[CHAPTER I.]
[CHAPTER II.]
[CHAPTER III.]
[CHAPTER IV.]
[CHAPTER V.]
[CHAPTER VI.]
[CHAPTER VII.]
[CHAPTER VIII.]
[CHAPTER IX.]
[CHAPTER X.]
[CHAPTER XI.]
[CHAPTER XII.]
[LIST OF WORKS]

MARION DARCHE

A STORY WITHOUT COMMENT

BY

F. MARION CRAWFORD

AUTHOR OF "SARACINESCA," "A ROMAN SINGER," "SANT' ILARIO," ETC.

New York
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND LONDON
1893

All rights reserved

Copyright, 1893,
By F. MARION CRAWFORD.

Norwood Press:
J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith.
Boston, Mass., U.S.A.

MARION DARCHE.

CHAPTER I.

Among the many peculiarities which contribute to make New York unlike other cities is the construction of what may be called its social map. As in the puzzles used in teaching children geography, all the pieces are of different shapes, different sizes and different colours; but they fit neatly together in the compact whole though the lines which define each bit are distinctly visible, especially when the map has been long used by the industrious child. What calls itself society everywhere else calls itself society in New York also, but whereas in European cities one instinctively speaks of the social scale, one familiar with New York people will be much more inclined to speak of the social map. I do not mean to hint that society here exists on a dead level, but the absence of tradition, of all acknowledged precedents and of all outward and perceptible distinctions makes it quite impossible to define the position of any one set in regard to another by the ordinary scale of superiority or inferiority. In London or Paris, for instance, ambitious persons are spoken of as climbing, in New York it would be more correct to speak of them as migrating or attempting to migrate from one social field to the next. It is impossible to imagine fields real or metaphorical yielding more different growths under the same sky.

The people in all these different sets are very far from being unconscious of one another's existence. Sometimes they would like to change from one set to another and cannot, sometimes other people wish them to change and they will not, sometimes they exchange places, and sometimes by a considerable effort, or at considerable expense, they change themselves. The man whose occupations, or tastes, or necessities, lead him far beyond the bounds of the one particular field to which he belongs, may see a vast deal that is interesting and of which his own particular friends and companions know nothing whatever. There are a certain number of such men in every great city, and there are a certain number of women also, who, by accident or choice, know a little more of humanity in general than their associates. They recognise each other wherever they meet. They speak the same language. Without secret signs or outward badges they understand instinctively that they belong to the small and exceptional class of human beings. If they meet for the first time, no matter where, the conversation of each is interesting to the other; they go their opposite ways never to meet again, perhaps, but feeling that for a few minutes, or a few hours, they have lived in an atmosphere far more familiar to them than that of their common everyday life. They are generally the people who can accomplish things, not hard to do in themselves but quite out of the reach of those whose life runs in a single groove. They very often have odd experiences to relate and sometimes are not averse to relating them. They are a little mysterious in their ways and they do not care to be asked whither they are going nor whence they come. They are not easily surprised by anything, but they sometimes do not remember to which particular social set an idea, a story, or a prejudice belongs, especially if they are somewhat preoccupied at the time. This occasionally makes their conversation a little startling, if not incomprehensible, but they are generally considered to be agreeable people and if they have good manners and dress like human beings they are much sought after in society for the simple reason that they are very hard to find.

In New York walking is essentially the luxury of the rich. The hard-working poor man has no time to lose in such old-fashioned sport and he gets from place to place by means of horse cars and elevated roads, by cabs or in his own carriage, according to the scale of his poverty. The man who has nothing to do keeps half-a-dozen horses and enjoys the privilege of walking, which he shares with women and four-footed animals.

The foregoing assertions all bear more or less directly upon the lives of the people concerned in the following story. They all lived in New York, they all belonged to the same little oddly-shaped piece in the social puzzle map, some of them were rich enough to walk, and one of them at least was tolerably well acquainted with a great many people in a great many other sets. On a certain winter's morning this latter individual was walking slowly down Lexington Avenue in the direction of Gramercy Park. He was walking, not because he was enormously rich, not because he had nothing to do, and not because he was ill. He was suffering momentarily from an acute attack of idleness, very rare in him, but intensely delightful while it lasted.

In all probability Russell Vanbrugh had been doing more work than was good for him, but as he was a man of extremely well-balanced and healthy nervous organisation the one ill effect he experienced from having worked harder than usual was a sudden and irresistible determination to do absolutely nothing for twenty-four hours. He was a lawyer by profession, a Dutchman by descent, a New Yorker by birth, a gentleman by his character and education, if the latter expression means anything, which is doubtful, and so far as his circumstances were concerned he was neither rich nor poor as compared with most of his associates, though some of his acquaintances looked up to him as little short of a millionaire, while others could not have conceived it possible to exist at all with his income. In appearance he was of middle height, strongly built but not stout, and light on his feet. On the whole he would have been called a dark man, for his eyes were brown and his complexion was certainly not fair. His features were regular and straight but not large, of a type which is developing rapidly in America and which expresses clearly enough the principal national characteristics—energy, firmness, self-esteem, absence of tradition, and, to some extent, of individuality—in so far as the faculties are so evenly balanced as to adapt themselves readily to anything required of them. Russell Vanbrugh was decidedly good-looking and many people would have called him handsome. He was thirty-five years of age, and his black hair was turning a little gray at the temples, a fact which was especially apparent as he faced the sun in his walk. He was in no hurry as he strolled leisurely down the pavement, his hands in the pockets of his fur coat, glancing idly at the quiet houses as he passed. The usual number of small boys was skating about on rollers at the corners of the streets, an occasional trio of nurse, perambulator and baby came into view for a moment across the sunlit square ahead of him, and a single express-waggon was halting before a house on the other side of the street, with one of its wheels buried to the hub in a heap of mud-dyed snow. That was all. Few streets in the world can be as quiet as Lexington Avenue at mid-day. It looks almost like Boston. Russell Vanbrugh loved New York in all its aspects and in all its particulars, singly and wholly, in winter and summer, with the undivided affection which natives of great capitals often feel for their own city. He liked to walk in Lexington Avenue, and to think of the roaring, screaming rush in Broadway. He liked to escape from sudden death on the Broadway crossing and to think of the perambulator and the boys on roller skates in Lexington Avenue; and again, he was fond of allowing his thoughts to wander down town to the strange regions which are bounded by the Bowery, Houston Street, the East River and Park Row. It amused him to watch his intensely American surroundings and to remember at the same time that New York is the third German city in the world. He loved contrasts and it was this taste, together with his daily occupation as a criminal lawyer, which had led him to extend his acquaintance beyond the circle in which his father and mother had dined and danced and had their being.

He was thinking—for people can think while receiving and enjoying momentary impressions which have nothing to do with their thoughts—he was thinking of a particularly complicated murder case in which the murderer had made use of atropine to restore the pupils of his victim's eyes to their natural size lest their dilatation should betray the use of morphia. He was watching the boys, the house, the express-cart, and the distant perambulator, and at the same time he was hesitating as to whether he should light a cigarette or not. He was certainly suffering from the national disease, which is said by medical authorities to consist in thinking of three things at once. He was just wondering whether, if the expressman murdered the nurse and used atropine the boy would find it out, when the door of a house he was passing was opened and a young girl came out upon the brown stone steps and closed it behind her. Her gray eyes met his brown ones and they both started slightly and smiled. The girl's bright colour grew a little more bright, and Vanbrugh's eyelids contracted a little as he stopped and bowed.

"Oh—is that you?" asked Miss Dolly Maylands, pausing an instant.

"Good morning," answered Vanbrugh, smiling again as she tripped over the brown steps and met him on the pavement.

"I suppose your logical mind saw the absurdity of answering my question," said Dolly, holding out a slender gloved hand.

"I see you have been at your charities again," answered Vanbrugh, watching her fresh face closely.

"You say that as you would say, 'You have been at your tricks again.' Why do you tease me? But it is quite true. How did you guess it?"

"Because you began by chaffing me. That shows that you are frivolous to-day. When you have been doing something serious you are always frivolous. When you have been dancing you are always funereal. It is very easy to tell what you have been doing."

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself."

Miss Maylands frequently made use of this expression—a strong one in its way.

"I know I ought," answered Vanbrugh with humility.

"But you are not. You are a hypocrite, like all the rest of them." Dolly's face was grave, but she glanced at her companion as she spoke.

"Of course I am a hypocrite. Life is too short. A man cannot waste his time in hacking his way through the ice mountain of truth when he may trot round to the other side by the path of tact."

"I hate metaphors."

"So do I."

"Why do you use them, then?"

"It is righteous to do the things one does not like to do, is it not?"

"Not if they are bad."

"Oh! then I am good, am I?"

"Perhaps. I never make rash assertions."

"No? You called me a hypocrite just now, and said I was like the rest of them. Was not that a rash assertion?"

"Oh dear! You are too logical! I give it up."

"I am so glad."

For a few moments they walked along in silence, side by side, in the sunshine. They were a couple pleasant to look at, yet not very remarkable in any way. Dolly Maylands was tall—almost as tall as Vanbrugh, but much fairer. She had about her the singular freshness which clings to some people through life. It is hard to say wherein the quality lies, but it is generally connected with the idea of great natural vitality. There are two kinds of youth. There is the youth of young years, which fades and disappears altogether, and there is the youth of nature which is abiding, or which, at most, shrivels and dies as rose leaves wither, touched with faint colour, still and fragrant to the last. Dolly's freshness was in her large gray eyes, her bright chestnut hair, her smooth, clear skin, her perfect teeth, her graceful figure, her easy motion. But it was deeper than all these, and one looking at her felt that it would outlast them all, and that they would all try hard to outlast one another. For the rest, the broad brow showed thought, if not intellect, and the mouth, rather large for the proportion of the lower face, but not at all heavy, told of strength and courage, if not of real firmness. Dolly Maylands was large, well grown, thin, fresh and thoughtful, with a dash of the devil, but of a perfectly innocent devil, only a little inclined to laugh at his own good works and to prefer play to prayers, as even angels may when they are very young and healthy, and have never done anything to be sorry for.

"You seem to be walking with me," observed Dolly presently.

"Well—yes—I suppose that is the impression we are giving the expressman over there."

"And in court, in one of your cases, if he were a witness, he would probably give the idea that we met in Lexington Avenue by appointment. By the bye, one does not walk in Lexington Avenue in the morning."

"That is what we are doing," answered Vanbrugh imperturbably.

"You know that it is compromising, I suppose."

"So do you."

"Then why do you do it?"

"Why do we do it? Is that what you meant to ask?"

"I did not mean anything."

"So I supposed, from what you said." Vanbrugh smiled and Dolly laughed as their eyes met.

"I was here first," said Vanbrugh after a moment.

"Not at all. I have been at least an hour at old Mrs. Trehearne's."

"I may have seen you go in, and I may have waited all that time to catch you on the door-step."

"So like you! Why are you not defending the chemist who cremated his fifth wife alive in a retort, or the cashier who hypnotised the head of his firm and made him sign cheques with his eyes shut, or the typhus-germ murderer, or something nice and interesting of that sort? Are you growing lazy in your old age, Mr. Vanbrugh?"

"Awfully!"

"How well you talk. When I have made a beautiful long speech and have beaten my memory black and blue for words I cannot remember, just to be agreeable—you say 'awfully,' and think you are making conversation."

"I am not good at conversation."

"Apparently not. However, you will not have much chance of showing off your weakness this morning."

"Why not?"

"You might say you are sorry! Why not? Because I am not going far."

"How far?"

"That is a rude question. It is like asking me where I am going. But I will be nice and tell you—just to make you feel your inferiority. I am going to see Marion Darche."

"Mrs. Darche lunches about this time."

"Exactly. It is within the bounds of possibility that I may be going to lunch with her."

"Oh, quite!"

Again there was a short pause as the two walked on together. Dolly took rather short, quick steps. Vanbrugh did not change his gait. There are men who naturally fall into the step of persons with whom they are walking. It shows an imitative disposition and one which readily accepts the habits of others. Neither Dolly nor her companion were people of that sort.

"I was thinking of Mrs. Darche," said Dolly at last.

"So was I. Extremes meet."

"They have met in that case, at all events," answered Dolly, growing serious. "It would not be easy to imagine a more perfectly ill-matched couple than Marion and her husband."

"Do you think so?" asked Vanbrugh, who was never inclined to commit himself.

"Think so? I know it! And you ought to know it, too. You are always there. Nobody is more intimate there than you are."

"Yes,—I often see them."

"Yes," said Dolly looking keenly at him, "and I believe you know much more about them than you admit. You might as well tell me."

"I have nothing especial to tell," answered Vanbrugh quietly.

"There is something wrong. Well—if you will not tell me, Harry Brett will, some day. He is not half so secretive as you are."

"That does not mean anything. The word secretive is not to be found in any respectable dictionary, nor in any disreputable one either, so far as I know."

"How horrid you are! But it is quite true. Harry Brett is not in the least like you. He says just what he thinks."

"Does he? Lucky man! That is just what I am always trying to do. And he tells you all about the Darches, does he?"

"Oh no! He has never told me anything. But then, he would."

"That is just the same, you know."

"What makes you think there is anything wrong?" asked Vanbrugh, changing his tone and growing serious in his turn.

"So many things—it is dreadful! What o'clock is it?"

"Ten minutes to one."

"Have you time for another turn before I go in?"

"Of course—all the time. We can walk round Gramercy Park and down Irving Place."

Instinctively both were silent as they passed the door of Marion Darche's house and did not resume their conversation till they were twenty paces further down the street. Then Vanbrugh was the first to speak.

"If it is possible for you and me to talk seriously about anything, Miss Maylands, I should like to speak to you about the Darches."

"I will make a supreme effort and try to be serious. As for you—"

Dolly glanced at Vanbrugh, smiled and shook her head, as though to signify that his case was perfectly hopeless.

"I shall do well enough," he answered, "I am used to gravity. It does not upset my nerves as it does yours."

"You shall not say that gravity upsets my nerves!"

"Shall not? Why not?" inquired Vanbrugh.

Dolly walked more slowly, putting down her feet with a little emphasis, so to say.

"Because I say you shall not. That ought to be enough."

"Considering that you can stand idiot asylums, kindergartens, school children, the rector and the hope of the life to come, and are still alive enough to dance every night, your nerves ought to be good. But I did not mean to be offensive—only a little wholesome glass of truth as an appetiser before Mrs. Darche's luncheon."

"Puns make me positively ill at this hour!"

"I will never do it again—never, never."

"You are not making much progress in talking seriously about the Darches. I believe it was for that purpose that you proposed to drag me round and round this hideous place, amongst the babies and the nurses and the small yellow dogs—there goes one!"

"Yes—as you say—there he goes, doomed to destruction in the pound. Be sorry for him. Show a little sympathy—poor beast! Drowning is not pleasant in this weather."

"Oh you do not really think he will be drowned?"

"No. I think not. If you look, you will see that he is a private dog, so to say, though he is small and yellow. He is also tied to the back of the perambulator—look—the fact is proved by his having got through the railings and almost upset the baby and the nurse by stopping them short. Keep your sympathy for the next dog, and let us talk about the Darches, if you and I can stop chaffing."

"Speak for yourself, Mr. Vanbrugh. You frightened me by telling me the creature was to be drowned."

"Very well. I apologise. Since he is to live, what do you think is the matter with the Darche establishment? Let me put the questions. Is old Simon Darche in his right mind, so as to understand what is going on? Is John Darche acting honestly by the Company—and by other people? Is Mrs. Darche happy?"

Miss Maylands paused at the corner of the park, looked through the railings and smoothed her muff of black Persian sheep with one hand before she made any reply. Russell Vanbrugh watched her face and glanced at the muff from time to time.

"Well?"

"I cannot answer your questions," Dolly answered at last, looking into his eyes. "I do not know the answers to any of them, and yet I have asked them all of myself. As to the first two, you ought to know the truth better than I. You understand those things better than I do. And the last—whether Marion is happy or not—have you any particular reason for asking it?"

"No." Vanbrugh answered without the slightest hesitation, but an instant later his eyes fell before hers. She sighed almost inaudibly, laid her hand upon the railing and with the other raised the big muff to her face so that it hid her mouth and chin. To her, the lowering of his glance meant something—something, perhaps, which she had not expected to find.

"You ask on general—general principles?" she inquired presently, with a rather nervous smile.

But Vanbrugh did not smile. The expression of his face did not change.

"Yes, on general principles," he answered. "It is the main question, after all. If Mrs. Darche is not happy, there must be some very good reason for her unhappiness, and the reason cannot be far to seek. If the old gentleman is really losing his mind or is going to have softening of the brain—which is the same thing after all— well, that might be it. But I do not believe she cares so much for him as all that. If he were her own father it would be different. But he is John's father, and John—I do not know what to say. It would depend upon the answers to the other questions."

"Which I cannot give you," answered Dolly. "I wish I could."

Dolly gave the railings a little parting kick to knock the snow from the point of her over-shoe, lowered her muff and began to walk again. Vanbrugh walked beside her in silence.

"It is a very serious question," she began again, when they had gone a few steps. "Of course you think I spend all my time in frivolous charities and serious flirtations, and dances, and that sort of thing. But I have my likes and dislikes, and Marion is my friend. She is older than I, and when we were girls I had a little girl's admiration for a big one. That lasted until she got married and I grew up. Of course it is not the same thing now, but we are very fond of each other. You see I have never had a sister nor any relations to speak of, and in a certain way she has taken the place of them all. At first I thought she was happy, though I could not see how that could be, because—"

Dolly broke off suddenly, as though she expected Vanbrugh to understand what was passing in her mind. He said nothing, however, and did not even look at her as he walked silently by her side. Then she glanced at him once or twice before she spoke again.

"Of course you know what I am thinking of," she said at last. "You must have thought it all too, then and now, and very often. Of course—you had reason to."

"What reason?" Vanbrugh looked up quickly, as he asked the question.

"Oh, I cannot go into all that! You understand as well as I do. Besides, it is not a pleasant subject. John Darche was successful, young, rich, everything you like—except just what one does like. I always felt that she had married him by mistake."

"By mistake? What a strange idea. And who should the right man have been, pray?"

"Oh, no! She thought he was the right man, no doubt. It was the mistake of fate, or providence, or whatever you call the thing, if it was a mistake at all."

"After all," said Vanbrugh, "what reason have we, you or I, for saying that they are not perfectly happy? Perhaps they are. People are happy in so many different ways. After all, John Darche and his wife do not seem to quarrel. They only seem to disagree—or rather—"

"Yes," answered Dolly, "that is exactly it. It is not everything one sees or hears in the house. It is the suspicion that there are unpleasant things which are neither seen or heard by any of us. And then, the rest—your questions about the business, which I cannot answer and which I hardly understand. There are so many people concerned in an enormous business like that, that I cannot imagine how anything could be done without being found out."

"However such things are done," answered Vanbrugh, gravely, "and sometimes they are found out, and sometimes they are not. Let us hope for the best in this case."

"What would be the best if there were anything to find out?" asked Dolly, lowering her voice as they paused before Simon Darche's house. "Would it be better that John Darche should be caught for the sake of the people who would lose by him, or would it be better for his wife's sake that he should escape?"

"That is a question altogether beyond my judgment, especially on such short notice. Shall we go in?"

"We? Are you coming too?"

"Yes, I am going to lunch with the Darches too."

"And you never told me so? That is just like you! You get all you can out of me and you tell me nothing."

"I have nothing to tell," answered Vanbrugh calmly, "but I apologise all the same. Shall I ring the bell?"

"Unless you mean to take me round Gramercy Park again and show me more nurses and perambulators and dirty dogs. Yes, ring the bell please. It is past one o'clock."

A moment later Miss Dolly Maylands and Mr. Russell Vanbrugh disappeared behind the extremely well-kept door of Simon Darche's house in Lexington Avenue.

CHAPTER II.

Simon Darche stood at the window of his study, as Dolly and Vanbrugh entered the house. He was, at that time, about seventy-five years of age, and the life he had led had told upon him, as an existence of over excitement ultimately tells upon all but the very strong. Physically, he was a fine specimen of the American old gentleman. He was short, well knit, and still fairly erect; his thick creamy-white hair was smoothly brushed and parted behind, as his well-trimmed white beard was carefully combed and parted before. He had bushy eyebrows in which there were still some black threads. His face was ruddy and polished, like fine old pink silk that has been much worn. But his blue eyes had a vacant look in them, and the redness of the lids made them look weak; the neck was shrunken at the back and just behind the ears, and though the head was well poised on the shoulders, it occasionally shook a little, or dropped suddenly out of the perpendicular, forwards or to one side, not as though nodding, but as though the sinews were gone, so that it depended altogether upon equilibrium and not at all upon muscular tension for its stability. This, however, was almost the only outward sign of physical weakness. Simon Darche still walked with a firm step, and signed his name in a firm round hand at the foot of the documents brought to him by his son for signature.

He had perfect confidence in John's judgment, discretion and capacity, for he and his son had worked together for nearly twenty years, and John had never during that time contradicted him. Since the business had continued to prosper through fair and foul financial weather, this was, in Simon Darche's mind, a sufficient proof of John's great superiority of intelligence. The Company's bonds and stock had a steady value on the market, the interest on the bonds was paid regularly and the Company's dividends were uniformly large. Simon Darche continued to be President, and John Darche had now been Treasurer during more than five years. Altogether, the Company had proved itself to be a solid concern, capable of surviving stormy days and of navigating serenely in the erratic flood and ebb of the down-town tide. It was, indeed, apparent that before long a new President must be chosen, and the choice was likely to fall upon John. In the ordinary course of things a man of Simon Darche's age could not be expected to bear the weight of such responsibility much longer; but so far as any one knew, his faculties were still unimpaired and his strength was still quite equal to any demands which should be made upon it, in the ordinary course of events. Of the business done by the Company, it is sufficient to say that it was an important branch of manufacture, that the controlling interest was generally in the hands of the Darches themselves and that its value largely depended upon the possession of certain patents which, of course, would ultimately expire.

Simon Darche stood at the window of his study and looked out, smoking a large, mild cigar which he occasionally withdrew from his lips and contemplated thoughtfully before knocking off the ash, and returning it to his mouth. It was a very fine cigar indeed, equal in quality to everything which Simon Darche had consumed during the greater part of his life, and he intended to enjoy it to the end, as he had enjoyed most things ever since he had been young. John, he often said, did not know how to enjoy anything; not that John was in a hurry, or exhibited flagrantly bad taste, or professed not to care—on the contrary, the younger man was deliberate, thoughtful and fastidious in his requirements—but there was an odd strain of asceticism in him, which his father had never understood. It certainly was not of a religious nature, but it would have gone well together with a saintly disposition such as John did not possess. Perhaps indeed, John had the saintly temperament without the sanctity, and that, after all, may be better than nothing. He was thinner than his father and of a paler complexion; his hair was almost red, if not quite, and his eyes were blue—a well-built man, not ungraceful but a little angular, careful of his appearance and possessed of perfect taste in regard to dress, if in nothing else. He bestowed great attention upon his hands, which were small with slender fingers pointed at the tips, and did not seem to belong to the same epoch as the rest of him; they were almost unnaturally white, but to his constant annoyance they had an unlucky propensity to catch the dust, as one says of some sorts of cloth. If it be written down that a man has characteristically clean hands, some critic will be sure to remark that gentlemen are always supposed to have clean hands, especially gentlemen of the Anglo-Saxon race. It is a fact, nevertheless, that however purely Anglo-Saxon the possessor may be, there are hands which are naturally not clean and which neither ordinary scrubbing nor the care of the manicure can ever keep clean for more than an hour. People who are in the habit of noticing hands are well aware of the fact, which depends upon the quality of the skin, as the reputation for cleanliness itself generally does. John Darche's hands did not satisfy him as the rest of himself did.

So far as people knew, he had no vices, nor even the small tastes and preferences which most men have. He did not drink wine, he did not smoke, and he rarely played cards. He was a fairly good rider and rode for exercise, but did not know a pastern from a fetlock and trusted to others to buy his horses for him. He cared nothing for sport of any kind; he had once owned a yacht for a short time, but he had never been any further than Newport in her and had sold her before the year was out. He read a good deal in a desultory way and criticised everything he read, when he talked, but on the whole he despised literature as a trifle unworthy of a serious man's attention. His religious convictions were problematic, to say the least of it, and his outward practice took the somewhat negative form of never swearing, even when he was alone. He did not raise his voice in argument, if he ever argued, nor in anger, though he had a very bad temper. John Darche could probably say as disagreeable things as any man living, without exhibiting the slightest apparent emotion. He was not a popular man. His acquaintances disliked him; his friends feared him; his intimates and the members of his household felt that he held them at a distance and that they never really understood him. His father bestowed an almost childish admiration upon him, for which he received a partial compensation in John's uniformly respectful manner and unvarying outward deference. In the last appeal, all matters of real importance were left to the decision of Simon Darche, who always found it easy to decide, because the question, as it reached him, was never capable of more than one solution.

It is clear from what has been said that John Darche was not an amiable character. But he had one small virtue, or good trait, or good point, be it called as it may. He loved his wife, if not as a woman and a companion, at least as a possession. The fact was not apparent to the majority of people, least of all, perhaps, to Mrs. Darche herself, who was much younger than her husband and whose whole and loyal soul was filled with his cast-off beliefs, so to say, or, at least, with beliefs which he would have cast off if he had ever possessed them. Nevertheless, he was accustomed to consider her as one of his most valuable belongings, and he might have been very dangerous, had his enormous dormant jealousy been roused by the slightest show on her part of preference for any one of the half-dozen men who were intimate in the house. He, on his side, gave her no cause for doubting his fidelity. He was not loving, his manner was not affectionate, he often lost his temper and said cruel things to her in his cruel way; but so far as she knew he did not exchange ten words daily with any other woman, excepting Mrs. Willoughby, her aunt, and Dolly Maylands, her intimate friend. He was systematic in his daily comings and goings, and he regularly finished his evenings at one of the clubs. He slept little, but soundly, ate sparingly and without noticing what was offered him, drank four cups of tea and a pint of Apollinaris every day and had never been ill in his life, which promised to be long, active, uneventful and not overflowing with blessings for any one else.

At first it might seem that there was not much ground for the few words exchanged by Russell Vanbrugh and Dolly Maylands about the Darches' trouble before they entered the house. To all appearances, Simon Darche was in his normal frame of mind and had changed little during the last five years. So far as any one could judge, the Company was as solid as ever. In her outward manner and conversation Marion Darche seemed as well satisfied with her lot as she had been on the day of her marriage, when John had represented to her all that a man should be,—much that another man, whom she had loved, or liked almost to loving, in her early girlhood, had not been. The surface of her life was calm and unemotional, reflecting only the sunshine and storm of the social weather under which she had lived in the more or less close companionship of half a hundred other individuals in more or less similar circumstances.

There is just enough truth in most proverbs to make them thoroughly disagreeable. Take, for instance, the saying that wealth is not happiness. Of course it is not, any more than food and lodging, shoes and clothing, which are the ultimate forms of wealth, can be called happiness. But surely, wealth and all that wealth gives constitute a barrier against annoyance, mental and physical, which has almost as much to do with the maintenance of happiness in the end, as "climate and the affections." The demonstration is a simple one. Poverty can of itself under certain circumstances be a source of unhappiness. The possession of riches therefore is a barrier against the possibility of at least one sort of misery and relatively increases the chances of being happy on the whole. It is tolerably certain, that, without money, John Darche would have been little short of insufferable, and that his wife would have been chief among the sufferers. The presence of a great fortune preserved the equilibrium and produced upon outsiders the impression of real felicity.

Nevertheless, both Vanbrugh and Dolly Maylands, as has been seen, considered the fortune unsafe and apparent peace problematic. They were among the most intimate friends of the Darche household and were certainly better able to judge of the state of affairs than the majority. They had doubtless perceived in the domestic atmosphere something of that sultriness which foreruns a storm and sometimes precedes an earthquake, and being very much in sympathy with each other, in spite of the continual chaffing which formed the basis of their conversation, they had both begun to notice the signs of bad weather very nearly at the same time.

It must not be supposed that Mrs. Darche confided her woes to her friend, to use the current expression by which reticent people characterise the follies of others. It was not even certain at this time that she had any woes at all, but Dolly undoubtedly noticed something in her conduct which betrayed anxiety if not actual unhappiness, and Russell Vanbrugh, who, as has been observed, was intimately acquainted with many aspects of New York life, had some doubts as to the state of the Company's affairs. No one is really reticent. It would perhaps be more just to the human race as a whole to say that no two persons are capable of keeping the same secret at the same time. That is probably the reason why there is always some rumour of an approaching financial crisis, even while it is very much to the interest of all concerned to preserve a calm exterior. When a great house is about to have trouble, and even in some cases as much as two or three years before the disaster, there is a dull far-off rumble from underground, as though the foundations were trembling. There is a creaking of the timbers, an occasional and as yet unaccountable rattling of the panes, and sometimes a very slight distortion of the lines of the edifice, all proving clearly enough that a crash is at hand. As no one believes in presentiments, divinations or the gift of prophecy in these days, it is safe to assume that some one who knows the history of the thing has betrayed the secret, or has told his wife that there is a secret to be kept. In the matter of secrets there is but one general rule. If you do not wish a fact to be known, tell no one of its existence.

Concerning the particular reasons which led Dolly Maylands and Russell Vanbrugh to exchange opinions on the subject of the Darches, it is hardly necessary to speak here. The two were very intimate and had known each other for a long time, and, possibly, there was a tendency in their acquaintance to something more like affection than friendship. The fact that Dolly did not flirt with Vanbrugh in the ordinary acceptation of that word, showed that she might possibly be in love with him. As for Vanbrugh himself, no one knew what he thought and he did not intend that any one should. He had never shown any inclination to be married, though it was said that he, like many others, had been deeply attached to Mrs. Darche in former days; and Dolly, at least, believed that he still loved her friend in his heart, though she had neither the courage nor the bad taste to ask a question to which he might reasonably have refused an answer.

The only person in the household who seemed to have neither doubts nor uneasiness was old Simon Darche, and as it was more than likely that his intelligence had begun to fail, his own sense of security was not especially reassuring to others.

While Simon Darche was smoking his large mild cigar at the window, and while Dolly and Russell Vanbrugh were strolling by the railings of Gramercy Park, Mrs. Darche was seated before the fire in the library, and another friend of hers, who has a part to play in this little story and who, like Vanbrugh, was a lawyer, was trying to interest her in the details of a celebrated case concerning a will, and was somewhat surprised to find that he could not succeed. Harry Brett stood towards Marion Darche in very much the same friendly relation held by Vanbrugh in Dolly's existence. There was this difference, however, that Brett was well known to have offered himself to Mrs. Darche, who had refused him upon grounds which were not clear to the social public. Brett was certainly not so rich as John, but in all other respects he seemed vastly more desirable as a husband. He was young, fresh, good-looking, good-tempered. He belonged to a good New York family, whereas the Darches were of Canadian origin. He had been quite evidently and apparently very much in love with Marion, whereas John never seemed to have looked upon her as anything but a valuable possession, to be guarded for its intrinsic worth, and to be kept in good order and condition rather than loved and cherished. Every one had said that she should have married Brett, and when she chose John every one said that she had married his money. But then it is impossible to please every one. Brett was certainly not pleased. He had gone abroad and had been absent a long time, just when he should have been working at his profession. It was supposed, not without reason, that he was profoundly disappointed, but nevertheless, when he returned he looked as fresh and cheerful as ever, was kindly received by Mrs. Darche, civilly treated by her husband and forthwith fell into the position of especial friend to the whole family. He had made up his mind to forget all about the past, to see as much of Mrs. Darche as he could without falling in love with her a second time, as he would have called it, and he was doing his best to be happy in his own way. Within the bounds of possibility he had hitherto succeeded, and no one who wished well to him or Mrs. Darche would have desired to doubt the durability of his success. He had created an artificial happiness and spent his life in fostering the idea that it was real. Many a better man has done the same before him and many a worse may try hereafter. But the result always has been the same and in all likelihood always will be. The most refined and perfect artificiality is not nature even to him who most earnestly wishes to believe it is, and the time must inevitably come in all such lives when nature, being confronted with her image, finds it but a caricature and dashes it to pieces in wrath.

Brett's existence was indeed much more artificial than that of his old love. He had attempted to create the semblance of a new relation on the dangerous ground whereon an older and a truer one had subsisted. She, on her part, had accepted circumstances as they had formed themselves, and did her best to get what she could out of them without any attempt to deceive herself or others. Fortunately for both she was eminently a good woman, and Brett was a gentleman in heart, as well as in deed.

And now before this tale is told, there only remains the thankless task of introducing these last two principal figures in their pen-and-ink effigies.

Of Harry Brett almost enough has been said already. His happy vitality would have lent him something of beauty even if he had possessed none at all. But he had a considerable share of good looks, in addition to his height and well-proportioned frame, his bright blue eyes, his fresh complexion, and short, curly brown hair. He too, like Vanbrugh, belonged to the American type, which has regular features, arched eyebrows, and rather deep-set eyes. The lower part of his face was strong, though the whole outline was oval rather than round or square.

Rather a conventional hero, perhaps, if he is to be a hero at all, but then, many heroes have been thought to be quite average, ordinary persons, until the knot which heroism cuts was presented to them by fate. Then people discover in them all sorts of outward signs of the inward grace that can hit so very hard. Then the phrenologists descend upon their devoted skulls and discover there the cranial localities of the vast energy, the dauntless courage, the boundless devotion to a cause, the profound logic, by which great events are brought about and directed to the end. Julius Cæsar at the age of thirty was a frivolous dandy, an amateur lawyer, and a dilettante politician, in the eyes of good society in Rome.

Harry Brett, however, is not a great hero, even in this fiction—a manly fellow with no faults of any importance and no virtues of any great magnitude, young, healthy, good-looking, courageous, troubled a little with the canker of the untrue ideal which is apt to eat the common sense out of the core of life's tree, mistaken in his attempt to create in himself an artificial satisfaction in the friendship of the woman he had loved and was in danger of loving still, gifted with the clear sight which must sooner or later see through his self-made illusion, and possessed of more than the average share of readiness in speech and action—a contrast, in this respect, to Vanbrugh. The latter, from having too comprehensive a view of things, was often slow in reaching a decision. Brett was more like Mrs. Darche herself in respect of quick judgment and self-reliance at first sight, if such a novel expression is permissible.

As Marion sat before the fire apparently studying its condition and meditating a descent upon it, after the manner of her kind, she was not paying much attention to Brett's interesting story about the great lawyer who had drawn up his own will so that hardly a clause of it had turned out to be legal, and Brett himself was more absorbed in watching her than in telling the complicated tale. She was generally admitted to be handsome. Her enemies said that she had green eyes and yellow hair, which was apparently true, but they also said that she dyed the one and improved the other with painting, which was false. Her hair was naturally as fair as yellow gold, of an even colour throughout, and the shadows beneath her eyes and the dark eyebrows, which were sources of so much envy and malice, were natural and not done with little coloured sticks of greasy crayon kept in tubes made to look like silver pencil-cases, and generally concealed beneath the lace of the toilet table or in the toe of a satin slipper.

Marion Darche was handsome and looked strong, though there was rarely much colour in her face. She did not flush easily. Women who do, often have an irritable heart, as the doctors call the thing, and though their affections may be stable their circulation is erratic. They suffer agonies of shyness in youth and considerable annoyance in maturer years from the consciousness that the blood is forever surging in their cheeks at the most inopportune moment; and the more they think of it, the more they blush, which does not mend matters and often betrays secrets. Three-fourths of the shyness one sees in the world is the result of an irritable heart. Marion Darche's circulation was normal, and she was not shy.

Like many strong persons, she was gentle, naturally cheerful and generally ready to help any one who needed assistance. She had an admirably even temper—a matter, like physical courage, which depends largely upon the action of the heart and the natural quality of the nerves—and under all ordinary circumstances she ate and slept like other people. She did not look at all like Helen or Clytemnestra, and her disposition was not in the least revengeful—a quiet, tall, fair young woman, whose clear eyes looked every one calmly in the face and whose strong white hands touched things delicately but could hold firmly when she chose; carrying herself straight through a crowd, as she bore herself upright through life. Those who knew her face best admired especially her mouth and the small, well-cut, advancing chin, which seemed made to meet difficulties as a swimmer's divides the water. In figure, as in face, too, she was strong, the undulating curves were those of elasticity and energy, rather than of indolence and repose.

As Harry Brett talked and watched her he honestly tried not to wish that she might have been his wife, and when his resolution broke down he conscientiously talked on and did his best to interest himself in his own conversation. The effort was familiar to him of old, and had so often ended in failure that he was glad when the distant tinkle of the door bell announced the coming of a third person. John rarely lunched at home and old Mr. Darche was never summoned until the meal was served. Brett broke off in the middle of his story and laughed a little.

"I believe you have not understood a word of what I have been telling you," he said.

Mrs. Darche looked up suddenly, abandoned the study of the burning logs and leaned back in her chair before she answered. Then she looked at him quietly and smiled, not even attempting to deny the imputation.

"It is very rude of me, is it not? You must forgive me, to-day. I am very much preoccupied."

"You often are, nowadays," answered Brett, with a short, manlike sigh, which might have passed for a sniff of dissatisfaction.

"I know I am. I am sorry."

The door opened and Dolly Maylands entered the room, followed closely by Russell Vanbrugh.

CHAPTER III.

Simon Darche was undoubtedly a bore. Since bores exist and there is no other name for them, the strong word has some right to pass into the English language. The old gentleman belonged to the unconscious and self-complacent variety of the species, which is, on the whole, less unbearable than certain others. Generally speaking, it is true that people who are easily bored are bores themselves, but there are many very genuine and intolerable bores who go through life rejoicing and convinced that their conversation is a blessing and their advice a treasure to those who get it.

Bores always have one or two friends. Simon Darche had found one in his daughter-in-law and he availed himself of her friendship to the utmost, so that it was amazing to see how much she could bear, for she was as constantly bored by him as other people, and appeared, indeed, to be his favourite victim. But no one had ever heard her complain. Day after day she listened to his talk, smiled at his old stories, read to him, and seemed rather to seek his society than to avoid it. She was never apparently tired of hearing about John's childhood and youth and she received the old man's often repeated confidences concerning his own life with an ever-renewed expression of sympathy.

"I simply could not stand it for a day!" exclaimed Dolly occasionally. "Why, he is worse than my school children!"

Miss Maylands could not put the case more strongly. Perhaps no one else could.

"I like him," answered Mrs. Darche. "I know he is a bore. But then, I suppose I am a bore myself."

"Oh, Marion!" And Dolly laughed.

That was generally the end of the conversation. But Dolly, who was by no means altogether frivolous and had a soul, and bestowed now and then considerable attention upon its religious toilet, so to say—Dolly fancied that Papa Darche, as she called him, took the place of a baby in her friend's heart. Rather a permanent and antique baby, Dolly thought, but better than nothing for a woman who felt that she must love and take care of something helpless. She herself did not care for that sort of thing. The maternal instinct developed itself in another direction and she taught children in a kindergarten. The stupid ones tired her, as she expressed it, but then her soul came to the rescue and did its best, which was not bad. Dolly was a good girl, though she had too many "purposes" in life.

Not many minutes after she and Vanbrugh had entered the room on the morning described in the previous chapters, luncheon was announced.

"Tell Mr. Darche that luncheon is ready, Stubbs," said Marion, and Stubbs, gray-haired, portly, rosy-cheeked and respectful, disappeared to summon the old gentleman.

Vanbrugh looked at Brett and both smiled, hardly knowing why. Neither of them had ever lunched at the house without hearing the same order given by the hostess. People often smile foolishly at familiar things, merely because they are familiar. Dolly and Mrs. Darche had sat down together and the two men stood side by side near a table on which a number of reviews and periodicals were neatly arranged in order. Brett idly took up one of them and held it in his hand.

"By the bye," he said, "to-day is not Sunday. You are not ill, I hope."

"Only lazy," answered Vanbrugh.

"So am I," answered Brett after a moment's pause.

There they stood in silence, apathetically glancing at the two ladies, at the fire and at the window, as two men who know each other very well are apt to do when they are waiting for luncheon. Brett chanced to look down at the magazine he held in his hand. It was bound in white paper and the back of the cover was occupied by a huge advertisement in large letters. The white margin around it was filled with calculations made in blue and red pencil, with occasional marks in green. Mechanically Brett's eyes followed the calculations. The same figure, a high one, recurred in many places, and any one with a child's knowledge of arithmetic could have seen that there was a constant attempt to make up another sum corresponding to it,—an attempt which seemed always to have failed. Brett remembered that Darche carried a pencil-case with leads of three colours in it, and he tossed the magazine upon the table as though he realised that he had been prying into another person's business. He glanced at Mrs. Darche who was still talking with Dolly, and a moment later he took up the magazine again and cautiously tore off the back of the cover, crumpled it in his hands, approached the fire and tossed it into the flames. Mrs. Darche looked up quickly.

"What is that?" she asked.

"Oh, nothing," answered Brett, "only a bit of paper."

Just then Simon Darche entered the room and all rose to go in to luncheon together.

The old gentleman shook hands with Dolly and with both the men, looking keenly into their faces, but mentioning no names. He was cheerful and ruddy, and a stranger might have expected his conversation to be enlivening. In this however, he would have been egregiously disappointed.

"What have you been doing this morning?" asked Mrs. Darche turning to him.

She had asked the question every day for years, whenever she had lunched at home.

"Very busy, very busy," answered Mr. Darche.

His hands did not tremble as he unfolded his napkin, but he seemed to bestow an extraordinary amount of attention on the exact position of the glasses before him, pushing them a little forwards and backwards and glancing at them critically until he was quite satisfied.

"Busy, of course," he said and looked cheerfully round the table. "There is no real happiness except in hard work. If I could only make you understand that, Marion, you would be much happier. Early to bed and early to rise."

"Makes a man stupid and closes his eyes," observed Brett, finishing the proverb in its modern form.

"What, what? What doggerel is that?"

"Did you never hear that?" asked Dolly, laughing. "It is from an unwritten and unpublished book—modern proverbs."

Simon Darche shook his head and smiled feebly.

"Dear me, dear me, I thought you were in earnest," he said.

"So he is," said Dolly. "We may have to get up at dawn sometimes, but we are far too much in earnest to go to bed early."

This was evidently beyond Simon Darche's comprehension and he relapsed into silence and the consumption of oysters. Mrs. Darche glanced reproachfully at Dolly as though to tell her that she should not chaff the old gentleman, and Vanbrugh came to the rescue.

"Do you often get up at dawn, Miss Maylands?" he inquired.

"Do I look as if I did?" retorted the young lady.

"How in the world should I know," asked Vanbrugh. "Do I look as though I associated with people who got up at dawn?"

Brett laughed.

"It always amuses me to hear you and Vanbrugh talk, Miss Maylands."

"Does it, I am so glad," said Dolly.

"Yes, you seem perfectly incapable of saying one word to each other without chaffing."

Old Mr. Darche had finished his oysters.

"Yes—yes," he observed. "A pair of chaffinches."

A moment of silence followed this appalling pun. Then Mrs. Darche laughed a little nervously, and Brett, who wished to help her, followed her example. The old gentleman himself seemed delighted with his own wit.

"We are beginning well," said Dolly. "Puns and proverbs with the oysters. What shall we get with the fruit?"

Vanbrugh was inclined to suggest that the dessert would probably find them in an idiot asylum, but he wisely abstained from words and tried to turn the conversation into a definite channel.

"Did you read that book I sent you, Mrs. Darche?" he asked.

"Yes," answered the latter, "I began to read it to my father-in-law but he did not care for it, so I am going on with it alone."

"What book was that, my dear?" inquired the old gentleman.

Mrs. Darche named a recent foreign novel which had been translated.

"Oh, that thing!" exclaimed her father-in-law. "Why, it is all about Frenchmen and tea parties! Very dull. Very dull. But then a busy man like myself has very little time for such nonsense. Mr. Trehearne, I suppose I could not give you any idea of the amount of work I have to do."

He looked at Vanbrugh as he spoke.

"Trehearne?" Brett repeated the name in a low voice, looking at Mrs. Darche.

"I know you are one of the busiest men alive," said Vanbrugh quietly and without betraying the slightest astonishment.

"I should think so," said Simon Darche, "and I am very glad I am. Nothing keeps a man busy like being successful. And I may fairly say that I have been very successful—thanks to John, well—I suppose I may take a little credit to myself."

"Indeed you may," said Mrs. Darche readily.

Every one thought it wise and proper to join in a little murmur of approval, but Dolly was curious to see what the old gentleman would say next. She wondered whether his taking Vanbrugh for old Mr. Trehearne, who had been a friend of his youth and who had been dead some years, was the first sign of mental decay. From Mrs. Darche's calm manner she inferred that this was not the first time he had done something of the kind, and her mind went back quickly to her conversation with Vanbrugh that morning in Gramercy Park. Simon Darche was still talking.

"The interests of the Company are becoming positively gigantic, and there seems to be no end to the fresh issues that are possible, though none of them have been brought to me to sign yet."

Brett looked quickly at Vanbrugh, but the latter was imperturbable.

At that moment the door opened and John Darche entered the dining-room. His face was a little paler than usual and he seemed tired. Mrs. Darche looked at him in surprise and her father-in-law smiled as he always did when he saw his son. Every one present said something more or less incomprehensible by way of greeting. The new-comer shook hands with Dolly Maylands, nodded to the rest and sat down in the place which was always reserved for him opposite his wife.

"I had nothing particular to do, so I came home to luncheon," he said, by way of explaining his unexpected appearance.

"I am so glad."

"Nothing particular to do!" exclaimed the old gentleman momentarily surprised into his senses.

"Nothing requiring my presence," answered John Darche gravely. "I was down town early this morning and cleared off everything. I shall ride this afternoon."

"Quite right, quite right, my boy!" put in Simon Darche. "You should take care of your health. You have been doing too much of late. I suppose," he added, looking about at the others, "that there is not a man alive who has my son's power of work."

"You do work dreadfully hard, John," said Mrs. Darche.

"But then," said her father-in-law with evident pride, "John leads such a regular life. He does not drink, he does not smoke, he does not sit up late at night—altogether, I must say that he takes better care of himself than I ever did. And that is the reason," continued the old gentleman with increasing animation, "that he has accomplished so much. If some of you young men would follow his example you would do a great deal more in the world. Regular hours, regular meals, no cocktails—oh I daresay if I had never smoked a cigar in my life I should be good for another fifty years. John will live to be a hundred."

"Let us hope so," said Vanbrugh blandly.

"What is this particular disagreeable thing you have given me to eat?" inquired John looking at his wife.

Mrs. Darche looked up in surprise. The remark was quite in keeping with his usual manner, but it was very unlike him to notice anything that was put before him.

"I believe it is a shad," she said.

"Yes, I suppose it is," answered John. "The thing has bones in it. Give me something else, Stubbs."

He got something else to eat and relapsed into silence. The remainder of the luncheon was not gay, for his coming had chilled even Dolly's good spirits. Brett and Vanbrugh did their best to sustain the conversation, but the latter felt more certain than ever that something serious was the matter. Old Simon Darche meandered on, interspersing his praise of his son and his boasts of the prosperity of the Company with stale proverbs and atrocious puns. Almost as soon as the meal was over the few guests departed with that unpleasant sense of unsatisfied moral appetite which people have when they have expected to enjoy being together and have been disappointed.

When every one was gone John Darche remained in the drawing-room with his wife. He sat down in his chair like a man over-tired with hard work, and something like a sigh escaped him. Mrs. Darche pushed a small table to his side, laid his papers upon it and sat down opposite him. A long silence followed. From time to time she looked up at her husband as though she expected him to say something, but he did not open his lips, though he often stared at her for several minutes together. His unwinking blue eyes faced the light as he looked at her, and their expression was disagreeable to her, so that she lowered her own rather than encounter it.

"Are things growing worse, John?" at last she asked him.

"Worse? What do you mean?"

"You told me some time ago that you were anxious. I thought that perhaps you might be in some trouble."

John did not answer at once but looked at her as though he did not see her, took up a paper and glanced absently over the columns of advertisements.

"Oh no," he said at last, as though her question had annoyed him. "There is nothing wrong, nothing whatever." Again a silence followed. Mrs. Darche went to her writing-table and began to write a note. John did not move.

"Marion," said he at last, "has any one been talking to you about my affairs?"

"No indeed," answered Mrs. Darche in evident surprise at the question, but with such ready frankness that he could not doubt her.

"No," he repeated. "I see that no one has. I only asked because people are always so ready to talk about what they cannot understand, and are generally so perfectly certain about what they do not know. I thought Dolly Maylands might have been chattering."

"Dolly does not talk about you, John."

"Oh! I wonder why not. Does she dislike me especially—I mean more than most people—more than you do, for instance?"

"John!"

"My dear, do not imagine that it grieves me, though it certainly does not make life more agreeable to be disliked. On the whole, I hardly know which I prefer—my father's perpetual outspoken praise, or your dutiful and wifely hatred."

"Why do you talk like that?"

Mrs. Darche did not leave her writing-table, but turned in her chair and faced him, still holding her pen.

"I fancy there is some truth in what I say," he answered calmly. "Of course you know that you made a mistake when you married me. You were never in love with me—and you did not marry me for my money."

He laughed rather harshly.

"No, I did not marry you for your money."

"Of course not. You have some of your own—enough—"

"And to spare, if you needed it, John."

"You are very kind, my dear," replied Darche with a scarcely perceptible touch of contempt in his tone. "I shall survive without borrowing money of my wife."

"I hope you may never need to borrow of any one," said Marion.

She turned to the table again and began arranging a few scattered notes and papers to conceal her annoyance at his tone, hoping that her inoffensive answer might soon have the effect of sending him away, as was usually the case. But Darche was not quite in his ordinary state. He was tired, irritable, and greedy for opposition, as men are whose nerves are overwrought and who do not realise the fact, because they are not used to it, and it is altogether new to them.

"I am tired of 'yea, yea.' Change the conversation, please, and say 'nay, nay.' It would make a little variety."

"Do you object to my agreeing with you? I am sorry. It is not always easy to guess what you would like. I am quite ready to give up trying, if you say so. We can easily arrange our lives differently, if you prefer it."

"How do you mean?"

"We might separate, for instance," suggested Mrs. Darche.

John was surprised. He had sometimes wondered whether it were not altogether impossible to irritate his wife's calm temper to some open expression of anger. He had almost succeeded, but he by no means liked the form of retort she had chosen. A separation would not have suited him at all, for in his character the love of his possessions was strong, and he looked upon his wife as an important item in the inventory of his personal property. He hesitated a moment before he answered.

"Of course we might separate, but I do not intend that we should—if I can help it," he added, as though an afterthought had occurred to him.

"You are not doing your best to prevent it," answered Mrs. Darche.

"Oh!—what are my sins? Are you jealous? This begins to interest me."

"No, I am not jealous, you have never given me any cause to be."

"You think that incompatibility of temper would be sufficient ground, then?"

"For a temporary separation—yes."

"Ah—it is to be only temporary? How good you are!"

"It can be permanent, if you like."

"I have already told you that I have no idea of separating. I cannot imagine why you go back to it as you do."

"You drive me back to it."

"You are suddenly developing a temper. This is delightful."

Mrs. Darche made no answer, but occupied herself with her papers in silence. She could hardly account for the humour in which she was answering her husband, seeing that for years she had listened to his disagreeable and brutal sayings without retort. It is impossible to foresee the precise moment at which the worm will turn, the beast refuse its load, and the human heart revolt. Sometimes it never comes at all, and then we call the sufferer a coward. After a pause which lasted several minutes, John renewed the attack.

"I am sorry you will not quarrel any more, it was so refreshing," he said.

"I do not like quarrelling," answered Marion, without looking up. "What good can it do?"

"You are always wanting to do good! Life without contrasts is very insipid."

Mrs. Darche rose from her seat and came and stood by the fireplace.

"John," she said, "something has happened. You are not like yourself. If I can be of any use to you, tell me the truth and I will do all I can. If not, go and ride as you said you would. The fresh air will rest you."

"You are a good creature, my dear," said Darche looking at her curiously.

"I do not know whether you mean to be flattering, or whether you wish to go on with this idle bickering over words—you know that I do not like to be called a good creature, like the washerwoman or the cook. Yes—I know—I am angry just now. Never mind, my advice is good. Either go out at once, or tell me just what is the matter and let me do the best I can to help you."

"There is nothing to tell, my dear."

"Then go out, or go and talk to your father—or stay here, and I will go away."

"Anything rather than stay together," suggested Darche.

"Yes—anything rather than that. I daresay it is my fault, and I am quite willing to bear all the blame, but if we are together in the same room much longer we shall do something which we shall regret—at least I shall. I am sure of it."

"That would be very unfortunate," said Darche, rising, with a short laugh. "Our life has been so exceptionally peaceful since we were married!"

"I think it has," answered Marion, calmly, "considering your character and mine. On the whole we have kept the peace very well. It has certainly not been what I expected and hoped that it might be, but it has not been so unhappy as that of many people I know. We both made a mistake, perhaps, but others have made worse ones. You ask why I married you. I believe that I loved you. But I might ask you the same question."

"You would get very much the same answer."

"Oh no—you never loved me. I cannot even say that you have changed much in five years, since our honeymoon. You did not encourage my illusions very long."

"No. Why should I?"

"I daresay you were right. I daresay that it has been best so. The longer one has loved a thing, the harder it is to part from it. I loved my illusions. As for you—"

"As for me, I loved you, as I understand love," said Darche walking up and down the room with his hands in his pockets. "And, what is more, as I understand love, I love you still."

"Love cannot be a very serious matter with you, then," answered Marion, turning from him to the fire and pushing back a great log with her foot.

"You are mistaken," returned Darche. "Love is a serious matter, but not half so serious as young girls are inclined to believe. Is it not a matter of prime importance to select carefully the woman who is to sit opposite to one at table for a lifetime, and whose voice one must hear every day for forty years or so? Of course it is serious. It is like selecting the president of a company—only that you cannot turn him out and choose another when you are not pleased with him. Love is not a wild, insane longing to be impossibly dramatic at every hour of the day. Love is natural selection. Darwin says so. Now a sensible man of business like me, naturally selects a sensible woman like you to be the mistress of his household. That is all it comes to, in the end. There is no essential difference between a man's feeling for the woman he loves and his feeling for anything else he wants."

"And I fill the situation admirably. Is that what you mean?" inquired Marion with some scorn.

"If you choose to put it in that way."

"And that is what you call being loved?"

"Yes—being wanted. It comes to that. All the rest is illusion—dream-stuff, humbug, 'fake' if you do not object to Bowery slang."

"Are you going out?" asked Mrs. Darche, losing patience altogether.

"No. But I am going upstairs to see the old gentleman. It is almost the same."

He went towards the door and his hand was on the handle of the lock when she called him back.

"John—" there was hesitation in her voice.

"Well? What is the matter?" He came back a few steps and stood near her.

"John, did you never care for me in any other way—in any better way—from the heart? You used to say that you did."

"Did I? I have forgotten. One always supposes that young girls naturally expect one to talk a lot of nonsense, and that one has no choice unless one does—so one makes the best of it. I remember that it was a bore to make phrases so I probably made them. Anything else you would like to ask?"

"No—thanks. I would rather be alone."

John Darche left the room and Marion returned to her writing-table as though nothing had been said, intending to write her notes as usual. And indeed, she began, and the pen ran easily across the paper for a few moments.

Then on a sudden, her lip quivered, she wrote one more word, the pen fell from her fingers, and bowing her head upon the edge of the table she let the short, sharp sobs break out as they would.

She was a very lonely woman on that winter's afternoon, and the tension she had kept on herself had been too great to bear any longer.

CHAPTER IV.

In spite of her husband's denial, Marion Darche was convinced that he was in difficulties, though she could not understand how such a point could have been reached in the affairs of the Company, which had always been considered so solid, and which had the reputation of being managed so well. It was natural, when matters reached a crisis, that none of her acquaintances should speak to her of her husband's troubles, and many said that Mrs. Darche was a brave woman to face the world as she did when her husband was in all likelihood already ruined and was openly accused on all sides of something very like swindling. But as a matter of fact she was in complete ignorance of all this. John Darche laughed scornfully when she repeated her question, and she had never even thought of asking the old gentleman any questions. She was too proud to speak of her troubles to Vanbrugh or Brett; and Dolly, foreseeing real trouble, thought it best to hide from her friend the fears she entertained. As sometimes happens in such cases, matters had gone very far without Mrs. Darche's knowledge. The Company was in hands of a receiver and an inquiry into the conduct of Simon and John Darche was being pushed forward with the utmost energy by the frightened holders of the bonds and shares, while Marion was dining and dancing through the winter season as usual. The Darches were accused of having issued an enormous amount of stock without proper authority; but there were many who said that Simon Darche was innocent of the trick, and that John had manufactured bogus certificates. Others again maintained that Simon Darche was in his dotage and signed whatever was put before him by his son, without attempting to understand the obligations to which he committed himself.

Meanwhile John's position became desperate, though he himself did not believe it to be so utterly hopeless as it really was. Since this is the story of Marion Darche and not of her husband, it is unnecessary to enter into the financial details of the latter's ruin. It is enough to say that for personal ends he had made use of the Company's funds in order to get into his own control a line of railroad by which a large part of the Company's produce was transported, with the intention of subsequently forcing the Company to buy the road of him on his own terms, as soon as he should have disposed by stealth of his interest in the manufacture. Had the scheme succeeded he should have realised a great fortune by the transaction, and it is doubtful whether anything could have been proved against him after the event. Unfortunately for him, he had come into collision with a powerful syndicate of which he had not suspected the existence until he had gone so far that either to go on or to retire must be almost certain ruin and exposure. The existence of this syndicate had dawned upon him on the day described in the preceding chapters, and the state of mind in which he found himself was amply accounted for by the discovery he had made.

As time went on during the following weeks, and he became more and more hopelessly involved, his appearance and his manner changed for the worse. He grew haggard and thin, and his short speeches to his wife lacked even that poor element of wit which is brutality's last hold upon good manners. With his father, however, he maintained his usual behaviour, by a desperate effort. He could not afford to allow the whole fabric of the old gentleman's illusions about him to perish, so long as Simon Darche's hand and name could still be useful. It is but just to admit, too, that he felt a sort of cynical, pitying attachment to his father—the affection which a spoiled child bestows upon an over-indulgent parent, which is strongly tinged with the vanity excited by a long course of unstinted and indiscriminating praise.

If Marion Darche's own fortune had been invested in the Company of which her husband was treasurer, she must have been made aware of the condition of things long before the final day of reckoning came. But her property had been left her in the form of real estate, and the surplus had been invested in such bonds and mortgages as had been considered absolutely safe by Harry Brett's father, who had originally been her guardian, and, after his death, by Harry Brett himself, who was now her legal adviser, and managed her business for her. The house in Lexington Avenue was her property. After her marriage she had persuaded her husband to live in it rather than in the somewhat pretentious and highly inconvenient mansion erected on Fifth Avenue by Simon Darche in the early days of his great success, which was decorated within, and to some extent without, according to the doubtful taste of the late Mrs. Simon Darche. Vanbrugh compared it to an "inflamed Pullman car."

Enough has been said to show how at the time, the Darches were on the verge of utter ruin, and how Marion Darche was financially independent. Meanwhile the old gentleman's mind was failing fast, a fact which was so apparent that Marion was not at all surprised when her husband told her that there was to be a consultation of doctors to inquire into the condition of Simon Darche, with a view to deciding whether he was fit to remain, even nominally, at the head of the Company or not. As a matter of fact, the consultation had become a legal necessity, enforced by the committee that was examining the Company's affairs.

John Darche was making a desperate fight of it, sacrificing everything upon which he could lay his hands in order to buy in the fraudulent certificates of stock. He was constantly in want of money, and seized every opportunity of realising a few thousands which presented itself, even descending to gambling in the stock market in the hope of picking up more cash. He was unlucky, of course, and margin after margin disappeared and was swallowed up. From time to time he made something by his speculations—just enough to revive his shrinking hopes, and to whet his eagerness, already sharpened by extremest anxiety. He did not think of escaping from the country, however. In the first place, if he disappeared at this juncture, he must be a beggar or dependent on his wife's charity. Secondly, he could not realise that the end was so near and that the game was played out to the last card. Still he struggled on frantically, hoping for a turn of the market, for a windfall out of the unknown, for a wave of luck, whereby a great sum being suddenly thrown into his hands he should be able to cover up the traces of his misdeeds and begin life afresh.

Marion was as brave as ever, but she got even more credit for her courage than she really deserved. She knew at this time that the trouble was great, but she had no idea that it was altogether past mending, and she had not renewed the offer of help she had made to her husband when she had first noticed his distress. In the meantime, she devoted herself to the care of old Simon Darche. She read aloud to him in the morning, though she was quite sure that he rarely followed a single sentence to the end. She drove with him in the afternoon and listened patiently to his rambling comments on men and things. His inability to recognise many of the persons who had been most familiar to him in the earlier part of his life was becoming very apparent, and the constant mistakes he made rendered it advisable to keep him out of intercourse with any but the members of his own family. As has been said, Mrs. Darche had not as yet made any change in her social existence, but Dolly Maylands, who knew more of the true state of affairs than her friend, came to see her every day and grew anxious in the anticipation of the inevitable disaster. Her fresh face grew a little paler and showed traces of nervousness. She felt perhaps as men do who lead a life of constant danger. She slept as well and became almost abnormally active, seizing feverishly upon everything and every subject which could help to occupy her time.

"You work too hard, Dolly," said Mrs. Darche one morning as they were seated together in the library. "You will wear yourself out. You have danced all night, and now you mean to spend your day in slaving at your charities."

Dolly laughed a little as she went on cutting the pages of the magazine she held. This was a thing Mrs. Darche especially disliked doing, and Dolly had long ago taken upon herself the responsibility of cutting all new books and reviews which entered the house.

"Oh I love to burn the candle at both ends," she answered.

"No doubt you do, my dear. We have all liked to do that at one time or another. But at this rate you will light your candle in the middle, too."

"You cannot light a candle in the middle," said Dolly with great decision.

"If anybody could, you could," said Marion, watching her as she had often done of late and wondering if any change had come into the young girl's life. "Seriously, my dear, I am anxious about you. I wish you would take care of yourself, or get married, or something."

"If you will tell me what that 'something' is I will get it at once," said Dolly, with a smile that had a tinge of sadness in it. "I ask nothing better."

"Oh anything!" exclaimed Mrs. Darche. "Get nervous prostration or anything that is thoroughly fashionable and gives no trouble, and then go somewhere and rest for a month."

"My dear child," cried Dolly with a laugh, "I cannot think of being so old-fashioned as to have nervous prostration. Let me see. I might be astigmatic. That seems to be the proper thing nowadays. Then I could wear glasses and look the character of the school-ma'am. Then I could say I could not dance because I could not see, because of course I could not dance in spectacles. But for the matter of that, my dear, you need not lecture me. You are as bad as I am, and much worse—yours is a much harder life than mine."

Just as Dolly was about to draw a comparison between her own existence and her friend's, the door opened and Stubbs entered the room bearing a dozen enormous roses, of the kind known as American beauties. Dolly, who had a passion for flowers, sprang up, and seized upon them with an exclamation of delight.

"What beauties! What perfect beauties!" she said. "You lucky creature! Who in the world sends you such things?"

Mrs. Darche had risen from her seat and had buried her face in the thick blossoms while Dolly held them.

"I am sure I do not know," she said.

"Oh Marion!" answered Dolly, smiling. "Innocence always was your strong point, and what a strong point it is. I wish people would send me flowers like these."

"I have no doubt they do, my dear. Do not pretend they do not. Come and help me arrange them instead of talking nonsense. Even if it were true that my life is harder than yours—I do not know why—you see there are alleviations."

Dolly did not answer at once. She was wondering just how much her friend knew of the actual state of things, and she was surprised to feel a little touch of pain when she contrasted the truth, so far as she knew it, with the negatively blissful ignorance in which Mrs. Darche's nearest and best friends were doing their best to keep her.

"Of course there are alleviations in your life, just as there are in mine," she said at last, "changes, contrasts and all that sort of thing. My kindergarten alleviates my dancing and my cotillons vary the dulness of my school teaching."

She paused and continued to arrange the flowers in silence, looking back now and then and glancing at them. Mrs. Darche did not speak, but watched her idly, taking a certain artistic pleasure in the fitness of the details which made up the little picture before her.

"But I would not lead your life for anything in the world," added Dolly at last with great decision.

"Oh, nonsense, Dolly!"

"Are you happy, Marion?" asked Dolly, suddenly growing very grave.

"Happy?" repeated Mrs. Darche, a little surprised by the sudden question. "Yes, why not? What do you mean by happy?"

"What everybody means, I suppose."

"What is that?"

"Why, wanting things and getting them, of course—wanting a ten cent thing a dollar's worth, and having it."

"What a definition!" exclaimed Mrs. Darche. "But I really do believe you enjoy your life."

"Though it would bore you to extinction."

"Possibly. The alternate wild attacks of teaching and flirting to which you are subject would probably not agree with me."

"Perhaps you could do either, but not both at the same time."

"I suppose I could teach if I knew anything," said Mrs. Darche thoughtfully. "But I do not," she added with conviction.

"And I have no doubt you could flirt if you loved anybody. It is a pity you do not."

"Oh, my flirting days are over," answered Marion laughing. "You seem to forget that I am married."

"Do you not forget it sometimes?" asked Dolly, laughing, but with less genuine mirth.

"Do not be silly!" exclaimed Marion with a slight shade of annoyance. She had been helping Dolly with the roses, all of which, with the exception of two, were now arranged in a vase.

"These will not go in," she said, holding up the remaining flowers. "You might stick them into that little silver cup."

"To represent you—and the other man. A red and a white rose. Is that it?"

"Or you and me," suggested Mrs. Darche in perfect innocence. "Why not?"

"Tell me," said Dolly, when they had finished, "who is he?"

"Why, Russell Vanbrugh, of course."

"Oh!" exclaimed Dolly, turning her head away. "Why of course?"

"Oh, because—"

"Why not Harry Brett?" asked Dolly, with the merciless insistence peculiar to very young people.

In all probability, if no interruption had occurred, the conversation of that morning would have taken a more confidential turn than usual, and poor Dolly might then and there have satisfied her curiosity in regard to the relations between Marion and Russell Vanbrugh.

It would be more correct, perhaps, to use a word of less definite meaning than relation. Dolly suspected indeed that Vanbrugh loved Mrs. Darche in his own quiet and undemonstrative fashion, and that this was the secret of his celibacy. She believed it possible, too, that her friend might be more deeply attached to Vanbrugh than she was willing to acknowledge even in her own heart. But she was absolutely convinced that whatever the two might feel for one another their feelings would remain for ever a secret. She had gone further than usual in asking Marion whether she were happy, and whether she had not at some time or another almost forgotten that she was married at all. And Marion had not resented the words. Dolly felt that she was on the very point of getting at the truth, and was hoping that she might be left alone half-an-hour longer with her friend, when the door opened and Simon Darche entered the room. At the sight of the two young women his pink silk face lighted up with a bright smile. He rubbed his hands, and the vague expression of his old blue eyes gave place to a look of recognition, imaginary, it is true, but evidently a source of pleasure to himself.

"Good morning, my dear," he said briskly, taking Marion's hand in both of his and pressing it affectionately. "Good morning, Mrs. Chilton," he added, smiling at Dolly.

"Dolly Maylands," suggested Marion in an undertone.

"Dolly? Dolly?" repeated the old man. "Yes, yes—what did you say? What did you say, Marion? Dolly Chilton? Silly child. Dolly Chilton has been dead these twenty years."

"What does he mean?" asked Dolly in a whisper. Simon Darche turned upon her rather suddenly.

"Oh yes, I remember," he said. "You are the little girl who used to talk about Darwin, and the soul, and monkeys without tails, and steam engines, when you were seven years old. Why, my dear child, I know you very well indeed. How long have you been married?"

"I am not married," answered the young girl, suppressing a smile.

"Why not?" inquired Mr. Darche with startling directness. "But then—oh, yes! I am very sorry, my dear. I did not mean to allude to it. I went to poor Chilton's funeral."

Just then, Stubbs, the butler, entered again, bearing this time a note for Mrs. Darche. While she glanced at the contents he waited near the door in obedience to a gesture from her. Old Mr. Darche immediately went up to him, and with hearty cordiality seized and shook his reluctant hand.

"Happy to meet you, old fellow!" he cried. "That is all right. Now just sit down here and we will go through the question in five minutes."

"Beg pardon, sir," said the impassive butler. It was not the first time that his master had taken him for an old friend.

"Eh, what!" cried Simon Darche. "Calling me 'sir'? Did you come here to quarrel with me, old man? Oh, I see! You are laughing. Well come along. This business will not keep. The ladies will not mind if we go to work, I daresay."

And forthwith he dragged Stubbs to a table and forced him into a chair, talking to him all the time. Dolly was startled and grasped Marion's arm.

"What is it?" she asked under her breath. "Oh, Marion, what is it? Is he quite mad?"

Mrs. Darche answered her only by a warning look, and then, turning away, seemed to hesitate a moment. Stubbs was suffering acutely, submitting to sit on the edge of the chair to which his master had pushed him, merely because no means of escape suggested itself to his mechanical intelligence.

"Why can you not sit down comfortably?" asked Mr. Darche, with a show of temper. "You are not in a hurry, I know. Oh I see, you are cold. Well, warm yourself. Cold morning. It will be warm enough in Wall Street to-morrow, if we put this thing through. Now just let me explain the position to you. I tell you we are stronger than anybody thinks. Yes sir. I do not see any limit to what we may do."

Marion took a flower from one of the vases and went up to the old gentleman.

"Just let me put this rose in your coat, before you go to work."

Mr. Darche turned towards her as she spoke, and his attention was diverted. With a serio-comic expression of devout thankfulness, Stubbs rose and noiselessly glided from the room.

"Thank you, thank you," said the old gentleman, and as he bent to smell the blossom, his head dropped forward rather helplessly. "I was always fond of flowers."

The note which Stubbs had brought conveyed the information that the three doctors who were to examine old Mr. Darche with a view of ascertaining whether he could properly be held responsible for his actions, would come in half an hour. It was now necessary to prepare him for the visit, and Marion had not decided upon any plan.

It was evidently out of the question to startle him by letting him suspect the truth, or even by telling him that his visitors belonged to the medical profession. Mrs. Darche wished that she might have the chance of consulting Dolly alone for a moment before the doctors came, but this seemed equally impossible. She silently handed the note to her friend to read and began talking to the old gentleman again. He answered at random almost everything she said. It was clear that he was growing rapidly worse and that his state was changing from day to day. Marion, of course, did not know that the medical examination was to be held by order of the committee conducting the inquiry into the Company's affairs. Her husband had simply told her what she already knew, namely, that his father was no longer able to attend to business and that the fact must be recognised and a new president elected. It would be quite possible, he thought, to leave the old gentleman in the illusion that he still enjoyed his position and exercised his functions. There could be no harm in that. To tell him the truth might inflict such a shock upon his faculties as would hasten their complete collapse, and might even bring about a fatal result. He had impressed upon her the necessity of using the utmost tact on the occasion of the doctors' visit, but had refused to be present himself, arguing, perhaps rightly, that his appearance could be of no use, but that it might, on the contrary, tend to complicate a situation already difficult enough.

The only course that suggested itself to Mrs. Darche's imagination, was to represent the three doctors as men of business who came to consult her father-in-law upon an important matter. At the first mention of business, the old gentleman's expression changed and his manner became more animated.

"Eh, business?" he cried. "Oh yes. Never refuse to see a man on business. Where are they? Good morning, Mrs. Chilton. I am sorry I cannot stay, but I have some important business to attend to."

He insisted upon going to his study immediately in order to be ready to receive his visitors.

"Wait for me, Dolly," said Marion, as she followed him.

Dolly nodded and sat down in her own place by the fireplace, taking up the magazine she had begun to cut and thoughtfully resuming her occupation. Under ordinary circumstances she would perhaps have gone away to occupy herself during the morning in some of the many matters which made her life so full. But her instinct told her that there was trouble in the air to-day, and that the affairs of the Darches were rapidly coming to a crisis. She liked difficulties, as she liked everything which needed energy and quickness of decision, and her attachment to her friend would alone have kept her on the scene of danger.

Marion did not return immediately, and Dolly supposed that she had determined to stay with the old gentleman until the doctors came. It was rather pleasant to sit by the fire and think, and wonder, and fill out the incidents of the drama which seemed about to be enacted in the house. Dolly realised that she was in the midst of exciting events such as she had sometimes read of, but in which she had never expected to play a part. There were all the characters belonging to the situation. There was the beautiful, neglected young wife, the cruel and selfish husband, the broken-down father, the two young men who had formerly loved the heroine, and last, but not least, there was Dolly herself. It was all very interesting and very theatrical, she thought, and she wished that she might watch it or watch the developments in the successive scenes, entirely as a spectator, and without feeling what was really uppermost in her heart—a touch of sincere sympathy for her friend's trouble.

Just as she was thinking of all that Marion had to suffer, John Darche, the prime cause and promoter of the trouble, entered the room, pale, nervous, and evidently in the worst of humours.

"Oh, are you here, Miss Maylands?" he inquired, discontentedly.

Dolly looked up quietly.

"Yes. Am I in the way? Marion has just gone with Mr. Darche to his study. This note came a few moments ago and she gave it to me to read. I think you ought to see it."

John Darche's brow contracted as he ran his eye over the page. Then he slowly tore the note to shreds and tossed them into the fire.

"I do not know why my wife thinks it necessary to take all her friends into the confidences of the family," he said, thrusting his hands into his pockets and going to the window, thereby turning his back upon Dolly.

Dolly made no answer to the rude speech, but quietly continued to cut the pages of the magazine, until, seeing that Darche did not move and being herself rather nervous, she broke the silence again.

"Am I in the way, Mr. Darche?"

"Not at all, not at all," said John, waking, perhaps, to a sense of his rudeness and returning to the fireplace. "On the contrary," he continued, "it is as well that you should be here. There will probably be hysterics during the course of the day, and I have no doubt you know what is the right thing to do under the circumstances. There seems to be a horticultural show here," he added, as he noticed for the first time the vases of flowers on the tables.

"They are beautiful roses," answered Dolly in a conciliatory tone.

"Yes," said John, drawing in his tin lips. "Beautiful, expensive—and not particularly appropriate to-day. One of my wife's old friends, I suppose. Do you know who sent them?"

"Stubbs brought them in, a little while ago," Dolly replied. "I believe there was no note with them."

"No note," repeated John, still in a tone of discontent. "It is rude to send flowers without even a card. It is assuming too much intimacy."

"Is it?" asked Dolly innocently.

"Of course it is," answered John.

"Half an hour," he said, after a moment's pause. "Half an hour! How long is it since that note came?"

"About twenty minutes I should think."

"Doctors are generally punctual," observed Darche. "They will be here in a few minutes."

"Shall you be present?" asked Dolly.

"Certainly not," John answered with decision. "It would give me very little satisfaction to see my father proved an idiot by three fools."

"Fools!" repeated Dolly in surprise.

"Yes. All doctors are fools. The old gentleman's head is as clear as mine. What difference does it make if he does not recognise people he only half knows? He understands everything connected with the business, and that is the principal thing. After all, what has he to do? He signs his name to the papers that are put before him. That is all. He could do that if he really had softening of the brain, as they pretend he has. As for electing another president at the present moment it is out of the question."

"Yes, so I should suppose," said Dolly.

John turned sharply upon her.

"So you should suppose? Why should you suppose any such thing?"

"I have heard that the Company is in trouble," answered Dolly, calmly.

John opened his lips as though he were about to make a sharp answer, but checked himself and turned away.

"Yes," he said more quietly, "I suppose that news is public property by this time. There they are," he added, as his ear caught the distant tinkle of the door bell.

"Shall I go?" asked Dolly for the third time.

"No," answered Darche, "I will go out and meet them. Stay here please. I will send my wife to you presently."

CHAPTER V.

The verdict of the doctors was a foregone conclusion. The family physician, who was one of the three, the other two being specialists, stayed behind and explained to John Darche the result of the examination. There was no hope of recovery, he said, nor even of improvement. The most that could be done was to give the old gentleman the best of care so long as he remained alive. Little by little his faculties would fail, and in a few years, if he did not die, he would be quite as helpless as a little child.

John Darche was not in a state to receive the information with equanimity, though he had expected nothing else and knew that every word the doctor said was true—and more also. He protested, as he had protested to Dolly half an hour earlier, that Mr. Darche was still a serviceable president for the Company, since he could sign his name, no matter whether he understood the value of the signature or not. The doctor, who, like most people, was aware of the investigation then proceeding, shook his head, smiled incredulously, asked after Mrs. Darche and went away, pondering upon the vanity of human affairs and consoling himself for the sins of the world with the wages thereof, most of which ultimately find their way to the doctor's bank-book, be the event life or death.

Old Mr. Darche, supremely unconscious of what had taken place, and believing that he had been giving the benefit of his valuable advice to the directors of a western railroad, had lighted one of his very fine cigars and had fallen asleep in his easy chair in his own study before it was half finished. Marion had returned to Dolly in the library and John had sent for his stenographer and had taken possession of the front drawing-room for the morning, on pretence of attending to the business which, in reality, had already been withdrawn from his hands during several weeks.

He was in great suspense and anxiety, for it was expected that the work of the investigating committee would end on that afternoon. He knew that in any event he was ruined, and even he felt that it would be humiliating to live on his wife's income. They would go abroad at once, he thought, New York had become hateful to him. He had as yet no apprehension of being deprived of his liberty, even temporarily. Whatever action was taken against him must be of a civil nature, he thought. He did not believe that any judge would issue a warrant for his arrest on such evidence as could have been collected by the committee. Simon Darche was incapable of remembering what he had done even a week previously, and since the doctors declared that his mind was gone, almost anything might be attributed to him—anything, in fact, about which the slightest trace of irregularity could be discovered. John had been cautious enough in his actions when he had been aware that he was violating the law, though he had been utterly reckless when he had appealed to chance in the hope of retrieving his losses, and recovering himself. He believed himself safe, and indulged in speculations about the future as a relief to the excessive anxiety of the moment.

Mrs. Darche had some right to know the result of the consultation which had taken place, but her husband either intended to leave her in ignorance or forgot her existence after the doctors had left the house. During some time she remained with Dolly in the library, expecting that John would at least send her some message, if he did not choose to come himself. At last she determined to go to him.

"I am very busy now," he said as she entered the room and glanced at the secretary.

"Yes," answered Mrs. Darche, "I see, but I must speak to you alone for a minute."

"Well—but I wish you would choose some other time." He nodded to the secretary who rose and quietly disappeared.

"What is it?" asked Darche, when they were alone.

"What did the doctors say?"

"Oh, nothing at all. They talked as doctors always do. Keep the patient in good health, plenty of fresh air, food and sleep." He laughed sourly at his own words.

"Is that all?" inquired Marion, rather incredulously. "They must have said something else. Why, we can all see that he is not himself. There is something very seriously wrong. I am quite sure that he did not recognise me yesterday."

"Not recognise you?" said John with the same disagreeable laugh. "Not recognise you? Do not be silly. He talks of nobody else. I tell you there is nothing in the world the matter with him, he is good for another twenty years."

"Thank heaven for that—for the twenty years of life, whether with all his faculties or not—"

"Yes, by all means let us return thanks. At the present rate of interest on his life that means at least two millions."

"It hurts me to hear you talk like that about your father," said Marion, sitting down and watching her husband as he walked slowly up and down before her.

"Does it? That is interesting. I wonder why you are hurt because he is likely to live twenty years. You are not very likely to be hurt by his death."

"Did I ever suggest such a thing?"

"No, it suggested itself."

At this speech Mrs. Darche rose. Standing quite still for a moment, she looked quietly into his uncertain eyes. He was evidently in the worst of humours, and quite unable to control himself, even had he wished to do so. She felt that it would be safer to leave him, for her own temper was overwrought and ready to break out. She turned towards the door. Then he called her back.

"I say, Marion!"

"Well."

"What are you making such a fuss about?"

"Have I said anything?"

"No, not much, but you have a particularly uncomfortable way of letting one see what you would like to say."

"Is that why you called me back?" asked Mrs. Darche on the point of turning away again.

"I suppose so. It certainly was not for the pleasure of prolonging this delightful interview."

Once more she moved in the direction of the door. Then something seemed to tighten about her heart, something long forgotten, and which, if she tried to understand it at all, she thought was pity. It was nothing—only a dead love turning in its grave. But it hurt her, and she stopped and looked back. John Darche was leaning against the high mantlepiece, shading his eyes from the fire with his small, pointed white hand. She came and stood beside him.

"John," she said gently, "I want to speak to you seriously. I am very sorry if I was hasty just now. Please forget it."

Darche looked up, pulled out his watch and glanced at it, and then looked at her again before he answered. His eyes were hard and dull.

"I think I said that I was rather busy this morning," he answered slowly.

"Yes, I know," answered Marion, in her sweet, low voice. "But I will not keep you long. I must speak. John, is this state of things to go on for ever?"

"I fancy not. The death of one of us is likely to put a stop to it before eternity sets in," he answered with some scorn.

"We can stop it now if we will but try," said Marion, laying her hand entreatingly upon his arm.

"Oh yes, no doubt," observed John coldly.

"Let me speak, please, this once," said Mrs. Darche. "I know that you are worried and harassed about business, and you know that I want to spare you all I can, and would help you if I could."

"I doubt whether your help would be conducive to the interests of the Company," observed Darche.

"No—I know that I cannot help you in that way. But if you would only let me, in other ways, I could make it so much easier for you."

"Could you?" asked John, turning upon her immediately. "Then just lend me a hundred thousand dollars."

Mrs. Darche started a little at the words. As has been said, she was really quite in ignorance of what was taking place and had no idea that her husband could be in need of what in comparison with the means of the Company seemed but a small sum in cash.

"Do you need money, John?" she asked, looking at him anxiously.

"Oh no, I was only putting an imaginary case."

"I wish it were not merely imaginary—"

"Do you?" he asked, interrupting her quickly. "That is kind."

Marion seemed about to lose her temper at last, though she meant to control herself.

"John!" she exclaimed, in a tone of reproach, "why will you so misunderstand me?"

"It is you who misunderstand everything."

"I mean it quite seriously," she answered. "You know if you were really in trouble for a sum like that, I could help you. Not that you ever could be. I was only thinking—wishing that in some way or other I might be of use. If I could help you in anything, no matter how insignificant, it would bring us together."

John smiled incredulously.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, "is that what you are driving at? Do you not think life is very bearable as we are?"

By this time Marion had completely regained her self-possession. She was determined not to be repulsed, but there was a little bitterness in her voice as she spoke.

"No, frankly, John, as we are living now, life is not very bearable. I cannot exchange half a dozen words with you without quarrelling, and it is not my fault, John, it is not my fault! Could you not sometimes make it a little easier for me?"

"By borrowing a hundred thousand dollars?"

A pause followed John's answer, and he walked as far as the window, came back again and stopped.

"If you think it would be conducive to our conjugal happiness that I should owe you a hundred thousand dollars, by all means lend it to me. I will give you very good security and pay you the current rate of interest."

Mrs. Darche hesitated a moment before she spoke again. She was not quite sure that he was in earnest, and being determined to make the utmost use of the opportunity she had created, she dreaded lest if she pressed her offer upon him he should suddenly turn upon her with a brutal laugh.

"Do you really mean it, John?" she asked at last. "Will it help you at all?"

"Oh, if you insist upon it and think it will promote your happiness, I have no objection to taking it," said Darche coolly. "As a matter of fact it would be a convenience to-day, and it might help me to-morrow. It will certainly not be of any importance next week."

"I do not know whether you are in earnest or not, but I am."

Once more she paused. She realised that he was in need of a great deal of money, and that his scornful acceptance of her offer was really his way of expressing real interest.

"You shall have it as soon as I can get it for you. If you really need it I shall be very glad. If you are only laughing at me—well, I can bear that too."

"No," answered John, speaking much more seriously than hitherto. "It is a simple matter, of course—but it is quite true that it would be a convenience to me to have a hundred thousand dollars in cash during the next twenty-four hours, and after all, it will not make any difference to you, as so much of your property is in bonds. All you need to do is to borrow the money on call and give the bonds as collateral."

"I do not understand those things, of course," said Marion in a tone of grief, "but I suppose it can be managed easily enough, and I shall be so proud if I am able to help you a little. Oh, John," she added, after a little pause, "if we could only be as we used to be, everything to each other."

"I wish we could," John answered with real or assumed gravity. "But in this existence, there is everything to separate us and hardly anything to bring us together. You see, I am worried all day long, I never get any rest and then I lose my temper about everything. I know it is wrong but I cannot help it, and you must try to be as patient as you can, my dear."

"I do try, John, I do try, do I not? Say that you know I do." For a moment she thought she had produced an impression upon him, and a vision of a happier and more peaceful life rose suddenly before her ready imagination. But the tone in which he spoke the next words dispelled any such illusion.

"Oh yes," he said dryly, "I know you do, of course. You are awfully good—and I am awfully bad. I will reform as soon as I have time. And now, if you do not mind, I will go and attend to my letters."

"And I will see about getting the money at once," she said, bravely hiding her disappointment at his change of tone. "I may be able to have it by this evening."

"Oh yes," he answered with some eagerness, "if you are quick about it. Well good-bye, and I am really much more grateful than I seem."

His dry unpleasant laugh was the last sound she heard as she left the room. After all, it seemed perfectly useless, though she did her best all day and every day.

Marion Darche left her husband more than ever convinced of the hopelessness of any attempt at a happier and more united existence. Faithful, brave, loving, a woman of heart rather than head, she encountered in every such effort the blank wall of a windowless nature, so to say—the dull opposition of a heartless intelligence incapable of understanding any natural impulse except that of self-preservation, and responding to no touch of sympathy or love. Against her will, she wondered why she had married him, and tried to recall the time when his obstinacy had seemed strength, his dulness gravity, his brutality keenness. But no inner conjuring with self could give an instant's life to the dead illusion. The nearest approach to any real resurrection which she had felt for years had been the little pang that had overtaken her when she had turned to leave him and had thought for one moment that he might be suffering, as she was apt to suffer—this being, whom she had once misunderstood and loved, whom she loved not at all now, but to whom she had been lovelessly faithful in word and thought and deed for years past.

Yet she knew that others had loved her well, most of all Harry Brett, and girl-like, groping for her heart's half-grown truth she had once believed that she loved him too, with his boyish, careless ways, his thoughtless talk and his love of happiness for its own sake. He had disappointed her in some little way, being over-light of leaf and flower, though the stem was good to the core; she had looked for strength on the surface as a child breaks a twig and laughs at the oak for its weakness; she had expected, perhaps, to be led and ruled by a hand that would be tender and obedient only for her, and she had turned from Harry Brett to John Darche as from a delusion to a fact, from a dream to the strong truth of waking—very bitter waking in the end.

But though she had wrecked heart and happiness, and had suffered that cold and hunger of the soul which the body can never feel, she would not change her course nor give up the dream of hope. Worse than what had been, could not be to come, she said to herself, realising how little difference financial ruin, even to herself, could make now.

As she took up her pen to write a word to Brett, begging him to come to her without delay, she paused a moment, thinking how strange it was that in an extremity she should be obliged to send for him, who had loved her, to help her to save her husband, if salvation were possible. She even felt a little warmth about her heart, knowing how quickly Harry would come, and she was glad that she had known how to turn a boy's romantic attachment into a man's solid friendship. Brett would not disappoint her.

She sent Dolly away, and Dolly, obedient, docile and long-suffering for her friend's sake, kissed her on both pale cheeks and left her, tripping down the brown steps with a light gait and a heavy heart.

CHAPTER VI.

Marion had sent a messenger down town after Brett, and the latter did not lose a moment in answering the note in person. He was a little pale as he entered.

"What is it?" he asked, almost before he had shaken hands.

"It is kind of you to come at once," answered Marion. "I asked you to come about a matter of business. Sit down. I will explain."

"Can I be of any use?"

"Yes, I want some money, a great deal of money, in fact, and I want it immediately."

"Are you going to buy a house?" he inquired in some surprise. "How much do you want?"

"A hundred thousand dollars."

Brett did not answer at once. He looked at her rather anxiously, then stared at the fire, then looked at her again.

"It is rather short notice for such an amount. But you have nearly as much as that in bonds and mortgages."

"Yes, I know."

"Well then, there need not be any difficulty. What you have in bonds you have already, to all intents and purposes. Do I understand that you want this money in cash?"

"Yes," answered Mrs. Darche with decision, "in cash."

"I suppose a cheque will do as well?" suggested Brett with a smile.

"A cheque?" She repeated the word and seemed to hesitate. "I should have to write my name on it, should I not?"

"Yes."

During the pause which followed, Marion seemed to be reviewing the aspects of the transaction.

"The name of the person to whom I give it?" she asked at last, and she seemed to avoid his glance.

"Yes," answered Brett, surprised at the inexperience betrayed by the question, "unless you cashed it yourself and took the money in notes."

"No," said Mrs. Darche, as firmly as before. "I want the notes here, please. What I want you to do, is to take enough bonds and get the money for me. I do not care to know anything else about it, because I shall not understand."

"I suppose I ought not to be inquisitive, my dear friend," replied Brett after a little hesitation, "but I ought to tell you what you do not seem to realise, that a hundred thousand dollars is a great deal of money and that you ought not to keep such a sum in the house."

"I do not mean to keep it in the house. It is to be taken away immediately."

"I see."

He concluded that the money was to be taken from the house by John Darche, and he determined to prevent such a result if possible.

"May I ask one question?" he inquired.

"I will not promise to answer it." She still looked away from him.

"I hope you will. Do you mean to lend this money to some one? If it were an ordinary payment you would certainly not want it in notes in the house."

"How do you know?" asked Marion with some impatience.

"Because no human man of business with whom I have ever had anything to do likes to trot about town with a hundred thousand dollars' worth of notes in his pocket. And there is very little doubt in my mind about what you mean to do with the money. You mean to give it to your husband. Am I right?"

Mrs. Darche blushed a little and a shade of annoyance crossed her face.

"Why should I tell you what I am to do with it?" she asked.

"Because I am your legal adviser," answered Brett without hesitating, "and I may give you some good advice."

"Thank you, I do not want any advice."

Another pause followed this declaration, which only seemed to confirm the lawyer in his surmises.

"I will call it by another name," he said at last in a conciliatory tone. "I will call it information. But it is information of a kind that you do not expect. I should certainly not have said anything about it if you had not sent for me on this business. Is it of any use to beg you to reconsider the question of lending this money?"

"No, I have made up my mind."

"To lend it to your husband?"

"Dear Mr. Brett," said Marion, beginning to be impatient again, "I said that I would rather not tell you."

"I fancy that I am not mistaken," Brett answered. "Now my dear friend, you will be the last to know what every one has known for some time, but it is time that you should know it. The affairs of the Company are in a very bad state, so bad indeed, that an inquiry has been going on into the management. I do not know the result of it yet, but I am very much afraid that it will be bad, and that it will have very disagreeable consequences for you all."

"Consequences?" repeated Mrs. Darche. "What consequences? Do you mean that we shall lose money?"

"I mean that and I mean something more. It is very serious. Your husband is deeply involved, and his father's name is so closely associated with his in all the transactions that it seems almost impossible to say which of the two is innocent."

"Innocent!" cried Marion, laying her hand suddenly upon the arm of her chair and starting forward, then rising quickly to her feet and looking down at him. "What do you mean? Why do you use that word?"

The expression had hardly escaped Brett's lips when he realised the extent of his carelessness. He rose and stood beside her, feeling, as a man does, that she had him at a disadvantage while he was seated and she was standing.

"I beg your pardon," he said, "I should have been more careful. I should have said which of the two is responsible for—"

"Something disgraceful?" interrupted Mrs. Darche whose excitement was only increased by his hesitation. "For heaven's sake, do not keep me in this suspense. Speak! Tell me! Be quick!"

"I should not have spoken at all except as your adviser," said Brett. "Nothing definite is known yet, but something is wrong. As a purely business transaction it is madness to lend money to John Darche. Can you believe for a moment that the treasurer of such a Company, that the men who control such a Company, would ask you to lend them a hundred thousand dollars at a few hours' notice, if they were not on the very verge of ruin?"

"No, but that is not what happened."

She stopped short and moved away from him a little, hesitating as to what she should say next. It was impossible to describe to him the scene which had taken place between her and her husband.

"I cannot tell you, and yet I want you to know," she said, at last.

"Do you not trust me?" said Brett, hoping to encourage her.

"Certainly. Trust you! Oh yes, I trust you with all my heart."

She turned and faced him again.

"Then tell me," said he. "Tell me what happened in as few words as possible. Just the bare facts."

"It is the bare facts that are so hard to tell."

She turned away from him again feeling that if she allowed her eyes to meet his she could not long withhold her confidence.

"I suppose your husband let you guess that there was trouble, so that you made the offer spontaneously, and then he accepted it."

"Well—yes—no—almost."

Still she hesitated, standing by the writing-table, and idly turning over the papers.

"I saw that he was worried and harassed and that something was wearing upon him, and I did so want to help him! I thought it might—no I will not say that."

"But it will not help matters to throw good money after bad," answered Brett thoughtfully. "Believe me, there is no more chance of saving this money you mean to give him, than all the other millions that have gone through his hands—gone heaven knows where."

"Millions?"

There was surprise in her tone.

"I am afraid so," answered Brett, as though he had no reason in making any correction in his estimate.

"You must tell me all you can, all you know," said Marion, turning to him again.

"That would be a long affair," said Brett, "though I know a great deal about it. But I do not know all, though the situation is simple enough and bad enough. In spite of the large earnings of the Company, the finances are in a rotten state and it is said that there are large sums not accounted for. An inquiry has been going on for some time, and was, I believe, closed last night, but the result will not be known until this afternoon."

"What sort of an inquiry?" asked Mrs. Darche, anxiously.

"The regular examination of the books and of all the details which have gone through the hands of your father-in-law and your husband."

"My father-in-law! Do you mean to say that they are trying to implicate the old gentleman too?"

Marion's face expressed the utmost concern.

"As president of the Company, he cannot fail to be implicated."

"But he is no more responsible for what he does than a child!" cried Mrs. Darche, in a tone of protestation.

"I know that, but he is nominally at the head of the administration. That is all you need know. The rest is merely a mass of figures with an account of tricks and manipulations which you could not understand."

"And what would happen if—if—"

She leaned towards him unconsciously, watching his lips to catch the answer.

"I suppose that if the inquiry goes against them, legal steps will be taken," said Brett.

"Legal steps? What legal steps?"

Brett hesitated, asking himself whether he should be justified in telling her what he expected as well as what he knew.

"Well—" he continued at last, "you know in such cases the injured parties appeal to the law. But it is of no use to talk about that until you know the result of the inquiry."

"Do you mean, do you really mean that John may be arrested?" asked Mrs. Darche, turning pale.

"At any moment."

Brett answered in a low voice. Almost as soon as he had spoken he left her side and crossed the room as though not wishing to be a witness to the effect the news must have upon her. Before his back was turned she sank into a chair and covered her face with her hands. A long pause followed. Marion was the first to speak.

"Mr. Brett—" she said, and stopped.

"Yes." He came back to her side at once.

"Can you not help me?" she asked earnestly.

"How can I?"

"Is there nothing, nothing that can be done?"

"The whole matter is already beyond my power, or yours, or any one's."

Marion looked steadily at him for several seconds and then turned her face away, leaning against the mantelpiece.

"I am sure something can be done."

"No, nothing can be done."

He did not move, and spoke in a tone of the utmost decision.

"That is not true," said Marion turning upon him suddenly. "Money can help him, and we are wasting time. Do not lose a moment! Take all I have in the world and turn it into money and take it to him. Go! Do not lose a moment! Go! Why do you wait? Why do you look at me so?"

"It would not be a drop in the bucket," answered Brett, still not moving.

"All I have!"

"All you have."

"That is impossible," cried Mrs. Darche, incredulously. "I am not enormously rich, but it is something. It is between four and five hundred thousand dollars. Is it not? I have heard you say so."

"Something like that," assented Brett, as though the statement did not alter the case.

Mrs. Darche came close to him, laid her hand upon his arm and gently pushed him, as though urging him to leave her.

"Go! I say," she cried. "Take it. Do as I tell you. There may be time yet. It may save them."

But Brett did not move.

"It is utterly useless," he said stolidly. "It is merely throwing money out of the window. Millions could not stop the inquiry now, nor prevent the law from taking its course if it is appealed to."

"You will not do it?" asked Marion with something almost like a menace in her voice.

"No, I will not," said Brett, more warmly. "I will not let you ruin yourself for nothing."

"Are you really my friend?"

She drew back a little and looked at him earnestly.

"Your friend? Yes—and more—more than that, far more than you can dream of."

"Will you refuse, do you refuse, to do this for me?"

"Yes, I refuse."

"Then I will do it for myself," she said with a change of tone as though she had suddenly come to a decision. "I will let my husband do it for me. You cannot refuse to give me what is mine, what you have in your keeping."

But Brett drew back and folded his arms.

"I can refuse and I do refuse," he said.

"But you cannot! You have no right."

Her voice was almost breaking.

"That makes no difference," Brett answered firmly. "I have the power. I refuse to give you anything. You can bring an action against me for robbing you, and you will win your case, but by that time it will be too late. You may borrow money on your mere name, but your securities and title-deeds are in my safe, and there they shall stay."

Marion looked at him one moment longer and then sank back into her seat.

"You are cruel and unkind," she said in broken tones. "Oh, what shall I do?"

Brett hesitated, not knowing exactly what to do, and not finding anything especial to say. It is generally the privilege of man to be the bearer of whatever bad news is in store for woman, but as yet no hard and fast rule of conduct has been laid down for the unfortunate messenger's action under the circumstances. Being at a loss for words with which to console the woman he loved for the pain he had unwillingly given her, Brett sat down opposite her and tried to take her hand. She drew it away hastily.

"No, go away," she said almost under her breath. "Leave me alone. I thought you were my friend."

"Indeed I am," protested Brett in a soothing tone.

"Indeed you are not."

Marion sat up suddenly and drew back to her end of the sofa.

"Do you call this friendship?" she asked almost bitterly. "To refuse to help me at such a moment. Do you not see how I am suffering? Do you not see what is at stake? My husband's reputation, his father's name, good name, life perhaps—the shock of a disgrace would kill him—and for me, everything! And you sit there and refuse to lift a finger to help me—oh, it is too much! Indeed it is more than I can bear!"

"Of course you cannot understand it all now," said Brett, very much distressed. "You cannot see that I am right, but you will see it soon, too soon. You cannot save him. Why should you ruin yourself?"

"Why?"

"Is there some other reason," asked Brett, quickly. "Something that I do not know?"

"All the reasons," she exclaimed passionately, "all the reasons there ever were."

"Do you love him still?" asked Brett, scarcely knowing what he was saying.

Marion drew still further back from him and spoke in an altered tone.

"Mr. Brett, you have no right to ask me such a question."

"No right? I? No, perhaps I have no right. But I take the right whether it is mine or not. Because I love you still, as I have always loved you, because there is nothing in heaven or earth I would not do for you, because if you asked me for all I possessed at this moment, you should have it, to do what you like with it—though you shall have nothing of what is yours—because, to save you the least pain, I would take John Darche's place and go to prison and be called a rascal and a thief before all the world, for your sake, for your dear sake, Marion. I love you. You know that I love you. Right or wrong—but it is right and not wrong! There is not a man in the world who would do for any woman the least of the things I would do for you."

Again he tried to take her hand, though she resisted and snatched it from him after a little struggle.

"Leave me! leave me!" she cried despairingly. "Let me go!"

"Not until you know, not until you understand that every word I say means ten thousand times more than it ever meant to any one, not until you know that I love you through and through with every part of me, with every thought and action of my life. Look at me! Look into my eyes! Do you not see it there, the truth, the devotion? No? Is it so long since I loved you and you said—you thought—you believed for one little day that you loved me? Can you not remember it? Can you not remember even the sound of the words? They were so sweet to hear! They are so very sweet as they come back now—with all they mean now—but could not mean then!"

"Harry!"

She could not resist pronouncing his name that once.

"I knew it! You loved me then. You love me now. What is the use of fighting against it, when we love each other so? Marion! Love! Ah God! At last!"

"Go!"

With a quick movement she sprang to her feet and stood back from him.

"Marion!"

But in a moment it was past. With a gesture she kept him at arm's length.

"Is that your friendship?" she asked reproachfully.

"No, it is love," he answered almost roughly. "There is no friendship in it."

"And you talk of helping me!" she cried. "And at such a time as this, when I am weak, unstrung, you force it all upon me, and drag out what I have hidden so long. No, no! You do not love me. Go!"

"Not love you!" Again he tried to get near her. "God in heaven! Do not hurt me so!"

"No," she answered, still thrusting him back. "If you loved me you would help me, you would respect me, you would honour me, you would not try to drag me down."

"Drag you down! Ah, Marion!"

He spoke very unsteadily, then turning his face from her he leaned upon the mantelpiece and watched the fire. A long pause followed. After awhile he looked up again and their eyes met.

"Harry!" said Mrs. Darche quietly.

"Yes," he answered.

"Come and sit beside me on that chair."

Brett obeyed.

"We must forget this morning," said Marion in her natural tone of voice. "We must say to ourselves that all this has never happened and we must believe it. Will you?"

"You ask too much," answered Brett looking away. "I cannot forget that I have said it—at last, after all these years."

"You must forget it. You must—must—for my sake."

"For your sake?" Still he looked away from her.

"Yes, for my sake," she repeated. "If you cannot forget, I can never look any one in the face again. Look at me, please," she said, laying her hand upon his arm. "Look into my eyes and tell me that you will not remember."

"For your sake I will try not to remember," he said slowly. "But I cannot promise yet," he added with sudden passion. "Oh no!"

"You will do your best. I know you will," said Marion, in a tone that was meant to express conviction. "Now go. And remember that I have forgotten."

"You are very kind," Brett answered with more humility than she had expected. "You are very good to me. I was mad for a moment. Forgive me. Try to forgive me."

"There is nothing to forgive, for I remember nothing," said Marion with a faint smile.

"Good-bye, then." He turned to go.

"Good-bye," she answered quite naturally.

"Now come back, please," she said, when he had almost reached the door. "You are Mr. Brett now, and I am Mrs. Darche. I am in great trouble and you are my friend, and you must help me as well as you can."

"In any way I can," he answered, coming back to her. "But I will help only you, I will not help any one else."

"Not even old Mr. Darche?"

"Yes, I do not mean to except him."

"That is right. And we must act quickly. We must decide what is to be done. We have," she hesitated, "we have lost time—at any moment it may be too late."

"It is too late now," Brett answered in a sudden change of tone, as Stubbs the butler suddenly entered the room.

"Please madam," said Stubbs, who was pale and evidently very much disturbed, "there are some strange gentlemen to see Mr. John Darche, and when I told them that he was out, they said they would see old Mr. Darche, and I said that old Mr. Darche was ill and could see no one, and they said they must see him; and they are coming upstairs without leave, and here they are, madam, and I cannot keep them out!"

CHAPTER VII.

Bail was refused, and John Darche remained in prison during the weeks that intervened between his arrest and his trial. He was charged with making use of large sums, the property of the Company, for which he was unable to account, with fraudulently tampering with the books and with attempting to issue certificates of stock to a very large amount, bearing forged signatures.

The house in Lexington Avenue was very gloomy and silent. Simon Darche, who was of course in ignorance of what had taken place, had caught cold and was confined to his bed. It was said that he was breaking down at last, and that his heart was affected. Dolly Maylands came daily and spent long hours with her friend, but not even her bright face could bring light into the house. Russell Vanbrugh and Harry Brett also came almost every day. Vanbrugh had undertaken Darche's defence, out of friendship for Marion, and it was natural that he should come. As for Brett, he could not stay away, and as Mrs. Darche seemed to have forgiven and forgotten his passionate outbreak and did not bid him discontinue his visits, he saw no reason for doing so on any other ground.

He was, on the whole, a very loyal-hearted man, and was very much ashamed of having seemed to take advantage of Marion's distress, to speak as he had spoken. But he was neither over-sensitive nor in any way morbid. Seeing that she intended to forgive him, he did not distress himself with self-accusations nor doubt that her forgiveness was sincere and complete. Besides, her present distress was so great that he felt instinctively her total forgetfulness of smaller matters, and even went so far as to believe himself forgotten. Meanwhile he watched every opportunity of helping Marion, and would have been ready at a moment's notice to do anything whatever which could have alleviated her suffering in the slightest degree. Nevertheless, he congratulated himself that he was not a criminal lawyer, like Vanbrugh, and that it had not fallen to his share to defend John Darche, thief swindler, and forger. He would have done that, and more also, as Vanbrugh was doing, for Marion's sake, no doubt, but he was very glad that it could not be asked of him. It was bad enough that he should be put into the witness-box to state on his oath such facts as he could remember to Darche's advantage, and to be cross-examined and re-examined, and forced through the endless phases of torture to which witnesses are usually subjected. He was able, at least, to establish the fact that not the smallest sum had ever, so far as he knew, passed from the hands of John Darche to his wife's credit. On being asked why, as Mrs. Darche's man of business, he had not invested any of her money in the Company, he replied that his father had managed the estate before him, and that his father's prejudices and his own were wholly in favour of investment in real estate, bonds of long-established railways and first mortgages, and that Mrs. Darche had left her affairs entirely in his hands.

Marion herself gave her evidence bravely and truthfully, doing her best to speak to her husband's advantage. Her appearance and manner excited universal sympathy, to use the language of the reports of the case, but what she said did not tend in any way to exculpate John Darche. On the contrary, society learned for the first time from her lips that she had led a most unhappy life. She suffered acutely under the cross-examination. Being excessively truthful, she gave her answers without the slightest distortion of fact, while doing her best to pass over altogether any statement which could injure her husband's defence. As often happens, what she omitted to say told most heavily against him, while the little she was forced to admit concerning his father's condition amply corroborated the medical opinion of the latter's state, and proved beyond a doubt that he had been during more than a year a mere instrument in his son's hands. He, at least, was wholly innocent, and would be suffered to spend his few remaining years in the dreams of a peaceful dotage.

The court, to use the current phrase, showed Marion every consideration. That is, she was tacitly admitted from the first to have had no connection whatever with the crime of which her husband was accused. To the last, she intended to be present when the judge summed up the case, in order to help John to the end by seeming to believe in his innocence. On that very day, however, Simon Darche was so far recovered as to be able to leave his room for the first time, and her presence at his side seemed absolutely necessary. It was most important that all knowledge of what was happening should be kept from him. He was quite capable of leaving the house if left to himself, and he would certainly not have submitted to any suggestion to the contrary offered by Stubbs.

He might stroll into a club or into the house of some old friend, and some one would be sure to offer him the tactless sympathy which goes about to betray secrets. Moreover, he had been told, in explanation of John's protracted absence, that the latter had been obliged to go away on business, and he had enough memory and power of reasoning left to be surprised at receiving no letters. He was sure to make inquiries about John, if left to his own devices. Marion could not leave him. In the midst of her extreme anxiety she was obliged to pass the greater part of the day in reading to him, and in trying to divert his mind from the thought of John and his absence. His love and mistaken admiration for his son had been the strongest feelings in his life and continued to the end.

Dolly Maylands would have been faithful to Marion under any imaginable consequences, with that whole-souled belief and trust which is girlhood's greatest charm. On the last day of the trial she came in the morning and did not leave the house again. Brett appeared at intervals and told Dolly how matters were going.

He was not a man like Vanbrugh, of very varied acquaintances and wide experience, but in certain quarters he had great influence, and on Marion's behalf he exerted it to the utmost on the present occasion. Foreseeing that the verdict must inevitably be unfavourable, and knowing of Simon Darche's great anxiety about his son's absence, Brett succeeded in obtaining an order to bring John Darche to see his father before he should be taken back to prison after the conclusion of the trial. It was agreed that the police officers should appear dressed as civilians, and should be introduced with John to the old man's presence as men of business accompanying his son. John would then have the opportunity of quieting his father's apprehensions in regard to his future absence, and he could take leave of his wife if he wished to do so, though of course he would not be allowed to be even a moment out of his guardians' sight. The order was ostensibly granted in consideration of Simon Darche's mental infirmity, and of the danger to his health which any shock must cause, and which already existed in the shape of acute anxiety. In reality, the favour was granted as a personal one to Brett. When everything was arranged, he returned to Lexington Avenue. He found Dolly alone in the library and told her what he had done.

It was very quiet in the room, and the dusk was stealing away the last glow of the sunset that hung over the trees and houses of Gramercy Park. Dolly sat near the window, looking out, her hands clasped upon one knee, her fair young face very grave and sad. Brett paced the floor nervously.

"How kind you are!" Dolly exclaimed.

"Kind?" repeated the young man, almost indignantly, and stopping in his walk as he spoke. "Who would not do as much if he could?"

"Lots of people."

"Not of her friends—not of those who know her. It is little enough that I can do for any of them. Vanbrugh has done more than I—can do much more."

"What a fight he has made!" The ready enthusiasm rang in the girl's clear voice. Then her tone changed as she continued. "Yes," she said thoughtfully, "Marion is lucky to have such friends as you and Russell Vanbrugh."

"And you yourself, Miss Maylands."

"I? Oh, I do not count. What can a woman do on days like these? I can only stay here and try to make her feel that I am a comfortable pillow for her to lay her head upon, when she is entirely worn out. Poor Marion! She is the bravest woman I ever knew. But then—"

She stopped, hesitating, and Brett, who was almost too much excited to follow all the words she spoke, was suddenly aware that she had not finished the sentence.

"What were you going to say?" he asked, struggling desperately to remember what she had said already.

"I hardly ought—I suppose," objected Dolly. "But then—what can it matter? He is sure to be found guilty, is he not?"

"Quite sure," Brett answered slowly.

"Well then—Marion must feel that when this last agony is over she will have much more peace in her life than she has enjoyed for a long time. I wonder whether it is very wrong to say such things."

"Wrong? Why? We all think them, I am sure. At least, you and Vanbrugh and I do. As for society, I do not know what it thinks. I have not had time to ask, nor time to care, for that matter."

"I suppose everybody sympathises with Marion as we do."

"Oh, of course. Do you know? I believe she will be more popular than before. Everything that has come out in this abominable trial has been in her favour. People realise what a life she has been living during all these years—without a complaint. Wonderful woman! That brute Darche! I wish he were to be hanged instead of sent to the Penitentiary!"

"He deserves it," answered Dolly with the utmost conviction. "I suppose Marion will get a divorce."

Again Brett stopped short in his walk and looked at her keenly. The idea had doubtless passed through his own mind, but he had not heard any one else express it as yet.

"After all," he said slowly, "there is no reason why she should not."

Then he suddenly relapsed into silence and resumed his walk.

"And then I suppose," said Dolly thoughtfully, "she would marry again."

Brett said nothing to this, but continued to pace the floor, glancing at the young girl from time to time, and meditating on the total depravity of innocence.

"She might marry Russell Vanbrugh, for instance," observed Dolly, as though talking to herself.

This was too much for Brett. For the third time he stopped and faced her.

"Why Vanbrugh, of all people?" he asked.

"Of all people, Mr. Vanbrugh, I should think," Dolly answered. "Think of what he has done, how devoted he has been in all this trouble. And then, the way she spoils him! Any one can see that she is ready to fall in love with him. If she were not as good as—as anything can be—as spring water and snow drops and angels' prayers, so to say, she would be in love with him already. But then, she is, you know."

"I cannot imagine a woman being in love with Vanbrugh," said Brett impatiently.

"Oh, can't you? I can. I thought he was your best friend."

"What has that to do with it? My best friend might be deaf and lame and blind of one eye."

"Also, he might not," said Dolly with a smile.

"Oh, well!" exclaimed Brett, turning away, "if you have made up your mind that Mrs. Darche is to marry Russell Vanbrugh, of course I have nothing to say. I daresay people would think it a very good match."

"With John Darche alive and in the Penitentiary?" inquired the young girl, instantly taking the opposite tack.

"As though any one could care or ask what became of him!" cried Brett, with something like indignation. "Thank heaven we are just in this country! We do not visit the sins of the blackguard upon the innocent woman he leaves behind him. Fortunately, there are no children. The very name will be forgotten, and Mrs. Darche can begin life over again."

"Whoever marries her will have to take old Mr. Darche as an incumbrance," remarked Dolly.

"Of course! Do you suppose that such a woman would leave the poor old gentleman to be taken care of by strangers? Besides, he is a beggar. He has not so much as pocket-money for his cigars. Of course Mr. Darche will stay with them. After all, it will not be so bad. He is very quiet and cheerful, and never in the way."

Brett spoke thoughtfully, in a tone which conveyed to Dolly the certainty that he had already revolved the situation of Marion's future husband in his mind.

"Tell me, Mr. Brett," she said, after a short pause, "will anybody say that she should have sacrificed her own little fortune?"

"People may say it as much as they please," answered the young man quickly. "No one will ever make me believe it."

"I thought conscientious people often did that sort of thing."

"Yes, they do. But this does not seem to me to be a case for that. The bogus certificates of stocks never really were on the market. The first that were issued excited suspicion, and proceedings began almost immediately. Whatever John Darche actually stole was practically taken from the funds of the Company. Now the Company is rich, and it was its own fault if it did not look after its affairs. In some failures, a lot of poor people suffer. That is different. It has fortunately not happened here. The stock will be depreciated for a time, but the Company will continue to exist and will ultimately hold up its head again. The bonds are good enough. After all, what is stock? Lend me some money at your own risk and if I have anything I will pay you interest. If I have nothing, you get nothing. That is what stock means."

"I know," answered Dolly, whose clear little brain had long been familiar with the meanings of common business terms. "Yes, you are quite right. There is no reason why Marion should give anything of her own."

"None whatever," assented Brett.

If Dolly drew any conclusions from what Brett had said, she kept them to herself, and a long silence followed, which was broken at last by the appearance of Russell Vanbrugh, looking pale and tired. He shook hands in silence and sat down.

"I suppose it is all over?" said Dolly softly, in a tone of interrogation.

"Yes, just as we feared."

"What has he got?" inquired Brett, lowering his voice as though he feared that Marion might overhear him, though she was not in the room.

"Five years."

"Is that all?" asked the younger man almost indignantly.

Vanbrugh smiled faintly at the question.

"I am rather proud of it," he answered, "considering that I defended the case."

"True, I forgot." Brett began to walk up and down again.

Dolly looked at Vanbrugh and nodded to him with a little smile as though in approval of what he had done. He seemed pleased and grateful.

"You must be dreadfully tired," she said. "Do let me give you some tea."

"Thanks—I should like some—but some one ought to tell Mrs. Darche. Shall I? Where is she?"

"I will tell her," said Brett stopping suddenly. "I will send a message and she will come down to the drawing-room."

He went out, leaving Dolly to comfort Vanbrugh with tea, for he was far too much excited to sit down or to listen to their conversation. The whole matter might be more or less indifferent to them, whose lives could not be affected directly by Mrs. Darche's misfortunes, but he felt that his own happiness was in the balance. He knew also that, by the arrangements he had made, John Darche would be brought to the house in the course of the next hour, before being taken back to prison for the night, and it was necessary to warn Marion and to see that the old gentleman was prepared to receive his son.

"How about old Mr. Darche?" inquired Dolly, when she and Vanbrugh were left alone.

"Every one is sorry for him," said Vanbrugh, "just as every one execrates John. I get very little credit for the defence," he added, with a dry laugh.

"How good you are!" exclaimed Dolly.

"Am I? It seems to me it was the least I could do."

"It will not seem so to every one," said Dolly.

"I would do a great deal for Mrs. Darche," said Vanbrugh.

"Yes, I know you would. You—you are very fond of her, are you not?" She turned her face away as she asked the question.

"I wish to be a good friend to her."

"And something more?" suggested Dolly, in a tone of interrogation.

"Something more?" repeated Vanbrugh, "I do not understand."

"Oh nothing! I thought you did."

"Perhaps I did. But I think you are mistaken."

"Am I?" Dolly asked, turning her face to him again. "I wish—I mean, I do not think I am."

"I am sure you are."

"This is a good deal like a puzzle game, is it not?"

"No, it is much more serious," said Vanbrugh, speaking gravely. "This is certainly not the time to talk of such things, Miss Maylands. John Darche may come at any moment, and as far as possible his father has been prepared for his coming. But that isn't it. Perhaps I had better say it at once. We have always been such good friends, you know, and I think a great deal of your good opinion, so that I do not wish you to mistake my motives. You evidently think that I am devoted—to say the least of it—to Mrs. Darche. After all, what is the use of choosing words and beat about the bush? You think I am in love with her. I should be very sorry to leave you with that impression—very, very sorry. Do you understand?"

Dolly had glanced at him several times while he had been speaking, but when he finished she looked into the fire again.

"You were in love with her once?" she said quietly.

"Perhaps; how do you know that?"

"She told me so, ever so long ago."

"She told you so?" Vanbrugh's tone betrayed his annoyance.

"Yes. Why are you angry? I am her best friend. Was it not natural that she should tell me?"

"I hardly know."

A pause followed, during which Stubbs entered the room, bringing tea. When he was gone and Dolly had filled Vanbrugh's cup she took up the conversation again.

"Are you thinking about it?" she asked, with a smile.

"About what?" Vanbrugh looked up quickly over his cup.

"Whether it was natural or not?"

"No, I was wondering whether you would still believe it."

"Why should I?" asked Dolly.

"You might. In spite of what I tell you. You know very little of my life."

"Oh, I know a great deal," said the young girl with much conviction. "I know all about you. You are successful, and rich and popular and happy, and lots of things."

"Am I?" asked Vanbrugh rather sadly.

"Yes. Everybody knows you are."

"You are quite sure that I am happy?"

"Unless you tell me that you are not."

"How oddly people judge us," exclaimed Vanbrugh. "Because a man behaves like a human being, and is not cross at every turn, and puts his shoulder to the wheel, to talk and be agreeable in society, everybody thinks he is happy."

"Of course." Dolly smiled. "If you were unhappy you would go and sit in corners by yourself and mope and be disagreeable. But you do not, you see. You are always 'on hand' as they call it, always ready to make things pleasant for everybody."

"That is because I am so good-natured."

"What is good nature?"

"A combination of laziness and vulgarity," Vanbrugh answered promptly.

"Oh!"

"Yes," said Vanbrugh. "The vulgarity that wishes to please everybody, and the laziness that cannot say no."

"You are not a lawyer for nothing. But you are not lazy and you are not vulgar. If you were I should not like you."

"Do you like me?" asked Vanbrugh quickly.

"Very much," she answered with a little laugh.

"You just made me define good nature, Miss Maylands. How do you define liking?"

"Oh, it is very vague," said Dolly in an airy tone. "It is a sort of uncly, auntly thing."

"Oh. I see."

"Do you?"

"Uncles and aunts sometimes marry, do they not?"

"What an idea? They are always brothers and sisters."

"Unless they are uncles and aunts of different people," suggested Vanbrugh.

At this point they were interrupted by the entrance of Stubbs. That dignified functionary had suffered intensely during the last few days, but his tortures were not yet over. So far as lay in his power he still maintained that absolute correctness of appearance which distinguished him from the common, or hirsute "head man"; but he could not control the colour of his face nor the expression of his eyes. He had been a footman in the house of Marion's father, in that very house in fact, and had completely identified himself with the family. Had he considered that he was in the employment of Simon and John Darche, he would have long since given notice and sought a place better suited to his eminent respectability. But having always waited upon Marion since she had been a little girl, he felt bound by all the tenets of inherited butlerdom—and by a sort of devotion not by any means to be laughed at—to stand by his young mistress through all her troubles. By this time his eyes had a permanently unsettled look in them as though he never knew what fearful sight he might next gaze upon, and the ruddy colour was slowly but certainly sinking to the collar line. It had already descended to the lower tips of his ears.

"Beg pardon, Miss Maylands," he said in a subdued tone, "beg pardon, sir. Mr. John has come with those gentlemen."

Both Dolly and Vanbrugh started slightly and looked up at him. Vanbrugh was the first to speak.

"Do you not think you had better go away—to Mrs. Darche?" he asked. "She may want to see you for a minute."

Dolly rose and left the room.

"I suppose they will come in here," said Vanbrugh, addressing Stubbs.

"Yes, sir," answered the butler nervously, "they are coming."

"Well—let us make the best of it."

A moment later John Darche entered the room, followed closely by three men, evidently dressed for the occasion, according to superior orders, in what, at police head-quarters, was believed to be the height of the fashion, for they all wore light snuff-coloured overcoats, white ties, dark trousers and heavily-varnished shoes, and each had a perfectly new high hat in his hand. They looked about the room with evident curiosity.

Darche himself was deathly pale and had grown thinner. Otherwise he was little changed. As soon as he caught sight of Vanbrugh, he came forward, extending his hand.

"I have not had a chance to thank you for your able defence," he said calmly.

"It is not necessary," answered Vanbrugh coldly, and putting his hands behind him as he leaned against the mantelpiece. "It was a matter of duty."

"Very well," said John Darche stiffly, and drawing back a step. "If you do not want to shake hands we will treat it as a matter of business."

"He is pretty fresh, ain't he?" remarked one of the officers in an undertone to his neighbour.

"You bet he is," answered the other.

"Now I have got to see the old gentleman," said Darche, speaking to Vanbrugh. "Before I go, I would like to have a word with you. There is no objection to my speaking privately to Mr. Vanbrugh, I suppose?" he inquired, turning to the officer.

"Not if you stay in the room," answered the one who took the lead.

Darche nodded to Vanbrugh, who somewhat reluctantly followed him to the other end of the room.

"I say," he began in a tone not to be overheard by the detectives. "Can you not give me another chance?"

"What sort of chance?" replied Vanbrugh, raising his eyebrows.

"If I could get through that door," said John looking over Vanbrugh's shoulder, "I could get away. I know the house and they do not. Presently, when my father comes, if you could create some sort of confusion for a moment, I could slip out. They will never catch me. There is an Italian sailing vessel just clearing. I have had exact information. If I can get through that door I can be in the Sixth Avenue Elevated in three minutes and out of New York Harbour in an hour."

Vanbrugh had no intention of being a party to the escape. He met Darche's eyes coldly as he answered.

"No, I will not do it. I have defended you in open court, but I am not going to help you evade the law."

"Do not be too hard, Vanbrugh," said Darche, in a tone of entreaty. "Things are not half so bad as they are made out."

"If that is true, I am sorry. But you have had a perfectly fair trial."

"Will you not help me get away?" Darche urged knowing that this was his last chance.

"No."

"Vanbrugh," said John in an insinuating tone, "you used to be fond of my wife. You wanted to marry her."

"What has that to do with it?" asked Vanbrugh turning sharply upon him.

"You may marry her and welcome, if you let me get through that door. I shall never be heard of again."

"You infernal scoundrel!" Vanbrugh was thoroughly disgusted. "Now gentlemen," he said, turning to the officer in charge, "I will bring Mr. Darche here to see his son. I am sure that for the old gentleman's sake, out of mere humanity, you will do the best you can to keep up the illusion we have arranged. He is old and his mind wanders. He will scarcely notice your presence."

"Yes, sir," the man answered. "You may trust us to do that, sir. Now then, boys," he said, addressing his two companions, "straighten up, best company manners, stiff upper lip—keep your eye on the young man. He is rather too near that door for my taste."

John Darche's face expressed humiliation and something almost approaching to despair. He was about to make another attempt, and had moved a step towards Vanbrugh, when he suddenly started a little and stood still. Marion stood in the open door beyond three detectives. She touched one of them on the shoulder as a sign that she wished to pass.

"Pardon me, lady," said the man, drawing back. "Anything that we can do for you?"

"I am Mrs. Darche. I wish to speak to my husband."

"Certainly, madam," and all three made way for her.

She went straight to her husband, and stood before him at the other end of the room, speaking in a low voice.

"Is there anything I can do for you, John?" she asked so that he could barely hear her.

"You can help me to get away—if you will." John Darche's eyes fell before hers.

She gazed at him during several seconds, hesitating, perhaps, between her sense of justice and her desire to be faithful to her husband to the very end.

"Yes, I will," she said briefly.

Before she spoke again she turned quite naturally, as though in hesitation, and satisfied herself that the three men were out of hearing. Vanbrugh, perhaps suspecting what was taking place, had engaged them in conversation near the door.

"How?" she asked, looking at John again. "Tell me quickly."

"Presently, when my father comes, get as many people as you can. Let me be alone for a moment. Make some confusion, upset something, anything will do. Give me a chance to get through the door into the library."

"I will try. Is that all?"

"Thank you," said John Darche, and for one moment a look of something like genuine gratitude passed over his hard face. "Yes, that is all. You will be glad to get rid of me."

Marion looked one moment longer, hesitated, said nothing and turned away.

"If you have no objections," said Vanbrugh addressing the officer in charge, "we will take Mr. Darche to his father's room instead of asking him to come here."

"Yes, sir," answered the detective. "We can do that."

As they were about to leave the room, Brett met them at the door. He paused a moment and looked about. Then he went straight to Vanbrugh.

"Has he seen him yet?" he asked.

"No, we are just going," answered Vanbrugh.

"Can I be of any use?"

"Stay with Mrs. Darche."

"Shall we go?" he asked, turning to John.

"How brave you are!" exclaimed Brett when they were alone.

"Does it need much courage?" asked Marion, sinking into a chair. "I do not know. Perhaps."

"I know that there are not many men who could bear all this as well as you do," Brett answered, and there was a little emotion in his face.

"Men are different. Mr. Brett—" she began after a short pause.

"Yes, do you want to ask me something?"

"Yes, something that is very hard to ask. Something that you will refuse."

"That would be hard indeed."

"Will you promise not to be angry?" asked Marion faintly.

"Of course I will," Brett answered.

"Do not be so sure. Men's honour is such a strange thing. You may think what I am going to ask touches it."

"What is it?"

He sat down beside her and prepared to listen.

"Will you help my husband to escape?" asked Marion in a whisper. "No—do not say it. Wait until I tell you first how it can be done. Presently I will get them all into this room. Old Mr. Darche is too ill to come, I am afraid. You have not spoken alone to John yet. Take him aside and bring him close to this door on pretence of exchanging a few words. I will make a diversion of some sort at the other end of the room and as they all look round he can slip out. If he has one minute's start they will never see him again. Will you do it?"

"You were right," said Brett gravely. "It is a hard thing to ask."

"Will you do it?"

"It is criminal," he answered.

"Will you do it?"

"For God's sake, give me time to think!" He passed his hand over his eyes.

"There is no time," said Marion anxiously. "Will you do it for me?"

"How can I? how can I?"

"You told me that you loved me the other day—will you do it for my sake?"

A change came over Brett's face.

"For your sake?" he asked in an altered tone. "Do you mean it?"

"Yes. For my sake."

"Very well. I will do it." He turned a little pale and closed one hand over the other.

"Thank you—thank you, Harry." Her voice lingered a little, as she pronounced his name. "Stay here. I will make them come. It is of no use to leave them there. It is a mere formality, at best."

"I am ready," said Brett, rising.

Marion left her seat, and crossing the room again tried the door in question to satisfy herself that it would open readily. She looked out into the passage beyond and then came back, and passing Brett without a word left the room.

She was not gone long, and during the minutes of her absence Brett tried hard not to think of what he was going to do. He could not but be aware that it was a desperately serious matter to help a convicted criminal to escape. He thought of the expression he had seen on Marion's face when he had promised to do it, and of the soft intonation of her sweet voice, and he tried to think of nothing else.

In a moment more she was in the room again leading old Mr. Darche forward, his arm linked in hers. John came in on his father's other side, while Vanbrugh and the three officers followed.

"I understand, I understand, my boy," cried old Darche in his cheery voice. "It is a grand thing."

John was very pale as he answered, and was evidently making a great effort to speak lightly.

"Yes, of course. It has turned out much simpler than we expected, however, thanks to your immense reputation, father. Without your name we could not have done it, could we, gentlemen?" he asked, turning to the detectives as though appealing to them.

"No, guess not," answered the three together.

"Good God, what a scene!" exclaimed Brett under his breath.

"Mr. Brett," said Marion approaching him. "You said you wanted to speak to my husband. Now you must tell me all about it, father," she continued, drawing the old gentleman towards the fire. "I do not half understand in all this confusion."

"Why it is as plain as day, child," said Simon Darche, ever ready to explain a matter of business. "The second mortgage of a million and a half to square everything. Come here, come close to the fire, my hands are cold. I think I must have been ill."

"You would never think Mr. Darche had been ill, would you, gentlemen?" asked Marion, appealing again to the detectives.

"No, guess not," they answered in chorus.

Meanwhile Brett led Darche across the room, talking to him in a loud tone until they were near the door.

"Your wife will make some diversion presently," he whispered. "I do not know how. When she does, make for that door and get out."

"Thank you, thank you," said John with genuine fervour, and his face lighted up. "God bless you, Brett!"

"Do not thank me," answered Brett roughly. "I do not want to do it. Thank your wife."

"Oh!" exclaimed John Darche, and his eyelids contracted. "My wife! Is it for her?"

"Yes."

"I will remember that. I will remember it as long as I live."

Brett never forgot the look which accompanied the words.

"Well, be grateful to her anyhow," he said.

At that moment a piercing scream rang through the room. Marion Darche, while talking to her father-in-law, had been standing quite close to the fire. When Brett turned his head the front of her dress was burning with a slow flame and she was making desperate efforts to tear it from her.

"Good Heavens, you are really burning!" cried Brett as he crushed the flaming stuff with his bare hands, regardless of the consequences to himself.

"Did you think that I cried out in fun?" asked Marion calmly.

On hearing his wife's cry John Darche had bestowed but one glance upon her. It mattered but little to him that she was really on fire. The detectives had rushed to her assistance and for one moment no one was looking. He was close to the door. A moment later he had left the room and turned the key behind him.

"My God!" exclaimed the officer in charge, suddenly. "He has gone! Run, boys! Stop! One of you take the old one. We will not lose them both."

Old Darche started as though he had suddenly been waked out of a deep sleep, and his voice rang out loud and clear.

"Hey, what is this?" he cried. "Hello! Detectives in my house? Disguised too?"

"Yes, sir," answered one of the detectives, seizing him by the wrist just as the other two left the room in pursuit of John Darche. "And one of them has got you."

"Got me!" roared the old man. "Hands off, there! What do you mean? Damn you, sir, let me go!"

"Oh, well," replied the officer calmly, "if you are going to take on like that, you may just as well know that your son was tried and convicted for forgery to-day. Not that I believe that you had anything to do with it, but he is a precious rascal all the same, and has escaped from your house—"

"I! Forgery? The man is mad! John, where are you? Brett! Vanbrugh! Help me, gentlemen!"

He appealed to Brett, and then to Vanbrugh who, indeed, was doing his best to draw the officer away.

"No, no," answered the latter firmly. "I've got one of them—it's all in the family."

Though Marion's dress was still smouldering and Brett was on his knees trying to extinguish the last spark with his own hands, she forgot her own danger, and almost tearing herself away from Brett she clasped the policeman's hand trying to drag it from Simon Darche's shoulder.

"Oh, sir," she cried in tearful entreaty, "pray let him go! He is innocent—he is ill! He will not think of escaping. Don't you see that we have kept it all from him?"

"Kept it all from me?" asked the old gentleman fiercely turning upon her. "What do you mean? Where is John? Where is John? I say!"

"In handcuffs by this time I guess," said the detective calmly.

"But I insist upon knowing what all this means," continued old Darche, growing more and more excited, while the veins of his temples swelled to bursting. "Forgery! Trial! Conviction! John escaping! Am I dreaming? Are not you three directors of the other road? Good God, young man, speak!" He seized Brett by the collar in his excitement.

"Pray be calm, sir, pray be calm," answered the young man, trying to loosen the policeman's sturdy grasp.

By a tremendous effort, such as madmen make in supreme moments, the old man broke loose, and seizing Marion by the wrist dragged her half across the room while he spoke. "Tell me this thing is all a lie!" he cried, again and again.

"The lady knows the truth well enough, sir," said the policeman, coming up behind him. "She caught fire just right."

For one moment Simon Darche stood upright in the middle of the room, looking from one to the other with wild frightened eyes.

"Oh, it is true!" he cried in accents of supreme agony. "John has disgraced himself! Oh, my son, my son!"

One instant more, and the light in his eyes broke, he threw out his arms and fell straight backwards against the detective. Simon Darche was dead.

CHAPTER VIII.

There was no lack of sympathy for Marion Darche, and it was shown in many ways during the period of calm which succeeded her husband's disappearance and the sudden death of his father. Every one was anxious to be first in showing the lonely woman that she was not alone, but that, on the contrary, those who had been her friends formerly were more ready than ever to proclaim the fact now, and, so far as they were able, not in words only, but in deeds also.

She was relieved, all at once, of the many burdens which had oppressed her life during the past years—indeed, she sometimes caught herself missing the constant sacrifice, the daily effort of subduing her temper, the hourly care for the doting old man who was gone.

But with all this, there was the consciousness that she was not altogether free. Somewhere in the world, John Darche was still alive, a fugitive, a man for whose escape a reward was offered. It was worse than widowhood to be bound to a husband who was socially dead. It would have been easier to bear if he had never escaped, and if he were simply confined in the Penitentiary. There would not have been the danger of his coming back stealthily by night, which Marion felt was not imaginary so long as he was at large.

Yet she made no effort to obtain a divorce from the man whose name was a disgrace. On the contrary, so far as outward appearances were concerned, she made no change, or very little, in her life. Public opinion had been with her from the first, and society chose to treat her as a young widow, deserving every sympathy, who when the time of mourning should have expired, would return to the world, and open her doors to it.

There was a great deal of speculation as to the reasons which prevented her from taking steps to free herself, but no one guessed what really passed in her mind, any more than the majority of her acquaintances understood that she had once loved John Darche. It had been commonly said for years that she had married him out of disappointment because something had prevented her from marrying another man, usually supposed to have been Russell Vanbrugh. People attributed to her a greater complication of motives than she could have believed possible.

In order not to be altogether alone, she took a widowed cousin to live with her—a Mrs. Willoughby, who soon became known to her more intimate friends as Cousin Annie. She was a gray, colourless woman, much older than Marion, kind of heart but not very wise, insignificant but refined, a moral satisfaction and an intellectual disappointment, accustomed to the world, but not understanding it, good by nature and charitable, and educated in religious forms to which she clung by habit and association rather than because they represented anything to her. Cousin Annie was one of those fortunate beings whom temptation overlooks, passing by on the other side, who can suffer in a way for the loss of those dear to them, but whose mourning does not reach the dignity of sorrow, nor the selfish power of grief.

Marion did not feel the need of a more complicated and gifted individuality for companionship. On the contrary, it was a relief to her to have some one at her side for whom she was not expected to think, but who, on the contrary, thought for her in all the commonplace matters of life, and never acted otherwise than as a normal, natural, human unit. There had been enough of the unusual in the house in Lexington Avenue, and Marion was glad that it was gone.

Three months passed in this way and the spring was far advanced. Then, suddenly and without warning, came the news that John Darche had been heard of, traced, seen at last and almost captured. He had escaped once more and this time he had escaped, for ever, by his own act. He had jumped overboard in the English Channel from the Calais boat, and his body had not been found.

Mrs. Darche wore black for her husband, and Cousin Annie said it was very becoming. Dolly Maylands thought it absurd to put on even the appearance of mourning for such a creature, and said so.

"My dear child," answered Marion gently, "he was my husband."

"I never can realise it," said Dolly. "Do you remember, I used to ask you if you did not sometimes forget it yourself?"

"I never forgot it." Mrs. Darche's voice had a wonderful gravity in it, without the least sadness. She was a woman without affectation.

"No," said Dolly thoughtfully, "I suppose you never had a chance. It is of no use, Marion dear," she added after a little pause, and in a different tone, as though she were tired of pretending a sort of subdued sympathy, "it is of no use at all! I can never be sorry, you know—so that ends it. Why, just think! You are free to marry any one you please, to begin life over again. How many women in your position ever had such a chance? Not but what you would have been just as free if you had got a divorce. But—somehow, this is much more solidly satisfactory. Yes, I know—it is horrid and unchristian—but there is just that—there is a solid satisfaction in—"

She was going to say "in death," but thought better of it and checked herself.

"It will not make very much difference to me just yet," said Marion. "Meanwhile, as I said, he was my husband. I shall wear mourning a short time, and then—then I do not know what I shall do."

"It must be very strange," answered Dolly.

"What, child?"

"Your life. Now you need not call me child in that auntly tone, as though you were five hundred thousand years older and wiser and duller than I am. There are not six years between our ages, you know."

"Do not resent being young, Dolly."

"Resent it! No, indeed! I resent your way of making yourself out to be old. In the pages of future history we shall be spoken of as contemporaries."

Mrs. Darche smiled, and Dolly laughed.

"School-book style," said the girl. "That is my morning manner. In the evening I am quite different, thank goodness! But to go back—what I meant was that your own life must seem very strange to you. To have loved really—of course you did—why should you deny it? And then to have made the great mistake and to have married the wrong man, and to have been good and to have put up the shutters of propriety and virtue—so to say, and to have kept up a sort of Sunday-go-to-meeting myth for years, expecting to do it for the rest of your life, and then—to have the luck—well, no, I did not mean to put it that way—but to begin life all over again, and the man you loved not married yet, and just as anxious to marry you as ever—"

"Stop, Dolly! How do you know?" Marion knit her brows in annoyance.

"Oh! I know nothing, of course. I can only guess. But then, it is easy to guess, sometimes."

"I am not so sure," answered Marion thoughtfully, and looking at Dolly with some curiosity.

As for Brett, he said nothing to any one, when the news of John Darche's death reached New York. He supposed that people would take it for granted that in the course of time he would marry Marion, because the world knew that he had formerly loved her, and that she had made a mistake in not accepting him and would probably be quite willing to rectify it now that she was free. There had always been a certain amount of inoffensive chaff about his devotion to her interests. But he himself was very far from assuming that she would take him now. He knew her better than the world did, and understood the unexpected hesitations and revulsions of which she was capable, much better than the world could.

He took a hopeful view, however, as was natural. For the present he waited and said nothing. If she chose to go through the form of mourning, he would go through the form of respecting it while it lasted. Society is the better for most of its conventionalities, a fact of which one may easily assure oneself by spending a little time in circles that make bold to laugh at appearances. A man may break the social barriers for a great object's sake, or out of true passion—as sheer necessity may force a man to sleep by the road side. But a man who habitually makes his bed in the gutter by choice is a madman, and one who thinks himself above manners and conventionalities is generally a fool. There is nothing more intolerable than eccentricity for its own sake, nor more pitiful than the perpetual acting of it to a gallery that will not applaud.

For some time Brett continued to come and see Marion regularly, and she did not hesitate to show him that he was as welcome as ever. Then, without any apparent cause, his manner changed. He became much more grave than he had ever been before, and those who knew him well were struck by an alteration in his appearance, not easily defined at first, but soon visible to any one. He was growing pale and thin.

Vanbrugh strolled into his office on a warm day in early June and sat down for a chat. Brett's inner sanctum was in the Equitable Building, measured twelve feet by eight, and was furnished so as to leave a space of about six feet by four in the middle, just enough for two chairs and the legs of the people who sat in them. Vanbrugh looked at his friend and came to the just conclusion that something was materially wrong with him.

"Brett," he said, suddenly, "let us run over to Paris."

"I cannot leave New York at present," Brett answered, without hesitation, as though he had already considered the question of going abroad.

"Not being able to leave New York is a more or less dangerous disease which kills a great many people," observed Vanbrugh. "You must leave New York, whether you can or not. I do not know whether you are ill or not, but you look like an imperfectly boiled owl."

"I know I do. I want a change."

"Then come along."

"No, I cannot leave New York. I am not joking, my dear fellow."

"I see you are not. I suppose it is of no use to ask what is the matter. If you wanted help you would say so. You evidently have something on your mind. Anything I can do?"

"No, I wish there were. I will tell you some day. It is something rather odd and unusual."

Brett was not an imaginative man, or Vanbrugh, judging from his appearance and manner, would almost have suspected that he was suffering from some persecution not quite natural or earthly. He had the uneasy glance of a man who fancies himself haunted by a sight he fears to see. Vanbrugh looked at him a long time in silence and then rose to go.

"I am sorry, old man," he said, with something almost like a sigh. "You live too much alone," he added, turning as he was about to open the door. "You ought to get married."

Brett smiled in rather a ghastly fashion which did not escape his friend.

"I cannot leave New York," he repeated mechanically.

"Perhaps you will before long," said Vanbrugh, going out. "I would if I were you."

He went away in considerable perplexity. Something in Brett's manner puzzled him and almost frightened him. As a lawyer, and one accustomed to dealing with the worst side of human nature, he was inclined to play the detective for a time; as a friend, he resolved not to inquire too closely into a matter which did not concern him. In fact, he had already gone further than he had intended. Only a refined nature can understand the depth of degradation to which curiosity can reduce friendship.

A day or two later Vanbrugh met Dolly Maylands at a house in Tuxedo Park where he had come to dine and spend the night. There were enough people at the dinner to insure a little privacy to those who had anything to say to one another.

"Brett is ill," said Vanbrugh. "Do you know what is the matter with him?"

"I suppose Marion has refused him after all," answered Dolly, looking at her plate.

Vanbrugh glanced at her face and thought she was a little pale. He remembered the conversation when they had been left together in the library after John Darche's trial, and was glad that he had then spoken cautiously, for he connected her change of colour with himself, by a roundabout and complicated reasoning more easy to be understood than to explain.

"Perhaps she has," he said coolly. "But I do not think it is probable."

"Mr. Brett does not go to see her any more."

"Really? Are you sure of that, Miss Maylands?"

"Marion has noticed it. She spoke to me of it yesterday. I wondered—"

"What?"

"Whether there had been any misunderstanding. I suppose that is what I was going to say." She blushed quickly, as she had turned pale a moment before. "You see," she continued rather hurriedly, "people who have once misunderstood one another may do the same thing again. Say, for instance, that he vaguely hinted at marriage—men have such vague ways of proposing—"

"Have they?"

"Of course—and that Marion did not quite realise what he meant, and turned the conversation, and that Mr. Brett took that for a refusal and went away, and lost his appetite, and all that—would it not account for it?"

"Yes," assented Vanbrugh with a smile. "It might account for it—though Harry Brett is not a school girl of sixteen."

"Meaning that I am, I suppose," retorted Dolly, anxious to get away from the subject which she had not chosen, and to lead Vanbrugh up to what she would have called the chaffing point. But he was not in the humour for that.

"No," he said quietly. "I did not mean that." And he relapsed into silence for a time.

He was thinking the matter over, and he was also asking himself whether, after all, he should not ask Dolly Maylands to marry him, though he was so much older than she. That was a possibility which had presented itself to his mind very often of late, and from time to time he determined to solve the question in one way or the other, and be done with it. But when he wished to decide it, he found it capable of only two answers; either he must offer himself or not. Sometimes he thought he would and then he fancied that he ought to prepare Dolly for so grave a matter by giving up chaff when they were together. But the first attempt at putting this resolution into practice was a failure whenever he tried it. Chaff was Dolly's element,—she pined when she was deprived of it. The serious part of her nature lay deep, and there were treasures there, hidden far below the bright tide of rippling laughter. Such treasures are sometimes lost altogether because no one discovers them, or because no one knows how to bring them to the surface.

As he sat by her side in silence, Vanbrugh was impelled to turn suddenly upon Dolly and ask her to marry him, without further diplomacy. But he reflected upon the proverbial uncertainty of woman's temper and held his peace. He had never made love to her, and there had never been anything approaching to a show of sentiment between them until that memorable afternoon when the trial was over. Moreover Russell Vanbrugh was a very comfortable man. Nothing less grammatically incorrect could express the combination of pleasant things which made up his life. He was not lonely, in his father's house—indeed, he was not lonely anywhere. He was contented, rich enough to satisfy all his tastes, popular in a certain degree among those he liked, peaceful, never bored, occupying, as it were, a well upholstered stall at the world's play, when he chose to be idle, and busy with matters in which he took a healthy, enduring interest when he chose to work. To marry would be to step into an unknown country. He meant to make the venture some day, but he had just enough of indolence in his character to render the first effort a little distasteful. Nevertheless, he was conscious that he thought more and more of Dolly, and that he was, in fact, falling seriously in love with her, and foreseeing that there was to be a change in their relations, there arose the doubt, natural in a man not over-vain, as to the reception he might expect at her hands.

When Dolly next saw Marion Darche she proceeded to attack the question in her own way. Marion was still in town, hesitating as to what she should do with her summer. She had no house in the country. The place which had belonged to her husband had gone with such little property as he had still owned at the time of his conviction to repair some of the harm he had done.

The windows of the library were open, and a soft south-easterly breeze was blowing up from the square bringing a breath of coming summer from the park leaves. Those who love New York, even to the smell of its mud, know the strange charm of its days and evenings in late spring. Like the charm of woman, the charm of certain great cities can never be explained by those who feel it to those who do not. There were flowers in the library, and Dolly sat down near the windows and breathed the sweet quiet air before she spoke.

"Harry Brett is ill," she said.

"Ill? Seriously?" Marion had started slightly at the news.

"Not ill at home," explained Dolly. "Mr. Vanbrugh spoke of it the other night."

"Oh—" Marion seemed relieved. "Perhaps that is the reason why he does not come to see me," she added rather inconsequently, after a moment's pause.

Dolly turned in her seat and looked into her friend's eyes.

"Marion," she said gravely. "You know that is not the reason why he does not come."

"I know? What do you mean, Dolly?"

In spite of the genuine and innocent surprise in the tone, Dolly was not satisfied.

"He has asked you to marry him and you have refused him," she said with conviction.

"I?"

For a moment Marion Darche stared in amazement. Then her eyes filled with tears and she turned away suddenly. Her voice was unsteady as she answered.

"No. He has not asked me to marry him."

"Are you quite sure, dear?" insisted Dolly. "You know men have such odd ways of saying it, and sometimes one does not quite understand—and then a word, or a glance—if a man is very sensitive—you know—"

"Do not talk like that," said Marion, a little abruptly.

A short silence followed, during which she moved uneasily about the room, touching the objects on the table, though they needed no arrangement. At last she spoke again, out of the dusk from the corner she had reached in her peregrination.

"If he asked me to marry him, I should accept him," she said in a low voice.

Dolly was silent in her turn. She had not expected a direct confidence so soon, and had not at all foreseen its nature, when it came almost unasked.

"It is very strange!" she exclaimed at last.

"Yes," echoed Marion Darche, quite simply. "It is very strange."

It was long before the mystery was solved, and Dolly did not refer to it in the meantime. Brett did not go abroad, nor did he leave New York for more than a few days during the summer, though it was almost inconceivable that his business should require his constant presence during the dull season, and he could certainly have left matters to his partner, had he not had some very good reason for refusing to take a holiday.

Mrs. Darche took Cousin Annie with her and wandered about during a couple of months, visiting various places which did not interest her, falling in with acquaintances often, and sometimes with friends, but rather avoiding those she met than showing any wish to see much of them.

To tell the truth, the great majority showed no inclination to intrude upon her privacy. People understood well enough that she should desire to be alone and undisturbed, considering the strange circumstances through which she had passed during the winter and spring. Moreover Brett's conduct elicited approval on all sides. It was said that he showed good taste in not following Mrs. Darche from place to place, as he might easily have done, and as most men in his position undoubtedly would have done, for it was quite clear that he was seriously in love. All his friends had noticed the change of appearance and manner, and others besides Vanbrugh had advised him to take a rest, to go abroad, to go and shoot bears, in short, to do one of the many things which are generally supposed to contribute to health and peace of mind. Then it was rumoured that he was working harder than usual, in view of his approaching marriage, that he was not so well off as had generally been supposed, and that he wished to forestall any remarks to the effect that he was going to marry Mrs. Darche for the sake of her fortune, which was considerable. In short, people said everything they could think of, and all the things that are usually thought of in such cases, and when they had reached the end of their afflictions they talked of other friends whose doings formed a subject of common interest.

Mrs. Darche did not find much companionship in her cousin, but that was not exactly what she required or expected of Mrs. Willoughby. She wanted the gray, colourless atmosphere which the widowed lady seemed to take about with her, and she liked it merely because it was neutral, restful and thoroughly unemotional. She did not think of creating new diversions for herself, nor of taking up new interests. Her life had been so full that this temporary emptiness was restful to her. She was surprised at finding how little the present resembled what she had expected it to be, so long as it had been still a future. As yet, too, there was an element of uncertainty in it which did not preclude pleasant reflections. Though she had said to Dolly that Brett's conduct was changed, she could still explain it to herself well enough to be satisfied with her own conclusions. Doubtless he felt that it was yet too soon to speak or even to show by his actions that he had anything to say. She could well believe—and indeed it was flattering—that he abstained from seeing her because he felt that in her presence he might not be able to control his speech. She called up in her memory what had taken place many months previously when she had sent for him and had told him that she needed a large sum of money at short notice—how he had lost his head on that occasion, and allowed words to break out which both of them had regretted. Since there was now no obstacle in the way, it would of course be harder for him than ever to act the part of a disinterested friend, even for the short time—the shortest possible—during which she went through the form of wearing mourning for John Darche. She could still say to herself that it was delicate and tactful on Brett's part to act as he was acting, although she sometimes thought, or wished, that he might have allowed what was passing in his mind to betray itself by a glance, a gesture or a gentle intonation. It was certainly pushing the proprieties to the utmost to keep away from her altogether. Even when he wrote to her, as he had occasion to do several times during the summer, he confined himself almost entirely to matters of business, and the little phrase with which he concluded each of his communications seemed to grow more and more formal. There had always been something a little exaggerated in Harry Brett's behaviour. It had been that perhaps, which in old times had frightened her, had prevented her from accepting him, and had made her turn in mistaken confidence to the man of grave moderation and apparently unchanging purpose who had become her husband.

Dolly Maylands had no such illusions with regard to Brett's conduct, though she did not again discuss the matter with Russell Vanbrugh. She was conscious that he felt as she did, that something mysterious had taken place about which neither of them knew anything, but which was seriously and permanently influencing Harry Brett's life. Dolly, however, was more discreet than was commonly supposed, and kept her surmises to herself. When Mrs. Darche and Brett were discussed before her, she said as little as she could, and allowed people to believe that she shared the common opinion, namely, that the two people would be married before the year was out and that, in the meanwhile, both were behaving admirably.

Vanbrugh wandered about a good deal during the summer, returning to New York from time to time, more out of habit than necessity. He made visits at various country houses among his friends, spent several days on board of several yachts, was seen more than once in Bar Harbour, and once, at least, at Newport and on the whole did all those things which are generally expected of a successful man in the summer holidays. He wrote to Brett several times, but they did not meet often. The tone of his friend's letters tended to confirm his suspicion of some secret trouble. Brett wrote in a nervous and detached way and often complained of the heat and discomfort during July and August, though he never gave a sufficient reason for staying where he was.

On the other hand, Vanbrugh found that where he was invited Dolly Maylands was often invited too, and that there seemed to be a general impression that they liked one another's society and should be placed together at dinner.