The Thirteenth Man

By
MRS. COULSON KERNAHAN
Author of
“Under Seal of the Confessional,” “The Gate of Sinners,” “The Fraud,” “Trewinnot of Guy’s,” “An Artist’s Model,” etc., etc.

G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

Copyright, 1910, by
G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY

THE THIRTEENTH MAN

TO
MISS M. BETHAM-EDWARDS
Whom all the world admires as poet, novelist and essayist, and all who
know her personally love and reverence as true woman and dear friend.

CONTENTS

THE THIRTEENTH MAN

CHAPTER I
WHICH INTRODUCES A YOUNG AUTHOR

A strange, mournful song broke the stillness of a hot July afternoon, and caused two pedestrians to come to a halt in a lane on which dust lay thick.

On either side were high banks, surmounted by unclipped hedges.

One of the pedestrians, a young and athletic man, had climbed the bank nearer to him in a second, and was peering through a gap in the hedge, where nothing met his gaze but miles of smiling country, dotted by farms at long intervals, a bungalow covered with rambler roses, and a white house on the border of a wood.

“Can you see anybody, sir?” asked the man in the lane, who was dressed as a farmer.

The weird singing rose again.

“I should take it for a sea-gull, sir,” said the puzzled farmer, “except that we are a good five miles from the sea here.”

The young man sprang back into the lane, causing a cloud of white dust to rise. His clean-shaven face had a troubled expression.

“It sounded to me like a woman chanting a dirge.”

“I expect it is some rascal of a boy amusing himself,” said the farmer reassuringly. “A most unholy noise to make, I call it.”

He looked uneasily at his companion. If Mr. Barrimore were a nervous sort of man he might not take the bungalow, and the farmer wanted to let it.

The bungalow looked lovely now, covered by roses, but it was undeniably lonely at any time, and in winter desolate enough. He followed up his remark:

“If you come to live in the country, Mr. Barrimore, you will have to get used to queer noises. The owls at night hoot, and the way they breathe would almost make you believe it was a human being. But you soon get to take no heed to country sounds. If book-writing is your trade, you couldn’t find a better place to carry it on in than my bungalow. Wonderfully pretty it looks now, with the roses out. We shall be coming to it at the turn of the road.”

“I saw it just now, Mr. Pickett, from the top of the bank,” said Barrimore. “It looked charming. But I can’t get that sad singing out of my head. It was to me a heart-break set to music. But”—(Barrimore smiled, and for the first time his companion noted that the young man was good-looking)—“but authors are imaginative, and I am willing to accept your view of the case. You seem to think I am nervous!” (He smiled again.) “But I have never had that character. Here we are!”

On the right stood the big red-tiled bungalow, with its white verandah and its wealth of red rambler roses.

Pickett jingled a bunch of keys as he approached the padlocked gate.

“You see, sir, that the garden is in good order,” he remarked, as he unfastened the gate. “And the water in the well is beautiful, and cold as can be, even this weather. The painter-chap who built it spared no expense, and there’s flooring put down in yonder clear space for a stable, if you should like me to put one up, which I will do, if you take the bungalow for three years.”

“I think I can promise to do that if I like the place,” said Barrimore rather absently. “One can always shut it up, you know.”

Pickett stared. He could not understand the wastefulness suggested by the idea of paying rent and shutting up the place. However, it was all right so far as he personally was concerned, and this well-dressed young man, who carried a gold cigar-case, had probably a big banking account.

The interior of the bungalow turned out to be ideal. There were six rooms in all—two reception-rooms, three bedrooms and a kitchen. The scheme of decoration was charming, and had evidently been carefully thought out by the “painter-chap” Pickett had referred to.

Above all, there was a splendid bathroom.

This last item decided Barrimore to take the bungalow. To him who revelled in a cold morning tub it was of no consequence that there was no means of heating the bath.

“You may start on the stable as soon as you like,” he said to the delighted farmer. “I shall come in with a manservant next week. I suppose I can put up a saddle-horse at your farm till the stable is ready? I shall need to ride into Hastings frequently at first.”

“Oh, certainly, sir. I have plenty of stable room,” responded Pickett.

While the farmer was locking the door, Barrimore, took out a penknife and cut some roses to take back for his mother, who loved little attentions.

“Poor old mummy!” he said to himself. “She is a bit sore about my wanting to be away from home, but I can’t stand Uncle Robert’s quotations!”

Barrimore had walked the whole five miles from Hastings to Pickett’s Farm at Gissing, having seen an advertisement of the bungalow, and he was going to walk the whole distance back, to get rid of the irritability caused by Uncle Robert’s quotations.

Uncle Robert was his mother’s brother, and had been christened Robert because his surname was Burns, and he had evidently conceived the idea that the mantle of the poet after whom he was named had descended upon him. He read incessantly, and remembered all he read. It was not his fault if everyone else did not remember it also. He also wrote verse.

Uncle Robert had made his home with his sister since she had been a widow, and Philip Barrimore, who had taken up literature as a career, found at last that home was an impossible place to work in.

If Uncle Robert was a nuisance, he was sublimely ignorant of the fact. He was of a singularly cheerful disposition, and it was impossible to ruffle his sweet temper. Even this last fact was an annoyance to Barrimore, for had Uncle Robert fired up occasionally, his nephew would have felt less of a pig (as he expressed it) in snubbing him.

Mrs. Barrimore, a sweet little woman, over forty, and looking less, had been much exercised in spirit to keep her idolized and only son from wounding her idolized and only brother; hence, she had consented to Philip’s plan of getting a little place in the country to work in. He would be near enough for frequent visits, and would have the conditions he craved for his work.

Nevertheless, she felt sad that he should not reside under her roof.

Barrimore reached the West Hill at Hastings as the sun was setting. The sky was flooded with exquisite color. The sea, calm and unruffled, and of a lovely blue, was dotted over with sailing craft.

It was low tide, and within the harbor (so called, though it had never been completed) little naked boys ran, throwing pink reflections on the wet sand, while fishermen lounged against their boats, which they would soon be getting ready for the night’s work.

“I shall miss the sea,” thought Barrimore regretfully; “but, after all, I can soon ride in from Gissing.”

Before making his way to Hawk’s Nest (his mother’s house), which was situated near the Alexandra Park, he walked across the hill to the point where the entrance to St. Clement’s Caves is situated, and looked down at the old town, with its quaint red-roofed houses, and then across to the little churchyard of All Saints on the slope of the East Hill.

As his eyes rested on this churchyard they suddenly dimmed.

Under a white cross, like one he now saw, rested the woman he had loved. Woman? Eweretta Alvin had been but a girl when she had suddenly ceased to be, and his heart lay buried with her away in Canada.

At five-and-twenty Barrimore had vowed himself to bachelorhood, which was his only point of resemblance to his Uncle Robert Burns.

Never again would he love, he told himself, for which reason he allowed himself a certain freedom with the women-folk who gathered about his mother. Some of these were pretty girls, too, and charming enough to stir any ordinary man’s pulses. Phyllis Lane, for instance, was bewitching, if not exactly pretty.

Barrimore suddenly remembered that on this particular day there had been a garden-party at his mother’s, and Phyllis and her father, Colonel Lane, were staying on to dinner. He must hurry or he would be late.

CHAPTER II
A CONFESSION

“Well, Philip, what about the bungalow?” asked Uncle Robert, as Barrimore entered the dining-room, where all the others were already seated.

Barrimore was flushed and cross, owing to a struggle with his collar.

“I have taken it for three years,” answered the young man, going round to greet his mother’s guests before taking his place at table.

“Ah, well,” rejoined Uncle Robert, beaming. “Dryden says: ‘There is a pleasure sure in being mad, which none but madmen know.’ ‘The Spanish Friar’ it occurs in, I believe. It is a mad act going to live alone in the country, but no doubt you will find a pleasure that we know not of.”

“Mr. Barrimore won’t get interrupted at his work, and that will be a pleasure,” put in Phyllis Lane, darting a bright glance at Philip, whose seat was next to hers.

“What is the new book to be about?” inquired the Colonel, “if it is not a crime to ask.”

“I scarcely know myself yet,” replied Barrimore. “My stories grow under my pen. None of my stories turn out what I expected at first.”

“‘Invention breeds invention,’ as Emerson says,” chimed in Uncle Robert. “Ideas are like yeast, and multiply before your eyes.”

“Mine don’t,” retorted Philip crossly. “I have been in a blind alley for a week or more.”

“Never mind, dear,” said Mrs. Barrimore cheerfully. “You have got your bungalow, so you will have peace and quietness. But we shall miss you. We did to-day, didn’t we, Phyllis?”

Mrs. Barrimore turned her sweet eyes on the girl at her son’s side. Phyllis was fresh as a flower.

“We did miss you,” Phyllis admitted, with another bright glance at Philip. “But Mr. Burns played tennis in your place.”

Her face broke into roguish dimples and her eyes danced.

That Phyllis was making fun of Uncle Robert was patent to everyone—to Uncle Robert himself even. It was not her words, but the tone in which they were uttered. But only one person noted that Mrs. Barrimore’s sweet mouth grew a little rigid, while her eyes, usually so dove-like, had for a moment sparks of angry fire in their clear grey—and that person was Colonel Lane; but he had a way of noting every transient expression that changed for a moment the habitual sweetness and gentleness of that particular face. The mother of Phyllis had not been sweet or gentle, and her death, some years since, had brought the first lull in the turmoil of Colonel Lane’s life.

“Miss Phyllis is getting at me,” observed Uncle Robert, with perfect good humor. “Horace says: ‘The years, as they come, bring with them many things to our advantage.’ They also sometimes bring an overplus of fat! Beware, Miss Phyllis! One day you may have a double chin!”

He hitched his falling table-napkin into his capacious waistcoat. Uncle Robert was certainly stout.

“I think it was very sweet of my brother to play tennis on this hot day, rather than let the game fall through,” said Mrs. Barrimore, with an affectionate glance at Uncle Robert.

“I am sure Mr. Burns played very well,” Phyllis hastened to say, feeling that Mrs. Barrimore, of whom she was very fond, was angry with her.

“My dear little girl,” said Uncle Robert, “I know I look like an exaggerated tennis ball myself, and if I amuse you by my antics, so much the better. There is no duty we so much under-rate as the duty of being happy; Stevenson says that. Be happy, my dear, even if laughing at me makes you so!”

“Oh, but I wasn’t laughing at you, Mr. Burns,” protested Phyllis. “I admired your pluck in playing on such a roasting day—and you are a little stout, you know.”

Phyllis spoke so seriously that everyone laughed except her father. Colonel Lane frowned. He thought his daughter’s allusion to the stoutness of Mr. Burns in bad taste, and meant to tell her so when they should be alone.

“Tell us about the bungalow, Philip,” said Mrs. Barrimore, to change the conversation. (She had caught sight of the Colonel’s frown.)

“It is a jolly little place,” said Philip; “covered with rambler roses. I brought you some. There are no houses near—not very near. The nearest has a big field between it and the bungalow. There is a fir plantation in front, on the other side of the road. They are going to build me a stable, and I shall hire a horse from Dick Russel, so that I can ride over and see you. Yes, I shall hire it. I don’t mean to buy another now poor Jingo is dead. I can’t bring myself to replace an old favorite.”

The mother looked at her son with critical sadness. She was thinking of Eweretta in her grave in Canada. She did want him to replace Eweretta—and Phyllis was a charming girl.

Certainly, Captain Arbuthnot paid a good deal of court to Phyllis, but it was inconceivable to Mrs. Barrimore that Phyllis could prefer anyone to Philip.

Mrs. Barrimore saw in Phyllis a good, dutiful and very charming wife, suitable in every way to this son of hers. Phyllis might not be decidedly pretty, but she was very good-looking; and, what counted for more, was quite above deception of any kind. She was the kind of “open” girl one could read like a book.

So thought Mrs. Barrimore.

It was after dinner, in the sweet, old-fashioned garden, that a conversation took place between Philip and Phyllis, which, had Mrs. Barrimore heard it, would have shaken her faith in judgment of character for ever.

Philip had gone out to smoke on the croquet lawn—a lawn raised above the rest of the garden and having great veteran oaks at one end, and banks of flowers on either side that smelt deliciously. A hammock was slung under one of the oaks, and Philip was about to get into it and enjoy his cigar, while Colonel Lane and Uncle Robert finished their wine, when a white-clad figure ran down the rustic steps that led from the terrace under the drawing-room windows to the lawn.

Philip walked back to meet Phyllis, who ran lightly over the soft turf.

“I do want a talk with you, Philip,” she said breathlessly. “I am just bursting with something I can tell no one but you.”

The moon lit her eager face as she looked up at him, and he saw that her news, whatever it might be, was at least very important to her.

“I am honored, Miss Lane,” he told her, smiling. “What is the great secret?”

“Oh, I do hope you won’t be angry and scold me! You must be my friend and pacify father!”

She linked her arm in his confidingly.

“We are such old friends, you and I, you know,” she went on, “and now it is all over I feel so frightened!”

“Well, tell me this dreadful thing you have done,” he said, laughing a little at her earnestness, for he did not expect any very important revelation to follow.

“You know father refused to let me marry Captain Arbuthnot?”

She paused.

“You want me to plead for you, little Phyllis, I suppose?” he said.

“I am married,” she answered tragically. “That’s it! and now I’ve told you.”

Barrimore looked grave enough now.

“I would not have believed this of Arbuthnot,” was what he said. “When did this happen?”

“The day before yesterday, early in the morning, at St. Clement’s Church. Charlie got a special license. I came back to breakfast as usual.”

She looked very appealing and very childish in her simple white frock, Barrimore thought, and very sweet too. But he was angry with her, all the same. She was twenty-one, though she only looked sixteen.

Phyllis was quick to note the change in the young man’s tone.

“Now look here!” she said. “Father would not consent even to an engagement. Charlie and I love one another, and he was told he had to go right off to India. He sailed yesterday” (there was a catch in her voice here)—“some outbreak among natives in some hole-and-corner place, and Charlie knew the language, and that was why he was sent. Now, what could we do but make sure of each other? It wasn’t all roses to part at the church door, was it? And we don’t know in the very least when we shall meet again.”

“And you want me to break this to Colonel Lane?” he answered.

“Oh, no! no! no!” she repeated. “I want you to pacify him, if he finds out.”

“But surely you are not going to keep this a secret?” he asked reprovingly.

“I am,” she answered, “if I can.”

“But why?”

“Because the old uncle (or aunt) of Charlie may die at any time, and he is to have all the money; and it was chiefly because Charlie had only his pay that father objected. He won’t make half the fuss if Charlie has that money. But if father finds out, promise me to take my part.”

Barrimore could do no less than give the promise, though he disliked the idea exceedingly.

He blamed Captain Arbuthnot most, but he could not consider Phyllis blameless. Surely some other way could have been found by the lovers out of their difficulty, considering the self-sacrificing devotion of the old Colonel, who had been both father and mother to his child since his wife’s death.

“I will be your advocate, Phyllis,” Barrimore told her reluctantly. “But you must not suppose that I approve of this business, and I consider that you ought to tell your father at once. I think it was not worthy of a gentleman and a soldier to have proposed a clandestine marriage to you.”

“But Charlie didn’t propose it,” announced Phyllis. “It was I who did that. I told him I would be married to him before he went away, and I told you that father wouldn’t allow even an engagement. Father said that I might be twenty-one, but that I was a child, all the same, and that I should change my mind, and that I must not be bound. But I knew all the time that it was money he was thinking of, so I begged and prayed of Charlie to marry me and make sure, and I told him father would come around all right after. And, you know, Charlie is most awfully fond of me, and I can turn him round my finger. But he didn’t like marrying that way. He didn’t think it straightforward, which is nonsense; for all’s fair in love and war. So I told him if he didn’t get the license and marry me at St. Clement’s before breakfast, I would never marry him at all. That did it.”

She paused for breath.

Barrimore glanced over her head towards the drawing-room windows, and saw Colonel Lane and Uncle Robert making their way along the terrace to join his mother. She—simple soul that she was—had been watching the young people on the lawn furtively. Hopes were rising. Her Philip was so young to have his heart buried with Eweretta in Canada.

“We must go in now,” said Barrimore. “Your father and my uncle are gone to the drawing-room.”

Uncle Robert’s voice reached them where they stood.

“Ah, yes, Colonel, as Granville says:

“Oh, Love! thou bane of the most generous souls, Thou doubtful pleasure, and thou certain pain.”

And Barrimore thought his uncle’s quotation singularly appropriate.

CHAPTER III
AN ALARMING SUGGESTION

The quotation Uncle Robert made, and which was overheard by Philip in the garden, was a wind-up to a conversation relative to Phyllis and Captain Arbuthnot.

Colonel Lane had been confiding in Mr. Burns, and perhaps it would be as well to give the gist of their conversation, as it bears upon the disclosures of the foregoing chapter.

As soon as Philip, refusing wine, had sallied forth to smoke in the garden, Colonel Lane began to open his heart—part of it, at least; there was another part where a very tender secret lay hidden—to his friend.

“You have heard, of course, Burns, that Arbuthnot has been ordered to India? It is a mighty relief to me, for my little girl was clamoring to become engaged to him. That is saved, at any rate.”

“But, surely, Colonel, you can’t object to Arbuthnot!” exclaimed Uncle Robert; “a gentleman and a fine soldier.”

“That is just it,” rejoined the Colonel. “Arbuthnot is all that, and I have a deep regard for him. But Phyllis has had many fancies before, and will have many to come. She is a darling girl, but I fear she is very changeable. She thinks herself greatly in love with Arbuthnot to-day. To-morrow, more likely than not, she will think herself equally in love with someone else. She is not exactly a coquette, but she imagines herself to feel deeply, when she gets a surface impression. I want her to become more stable before she unites herself to a man with the chance of spoiling both their lives. It is very hard, Burns, to have to be both father and mother to a wilful girl! However, this particular situation is saved for the moment. Arbuthnot will be away for some time, and Phyllis may, in the meantime, grow older, and get to know her own mind, I hope.”

Glancing through the window at this point, the Colonel caught sight of a white figure crossing the lawn, and smiled a little grimly.

“Women are strange creatures, Burns,” he said; “I can’t understand them! A battalion of men is more easily managed than one woman!”

“Opinions differ, however,” said Uncle Robert. “Chaucer says, ‘Ther can no man in humblesse him acquite as woman can, ne can be half so trewe as woman ben,’ while Robert Burns calls her ‘dear, deluding woman.’”

“You, of course, take Burns’s view,” said the Colonel laughing.

Robert Burns the second did not see the joke. He answered quite seriously.

“No, I don’t take Burns’s view,” he said seriously. “I have a sister who is above rubies—a woman who is a sweetener of life.”

The Colonel grew serious. “By Gad! you are right, Burns! Mrs. Barrimore keeps my faith in woman from crumbling to dust. How sweet and girlish she looked at dinner to-night! It seems absurd that she should be Philip’s mother. Philip looks the older of the two. I think, between you and me, that it is a little too bad of Philip to go away to that bungalow. Mrs. Barrimore feels it, I could see, even while she tried to show interest in it to-night.”

“You will scarcely believe it, Colonel,” broke out Uncle Robert, “but Philip says my quotations have driven him away.”

“You do quote a lot, you know,” the Colonel told him laughing; “and authors are proverbially irritable.”

“‘They damn those authors whom they never read,’” said Uncle Robert. “That is from Churchill, and is to be found in ‘The Candidate.’ I told Philip so this morning; I had quoted Chaucer, and Philip had said, with more vigor than politeness, ‘Damn Chaucer!’ Now Philip never reads Chaucer—never has, I should say. In my young days young men read standard works, and digested them. Nowadays they read fiction.”

Colonel Lane stifled a yawn, and once more looked through the window at his daughter, now in earnest conversation with Philip Barrimore.

Uncle Robert’s eyes followed his friend’s.

“Doesn’t your little Phyllis appear to be on very confidential terms with our boy to-night?” he observed.

“Yes, she does,” answered the Colonel brusquely. “She will be in love with him next—to his undoing!”

Then had followed the quotation overheard by young Barrimore.

“Oh, Love! thou bane of the most generous souls,
Thou doubtful pleasure, and thou certain pain.”

Phyllis Lane was a good actress—what woman is not? To judge from her gay attitude as she entered Mrs. Barrimore’s drawing-room, one would never have imagined that she was a bride of a few hours, with her bridegroom speeding away to India.

The pink lamp-shade shed a warm glow over the pretty low-ceilinged room which was heavy with the scent of pink carnations—Mrs. Barrimore’s favorite flower. Mrs. Barrimore wore some of them pinned into the lace of her pearl-grey evening dress, and the color was faintly repeated in her cheeks. She had the complexion of a girl in her teens, and her slightly waving nut-brown hair was without a silver streak.

Her figure was softly rounded and slim as it had been at twenty. As Colonel Lane had said, she looked a girl, despite her over forty years.

She was sitting among the amber cushions on her favorite Chesterfield, where Colonel Lane joined her.

A band struck up a gay waltz in Alexandra Park. Mrs. Barrimore’s grey eyes brightened. “I love a band,” she said. “There is a fête in the park to-night, I can see the illuminations through the trees. How that music makes one wish to dance! Do you know, Colonel, I can’t help forgetting that I am middle-aged. Philip is sometimes a little shocked, I think. He thinks me quite old, and only to-day said, ‘Mother, don’t you think you ought to wear a bonnet?’ I began to think that perhaps I ought. It had never occurred to me before.”

“Bonnet!” exclaimed the Colonel. “It would be ridiculous. You would look really odd in one, with your face and figure. Philip has some very foolish ideas. That bungalow, for instance. I understand that he is going to live there with a manservant.”

Mrs. Barrimore’s pink deepened to carnation in her cheeks.

“Oh, you don’t understand,” she said, up in arms at once in defence of her boy. “Philip wants solitude—he needs it to write his books. He can’t get it here. Dear Robert won’t leave him alone. Young people, even the best, find it difficult to put up with the peculiarities of older folk. It is later on that the once young look back, and love these same older folk for these same peculiarities. It is all the same annoyance with old folks and infants, and I remember myself how angry it used to make me when Philip—he was little Philly then—left his sticky finger-prints on the window-glass—and now that my baby is a man, I would give—oh, what would I not give!—to see those sticky finger-prints again!”

Colonel Lane saw the tender eyes grow bright with unshed tears.

He cleared his throat.

“I think I know what you mean,” he said; “the man just arrived at maturity neither makes allowances for those older or younger than himself. It is the conceit that covers the just-grown-up as with a garment. But it is a garment which soon grows too small for a man with a fine nature—luckily. Philip is centered in his work at present, and all outside it is of but little importance. He is made of such good stuff, however, that it will not take long for him to look with different eyes on things outside himself.”

“We must remember, too, that Philip has had a great sorrow,” Mrs. Barrimore reminded the Colonel.

“Yes, I know,” answered her companion. “An inward pain such as his can’t fail to make him exaggerate annoyances. Do you think he is getting over it, dear Mrs. Barrimore?”

“I fear not,” she answered; “but it all happened only a year ago, you see. Philip wants to find out Eweretta’s half-sister, and help her.”

“Half-sister?” repeated the Colonel. “Had Miss Alvin a half-sister, then?”

“Yes, it is a very sad story. Aimée Le Breton was not legitimate. She was the living image of Eweretta, and both girls were the image of their father, and nearly the same age. The poor girl was weak-minded, so it was said, and lived with her mother at Qu’Appelle, in Canada. They have gone away no one seems to know where. Mr. Alvin left everything to Eweretta, and not a penny to Aimée or her mother. Eweretta died suddenly at Mrs. Le Breton’s house. She had gone over to Qu’Appelle to tell Aimée she should share with her—and she died of heart disease, so it was said. She was buried before Philip heard a word.”

“And what became of the money?” demanded the Colonel rather sharply.

“John Alvin’s brother Thomas came into it. It was willed so. If Eweretta died unmarried, Thomas was to take all.”

“My dear Mrs. Barrimore,” said the Colonel, “this is the first I have heard of this amazing story. Up to now I have only heard that Miss Alvin died. What kind of a man was Thomas Alvin?”

“He had always been unlucky, I know that,” replied Mrs. Barrimore. “He was a thirteenth son, and the only one who survived John. He failed in everything he touched, and was known as ‘The Thirteenth Man.’ I have heard that men sometimes refused to work with him for fear he should bring them ill-luck. And now you know all I know.”

The Colonel looked steadily out of the window at the lights in Alexandra Park that twinkled through the trees for some moments in silence. Then he brought his eyes back to his companion’s face.

“So Eweretta’s death was worth thirty thousand pounds to this unlucky thirteenth man!”

Mrs. Barrimore’s eyes took a look of horror.

“Colonel! you don’t mean—you can’t mean that Thomas Alvin—oh! for God’s sake don’t say a word to Philip. It would drive him mad!”

Phyllis had struck a few chords on the piano. Philip was standing near the instrument ready to turn the pages of a song she was about to sing.

Uncle Robert had impolitely dropped off to sleep.

“Forgive me!” whispered the Colonel. “It was a foolish remark of mine. Of course, I shall say nothing to Philip. You look quite pale! I shall never forgive myself for expressing that thought aloud. Won’t you come out on the terrace? The cool air will do you good. Oh, what a blunderer I am!”

Mrs. Barrimore smiled bravely and rose. “Yes, I should like to get into the air,” she said.

CHAPTER IV
A COMPLICATION

The morning following the events of the last chapter, Philip was taking an early breakfast alone, preparatory to going into Robertson Street in quest of furniture for the bungalow. He was regretting that his purse was not longer. His mother’s income was not considerable either, for which reason Mr. Burns had elected to make one of the household, to give him the excuse to augment his sister’s income. (The excuse he gave was his loneliness.)

Philip had artistic tastes, and he would have liked to make the bungalow something unique. He liked to write amid perfect surroundings, for his work was beautiful work—too beautiful to pay well—and he had an idea that surroundings influenced him a great deal when he wrote.

The windows of the room in which he sat were open, and sweet scents from the garden filled the air.

All at once he caught sight of Uncle Robert coming from the gate, hatless, and with a big towel round his neck.

He was returning from his customary swim.

He hailed his nephew joyously:

“The water is fine this morning, Phil! Why don’t you go for a swim like me?”

“Not fond of it, uncle,” replied Philip a little curtly.

Uncle Robert came in at the window and poured himself out a cup of coffee, upsetting it on the white cloth, to his nephew’s annoyance, and adding to his iniquities by dabbing it up with the table-napkin Philip had just laid down.

Really, Uncle Robert’s ways were a constant irritation to Philip.

“Why not ring for one of the servants to put that right?” Philip remarked.

“Never give others a thing to do when you can do it yourself,” replied Mr. Burns, drinking off his coffee at a single gulp. “And, by the way, Philip, I want to have a hand in this furnishing of yours.”

Philip broke into a smile. Uncle Robert’s taste was too awful to bear thinking of.

“Thank you, uncle,” he said; “but, you know, I just want to follow my own fancies in this.”

“Of course, of course, Philip! I know I should be of no use in choosing your gimcracks. What I meant was, that I wrote out a check for a hundred pounds for you before I went out. It will help you to have things you fancy.”

Philip’s usually pale face became scarlet with shame.

How he snubbed this uncle, how he allowed himself to be irritated with him and his ways! Yet Uncle Robert never resented it, and was always good-humored and kindly.

This generous gift covered the young man with confusion.

“I don’t deserve your kindness, Uncle Robert,” he broke out impulsively. “I am always surly with you, and you are always kind. I feel ashamed of myself, and I may as well own it. It is a good thing for you I am taking myself off!”

“They say biting and scratching is Scotch folks’ wooing,” laughed Uncle Robert; “and if you do sometimes drop on me like a thousand of bricks, you are fond of your old uncle, all the same, and he knows it! Why, bless my soul! I want taking down a peg or two sometimes. It is good for me!”

“I want taking down a good many pegs!” acknowledged Philip humbly.

He had a very poor opinion of himself just at this moment.

Just then Mrs. Barrimore appeared, looking very girlish, in a muslin morning-gown, which had sprigs of lavender upon a white ground.

Philip rose and placed a chair for her, and when she was seated, leaned over and kissed her.

“You have a new dress on, mother,” he remarked. “It is very pretty—but—isn’t it a bit young for the mother of a big son like me?”

He spoke with gentle raillery, but the mother was a little hurt.

“Do you really think that, Philip?” she asked anxiously. “I told Colonel Lane last night that you thought I ought not to wear hats. He thought it nonsense.”

“Don’t you attend to Philip’s foolish remarks, Annie,” put in Uncle Robert. “A woman is as young as she looks—and you look about five-and-twenty.”

“I can’t help looking young,” said Mrs. Barrimore apologetically.

“You ought not to want to help it,” Uncle Robert told her.

“She doesn’t!—do you, mummy?” laughed Philip, looking with affection at the delicate face blushing so rosily.

The advent of letters covered Mrs. Barrimore’s confusion. One was for Philip. He scrutinized the handwriting with an odd expression on his face.

At last he said: “If I did not know Dan Webster so well, I should imagine he had been drinking! Look at the unsteady, wavering writing, mother!”

“Yes, it is unsteady,” she answered. “Open it, Philip. Perhaps he is ill.”

“Oh!” ejaculated the young man, as he read the opening passage. “Poor Dan!”

“What is it?” came from Mrs. Barrimore and uncle in a duet.

“His eyes have gone wrong. He is to do no painting for a long time. He is down in the depths,” said Philip. “Poor Dan! and his people, who have never approved of his taking up art as a profession, say it is a judgment on him! He says there is no reason to fear loss of sight if he follows the doctor’s directions rigidly. It is necessary to take entire rest, and till the inflammation is subdued he must wear a green shade. He has unfortunately very little money, but, all the same, he says he shall take a room somewhere to be away from nagging and reproaches.”

Uncle Robert jumped up and knocked over his cup (just replenished by his sister). “Why can’t he come here?” he inquired.

“There will be Philip’s room,” added Mrs. Barrimore. “I will write to-day and ask him. The garden is so restful, and he can walk on the sea-front with you, Robert, and sit and listen to the band.”

“And I can read to him,” rejoined Uncle Robert. “I shall go out and telegraph.”

He was marching off through the window to carry out his project when his nephew reminded him that he was wearing no collar.

“‘A sweet disorder in the dress,’ eh?—as Herrick puts it,” said Uncle Robert. “I can send a wire without the aid of a collar.”

With that he departed.

“What a brick Uncle Robert is!” commented Philip, as the bulky form disappeared, “and I am ashamed of my intolerance, mother! Do you know, he is giving me a hundred pounds for furnishing?”

“I am not surprised, Philip, at any generous act from your uncle. He will take Dan completely under his wing, you will see, and will commission all our portraits, I expect, as soon as Dan’s eyes are well.”

“Well, mother, Dan is a splendid fellow, and a handsome one, too; and, mark my word, some old lady whose portrait he paints will one day leave him a fortune.”

“I only hope so,” smiled the mother. “And now, I suppose you will want to be off on your shopping expedition. By the way, there is a lovely old oak dresser for sale in a shop in High Street—in the Old Town, you know. The shop is not far from St. Clement’s Church—a secondhand shop, of course. You will know it by a big horse painted up on the side. You might look at the dresser. Also, they have a dear old grandfather clock, and you said you wanted one. I should like to go with you to see the bungalow.”

“So you shall, mother,” said Philip, rising. “But let me get it in order first.”

Mrs. Barrimore’s tender mouth quivered. She so much wanted to do the “putting in order” herself for her boy. But he had his own ideas, and she tactfully said nothing of her disappointment.

Philip hurried off and caught a tram to the Memorial, from the top of which he beheld Uncle Robert coming back, puffing and blowing, from the General Post Office. His face was red and beaming from pleasant thoughts.

In Robertson Street Philip encountered Phyllis, looking like a flower in her white frock and blue ribbons.

“I have been shopping early, Philip,” she said, smiling up at him. “I am going to Fairlight Glen to a picnic this afternoon, and I had to get a new parasol to match my dress. I wish you were going! Oh, father was so horrid about Captain Arbuthnot going home last night! I do hope he doesn’t find out! But no one knows but you, and you won’t tell.”

“What about the clergyman who married you?” asked Philip.

“He was a stranger—taking duty, and you know that father goes to Blacklands Church, though St. Clement’s is our parish. But I must go. I have lots of things to do.”

Philip watched her as she tripped away in the sunshine, and his heart misgave him. There was trouble in store for little Phyllis he felt sure—and possibly for Arbuthnot. What a fool Arbuthnot had shown himself!

But then!—a man in love—what will he not do? Had Eweretta lived, would he not have been as wax in her dear little brown hands?

The thought of those brown hands brought a mist before his eyes. He saw her before him in all her young, joyous beauty. The rich coloring on her sun-kissed face; the dark masses of her hair; her wonderful dark eyes. He had been wont to call her his prairie flower.

He had a wild longing to see her half-sister, whom he had heard so exactly resembled her. He would be kind to Aimée Le Breton for her sake. But should he ever find her? She had disappeared from Qu’Appelle so completely. Philip, as he walked towards the “Old Town,” had an odd feeling of being outside life. His life seemed to be ended, while he still remained to haunt the places where he had formerly lived. Reality seemed to have given place to something dreamlike. Outwardly he was the same Philip, except that he was graver. But inwardly he felt himself a sort of ghost, that took part in a life in which it had no real place.

He was really keen about the bungalow. He wanted to drown himself in work. Work was the only real panacea when the heart sorrowed. He did not wear his heart on his sleeve, however, not being built that way.

As he was passing the two yachts (known as the Albertines), he was suddenly accosted by Colonel Lane.

“Have you seen Phyllis?” demanded the Colonel. “An old flame of hers—Herbert Langridge—has just turned up unexpectedly. He is staying at the ‘Albany.’ Should not wonder if he is come to try his luck once more!”

“I just left her in Robertson Street,” answered Philip, who felt decidedly uncomfortable.

“Oh, well, I will go in pursuit,” said the Colonel. “Langridge is going to lunch with us. To tell you the truth, I should not be sorry to see her settle down in that quarter. He’d keep her in order! Good-bye!”

“Here is a pretty kettle of fish!” muttered Philip, as he strode on.

CHAPTER V
A WOMAN’S HONOR

“Phyllis, if you are as good a walker as you used to be, won’t you go to Fairlight Glen by the East Hill with me? We could start directly after luncheon, and get to the Glen as soon as the others.”

Mr. Herbert Langridge, who had been persuaded by Colonel Lane to join the picnic, saw a chance in this proposal of an hour or two in which to have the object of his desire to himself, and Colonel Lane had been quite right in supposing that this young man had come to Hastings with the set purpose of getting Phyllis to reconsider a former unfavorable decision.

Phyllis, who knew that things had happened which rendered that former decision final, and seeing no reason at all why she should not listen to pretty compliments for an hour, consented.

Colonel Lane was pleased.

Langridge had a snug post in the War Office, and would some day have a really good pension. It would be a relief to have Phyllis settled. Moreover, Colonel Lane had plans of his own which the marriage of Phyllis would to his mind make easier.

The three were walking on the sea-front near the band-stand, for Colonel Lane had captured Phyllis at the shop of Plummer Roddis, and had carried her off to the “Albany,” where Langridge had been waiting in the covered space outside, where lounge chairs are placed.

“I would much rather walk than ride,” Phyllis affirmed.

“Good,” said Langridge. “We will start early, and not walk too fast in this heat.”

“Luncheon is at one sharp,” put in the Colonel.

“That will give us good time,” Phyllis said.

“And, remember, you both dine with me at the ‘Albany’ to-night,” Langridge reminded her.

“How delightful!” cried Phyllis. “I love dining at hotels.”

Phyllis was certainly disposed to be very agreeable, Langridge thought, and he regarded it as a hopeful sign.

Phyllis, hugging her secret, and feeling very important, as being a married woman—also, it must be owned, struggling against a depression which she must hide—not a very deep depression certainly, for Phyllis had but a shallow nature—but depression, all the same; she craved excitement and entertainment to make her forget it. Langridge promised to be entertaining. He was very much in love, and men in love were always fun.

To Phyllis the situation was most romantic!

Colonel Lane had an old-fashioned house, with a garden, not far from St. Clement’s Church, chosen because it was roomy and cheap; and the garden having a high wall round it made a target possible, and the Colonel could amuse himself with his rifle.

In this garden a year ago Phyllis had refused Langridge’s offer of marriage. (She had refused other men in this garden too.)

Langridge considered the garden unlucky, and meant to try his luck in a fresh place next time. The East Hill was the spot in his mind.

After luncheon Phyllis, looking very bewitching in her picnic garb, set forth with her unfortunate victim gaily enough.

“She isn’t fretting after Arbuthnot,” commented her father, as he watched her go. “It is to be hoped he is not fretting either.”

The sea was a glorious blue. The hot sun was tempered by a playful breeze.

Langridge felt buoyant.

“Do you know, Phyllis, I have done nothing but think of you the whole year,” he told her.

“I was sure you didn’t work much at the War Office,” she flung at him saucily.

He laughed, but he was not altogether pleased. He did not want to lose time in banter. He was very much in earnest.

“We will not talk of the War Office now, Phyllis,” he told her. “I have left the War Office alone for a while.”

“How glad it must be!” she said, with a roguish, sidelong glance at him.

“Would you be glad if I left you alone?” he asked her. “Have you been glad all the year because I did not come near you, or write?”

“I don’t think I thought about it at all,” she said aggravatingly.

“Well, think now. I shall not come back again if you say ‘No’ a second time.”

He was very grave now, and there was something in his voice that suggested smoldering wrath.

“Now you are cross,” she said, pouting. “You have asked me nothing to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to.”

“You know perfectly well what I mean, Phyllis. You know why I have come to Hastings—why I asked you to walk with me to the Glen, instead of riding with the others. You know that I have come expressly to ask you again if you will be my wife.”

They had come to a standstill and were looking out over the sea. She watched a couple of white-winged yachts, coquetting, as it seemed, like butterflies.

“Are they not lovely?” she asked, pointing at the yachts.

Langridge took the wrist of her extended arm almost roughly.

“Phyllis once and for all, will you marry me?”

“I can’t,” she answered, looking at him with wide, innocent eyes. “And I am glad I can’t, because you have such a temper!”

“Why can’t you?” he demanded, ignoring the latter part of her remark.

“Because I can’t.”

“That is no answer.”

“I can’t really!” she affirmed.

“Why did you consent to walk with me this afternoon, then?” he asked in an injured tone. “You seemed quite glad to come, and now—”

“Yes, I was glad. I thought you would be amusing, but you are not—no, not one bit. You are simply horrid. If that is your idea of making love—”

“Be nice to me as you were when we were in London, and you shall see if I can make love to your satisfaction.”

“But you mustn’t make love to me.”

“Why mustn’t I? You did not say that once!”

“I say it now.”

He did not believe her. He thought her attitude mere coquetry. She must have known why he wanted to be alone with her, and she had come willingly enough.

“Will you marry me, Phyllis?” he repeated. “You know how I love you.”

“I can’t.”

“Then tell me why.”

She felt cornered.

“Will you promise me never to tell a soul if I do?”

He promised readily enough. He must know her objection before he could overrule it.

She drew her small figure up with an air of great importance.

“I am married,” she said.

“What!” he exclaimed, scarcely believing his ears.

“Yes, I was secretly married to Captain Arbuthnot before he sailed,” she told him. “You see, father would not give his consent—so—we did it. Now are you satisfied?”

Satisfied! He was filled with indignation.

“And knowing that, you allowed me to propose to you,” he said bitterly.

“I could not help your being silly,” she said, shutting her new pink parasol with a snap.

“You made a fool of me, Miss Lane—I beg your pardon!—Mrs. Arbuthnot.”

“Oh! don’t call me that!” she said with a light laugh. “You will forget and do it before people, and we don’t want anyone to know till—till Captain Arbuthnot comes into some money. Mind! you have promised not to tell!”

Herbert Langridge eyed the girl with something like consternation. He, like Mrs. Barrimore, had thought her a frank, innocent child, incapable of anything underhand. He had known she was a flirt—who did not? but he had thought that it was mere childish, light-hearted coquetry; now he thought differently.

He avoided all names now in speaking to her. He also increased the distance between them.