SUSPENSE

BY

HENRY SETON MERRIMAN

AUTHOR OF 'YOUNG MISTLEY,' 'THE PHANTOM FUTURE'
ETC.

IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. II.

LONDON
RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON
Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen
1890

[All rights reserved]

Some there are who laugh and sing
While compassed round by sorrow;
To this ev'ning's gloom they bring
The sunshine of to-morrow.

CONTENTS OF VOL. II.

CHAPTER

I. [AT SEA]
II. [SISTERS]
III. [ALICE RETURNS]
IV. [TO THE FRONT]
V. [UNDER FIRE]
VI. [TRIST ACTS]
VII. [QUICKSANDS]
VIII. [MASKED]
IX. [IN CASE OF WAR]
X. [A PROBLEM]
XI. [MRS. WYLIE LEADS]
XII. [THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE SEA]
XIII. [CROSS-PURPOSES]
XIV. [A SOCIAL CONSPIRACY]

SUSPENSE

CHAPTER I.
AT SEA.

One fine day late in the autumn of eighteen hundred and seventy-six, a steamer emerged from the haze that lay over the Atlantic and the northern waters of the Bay of Biscay. Those who were working in the fields behind the lighthouse of the Pointe de Raz saw her approach the land, sight the lighthouse, and then steer outwards again on a course due north through the channel dividing the Ile de Sein from the rocky headland jutting out from this most western point of Europe into the Atlantic.

Those on board the steamer, looking across the blue waters, saw the faint outline of a high broken coast, and all round them a sea divided into races and smooth deep pools large enough to anchor a whole fleet had there been bottom within reach. Islands, islets, and mere rocks; some jutting high up, some nestling low. A dangerous coast, and a splendid fishing-ground.

There were further points of interest on the waters; namely, a whole fleet of sardine-boats from Douarnenez and Audierne, scudding here and there with their bright brown sails, sometimes glowing in the sun, sometimes brooding darkly in the shadow. It was a beautiful picture, because the colours were brilliant; the blue sea gradually merged into bright green, and finished off in the distance with yellow sand or deep-brown cliff. The hills towards Breste, to the north, were faintly outlined in a shadowy haze of blue, while close at hand the long Atlantic sweep came bounding in and broke into dazzling white over the rocks.

On the deck of the steamer the passengers paused in their afternoon promenade, and, leaning their arms on the high rail, contemplated the bright scene with evident satisfaction. The small fishing-boats were of a more British build than most of them had seen for some years. The brown lug-sails were like the sails of an English fishing-boat, and many of these swarthy-faced wanderers had recollections of childhood which came surging into their minds at the sight of a blue sea with a brown sail on it. The high rocky land might well be England, with its neat yellow lighthouse and low-roofed cottages nestling among the scanty foliage and careful cultivation. It was so very different from Madras, so unlike Bombay, so infinitely superior to Hong Kong. The breeze even was different from any that had touched their faces for many a day, and some of them actually felt cold—a sensation almost forgotten.

The captain of this splendid steamer was a gentleman as well as a good sailor, and he endeavoured to make his passengers feel at home while under his care. Therefore he now walked aft and stood beside the chair of a beautiful woman who was always alone, always indifferent, always repelling.

'This is a pretty sight, Mrs. Huston,' he said pleasantly, without looking down at her, but standing beside her chair. He gazed across the water towards the Pointe de Raz, with the good-natured patience of a man who does not intend to be snubbed. Once, during his first voyage as commander, a woman had disappeared from the deck one dark night, and since then the shrewd 'passenger' captain had kept his eye upon pretty women who neither flirted nor quarrelled at sea.

'Yes,' was the indifferent answer; and the sailor's keen gray eyes detected the fact that the fair lashes were never raised.

'It brings the fact before one,' he continued, 'that we are getting near home.'

'Yes,' with pathetic indifference. She did not even make the pretence of looking up, and yet there was no visible interest in the book that lay upon her lap.

The sailor moved a little, and leant his elbows upon the rail, looking round his ship with a critical and all-seeing eye.

'I hope,' he said cheerily, 'that there is no one on board to whom the sight of Eddystone will not give unmitigated pleasure. We shall be there before any of us quite realize that the voyage is drawing to an end.'

Then the beautiful woman made a little effort. The man's kindness of heart was so obvious, his disinterested desire to cheer her voluntary solitude was so gentlemanly in its feeling and so entirely free from any suggestion of inquisitiveness, that she, as a lady, could no longer treat him coldly. All through the voyage this same quiet watchfulness over her comfort (which displayed itself in little passing acts, and never in words) had been exercised by the man, whose most difficult duties were not, perhaps, connected solely with the perils of the sea. She raised her head and smiled somewhat wanly, and there was in the action and in the expression of her eyes a sudden singular resemblance to Brenda Gilholme. But it was a weak copy. There was neither the invincible pluck nor the unusual intellectuality to be discerned.

'I shall be glad,' she said, 'to see England again. Although the voyage has been very pleasant and very ... peaceful. Thanks to you.'

'Not at all,' he answered with breezy cheerfulness; 'I have done remarkably little to make things pleasant. It has been a quiet voyage. We are, I think, a quiet lot this time. Invalids mostly—in body, or mind!'

At these last words the lady looked up suddenly into the captain's pleasant face. In her manner there was a faint suggestion of coquetry—so faint as only to be a very pleasing suggestion. Women who have been flirts in former years have this glance, and they never quite lose it. Personally speaking, I like it. There comes from its influence an innocent and very sociable sensation of familiarity with old and young alike. Someday I shall write a learned disquisition on the art and so-called vice of flirting. Look out for it, reader. Mind and secure an early copy from your stationer. From its thoughtful pages you cannot fail to glean some instructive matter. And ye, oh flirts! buy it up and show it to your friends; for it will be a defence of your maligned species. Flirts are the salt of social existence. A girl who cannot flirt is ... is ... well ... is not the girl for me.

The mariner looked down into the sad face, and smiled in a comprehensive way which seemed in some inexplicable manner to bring them closer together.

'Then,' said the lady, 'as I am in the enjoyment of rude health and likely to last for some years yet, I may infer that you know all about me.'

The captain looked grave.

'I know,' he answered, 'just little enough to be able to reply that I know nothing when people do me the honour of inquiring; and just sufficient to feel that your affairs are better left undiscussed by us.'

She nodded her head, and sat looking at her own hands in a dull, apathetic way. Woman-like, she acted in direct opposition to his most obvious hint.

'I suppose,' she murmured, 'that gossips have been thrashing the whole question out with their customary zest.'

'Ceylon is a hot-bed of gossips. Everyone is up in his neighbour's affairs, and a fine voyage in a comfortable steamer is not calculated to still busy tongues!'

She shrugged her shoulders indifferently, and looked up at him with a slight pout of her pretty lips.

'Who cares?' she asked with well-simulated levity. He, however, did not choose to appear as if he were deceived, which simple feat was well within his histrionic capabilities; for his life was one long succession of petty diplomatic efforts.

'I think,' he said coolly, 'that you have done perfectly right in keeping yourself quite apart from the rest of them.' He looked round upon the other passengers, seated or lolling about the deck, with a fatherly tolerance. 'And if I may suggest it, you cannot do better than to continue doing so for the next day or two. Avoid more particularly the older women. The jealousy of a young girl is dangerous, but the repelled patronage of an older woman, bristling with the consciousness of her own wearisome irreproachability, is infinitely more to be feared!'

This remark from the lips of a man who undoubtedly knew more than is usually known of the feminine side of humanity appeared to suggest material for thought to the somewhat shallow brain of his hearer. She dropped the lightly reckless style at once, and the thought that this honest and simple-hearted sailor was in love with her slowly died a natural death. There followed, moreover, upon its demise an uncomfortable suggestion that, although he was probably honest, he was not consequently simple-hearted—that he was, in fact, a match for her, and, knowing it, was not at that moment disposed to measure mental blades with her.

'I am glad,' she said humbly, 'that my sister will be at Plymouth to meet me.'

'Did you,' inquired the sailor, 'write from Port Said to Miss Gilholme?'

She raised her head with a questioning air, but did not look up.

'Miss Gilholme,' she repeated—'how do you know her name?'

'Oh,' laughed the captain, 'I am a sort of walking directory. There is a constant procession of men and women passing before me. Many of them turn aside and say a few words. Sometimes we find mutual acquaintances, sometimes only mutual interests. Sometimes they pass by again, and on occasion we become friends.'

'Then you have not met her?'

'No—I have not had that pleasure.'

'It is a pleasure,' said the beautiful woman very earnestly. Had she only known it, her face was infinitely lovelier in grave repose than in most piquante bouderie.

'I can quite believe it,' replied the sailor, with a gallantry which even Mrs. Huston could not take as anything more than conventional.

'She is my guardian angel!' murmured she pathetically.

Her companion smiled slightly, in a very unsympathetic way. His opinion of 'guardian angels' was taken from a practical and lamentably unpoetical point of view. Having played the part himself on several occasions with more or less conspicuous success, he inclined to a belief that the glory of guardian angelism is of a negative description. There are certain people in the world who will accept all and any service, and to whom the feeling of indebtedness is without a hint of shame. In time they come to consider such service as has previously and hitherto been rendered them in the light of a precedent. Gradually the debt seems to glide from the shoulders of the debtor to those of the creditor, and having once rendered a service, the renderer has simply placed himself under an obligation to continue doing so.

When Mrs. Huston, therefore, mentioned the fact that her sister was her guardian angel, the pathos of the observation was somewhat lost upon her hearer; who, moreover, was slightly prejudiced against Brenda because such guardian angels as had crossed his path were of a weak and gullible nature. He never made her acquaintance, but the impression thus conceived—though totally erroneous—was never dispelled by such small details of her story as came to his knowledge in later years.

'I hear,' the captain went on to explain, in his cheery impersonal way, 'scraps of family histories here and there, and then am rather surprised to meet members of these families, or persons connected with them.'

Mrs. Huston bravely quelled a desire to talk of her own affairs, and smiled vaguely.

'I have no doubt,' she said with mechanical pleasantness, 'that we have a great many mutual acquaintances—if we only knew how to hit upon the vein.'

'Of course we have—the world, and especially the Indian world, is very small.'

'I wonder who they are?' murmured Mrs. Huston, raising her eyes to her companion's face.

'Mention a few of your friends,' he suggested, looking down into her eyes somewhat keenly.

'No—you begin!'

He changed his position somewhat, and stood upright, free from the rail, but his glance never left her face.

'Theodore Trist!'

Instantly she averted her eyes. For a moment she was quite off her guard, and her fingers strayed in a nervous, aimless way among the pages of her open book. To her pale cheeks the warm colour mounted as if a glowing ruby reflection had suddenly been cast upon the delicate skin.

She expressed no surprise by word or gesture, and there was a pause of considerable duration before at length she spoke.

'Where is he now?' she asked in a low voice.

The captain stroked his grizzled moustache reflectively. He acted his part well, despite her sudden and lamentable failure.

'Let me think ... He is in Constantinople to the best of my knowledge. He is engaged in watching Eastern affairs. It seems that Turkey and Russia cannot keep their hands off each other's throats much longer. At present there is an armistice, but Trist has been through the late war between Servia and Turkey.'

'Do you know him well?' she asked at length, after a second pause.

'Yes. He is a friend of mine.'

'A great friend?'

'I think I may say so.'

'He is also a friend of ours—of my sister and myself,' said Mrs. Huston calmly.

She had quite recovered her equanimity by now, and the pink colour had left her cheeks.

'I have known him,' said the captain conversationally, 'for many years now. Soon after he made his name he went out to the East with me, and we struck up a friendship. He is not a man who makes many friends, I imagine.'

'No,' murmured Mrs. Huston, in a voice which implied that the subject was not distasteful to her, but she preferred her companion to talk while she listened.

'But,' continued the sailor, 'those who claim him as a friend have an unusual privilege. He is what we vaguely call at sea a "good" man—a man upon whom it is safe to place reliance in any emergency, under all circumstances.'

'Yes,' said the lady softly.

'He has been doing wonderful work out in the East since the beginning of the insurrection. We have a set of men out there such as no nation in the world could produce except England—fellows who go about with their lives literally in their hands, for they're virtually unprotected—men who are soldiers, statesmen, critics, writers and explorers all in one. They run a soldier's risk without the recompense of a soldier's grave. A statesman's craft must be theirs, while they are forced to keep two diplomatic requirements ever before their eyes. England must have news; the army authorities (whose word is law) must be conciliated. Travelling by day and night alike, never resting for many consecutive hours, never laying aside the responsibility that is on their shoulders, they are expected to write amidst the din of battle, on a gun-carriage perhaps, often in the saddle, and usually at night when the wearied army is asleep; they are expected, moreover, to write well, so that men sitting by their firesides in London, with books of reference at hand, may criticise and seek in vain for slip or error. They are expected to criticise the stratagem of the greatest military heads around them without the knowledge possessed by the officers who dictate their coming and their going, throwing them a piece of stale news here and there as they would throw a bone to a dog. All this, and more, is done by our war-correspondents; and amidst these wonderful fellows Theodore Trist stands quite alone, immeasurably superior to them all.'

The vehement sailor was interrupted by the sound of the first dinner-bell, and a general stir on deck. At sea, meal-times are hailed with a more visible joy than is considered decorous on land, and no time is lost in answering the glad summons.

Mrs. Huston rose languidly from her seat and moved forward towards the spacious saloon staircase.

'Yes,' she answered thoughtfully; 'Theo must be very clever. It is difficult to realize that one's friends are celebrated, is it not?'

The captain walked by her side, suiting his crisp, firm step to her languid gait, which was, nevertheless, very graceful in its rhythmic ease. Her voice was clear, gentle, and somewhat indifferent. On her face there was no other expression than the customary suggestion of pathetic apathy.

'I suppose,' she continued in a conventional manner, 'that he will not be home for some time.'

'No. There will be a big war before this question is settled, and Trist will be in the thick of it.'

With a slight inclination of the head she passed away from him and disappeared down the saloon stairs. The captain turned away and mounted the little brass ladder leading to the bridge with sailor-like deliberation.

'And, young woman,' he muttered to himself, 'you had better go down to your cabin and thank your God on your bended knees that Theodore Trist is not in England, nor likely to cross your path for many months to come.'

He looked round him with his habitual cheery keenness, and said a few words to the second officer who was on duty. Could he have seen Theodore Trist standing at that moment on the deck of a quick despatch-boat, racing through the Bosphorus and bound for England, he would not, perhaps, have laughed so heartily at a very mild joke made by his subordinate a few moments later.

'And yet,' he reflected as he made his way below in answer to the second dinner-bell—'and yet she does not seem to me to be the sort of woman for Trist—not good enough! Perhaps the gossips are wrong after all, and he does not care for her!'

CHAPTER II.
SISTERS.

More than one idler in Plymouth Station, one morning in October, turned his head to look again at two women walking side by side on the platform near to the London train. One, the taller of the two, was exceptionally beautiful, of a fair delicate type, with an almost perfect figure and a face fit for a model of the Madonna, so pure in outline was it, so innocent in its meaning. The younger woman was slightly shorter. She was clad in mourning, which contrasted somewhat crudely with the brighter costume of her companion. It was evident that these two were sisters; they walked in the same easy way, and especially notable was a certain intrepid carriage of the head, which I venture to believe is essentially peculiar to high-born Englishwomen.

By the side of her sister, Brenda Gilholme might easily pass unnoticed. Mrs. Huston was, in the usual sense of the word, a beautiful woman, and such women live in an atmosphere of notoriety. Wherever they go they are worshipped at a distance by those beneath them in station, patronized by those above them, respected by their equals, because, forsooth, face and form are moulded with delicacy and precision. The mind of such a woman is of little importance; the person is pleasing, and more is not demanded. Only her husband will some day awaken to the fact that worship from a distance might have been more satisfactory. The effect of personal beauty is a lamentable factor which cannot be denied. All men, good and bad alike, come under its influence. A lovely woman can twist most of us round her dainty finger with a wanton disregard for the powers of intellect or physical energy.

Brenda was not beautiful; she was only pretty, with a dainty refinement of heart which was visible in her delicate face. But her prettiness was in no way tainted with weakness, as was her sister's beauty. She was strong and thoughtful, with a true woman's faculty for hiding these unwelcome qualities from the eyes of inferior men. She had grown up in the shadow of this beautiful sister, and men had not cared to seek for intellect where they saw only a reflected beauty. She had passed through a social notoriety, but eager eyes had only glanced at her in passing. She had merely been Alice Gilholme's sister, and now—here on Plymouth platform—Alice Huston was assuming her old superiority. My brothers, think of this! It must have been a wondrous love that overcame such drawbacks, that passed by with tolerance a thousand daily slights. And Brenda's love for her sister accomplished all this. Ah, and more! In the days that followed there was a greater wrong—a wrong which only blind selfishness could have inflicted—and this also Brenda Gilholme forgave.

The sisters had met on the steamboat landing a few moments previously. A rattling drive through the town had followed, and now they were able to speak together alone for the first time. There had been no display of emotion. The beautiful lips had met lightly, the well-gloved fingers had clasped each other with no nervous hysterical fervour, and now it would seem that they had parted but a week ago. Emotion is tabooed in the school through which these two had passed—the school of nineteenth-century society—and, indeed, we appear to get along remarkably well without it.

'My dear,' Mrs. Huston was saying, 'he will be home by the next boat if he can raise the money. We cannot count on more than a week's start.'

'And,' inquired Brenda, 'can he raise the money?'

'Oh yes! If he can get as far as the steamboat office without spending it.'

Brenda looked at her sister in a curious way.

'Spending it on what ... Alice?'

'On—drink!'

Mrs. Huston was not the woman to conceal any of her own grievances from quixotically unselfish motives.

Brenda thought for some moments before replying.

'Then,' she said at length, with some determination, 'we must make sure of our start, if, that is, you are still determined to leave him.'

Mrs. Huston was looking down at her sister's neat black dress, about which there was a subtle air of refined luxury, which seems natural to some women, and part of their being.

'Yes, yes, I suppose we must. By the way, dear, you are in mourning ... for whom?'

'For Admiral Wylie,' replied Brenda patiently.

'But it is two months—is it not?—since his death, and he was no relation. I think it is unnecessary. Black is so melancholy, though it suits your figure.'

'I am living with Mrs. Wylie,' Brenda explained with unconscious irony. 'Are you still determined that you cannot live with your husband, Alice?'

'My dear, he is a brute! I am not an impulsive person, but I think that if he should catch me again, it is very probable that I should do something desperate—kill myself, or something of that sort.'

'I do not think,' observed Brenda serenely, 'that you would ever kill yourself.'

The beautiful woman laughed in an easy, lightsome way, which was one of her many social gifts. It was such a pleasantly infectious laugh, so utterly light-hearted, and so ready in its vocation of filling up awkward pauses.

'No, perhaps not. But in the meantime, what is to become of me? Will Mrs. Wylie take me in for a day or two, or shall we seek lodgings? I have some money, enough to last a month or so; but I must have two new dresses.'

'Mrs. Wylie has kindly said that you can stay as long as you like. But, Alice, it would never do to stay in London. You must get away to some small place on the sea-coast, or somewhere where you will not be utterly bored, and keep in hiding until he comes home, and I can find out what he intends to do.'

'My dear, I shall be utterly bored anywhere except in London. But Brenda, tell me ... you have got into a habit of talking exactly like Theo Trist!'

Brenda met her sister's eyes with a bright smile.

'How funny!' she exclaimed. 'I have not noticed it.'

'No, of course; you—would not notice it. When will he be home?'

The girl stopped and looked critically at an advertisement suspended on the wall near at hand. It was a huge representation of a coloured gentleman upon his native shore, making merry over a complicated pair of braces. She had never seen the work of art before, and for some unknown reason in the months—ay, and in the years that followed—her dislike for it was almost nauseating in its intensity.

'I don't know,' she replied indifferently.

'We,' continued Mrs. Huston, following out her own train of thought, 'are so helpless. We want a man to stand by us. Of course papa is of no use. I suppose he is spouting somewhere about the country. He generally is.'

'No,' replied Brenda, with a wonderful tolerance. 'We cannot count on him. He is in Ireland. I had a postcard from him the other day. He said that I was not to be surprised or shocked to hear that he was in prison. He is trying to get himself arrested. It is, he says, all part of the campaign.'

Again Mrs. Huston's pretty laughter made things pleasant and sociable.

'I wonder what that means,' she exclaimed, smoothing a wrinkle out of the front of her jacket for the benefit of a military-looking man, with a cigar in his mouth, who stared offensively as he passed.

Brenda shrugged her shoulders slightly, and said nothing. She did not appear to attach a very great importance to her father's political movements, in which culpable neglect she was abetted by the whole of England.

'What we require,' continued Mrs. Huston, 'is an energetic man with brains.'

'I am afraid that energetic men with brains have in most cases their own affairs to look after. It is only the idle ones with tongues who have time to devote to other people's business.'

'The "brute," my dear, is clever; we must remember that. And he is terribly obstinate. There is a sort of stubborn bloodhoundism about him which makes me shiver when I think that he is even now after me, in all probability.'

'We must be cool and cunning, and brave to fight against him,' said Brenda practically.

At this moment the guard came forward, and held the door of their compartment invitingly open. They got in, and found themselves alone. They were barely seated, opposite to each other, when the train glided smoothly away.

Brenda sat a little forward, with her gloved hand resting on the window, which had been lowered by the guard. They were seated on the landward side of the train, and as she looked out her eyes rested on the rising hills to the north with a vague, unseeing gaze.

A slight movement made by Mrs. Huston caused her at length to look across, and the two sisters sat for a second searching each other's eyes for the old heartwhole frankness which never seems to survive the death of childhood and the birth of separate interests in life.

'Theo,' said the elder woman significantly at last, 'is brave and cool and cunning, Brenda.'

The girl made an effort, but the old childish confidence was dead. From Theo Trist, the disciple of stoicism, she had perhaps learnt something of a creed which, if a mistaken one, renders its followers of great value in the world, for they never intrude their own private feelings upon public attention. That effort was the last. It was a beginning in itself—the first stone of a wall destined to rise between the two sisters, built by the gray hands of Time.

'But,' suggested Brenda, 'Theo is in Bulgaria.'

Mrs. Huston smiled with all the conscious power of a woman who, without being actually vain, knows the market value and the moral weight of her beauty.

'Suppose I telegraphed to him that I wanted him to come to me at once.'

Brenda fixed her eyes upon her sister's face. For a second her dainty lip quivered.

'You must not do that,' she said, in such a tone of invincible opposition that her sister changed colour, and looked somewhat hastily in another direction.

'I suppose,' murmured the elder woman after a short silence, 'that it is quite impossible to find out when he may return?'

'Quite impossible. This "Eastern Question," as it is called, is so complicated that I have given up trying to follow it—besides, I do not see what Theo has to do with the matter. We must act alone, Alice.'

'But women are so helpless.'

Brenda smiled in a slightly ironical way.

'Why should they be?' she asked practically. 'I am not afraid of Captain Huston. He is a gentleman, at all events.'

'He was!' put in his wife bitterly.

'And I suppose there is something left of his former self?'

'Not very much, my dear. At least, that phase of his present condition has been religiously hidden from my affectionate gaze.'

Brenda drew her gloves pensively up her slim wrists, smoothing out the wrinkles in the black kid. There was in her demeanour an air of capable attention, something between that accorded by a general to his aide-de-camp on the field of battle, and the keen watchfulness of a physician while his patient speaks.

'Theo,' she said conversationally, 'would be a great comfort to us. He is so steadfast and so entirely reliable. But we must do without him. We will manage somehow.'

'I am horribly afraid, Brenda. It has just come to me; I have never felt it before. You seem to take it so seriously, and ... and I expected to find Theo at home.'

'Theo is one of the energetic men with brains who have their own affairs to attend to,' said Brenda, in her cheery way. 'We are not his affairs; besides, as I mentioned before, he is in Bulgaria—in his element, in the midst of confusion, insurrection, war.'

'But,' repeated Mrs. Huston, with aggravating unconsciousness of the obvious vanity of her words, 'suppose I telegraphed for him?'

Brenda laughed, and shook her head.

'I have a melancholy presentiment that if you telegraphed for him he would not come. There is a vulgar but weighty proverb about making one's own bed, which he might recommend to our notice.'

'Then Theo must have changed!'

Brenda raised her round blue eyes, and glanced sideways out of the window. She was playing idly with the strap of the sash, tapping the back of her hand with it.

'Theo,' she observed indifferently, 'is the incarnation of steadfastness. He has not changed in any perceptible way. But he is, before all else, a war-correspondent. I cannot imagine that anyone should possess the power of dragging him away from the seat of war.'

Mrs. Huston smiled vaguely for her own satisfaction. Her imagination was apparently capable of greater things. It was rather to be deplored that, when she smiled, the expression of her beautiful face was what might (by a true friend behind her back) be called a trifle vacuous.

'He wrote,' continued the younger sister, 'a very good article the other day, which came just within the limits of my understanding. It was upon the dangers of alliance; and he showed that an ally who, in any one way, might at some time prove disadvantageous, is better avoided from the very first. It was àpropos of the Turkish-Christian subjects welcoming a Russian invasion. It seems to me, Alice, that our position is rather within the reach of that argument.'

'Being a soldier's wife, I do not know much about military matters; but it seems to me that a retreat should be safely covered at all costs.'

'Not at all costs,' said Brenda significantly. Her colour had changed, and there was a wave of pink slowly mounting over her throat.

Mrs. Huston smiled serenely, and shrugged her shoulders.

'I do not see,' she expostulated frankly, 'what harm there can be in calling in the aid of an old friend.'

'I would rather work alone!' was Brenda's soft reply.

And in those two casual remarks there lay hidden from the gaze of blinder mortals the story of two lives.

CHAPTER III.
ALICE RETURNS.

In her pleasant room on the second-floor of Suffolk Mansions, Mrs. Wylie awaited the arrival of the two sisters.

From without there came a suggestion of bustling life in the continuous hum of wheel-traffic and an occasional cry, not unmelodious, from enterprising news-vendors. Within, everything spoke of peaceful, pleasant comfort. There was a large table in the centre of the room literally covered with periodical and permanent literature—a pleasant table to sit by, for there was invariably something of interest lying upon it, a safe stimulant to conversation. The dullest and shyest man could always find something to say to the ready listener who sat in a low cane-chair just beyond the table, near the fire, with her back to the window. There were many strange ornaments about, and a number of curiosities such as women rarely purchase in foreign lands; also sundry small impedimenta suggestive of things nautical.

Withal there was in the very atmosphere a sense of womanliness. The subtle odours emanating from wooden constructions, conceived and executed by dusky strangers, were overpowered by the healthier and livelier smell of flowers. Heliotrope nestled modestly in low vases from Venice. There was also mignonette, and on the mantelpiece a great snowy bunch of Japanese anemones thrust into a bronze vase from that same distant land, all looking, as it were, in different directions, each carrying its graceful head in a different way, no two alike, and yet all lovely, as only God can make things.

I cannot explain in what lay the charm of Mrs. Wylie's drawing-room, though it must have emanated from the lady herself. There is no room like it that I know of, where both men and women experience a sudden feeling of homeliness, an entire sense of refined ease. The surroundings were not too fragile for the touch of a man, and yet there was in them that subtle influence of grace and daintiness which appeals to the more delicate fibres of a woman's soul, and makes her recognise her own element.

The widowed lady herself was little changed since we last met her in the Far North. But those who knew her well were cognizant of the fact that the outward signs of late bereavement so gracefully worn were no cynical demonstration of a conventional grief. The white-haired old man sleeping among the nameless sons of an Arctic land was as truly mourned by this cheerful Englishwoman as ever husband could desire. There was perhaps a smaller show of cultivated grief, such as the world loves to contemplate, than was strictly in keeping with her widow's cap. No lowered tones pulled up a harmless burst of hilarity. No smothered sighs were emitted at inappropriate times in order to impress upon a world, already full enough of sorrow, the presence of an abiding woe.

But Brenda Gilholme knew that the cure was incomplete. She had carried through, to the end, the task left her by Theo Trist. The Hermione lay snugly anchored by the oozy banks of a Suffolk river, and Mrs. Wylie was, so to speak, herself again—that is to say, she was once more a woman full of ready sympathy, gay with the gay, sorrowing with the afflicted. If Brenda in her analytical way saw and acknowledged the presence of a difference, it was perhaps nothing more than an overstrained feminine susceptibility. At all events, the general world opined that Mrs. Wylie was as jolly as ever. Moreover, they insinuated in a good-natured manner that the Admiral was, after all, many years her senior, and that she in all human probability had some considerable span of existence to get through yet, which he could not have shared owing to advance of infirmity.

One admirable characteristic had survived, however, this change in her life. The cheery independence of this lady was untouched by the hand of sorrow. It was her creed that at all costs a smile should be ready for the world. Regardless of criticism, she trod her own path through a hypercritical generation; and by seeking to cast the light of a brave hopefulness upon it, she illuminated the road on which her near contemporaries held their way. One great secret of her method was industry. In her gentle womanliness she sought work, not afar, but in her own field, and found it as all women can find work if they seek truly.

Even while she was awaiting the arrival of the sisters, she was not idle. On her lap there lay a huge scrap-book, and with scissors and paste she was busy collecting and arranging in due order sundry newspaper cuttings. That scrap-book will in after-years be historical, for it contained every word ever printed from the handwriting of Theodore Trist up to the date of the day when Mrs. Wylie sat alone in her drawing-room. From its pages more than one book on the art of making war has since been compiled, and from those printed words more than one general of many nationalities would confess to having learnt something.

The lady's quick ear detected the sound of a cab suddenly stopping, and when a bell rang a few moments later she laid aside her scissors and rose from her seat with no sign of surprise.

'I wonder,' she said, 'of what tragedy or comedy this may be the beginning.'

There was a certain matronly grace in her movements as she opened the door and drew Brenda Gilholme to her arms.

'Alice has come with me!' said the girl.

'Yes, dear,' replied Mrs. Wylie, and she proceeded to greet the taller sister with a kiss also, but of somewhat less warmth.

Then the three ladies passed into the drawing-room together. There was a momentary pause, during which Mrs. Huston mechanically loosened the strings of her smart little bonnet and looked round the room appreciatively.

'How perfectly delicious,' she exclaimed, 'it is to see a comfortable English drawing-room again! I almost kissed the maid who opened the door; she was such a pleasant contrast to sneaking Cingalese servants.'

Mrs. Wylie smiled sympathetically, but became grave again instantaneously. Her eyes rested for a second on Brenda's face.

'Alice,' explained Brenda, coming forward to the fireplace and raising one neatly shod foot to the fender, 'does not give a very glowing account of Ceylon.'

'Nor,' added Mrs. Huston with light pathos, 'of the blessed state of matrimony.'

Mrs. Wylie drew forward a chair.

'Sit down,' she said hospitably, 'and warm yourselves. We will have some tea before you take your things off.'

'And now Alice,' she resumed, after seating herself in the softly lined cane chair near the literary table, 'tell me all ... you wish to tell me.'

'Oh,' replied the beautiful woman, removing her gloves daintily, 'there is not much to tell. Moreover, the story has not the merit even of novelty. The raw material is lamentably commonplace, and I am afraid I cannot make a very interesting thing of it. Wretched climate, horribly dull station, thirsty husband. Voilà tout!'

'To which, however,' suggested Mrs. Wylie with a peculiar intonation, 'might perhaps be added military society and Indian habits.'

The younger woman shrugged her shoulders and laughed.

'Oh no!' she exclaimed irresponsibly. 'But all that is a question of the past, and the present is important enough to require some attention.'

She extended her feet to the warmth of the fire, and contemplated her small boots with some satisfaction.

'Yes...?'

'I have bolted,' she said, replying to the inferred query, 'and he is in all probability after me.'

Mrs. Wylie turned aside the screen which she was holding between her face and the fire. Her intelligent eyes rested for a moment on the speaker's face, then she transferred her attention to Brenda, who stood near the mantelpiece with her two gloved hands resting on the marble. The girl was gazing down between her extended arms into the fire, and a warm glow nestled rosily round her face. The eyes were too sad for their years.

'I am very sorry to hear it,' said the widow with conviction.

'There was no alternative. I could not stand it any longer.'

'How did you manage it?' asked Mrs. Wylie quietly, almost too quietly.

'Oh, I got rid of some jewellery, and there was a Captain Markynter who was kind enough to get my ticket and see me off!'

A peculiar silence followed this cool remark. Mrs. Wylie sat quite still, holding the palm screen before her face. Brenda stood motionless as a statue. Mrs. Huston curved her white wrist, and looked compassionately at a small red mark made by the button of her glove. At length the uneasy pause was broken. Without moving, Brenda spoke in a cool, clear voice, almost monotonous.

'Alice,' she explained, 'is a great advocate for masculine assistance. She considers us totally incapable of managing our own affairs, and powerless to act for ourselves. She has been regretting all day that Theo should be away, and consequently beyond our call.'

Mrs. Huston laughed somewhat forcedly, and drew in her feet.

'It is like this,' she explained. 'If my husband catches me I think I shall probably kill myself! Theo is so strong and reliable, and somehow ... so capable, that I naturally thought of him in my emergency.'

'Naturally,' echoed Mrs. Wylie mechanically.

At that moment she was not thinking whether her monosyllabic remark was cruelly sarcastic or simply silly. Her whole mind was devoted to the study of Brenda's face, upon which the firelight glowed; but in the proud young features there was nothing legible—nothing beyond a somewhat anxious thoughtfulness.

'I think,' continued Mrs. Huston, 'that we may count on a week's start. My affectionate husband cannot be here before then.'

To this neither lady made reply. The servant came in, and in a few moments tea was served. Brenda presided over the little basket table, and prepared each cup with a foreknowledge of the several tastes. During this there was no word spoken. From the nonchalance of the ladies' manner one might easily have imagined that the younger couple had just come in from a long day's shopping.

'Have you,' asked the widow at length, as she stirred her tea placidly, 'thought of what you are doing?'

'Oh yes!' was the laughing rejoinder, in which, however, there was no mirth. 'Oh yes! I have thought, and thought, and thought, until the subject was thrashed out dry. There was nothing else to do but think, and read yellow-backed novels, all the voyage home.'

'Then,' murmured the widow, with gentle interrogation, 'this Captain Parminter did not come home with you?'

Mrs. Huston changed colour, and her lips moved slightly. She glanced towards Mrs. Wylie beneath her dark lashes, and answered with infinite self-possession:

'No! And his name is Markynter.'

The palm-leaf did not move. Presently, however, Mrs. Wylie laid it aside, and asked for some more tea.

'Well,' she said cheerily, 'I suppose we must make the best of a very bad bargain. What do you propose to do next?'

In the most natural and confiding way imaginable, Mrs. Huston looked up towards her sister, who was still standing. There was an almost imperceptible shrug of her shoulders.

'Brenda,' she answered, 'says that I must run away and hide in some small village, which is not exactly a cheerful prospect.'

'It would hardly do,' said Brenda, as if in defence of her own theory, 'to go down to Brighton and stay at the Bedford Hotel, for instance.'

'If,' added Mrs. Wylie in the same tone, 'you really want to avoid your husband, you must certainly hide; but I do not see what you can gain by such a proceeding. It can never be permanent, and you will soon get tired of chasing each other round England.'

'Perhaps he will get tired of it first.'

'If he does, what will your position be? Somewhat ambiguous, I imagine.'

'It cannot be worse than it is at present.'

'Oh yes,' replied the widow calmly. 'It can!'

She set her empty cup on the tray, and sat with her two hands clasped together on her lap. She had not come through fifty years of life, this placid lady, without learning something of the world's ways, and she recognised instantly what Alice Huston's position was. It was the old story which is told every day in all parts of the world, more especially, perhaps, in India—the wearisome tale of a mistaken marriage between a man of small intellect and a woman of less. If both husband and wife be busy, the one with his bread-winning, the other with her babies, such unions may be a near approach to animal happiness—no more can be hoped for. The very instincts of it are animal, and as such it is safe. But if one or both be idle, the result is simply 'hell.' No other expression can come near it.

Captain Huston's military duties were not such as occupied more than a few hours of the week, and during the rest of his existence he was actively idle. His mind was fallow; he was totally without resource, without occupation, without interest. There is no man on earth to beat the ordinary British military officer in downright futile idleness. The Spanish Custom-house official runs a close race with the Italian inn-keeper in this matter, but both enjoy their laziness, and are never bored. When our commissioned defender is naturally of an idle turn of mind, he is intensely bored; his existence is one long yawn, and the faculty of enjoyment dies a natural death within his soul. I can think of no more despicable sample of humanity than a man who cannot find himself something to do under all circumstances, and in all places; and surely no one can blame his Satanic majesty for a proverbial readiness to supply the deficiency from his own store of easy tasks.

If Alice Gilholme had searched through the entire army-list, she could scarcely have found a man less suitable to be her husband than Captain Huston. Petty, short-sighted jealousy on his part, vapid coquetry on hers, soon led to the inevitable end, and the result was thrown upon the hands of Brenda and Mrs. Wylie with easy nonchalance by the spoilt child of society.

It was no sudden disillusionment for Brenda, but merely one more wretched curtain torn aside to display the hideous reality of human existence and human selfishness. No thought of complaint entered the girl's head. With a pathetic silence she simply applied herself to the task set before her, with no great hope of reaching a satisfactory solution.

Before the three ladies had spoken further upon the subject chiefly occupying their thoughts, the drawing-room door was thrown open, and with studied grace William Hicks crossed the threshold.

The hat that he carried daintily in his left hand was not quite the same in contour as those worn by his contemporaries. To ensure this peculiarity, the artist was forced to send to Paris for his head-gear, where he paid a higher price and received an inferior article. But the distinction conferred by a unique hat is practically immeasurable and without price. Mr. Hicks' gloves were also out of the common; likewise his strangely-cut coat and misshapen continuations.

The tout ensemble was undoubtedly pleasing. It must have been so, because he was obviously satisfied, and the artistic eye is the acknowledged arbitrator in matters of outward adornment, whether it be of mantelshelves or human forms divine.

The three ladies turned to greet him with that ready feminine smile which is ever there to lubricate matters when the social wheel may squeak or grate.

'Oh, bother!' whispered Brenda to herself, as she held out her hand.

'What?' exclaimed Hicks, with languid surprise and visibly deep pleasure. 'Mrs. Huston! I am delighted. When I left my studio and plunged into all this mist and gloom this afternoon, I never thought that both would be dispelled so suddenly.'

'Is it dispelled?' asked Mrs. Huston, glancing playfully towards the window.

'In here it is. But then,' he added, as he shook hands with Mrs. Wylie, 'there is never any mist or gloom in this room.'

With a pleasant laugh, as if deprecating his own folly, he turned to greet Brenda, who had stood near the mantelpiece with her gloved hand extended. Then his manner changed. Moreover, it was a distinctly advantageous alteration. One would have imagined, from the expression of his handsome but thoroughly weak face, that if there was anybody on earth whom he respected and admired, almost as much as he respected and admired William Hicks, that person was Brenda.

For her he had no neatly-turned pleasantry—no easy, infectious laugh.

'I did not know you were coming home, Mrs. Huston,' he said, turning again to that lady. Then his social training enabled him to detect unerringly that he might be on a dangerous trail, and with ready skill he turned aside. 'This is not the best time of year,' he continued, 'to return to your native shores. Personally I am rather disgusted with the shore in question, but we must surely hope for some more sunshine before we finally bid farewell to the orb of day for the winter. We poor artists are the chief sufferers, I am sure.'

'At all events,' put in Mrs. Wylie easily, 'you take it upon yourselves to grumble most. There is always something to displease you—the want of daylight, the scarcity of buyers, or the hopeless stupidity of the hanging-committee.'

'I think I confine my observations to the weather,' murmured Hicks, gazing sadly into the fire, towards which bourne Brenda's glance was also apparently directed, for she presently pressed the glowing coals down with the sole of her dainty boot, and quite lost the studied poesy of the artist's expression. 'I am, I think,' he continued humbly, 'independent of buyers and hanging-committees. I do not exhibit at Burlington House, and you know I never sell.'

'Indeed,' said Mrs. Huston, with slight interest, for the elder lady had turned away and was busy with her second cup of tea, which was almost cold.

'No,' answered Hicks, with the eagerness that comes to egotistical talkers when they are sure of a new listener. 'No. I don't care to enter into competition with men who depend more upon conventional training than natural talent. The Royal Academy is only a human institution, and, perhaps, it is only natural that their own students should be favoured before all others. I am not an Academy student, you know!'

Mrs. Huston contented herself with no more compromising affirmative than a gracious inclination of the head. It is just possible that, fresh from Ceylon, and consequently deplorably ignorant of artistic affairs as she was, the knowledge that William Hicks was not an Academy student had been denied her. This most lamentable fact, however, if it existed, she concealed with all the cleverness of her sex, and Hicks came to the conclusion, later on, that she must have known. He could not conceive it possible that a woman moving in intelligent circles, although in the outer rims thereof, and far from the living centre of Kensington, could be unaware of such an important item in his own personal history; this being no mean part of the artistic history of the nineteenth century.

Enveloped as he was, however, in conceit, he had the good taste to perceive that his bewildering presence was on this particular occasion liable to be considered bliss of an alloyed description, and in a short time he took his leave.

As he was moving round and saying good-bye, Mrs. Huston returned to the artistic question, from which they had never strayed very far. Indeed, art was somewhat apt to become a nauseating subject of conversation wherever William Hicks was allowed to influence matters to any extent.

'You have never sent pictures to the Academy, then?' she asked innocently.

'Oh no!' he answered with mild horror. 'Good-bye, so glad to see you home again.'

And then he vanished.

Mrs. Wylie watched his retreating figure with a pleasant and sociable expression on her intelligent face.

'That,' she was reflecting, 'is a lie!' She happened to know that Hicks had been refused a place on the walls of Burlington House.

If I were a ghost, or if I ever come to be one, I shall not take up the old, time-worn craft of frightening people during the stilly hours. Instead of such uninteresting work, I shall make a collection in a phantom pocket-book of asides and murmured reflections. From such, an interesting study of earthly existence, and more particularly of social life, might well be made.

On those phantom pages might, for instance, be inscribed the reflections of William Hicks as he made his way down the broad staircase of Suffolk Mansions.

'Whew!' was their tenor; 'ran right into it. She's left him; I could see that. Seems to me she's on the verge of a catastrophe—divorce or separation, or something like that.'

In the drawing-room Mrs. Wylie was saying reflectively to either or both of her companions:

'This is the beginning of it. That man will tell everyone he meets before going to bed to-night that you are home. He did not ask where your husband was, which shows that he wanted to know; consequently he will wonder over it, and will take care to tell everyone what he is wondering about.'

CHAPTER IV.
TO THE FRONT.

A week later Brenda was sitting in the same apartment again. But this time she was alone. From pure kindness of heart Mrs. Wylie had managed to allow the girl an afternoon's leisure, and Brenda was spending this very happily amidst her books and magazines. She was, in her way, a literary person, this brilliant young scholar; but, belonging to a universal age, universality was also hers. With the literary she could show herself well-read; with the purely pleasure-seeking she could also find sympathy. In these times of mixed circles, men and women must needs be able to talk upon many subjects, whether they know aught about them or nothing.

Brenda Gilholme was not, however, a brilliant talker. She could have written well had she been moved thereto by that restless spirit which makes some people look upon existence as a blank without pens and paper. But as yet she was content to read, and her young mind thirsted for the grasp of other folks' thoughts as a fisherman's fingers itch for the rod.

During the last week Alice Huston's presence in Mrs. Wylie's household had not been an unmixed success. There was a slight and almost imperceptible impatience in the widow's manner, in the inflection of her pleasant voice, in her very glance when her eyes rested upon her guest's gracious form. Gradually the story had come out, and some details were related with unguarded carelessness, resulting in the conclusion, as far as Mrs. Wylie and Brenda were concerned, that Captain Huston might also have a story to tell, differing in tone and purport from that related by his wronged spouse. Her case against her husband was not very clear, and in her relation of it there was in some vague way a sense of suppression and easy adaptation both pointing to the same end. If Brenda felt this and drew her own conclusions from it, she allowed no sign of such conclusions to appear, but accepted the situation without comment. The natural result of this unfeminine behaviour was a wane of confidence between the sisters. It is easy enough, even for the most reticent person, to make known to some chosen familiar certain details hitherto suppressed when once the subject is broached; but to continue confiding in a bosom friend who accepts all statements without surprise, horror or sympathy is a different matter.

Brenda's manner of listening was neither forbidding nor indifferent. It was merely unenthusiastic, and its chief characteristic was a certain measured attention, as if the details were imprinting themselves indelibly upon a prepared mental surface, where they might well remain intact and legible for many years. Mrs. Wylie, glancing at the two sisters over her book, or her palm-leaf screen, conceived a strange thought. She imagined that she detected in Brenda's manner and demeanour a certain subtle resemblance to the manner and demeanour of one who was far away, and whose influence upon the girl's life could not well have been very great, namely, Theodore Trist.

When the war-correspondent was not on active service, he lived in London, and, as was only natural to one of his calling, moved in such intervals in a circle of men and women influential in the political world. He was a reticent speaker, but an excellent listener, and Mrs. Wylie, as the wife of an active naval politician, had many opportunities of watching in her placid way this strange young man among his fellows. Theodore Trist's chief fault was, in her eyes, a lack of enthusiasm. He waited too patiently on the course of events, and moved too guardedly when he moved at all. It was a very womanly view of a man's conduct, and one held, I think, by nineteen out of twenty mothers who have brought brilliant sons into the world.

These characteristics the widow now began to see developing subtly in the soul of Brenda Gilholme, and a keen study of the girl during this trying time only confirmed her suspicions. She began to feel nervously sure that the companionship of Mrs. Huston was bad for her, and with this knowledge to urge her she calmly forced her way in between the two sisters.

If Brenda lacked enthusiasm (which failure is characteristic of this calculating and practical generation), she atoned for the want by a wondrous steadfastness. By word, and deed, and silence, she demonstrated continuously her intention to stand by her sister and do for her all that lay in her power. In this spirit of dumb devotion Mrs. Wylie was pleased to see a suggestion of Theo Trist's soldierly obedience to the call of duty in which there was no question of personal inclination. She may have been right. Women see deeper into these subtle human influences than men. There are many small powers at work in every-day life, guiding our social barque, withholding us or urging us on, dictating, commanding, approving, or disapproving; and the motive of these is woman's will. The eye that guides is a woman's heart; the brake that checks is a woman's instinct. Mrs. Wylie was probably, therefore, quite right in her supposition; for it is such men as Theo Trist who leave the impress of their individuality upon those who come in contact with them—men who speak little and listen well, who think deeply and never speak of their thoughts. It is not your talkative man with a theory for every emergency, with a most wonderful and universal knowledge, who rules the world. The influence of these is comparatively small. Their experience is too vast to be personal, and thus loses weight. Their theories are too indefinite, too sweeping, and too general for practical application to human affairs, which are things not to be generally treated at all. We are a sheepish generation. Our thoughts are held in common; we theorize in crowds and hold principles in a multitude, but God's grand individuality is not dead yet. It lives somewhere in our hearts, and at strange odd moments we still act unaccountably, according to the dictates of that enfeebled organ.

There is a subtle difference between the male and female intellects respecting anxiety. Most women can conceal it better than their brothers and husbands when the necessity for concealment arises, but they suffer no less on that account. In fact, the weight of it is greater and more wearing, because in solitude they brood over it more than men. They have not the same power of laying it aside and taking up a book or occupation with the deliberate intention of courting absorption, as possessed by us.

Brenda was apparently immersed in the pages of an intellectual monthly review, but at times her sweet innocent eyes wandered from the lines and rested meditatively on the glowing fire. The girl was restless. She moved each time she turned a page, glancing sometimes at the small clock on the mantelpiece, sometimes towards the window, whence an ever-waning light fell gloomily upon her.

There was in her soul a vague sense of discomfort, which was as near an approach to imaginative anxiety as her strong nature could compass; and to this she was gradually giving way. Her interest in the magazine upon her lap had never been else than perfunctory, and now she could not take in the meaning of the carefully rounded and somewhat affected phrases.

Alice Huston had been a week in Mrs. Wylie's chambers, and there was no positive reason now to suppose that her husband was not in London. But the beautiful woman possessed little sense of responsibility, and none of consideration for others. She simply refused to leave town until the following Monday, because, she argued, the sound of wheels, the gay whirl of life, was so intensely refreshing to her. Mrs. Wylie would scarcely interfere, because she was not quite certain that Captain Huston was unfit to take care of his wife. She could not decide whether it was better to keep them apart or to allow Alice to run into the danger of being followed and claimed by her husband. The widow had very successfully followed a placid principle of non-interference all through her life, and now she applied it to the calamitous affairs of Captain and Mrs. Huston. She recognised very clearly that the man had made as evil a bargain as the woman. In both there was good material, capable of being wrought into good results by advantageous circumstances. The circumstance of their coming together and contracting a life-long alliance was disadvantageous to the last degree, voilà tout. It was a matter for themselves to settle. There are some people who, in a crisis, form themselves into a reserve—not necessarily out of range, but beyond the din and confusion of the melée: of these was Mrs. Wylie. If necessity demanded it, she was capable of leading an assault or withstanding an attack, but as a clear-headed, watchful commander of reserves she was incomparable.

Brenda knew this. She had an analytical way of studying such persons as influenced her daily life, and in most cases she arrived at a very accurate result. That Mrs. Wylie was watching events, but would not influence them, she was well aware, and, moreover, she now felt that someone was needed who would calmly step to the front and act with a bold acceptance of responsibility. That she herself was the person to take this position seemed undeniable. There could be no one else. No other could be expected to assume the task.

But there was another, and Brenda would not confess, even indefinitely in her own thoughts, that she knew it.

At length she laid her book down, and sat gazing softly into the fire. When the bell rang at the end of the long passage beside the kitchen-door, she never moved. When the maid opened the drawing-room door, with the mumbled announcement of a name to whose possessor no door of Mrs. Wylie's was ever shut, Brenda failed to hear the name, and half turned her head without much welcome in her eyes.

She was preparing to rise politely from her seat when a dark form passed between the window and herself. There, upon the hearthrug, within touch of her black skirt, stood Theo Trist! Theo—quiet, unemotional, strong as ever; Theo—with a brown face, and his bland, high forehead divided into two portions of white and of mahogany, where the fez had rested, keeping off the burning sun, but casting no shadow; Theo—to the fore, as usual, in his calm, reliable individuality, just at the moment when he was required.

Brenda gave a little gasp, and the eyes that met his were, for a second, contracted with some quick emotion, which he thought was fear.

'Theo!' she exclaimed, 'Theo!' Then she stopped short, checking herself suddenly, and as she rose he saw the frightened look in her eyes again.

They shook hands, and for a brief moment neither seemed able to frame a syllable. Brenda's lips were dry, and her throat was parched—all in a second.

He looked round the room as if seeking someone, or the indication of a presence, such as a work-basket, a well-known book, or some similar token. Brenda concluded that he was wondering where Mrs. Wylie might be, and suddenly she found power to speak in a steady, even voice.

'Mrs. Wylie is out!' she said. 'I expect her in by tea-time.'

He nodded his head—indicated the chair which she had just left—and, when she was seated, knelt down on the hearthrug, holding his two hands to the fire.

'Where is Alice?' he asked, in a peculiar monotone.

'She is out with Mrs. Wylie—— Then ... you know?'

'Yes, Brenda, I know!' he answered gravely.

The girl sat forward in her low chair, with her two arms resting upon her knees, her slim, white hands interlocked. For a time she was off her guard, forgetting the outward composure taught in the school of which she was so apt a pupil. She actually allowed herself to breathe hurriedly, to lean forward, and drink in with her eager eyes the man's every feature and every movement. He was not looking towards her, but of her fixed gaze he was well aware. The sound of her quick respiration was close to his ear; her soft, warm breath reached his cheek. With all his iron composure, despite his cruel hold over himself, he wavered for a moment, and the hands held out to the glow of the fire shook perceptibly. But his meek eyes never lost their settled expression of speculative contemplation. Whatever other men might do, whatever women might suffer, Theodore Trist was sufficient for himself. The flame leapt up, and fell again with a little bubbling sound, glowing ruddily upon the two faces. He remained quite motionless, quite cold. It was the face of the great Napoleon again—inscrutable, deep beyond the depth of human soundings, cruel and yet sweet—but the high forehead seemed to suggest an infinite possibility of something else; some lack of energy, or some great negation, which cancelled at one blow the resemblance that lay in lip and chin and profile.

Presently Brenda leant back in the chair. There was a screen on the table near her—Mrs. Wylie's palm-leaf—and she extended her hand to take it, holding it subsequently between her face and the fire, so that if Trist had turned his head he could not have seen anything but her slim, graceful form, her white hand and wrist, and the screen glowing rosily. He did not turn, however, when he spoke.

'I will tell you,' he said, 'how I came to know.'

Before continuing, he rubbed his hands slowly together. Then he rose from his knees and remained standing near the fire close to her, but without looking in her direction. He seemed to be choosing his words.

'I came home,' he said at length, 'from Gibraltar in an Indian steamer, a small boat with half a dozen passengers. There was no doctor on board. One evening I was asked to go forward and look at a second-class passenger who was suffering from ... from delirium tremens.'

He stopped in an apologetic way, as if begging her indulgence for the use of those two words in her presence.

'Yes...' she murmured encouragingly.

'It was Huston.'

As he spoke he turned slightly, and glanced down at her. She had entirely regained her gentle composure now, and the colour had returned to her face. Her attention was given to his words with a certain suppressed anxiety, but no surprise whatever.

'Did,' she asked at length—'did he recognise you?'

'No.'

'And he never knew, and does not know now, that you were on board?'

It would seem that he divined her thoughts, detecting the hidden importance of her question.

'No,' he answered meaningly, as he turned and looked down at her—'no; but he has not forgotten my existence.'

She raised her eyes quickly, but their glance stopped short suddenly at the elevation of his lips. It was only by an effort that she avoided meeting his gaze.

'I do not know,' she said with a short laugh, in an explanatory way, 'much about ... about it. Is it like ordinary delirium, where people talk in a broken manner without realizing what they are saying?'

'Yes; it is rather like that.'

She examined the texture of the screen with some attention.

'Do you mind telling me, Theo,' she asked at length evenly, 'whether he mentioned your name?'

Trist reflected for a moment. He moved restlessly from one foot to the other, then spoke in a voice which betrayed no emotion beyond regret and a hesitating sympathy.

'He said that Alice had run away to join her old lover—meaning me.'