yet through the past years of 
 working and struggling had she known the meaning of 
 despair. Physical fatigue and hunger, of which she be- 
 came conscious for the first time, accentuated the wret- 
 chedness of her situation. Her long wandering in the 
 heat under great stress of emotion had made her light- 
 headed, for as soon as her eyes closed in a half-sleep she 
 opened them with a start and a scream, fancying that in 
 the darkness the ghastly face of Darcy Derrick stared 
 upon her with the glaze of death in his eyes. 
 
 Fortunately she was alone in the compartment. Rising 
 and thrusting her head from the window, she discovered 
 that the train was passing over the identical spot at which 
 Darcy had fallen. Had he been still alive, he would have 
 been heard of at Liskeard station. 
 
 "Will they say I am a murderess?" she asked herself, 
 dully, as she pressed her aching forehead against the win- 
 dow-frame and let the evening breeze blow in her face. 
 "I certainly opened the door and thrust him from me to- 
 ward it, and I hoped he would fall out. And I hope he is 
 dead. That is being a murderess, I suppose, and yet I 
 can't feel a bit wicked about it. The callous, heartless, 
 mad villain ! He deserved the tortures of the Inquisition, 
 not such an easy death as falling out of a train in motion. 
 I would have died a thousand times over rather than be 
 degraded by his touch. But oh, Phyllis! Phyllis! 
 What can I tell you when I am home again?"
 
 The Honeymoon Journey. 203 
 
 Exhaustion was merged at length in sleep, broken only 
 by fitful moments of waking when the train stopped at in- 
 tervening stations on the way to London, and before the 
 great city was awake, after waiting for more than an 
 hour at Paddington station, lest she should startle the little 
 household at Lockhart Cottages by a too early arrival, 
 Dorothy made her way toward home. 
 
 So passed the wedding night of the Hon. Mrs. Darcy 
 Derrick. And how her bridegroom passed his, Dorothy 
 learned four days later, when in a London daily paper 
 her eyes fell on the following item under the heading : 
 
 A Missing Bride. 
 
 A mysterious affair is reported from Liskeard. A 
 gamekeeper in the employ of Lord Trevorlyn in the early 
 morning of Thursday had his attention drawn by his dog 
 to the body of a well-dressed man lying under a hedge at 
 the base of the railway embankment. On examination, 
 the gamekeeper discovered that the man was not dead or 
 even seriously injured, but only a good deal bruised and 
 shaken, having lain there in a stunned condition for fully 
 twelve hours. On being assisted to a house and attended 
 by a doctor, the extraordinary fact was elicited that the 
 gentleman, who is stated to be of high social position, but 
 who is desirous of having his name kept out of the affair, 
 was on his honeymoon journey to Penzance when, just 
 as the train slowed down before Liskeard, a quarrel 
 arose between him and his newly-married bride, who, in a 
 fit of violent jealousy, endeavored to throw herself out of 
 the train. In trying to stop her, her husband missed his 
 footing and fell, stunning himself with coming in contact 
 with a stone in the steep descent. The strangest part of 
 the occurrence is that the bride has disappeared, leaving 
 no trace. It is, however, supposed that she has returned 
 to her friends, who will, no doubt, persuade her to go
 
 204 The Honeymoon Journey. 
 
 back to her husband, who, it is said, is willing and eager 
 to forgive her." 
 
 On the following morning No. 4 Lockhart Cottages 
 was empty and deserted, and a board advertising that the 
 house was "to be let, furnished," stood by the garden gate.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 A SHADOW ON THE WINDOW. 
 
 Fully four months after their sudden and mysterious 
 "flitting," on a bitterly cold night in early January, the 
 three women who formed the household of 4 Lockhart 
 Cottages, crept back into their former home like mice to 
 their hole. 
 
 For the one quarter Dorothy had been fortunate enough 
 to let the place furnished, while she and Phyllis had re- 
 mained in hiding at the house of a widowed sister of Cres- 
 well, who kept a tiny shop at Acton. But Phyllis was 
 restless and longed to be back in their old home, and Doro- 
 thy, extremely anxious about her sister's health, wished 
 to be near Dr. Morgan. Then, too, Creswell and her 
 widowed sister constantly quarreled. The old servant, 
 who was all unselfishness and devotion to her young mis- 
 tress, was totally unable to get on with her own relations, 
 who considered her "crabbed" and "faddy." A piece of 
 luck, also, which had fallen in Dorothy's way, drew her 
 back to the neighborhood of the Hammersmith road. An 
 advertisement brought her into communication with an 
 elderly lady writer, whose sight was bad and who required 
 an amanuensis for several hours every evening, and as this 
 person lived in one of the immense blocks of red brick 
 flats contiguous to Lockhart Cottages and was prepared 
 to pay twenty-five shillings a week for a secretary's ser- 
 vice, Dorothy decided that, considering all the circum- 
 stances, it was time for them to make a move back to the
 
 206 A Shadow on the Window. 
 
 cottage, which had been empty since the Christmas quar- 
 ter. 
 
 A little discreet "pumping" the next morning revealed 
 the fact that a handsome young gentleman, very well 
 dressed, had hung about the place immediately after their 
 departure, and had made endless inquiries of the neigh- 
 bors concerning the whereabouts of the Misses Knight. 
 
 He had even gone the length of calling for the key of 
 the cottage on the landlord, who kept a shop in the Ham- 
 mersmith road, and coming with him to view the place, 
 asking questions all the time. 
 
 Dorothy shivered at the thought that their little home 
 had been degraded by that man's evil presence; but she 
 had foreseen some such move on the part of the Hon. 
 Darcy, and had primed the landlord with the intelligence 
 that his former lodgers had "gone abroad to reside with 
 some relatives, and that they did not propose ever to re- 
 turn to England." 
 
 Having thus, as she supposed, permanently put him off 
 the scent, she sincerely hoped that the Hon. Darcy would 
 transfer his violent and evanescent passion for her to some 
 other woman and trouble her no more. 
 
 Of that terrible honeymoon journey she could not bear 
 to think, although it was sometimes forced before her in 
 her dreams. Then, in an ecstasy of fear and hate, she 
 would fancy she saw Darcy 's pale face bending over hers 
 in possessive triumph, or staring up at her with death in 
 his glazing eyes, and she would wake, sobbing and scream- 
 ing like a frightened child. Her own part in the adven- 
 ture she especially dreaded to recall. The capability for 
 passionate, murderous hate which she clearly possessed, 
 alarmed and troubled her. While she shrank from dwell- 
 ing upon this portion of her experience, she found herself 
 making mental excuses for murderers and all such per- 
 sons as were accused of crimes of violence.
 
 A Shadow on the Window. 207 
 
 Her father had been an extravagant, passionate man, 
 who, in a fit of despair had shot himself; her mother, a 
 foolish, impulsive creature, who had died from a chill 
 caught by her own imprudence; and Shafto, their only 
 son, was an admitted failure, intolerant in temper, rebel- 
 lious against all constituted authority, a man who had dis- 
 appeared from respectable society fully seven years ago. 
 
 "We come of a bad stock," Dorothy reflected. "And I 
 myself shall most certainly kill Darcy Derrick if he forces 
 his way again into my life or Phyllis'. I feel my teeth 
 clench and my fists curl up at the mere thought of him, 
 and at the sound of his voice a very demon of hate would, 
 I know, take possession of me. That is the part I can't 
 understand, for I have never willingly hurt anything alive. 
 But I hate him all the more for making me feel so hate- 
 ful!" 
 
 Dorothy's mind was essentially feminine, strong in in- 
 tuition and weak in reason, and one of her distinguishing 
 characteristics was a lofty disregard for the letter of the 
 law. She had her own religion, and her own standard 
 in many ways a very high one of right and wrong ; but 
 no possible course of reasoning could induce in her a re- 
 spect for the majesty of the law, and the fact that she was 
 legally Darcy Derrick's wife troubled her very little when 
 once she thought herself secure from his interference, 
 after throwing her wedding ring out of the window of the 
 train on her way back to town. 
 
 That Darcy should claim her as his wife would ever 
 appear to her an unnatural horror. In Dorothy's eyes he 
 was her sister Phyllis' husband. He had deceived, dis- 
 owned and deserted her, and broken her heart; but in 
 Dorothy's eyes he was Phyllis' husband, whatever the law 
 had to say on the subject. 
 
 Meantime, it was painfully evident that, married or 
 single, Phyllis would never again be her old bright self.
 
 208 A Shadow on the Window. 
 
 Thin to emaciation, anaemic and nerveless, she lay all day 
 on a sofa drawn close to the sitting-room fire, reading, or 
 pretending to read, the novels with which Dorothy kept 
 her supplied. Constant neuralgia and sleeplessness had 
 begun to turn her hair gray, and, weeping bitter tears over 
 her lost beauty, poor Phyllis went back to her golden hair- 
 dye, which lent to her pallid cheeks and great, sunken, 
 black-fringed eyes a peculiarly haggard and witch-like 
 look. Often now in the evenings, when Dorothy, after a 
 long day at painting small oil panels by the dozen, started 
 for her night work at secretaryship, Phyllis would rise 
 from her couch and would stealthily creep from the cot- 
 tage, returning in about half-an-hour's time with dilated 
 eyes and cheeks that were faintly flushed, to throw her- 
 self upon the sofa and fall into a heavy sleep. 
 
 Her temper, formerly sweet if a little capricious, grew 
 daily more capricious and fretful. Unlike Dorothy in 
 this, as in so many other things, Phyllis had what is called 
 "no resources in herself." Lacking amusement, excite- 
 ment and admiration, she had been subject to fits of in- 
 tense depression even in past days of perfect physical 
 health ; but now that she was far too weak and ill to act, 
 and could only brood over her ruined life and cruel 
 wrongs, her melancholy became intensified until it bor- 
 dered on insanity. 
 
 Dorothy understood her sister with the intuition of per- 
 fect love and sympathy. Phyllis had always been a little 
 selfish and dependent upon others, and these qualities had 
 become confirmed in her by Dorothy's entire unselfishness, 
 as well as by her superior energy and intelligence. 
 Throughout the chilly autumn and the fogs of early win- 
 ter, Dorothy had worked from daybreak until bedtime, 
 giving lessons in music and French and drawing to the 
 children of Acton tradespeople, tinting photographs, trac- 
 ing designs for fancy work, or copying manuscripts, until,
 
 A Shadow on the Window. 209 
 
 with swimming eyes and aching brain, she would fall 
 asleep over her work. 
 
 Never once did she complain, never once did she let 
 herself break down. Her heart was so torn with remorse 
 for the terrible mistake she had made in her desire to 
 serve her sister that she seemed unable to do enough for 
 Phyllis in order to atone by her devotion for the miserable 
 failure of her mission. 
 
 But of all that had befallen Dorothy during her two 
 months' absence Phyllis knew absolutely nothing. Some- 
 times she tortured her sister by talking about Sergius 
 Trevelyan; but this was chiefly after sleeplessness and 
 neuralgia had clouded her brain, making her chatter of 
 the past in a rapid and disconnected fashion. Her health 
 was permanently broken, and Dorothy's heart seemed to 
 contract in a very agony of pity as she watched her be- 
 loved sister grow daily thinner and paler, more silent and 
 more sad. 
 
 There was no little luxury which Dorothy, by her un- 
 wearying devotion, did not contrive to provide for the in- 
 valid. Wine, fresh fruit and flowers, nourishing soups 
 and tonics, the best medical advice; all of these things 
 were obtained for Phyllis. Dorothy herself went under- 
 fed and ill-clad, and even poor Cresswell, who was a soft- 
 hearted and selfless creature, existed chiefly on scraps of 
 bread and cheese and potatoes, eaten at odd moments in 
 the pantry ; but Phyllis' appetite had to be tempted, and 
 for Phyllis nothing was too dainty or too dear. 
 
 "You two are starving yourselves for me," Phyllis sud- 
 denly exclaimed one cold afternoon in the last week of 
 February. "I know now, Dolly, why you pretend to have 
 your dinner out ; it is so that I shan't see how little you 
 have to eat, while I am finding fault with the soups, and 
 jellies, and birds you buy for me. Cresswell, you know 
 what I say is true. I've seen you look quite pinched with
 
 210 A Shadow on the Window. 
 
 hunger on cold mornings. How selfish, how wickedly 
 selfish, I have been to allow it!" 
 
 Cresswell's apron was at her eyes in a moment. 
 
 "It isn't me, Miss Phyllis, you ought to scold," she 
 whimpered, "It's Miss Dorothy. Her boots are letting 
 the snow in, and she won't eat nothing but dry bread when 
 she comes home at half-past ten, when you're in bed ; and 
 even after that sometimes she sits up painting. Oh, it 
 breaks my heart, that it does, to see you two that I've seen 
 grow up in a great beautiful house and treated like young 
 princesses, come down to work and starve like this ! To 
 think that I should remember you both, with your beauti- 
 ful curly hair all combed and shining, driving off to the 
 park every day with your poor mamma, and now her to 
 be dead, and Miss Phyllis so ill, and Miss Dorothy work- 
 ing herself to death oh, it's more than a body can bear !" 
 
 "Don't cry, you silly old thing, and don't chatter !" ex- 
 claimed Dorothy, starting up from her painting and giv- 
 ing an affectionate hug to Cresswell, before she gently 
 pushed her from the room. Tears were in Dorothy's eyes, 
 too, and a lump had risen in her throat. She could not 
 bear to think of poor old Cresswell going without her din- 
 ner and perhaps even stinting herself in her favorite bev- 
 erage, strong tea, thick and black as treacle. But she 
 brushed her tears away before coming over to kneel by her 
 sister's couch. 
 
 "Now, what put such an idea into your dear silly head ?" 
 she asked brightly. "Do I look as if I were starved? 
 Why, I was never in better health in my life. And you, 
 my darling, as soon as the weather gets a little bit warmer, 
 you will feel so much stronger and happier. I will see if 
 we can't manage to get away to the sea for a few days at 
 Easter " 
 
 Phyllis caught her sister's hands within her thin fingers 
 and drew them against her heart.
 
 A Shadow on the Window. 211 
 
 "Don't dear!" she whispered. "Don't make plans for 
 the future with me in them. And don't go without things 
 any more that I may have them. I have been thinking 
 only about myself and my sorrows and disappointments 
 for a long time. But last night as I lay awake, I seemed 
 suddenly to see things as they are, and I left off crying 
 for myself to think about you. I know I have been dread- 
 ful in my temper lately, and have seemed ungrateful and 
 unloving, but you don't know how difficult it is to be pa- 
 tient under that worrying pain in my head. 
 
 "And there is another reason why I have been irritable 
 a secret I have to confess to you, Dolly. For weeks 
 past, when you have had to leave me in the evenings and 
 I couldn't sleep, I hated to think, I have every now and 
 then slipped out and bought some laudanum, a very little 
 at a time, from one or two different chemists, and I have 
 mixed it in some port and drunk it off, and for two or 
 three hours I have been able to sleep. Even when I woke 
 the pain seemed dulled, but all day long I have found my- 
 self growing more nervous, irritable and disagreeable. 
 There, now I have confessed, Dolly dear; and you can 
 prevent me from ever doing it again and take away the 
 store of laudanum I have by me. I can't bear to think of 
 deceiving you when you are half-killing yourself working 
 for me. But do remember I am not strong like you, 
 strong in character and in mind, I mean. I can't bear 
 pain, or loneliness, or dullness, or horrid thoughts; and 
 losing my prettiness makes me so miserable. And Ser- 
 gius must be fearfully wicked, I knOw but do you think 
 he would come and see me if he knew that I am dying?" 
 
 Tears were rolling down Dorothy's face as she raised it 
 to her sister's. 
 
 "Don't think of him, my dearest," she murmured in a 
 half-strangled voice, "I told you of the letter I saw say- 
 ing that he was in America don't you remember?"
 
 212 A Shadow on the Window. 
 
 "But that was six months ago," said Phyllis, shaking 
 her head. "I can't help thinking that he is in England 
 now. When I die, you must not put 'Phyllis Knight' on 
 my grave. You must remember that I have been his wife, 
 and everybody knows it, not only you and Cress well, but 
 Nurse Rose and Dr. Morgan, and those theatrical people, 
 and the people living about here. You must call me the 
 wife of ah ! how stupid ! I can't be Mrs. Sergius Tre- 
 velyan, for he told me that was an assumed name. Oh, I 
 wish I knew his real name !" 
 
 "His name," said Dorothy, suddenly, "is the Hon. Dar- 
 cy Derrick." 
 
 She could never tell by what impulse the words slipped 
 out. Something in her sister's half-delirious anxiety hurt 
 her, so that she was forced into saying what she knew. 
 Phyllis raised herself on her arm and stared at her curi- 
 ously. 
 
 "How did you find that out?" she asked. 
 
 "From a member of the company I played with. But 
 now, darling, leave off thinking about him and about 
 death and dreadful things. And tell me, does Dr. Mor- 
 gan know of your habit of taking laudanum ?" 
 
 "Yes. He got angry about it, and that's why I won't 
 see him now. I am so glad I told you. I can't bear to 
 think of there being secrets between us. The light's 
 going and you are only trying your eyes, so don't go back 
 to your painting. Stay where you are, until you start 
 for Arundel Mansions, with your hands in mine, and your 
 head on the cushion near me. If I know you are here I 
 believe I can go to sleep, just as. I used to when we were 
 children and I had been naughty and told you all about it, 
 and you had scolded me and kissed me and forgiven me." 
 
 With motherly tenderness Dorothy kissed her, and re- 
 mained kneeling by her side in the gathering twilight. 
 The fire touched both faces with a rosy outline, bringing
 
 A Shadow on the Window. 213 
 
 out clearly that structural likeness which in the light of 
 day was sometimes lost. Beautiful, sensitive, feminine 
 faces, full of capabilities for light-hearted gaiety and ten- 
 der love, but shadowed in the forenoon of their freshness 
 by anxiety and grief and ill-paid work and wearing pain. 
 
 At a quarter past seven Dorothy gently disengaged her 
 hands from her sister's clasp and rose to her feet, stiff and 
 cramped from remaining in one position so long. Phyllis 
 was sleeping peacefully, tears on her long, dark eyelashes 
 and a half-smile on her lips. Dorothy crept softly about 
 the room, arranging her sister's medicine and books and 
 flowers on a table close within her reach. Then, bend- 
 ing once more over Phyllis to listen to her regular breath- 
 ing and ascertain that she wanted nothing, she left the 
 room, took her hat and jacket from the hall and passed 
 out through the little garden gate on her way to the neigh- 
 boring red brick blocks called Arundel Mansions. 
 
 Cresswell locked the gate after her young mistress. 
 Dorothy was most particular about having the gate kept 
 securely locked at all hours of the day. Very few letters 
 came for the little household, so that when, half an hour 
 later, the postman, after knocking at the door of a neigh- 
 boring cottage, rang three times with some impatience at 
 the gate of No. 4, Cresswell experienced a feeling of natu- 
 ral annoyance. 
 
 "Why can't the silly fellow drop the letter into the 
 box?" she asked herself as she slowly opened the front 
 door and came down the path of the little garden. "Miss 
 Dorothy had it put up a-purpose." 
 
 "Here, I can't keep waiting all night," the postman was 
 saying. "A registered letter for Miss Dorothea Knight, 
 4 Lockhart Cottages, Hammersmith. That's right, ain't 
 it ? And you've got to sign a receipt." 
 
 Cresswell became, as she herself expressed it, "flus- 
 tered." She fumbled with the key in the lock, and with
 
 214 A Shadow on the Window. 
 
 her spectacle-case in her pocket. Finally, after staring at 
 the letter and turning it over in her hand, she pottered 
 back to the house with it. She could not bear to wake 
 Miss Phyllis, and she knew Miss Dorothy would be vexed 
 with her for doing so. But anything in the way of cleri- 
 cal labor was a matter of extreme difficulty to Cresswell, 
 and she did not feel equal to the situation. 
 
 So she stirred the fire loudly, and when Phyllis awoke 
 with a start at the noise, she humbly asked her if she 
 would mind signing that bit of paper for Miss Dorothy. 
 
 Phyllis did so, and examined the envelope with interest, 
 while Cresswell returned the receipt to the postman, and 
 wished him good-night, forgetting, in her excitement, as 
 she had often before forgotten, to lock the garden gate. 
 
 "I feel certain it's good news," Phyllis said, as the old 
 sevant re-entered the sitting-room. "Cresswell, do you 
 believe in presentiments? I have a presentiment that 
 some wonderful good fortune is coming to us all, and that 
 we are soon to throw off all our troubles and worries. 
 Don't ask me how I know! I feel it in the air. Now, 
 put this letter right in the middle of the table where Doro- 
 thy can't fail to see it as soon as she comes home, and then 
 go and get me something to eat. And you must have 
 something, too, with me. I haven't been able to eat all 
 day, but now I am suddenly hungry. I am sure it means 
 that something strange and delightful is going to happen. 
 Hurry off, Cresswell dear, and you and I will have a little 
 feast together." 
 
 The old servant hurried away, Phyllis moved to a sit- 
 ting position, and bent her eyes, which had suddenly 
 grown bright with hope, upon the glowing coals. The 
 room was perfectly still and quiet, yet gradually a con- 
 viction crept over Phyllis that she was not alone, that 
 some one was near her, watching her. 
 
 At first she remained motionless, her heart beating with
 
 A Shadow on the Window. 215 
 
 intermittent violence. Then slowly she turned her head 
 and met, as she knew she would meet, the fixed stare of a 
 man whose face was pressed close against the window 
 from where he stood in the garden outside. 
 
 The light was almost gone; the face was different in 
 many ways from that of the man she had once loved ; but 
 Phyllis knew him in a moment. 
 
 "Sergius !" she cried, springing to her feet, and sway- 
 ing where she stood, with outstretched arms. "Sergius ! 
 You have come back !" 
 
 Her only answer was the sound of hurried footsteps in 
 the garden path, and the swing of the gate as it shut be- 
 hind him. 
 
 The man was gone. 
 
 She stood rooted to the spot. She longed to fly after 
 him, to call his name, to appeal to him, perhaps even, so 
 great is the gentleness of women who have loved, to par- 
 don him. But she could not move. The words died on 
 her cold lips, and a strange dizziness obscured her senses. 
 She had forgotten Sergius, but she was lonely, and cold, 
 and ill, and the room was dark, very dark. 
 
 At last : "Dorothy !" rang out her cry in a wail of ap- 
 pealing helplessness. 
 
 And at the cry and the sound of a heavy fall, Cresswell, 
 hurrying in, found Phyllis stretched on the floor and 
 across the fender, with the blood from a wound in her 
 head, where she had struck it in falling, slowly creeping 
 like a red snake round her throat. 
 
 She was dead.
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 A WIDOWER'S I.KTTER. 
 
 The Hon. Darcy Derrick was destined to see and be 
 seen that night by both the sister into whose lives he had 
 brought so much perplexity and suffering. 
 
 Seated before a desk, her fair head bent over a pile of 
 manuscript, upon which she was busily writing from dic- 
 tation of a romance of the high-flown and sickly senti- 
 mental order, Dorothy had suddenly put down her pen 
 and raised her head in the act of listening. 
 
 "Lady Madelaine bent her proud, white neck until her 
 soft cheek was pillowed on Sir Ughtred's broad shoulder," 
 dictated the little, old lady novelist. 
 
 Mechanically Dorothy tok up her pen, but she wrote not 
 a word. 
 
 "You are not attending, Miss Knight !" exclaimed her 
 employer. "Are you ill ? What is the matter with you?" 
 
 Dorothy had sprung to her feet, pale and trembling. 
 
 "My sister wants me !" she murmured. "She is calling 
 me!" 
 
 "Even if she is, you can't possibly hear her at this dis- 
 tance." 
 
 "I can hear her in my heart ! Please excuse me I am 
 very sorry but I must go to her!" 
 
 And swiftly, before the indignant little old lady had 
 time to interfere, Miss Knight had flung down her pen, 
 seized her hat and coat and darted down the stairs and 
 out at the entrance door. 
 
 Right on the threshold she ran into a man who was 
 standing there, hailing a passing hansom cab.
 
 A Widower's Letter. 217 
 
 It was Darcy Derrick. She knew him, although she 
 never paused for an instant in her flight, and although his 
 back was turned toward her. She did not need his cor- 
 roborating cry of "Dorothy !" as he recognized her flying 
 figure and hurried in pursuit. 
 
 Her feet seemed to have wings. In a very few seconds 
 she had darted through the garden gate of her home and 
 turned the key in the lock before the Hon. Darcy had been 
 able to reach it. Then, with a terrible fear at her heart, 
 she entered the door of her home. 
 
 The Hon. Darcy Derrick hung about the neighborhood 
 of Lockhart Cottages until nearly twelve o'clock, but he 
 caught no further glimpse of either sister that night. 
 What he did see was a spare, shabbily-dressed, elderly 
 woman, who, at a little after ten o'clock, let herself out of 
 the house and the garden gate, which last she this time re- 
 membered to lock after her. 
 
 The house of a certain Dr. Wentworth, in Kelman 
 street, was Cresswell's goal, Dr. Wentworth having at- 
 tended Phyllis on two occasions since the latter had 
 quarreled with Dr. Morgan. Darcy waited until Cress- 
 well had rung the doctor's bell, and then crept up and 
 loitered near the door. 
 
 "Is Dr. Wentworth in?" Cresswell inquired, and then, 
 before the servant could speak, she went on hurriedly: 
 "Ask him to come at once without losing a minute. My 
 mistress is dead, I'm afraid, but her sister won't believe it. 
 For nearly two hours we've been trying to bring her 
 round." 
 
 "If you step inside Dr. Wentworth will see you," the 
 servant said, and the door closed upon them. 
 
 In a few minutes Darcy, who still waited, saw Cress- 
 well come out, accompanied by the doctor, a tall, slight, 
 light-haired man in the early thirties. He seemed to be 
 questioning her closely, but Cresswell's answers were
 
 218 A Widower's Letter. 
 
 given in so low a voice and were so broken by sobs that 
 Darcy could not catch their import. 
 
 Mr. Derrick was in a state of the keenest excitement 
 and anxiety. Was it possible, he asked himself, that 
 either Dorothy or Phyllis could really be dead, just now 
 when he had triumphantly run them to earth, after being 
 thrown off the scent for so many months ? There was no 
 event he would consider more wholly desirable than the 
 death of Phyllis, against whom he cherished the dull dis- 
 like which some men feel against the women they have 
 most deeply injured. But the possible death of Dorothy 
 was a very different matter, and at the mere idea of such 
 an event Darcy trembled from head to foot. The feeling 
 he entertained for Dorothy, which he was pleased to call 
 love, was as strong as, if not stronger than, ever, and 
 many events had occurred since that honeymoon journey 
 to render a reconciliation with her not only desirable, but 
 of vital importance. 
 
 The one and only obstacle which stood in the way of his 
 perfect married happiness with Dorothy was, so Darcy de- 
 cided, the existence of her sister Phyllis. His vanity was 
 so inordinate and it had been so fostered by easy con- 
 quests among women, that he really believed he could 
 speedily transform Dorothy's dislike against him, which 
 he characterized as hysterical, into a no less passionate 
 regard, and he was as inconsolable for her loss and as 
 strenuously determined to regain her as though she had 
 been the most devoted of wives. 
 
 "After all," he told himself, as he waited outside the 
 sister's home during Dr. Wentworth's visit, "it cannot be 
 either Dorothy or Phyllis who is dead. Three hours ago 
 I saw them both. Phyllis sprang from her seat in de- 
 light and stretched out her arms at sight of me, and Doro- 
 thy darted past me on her way home. They were both 
 tall, strong, and perfectly healthy women. Doubtless the
 
 A Widower's Letter. 219 
 
 two of them have gone on talking about me every day all 
 these months, comparing notes, and finding out just in 
 what details the Hon. Darcy Derrick resembled and dif- 
 fered from Sergius Trevelyan. But, once I get Dorothy 
 back, I must put a stop to these meetings and get rid of 
 Phyllis, somehow. Put her on the stage again that will 
 be the best way and get some budding tragedian at 
 thirty shillings a week to marry her and keep her quiet, 
 mixing his grease-paints and darning his silk tights. 
 Then my beautiful half-tamed Dorothy and I will shake 
 the dust of sordid England off our feet and set sail for 
 sunny climes together." 
 
 Meantime, Dr. Wentworth, after a visit of nearly half 
 an hour's duration, came at length from his patient's 
 house, followed by Cresswell, who, still weeping, fastened 
 the gate after him. 
 
 "I will call and see your mistress again in the morning," 
 were his parting words to the old servant, "and you must 
 really try to keep up, that you may look after her." 
 
 Darcy heard, and was relieved in mind. Of course, the 
 death of Phyllis was eminently desirable ; but, on the other 
 hand, the death of Dorothy would have been such an in- 
 tolerable misfortune that it was better that both sisters 
 should remain alive. 
 
 On the morrow it was most important that he should 
 see Dorothy as early as possible, and with this end in view 
 the Hon. Darcy took a room for the night at a hotel in the 
 Hammersmith road, less than a quarter of a mile distant 
 from Lockhart Cottages. 
 
 Before eight o'clock on the following Sunday morning 
 he was again in sight of the little, green gate. All the 
 blinds of the house were down, and he was telling him- 
 self that the inmates must be late risers, when one of a 
 group of women, who were gathered gossiping round the 
 door of the sweep's house opposite, approached him.
 
 220 A Widower's Letter. 
 
 "Are you a-wanting one of them young ladies as lives 
 in that 'ouse?" she inquired." 
 
 "Yes," he answered, bestowing one of his sweetest 
 smiles on the questioner. She was forty-five and took in 
 washing, but she colored high with pleasure and drew 
 down her rolled-up sleeves. "They are old friends and 
 relatives of mine/' he went on, "and I am anxious to 
 know how they are." 
 
 "I'm afaraid you've come at a bad time," the woman 
 said ; "one of the young ladies died suddenly last night, so 
 they're saying." 
 
 "One of them ! Which one ?" he faltered, growing pale 
 to the lips. 
 
 "Bless me, sir, you do look bad ! And as to which it is, 
 I can't rightly say. They're that alike I never could tell 
 one from the other, and though they've lived here a good 
 while they've been so quiet and so kep' themselves to them- 
 selves you've 'ardly known they was there. But you ring, 
 sir, and ask that old servant of theirs what's happened. 
 She's a very close, stock-up, old body ; but in the case of a 
 gentleman like you, and a relative, too, she's bound to tell 
 you the truth." 
 
 Darcy thanked her, hesitated a moment, and then, 
 with trembling hand, pulled the bell by the gate of No. 4. 
 
 There was a delay of some minutes before his ring 
 was answered. Dorothy's eyes had fallen on him from an 
 upper window, and had remained fixed upon him in fas- 
 cinated horror. There stood her sister's murderer, and 
 on the bed, by which she herself had knelt all night in tear- 
 less agony, lay his victim, with quiet face and still, cold 
 hands. 
 
 Meeting Darcy, as she had done, close to the cottage 
 on the preceding evening, Dorothy had no doubt at all 
 that it was the shock of seeing him which had killed her 
 sister. It was the one thing needed to complete the full
 
 A Widower's Letter. 221 
 
 sum of her reckoning against him a score which he 
 could hardly pay with his life. 
 
 "Oh, heaven, punish him for me !" burst from her lips 
 as she fell on her knees by her dead sister's feet. "Punish 
 him, I pray, for all the evil that he did against my poor, 
 dead darling! Make him suffer as she suffered, make 
 him despised, hated and known for the thing he is ! And, 
 above all, take him from my sight let me not see him, 
 lest I should be tempted to kill him !" 
 
 Passionate tears burst from her eyes, the first tears she 
 had shed since that terrible home-coming of the previous 
 evening. The memory of her sister's ruined life and the 
 swift tragedy of her death worked like madness in her 
 brain. If heaven were just, that man should be made to 
 suffer for his sins, and yet how could heaven be just and 
 Phyllis be dead ? 
 
 She was still crouched at the foot of the bed, her frame 
 shaken by sobs, when Cresswell entered the room. 
 
 "There's a gentleman ringing at the gate, Miss Doro- 
 thy," she said timidly. "A tall, fair young gentleman. 
 Am I to answer it?" 
 
 "Yes !" cried Dorothy, springing up with a fierce light 
 in her eyes. "Go to the gate, and if he questions you, 
 tell him that his wife is dead, Mrs. Darcy Derrick." 
 
 "Do you know what you are saying, Miss?" Cresswell 
 asked, frightened by Dorothy's wild looks. "Poor Miss 
 Phyllis " 
 
 "Was Mrs. Darcy Derrick that man's wife! Go and 
 tell him that she is dead !" 
 
 Puzzled, troubled, and very ill at ease, Cresswell made 
 her way to the gate. Her late mistress had, so she knew, 
 been cruelly deceived and deserted by some desperately 
 wicked man. But Cresswell had understood his name 
 to be Trevelyan, and now that this other name was sud- 
 denly announced to her for the first time, and she was
 
 222 A Widower's Letter. 
 
 sent to face the villain in question, her knees trembled 
 with alarm and indignation. 
 
 Darcy on his part saw a little, elderly woman, very pale 
 and red-eyed, but, as it seemed to him, of set, stern cast 
 of features and- expression. 
 
 "What do you want ?" she asked sharply, without open- 
 ing the gate. 
 
 "I want my wife," he answered boldly. "Mrs. Darcy 
 Derrick." 
 
 "Your wife, Mrs. Darcy Derrick, died at half-past 
 eight yesterday evening," Cresswell answered, repeating 
 the words as a lesson. 
 
 Darcy 's forehead grew wet with agitation and excite- 
 ment. Twice he tried to speak, but his throat was so 
 dry he could not at first form the words. 
 
 "It is impossible!" burst from him at last. "I can't, 
 I won't, believe it! I can't stand talking here with all 
 these people about. Let me in, Cresswell ; I have a great 
 deal to say to you. I know all about you. You must let 
 me in. I have a right to come." 
 
 "I know nothing about that, sir. I have no orders to 
 admit you." 
 
 "Did Miss Knight send you to me?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Look here, Cresswell, I don't want to see Miss Knight. 
 I have nothing to say to her. But you must let me see 
 my wife or I will never believe she is dead." 
 
 "If you don't believe that you had better ask the doc- 
 tor," retorted Cresswell, and before he could speak again 
 she turned her back on him and regained the house. 
 
 The Hon. Darcy made his way at once to the house of 
 Dr. Wentworth, but the doctor being out on his rounds 
 his visitor had to wait two hours before his return. In 
 the meantime the doctor had called at Lockhart Cottages 
 and had clearly heard there something unfavorable to
 
 A Widower's Letter. 223 
 
 Mr. Darcy Derrick, for he greeted the latter with marked 
 coldness, and did not even ask him to sit down. 
 
 "You must forgive me for troubling you," Darcy be- 
 gan; "but the report has reached me that my dear wife 
 was a patient of yours, and that she is now lying dead 
 at 4 Lockhart Cottages." 
 
 "Is this your name?" Dr. Wentworth asked, pointing to 
 the card Darcy had given him. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Then you have heard aright. A lady, whom I now 
 know to be the Hon. Mrs. Darcy Derrick, died at that 
 address last night." 
 
 "My poor darling!" exclaimed Darcy, breaking down 
 altogether in a fit of uncontrollable grief. Tears rushed 
 from his eyes and he sank on a chair, burying his face in 
 his hands. 
 
 The doctor watched him for a few seconds with rather 
 a sarcastic expression. Having beheld Dorothy's grief, 
 he was but little touched by Darcy's. 
 
 "If you will pardon me," he said, looking at his watch, 
 "I have so many appointments to-day " 
 
 "One moment, doctor! What was the cause of my 
 poor wife's death ?" 
 
 "Failure of the heart's action." 
 
 "I must see her !" cried Darcy, springing from his seat 
 and beginning to pace wildly about the room. "You can 
 have no idea how I loved her. We have been cruelly 
 separated through the wicked schemes of her sister, who 
 was jealous of her. I only lived to be reconciled to her, 
 and now she has been snatched away from me by death ! 
 Do you think her end was hastened in any way ? do you 
 think that it was all the result of an accident ?" 
 
 "I do not understand you, sir. Your wife is dead, and 
 I have told you the cause of her death. Your private
 
 224 A Widower's Letter. 
 
 affairs, if you will pardon me for saying so, do not con- 
 cern me." 
 
 With that Dr. Wentworth rang the bell for a servant 
 to show Mr. Derrick to the door. 
 
 Still in a state of hysterical excitement, the Hon. Darcy 
 repaired to the hotel where he had spent the preceding 
 evening, and at once ordered a bottle of whiskey, a siphon 
 of soda, and pens, ink and paper. 
 
 Phyllis should know what he thought of her before 
 another hour went by, and, under the combined influence 
 of grief, rage, baffled love, venomous spite and repeated 
 application to the spirit bottle, he indited the following 
 letter to his supposed sister-in-law : 
 
 "Phyllis : No doubt you think you triumph now that 
 your sister, my beautiful Dorothy my wife, and the only 
 woman I have ever truly loved is dead and cold. In 
 your bitter, crazy jealousy, you will not even let me see 
 her face again, knowing, as you must do, that I love her 
 dead body a million times better than I could ever care 
 for you living. But for you and your evil influence, Doro- 
 thy and I would have been happy together all these 
 months. She was meant for me, put into the world for 
 me, and but for you coming, like a poor, faded ghost of 
 her, between us, we should have been together now, as 
 we ought to be. I only cared to look at you because 
 of your likeness to her, for I worshipped her from her 
 portraits long before I saw her, and you were jealous 
 even of them. You may, perhaps, in your wretched, in- 
 sane infatuation for me, be hugging to yourself the 
 thought that now that my wife is dead I may let you 
 take her place. But in this you are utterly mistaken. 
 Long ago I wearied of the sight of you, and now I abso- 
 lutely hate you. Nothing shall ever induce me to look 
 at you again. Don't attempt to hold any communication
 
 A Widower's Letter. 225 
 
 with me I repudiate you altogether. I never loved you, 
 you have no claim upon me at all, and I don't care what 
 becomes of you. I found you out solely through my 
 deep, my passionate and unalterable love for my wife 
 Dorothy love so intense that wherever she went I had 
 to follow her. Had she lived I would have won her 
 back to me though all the forces of heaven and hell stood 
 between us. But now that she is dead I shall only stop 
 in this neighborhood long enough to follow her to the 
 grave, wherein all my hopes of happiness will be buried 
 with her. From that dark moment you need never hope 
 to see or hear from me again. Darcy Derrick."
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 GOOD NEWS THAT CAME TOO EATE. 
 
 The Hon. Darcy called again at Lockhart Cottages that 
 day. It being Sunday, he wished to deliver his letter 
 in person. 
 
 Cresswell took it from him without a word and car- 
 ried it upstairs to her mistress. As she passed the open 
 door of the darkened dining-room her eyes fell upon a 
 letter which lay unopened upon the table. It was the 
 registered communication for which Phyllis had signed 
 the receipt on the preceding evening. Cresswell's tears 
 broke out afresh at sight of it, but she resolved to give 
 it to Dorothy on the chance that it possibly contained 
 news which might divert her thoughts from her over- 
 whelming grief. 
 
 "That dreadful man who came this morning, miss, has 
 been again and has brought a letter for you. And here's 
 a registered letter that came yesterday evening after you 
 had left. I'd forgotten all about it in our trouble." 
 
 Dorothy, who had never left her sister's room, and 
 could not be induced to take sleep or food since Phyllis' 
 death, listlessly held out her hand for the letters. It 
 was late in the afternoon, and her head ached with long 
 weeping and fasting. She read Darcy Derrick's letter 
 through with an expression of bewilderment, which final- 
 ly changed to one of relief. 
 
 "He thinks it is I, and not Phyllis, who is dead," she 
 said to herself, wonderingly. 
 
 In truth, it had not occurred to her that he would take
 
 Good News that Came Too Late. 227 
 
 her message, or her subsequent announcement of her 
 sister's married name to Dr. Wentworth, in that spirit. 
 The suddenness of her loss had stunned her faculties; 
 she had not stopped to reflect that Mr. Derrick had no 
 means of ascertaining which of the sisters was dead. 
 She pre-supposed that he knew it was Phyllis and she 
 imagined that he would take the message as coming from 
 her (Dorothy) in the defiant spirit in which she had 
 framed it. 
 
 But as she re-read Darcy's letter a new thought came 
 into her mind. Had not he himself by his mistake opened 
 out to her a new way of escape from him? Tears of 
 thankfulness gushed from her eyes as she gazed from 
 the open sheet in her hand to her sister's face, calm in 
 the peaceful dignity of death. That gentle heart could 
 never again be wounded by Darcy's cruelty, nor could 
 his bitterest taunts have any more power to cause her 
 tears to flow. 
 
 The beauty of her early girlhood had come back to 
 Phyllis' face, ennobled by Death's first idealizing touch. 
 Very mean and small and petty, of the world worldly, 
 and torn by a thousand distracting emotions, Dorothy 
 felt herself to be before her, and she who had petted and 
 protected Phyllis in her lifetime felt strangely awed and 
 reverent in the presence of Phyllis dead. 
 
 "Thank God, she never read this letter!" Dorothy 
 whispered to herself, gushing hot with anger for the in- 
 sults which Darcy addressed to the woman who had so 
 loved him. "If only I can contrive not to undeceive 
 him! He seems almost as anxious not to see Phyllis as 
 I am not to see him. If he thinks I am Phyllis he will 
 avoid me, and I shall at least escape the sin of murder, 
 for if I see him and if he should speak to me or try 
 to touch me I feel I must kill him! If he were to find 
 out the truth, he has sworn he will never rest from follow-
 
 228 Good News that Came Too Late. 
 
 ing me, and I know he would keep his word. He has 
 hunted us down already, and he would do so again. No 
 one has seen my dear Phyllis since last night except 
 Cresswell and Dr. Wentworth. Cresswell will say what 
 I tell her, and Dr. Wentworth knows Phyllis as Mrs. 
 Darcy Derrick. I gave my word to Phyllis long ago 
 that she should be buried as a married woman in her hus- 
 band's name. This wretch who ruined her life says he 
 will follow his wife's body to the grave; well, then, he 
 shall do so, and Phyllis shall be buried as Mrs. Darcy 
 Derrick. Afterward, I will instantly leave this place with 
 Cresswell, and we will find very quiet, very cheap, rooms 
 somewhere, anywhere, so that I am not likely to meet 
 that horribly cruel madman who calls himself my hus- 
 band." 
 
 This decision in some sort modified the intensity of 
 Dorothy's grief, as any practical resolve necessarily re- 
 lieves the strain on an essentially active mind. She read 
 Darcy 's letter carefully through a third time, and then 
 proceeded as carefully to destroy it and to wash her 
 fingers after touching anything his hands had touched. 
 Not until after this task did she remember the registered 
 letter to "Miss Dorothea Knight," for which a receipt had 
 been given in her absence by Phyllis on the preceding 
 evening. 
 
 The senders were a firm of solicitors, Messrs. Searle 
 & Glyn, and their office address, printed on the notepaper, 
 was in Buckingham street, Strand. 
 
 "Madam," the lawyers wrote. "In pursuance of our 
 desire to carry out the testamentary intentions of our 
 late client, Mrs. Julius Knight, of 37 Belvedere Gardens, 
 Hyde Park, we have recently inserted advertisements 
 in the London papers with a view to obtaining your ad- 
 dress. This, however, we failed to do until yesterday, 
 when a gentleman, who gave his name as the Hon. Darcy
 
 Good News that Came Too Late. 229 
 
 Derrick, Lord Derrick's brother, called at our office and 
 informed us, first, that he had married Miss Dorothea 
 Knight at St. James Church, Plymouth, in September 
 of last year, and, second, that family quarrels had parted 
 him from his wife, to whom he was very deeply attached, 
 but whose present address he had only just succeeded 
 in discovering. We are, therefore, sending this letter, 
 registered, to the address with which he furnished us, 
 and, should this reach you, we must beg you to at once 
 communicate with us at our office. 
 
 "Mr. Derrick informed us that he had reason to be- 
 lieve that your present circumstances were somewhat 
 straitened, and that you would be more likely to give our 
 representative an interview if you knew the nature of the 
 business upon which we wish to confer with you. We 
 have much pleasure, therefore, in informing you that by 
 the will of our late client, Mrs. Julius Knight, the great 
 bulk of her property, including the freehold residence 
 at 37 Belvedere Gardens, with furniture, plate, horses and 
 carriages, a collection of valuable jewelry and investments 
 yielding an income of ten thousand pounds yearly, is left 
 unconditionally to her grand-niece and god-child, Doro- 
 thea Knight, orphan daughter of the late Harold Everett 
 Knight, formerly of Petersham Lodge and the Stock Ex- 
 change." 
 
 Dorothy put down the letter and drew a deep breath. 
 
 So many things had happened since that Sunday after- 
 noon in early summer when she had sought out her great- 
 aunt in order to plead for Phyllis that she had almost 
 forgotten the incident. Her aunt had said things against 
 her sister, and she had retorted wrathfully, and had left 
 the house. And now Aunt Dorothea had atoned in her 
 own way for the pain she had caused her niece that after- 
 noon. Hers had been such a vivacious, dominant per- 
 sonality that it was difficult to think of her as dead; a
 
 230 Good News that Came Too Late. 
 
 kind-hearted, hot-tempered, autocratic, spoiled woman, 
 proud of her full-blown charms, which she had retained 
 late in life, proud of her diamonds and all that was hers, 
 and, above all, proud of her dinners, and revelling in the 
 triumphs of her chef's skill. 
 
 She had been touched, deeply touched, Dorothy re- 
 membered, by the tale of Phyllis' starving on Richmond 
 Bridge, though she had but little sympathy for the story 
 of her betrayal. And now both aunt and niece were 
 dead, and that money which might have prolonged Phyl- 
 lis' life belonged to Dorothy, who could never spend one 
 penny of it in making her sister happy. 
 
 "Too late! It has come too late!" sobbed Dorothy, 
 her hot tears falling on Phyllis' ice-cold hands. "What 
 can I buy for you now, my dear one, but the winter roses 
 and lilies of the dead ?" 
 
 The news of this fortune, coming when it did, seemed 
 a bitter mockery. She reflected, too, that Darcy knew 
 of it, and, to a ruined spendthrift such as he, a wife 
 with a large income would offer irresistible attractions. 
 
 "He must never suspect it is I, Dorothy, who am alive, 
 now," she said to herself. "I must hide myself until he 
 is out of the neighborhood, and must then leave England 
 at once with Cresswell, using Phyllis' name until I have 
 put many miles of sea and land between us. I might even 
 go to America, and try to find my brother Shafto. I know 
 the firm to whom he was at first sent, and Shafto was 
 always affectionate to me. It would be nice to find some 
 one belonging to me some one to protect me." 
 
 But very soon her thoughts wandered back to the many 
 things she might have done for Phyllis, if only this money 
 had come to her earlier. She was so accustomed to think 
 for Phyllis, to work for Phyllis, to sacrifice herself daily 
 and hourly for Phyllis, that now that Phyllis lay dead 
 beyond all love and service, Dorothy's life seemed a blank,
 
 Good News that Came Too Late. 231 
 
 and the fact that she was a rich woman served only to 
 fill her with poignant regrets. 
 
 The violent emotions of the past twenty-four hours, 
 coming as they did after four whole years of overwork 
 of body and brain, had strained Dorothy's powers to the 
 utmost, and she was now on the brink of a serious break- 
 down. 
 
 All need for working and striving had been suddenly 
 taken away just at the moment when constant, enforced 
 occupation might have proved a solace to her. She had 
 nothing to do but to remain passive and conceal herself 
 from the man she so feared and hated until such time 
 as she could secretly leave England. There were no im- 
 mediate duties to drive from her brain the thought of 
 her sister's wrongs, her sister's sufferings, her blighted 
 life, the cruel suddenness of her death. 
 
 When at length, worn out with grief, she lay down 
 on her bed to sleep, a sort of vertigo possessed her mind. 
 
 Hour after hour she fancied that she was endeavoring 
 to escape with Phyllis from an exaggerated and mon- 
 strous Darcy Derrick, looming behind- them, diabolical 
 in form and power. And as his shadow neared them, 
 Phyllis' warm hand would turn to coldest clay within 
 Dorothy's protecting clasp, her heart would gradually 
 cease to beat, and when, in an agony of terror, Dorothy 
 seized her in her arms, it was a corpse, and not a living 
 woman she held there. 
 
 Through the semi-delirium of that terrible night, one 
 only ray of hope shone through the thick cloud of her 
 fevered imaginings. Sometimes, as she and Phyllis were 
 about to fall into the clutches of their enemy, a strong 
 man's hand would seize both hers and draw her out be- 
 yond Darcy's reach. The form and features of this 
 Perseus of dreamland were blurred and indistinct; but 
 when at one point she strained to see his face, she knew
 
 232 Good News that Came Too Late. 
 
 it instantly for that of Aylmer Read, her friend of the 
 old Museum student days. 
 
 Early the next morning Dr. Wentworth called, to find 
 Dorothy with dry, hot lips, aching head, and ice-cold 
 hands and feet. 
 
 She was not ill, she declared; there was nothing the 
 matter with her. He might ask Cresswell; Cresswell 
 would tell him she had never been ill in her life she was 
 only afraid lest that dreadful man should get hold of her. 
 
 "You are sure he didn't come in with you?" she cried, 
 starting up in bed with scared eyes. "He is so cunning 
 and wicked one can't escape from him. He killed my 
 sister. You know that, don't you, Dr. Wentworth? 
 Didn't I tell you?" 
 
 The surprise in his face seemed to restore her mental 
 balance. Blushing deeply, she fell back on the pillows 
 again. 
 
 "Please forgive me if I have been talking nonsense," 
 she said humbly. "I have had bad dreams all night, 
 and don't seem to be out of them yet, and I feel weak 
 and strange." 
 
 "You have had nothing to eat since the day before 
 yesterday, which is quite enough to account for it," Dr. 
 Wentworth said. "I want to know whether I can be of 
 any use to you about your sister's funeral, I mean. I 
 have spoken to Mrs. Cresswell, and she seems utterly 
 helpless ; indeed, she scarcely seems to know your sister's 
 name. You are not in a fit state to get out of bed, and 
 I'm afraid you won't be for some days. But if you will 
 kindly furnish me with a few necessary particulars I will 
 take all the worry of the affair off your hands. All you 
 have to do is to tell me Mrs. Darcy Derrick's full name 
 and age ; that is all I want to know." 
 
 Dorothy lay silent for a few seconds. 
 
 Then she said in constrained tones:
 
 Good News that Came Too Late. 233 
 
 "Mrs. Darcy Derrick's maiden name was Dorothea 
 Knight, and her age now would be twenty-one." 
 
 Dr. Wentworth took down her words, and later on left 
 the house, promising to call again toward evening, and 
 insisting upon absolute rest and quiet for his patient. 
 Before his second visit, however, an event had occurred 
 which did away with all possibility of that calm repose 
 upon the necessity for which he had so strongly dwelt. 
 This was the arrival of a second letter from the solicitors, 
 Messrs. Searle & Glyn, brought to Lockhart Cottages by 
 a messenger, who had received instructions to wait for 
 an answer. 
 
 The lawyers wrote : 
 
 "Madam Mr. Darcy Derrick called at our office at 
 ten o'clock this morning with the unexpected and dis- 
 tressing intelligence that his wife, our client, Miss Doro- 
 thea Knight, or, to style her aright, Mrs. Darcy Derrick, 
 died very suddenly at Lockhart Cottages on Saturday 
 evening last at half-past eight o'clock. Mr. Derrick fur- 
 nished us with the name of the doctor who attended her, 
 and an exchange of telegrams with him has confirmed 
 the sad intelligence. Mr. Derrick is desirous of attend- 
 ing his late wife's funeral, and we should wish a repre- 
 sentative of our firm to be present on the occasion. Dr. 
 Wentworth's telegram informs us that you are prostrate 
 with grief and seriously ill. But if you will kindly dic- 
 tate a few words and dispatch them by the bearer of this 
 letter, giving us the particulars as to the date and place 
 of your sister's interment, you would be conferring a 
 great favor upon your obedient servants, 
 
 "Searle & Glyn. 
 "To Miss Phyllis Knight." 
 
 Something of the power of the law in its cold, passion-
 
 234 Good News that Came Too Late. 
 
 less, judicial aspect impressed itself upon Dorothy as she 
 read the letter. 
 
 A lie once spoken in hot defiance, with no intention to 
 deceive, had been taken as a truth, and she found herself 
 forced to stand by it. 
 
 Suppose she were to send for these lawyers and ex- 
 plain to them the mistake that had been made, to tell 
 the whole truth to them, what would be- the result ? 
 
 Darcy Derrick would attend the funeral, would see that 
 the dead woman was buried as Phyllis Knight, would 
 disclaim all relationship with her, and cast a foul slur 
 upon her memory and name. He would triumph in his 
 victim's death, and before the grass had grown above her 
 grave would be subjecting her sister to his gross and in- 
 tolerable persecutions, urged by the double force of his 
 evil passion and his desire to get her fortune. 
 
 The law would take no count of Phyllis' ruined life 
 and tragic death. Had Darcy married her legally, he 
 could not have wedded her sister; but as the law would 
 set aside a marriage contracted during the first Mrs. 
 Derrick's lifetime, he was perfectly free to claim Dorothy 
 as his lawful wife. 
 
 Her heart was filled with hatred against him, with 
 horror of him, and with dread of the violence of her own' 
 feelings should he so much as enter her presence. 
 
 And yet, so long as he believed her alive, she could 
 never for one moment be free from him. 
 
 Every one would be against her. She fancied she 
 could hear the stereotyped old phrases which would be 
 used: "A wife's place is at her husband's side;" "No 
 one should come between man and wife ;" "A wife's best 
 shelter is her husband's love ;" "Whom God hath joined," 
 etc., etc. 
 
 She knew, in brief, just what would happen if this 
 mistake were made right, and with every nerve in her
 
 Good News that Came Too Late. 235 
 
 body quivering with terror and disgust at the thought of 
 this man's claim upon her, she sprang from her bed, re- 
 solved, whether it were fraudulent or not, to go through 
 with this deception. 
 
 "Tell the messenger," she called to Cresswell, "to wait. 
 And please go round to Dr. Wentworth and ask him 
 to come to me at once." 
 
 The doctor found her flushed and strangely bright 
 about the eyes, with the temperature of fever, but in 
 manner perfectly calm and sane. 
 
 "I want you to tell me about the funeral," she said; 
 "a messenger is waiting to know what is arranged." 
 
 A few minutes later Messrs. Searle & Glyn's emissary 
 set out on his return journey, bearing a short note writ- 
 ten by Dr. Wentworth at Dorothy's dictation, she having 
 said that she was too weak to hold a pen. 
 
 "Miss Knight thanks Messrs. Searle & Glyn for their 
 letter, and informs them that the funeral of her sister, 
 Mrs. Darcy Derrick, will start from this address for 
 Brompton Cemetery at twelve o'clock (noon) to-morrow 
 (Tuesday). 
 
 The state of unnatural excitement in which he found 
 his patient alarmed Dr. Wentworth, and he began to 
 strongly dissuade her against attending her sister's 
 funeral. Rather to his surprise, she at once yielded to 
 his suggestion that she should stay in bed for a day. 
 
 "I will tell you frankly, Dr. Wentworth," she said, "I 
 do not wish to meet my sister's husband. If you think 
 I am ill and feverish now, I can assure you that the mere 
 sight of him would make me a thousand times worse. 
 I loved my sister beyond everything in the world, and 
 that man's treatment of her was so unutterably cruel as 
 to be hardly human." 
 
 Tears rolled down her face as she spoke in tones of 
 deep earnestness that carried conviction to her hearer.
 
 236 Good News that Came Too Late. 
 
 "Mr. Derrick must be a consummate hypocrite," he 
 observed thoughtfully. "In speaking of his late wife he 
 employed terms of the wildest and most extravagant af- 
 fection. He assured me he could not live without her, 
 and cried like a child at the mention of her name." 
 
 "That is because she had just come into some property, 
 and he knew it," Miss Knight said, scornfully. 
 
 Dr. Wentworth listened and wondered; but he had 
 many calls upon his time, and very shortly afterward 
 took leave, after prescribing a sedative and a sleeping 
 draught for his beautiful and excitable patient. 
 
 Dorothy lay still for some little while after his de- 
 parture; but there was something more to be done, and 
 done instantly ; and, flinging on her dressing-gown again, 
 she went to the head of the stairs and called Cresswell 
 softly, as one instinctively calls in the house where the 
 dead are lying. 
 
 The old servant entered, pale, red-eyed, a little hurt 
 and on her dignity in that she had not been consulted 
 or even informed about the funeral. 
 
 "Cresswell, dear," Dorothy began, putting her hands 
 on her shoulders, "I have something very, very impor- 
 tant to say to you. For my dear sister's sake, and for 
 my sake, you must join me in something which looks 
 like deception, but which we must carry through for a 
 few days. Listen, and don't cry. It is nothing very 
 dreadful. You remember our great-aunt, Mrs. Julius 
 Knight? Her lawyers have written to tell me that she 
 is dead, and that she has left me a large fortune ; so that 
 we shall not be poor any more. But some other very 
 wicked people that man Mr. Darcy Derrick, whom you 
 saw will try to get the money and to persecute me for it ; 
 and the only way by which I can escape is to pretend 
 that it is I, Dorothy, lying dead, and that I, whom you 
 now see, am Phyllis. I see you can't understand, and it
 
 Good News that Came Too Late. 237 
 
 is impossible for me to explain to you more fully. But 
 you have always done all that I have asked you, and I 
 am sure that you will do this. All you have to do is to 
 say, if you are asked, that it is Miss Dorothy, the elder 
 sister, who is dead, and that I am the younger, Miss 
 Phyllis." 
 
 "But it's all such a mystery!" gasped Cresswell, be- 
 wildered. "First Miss Phyllis calls herself Mrs. Tre- 
 velyan ; then a young gentleman says she's his wife, and 
 that he's called Derrick; then I am to say you are her, 
 and I'm kept in the dark about everything all the time, 
 just as if I was a baby." 
 
 "Now, don't be cross and tiresome, Cresswell, dear; 
 you don't know how much depends on this. I will, per- 
 haps, tell you all my reasons some day, but I can't now. 
 And it's only for a day or two. We will go away to- 
 gether, you and I, right out of England, and when once 
 we are in another country I will take my own name 
 again. Only, when people ask you my name, remember 
 it's Phyllis, and I am twenty years old. And Dorothy is 
 dead!" 
 
 "But the people about here who have seen you both 
 won't believe me," said Cresswell, struck by a sudden 
 inspiration. "Poor Miss Phyllis was taller than you, and 
 then look at the difference in your hair !" 
 
 "I can cut mine off and dye it, just like hers," said 
 Dorothy. As she spoke she ran to the dressing-table, 
 and before Cresswell had time to expostulate, snip, snip, 
 went the scissors, and a shower of sunny, brown locks 
 slipped from her shoulders on to the floor. 
 
 "I can wear much higher heels and a thick veil," she 
 said, as she went on hurriedly with her task. "And I 
 will use that stuff for my hair that my poor darling used. 
 And now that I am so much thinner you will be hardly 
 able to know me from her."
 
 238 Good News that Came Too Late. 
 
 Her rapidity and impulsiveness took Cresswell's breath 
 away, but she wept afresh at the sight of the short curls 
 on the floor. 
 
 "I've always been so proud of your lovely hair!" she 
 sobbed, as she dropped on her knees to collect it. "It do 
 seem like the end of everything." 
 
 "It will grow again, you dear, silly, old thing," cried 
 Dorothy, snipping away the more impetuously that she 
 disliked these small subterfuges, and would gladly have 
 avoided them. 
 
 But at noon next day her reward came, when, looking 
 out from behind the blind in her bedroom, she saw her 
 sister borne to her last resting place under the name of 
 "Mrs. Darcy Derrick," and followed, weeping to her 
 grave, by the man who had betrayed her. 
 
 "Dearest, I kept my word to you. Thank God for 
 that!" she murmured as, breaking down altogether, sh 
 sobbed her heart out kneeling by the bed where the dead 
 had lain.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 Dorothy's crime. 
 
 The day following Phyllis' funeral found Dorothy in a 
 state of utter prostration. 
 
 All her bravery and determination seemed to have left 
 her. She lay nerveless and still, scarcely listening while 
 the doctor told her she ought to leave her present sur- 
 roundings as soon as she felt strong enough to move. 
 
 "I am going to leave England," she said at last, "almost 
 immediately. I shall go to America or Australia." 
 
 "You are certainly not in a fit condition to undertake 
 a long journey at present," the doctor observed. "Change 
 of scene you need imperatively, but I should advise, if 
 possible, some place within easy driving distance for a 
 day or two, in order to recruit your strength a little. In 
 your present state of nerves a long journey by rail might 
 be most injurious. If you have any relatives living with- 
 in driving distance " 
 
 "I have none," she said, interrupting him almost fierce- 
 ly. "No relatives and no friends. But I have money 
 and will do as you say." 
 
 "Why has your mistress cut off her hair?" the doctor 
 asked Cresswell before he left the house. "She looked 
 so like her dead sister with her white face and short hair 
 that when I entered the room I was absolutely startled." 
 
 "It made her head hot so that she couldn't sleep at 
 night," Cresswell explained rather lamely. 
 
 Cresswell liked the idea of deceiving him and every- 
 body as to the identity of the sisters.
 
 240 Dorothy's Crime. 
 
 Secretive and taciturn by temperament, she enjoyed 
 anything in the nature of a mystery as keenly as do all 
 her class, and the notion of a plot, of however innocent 
 a kind, between her mistress and herself, gave a zest to 
 life under which her spirits revived wonderfully. 
 
 Half an hour later Dorothy called her to her bedside 
 again. 
 
 "We will go and stay for a few days at your brother's 
 cottage near Ham Common," Miss Knight said. "I have 
 been thinking it all over, and it is just the place for us. 
 I know when we lived at our old home I often used to 
 think that if any one wanted to hide, that cottage in 
 the nursery garden, hidden among tall trees, would be 
 an ideal retreat. I shall soon get strong again there, and 
 we can drive all the way down. But first of all I must 
 get some of my money from those lawyer people." 
 
 And here a difficulty presented itself. Cresswell de- 
 tested writing and could only with great difficulty be 
 induced to sign her own name. Dorothy's handwriting 
 was altogether unlike that of her sister, and it was quite 
 possible that Darcy Derrick, who appeared to be constant- 
 ly holding communication with Messrs. Searle and Glyn, 
 might contrive to see any letter she wrote and at once 
 discover the deception that was being practiced upon him. 
 Dorothy felt faint with apprehension at the thought. 
 
 "Do you know any one who could do a little writing 
 for me, at my dictation, Cresswell ?" she asked. "I know 
 it's of no use asking you, and I feel too weak to sit up 
 yet, or there will be no hope of leaving here." 
 
 The daughter of the laundress, who lived in the neigh- 
 boring North End road, was, so Cresswell asserted, a 
 beautiful writer, and she was forthwith dispatched 
 in search of her, while Dorothy lay with closed eyes think- 
 ing over the wording of her appeal. 
 
 But this particular letter was never fated to be written.
 
 Dorothy's Crime. 241 
 
 The door had scarcely closed on Cresswell when the post- 
 man brought a letter for "Miss Phyllis Knight," in the en- 
 velope and writing with which Dorothy was now familiar 
 as coming from the office of Messrs. Searle and Glyn. 
 
 Anxiety made her rise and creep feebly down the stairs 
 and the little garden path to the green gate, and the same 
 feeling prompted her to tear open the envelope before she 
 reached the house door. But at the sight of the first 
 words every trace of color left her cheek; she stumbled 
 rather than walked into the hall, and pushing open the 
 door of the little parlor, fell, trembling and unnerved, on a 
 chair. 
 
 The lawyer wrote : 
 
 Madame. Will you kindly inform us, if possible by re- 
 turn post, whether your sister, the late Mrs. Dorothea Der- 
 rick, left anything in the nature of a will ? As you are no 
 doubt aware, the large fortune left to her by our client, 
 Mrs. Julius Knight, will, if your sister has died intestate, 
 become the sole property of her husband, the Hon. Darcy 
 Derrick. 
 
 The paper fell from Dorothy's hands to the ground. 
 There on that same sofa where the two sisters had sat 
 locked in one another's arms on that terrible night when 
 Phyllis had sobbed out the story of her cruel desertion 
 and betrayal, Dorothy was seated as she learned that, by 
 her own action in confusing her identity with that of 
 Phyllis, the man who had brought about her sister's death 
 was to succeed through that event to the bulk of her aunt's 
 fortune. 
 
 Dorothy's brain reeled at the thought. There was no 
 one in the whole world to whom she could turn for ad- 
 vice ; she knew nothing of the law, she was alone in the 
 house, she was pitiably weak and even a little light-headed 
 as a result of long weeping, sleeplessness and fasting. 
 But she had to pit her woman's ingenuity against this
 
 242 Dorothy's Crime. 
 
 monstrous injustice of the law, as it appeared to her, and 
 her old indomitable spirit urged her to be equal to the oc- 
 casion. 
 
 Only one alternative presented itself before her fevered 
 brain. Dorothy was supposed to have died intestate, but 
 she, Dorothy, to whom the money was left, was alive, and 
 could assign it to whom she pleased. 
 
 She knew how to make a will, or at least she knew 
 where to put her hand on a book of the "Universal In- 
 quirer" order, which would furnish her with the necessary 
 information. 
 
 With nervous haste she sought the book in question, and 
 hurriedly turned the pages until she found the desired in- 
 formation. Then, sitting down before her desk, she pro- 
 ceeded to write with a shaking hand on a sheet of ruled 
 foolscap : 
 
 "This is the last will and testament of Mrs. Dorothea 
 Derrick, formerly Miss Dorothea Knight, of No. four 
 Lockhart Cottages, Severn road, Hammersmith, London. 
 I hereby give, devise and bequeath to my sister, Phyllis 
 Knight, her heirs, executors and administrators, for her 
 and their own use and benefit absolutely and forever, all 
 my estate and effects both real and personal, whatsoever 
 and wheresoever, and of what nature and quality soever ; 
 and I hereby appoint her, the said Phyllis Knight, sole 
 executrix of this my will. In witness whereof I have 
 hereunto set my hand this " 
 
 Dorothy stopped. It was now Wednesday, the twenty- 
 seventh day of February. Phyllis had died on Saturday, 
 the twenty-third, and her death had been registered in her 
 sister's name two days later. Clearly the date must be 
 falsified, and seizing her pen again, Dorothy boldly ante- 
 dated her will by one whole month. , 
 
 "I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-seventh day 
 of January, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-four."
 
 Dorothy's Crime. 243 
 
 All doubt as to the witnesses lor the signature was set 
 at rest by the arrival at that exact moment of Cresswell at 
 the little green garden gate, accompanied by Emma Hud- 
 dleston, the laundress's daughter from the North End 
 road. 
 
 This Emma seemed specially suitable for Dorothy's pur- 
 pose. She knew neither of the Misses Knight by sight, 
 and was a tall, lank, pallid girl, of vacant face and shy, 
 awkward manners. The blind was still lowered in the 
 little parlor, and all the light that penetrated there came 
 through the space intervening on each side between the 
 narrow blind and the woodwork of the window. 
 
 Emma Huddleston saw but imperfectly, coming as she 
 did from the clear sunlight, the figure of a lady in deep 
 mourning a lady who seemed preternaturally tall and 
 thin and pale and sad, and who wore her hair cut short as 
 a boy's. The lady's voice was wonderfully sweet, but her 
 manner was somewhat abrupt and peremptory as she 
 asked Emma to affix her name and address at the foot 
 of a sheet of paper which she pushed toward her. 
 
 The paper had blue lines, and apparently contained 
 writing; but it was carefully folded so that only a blank 
 space was offered for Miss Huddleston's inspection. 
 
 "I am leaving this house," the lady explained hurriedly, 
 "and I have been making a list of everything in it. I want 
 it to seem legal, and so I propose to get you to write your 
 names as witnesses to my signature you and Cresswell. 
 Will you do that ? I will give you half a crown for your 
 trouble." 
 
 "Yes, miss ; thank you. Will you write first." 
 
 Dorothy took the pen, hesitated a moment, and then, in 
 a large, clear handwriting, affixed her signature: 
 
 "Dorothea Derrick." 
 
 The name bore no meaning to the laundress's daughter, 
 and she scarcely appeared to have noticed it as she took
 
 244 Dorothy's Crime. 
 
 the pen Dorothy handed to her and proceeded to inscribe 
 slowly, in a careful, copperplate style: "Emma Amelia 
 Victoria Huddleston," and her address in the North End 
 road. 
 
 But during this process Cresswell was moved to ex- 
 treme uneasiness. Miss Dorothy had turned herself into 
 Miss Phyllis, Miss Phyllis that was dead had been called 
 Mrs. Derrick, and here was Miss Dorothy apparently for- 
 getting everything that had gone before and signing her- 
 self "Dorothea Derrick." 
 
 Cresswell looked at her mistress. Dorothy was deadly 
 pale and her eyes blazed with suppressed excitement. 
 Cresswell began to wonder whether grief had turned her 
 brain. 
 
 "You've signed your sister's name, miss," she said at 
 last in a hissing whisper. 
 
 Dorothy flushed angrily and made a warning gesture of 
 silence. She hoped Emma had not noted the interruption, 
 but Emma had raised her head and stared. 
 
 "You are right, Cresswell," Dorothy said for Emma's 
 benefit. "I never have the thought of her out of my head, 
 and so I put her name instead of mine. Never mind, 
 write your name here as the second witness, and I will 
 take the list away and alter the signature when my head 
 aches less." 
 
 So Emma Huddleston received her half-crown and de- 
 parted, and Dorothy, after dispatching Cresswell for seal- 
 ing-wax, carefully fastened and sealed the long envelope 
 into which she had placed the will, and wrote outside: 
 "The last will and testament of Dorothea Derrick, com- 
 monly known as Dorothy Knight." 
 
 This she placed in her sister's desk among her letters 
 and papers, and forthwith sat down to answer the lawyer's 
 letter. 
 
 Mrs. Darcy Derrick, or, as she was usually called, Miss
 
 Dorothy's Crime. 245 
 
 Dorothy Knight, had certainly made a will, she informed 
 Messrs. Searle and Glyn, and the said will was at the pres- 
 ent moment securely lying, signed, sealed and witnessed, 
 in the dead lady's desk. She herself, Phyllis Knight, was 
 fully acquainted with the contents of the same will, and as 
 she was now able to leave her bed, she would be very glad 
 to see the lawer and place her sister's will in his hands, if 
 he would call at Lockhart Cottages on the afternoon of 
 the following day. 
 
 And Mr. Searle, the head of the firm, did call, to find, 
 not the "silly little provincial actress" described to him by 
 Mr. Derrick, but a young gentlewoman of extreme grace 
 and beauty and appealing, tear-laden gray eyes. True, 
 her short-cut hair was evidently dyed golden, as Darcy 
 had said it would be, but there was no other trace of arti- 
 ficiality either in her appearance or her manner. 
 
 She spoke to him with some timidity and reserve, and 
 while quick blushes chased each other over her delicate 
 face, she briefly alluded to her sister's relations with her 
 husband. 
 
 "I can't trust myself to speak of this Mr. Derrick," she 
 said. "The subject is an intensely painful one. His 
 treatment of my sister was cruel and bad beyond belief, 
 and her illness and death are indirectly due to him. I 
 must earnestly beg of you never to let him know my ad- 
 dress or hold any communication with me. Dorothy's 
 will was made solely to prevent any money she might 
 have from falling into her husband's hands." 
 
 "But had she at the time any idea of inheriting any 
 property?" Mr. Searle inquired, as he sat facing her at 
 the table with the open will in his hand. 
 
 "Not the slightest. But she made money by teaching 
 and painting. We had lived together all our lives, and 
 loved each other very dearly." 
 
 Tears rolled down her face as she spoke. It was im-
 
 246 Dorothy's Crime. 
 
 possible to doubt the genuineness of her love for her dead 
 sister, to which, indeed, even Darcy Derrick had testified. 
 
 The old lawyer was touched and interested. Already 
 he had heard of the Quixotic generosity with which the 
 sisters had sacrificed the little fortune which would have 
 been theirs on their father's death in order to satisfy the 
 just claims of his creditors. He was a wise old man and 
 an excellent judge of character, and he knew much to the 
 credit of the lovely, hardworking and unfortunate sisters, 
 and a good deal to the discredit of Baron Derrick's son. 
 
 He therefore treated Dorothy with a gentle and fatherly 
 kindness which quickly touched her and made her ashamed 
 of the deception she was forced to practice upon him. He 
 strongly approved of her plan to leave Lockhart Cottages 
 immediately and stay in some quiet country spot not too 
 far from London, to recruit her strength before under- 
 taking a long sea voyage. 
 
 "But from what I heard from your late aunt about your 
 brother, my dear young lady, I should scarcely advise you 
 to seek him out. If he is your sole inducement for visit- 
 ing America, I should say Australia would be a better 
 goal. You must remember that you are now a lady of 
 very considerable means, and it would be a great pity if 
 they should be used to defray the extravagances of ne'er- 
 do-weel relatives. Forgive my frankness." 
 
 "I am only too glad to have any one take an interest in 
 me," she said simply, and Mr. Searle mentally decided that 
 this young woman was as good as she was beautiful. 
 
 In ten days' time she was to return to town, if suf- 
 ficiently strong, and to proceed to Messrs. Searle and 
 Glyn's office, in order that they might arrange for the fu- 
 ture disposal of her property. Meantime, she was to send 
 them her address from the country, and to facilitate her 
 immediate departure Mr. Searle offered to advance her
 
 Dorothy's Crime. 247 
 
 what money she required, pending the necessary legal 
 proving of her claims. 
 
 "I shall be very glad, indeed, for I have hardly a shilling 
 in the world," said his beautiful client. 
 
 And very early, very quietly, on the following morning, 
 Dorothy and Cresswell, closely veiled and in deep mourn- 
 ing, made their way across the waste ground to where a 
 four-wheeled cab was waiting to take them on the first 
 stage of their journey. Each woman was armed with a 
 few packages and parcels, but there was no heavy lug- 
 gage in attendance to suggest that they were "flitting," 
 and that Lockhart Cottages, their home during the space 
 of nearly four years, would see their faces no more.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 AYEMER TO THE RESCUE. 
 
 It was past four o'clock on a foggy Friday afternoon in 
 March, nine days after the sudden departure of Dorothy 
 and Cresswell from Lockhart Cottages, as Aylmer Read, 
 chief sub-editor of the Daily Post, left the Fleet street of- 
 fice of that journal with an unusually troubled and anxious 
 expression on his handsome countenance. 
 
 "Phyllis Knight," he muttered to himself reflectively, 
 pulling the ends of his yellow mustache. "There can 
 hardly be two Phyllis Knights, both tall and gray-eyed and 
 fair-haired, and formerly residing in the Hammersmith 
 district. I wish to heaven I could contrive to communi- 
 cate with her in some way. I always knew I should hear 
 of her again, but I never thought it would be like this. By 
 to-morrow morning she will have seen the warning but 
 there is always to-night, and the force are anxious to vin- 
 dicate their character for intelligence after their fiasco in 
 the Monro affair last month. Of course some terrible 
 mistake has been made but what a proud and sensitive 
 nature such as hers, the shock and publicity will be cruelly 
 hard to bear. And what in the world has become of that 
 contemptible cur, her husband, Sergius Trevelyan?" 
 
 From which soliloquy it will be understood that during 
 the eight months which had elapsed since he had last be- 
 held her Aylmer Read had by no means forgotten the lady 
 who had once been his fellow student in the British Mu- 
 seum sculpture galleries. 
 
 In a locked desk at his present home there lay two
 
 Aylmer to the Rescue. 349 
 
 dozen portraits of "Miss Phyllis Knight," which he had 
 bought in the belief that they were meant to represent 
 Dorothy, and had found singularly unflattering and un- 
 satisfactory. 
 
 Not only were Dorothy's features more regularly beau- 
 tiful than those of her unhappy sister, but in the soft, ap- 
 pealing prettiness of the latter there had been no trace of 
 the force of character, the swift intelligence, or the pas- 
 sionate impulsiveness, which a close observer might have 
 read in the face of the elder sister. 
 
 Very often in his leisure moments Aylmer Read had 
 spread the twenty-four photographs out before him and 
 had endeavored, for the most part vainly, to reconcile them 
 with his memory of the sunny-haired girl, with the firmly- 
 closed lips and changing gray eyes, whom he had chosen 
 to set up in his heart as his ideal of womanhood. 
 
 Remembering her little scornful speeches, her avowed 
 determination to dispense with the sentimental admiration 
 of men, and that proud reserye of manner which was but a 
 cloak for her natural girlish high spirits and a certain de- 
 mure, dainty coquetry which characterized her, Aylmer 
 had tried by the hour to trace in her many different photo- 
 graphs something of the personality which had so strongly 
 attracted him. He found, however, in them nothing but 
 a pretty woman, prettier in some than in others, a tender, 
 clinging, gentle, creature, but never his "Diana the Dis- 
 dainful" of the sculpture galleries, who had rippled into 
 laughter over his bad drawing, had thawed into friend- 
 ship on their last walk home from the Grassmarket 
 Theatre, and who had from that moment disappeared so 
 mysteriously from his ken. 
 
 He had even bought and studied theatrical papers, and 
 had found and tracked the progress of more than one 
 actress named Knight, and, among others, of a Dorothy of 
 that ilk, who for a period of six weeks had played with
 
 250 Aylmer to the Rescue. 
 
 Mr. Darcy's "Love's Right" company, in various seaside 
 towns during the preceding year. But there was nothing 
 to lead him to connect Dorothy Knight with Phyllis 
 Knight, or to teach him that the "Dorothea Knight, aged 
 twenty-one, orphan daughter of Harold Everett Knight, 
 formerly of Petersham Lodge and the Stock Exchange," 
 who about Christmas time had been several times re- 
 quested in the Daily Post and other papers to communi- 
 cate with Messrs. Searle and Glyn, was identical with 
 the "Mrs. Sergius Trevelyan" of the provincial photog- 
 rapher's letter. 
 
 He had thought of her constantly none the less. The 
 meteor-like suddenness with which she had flashed in and 
 out of his life, the glimpse he had had into her hard-work- 
 ing, lonely existence, the crystalline purity of her regard, 
 all these things he had thought of and remembered until 
 they had become enshrined as the best part of his inner 
 life, and his ideal love for her had grown to partake of the 
 nature of a chivalrous knight's devotion to the fayre ladye 
 whose favor he bore. 
 
 And through it all he was secretly certain he should see 
 her again, and that she was destined in some way to con- 
 trol his life. Sometimes he laughed at himself for the 
 sentimentality of such a conviction ; he reminded himself 
 that she had discouraged his advances, and that he had 
 good reason to believe she was the wife of another man. 
 But this last fact he was very loth to accept. Meantime, 
 he was biding his time, waiting until it should please her 
 to enter his life again, and make demands upon the ser- 
 vice of faithful love he longed to lay at her feet. 
 
 And now within the past twenty-four hours there had 
 come upon him, like a thunderclap out of an untroubled 
 sky, intelligence that a certain paragraph inserted in the 
 issue of the Daily Post on the previous day had reference 
 to none other than "Phyllis Knight, aged twenty, fair,
 
 Aylmer to the Rescue. 251 
 
 gray-eyed, and until very recently resident in the Hammer- 
 smith district of London." 
 
 The news had so shocked and startled him that he had 
 not been home that night. At about four a. m. he had left 
 his office for a journalists' club, where he had singled out 
 especially one reporter and held a prolonged conference 
 with him. Between five and ten in the morning he had 
 learned all that other pressmen could tell him about the 
 case in question, and had snatched a troubled sleep of two 
 hours at the Wigwam Club. Bow street was his next re- 
 sort, after he had hurriedly scanned the columns of the 
 morning papers. Then, after a hurried, pefunctory break- 
 fast, he had betaken himself to 4 Lockhart Cottages, which 
 he now, for the first time, knew as the home of Phyllis 
 Knight. 
 
 The house was empty. Such a mean, sordid little home 
 he found it, hemmed in by the bare, high walls of the 
 Board School buildings, hidden from the Hammersmith 
 road by unsightly boardings, in an atmosphere of dirt and 
 dust, shouting and screaming children and loudly gos- 
 sipping charwomen and laundresses. 
 
 Clearly something was known or guessed in the neigh- 
 borhood concerning the mystery which overhung No. 4, 
 and Aylmer had little difficulty in engaging in conversa- 
 tion a voluble lady with rolled-up sleeves and red elbows, 
 who freely confided to him her opinion as to the late 
 dwellers in the cottage. 
 
 "Them two Knights was real ladies, there wasn't any 
 doubt o' that. They kep' themselves to themselves, but 
 I'm not one to blame them for that. The person I couldn't 
 abide was that there old parrot-faced servant. You take 
 my word for it, sir, if something mysterious-like comes 
 out about that there 'ouse, Mrs. Cresswell's at the bottom 
 of it. It ain't no good trying to persuade me as some- 
 thing isn't up. Pleecemen in plain clothes and pleece-
 
 252 Aylmer to the Rescue. 
 
 men's boots as yer carn't mistake, don't go 'anging about 
 an 'ouse if something ain't wrong. Lor' bless you, sir, I 
 can see as far through a brick wall as most, and if ever a 
 woman deserved burning alive as a witch it's that there 
 conceited, scowling, disagreeable old woman, the Knight's 
 servant, Cress well." 
 
 In the gathering fog and gloom Aylmer gazed at the 
 empty house with the close-drawn blinds, fascinated by 
 the thought that here she had lived, she whose beauty and 
 refinement would have graced, as he told himself, the 
 palace of a queen. The demonstrative curiosity of the 
 neighbors drove him at length from the spot, and strolling 
 round the block, comprising the four semi-detached dwell- 
 ing places, he made his way to the back, and stared into 
 the garden through the iron spikes surmounting a portion 
 of the wall. 
 
 As he did so he became aware of the figure of a man 
 lurking round the corner of the first of the cottages, 
 clearly intent on watching him. Aylmer had already sur- 
 mised that some sort of guard was being kept on the 
 house, but for reasons of his own he was extremely curi- 
 ous to ascertain for himself the identity of this particular 
 spy. He loitered about, therefore, for some moments in 
 the fog, and deliberately lighted his pipe and stopped a 
 passing errand-boy to ask the way to the Fulham road. 
 As soon as he had received the information he turned as 
 though to walk in that direction, and then suddenly 
 doubling, found himself, as he intended, face to face with 
 the person who had been noting his movements. 
 
 The man whom he so unexpectedly faced was clearly 
 not an ordinary detective. A slim, gracefully built, well- 
 dressed man, very pale, with vividly red lips under a 
 slight golden mustache, and large melancholy blue eyes 
 under curled black lashes altogether an exceptionally
 
 Aylmer to the Rescue. 253 
 
 attractive-looking personage, and yet Aylmer Read chose 
 instantly to dislike him with surprising intensity. 
 
 The man apologized, in a crltured and melodious voice, 
 for colliding with him, and with an interchange of hat- 
 lifting the pair parted. 
 
 "Now who in the world is that big fellow?" Darcy Der- 
 rick asked himself, as he watched Mr. Read's retreating 
 figure. "Can Phyllis have consoled herself in my absence 
 with another lover? Evidently he is interested in the 
 place from the way in which he stared about and asked 
 questions. The infernal publicity the press gives to every- 
 thing is dead against the interests of justice." 
 
 "I wonder who that pallid, effeminate-looking beast 
 with the red lips was," mused Aylmer Read. "Certainly 
 has was skulking about for no good. Heaven send the 
 poor child does not run home straight into the trap laid 
 for her!" 
 
 Going home to Regent's Park, where he now resided, 
 was clearly out of the question in his present state of 
 restless anxiety, and Mr. Read repaired again to the 
 offices of the Daily Post to ascertain whether any news 
 had come in during his absence. Meantime the fog thick- 
 ened to what is known as a "London particular," and a 
 drizzling rain began to fall. As the afternoon wore on 
 Aylmer's agitation increased until, unable to keep in one 
 place, he sallied out to study the contents' bills of the 
 evening papers. Through the slippery mud of Fleet street 
 and the Strand he passed down to the Wigwam Club in 
 its quiet terrace overlooking the Embankment. He had 
 meant to wait there awhile until the later editions of the 
 evening sheets were out. But hardly had the doors of 
 the club smoking-room swung to behind him when an 
 overpoweringly strong impulse made him suddenly turn 
 and leave the house, walking rapidly in the direction of 
 Villiers street.
 
 254 Aylmer to the Rescue. 
 
 Before the underground Charing Cross Station, he ex- 
 plained to himself, he would be able to buy more papers, 
 and that, of course, was his reason for directing his steps 
 thither. But hardly had he turned from John street into 
 the steep descent of Villiers street when he knew beyond 
 a doubt why he had come. 
 
 For walking swiftly toward the Strand, with free, 
 swinging step, clothed in deep mourning and closely 
 veiled, was the woman whose image wholly absorbed his 
 thoughts and whom, with all the strength of love and will, 
 he most longed to see. 
 
 He knew her instantly before she lifted her veil and 
 showed her face, paler and thinner than he had known it, 
 but to Aylmer unutterably sweet and appealing. Before 
 any other passer by had time to note its beauty, he was 
 by her side and had drawn her hand through his arm. 
 
 "Lower your veil instantly," he said in very low, au- 
 thoritative tones. "I am Aylmer Read, your friend. You 
 must do everything I tell you and trust me wholly."
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 HIS I, I E G fi I, A D Y. 
 
 Too much astonished to resist at first, Dorothy allowed 
 Aylmer to lead her across the road and assist her into a 
 four-wheeled cab, which he at once chartered. 
 
 Not until he had given the direction : "Regent street ; 
 drive slowly !" and the vehicle had begun to move, did she 
 emerge from her stupefaction at his behavior, and proceed 
 to question him upon it. 
 
 "Mr. Read, what does all this mean? I am not going 
 to Regent street ! I have to keep an appointment with my 
 lawyers in Buckingham street, Strand. Please stop this 
 cab at once. I insist." 
 
 "Wait, please ! You say you have to keep an appoint- 
 ment. Do your lawyers expect you?" 
 
 "Most certainly. I wrote to them last night, saying I 
 would call between half-past four and five to-day." 
 
 "Giving them your address?" 
 
 She hesitated a moment. 
 
 "No," she said at last. "I did not give them the address 
 where I have been staying for the past few days. It was 
 not necessary, and and I did not want to have it known. 
 But all this really cannot concern any one who is almost a 
 stranger to me " 
 
 "It interests me because I am your friend. You must 
 let me be that, Miss Knight. You are in great in seri- 
 ous danger." 
 
 "What danger?"
 
 256 His Liege Lady. 
 
 "Have you seen the newspapers at that place where 
 you have been staying?" 
 
 "The newspapers?" she repeated, wonderingly. "Oh, 
 dear no! I have been staying in a cottage a long way 
 from any town, and all I cared for was quiet. My land- 
 lord could not read, and my old servant, who stayed with 
 me, is not much more of a scholar than he ; and I was ill 
 very ill for the first few days. Why do you ask me 
 all these questions? My time is most valuable. I have 
 left my old servant in the waiting room at the station, 
 and as soon as my business with the lawyer is settled 
 we start for Liverpool. To-morrow we sail for America." 
 
 "Miss Knight," he said, striving to keep his agitation 
 out of his voice, "all your plans must be altered. Some- 
 thing very serious has taken place during your absence. 
 Have you any reason for believing you have an enemy?" 
 
 She started violently; her whole manner changed and 
 became intensely nervous and excited. 
 
 "Yes," she answered in trembling tones, "I have indeed 
 an enemy a man I hate and fear! Has he found me 
 out?" 
 
 There was no mistaking the dread in her tones. Even 
 Aylmer's vigorous faith in her received a slight shock. 
 
 "You have guessed what his action is likely to be, 
 then?" he said anxiously. 
 
 "I know his hideous wickedness, and that he would 
 move heaven and earth to get me into his power. I 
 thought I had provided against everything. But if he is 
 really on my track there is all the more reason why I 
 should leave England at once. I can go to Buckingham 
 street in this cab " 
 
 "That is impossible. I see you don't understand. Your 
 lawyer's office is as much out of the question as Liverpool. 
 There is a warrant out for your arrest, and by to-morrow 
 morning a minute description of your appearance and
 
 His Liege Lady. 257 
 
 that of your servant Cresswell will be published in every 
 newspaper in England." 
 
 "My arrest!" she faltered. "For what?" 
 
 "On a charge of murder !" 
 
 "Murder!" 
 
 She had supposed that her personation of her sister had 
 been discovered, and that the forging of her own will and 
 falsification of the date was in some way to be brought 
 home to her. But at the ugly word he uttered she felt 
 nothing but amazement, and she repeated it, stupefied, be- 
 fore she could realize its meaning. Then her thoughts 
 flew to Darcy Derrick. 
 
 "But I did not kill him !" she exclaimed. "I suppose I 
 meant to, but he was hardly hurt at all, only stunned. 
 And I saw him with my own eyes on the night when my 
 dear sister died. Why, I . brushed past him, almost 
 touched him " 
 
 "You are making a mistake. It is no man you are ac- 
 cused of murdering, but your sister Dorothea." 
 
 He knew that his suddeness and abruptness must sound 
 brutal, but time was precious. Already the cab had 
 reached Piccadilly Circus, and he had no time to choose 
 his words. 
 
 Dorothy remained silent for a few seconds. The news 
 seemed to stun her ; she could not realize its possibility. 
 
 "Do you know what you are saying ?" she asked at last 
 in a whisper, hardly audible over the rumble of the cab 
 wheels. "That I am accused of murdering my sister, for 
 whom I would at any time have given my life? If it were 
 not so dreadful I should laugh at such a thing." 
 
 "I am sure of it," he said, laying his hand upon her 
 two hands clinched in her lap. "And of course you will 
 face and disprove so monstrous and wicked a charge. But 
 you had to know of it, and that was why I stopped you. 
 If you go from here straight to your lawyer's office, as
 
 258 His Liege Lady. 
 
 you proposed, you will certainly be at once arrested, for 
 your lawyer has, without doubt, been communicated with. 
 The warrant for your arrest and that of Mrs. Cresswell 
 on the charge of willfully murdering Dorothea Derrick on 
 February 23, at 4 Lockhart Cottages, was applied for and 
 granted yesterday afternoon." 
 
 "But I was not even in the house when my sister died," 
 cried Dorothy, while tears rolled down her face at the 
 remembrance. "Her heart was terribly weakened by her 
 illness, and she died of heart disease. Dr. Wentworth at- 
 tended her, and before then Dr. Morgan. They both 
 know that such a charge would be ridiculous if it were 
 not so hideous! I must see Mr. Searle, my lawyer, at 
 once, and get him to put a stop to this insane charge " 
 
 "I'm afraid things have gone too far for that. You see 
 I can't bear to tell you but you are liable to arrest at 
 any moment, as is your old servant. It is only by chance, 
 aided, perhaps, by this fog, that you have come up to 
 town in safety. Of course, you will be able to answer 
 such an outrageous accusation fully. Do you suppose 
 that I doubt that for a moment? But I wanted you to 
 hear it first from the lips of a friend." 
 
 "Thank you," she said simply. 
 
 She was hardly listening, being absorbed in her own 
 thoughts. After a few moments of silence she said sud- 
 denly, in low tones of intense conviction: 
 
 "I cannot face the charge." 
 
 He would not doubt her for an instant. He waited a 
 few seconds for the explanation which did not come, and 
 then said gently : 
 
 "Sooner or later you will have to do so." 
 
 "I cannot," she returned wildly. "I cannot face that 
 man Derrick ! It is he who has started this vile story, is 
 it not?"
 
 His Liege Lady. 259 
 
 "Yes. He has also applied to the Home Secretary for 
 an order to exhume the body of your sister." 
 
 She gave a sharp cry. 
 
 "My sister ! Oh, horrible ! Surely, surely such a thing 
 cannot be allowed?" 
 
 "The exhumation will, I believe, take place to-morrow." 
 
 "My God!" she cried, sinking back in the cab and 
 wringing her hands in despair. "What shall I do? How 
 can I prevent such a horrible desecration ? Do you know 
 this man Derrick?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "He killed my sister oh, he cannot be punished for it 
 it was not open murder. He ruined her, deserted her 
 and broke her heart, then he turned his hateful attentions 
 to me" she grew hot under her veil at the remembrance 
 "under an assumed name. When I found out who he 
 really was I tried to kill him. Oh, I wish I had done so ! 
 But he is too wicked to kill. It is gentle, unselfish crea- 
 tures like my sister who suffer, not vile things such as 
 he ! But I can't talk of him and I can't talk of her ! All 
 these things you have told me are too dreadful. I feel as 
 though my brain were bursting." 
 
 She put up her hands to her head with a little helpless 
 gesture. She had thrown up her veil, and in the dim, 
 foggy afternoon light he could see that she was lividly 
 pale and that her eyes were distended in a despairing 
 stare. His heart ached for her, and he longed to com- 
 fort her, but he knew not how. Nevertheless, the friendly 
 accents of his voice soothed her and she listened docilely 
 to his words. 
 
 "You are not fit for any more disturbing experiences 
 to-day," he said with kind authoritativeness. "Our cab- 
 man is clearly getting tired of driving up and down Re- 
 gent street and some decision must be come to at once.
 
 260 His Liege Lady. 
 
 Do you wish to avoid arrest, or will you face the whole 
 thing and prove its falseness now ?" 
 
 She moved her head restlessly. 
 
 "I have told you," she said with a touch of impatience, 
 "that whatever happens I cannot and will not face that 
 man. I would rather kill myself.'' 
 
 He saw that she was trembling all over, and he dared 
 not press the point in her present agitated condition. 
 
 "And Cresswell ?" he said. "If you wish to avoid arrest 
 you and she must not be seen together." 
 
 "She can be sent to her sister's at Acton, or back to her 
 brother's cottage at Ham." 
 
 "Was it from Ham that you wrote to the lawyer yes- 
 terday?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Then the postmark might be a guide to her hiding 
 place. She had better go to Acton." 
 
 "I will send her there at once. Please turn the cab 
 back to the station." 
 
 Aylmer obeyed, and almost in silence the pair drove 
 back whence they had come. Just inside the door of the 
 underground station Mr. Reade detected through the fog 
 the small, insignificant figure of Cresswell. Going to her, 
 he told her briefly that her mistress was in a cab waiting 
 to speak to her, and led her to the spot. A few hurried 
 directions, the transfer of some money from Dorothy's 
 purse to that of Creswell, and the latter was piloted by 
 the tall, young man, whom she supposed to be "one of 
 her mistress's lawyers," down the station steps, on to the 
 platform and into the Acton train, the tall young man 
 having taken her ticket for that place. 
 
 "I want to tell you," Dorothy said when he returned to 
 her, "that I have been thinking deeply. And if this this 
 horrible desecration of which you told me is to take
 
 His Liege Lady. 261 
 
 place to-morrow, I must find some safe hiding place until 
 it is all over and I know what is going to happen." 
 
 Clearly, she dreaded the exhumation of her sister's 
 body. It was not alone her love and reverence for the 
 memory of the dead which drove the blood from her 
 cheeks and lips and brought into her eyes that strange, 
 hunted look of fear. She was afraid of the consequences 
 of the exhumation to the full as much as she was horri- 
 fied by the proposed desecration of the dead girl's resting 
 place. But Aylmer was vowed to her service and resolved 
 to believe in her spotless innocence even if she should by 
 her own mouth cast doubt upon it. 
 
 "After to-morrow," she went on in the same restless 
 way, "I shall know what to do. But until to-morrow I 
 must hide myself." 
 
 The dread in her mind was that her personation of her 
 sister might be discovered by Darcy Derrick when Phyllis' 
 dead body was brought to the light of day. She felt sick 
 and faint with horror at the thought. To escape from 
 him, to conceal herself had become her fixed desire and 
 determination, and the hideous ceremony of the morrow, 
 if it did not reveal her secret, would, at least, so she sup- 
 posed, demonstrate the monstrous falseness of the charge 
 brought against her by the malice and disappointed greed 
 of Darcy Derrick. 
 
 She had little doubt that he had started this persecution 
 in order to revenge himself upon the woman who had 
 come between him and the fortune which would have 
 been his had his wife died intestate. She did not for a 
 moment suppose that even Darcy would really believe 
 Phyllis capable of so foul a crime as her sister's murder. 
 Phyllis, from whom he had received nothing but tender- 
 ness and love. That he should have dared to call in the 
 law to assist his scheme of mean and cruel revenge seemed 
 to Dorothy another proof that he was, as she had more
 
 262 His Liege Lady. 
 
 than once thought, a dangerous madman. Herein she was 
 mistaken. The Hon. Darcy Derrick was as sane as a 
 man of diseased egotism, overweening vanity, absolute 
 selfishness and entire lack of moral sense can be. His aim 
 in life was to cultivate enjoyable sensations, and there are 
 very many enjoyable sensations to be cultivated on ten 
 thousand a year. Still, it was hardly likely that Dorothy 
 would look upon this matter from the point of view of the 
 man she had married, and her horror of Darcy, which 
 already approached the nature of a monomania, acquired 
 an even more passionate significance as she reflected that 
 he believed himself to be thus torturing and hunting 
 down, not the woman who had scorned and fled from him, 
 but her sister, who had given him her whole heart, had 
 lived with him as his wife, and had become the mother 
 of his child. 
 
 "It will be all cleared to-morrow," she said to Aylmer. 
 "This mad and wicked persecution, I mean. But that man 
 and I must not meet. Where can I go ?" 
 
 The absolute confidence with which she turned toward 
 him and asked this question touched Aylmer deeply. 
 They were drawing westward again, but she had not 
 heard the direction he had given to the cabman. The 
 vehicle proceeded very slowly, the fog having grown more 
 dense, and through the thick air sound came to them, 
 muffled in the transit. 
 
 "I have been thinking, also," he said, "and until this 
 terrible affair is settled, if you are determined to remain 
 in hiding, I know no better shelter for you than my own 
 roof. When I first met you I was living in bachelor 
 rooms, but a little before Christmas an aunt of mine 
 a kindly and good-natured woman with whom I some- 
 times stayed as a boy at her house in Croydon lost her 
 husband, and, with him, the chief support of herself and 
 her daughter. So they took pity on my loneliness, and
 
 His Liege Lady. 263 
 
 keep house for me in St. John's Wood, Ashgrove Road, 
 where our home is. This will be the quietest and most 
 out-of-the-way spot you can wish for, and I shall know 
 you are safe. Being in a newspaper office, I can collect 
 all news for you, and no one will dream of looking for 
 you there." 
 
 She was silent for a moment. Then she looked up 
 quickly. 
 
 "Surely," she said, "it would injure you if I were found 
 in your house. Remember who I am a woman accused 
 of murder, and who dares not face her accuser a stran- 
 ger to you " 
 
 "Long ago," he said, interrupting her, "I knew you 
 would want my help some day. There is nothing I would 
 not do for you." 
 
 His tone was very quiet, but his words startled her. 
 
 "Please, please have no illusions, no mistakes in my 
 case," she said; "and, above all, no sentiment. All that 
 is out of the question with me." 
 
 "I know it. I know that you are married, and the 
 name of your husband." 
 
 "His name?" 
 
 "Sergius Trevelyan. I will tell you some other time 
 how I found these things out. They will have nothing 
 to do with my offer, my entreaty, that you will come and 
 stay with us for a little while, until you can see your way 
 more clearly." 
 
 "But the others, your aunt and cousin, they are women, 
 and I think women are more suspicious than men. They 
 would surely not welcome and conceal a woman who is a 
 perfect stranger to them and accused of a terrible crime?" 
 
 "They will do just as I tell them. They are not either 
 of them clever, and they are both very kind. But my 
 plan is that you come as the widow of a fellow press- 
 man, a former colleague of mine. My aunt and cousin
 
 264 His Liege Lady. 
 
 never saw either him or his wife, and knew nothing of my 
 life at Clofield, where he was associated with me. His 
 name was Philip Ransome ; he left Clofield for Richmond 
 Surrey, five years ago, married there, and has now been 
 dead three years. He died of heart disease after one year 
 of married life, and his widow, a very handsome woman, 
 whom I only met two or three times, is now, I believe, 
 teaching in Germany. You shall be Mrs. Philip Ran- 
 some. My aunt and cousin will not question you. 
 
 "I shall tell them I met you in Villiers street, coming 
 up from the country for a few days' change ; that you had 
 been very ill, and that as you knew no one in town and 
 could not tell where to go, I invited you to stay with us. 
 Mrs. Ransome had been a governess and was not well off. 
 My aunt has heard me speak of her on several occasions. 
 Now that is all settled, and here we are at Baker street, 
 as far as I can see through the fog. Before we arrive 
 at Ashgrove Road you must imperatively change your 
 dress. That heavy mourning will be mentioned in the 
 description of you published in to-morrow's papers. We 
 must go back to one of those big shops and buy you some- 
 thing different." 
 
 He made her stay in the cab while he got out, and, fol- 
 lowing her directions, laid out some money for her in a 
 long, fawn-colored traveling cloak, with three capes, a 
 high collar and deep "highwayman" pockets and cuffs. 
 Even at this critical moment Dorothy's taste for the pic- 
 turesque in dress did not desert her. Her small, crape- 
 trimmed bonnet and long crape veil she ruthlessly sacri- 
 ficed, on Aylmer's advice, by dropping them out of the 
 window of the cab as they drove along, and under a wide- 
 brimmed, black straw hat, with steel buckles and black 
 feathers, her face, even in the dim and murky light thrown 
 by street lamps into the cab, looked wonderfully fair and 
 attractive.
 
 His Liege Lady. 365 
 
 Aylmer had to be her maid and her looking glass, and 
 to adjust her hat, help her with her coat, and presently, 
 when a total transformation had taken place in her ap- 
 pearance, had to accompany her to buy gloves, and 'even 
 to advie her as to the color and style of a ready-made 
 jersey and skirt which, at his suggestion, she purchased. 
 
 Standing by her side, in the full glare of the shop, he 
 could not repress an exclamation of disappointment when 
 he perceived that the beautiful gold-brown hair he had 
 so much admired was missing. Dorothy's hair was now 
 cut short as a boy's, and dyed a crude yellow-gold. She 
 caught the look of dismay he directed at her altered coif- 
 fure, and blushed deeply. 
 
 "Oh, it will grow again," she said, hastily, answering 
 his look, "and the old color will come back when I leave 
 it alone." 
 
 He could not help smiling at her unexpected naivete. 
 But for the terrible charge hanging over her this would 
 have been to him a time of unqualified joy. To have her 
 in his care, trusting to him, appealing to his taste and 
 judgment, obeying his suggestions, and turning the soft 
 brilliancy of her gray eyes upon him at every moment, 
 sent a delicious tingle of proprietorship through him. 
 Never before had he "been shopping" with a woman. 
 There was something supremely connubial about it, and 
 he found himself laying down the law about the cut of a 
 skirt and the trimming of a hat as though he had been 
 married for years. 
 
 Dorothy appeared wholly to trust him. She had been 
 in desperate need of just such a friend as this, loyal, kind 
 and wise. She could not afford to distrust him, nor did it 
 enter her mind to do so. 
 
 Eight months had passed since they had last met, and 
 their acquaintance had been of the slightest; yet now, 
 with a secret upon which the liberty of one of them de-
 
 266 His Liege Lady. 
 
 pended, it seemed to each perfectly natural and fitting 
 that they should be together in close and restful friend- 
 ship, friendship so complete that they could talk together 
 or keep silence as it best pleased them. 
 
 "I suppose," he said presently, as, laden with parcels, 
 they drove to a trunkmaker's shop to choose a portman- 
 teau for "Mrs. Ransome," "I suppose I have gone shop- 
 ping with you in my dreams. For I have all the while a 
 consciousness that we have done all this before, and that 
 it is absolutely natural that we should be here together. 
 Does it strike you like that?" 
 
 "I feel we were meant to be friends," she said more 
 guardedly. "I can't talk much now. The whole thing 
 has been such a strange rush. I can't tell you how grate- 
 ful I am to you. I am glad I have met a man at last who 
 is good and honorable. I began to think all men were 
 evil, after knowing Darcy Derrick." 
 
 He longed to ask whether her husband, Sergius Tre- 
 velyan, was among the sheep or the goats, but felt he 
 must not venture upon such a leading question yet. 
 
 "There is one thing more," he said at last, "which must 
 certainly be worn by Mrs. Ransome. Pardon me for no- 
 ticing it, but you do not wear your wedding ring. Will 
 it not be better to do so?" 
 
 "I threw it down a railroad embankment months ago," 
 she answered truthfully. A thrill of quite unwarrantable 
 satisfaction passed through Aylmer at the news. 
 
 Then he said, trying to speak in a hard, business-like 
 manner: "We must buy another. My aunt would in- 
 stantly notice such an omission." 
 
 A sudden wave of nervous self-consciousness swept 
 over Dorothy, and the color came and went in her cheeks 
 as she presently stood by Aylmer's side in a jeweler's shop 
 in Baker street, and held out her finger to be measured 
 for the wedding ring by the smiling shop assistant. To
 
 His Liege Lady. 267 
 
 avoid exciting attention she was forced to let Aylmer pay 
 for it, and he needed all his self-control to disguise the 
 strange delight with which the purchase filled him. 
 
 The smiling shopman bowed them out, interested in so 
 handsome a couple, and Aylmer helped Dorothy into the 
 cab and sprang in opposite her, after giving the direc- 
 tion: 
 
 "No. 40 Ashgrove Road, St. John's Wood." 
 
 It was past six o'clock by this time, and too dark for 
 them to see each other's faces. Aylmer took the little 
 parcel from his pocket, his heart thunmping loudly the 
 while. 
 
 "You must wear this, you know," he said rather 
 huskily. "Had you not better put it on now, lest you 
 should forget it?" 
 
 "If you like," she answered, trying hard to speak in 
 indifferent tones. 
 
 His emotion affected her. The ungloved hand she held 
 out for the ring was cold and quivering. He took it ten- 
 derly in his, and before she could withdraw it slipped the 
 plain gold band on to her third finger, lowering his head 
 so that his yellow mustache just brushed her finger tips. 
 
 She snatched her hand away, drawing her breath 
 quickly. 
 
 "Please tell me how much I owe you for the ring," 
 she said in matter-of-fact tones. 
 
 "More than you can repay," he answered quietly, "for 
 the services of my life went with it. No, don't start away, 
 Miss Knight, I have no intention of being sentimental. 
 But the fact that you are out of my reach cannot prevent 
 me from loving you or from being all my life your faith- 
 ful servant and your friend."
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 ayi,mer's household. 
 
 That little break into sentiment on the part of Aylmer 
 rather unnerved both him and his companion. 
 
 To change the subject, she began rapidly asking ques- 
 tions about his aunt and cousin, questions which he an- 
 swered at length, so that Dorothy was in some measure 
 prepared for the persons she was likely to meet when the 
 cab drew up before its destination at a few minutes be- 
 fore seven o'clock. 
 
 It was by this time far too dark to see more than that 
 40 Ashgrove Road was fronted by a garden and protected 
 by very high walls entered by one of those mysterious 
 doors peculiar to that district of London, and which are 
 provided with a little shutter on the inside, so that callers 
 may be surreptitiously peeped at before being admitted. 
 An electric bell by the door in the wall communicated with 
 the house, and on Aylmer pressing the bell three times in 
 quick succession the door flew open, worked from within 
 the house. 
 
 "We are safe enough here, as you see," he whispered to 
 Dorothy through the cab window. "Don't get out until I 
 have prepared Aunt Harriet to welcome you." 
 
 A short walk down an asphalt path which intersected 
 a beautifully kept garden led to the house, a small, com- 
 pact, low-built residence, painted white and covered with 
 trellis-work, and with neatly trimmed ivy and other creep- 
 ing plants. The house door, fitted with glass and veiled 
 on the inside by a beaded reed screen, flew open before
 
 Aylmer's Household 269 
 
 he reached it, and an extremely pretty girl in a high- 
 necked black silk dinner-dress ran out to meet him. 
 
 "Aylmer! we were getting in such a state about you! 
 Where have you been? Mamma's cried herself into one 
 of her headaches. We began to think you'd been lost in 
 the fog, or run over, or something." 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 "Surely I'm big enough to take care of myself," he 
 said. "Besides, it isn't the first time that business has 
 kept me away. But where is your mother? I have 
 brought a visitor with me." 
 
 "A visitor ? Is it a man ?" 
 
 "No, a lady Mrs. Philip Ransome, widow of one of 
 my old colleagues at Clofield. She has just come up from 
 the country. She has been very ill, and knows no one 
 in London, and asked me to advise her where she could 
 stay for a few days. So I could not do otherwise than 
 ask her here. I know you and Aunt Harriet will be very 
 nice to her. She has had a hard life of late, and I re- 
 ceived much kindness from poor old Ransome." 
 
 "Mrs. Ransome! Oh, I have heard you speak of her. 
 She is very beautiful, isn't she?" . 
 
 Aylmer knew there was no surer way by which a man 
 can set one woman against another than praising her 
 looks. So he dissimulated. 
 
 "Beauty is a matter of taste," he said; "but I believe 
 some people admire Mrs. Ransome. What is more im- 
 portant is that she is a very nice woman, and that she is 
 sitting outside in the cab catching cold in the fog." 
 
 "I'll fetch her in !" cried Rosa, and seizing a shawl from 
 the hatstand she darted out, full of curiosity to behold the 
 unexpected guest. 
 
 Dorothy, quaking with apprehension in the cab, saw a 
 tall, slight figure flitting down the garden path, and heard 
 a sweet, cordial girl's voice uttering words of welcome.
 
 270 Aylmer's Household. 
 
 "Mrs. Ransome, I am Rosa Reed ; no doubt my cousin 
 has told you about mamma and me. We are so delighted 
 to have you. Now do run in with me out of the fog. 
 Isn't it a fearful evening? Don't speak or you will catch 
 cold!" 
 
 She led the way into the drawing-room immediately 
 on the left of the hall, a charming, old-fashioned apart- 
 ment, with many unexpected turns and corners, furnished 
 in homely comfort and excellent taste; the walls covered 
 with water-color drawings ; the chairs and lounges either 
 of the roomy, "saddle-bag" order or of cushioned basket- 
 work. The ceiling was low, colored a warm amber, and 
 prettily molded; the prevailing tints in the apartment 
 were a bright gold color and a warm cinnamon-brown. 
 Long, brown curtains hung before the wide French win- 
 dow, which opened upon the garden at the back, and in 
 front of the bright fire burning in the tiled fireplace, a 
 fender-stool, several cushions and a handsome fur rug, 
 upon which a bull terrier and a Persian kitten were en- 
 sconced, gave the finishing touches of comfort and home- 
 liness to the room. 
 
 Rosa Read led the visitor to the fire under the pretext 
 of getting her warm, but in reality to have a good look 
 at her. Rosa herself was six-and-twenty, a charming rep- 
 resentative of one kind of English prettiness. She was 
 not in the least beautiful, but she was undeniably pretty, 
 her delicately-modeled retrousse nose, short upper lip and 
 small, curved mouth ; her bright complexion, bluish-gray 
 eyes under black lashes and dark-brown hair, combining 
 to produce a very pleasing whole. 
 
 Add to this that Rosa was very good tempered and 
 affectionate, that she sang like a bird, and that her speak- 
 ing voice was sweet as any choir boy's, and it seemed 
 strange that in the twelve weeks since she and her mother
 
 Aylmer's Household. 271 
 
 had taken up their abode in Aylmer's home propinquity 
 had not led, as it usually does in the case of healthy and 
 comely young persons of opposite sex, to love. 
 
 This thought flashed instantly into Dorothy's mind, fol- 
 lowed by a slightly sore and hurt feeling, for which she 
 could not account and of which she felt immediately 
 heartily ashamed. 
 
 As to Rosa, she screwed up her pretty little mouth into 
 an "Oh !" of admiration when she beheld Dorothy in the 
 full light. 
 
 "Why, you are perfectly lovely!" she cried ingenu- 
 ously. "And that stupid old Aylmer said something 
 about 'some people thinking you handsome.' Fancy your 
 having been a widow three years ! I wonder you haven't 
 been snapped up long ago. And you look so wonderfully 
 young, too ever so much younger than I !" 
 
 "You don't look very old," said Dorothy, smiling. 
 
 She was so greatly relieved by the informal nature of 
 her reception that Miss Read's schoolgirl-like lack of 
 breeding did not annoy her in the least. Besides, the girl 
 was so pretty and her voice was so musical that her blunt- 
 ness and rather bouncing manners were easily condoned. 
 
 "Oh, I'm fearfully old," exclaimed Rosa. "Do take 
 off your gloves and warm your hands at the fire. Isn't 
 that a duck of a cat ? I shall be twenty-seven next Christ- 
 mas. Isn't it dreadful? Quite an old maid they'd think 
 me in France. And I'm always getting engaged; but 
 somehow it never comes to anything. Dear me! How 
 nice it is to have some one of my own age to talk to. And 
 I do so love pretty people. The spare room is quite ready, 
 luckily. Last week Aylmer half expected a man from 
 Clofield, but he didn't come. We were so dreadfully dis- 
 appointed. You can't think what a break it makes some 
 one coming to stay, especially a man no, I don't mean
 
 272 Aylmer's Household. 
 
 that ! Some women are much nicer than men, and some 
 men are perfectly horrid, don't you think so? So fickle, 
 and never knowing their own minds two minutes to- 
 gether. But now, if you are warmer, you must come up- 
 stairs and take your hat and coat off. Dinner will be 
 ready at seven and it is nearly that now. We waited din- 
 ner for Aylmer; generally we have it at a quarter to 
 seven, but mamma declared she couldn't eat a thing unless 
 we had news of Aylmer. I wonder what's become of 
 him? I suppose he's gone to try and persuade her to 
 come down." 
 
 Little persuasion was necessary. Curiosity to see Ayl- 
 mer's invited guest drove away Mrs. Read's headache, 
 and soon as the dinner gong sounded Dorothy descended 
 from the pretty little room assigned to her all white 
 enameling and brightly flowered chintz to the dining 
 room, to which old oakchairs and mantelpiece "fitments," 
 blue and white tiles and china, and many oil paintings, 
 gave a touch of stateliness, and found Rosa's mother in- 
 stalled at the head of the table. 
 
 Aylmer's late uncle had married his wife Harriet partly 
 because she was an excellent, motherly body and a good 
 manager, and chiefly because she was very much in love 
 with him, and a pretty girl had just jilted him. Most 
 fortunately for Rosa, she inherited her father's good 
 looks, for Mrs. Read was more than usually plain, and her 
 constant habit of weeping did not tend to improve her 
 appearance. 
 
 Clad in widow's weeds, of a dull, brickdust complexion, 
 indefinite features, and a generally limp, red-eyed and red- 
 nosed appearance, Mrs. Read showed in her manner of 
 greeting Dorothy a womanly kindness which touched the 
 latter deeply and inclined her to overlook her unattractive 
 exterior.
 
 Aylmer's Household. 273 
 
 Mrs. Read was a great stickler for etiquette. In her 
 "set" at Croydon, a set chiefly composed of clerks' and 
 tradesmen's wives, much punctiliousness was observed, 
 and she began now to elaborately apologize for any lack 
 of preparation for Mrs. Ransome's visit. 
 
 "We'd have had the new carpet down in the spare room 
 if I'd had the least idea you were coming," she explained 
 to Dorothy. "If only Aylmer had telegraphed we might 
 have made some sort of welcome. But I have been so 
 upset by the fog and by Aylmer's not coming home that 
 it brought on one of my headaches. Did you ever suffer 
 from headache?" 
 
 "Hardly ever." 
 
 "Ah! then you can't tell how I feel. Since my poor, 
 dear husband's death the least thing brings them on. It's 
 nerves, the doctor says. My nerves were shattered by 
 the shock of my poor Stanley's death. There you can 
 sympathize with me, my dear, for you, too, have lost a 
 good husband. You must feel terribly lonely." 
 
 "Sometimes I do," Dorothy said. 
 
 Tears started to her eyes. She was thinking of Phyllis, 
 but Mrs. Read not unnaturally attributed this show of 
 emotion to grief for the loss of the late Mr. Ransome, 
 and was touched. 
 
 "You are not like some young widows, I see," she said 
 approvingly. "I've known them go gadding about al- 
 most before their husbands were buried. For my part I 
 am old-fashioned, and I can't understand widows marry- 
 ing again. My heart is in the grave with my dear Stan- 
 ley, and nothing could induce me to marry again." 
 
 She took out a black-edged pocket handkerchief as she 
 spoke and wiped her eyes. She was quite in earnest and 
 so utterly lacking in humor that it did not seem to her 
 superfluous to assert that, being a plain and penniless
 
 274 Aylmer's Household. 
 
 widow of fifty-four, nothing would induce her to accept 
 a second husband. 
 
 More than one pang of remorse shot through Dorothy 
 as she realized how unsuspiciously Mrs. Read and her 
 daughter accepted her in the character of Mrs. Philip 
 Ransome. Clearly it never entered into the minds of 
 either lady to doubt Aylmer's word. At the time Dorothy 
 did not guess how absolutely dependent Aylmer's aunt 
 and cousin were upon him. The late Mr. Stanley Read's 
 savings brought in an income of rather less than fifty 
 pounds a year, which was all that stood between his 
 widow and child and destitution. But Aylmer was con- 
 stitutionally chivalrous and unselfish, and really glad to 
 come to the rescue of the two helpless women and pro- 
 vide a home for them. At the present moment, indeed, 
 he was inclined to fall down on his knees and worship 
 the limp, mildly-weeping lady who presided at his table, 
 in that she made it possible for him to offer shelter to 
 the woman he loved. 
 
 "The wisest and luckiest thing I ever did in my life," 
 he told himself, "was the taking of this house at the 
 Christmas quarter, and installing Aunt Harriet and Rosa 
 here. But for that how could I have helped Phyllis?" 
 
 It was all he could do to turn his eyes from his guest. 
 She was very pale, and her eyes had not altogether lost 
 that startled, hunted look which had come into them when 
 she first heard of Darcy's action against her. She had 
 changed the crape-trimmed gown she had been wearing 
 under her long cloak for one of the two dresses she had 
 bought in Oxford street a silver gray silk, with a loose 
 bodice of steel embroidery and bands of rose-color inser- 
 tion. The costume had been of Aylmer's choosing. He 
 was fond of bright, pretty colors, as are most men, and 
 guessed how well the rose color would harmonize with 
 the delicate flesh tint of Dorothy's complexion. The bod-
 
 Aylmer's Household. 275 
 
 ice was cut a little open at the collar ; Dorothy's throat was 
 round and full and of a creamy fairness. 
 
 On her neck the small face buoyant, 
 Like a bell-flower o'er its bed. 
 
 The lines came more than once into Aylmer's mind as 
 he watched her across the table playing with her food, 
 for she was far too much excited and too anxious to eat. 
 
 Toward the end of dinner a diversion came, the possi- 
 bility of which Aylmer had overlooked. 
 
 Through the thick outside air the shrill voice of a boy 
 crying out the names and contents of the evening paper 
 penetrated faintly to the room where they were sitting. 
 Aylmer grew suddenly pale and glanced at Dorothy. 
 
 "I hope that tiresome boy won't forget my Evening 
 Standard, as he did the night before last," Mrs. Read ob- 
 served. "I'm so much interested in that Croydon breach 
 of promise case which is on to-day." 
 
 After dinner every evening, as Aylmer remembered 
 with a thrill of apprehension, Rosa read aloud the day's 
 news to her mother while the latter knitted and dozed. 
 Would the later editions have any report of the story 
 which would be made public on the morrow? 
 
 He was not left long in suspense. In a few seconds a 
 ring at the front door bell preceded the entrance of the 
 parlor maid, bringing, as was her wont, a copy of the 
 Evening Standard to Mrs. Read, who laid it by her side 
 until dinner was finished, and then took it with her to the 
 drawing room. 
 
 "Do you mind if Rosa reads the news aloud to me, 
 my dear?" she asked of Dorothy. 
 
 The supposed Mrs. Ransome had sunk on a cushion by 
 the fire, and was smoothing the fur of the Persian cat. 
 Her face was turned away from Mrs. Read and in the
 
 276 Aylmer's Household. 
 
 direction of the fire as she returned a courteous answer to 
 her inquiry. ; 
 
 Mother and daughter took their accustomed places. 
 Rosa in a low basket-work seat, and her mother in her 
 favorite long arm chair. Aylmer they had left smoking 
 a cigar in the dining room, but anxiety made him pres- 
 ently creep to the half-open door of the drawing room 
 and listen, holding his breath, to Rosa's bell-like tones as 
 she read aloud the Croydon breach of promise case, and 
 at 'its conclusion stopped to discuss it with her mother, 
 while she scanned the columns of the paper for anything 
 new or exciting. 
 
 "Here's something that looks interesting," she ex- 
 claimed at last. "The Hammersmith mystery. You re- 
 member, mamma, there was something about it in last 
 night's paper." 
 
 "Yes, yes, of course. About two sisters, one accused 
 of killing the other, wasn't it?" 
 
 "That's it. Listen! 'The Hammersmith Mystery. 
 As was stated in our latest edition of yesterday, a war- 
 rant has been issued for the arrest of the persons sus- 
 pected of being concerned in the alleged murder at Lock- 
 hart Cottages. Sensational developments may be ex- 
 pected. The deceased lady, Mrs. Derrick, is supposed to 
 be the same person who was recently advertised for by a 
 well-known firm of solicitors under the name of Dorothea 
 Knight, she having become entitled to a very considerable 
 fortune under the will of a relative. It is now stated that 
 within an hour of the letter announcing this intelligence 
 being received at Lockhart Cottages on the 23d ultimo, a 
 doctor was hastily fetched by the old servant, who is one 
 of the suspected persons. On his arrival he found Mrs. 
 Derrick dead. Three days later, the unfortunate young 
 lady, who was only twenty-one years of age, was buried 
 in Brompton Cemetery. The funeral was attended by her
 
 Aylmer's Household. 277 
 
 husband (Mr. Derrick) and by a representative of the 
 firm of solicitors before referred to. Both of these gen- 
 tlemen had been refused admittance to the house on the 
 pretext that Miss Phyllis Knight, sister to the deceased, 
 who with her old servant was the only other occupant, 
 was too ill to receive them. The doctor called in, and 
 who signed the certificate of death from heart disease, 
 Was not Mrs. Derrick's regular medical attendant, and 
 had only seen her on one or two previous occasions. Im- 
 mediately after the funeral Miss Phyllis Knight wrote to 
 the lawyer claiming the whole of her sister's property, un- 
 der a will executed by the deceased lady a month before 
 her death. On the strength of her representations she 
 procured a sum of money in advance from the solicitors, 
 and immediately afterward she disappeared from Lock- 
 hart Cottages with her old servant, and all trace of them 
 has since been lost. Inquiries made in the neighborhood 
 have brought to light the fact that large quantities of 
 laundanum have been purchased from various chemists at 
 intervals during the weeks preceding Mrs. Derrick's death 
 by Miss Phyllis Knight. Under these circumstances 
 grave suspicion rests upon the missing woman, for whose 
 arrest, as has been already stated, a warrant was issued 
 yesterday. An order for the exhumation of the body has 
 been obtained from the Home Secretary. 
 
 "The full description of the missing women is as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 " 'Maria Cresswell ; short, dark, elderly woman ; age 
 about fifty ; thin, sharp features ; very reserved in manner ; 
 dressed in black. 
 
 "'Phyllis Knight, aged twenty;, very tall and slender; 
 short, dark hair, dyed golden, dark eyebrows and eye- 
 lashes, gray eyes, small features; very ladylike and pre- 
 possessing in manner and appearance. When last seen 
 was dressed in deep mourning.' "
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 Dorothy's confession. 
 
 As Rosa finished reading, Aylmer, through the half- 
 open door, gazed anxiously in at Dorothy. 
 
 He feared she might faint, but Dorothy was a perfectly 
 healthy nineteenth-century Englishwoman, and her heart 
 was as physically sound as his own. She did not faint, 
 but she was as bad an actress in private life as she had 
 proved herself on the stage, and so she remained, with 
 bent head, mechanically stroking the cat's fur with her 
 right hand, feeling all the while as though choking fingers 
 grasped her throat. 
 
 She scarcely heard Mrs. Read's comments on the 
 "Hammerstein Mystery." She was half-dazed by the 
 shock of realizing how strong circumstantial evidence 
 would be against her. Reading that account, people 
 would actually believe that she, Dorothy, had murdered 
 her sister for the sake of her aunt's fortune! And the 
 cruellest irony lay in the fact that it was her own plot 
 which lent plausibility to the monstrous theory. It would 
 seem to outsiders quite possible for a penniless girl to 
 murder an heiress in order to inherit her money, whereas 
 in her own person as Dorothy, to whom Mrs. Julius 
 Knight's fortune had been left, she would have no such 
 incentive to crime. 
 
 "I'm sure I hope they'll catch those dreadful women." 
 
 It was Rosa who said this Rosa, who would not have 
 hurt a fly.
 
 Dorothy's Confession. 279 
 
 "Hanging's too good for people like that," she asserted. 
 
 "Fancy killing your own sister and just for money !" 
 
 "But they're not sure of it, yet." 
 
 "They will be when they dig her up, and find the poi- 
 son. They do find poisons in dead bodies, you know, 
 mamma. You remember the Wickworth case? I sup- 
 pose they won't hang the women even if they catch them, 
 will they ? They never do hang women now. I couldn't 
 commit a murder. One would feel so dreadful in the 
 dark. But think of those horrible women being at large !" 
 
 Aylmer could endure it no longer. 
 
 "Mrs. Ransome," he said, suddenly entering the draw- 
 ing room, and standing in front of Dorothy while he 
 spoke, in order to hide her face from the other occupants 
 of the room, "you haven't seen my study yet. I know you 
 are interested in etchings, and I have two capital artists' 
 proofs to show you." 
 
 She looked up at him with a white, grateful face. She 
 was glad to take the hand he offered to assist her to rise, 
 for she was trembling from head to foot, and incapable of 
 making any set conventional speeches. 
 
 Noting this, he talked on, scarcely conscious of what 
 he said, about etchings and engravings and various art 
 processes, until they had left the drawing room, and cross- 
 ing the hall, had entered his own particular sanctum, a 
 tiny study, papered in red and paneled with oak, the walls 
 hung with etchings, and the furniture consisting of two 
 armchairs, one on each side of the fireplace, a writing desk 
 and seat, a bookcase, a newspaper rack, a waste-paper 
 basket, and many brackets for pipes. 
 
 Carefully shutting the door, he led Dorothy to one of 
 the armchairs by the fire. But she was far too much ex- 
 cited to sit down. 
 
 "Did you hear what they read and what they said about
 
 280 Dorothy's Confession. 
 
 it?" she asked in an excited whisper. "I never thought 
 it would sound like that." 
 
 "I heard every word. But I knew it all before." 
 
 "You knew it ! And yet you took me in ? Was it out 
 of pity ? Or do you take a morbid interest in monsters ?" 
 
 He could see that she was strung up to the highest 
 pitch of excitement and so would not resent her bitter 
 words, which seemed burnt out of her in a fire of feeling. 
 
 "I have told you my reasons," he said gently. "I should 
 only weary you by repeating them." 
 
 "You have told me that you you love me," she said in 
 the same nervous, intense whisper. "But you have no 
 idea of the real facts of the case. You called me Mrs. 
 Sergius Trevelyan. Darcy Derrick and Sergius Trevel- 
 yan are one and the same person. He went through an 
 illegal form of marriage with the one sister, deceiving and 
 deserting her, and he was afterward legally married to the 
 other. So that you see he spoiled the lives of both." 
 
 Aylmer drew a quick breath. This, indeed, he had not 
 known. But his passionate sympathy and love for Doro- 
 thy enabled him to see into her mind. He understood 
 that embittered as she was by the trials of fortune, she 
 could not yet wholly trust and believe him. She was tell- 
 ing herself that this man who gave shelter to a suspected 
 murderess would presently expect his pay in freedom to 
 make love to her. The suspicion, he knew, was worthy 
 neither of her nor of him, but it seemed to him, under 
 the circumstances of the case, at least justifiable. 
 
 "I knew that you were married," he said, after a slight 
 pause. "I told you so. And I wish with all my heart 
 that you were married happily." 
 
 She looked at him doubtfully. She did not quite be- 
 lieve his statement, and he himself knew that it was not 
 wholly true. He would have wished it to be so, but he
 
 Dorothy's Confession. 281 
 
 was eight-and-twenty, and human, and even honor and 
 chivalry cannot wholly subdue the feelings of a man. 
 . "I don't want to force your confidence," he said, "but 
 this man Derrick or Trevelyan must be quite an excep- 
 tionally bad lot." 
 
 "He is wholly and altogether vile. It makes me sick 
 to think of him!" she returned with passionate energy, 
 and then, suddenly sinking down in one of the armchairs 
 by the fire, she covered her face with her hands and began 
 to weep. 
 
 "I'm very sorry," she sobbed. "I know a man hates to 
 see anybody cry. But I feel broken. Please don't take 
 any notice of me." 
 
 "Cry, if it does you good," he said gently, and, seating 
 himself at his desk with his back to her, he pretended to 
 be absorbed in adding together imaginary rows of figures, 
 which he scrawled upon his blotting book. 
 
 Gradually her quick sobbing ceased. She dried her eyes 
 and sat some moments staring into the fire, lost in thought. 
 At last, looking up suddenly, she addressed Aylmer in 
 sweet, appealing tones. 
 
 "Mr. Read," she said, "you must think me terribly un- 
 grateful, but I suppose I have had too much to bear lately, 
 and it has soured me. Will you come over here by the 
 fire and talk to me? There is something I want to tell 
 you." 
 
 He came at once, but found it very difficult to sit oppo- 
 site her and look at her in a brotherly and impassioned 
 way now when her lashes were wet with tears and her 
 mouth still quivered with weeping. Grief, while it marred 
 her beauty, lent to her appearance an appealing helpless- 
 ness which went straight to Aylmer's heart. But he 
 schooled himself to ask in level tones what she had to 
 tell him. 
 
 "It is very generous of you to ask me no questions
 
 282 Dorothy's Confession. 
 
 about my sister's death," she said, "and it is more than 
 generous of you to believe all I say. What I want to tell 
 you is that I was not in the house at the time ; only she 
 and Cresswell were there, and my sister was quite alone 
 when she died. Cresswell thought she heard her cry out, 
 and going in she found my poor darling on the floor dead. 
 She had cut her head in falling, making a terrible wound 
 from which the blood was flowing. She had known she 
 could not live long, and only that afternoon had talked 
 to me so sweetly and so pathetically, begging me to for- 
 give her for having deceived me about the laudanum." 
 
 "About the laudanum?" 
 
 "Yes. She had suffered terribly from neuralgia, and 
 had got into the way of taking it when I was out to induce 
 sleep. That is why she quarreled with Dr. Morgan, who 
 had attended her all the time, and we had to get another 
 doctor." 
 
 "But that report says you bought the laudanum." 
 
 "Yes. It was a mistake." 
 
 She paused. Should she reveal her identity to him, she 
 wondered ? 
 
 "That mistake is very important," he said. 
 
 "I was in a house five minutes' walk away," Dorothy 
 went on, "but I heard my sister's death-cry in my heart, 
 and I rushed out. As soon as I reached the street I ran 
 against that man Sergius Trevelyan, and he followed me 
 as I fled to the house. I feel convinced, from footmarks 
 we found in the garden mould close about the window, 
 that he had peered into the house, and that the shock 
 of seeing him killed my sister. And all the time that 
 she lay dead the lawyer's letter, which was the first inti- 
 mation we had about my Aunt Dorothea's fortune, was 
 left unopened upon the table in the dining-room. I was 
 half mad with grief, and I knew nothing about it until
 
 Dorothy's Confession. 283 
 
 the following day, when Creswell brought it to me, and 
 I opened it in her presence." 
 
 Aylmer sprang from his seat. 
 
 "But then Cress well has only to appear and give evi- 
 dence and your name is cleared," he cried. "She must 
 return to town at once " 
 
 "She must stay where she is! Unless I saw her and 
 could instruct her just what to say she would betray me." 
 
 "Betray you?" 
 
 "Yes. Oh, Mr. Read, you must trust me not at all or 
 all in all. I have told you the truth about my sister's 
 death, and if you will help me to hide and later on to 
 get away quietly from England I shall be very deeply 
 grateful. But if you try to persuade me to face a trial, 
 even though I know quite well I should be at once proved 
 innocent of this hideous charge, you will drive me from 
 your house and from the only friend I have who is willing 
 and able to help me. And rather than be dragged into 
 court I would kill myself!" 
 
 The white, set look of horror he had seen in her face 
 before shadowed it again now. Aylmer saw it was vain 
 to argue with her; and although her conduct in evading 
 an inquiry which could only tend to prove her innocent 
 appeared to him almost criminally foolish, he understood 
 that it would be equally futile to reason with or to ques- 
 tion her in her present mood. 
 
 In order to turn her thoughts in gentler channels, he 
 rose, and unlocking his desk, drew out a parcel of photo- 
 graphs. 
 
 "I have a confession to make to you," he said. "The 
 confession of a mean and paltry action. When you and 
 I were fellow students for that brief space of time at the 
 British Museum you once dropped in the galleries a .por- 
 trait of yourself, which I picked up and detained long 
 enough to note the name of the photographer. I wrote
 
 284 Dorothy's Confession. 
 
 at once to this man for a copy, and in his answer he told 
 me that you had been married in his town and the name 
 of your husband." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 "He had other pictures of you, he said, and I wrote for 
 one of each kind taken. Here they are, as you see, but 
 they are one and all extremely bad." 
 
 Dorothy caught at the pictures with a little exclamation, 
 half joy and half pain. Tears rolled down her cheeks as 
 she gazed at them eagerly. 
 
 "Some of them I have not seen before," she murmured. 
 "They are so like." 
 
 "They are exceedingly unflattering." 
 
 "They are much prettier than I," she cried, indignantly, 
 flushing with vexation. 
 
 A light flashed into Aylmer's mind. 
 
 "I have found out something," he exclaimed. "These 
 are the pictures of Phyllis Knight, and you are not Phyl- 
 lis, but her sister Dorothy." 
 
 She sprang up, facing him, with the pictures still in 
 her hands, holding them close against her heart. 
 
 "And if I am," she cried with quick defiance, "what 
 difference does it make?" 
 
 "Prove that, and there is no sense in these accusations." 
 
 "If I prove it," she cried, "I prove, too, that I am the 
 wife of a creature I hate and loathe beyond the power of 
 words. While he thinks me his victim who loved him, he 
 is merely malignant, but if once he suspected that I am 
 in reality the woman who left him within an hour of the 
 marriage ceremony, I should never again be free from 
 his destestable persecution. He would want my money 
 and he would want me. He has a horrible passion for 
 me, the mere idea of which sickens and revolts me. I 
 cannot trust myself when he is near. I become changed 
 and maddened. I hate him so much that I am not capa-
 
 Dorothy's Confession. 285 
 
 blc of restraining myself. Once already I have tried to 
 kill him, and if the law handed me over to him I should 
 soon become in truth the murderess they call me. If he 
 sees me he will recognize me, and know the trick that has 
 been played upon him and claim me as his wife; and 
 rather than endure that I would plead guilty, he tried, 
 sentenced, and hanged for the murder of myself!" 
 
 She was on fire with excitement again, and before he 
 left the house for his night work at the office she had 
 bound him solemnly to secrecy on the subject of her 
 identity, after which the reaction came, and she took leave 
 of him with what looked like cold civility. 
 
 But before she went so sleep Dorothy, blushing in the 
 darkness, kissed her wedding-ring, and slept with her left 
 hand pillowed under her cheek. In this troubled time the 
 touch of the ring was as that of a friend and soothed her 
 to sleep.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 THE EXHUMATION. 
 
 Dorothy awoke next morning to an unwonted sense of 
 restfulness and well-being. 
 
 True, the morning was cold and a chilly mist hung 
 about the air; true, she was in this house under an as- 
 sumed name, a suspected murderess escaping from the 
 arm of the law; and yet she could not feel so miserable 
 as she had done on the previous morning when, all un- 
 aware of the hideous charge against her, she had risen 
 from her bed in the gardener's cottage at Ham, oppressed 
 with a sense of her terrible loss, and with no hope for the 
 future but such as lay in the prospect of a long journey 
 to a strange country. 
 
 Lying now with half-closed eyes, she took herself to 
 task over this sudden lightening of her spirits under cir- 
 cumstances of deeper gloom than any she had yet known, 
 and the answer to her inward questionings came with a 
 warm flush which crept over her cheeks and throat. 
 Through all her trials, troubles and mistakes, fate had at 
 last led her safely to the care of a man who loved her 
 better than all the world, the only one toward whom her 
 heart had ever yet gone out in an instinctive sympathy, 
 and this fact was undoubtedly the cause of her happier 
 frame of mind. 
 
 There was more than sympathy in her thoughts of 
 Aylmer at this moment. Circumstances had greatly fa- 
 vored his wooing, in that he had been enabled to appear 
 again in Dorothy's life at a critical moment, and under
 
 The Exhumation. 287 
 
 most chivalrous and love-compelling guise. He came as 
 her true knight, her champion, believing in her innocence 
 against any evidence, and prepared to stake his honor in 
 her cause. Fortunately for him it was a part for which 
 his nature suited him, and which he could, therefore, as- 
 sume without bravado or self-consciousness ; fortunately, 
 also, he belonged to the physical type which was most 
 congenial to the lady of his heart. The big and massive, 
 the masterful yet gentle in man had always appealed to 
 Dorothy's taste; hence probably arose her imperviousness 
 to Darcy Derrick's effeminate beauty, and languishing se- 
 ductiveness. She liked above all things a manly man, and 
 would have preferred even a brute to a milk-sop. Her 
 acquaintance with men was exceedingly limited. During 
 those four years of hand-to-mouth struggle for life which 
 had elapsed since her father's death, her intercourse with 
 the opposite sex had consisted solely of business inter- 
 views in offices, during the course of which she had early 
 discovered that her personal comeliness was a thing to be 
 regretted, in that it sometimes induced her employers to 
 offer undesirable and swiftly resented attentions, while it 
 never for a moment led them to drive less hard bargains 
 for her artistic work. 
 
 This discovery it was that, coming as a shock to a sen- 
 sitive and refined girl, full of the illusions of youth, had 
 imparted to her manners that veneer of coldness and pride 
 which had sufficed to keep the art students in awe of 
 her, and which by its unaccustomed piquancy had at- 
 tracted the jaded senses of Darcy Derrick. But the natu- 
 ral Dorothy was neither cold nor unimpressionable; she 
 was, on the contrary, the most womanly creature imagina- 
 ble, to whom loving with whole-souled strength and ten- 
 derness was an absolute necessity. The loss of her sister, 
 who had demanded from her a mother's care and devo- 
 tion, seemed to have left her life empty and blank. The
 
 288 The Exhumation. 
 
 horror with which Darcy's treachery and callous cruelty 
 had filled her for a time caused her to regard all men 
 with aversion, but now her revulsion of feelings in Ayl- 
 mer's favor led her to the opposite extreme, and inclined 
 her to idealize him into a figure of superhuman excellence. 
 
 Happily, Aylmer Read, in the simple directness of his 
 character and his capability of selfless devotion, was 
 molded on sufficiently romantic and heroic lines, as 
 knights of the nineteenth century go; between the ideal 
 Aylmer and the real Aylmer there was no appreciable 
 drop, and the latter was perhaps even the more loveable 
 of the two. Toward him Dorothy's waking thoughts went 
 out in a rush of passionate gratitude which she had been 
 too much excited to be conscious of on the preceding 
 evening. 
 
 "He must have thought me horribly hard and cold and 
 suspicious last night," she told herself. "I need not be 
 all those things with him, I know. I hope he will not 
 love me less because of my coldness. Of course, I ought 
 to hope he will leave off loving me altogether, as the law 
 would pretend I belong to that horrible man just because 
 I was trapped into entering a church and making a prom- 
 ise to him there under false pretenses. But I can't hope 
 that Aylmer will leave off loving me just yet. I am so 
 badly in need of love and of belief in men. My heart is 
 aching and sore, and I feel after all these years of work 
 and worry and this last terrible grief, that I want rest and 
 comfort and even a little spoiling with too much kind- 
 ness. It won't matter in the end. I shall go away to 
 America in a few days and try to find my brother, who 
 won't want me, and try to make the rest of poor old 
 Cresswell's life happy. At least, I shall be safe from 
 the horror of that man Derrick's persecution. And before 
 I go I shall say good-by to my kind, dear friend, my only 
 friend, Mr. Read, and he will go back to his dreams of
 
 The Exhumation. 289 
 
 me, and perhaps in time marry his pretty cousin and be 
 very happy. That is what I have always heard men do. 
 And I shall live abroad, a widow without ever having had 
 a husband, and shall always wear the wedding-ring he 
 put upon my finger." 
 
 From her window, which overlooked the garden at the 
 back, came a sound of singing in a clear, high, bird-like 
 voice, as joyous as a skylark's. Dorothy got up and, peep- 
 ing from behind her blind, beheld Rosa in a coarse apron 
 over a tucked-up black serge gown, engaged in digging 
 the bare flower-beds with a large spade. She was rosy 
 with her exertions and looked the picture of health and 
 prettiness as she caroled forth blithely the somewhat in- 
 appropriate words: 
 
 Oh hear us when we cry to Thee 
 For those in peril on the sea ! 
 
 Dorothy learned later that Rosa spent her life singing 
 hymns, her preference being given to those of a mourn- 
 ful nature. Knowing but little of music, and being as- 
 siduous in church attendance, attracted thereto a good 
 deal by the personal attractions of the curate, she in- 
 stinctively broke into the tunes and words with which 
 constant repetition had made her familiar, cheerily mak- 
 ing the beds while chirping: 
 
 As the tree falls so shall it lie, 
 As a man lives so shall he die ! 
 
 and working her sewing machine to the dirge-like refrain 
 of the "Pilgrims of the Night." 
 
 It was as yet only half-past six o'clock, but Rosa's en- 
 ergy was insatiable. At eight o'clock breakfast she was 
 as bright and fresh to look at as a newly-awakened baby.
 
 290 The Exhumation. 
 
 "Where would you like to go to-day, Mrs. Ransome?" 
 she inquired. "The Zoo, the wax-works, and Hampstead 
 Heath are all pretty near. Or do you want to go right 
 down into town ?" 
 
 "I hope you won't be disappointed, but I should most 
 of all like to stay quite quietly in the house and garden. 
 You know I have been very ill and also much worried 
 lately, and I feel that all I want in the world is perfect 
 rest and quiet for the few days I shall be here." 
 
 "Ah, but Aylmer won't let you go in a few days," ob- 
 served Miss Read, archly. 
 
 "Mr. Read knows I cannot stay in London long," Doro- 
 thy returned, assuming her coldest manner, but painfully 
 conscious that she was blushing hotly. 
 
 "Now, you are not going to be nasty and disagreeable," 
 cried Rosa, in dismay, dropping the knife and fork with 
 which she was hungrily demolishing eggs and bacon. 
 "Of course, mamma and I couldn't help noticing last 
 night how Aylmer couldn't take his eyes off you at din- 
 ner, and how he afterward made himself late for his office 
 work by shutting himself into his study talking to you. 
 You needn't think I shall be jealous or anything like that. 
 Aylmer and I are just like brother and sister. Of course, 
 I don't say but what mamma will be a little bit disap- 
 pointed at first. But that will soon wear off; and it's all 
 her own fault, for what did I say to her from the first? 
 Men never fall in love with the pretty girls who are just 
 under their noses they always think in such cases that 
 what they get abroad with a lot of trouble must be better 
 than what might be had for the asking at home. Not 
 that," she added, quickly correcting herself, and tossing 
 her pretty head, "not that Aylmer could have had me for 
 the asking ! He's not my style and I'm not his, and that's 
 the truth. I like a man with a lot of fun about him and 
 a dark mustache. Of course, Aylmer is wonderfully
 
 The Exhumation. 291 
 
 clever, and has got on splendidly at his profession; but 
 his fun, when he's inclined to be lively, is all quiet and 
 satirical, and that sort of thing. Now, I like laughter, 
 and I don't so much care what one is laughing at. But 
 you and Aylmer ought to suit each other splendidly." 
 
 "I am sorry to upset your benevolent matrimonial plans 
 for me, Miss Read " 
 
 "Now you are talking sarcastically, just like Aylmer. 
 And I do hate calling each other Miss Read and Mrs. 
 Ransome. Do you object to Christian names?" 
 
 "I would very much rather you called me by my real 
 name," Dorothy answered energetically. "My name is 
 Dorothy, and please call me that, and never Mrs. Ran- 
 some. But I was not speaking sarcastically. I am sure 
 you mean all you say very kindly, but I have not the 
 slightest intention of ever marrying again. 
 
 "Perhaps you think it wicked?" suggested Rosa, look- 
 ing at her doubtfully. "Mamma does, I know, but then 
 nobody is very likely to ask her. It does seem hard on us 
 girls who have never had one husband to find other 
 women running through two or three. But people say 
 everybody always like widows, because they tell risky sto- 
 ries and know how to manage men." 
 
 "Well, I never tell what you call 'risky' stories. In 
 fact, I hardly know what you mean by the expression. 
 And I haven't the least idea how to manage a man; so 
 that people wouldn't like me." 
 
 "You are so much prettier when you laugh like that, 
 Dolly, dear!" Rosa cried enthusiastically. "If I had 
 teeth like yours I should be on the grin all day. You 
 usually look most awfully sad, and it doesn't suit you a 
 bit. When you brighten up two jolly little dimples come 
 out one on each side of your mouth and you look about 
 eighteen." 
 
 Dorothy was inclined to reproach herself when she
 
 292 The Exhumation. 
 
 burst out laughing over Rosa's irresponsible sallies. The 
 girl's unrefined naturalness, her naive vanity and openly 
 expressed desire to get married, came as an amusing relief 
 to Dorothy after a long period of over-strain on the emo- 
 tions and the brain. She felt as if she could sit still all 
 day and laugh at Rosa's nonsense, and Rosa, on her part, 
 was charmed with so sympathetic a listener. 
 
 "I don't wonder you're in love with Dorothy," she said 
 heartily to Aylmer, meeting him in the garden a little be- 
 fore lunch time. 
 
 "In love with Dorothy!" he repeated in amazement. 
 "What in the world are you talking about ?" 
 
 "Well, Mrs. Ransome's Christian name is Dorothy, and 
 you're in love with her, aren't you? Of course she says 
 she will never marry again, and that she treasures her 
 wedding-ring more than anything in the world, and will 
 never move it from her finger. But you can persuade her 
 out of all that." 
 
 "Did she say that about her wedding-ring?" he asked 
 eagerly, his heart taking a leap of delight. "Tell me the 
 exact words, Rosa." 
 
 "We'd been pottering about in the conservatory," Rosa 
 answered readily, "and we were washing our hands for 
 lunch a few minutes ago. I asked Dolly if she took her 
 rings off, as I do mine, to wash her hands, and she said : 
 'I have only one ring this/ and she pointed to her wed- 
 ding-ring, 'and as long as I live I will never take that 
 off.' 'Do you treasure it so much?' I asked. 'Yes/ she 
 said, quite solemnly, 'I treasure it more than anything in 
 the world.' That was just all that passed. But you 
 needn't be disheartened. You haven't an idea the things 
 Ive heard widows say, cracking up the dear departed and 
 all that sort of thing, I mean, and they've always been the 
 first to marry again directly anybody asked them." 
 
 "I am not disheartened," Aylmer said gravely. "I
 
 The Exhumation. 293 
 
 have never had the smallest intention of asking Mrs. Ran- 
 some to marry me. And I must ask you, Rosa, not to 
 discuss such a possibility with Mrs. Ransome. It is 
 equally offensive to me and to her." 
 
 "You're wrong there," protested the incorrigible Rosa. 
 "She didn't mind it a bit." 
 
 Immediately after the one o'clock lunch, which was 
 strved as Aylmer's breakfast, he left the house, and did 
 not return until half-past six. Before departing he con- 
 trived to take Dorothy aside into the dining-room and beg 
 her to wait for his return in his study, as he would be 
 certain to bring her news of serious import. 
 
 "We must tell my aunt and cousin that I am trustee 
 for your property, and seeing to business on the subject," 
 he suggested. 
 
 "Yes," she answered quickly, "otherwise they will 
 think " 
 
 She checked herself, blushing crimson, and feeling in- 
 tensely uncomfortable. 
 
 "They will think I am in love with you," he said quietly. 
 "Well, perhaps that is the most reasonable inference to 
 put upon our conferences that I am trying to wean your 
 mind from thoughts of the late Mr. Philip Ransome. 
 Rosa, having got that idea into her head, is not likely to 
 let it go. Meantime, good-by !" 
 
 "You had better call me Dorothy, as Rosa does," she 
 said, following him to the door; "I keep forgetting to 
 answer 'Mrs. Ransome.' And every little bit of deception 
 we can do without is a gain ; I do so hate it !" 
 
 "As you wish," he returned in studiously matter-of- 
 fact tones, and took his leave. 
 
 Each was acting a part ; but since the wedding-ring in- 
 cident had reached Aylmer's ears he had at least the sat- 
 isfaction of knowing that Dorothy's coldness was as-
 
 294 The Exhumation. 
 
 sumed. Even hopeless love is better far than love unre- 
 turned. 
 
 At half-past six he drove up again in a cab, and at 
 once sought his study, where Dorothy, pale to the lips, 
 awaited him in speechless anxiety. 
 
 "The exhumation took place this morning," he said. "I 
 was present when the inquest was opened. The evidence 
 was merely formal. The body was identified by Darcy 
 Derrick 
 
 "As that of his wife Dorothy or Dorothea." 
 
 She stared at him with contracted brows and parted 
 lips. 
 
 "How can that be?" she whispered. "Surely he would 
 know ! That was what I feared " 
 
 "It was a fortnight after death and this man Derrick 
 had no suspicion. He had only to state identification.' 
 He scarcely glanced at the body, so they told me, but 
 almost immediately afterward he broke into a cry about 
 his darling wife and fainted." 
 
 "Fainted!" Dorothy repeated with ineffable scorn. 
 
 "Dead off. I saw the fellow afterward and recognized 
 him as the one I had seen hanging about Lockhart Cot- 
 tages on the afternoon of the day when I found you." 
 
 "You went to Lockhart Cottages?" 
 
 "Naturally. I wanted to see where you had lived and 
 worked and suffered. And I wanted to warn you if I 
 had a chance." 
 
 "I shall never be able to thank you. Go on telling me 
 about to-day." 
 
 "Dr. Wentworth deposed to being called in bv Cress- 
 well, who appeared half crazy with grief, and to finding 
 your sister on a sofa in the dining-room. He asked about 
 the wound in her head and was told that she had injured 
 herself as she fell. He had twice attended her as Miss 
 Knight, but was afterward informed that her name was
 
 The Exhumation. 295 
 
 the Hon. Mrs. Darcy Derrick. From what he saw 
 and knew concerning the state of his patient's health he 
 had no hesitation in certifying heart disease as the cause 
 of death. He had never prescribed laudanum for her. 
 Until the night of her death he had not been to her house, 
 nor had he until then ever seen her sister, who appeared, 
 he said, so prostrated with grief that he feared for her 
 reason and was compelled to immediately prescribe for 
 her. The rest of the evidence as to burial, exhumation, 
 and so on, was almost wholly formal, and the inquest has 
 now been adjourned for a week, in order that the doctors 
 and analysts may make their examination. Until they are 
 completed you can do nothing but wait." 
 
 "I will obey you in everything," she said gently. 
 
 "In everything but what I most strongly advise," he 
 said. "To face a trial." 
 
 "Do you really wish me to do that?" 
 
 Her eyes met his earnestly, appealingly. 
 
 Aylmer's thoughts flew to that sinister face, deadly pale 
 against vivid scarlet lips, the face of the man who was 
 waiting to claim her as his wife. 
 
 "God help me!" he murmured under his breath, turn- 
 ing sharply away. "I cannot advise you any more !"
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 THE USES OE ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 The Hon. Darcy Derrick had taken a furnished flat for 
 the season. 
 
 It was not a fashionable flat, or an expensive flat, or 
 an abode that in any way realized that luxury-loving 
 young gentleman's ideals of the beautiful and appropriate. 
 But misfortunes had gathered closely over Darcy 's shape- 
 ly head since the time when he had with difficulty scram- 
 bled out of a Cornish ditch on his honeymoon journey in 
 the preceding autumn. 
 
 That his sickly elder brother, Baron Derick, should 
 have taken to himself a wife in the person of a tall, hand- 
 some and healthy Irish girl, just about the time when 
 Darcy's bride was assisting his ignominious flight down 
 a railway embankment, was an unpleasant possibility 
 which had never once occurred to Mr. Derrick, and that 
 young Lady Derrick would shortly present him with a 
 niece or nephew was another cruel and unlooked-for blow 
 on the part of Fate. 
 
 "It's bound to be a boy," murmured Darcy to himself, 
 rolling his fine, blue eyes pathetically upward to the ceil- 
 ing as he lay in bed in his new quarters on the day fol- 
 lowing the exhumation and opening of the coroner's in- 
 quest. 
 
 "It's part of my usual cursed luck that it should be a 
 boy." 
 
 He was, at the moment, quite without money and was 
 living upon debts, expectations and Jews. The first were
 
 The Uses of Advertisement. 297 
 
 large, for he had ventured and lost his remaining few 
 hundreds at Monte Carlo before Christmas, and had ex- 
 hausted his mother's resources. But the hope of obtain- 
 ing possession of Mrs, Julius Knight's fortune supplied 
 the second and satisfied the third. 
 
 Private detective work was employment dear to Darcy's 
 soul, and for which his plausibility, his sympathetic man- 
 ners and his swift cunning peculiarly well adapted him. 
 He had learned a great deal more than the police dreamed 
 of in his peregrinations in the neighborhood of Lockhart 
 Cottages, and in order to facilitate these researches he had 
 taken this furnished flat not far from the Addison Road 
 railway station. 
 
 Yesterday's proceedings had affected his delicate, sensi- 
 tive organization painfully. The mere notion of having 
 the ugly secrets of the tomb dragged to the light of day, 
 and of being forced to identify the changed and distorted 
 horror thus exposed as the woman he had loved and de- 
 sired for her beauty, filled him with strong repulsion and 
 shuddering sickness. From the coroner's court he had 
 fled to the West End and had endeavored, in such de- 
 lights as a dainty and expensive dinner at a fashionable 
 restaurant, a visit to a music hall, and later to a dancing- 
 room, to drown the memory of his afternoon's experi- 
 ences. At ten o'clock this morning his head ached vio- 
 lently and he felt extremely cross and thirsty; but it 
 soothed him to read, in the two Sunday papers he had 
 sent for, sympathetic references to the "bereaved husband 
 of the deceased Mrs. Derrick," who, "overcome by his 
 emotion" had fainted after giving evidence of identifica- 
 tion on the previous day. 
 
 Darcy loved to be referred to in the newspapers, to 
 which he assiduously sent paragraphs concerning his 
 doings at all times, when he was not hiding from his cred- 
 itors. He possessed an immense scrap-book, with a pad-
 
 298 The Uses of Advertisement. 
 
 lock, the key of which was never allowed to go out of his 
 possession, in which he had carefully pasted all printed 
 references to himself, either as the "Hon. Darcy Derrick," 
 under which name he had published several tiny volumes 
 of erotic verse, characterized in one specially slashing no- 
 tice as being "nastier than Swinburne and sillier than the 
 poet Bunn ;" or as "Sergius Trevelyan," actor in the Eng- 
 lish provinces and the United States, the critics of which 
 latter place declared him to be "the most weak-backed, 
 inarticulate, expressionless and wooden apology for an 
 alleged actor among all the incompetent dudes of good 
 family annually foisted upon us by the played-out old 
 country over the water;" or as "Mr. Darcy," theatrical 
 manager and author of what newspaper men concurred 
 in pronouncing "one of the feeblest and worst plays pro- 
 duced upon the English stage during the present century." 
 
 Far from being saddened or discouraged by these un- 
 flattering references to his artistic capabilities, Darcy 
 spent many hours of his leisure in reading them and gloat- 
 ing over the censure so lavishly meted out to him. 
 
 "Only the French understand art, and only the Irish 
 possess humor," he would say with a pitying smile. "And 
 only a genius belonging to both nations, with an infusion 
 of the Italian thrown in, can understand me!" 
 
 Now that his name and station as the Hon. Darcy, 
 brother to Lord Derrick, were made public, he looked for- 
 ward to becoming speedily the hero of the hour by reason 
 of his connection with the "Hammersmith Mystery." It 
 was probable that he would be interviewed, and that 
 wood-cuts libelling his features would appear in the even- 
 ing papers. 
 
 "I must get taken again," he murmured to himself as 
 he stretched his arms out of bed and helped himself to a 
 tumbler of soda from the siphon by his side. "None of 
 my photographs really do me justice. Women and girls
 
 The Uses of Advertisement. 299 
 
 who read about my grief and my devotion to my darling 
 wife will sympathize with me much more heartily when 
 they see what I am like. Of course, the reproductions in 
 the evening papers are cruelly unlike. But with my fea- 
 tures they can't go very far wrong?" 
 
 He lay back on his pillows, closing his eyes as he 
 thought about his prospects. He had a trump card up 
 his sleeve for the adjourned inquest, and in a week's time 
 he meant to play it for all it was worth. 
 
 "I can quite understand Phyllis' determination to pos- 
 sess herself, by hook or by crook, of her aunt's fortune," 
 he told himself. "No doubt she still hangs on to the 
 vain hope that the money will be an inducement. If 
 women only knew the exact moment when we grow tired 
 of them, and had the sense to leave us then, we should 
 never learn to hate them. In all my life no woman ever 
 bored me more hopelessly than Phyllis, and she never had 
 the brains to see it. When she learned how passionately 
 I loved her sister, how she must have hated her! It's 
 extremely probable that she killed her out of crazy jeal- 
 ousy and her infatuation for me. My beautiful, proud, 
 fierce Dorothy, the only woman in the world for me, sac- 
 rificed to Phyllis' insane passion!" 
 
 At the thought of the possible bliss with Dorothy now 
 forever lost to him, the ready tears welled to Darcy's 
 eyes again, and he rang his bell for his man, that the 
 latter might add some brandy to the soda by way of as- 
 suaging his master's grief and his thirst at one and the 
 same time. 
 
 The servant, a slight, silent foxy-looking man, made 
 his appearance, bearing on a tray a card, upon which was 
 inscribed the name: 
 
 "Mr. Jack Wyverley." 
 
 "I made the gentleman give his card, sir," the servant 
 explained, "as you particularly told me you saw no one
 
 300 The Uses of Advertisement. 
 
 without an appointment. But he seems quite set upon 
 seeing you." 
 
 "Show him in." 
 
 Wyverley and Derrick had parted company at Monte 
 Carlo in the preceding autumn. Each had staked and lost 
 all he could raise on the gaming-tables, but Darcy, by his 
 mother's help, contrived to get back to England, leaving 
 his fellow-gambler penniless and lonely at the scene of his 
 losses. This, however, was not Darcy's fault. Niggard- 
 liness was not among his vices ; he loved money solely for 
 what it brought, and was always ready to spend it upon 
 his acquaintances. Friends in the true sense of the word 
 he had none. To women, old and young, he invariably 
 made love passionately, if they were pretty ; platonically, 
 if plain. Men either envied him for his easy love con- 
 quests, or despised him heartily and declined to associate 
 with him. But for the approbation of his own sex Darcy 
 cared little. He disliked being alone, because it was then 
 impossible to talk about himself, and he would tolerate 
 the society of a male companion in the absence of any- 
 thing feminine between the ages of five and forty-five; 
 but, although his incessant rambling talk was sometimes 
 poetical and often paradoxically witty, he was incapable 
 of either feeling or inspiring real friendship in the breasts 
 of his fellow-men, and sooner or later he tired of or quar- 
 reled with them all. 
 
 This morning he wanted to pity himself aloud, and he 
 wanted somebody to listen. Accordingly, he greeted Jack 
 Wyverley with something approaching enthusiasm. The 
 financial crisis through which the latter gentleman had 
 recently passed had not in any way altered Mr. Wyver- 
 ley 's appearance. He was just the same short, thick-set, 
 well-groomed and well-dressed old-young man, of red 
 face, prominent, bloodshot, blue eyes, and fine, white
 
 The Uses of Advertisement. 301 
 
 teeth lavishly displayed in a mocking grin, as he had ap- 
 peared for the last fifteen years. 
 
 "Well, Darcy, you ought to be perfectly happy," he 
 began, seating himself on the foot of the bed. "Now that 
 your complicated love affairs have led you into a murder 
 case, you will be talked about more than any man in Lon- 
 don for at least a week, which I take to be your idea of 
 happiness." 
 
 "Don't chaff, Jack. It's an awful business. I can't 
 tell you what I have suffered." 
 
 "I should think so! Losing ten thousand a year is 
 enough to make any man suffer." 
 
 "Do you suppose I was talking of the miserable money ? 
 I shall get that right enough, for my poor darling died 
 intestate, and that will is a clear forgery. But it is her 
 loss, Jack, that I feel. That can never be replaced!" 
 
 "Well, considering that in your six months of married 
 life with her you spent together exactly one-half hour, 
 during the course of which she contrived to chuck you 
 out of a train, your grief really does you great credit!" 
 
 "You cannot understand. Dorothy loved me intensely 
 in her own way. But her jealousy, when she was led to 
 suppose that I had paid attention to her sister, was such 
 that for the time she became a very fury, and would will- 
 ingly have killed either me or herself." 
 
 "From what I have heard, she had some excuse for her 
 jealousy." 
 
 "None whatever. Her sister was nothing to me. The 
 poor, distracted girl had loved me, certainly; but it was 
 Sv.lely on account of her likeness to Dorothy that I ever 
 took any notice of her." 
 
 Wyverley's grin broadened. He drew a newspaper 
 frcm his pocket, and proceeded to lay it on the bed and 
 smooth its folds with much elaboration.
 
 302 The Uses of Advertisement. 
 
 "Have you seen the Sunday Porcupine?" he asked. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "It contains a most interesting account, with a portrait, 
 of an interview with a little soubrette actress called Lelia 
 Mongomery. I recognized her in a minute as being the 
 made-up little person who forced her way past me up to 
 your compartment at Plymouth station when I was see- 
 ing you off on your honeymoon journey. It's a most up- 
 to-date interview, and will send up the circulation of the 
 Porcupine by leaps and bounds. The headings alone are 
 worthy the money. Listen: "The Hammersmith Mys- 
 tery.' 'Interview with Leila Mongomery.' 'She Believes 
 in Phyllis' Innocence.' 'The Sisters' Hearts Broken by 
 a Cowardly Seducer.' 'He Marries Them Both.' 'A 
 Fashionable Bigamist.' 'Miss Mongomery Thinks It 
 Was Suicide.' 
 
 "Good, all that, for a beginning, eh? And here's the 
 interview : 
 
 " 'It having come to the knowledge of the Sunday 
 Porcupine that much light could be thrown upon the 
 Hammersmith mystery by Miss Leila Mongomery, a rep- 
 resentative of our paper called yesterday evening upon 
 that young lady in her residence in Camberwell, and was 
 at once accorded an interview. 
 
 " 'Miss Leila Mongomery, who is a golden-haired, vi- 
 vacious, little lady, of exceptionally prepossessing ap- 
 pearance, is at present 'resting,' in the theatrical parlance, 
 having recently concluded a highly successful engage- 
 ment as principal boy at the North Stourton Theatre. On 
 the subject of the Hammersmith mystery she is voluble 
 and emphatic, and she displayed much womanly feeling 
 and affection when alluding to the accused and missing 
 woman, Phyllis Knight. We will give Miss Mongomery's 
 racy talk verbatim : 
 
 " 'Phyllis was quite incapable of cruelty/ she declared,
 
 The Uses of Advertisement. 303 
 
 'and would no more have committed a murder than I 
 would. She adored her sister and constantly spoke of 
 her. She and I were together in a theatrical company 
 about a year ago. Phyllis was a fairly good actress, but 
 had only a small part. Among the male members of the 
 company was a fellow with dyed black hair and mustaches, 
 who called himself Sergius Trevelyan. He went in for 
 being a "masher," used to boast about his family in a 
 mysterious sort of way ; but he was a rank bad actor, and 
 too fond of spirits. He tried to make up to me, but I 
 would have nothing to say to him. He was living with 
 Phyllis Knight as his wife, having married her while 
 the company was playing a fortnight at Sheffield ; but all 
 the company knew it was illegal, and that his wife was 
 Miss Millie Clements, a well-known American opera 
 singer. All that is, all but poor Phyllis, and when at 
 last we broke the truth to her, she went right off her 
 head. Of course we were all sorry for her, but what 
 could we do? She had fallen ill and had to be left be- 
 hind. None of us knew her sister's address and Sergius 
 wouldn't give it. Phyllis had a touch of brain fever, and 
 nothing was to be learned from her, so business being 
 business, we had to continue the tour with some one else 
 playing her part. 
 
 " 'Very soon afterward my fine gentleman Sergius 
 Trevelyan left the company. We all thought, of course, 
 he had gone back to poor Phyllis to see her through her 
 trouble. But not he! Several weeks later Phyllis came 
 after the company to find him, and I myself met her on 
 the towing path at Richmond, so changed I hardly knew 
 her, and almost in rags. 
 
 " 'The brute had deserted her, and left her to starve, 
 and we couldn't even give his address. 
 
 " 'And when and where do you think I next set eyes on 
 my handsome young gentleman ? Why, at Plymouth sta-
 
 304 The Uses of Advertisement. 
 
 tion last September, when I was acting at Davenport and 
 came over one Saturday for the day with the rest of the 
 company. There was a theatrical wedding on, so we 
 heard. The author and manager of a shocking bad piece, 
 "Love's Right," had just been married to his leading lady, 
 and they were starting off on their honeymoon journey. 
 Her name was Miss Knight, so I was told, and he was 
 the Hon. Darcy Derrick, who had come into a heap of 
 money lately on the death of his father, and was going 
 about the country calling himself Mr. Darcy. I'm dead 
 nuts on weddings no, I'm not married myself, not 
 much!' and here Miss Mongomery shook her head 
 roguishly. 'From what I see of you men you're not very 
 well worth marrying! 
 
 " 'Anyway, I peeped into the compartment reserved for 
 the bride and bridegroom, and who should I see but that 
 scamp Sergius Trevelyan, and, as I thought, Phyllis 
 Knight, only looking every so much prettier than I'd ever 
 seen her. 
 
 " 'He'd left off dying his hair and he'd shaved his 
 mustache ; but I knew him in a moment, and he knew me, 
 too. You should have seen his face change when I called 
 out- his name. And you should have seen her face when 
 I said he was Sergius Trevelyan, and that I was glad to 
 see, now Millie Clements was dead, that he'd done the 
 right thing by Phyllis Knight ! 
 
 " 'The point was it was not Phyllis he had married, but 
 her sister, Dorothy, and I certainly spoiled his honey- 
 moon journey for him, for he never reached the end of 
 it. You remember those paragraphs about a "Missing 
 Bride" which appeared in the papers last September? 
 Well, the missing bride was Dorothy. She had rolled him 
 down a railway embankment on their way to Penzance, 
 and while he lay there stunned she'd given him the slip 
 and escaped.
 
 The Uses of Advertisement. 305 
 
 " 'Then the next thing I hear is that poor, dear Phyllis 
 is accused of murdering her sister for money, and what I 
 say is, I don't believe it ! That man Trevelyan, or Darcy 
 Derrick, broke her heart, and it's just possible grief turned 
 her brain and she committed suicide. But if you come 
 here and tell me that Phyllis Knight was capable of com- 
 mitting a cold-blooded murder, and on her sister, of all 
 the people in the world, for a wretched bit of money, I tell 
 you you don't know what you are talking about. It's the 
 man in this case who deserves hanging, and tarring and 
 feathering first. That's my opinion, and I don't care who 
 knows it.' 
 
 "What do you think of that?" asked Wyverley, who 
 had read aloud the interview with the utmost enjoyment, 
 putting the paper down and looking over at Darcy. 
 "Rather a slating for you, old man, isn't it? I must say, 
 though, I think you richly deserve it, and you are so fond 
 of getting yourself talked about that I suppose you don't 
 mind!" 
 
 But the Hon. Darcy did mind very much indeed. It 
 was one thing to have his artistic achievements dispar- 
 aged and quite another to be held up to execration and 
 contempt as a "bad actor with dyed mustaches," fond of 
 spirits and cruel in his treatment of women. 
 
 He tried to console himself and to convince Wyverley 
 by declaring that Miss Mongomery's was the venom of 
 a woman scorned. But Wyverley only laughed at him. 
 
 "Vanity is a disease with you, my boy, that's the truth 
 about the matter," the latter assured him. "You'll get 
 cut in the clubs and chivied in the streets after this." 
 
 "We'll call on Leila in her Camberwell retreat, and 
 I'll get round her and make her take it all back, and say 
 the reporter was lying," said Darcy. 
 
 With this end in view he executed a most careful toilet, 
 and chartering a hansom, persuaded Wyverley to accom-
 
 306 The Uses of Advertisement. 
 
 pany him to what he called "the wilds of Camberwell," 
 in order to soften Miss Mongomery's feelings toward 
 him. 
 
 But Leila was the heroine of the hour. Every copy of 
 the Porcupine had been bought up, and friends who had 
 forgotten her arrived at her rooms by omnibus, by cab, 
 or on foot, to hear at first hand her account of the events 
 which had preceded the "Hammersmith Mystery." 
 
 The arrival of Darcy's cab was the signal for quite a 
 demonstration, and Miss Mongomery's little servant felt 
 that the most sublime moment of her life had come when 
 she stood upon the doorstep and informed Darcy, in shrill 
 tones which resounded down the street: 
 
 "My missus won't receive you, sir. 'Tain't no use your 
 calling, for she wouldn't demean herself by talking to sich 
 as you?" 
 
 "Hang the woman !" muttered the discomforted Darcy 
 as he drove away from Miss Mongomery's door, followed 
 by audible hisses from certain of that lady's neighbors 
 and friends. "I had better have recognized her in the 
 train that day. But Phyllis shall pay for this!"
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 TRACKED DOWN. 
 
 An anxious week for Dorothy and Aylmer passed be- 
 tween the opening of the inquest and the adjourned pro- 
 ceedings. 
 
 Nothing of any importance was taking place either so- 
 cially or politically in London at the time, and the "Ham- 
 mersmith Mystery" came as a boon to newspapers in 
 want of sensational "copy." Dorothy's short connection 
 with the stage enabled the reporters to allude to the 
 "Mysterious Death of an Actress," and a life-drama, 
 which included among its dramatis personae the heir to 
 an Irish title and more than one member of the theatrical 
 profession, necessarily supplied headlines calculated to 
 double the circulation of any judiciously conducted jour- 
 nal. 
 
 To Aylmer it was infinitely painful to hear on all sides 
 the woman he loved and reverenced freely discussed, and 
 to read items of information concerning every detail of 
 her life chronicled in the newspapers. Public opinion 
 was very strong against Darcy Derrick, but it was scarcely 
 more favorable, on its feminine side at least, to the 
 woman who had married the betrayer of her sister. 
 
 "Of course Dorothy Knight knew all about it when 
 she married the wretch," Rosa Read declared, and Rosa 
 was but the mouthpiece of the ordinary girl who speaks 
 without thinking. "But some women will do anything 
 to get married, and she almost deserved to be murdered 
 for it."
 
 308 Tracked Down. 
 
 Dorothy grew hot and cold by turns when Rosa dis- 
 cussed, as she constantly did, the ins and outs of the 
 "Hammersmith Mystery," but she was wise enough to 
 keep silent on the subject. 
 
 "I have nothing to say about it," she would remark. 
 "But surely it is better not to judge too harshly unless we 
 know everything." 
 
 In truth there seemed little need for so much caution. 
 Not one member of the little household at Ashgrove road 
 appeared in any way to connect that beautiful young 
 widow, recovering from an illness and still a little fragile 
 and nervous, with the alleged murderess, who, with her 
 supposed accomplice, was "wanted" for the Hammer- 
 smith inquiry. 
 
 The secret possessed by them in common drew Aylmer 
 and Dorothy very near together. Daily it was necessary 
 that they should meet apart from the others, either in his 
 study or in the summer-house at the bottom of the gar- 
 den, and discuss the latest developments of the case 
 which, in his journalistic position, Aylmer was among the 
 first to hear. There was no doubt that Leila Mongom- 
 ery's revelations had made Phyllis Knight's guilt seem 
 only the more probable, since it supplied a second motive, 
 that of jealousy, for her grudge against her sister. The 
 more the story of Phyllis' sufferings was dwelt upon, the 
 more natural it seemed that she would detest the woman 
 who had become the legal wife of her child's father. 
 
 "It would be funny if it were not so horrible," Dorothy 
 said to Aylmer, "that they want to take me and hang me 
 for the murder of myself. Doesn't all this talk about me 
 as a possible murderess, all this dragging of my life to 
 the light, lower me in your eyes?" 
 
 "How should it ? It is Phyllis, not you, whom they ac- 
 cuse of murder ; and what I learn about your brave, hard-
 
 Tracked Down. 309 
 
 working and unselfish life makes me love you a thousand 
 times more." 
 
 She held up a warning finger. 
 
 "Haven't I told you," she said, shaking her head sadly, 
 "that you will drive me from the shelter of your house if 
 you speak to me in that way ?" 
 
 "I know," he said, "aad you are right; but when you 
 come to think that very soon you will pass out of my 
 life, it is a little hard and difficult to keep silent." 
 
 They were talking in the summer-house, he sitting on 
 the table, his hands full of newspapers, she leaning back 
 against the wooden wall of the little building. In spite of 
 her grief for her sister's loss a grief as deep and sincere 
 as it had been within a hour of Phyllis' death, and as it 
 would remain all her life and in spite of the terrible 
 charge hanging over her, into Dorothy's face there had 
 crept since her coming to St. John's Wood an added color 
 and sweetness, a dewy brightness of the eyes, and a 
 soft tremulousness about the lips, which lent the finish- 
 ing touches in which her regular beauty had hitherto been 
 lacking. 
 
 She never denied to herself that she loved Aylmer 
 Read. Her heart had gone out to him on that first even- 
 ing when he had dedicated himself to her service. She 
 loved him because he had saved her; she loved him be- 
 cause he believed in her; she loved him because he was 
 a man after her own heart, and her time for loving had 
 come. 
 
 All her acquired distrust of men vanished before her 
 absolute faith in him. The little coldness and chilling 
 speeches with which she had been used to fence around 
 her beauty she cast aside when with him ; and her faith 
 in him was so absolute, her ideal of him so high, that 
 Aylmer had to guard his every look and word, lest the 
 passionate delight with which her presence filled him
 
 310 Tracked Down. 
 
 should outstep the boundaries prescribed for intercourse 
 between a single man and a married woman. 
 
 Even though she could never be his, he thanked heaven 
 that her marriage had been a farce, and that it was Doro- 
 thy and not Phyllis whom he had chanced to love. Doro- 
 thy whose first love had been given to him. 
 
 He knew well that she loved him. She was so grate- 
 ful, and withal so sincere, that she hardly attempted to 
 disguise the feeling which shone softly from her gray 
 eyes and which echoed through her voice when they were 
 alone together and she spoke his name. And yet there 
 they sat in the summer-house, hidden from the house by 
 the laburnum trees, through the lacy leaves of which 
 the spring sunlight danced on her beautiful face, and he 
 dared not touch her, dared not kiss those soft lips, no 
 longer tightly closed as of old, or fold those strong, slen- 
 der hands within his own. 
 
 "Yes, it is hard," he repeated, "harder than you think." 
 
 She leaned a little toward him, clasping her hands 
 tightly in her lap, while tears gathered in her eyes. 
 
 "Don't you think it is hard for me, too?" she asked in 
 a low, passionate whisper, "when now for the first time 
 I really love, to know that through my own foolish, terri- 
 ble mistake, you and I can never be anything to each 
 other, and that I shall have to go away as far from you 
 as possible as soon as it is safe for me to leave England. 
 
 "No ! don't move, and don't attempt to touch me, or I 
 shall never forgive myself for telling you. But won't it 
 make you happier to remember afterward that I loved 
 you in return ? That your devotion was not thrown away 
 and unappreciated? And can't you see that loving you 
 makes the idea of that horrible man claiming me a thou- 
 sand times worse? And you couldn't come between us 
 and save me. As he told me once, public opinion, law, 
 society, religion itself would be all on his side because of
 
 Tracked Down. 311 
 
 that fatal quarter of an hour in the church at Plymouth 
 last September. Yet all that can't prevent me from loving 
 you and I do love you, Aylmer, with all my. heart and 
 soul. I am dreadfully happy in spite of everything when 
 you are near no, don't try to take my hand or I shall 
 stop I grow lonely as soon as you are out of the house, 
 and glad before I see you, knowing that you are coming 
 back. I suppose it would be thought wrong for me to 
 tell you this, as I am supposed to be married to some- 
 one else. But in my heart I am married to you, and I 
 shall wear your ring as long as I am alive. No ! I forbid 
 you to stop me or to touch me! I am going into the 
 house now, and I don't mean ever to talk like this again. 
 Only I wanted you to know I am not ungrateful." 
 
 Here Dorothy broke down altogether, and fled swiftly 
 toward the house, evading his outstretched arms. 
 
 And Aylmer sat on the summer-house table and 
 thought, as well as a man can think with every nerve in 
 his body tingling with passionate love and his heart 
 thumping like a sledge-hammer. All sorts of wild 
 schemes flashed at a white heat through his brain, but 
 the leading idea in them all was that he and Dorothy loved 
 each other, and that the world believed her dead. Once 
 the hue and cry after Phyllis Knight was over, and Doro- 
 thy could carry out her intention of escaping with Cress- 
 well to America, what was there to prevent him (Aylmer) 
 from accompanying them thither ? In some of the States 
 divorce laws, as he knew, were elastic, and might be 
 stretched to meet Mrs. Derrick's case. 
 
 It was outrageously unfair that she should remain all 
 her life bereft of the shelter of a husband's love through 
 the treachery and villainy of such a man as Darcy Der- 
 rick. Alymer's fists clinched instinctively at the mere 
 thought of the man. Hatred of him and overwhelming 
 joy at the knowledge of Dorothy's love elbowed each other
 
 312 Tracked Down. 
 
 in his over-excited brain. Never in his twenty-eight years 
 of plodding, hard-working existence had such a tempest 
 of feeling been stirred within this big, quiet-looking 
 young man, with the herculean frame, steady, brown eyes, 
 and drooping, yellow mustache. He had been waiting for 
 his ideal, garnering up for her his stores of emotion ; now 
 that he had found her and had earned her love, he felt 
 that he could sooner part with life itself than with Doro- 
 thy. 
 
 Every moment of Aylmer's time that was not spent at 
 his office he devoted to Dorothy's service. At ten o'clock 
 on the morning after the conversation at the summer- 
 house he presented himself at the door of the coroner's 
 court for Hammersmith district, an office held in a barn- 
 like room at the rear of an old-fashioned inn close to the 
 Suspension Bridge. The apartment was far from spa- 
 cious; it was constructed of polished pine beams and 
 lighted by four windows at the sides, by others in the slop- 
 ing roof, and by gas-burners under green billiard-shades. 
 
 On the murky walls hung bills announcing a benefit 
 concert to be shortly given in the same room, and some 
 garishly colored advertisements of a new "blanc-mange 
 jelly." It was a bright, windy, spring morning, and in 
 the little, old-fashioned tea-garden outside daffodils and 
 hyacinths were forcing their green points upward from 
 the newly trimmed flower beds. A crowd of people had 
 collected in the vicinity of the inn, and the bars were filled 
 by groups of men and women, all interested in the "Ham- 
 mersmith Mystery." 
 
 A hansom cab drew up, and the gates leading to the tea- 
 gardens and stables, which had been kept closely fastened, 
 were opened to admit two well-dressed men ; at sight of 
 one of them a storm of hissing went up from the loiterers 
 outside. 
 
 Darcy Derrick gave a sickly smile. He was not a
 
 Tracked Down. 313 
 
 physical coward, but the howl of an indignant mob is try- 
 ing to the nerves of even the strongest and most self- 
 possessed of men. As he approached the door of the 
 coroner's court by the side of Jack Wyverley, who accom- 
 panied him from motives of curiosity solely, Derrick's 
 glance fell upon Aylmer, and he at once recognized him 
 as the man he had seen lurking about Lockhart Cottages 
 on a foggy afternoon a week before, and whom he 
 had also noticed at the opening of the inquest. 
 
 An instinctive conviction that this tall, fair man who 
 eyed him in so unfriendly a manner was in some way 
 deeply concerned in the case made Darcy address Aylmer 
 as he joined him by the door of the court. 
 
 "You hear that ignorant crowd outside?" he said in 
 plaintive accents. "If they knew a little, only a little, of 
 the truth, they would pity me instead of hooting me." 
 
 Aylmer started as the man addressed him, and almost 
 involuntarily drew aside as though disgusted by the 
 thought of possible contact with him. 
 
 "If they knew a little more of the truth," he said curtly, 
 "they might possibly lynch you." 
 
 The words slipped out, inspired by detestation of Doro- 
 thy's persecutor. But almost immediately Aylmer knew 
 that he had done an unwise thing in uttering them. 
 Darcy fixed the gaze of his large blue eyes intently upon 
 him, and then whispered something to his companion, who 
 laughed and said aloud that it was "very likely." 
 
 A few minutes later they were all inside the court, and 
 the proceedings had begun. 
 
 Dr. Wentworth's evidence was taken first, and appar- 
 ently much against his will he was questioned closely as 
 to the state in which he found the missing Phyllis Knight 
 and her servant Cresswell after the death of his patient, 
 Dorothy. 
 
 Cresswell, so the tall, stiff-mannered, young doctor
 
 314 Tracked Down. 
 
 stated, cried so much as to be practically helpless, while 
 Miss Knight appeared half delirious with grief, and 
 scarcely responsible for her actions. Later on the evi- 
 dence of Dr. Morgan went to show that he had attended 
 Phyllis or, as she was then called, "Mrs. Trevelyan" 
 during the preceding year. Undoubtedly her state of 
 health had for the time affected her brain, and her subse- 
 quent attacks of neuralgia and sleeplessness would tend to 
 increase this trouble. The sisters appeared devotedly 
 fond of each other, and their old servant seemed greatly 
 attached to them. Dorothy had, so Dr. Morgan declared, 
 nothing the matter with her, so far as he knew. Ques- 
 tioned as to whether he had prescribed laudanum for 
 either sister, he emphatically denied it. 
 
 Then followed the evidence of no fewer than five chem- 
 ists in the neighborhood of Lockhart Cottages, who stated 
 that on several occasions a very tall, slender woman, of 
 delicate appearance and ladylike manners, wearing her 
 dyed golden hair cut short as a boy's, had called at their 
 shops in the evening and purchased laudanum, to allay, 
 as she said, the pains of toothache. 
 
 Evidence as to the exhumation of the body was next 
 given, with the results of the post-mortem examination 
 and the analysis of the contents of the body. Amid breath- 
 less silence the wound in the head of the dead woman, a 
 wound sufficiently serious to have caused death, was de- 
 scribed at length, and an official analyst from the Home 
 Office deposed to the weak but not absolutely diseased 
 state of the heart, and to the distinct traces of laudanum 
 having been discovered in the body. 
 
 Questioned by the coroner, the witness stated that 
 either the injury to the head or an overdose of laudanum 
 might have been the cause of death. 
 
 Mr. Searle, of Searle & Glyn, solicitors, deposed to 
 attending the funeral of the deceased Dorothy Derrick, to
 
 Tracked Down. 315 
 
 whom, under her maiden name of Dorothy Knight, he 
 had forwarded a registered letter three days previously 
 informing her that she had become possessor of the great 
 fortune of her aunt, a late client of his firm. At the time 
 of the funeral Mr. Searle had never met either of the 
 sisters, but upon communicating with Miss Phyllis Knight 
 immediately afterward he received from her the letter 
 which he handed to the coroner, and in a subsequent in- 
 terview the will, also shown, by which the whole of the 
 deceased Dorothy's property was left unconditionally to 
 her sister. After procuring from him an advance of a 
 hundred and fifty pounds, Miss Phyllis Knight, acting, as 
 she said, on her doctor's advice, left London with her old 
 servant Cresswell, promising to communicate with him 
 immediately and to call at his office before proceeding to 
 join her brother in the United States. From that mo- 
 ment, however, he had heard and seen nothing of the 
 young lady, and police evidence went to show that No. 4 
 Lockhart Cottages had been deserted, no trace of the 
 destination of its former inmates having been as yet dis- 
 covered. 
 
 At this point a tall, pale, poetical-looking gentleman, 
 of graceful bearing and regular features, dressed in a 
 light gray suit, volunteered to give evidence, and a mur- 
 mur of disapprobation ran along the room as he gave 
 his name: 
 
 "Darcy Derrick." 
 
 He had been parted from his wife, so he stated, and 
 had been intensely desirous of obtaining an interview with 
 her. On the evening of her death he had presented him- 
 self at the gate of 4 Lockhart Cottages, and had seen 
 the postman deliver the registered letter for Dorothea 
 Knight, before alluded to, to Cresswell, the servant, who 
 had taken it into the house and shortly returned, bearing 
 a receipt for it. She had omitted to secure the gate, and,
 
 3i 6 Tracked Down. 
 
 entering the garden, the witness had looked in at the 
 window, where he had seen, not his wife, but Phyllis 
 alone in the room, holding in her hands the registered 
 letter. 
 
 Recognizing him, Phyllis had started up and ap- 
 proached the window, and he had then, so Darcy said, 
 retired from the vicinity of the house, and had been met 
 by his wife, who, apparently not seeing him, had hurried 
 past him on her way home. Being exceedingly anxious 
 to see her, he had remained in the neighborhood, and 
 about an hour later had seen Cresswell go out weeping, 
 and return shortly in company with Dr. Wentworth. On 
 calling on the latter gentleman he learned to his great 
 surprise and horror that his wife, whom he had seen 
 alive and well only two hours before, was dead. 
 
 Tears stood in Darcy's eyes, and his voice was broken 
 with emotion as he made these statements. He went on 
 to admit that his suspicions as to foul play were at once 
 aroused, and that, being convinced that his late wife did 
 not suffer from heart disease, and having discovered that 
 the will was a forgery, he had himself applied to have 
 the body exhumed on an order from the Home Secretary. 
 
 Following this startling evidence came the bonne 
 bouche of his own discovering the testimony of Emma 
 Amelia Victoria Huddleston, daughter to a laundress in 
 the North End road. Stupid as she looked, this young 
 woman's memory never failed her in a single particular, 
 and her evidence was given with unhesitating clearness. 
 Cresswell had fetched her to do a "bit of writing." A 
 lady in the darkened sitting-room at Lockhart Cottages 
 had shown her a folded paper, which she called a "list of 
 furniture," and had asked her and Cresswell to witness 
 her signature. She had thereupon written the name 
 "Dorothea Derrick," at which Cresswell had seemed sur- 
 prised, and had uttered a whispered remonstrance. The
 
 Tracked Down. 317 
 
 lady, who was wearing deep mourning, and looked very 
 ill, had turned very red and seemed annoyed. She had 
 been thinking so much of her sister, she said, that she had 
 signed her name by accident, instead of her own, but it 
 did not matter, and she would alter it by and bye. Cress- 
 well and Miss Huddleston had then signed their names, 
 and the latter, after receiving half a crown for her trouble, 
 had left the house. All this, she positively asserted, oc- 
 curred on the day following the funeral of Mrs. Derrick, 
 whom she had never seen, yet to whose will her signature 
 was found appended as a witness. 
 
 At this point the Hon. Darcy was recalled, and un- 
 expectedly questioned by the coroner as to his relations 
 with the deceased lady and her missing sister. Phyllis, 
 he stated, was of a vindictive and jealous disposition. 
 Through her influence misunderstandings had arisen be- 
 tween himself and his wife, although, as he could show 
 by a deed drawn up at Plymouth in the preceding year, 
 he had settled a handsome income upon his sister-in-law 
 to insure her silence and to keep her from troubling him. 
 
 It was late in the afternoon before the coroner com- 
 menced his summing up, and he did not fail to comment 
 very strongly upon the unsatisfactory character of a great 
 deal of the evidence, notably that of the deceased lady's 
 husband, which would tend to completely destroy any 
 possible sympathy which might be felt with him in his 
 bereavement. In the absence of either of the two wit- 
 nesses to Mrs. Derrick's death, and in the ctrange circum- 
 stances of their flight and the forgery of the will by 
 Phyllis Knight, following the evidence proving that it 
 was she who purchased the laudanum found in the body 
 of the deceased, and, further, that it was she who re- 
 ceived the lawyer's important letter in her sister's absence, 
 it was for the jury to decide first, whether Dorothea 
 Derrick came to her death by natural means; secondly,
 
 318 Tracked Down. 
 
 whether, in the over-excited state of Phyllis' nerves, and 
 the provocation she had received in the facts of her painful 
 domestic history, she had, in a sudden impulse either of 
 jealousy, aggravated by the sight of Darcy Derrick in 
 the garden, or the desire to become possessed of her 
 sister's fortune, murdered her sister; and, thirdly, as to 
 whether there was any evidence to prove that Maria 
 Cresswell was an accessory before or after the fact. 
 
 After half an hour's deliberation, the jury returned a 
 verdict of willful murder against Phyllis Knight, and 
 acquitted Maria Cresswell of all complicity in the crime, 
 they holding that Dorothea Derrick had met death by a 
 blow inflicted with some blunt instrument by her sister 
 after the latter had ineffectually endeavored to procure 
 her death by administering laudanum in large quantities. 
 
 Evening was closing in as Aylmer, worried, excited, 
 and weary, hurriedly left the precincts of the court, and, 
 jumping into a passing cab, gave the address: 
 
 "40 Ashgrove road." 
 
 And close behind him in another cab sat the Hon. 
 Darcy Derrick, tracking him home.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 DARCY FINDS HIS WIFE. 
 
 Rosa Read at half-past six that evening let herself out 
 through the garden gate of 40 Ashgrove road, her hands 
 laden with flowers from the conservatory, intended for 
 the Easter decoration of the church where her favorite 
 curate officiated. 
 
 Aylmer had arrived home in a cab a few minutes earlier, 
 and had promptly repaired to his study, where Dorothy 
 awaited him. Rosa knew quite well that these young 
 people were in love with each other. She was both too 
 vain and too sweet-tempered to be jealous, but she felt, 
 as she herself expressed it, a "little bit left out in the 
 cold," and decided that a mild flirtation with the curate 
 would revive her drooping spirits. 
 
 Scarcely, however, had the gate swung to behind her 
 when she found herself involved in a thrilling adventure 
 of the kind specially dear to her heart. Ashgrove road 
 was thickly bordered with trees, and from under the heavy 
 shadows cast by those on the opposite side of the way, 
 Rosa discerned in the twilight the figure of a tall, slightly- 
 built man, dressed in a light gray suit, moving along in 
 stealthy fashion and accommodating his steps to hers. 
 
 Being extremely pretty, ill-bred and self-conscious, 
 Rosa was not unaccustomed to similar attentions from 
 admiring strangers, and she was very far from resenting 
 them. It was Saturday evening, and on Saturdays Ayl- 
 mer had no night work at his office, consequently dinner 
 was a movable feast and punctuality not a matter of mo-
 
 320 Darcy Finds His Wife. 
 
 ment. Rosa sauntered along, humming the "Hallelujah 
 Chorus" and casting every now and then glances of as- 
 sumed indifference, veiling very real curiosity, in the 
 direction of the young man in gray. 
 
 At last, as they passed into another quiet road about 
 five minutes' walk from her home, the stranger, who had 
 been narrowly observing Rosa's style and carriage, 
 crossed the road and walked alongside of her for a few 
 seconds without speaking. 
 
 A little frightened, the girl looked up. The man raised 
 his hat and looked down into her pretty face, smiling 
 broadly. Such blue eyes under such a length of lash 
 Rosa had never seen before. Under their influence she 
 blushed and gave a half smile in return. At once her 
 new acquaintance broke into speech in a singularly sweet 
 voice in a caressing Irish accent. 
 
 "Do, pray, forgive me," he said, deprecatingly, "but I 
 couldn't wait for an introduction. Ever since I first saw 
 you I can think of nothing else. I dreamed about you 
 all last night, and to-day I have roamed about for hours 
 in the hope of getting a word with you. You are not 
 offended?" 
 
 He had taken the measure of Rosa's mind with perfect 
 accuracy. She blushed and giggled. 
 
 "I really can't listen to such stuff," she said, evidently 
 much pleased. "And besides it isn't proper from a com- 
 plete stranger " 
 
 "But why should we be strangers?" he asked eagerly. 
 "Here is my card." 
 
 And he thrust in her hand a card bearing the name of 
 "Mr. Jack Wyverley," and the address of a West End 
 club. 
 
 "That doesn't tell me much," said Rosa. "I don't even 
 know when you first saw me." 
 
 "It was in church last Sunday," Darcy hazarded.
 
 Darcy Finds His Wife. 321 
 
 "That's odd, for I generally see everybody in church, 
 and I don't remember you." 
 
 "Don't walk so fast," he pleaded. "Can't I get to know 
 your people somehow? I know something about them. 
 Mr. Aylmer Read, of the Daily Post, I've met several 
 times." 
 
 "He's my cousin. But he'd be fearfully angry if he 
 knew a stranger had talked to me." 
 
 "Then don't tell him. But can't I call to-morrow after- 
 noon ? You can pretend you met me at a dance or some- 
 where, you know. Are your mother and sisters very 
 particular ?" 
 
 "Oh, mamma is very strict and very nice by fits and 
 starts. And I haven't any sisters." 
 
 "If there is only your mother in the house with you 
 I'll risk it. She's sure to have a nap in the afternoon." 
 
 "She does sometimes. But we have a visitor staying 
 with us." 
 
 "Not a man! Oh, Miss Read, don't tell me it is a 
 man. I shall be awake all night with jealousy." 
 
 "How dreadfully absurd you are!" exclaimed Rosa, 
 with a little scream of laughter, deciding, as the light of 
 a road lamp fell on his face, that her new admirer was 
 quite the handsomest man she had ever seen. "Of course 
 it's not a man, though it's really no affair of yours, and 
 you mustn't detain me now. I am in a hurry to help 
 decorate the church and be back by dinner time." 
 
 "I am not detaining you. And I must call at your 
 house. You must invent some story to-morrow to quiet 
 the two old ladies " 
 
 "Our visitor is not an old lady. She is perfectly love- 
 ly, and I dare say if you were to see her you wouldn't 
 want to look at me again." 
 
 "The woman does not exist whom I would rather look
 
 322 Darcy Finds His Wife. 
 
 at than you," Darcy exclaimed, with what sounded like 
 genuine enthusiasm, gently lifting her ungloved hand to 
 his lips and kissing it fervently. "Has this friend eyes 
 like yours? Soft, brown hair like yours? And a com- 
 plexion like yours ? Tell me that !" 
 
 "She certainly hasn't very much color, and she dyes 
 her hair," Rosa admitted, "but she has the most lovely 
 hazel-gray eyes you ever saw, and my cousin Aylmer 
 never looks at me when she is about. Not that I care 
 about that !" 
 
 "I should think not! But how generously you speak 
 of this lady's beauty! Very few girls are so nice about 
 each other. I suppose she is an old school-fellow of 
 yours ?" 
 
 "Oh, dear, no. She is Aylmer's friend, and until he 
 brought her to the house, a week ago yesterday, mamma 
 and I had never seen her." 
 
 "It must be nice for you to have some one to go about 
 with?" 
 
 "I thought it would be. But she hasn't once been out- 
 side of the house and garden since she came. Isn't it too 
 bad?" 
 
 "Shameful ! If I only had the chance I would spend 
 every moment of my life near you ! Here is the church, 
 and this delightful walk has come to an end. Give me 
 one of those buds you have there, just as a souvenir. 
 When you come out you will find me waiting to see you 
 home. To-morrow you will see me in church, and on the 
 following day I will call at your house and tell your 
 mother very plainly that I have fallen in love with you 
 and mean to marry you. Won't you give me a kiss ? No 
 one will see." 
 
 But Rosa, affecting to be scandalized, ran past him 
 to the church. A very little talk with the curate and the
 
 Darcy Finds His Wife. 323 
 
 girls who were decorating the altar sufficed her. She 
 was burning to rejoin her new admirer outside the church, 
 and perhaps inclined to be less stern than before on the 
 subject of the kiss. But her hopes were doomed to dis- 
 appointment. Scarcely had her pretty figure disappeared 
 within the building than the Hon. Darcy Derrick pulled 
 out his watch, glanced at the time, and set off at topmost 
 speed for the nearest cab-stand. 
 
 "A week yesterday," he muttered to himself. Tale, 
 dyed golden hair, gray eyes I think that's enough to go 
 upon! I thought there was something odd about the 
 interest that big press man took in the business, and my 
 instincts generally turn out right in the end." 
 
 By the time that Rosa Read, on the tiptoe of expecta- 
 tion, left the church, her alleged admirer was being rapid- 
 ly driven in the direction of Scotland Yard, whence he 
 speedily returned in a four-wheeler and the company of 
 two other men in the neighborhood of Ashgrove road. 
 
 Not a word did Rosa utter concerning her adventure 
 to the other occupants of the house, although her in- 
 creased vivacity might have shown them that something 
 unusual had occurred. But Aylmer and Dorothy were 
 far too preoccupied, and Mrs. Read was too unobservant 
 to take notice of the young lady's exuberant spirits. 
 
 In his study before dinner Aylmer had detailed to 
 Dorothy all that had taken place at the coroner's inquiry 
 that day. Even the incident of his encounter with Darcy 
 he mentioned, and was surprised at the importance she 
 attached to it. 
 
 "You don't know how cunning he is," she explained. 
 "Something in your manner may have told him that you 
 know more than you are supposed to know about the 
 affair." 
 
 "I couldn't answer the brute as if I liked him," Aylmer 
 admitted. "Frankly, I could have kicked the fellow for
 
 324 Darcy Finds His Wife. 
 
 daring to speak to me, but any man who had read the 
 case would have felt the same." 
 
 Dorothy shook her head, but she did not answer. She 
 was far indeed from liking Aylmer the less because he 
 could not restrain his contempt for Derrick, but she 
 dreaded the latter's treacherous slyness, and her horror 
 of him was, if possible, strengthened by the lying testi- 
 mony he had that day given against her dead sister's 
 name. 
 
 Never yet since she had sought the shelter of Aylmer's 
 roof had she felt so anxious and frightened. During din- 
 ner she sat, eating nothing, pretending to listen to Mrs. 
 Read's prosing, pretending to laugh at Rosa's chatter, 
 but with aH her senses strained and on the alert for some 
 sign from the man she so feared and hated. 
 
 Before eight o'clock the sign came. Both she and 
 Aylmer were listening for the tardy arrival of the boy 
 with the evening paper containing the fullest account 
 of the day's proceedings. But when the parlor maid 
 opened the garden gate from the house in response to 
 the lad's accustomed ring, and proceeded to unlatch the 
 front door, there came a sudden pause, followed by the 
 sound of men's voices speaking in low, persuasive tones 
 in the passage. 
 
 Aylmer and Dorothy turned pale at the same moment 
 and glanced at each other. 
 
 The parlor maid, very red, and evidently much fright- 
 ened, hurriedly entered the dining-room. 
 
 "Please, sir, there's two men as wants to see the lady 
 staying here. It's some mistake, and I've told them so ; 
 but they won't go. Will you please come out and speak 
 to them?" 
 
 Aylmer at once rose and left the room, stopping by a 
 gesture Dorothy, who would have accompanied him. In 
 the hall the two men were waiting, clearly members of
 
 Darcy Finds His Wife. 325 
 
 the police force, alert and businesslike in manner, and 
 perfectly respectful. 
 
 "No offense, sir," said one, proffering his professional 
 card, "but from information received we have reason to 
 believe there's a lady staying in this house who is wanted 
 by the police on rather a serious charge." 
 
 "You have made a very grave mistake," Aylmer said, 
 calmly. "I am Aylmer Read, chief sub-editor of the 
 Daily Post, and there are no ladies in this house but 
 three friends and relatives of my own." 
 
 "Beg pardon, sir, but in the exercise of our duty we 
 should like to see and question those three ladies." 
 
 "It is impossible," Aylmer was beginning, but before 
 the words were well out of his mouth he was joined by 
 Dorothy from the dining-room, the door of which she 
 carefully closed behind her. 
 
 She had come in the fear lest sheltering her should 
 in any way injure Aylmer's position. She felt certain 
 that Darcy had tracked her to earth, and that further 
 concealment would be worse than useless, since it might 
 only cast serious suspicion on Aylmer. 
 
 At sight of this fourth person the man who had already 
 spoken whistled very softly to himself. 
 
 "If I'm not very much mistaken, this is the person we 
 are after," he said. "Will you oblige me with your name, 
 madam?" 
 
 "Mr. Read knows me as Mrs. Ransome, but my real 
 name is Knight." 
 
 "Then I must ask you to come with us. A cab is 
 waiting outside." 
 
 And thus, with the slightest difficulty or attempt at 
 a struggle, was the capture of the missing woman effect- 
 ed, and Darcy Derrick's supreme cleverness vindicated. 
 With more than a woman's pettiness and vanity, he pos- 
 sessed all a woman's quick, unreasoning intuition. He
 
 326 Darcy Finds His Wife. 
 
 had felt convinced that Aylmer's enmity and disdain pro- 
 ceeded from a personal source, and, acting on that hint 
 alone, he had brought about the capture of the woman 
 who stood between him and ten thousand a year. 
 
 Truly Darcy's star was in the ascendant. 
 
 At Ashgrove road Aylmer had the questions, the terror 
 and the excited reproaches of his womankind to meet 
 and to allay. 
 
 But the sight of the woman he would have laid down 
 his life to protect borne away from his house a prisoner 
 affected him so terribly that, regardless of his aunt's 
 voluble inquiries, he locked himself into his study and 
 ignored all feminine tappings and quaverings through 
 the keyhole. 
 
 So poor Mrs. Read had to go to bed with "one of 
 her headaches," brought on by baffled curiosity, leaving 
 the elucidation of the mystery in the hands of Rosa, who, 
 by dint of running noisily up to her room and then creep- 
 ing down into the hall and waiting there on a chair for 
 four hours and a half for any sound of movement from 
 the study, succeeded in waylaying Aylmer as he left the 
 room to turn the lights out in the hall. 
 
 At sight of his cousin he started and looked displeased. 
 
 "What in the world are you sitting up for?" he asked 
 sharply. 
 
 "Oh, Aylmer, don't be cross and horrid. I'm so dread- 
 fully sleepy! But I was so anxious about dear Dolly 
 that I simply couldn't go to bed. Now, why don't you 
 tell me all the truth? I'm awfully fond of her and 
 wouldn't dream of going against her. And perhaps I 
 can tell you something, too. When I went around to 
 St. Ann's, just before dinner, a man followed me, and 
 would persist in talking to me, and, as I remember now, 
 asking a heap of questions about the people in this house. 
 Of course, I was furious, and did all I could to get rid of
 
 Darcy Finds His Wife. 327 
 
 him. But you know how dark the roads are about here, 
 and I didn't want to get murdered " 
 
 "What sort of a man?" 
 
 "Oh, a gentleman altogether. Dressed in gray, and 
 very, very handsome, with light hair and a beautiful, pale 
 complexion, and enormous blue eyes and " 
 
 "I know the brute! That was Darcy Derrick, and it 
 was through his successful pumping of you that Dorothy 
 has been arrested." 
 
 "But he said his name was Wyverley " 
 
 "He would say anything. Don't cry, Rosa. It can't 
 be helped now, and it was I who first aroused his sus- 
 picions." 
 
 "But, Aylmer do tell me, because you know I'm not 
 a bit prejudiced is Dolly really and truly the murderess, 
 Phyllis Knight?" 
 
 Aylmer turned upon her angrily. 
 
 "How can you, who have been with her for a whole 
 week, ask such a senseless question ? It is all a mistake 
 I may as well tell you, as it will all come out next week 
 Phyllis Knight is dead; the woman we know and love 
 is her sister, Dorothy. She is hiding because she is 
 married to that snake, Derrick, and hates the sight of 
 him. Now, whichever way the trial goes, the law will 
 give her to him. God help the poor child! I can't talk 
 any more. Good-night." 
 
 All the next day Aylmer was working in Dorothy's 
 behalf. To fetch Cresswell from her friend's at Acton 
 was his first move, after visiting Dorothy by permission 
 in company with Rosa. At this juncture, with Dorothy's 
 life and liberty in the balance, there must be no more 
 misconception as to her identity, and even she seemed to 
 recognize this, in a hopeless fashion. 
 
 On the Monday morning early, under a drizzling rain, 
 Aylmer stood, with Rosa by his side, before the as yet
 
 328 Darcy Finds His Wife. 
 
 unopened doors of the police court, a chapel-like edifice 
 situated in a sordid side street within a few seconds' walk 
 of the main road, among the usual crowd of dirty, be- 
 draggled looking women in hats with broken feathers, 
 every third woman carrying a dirtier, short-coated, pallid 
 baby in a torn plush cape, the typical personages who in- 
 variably congregate at such times and places. 
 
 The court was not large, and as they all waited in the 
 rain, many chance speculators drawn by curiosity con- 
 cerning the much-discussed case, joined the crowd by 
 twos and threes, under dripping umbrellas. Aylmer had 
 left no stone unturned during the past twenty-four hours 
 by which he could further Dorothy's interests, and had 
 secured in her defense one of the ablest advocates in 
 London, to whom he had on the previous day confided 
 the true facts of the case. As to Rosa., she had begged 
 so hard to be allowed to accompany, him to the court 
 that Aylmer had not the heart to refuse her, the more 
 so as he had seen the truth of her argument. 
 
 "Dolly will like a woman friend to be near her. You 
 know she almost said so yesterday." 
 
 Flushed and excited, Rosa's pretty face looked prettier 
 than ever under her jaunty, crape-trimmed hat as she 
 waited before the court by Aylmer's side, and her mur- 
 mured talk about "dear Dolly" appeared to attract the 
 attention of a handsome, surly-looking young man who 
 stood near, and who, with themselves, constituted the 
 well-dressed portion of the crowd on the steps just be- 
 yond the closed doors of the building. 
 
 Even in her genuine sympathy and liking for Dorothy 
 Rosa was pleasantly conscious that she was exciting the 
 attention of a man in the person of this stranger, of me- 
 dium height and thick-set, deep-chested figure, who, al- 
 though he lacked the effeminate beauty of Darcy Derrick, 
 possessed undeniable claims to good looks in his well-
 
 Darcy Finds His Wife. 329 
 
 marked features, curly, dark hair, and especially in a 
 pair of bright, boldly-glancing, gray eyes, with which 
 Rosa seemed strangely familiar. 
 
 "When that creature Derrick comes into court," Rosa 
 confided in an audible whisper to Aylmer, "it will be just 
 all I can do not to throw something at him. What a 
 dreadful pity he can't be hanged for something! Of 
 course you must thrash him, Aylmer, as soon as the case 
 is over. Thrash him and kick him! He ought to be 
 put to death by slow torture. I'm sure I should love him 
 to be burned alive, and watch him sizzling." 
 
 "So should I !" muttered the dark young man. 
 
 Aylmer looked annoyed, but Rosa blushed and laughed. 
 Dignity was a quality unknown to her, and she would 
 willingly have entered into conversation over the Ham- 
 mersmith tragedy with the good-looking stranger had not 
 Aylmer been there to restrain her. 
 
 When the court opened she was pleased to find that 
 the dark young man was following her closely, and that 
 he contrived to secure a seat next to her, very near the 
 prisoners' dock, which, in shape like a very large cage 
 open at the top, stood toward the centre of the hall, facing 
 the magistrate's chair on a dais under a shabby crimson 
 canopy. 
 
 The proceedings opened with the usual Monday lists 
 of "drunk and disorderly," "using obscene language and 
 assaulting the police in the performance of their duties," 
 and a few cases of thieving, one of the last, which espe- 
 cially touched Rosa, being that of two very little girls, 
 too small to be seen in the dock, who were led by an 
 extremely kind and fatherly big policeman up to the table 
 before the magistrate. 
 
 "How wonderfully short all the criminal classes are !" 
 whispered Rosa, who was prone to generalize, in Aylmer's 
 ear.
 
 330 Darcy Finds His Wife. 
 
 But Aylmer was in no mood to take an interest in 
 anything but the case for which he was waiting, and at 
 eleven o'clock, as had been previously announced, it came 
 up for hearing, and in response to the direction, "Bring 
 in the prisoner," two policemen left the hall, returning 
 one on each side of the fairest woman who had ever stood 
 in that court accused of the foul crime of murder. 
 
 A murmur ran through the building. People stood 
 up, whispering and jostling each other. The magistrate, 
 a man of keen, intellectual face, settled his pince-nez upon 
 his nose, and gazed long and attentively at the accused 
 woman. His son, a handsome lad of about fifteen, who 
 sat close beside him on the bench, stared at Dorothy with 
 all his eyes, and instantly hoped the "governor" wouldn't 
 be hard on her. Rosa Read burst out crying, and Ayl- 
 mer's heart thumped as though it would burst his ribs. 
 
 The woman he loved stood there, within a few feet 
 of him, paler and thinner than she had appeared less than 
 a year ago, when he had first seen her, but to his eyes 
 lovelier still because more helpless, more appealing, and 
 because, after one frightened look around the court, her 
 gaze sought his, and softened and brightened as she read 
 in his eyes the unwavering love he tried to show there. 
 
 Under her wide-brimmed black hat Dorothy's face 
 looked wan and white. The moment was nearing, she 
 knew well, against which she had fought so long, and 
 the future stretched, a gray blank shrouding horrible 
 possibilities, before her. Her head dropped forward as 
 the formal evidence of her arrest was taken, and her 
 pale lips could hardly form the words : 
 
 "Not guilty!" 
 
 The long tension had snapped now, and apathetically 
 she waited for the end she knew must come. A chair 
 was given her in the dock ; after two sleepless nights she 
 was thoroughly tired, and very soon her thoughts went
 
 Darcy Finds His Wife. 331 
 
 off in a waking dream, picturing what might have hap- 
 pened had she done what her heart prompted on that 
 midsummer day of the preceding year, when in her cab 
 she had been driven past Aylmer Read on her way to 
 Charing Cross station and the start of the "Love's Right" 
 Company. 
 
 "I believe I loved him then," she said to herself, "al- 
 though I would not let myself think so. And if I had 
 only stopped my cab and held out my hand to him, all 
 might have been so different. I might have been his 
 wife at this moment instead of " 
 
 " the whole truth. So help me God !" 
 
 Some one was being sworn a witness hitherto un- 
 heard. With a start Dorothy raised her head and saw 
 the tall, broad-shouldered figure of her faithful knight, 
 Aylmer Read, to whom the oath was being administered. 
 
 Briefly, but with absolute clearness and directness, he 
 answered the questions put to him as to his meeting with 
 the accused in Villiers street on the Friday afternoon of 
 the week before last, and as to taking her home in a cab 
 to his relations. 
 
 Questioned as to why he had done this : "The accused 
 lady is an old friend," he said boldly, "and I knew her to 
 be innocent of the charge." 
 
 Dorothy was watching and listening to him with a 
 beating heart. Her eyes were intently fixed on his face, 
 so that she did not hear the slight commotion which 
 occurred as a gentleman entered the court and took his 
 place at the solicitors' table. But before Aylmer could 
 frame a reply to the next inquiry put to him, Darcy Der- 
 rick sprang up from his seat, pale as death, muttering 
 something under his breath, with dilated eyes fixed upon 
 Dorothy's face. 
 
 The recognition had come! 
 
 Dorothy knew it, and lowered her head over her hands
 
 332 Darcy Finds His Wife. 
 
 folded in her lap. Nothing - seemed to her to matter now. 
 But God help that man if he tried to claim her as his 
 wife! 
 
 She heard a buzz of talking, then the magistrate's voice, 
 clear and metallic, speaking in raised tones : 
 
 "Not Phyllis Knight? Most extraordinary! What is 
 the meaning of this ? And who is she, then ?" 
 
 Then a little, thin-faced, elderly woman in black made 
 her way forward from the back of the court, and presently 
 Dorothy heard Cresswell telling the story of Phyllis' 
 death. 
 
 "And my mistress, Miss Dorothy, that is sitting over 
 there, told me I was to say it was her that was dead 
 and not Miss Phyllis, because she was married to a hor- 
 rible, wicked man, and if he thought she was dead he'd 
 let her alone. Miss Dorothy wasn't in the house when 
 her sister died, and when she found her dead on the floor 
 she was like to go mad. To accuse her of murdering 
 her was the stupidest and wickedest thing I ever heard !" 
 
 And here, before Cresswell could be brought to book 
 for wandering from the point, Dorothy broke down. To 
 see Darcy's white, triumphant face and smiling, scarlet 
 lips, to feel the possessive and caressing look from his 
 longing eyes, as they took in greedily every detail of her 
 face and form, stirred in her such a sick repulsion that 
 her senses seemed suddenly to fail her. She swayed in 
 her seat, and would have fallen had not a police officer 
 hurried to support her. On a few words from the magis- 
 trate she was assisted from the hall, and two hours later, 
 weak and nerveless, she entered a cab with Cresswell and 
 Rosa Read, and drove toward St. John's Wood amid an 
 unexpected and wholly disconcerting storm of cheering 
 from a crowd collected outside the door of the police- 
 court. 
 
 Rosa's delight knew no bounds. She had artlessly
 
 Darcy Finds His Wife. 333 
 
 confided her opinions, as the case proceeded, to the dark 
 young man at her side, who appeared to take the keenest 
 interest in the whole affair. As the cab door closed he 
 pressed forward as though he would have addressed some 
 words to Dorothy, but, seeing her evident condition of 
 nervous collapse, he refrained, and contented himself with 
 grasping Rosa's hand and whispering: 
 
 "To-morrow you will hear from me." 
 
 "Oh, my dear, sweet Dolly!" cried Rosa, embracing 
 Dorothy with much warmth as the cab drove off; "I am 
 so glad you have got off. You looked simply sweet in 
 that horrid old bird-ca^e, but I was, oh, so glad when 
 they let you out ! That nice, dark young man who shut the 
 cab-door for us didn't you notice him? must have a 
 lot of feeling. He actually had tears in his eyes when 
 dear old Cresswell told about your sister's death, and how 
 fond you were of each other. But one thing I am sorry 
 you missed. I don't mean the applause when the judge 
 said you weren't guilty, though he hardly pretended to 
 stop that, but the things he said about that Darcy Der- 
 rick's conduct. He talked about his 'callous cruelty/ and 
 'vindictiveness equaling his vice,' and a few horrid little 
 speeches like that ; and that Darcy creature actually took 
 out a pocket handkerchief and howled or, at least, if he 
 didn't howl, he really mopped tears up like a boy who's 
 been whipped. 'If only you were an assasisin,' I said 
 to that nice young man next to me, 'I should pay you 
 to wait for him when the case is over and stick him in 
 the back.' He said he shouldn't want paying. Oh, I 
 do hope, dear, you won't be vexed with me for talking 
 like that of a man who happens to be your husband !"
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 AND I,AST. 
 
 Close upon nine o'clock on the evening of the same 
 day Darcy Derrick sat alone in his flat near Addison 
 Road station. 
 
 The result of the inquiry had been all he could desire. 
 The woman he so passionately loved, after the fashion 
 so peculiar to men of his stamp, was alive, and sooner or 
 later he was resolved that she should be his. She was 
 his wife, and he could, and would, carry her off from 
 Aylmer Read's care at the earliest opportunity. Already 
 he had called at Ashgrove road, and had vainly entreated, 
 demanded and threatened on the subject of her detention, 
 and he had since then consulted his solicitor as to the 
 best means of getting hold of her, and had received a 
 legal opinion every way favorable to his views. Naturally 
 she would in time grow to love him as ardently as he 
 could wish. Darcy was frankly, incapable of believing 
 that any woman would long continue to resist him. And 
 in the meantime she and her fortune would be his. 
 
 Already he had arranged for detectives to watch her 
 every movement lest she should endeavor to again slip 
 through his fingers, and he was mentally preparing a 
 romantic abduction by night of his own wife after a style 
 which commended itself highly to his wholly un-English 
 imagination. 
 
 Meantime an adoring husband, undeservedly deserted 
 by his lawful wife, stands in need of consolation, and 
 with this aim Darcy had caused a dainty little cold supper
 
 And Last. 335 
 
 a deux to be sent in from the best restaurant in the neigh- 
 borhood, with the intention of discussing it in the com- 
 pany of a charming and sympathetic young person whose 
 acquaintance he had casually made a few days before. 
 
 The visitor was to have arrived at nine o'clock^ and 
 in deference to the prejudices which a censorious world 
 and a rebellious wife might be expected to entertain, 
 Darcy had considerately dismissed his attendant at half- 
 past eight, with full permission to remain away until the 
 afternoon of the following day. The testimony of ser- 
 vants in courts of law, as Darcy knew, is almost invariably 
 damaging to their masters, servants being as a rule prac- 
 tical and vulgar-minded persons, incapable of grasping 
 the higher and purer side of their employers' motives. 
 
 To Darcy there was nothing incongruous in the fact 
 that, while waiting for his expected guest, he should 
 employ his time in writing to his mother, to tell her 
 how cruelly his conduct had been misunderstood and 
 maligned by the magistrate that day, and how deeply his 
 feelings had been wounded by that gentleman's remarks. 
 
 Seated at a small table furnished with pens, ink and 
 paper, a siphon of soda, a decanter half filled with whiskey > 
 and a frequently replenished tumbler, Darcy felt tears of 
 self-pity rush into his eyes, and let them splash down 
 onto the open letter he was writing as he dilated on his 
 wrongs. He contrived that the tears should fall where 
 the ink was wet, because he knew the sight of their traces 
 would touch his mother, and he felt badly in need of 
 her sympathy. 
 
 "You, my only true friend," he wrote ; "the only woman 
 living who has ever really understood me, how you would 
 have suffered if you had seen me sitting in court to-day 
 a target for the contemptible sneers of a paltry English 
 Jack-in-office, whose senses had been stirred by the sight 
 of my wife's beauty ! Her sister was barely cold in her
 
 336 And Last. 
 
 grave before Dorothy flew to the protection of a lover. 
 Think of it, mother! While forging, plotting, and per- 
 juring herself that I might think her dead, she was all 
 the while living in this man's house at St. John's Wood, 
 and to-day when I called they would not admit me. The 
 tragedy of it lies in the fact that, ungrateful, deceitful 
 and cruel as she has proved herself, I love her still. Were 
 she really dead, as I believed until to-day, her entire for- 
 tune would be mine ; but I love her for herself, and I am 
 so overjoyed to find that she lives that I must forgive 
 her everything. Yet consider how she has made me suf- 
 fer! She has attacked me savagely, has fled from me, 
 preferred another man to me, publicly disgraced me, and 
 dragged my name in the dust! And I love her so pas- 
 sionately, so madly, that for the sake of her beautiful 
 figure, her soft, fair skin and shining, gray eyes, her sweet 
 voice, and the marvelous charm her whole personality 
 exercises over me, I must forgive her and never rest until 
 I take her to my heart, which her cruelty has gone near 
 to break." 
 
 Darcy put down his pen at this point and read over 
 what he had written. It was very affecting and a good 
 deal true, and it brought tears to his eyes. He drank a 
 tumbler of whiskey and soda, and set to work again with 
 renewed vigor. 
 
 "When I think over my life," he wrote, "it seems to 
 be made up of sacrifices for women. And yet only one 
 woman have I yet met who is worthy of a sacrifice, and 
 that is you, my tenderest and best of consolers and coun- 
 selors, my sweet, beautiful mother! This is one of the 
 darkest hours of my life, and but for the thought of your 
 sympathy I might be tempted to end an existence which 
 a poetic soul, an over-delicate sensibility and an intense 
 capability for loving have rendered barren and desolate. 
 I am not yet thirty-five, but what lies before me? I am
 
 And Last. 337 
 
 not a coward, and yet I shudder at the thought. I long 
 with all my soul for peaceful, happy rest, for a dreamless 
 'Garden of Proserpine.' " 
 
 "From too much love of living, 
 
 And hope and fear set free, 
 We thank with brief thanksgiving 
 
 Whatever gods may be. 
 That no life lives forever, 
 That dead men come back never, 
 That even the weariest river 
 
 Flows somewhere safe to sea." 
 
 Darcy quoted Swinburne's lines aloud as he again 
 put down his pen. He was unusually fond of poetry, 
 and in all his many wanderings over the face of the earth 
 he had never failed to take with him his favorite volumes 
 of Robert and Mrs. Browning, of Swinburne, de Musset, 
 Tennyson and some minor poets, whose sweetness of ut- 
 terance commended itself to him. His own verses were 
 often pretty, if a little feeble and over-sensuous, and he 
 would have liked nothing better than to be a minor poet 
 himself, had the exercise of such a profession brought him 
 in sufficient commercial return. Unfortunately for Darcy 
 he possessed all the artistic susceptibilities and tastes, 
 and was minded to indulge in all the irregularities usually 
 associated with genius, while he altogether lacked the 
 originative power which induces the world to overlook 
 or condone such drawbacks on the part of its gifted sons. 
 Had he possessed the makings of a great poet, or of a 
 brilliant prose writer, his eccentricities would have been 
 only what was to be expected from a genius, and the 
 recital of them would have tended to greatly enliven and 
 popularize his biography after death. But as it was, he 
 felt he was misunderstood. His conduct had been pub-
 
 338 And Last. 
 
 licly branded as cowardly and contemptible that very day, 
 and on leaving the police court he had been soundly hissed 
 and hooted by an ignorant and depraved crowd, who had 
 actually broken the windows of his hansom by the stones 
 and lumps of mud that they hurled at him. It was 
 enough, Darcy felt, to make a man kick the dust of Eng- 
 land off his boots and journey to the Great Sahara, but 
 that ten thousand a year and a beautiful wife who hates 
 you are powerful attractions to keep a man in any coun- 
 try, however undeserving. 
 
 He had become so much interested in his letter that for 
 the time he had forgotten his expected guest, so that when, 
 soon after half-past nine, the bell of his flat was rung, 
 he started and was almost annoyed by the interruption 
 to his flow of composition. 
 
 Soon a smile of satisfied vanity crossed his features. 
 He rose, and, going to the looking-glass over the dressing- 
 table in the adjoining bedroom, he smoothed his hair and 
 silky, slight mustache, rearranged his cravat, squirted 
 some scent about his face and the front of his coat, shot 
 out his cuffs, and, thus prepared for conquest, proceeded 
 to the entrance door of the tiny hall upon which his rooms 
 opened, and unfastened the latch. 
 
 But at this point a disappointment awaited him. In- 
 stead of the person he expected a man stood there a 
 broad-shouldered, deep-chested young man of medium 
 height and dark, saturnine face, who, as soon as the door 
 was opened, thrust his foot into the aperture and kept 
 it there. 
 
 He was too well dressed to be a dun, so, mentally 
 cursing him, Darcy inquired his business. 
 
 "My business is with you, Mr. Darcy Derrick." 
 
 There was a note of dogged determination about the 
 young man's voice, and Darcy, without knowing why, 
 felt apprehensive.
 
 And Last. 339 
 
 "If you have a writ or anything like that " he was 
 
 beginning when the stranger cut him short. 
 
 "Nothing of the sort. But you've got to have an in- 
 terview with me, so you may as well let me in at once 
 and get it over." 
 
 As he spoke, by a sudden movement he burst the door 
 wide open, and, thrusting Darcy aside, strode into the 
 sitting-room. 
 
 Darcy went back to the sitting-room and found the 
 dark young man, with his hands behind his back, con- 
 temptuously surveying the supper-table. Darcy went at 
 once to the open letter to his mother, which he had left 
 on his writing-table, and slipped it within his desk, from 
 the inside of which his fingers drew deftly forth some- 
 thing glistening, which he promptly secreted within the 
 pocket of his coat. Then he turned toward the young 
 man and addressed him with easy, gentle superiority. 
 
 "I am, of course, charmed to make your acquaintance," 
 he began, "but as I don't know who you are, and my time 
 is rather valuable " 
 
 "My name is Sholto Knight," said the stranger, 
 brusquely. 
 
 "My wife's brother! I am delighted to meet you. 
 Have some champagne to celebrate the event !" 
 
 As he cut the cork, with Sholto staring fixedly at him 
 the while, Darcy tried to remember what he had heard 
 from Phyllis and Dorothy of the man with whom he had 
 to deal. Gradually it became borne in on his mind that 
 this brother was a ne'er-do-well, who had been turned 
 out of his home and had gone abroad. Darcy had not 
 the slightest wish to know the man, and he was wondering 
 how he could get rid of him as he filled two glasses and 
 offered one to Sholto. 
 
 "Drink it off," he said, "to your sister's future happi- 
 ness and mine."
 
 34 And Last. 
 
 Sholto's fist was down in a minute, and the splintered 
 glass flew about the room. 
 
 "You cursed scoundrel !" burst from his lips. "Do 
 you think I'll drink with you? I've come here to give 
 you the soundest thrashing you ever had. As soon as 
 the news of my sister's death was cabled to New York 
 I came over. I was in court to-day and heard the evi- 
 dence, and now, you sneaking cur, you expect Phyllis 
 Knight's brother to drink with you !" 
 
 He drew from his pocket a small, stout dog-whip, and 
 fingered it lovingly, without once removing his eyes from 
 the face of Darcy. The latter had grown pale, and, back- 
 ing a little, contrived to put the supper-table between him- 
 self and his brother-in-law, while his fingers stealthily 
 sought the pocket of his coat. 
 
 Before he had time to draw his revolver the lash of 
 the dog whip was curling about his ears, stinging his 
 cheeks, and half blinding him. Sholto's blood was up, 
 and he did not stay his hand. 
 
 "That's for deceiving and deserting my sister Phyllis ; 
 and that's for breaking her heart and murdering her ; and 
 that's for blackening her memory ; and that's for ah !" 
 
 A shot whizzed past his head and embedded itself in 
 the opposite wall. Sholto caught Darcy's hand before his 
 fingers could touch the trigger again, and in dead silence 
 the two men wrestled for possession of the revolver. 
 
 This way and that, to right and left, they swayed. 
 Sholto had the advantage in youth, brute force and supe- 
 rior physical condition, but Darcy had the science of the 
 prize-ring at his fingers' ends, and was equally deft and 
 daring. He was fighting for his life, and he knew it. 
 There was a look of savage, murderous hate in Sholto's 
 eyes which was a danger signal to his adversary. Darcy 
 hated physical cruelty, but he told himself that he must 
 either kill the brute or be killed by him, and just at that
 
 And Last. 341 
 
 moment when his resistance seemed to be giving way 
 under Sholto's savage force, by a sudden movement with 
 his leg he tripped up his enemy and the pair fell heavily, 
 wrestling still, to the ground. 
 
 Darcy was uppermost, and by a sharp struggle he 
 wrenched himself free. He tried to spring to a standing 
 position, but Sholto gripped his feet, and brought him 
 to his knees. Kneeling thus, Darcy hurled himself upon 
 the other man with all his force, and strove to pin him to 
 the ground with one hand, while with the other, which 
 shook a little by this time from excitement and fatigue, 
 he pointed the revolver full at Sholto's head. 
 
 Before he could discharge it his hand was sharply 
 knocked up, diverting his aim at the moment that the 
 pistol clicked, and he fell backward without a cry. 
 
 The shot had entered his brain, and Darcy Derrick's 
 days of evil-doing were ended. 
 
 Slowly, and shaking a little, for to take a life is not an 
 every-day occurrence, even to a reckless man, Sholto 
 scrambled to his feet. He did not need to examine 
 Darcy 's body. He knew the man was dead, and for that 
 he had no regret whatever, but he did not care to look 
 upon the sorry sight at his feet. 
 
 "He was a villain," he said, half aloud, as though exon- 
 erating himself to some one who accused him. "And he 
 killed my sister Phyllis poor, pretty little Phyllis! It's 
 a good thing that he's out of the world. Dorothy's freed 
 from him, at any rate. Now she can marry the pretty 
 girl's cousin and have a bit of happiness. So I haven't 
 come over for nothing. 
 
 "I did it in self-defense, but unfortunately for me they 
 have a nasty way of calling that sort of thing murder in 
 these infernal civilized countries. As it is, he's been writ- 
 ing a lot of maudlin poetry and nonsense about dying,
 
 342 And Last. 
 
 and he expected somebody to supper who didn't come, 
 and he's been called names to-day in public, and his wife 
 won't live with him, so that they may well think he blew 
 his wicked brains out. But in case they don't, as nobody 
 knows I've come over, I shall slip back to New York by 
 the next boat. I'd like to have spoken to Dolly again, 
 but it's better not. She mightn't like my having had to 
 kill him, and some women will make themselves miserable 
 for years over a trifle like that." 
 
 Without another glance in Darcy's direction, he let 
 himself softly out. Fortune favored him. He slipped 
 down the stone stairs noiselessly as he had come, and, 
 driving off to his hotel, he speedily packed his hand-bag, 
 paid his bill, and entered the next train for Liverpool. 
 
 A week later in New York he read the cabled account 
 of the discovery of the body of the Hon. Darcy Derrick 
 by his valet on the Sunday afternoon after the trial, and 
 the verdict of "suicide while of unsound mind" returned 
 at the inquest. 
 
 "So that's safe !" he said, drawing a long breath. "And 
 now I can write to the pretty girl !" ' 
 
 Some days later Rosa Read received a letter with no 
 address and an American postmark. 
 
 "Dear Miss Rosa," it began. "Can you keep a secret ? 
 If you breathe a word in this letter to any one, and if 
 you don't burn it at once, you will bring a great deal 
 of trouble upon everybody, and worse than trouble upon 
 me. You told me at the inquiry you wanted Darcy Der- 
 rick to be flogged and killed. Well, he was flogged, and 
 he is dead. So you see some one had a mind to please 
 you and satisfy his sense of justice at the same time. I 
 hope Dorothy will marry your big cousin, and, perhaps, 
 if you are a good girl and keep single, I will some day 
 come over and marry you. Sholto Knight/'
 
 And Last. 343 
 
 Rosa' burned the letter and kept its contents more or 
 less a secret. For quite six months she lived in a flutter 
 of romantic expectation. But all this happened three 
 years ago. For two years Aylmer and Dorothy have been 
 man and wife ; friends, lovers and companions, they never 
 tire of each other's society. 
 
 Rosa says they are an ideal couple, but "a bit slow." 
 And Sholto had better hasten back, for Rosa is engaged 
 to be married to a stout brewer next June. 
 
 THE END.
 
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