The dangerous game

By William Le Queux

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Title: The dangerous game

Author: William Le Queux

Illustrator: Jr. Henry C. Murphy

Release date: February 24, 2026 [eBook #78029]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: The Macaulay Company, 1926

Credits: an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DANGEROUS GAME ***




 [Frontispiece: The pretty spy, watching from the bridge of the yacht,
 was greatly perplexed by the flares of distress hurtling through the
 night.]




 THE
 DANGEROUS
 GAME

 By WILLIAM LE QUEUX
 _AUTHOR OF “THE CRYSTAL CLAW,” “MADEMOISELLE
 OF MONTE CARLO,” ETC._

 _Frontispiece by
 HENRY C. MURPHY, Jr._




 _NEW YORK
 THE MACAULAY COMPANY_




 [COPYRIGHT]

 Published in England Under the Title “Hidden Hands.”

 Copyright, 1926
 By THE MACAULAY COMPANY




 CONTENTS

 I. THE WATCHER
 II. LOVE AND CURIOSITY
 III. THE ELUSIVE JOAN
 IV. THE GREAT SECRET
 V. CONCERNS SOME FACTS
 VI. THE HOUSE OF SUSPICION
 VII. THE SPECIAL BRANCH
 VIII. A DELICATE ERRAND
 IX. ON DANGEROUS GROUND
 X. THE GIRL OF THE SNOWS
 XI. SOWING THE WIND
 XII. IN CONFIDENCE
 XIII. IN THE PAPERS
 XIV. THE WEEK-END
 XV. THE SECRET OUT
 XVI. REVEALS THE BARRIER
 XVII. BESIDE THE SEA
 XVIII. STOLEN SWEETS
 XIX. ’MID SNOW AND SUNSHINE
 XX. THE REFUGE HUT
 XXI. HOW THE SCALES FELL
 XXII. THE VALLEY OF LIES
 XXIII. DEPTHS OF DECEIT
 XXIV. A DANCE AT CLARIDGE’S
 XXV. DOUBLE CUNNING
 XXVI. REMORSE
 XXVII. THE TRAP
 XXVIII. CONCLUSION




 THE DANGEROUS GAME

 CHAPTER I.
 THE WATCHER

A stout, thick-set, clean-shaven Englishman, with round face,
iron-gray hair, wide jaws and a pair of shrewd, dark eyes behind a
pair of rimless pince-nez, was standing in the pretty lounge of the
Hotel St. George, at Corfu, idly smoking a cigarette, and chatting
with a good-looking, dark-haired young woman of about thirty, who was
also spending some weeks on the beautiful island in the Adriatic.

They had already been there nearly two months, and a friendship had
sprung up between them. Both were there for the winter warmth and
sunshine. The man was a bachelor and a thorough-going cosmopolitan,
who spent his whole life in continuous travel, while the woman was
married to a rather good-looking man about five years her senior,
whose actual nationality was somewhat obscure, but who was probably a
Greek, though he spoke English almost perfectly, as so many educated
Greeks do.

The thick-set Englishman, smiling and care-free, was one of the most
popular of English novelists, whose name was known in every country
throughout the world, Charles Seton Darville. In every bookshop and
bookstall on the five continents his works were sold, for they were
translated into many languages, even into Arabic and Chinese. In order
to obtain the correct local color for his books he was a constant
wanderer to and fro across Europe, meeting many people and having many
adventures in all sorts of odd corners of the Continent.

The British Prime Minister had once said of him that he knew more of
the underworld of Europe than any living Englishman. Certainly Seton
Darville turned his unique knowledge of men and matters to good
account, as witness the high pitch of excitement with which his books
were always written and his descriptions of places and peoples. Hence
they sold by the hundred thousand, and brought him in a very
considerable income.

He was, however, a very lonely man. Though merry and easy-going to a
fault, a careless wanderer who journeyed to and fro with scarcely a
single care, he was possessed of a certain little idiosyncrasy which
his friends never suspected, for there was another more serious and
more strenuous side of his life that he never revealed. The public
regarded him as a popular and prosperous novelist--hence he was ever
welcome in London society, and hostesses were constantly seeking him
out and begging him to grace their tables and their dances.

Because of his awful loneliness amid the vortex of society he had,
years before, adopted as his daughter, Rene, a little girl left
penniless and alone. Upon her the strong, self-willed man had showered
all his affections, and petted her as his own child. But now,
ungrateful perhaps for all he had done for her, she had married, and
left him again with that terrible loneliness which his friends never
suspected.

In such a mood, he was that morning killing time by chatting with
little Mrs. Caborn, who, dressed ready to go out, was awaiting her
husband. There had been a ball at the Casino on the previous night,
and they were discussing it. From where they stood there was presented
through the long windows a fine view of the harbor and the azure sea
sparkling in the morning sun. Of all the islands in the Adriatic,
Corfu is the most picturesque and beautiful, calm and glorious, with
its riot of flowers, a veritable paradise for those seeking sunshine
and peace.

Darville always rose early. Since the first flush of dawn across the
sea he had been writing in his room, busy upon a new romance which he
had contracted to write five years before. The popular novelist is
always full up with contracts from eager publishers who vie with one
another in the matter of increased royalties and who give him
commissions years ahead. The scenes of this forthcoming book were laid
in Italy, but he had resolved to write it in that sea-girt paradise,
away from the bustle of modern life and the distractions of his
friends.

After a few moments a rather tall, thin-faced man, with a small, dark
mustache, a pair of beady eyes and features unmistakably foreign,
joined them. He was George Caborn, the woman’s husband. Though he bore
an English name he was undoubtedly a Southerner, but that was
explained by the fact that his grandfather had been an English
merchant who had settled in Athens.

“Hulloa, Darville!” he exclaimed merrily. “You’re up early!”

“Yes,” laughed the novelist. “I went to bed at four, and up at six.
I’ve been busy writing ever since.”

“We’re going for a stroll; will you join us?”

Darville accepted the invitation, and for an hour the trio strolled
along the sea road, with its wonderful profusion of palms, aloes,
oranges, wild geraniums and other flowers in full blossom, even though
it was winter.

After lunch the novelist, as was his habit, ascended to his room with
his five-day-old English newspaper, and, throwing himself into a deep
arm-chair, lit a cigarette. But, instead of reading, he lay back with
his eyes fixed upon the blue sea, engrossed in thought.

He was puzzled by Joan Caborn, whom he had first met at winter sports
at Wengen, in Switzerland, the previous winter. At the same time he
held her foreign-born husband, whom he had not seen before this
winter, in considerable contempt. The Anglo-Greek seemed to neglect
his wife in favor of a stout, flashily-dressed widow named Madame
Texardis, hence he and Joan Caborn had been thrown much together, and
frequently went for walks alone.

Darville, constant traveler that he was, had had many adventures with
women. He was of a type that appealed to them, and yet actual
affection he had never experienced. He who wrote so constantly about
Love jeered at it, and in his own heart declared that, because he had
never experienced the symptoms, it was a non-existent disease. He had
declared one day in the Savage Club that Love was only the bacillus of
Lust.

That afternoon, examining his own heart and analyzing his feelings,
visions of the past arose of a pretty young society woman in London
who had been his friend ever since her schooldays, and who now had
married a wealthy peer and was one of the leaders of an exclusive and
somewhat go-ahead set. On her marriage, a year before, their many
years of intimate friendship had ended, and that was the secret of his
terrible loneliness and why he drifted hither and thither caring for
nothing and for nobody.

He was aroused from his reverie by a page-boy who brought his letters,
which had arrived by that day’s mail-boat from the mainland at
Brindisi. They were in one large registered envelope, having been
forwarded by his secretary in London. He drew a sigh when he saw the
bulk of the packet. His trusted secretary had already dealt with all
he could, and had sent on the remainder for him to see himself.

As he drew them out, he found the usual budget that every popular
novelist daily receives. Invitations, piteous begging letters, polite
applications for autographs, flattering letters from unknown readers,
bundles of press-cuttings, requests to send autographed books for
bazaars, and copious effusions from cranks of all sorts and both
sexes. One by one he glanced at them and cast them on the floor beside
him.

Suddenly he came to one unopened. The envelope, in an unusually bold
feminine hand, was addressed to his club in London. He tore it open
eagerly and read its contents. The letter was signed “Edris
Temperley.” It began, “Dear Mr. Darville,” and stated that she was
leaving London for winter sports in Switzerland as usual, and
expressed a hope that they would meet at the Palace Hotel at Wengen as
before, and she also expressed a hope that they would all have as good
a time as last season, and that Mrs. Caborn would be there again.

He read it through twice, and then slowly tore it up. Afterwards he
sat pale and motionless for some minutes.

“No!” he muttered. “True, I love Switzerland, but I can’t go to Wengen
again. If she were not there, I’d go. But what is the use? It would
only be painful to me--far too painful. I won’t reply. It is best so.”

And, rising, he paced the room, his countenance hard-set and grave,
his eyes sad, his clenched hands trembling. Receipt of that letter, at
that most inopportune moment, had recalled a brief but sweet romance
of a year ago amid the Alpine snows, with its ski-ing and tobogganing,
its peals of youthful laughter, and the _joie de vivre_. But all
thought of the gay, handsome English sports-girl, with the dark,
shingled hair, he wished to cut out of his life. Indeed, he had tried
not to recollect her, until now her letter had revived the sweet
little romance of the previous winter, and how it had suddenly ended
when one day she had admitted to him that she had been engaged but it
had been broken off; that her late lover was returning to London in a
few weeks, and there was every prospect of a reconciliation.

Her words came as a severe blow to him, but he concealed his feelings,
and a week later had left Wengen, determined to think no more of her.
That letter, however, instantly revived all his recollections and
longings. He remembered how independent and yet how sweet she had
been; how open and straightforward, as an open-air girl should be; and
how he had found that their ideas and ideals were all exactly in
common.

“Folly! Sheer folly!” he muttered to himself, as he stood looking out
across the shimmering sea. “No. To go to Wengen this year would only
bring unhappiness to us both. She is, no doubt, happy. Why should I
step in and try to attain the impossible? Love! Bah--I’m a fool! Yet
there is no love. Poor little Rene--and she has left me--married, and
now I’m forgotten!” he added, choking down a sob.

Tears welled in his eyes as he stood there, a great popular figure in
the world, yet nursing his heavy sorrow in secret. In public he
laughed happily, with his devil-may-care mannerisms, and presented a
brave heart and a never-ceasing _bonhomie_ towards the world.

For fully ten minutes he remained with knit brows and serious face,
as, torn by his emotions, he stood motionless with hands still
clenched. Then, gathering up his letters, he tossed them into his
leather dispatch-case, locked it securely, and, taking a light coat,
ordered a car and went out for a run across the beautiful island to
the opposite shore where the gray, rocky coast of wild Albania lay
upon the horizon.

He halted at a small rural wine shop and drank a couple of glasses of
the excellent red wine made upon the island, and later on, drove back
to the town in the glorious, golden sunset.

That night, on entering the big _salle à manger_ of the hotel, he
noted that Mrs. Caborn was sitting alone. She beckoned to him and
said:

“Do come and sit here, Mr. Darville. My husband has left for Italy. He
had an urgent telegram this afternoon, and was just able to catch the
mail-boat!”

“Gone?” exclaimed Darville in blank surprise which he failed to
conceal. His exclamation was indeed one of consternation.

“Yes,” she replied looking up at him with a rather strange expression.
“Are you very sorry?” she asked in a low, appealing voice.

“Of course not,” he laughed, instantly recovering his surprise. “How
long are you to be alone?” he inquired, smiling, as he seated himself
in her husband’s place at the little _table à deux_.

“Oh! about a fortnight, I think. He suggested I should stay, as he has
to travel on business up to Milan and Zurich, and he thought, if I
remained here, I should be more comfortable than traveling
continuously, as he is sometimes forced to do.”

“Then he ought to be back on Wednesday week--eh?” remarked Darville,
as the waiter placed the soup before him. The novelist moved the big
vase of mimosa aside, so that he could see her without interruption.
She was dressed in a sleeveless frock of dark purple velvet with four
narrow shoulder-straps, which enhanced the whiteness of her skin,
while around her neck was her only ornament, a rope of valuable
pearls.

As he ate his soup he decided that she was attractive, and that the
opportunity thus afforded them of being constantly in each other’s
society for a whole fortnight was exactly what he desired.

Their conversation soon drifted to winter sports and traveling. She
told him that very frequently her husband journeyed to and fro across
Europe to one or other of the capitals on business. Darville
understood that he was an exporter of Greek produce, and had his chief
office in Athens, with a branch at Salonica, his trade being mainly
with France and England. As for herself, she had told him of her own
many travels. She loved traveling, and had been in America and Canada,
in Spain and Egypt. On her husband’s return they were taking the
Trieste steamer and going to Vienna for a few weeks on pleasure.

That night, as they sat over their coffee in the lounge, without
seeming unduly inquisitive, he obtained from her some facts concerning
Mr. Caborn’s travels which rather puzzled him, and especially in
reference to his hurried departure from the island.

“Do you think your husband’s travels this time will take him to
England?” asked Darville presently, between the whiffs of his
cigarette.

“No,” she answered decisively. “I’m certain he won’t go to England, or
he would have taken me.” The positive tone of her voice aroused his
curiosity.

“His departure was certainly very sudden. I wish I had had an
opportunity of bidding him _bon voyage_,” he remarked.

“Do you?” she asked, with that strange, mysterious look again in her
eyes.

“Why, of course,” he laughed. “When did he receive the telegram?”

“At three o’clock. The boat left at four.”

Darville remained silent for some moments, and then began to chat
about other things, and suggested a motor run together on the
following morning, after he had finished his usual morning’s work,
which occupied him daily from six o’clock to eleven, with an interval
for his _café complet_, brought to his room.

At half-past eleven o’clock she put out her cigarette, drained her
liqueur, and, wishing him a merry “good-night,” left him.

As soon as she had disappeared into the lift, he went across to the
_concierge’s_ bureau, and in confidence inquired at what hour a
telegram had arrived for Mr. Caborn.

“There has been no telegram to-day, monsieur,” replied the man with
the crossed keys upon the lapels of his black velvet-collared coat,
speaking with an Italian accent. “I have been on duty since noon, and
all telegrams are delivered to me here. I keep in this book a register
of all received”; and he indicated a long, narrow memorandum-book
which lay open on the table. “You see the names of all visitors who
have received telegrams to-day. Monsieur Caborn’s name is not among
them.”

“Thank you,” replied the novelist. “You need not say that I made an
inquiry”; and he ascended to his room, a grin of satisfaction upon his
round, good-humored face.

“I thought so!” he muttered to himself, when in his own room. “I
wasn’t mistaken, after all! A very clever pair--extremely clever! The
game is becoming highly interesting. Joan is a very clever little
woman!”

From his usual careless languor Seton Darville instantly became
bustling and active.

Seating himself at his writing-table, he wrote out a curious telegram.
He addressed it to a code address in London, and gave what seemed to
be financial quotations.

To the ordinary eye it was only a commercial telegram, and as such it
was accepted at the chief telegraph office, to which he walked in the
bright moonlight. But at the address in London he knew it would cause
a great flutter of excitement, and that within an hour the tentacles
of a great octopus-like organization would be spread, with eyes and
ears ever open, by night as well as by day, all over Europe.

Seton Darville possessed two separate and distinct personalities. One
was the popular and prosperous erratic novelist imbued with the true
artistic temperament, a lonely man who sought distraction at
night-cafés and night-clubs merely because he could never sleep till
early morning. The other side of his highly complex nature was that of
a shrewd, hard, relentless man, clever, calculating, cunning,
far-seeing, even inhuman and unscrupulous. That second nature of his
he seldom, if ever, showed. Only if his anger were aroused did the
evil side of his dual character reveal itself. At other times he was
able to conceal it beneath his calm, unruffled, Bohemian exterior.

As he walked back along the sea front, where the moonlit waves lapped
lazily upon the beach, amid a truly fairy-like scene, he gritted his
teeth. His suspicion of little Mrs. Caborn had been confirmed within
that half-hour, for he saw that she had lied to him about her husband.

He halted beneath the shadow of a great palm and lit a fresh
cigarette. Then, as he tossed aside the match and strode forward, he
exclaimed aloud to himself:

“This is now a cat-and-mouse game! The cat must watch. I wonder if
what I suspect is true?--I wonder? If it is--then--then I’ll----”

And, without concluding his sentence, he uttered a queer, artificial
laugh, which sounded strange and unreal in the dead silence of the
brilliant night.




 CHAPTER II.
 LOVE AND CURIOSITY

When the thin-faced Greek waiter brought Darville his _café
complet_ next morning, a telegram lay upon the tray.

He roused himself quickly, opened it with interest, and then a smile
of contentment overspread his round face.

After eating his roll and swallowing the excellent black coffee, he
lit a cigarette, and then leisurely shaved and dressed. Twice he
glanced at the telegram, which to the ordinary eye was a commercial
message regarding a cargo of currants on their way to London from the
island of Zante. But it conveyed much to the popular novelist. So
much, indeed, that, as he brushed his hair, he chuckled to himself and
muttered:

“I wonder what the next move will be? Whatever it is, it will be
checkmated!”

Presently he passed into his private sitting-room, and, seating
himself at the small writing-table, took up his pen and resumed work
upon his new novel which, in perhaps a year’s time, would be published
simultaneously in England, America, France, and the Colonies.

When the gong for _déjeuner_ sounded he rose, wearily stretched
himself, brushed his hair, and then descended to the big _salle à
manger_.

As he entered, he saw that the Caborns’ table in the window was empty.
He seated himself there and awaited Joan. The meal commenced, but she
remained absent, much to his surprise. Did she dare to face him?
Perhaps not, if her suspicions had been aroused. Yet he had been very
circumspect. How could his actions cause her any alarm?

Suddenly, when the meal was nearly over, and, indeed, some of the
visitors had already risen and left, she came in, bustling, smiling,
and apologetic.

“My dear Mr. Darville!” she cried. “Do forgive me! I see you haven’t
waited. That is good. I’ve been for a long walk in the country, and it
has taken me more time to get back than I anticipated.”

“My dear Joan,” he said; for he was now sufficiently intimate to call
her by her Christian name. “I thought that perhaps you were lunching
elsewhere so I commenced. Pray forgive me.”

“Of course. It’s all my fault,” she declared, seating herself and
drawing off her gloves. She looked very handsome in her cool, white
gown and neat, black hat.

While she ate her meal she chatted vivaciously, for she was always
full of wit and high spirits. Darville knew that only by making
pretence of loving her could he worm from her the great secret which
she held.

So he invited her up to his pleasant sitting-room, where she threw
herself into a big lounge-chair, and, tossing her hat aside, took a
cigarette from his case and allowed him to light it for her.

When the coffee and liqueurs had been brought and the waiter had
retired again, he crossed the room in silence, and, with his eyes
fixed upon hers in pretended affection, he took her white hand in his
and, bending gallantly, kissed it.

“Mr. Darville,” she said, drawing it away instantly. “Please don’t.
Please remember we are only friends. Do let us remain as such.”

“But, Joan!” he cried, taking her hand again, and bending over her.
“Can’t you see--haven’t you seen? How--how you have fascinated me--how
you are all in all to me--how fondly I love you--how----?”

“Love!” she cried, interrupting coldly. “I have no love to give you,
Seton--nothing to give you in return. So let us drop the subject. Do,
I beg of you!”

“But I can’t--I really can’t!” he declared imploringly, his face pale
and earnest as he still held her hand, and before she became aware of
it his lips had met hers and had imprinted a kiss upon them.

“You do this in my husband’s absence!” she exclaimed angrily, never
dreaming that he was making hollow pretence. “It is too cruel of you!
How can I hold you in esteem when you make love to me like this? I am
sadly disillusioned, I tell you frankly, Seton. I believed you to be a
dear friend, a good pal to me, and a good friend to my husband.”

In a second Seton Darville’s face changed. His eyes grew smaller, and
there was a hardness about his mouth.

“And why should I be a good friend to your husband, Joan?” he asked in
a low, confidential voice, his face bent to hers. “Why should I study
him when I happen to know with what infernal brutality he behaves to
you, and how damnably he treats you when you are alone? All Greeks
treat their women without consideration and without respect. Why
should I extend the hand of friendship to such a fellow?”

“He is, after all, my husband,” was her simple reply in a quiet,
trembling voice as low as his own. The tone of her reply revealed the
truth to him.

He feigned regret as he slowly released her hand. But, still looking
straight into her face, he whispered:

“Joan! I can only repeat that I love you!”

She rose resolutely from her chair, taking up her hat preparatory to
leaving the room.

The novelist gripped her wrist and took the hat from her fingers. Upon
his face was a look of deep resolution.

“I love you, Joan. I am devoted to you, and you must hear me.”

“I refuse!” she cried. “Let me go to my room. This is wrong of
you--very wrong.”

“No. Listen to me--listen to reason, Joan.”

“I’ll hear nothing. I’ve heard enough!” she protested. “I had no idea
that you entertained one single spark of affection for me. I only
regarded you as a chance-met friend. And, after all, you are only
that. I only think of you as one so famous!”

“My fame is of no account to me. It is simply luck; the same as any
other good or bad fortune,” he replied, with an inexpressibly sad
look. “I only tell you that I love you.”

Once more she looked straight into his deep eyes, as gradually again
she withdrew her hand. He felt it trembling within his grasp, and knew
that, though she possessed a calm exterior, she was, nevertheless,
stirred by wild emotion. Her dark, luminous eyes shone, and he
realized that a great struggle was taking place within her.

“Can you love me, Joan?” he whispered.

She shook her head mournfully.

“Seton,” she said in a strained voice, her eyes still upon him as she
stood before him. “You are asking impossibilities. I cannot--I--I dare
not allow myself to love you!”

“Why--why?” he demanded, even though his love-making was only
pretended.

“Because--because there are reasons--strong reasons. Your love is
debarred from me. Remember, I am married!”

“I know. But what does that matter?” asked the popular novelist.
“Surely I am not the first man who has loved the wife of another?”

“No. But--well--I can’t love you. That’s all,” she replied blankly.

“Why? Tell me the reason.”

“It is a strong one--a very strong one.”

“Of what nature?”

“Well--if you knew the truth, Seton,” she answered, her voice low and
trembling. “If you knew the bitter truth, you would never allow
yourself to declare your love for me”; and tears welled in her bright
eyes as she spoke.

“What truth? I don’t understand. You speak in enigmas, dear.”

“I know. But it is my secret--a secret which I am forced to hide, even
from you, Seton!” was her slow, pathetic response.

For a few seconds he remained silent. He was sorely puzzled. To what
secret did she refer? He had more than a suspicion--a suspicion which
it was his intention to confirm by his pretence of affection.

“Are you speaking of--well, of your past?” he asked hesitatingly in a
sympathetic voice. “If so, what does that matter to me? I have no wish
to pry into it.”

“No,” she answered promptly. “It concerns the present. But please do
not let us discuss it. I----”

“But, Joan! I love you!” exclaimed the round-faced man, whose books
were so popular the world over. “Cannot we leave this secret of yours
out of the question?”

“Alas! we cannot. I repeat that if you knew the truth you would--you’d
hate me!”

“Hate you!” he echoed. “How could I?”

“Because you would do so. Of that I am convinced,” was her slow answer
in a pained voice scarce above a whisper.

“You are really most mysterious, Joan,” he declared, placing his hand
tenderly upon her shoulder. “Cannot you be a little more explicit?”

“Unfortunately, no, Seton!” she said after a slight pause, her voice
tremulous and tears again showing in her eyes. “Please forgive me, but
I beg of you not to discuss it further. It is too tragic, too
terrible. You are my friend, but not my lover. Let us still remain the
good friends that we are,” she implored.

He pleaded with her for half an hour, holding her hand and more than
once kissing her upon the lips. But all to no avail. She refused to
satisfy him as to the secret reason why she refused to allow him to
pay her further attention, saying:

“No. Let us still be friends, just as we were last year at Wengen,
when you were so attentive to Edris Temperley.”

Mention of Edris caused him to reflect. Those days amid the Alpine
snows came back to him vividly, and that night, when they met again at
dinner, he showed her the same studied courtesy as before. He invited
her to his room to smoke and take coffee, but she preferred the
lounge, and later they went for a stroll together by the calm, moonlit
sea.

As they chatted, he once more was surprised at her wide knowledge of
Europe. Like himself, she had been in many towns and cities of Russia,
from the Volga to the Neva and from the Baltic to the Caspian. Her
knowledge of Egypt and Tunisia was equal to his own, while she
described towns in Bosnia, Serbia, and Bulgaria in a manner which
showed him plainly that she had been in them, just as he had been.

When they parted in the lounge of the hotel at eleven o’clock,
Darville went along to the bar where two Frenchmen he knew were
drinking, so he joined them, chatting in his excellent French and
discussing the French attitude towards England.

“There will be another war with Germany very soon,” declared one of
the Frenchmen, a man named Girand, who was Deputy for the Rhone.
“Everything points to it--the Monarchists have the upper hand again.
Read the French newspapers, and listen to what the President of the
Council is always saying. The warning has been sounded by the Allied
Commission of Control. They tell us emphatically that Germany is
making munitions, arms, aeroplanes, and most terrible poison-gases in
frantic haste.”

“When do you think war will break out?” asked Seton Darville, with a
somewhat disinterested air.

“Within one year,” replied the Deputy. “That is quite obvious. The
Minister told me so only a week ago. But, of course, the Government
are hiding the truth from the public.”

“He’s an alarmist,” declared the second Frenchman. “Germany will not
be ready by then.”

Darville listened eagerly to the discussion, but made no comment. He
found it all intensely interesting. Probably, had they but known who
their listener really was, they would have promptly become dumb.

As it was, the argument grew heated, and from it the novelist learnt
much of interest, for names were bandied about, and of them he took
careful note. Then, on ascending to his room, he sat down and wrote
far into the night. In the document he penned he mentioned certain of
those names which the Deputy and his friend had inadvertently
disclosed.

Next day he resumed his Platonic friendship with Joan. They spent the
morning motoring together over those delightful roads lined by aloes,
oranges, and olives, with the tangles of giant geraniums and the
profusion of carnations, leaving the sapphire sea behind and driving
inland across the gorgeous island. Indeed, for the next week the pair
were inseparable, a fact remarked by many visitors to the hotel who
knew that Joan’s husband was absent on business.

One night Seton Darville acted strangely, though no one saw him.

He wrote till nearly two o’clock in the morning, when, placing his
neat manuscript aside, he rose, and, taking a bunch of curious-looking
keys--skeleton keys they really were--and an electric torch, he
stepped out upon the thick carpet of the corridor and, without his
evening slippers, he stole along to Joan’s sitting-room in the
opposite wing of the hotel.

He had no difficulty in finding the room, having been there many times
before. The door was locked on the inside, but a small portion of the
barrel of the key protruded. He placed his hand in the pocket of his
dinner-jacket and brought out what appeared to be a small steel vice.
This he swiftly adjusted to the protruding end of the key and
tightened it. Then, holding it fast, he slowly turned the key, and the
door yielded. Next moment he switched on his torch and stepped into
the small sitting-room of the private suite. The door communicating
with Mrs. Caborn’s bedroom was happily closed. He breathed more freely
when he realized it, for it would have been dangerous to have remained
there had it been open. So emboldened, he switched on the light, which
revealed a very snug little apartment, with a center table upon which
stood a great vase filled with sweet-smelling mimosa. In the corner by
the window, which gave a view of the sea and sparkling lights, stood a
small writing-table. That interested him at once. With the aid of one
of his skeleton keys he swiftly opened all the drawers, and at once
began to unearth a quantity of letters which they contained.

In the center drawer was a small steel dispatch-box with a well-worn
cover of dark-green canvas. This he had considerable difficulty in
opening, for the lock was a patent one. At last he slowly opened the
lid, which creaked slightly, causing him to hold his breath. Inside
were several letters written to Joan to an address c/o Mr. Peke
O’Brien, in Longridge Road, Earl’s Court. Swiftly he read the letters,
which were of a highly amorous nature and written about four months
before, from a man who signed himself “Your Othmar.” One was dated
from Biarritz, and others from Paris, Brussels, and other places on
the Continent, which showed that the writer was constantly traveling,
and further it was apparent that from time to time he sent her sums of
money as presents, evidently unknown to her husband.

For nearly half an hour he went through the correspondence, then,
having satisfied his curiosity, he, without making a sound, relocked
the box, replaced it in the drawer, locked up the table, and after
locking the door as he found it, crept noiselessly back to his room.




 CHAPTER III.
 THE ELUSIVE JOAN

The sun shone brightly across Darville’s sitting-room, as next
morning he sat down as usual to write.

He placed before him the blank sheets of ruled manuscript paper, which
bore a red line from top to bottom, making the margin, and with a sigh
took up his fountain pen and began to work in that uneven scribbly
hand, specimens of which were ever and anon reproduced among the
handwritings of popular authors. His writing was characteristic of a
man of erratic temperament who scribbled swiftly, as indeed he did.
His pen flew over the paper, for his thoughts always arose quicker
than his pen could register them. He declared that he wrote
mechanically, and that he only conjured up his characters for the
moment, and next second all remembrance of them had left him. During
the hours of morning when he wrote, he lived with his characters, and
experienced within himself all their loves, their hatreds, their
sympathies, and their bitter regrets. But as soon as he rose from his
table all knowledge of the romance he was weaving left him, and he
again became just an ordinary being, a careless cosmopolitan without a
single thought in the world.

His mood that morning was a sad one. The heavy expression upon his
countenance showed it.

He lunched alone, for Joan was out on a motor picnic with an American
family who were their fellow-guests. He had been invited, but had
declined, because he was sadly behindhand with his work, and only the
previous day had received an urgent letter from his literary agent in
London pointing out that the new novel was already a month overdue,
and that the publishers were eager for the manuscript. Hence he had
decided in favor of work before pleasure, though, with his
happy-go-lucky nature, the reverse was usually the case.

In the afternoon he felt a trifle unwell, due perhaps to brain fag, a
malady from which most hard-worked writers suffer more or less. So he
went up to his room, lay upon the couch, and, over an old magazine,
dropped off into a heavy sleep.

In his unconsciousness he was unaware of the fact that about two hours
later the door opened noiselessly and Joan, still in her motor-coat
and hat, crept in on tiptoe, and, pausing, looked at him with a
strange expression of hardness, almost of hatred, upon her otherwise
charming face.

She whispered some words to herself, her hands clenching themselves as
though in anger. Then she crossed to where Darville’s dispatch-case
lay upon the table unlocked. Without making the slightest sound, she
opened it and swiftly examined its contents. She glanced at several
long slips of paper of a peculiar egg-shell blue, and, having
apparently satisfied herself, quietly withdrew, Darville being none
the wiser.

The room was in darkness when he awakened. His head was heavy as lead,
while his eyes burned like fire as they moved in their sockets. His
mouth was parched, while he felt himself shivering. His condition was
so unusual that he stood trying to collect his thoughts before
switching on the light. When he did so, the clock revealed the fact
that it was already nine o’clock at night. He had slept six hours!

Had he been drugged he wondered. He recollected that the wine had
tasted slightly bitter. The bottle was what he had left from dinner on
the previous night. It bore the number of his room scribbled on its
label by the waiter, and could easily have been tampered with, as it
had been re-corked.

He could have kicked himself for being so indiscreet. Yes. Now he
recollected, that wine at lunch had a very curious flavor. He strongly
suspected that he had been drugged by some hidden hand. He would never
drink from an uncorked bottle in future. But who could have tampered
with it? Surely he had no enemy there.

He called the waiter and ordered a stiff cognac. It was Greek brandy,
hence none too good, but he swallowed it as soon as it was brought,
and took two or three turns around the room. He had had no dinner, and
felt faint. But the brandy revived him, and, it being too late to
dress, he descended the stairs to the lounge to find Joan.

A number of people were smoking and taking coffee, but she was not
among them. He reascended in the lift and knocked at the door of her
little sitting-room. There was no response, so he entered. All was
darkness, but there greeted his nostrils the sweet odor of “Jardines
de España,” her favorite perfume. He tapped at the communicating door
which led to her bedroom, but there was no answer. Twice he knocked,
and then, turning the handle, entered, and switched on the light.

The room was empty, and had been cleaned for the next visitor.

A cry of dismay escaped him. Joan had gone!

He dashed down to the _concierge_, who, in reply to his eager
questions, said:

“Madame Caborn left by the north-bound mail-boat at half-past four
this afternoon, monsieur. She left all in a hurry. She came back from
motoring, found a telegram, and packed immediately.”

“Where has she gone?” Darville asked with curiosity.

“I have no knowledge, monsieur!” replied the tall, black-bearded
Greek, exhibiting his palms with a gesture indicative of ignorance.

“Which steamer was it?”

“The _Prinz Luitpold_, monsieur. She goes to Ragusa, Pola, and
Trieste.”

“Then madame has evidently gone to Trieste,” Darville said, angered
that she should thus have slipped away in that manner.

He turned on his heel, and crossed the hall.

“Gone!” he muttered to himself, his brows narrowed in anger. She had
left him surreptitiously and without a word, just as her husband had
done. No doubt her departure had been cunningly prepared. But how
could he account for that narcotic--as evidently it had been--being
introduced into his wine?

He stood near the door for a few moments in indecision. Seton Darville
was a man of few words, but a man of action. Joan’s elusiveness had
aroused that hard, stern, other nature of his, and in a few seconds
his mind had been made up.

He crossed back to the _concierge_, and asked:

“Is Mr. Taylor in the hotel?”

“He is in his room, monsieur,” was the uniformed man’s reply. “He has
just ordered coffee. He is entertaining a party of friends.”

“Thanks,” he said, and straightway went up to suite No. 1, the best
suite of rooms in the hotel.

On entering, a middle-aged, clean-shaven, rosy-faced American, with
silver hair, sprang up to greet him warmly. Hiram S. Taylor, of
Philadelphia, was his name, and he was one of the greatest dealers in
real estate in the United States.

“Come right in, Darville!” he cried warmly. “Have a drink, boy.”

The novelist hesitated, seeing three other men sitting around.

“Can I see you a moment?” he asked.

“Why, sure. Come into my bedroom,” was the reply.

They entered together, when, without preamble, Darville asked:

“Is the _Coya_ ready to put to sea?”

“Yes, of course. Why?”

“Because I want you to help me, Mr. Taylor,” he said earnestly.

“How?” asked the alert American, who owned the great white steam yacht
in which he was cruising with friends in the Adriatic.

In a few brief sentences he explained that Mrs. Caborn had left
suddenly, and he wished, for certain reasons--which he did not
state--to overtake her.

“In love with her--eh, Darville?” asked the rosy-faced man. “I thought
so! I’m not blind. Wal, you can try and overtake the Trieste boat if
you like, but she’s got nearly six hours start of you.”

“She’ll put into Ragusa. We’ll find her there,” the novelist said. “In
any case, we’ll be in Trieste before she arrives.”

“The _Coya_ isn’t a fast yacht, recollect. But if you like to have
her, Darville, she’s entirely at your disposal. My secretary shall go
at once to Merton, the captain, with a note putting her under your
orders.”

Darville expressed his thanks to the wealthy American, who said:

“As long as she’s back next Sunday it’ll be all right. I suppose
you’ll get away at once--eh? Wal--good luck to you, Seton”; and he
shook the Englishman’s hand.

Half an hour later Darville was on board the splendid spick-and-span
yacht, and had established himself in one of the luxurious cabins,
while the vessel slowly steamed out of the harbor.

A few minutes later he mounted the bridge where Captain Merton, a
well-known English yacht skipper, a smart sailor-like man with
iron-gray hair, stood on duty.

“I understand, sir, we have to overtake the _Prinz Luitpold_? I fear
it will be a difficult matter, as she’s a fast boat.”

“But she stops at Ragusa and Pola,” Darville said. “We must do our
best.”

“Of course, sir. We’ll put on every ounce of steam. It’s fortunate
that we coaled the day before yesterday, as Mr. Taylor goes to
Constantinople next Sunday. If the _Prinz Luitpold_ goes into Zara
this trip, then we’ll overtake her. But if not, then I’m doubtful if
she won’t be at Trieste before we can get there.”

And with the same breath he gave a sharp order to the helmsman.

The vessel had already crossed the harbor bar, and, with the engines
throbbing evenly, she cut her way through the night, the seas swishing
away from her bows and the wind whistling through the rigging, which
held the wireless aerial.

The _Coya_ was one of the finest ocean-going steam yachts afloat. It
had been built by one of the great American railway magnates in the
pre-war days. But he had died, and Hiram S. Taylor of Philadelphia had
acquired her from his executors, and had since been to Europe in her
on two occasions, always entertaining parties of friends. No expense
had been spared in her fittings. The acme of luxury was everywhere.
The cook was a well-known French chef, and the captain, officers, and
crew were all picked men. On every hand was seen a lavishness only
possible to the pocket of a millionaire.

As Darville stood upon the bridge he glanced back to the twinkling
lights of Corfu slowly disappearing in the distance, as the vessel,
with its powerful engines throbbing, sped out into the open sea. The
night was overcast and rather dark. On the bow showed the flashing
light of a warning buoy, and here and there were the twinkling lights
of fishing vessels, those toilers of the Adriatic who send their fish
down to Patras or to Athens.

“It is imperative--absolutely imperative, captain, that I get to
Trieste before the mail-boat,” Darville said presently. In the dim,
shaded light on the bridge the novelist looked a fine, strong figure,
in his golf cap and heavy traveling coat, the collar of which was
upturned, a typical cosmopolitan traveler of the hard-bitten sort. As
a matter of fact he had, until the outbreak of war, been one of the
King’s Foreign Service Messengers, and for several years had traveled
constantly to and fro with dispatches from the Foreign Office in
Downing Street to the various British Embassies and Legations abroad.
But the life of the _wagon-lit_ had been too much for him, and, like
all the others, he had resigned after three years of constant
journeying up and down Europe.

Captain Merton, his hands thrust into the pockets of his thick uniform
jacket, because it was a chilly night and the wind was cutting, peered
straight before him and deliberately answered.

“I quite understand, sir. But, if we fail, you’ll know it is not my
fault. I’ve told the chief engineer, and we shall go full speed ahead
to Trieste. If we arrive too late, then I can’t help it.”

“I quite understand, captain. It will be no fault of yours,” he said.
Then he added: “I want to send a wireless message. Is it working?”

“Certainly. You’ll find the wireless-cabin just abaft the funnel.”

The popular novelist descended to his cabin, and, upon a slip of paper
taken from his dispatch-case, he scribbled a message addressed to a
man named Marrucci, living in Milan. The message was an undecipherable
jumble of figures and letters--a code message which none could
understand save the addressee. It was signed “George Hatherley.”

This he took to the little deck cabin, in which he found a young man
lying in his berth fully dressed, reading a novel.

The operator jumped up, and, after reading the message, put in a
switch which caused the electric generator to hum, and with a
telegraph key he began to tap out the call letters of Naples. Time
after time he repeated them, the head-phones on his ears, as ever and
anon he listened intently. Suddenly, through the void of the night
sky, came an acknowledgment, and then by spark he sent the urgent
message which Darville had penned.

Through the night they steamed full speed ahead, north, towards the
end of the beautiful Adriatic. Dawn broke in a glory of rose, crimson,
and gold in the eastern sky. Darville still remained on the bridge.
Before them lay the low streak of land in the misty blue, the “Mouths”
of Cattaro which gave entrance to that impregnable little rocky land
of Montenegro, the Land of the Black Mountain, hidden away in the
hills and approached only by that ladder-like road which led up and up
in spirals, and then by devious ways to Cetinje, the gallant little
capital.

The sun shone out quite warmly, and Darville went below with the
captain to breakfast in the handsome little saloon.

“The barometer is falling very fast,” said the bluff old skipper. “We
may get dirty weather before we get to Trieste.”

“Well, what’s the trouble? The _Prinz Luitpold_ will get a taste of
the same weather,” laughed the novelist.

“They may be out of it before we arrive,” said the skipper doubtfully,
as he attacked his ham and eggs.

Through the whole day they steamed on steadily past many green,
fertile islets, with Medela, Curzola, and the delightful islet of
Lacroma, with its ericas, myrtles, oleanders, and aloes growing down
to the water’s edge, and where legend has it that Richard
Cœur-de-Lion was shipwrecked and nearly lost his life in returning
from the Crusades.

By wireless they had news that the mail-boat had left Ragusa for Pola
six hours before, therefore, instead of putting in there, they still
continued skirting the coast, perhaps the most picturesque in all
Europe, until again night fell, and with it a stiff breeze sprang up.

The chief engineer put on all the pressure that the _Coya’s_ boilers
would stand, and they forged full speed ahead all through the dark,
tempestuous night. Tired out, Darville turned in at midnight, but no
sleep came to his eyes; he lay in his berth thinking deeply. He knew
that much depended on the result of that wild chase, much that the
readers of his books must never know. The secret was his own--a
strange secret of real life, of which, if he dared to write it in one
of his novels, the truth would be put down as fiction.

For nearly two hours he lay pondering, as the yacht rolled in the
heavy seas which now and then thundered upon the deck above and caused
the vessel to quiver from stern to bow.

Suddenly the second officer opened the door of the cabin and said:

“The captain says, sir, that the _Prinz Luitpold_ is about five miles
ahead of us, and he’d like to see you.”

Darville, who was still half dressed, hurried on his coat and rushed
to the bridge.

“Look!” cried the captain. “There she is!” He pointed to a distant
light, a mere speck in the darkness ahead. “Now I propose to burn
flares of distress, and call to her by wireless, asking for
assistance. What do you think, sir?”

“An excellent idea,” was Darville’s reply.

“We’re off Fiume. Let’s go to the wireless-room.” Then he gave the
second officer instructions to burn a flare in five minutes’ time.

In the wireless-cabin the captain scribbled a message to the captain
of the mail-boat, asking him to heave to and render him assistance. A
few moments later the operator was calling the _Prinz Luitpold_, which
with other vessels almost at once responded.

Then the generator hummed again, and the smart young fellow tapped out
the message of distress heard by every vessel in the Adriatic.

Afterwards he switched off, and listened eagerly for the reply.

“O.K., sir,” said the young man suddenly, addressing the captain.
“She’s coming back to us.”

“Harrison!” shouted the skipper, looking out of the cabin, along the
deck. “Light the flare!”

A few seconds later the vessel was illuminated by an intense blue
glare--the signal of distress.

Then, when it died down, they saw the lights on the vessel ahead
slowly alter, as she changed her course, then they knew that she was
steaming straight in their direction.




 CHAPTER IV.
 THE GREAT SECRET

Darville stood on the bridge with the yacht’s captain as the vessel
quickly approached. A second flare of distress went up from the
yacht’s deck, and as the steamer came on the two men chuckled to
themselves at their success.

The captain had carried out the orders of his owner, while the
latter’s guest had been successful in his desire to be put on board
the mail-steamer.

Few words were spoken between them. The captain’s eyes were strained
into the darkness for some minutes.

“We’ll have to make some good excuse for our distress signals,” he
remarked to Darville, who stood at his elbow. “We seafaring men don’t
like pranks being played.”

“Tell him there’s something wrong in the engine-room,” said the
novelist, never at a loss for an excuse. “You can order the engineer
to put something out of gear, can’t you?”

“There’s no time,” replied the other, still peering into the darkness
where the steamer’s lights were coming closer. Suddenly he cried: “By
Gad, sir! We’re mistaken! She isn’t the _Prinz Luitpold_! She’s the
Venice boat to Pola and Fiume! We’ve made an infernal blunder!”

Next second he yelled to the mate:

“Signal all well! Quick! It’s the wrong boat!”

And, placing his hand upon the engine-room signal, he pulled it over
to “Full speed ahead.”

Then, taking up his megaphone, the captain shouted:

“Ahoy, there! Ahoy! We’re very much obliged, but we’ve put the damage
right. Lots of thanks for coming back! Do the same for you one day!”

This was answered by some rather uncourtly remarks in Italian from the
other vessel, the captain of which, angered at his loss of salvage,
put over his helm, and the ship turned away as though in disgust.

“By Jove, sir! We nearly made fools of ourselves--eh?” exclaimed the
breezy yacht’s captain to Darville. “It don’t do to play monkey-tricks
at sea. I certainly believed her to be the _Prinz Luitpold_.” They
both went along to the wireless-cabin, where the young operator,
having spoken to the mail-boat and told her that there was no longer
any danger, inquired where she was.

The reply came in Morse, and the operator read it aloud. “We turned
back for you eight miles off Trieste. Now resuming our course.”

“Eight miles from Trieste! Why the passengers will land before
midnight, and we shan’t be there till to-morrow.”

“They’ll have twelve hours’ start of us!” remarked Darville, in keen
disappointment, and then he turned and paced the deck alone. He had
been badly checkmated by Joan. A strong man, of iron constitution, a
man who had never known a day’s illness for thirty years, yet who had
played ducks and drakes with his life, keeping late hours and leading
the gayest existence in all the most reckless circles in the various
Continental cities, he who knew not love, had pretended to make love
to Caborn’s wife! The whole affair was silly and unreal--a scene out
of one of his own books. He had pretended to love her seriously, and
she had acted with both tact and honor. He had a hidden purpose in
playing at love. But to escape him surreptitiously, as she had done,
was an offence against his nature.

In that she had shown her enmity. Enemies he never forgave. Many men
were living who had cause to rue the day when they were at enmity with
Seton Darville. His almost child-like, sympathetic nature, ever full
of good-humor and genuine _bonhomie_, attracted women, and perhaps
more so because of his whole-hearted cosmopolitanism. Most smart women
of to-day love a cosmopolitan; the man who laughs at stay-at-homes,
domesticity, at marriage ties, and hum-drum application to sordid
money-making in business. Some men are born wanderers, and, as hotel
gypsies, lead their erratic lives traveling to and fro across Europe,
acquiring an unerring knowledge of hotels, cafés and hairdressers. Of
such, Seton Darville was one.

On entering the great busy harbor of Trieste the captain steered for
the Molo Giuseppina, and landed his eager passenger near the fine
offices of the Austrian Lloyd Steamship Company, the owners of the
_Prinz Luitpold_. It was early afternoon and the clerks were just
returning from their luncheon. At a pigeon-hole in the big public
office, with its fine tessellated pavement, he requested the
inspection of the passenger list of the mail-boat from Corfu. After
brief delay it was brought, and under the initial “C” was “Signora J.
Caborn--Londra.”

“You have no idea where this lady is staying, I suppose,” he asked of
the young Italian clerk.

“Well, signore, yes--I do,” was his reply. “I went on board before the
vessel landed her passengers, and she came up to me to inquire for
apartments. She seemed greatly agitated and traveling alone, so I took
her to a friend of mine, a Madame Pastore, who lives in the Via
Farneto, No. 168.”

“And she is there?” cried the novelist, instantly interested.

“I presume so. She went there in a taxi with all her belongings,” the
young fellow said.

Ten minutes later Darville was in the taxi speeding up the narrow
streets which surround the old castle, and across the Piazza Carlo
Goldoni. He first went to the railway station to leave his small
baggage, and then, reëntering the vehicle, soon reached the broad,
modern street of high houses which had been indicated.

On the third floor of No. 168 he found a small brass plate upon which
the name “Pastore” was inscribed.

Madame Pastore, a pleasant-faced woman of about forty, appeared, and
in response to the novelist’s questions, said:

“The signora came here very late last night, slept a few hours, and
went out again about eleven o’clock. She received a telegram at the
_poste restante_, I think. On her return she apologized to me and said
she was suddenly called to London.”

Darville’s brows contracted.

“To London!” he muttered to himself, and a few minutes later he was on
his way back to the South Station, where he found that the
Trieste-Vienna-Paris train-de-luxe had left just an hour after Joan
had gone from Madame Pastore’s. She had, no doubt, caught that train,
and was now well on her way to the Austrian capital.

For a few moments he hesitated. Should he wire to her, and address the
message care of the station-master at Vienna, where it would be handed
to her in the _wagon-lit_. He, however, decided against that course.
Joan Caborn had a long start, but he intended to run her to earth at
whatever might be her destination, either in Paris or in London.

She had not played the straight game, hence his suspicions were more
than ever confirmed.

He went to the office of the Wagon-Lit Company on the platform, and
there ascertained that Madame Caborn had, at the last moment, booked a
berth in the Paris train-de-luxe.

The next train to Paris left at midnight, therefore he went to the
Hotel Excelsior, on the Riva del Maddracchio, dined, and subsequently
followed the route that Joan had taken. Before he left, however, he
dispatched a telegram to an address in Paris--a commercial message
which, no doubt, conveyed some hidden meaning.

Through the night, as the train roared on its way north to the
Austrian capital, he lay in his narrow sleeping-berth wakeful and
restless. The berth above him was occupied by a bearded plethoric old
man, who snored so loudly that he could be heard above the racket of
the train. Then in the morning, after they left Vienna, he went along
to the restaurant-car, and had his _déjeuner_ as the train rushed
towards Passau. The day was long and dreary as it always is in the
cross-Europe trains. At Wels the sleeping-car was joined to another
train, and then the journey towards Paris began.

On arrival there he was met by a smartly dressed, middle-aged
Frenchman who, gesticulating in his excitement, said:

“I had your telegram, but I’ve been absent in Lille. She left before I
received it! She’s gone to London.”

Darville paused. Then he smiled:

“No,” he said. “Not by any direct route. I know Joan Caborn too well
for that.” He glanced at his watch, and added: “A wire to Dover will
arrive too late. If I’m not mistaken she’ll leave the boat there, and
go to London by some roundabout route. Little Vera did it once, you’ll
remember.”

“I know, Mr. Darville,” said the mysterious man who had met him on the
platform. “The lady is very elusive. Have you any fear of her, or her
friends?”

Darville laughed aloud.

“Fear!” he echoed. “Have you ever known me to fear? Why, my dear
fellow, I don’t think I know what fear means!”

The stranger shrugged his shoulders, and in French said with a smile:

“The lady may prove troublesome.”

“That is my own affair,” responded Darville in the same language. “In
any case, she has been very clever in escaping. I have no doubt she’ll
leave the boat at Dover and cover up her tracks. She’s done so before,
you recollect.”

The Frenchman smiled, and together they went out to a café across the
road, where they sat for half an hour. By the next service from Paris
to London, Seton Darville, the constant traveler, who was known by
name to the chief of the _wagon-restaurant_, left the Gare du Nord and
took a seat for luncheon.

On arrival at Dover, in consequence of a telegram, a short, thick-set
man in a blue serge suit, who looked like a nautical man, met him on
the platform at the Marine Station. Few words were exchanged, but it
was plain that Darville was absolutely disgusted. Therefore the
novelist made some very outspoken and caustic remarks, and then
entered the Pullman for Victoria.

He drove at once to his rooms in Duke Street, St. James’s, where he
was met by his faithful man Drew, and, having washed and changed, he
went to the telephone, and, after a short conversation, invited the
person at the other end to come round and see him.

About a quarter of an hour later Drew, a middle-aged servant who had
been in Darville’s employ for ten years or so, ushered in a tall,
lean, fair-haired man in a dark gray overcoat. The visitor wore round,
horn-rimmed glasses, and was clean-shaven and alert.

“Hulloa, Sandy?” exclaimed the novelist, greeting him warmly. “Sit
down and have a drink. As you know, I’m just off a rather long
trip--home from Corfu.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Mr. Alexander Paton seating himself, while Drew
got out cigars and cigarettes. “We had that wire of yours from Corfu
and the second one from Paris.”

“Then why the devil didn’t you act on my instructions?”

“Because we couldn’t. The lady hasn’t arrived in England.”

“Bosh! She left Paris for Calais. I know that.”

“She never came to either Boulogne or Calais. We had both places
watched.”

“And the other ports?” asked Darville with hard, set face.

“Surveillance was placed upon them all. We have the lady’s photograph,
you know. The passport officers were all on the look-out, but up to
the present she hasn’t landed.”

“I don’t believe it,” replied Darville bluntly. “I know Joan Caborn by
reputation too well. If she intended to come to London, she’s here.
She might have gone from St. Malo to Jersey, and over from there to
Southampton. She would know that you people seldom put a close watch
on the Jersey boat.”

“That may be,” Paton admitted rather sullenly, “but my own view is
that she suspected that she was being tracked, and just slipped off
and is lying low somewhere or other.”

“Your Special Branch people at Scotland Yard have amusing theories
sometimes, Sandy,” the novelist laughed. “I disagree entirely. The man
got away from me, and no doubt is here. Then his wife slips through my
fingers and has joined him. But where? That’s the question.”

“We must find them at all costs,” said the great Scotch
detective-inspector, for such he was; one of the most alert and astute
men of the Special or Political Branch at Scotland Yard.

“Yes. I agree, Sandy. But London is a big place to look for two people
who are purposely lying low,” said Darville. “You know that as well as
I do.”

“Quite so, sir. But we’ve been faced with a similar problem before,
and have never once failed to discover the person we want, however
closely she or he may live in hiding. They always come out sooner or
later,” laughed the tall, fair-haired man, puffing at his cigarette.
“So we’ve only to wait.”

“But we can’t wait. It is a matter of greatest importance. They may
act, and then it will be too late.”

“Is the affair really very serious, Mr. Darville?” asked the
well-known police-officer, whose duties lay in the detection of
political conspiracies in Great Britain.

“Most serious,” was the other’s reply. “Unfortunately I can’t tell you
the whole facts. They are secret.”

“Secret?” exclaimed Paton in great surprise.

“Yes,” Darville replied. “Secret--even from you Sandy!”




 CHAPTER V.
 CONCERNS SOME FACTS

The duty of Mr. Alexander Paton was to act under Seton Darville’s
instructions when required.

The declaration of the novelist that the matter was secret, even from
his department, rather piqued him, and it certainly aroused his
curiosity very keenly.

“Yes, I repeat, Sandy, I can’t tell you the reason for all this hue
and cry. I wish I could. You’d be as interested in it as I am,”
Darville went on. “But, as you know, in my department, we sometimes
have certain secrets which we do not disclose even to yours. This is
one of them.”

“I take it that Mr. and Mrs. Caborn are undesirables?” remarked the
tall, fair man.

Darville nodded in the affirmative.

“At first I was not exactly certain,” he said, “until I followed them
across to Corfu, and watched them there. Then my suspicions were
confirmed. They are over here on a very desperate errand, so we must
find them, and defeat their activities.”

“The name seems familiar to me,” the inspector said reflectively,
taking another cigarette from the box which the novelist pushed over
to him, and gazing around the small, comfortable room which was
Darville’s _pied-à-terre_ in London. The novelist was a man of few
wants. Though he wrote for the English public, he was a thorough-going
cosmopolitan, and preferred to live his wandering life in foreign
hotels.

“You’ve heard it before--eh?” he asked with a smile.

“Yes. Wasn’t the man mixed up in the Meyer matter at Weybourne just
after war broke out in 1914? Didn’t he have some relations with Carl
Lody--the spy they shot in the Tower?”

Darville again smiled good-humoredly.

“Your memory seems to serve you rightly, Sandy,” he said. “But please
forget that, except to remember how cleverly he slipped through your
fingers. He then acted as evasively in getting out of England as he
has now done in re-entering the country. And his wife--well--she’s an
expert, as was proved in the Weybourne affair.”

“We are faced with a problem. How shall we find them, Mr. Darville?
Have you any suggestion?” asked Paton seriously.

“At the moment, no. I’m fagged out after the journey,” said the
novelist. “But I may think of some plan to-morrow.”

“I’ll think it over, too,” said the inspector. “You see, they both
know London; hence they have, no doubt, a knowledge of the various
sanctuaries for criminals which keep ever-open doors, so long as their
guest can pay for the accommodation. There’s a lot of them here, in
the West End. And not a few in the provinces, as you know.”

“I know that,” said Darville, resting his heavy chin upon his hand,
with his elbow on the arm of his big, saddlebag chair. “We have to
track down the pair, or they will cause us a lot of very serious
trouble, Sandy. I’ll keep in touch with you on the telephone. If I
have any suggestions to make I’ll let you know instantly.”

Paton waxed pessimistic.

“If they get into one of the bolt-holes where no questions are asked,
then they can lie doggo for months,” he remarked. “It’s a pity you
didn’t wire to us sooner, sir.”

“I didn’t know they intended to come to London. I believed that Paris
was their destination, and Lemoine received my wire too late.”

“Well, Mrs. Caborn didn’t cross either from Havre, Boulogne, Calais,
Dieppe or Ostend. That’s certain,” said Paton.

“She may have used another passport, and slipped through on the night
service. And what about Antwerp, or The Hook?”

The Scotch detective shook his head.

“I think not, sir, for the C.I.D. are very keen to spot a woman named
Beeton, wanted for murder in Liverpool. She very much resembles Mrs.
Caborn. A watch has been kept upon the ports for that woman for the
past six weeks.”

“My dear Sandy, I don’t care a rap for the vigilance of the C.I.D. All
I am certain of is that the woman is here, and that, having joined her
husband, the pair are lying very low, prior to effecting the big and
serious coup which they intend,” Darville said. “If I were not certain
that something very serious was in the wind, do you think I should
have gone over to Corfu, and pretended to make love to Caborn’s wife,
as I have done?” Then, with a smile upon his broad, clean-shaven face,
he added: “I suppose that the little woman believes me to be the
forlorn lover. Women are funny--aren’t they, Sandy? Thank God I’ve
never loved a woman in all my life; hence I’ve been spared the
terrible pangs of jealousy. At least I’ve understood that that malady
is a very common and extremely painful one.”

“I’ve only loved once, sir,” replied the fair-haired man from Scotland
Yard, “and, thank heaven! I’ve got the best wife in the world.”

“Then you’re devilish lucky, Sandy. Have another drink to wish Mrs.
Paton continued happiness.”

The pair raised their glasses, laughing merrily, and a few minutes
later the officer of the Special Branch, the greatest expert in London
in keeping surveillance upon suspected persons, rose and left.

When he had gone Darville sat for some minutes smoking in silence.

“I don’t think that Joan suspected anything,” he muttered to himself,
in ignorance of that secret visit she had paid to his room while he
lay stupefied by the drug that had been placed in the wine he drank at
lunch. “I suppose I acted the lover all right?” he went on, laughing
to himself. “I hope I did. She seemed thoroughly alarmed at my amorous
declarations. But she’s clever--damnably clever. The man is a
blunderer compared with her.”

Then, after a further silence, he rose, and, pacing the room
impatiently, said aloud:

“I must find them, or--or, by Gad!--there’ll be a terrible disaster!
It’s up to me to checkmate them. No doubt there are half a dozen
others in this devil’s work!” he added, setting his teeth hard as he
spoke.

He went to the telephone, and spoke to several people--short, brief
messages telling them that he had returned to London.

One man, whom he addressed as Bennett, he asked to come round to see
him at eleven that night. Indeed, after Drew had put before him a
frugal meal of cold ham and salad and half a bottle of claret, which
he consumed hastily, he seemed besieged by callers, mysterious men who
came and, after a brief interview, left unobtrusively.

Bennett, however, proved to be a smart, well-set-up man, having the
appearance of a retired naval officer. He brought with him a bulging
leather dispatch-case, heavily locked.

Having removed his overcoat, he seated himself at the table, unlocked
the case, and drew out a number of official-looking documents.

Darville seated himself opposite him, and carefully read and initialed
the papers as Bennett handed them over.

“This is the latest report from Mabelle in Cairo regarding the German
intrigue in Egypt. You recollect, sir, that you sent Mabelle to Cairo
three months ago, and gave her very definite instructions. These she
seems to have carried out to the letter.”

Darville took the report which had been brought to England by King’s
Messenger and was in cipher. The decipher interested him keenly from
the very first line. It was a long report--a careful and concise
survey of the highly complicated situation in Egypt at that
moment--and had been drawn up by a pretty young woman who was a very
clever secret agent of Great Britain abroad. It showed a marvelously
wide knowledge of international politics, and Darville quickly became
absorbed in it.

He read it to the end, initialed it thoughtfully with his red pencil,
and then said to his private secretary--for such Bennett was:

“Send a message in Code Four to-morrow recalling Mabelle. I want to
see her. She knows more than is contained in her report.”

“Very well, sir,” replied the ex-naval officer, for Commander Charles
Bennett had fought at Jutland, and before his retirement had a
brilliant record to his credit. “This next report is about the
Steinberg affair. Meyrick hasn’t got very far with it yet. There’s
nothing in it worth troubling about.”

“Very well,” grunted Darville, who took it and scribbled his initials
without reading it.

Five other lengthy documents were declared by Bennett to contain
nothing of interest, and the man whose name was known the world over
scribbled his initials, “S.D.,” upon them.

“Here is a list of the personnel discharged from the Commission in
Germany. You see Weiss has been axed among the others.”

“So I see,” Darville remarked. “I’m rather sorry. Of course, he has no
idea that I have been his pay-master all this time. He rendered us
very good service in discovering secret stores of arms in Germany. I
wonder why he’s been discharged.”

“I have the reasons here. They were sent over to us from the War
Office three days ago.”

Darville took the sheet of paper, and upon it read the following
memorandum:


 “Weiss, Karl.--Adverse-report from General Mitchell. Unstable. Too
 fond of gayety, and prone to feminine influence. His retirement
 recommended on grounds which are confidential.”


“H’m!” remarked the novelist, as he slowly signed the paper which put
an end to his friend’s career with a certain British Mission in
Germany. “That’s curious. Something more behind that, I’m sure! Find
out, Bennett, and report to me. I know him well.”

And he passed on to the examination of a long document, in rather
faulty English, concerning the strained political relations between
Italy and England.

Upon that polished dining-table lay a pile of secret documents dealing
with the innermost juggling of European diplomacy, secrets concerning
the intrigues of foreign statesmen and financiers, which would have
horrified them had they but known that they were in the hands of the
ubiquitous Seton Darville, the head of that great, outspread,
octopus-like organization which, with its secret headquarters, was the
eyes and ears of Britain throughout the world--the Secret Service.

The British public and the world at large never suspected that the
clean-shaven, round-faced ever-smiling man in pince-nez, who lived a
wandering life of apparently careless ease and affluence, was the man
in whom the British Cabinet placed its trust, and who on more than one
occasion had been brought into secret consultation concerning enemy
intrigues.

Until far into the night the two men sat together, discussing various
matters. Ever and anon the novelist sat back in his chair and dictated
instructions to the various agents abroad--his “lambs,” as he called
them--which the ex-naval commander took down in shorthand, to be
afterwards put into code and telegraphed to the European capitals.

It was nearly three o’clock in the morning before Bennett swallowed a
final whisky and soda, and, replacing all the papers in his case,
locked it and rose to go.

“Better leave that here to-night,” remarked Darville. “It’s too late
to take it to the office. Send round for it in the morning. It’s safe
here.”

Both men laughed. That leather case contained secrets which certain
foreign Governments would pay a very big price to obtain, hence they
were safer in Darville’s flat than being carried through the London
streets at that hour.

So Bennett took his departure, and, Darville’s man having gone to bed
a couple of hours before, he was left alone.

He lit a fresh cigarette and stood with his back to the dying fire,
thinking deeply.

Suddenly he crossed to the table, on which lay the dispatch-case, and,
taking a tiny key from the bunch upon his watch-chain--the master-key
of all the big range of black, steel dispatch-boxes at the secret
headquarters of the confidential department of the Government--he
unlocked it, and, searching through the papers, at last found the slip
whereon was reported the delinquency of Karl Weiss, and his dismissal,
to which he had agreed by appending his signature.

“Poor Karl!” he exclaimed aloud. “At present he knows nothing of this!
I’m sorry for him, for he’s one of the best of fellows. After all,
every young man may be forgiven a flirtation or two. But--well, I’m
sorry. He’ll have some difficulty in getting another job, now that he
is dismissed in ignominy.”

Then he tossed back the papers, relocked the case, and carried it into
his bedroom, where he placed it in the wardrobe, and afterwards
retired to bed.

Next morning Bennett called for it, and at eleven Darville went out to
his club.

Three days went by--days in which he puzzled his brain, vainly trying
to devise some plan by which he could run to earth the fugitives from
Corfu. His powers of invention were amazing, and he seemed to possess
an uncanny but unerring instinct where secret inquiries were
concerned. Crafty and cunning by nature, his wide experience of men
and women rendered him suspicious, elusive, and full of astounding
duplicity. He never wavered when once he had arrived at any decision,
but persevered towards the end he sought, undeterred by any untoward
circumstance that might arise.

He intended to find Joan Caborn, and he had made up his mind to do so
at whatever cost.

On the fourth morning after his arrival in London, he found among his
letters one from Edris Temperley. He recognized the firm, bold
handwriting. It was dated from Stagsden Hall, Leicestershire--her
home--and ran as follows:


 “Dear Mr. Darville,--You have not answered my last letter. I heard
 from the hall-porter at your club that you were abroad. I wonder if
 you are back again? I am coming up to London with mother next Friday
 to do some shopping. We shall stay, as usual, at the Berkeley. I would
 so much like to see you, and know if you are going to Switzerland
 again this season. Our ski-ing parties would not be the same without
 you. Kindest regards.
                                            “Yours very sincerely,
                                            “Edris Temperley.”


As he ate his breakfast he read the letter through twice. It was too
bad not to have replied to her, and as he sat there alone a vision of
her sweet, regular features, her great, gray, wondering eyes, her
dark, shingled hair, and her unconventional attractiveness and chic in
her winter-sports costume, arose before him.

A whole year had passed since their little snow romance. He had first
admired her and then, finding himself fond of her, had cut himself
adrift deliberately, and gone out of her life, because he felt, first,
that there was too great a difference in their ages, and, secondly, he
knew that she loved a younger man.

Those few weeks spent in the snow-clad Alps in the previous winter had
been most delightful ones, but they were now only a memory. Yet that
memory was the sweetest one he possessed, for it was the first and
only time that he had ever experienced affection for any woman.

But he now hesitated to repeat the experience, fearing lest he should
be the cause of her unhappiness.

On rising from the table he held her letter in his hand.

“I wonder, Edris,” he exclaimed aloud in a hard, choked voice. “I
wonder if you still love him? If you still remember----?”

He did not finish his sentence, but stood looking down into the London
street, dismal and wet on that winter’s morning.

And as he did so a sudden thought flashed across his mind--a sudden
inspiration which roused him to instant activity.

There was, after all, one way by which Joan Caborn could be found! He
held the solution of the problem. It would mean the exercise of all
his wits and innate cunning. But he meant to find her, and it was,
after all, in his power to do so, if he understood human nature
aright.

Therefore he rushed to the telephone and asked Paton to come round to
him immediately.




 CHAPTER VI.
 THE HOUSE OF SUSPICION

In Earl’s Court Road, at the corner of Longridge Road, a tall,
fair-haired man, with a hard, clean-shaven face, and wearing a shabby,
soft felt hat, idled, as though awaiting a friend.

It was half-past eleven o’clock in the morning, dull and rainy, and
tradesmen’s boys were hurrying to and fro on cycles up and down the
quiet, respectable Kensington thoroughfare. In the Earl’s Court Road
passed to and fro the usual procession of motor buses, with all their
vibration and racket, while Longridge Road remained quiet, being just
off the main road.

Ever and anon the shabby, fair-haired man glanced down the
thoroughfare of dull respectability, most of the houses of which were
gray and of uniform architecture, each having its view of “over the
way.”

Sandy Paton of the Special Branch--for it was he--was keeping keen
surveillance upon one of those high, inartistic houses with deep
basements. He had strolled along there at ten o’clock, and was still
waiting there in patience, pretending, however, to be quite
uninterested in his surroundings. He lit a cigarette, and pulled a
picture paper from the pocket of his faded overcoat. His appearance
was that of an unemployed lounger--a man who took his dole, and spent
it mainly upon drink. Now and then he moved a little way along the
Earl’s Court Road, so as not to remain in the same spot sufficiently
long to attract attention, but, whenever he did so, his place was
taken by a clean-shaven, thickset man in a seedy khaki-colored
raincoat and golf cap. It was Seton Darville. The pair were acting
together upon a very curious and interesting errand.

They assisted each other in keeping surveillance upon the house in
question until noon, when suddenly Paton saw the door open, and a
well-dressed, elderly man of military appearance, with a
close-clipped, gray mustache, descended the steps, and, having glanced
quickly up and down the road, started to walk in his direction. The
man wore a hard felt hat, a smart dark-blue overcoat, and
well-polished, brown shoes. His somewhat sinister face was furrowed,
speaking mutely of hardships, endured probably in hot climates abroad,
though the truth was that he had recently been released from a long
period of imprisonment in the French convict prison at Toulon.

As soon as he appeared, Paton drew back, and mingled with a small
crowd waiting for a motor bus, while Darville, realizing the truth
from his friend’s quick movement, turned upon his heel and hurried
away. Paton, having watched the occupant of the house of suspicion
turn the corner and walk up the Earl’s Court Road in the direction of
Kensington High Street, hurried round to an unfrequented by-street,
where, in a mews, stood the delivery-van of a well-known firm of
parcel agents, the horse being in charge of one of the uniformed
servants. Entering the van, Paton found a coat and cap of the same
uniform, which he assumed, and then, tying on an old apron made of
sacking, he took from a shelf in the van a small brown-paper parcel,
heavily sealed, and with many labels upon it, together with a number
of yellow forms upon which the receivers of parcels scribbled their
receipts.

“Come on,” he said to the driver. “Let’s go round there. I want to get
rid of this as soon as possible,” he added, indicating the parcel.

His disguise as a delivery-man was, indeed, perfect. He presented a
type of the hard-worked man who spends his life going from door to
door with parcels large and small for which he collects money and
signatures.

In a few minutes the van drew up before the door of the house in
question, and Paton descended with the parcel, leaving the other man
to sit with the reins.

When a red-haired maid opened the door in response to his ring, he
asked:

“Is Mrs. Caborn at home? I’ve got a parcel here for her.”

“She don’t live here,” was the maid’s prompt reply. “I don’t know the
name.”

“But the parcel is addressed care of Mr. Peke O’Brien,” Paton said,
glancing at the label. “He lives here, don’t he?”

“Yes. If it’s for him, I’ll take it.”

“I’m very sorry, miss,” Paton replied. “But it contains jewelry, and
is insured for four hundred pounds. When will Mr. O’Brien be back?”

“Not till this evening. He’s generally home about eight o’clock. But
can’t you leave the parcel?” asked the girl.

“Sorry, I can’t,” was the firm answer. “But will you tell Mr. O’Brien
when he comes in that I’ve got a parcel of jewelry for Mrs. Caborn,
and that I’ll call at eight to-night?”

“All right,” said the good-looking maid. “I’ll tell him,” and she
closed the door, whereupon Paton mounted into the van and drove away.

Back again in the mews the inspector of the Special Branch divested
himself of the apron, coat, and cap, and resumed his coat and
overcoat. Then, after wrapping the valuable parcel in a piece of brown
paper, he said good-by to the driver, and, descending, soon joined
Darville in the bustle of the Earl’s Court Road.

In a few brief sentences he described what had happened.

“Exactly as it should be,” laughed Darville. “The jewelry worth four
hundred pounds will certainly arouse O’Brien’s interest. But he’ll be
a tough nut to crack--that’s my opinion.”

“When I see him at eight I’ll be very diplomatic, you bet,” said
Paton. “I wonder who he really is?”

“Ah! That we don’t know yet. He may be a perfectly honest person, but,
on the other hand, he may be a crook--like his friends, eh?” Darville
remarked. “In any case the attempt is worth while, and you look a
perfect parcel-delivery man,” he added, with a laugh of triumph.

“Well, I’ll have to play the game again to-night, sir,” Sandy
answered, “and let’s hope we have luck.”

Then they parted, having made an appointment to meet that evening.

The ruse to obtain Joan Caborn’s address was the outcome of Seton
Darville’s ingenuity. His inventiveness was inexhaustible. It was he
who had discovered a means of secret writing which was alone the
secret of his confidential department; a secret which Britain’s
enemies would have given many thousands to learn, and which was
closely guarded by the few persons to whom he had entrusted it. To his
own ingenuity were due the many clever subterfuges by which his shrewd
and clever agents of both sexes collected information from various
sources abroad, to be used by the Foreign Office in their delicate
diplomacy with the Powers, or by the departments responsible for the
defense of the nation. His brain was ever active to devise ways and
means for seeking the truth of the juggling of foreign diplomats, or
thwarting the many enemy conspiracies against Britain’s power and
prestige.

Bold, audacious, fearless, he pursued his great and important work in
silence, and without any thought of monetary gain. Though handling
large sums of public money, all he did was done voluntarily, and
without payment. He paid all his own expenses, often very heavy,
because no one would be able to call him a spy. Indeed, he spent most
of the royalties earned by his books upon the great department the
operations of which he directed, and few knew the truth beyond the
members of the Cabinet, his only reward being a gracious letter of
thanks now and then in the handwriting of the Prime Minister, and the
offer of an honor at the hands of the Sovereign.

This he had twice declined. He had reasons, strong reasons, which he
had never divulged to a living soul. Several Cabinet Ministers, who
knew that the honor had been offered and declined, dubbed him a fool,
when so many men were elbowing their way into notoriety by the
unseemly scrambling for knighthoods. Still, he only smiled in that
sphinx-like manner which he adopted when he held a secret and refused
to divulge it even to his best friend.

All the morning he had been thinking of Edris Temperley, and, as the
taxi carried him up Kensington Road to Knightsbridge, and then along
Piccadilly towards his rooms, he was still reflecting--wondering
whether or not he dare go to Wengen and enter that merry winter sports
crowd who each year divert themselves in the Alpine snows. Edris would
be there. She had begged him to go also. But he hesitated--just as he
had hesitated for a whole year past. She had invited him to her home
in Leicestershire half a dozen times, but as many times he had made
excuses, until he could invent no more. She must have seen that he was
avoiding her, he thought. What would she think?

On reëntering his rooms the faithful Drew came forward, and said:

“Mr. Bennett has been on the ’phone, sir. Will you please ring him
up?”

Without taking off his overcoat, Darville went to the instrument, when
his secretary asked him if it was convenient to come round to the
office, as there were some urgent matters awaiting his attention.

Seton Darville heaved a sigh, and replied that he would come almost
immediately. The complications and responsibilities of one of the most
important government departments, of which he was the unpaid head,
were sufficient to turn gray the hair of any man. To the very few
people who knew of Darville’s connection with the Secret Service he
used to laughingly tell that he had long ago grown feathers, and that
all his troubles ran off him like water off a duck’s back.

Half an hour later he ascended to the first floor of a dingy block of
offices close to Trafalgar Square, and with a Yale key let himself
into a big suite of rooms by a private door. Upon the public door was
marked the name of a Spanish mining company, which, in reality, did
not exist. The offices were believed by all those busy people who
hurried up and down the broad, stone staircase to be the London
offices of the corporation which had its headquarters in Madrid.

The room he entered was a cozy, comfortable one, more like a
bachelor’s sitting-room than an office. A cheerful fire was burning,
and upon a side table stood a tall vase filled with great yellow
chrysanthemums.

He glanced at them and smiled. He threw off his coat, drew off his
gloves, and seated himself at the big writing-table set near the
window, which gave a fine view across Trafalgar Square, at that hour
crowded with traffic. He glanced around the book-lined room, with its
somber decorations and its thick Turkey carpet. He only came to that
secret headquarters on infrequent occasions, as he preferred to remain
away lest he should be followed by some agent of the enemy, and the
truth thus become revealed. To only the staff, the members of the
Cabinet, and the highest officials at the Admiralty and the War Office
was its existence known.

When Bennett entered in response to his bell, he asked quickly:

“Well, what’s the latest trouble?”

“Lola is here, and asks to see you,” replied the good-looking ex-naval
man, placing on the table a _dossier_ of papers in an orange cover.
“Here are her reports.”

“Good. I’ll glance at them. Bring her in when I ring,” Darville
replied abruptly; and then asked, “Who had made my room a
conservatory?”

“Lola brought them for you this morning.”

“Kind of her,” the other grunted, and at once applied himself to
reading a long document in which there was reported the result of
certain secret investigations she had made regarding the German naval
activity at Kiel and at Hamburg, all facts of supreme interest to him.

Those reports contained secrets of war preparations which Germany had
kept closely, but which had been unearthed by Lola Price, one of the
cleverest and most astute of Britain’s female agents.

He rang his bell, and a few moments later there entered a rather tall,
dark-haired, very attractive young woman, extremely smartly-dressed,
who crossed to the table and shook his hand.

“Well, Lola!” he exclaimed with a smile of welcome. “You’re back again
safely, eh? Let’s see, you’ve been away four months, haven’t you?”

“It’s over five months since you transferred me from Vienna to Berlin,
Mr. Darville,” replied the pretty, smiling girl, as she took a seat in
the chair before him and unloosened her rich furs.

“Ah!” he exclaimed, as though suddenly remembering. “You’ve been in
Berlin, haven’t you? I’ve just read your reports. They do you great
credit, and are just what we wanted. You’re very clever, Lola--you
never miss one single point.”

“Thanks to your very definite instructions,” replied the female secret
agent. “It was all very difficult, but I was successful at last.”

“How did you manage to get the true facts out of Goltmann?”

The girl--for she did not appear to be more than about
twenty-three--smiled mysteriously, and replied, with a shrug of the
shoulders:

“Oh--well--by pretending love--as usual.”

They both laughed.

“Yes, Lola. You can make love very prettily, I know,” he said. “And
you always keep a level head.”

“I’m compelled to,” she admitted. “My various missions have taught me
wisdom. Whatever chances I take--and often they are pretty
hazardous--I always leave a way open for escape.”

“That’s why you are always so successful,” said the man who moved his
secret agents about Europe like pawns upon a chess-board. “By the way,
thanks for those beautiful flowers.”

The pretty girl smiled. Then she ventured to approach the question
which she had come there to put to him.

“I want you to do me a great favor, Mr. Darville,” she said suddenly,
her splendid eyes fixed upon his broad, clean-shaven face. “May I go
to Brussels?”

“Why Brussels?” he asked in surprise. “There’s nothing for you to do
there.”

She was silent for a few seconds.

“Except--well, I might help Mr. Piper with the reports which come
through from Germany,” she suggested.

Darville suddenly remembered a rumor he had heard through his
secretary, Bennett.

“Is that the only reason you make this request, Lola?” he asked of the
smartly-dressed girl in a low, serious tone, looking straight at her.
“I was about to send you over to Washington.”

“I want particularly to go to Brussels,” the girl said persuasively.

“And the reason is quite plain to me. You are in love with Piper. I
know it. Naturally you want to be near him,” Darville said, with a
kind smile. “Very well, Lola. You shall go there for three months.
After that you must travel again. Your pay will be the same that you
had in Germany, together with your special allowances.”

“Ah! You always are such a dear!” cried the girl, jumping up joyfully
and clutching Darville’s hand.

“I suppose you are really in love now, Lola? No pretence, eh?” he
asked, with a good-humored laugh.

“I admit I am really in love. And it is so very good of you to be so
kind to us. I’ll wire to Harry at once, and go over by Antwerp
to-night.”

For a few moments Seton Darville reflected. Then suddenly exclaimed:

“By the way, when you were in Berlin did you ever meet a man named
Karl Weiss?”

“Karl Weiss?” she repeated. “Yes. I knew him quite well.”

“What kind of man was he?”

“Oh--well--rather a lady-killer. He boasted to me of his _amours_, and
one night introduced me to a rich German girl of whom he was
particularly fond. It was said that he intended to marry her for her
money, but I don’t know how true it was.”

“Tell me all you know about the man. I’m interested,” Darville urged.

“I don’t know much more, except that he seemed to lead a very gay
life, a fact which was remarked by other members of the staff,” was
Lola’s reply, as she readjusted her fur coat prior to leaving.

“You imply that he was unreliable.”

“Yes. That’s how I should describe him. And--well--if you are thinking
of employing him, I should--I should hesitate.”

“Oh! What more do you know?” asked Darville, regarding her sharply.

“Only that I don’t think he is either very discreet or very
serious--factors so highly necessary in our difficult work,” replied
the girl who was so highly paid for her bravery, astuteness, and
marvelous tact and cunning.

Darville thanked her, and she rose and left, laughing and happy.

The moment the door had closed and he was alone, he exclaimed aloud to
himself.

“I suppose they’ve done quite right in retiring Karl, yet it seems
very hard, poor fellow--very!”

And at that moment Bennett reëntered the room to discuss two
important telegrams which had arrived in cipher from abroad and had
been decoded by the night staff, for that office was ever open, day
and night.

Darville’s secret department never slept.




 CHAPTER VII.
 THE SPECIAL BRANCH

With a couple of sandwiches and a glass of sherry in lieu of lunch,
Seton Darville worked in that somber cozy room, examining many reports
handed to him by the trusty naval man whom he had, after the war,
appointed his secretary. The office staff were all either Foreign
Office officials or ex-officers, and all chosen on account of their
various accomplishments, such as languages, general knowledge of
Europe, and acquaintance with international politics. This staff,
one-half of which carried on by day, and the other half of which
carried on by night, never went abroad. The traveling agents, both
male and female, were all of them well trained, well paid, and highly
trustworthy. Each was known by a number, and each had his or her own
private code. No telegrams or letters were ever delivered at those
offices, but were sent to several entirely unsuspicious addresses in
London and in the provinces.

Though Darville’s department was entirely distinct from that dealing
with enemy espionage in our midst, yet no secret was safe from it,
because it had at its disposal a _cabinet noir_, or post-office
department, where the correspondence of suspicious persons could be
secretly opened and copied by those expert at such work, while the
Special Branch at Scotland Yard were always at its beck and call.

Few men--indeed, perhaps no other man--possessed such secret power and
influence as Seton Darville, but, straightforward, honest, and
patriotic, he never abused it. More than once a great financier or a
prominent statesman had approached him in confidence and offered him
big sums if he would order certain letters to be opened. But he had
always angrily refused such temptations. Not a member of his staff was
open to bribery, for they were all highly paid and loyal to a degree.
His head assistant, who lived mostly abroad, received the salary of an
Ambassador, yet he himself declined any emolument, and even paid for
his own postages.

Many people, because of his deep, thoughtful habit, his hesitation in
making friends, combined with his great popularity as a novelist,
declared him to be egotistical and exclusive. True, in hotels, in
which he spent half his time, he never mixed with the visitors, for he
had his work and his other interests, which absorbed him, and he
always declared that his circle of friends was already wide enough.

Had any outsider been able to read those reports which his secretary
put before him, and which he discussed with one of the staff, a man
named Charlwood Collings--ex-attaché at the British Embassy in Rome,
who was one of the greatest living authorities upon the complex
question of European politics--they would have marveled at the vast
amount of secret knowledge collected and classified for the purpose of
guiding His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
in giving instructions to our diplomatic representatives abroad.

For over an hour they discussed a matter concerning a very serious
situation between Germany and Italy, which had only three days before
arisen, and had been at once reported by one of Darville’s agents in
the Eternal City. Almost as soon as the news was known at the Quirinal
it had been known, thanks to Darville’s vigilance, at Downing Street.

Time after time Darville spoke over one or other of the private
telephone lines in the room adjoining his, lines to Downing Street and
Whitehall. Afterwards he dictated to Bennett, the alert, well-set-up
man who was as sphinx-like as his chief, about a dozen telegrams,
addressed to strange addresses in Madrid, Stockholm, Berlin,
Bucharest, Belgrade, and other capitals, to be put into the various
codes and dispatched--instructions to those of both sexes who were in
Britain’s Secret Service.

At seven o’clock he dined at the St. James’s Club with Jacques Dupont,
the naval attaché at the French Embassy, and at five minutes before
eight he had again changed his clothes, and, wearing a blue serge
suit, he was lounging at the corner of Longridge Road.

Soon a parcel delivery-van turned into the road from the Earl’s Court
Road, and stopped before the house. From it Paton, again in the
uniform of the company, descended, rang at the door, and was at once
admitted.

“Yes,” said the maid, “Mr. O’Brien has just come in. I’ll go and
inquire if he’ll see you.”

Paton, with the precious parcel under his arm, stood in the hall until
the girl returned and asked him along the passage to a room at the
end, where stood the gray-mustached owner of the house.

“You’ve got a parcel for Mrs. Caborn, I hear,” he said, addressing the
Special Branch officer. “I know her, and I’ll give it to her.”

“Doesn’t she live here, sir?” Paton asked in apparent ignorance.

“Sometimes. But she’s not here now,” was the reply.

“In that case, sir, I’m afraid I can’t deliver it to you,” said Paton,
with regret. “It’s against my orders. Parcels specially insured have
to be delivered personally to the addressee.”

“But I can sign for it, surely! I live here, and am a responsible
person.”

“I’m very sorry, sir, but it is insured for four hundred pounds--some
jewelry, apparently, sent from a foreign hotel.” And then, after
careful examination of the labels and of the receipt prepared, he
added: “It seems to have come from the Hotel St. George at Corfu.
Where’s that--in Italy, isn’t it?”

“No, in Greece,” was Mr. O’Brien’s reply, as he, too, looked at the
parcel with undisguised curiosity.

“Well, if you can’t tell me where she is, we’ll have to return it to
the sender,” Paton said in a disappointed tone.

“I can’t tell you where she is.”

“If she’s anywhere in Great Britain I can send it to our local agent,
who will deliver it, and obtain the lady’s signature. It seems a pity
to return it to Corfu.”

Mention of Corfu had set Mr. O’Brien thinking. The package was
evidently left behind at the hotel in the hurry of Joan’s flight.

“Is there no other way in which the packet can be delivered here to
me?” he asked. “I’m willing to give my personal guarantee for the
amount of the insurance.”

“I’m afraid that will be useless. The terms of the insurance policy
are that the packet be delivered into the hands of the person to whom
it is addressed, and nobody else,” was Paton’s firm answer. He felt
that Mr. Peke O’Brien, whoever he might be, would be too loyal to his
lady friend to give her address. Besides, he was not certain whether
she had come to England, after all.

“If she’s still abroad--what then?” asked the rather burly man.

“It is quite easy. We have agents in all the continental cities. As
you know, our company is the biggest firm of carriers in the world.”

This reply nonplussed O’Brien, a fact which Paton instantly realized.
Therefore he pretended impatience, and added:

“I don’t think there’s anything else to say, sir. I’ll report that you
refuse to give the lady’s address, and it will be returned to-morrow
to the sender. I’ve done my duty, and, as far as I’m concerned, the
matter is at an end.”

And he took up the parcel and papers, and made pretence of a hurried
departure.

“I don’t see exactly what I can do,” O’Brien said. “Can’t I call at
your head office to-morrow and give my signature?”

“That won’t be of any use, sir. I had a similar case a fortnight
ago--an insured parcel addressed to a man in Hammersmith. The lady I
saw offered to become guarantee, but the head office declined it, and
it was sent back to Buenos Ayres,” was Paton’s excuse. And he turned
to leave the room.

“Can I telephone to your office?” O’Brien asked. “Will there be anyone
there at this hour?”

“The office will be closed, sir. Only the sorters are on duty, and
they won’t be able to give you more information than I can,” the great
detective said.

“Then you really mean to send it back?”

“Most certainly. It’s the only way. You refuse to say where the lady
can be found and accept delivery, so I’ve got to do my duty and report
it. They’ll send it back to Corfu to-morrow. I fancy the firm were
bitten once by somebody signing for an insured parcel, which was not
addressed to him, and bolting with it. I’ve heard they had to pay five
hundred pounds. That makes them very careful.”

Sandy Paton was acting the part of parcels delivery-man to perfection.

“I quite see the point, of course,” said Mr. O’Brien while the
detective stood with his hand upon the door. “But what can I do?” he
repeated, with an expression of bewilderment.

“Nothing, sir, if you really don’t know where the lady is. Perhaps
she’ll still be abroad?” he added, hoping to ascertain the truth.

“No. She’s arrived here from Greece, but exactly where she is I have
no idea.”

“Well, tell me where you think she may be, and I’ll have the parcel
forwarded to-night, and it will be delivered to-morrow.”

Mr. Peke O’Brien hesitated. For a few moments he remained silent. The
dangling of jewelry insured for four hundred pounds beneath his nose
was proving too alluring, and Paton knew it. The ruse had been well
thought out by Darville, as, indeed, were all his subtle plans. Even
at that moment he was waiting beneath the street lamp at the corner to
learn the result.

“As a matter of fact, I have an idea where Mrs. Caborn might be,”
O’Brien said at last. “Of course, I’m not absolutely sure.”

“Well, sir, wherever she is, we can find her, no doubt,” Paton
replied, hoping that his ruse was being brought to a successful issue.
“Is she in England?”

“No, I believe she’s in Scotland,” was the reply.

“Then we can easily deliver it, if you’ll tell me where you think she
is, or of any person, indeed, who knows her whereabouts.”

Again Mr. Peke O’Brien hesitated. Paton, shrewd and observant, was
reading his thoughts. He was wondering whether, in the circumstances,
he dare give the address. Paton, seeing his hesitation, said:

“Of course, sir, if you have any reason for not giving the lady’s
address, I quite understand.”

“Well--the fact is that I fear she might be annoyed,” said the other
lamely.

“In that case, then, I’ll go. Nothing more need be said. But it seems
a great pity to send this valuable parcel back to Greece, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” replied the perplexed man. “It does.” And then, after a silence
of a full minute, he added: “After all, I think your people ought to
deliver it to her. They will probably find her in Edinburgh--at No.
286 Strathnairn Road.”

Instantly Sandy Paton scribbled it down upon the receipt with a stubby
piece of pencil he drew from his pocket.

“Very well, sir,” he said, well pleased at his success. “I’ll send it
up to Edinburgh by passenger train to-night.”

“Remember I’m not at all certain that she’s there. I may be mistaken,”
added O’Brien.

“Very well, sir,” replied Paton, repressing a smile of triumph. “We’ll
see.”

And he left, carrying the precious parcel beneath his arm.

Three minutes later he met Darville, who came forward from the shadow
at the end of the road.

“All right, Mr. Darville! I’ve got the address--up in Edinburgh.”

Seton Darville was alert and active in an instant.

“Edinburgh!” he echoed. “Right, Sandy. We catch the mail-train from
King’s Cross to-night. What did the fellow say?”

As they walked together in the direction of Earl’s Court Station, the
expert officer of the Special Branch briefly described the interview
he had had with the mysterious Mr. Peke O’Brien, and its result.

“Well, Sandy, we’ll go north to-night, and see what we can find.”

“Yes, sir, we will,” replied the fair-haired Scot. “But don’t you
think we ought to inquire as to who this Mr. Peke O’Brien may be? I
don’t like him, somehow.”

“He seems to know Mrs. Caborn’s movements. And that is in itself
suspicious,” Darville said, afterwards praising Paton for his
astuteness.

“Well, Mr. Darville, the idea is yours, you know. I only carried out
instructions--as I always do.”

“You’ve done very well indeed, Sandy,” he said, entering the
booking-office at Earl’s Court Station. “I’ll ’phone for our
sleeping-berths on the ‘Scotsman.’”

He entered one of the telephone boxes, and spoke to King’s Cross
Station, while Paton, entering the next, spoke to his lieutenant at
Scotland Yard in guarded terms, ordering watch to be kept upon Mr.
Peke O’Brien while he went North.

That night at half-past eleven Darville and Paton entered the
Edinburgh sleeping-car at King’s Cross. The platform inspector, who
knew Paton well, came into the car to see they were all right,
scenting some mystery, of course. He knew Sandy Paton to be the chief
inspector of the Special Branch, and had more than once chatted to him
when he had been lounging on the platform at the departure or arrival
of the Prime Minister or other members of the Cabinet, against whom
all sorts of cranks write daily threats.

“Well, Sandy,” said Darville, “I’m going to turn in. I’ve had a heavy
day, like you. I’ll see you in the morning. We’re due at the Waverley
Station at 7.30. I’ll have my tea at seven. Tell the conductor to
bring it to me, will you? Gad! I’m tired--and so you must be, Sandy.
Good-night.”

And he nodded to the great detective, who rose and left the
sleeping-berth.

Seton Darville slid the bolt and threw off his coat.

Had Peke O’Brien, the man of mystery up to the present, really given
away Joan’s hiding-place? Was he to be able to effect a coup, and
obviate the terrible disaster which the enemy had so cunningly
arranged, and which Caborn and his wife had arrived in Britain to
carry out?




 CHAPTER VIII.
 A DELICATE ERRAND

At eight o’clock on a Sunday morning there is hardly a dog astir in
Prince’s Street, Edinburgh, that wonderful thoroughfare of splendid
shops on the one side and the valley gardens on the other, often
declared by travelers to be one of the most picturesque streets in all
the world.

As Paton and Darville ate their breakfast in the big dining-room of
the North British Hotel, above the Waverley Station, they looked out
across the valley to the gray old castle, perched on its cliff, to the
left, and the handsome Scott Memorial, a prominent figure in the hazy
landscape.

They were there upon a very delicate errand. During the night, as
Darville tossed restlessly in his sleeping-berth, he evolved a plan.
He knew that a Sunday was the worst day on which to attempt to keep
observation upon any house. Therefore, he decided to try another ruse.
After breakfast they obtained from the hotel-porter a guide to
Edinburgh which contained a map, and together pored over it. They
found that Strathnairn Road was, apparently, in one of the most select
and respectable districts on the outskirts of Edinburgh, in the
direction of the great Forth Bridge. It lay about a mile out on the
highroad from Edinburgh towards South Queensferry, and was, it
appeared, a somewhat new district.

So early was it that there was no immediate hurry, hence the two men
from London took a stroll along Prince’s Street to the Caledonian
Station and back again. In their whole walk they did not pass more
than twenty people, for the ancient Scottish capital lies dormant each
Sunday morning, when no trains move out of the stations, and the only
signs of life are milkmen and vendors of the Sunday newspapers.

Back again at the North British Hotel, that handsome building
dominating the end of Prince’s Street, Seton Darville halted near a
taxi-stand, where four taxis stood waiting to be hired. He surveyed
the drivers critically. They were all elderly save one--a dark-haired,
cheery young fellow, who wore his peaked cap at an angle, and who was
joking with a gray-bearded man whose cab was in front of him.

Darville regarded him for a few moments, and quickly decided that he
was the man of whom he was in search. He went up to him, and said:

“I want to speak to you for a moment. Come over here.”

The young fellow, somewhat surprised, crossed to the steps of the
hotel.

“Look here, are you open to a bit of an adventure this morning?” asked
Darville, with a good-humored smile upon his broad, clean-shaven face.

“What sort of adventure, sir?” asked the cautious Scot.

“Well, only just a bit of fun--in order to watch somebody. That’s
all.”

“I can watch anybody,” was the young fellow’s response, eager to earn
something, for Sunday is always a thin day with taxi-drivers in
Edinburgh. And he glanced inquiringly at Paton, who was standing at
Darville’s side.

“Well, do you think you’ve got an overall to fit me?” asked Darville,
laughing.

“I don’t know, sir,” he said surveying his burly, thickset figure. “We
might have one round at the garage. You’re a bit of an out-size, you
know.”

“Very well. We’ll wait an hour. Then you’ll take us both round to your
garage and see if you can fit me up. I’ll engage you from now, so
start up your ticker. We’ll go for another walk, and be back here at
ten o’clock.”

“Right, sir,” answered the taxi-man, quite ripe for any adventure. He
had eyed the two strangers suspiciously at first, but Darville’s
_bonhomie_ had impressed him, and he now saw that some humor was
intended.

The pair walked back through the deserted gardens as they chatted.
Though questioned by Paton, Darville told him nothing of what he knew
concerning the projected activity of the Caborns. Seton Darville was
ever secretive. He never allowed others to know of his intentions, or
suspect his devilish ingenuity before he had carried his clever,
almost uncanny, maneuvers into practice. To his friends he was always
most loyal, honorable, and sympathetic. His age passed unnoticed
because of his never-failing buoyancy of youthful spirits. Every
woman, young or old, pretty or ugly, he treated as a little child,
forgiving every feminine whim and foible; to men he was the very soul
of honor, even against his own interests. But to his enemies--and
especially the enemies of Great Britain--he was harsh, unrelenting,
terribly vindictive and cruel. He carried out his frightful
vindictiveness by those irresistible means that were in secret at his
disposal, for his hidden hand was indeed one of the most powerful ones
in the British Empire.

When again the adventurous pair met the jaunty chauffeur outside the
great façade of the hotel, Darville asked:

“Do you happen to know the Strathnairn Road?”

“Yes, sir. It’s out towards South Queensferry as you go forth to the
Forth Bridge.”

“Well, we’ll be going there this morning,” remarked Paton, speaking
for the first time in his broad Scotch. The taxi-driver, who had given
his name as McLay, instantly realized the presence of a
fellow-countryman.

“I’ll take ye there all right, sir. And I’ll do whatever ye want,” he
assured them.

“Well, now take us to your garage,” said Darville, and they both
entered the taxi, which started out along the Portobello Road. Their
destination proved to be about a mile out of the city, and there
certain matters of payment were at once arranged. A greasy blue suit
of overalls was provided, and Darville fitted them on, but they were
hopelessly too small. Several other suits belonging to the other
chauffeurs were tried, but none were sufficiently broad in the chest,
until at last a suit owned by a driver whom McLay referred to as
“Fatty” Duncan was produced, and proved fairly satisfactory.

“Now, you two go along to the corner of Strathnairn Road,” said
Darville. “Before you get there Mr. Paton will get out. At the corner
you’ll break down the taxi, and then ’phone to me to come along and
mend it. Give me a bag of tools.”

“All right, sir. I’ll ’phone in about half an hour, and you can take a
taxi out to me. That’s all right! I’ll play the game. Rely on me. I
can see a bit of fun in this.”

“And I’ll make it fully worth your while,” declared Darville,
laughing. “Yes, you’re right! We shall have a bit of fun. I want to
watch for somebody.”

“Who?”

Darville hesitated.

“Well, to tell you a great secret, we’re looking for a runaway couple.
But, of course, don’t you mention it to a soul.”

“H’m! You’re divorce detectives, eh?” remarked the cautious Scot,
laughing.

Darville smiled, in order to give color to the suggestion.

“I wish I could tell you all about it,” he said, “but you’ll know
everything afterwards. I only want to ascertain if they are really in
the house we suspect. You’ll read all about it in the papers later
on.”

“Right you are, sir. This gentleman and I will carry on till you come
and mend the breakdown,” said the driver. “But”--and he hesitated--“do
you know anything about engines?”

“Nothing whatever,” replied Darville with a laugh, “so it will be the
more easy.”

All three laughed heartily, whereupon Paton got into the vehicle,
which drove out, back again through the misty streets towards
Edinburgh, and out on the other side of the city.

As soon as they had gone, Darville smeared his hands with grease and
made a few dirty marks upon his face, transforming his usual neat,
perhaps dapper, appearance to that of a hard-working motor mechanic.
His overalls were very dirty and very worn, with an ugly patch on the
right elbow, and he had removed his tie, so that he only wore a rather
dirty collar, giving him an appearance of negligence, and, with a
seedy old golf cap a size too large for him perched upon his head, his
disguise was complete. Only he himself knew the extreme seriousness of
the result of his journey there to Scotland. He went out into the
yard, lit a cigarette, and then lounged out into the deserted
Portobello Road. A silence that is almost uncanny lies about a Scotch
town on Sunday morning, and that occasion was no exception.

Presently he strolled back impatiently, until at last the telephone
bell rang and was answered by the man in charge of the garage.

“You’re wanted at Strathnairn Road!” he shouted to the new mechanic.
“Robbie will drive you. Robbie! Robbie!” And he shouted the name
several times before a short, gray-faced, hobbling old man put in an
appearance, and five minutes later Darville was traveling out over the
road which Paton had taken.

After a quarter of an hour Darville, leaning out of the window, said:

“Don’t go too near Strathnairn Road. Drop me about ten minutes’ walk
away, and then go back to the garage.”

“All right!” answered the gray-bearded, little old man, and they
continued their way.

At last, at a point in the broad highway leading to Bonnyfield, the
taxi pulled up, and Darville lugged out his heavy tool-bag.

“Straight on. First on the right,” said the old driver, who then
turned his taxi and started to return.

In a few moments the mechanic--as Darville had now become--espied
Paton lounging along, pipe in mouth, apparently quite self-absorbed,
and taking no interest whatever in anything. The man who had crossed
Europe so hastily plodded on, finding the bag unusually heavy, until
at last, turning the corner suddenly, he found McLay with the bonnet
off, examining his dilapidated engine.

Darville glanced up the long, gray thoroughfare of regular stone-built
houses of similar architecture, each with its flight of steps leading
to its front door, with a bay-window at the side.

He was always afraid of a bay-window. The watched-for person could so
easily be concealed behind heavy lace curtains, or, worse still, those
dusty Victorian abominations called venetian blinds.

“I’ve been watching, sir, but nobody’s come out of the house, except a
girl who opened the front door and took in the milk. They get up
pretty late, it seems,” McLay remarked, his face still bent upon his
engine.

“Well, let’s carry on,” said Darville cheerily, throwing down his
tool-bag with a bang. “You screw off things, and I’ll clean them up.
We may have to play this little game quite a long time, so don’t let
us be impatient.”

Glancing behind him, he saw Paton, a rather crestfallen object,
passing the end of the road.

Darville lit a cigarette, and both men, smoking leisurely, discussed
the breakdown. The novelist pretended not to glance at the house, but
in reply to his question _sotto voce_, the taxi-driver said:

“It’s that house with the ivy on it on this side of the way, sir. The
blinds are still down. They don’t get up very early, eh?”

With covert glance Darville examined the place, wondering what secrets
it contained, and, further, whether Caborn and his wife were actually
hidden there.

Soon they set to work in real earnest, and, unscrewing parts of the
engine, Darville cleaned them well, and slowly replaced them. Now and
then he made a mistake, being surreptitiously corrected by the young
driver.

Presently a young police-constable wandered along to the corner, and,
after a glance, bade the pair good-morning in his pronounced accent of
the North.

“What’s up?” he asked inquisitively.

“Oh, an infernal breakdown,” was McLay’s reply. “I brought a gent out
here from the Waverley Station and dropped him, and now I can’t get
back. This taxi’s always breaking down. I’m sick of it!”

“Get somebody to tow you home,” was the officer’s friendly advice. “I
would”; and he passed slowly along upon his beat.

An hour passed, but no sign of life appeared at No. 286. The house
with the ivy seemed to be closed and deserted. Paton, who had watched
the constable’s interest from afar, now strolled up.

“What’s that ass want to put his nose into it for, I wonder?” he
remarked with some annoyance. Paton, great detective that he was,
always resented any inquisitiveness shown by any uniformed man.

Then, without waiting for a reply, he strolled along the Strathnairn
Road in order to thoroughly explore it. He found to his relief that it
ended in a cul-de-sac. Therefore, anyone coming out must pass the
broken-down taxi.

Time still went on. Noon passed. People came from various houses and
went out upon their Sunday morning walks, some with their children,
and others with their pet dogs, most people being dressed in their
best, for, though cold, the sun now shone.

The constable returned, crossed again to the broken car, and chatted
to Darville, who was kneeling beside it pretending to tighten up a
nut. Then again the uniformed officer moved away, watched from the
distance by the lounger Paton.

“It’s a waiting game, isn’t it, sir?” remarked McLay, lighting a fresh
cigarette.

“Yes,” replied Darville. “I’m afraid we’ll never be able to put all
those parts together again”; and he grinned at the row of bolts and
nuts and other small parts which he had arranged in a row along the
curb.

“Oh, that’ll be quite all right, sir,” was the taxi-driver’s cheery
answer. And Darville again glanced along that dull, gray street, so
dismal and dispiriting after the blue sky and brilliant Adriatic
sunshine he had so recently left.

At about half-past one o’clock, just as Darville was bent double in an
effort to unloosen an unusually tight nut, his quick eye noticed the
door of No. 286 open and the well-dressed figure of a man descend the
flight of steps. The newcomer glanced up and down, and then commenced
to walk in the direction of the taxi.

Instantly Darville recognized him as the man Caborn, Joan’s husband,
though he was now clean-shaven, so that his features seemed to possess
a marked Hebraic cast. Next second the novelist took out his
handkerchief and mopped the perspiration from his brow. That was the
signal prearranged with Paton, who, in a moment alert, covertly
watched the stranger’s progress.

Caborn, as he approached the taxi, glanced at it with interest, and
then passed along and, turning the corner, walked airily and entirely
without suspicion along the broad road which led back to Stockbridge
and Edinburgh.

Was Joan in that house also? Darville, delighted with his success,
rose and stretched himself, saying:

“That’s the man! We were not mistaken after all!”

“Has he run away with a girl?” asked the driver, full of curiosity.

“Yes. With a young woman. And we suppose she’s in the house now. Let’s
wait a bit longer. We might see her, too.”

“Right you are, sir. I’m quite game for it,” the young fellow answered
him. So they paused in their pretended work and indulged in another
smoke, though they were very hungry and thirsty.

After an hour Caborn suddenly reappeared, repassed the taxi, and
reëntered the house.

“In any case, the lady won’t come out yet,” Darville remarked.
“They’ll have lunch. So let’s go and have a bite of something
ourselves”; a suggestion to which McLay at once agreed.

Paton was signaled to and joined them.

“Well,” asked Darville, “where did he go?”

“To a house about half a mile away. There are three foreigners
there--working men, apparently. I’ll have the place watched as soon as
I can get a ’phone message through to London. I didn’t like that
darned young constable putting his nose into the business. He annoyed
me.”

“Yes. But we’re just off for food. Stay here and look after the wreck,
in case that fool comes along again and raises trouble--taxi left
unattended and so on! I’ll bring you back a sandwich or something,
Sandy. The lady may be with him. We must find that out by some means.”

“I only wish I could deliver that jewelry. But if I gave her a dud box
it would give the game away,” Sandy said to himself as Darville and
the driver walked away in search of food.




 CHAPTER IX.
 ON DANGEROUS GROUND

On Darville’s return he found Paton sitting in the taxi, apparently
asleep. Nothing had happened, so the detective, directed by Darville,
went off to get something to eat.

The afternoon crept slowly by. The sun had disappeared, and the mists
were fast appearing in the silent, deserted street. Presently Paton
returned, and they all resumed their patient vigil, Darville ever and
anon tinkering and hammering at the engine.

“We’ll never get the thing to work again,” he remarked to the young
driver. “We’ll have to be towed home eventually.”

But, just as dusk was falling--and fortunately before the street lamps
were lit, for the car was standing beneath one, and the illumination
would have been very unwelcome--the door of No. 286 opened again, and
down the steps came Joan and her husband. She wore a well-cut beaver
coat with a little black cloche hat, and carried in her hand a small
leather attaché-case.

In an instant Darville turned and hid his face, so that he should not
be recognized, and as they passed, McLay remarked loudly to him that
they had better telephone for another taxi to tow them home. The
moment the pair had turned the corner, Paton became interested in
their movements, and strolled in the direction they had taken.

Meanwhile, in Darville’s quick brain there arose a thought. Was the
house occupied? If not, it would be as well to enter and search it. So
he sent McLay along to knock at the door and beg for some water to
refill his radiator. He rang several times, but there was no reply. A
servant had left by the downstairs door at about three o’clock,
therefore it was apparent that nobody was at home.

Darville felt in his pocket and found the little portable tool-case
which he usually carried. That decided him. He drew from the case a
thin piece of steel about an inch broad and five inches long, which he
fixed into a handle. Then, instructing McLay to remain on watch, he
slipped down the steps into the basement, and went to the kitchen
window, finding it securely latched. For a few moments he examined it,
then, drawing the useful little tool from his pocket, he inserted the
blade between the sashes, and, after some difficulty, he pushed back
the latch, allowing the window to open.

In a moment he was inside, and, finding the stairs, ascended to the
first floor. In the dining-room were the remains of the tea which the
Caborns had taken, but the drawing-room was closed, and by the dust
everywhere it showed that it was not used. Indeed, about the place was
a close, musty odor, as of a house that had been closed for a long
time, and as he investigated room after room, neglect and decay seemed
apparent on every hand. Two bedrooms only were in a habitable
condition, no attempt having been made to clean the others. In the
center of the bed in the back room of the first floor lay four new
rubber hot-water bottles filled to their utmost capacity.

Darville gave vent to an ejaculation of surprise when his eyes fell
upon them.

He took one in his hand and found it quite heavy, crossed with it to
the fading light, where he regarded it with considerable curiosity,
turning it over and over and weighing it in his hand.

“H’m!” he muttered to himself. “More interesting than I expected.”

Then, replacing the hot-water bottle, he made a tour of the room,
opening the drawers in the dressing table and then the wardrobe,
where, concealed in the bottom drawer of the latter, he found four
little tin boxes something like those containing one hundred
cigarettes, and painted gray. At the ends of each box were brass
electrical terminals for the attachment of wires. The boxes were
securely soldered up, therefore he was unable to decide what could be
within.

One of them he took to the window, and, after making a thorough
examination, he stood for a few moments hesitating and perplexed.

By the discoveries he had made he fully realized the seriousness of
the situation, and that it was as well that he had followed the
mysterious pair to Corfu and away again. They had taken every
precaution to cover their tracks, but he had successfully traced them
to their hiding place.

Downstairs on the mantelshelf of the dining-room he had noticed a tube
of liquid glue, and this decided him how to act. He rushed down and
obtained it. Then, removing the brass screw cap of one of the
electrical terminals, he cut a tiny disc of paper to fit the
under-part of the cap and gummed it to the brass. Each of the eight
terminals he treated in a similar manner, and when the caps were
replaced in position the paper discs were hidden.

Then he carefully put everything back as he had found it and descended
to the hall. Hardly had he reached the bottom stair when he heard the
rattle of a latch-key in the front door; therefore he fled down to the
basement, escaped through the open window, and, closing it after him,
swiftly reached the street.

He found Paton and McLay chatting.

“They’ve been round to see those friends to whom Caborn paid a visit
this morning,” Paton said. “There’s something tricky going on, I’m
certain.”

“Yes,” replied Darville. “I’ve been in the house, and I’ve made some
very interesting discoveries. Let’s get back to the hotel. I must get
on the telephone.”

“The car’s all right, sir. I can drive you,” said McLay. “I’ve been
able to fix her up again,” he added with a laugh.

So the two men got in, and McLay drove back into Edinburgh, depositing
them before the North British Hotel, where he duly received a handsome
reward.

Just before eight on the following morning, Seton Darville entered his
secret headquarters, that big suite of businesslike offices which were
believed to belong to the Spanish mining corporation. He went in by
the back entrance, and opened the door of his private room with his
key.

Upon his table lay several letters which his secretary had not dealt
with, for they were in distinctive envelopes, showing that their
contents were for the director’s eye only.

On ringing his bell there appeared a tall, thin, middle-aged man, a
Foreign Office official named Gordon Howard, who had been lent to
Darville, and who was head of the night staff.

A visit from the chief at that hour was not unusual, for Darville,
when in England, had a habit of turning up at all sorts of hours, when
he would refresh himself on the old brown sherry and dry biscuits he
kept in his cupboard and work for hours, going over and digesting the
piles of reports which arrived in such an ever-flowing stream by all
sorts of channels.

“Morning!” Darville exclaimed tersely. He was unshaven after his rapid
journey to Scotland and back, and had had no breakfast. “Is Austin
back from Madrid?”

“Yes, sir. He arrived this morning by the Sud Express. He’s left his
report and gone home.”

“I want him here at eleven. He’s had two nights in the train. He won’t
want sleep,” Darville said. “I want Cator and Bellamy here also,
and--and Craig of the S.B. Call them all very secretly, and also get
me Paris on the telephone,” Darville said in that quick, impetuous way
of his.

“Very well, sir,” replied the chief of the night staff. “But there is
a lady who is anxious to get in touch with you.”

“Who is it?”

“Your servant rang up at eleven, sir, last night, and said that when
he got into touch with you I was to tell you that a Miss Temperley
wished to speak to you very urgently.”

“Oh!” snapped Darville, his brows contracting. “Thanks. But I’m very
busy”; and then, with a sigh, he added under his breath: “These damned
women never leave me alone--never!”

“Is Ayrton home?” asked Darville sharply, for at the office his manner
was quick and brusque.

“No. He’s still in Athens. We had a report from him yesterday.”

Darville grunted.

“Time he came back. Recall him. I have something for him to do,” he
said, and in the next breath he said: “The King’s Messenger from Cairo
is bringing us more dispatches. Has he arrived?”

“He was here late last night. The Marseilles-Paris train had a
breakdown, he says.”

“Then bring me the reports here. I want to see them if they are
decoded.”

“They are just finished,” Howard replied. “I’ll go and get them.”

A few moments later the night secretary placed before Darville a
rather voluminous document of some dozen pages of close typewriting,
which Darville commenced to study, while Howard went to the telephone
to execute his instructions.

Ten minutes later, while he was absorbed in the further intricacies of
a very serious German intrigue in Cairo, the night secretary put his
head into his room and interrupted him by saying:

“You are on to Paris, sir.”

Darville took up the instrument and listened. There was a low,
continuous hum, like the droning of a bumble-bee. It was intentional,
in order that no eavesdropper could listen to secret conversations.

Suddenly he heard a familiar voice ask:

“Are you there, Darville?”

“Yes, my dear Armand, I’m here,” was the quick reply. “I’m back from
Corfu, you see. Very busy. I want you over here very urgently. It’s
now half-past eight. Can you leave Paris at ten, and be at Victoria at
5.15?”

“Is it so urgent?”

“Yes, my dear Armand,” he said, addressing his chief assistant, who
lived permanently in a pretty flat at Auteuil. “I want you to take
charge of a very delicate inquiry.”

“All right! I’ll be at the office just before six. _Au revoir_,” was
the cheery response, and Darville hung up the receiver and resumed
reading the secret report of German trickery in Egypt, which would in
due course be placed before the Cabinet.

A little later Howard announced that Teddy Austin and both Cator and
Bellamy--all of them the most trusted secret agents who happened to be
at home at the moment--and also Superintendent Craig, of the Special
Branch of Scotland Yard, would be there for the consultation at eleven
o’clock.

“Good!” remarked Darville, his strong face fixed upon the document
before him.

“Is there anything else?” asked Howard. “I’m going off duty.”

“No. Good-morning,” said Darville, without looking up.

A few moments later his secretary Bennett, the dapper ex-naval
officer, entered and greeted him.

“They have told me of the conference at eleven, sir,” he said.
“Something astir, I suppose?”

“Yes--and serious this time,” said his chief. “Mr. Godal is coming
over from Paris to-day to take charge of it. I want a rest, and I may
be going away again.”

It was nothing new. Seton Darville was usually away, but daily,
wherever he might be, he kept his fingers upon the pulse of that
clearing-house of the secrets of the Powers.

He rose, and, declaring that he would return at eleven, went out and
took a taxi round to his rooms in Duke Street, where his quiet,
gray-faced man-servant, Drew, greeted him.

“You haven’t breakfasted, I suppose, sir?” was the man’s first
question, to which he replied in the negative, and Drew busied himself
at once to get him some.

“Oh, sir, there’s been a lady named Temperley ringing you up. She rang
twice yesterday, and she rang again an hour ago. She’s at the Berkeley
Hotel, sir.”

“All right, Drew,” his master almost snapped, and then, throwing off
his coat, he went to the telephone.

“Hulloa, my dear Miss Temperley!” he exclaimed merrily, when he heard
the voice of the gay winter-sports girl who had so greatly attracted
him the previous winter. “So you are in town, eh? I’m only just back
from abroad--the Adriatic this time. I’ve been awfully busy. Do pardon
me not writing to you.”

“Oh, yes!” laughed the girl. “I know how busy you always are. But I
wondered if you’ve had my letters.”

“Yes, I had them all right.”

“Mother came to town earlier than she expected, so I thought I’d let
you know,” she replied in a rather wistful voice. “Are you coming to
see me?” she asked.

“Certainly. I want to see you, of course. But to-day it’s quite
impossible. I’ve been on a flying visit to Edinburgh--got back at
half-past seven this morning--and I’m leaving London again for
Scotland this evening.”

“Oh, how unfortunate,” said the girl, in a tone of deep
disappointment. “I want to see you about going to Wengen. Mother is
only here for three days, and then we go back home again.”

“Ah!” he exclaimed regretfully. “Then I’m not sure if we can meet. My
movements for the next few days will be very uncertain.”

“Oh, do see me, Mr. Darville,” she implored. “Will you run down to us
at home? Both father and mother want you to come to us again. It is so
many months since you did so. Do spare a day or two! Come and see how
my great Dane has grown. Now do come, won’t you? Just come when you
like, but as soon as you can. I’m so sorry we can’t meet here in
London.”

“So am I, Edris,” replied the novelist. “But, as a matter of fact, I’m
very worried, and I shall be busy for the next few days.”

“But are you going to Switzerland?”

Seton Darville hesitated. Varied reflections shot through his mind. “I
don’t know,” was his reply. “I can’t promise yet. We will talk it all
over when I come down.”

“Oh, you must come,” she cried. “I can’t hear any excuses. The Palace
won’t be the same without you. The Armstrongs, the Yates, the
Sheldons, and all our usual crowd, are counting upon you. Besides, the
dances won’t be the same if you are not there to superintend.”

“So you really want me to go, eh?” he asked tantalizingly.

“Of course I do.”

“And are you going to tear yourself away from Lionel for a whole
month?” he asked seriously.

“Of course I am.”

“Won’t he be very sad?” he asked with a laugh.

“There are some things I can’t well discuss over the ’phone, and that
is one of them,” she replied reprovingly. “It is about Lionel that I
want to consult you. That is mainly why I am so eager to see you.
Can’t you possibly see me this afternoon--even for ten minutes? I’ll
come anywhere to meet you,” she urged, in frantic eagerness.

Darville reflected for a few moments. He knew that his engagements at
the office would keep him till afternoon.

“Well, what about five o’clock?” he asked.

“Yes, where?”

“Here--come to tea at my rooms. We can talk alone here.”




 CHAPTER X.
 THE GIRL OF THE SNOWS

Ten minutes later Darville’s telephone bell rang again, whereupon he
held a brief conversation with somebody who told him something which
caused him both surprise and alarm. Two other urgent calls came
through in quick succession, whereupon he sat down and wrote a hasty
note:


 “Dear Edris,--I am so very sorry, but it will be impossible for me
 to keep our appointment this afternoon, as I have to be out of London
 again. I shall be at my flat at Hove over the week-end. Can you induce
 your mother to allow you to come and see me there, instead of going
 back home? I want so very much to see you--so do come. Drew, my man,
 will take any message if I am not here. Do forgive me for canceling
 the appointment, but I’m horribly busy.

                                              “Yours as ever,
                                              “Seton Darville.”


He addressed it to her at the Berkeley Hotel, and then sent Drew round
with it into Piccadilly immediately.

At eleven he presided over a secret conference held in his private
room at the office. All four men who sat with him were smartly
dressed, alert, shrewd cosmopolitans, who spent their adventurous
lives traveling in the interests of the defense of Britain against the
machinations of her enemies.

In a few terse, well-chosen words Darville explained why they were in
conference, and then he unfolded an enemy intrigue which held all of
them amazed at his astuteness and foresight. He had established facts
of which the world had never dreamed. His intuition was as astounding
as it was uncanny, and his bold entry into that house in Edinburgh was
yet another illustration of that utter fearlessness which all his
staff so admired. When anything unusually dangerous was to be
undertaken, Seton Darville, in order to set an example, never failed
to do it himself in his easy-going, debonair way, just as though he
had no care in all the world.

The Englishmen who “do things” never talk about them. Darville never
did. Only three or four of his most intimate friends in all the world
knew the truth concerning his exact position--that of one of the most
powerful and influential men in the whole kingdom. In certain
directions his power equaled that of the Prime Minister, while his
scribbly signature, often only half legible, controlled the
expenditure of huge sums of the public money.

To the men around that table he gave certain instructions, very
precise and exactly to the point.

“Remember,” he said, “Caborn will be easily alarmed. He’s a very
clever scoundrel; one of Steinhauer’s best men. He knows England well,
and has lived in London some years before the war, and, indeed, became
naturalized as a British subject. His wife Joan is a German-American,
born in St. Louis, but she has no American accent. She came to London
when she was twelve years old. Both are in the pay of our enemies, and
both are utterly unscrupulous and dangerous. They are well supplied
with expert assistance, and also with money. But, gentlemen,” he
added, “I warn you to be careful of your own selves, if you value your
lives. One false step and you will all be launched into eternity. I’ve
myself made the investigations, and now I have placed you in
possession of the true facts.”

The men exchanged glances in silence. The seriousness of the situation
had been impressed upon them.

The instructions their chief had given them showed the extreme gravity
of the affair.

He explained how he had entered the house in Strathnairn Road, of what
he had discovered there, and how he had gummed those little discs of
paper upon the electrical terminals.

“You see, at the critical moment the contacts will not be made,” he
said. “And by that your lives will probably be saved. You will find a
motor boat at your disposal at Macdonald’s boat-house at South
Queensferry. No questions will be asked. If they are, then refuse to
say a word. Gentlemen,” he added further, “I leave you to act. The
Caborns know me personally, therefore it is best that I should fade
out of this affair. You will all leave by the Scotch express to-night,
and be in Edinburgh soon after seven to-morrow morning. Make your
headquarters at the Caledonian; I shall probably be with Paton at the
North British.”

The conference lasted till past noon, when Darville walked along to
Downing Street, where he knocked at the door of No. 10, and was at
once admitted. Passing through an outer hall, he turned down a short
passage and entered the private sanctum of old Lord Heverbridge, the
Prime Minister of Great Britain, a thin-faced, white-haired, rather
sour-looking man, who, at the moment, was standing at the window with
one of his secretaries.

“Hulloa, Darville!” exclaimed the P.M., as he instantly recognized the
novelist. “Anything unusual? You never come to me unless you have
something urgent to report.”

There was a very close affiliation between the Foreign Office, across
the way, and the Secret Service, as the former depended for its
confidential information upon the untiring efforts of the latter. And
in matters of great urgency it was Darville’s habit to report direct
to the Prime Minister himself.

“Yes. There is something urgent,” replied the younger man after the
secretary had left, and then, leaning against the big, round polished
table in the center of the somber, rather gloomy, room, he gave a
brief résumé of the enemy conspiracy he had unearthed.

“Bless my soul!” cried the Prime Minister, his face suddenly paler
when he heard the astounding facts. “How on earth did you get to know
that, Darville?”

“By means of a little cunning and ingenuity,” Darville laughed. “But
in my opinion it is very serious.”

“I quite agree,” declared old Lord Heverbridge, pacing his small,
somber room, with its green-painted walls and heavy Victorian
furniture. Lord Heverbridge was one of the few great Victorian
statesmen remaining. His age was seventy-seven, but his brain was
still as alert and active as when he had led the Conservative Party
thirty years before. He had served in eight Administrations, and had
ever been held as one of Britain’s strongest men.

“Are you quite certain of your facts?” he asked Darville, suddenly
halting.

“Quite.”

“What does the Admiralty know?”

“Nothing. They are in ignorance at present.”

“But they ought to know, surely,” exclaimed the fine old statesman,
his thin, white hands clasped behind his back, and his figure erect,
notwithstanding his age.

“I think not,” was Darville’s slow reply. “They might become active,
and would possibly bungle the affair. I have already made all
arrangements to combat the plot. I thought, however, it would be as
well to let you know the truth, but I tell you in confidence nobody
outside my department knows, except yourself.”

“You pay me a direct compliment, Darville,” declared the Prime
Minister. “Without your constant vigilance all over the face of Europe
I don’t know where we should be. If it were not for you, I fear we
should cut a very sorry figure sometimes. And yet you are unpaid! You
do arduous, brilliant work for the country year after year, often
risking your liberty, and without asking for any other reward than the
joy of serving your country. Recollect that a baronetcy is due to you.
Why have you twice refused it?”

And he fixed his gray, deep-set eyes upon the broad-chested, active
man before him.

“For reasons known only to myself,” was the vague reply, the same
reply he had given on two previous occasions. “Besides, I am not a
rich man.”

“That’s your own fault. You could have five or six thousand a year and
all your expenses, if you would only accept it.”

“And, if I did, I should be just a paid spy and a servant of the
state, Lord Heverbridge,” Darville replied quietly. “No, I would
rather pay my own expenses and be free. Then nobody can point at me in
scorn.”

“Yes, Darville. I suppose you are right, my dear fellow. I suppose you
are right,” exclaimed the Prime Minister, with a sigh. “The country,
however, ought to be very grateful to you--and they would be, if they
could only know.”

“I don’t want them ever to know. They regard me as a popular writer of
fiction, and socially I’m in a good set. That’s all that I care.”

“Yes, yes, Darville. I’m one who has watched you ever since the
pre-war days when you warned us of the coming conflagration, and you
were disbelieved by the Cabinet. It must have disheartened you!”

“Not in the least,” laughed Darville. “I felt no more annoyance than
you have done when, time after time, you have been so cruelly attacked
by your political enemies.”

“My wife has ever been my comforter,” remarked the Prime Minister in a
low, serious voice.

“I have no comforter,” replied the other.

“It is not too late for you to marry, Darville,” Lord Heverbridge
remarked in the same serious tone.

“Me! Marry? No,” he laughed airily. “I think not. I never shall.”

Then, after a further chat for ten minutes or so regarding the
political situation in the Near East, from which the Prime Minister
learned one or two facts of interest, Darville strode out into Downing
Street again, being saluted by the police-constable on duty as he
turned into Whitehall.

When he reëntered his rooms in Duke Street, Drew came forward at
once.

“I delivered the note to Miss Temperley, sir. She asked you to ring
her up when you came in.”

So his master at once got on the telephone to the Berkeley.

“Hulloa, Seton,” he heard Edris exclaim; “is that you? I say, it’s
awfully good of you to invite me down to Hove. Mother’s a brick. Yes.
She’ll let me come, but if I do you’ll have to promise to take me out
to Wengen. Remember that. You’ll promise, won’t you?” she added in a
wheedling voice.

Darville tried to give a non-committal answer. Edris was very
charming--his ideal of all a real platonic girl friend should be. But
the grit in the cogs was that young lover of hers, to whom he knew she
was devoted; besides the difference of their ages. He could never
regard her as anything else but as a daughter. Love? He had never in
all his life experienced it, and always regarded it as a malady of the
young, akin to croup or chicken-pox. He sometimes wrote in his books
about real love, but it was all a mere hollow pretence. His pen could
never faithfully portray anything in which he himself did not believe,
and his millions of readers had long ago realized that what he wrote
about devotion and affection was only a milk-and-water make-believe.
No passion of real love had ever stirred the chords of emotion in his
heart. His two natures were as distinct as the poles. On the one hand
he was amazingly young and active for his age, and could tire out most
men of half his years, and possessed that kind, generous and
sympathetic nature which attracted women and caused them to vote him
“a dear”; yet, on the other, he was hard, callous, calculating, and
embittered against the world, cynical, unscrupulous, and unrelenting
towards his enemies. He always declared, with truth, that he never
asked a favor, and never forgave those who had wronged him.

Edris’ voice softened him. But he still gave evasive answers.

“I have so many engagements, you know,” he said on the wire. “We’ll
talk it all out down at Hove. I’m going back to Scotland just now, but
I’ll be back by the sea the last thing on Friday night, and will meet
you at Brighton station at 12.5 on Saturday. Is that all right?”

“Certainly,” replied the girl. “I’m so sorry I can’t have tea with you
to-day, but I quite understand. I’ve persuaded mother to stay here
till Saturday, when she goes home, and I come along to you. I hear
there’s an awful rush for sleepers to Interlaken this season. I booked
mine last July. I hope you’ll get one.”

“Well,” laughed Darville. “I don’t expect to be left behind if I
decide to go. See you on Saturday, and I’ll be delighted. Good-by,
Edris.”

He turned from the telephone with a deep, thoughtful expression upon
his usually good-humored countenance.

He recalled the words of the Prime Minister, that he ought to marry.
But Edris was many years his junior, a smart, go-ahead girl, greatly
admired, and a cosmopolitan almost as thorough-going as himself. It
was somewhat against the _convenances_ that she should come to stay
with him at his little _pied-à-terre_ facing the sea at Hove, with
only a single maid-servant there. Yet, after all, she was a modern
girl, and it was her supreme independence which was the charm that had
first attracted him.

Before the war no respectable girl would have dared to have gone to
stay as guest in a bachelor’s rooms. But with the emancipation of
women there are other manners in these days of the extinction of the
chaperon.

That night he again went North in a sleeping-berth bound for
Edinburgh.

For the next two days he watched the careful investigations being made
into the doings of the Caborns in Strathnairn Road, and especially
those of their working-class friends. Then, on Friday morning, he left
again for King’s Cross, and late that night, after crossing London,
arrived in Hove. Constant traveler that he was, long journeys never
affected him, and he arrived just before midnight at his cozy flat a
few doors west of Brunswick Square.

It was a charming set of rooms, which, alas! he seldom occupied. He
loved the sea, and when in England his great desire always was to live
within sight and hearing of the waves of the Channel. The flat was on
the first floor. In front of it was a broad lawn, the fashionable
promenade on fine days, and, beyond the beach--the gray, ever-rolling
water. The flat was one of the little luxuries with which he indulged
himself, because whenever he might be in any city in Europe he always
regarded the small cozy flat as “home.”

The rooms in Duke Street were a necessity, and Drew was most discreet
and reliable. But at Hove he was really at home, removed from every
worry and responsibility.

The excellent, middle-aged maid who cooked and looked after him, and
whose name was Kate, had retired to bed when he let himself in with
his latch-key, to find his whisky-and-soda and a few ham sandwiches
left for him upon the dining-room table. He was hungry and tired after
his long journey, so he promptly ate all the sandwiches, and took a
long drink, and afterwards passed into his room, wherein he had not
slept since the previous summer. But all was clean and in order, just
as he had left it.

Next morning was cold but dry; therefore, after writing several
important letters, he took a sharp walk along the broad promenade
between the lawns and the sea, and eventually stood on the platform at
Brighton station as the Pullman train from London slowly glided in.

Suddenly he espied a smart, well-set-up figure, daintily shod, and
wearing a close-fitting black hat and a green coat trimmed with skunk,
approaching him, followed by a porter carrying her dark blue morocco
dressing-case.

Next moment a pair of pretty, gray, dancing eyes, framed by a sweet
countenance, regular in its contour, met his.

“Edris!” he cried gladly as, in his eagerness, he took her small
gloved hand in welcome. “How ripping it is to see you again--once
again!”

“Do you really think so?” was the question the smart, outdoor girl put
to him with a gay laugh. “I wonder?”

And together they walked to the waiting taxi.




 CHAPTER XI.
 SOWING THE WIND

Edris Temperley presently found herself in a large, well-furnished
sitting-room, the two long windows of which opened out upon a stone
balcony which overlooked the wide, green lawns and the English Channel
beyond.

As she entered, Seton Darville took her gloved hand in his and,
bending gallantly, kissed it with that innate politeness he always
showed towards women.

“How charming!” cried the girl, glancing round. “You’re awfully cozy
here, aren’t you?”

The room was, indeed, a pleasant one. Across the well-worn red carpet
lay a streak of winter sunshine from across the sea. In the center was
a large, round antique table of carved walnut, whereon stood a big
bowl of apricot-colored glass filled with pink tulips. Upon the dark
oak Jacobean sideboard stood several pieces of antique silver, while a
long, low bookcase, taking up two of the walls, was filled with works
of reference and volumes of travel. On one side of the big fireplace,
where the flames danced merrily, stood a deep, easy-chair covered in
bright cretonne, while opposite was a great roomy settee covered with
the same cretonne, while upon the carved marble over-mantel stood
several choice Chinese vases on stands, together with a small snapshot
in a silver frame.

Edris recognized it as a picture of herself in her ski-ing kit taken
by Seton at Wengen during the previous season.

Next moment a neat, rather elderly maid appeared and conducted her to
the adjoining room, a large bedroom, almost as large as the
sitting-room, Darville’s room being on the other side of the tiny
hall.

In a few moments the girl, having discarded her hat and coat,
reappeared, whereupon he drew up the big arm-chair to the fire for
her, and she half shyly seated herself in silence.

It was the first time she had been alone with him in his house, and
she now rather wished she had not thrown the _convenances_ to the
winds as she had done. To be a man’s guest alone in his rooms was, to
say the least, a rather unconventional proceeding.

Darville’s eyes fell upon the pretty face, with its dark, shingled
hair, which had long ago filled him with such great admiration. He
noticed that in her pull-over jumper of jazz colorings she wore the
brooch he had bought her one day in Wengen, a little golden ski. She
was wearing his present. Was it done deliberately, to remind him of
those delightful days which had ended so abruptly, days which, he had
since determined within himself, should never be lived over again?

They looked into each other’s faces without uttering a word, and then
they both laughed.

“Well. It’s awfully good of you to come down here and see me,” the man
remarked awkwardly, for want of something to say.

“I’m delighted,” she replied. “I was so afraid I’d have to go back
home without seeing you, and I should have been so disappointed. You
never come and see us, though I’ve so constantly asked you,” she
added, placing her feet upon the fender and lying back in the big
chair. He noticed how smart were her shoes and how pretty her ankles,
facts that he had before realized in the ballroom of the great hotel
in the Alps.

“Well, you see, I’m so constantly abroad,” he replied, with a smile.

“That’s a very poor excuse,” she laughed.

“I had to leave Wengen suddenly,” he protested, “as I had an
appointment in Paris.”

“Ah, that’s all very well! Why are you traveling so constantly?
Novelists have no need to move about Europe as quickly as you do.”

“They are the stay-at-homes. I’m always gathering fresh local color
for my books, and that necessitates constant travel, for I never write
about any place I have not seen.”

She regarded him from beneath her long, dark lashes, and wondered if
he was telling the truth. His secretiveness, his long journeys, and
his constant changes of address, puzzled her, as it did so many who
knew him. There was some hidden motive in his changeful, adventurous
life, the truth of which was never guessed even by his most intimate
friends.

“Well, I think you might spare a week-end and come to us sometimes,”
the girl said with a pout. “Father is constantly asking after you, and
a visit from you would cheer him up.”

“Ah, I’m sorry!” he said quickly. “I never thought of that. Your
father must find it very dull living in the country, after the active
life he has hitherto led. It must be very boring for him.”

“It is, Seton,” the girl declared. “Do come and see him soon.”

Darville looked across at her, and, wondering whether or not she was
making her father an excuse for his visit, promised that he would
accept the next invitation she sent him, providing that he was in
England.

After they had smoked cigarettes the maid served a dainty little
lunch, and, as they sat _tête-à-tête_, there crept over Darville
that same fascination which he had experienced nearly a year before
amid the snows of the high-up Bernese Oberland. Her every movement was
full of grace; the poise of that dark, shingled head, the contour of
her white arms with the golden slave bangle, the pretty mouth made for
passionate kisses--all were perfect and adorable, while her smiles, as
they chatted, entranced him.

He preserved a gay exterior, as he usually did, but, within, his heart
was terribly heavy and overburdened. He knew that two great barriers
lay between them. First, the fact that she was engaged, the discovery
of which had caused him to so suddenly part from her. The second was
the difference in their ages. It was true that Darville was old only
in years. Only when he looked at his reflection in the mirror he
realized that his hair was gray and that crow’s-feet showed around his
eyes, and he sighed when he realized his real age. Yet, after all, he
was strong both mentally and physically; he had a grip of iron and a
never-tiring energy equal to that of a man of twenty-five. He knew not
fatigue; he could write and travel the whole twenty-four hours round
without requiring rest, and he possessed that peculiar faculty,
possessed by some outstanding men, of sleeping at once at any hour, or
in any place that best suited him. He was ageing, his iron-gray hair
was slowly blanching, but his heart and spirit remained youthful, in
spite of the strenuous, adventurous life he led.

Upon those ski-ing slopes at Wengen, and at night amid the merriment
of the ballroom, he had allowed himself to become fascinated by Edris
Temperley, but now, as she sat there at his own table, he fully
realized the extreme folly of it all, and began to vaguely regret that
he had invited her. He had done so only after months of reflection and
of longing, for ever since previous February, when he had left the
Palace Hotel so suddenly, descended to Interlaken, and taken the night
express to Paris, her sweet face, with those merry, dancing, gray
eyes, had haunted him. For months her memory had lived with him,
though he had done his very utmost to tear it out of his heart. He had
sought the society of other women he knew in London and in foreign
capitals in the hope of forgetting her, but it had all been useless.
Her letters and her pressing invitations had kept alive the great
passion which he had conceived for her, and which he had always so
cleverly concealed that she had not the slightest suspicion of it.

The man seated alone with his girl visitor was of a strange, complex
nature. He had never loved, and through all his years had jeered at
those who became mutually attracted to each other. He was, _par
excellence_, a ladies’ man, and counted dozens of pretty and high-born
women among his friends. They petted him, sent him cards of
invitation, asked him to all sorts of parties, and voted him a real
good sport.

He had, however, in secret, one particular friend. She, as a flapper
schoolgirl, had taken a great liking to him, he being a friend of her
family. She was now twenty-seven, married to a well-known peer, and
the leader of a very smart set. Her pretty face looked out at readers
of the picture papers very often, for she stayed everywhere as the
seasons came and went--Christmas in Egypt; February at her glorious
villa near Antibes; April cruising on their great white steam yacht in
the Adriatic or the Mediterranean; May on the Italian lakes; June for
the London season; July at Aix; August at the Normandie at Deauville;
September and October entertaining great shooting parties at
Lyddington Castle in Perthshire; November to sunshine in Southern
Spain; and then on to Egypt to commence the round again.

For many years they had, in secret, been fast friends. Society never
dreamed of their close association, though more than one of her
relations entertained shrewd suspicions. Before her marriage they used
to meet openly for Darville was often her father’s guest at their
ancient castle in Cumberland, but since her marriage three years ago
their meetings had been clandestine ones. Elaine was her name, wife of
the Earl of Lyddington, who was ten years her senior, and one of the
wealthiest men in the peerage. Lyddington Castle, with its wide
estates, its grouse moors, known to be the best in the Highlands, its
salmon fishing on the Tay; Reddingbridge, the great family mansion
twenty miles from York; the big, gloomy house in Grosvenor Square; and
the beautiful villa above the rocks at Biarritz were part of the
earl’s vast possessions, the villa at Antibes as well as Blacklands in
Hampshire being Elaine’s own property, her private income being about
twenty-five thousand a year.

Pretty, vivacious, and humorous, she was _chic_ to a degree. For years
she had directed Darville’s erratic life. Ever since her schooldays at
Roedean he had become devoted to her, as men of his age so often are
towards young girls. She had become part of his life, until she had
married, and then it was only in secret and at odd, infrequent times
that they met, sometimes at country houses in England, and at others
in foreign towns, where they would spend stolen days of happiness
together. She had been the one bright spot in his otherwise loveless
life, and often he waited in quiet patience for months before their
next meeting. At last, however, after those years, he had seen that he
might arouse the jealousy of Lyddington, her husband. He had told her
so one night when they were dining together surreptitiously at a
little restaurant at Soho, which they patronized because she would
never be recognized. She had burst into tears. Next day he took her
down to Skindle’s to lunch, and afterwards they strolled along the
river-bank, where he pointed out the folly and danger of their further
intimate friendship. Darville, because of his continual journeys and
his gay, careless air, had earned the reputation of being fast, yet
just the contrary was the case. No woman save Elaine held any
attraction for him--and when he searched his heart he was compelled to
admit within himself that Edris Temperley, though he might try and
ignore the fact, and laugh to scorn his own foolishness, had taken her
place.

He had not seen Elaine for many months. It was in her car during an
evening run to Hatfield and back that he had taken farewell of her, a
painful and pathetic leave-taking, and next day she had gone with her
mother to Deauville to try and forget amid the vortex of summer gaiety
and the crowd of her gay friends there, while he had gone back to
Hove, and there shut himself up for weeks alone with his writing.

Constantly within him there had arisen thoughts of Edris, until he
felt himself impelled to see her. Yet his strong will had prevailed,
and he had not allowed himself to act in contradiction to his natural
hesitation in meeting her again--not until that day.

As she sat there, laughing and chatting over their meal, so
sweet-faced and happy, he realized for the first time that he had
really acted rightly in bidding farewell to Elaine. Fortunately there
had never been any love on either side; only a deep Platonic
friendship which had more than once threatened to develop into
something more. But it was now all over, and they had agreed not to
meet again.

After the table had been cleared Edris sat again in the big chair with
her feet upon the fender and smoked a cigarette, while Darville’s
miniature black Pomeranian, Bundle, entered, sniffed her approvingly,
and then promptly made friends with her.

“What a dear little fellow,” she remarked. “But how different he is
from Lord Simba! He’s grown such a huge animal. I can’t hold him. He’s
so strong. But,” she added, looking at him through the haze of
cigarette smoke, “you know why I came down here, don’t you?”

“To honor me with your presence, I suppose,” was his smiling reply.

“No, to induce you to go to Switzerland,” she said very seriously. “I
want you to go, Seton. Without you Wengen will not be the same. Do
make an effort to come,” she added persuasively.

He hesitated, and she noticed it instantly.

“I--well, I can’t promise. You see, I have so many engagements. I may
be traveling,” he said.

“Why do you travel so much?” again asked the girl with curiosity, for
it had always surprised her that he moved about so constantly.

His reply was evasive, whereupon she again begged of him to go to
Wengen, but he shook his head.

She looked at him in silence for a few moments, and then asked him
point-blank a question which she had long hesitated to put.

“Now, Seton,” she said, bending towards him, her cigarette between her
fingers, and her legs crossed, “I want to ask you a plain question.
Will you answer it?”

“Ah, that all depends!” he laughed tantalizingly.

“Well. I want you to be quite frank with me,” she urged, a serious
expression crossing her sweet, oval face. “I want to know the real
reason why you left Wengen so suddenly.”

His brows knit for a second, and he stirred uneasily, but did not
reply.

“Were you annoyed at anything?” asked the girl. “Do answer me,” she
begged.

“No,” he replied in a low voice after a brief silence, “not
annoyed--only pained.”

“Pained!” she exclaimed in surprise. “At what?”

“At something that need not be mentioned,” was his hard reply. She
noticed that he sighed slightly, and it caused her to wonder.

“Then you refuse to tell me. That’s unkind!” she remarked
disappointedly.

“No, Edris, I am not unkind,” he protested in a low voice, his dark,
serious eyes upon hers. “The reason I left you so suddenly is my own
secret. That’s all.”

“I remember that--that you left very soon after I told you of my love
for Lionel,” she remarked. “Had that anything to do with it?”

Darville drew a long breath, and a strange expression of hardness
crossed his face, as slowly he nodded in the affirmative.

“What?” she gasped, open-mouthed in amazement as, for the first time,
the truth dawned upon her. “Oh, Seton, I--I’m so sorry--I----”

“You were going to tell me something about Lionel,” he said, as,
rising, and, standing before her, he took her hand. “What is it,
Edris?”

She bent her head, and for a few moments remained silent.

“Only--only that our engagement is again broken. That’s all,” she said
in a tremulous voice, so low as to be hardly audible. “Only that.”




 CHAPTER XII.
 IN CONFIDENCE

A silence fell between the pair.

Seton Darville strode across to the long window, his brows knit in
thought. What Edris had told him held him for a moment breathless.
Then he reflected deeply for a few seconds.

“How long ago was your engagement broken?” he asked at last, turning
to where she was still seated by the fire.

“Last August,” she answered hesitatingly.

“You were, I know, awfully fond of Lionel. You must regret it,” he
said slowly.

She did not reply. He saw that she was not anxious to discuss the
matter, therefore he said:

“It’s a beautiful afternoon. Wouldn’t you like to go for a walk?”

At once she acquiesced, and, jumping up, passed into the bedroom,
while he still remained at the window gazing out across the gray sea
with dark, wistful eyes. His one thought was of that unexpected truth.
Edris was free--free! A thousand times during the summer months that
had gone, as he wandered hither and thither about the Continent, his
thoughts and longings had reverted to her. But she was engaged, he
told himself, therefore there was no hope, even though he was madly in
love with her.

But the barrier was now removed, and she was free!

Darville buttoned Bundle into his little coat and put on his harness.
Then, having put on his own coat, they descended to the promenade, the
tiny Pom yapping with excitement as they strolled across the lawns and
along by the sea in the direction of Brighton.

Edris had never been there before, and was delighted with the handsome
sea-front of Hove. The afternoon was sunny, with just a keen nip in
the wind.

“I love the sea,” she said, pausing to watch the waves beating upon
the shingle. “Living in the country as we do, I see so little of it
except the Channel when we cross to the Continent,” and she inhaled,
to the full, the salt-laden air.

The usual well-dressed crowd of week-enders was passing to and fro as
they continued their walk as far as the West Pier, chatting merrily as
they went. Darville was absorbed in that announcement she had made,
while she, all unsuspicious of the truth that for a whole year he had
loved her, even though he had held aloof from her, regarded his
distraction with some disappointment. She thought he appeared bored,
for sometimes he hardly took notice of her words, his attention,
apparently, being centered upon the pet dog he was leading. When at
Hove, Seton Darville was never seen without the intelligent Bundle,
who was for ever yapping, as Poms do, and straining at his plated
chain.

They returned in the falling dusk and found tea laid for them. It
proved a cozy meal, for, as she sat in the big arm-chair again, her
host waited upon her gallantly, laughing merrily and gossiping about
the last season’s winter sports.

“But it’s really too bad of you, Seton,” the girl said at last, as she
replaced her cup upon the little inlaid coffee-table at her elbow.
“You won’t tell me if you are really going to Wengen or not. So much
depends upon you”; and she looked at him wistfully beneath her long,
dark lashes.

“Why? Surely I’m not so very indispensable?” he laughed.

“To our party you are,” she declared. “You are perfectly priceless
when you try to do stunts ski-ing.”

“And make a silly fool of myself. I suppose they laugh at me?”

“Indeed they don’t. Everybody wonders at your remarkable energy,” she
said. “To ski all day and play antics in the ballroom at night with
only intervals of a few minutes must be a great strain. You’re
wonderful! Everyone says so. You never seem to want sleep.”

Darville laughed as her pretty, gray eyes met his.

“People have told me that before,” he said. “Yes. It is curious how
little sleep I want. Often after the dance I work at my table for a
couple of hours.”

“And you’re always up the first in the morning. I really don’t know
how you do it.”

“The bad habit of late hours,” he declared. “Years ago, when I was
younger, I was one of the night-workers of Fleet Street--the Owls they
call them.”

“Well, Seton, make up your mind and come to Wengen,” she said in a
soft, persuasive voice. “All our friends at the Palace and the Regina
will be so delighted to see you.”

But he would give her no definite promise. There was a reason of which
she was in entire ignorance. He seemed reluctant to go again to
Switzerland. He had been pained at something she had said. She had
wondered what could have annoyed him so much as to cause him to
suddenly remember that engagement in Paris.

Presently, when the heavy curtains had been drawn and the lights
switched on, he ventured to say:

“You spoke of your engagement, Edris. Is it really broken off
definitely?” and he looked straight into her great, gray eyes.

“Yes,” she replied. And he thought he detected a slight touch of
sorrow in her voice.

“Tell me,” he urged in a low, sympathetic voice, “was it at your
request--or his?”

She hesitated.

“At mine,” she responded at last. “I--I could bear his flirtations no
longer”; and a blank look of despair crossed her pretty features.

“I’m not altogether surprised,” Darville remarked. “He was young. Most
men of his age are more or less fickle in their affections.”

“Yes, I foolishly thought that he loved me, but I’ve learnt a very
bitter lesson,” said the disillusioned girl in a hard voice, gazing
into the fire. “When he returned from America in February he asked me
to forgive him. I did so, and we became reconciled. But very soon I
discovered to my dismay that I was not the only woman in his life. For
six months I bore it all in patience, until--well, until one day I
could no longer tolerate his deception, and I told him what I knew. We
quarreled, and--and then we parted,” she blurted forth.

“And I never knew!” Darville exclaimed, holding his breath. “You never
told me!”

“No, because you always avoided me. You made excuses not to see me. I
longed to tell you about it, for somehow I knew in Wengen that you
were my friend, and that you took an interest in my future.”

The man was standing by her, a big, burly, clean-shaven figure in dark
blue clothes. Upon her shoulder he placed his hand, so lightly that
she scarcely felt it.

“Yes, Edris,” he said at last, “I may have appeared rude and
unsympathetic, but I tell you truthfully that I am really your
friend--your devoted friend, who is always ready to advise and assist
you whenever you are in need.”

Raising her head slowly, she looked up at him.

“Ah! I have often wondered,” she said, with a slight catch in her
breath. “Since August I have lived at home in the country, with my dog
Lord Simba as companion. I take him for walks in those long,
interminable country lanes, and I make him my sole confidant. I tell
him everything, and his great big eyes seem to sympathize mutely with
me. You, Seton, are the only person, save Lionel and myself, who knows
the truth.”

“Edris, I sympathize with you,” he assured her in a low, earnest
voice, his hand still upon her shoulder. “Forgive me for not accepting
your repeated invitations, but--well, I believed that you were engaged
and very happy. I--I thought----”

“What?” she asked, her eyes again fixed upon the dancing flames.

“I thought that you were still engaged to Lionel, and that--well, that
I might be _de trop_. That’s all,” he said simply.

“What do you mean?” asked the girl, turning quickly and looking at
him. “You know that ever since we first met in Switzerland I have
always regarded you as a kind and sympathetic friend. The people who
know you are always so loud in your praises.”

“Please don’t flatter me, Edris,” he said seriously. “You have all my
sympathy. You know that. You remember that you introduced me to Lionel
on that night in London when you both spent the evening with me. I
liked him, but I thought he was too young, and perhaps--well, just a
trifle too shallow for a girl of your serious nature and high ideals.”

“Yes, my nature has now grown serious,” she admitted. “I have learnt
my terrible lesson. Yes, Lionel, whom I trusted and loved, is too
young to know his own mind. I admit that I was entirely devoted to
him. He was my idol,” she added in a low voice, full of an emotion she
strove to repress. “But that idol is now shattered and broken.”

“For ever?” he queried, in almost a whisper.

“Yes, for ever,” was the girl’s hoarse reply.

“Poor child!” he exclaimed, scarcely able to control his words, for he
strove to appear merely sympathetic, though his heart was bursting
with love for her now that at last he knew the truth. “How you must
have suffered. And yet I never knew!”

“No. You did not know. But had you known, what could you have done?”

“Nothing can be done to heal a broken heart,” he said blankly. “I
realize now the weeks and months you must have spent in grief and
silence.”

“I--I dare not let mother know. She very often asked after Lionel, but
I was compelled to make excuses why he did not visit us. She
discovered how ill and nervous I had become, and she sent me to Colwyn
Bay, with my cousins, because she thought the sea air might do me
good”; and she laughed grimly at the thought of sea air as a remedy
for a broken heart.

Little Bundle at that moment pawed his master’s leg, an intimation
that he wanted to be taken up, so Darville took his tiny black pet
under his arm, where he sat contentedly surveying their visitor.

“I know, poor Edris,” he said in that tender, affectionate tone he
would adopt towards a child. “I sympathize very deeply with you. I
said nothing, but on that night when I met Lionel I realized only too
plainly the weakness of his character. Quite a good fellow, but
unfortunately lacking in experience of the world and its ways. Like
all young fellows of his age and stamp, he believes himself to be
strong and well balanced, yet his lack of that wisdom which is only
acquired as age creeps on causes him to be unstable--a human sail that
drifts upon every wind.”

Then his hand touched her hair ever so lightly, for with the other he
was holding his pet.

“Edris!” he continued in a strained voice. “We are friends. My age is
such that you might well be my daughter. You are young, smart,
vivacious, athletic, with all the world before you. Place a tombstone
over this unfortunate love-affair, and rise again to live and to love.
Soon you will meet another man who will come into your life--a man far
worthier than Lionel, and more stable and reliable. You will love, and
you will marry, and I will always be your friend--your adopted uncle,
if you wish, or your adopted father.”

The girl said nothing. She placed her chin upon her hands, and with
her bare elbows upon her knees sat looking thoughtfully into the
flames.

“I shall never love again,” she exclaimed at last, in a low, broken
voice. “Lionel has killed all affection within me. I loved him madly.
He was my very soul, and yet he only played with me, and I found it
out when too late. He--he has broken my heart, Seton!”

And she burst into tears, and, covering her face with her hands,
sobbed bitterly.

“No, no, Edris,” said the man, walking to her and placing his hand
tenderly upon her bowed head. “You must not give way like this. I know
how hard it must be to bear, though I myself have never experienced
love. I am one of those hard, bitter men who are proof against your
sex. Some people have called me a woman-hater, and----”

“You’re not that, Seton,” she protested amid her tears. “I know you
are not.”

“How do you know?” he asked, glad that his remark had caused her
sobbing to cease.

“Because you are always so polite and gallant--always so sympathetic
and so merry.”

“I enjoy the society of women younger than myself, I admit, but that
does not prove that love has ever entered my heart, does it?”

“No. I suppose it doesn’t. But----” And she paused, raised her head,
and looked at him with those gray eyes still filled with tears. “But
do you remember what you told me one afternoon when we were smoking
together on the terrace in Wengen--about Elaine?”

He bit his lip. He had, in a moment of foolishness, told her of his
romantic attachment, and he now regretted it. Edris had expressed
sympathy with him about quite a trivial matter, and he in turn had
given her his confidence. But he had not told her Elaine’s name or
rank. He had given Elaine his solemn promise never to mention her name
lest gossip should result and it might reach her husband’s ears.

“Yes,” he replied mechanically, “I remember what I told you.”

“And you really deny that after ten years you have never loved her?”

“Edris, I have never loved Elaine. I tell you that frankly,” was his
quiet response.

“Surely that would be impossible,” said the girl.

“She was only my dear and devoted friend. Ours was purely a Platonic
friendship which--well, which very nearly developed into love, but
happily did not.”

“Why?” she asked, keenly interested.

“Because we mutually agreed to part.”

“To part!” she cried. “Have you parted?”

“Yes. Some months ago.”

The girl said nothing for a few moments, and then asked:

“Why?”

“Because we both recognized that our continued association would be
dangerous,” he said, though, if the truth were told, the real reason
was that great love for the girl before him--a mad passion which had,
ever since the previous winter, arisen within his blank and hitherto
loveless life.

“And you are really nothing to each other now?”

“We have never been more than true, devoted friends. Ever since her
schoolgirl days I have regarded her as my one and only true little
friend. She has often borne with me through my troubles, my trials,
and my disappointments. I used to regard her, because of her level
head and her curious intuition of the future, as one of my own age.
Often I awoke to the fact that she was only a girl--as you are----”

He held his breath. He saw that he had committed a _faux pas_.

“I mean that she was so much younger than myself, and--and yet her
woman’s brain was more acute than my own. I believed my intuition
infallible, but I often had to admit that she was far cleverer than
myself. She could scheme and plot and----”

“Plot? What do you mean? Why plot?”

He had trodden upon thin ice, and he knew it instantly. Elaine had
often helped him to solve difficult problems in his Secret Service
work.

“Oh, well--I--I don’t mean that she could really plot, you know,” he
faltered hastily. “Perhaps I myself was the plotter! Who knows?”

And he laughed.




 CHAPTER XIII.
 IN THE PAPERS

They dined together in the big, garish restaurant of the Hotel
Metropole amid the gay crowd which assembles there each week-end, no
matter what weather or what season. He had asked for the right-hand
corner table by the window. The _maître d’hôtel_ knew him, and he
was served well. Cosmopolitan as he was, he possessed a strange and
peculiar attraction for all hotel servants. He always treated them
good-humoredly, and his tips were judicious without being lavish. As
an old traveler, whenever he arrived at an hotel, he started
tipping--not when he left, as people usually do. Hence he was regarded
as a person to be well looked after. He was known from _concierge_ to
_chasseur_ in a hundred hotels in Europe, just as he was known at his
own club in St. James’s Street. The newspapers often referred to him
as a “cosmopolitan of cosmopolitans,” or as a world-famed traveler, as
indeed he was.

They laughed merrily together amid the gay chatter of the smart,
holiday-making crowd, for in the Metropole at Brighton one meets each
week-end all sorts of well-known people with their womenfolk, from
jockeys to judges.

“How delighted I am that you are here with me, Edris,” he whispered
across the little table, raising his glass and looking into her great
gray eyes. She looked very dainty and charming in a black semi-evening
gown, which showed to advantage the alabaster whiteness of her neck
and arms. The necklace she wore consisted of a number of graduated
cubes of glittering rock-crystal separated by tiny beads of jet, an
ornament which suited her type of beauty to perfection.

“Are you quite sure that you are really pleased I’m here?” she asked
with a tantalizing smile.

“Why, of course I am,” he said, his dark eyes fixed upon hers.

“Then if you find my company as pleasant as you say, you’ll come to
Wengen, eh?”

“I can’t promise you that,” was his laughing response, though, now
that he knew that her engagement with Lionel was broken, he had
already secretly made up his mind to obey her wishes and go to
Switzerland.

“But you’ll have to promise before I go home on Monday,” said the girl
decisively.

“Well, I can’t make any promise yet,” Darville protested. “Let’s go
and have coffee.”

Together they walked through the lounge to the big palm-court, which
was already half-full, and for an hour sat over their coffee and
liqueurs, listening to the orchestra. Then they strolled back beside
the sea to Hove. The tide was coming in, and the restless waves roared
over the beach as together they trod the broad promenade.

Just before eleven o’clock they reëntered the flat, where Edris found
the maid awaiting her. After divesting herself of her coat and hat,
she came into the sitting-room where Darville was standing with his
back to the fire, a smart figure in his well-cut dinner-clothes. She
seated herself cozily in the corner of the settee, took a cigarette
from his case, and allowed him to light it for her.

Then he said:

“Before we went out you were talking of Lionel.”

“And you were talking of Elaine,” she added. “Why have you really
parted from her? Do tell me the truth, Seton,” she said.

“I have already told you the truth,” he answered. “I did not love her,
and----”

“But she loves you. Nothing will convince me to the contrary.”

The man sighed, and for some time remained silent.

Then he shook his head and said:

“No. Edris, you are quite mistaken. We have been fast friends all
these years--that’s all.”

“And you really mean to say that in all that time you have never been
jealous of her--I mean before she married?”

“Never. Only silly fools are jealous.”

“And if you had been in love with her, would you not have been jealous
of any other man who paid her marked attention?”

“No. I have never known what jealousy is.”

“Then you have happily been spared a terrible suffering--a mental
torture that drives one to madness,” the girl said, her countenance
very serious. “I was jealous of Lionel, and I know, alas! what it
is--a living hell. And,” she added, “I hope, Seton, you will never go
through what I have done.”

“I’m not likely to,” he laughed. “Consider my age. If I were younger
and in love I might perhaps run the risk of an attack of the malady.”

“A man is never too old to be jealous,” was her quiet, philosophic
reply.

“Then you were jealous of Lionel! You apparently had just cause to be,
eh?”

“Unfortunately, I had. I trust no man now that I have learnt my own
lesson. My heart is broken,” she repeated in a hard voice of deep
regret. “I shall never love again.”

He turned from her in order that she could not see his face, and
pretended to get some matches from the sideboard.

“Oh, you’ll forget him, and love again one day,” he remarked
cheerfully.

“No,” she said in a decisive tone, “never.”

He had long ago realized that she was a strong-willed little person,
who held firm opinions about people and things, entertained very
strong likes and dislikes, and was never afraid to speak her own mind
before anybody. In her childhood days she had been a tomboy and the
naughtiest girl in her school. She had always had her own way in
everything, indulged as she had been by fond parents, and she had
grown up frank in nature, independent in spirit, and entirely fearless
of what people might think.

Because of this free, careless nature of hers she was defying the
world and spending the week-end with a bachelor in his rooms.

Darville was struggling hard to conceal the great passion he had
conceived for her. For nearly a whole year he had loved her very
deeply. Yet he had successfully hidden the truth, so that she was even
then entirely unsuspicious of it. The one barrier--Lionel--had been
removed, he told himself, yet the other remained, still
insurmountable--his age. That fact had always troubled him. A hundred
times, when he looked in his mirror and saw his gray hair, tears
welled in his eyes as the vision of her sweet young face arose before
him and taunted him always. If Edris had come into his life when he
had been thirty, engaged in the reckless task of sowing his wild oats,
then how different all would have been!

He raised his head, and his eyes suddenly met hers. She saw the look
of inexpressible sadness in them, and jumped to the natural conclusion
that he was thinking of Elaine. Indeed, she made a remark to that
effect.

“No, I’m sure I was not,” he protested. Then, in excuse, he went on:
“I may often appear distracted, but it is then I am thinking of the
story I am writing. Novelists must be thoughtful sometimes, you know,
if their soul is in their work. No artistic effort can be accomplished
without whole-hearted application and all-absorbed concentration.”

“I thought you never concentrated on anything,” she said with a merry
smile. “You are always so easy-going and light-hearted. You cannot
have any cares or troubles like other men.”

He smiled--rather sadly perhaps.

What would she think did she know of that terribly heavy burden of
responsibility which ever rested upon his shoulders--how, thanks to
his active brain, the British Cabinet were kept informed of the
constant plots of the Powers of Europe against the country’s prestige
and safety? What would she think of those shrewd eyes and sharp ears
of his spread out through his secret agents all over the world, or of
the cleverly-conceived counter-plots which he was ever directing?
Elaine knew something of his secret work. She had discovered it one
day by reading a document which she had found lying upon his
writing-table, that big, roll-top, littered table which stood in the
adjoining room. She had confessed to him that her woman’s curiosity
had overcome her, whereupon he revealed one or two facts, hence more
than once he had sought her opinion when he required that of a woman
of quick intelligence and shrewd evasiveness. But Edris was in
ignorance of his other personality. She, like all the world, regarded
him as a popular novelist, and not even one of her favorite writers.
She had once told him how, before they met, she had taken down one of
his novels in a lending library, opened it, scanned the first page,
and at once put it back again as uninteresting. She wanted a
love-story, and she knew that he seldom wrote about passion.

“I have quite as many cares as everyone else,” he declared, “only I do
not wear my heart on my sleeve, as some other men do,” he added
meaningly. “Perhaps I have more responsibilities than some others. But
I suppose we each of us think our load of worry is greater than that
of our neighbor.”

“Well, you are the most light-hearted man I’ve ever met. Most men of
your age are decrepit, crotchety, or faddy. You’re neither. Why, when
you ski at Wengen everyone declares your vitality to be marvelous.”

Darville smiled again, yet at heart he was rather piqued at the
reference to his years, for it was a very sore point with him.

He again looked at the sweet-faced, athletic girl before him. Could
she ever bring herself to love a man of his years, he wondered? Dare
he ever put such an outrageous question to her? He held his breath at
the mere thought of it, and then decided that her presence there was
only a bitter taunt which he had brought upon himself. He should have
been more circumspect. In all his years he had never loved, and he
felt that the situation he himself had been foolish enough to create
was an entirely ludicrous one.

Till nearly midnight they sat chatting until, after she had drunk a
glass of port and eaten a biscuit, she rose to go to her room.

He bent over her hand and kissed it with his innate gallantry. Then,
wishing her good-night, he held open the door, and she, with a
laughing “Good-night, Seton,” passed in and locked it behind her.

For another half hour he sat by the dying fire smoking and thinking,
until at last he went to his own room, where, changing into an old
coat, he sat down at his table, and took up the threads of his new
story which he had been compelled to break off so suddenly in Corfu.

Outside, the wind had suddenly sprung up to half a gale, as it so
often does in the Channel, and there came to him the beat and roar of
the waves upon the beach--music always to his ears, for he loved the
sea, just as did the girl he adored, who was sleeping in the guest’s
room at the back, quiet and undisturbed. He had chosen that front room
overlooking the sea as his own, and his workroom also, because he
loved to wake in the morning and gaze upon the open space of sky and
water. Though he posed as a materialist, a man-about-town, a lover of
women--which he never had been--a traveler, and a popular figure in
the world, with his photograph ever in the picture-papers, yet at
heart he was shy, modest, and very unassuming. He hated publicity, but
it had been forced upon him owing to his popularity as a writer of
fiction.

The silence of the night was unbroken save for the thunder of the
waves, sometimes followed by a loud swish as they swept upon the
promenade. Once he paused during his writing. He thought he heard a
sound in Edris’s room, and noiselessly passed into the sitting-room,
where he stood listening. But all was silence, so he returned to his
work, and continued until half-past two. Then he put down his pen,
mixed himself a drink, and, lighting a cigarette, switched off the
light and stood for a long time gazing out upon the storm-tossed
waters, thinking deeply of the sleeping girl within.

He wondered, and still wondered. Dare he reveal to her the secret of
his love? Through those many months his heart had been bursting with
that affection which he had so carefully concealed, and even now,
though the barrier of her engagement to that impossible young lover
had been removed, yet there still remained that one of age--one that
it was impossible to overlook, avoid, or remove.

If he summoned courage and told her the truth she would only laugh at
him, he thought. No, the whole thing was a dream that could never be
realized. Love had come to him too late in his life. A lump arose in
his throat, and tears came to his eyes. She could never be his, alas!
Never!

In the darkness he stood motionless for a long time, gazing blankly
out upon the surf, which showed white and boiling in the light of the
lamps on the promenade. Low sobs escaped him from time to time, until
at last, with a long, heavy sigh, he drew down the blind, and,
switching on the light, retired to rest in his narrow little bed.

Next morning was Sunday. When he entered the sitting-room, where
breakfast was laid for two, he found Edris already sitting by the
fire, reading the newspaper.

He kissed her hand, as was his wont, and greeted her merrily, asking
if she had slept well.

“Quite well,” was her reply, as she lifted her dancing gray eyes to
his. “But I’ve just read of a most mysterious catastrophe which
happened last night under the Forth Bridge near Edinburgh. Read it,”
she said, handing him the newspaper.

“The Forth Bridge!” he echoed breathlessly, as he eagerly took the
paper and saw the great headlines in heavy type.

What he read was as follows:


 “The Central News’ Edinburgh correspondent telegraphs that a
 mysterious affair took place beneath the Forth Bridge, near the center
 of the gigantic structure, just after midnight. Details are meager,
 because of the extreme reticence of the police, but as far as can be
 ascertained, a daring and desperate attempt has been made to mine the
 bridge ready for its destruction at some near date in the future, and
 thus bottle up our naval base at Rosyth by means of the great mass of
 steel of which the huge railway-bridge is constructed.

 “It seems that by some secret means the authorities had learned of the
 enemy conspiracy, and took means to combat it. For the past three
 nights a motor patrol-boat has been observed in the vicinity of the
 bridge, but, some repairs to the base of one of the steel towers which
 support the bridge 360 feet above the water being in progress, no
 notice was taken of its presence.

 “Early this morning, however, the patrol-boat was seen to be moored
 for a short time to the granite pier which, in the middle of the
 waterway, rests on the small island of Inchgarvie, and presently it
 left hurriedly towards Burntisland. At that moment another fast
 motor-boat containing five men put out from South Queensferry, and
 after a stern chase, was gradually overtaking it. Shots were fired
 repeatedly from the escaping boat, until at last they were replied to
 by the pursuers. A sharp fusillade ensued. Suddenly the crackle of a
 machine-gun mounted on the pursuing boat was heard, and the next
 moment, from the first boat, there was a bright red flash, and an
 explosion so terrific that more than twenty houses on the shore of the
 firth were wrecked, happily without any loss of life. The boat
 apparently carried some highly powerful explosive, which was detonated
 by a bullet, and was blown out of the water, the occupants, said to be
 four men and a woman, being entirely wiped out of existence. No trace
 of either the boat or its occupants has been found.

 “Up to the present the affair is a complete mystery, save for the fact
 that several rubber hot-water bottles, filled with some new liquid
 explosive of a highly-powerful nature, were subsequently found
 attached to the bases of two of the supporting piers below low-water
 mark and connected with small electrical contrivances for detonating
 the whole of the explosive at the same moment.

 “Through the vigilance of the authorities the gigantic bridge has been
 saved from destruction, though the plotters themselves have lost their
 lives in their desperate attempt to put the bridge in readiness for
 destruction at any moment.”


Seton Darville, having scanned the lines eagerly, handed the paper
back to the girl.

“Isn’t it extraordinary?” she asked. “They evidently were German
secret agents preparing for the next war. Don’t you think so?”

“Perhaps,” replied Darville unconcernedly. “At any rate, they have
received their deserts.”




 CHAPTER XIV.
 THE WEEK-END

At the conclusion of breakfast Seton Darville made an excuse to go
out for a quarter of an hour, and at once went to the telephone
call-office; for he had no ’phone at the flat. He went to Hove for
quiet and rest, hence his refusal to instal an instrument.

It was Sunday morning, therefore the call he put through to the North
British Hotel at Edinburgh was quickly responded to, and a few moments
later he found himself speaking with Sandy Paton.

“Darville speaking,” he said. “I’ve just seen the paper. Only this
moment it has suddenly occurred to me that although there is paper on
the electrical terminals, yet the connection would still be made, and
the circuit completed through the screws. I hope everything went off
according to plan.”

“Everything. The machine-gun did the trick. They only had one rubber
bottle on board, but the explosion nearly blew us out of the water. It
was heard thirty miles away,” replied the officer of the Special
Branch in guarded language. Unfortunately there was no buzzer
contrivance like that in his own flat in London and in the secret
office near Trafalgar Square. Hence the conversation was compelled to
be an open one.

Darville was naturally anxious for details, and these Paton gave
briefly, but to the point.

“As you know, the new German explosive is liquid, like
nitro-glycerine, and must be carried in rubber, lest it should jar and
explode,” he said. “We allowed them to fix and submerge the stuff and
attach the little battery-boxes, and then, just as they were about to
attach the last bottle we alarmed them. They took the bottle on board
and made away up the firth as fast as they could, their idea being to
get ashore higher up and make a bolt for it in the darkness. As we
approached they fired, and I got struck in the hand, while another
bullet narrowly grazed the head of the mechanic driving us. We had an
infantryman from the barracks with us in charge of the machine-gun. I
saw that their firing was becoming very hot, therefore I gave orders
to let fly. You know the rest. There’s nothing left of the Caborns, or
their friends.”

For a moment Darville did not respond. By his watchfulness he had
relieved Britain of several dangerous enemies. The Caborns had been
exceedingly clever, but he had outwitted them, just as he constantly
outwitted those who endeavored to plot against the country.

“Listen, Paton. Search the Caborns’ house--you know where. I expect
you’ll find something interesting--letters, perhaps. And give orders
to keep watch upon the gentleman at Earl’s Court. He evidently knows a
good deal, and is, no doubt, an enemy agent. You watch his movements,
and I’ll take my own steps. Report to me by letter to Hove anything of
interest. That’s all.”

And he rang off.

A few moments later he asked for a number in London, and when he
listened, he heard that puzzling buzz, like a bumble-bee in a box, and
he knew that he was on to his office.

“Who’s there?” he asked sharply.

“Is that Mr. Darville?” inquired a voice through the buzzing. “Bennett
speaking.”

“Oh, Bennett. Just take a note that the correspondence of that person
living in Longridge Road is copied as from to-day until I withdraw the
order.”

“Very well, sir. I understand who you mean. Have you seen the papers?”
his secretary asked.

“Yes. All is well. I’ve just been speaking to Paton. I’m at Hove, so,
if there are any papers to sign, send them down this afternoon by
messenger. I shall be in at six o’clock.”

“I’ll bring them myself, sir,” replied the ex-naval officer, who had
no objection to a run down to Brighton. Secret reports from his agents
abroad, Darville never trusted in the post.

“Right, Bennett. I’ll see you at six, and you can take them back with
you. Is there anything urgent?”

“Yes, one is rather urgent. Your instructions are wanted.”

“Very well. See you this evening,” and he rang off and returned direct
to Edris.

Truly Seton Darville led a busy, active life. No day passed but he
dealt with difficult problems of investigation or espionage on
Britain’s behalf abroad. He formed plans which he instructed others to
carry out, and he received and signed reports and other voluminous
documents which were afterwards indexed and filed for future
reference. He was ever indefatigable and alert, making quick
decisions, and never departing from them once his mind was made up.

On reëntering the flat he apologized to the girl who, looking fresh
and happy in her dark pleated skirt and pale gray silk jersey, was
standing by the window.

“It is really beautiful out,” he declared. “Let’s get a car and have a
run to Chichester for lunch, eh?”

“A ripping idea!” she said, therefore he scribbled a note to a near-by
garage, and sent the maid round with it.

At eleven o’clock a fine limousine stood outside, and very soon they
were on their way through Shoreham, over the bridge, on to the open
sea-road which led to Worthing.

“You are very silent this morning, Seton. Why?” she asked presently,
as they sat side by side.

His hand fell upon hers, as though half consciously, while he turned
to face her.

“Oh, do forgive me!” he said apologetically. “I had no idea that I was
unusually quiet. I was thinking of the story I was writing last
night--that’s all.”

It was not the truth. The fact was that he was still debating within
himself the folly of the situation, and the hopelessness of ever
dreaming to possess her as his wife.

But her remark caused him to chat merrily in an endeavor to entertain
her, until at last she said, with a pretty pout upon her lips:

“You haven’t yet promised to go to Wengen, you know. And I came down
to see you on purpose to persuade you to come.”

“Dear me!” he exclaimed. “Haven’t I told you, my dear Edris, that I
can’t yet make my plans?”

“But you are surely your own master, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Of course I am,” was his reply, for he was unable to tell her of his
real position, and of how he was a voluntary and highly influential
servant of the State, and the trusted friend of the Prime Minister and
members of the Cabinet.

“Then it surely is easy for you to make up your mind. Won’t you--to
please me?” she begged of him, fixing her eyes upon his pleadingly.

His first impulse was to refuse, but in his wild longing he felt
impelled to obey her desire. How could he longer resist, loving her as
passionately as he did?

“Well, if you put it in that way, I can only say that I will certainly
do anything to please you,” he said.

“Then you’ll go!” she cried delightedly, her gloved fingers closing
involuntarily upon his hand. “You’ll go, won’t you?”

“If you really wish it.”

“You won’t be bored, eh?”

“I am never bored, Edris, when I am with you,” he answered gallantly.

“A pretty speech certainly,” she laughed. “But I wonder if you really
mean it?”

“Of course I do. Why do you wonder?”

“Oh, I don’t know! My opinion of men, and what they tell a woman, is
nowadays only a poor one.”

“I know. Because you have been deceived,” he said. “Every woman is
misled and tricked by a man at some period of her life. It is men
themselves who are the cause of women’s deceit, which, after her
disillusionment, becomes her armor.”

“I’m glad you admit it,” she laughed. “Most men won’t. They declare a
woman’s deceit to be a woman’s fault. But I hope I have never yet been
deceitful, and I sincerely trust I never shall be.”

Would she have uttered those fateful words had she known what lay in
store for her? No. When, later, she recalled them, she wished that she
had been dumb rather than express that hope.

It is good that none of us are permitted to peep into the future,
because the demons of hate and of horror would live ever with us in
all our lives. The doom of the future, the perils of our existence,
the results of the molding of our lives, are happily hidden from us by
a beneficent Providence, for, could we foresee events, our daily life
would become an unbearable nightmare.

Yet Seton Darville was possessed of an extra sense, a sense that a few
other men in the world are given, namely, an accurate and
never-failing premonition of danger. He scented instantly anything
which might detract from his own welfare, or from that of his intimate
friends. When he experienced that strange foreboding, he at once
heeded the danger-sign, and through all his life that curious,
haunting warning of evil had always been fulfilled.

The run into the old-world town of Chichester, sleepy on a Sunday,
proved a delightful one. They put up at that ancient hotel, the
Dolphin, opposite the Cathedral, and there lunched together, with a
dozen or so motorists like themselves, for the ancient hostelry is
always popular as a house of call for users of the road. After their
coffee they wandered into the great, dimly-lit cathedral, which dates
from the long-ago days when the Conqueror transferred to that spot the
see of Selsey, established three centuries before the Conquest. The
interior, sadly defaced as it was by the iconoclasts in 1643, was
silent and impressive, with its ancient monuments and stained glass.
They wandered through the choir, admired the mosaic pavement in front
of the altar, and stood behind the altar screen--upon the spot where,
for centuries, was the famous shrine of St. Richard de la
Wych--conversing in low whispers. Both were interested. Darville,
constant traveler as he was, had visited hundreds of churches and
cathedrals at home and abroad, until all sightseeing of any sort
whatsoever bored him intensely. But, as he strolled at the side of
Edris, he found himself greatly interested because of the interest
which she herself displayed. He found that she knew quite a lot about
church history, and her knowledge of ecclesiastical architecture
surprised him, for she pointed out that the nave was in the early
French Gothic style, while other parts showed traces of a transitional
Norman building of the twelfth century.

He listened with attention and interest to her intelligent chatter as
they stood in the Lady Chapel, and she pointed out how she knew that
it dated from the thirteenth century, and showed him little details to
prove her views.

“Really, Edris, you are quite an archæologist,” he laughed.

“Oh, well, I used to take a great interest in ancient churches at one
time, so they interest me,” was her reply.

They examined the old wooden chest which centuries ago had been
brought from the Saxon cathedral at Selsey by the Conqueror, and which
was near the north door, and then passed out again into the afternoon
sunshine.

“Well, really, Edris, you’re like a Cook guide!” he exclaimed. “What
you have told me is quite a revelation.”

But she only laughed, and said:

“Nothing matters to me, my dear Seton, except that you are going to
Wengen.”

Then five minutes later they were in the car, which turned towards the
market cross, the junction of the old Roman roads to the four winds,
and set out back again in the direction of Brighton.

Each hour he was with her the greater and madder became his
infatuation. He longed to tell her of his great passion, but he dare
not. He feared a rebuff; he knew her fearless, independent nature, and
those sarcastic, withering words she could use when annoyed. He had
heard her set men in their places when ski-ing in Switzerland. Hence
he hesitated lest she should laugh him to scorn--he who had loved her
in silence all those long, weary months.

So he sat at her side laughing and joking, and pretending to be
perfectly happy, yet indeed he was not, for in his heart was that
ever-present burden, the knowledge of his age, and that by it she was
debarred from him.

They arrived back at the flat shortly before six, and, as Edris passed
into her room to take off her coat, he said:

“I expect a man to call in a few minutes. You’ll excuse me, won’t
you?”

“Of course,” she said. “Shall I remain in here?”

“Oh, no,” he replied. “I have to look at some papers on the table in
my room. Sit by the fire and look at the picture paper. I won’t be
very long,” he added merrily.

Scarcely had she entered her room when the doorbell rang, and Darville
admitted his secretary, Bennett, who bore in his hand a well-worn
brown leather portfolio.

Darville placed the case upon his writing-table and unlocked it with
the tiny key upon his watch-chain, while Bennett sank into an
arm-chair.

“Well,” he asked, “what’s this important report?”

“From Stephen, in Bucharest.”

“Stephen! What is he reporting? He’s been silent for months.”

“Read it,” said the smart, well-set-up naval man. “To me it seems
highly interesting.”

Darville picked it out from the pile of papers he took from the
leather case, and which all required his scribbly signature, and,
leaning back in his chair, read it through carefully.

“H’m!” he grunted. “Yes, Bennett, I quite agree with you. Stephen has
scented yet another danger. He will want immediate assistance.
Somebody must be at Constanza. Harden is in London, and he knows the
Near East. Send him there at once, and tell him to act under Stephen’s
orders. He must leave to-morrow morning and catch the Orient Express.
I see that very big complications are likely to arise. Our friends in
Belgrade are quite loyal, but I never trust the others. The Balkans
was ever the powder-magazine of Europe. The mine exploded in 1914,
when the Sarajevo assassination plunged us into war, and, if we’re not
very careful, the Balkans will again be made the excuse for another
German attack upon us ten times more furious and more deadly than
before.”

The smart naval officer, who controlled the secret office in London in
Darville’s absence, nodded seriously, and said:

“Yes, sir, I quite agree. The whole situation is full of peril.”

“It is,” sighed Darville, who at once set himself to scribble his
signature to that pile of documents before him.

“Is there anything else that I should read?” he asked, after he had
taken up his fountain pen.

“No, sir, nothing. They only require your signature or authority. I
have dealt with the applications for instructions in your absence.”

“Yes, Bennett, always do so. I--well, I’m getting a bit tired of it, I
confess the truth. Act as you think fit whenever I am away. I know I
can rely implicitly upon you. I shall be in Switzerland shortly. I
want you to carry on in my absence, and come out to me in secret every
fourteen days.”

“Winter sports, as usual?” asked the clean-shaven, Secret Service
official.

“Yes. At Wengen, as before. You get up there from Lauterbrunnen. You
know the place, for you came out twice to me last winter.”

“Oh, yes,” laughed the faithful Bennett, “of course. I know the little
railway station, and the train which climbs around the mountain and
through those wonderful tunnels up to the Jungfraujoch. It is really
lovely there in winter.”




 CHAPTER XV.
 THE SECRET OUT

When, a quarter of an hour later, Darville let his secretary out and
rejoined Edris, he found her glancing at one of his books, which she
had taken from the long case at the end of the room.

“Oh, by the way,” he exclaimed, suddenly remembering, “I’ve never
shown you those snapshots I took when I returned to Switzerland last
April.” And from a drawer he took out a large envelope containing a
quantity of loose photographs.

“As you know, I went up the Kander Valley to Kandersteg, and to
Abelboden, and on to Brigue.”

“You were at Interlaken, also,” she added. “I wrote to you at the
Hotel du Lac, but you never replied,” she added reprovingly.

“I was traveling a great deal, and I fear I often neglect my
correspondence very sadly,” he said in lame excuse.

He drew two chairs to the round, polished table, and, after they had
seated themselves, he placed the pictures before her one after
another, explaining each. With him had traveled a Mr. Norman Gale, a
personal friend, who was a representative of that world-wide
organization that protects and assists travelers in every part of the
globe, Messrs. Thomas Cook & Son. Mr. Gale, who was known to Edris,
appeared in most of the snapshots.

One snapshot he passed by as without interest to her. It was the
picture of a smart, well-set-up young man of thirty, evidently a
foreigner, and had been taken at the edge of one of the Swiss lakes.

“Who’s that?” she asked, taking it up and looking at it. “He’s rather
nice! Is he Swiss?”

“Oh, that’s Karl Weiss, a friend of mine. Yes, he’s Swiss, and quite a
charming fellow.”

“He looks very English,” she remarked.

“He speaks English quite well,” Darville said. “But he has rather the
appearance of a German officer. He is a good climber and an expert
ski-er.”

“I’d like to meet him, if he climbs,” Edris said. “You know how I
adore mountain-climbing. I’m dying to be taught how to cut steps in
glaciers, and all that kind of mountain craft.”

“Climbing is too dangerous a sport for a woman,” he remarked.

“Not if you have a good guide and an expert male companion, as you say
your friend is.”

“He is, no doubt, a good climber, for he has done the Wetterhorn, the
Eiger, the Monch, and several other high and difficult peaks, quite
recently. But I shouldn’t care for you to go climbing, my dear child.”

“I did quite a lot of it around the Dents du Midi before I met you. I
was a student in Zürich, you know.”

“Well, when you go up to Wengen, don’t start climbing,” he urged. “It
is too great a risk.”

“Oh, that’s everybody’s cry! Father and mother are constantly dinning
it into my ears. They are always trying to extract from me a promise
not to make any more ascents, but I refuse to give my promise to
anybody, simply because I love climbing.”

He placed the photograph of Karl Weiss aside, and went on with the
others. But she drew it from the pile, and looked at it again.

“He’s just the type of a good climber,” she remarked, as though
speaking to herself.

“Oh, if you like his photograph, keep it,” he laughed merrily.

“Then I will,” she replied, placing it aside, with a light laugh. “I
don’t suppose I shall ever meet him, shall I?”

“I don’t suppose so,” he answered. “But, nevertheless, he’s a very
nice fellow,” and they continued their chatter about the pictures
taken during his motor journey through the Bernese Oberland with Mr.
Gale.

It was midnight before Edris, after Seton Darville had kissed her hand
as usual, wished him good-night and passed into her room.

Her woman’s intuition told her that she had charmed him. Yes, it was
true what other women had said, Seton was a “dear”; so kind and
sympathetic, with that old-world courtliness, the outcome of his
descent from a long line of diplomats since the elegant days of Louis
XIV. In French history the noble house of Darville had ever
distinguished itself, for its sons were notable throughout the First
Empire. The head of the Marquis Henri D’Arville had, at dawn one day,
fallen beneath the guillotine outside the Bastille amid the yells of
the revolutionary mob.

As Edris brushed her hair before the mirror that night, she suddenly
recollected the photograph which she had taken. She had placed it face
downwards upon the dressing-table. She paused, took it up, and again
examined it carefully. It happened to be a well-focused portrait.

“Yes,” she thought, “Seton says that he is charming, and I can quite
believe it. I love Switzerland and the Swiss, and I really think he is
my ideal.”

Next second she remembered Lionel, and the bitter lesson his
fickleness had taught her.

“I will never love again,” she murmured. “Never in all my life!”

And she tossed the snapshot aside, and continued brushing her dark
shingled hair until it stood out like that of a gollywog.

Meanwhile, Seton was in his room poring over a long document typed
upon thin, pale-green paper, which he had kept back for consideration
out of the big pile which Bennett had submitted to him.

All was silent. The wind, strong at sunset, had now gone down
entirely, and upon the sea was hardly a ripple. After he had digested
the long document, a report from one of his female agents in Rome, he
lit a cigarette, put on his overcoat, and went out upon the balcony to
smoke. It was half-past one in the morning, and the stillness was
absolute. A distant church clock chimed the half hour, as he sat
smoking and thinking in the chilly night.

The problem of certain clever machinations of Great Britain’s enemies
to alienate Italy from the Allies was a difficult one, and, as he sat
in the arm-chair on the balcony, he was trying to grapple with it.
But, contrary to his habit, thoughts of Edris overruled his brain. He
loved her to distraction, yet he feared to reveal the secret of his
great and all-absorbing passion.

Towards him she was very sweet and sympathetic. Her attitude was, he
knew, due to her knowledge of his parting with Elaine. She had from
the first been interested in his secret friendship with the peer’s
young wife, whose name she did not know, and now that they had parted,
her curiosity had been further aroused. Sympathy is akin to love
always, but in his case, and at his age, did the time-worn adage
really apply? He feared not. No. The whole situation was false, for,
after all, he was only clutching at the wind.

In his hard experience of life he retained no illusions of youth. He
knew that his fond dream of passion and supreme happiness would never
be realized. If he tried to win her as his wife, his efforts would
only be as those of a fool who spits against the wind. His keen
intellect had received a jar at the moment when she had placed aside
the snap of his friend Weiss.

No, he reflected, he must face the bitter truth. Only men of her own
age appealed to her. He himself was too old. And yet, after all, was
it not natural, when young hearts beat in unison?

Once again he choked down his tears. Then he reëntered the room,
pulled down the blind, and, fully alive to the fact that his great
passion was only a fond dream that could never be fulfilled, he
retired to rest.

In the room adjoining was his adored one. How he longed to place his
strong arms about her and tell her the truth of that fierce passion he
had conceived for her, and how slowly and stealthily she had stolen
into his heart. But he was, after all, a moral coward, as every man is
when facing a woman. He feared the flash of scorn in her fine eyes,
and the jeering words as to his age that would fall from her lips.

“No, no,” he muttered aloud as he lay in his bed, “she is young--and
her lover must be young. I will fade from her life, yet still remain
her firmest friend. It would be sheer madness to tell her the truth.
Lionel has caused her a revulsion against men, and naturally so. He
was a young fool, who did not know how to treat a woman. It is only
men of my age who are able to gauge a woman’s character, and to
understand their little fads and fancies, their hates and their loves.
The majority of men gauge women’s minds by their own,” he went on,
still speaking to himself. “Ah, what greater folly? A woman’s mind is
apart and unique, even though she may be married. We of the male sex
are always so inferior in our intelligence, and our general outlook
upon life is always so different.”

Next morning, as they sat at breakfast, Seton said to the girl who had
bewitched him, and who looked so fresh and charming:

“Can’t you stay longer, Edris? Do wire to your mother and ask her to
allow you to stay a day or two longer--unless, of course, you are
bored.”

“Bored!” she cried, looking across the table. “Why, how can I be when
you are so kind and delightful to me?”

“Then you will wire, eh?” he asked eagerly. “Let the week-enders go,
and then for a day or two we will be together to--to cheer each other
in our loneliness,” he ventured to add.

For some moments she made no reply. His charming manner had impressed
itself upon her. She had liked him ever since that day in Wengen when
he had so frankly told her of his friendship with Elaine, and she had
somehow felt that the liking was mutual. But, knowing his character,
she never dreamed that he was so infatuated with her.

“Do you really wish me to stay?” she asked, lifting her long, dark
lashes and peering into his eyes.

“I do, Edris. I find it very lonely here, and your company is, I
assure you, very delightful.”

“How extremely complimentary you are,” she said, with a light laugh.
“I suppose, in such circumstances, and if you are coming to Wengen, I
must obey your wishes.”

“Then we will go out and telegraph to your mother. I do hope she will
give you permission.”

“I think she will. I’m often away visiting. And I know both she and
father regard you as their friend.”

So, after breakfast, they sent the telegram to which, later, came an
affirmative reply. That day they motored over to Eastbourne, where
they lunched at the Grand Hotel on the sea-front, and, later, took
their tea at the old-fashioned White Hart, opposite the Town Hall in
Lewes, returning home in the fast-falling twilight, after a very
charming day.

Every hour he spent at her side he found her the more fascinating, and
yet more than ever there was impressed upon him that wide gulf of
years between them, that barrier which must prevent the realization of
his happiness.

Next day and the next they spent together, walking side by side twice
each day in order to exercise his pet Pomeranian. Wet or fine, in all
seasons, whenever he was at home, Bundle was Darville’s first thought,
and an hour each morning and an hour each evening he devoted to
exercising the little dog, notwithstanding how pressed with work he
might be.

On several occasions he had been very near making a confession of love
to her, but he could never summon courage to do so. He, a man utterly
without nerves or fear, independent, bold, even arrogant when the
occasion demanded an assertion of his authority, dare not tell her the
great secret of his overburdened heart.

Time after time, when she had spoken of Lionel’s fickleness, tears
welled in her beautiful eyes, and her tones betrayed what great love
she had held for him. That fact in itself caused him to hesitate, and
to fear lest she might treat him with disdain.

She, on her part, began to wonder at his exquisite gallantry, his
efforts to please her, and how constantly he looked after all the
little details for her personal comfort. He had suggested that she
should remain there. They cheered each other in their loneliness. She
now realized for the first time how terribly lonely he was now that
the mysterious Elaine--whoever she was--had gone out of his life.

Yes, they were both indescribably unhappy, and it was that fact which
was drawing them together with a strong but invisible magnetism.

On the Wednesday night they had returned rather late from the theater
at Brighton, and in her black evening gown she was seated before the
fire prior to going to bed, idly smoking a cigarette. He stood close
to her, admiring the whiteness of her beautiful shoulders and her
wonderful neck and arms, when, almost involuntarily, he placed his
hand tenderly upon her shingled head, and, bending to her ear,
whispered in a low, soft voice:

“Edris, I want to tell you a secret. May I?”

“A secret?” she echoed, starting, and turning to him. “What?”

He paused for a second, and then blurted out:

“Edris! My darling! I love you!”

“You love me!” she cried, gasping in astonishment. “I--I don’t
understand, Seton!”

“Yes, I have loved you madly, but in silence, ever since last
February! I--I can’t keep the truth from you any longer. Forgive me!”
he implored, grasping her hand and raising it passionately to his
lips. “I love you, Edris! _I love you!_”




 CHAPTER XVI.
 REVEALS THE BARRIER

Edris sat staring blankly in front of her.

Her breath came and went in short, quick gasps, and he saw that her
small, white hands were trembling. She seemed startled, even afraid.
Her lips moved, but no sound came from them.

His declaration was so unexpected that she sat dazed.

“Edris,” he exclaimed, as, with sudden impulse, he fell upon one knee
and, taking her hand, raised it to his lips. “I--I want to tell you,
darling, that ever since that day in Wengen when I was indiscreet
enough to tell you of Elaine, and you sympathized with me, I have
loved you. Nearly a year has gone since then, but I dared not tell you
the truth, because--because I knew that you loved Lionel.”

She said nothing. She seemed to hold her breath, and he felt her hand
trembling in his.

“You do not speak,” he went on in a low, soft voice. “Are you annoyed
that I should have summoned courage to tell you the truth, Edris? I
know that my love for you is forbidden on account of my age. You will
love, and--and marry a man younger than myself, and be happy. I know
it all!” he cried in desperation. “I ought not to have told you this.
I--I regret it,” he urged, his voice broken by emotion. “Forgive me,
Edris.”

Slowly she raised her pale face, and, looking shyly into his eyes,
said in a whisper:

“There is nothing to forgive, Seton.”

“Ah, but I ought to have still preserved the secret of my love for
you. It is more than love! I stifled the fire of my passion all these
months because I knew that you belonged to Lionel. I suppose it is the
knowledge that you are now free that has loosened my tongue. I don’t
expect that you can ever love a man of my age. It isn’t fair to ask
you to make such a sacrifice, darling. So I withdraw my words. I----”

“Do you really wish to withdraw?” she interrupted.

“Do I wish!” he cried despairingly. “Certainly not.”

She was silent for some moments.

“Then why do you do so?” she whispered, her head bowed again.

“Because--well, I know too well that you can never love me,” he said
in a bitter, broken voice.

She paused, and then she said: “I knew that you liked me, Seton, but I
never dreamed that you actually loved me. I confess that, after my
experience with Lionel, my faith in men is now shattered.”

“And very naturally, my darling,” he said soothingly. “You have had a
cruel and bitter disillusionment, I know. The pangs of jealousy you
have suffered must have been the very tortures of hell. I have never
experienced them, because, until now, I have never in my life loved a
woman. But, darling, believe me, I adore you. I can say no more. I
only beg your forgiveness for telling you the truth.”

“You have my forgiveness,” the girl replied, tears welling in her
great, gray eyes.

She rose to her feet slowly, and he did the same, still holding her
hand and looking into her sweet, pale face. Her bare arms and chest
were white as alabaster, and their contour exquisitely perfect.

“I thank you, Edris. I, however, dare not ask that you should love me
in return,” he said. “You are my idol, and I worship you--my adored.
But I realize only too plainly and bitterly the folly of a love that
can never be reciprocated. I love now, for the first time in all my
adventurous life. My soul is in your keeping!”

The girl listened to him in silence. Her head was still bent, her eyes
fixed upon the carpet, her white brow troubled, her eyes narrowed in
thought, and her lips trembling. She who had learnt such a hard lesson
in youth’s school of love, and had in secret vowed to have her revenge
upon every man she met, was inert and hesitating. She had listened to
declarations of love from other men’s lips on two or three occasions
when on a trip round the world. In India and on the decks of liners,
at dances, she had been courted by men, all of whom she had flouted
until Lionel came into her life. He had been her ideal. Her affection
for him had been a grand passion, but at what a cost! Her heart was
broken. She now hated men with a deep and violent hatred, and had
vowed to herself that never in all her life would she believe the word
of any man.

She raised her face to Darville’s, and the love-look she saw in his
dark eyes softened her. A moment before it had been in her mind to
have an interesting flirtation with him, because he was famous and his
manner was charming, and then to throw him over with heartless
disregard of his feelings. But in his glance she suddenly realized
that he was violently in love with her. Moreover, his passion for her
had commenced nearly a year ago, and he had resolutely abstained from
seeing her since that time because he believed her to be Lionel’s
fiancée. His silence was the act of an honorable man, if nothing
else.

Such were the thoughts which flashed through her mind at that crucial
moment.

He spoke some words, but they fell upon ears that were deaf. Her mind
was not made up. His repeated regretful references to his age did not
concern her. After her experience of Lionel’s vacillating nature and
his unstable character, she had come to prefer elderly men to those of
her own age. The young men she so constantly met in society she held
in abhorrence. She thought them all silly, inane, and egotistical,
inasmuch as they “got on her nerves,” and caused her to prefer the
society of men whose years had brought them to discretion. And Seton
Darville was one of the latter.

From the first moment of their introduction, she had liked him on
account of his unfailing courtesy and his unruffled merriment. She
regarded him as a popular figure in society, a man who had not the
slightest care in all the world. He had told her one day the romantic
story of Rene--how, when she was a little child of twelve, he had
adopted her after the sudden death of both her parents, friends of his
who had, alas! left her penniless. For fifteen years he had given her
a life of luxury, with expensive governesses, and satisfying her every
whim, for in his lonely life she was the one bright spot. But now she
had married and gone abroad, so that he was again a lonely man. His
sympathetic nature and his great heart had led him into many
liabilities which he could not afford. One of his secrets was that for
twenty years he had supported a poor bedridden woman whom he had
found, with her little child, selling matches on the Embankment. And
often he had had to send her weekly money when, as a Bohemian, his own
finances were tight.

His only reward had been a weekly letter of thanks, and of heartfelt
prayers for his future. In the heart of Seton Darville was that
old-world spirit of chivalry towards a woman that is, unfortunately,
almost extinct nowadays.

Edris Temperley knew nothing of that side of his character, any more
than she knew of his Secret Service work. She regarded him as a pet of
Society, a man who was received everywhere, and who had so many
invitations that he might live the year in and out as a visitor to his
friends.

He had told her in all deep earnestness that his soul was in her
keeping. His eyes had softened her. She realized the pain and
suffering he had gone through ever since that day amid the Alpine
snows when he had first grown to love her.

She realized that he was an outstanding man in spite of his years;
that he was strong and upright, smart without a suspicion of dandyism,
a man whose eyes danced with the joy of living and whose activity in
everything was amazing.

His soul was in her keeping! In her dazed condition she could not
realize the full meaning of those words of his. Lionel, as his
mother’s darling, with his shallowness, his inexperience of the world,
his empty chatter, combined with the modern egotism of youth, had been
all so different to the strong, upright, popular figure in the world
who now stood before her with his soft, tender hand resting upon her
shoulder.

Again their eyes met.

“I--I hardly know what to say, Seton,” she faltered, her eyes still
dimmed with tears and her voice trembling with emotion.

“Say that I may hope!” he cried, suddenly pressing her to him with his
strong arms. “Say that I may dare to love you--to win you--to make you
my wife!” he added breathlessly. “I--I love you, Edris! I adore you! I
worship you as my idol, as my ideal of all that a woman should be. My
life these past months has been all so utterly strange and
incomprehensible to me. I am in dreamland--the dreamland you have
created for me. But----”

“But what?” she asked very softly, her hand tightening upon his as she
turned her great, wide-open eyes upon his own.

“But--yes, it is but--I know that we can never marry,” he said with a
suppressed sob. “I am too old. I----”

“Seton! Please don’t say that! You are very dear to me,” she said
sympathetically. “Dearer than you realize. You are my greatest friend.
I do not admire you just because the world admires a famous man, and
because the papers praise your books, publish your photographs, and
tell the world of your doings, but because I know that--well, I don’t
really know how to express it. I know that your heart beats true. You
are my pal--one to whom I could confide any secret of my life. And
yet----”

“Well! Tell me, my darling,” he urged, drawing her closer to him.

“If I confided every secret I should arouse your anger--even your
jealousy.”

“My jealousy? How ridiculous!”

“No, my dear Seton, not ridiculous,” she declared in a low, serious
tone. “If you were jealous you would, alas! know what it means--a
living hell!”

“Well, I shan’t be, so we need not discuss it.”

He saw that the girl he adored was gradually softening towards him.

So conscious was he of the difference of their ages that he did not
press her for an answer. He simply made confession of his
all-absorbing passion, and again expressed regret that he should have
told her the truth.

Her tiny hand closed tightly upon his. Her own heart was at that
moment bursting with grief, and his unexpected words had brought her
comfort. She found that she was no longer alone in the world, for he
whom she had looked upon as a very kind friend actually loved her. It
seemed hardly credible, but she now saw quite plainly that the reason
he had so abruptly left Switzerland for Paris was because Lionel had
returned to her, and she had confessed that she was devoted to her
young lover. She realized, too, how he must have suffered, sorrowing
in silence and nursing his grief in those weeks and months of utter
loneliness. Yet for nearly five months Lionel had gone, and she, too,
had been just as lonely.

“I never dreamed that you cared for me so much, Seton,” she said,
turning her pale face again to his. “All this has come as a complete
surprise to me. I believed that the reason you refused to come and see
me was because I had in some way or other offended you.”

“It was because I could not bear to meet you, knowing that you
belonged to another,” he assured her in a deep, earnest voice. His arm
had stolen around her waist, and she stood locked in his embrace.

“You are certain--quite certain--that this is not a mere passing
infatuation?” she asked, looking at him very seriously. “I somehow
feel that you must love Elaine. What is her name? Do tell me?”

“That I am not permitted to do,” he said with regret, a firmness in
his voice that surprised her. “I took an oath some years ago that I
would never reveal her name to a soul. One day, perhaps, you will find
out. Forgive me, my darling, but I know you would never wish me to
break a solemn oath to a woman.”

She sighed. Her natural curiosity caused her to endeavor to discover
the identity of the pretty young society woman whom he admitted had
played such a prominent part in his later life. His refusal was a
rebuff, yet she could not take offense at it. In honor bound he had to
respect Elaine’s wishes.

“If I had any affection for Elaine I could never love you, Edris,” he
went on after a long pause. “And believe me, darling, you have come
into my life against my better judgment, against my will, because I
know that this sweet dream of mine is only an empty one, and can never
be realized. Love between us is forbidden. That is why I do not ask
you to try and reciprocate my affection, and ask you to love me in
return. You are young and bright, with all your brilliant life before
you. I have lived my life to the full, and have now turned to the path
which leads to old age.”

“No, no, I don’t think so!” she said cheerfully. “Why, you have far
more energy than half the young men I know. At heart you are still
youthful. Have I not remarked that a hundred times?”

Her protest pleased him. It was very sweet of her to hearten him in
that manner. Yet she had, no doubt, done so in order not to unduly
pain him, he thought.

Holding her close to him as he did, he looked into her glorious eyes,
and saw that they met his without wavering. In them was a very earnest
expression, such as he had never seen there before. He had one hand
around her waist and the other upon her bare shoulder, as he drew her
tightly to him. She remained in his embrace without any endeavor to
disengage herself. Her white chest heaved and fell, as she drew long
breaths. For fully five minutes they stood together, neither of them
speaking, so full were they both of their own thoughts.

For many months he had longed to take her in his strong arms and tell
her his secret, and that blissful moment had now come. True, she was
rather cold, and not very responsive. What, however, could he expect
of her in her present grief-stricken state of mind, her illusions
shattered by a young man who had deceived her, and her young heart
broken? Further, the words he had blurted forth had been wholly
unexpected.

He hesitated to ask if she would ever love him in return, for he
thought that such a question might sound foolish. She might laugh him
to scorn.

As she remained inert in his strong embrace a sweet smile came slowly
to her lips, a smile that proved irresistible, for he placed his hand
tenderly upon her head and, raising it towards his lips, slowly
imprinted a long, passionate caress upon her white brow.

“I love you, my darling!” he whispered in that moment of ecstasy. “I
love you! Edris, my darling, can you ever be mine?”




 CHAPTER XVII.
 BESIDE THE SEA

The week-end visit of Edris lengthened into more than a week.

Daily they walked together by the wintry sea, Bundle being carefully
led by Darville. Both were blissfully happy, though Edris had made no
response to the question he put on that night when he declared his
love. Time after time he urged her to give him his answer, but she
remained silent and undecided.

Sometimes he believed that she loved him, but feared what people might
say if she married a man of his age. He was not wealthy--far from it.
The substantial income he received from the royalties on his books all
over the world he had devoted to paying his own heavy expenses
incurred in so constantly traveling on Secret Service work.

His agents received rich emoluments at his hands, but he himself was
unpaid. To some of those unsuspected men and women, who so repeatedly
risked their liberty in Britain’s cause, he made substantial _ex
gratia_ payments out of the public funds, as recompense for their
astuteness and bravery. Many of those he employed enjoyed quite large
incomes, being regarded as persons of independent means fond of travel
and change.

Edris, unaware of the heavy burden of responsibility upon his
shoulders, frequently wondered at his sudden silence as they walked
together. At one moment he would be bright and merry, and then
suddenly become absorbed and silent.

The four days following that fateful night proved delightful to them
both. Edris found herself thinking less of Lionel’s unreliability and
his heartless shallowness. She saw in Seton Darville a strong contrast
to the young man she had adored. Lionel was slim and very
good-looking, a boy highly attractive to any girl, while Seton,
broad-shouldered and deep-chested, was growing gray. But his hard grip
was that of a strong, resolute man of the world; the look in his eyes
indulgent and sympathetic to a woman, yet to a man hard, even cold to
his friends; yet unscrupulous and bitterly revengeful to any who dared
to do him an injury.

Instead of going to the Metropole for their meals they preferred to
have them together in the flat--simple meals which Edris appreciated,
as their intimate chats could not be conducted in the glare and
garishness of the great Brighton hotel.

Each day they went forth in the winter winds by the sea. Both were
self-absorbed, he regarding her as his idol, while she was full of
wonder at the new situation so suddenly created. They grasped hands
when they thought themselves unobserved. They sat together in the
glasshouse shelters on the promenade very often, and gazed out upon
the gray, misty sea, so full of mystery and sadness.

Their hearts realized the truth that a great gulf remained between
them.

One evening, after they had taken tea at the flat, and Bundle was due
to be taken for his walk, they went forth. A tearing northeast wind
was blowing along from the direction of Brighton, and rain was
falling. Darville, true to his tradition of taking out Bundle twice a
day, went out to face the wind. Both he and Edris wore raincoats
buttoned to the throat, while Bundle, hating the wet, as all toy dogs
do, battled about in the rain, shaking his coat now and then as he
sniffed his favorite corners.

They were walking in the direction of Shoreham, with the wind behind
them, when Darville said very abruptly:

“Do you know, Edris, I fear to go to Wengen again.”

“Fear? Why?” asked the girl, walking at his side and bent against the
strong wind.

“Because I--well, I hesitate. You will be courted and flattered by
younger men. I shall sit while you are dancing and watch you in the
arms of younger men, and--and, by God! I won’t be able to bear it!”

“How silly of you, Seton!” she laughed. “In my state of disillusion,
can you ever dream that any man could attract me?”

“No. I know it. I have no charm for you.”

“Yes, my dear Seton, you have,” she cried at once. “You are older than
I am, it is true, but your vitality and your energy are--well, they
are outstanding and wonderful. The whole world, society, and the
readers of the picture-papers admire you, and agree that you will
never grow up. You are amazing.”

“But why?” he asked, linking his arm in hers as they went along. “I am
such an ordinary type of man. I have done my best, both publicly as an
author, gaining popularity all over the world, and in social circles,
which I never like; indeed, I detest them.”

“So do I,” Edris said. “You recollect how you introduced me to London
society--the fringe of it, perhaps. Your friend Beryl took me up only
because I was your friend. Those at-homes and dinners! What a dream
they were! On the first night you introduced me, I had a man vowing
eternal affection for me. Wasn’t it really funny?”

“Yes, I know,” Darville said. “I heard about it. The head of any other
girl might have been turned by those scoundrels and rogues who are the
parasites of our modern society--those wealthy old men who conceive a
passion for young girls.”

Edris was mute. It was upon her tongue to tell Seton openly that he
was one of those elderly men who attracted young girls. But next
second she hesitated. Seton Darville was a man outstanding in all the
world, a man of brains and intellect--a real caveman, such as she had
longed to meet through all her life.

The pair exchanged glances, but no word was said.

“I hate society,” she said at last. “Everyone is so artificial in the
strenuous struggle for photographs in the papers. I prefer to lead my
own life independently, and to be what I am and no more.”

“I quite agree,” he said, as they strolled together. They had turned,
and now had their faces to the cutting sea breeze.

“To endeavor to be other than one’s own self is, after all,
ridiculous,” he remarked. “I have watched, and seen, how natural you
always are.”

“I care nothing for what people think. All I want to do is to lead my
own life.”

“I admire your independence,” he said. “After I had introduced you to
society at your mother’s wish, you wrote me the truth. Do you recall
that letter you sent me after you had been to the duchess’s
dinner-party? I saw then that you, like myself, have no use for the
shams of society.”

“I love a free, unfettered life,” the girl declared. “I long to
breathe the fresh air of the Alps again, to see those wonderful
snow-clad peaks and those primeval glaciers, and to live among the
well-mannered Swiss peasants, whom I love.”

“Perhaps we will go again to Wengen,” he said. “I will try and give
you a good time, my darling--if I dare call you so.”

She gave no permission, a fact which he at once noted. Though the days
had gone since that night when he had confessed his love, yet she had
given him no hope that his dream might be realized. She tolerated him;
was, indeed, kindly disposed towards him; but that was all.

They were fast friends--lovers perhaps to the world, for no girl would
be guest of a bachelor in his rooms for over a week if they were not
lovers. Yet, in this case, they were mere pals. Their Platonic
friendship was fast cementing. He told her of his past life, and
confessed much to her, while she, on her part, laid bare the secret of
her flirtations with other men before she had met Lionel.

Those intimate talks, as they strolled beside the sea, brought them
closer to each other, while at home they were in the habit of sitting
on the big settee close to the fire, he often holding her in his
embrace.

“How strange it is!” she remarked one evening as they sat smoking
cigarettes, his arm about her waist and her face lit by the firelight
glow, prior to parting for the night. “A stranger would think we were
lovers, wouldn’t they?”

“And are we not?” he asked quickly. “Do you doubt, Edris, that I
really love you?”

“No. I really believe you do,” answered the girl frankly. “That is why
it is all so strange.”

“Because of the difference in our ages? Yes, I know, dearest,” he
sighed sadly.

“I never think of your age, Seton,” she said after a pause. “To me you
are as a young man, and I have grown to--to like you.”

“But not to love me,” he exclaimed, with bitterness in his tremulous
voice.

She turned her eyes to his, regarding him in silence for a few
seconds. Then she said in a soft whisper:

“You are mistaken. In these last few days I have found that I
reciprocate the great affection you have for me, dearest.”

“Then you really love me just a little after all!” he gasped with
delight.

“Yes, I love you more than just a little,” was her answer.

“Oh! Thank God for those words of yours, my darling!” he cried, and,
pressing her to his heart, he imprinted the first kiss upon her ready
lips, while she kissed him in return.

In the dim firelight he saw the unmistakable love-look that can never
be feigned, and knew at last that she was his.

Until far in the night they remained talking, she still held in his
strong arms, while ever and anon he imprinted fond caresses upon her
lips and upon her hands, and in those hours they began to understand
each other. Two broken hearts thus became united, and when he kissed
her good-night, and held open the door of her room, she answered in a
low, sweet voice, as her lips met his:

“Good-night, my beloved.”

Next day they both went to London, and Seton accompanied her from
Euston and saw her safely home to Stagsden Hall, which was situated
about three miles from Thurnby, in Leicestershire. Edris’s big blue
open car met them at the station, and quickly took them up the hill to
General Temperley’s fine house, which stood in extensive grounds,
commanding a magnificent view of woods and pastures.

The moment they entered the gates, Lord Simba, a magnificent brindle
Great Dane, bounded across the lawn to greet his young mistress, who
descended to pet him, while, a few moments later, Darville entered the
great paneled lounge, where he was warmly welcomed by the General and
Mrs. Temperley.

“At last Edris has prevailed upon you to visit us again, Darville!”
cried the General with pleasure. “I’m so delighted to see you.”

“And I’m delighted to be here. But I’ve simply brought Edris home. I’m
sorry that I can’t remain this time, but I have some very pressing
business in town to-morrow, so I can only stay the night,” said their
visitor apologetically.

Darville was very fond of the General because of his breezy manner and
unfailing good humor, even though he now lived in retirement, while
Mrs. Temperley, a good-looking and well-preserved woman, was of that
intellectual type which appealed to him.

When Edris had shown him to his room, and he began to dress for dinner
he wondered what the girl’s parents would say if they knew their
secret. At present they had agreed to conceal the truth, therefore
whatever affection they showed each other was in strict secrecy.

The house was a large, well-appointed, modern one, with fine, lofty
rooms and long windows, extremely comfortable and well planned. Both
the drawing-room, the morning-room, and, indeed, all the rooms, showed
Mrs. Temperley’s exquisite taste, while her own boudoir was a
delightful little snuggery, and Edris’s own white enameled room, the
walls of which were literally covered with pictures of Switzerland and
Swiss winter sports, was charming.

At dinner that night Edris announced to her parents that she had
succeeded in inducing Seton to go to Switzerland, and they arranged a
date for their departure.

“I’ll see our mutual friend Gale to-morrow and book everything,” he
said, whereupon Mrs. Temperley expressed regret that they were unable
to go because of the General’s health.

“I know, however,” she added, “that Edris will be quite safe in your
hands.”

“Oh, I’m delighted to look after her,” he said, glancing across at the
girl. “It is rather dull for her alone when all the other girls appear
to have men friends.”

“Yes, Seton. You were awfully good to me last season.” She did not
refer to the fact that he had left suddenly for Paris. She had never
mentioned it to her mother. Indeed, both the General and his wife were
under the impression that she still loved Lionel. “You introduced me
to lots of nice people.”

“And I hope to do so again,” he said cheerily. “I’ll meet you at
Victoria, as before, and we will put our baggage together and book it
through. Be there at half-past twelve, and we’ll lunch together at the
Grosvenor before starting.”

“Excellent. We leave on the twentieth, and spend Christmas at Wengen,
as before,” said the girl, and so full of enthusiasm was she that
before retiring that night she got out her smart new ski-ing costume,
with its breeches, stockings, ski-ing boots, and waterproof gloves,
and laid them out in readiness for packing.

Once again they were both going to that marvelous wonderland of
snow-peaks and glaciers which they both loved so well.

They were so blissfully happy in their new-found affection--that
great, indescribable passion which now consumed them both--that upon
the horizon of their sea of life no cloud appeared.

They lived for each other alone, careless of the world, careless of
everything. Indeed, next day Darville found it impossible to tear
himself away from her, and it required no persuading on her part to
induce him to stay still another twenty-four hours.

And on that day they walked with Lord Simba through the woods in the
direction of Theddingworth, where there was none to witness their
long, passionate embraces.




 CHAPTER XVIII.
 STOLEN SWEETS

In the following week Edris came to London and stayed at her club,
but spent the greater part of each day at Seton’s rooms, and each
night going to the theater and afterwards to supper at the Savoy or
Carlton. For six blissful days they were inseparable. Then he saw her
off at Euston again.

They met in due course at Victoria five days before Christmas, and, as
he had to go to his club for letters, they took a taxi to St. James’s
Street. While in it she pressed into his hand a little packet, saying:

“This is just a little souvenir for you, my beloved,” and he saw again
that wonderful love-look in her splendid eyes.

On opening it he found it to be a new and very useful form of
matchbox.

He kissed her fondly for it, and read the little Christmas card which
lay within the packet. The words were charming. Truly she loved him.

Full of happy enthusiasm, they later on entered the Pullman in the
Continental express, and joined the Yuletide rush to Switzerland for
winter sports. Edris looked very attractive and charming as she sat at
the little table before him in her cloche hat and rich fur coat, and,
on their arrival at Dover, Mr. Hatton, the popular station-inspector,
came forward and greeted them, for he was an old friend of Darville,
constant traveler that he was. Hatton walked with them to the boat,
and stood chatting until the last moment. Then he raised his cap and
went ashore, while next moment the vessel cast off.

The sea was rather stormy that evening, but Edris was an excellent
sailor, having traveled much; nevertheless, on landing, they both
appreciated the cozy warmth of the Calais-Interlaken express, and
enjoyed their dinner in the restaurant-car. With them were several
young people who were _habitués_ of Wengen, and these they greeted
merrily, for the winter sports crowd is always a youthful and jolly
one.

That night, as Darville lay in his sleeping berth, with a young Oxford
undergraduate occupying the upper place, he reflected, and found that
he was happier than ever he had been in all his life. At last he
loved, and Edris, whom he adored, loved him truly. She had disregarded
their difference of age, and had become devoted to him. They had been
unable to kiss in public before they had separated for the night, but
she had squeezed his hand, and the look in her wonderful eyes was
all-sufficient.

As the train roared on in the night across those wide plains, where
half-filled trenches and rusty barbed wire still remain as mute
evidence of the storm of battle, he dropped off to sleep, and they
were already nearing the Swiss frontier when he awoke.

They breakfasted together, and afterwards, when the beds were unmade
and the compartment turned into a little _salon_, the undergraduate
joined his party, and Edris came and sat with him, eating some oranges
he had bought at Belfort.

“In the night I have been thinking of a pet name for you, darling,” he
said presently. “In Tuscany, where I spent my childhood days, we have
a term of endearment--carina, or dear little one. May I call you my
Carina?”

“Carina?” she repeated. “Yes, if you like. And I will call you Seti,
an unusual name.”

“Yes, I know,” he said. “Short for Seton, eh?” And he laughed merrily.

Four hours later the train slowly pulled up at the central station at
Interlaken before proceeding to Interlaken-East, which is the gateway
to the Bernese Oberland, the Jungfrau, and the other giant Alps.

Suddenly, as Darville glanced at the platform, he saw two men he knew.
They were Mr. Haller, proprietor of the Hotel du Lac at the East
Station, and one of the most popular men in the Canton of Berne, and
Mr. Reichel, of the Information Bureau of Interlaken, who had come to
the train to greet their English friends and welcome them back to
Switzerland.

In a few moments they were both in the compartment shaking hands. A
few seconds later, however, they were followed by a third and younger
man, of military appearance, tall, athletic, clean-shaven, dressed in
a dark gray suit.

“Why, my dear Weiss!” cried Darville. “You! What a pleasant surprise!”
And he shook the young man’s hand warmly.

“I’m staying here with my mother,” said Weiss, in excellent English.
“I heard from Mr. Reichel that you were coming, so I thought I would
greet you.”

“Splendid!” Darville exclaimed enthusiastically. “I’m awfully glad to
see you again! I’ll see you up at Wengen, I hope.”

The good-looking young Swiss glanced at Edris, who had already
recognized him by the photograph in her possession. And at that moment
Darville introduced them.

Weiss clicked his heels in true military fashion, and bowed before
her.

“I have heard of you as a lover of our Switzerland, Miss Temperley,”
he said. “I am so delighted to make your acquaintance. So you are
going up to Wengen, eh?”

“Yes. We were there last year,” she replied, her gray eyes dancing as
they met his.

“I hope you’ll come up and see us,” said Darville. “I’ll write to
you.”

“I shall be most delighted to come.”

“You’re a good skier. You’ll be able to take Miss Temperley for a run
or two.”

“Certainly,” he said. “It will be with great pleasure.”

As they were speaking the train moved across the town to the East
Station, where the change would be made into the rack railway which
runs up the valley to Lauterbrunnen, where another train climbs up the
side of the Wengernalp to Wengen, and on up to the towering Jungfrau.

While Darville was chatting with his friends, Haller and Reichel,
Edris stood in the corridor talking to Karl Weiss. Darville heard them
laughing merrily together. Ten minutes later all descended from the
_wagon-lit_ and crossed to the Hotel du Lac opposite the station, one
of the most popular of all the hotels in Switzerland, where the genial
Walter Haller ordered a bottle of champagne in honor of his friends
Darville and Edris Temperley.

They raised their glasses to each other as they stood in the lounge,
and then returned to the electric train for Lauterbrunnen. It was
already full of English folk, but places for Darville and his
companion had been reserved.

As soon as they had left the station, after much hat-raising, Darville
turned to the girl and asked:

“That meeting with Karl was quite unexpected. What do you think of
him?”

“Oh, I think him quite nice,” she replied, without apparent interest.
“Are you inviting him up?”

“Yes, darling,” he said, lowering his voice so that the others might
not hear, for there is no privacy in a Swiss railway-carriage. “It
struck me that he might go ski-ing with you, and amuse you. He’s a
good climber, and a good dancer. And I want you to enjoy yourself, as
you know,” he added honestly.

“It’s awfully good of you, Seti,” she said. “I like him, and I’m sure
he could take me for some lovely ski-runs. He’s Swiss, and these
mountains are his home.”

“Very well. I’ll write to him to-morrow,” said Darville, and, as the
train slowly ascended the picturesque valley, with deep snow
everywhere, in contrast to the rain and darkness of the English
December they had left, they were filled with anticipation of a gay
time amid the snows a mile high from sea-level.

At Lauterbrunnen they changed into the mountain railway, and presently
the train began to creep up the side of the mountain over many
viaducts and through many tunnels cut with marvelous skill by the
Swiss engineers, who are the most famous in all the world for the
construction of mountain railways. The Wengernalp railway, combined
with the highest railway in the world--up the Jungfrau to that
wonderful hotel cut out of the solid rock near the summit--are marvels
of engineering unequaled.

It was nearly six o’clock ere they arrived at the splendid Palace
Hotel at Wengen, which shares with the beautiful Regina the best
clientèle. The rooms they had in the previous winter season had been
reserved for them, and before they dressed for dinner they had both
found their party, and settled down, resuming the gay life they had
led during the past winter.

As Darville descended the stairs after the gong had gone he met Mr.
Burckard, the handsome young proprietor, who was, indeed, often in
London.

“Ah, my dear Mr. Darville!” cried the dark-haired Swiss, whose father
had kept the hotel until his death. “I was looking for you. Welcome
back. I wish you and Miss Temperley a good season ski-ing. Mr. Gale
wired me about your rooms, and, of course, I kept them for you. My
mother asks if, after dinner, you will both come and take coffee with
us?”

“Lots of thanks. I’ll be charmed, I want to hear how you got on last
summer, and what has happened down in Interlaken, where you have a
villa.”

“I’ll tell you everything. We’ll have a nice long chat presently,”
said the well-groomed young man. “Go along, and enjoy your dinner.”

And, as Edris descended the stairs at that moment, Mr. Burckard took
her hand in warm welcome, and bent over it.

Notwithstanding the fact that they were tired, they spent an hour with
Mrs. Burckard, a charming lady, and her son, and afterwards Edris
danced till midnight.

As, later on, she sat with Darville in a corner of the lounge, sipping
the usual “nightcap” she took in Switzerland, an orangeade, she looked
across the little _table-à-deux_ and said:

“Is it not delightful to be back here in this glorious country once
again, Seti, my beloved--and with you?”

For answer his hand stole beneath the table and grasped hers tightly.

Next day, as they strolled through the snowy streets down to the
skating rink, with its perfect surface, whereon was a crowd of
merry-makers of both sexes in their bright-colored sports suits, he
said:

“The day after to-morrow will be Christmas Eve. I want to go down to
Interlaken to see one or two friends. Would you like to go?”

“Oh, how jolly, Seti,” she replied instantly. “I love Interlaken.”

“Very well, darling, we’ll go down for the day,” he said.

Hence, early on the following morning, they descended by the little
mountain train to the picturesque valley at Lauterbrunnen, and about
half-past ten arrived at Interlaken, where Karl Weiss was awaiting
them.

“I heard that you were coming down,” he said, raising his felt hat.
“So I thought I’d meet you.” And then he greeted Edris, and shook her
hand.

They walked about the town together till noon, when they entered a
hotel near the Central Station kept by a friend of Darville’s. The
proprietor greeted them warmly, and ushered them up to his private
sitting-room, a large apartment overlooking the principal street.
Another Swiss friend, well known to Edris, had joined them, and
_apéritifs_ were brought.

Edris, passionately fond of music, having been trained by some of the
best masters of the piano in Europe, seated herself at the piano, and
began to play several of the latest fox trots. Meanwhile, Darville
noticed that at the further end of the room there was suspended from
the electrolier a large bunch of mistletoe.

In a spirit of mischief, and without dreaming of the consequences, he
pointed it out by gesture to Karl, who laughingly ordered the drinks
to be put upon a small table immediately beneath it.

Then, when Edris had finished, Darville exclaimed:

“Won’t you come over here and have your vermouth?”

She accepted the invitation, and, crossing to an arm-chair, utterly
unconscious of the mistletoe directly above her, she sank into it and
took up her glass.

Ere she was aware of it Darville had bent over her and kissed her, an
action followed next moment, before she could extricate herself, by
Karl Weiss. Then both men roared with laughter at her confusion.

“No, really!” she protested, starting up. “That isn’t fair! I never
noticed it up there. Seti, you’re an infernal brute--and as for Mr.
Weiss--well--it’s quite horrid!” And she turned her laughing eyes upon
him, really quite enjoying the joke, even though appearing highly
indignant.

They all walked back along the broad, tree-lined Höheweg, the
principal boulevard, which, lined on one side by huge hotels, is open
to the other with gorgeous views of the high, snow-clad Jungfrau and
the other mountains of the same chain. Weiss and Edris walked in
front, while Darville and his elderly friend, Müller, walked behind,
until they arrived at the Hotel du Lac, where all four lunched
together, the good-humored Mr. Haller joining them at coffee.

At one o’clock each day in winter, when the express from Calais comes
in, the Hotel du Lac is besieged by a crowd of hungry English
travelers, most of whom are known to the smiling, dark-haired,
well-groomed Herr Haller, whose fame for geniality and good fellowship
has been carried by travelers to the uttermost corners of the world.

Luncheon ended, they went into the lounge, when Mr. Müller said to
Darville:

“There is a thing unique here, up on the side of the mountain--an ibex
park. The ibex is becoming extinct in Switzerland, so our Government
have established a sanctuary in order to preserve them in their
natural mountain home. Why don’t you go up and see it?”

“It means climbing. I suppose,” Seton said, as he leaned back in the
wicker chair, smoking comfortably after his meal.

“Yes, a bit. But it’s most interesting.”

Darville laughed and shook his head. “I have to go across to the
railway manager’s office to get my season ticket renewed,” he said.
“That’s rather more important.” Then, turning to Edris, he added, “I
won’t be long. Wait for me, and we’ll go back into the town together.”

Müller left to go home as Darville crossed the road and passed along
to the railway office. He was only there ten minutes, but when he
returned to the hotel the _concierge_ informed him that the lady had
gone out with Herr Weiss.

This struck him as strange. But he strolled back to the town feeling
that they had gone down to the stationer’s, as Edris wanted some
notepaper. There he learned that they had not been seen, so he went to
various shops where he thought they might go, but all to no avail. So
when evening was closing in he hurried back to the East Station to
catch the last train back to Wengen, utterly mystified at the sudden
disappearance of his beloved.

He was in ignorance of what had really happened. The instant he had
gone his friend Weiss, the man whom he had befriended and whom he
trusted, suggested to Edris that they should go together to see the
ibex, and she hesitatingly consented. They climbed the hill, saw the
sure-footed little animals springing from rock to rock, and then
returned to the hotel. Seton had not returned, for he was eagerly
searching for them in the town, so Karl suggested that they should
walk along the edge of the blue lake of Brienz, which they did.

And on the way he slowly took her hand in his. At first she withdrew
it. But presently she allowed it to rest there, until, suddenly,
before she was aware of his intention, he had taken her in his arms
and kissed her on her lips.

“No!” she cried. “It is not fair! You have taken me at a
disadvantage!”

But he only laughed, and together they walked back to the station,
where to Darville, eager and anxious, they made excuses.

Edris entered the compartment which Darville, greatly annoyed, was
already occupying, and, as the train moved off, he, in entire
ignorance of what had occurred, bade Weiss a warm good-by, inviting
him up to Wengen on the day following Christmas.

When the train had left, and they were alone, he turned to Edris, and
said:

“I really think, dearest, that you ought not to have gone away from me
this afternoon. I only crossed the road, and as soon as I had gone you
escaped me with Karl.”

“I’m really awfully sorry, darling,” she said, the other man’s kiss
still upon her lips. “But we couldn’t find you, so he was just
pleasant to me--that’s all. He is a really good friend of yours, and
speaks so well of you. I hope you are not annoyed, my dearest. You’re
not jealous now, are you? Karl is going to Canada almost directly. Did
he tell you so?”

“Yes,” Darville said. “He can’t get a job here, it seems, so he has
decided to go to Canada.”

And at that moment they stopped at Zweilütschinen, the little
junction for Grindelwald, and private conversation was no longer
possible, for others were in the carriage.




 CHAPTER XIX.
 ’MID SNOW AND SUNSHINE

After breakfast next morning, while Darville was busy writing in his
room, Carina, as he now called her, knocked and entered.

She crossed to where he sat at his table and, bending, kissed him
fondly.

He turned and saw that she was wearing one of her smart ski-ing
costumes, a dark blue coat and breeches, with scarlet tam-o’-shanter,
stockings, gloves, and scarf to match. Her merry face, with its dark
fringe of shingled hair beneath her jauntily-set cap, gave her an
almost rakish appearance.

“I’m going out for a run with the Bayntons and Mr. Younger. Do you
mind?” she asked.

“Certainly not, darling,” he replied. “But be careful. The snow is not
very good to-day.”

Slowly her arms crept round her lover’s neck, and, as she stood behind
his chair, she said:

“Before I go, dearest, I want to tell you how sorry I am about
yesterday. Do tell me you are not annoyed or jealous.”

“Not of Karl,” was his prompt reply. “I want you to have a good time,
darling, and, as he is younger than myself, he can take you ski-ing on
Boxing Day.”

“Perhaps he’ll take me climbing. He is an expert, and I want so much
to go up the north side of the Männlichen.”

He shook his head, saying: “I’ve heard that it is a difficult ascent
in winter.”

“But do let me try, Seti. May I ring up Karl and ask what he thinks?”

Darville hesitated. She seemed somehow to be already on very good
terms with his young Swiss friend, he thought, recollecting the
curious way in which they had disappeared on the previous afternoon.

“Darling, I do not wish to stand in the way of any of your little
pleasures. Do what you wish, only be discreet in everything. That’s
all!”

“You’re a dear old Seti!” the girl cried joyfully, as she again kissed
him fondly.

“Now I’ll leave you to your work,” she said. “But mind you make time
to go out for a walk with me after lunch.”

And she left him.

When she had gone he rose in agitation, and, crossing to the window,
looked out upon the snow-clad landscape, with its gorgeous background
of gigantic mountains. The sun was shining brightly, the sky was blue
and cloudless, and through the open window came the merry shouts of
young people enjoying themselves on the skating rink, and the strains
of the orchestra upon the ice. As he gazed forth he wondered whether
he had done right in inviting Karl for a day or two. He had done it
entirely in Edris’s interest, so that she might have a companion of
her own age, and when he reflected, he at last laughed his own
misgivings to scorn.

He knew full well the great love she entertained for him--an affection
as deep as his own. It would be humanly impossible for Karl Weiss, his
friend, to steal her heart.

So he reseated himself, and resumed his work. Till noon he wrote
incessantly, and then, putting on his Fair Isle jersey and heavy
ski-boots, he went forth to the front of the hotel and smoked a
cigarette on the terrace.

Presently, with a bevy of girls and three or four young men, all on
skis, Edris returned flushed and laughing, declaring that they had
enjoyed a heavenly run. She lived the whole year round for winter
sports and her annual visit to the snowy Alpine slopes, and, as she
sat with him at lunch, she described all that they had done.

“I’ve telephoned to Karl,” she said presently. “And he is bringing up
his rucksack and climbing-boots. You’ll let me go, Seti, won’t you?”
she asked in a low, wheedling voice.

“If you wish, Carina,” he said, though he now deeply regretted that he
had invited the young fellow. “Only take care. You must have John, the
guide, with you.”

“Is that really necessary? Karl says it is quite an easy climb, and he
knows the way quite well.”

Her words struck him that they wished to go alone.

“No,” he said; “you must have a guide. You are in my charge, and if
anything happened the General and your mother would never forgive me.
You know how they hate you to run risks in climbing.”

“Well,” she replied with a pretty pout, “I really think John quite
unnecessary, and I know that Karl does. But, of course, darling, it is
for you to decide,” she added smiling.

He looked into her trusting eyes, wondering deeply, yet loving her
passionately, and determined that she should have a good time while on
her winter holiday. Her days were, he knew, very dull in
Leicestershire, and he decided that, of all the women he had met, he
had least cause to distrust her.

Karl was a Swiss--tall, upright and strong--though he knew that he was
one of those irresponsible young men who dangled after women, and who
was by no means straight as far as affection was concerned. He
recollected that secret report which had passed before his eyes in
London. Yet when he reflected, he felt that no man, being a friend,
would betray him. He gauged Karl by his own standard of honesty and of
loyalty towards a friend.

So again he dismissed his suspicions, and, after lunch, Edris came to
his room, as was her habit, and, in the deep arm-chair, enjoyed one of
those “Blue Point” cigarettes which every winter sports lover knows so
well.

Later, they strolled out together through the little wood outside the
town. Snow lay everywhere, and all the seats were covered to a depth
of six inches or more. Darville cleared one with his steel-pointed
stick, and they sat down in the silence to chat.

“To-morrow we are sure to have great fun,” he said. “We always have a
gay Christmas here, when I, on behalf of the proprietor, have to wish
everybody a merry Christmas. It has become quite an institution.”

“Yes,” she laughed. “There is always howling and comic remarks when
the _maître d’hôtel_ strikes the big gong for silence. And then the
fancy-dress ball afterwards. I’ve brought my chicken costume. You saw
it in London--all yellow feathers.”

“That’s splendid! I’ve got my Swiss yodeler’s velvet coat trimmed with
red and silver, and the yodeler’s cap, the same as worn by the
Yodelers’ Club in Interlaken.”

As they sat upon the seat, he in his winter sports kit, with the jazz
pattern jersey, breeches, and dark blue peaked ski-cap with the badge
of the Swiss Alpine Club--that great international organization which
keeps up the huts and refuges upon the mountains--and she in her neat
ski-ing costume of navy blue and scarlet, they held each other’s
hands, as lovers do.

Suddenly he said to her:

“Carina, I want to speak to you, here in this lovely Swiss loneliness
that we both love so well. I want to be quite frank with you. I know
I’m very foolish. But I--I’m terribly hurt!”

“Hurt, my darling! Whatever do you mean?” she cried in genuine
surprise.

“Well, I know that I ought not to mar your fun, because you are here
to enjoy yourself, and, further, I promised you, when we agreed to
love each other, that I would never be a wet blanket, and yet----”

“Yet, what?” she asked, gripping his hand. “What is worrying you, Seti
darling? Tell me.”

He looked straight into her gray eyes, and in a deep, intense voice
said:

“I fear that Karl Weiss is coming into your life, Carina!” And with
trembling hands he gripped her wrist as he spoke, and his hard,
determined face was close to hers. “I always have an uncanny
premonition of danger in whatever concerns myself. Hitherto, I have
felt it when--well, no matter--when I’ve been in danger. And I have it
now. But--but can I blame you?” he asked, his voice choked by emotion.
“You, my darling, are young--his age--and--and----”

“My darling Seton!” she cried, throwing her arms about his neck and
kissing him passionately, for there was no one there to see. “How very
foolish of you! You surely do not think that I, loving you as I do,
and having promised to marry you, could ever betray you! Why, it is
inconceivable.”

“Yes, I know,” he said next moment, with a sigh. “Forgive me, darling.
But, though I want you to have a good time and enjoy yourself, you
must not play with fire. I somehow--how, I cannot describe--feel that
you are slowly slipping away from me, that our love is not
staple--that you--that you prefer a younger man, and that Karl, being
Swiss, is your ideal.” And he choked down a sob.

“How very ridiculous!” cried the girl, her hand tightening on his.
“Have I not told you a hundred times that no man shall ever come
between us? I swear it! I am yours, my beloved. You give me permission
to enjoy myself, and that if I have a mild flirtation you will forgive
me, eh?”

“Why, certainly, darling. In life it is always give and take, if we
are both to be happy. But always be discreet, my beloved. Remember
that, whatever blandishments you have from other men, you are
mine--and only mine,” he added, a fierce passion showing in his eyes.

“Darling,” she said, kissing him upon the lips, “I’m yours. Only do
trust your Carina, won’t you? You said you would. We have both been
disillusioned, and are now united because of our own broken hearts.
You can surely trust me. I like Karl--that’s all!”

Darville sat silent, his dark brows contracted. He, a strenuous,
intellectual worker, determined and purposeful with initiative and
inventive ability, his heart as that of a child, and yet with the
bitterest revenge against his enemies, regarded her in silence. He was
never moved from a decision when morally convinced that he was right,
and his temperament always set sound judgment above ambition.

“Yes, darling,” he said at last, “of course, I trust you. I know that
you will never deceive me. If you did, then--well--my life would be
ended. You know how I adore you.”

“And I adore you, too, Seti, just as devotedly as you adore me.”

“Then don’t let us discuss it further,” he said, pressing her to him,
and imprinting on her lips a long, passionate caress.

And afterwards they continued their walk.

Next day was Christmas--a real, old-fashioned, gay Christmas, the
delights of which are known to every winter sports enthusiast. The
Yuletide dinner, with its big, illuminated Christmas tree, was
followed by a fancy-dress ball, at which Darville, having made his
Christmas speech, helped to judge the prizes. Everyone wore fancy
costume, and at midnight Darville stopped the dancing, and brought up
the judges to decide upon the best and most original dresses.

He saw little of Edris, who danced all night with various partners,
for she was always popular, being an excellent dancer.

At nearly four o’clock Darville found her ensconced in a corner with
one of her partners, drinking orangeade and nibbling potato chips.

“I’m coming, Seton,” she cried. “I thought you’d gone,” she added with
a laugh. As a matter of fact, she was waiting for him to say
good-night, as was her habit.

Next morning, though everybody lay in bed until late, Karl Weiss was
shown into Darville’s room while he was dressing. He had left
Interlaken soon after seven, and, as he entered, a tall, clean-shaven
figure of the exact type of a Prussian officer, he laughed merrily,
saying:

“Well, it’s awfully good of you to invite me, Mr. Darville! I’ve only
a week or so longer here at home in Switzerland, and I’m making the
best of it.”

“Naturally,” said the burly Englishman warmly.

At that moment Edris burst into the room, bright and buoyant.

“I only heard from the _concierge_ this moment that you had arrived,
Karl! We are going up the Männlichen to-morrow, aren’t we? Seton
insists on John, the guide, going with us.”

“Well, if he does, why should not John carry our rucksack?” replied
the tall, good-looking Swiss.

Throughout that day Edris and Karl were inseparable. They went out
ski-ing till noon, and when they sat at the table they were absorbed
in each other’s conversation. Yet Seton Darville, man of the world
that he was, regarded the friendship only as that of an English girl
who loved Switzerland being attracted by a gallant Swiss mountaineer.

How was it possible, he asked himself, that she, his beloved, could
forget those vows she had made only so short a time before? If she
did, then he had no further trust in any woman. He had had none till
she became his idol. He worshipped at her shrine, and so sacred was
she, that he could never bring himself to doubt her.




 CHAPTER XX.
 THE REFUGE HUT

Next day, soon after dawn, Edris and Karl set out to climb the
Männlichen, accompanied by the young guide, John Zuber, a sun-tanned
Alpine expert, who always went with Edris on her ski-runs if she were
alone.

Seton had breakfasted with the pair, after which Edris made excuse to
go upstairs, and at once went to Darville’s room.

He took her in his strong arms, and, pressing her to him, kissed her
passionately, and in a low, earnest voice said:

“I hope, my darling, you will have a pleasant day. I shall be very
lonely without you. But, as you know, I like you to enjoy yourself.
Don’t go to any dangerous places, will you?”

“Of course I shan’t,” replied the girl. “John has made the ascent
dozens of times, and Karl has been up twice before.”

“You know I would give anything to prevent you going--I----”

“Because you are just a little jealous of Karl? Tell the truth, Seti,”
she said in a tantalizing tone. “I remember what you told me the other
day.”

“I told you that I somehow felt that now Karl has come into your life
you are slipping away from me--and I repeat it!”

“Oh, don’t be so silly!” she replied, stroking his cheek with her
hand. “You know I love you--and only you. But if you really don’t want
me to go with Karl I’ll make an excuse that I don’t feel well enough.”

“No, no, darling. Go,” he urged. “But do not forget that, though he
may flirt with you, you are mine, and mine alone.”

“Trust me. I shall not forget, Seti,” she answered fervently, looking
straight into his face with honesty mirrored in her great, gray eyes.
And again she kissed him passionately upon the lips, saying: “You can
surely trust me, Seti, now that you know that I am yours.”

“I suppose I’m foolishly jealous,” he laughed.

“Why, of course you are! And John is coming with us,” replied the
girl. “Really, Seti, you are behaving quite foolishly. But he is
waiting. I must go.”

She was already dressed in serviceable cord breeches and
climbing-boots, a wind-jacket secured by a leathern belt, and upon her
shingled head her scarlet tam-o’-shanter. Hers was a smart, striking
figure, tall, upright, and athletic. She loved climbing, and was
looking forward to an enjoyable day.

She hurried down the stairs, where Karl awaited her, while John was
outside, laden with a heavy rucksack filled with provisions and
first-aid appliances; across his shoulder was a rope, and in his hand
an ice-ax.

Two minutes later the trio, laughing merrily, left Darville standing
at the door of the hotel.

“We shall be home before dark!” Edris shouted back to her lover,
waving her hand in farewell.

Darville watched them down the snowy road with mixed feelings. The sun
had just risen from behind the serrated snow-peaks, and the sky was
bright and unclouded, with all signs of a brilliant day. In the high
Alps in winter the sun is often amazingly hot all day, with a
deep-blue sky, deeper than that of the Riviera. There, in those high
altitudes above the clouds of winter, though it may be cold, the sun
is brilliant, and the air as invigorating as champagne.

Darville stood gazing blankly along the road for a long time after
they had passed out of sight. He felt that the sun of his life had
gone out.

John had pointed out a certain spot upon the snowy mountain-side which
they would pass about noon, and where, by the aid of his
micro-telescope, he could see them. It was then half-past eight. He
would have to wait some hours before he could catch a glimpse of them.
He sighed, and, turning back, reëntered the hotel, and ascended to
his room. Obtaining his telescope, he went on to the balcony and
focused it upon the far-off rock up which they would climb--a
dangerous and difficult ascent. By the aid of the powerful instrument
he could discern the rock quite plainly.

Returning, he seated himself at his table and commenced his day’s
work.

But he found that he could think of nothing but the apparent change
that had so suddenly come over Edris. Loving her as deeply as he
did--for she was the first woman he had loved in all his adventurous
life--he felt confident that she would never betray him. Elaine he had
never loved. It was the truth he had told her. Through all those years
of her youth she had been his firm friend, but the slightest spark of
passion had never existed between them. Edris was his first love, and
when love comes for the first time to a man of middle age it is a
deep, trustful, and abiding passion.

For a long time he sat with his fountain pen in his hand, without
writing a single word. Suddenly he put it down, and, rising, went to
the window, looking wistfully at the mountain.

“Yes!” he said aloud to himself. “Edris is right. It is absurd to be
jealous. I have never known what jealousy is, and I never shall.”

And with those words he choked down the suspicion which was arising
within him, and applied himself to his work until nearly noon, when he
put down his pen and took his telescope out upon the balcony.

For over an hour he remained there, constantly watching, but nobody
appeared. He saw a chamois in the vicinity of the rock, and the animal
remained undisturbed.

As he sat alone at luncheon there were many inquiries as to Edris’s
absence, for she was ever a popular figure at winter sports. His reply
was that she had gone climbing. He went back to his room determined
that what Edris had vowed before leaving was honestly meant. She, who
now loved him so truly, could never deceive him. It was utterly
impossible. The very thought of such a thing was ridiculous.

What, however, could he have thought had he been present on the
mountain-side, and seen and heard the truth?

The trio passed the rock which John had indicated half an hour earlier
than he had expected, and at half-past one reached the little shelter
hut near the summit, where the food was unpacked and served out.

All the time during the climb the pair had called each other by their
Christian names, and John, to his surprise, saw by their actions and
conversation that they were lovers. He knew that the young lady was
usually with Mr. Darville, but, of course, he, like others, never
suspected Darville to be in love with her. Herr Weiss, who was Swiss
like himself, was, no doubt, Miss Temperley’s admirer. John had been
out with many loving couples, and he knew his place. Therefore, as
soon as they had eaten their meal, he moved away discreetly to allow
them to be alone.

“We shall descend in half an hour,” he said as he left them.

“All right, John,” replied Edris. “It’s lovely up here. Do let us stay
as long as we may.”

“Well, three-quarters of an hour, Miss Temperley,” said the stalwart
Swiss. “We shall then get home just at dark”; and he turned away.

“Isn’t it perfect?” she exclaimed to Karl as she stood outside the
hut, gazing around at the adjoining peaks.

“As perfect as you are, Edris,” he said, taking her hand and kissing
it.

“No,” she said. “Please don’t do that. Have I not told you that I am
engaged to Seti? It isn’t fair to him.”

“But he’ll never know,” he laughed. “Let’s sit upon this rock. You
must be very tired.”

“I am a little. That last hour was very strenuous.”

“Edris,” he said, taking her hand as they sat together and looking
into her eyes, “are you really engaged to Seti?”

“I’ve told you so a dozen times.”

“Oh, it is horrible! Why, he is old enough to be your father. Think
what it means to be tied up to a jealous old man--for all old men are
jealous of young girls like yourself,” he added.

“Why do you say this? Why do you want to set me against Seti?” she
demanded resentfully.

“Because he is too old for you, Edris,” he replied, and then, placing
his arm around her waist, he whispered: “Because I love you!”

“How ridiculous!” she exclaimed with a scornful laugh. “Why do you
keep telling me that? Why, you hardly know me!”

“I know you well enough to be certain of my own feelings towards you,
Edris. I repeat, I love you.”

“Is this a manly action on your part--to try and steal me from the man
who is your friend?” she asked with a reproving look.

“I steal you from him because I mean to save you from yourself,” he
cried excitedly in Swiss-German, which next second he repeated in
English.

“Karl, I didn’t come up here to listen to your poisonous words
concerning the man I love,” she said, drawing her hand forcibly from
his. “I know men too well. They can’t deceive me!”

“Seti has. He thinks he loves you--a man with one foot in the
grave----”

“How dare you speak like that!” cried the girl, jumping up in fury.

“My darling, I----”

“I am not your darling. You suggested this climb. You bring me up here
to tell me all this--to poison my mind against the man I love, to----”

“To tell you how much I love you, darling!” he interrupted, seizing
her forcibly and kissing her again before she was aware of it. She
felt his breath upon her cheek, and, struggling with him, at last
freed herself.

“You swine!” she shouted. “If Seti were here he’d--he’d kill you!”

“Bah! I am not afraid of an old man.”

“Old! Why, he’s more active than you are. I hate all young men--you
included.”

He regarded her for a second with a vindictive expression which she
did not notice.

“You hate me, eh? I am sorry.”

“You need not be. But I tell you the truth, Karl,” she answered.

A silence fell between them for some moments. She was reflecting,
drawing patterns in the snow with her steel-pointed climbing-stick.

Suddenly he looked at her, and said:

“Why should we spoil these wonderful hours alone together by
quarreling? It is foolish of us, is it not? I love you, Edris. If I
have said anything against Seti, it is only in your own interests. He
is temperamental, a man of almost Quixotic views, quick-tempered, and
capable of fierce hatreds.”

“And at the same time he is very sympathetic and humane. The kindlier
side of his nature is wonderful. I know it,” said the girl.

“All his achievements may appear wonderful to you, but I repeat that
his age debars you from marrying him. It is impossible for you, a
young girl, to love a man of his age.”

“Karl, I will not hear another word.”

“You will--and you shall!” he cried, again kissing her with fierce
passion. “I love you, and you shall never marry Seton!”

She laughed defiantly in his face.

Then, in indignation, she disengaged herself from his embrace, and
said:

“This is not fair of you to betray your friend, the man I have decided
to marry.”

“Bah! Marry that old man! Absurd!”

“No, not absurd; he is as young as you are in his ways, and quite as
energetic,” she declared again. “And I love him.”

“So you have told me before,” he said with a sneer. “But I love you
also, Edris. You are the most wonderful girl I have ever met.”

“Thank you for the compliment,” she laughed. “But I have heard those
words from the lips of other men. And after my bitter experience I
believe in the word of no man.”

For a few moments he did not reply.

“Then you do not believe in my love, eh?” he asked, a dark frown on
his face. “You doubt me?”

“No. I don’t exactly disbelieve you, Karl,” she replied in a softened
voice. “But----”

“But you will love me,” declared the tall, good-looking Swiss, a fine,
manly figure in his rough, gray climbing-suit and his gray Balaclava
cap. “You will love me, Edris, my darling--you will see.”

“I’m not your darling!” she retorted again.

“But you will be,” he said, placing his hand firmly upon her shoulder
and looking into her eyes. “You will be. You are already mine,” he
added meaningly.

“Yours? How absurd!”

“We need say no more. You will see. Whenever I will anything, it comes
to pass. I will that you shall love me--that’s all”; and he smiled a
strangely uncanny smile--a smile of evil.

The time had flown while they had been alone together, for at that
moment John, discreetly heralded by a preliminary fit of coughing,
reappeared and announced that it was time for them to return. The sun
had become obscured by a bank of cloud coming up from the east, and,
looking up, he said in his quaint, but pleasant Swiss-English:

“I tink, Miss Temperley, we have a leetle snow.”

“I hope not, John. Let’s get back as soon as ever we can.”

“Yes. It looks like bad weather coming.” Karl agreed with the guide.
“We had better go at once”; and he took up his ice-ax, while John
settled his rucksack and threw the coil of rope over his shoulder.

The descent lasted till it grew dark, and the first dinner gong was
sounding when they reëntered the hotel.

Edris at once flew to Seton’s room and found that he had already
dressed for dinner. He embraced her passionately, and, kissing her,
cried:

“Oh, my darling! How long the day has seemed without you! I’ve not
been able to work. I’ve wandered about all day, and chatted with
people I don’t know, and been bored stiff. Well, darling, how did you
enjoy yourself?”

“Oh, Seti, it’s been simply glorious! I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.
Karl is a wonderful climber. He looked after me, and there were no
risks. John was with us all the time, of course.”

Seton placed both hands upon her shoulders and looked straight into
her face as he kissed her ready lips.

“Tell me, has Karl been making love to you?” he demanded seriously.

“Making love to me? What are you saying, Seti? Are you not convinced
yet that I belong to you?”

“He has said nothing? Swear that!” Darville cried.

“Oh, really, you are too jealous! It is all so very silly,” she
replied, releasing herself. “I must go and dress, or I’ll never be
down to dinner. Do excuse me, darling.”

And she rushed out of his room, leaving him standing beside his
writing-table. He could not shake off that strange premonition of evil
which had settled upon him as a cloud, which darkened with every hour.

That night Edris put on the prettiest of her dance-frocks, and all
three dined together in the great _salle à manger_ amid the gay
throng, the room ringing with buoyant, youthful laughter. The frock
was one which she had never worn before, and Seton sat wondering if it
had been put on in honor of Karl. He noticed, too, that the girl’s
conversation was mostly directed to the tall young Swiss, who, in
turn, showed her such marked attention. The fact was that the man who
was his friend held Edris in sudden and increasing fascination.

As usual, dinner was followed by a dance, and Seton played bridge,
leaving Edris to amuse herself. She never had any lack of partners,
but on that night she danced the whole evening with Karl. Darville,
from his point of vantage upon the orchestra platform, always had a
good view of the dancers. Hitherto, as Edris came round with her
partner, she would always exchange smiles with the drummer, but on
that night he could see how absorbed she was in Karl’s conversation,
and noticed, too, that she hardly cast a look at him.

Darville’s heart was heavy, though he kept a smiling countenance, and
drummed the fox trots merrily as usual. Once or twice the pair
disappeared from the ballroom, and then returned again to dance. Her
preference for Karl was now most marked, yet, even then, honest and
true himself, he could not believe that Edris was deceiving him. He
was still determined not to doubt her. He knew she loved him. He
remembered those love-glances which she had so often given him ever
since those days in Hove.

He endeavored to persuade himself he was mistaken in thinking they
were there no longer.




 CHAPTER XXI.
 HOW THE SCALES FELL

After breakfast next morning, as Darville sat writing, Edris came in
dressed ready for ski-ing. She wore black, with pale-blue scarf, and
turn-overs of the same shade over her boots, and looked extremely
smart.

“I’m just off!” she cried with a flush of pleasure. “Karl is taking me
for a little run. We’ll be back about eleven, and then we’ll skate. He
is going to-night, but wants us to go down to Interlaken on Wednesday.
His mother has invited me to go and see her.”

Seton turned in his chair and, taking her hand tenderly, looked up
into her sweet face, and said in a calm voice:

“Edris, I do not wish to go to Interlaken again.”

“Why not? You have so many friends down there, and Karl and his mother
will give us both a good time.”

“This invitation of Frau Weiss is rather sudden, is it not?” he asked.
He rose from his chair, and embracing her, added: “Edris, I want to be
quite frank with you. I am not blind to your flirtation with this man.
I have told him of our engagement, and if he now flirts with you after
that, then he will be my enemy. And for my enemies I have, as you
know, no compunction and no remorse.”

“My dearest Seti,” she said with a forced laugh, “I’m sure you are
jealous. Now, admit it. I assure you that there is nothing in it, and
that you see dangers where none lie. I love you, darling, and, doing
so can you ever think that I could love another man? You surely cannot
think me so base as that!”

“You told me once, Carina, that if I were ever jealous I would know
what it meant--a living hell. It is the tortures of hell I am now
suffering.”

“Why?”

“Because--well, because I fear to lose you, darling,” he said, rising
and taking her in his strong arms.

“But you told me in England that only silly fools were jealous, and
that happily you would never know what jealousy is!” she retorted.
“Besides, Karl is going to Canada very shortly, and I shall never see
him again. Do you forbid me having--well, just a little snow romance,
dearest?” she asked, placing her arms around his neck and drawing him
to her, in that delightful coaxing manner which she so often assumed.

“I don’t wish to interfere with your pleasures in the least, Edris,”
he said in a rather strained voice. “But from what I know, I feel that
your love for me is fast melting away.” Then, in a voice choked with
emotion, he added: “I know I’ve been wrong to believe that you could
ever really love a man of my age. It is humanly impossible.”

“My darling Seti!” cried the girl, holding him tightly and kissing him
upon the lips. “I do love you! Believe me, I do. I repeat that neither
Karl nor any other man shall ever come between us. Our souls are
affinities; our views of life are entirely in common, as well as our
tastes and our general outlook upon things. Besides, Karl is a
foreigner, and he has to go abroad to work because he has no money.
Poor fellow, I feel so sorry for him!”

“Is he so much to you that you feel sorry for him?” he asked in a tone
of annoyance.

“No; only I think his people haven’t treated him fairly. He can get
nothing to do here in his native Switzerland. You have influence in
England. Don’t you think that you could get him a job?”

Darville reflected. He recollected that secret report concerning Karl
Weiss he had read and signed.

“I don’t think so,” he replied. “You see, he is a foreigner, and he
looks so very much like a German officer. He will, no doubt, get on
well in Canada.”

“Will you help him?” she asked.

“If you wish. But I cannot see the motive of this unusual interest of
yours in a man you haven’t known much more than a few days.”

His remark confused her. What would he think if he knew the truth? she
reflected. But he would never know. How could he?

“Only because he is extremely nice to me, and I’m sorry for him.”

“Too nice, it seems,” he blurted forth, releasing her, and turning to
his writing-table.

“Oh, Seti!” she cried reproachfully. “You are horrid to me this
morning. Surely you know too well that I love and adore you? You asked
Karl up here to entertain me, and now you don’t approve of my
association with him. I really don’t think it nice of you, dear.”

“Forgive me, darling,” the man said, kissing her again. “I’m sorry if
I am harsh with you. But you know how deeply I love you, and how I
fear lest this man should steal your heart from me.”

“I know. I realize it all, Seti,” she said. “But trust me, I beg of
you. Trust me, and I will prove to you that I am true.”

Then she went forth to meet Karl. As she went down the stairs to the
hall, where he awaited her, she held her breath. What if Seton ever
discovered the depth of her deceit? Half an hour later she was
standing with Karl in a clump of snow-covered firs, at a secluded spot
to which nobody ever came, and he was holding her in his arms, while
her dark head nestled upon his shoulder. The resentment she had shown
at the refuge hut on the Männlichen had given place to fascination
and admiration. He had declared openly that he meant to win her, and
already he had succeeded in stealing her heart from the man who was
his host and friend.

Their conversation was that of lovers, and their kisses passionate and
oft repeated.

She told him of what Darville had said, whereupon he replied:

“You must be careful. He’s very suspicious. He must have no proof that
we are lovers. I know, darling, how difficult it is for you not to
show your affection for me,” he went on, holding her hand, and looking
into her eyes with that fatal power of fascination which women could
not resist. “But you must be careful. Pretend to love him more than
ever, and you will disarm his suspicions. I leave to-night. But you
must come down to Interlaken on pretense of seeing my mother, and we
will spend a whole glorious day together.”

“But he will want to come, too!”

“You must not let him. Tell him, if you like, that you want to meet me
again as test of his love and trust in you. If you are clever--as I
know you are, Edris--you will work it all right. Telephone to me
to-morrow morning from the post office. I shall be waiting to hear
your dear voice at ten o’clock.”

It was plain that the man was exerting over her a most extraordinary
and uncanny fascination. She felt herself impelled to comply with his
wishes, and, somehow, she found herself unable to resist his
blandishments. Every now and then, as they stood locked in each
other’s arms, Edris referred to Darville as the man to whom she was
engaged, but each time she mentioned him he made some disparaging
comment, which now no longer caused her indignation, as it had done on
that mountain-climb.

Meanwhile Seton Darville had become a changed man. He had left London
bright and buoyant, in confidence that Edris loved him to distraction.
But that introduction at Interlaken station, when they arrived in
Switzerland, had proved fatal to his happiness. Strong man that he
was, he tried to blind himself to a fact that was patent, yet in vain.
As he sat there at his table he realized that Edris’s professions of
love for him were false, and that, alas! it was but natural that she
should love a younger man. But when he reflected that his rival was
his friend, a spirit of fierce resentment arose within him. The man
was a cad, for, knowing the truth, he was deliberately stealing the
woman he so fondly loved.

The truth became forced upon him. Edris was playing him false!

“I love her, God knows! I love her! It is the first time I have ever
loved. She is all to me--my very life!” he cried aloud in agony as the
pen dropped from his nerveless fingers, his grief-stricken eyes fixed
upon the wall.

Then, unable to bear his suffering longer, he buried his face in his
hands and sobbed loudly, while the tears fell in large drops upon the
manuscript he had been writing.

“Edris! Edris!” he called aloud, his voice low and harsh. “You are
mine--mine! Come back to me, darling! Come back to me!”

And suddenly, the pale, broken-hearted man fell upon his knees beside
his chair and remained there a long time, praying earnestly in
silence.

When at last he rose he was calmer. Again he tried to deceive himself
as to the true situation. His passion for Edris had wholly possessed
his soul. Without her he knew he could never live. For her he would
give all his fame, his reputation, his popularity--everything. But
she, who only a little time before had vowed that she loved him and
that he should be her husband, had cast down his great love and
trodden it underfoot!

Again he was seized by a paroxysm of grief, and tears stood in his
dark eyes as, standing before the window, he gazed blankly out upon
the falling snow.

“I will return to London,” he said aloud at last. “I can’t remain here
to suffer any longer. Now I know the bitter truth that she loves that
fellow I will go out of her life in silence”; and he gazed about the
room, stupefied at the blow he had received.

Then slowly he started packing his papers into his leather
dispatch-case, his high, open brow clouded by pain and anguish, and
tears still standing in his eyes.

“I’ll go to-night,” he murmured to himself. “It is better so.”

Then, having cleared his writing-table, he opened one of his battered,
much be-labeled leather trunks, and began to arrange his reference
books inside. He was kneeling on the floor, packing away his books,
when the door opened, and Edris entered.

She saw the cleared writing-table, and exclaimed in surprise.

“What on earth are you doing, Seti?”

“I’m leaving for London to-night,” was his reply, as he rose to his
feet.

“Leaving! Why? What’s happened?”

“I’m leaving because I cannot remain here any longer. You know the
reason, Edris,” he said very seriously.

“You are leaving me here alone--abroad? Surely not!” said the girl, in
a voice of reproach.

“No. You will come with me, Edris, back to England,” he said firmly,
placing his hand upon her shoulder.

“I shall certainly do no such thing!” she replied indignantly. “You
brought me out here, and you cannot leave me here among strangers!”

“You will be among friends--Karl, and his mother, who is so anxious to
meet you,” he said bitterly.

She saw the change in him, and feared how much of her deceit he knew.
Her lover’s words recurred to her--the instructions he had given to
her as to how to further mislead him.

“Oh, it’s always Karl--Karl! I’m utterly sick of it!” she cried, in
pretense of protest. “Have I not told you, darling, that I love
you--and only you? Can’t you believe me?”

The sad-faced man looked straight into her eyes--a long, serious,
intense look--and then said slowly:

“No, Edris, I can’t!”

“Seti!” she cried, tearing off her ski-cap and tossing it upon a chair
as she gripped his hand and turned her face upwards to his. “What is
the matter with you? You can’t leave me here. If you love me, you will
remain. I am yours. You can’t desert me.”

“But I can’t remain here longer, in any case.”

“You are jealous of Karl. He is going at four o’clock. Let him go, and
we will discuss it afterwards,” she suggested. “Let’s go down to
luncheon. But don’t make a scene at table, I beg of you.”

“I shall make no scene,” he said in a hard voice, which betrayed
hatred of the man whom he suspected, and who was, moreover, his guest.

“Well, I must go to my room for a moment. I’ll meet you at the table,”
she said merrily, and kissing him as though nothing had occurred, she
went out.

Instead of going to her room she flew downstairs, and, finding Karl,
said:

“He’s furious. He’s packing up to go to England!”

“Let him go,” was the man’s whispered reply. “We shall be alone then,
my darling.”

Ten minutes later all three met at the table set in the window
commanding a gorgeous view of the Bernese Alps, half-hidden, however,
by the snow-blizzard which had suddenly sprung up.

Darville, though almost beside himself with rage, yet, by sheer
strength of will, preserved a calm, even cordial exterior towards his
guest. In those minutes since she had left him a sudden thought had
crossed his ever-active brain--the brain of the super-man. Edris had
begged him to obtain employment for Karl. That would not be at all
difficult. By reason of his position he was enabled to pull many
unsuspected strings, and, indeed, to make or mar the careers of many
men, and women also.

As they sat gossiping--Edris, with lies upon her pretty lips, relating
what a delightful ski-run they had had together, though, as a matter
of fact, they had been in that clump of firs all the morning--it
occurred to him how, by the use of those all-powerful hidden hands
which he controlled, he might so easily rid himself of his rival, and
wreak fearful and terrible revenge.

Karl Weiss had come between the girl he held dearer than life and
himself. The tall Swiss had arisen as a barrier between them--a
barrier that he intended to break down. He set his teeth and clenched
his hands. Seton Darville was fearless and bold, not a man to be
trifled with.

At four o’clock Edris contrived to see her Swiss lover off at the
station. Not without some sense of amusement Darville watched the
eagerness which she displayed to be allowed to go to the train alone
with him. His mind being made up, he raised no objection, for he
himself pleaded being too busy to go.

The couple were, of course, delighted, and on their way planned
further secret meetings in Interlaken in the days following. The snow
had now ceased, and, as they plodded through the main streets of
Wengen, Karl was buoyant and boastful, as he always was. In his own
estimation no man could do such deeds of bravery--which, by the way,
was a pose of his always in order to attract women, a pose that was,
in itself, full proof of his base origin and his unscrupulous deceit.

Then, when the electric train came down from the high-up Schiedegg,
the junction for the Jungfrau railway, he kissed her a fond farewell,
and the train moved down into the deep valley to Lauterbrunnen, where
he would take train for Interlaken.

Meanwhile Seton Darville, whose hatred when once aroused was dangerous
and deadly, was walking alone along the terrace of the hotel, smoking
a cigarette and thinking out the most terrible revenge that any human
mind had perhaps ever conceived.

By means so subtle that nobody would dream of them he could rid
himself of his rival, and nobody would ever be the wiser--not even
Edris!




 CHAPTER XXII.
 THE VALLEY OF LIES

That night Darville found Edris most charming. He almost thought
that he had been mistaken in his suspicions, and was on the point of
being annoyed with himself for having been so foolish as to doubt her.

At the dance she smiled at him each time she passed with her partner
and, later, they sat in a cozy corner together drinking orangeade and
eating sandwiches. Curiously enough, she seemed pleased that Karl had
gone. Her sudden attitude puzzled him, so amazingly clever was she.
But that love-look--that one expression in a woman’s eyes that can
never be feigned--was, alas! absent.

On the following Tuesday at half-past six in the evening Edris had
left him to go and dress, when the page knocked at his door and
announced that a gentleman had called to see him.

A few moments later his secretary, Bennett, stood upon the threshold.
He had come from London with a dispatch-case, the replica of
Darville’s, full of papers requiring his signature.

Seton greeted him warmly, closed the door, and locked it. Without any
preliminary, and without removing his overcoat, the ex-naval officer
unlocked the case, and drew out a pile of documents.

From them he selected three, one of them being upon pale green paper.

“These require reading,” he said abruptly. “The others only want your
signature.”

“Had a good journey?” asked Darville, taking one of the reports which
his secretary handed him.

“Excellent; I came through in the sleeper from Calais to Interlaken.
I’ve been waiting there at the Hotel du Lac for two days until you
telephoned to me to come up.”

“I couldn’t ’phone before. I’ve--I’ve been busy,” Darville said, and,
seating himself again at his table, he digested the three documents
which required his decision.

“H’m! Pretty serious,” he remarked. “Send Maynard to Madrid, and Boyd
had better go to Warsaw. But the Moscow problem is a facer. Whom shall
we send?”

“I can’t suggest anybody. The mission is most dangerous,” Bennett
replied. “It would mean torture and death to anyone we sent there at
the present time. We can’t forget poor Harding’s fate.”

“That’s true. I’ll think it over, and let you know, Bennett.”

When dealing with Secret Service problems Seton Darville was always a
different man. The duality of his strong character was now shown, for
the grief and despair into which he had been plunged of late had, in a
moment, been succeeded by a hard-headed alertness, tact, and foresight
that were amazing.

“By the way,” Darville said, when they had been chatting for nearly a
quarter of an hour. “Karl Weiss is staying in Interlaken, and I have
an interest in him. To-morrow morning he will meet a young English
lady at the East Station at 10.23. The lady will wear a dark blue
ski-ing costume with a scarlet tam-o’-shanter. I want you to report to
me their movements and their attitude towards each other. I shall be
at the Hotel du Lac at four o’clock. Meet me in the café there and
report to me. But doesn’t Eicher--the man we employed in the Marbach
affair--live somewhere in this neighborhood?”

“He lives in Thun.”

“Then find him at once, and get him to help you. Being Swiss, he can
keep observation better.”

And he gave Bennett Karl’s address, after which the Secret Service
official took up his dispatch-case, and left without Edris being aware
of his visit. Wherever Darville traveled Bennett usually came to him
each fortnight or three weeks with papers that could not be intrusted
to the post.

As soon as he had gone a dark look settled again upon Darville’s
features, as he passed into his bedroom and hurriedly dressed for
dinner, and when he came forth again he found Edris, in a beautiful
dance-frock of silver tissue and geranium, seated in his arm-chair
awaiting him.

Next morning they took breakfast together at eight, and, after he had
kissed her, he walked to the station with her.

“I don’t like you going, darling. I shall be so lonely here without
you,” he declared. “You will not forget that you belong to me--will
you, dearest?”

“Of course not, Seti,” she answered seriously. “I belong to no other
man than you, therefore you can trust me implicitly. I am only going
to spend the day at Karl’s house and be introduced to his mother. Why
don’t you come, too?”

“I’m awfully busy,” he said. “I’ll come down to Interlaken and fetch
you. Meet me at the Hotel du Lac at five.”

The electric train moved away down the snowy side of the Wengernalp to
Lauterbrunnen in the deep valley below.

Seton Darville took a long walk, impatient for the hours to pass, and,
after lunch, left Wengen full of anxiety to know what Edris had been
doing.

At four o’clock he entered the café of the Hotel du Lac, one of the
most popular hotels in Switzerland, where he found Bennett seated
alone drinking his café-Kirsch. He took a seat at the same table,
when, in a low voice, so that other men in the café should not
overhear, he said:

“Eicher and I have kept the lovers in sight all day.”

“Lovers!” gasped the other. “Are they lovers?”

“Not the slightest doubt of that. They have been up on the Heimwehfluh
all day; she in his arms, and he has been kissing her many times.
Eicher was up there all the time, and watched.”

“Then they have not been to Weiss’s home?”

“No. When they came down just now they went to tea at a place
somewhere along the Höheweg, and are there now.”

“Then they are lovers, eh?”

“Most certainly. She seems desperately fond of him.”

“Thanks, Bennett,” he managed to exclaim. “You’ll return by the
Boulogne express to-night. I shall be home next week.”

He left his secretary and passed across the café into the hotel,
where he sat to chat with Mr. Haller, the courteous proprietor, who
was his personal friend. Edris and Karl entered the lounge with only
five minutes to spare to catch the train. Therefore they lost no time
in going across to the station.

It was with difficulty that Seton controlled his fierce hatred of the
man who had replaced him in Edris’s affection, and, as the train moved
off, he bade him a cold farewell.

“Why are you so silent, my darling?” asked the girl of the man seated
beside her.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was silent,” Seton replied. “Well, tell me
what you have been doing.”

“Oh, nothing much. We went to Karl’s mother’s house, and then we went
for a walk along the Höheweg,” she replied. “To tell you the truth,
I’ve been rather bored. I would sooner have been with you, darling.”

Darville said nothing. He was silent and broken, for she lied to him!
He knew the truth now. All his great hopes, his high ideals, his
longing for happiness, his confidence in her loyalty, and his belief
in her affection, had, on that afternoon, been swept away at one
great, staggering blow. He knew that his action in having her watched
by those two expert secret agents was a mean one. But, after all, she
was only playing with his affections, hence it was justifiable.

They spoke but very little on their journey back to Wengen, and Edris
was frightened at his silence, for her conscience told her that she
was cruelly deceiving him, and she dreaded lest he might discover it,
even though Karl had assured her that he was blinded by his intense
affection.

That night Seton, when alone, broke down and gave way to tears,
bitterly regretting that he had brought his beloved to Switzerland and
introduced her to the man who had become his rival. Then he dried his
eyes, and, through the evening, behaved as though nothing unusual had
happened, while Edris, on her part, made pretense of loving him even
more fondly than before.

Every word of affection she uttered, every kiss she gave him,
nauseated him. She was false, and yet in ignorance that he had
discovered her cruel baseness and the extent of her lies.

He was determined to take her back before she met Karl again. It had
all been his own fault: the exhibition of the man’s photograph at
Hove, the introduction on their arrival in Switzerland, the incident
of the mistletoe, and his foolishness in allowing her to accompany him
on the mountain-climb. He regretted it all, but, alas! the mischief
was already done.

Edris avoided him that evening, as she sat out most of the dances with
various partners, but, before she went up to bed, he met her in his
sitting-room, and she kissed him good-night.

She saw he was pale and troubled. In the ballroom he had smiled gayly,
keeping a brave face, but now his brow was clouded, and when he wished
her good-night his kiss was cold and passionless. Her hand trembled
when he took it, yet he said nothing. He was determined to keep his
secret knowledge to himself.

When she had gone he locked the door, and again burst into a torrent
of tears. He loved her with a great, all-consuming love. He loved for
the first time in all his life, but the hideous truth had been forced
upon him that his age was insurmountable, and a barrier to his
happiness.

“She told me that my age was nothing to her!” cried the grief-stricken
man aloud in his agony of mind. “But even then she lied to me!
Yes--she lied to me!”

Next day they were, at Edris’s suggestion, walking together just
outside the town, when she said:

“Really, Seti, I do wish you would try and get Karl a job. Won’t you?
He would appreciate it so much.”

Darville bit his lip.

“Well, darling, if you are so keen to help him, I’ll see what I can do
when we get back to England.”

“That’s awfully good of you,” she cried, delighted. “I know that you
have such lots of influence. I don’t want him to go to Canada if it
can be helped.”

“No,” he said meaningly, in rather a strained voice. “I’ll see what
can be done for him. I’ve thought of a friend who might perhaps help
him.” And he smiled within himself at the vengeance he intended to
wreak upon the man who had come between them. Yes, Karl Weiss should
have a job which would last him his lifetime.

Two days later Mr. Haller telephoned to Darville from Interlaken
inviting Edris and himself down there to a unique village festival at
Merligen, a picturesque little place on the shore of the Lake of Thun.
Two old peasant couples were celebrating their golden wedding, and the
national costumes were to be worn for the occasion. At first he
hesitated, as Edris would no doubt meet Karl there, but his friend
Haller pressed him, saying that he had reserved rooms in his hotel for
them both. Therefore, against his better judgment, and in order to
please his intimate friend, he accepted.

Three days later they traveled down to Interlaken, where at the
station they were met by Karl, who had previously received an
invitation to join the party, Mr. Haller, of course, being in
ignorance of the strained relations between the two men. In the car
which drove them in the evening around the Lake of Thun, Edris sat
between her two lovers, and Darville was quick to discover that
beneath the rug Karl was holding her hand in his. But he said nothing.
His should be a quick and bitter revenge. He laughed within himself
when he reflected upon what he intended to do.

That glorious moonlight night Darville, whose great devoted passion
Edris had cast down and spurned, looked on at the village feast with
stony eyes. It was interesting--but not to him. Afterwards they dined
at a big hotel at Gunten, the lake-side village near by, and, leaving
the table early upon a paltry excuse, he paced the terrace upon the
lake-side, gazing across the moon-lit waters to the great snow-peaked
Niesen, high, silvery, and mysterious.

Within the pair were chatting and laughing, taking no heed of him,
while he, deceived and deserted, paced the terrace with a broken
heart.

In the early hours of the morning they drove back to Interlaken, and
Seton bade her good-night. In the deserted corridor she kissed him,
but he felt her lips cold and unresponsive. He entered his room and,
locking the door, burst into a torrent of hot tears. Karl Weiss, the
man he had befriended, had taken his place!

His paroxysm of grief was terrible. His sobs were loud and constant in
the silence of the night, for his agony was uncontrollable, and would
have brought pain to any beholder. But, strong, honest, and devoted,
he was wearing out his heart in secret, and no sleep came to his eyes
that night. He who had jeered at love contemplated seriously taking
his own life!

Edris, on her part, was perfectly happy in Karl’s love. The only thing
that marred her bliss was the dreadful uncertainty of how much Seton
knew. She reassured herself that he could know but little, yet
sometimes there came to her a feeling of remorse that she was
deceiving the one man who had ever honestly loved her--the one man she
admired for his achievements, and for his straight talk and straight
dealing.

The world praised Seton Darville, and he was a popular figure
everywhere, yet that night, as he stood at the window of his room,
gazing out upon the moon-lit waters that led to the Lake of Brienz,
with the high pine woods opposite, he knew that for him life had no
further interest now that Edris, with all her vows of eternal
affection and her Judas-kisses, was playing him false.

Next morning they went back up to Wengen, but thoughts and
conversation were of Karl. The fellow exercised over her an uncanny,
irresistible influence, until she had become infatuated with him, and
her love for Seton was now but a hollow sham.

Darville had been longing for the day of their return to England, and
at last it approached.

“Seti, will you do me a great favor, darling?” Edris asked the day
before their departure, as she threw her arms about his neck while he
sat writing. “Will you let me spend the last day down in Interlaken
with Karl?”

“Why? I suppose that you find his companionship more congenial than
mine, eh?” he asked bitterly.

“Not in the least, Seti. I like him, and--well, I thought you wouldn’t
mind. I can go in the morning, and you can bring the luggage down in
the afternoon.”

“No,” he said decisively. “I don’t wish you to meet Karl again.”

Her dark brows narrowed in annoyance.

“Very well. I shall go, whether you like it or not!” she said
defiantly.

“Which shows that you have been deceiving me!” the man said, slowly
rising and facing her.

“No! no!” cried the girl, “don’t say that! It is too cruel of you--too
cruel--but--but I like Karl, and you told me that I might enjoy
myself. I shall never see him again. He goes to Canada the week after
next. Do let me see him to-morrow--do.” She begged so earnestly that,
after some further protest, he unwillingly acquiesced.

So next morning she took train down to Lauterbrunnen, and at
Interlaken was met by the man who held her in that evil fascination.
Their greeting was affectionate, and they spent the wintry day
wandering about together to secluded spots, blissfully content in each
other’s love.

“You are mine, Edris!” he declared times without number. “You shall
never belong to that man! We love each other. You have admitted it.”

“I know,” she answered reflectively. “But I still belong to Seti.
Besides, you are going to Canada.”

“I’ve postponed my sailing for a month. I sail from Cherbourg,” he
said. “Perhaps I may come to London and sail from Southampton.”

“Do!” she cried eagerly. “Then we can meet again, Karl. But Seti must
not know.”

“No,” said the unprincipled Swiss, who had stolen her heart from his
friend. “You must be careful to conceal everything--most careful.”

And so it was arranged that their parting that night was not to be
final.

At seven o’clock Edris entered the Hotel du Lac, where she found Seton
sitting with Mr. Haller in the hall. The Swiss of bad principles are
few and far between, and men of the type of Karl Weiss are happily
very few in Switzerland.

She greeted Darville cheerily, and whispered to him that she had been
terribly bored, and that, after dinner, she was meeting Karl, and
would never see him again. So clever was she, and so complete her
perfidy, that he became reassured, and believed her. After dinner she
left them for half an hour, met the man near the station, and they
went for a walk until near the time due for the departure of the
Oberland Express with its sleeping-cars for Boulogne.

She joined Darville on the dimly-lit platform five minutes before the
train left. Mr. Haller, Mr. Reichel, and Mr. Müller were all present
to see them off, and she greeted them merrily as she climbed into the
sleeping-car of the Oberland Express, and, later, both she and
Darville waved farewell to their friends, Karl, of course, not being
present.

As soon as they had left the station he drew Edris into his
compartment, and in a calm, unruffled voice said:

“You must be terribly tired, Carina. No doubt you have walked about a
great deal to-day. I’ve been considering the favor you asked me to do
for Karl, and I have thought of a means by which I can secure for him
a very lucrative, but secret, appointment. I’ll see about it as soon
as we get to London.”

“Oh, Seti! How good it is of you. Poor fellow! He’s so worried that he
can get nothing to do here.”

“Well,” he said in an unusually hard voice, “leave it to me. If I get
the appointment for him it will be a berth for life.”

“How good of you, Seti!” she cried enthusiastically, raising his hand
to her lips and kissing it, little dreaming what the appointment would
be, the terrible result it must inevitably lead to. When Seton
Darville decided upon revenge he always struck a relentless blow,
swift, staggering, and fatal.




 CHAPTER XXIII.
 DEPTHS OF DECEIT

On arrival in London, late on the following afternoon, they stayed
at the Carlton Hotel. Seton told her he had some business to transact
before taking her back to her home in the country. She had begged him
to stay with her father and mother, and he had accepted, for he had a
purpose in view.

On the same evening that they arrived at the hotel, Edris, being
tired, retired early after dinner, while Darville strolled down to the
secret office of his which overlooked Trafalgar Square. He went in by
the back entrance, and, ascending the stairs, entered his private room
with his latch-key. There were voices in the adjoining room. The
office that was the eyes and ears of Great Britain never slept. The
night staff were on duty. He rang his bell, and in a few moments a
tall, rather thin, erect man, of the appearance of a retired colonel,
entered, looking very surprised at the chief’s sudden return.

“Good-evening, Webster,” Darville said, sinking into the chair behind
his big writing-table. “Send Forbes to me, please. And tell him to
bring in the Moscow file. I suppose Bennett has gone home?”

“Yes, he has, sir,” replied the ex-army officer. “He left an hour
ago.”

Darville drew a long breath as he looked around the cozy, comfortable
room. Fresh daffodils were upon his writing-table. They were flowers
that he loved--a big bunch of Emperors--placed there probably by the
hand of one or other of his female traveling agents, for all of them
knew that their ever-smiling chief loved flowers.

No one ever entered that room save Darville and his loyal and devoted
staff. Even the cleaning was done by one of the staff, because it
would not do to employ charlady office-cleaners, for they are always
inquisitive gossips.

In a few moments a stout, plethoric, deep-voiced man entered bearing
an orange-colored portfolio in which were a number of sheets of pink
paper.

“Glad to see you back, sir,” he exclaimed on entering. “Mr. Bennett
told me that you were having a good time up at Wengen.”

“Yes, Forbes, I’ve had quite a good time,” replied Seton cheerily.
“Not enough snow--but plenty of fun.” Then, assuming a purely
business-like attitude, he asked: “What is the latest situation in
Moscow?”

“I have it all in this file,” replied the assistant secretary of the
Secret Service. “It is brought down to a week ago. Mr. Bennett thinks
that someone should go there, but the No. 1 Section of the Communists
are very wide awake, and anyone we send to Moscow is a doomed man.”

“So I understand,” he remarked in a strange voice. “I must think it
over. We shall find some way out, Forbes. We’ve never been beaten yet.
This Moscow plot against us is a distinct and serious peril. We must
defeat it at all hazards.”

“There are some papers for you to sign, sir. I have them here--only
five.” And he placed some documents typed on pale green paper upon
Darville’s blotting-pad.

In impatience he glanced them over, and scribbled his signature at the
foot of each.

Then he said: “Please sit down and take a memorandum for the _cabinet
noir_.”

The stout, ruddy-faced man drew a chair opposite his chief, and took
up a pen.

“Make a note that I want all outgoing and incoming correspondence
examined, copied, and sent to me of two persons. Their names are Karl
Weiss of 84 Postgasse, Interlaken, and Edris Temperley of Stagsden
Hall near Thurnby, Leicestershire. The exchange of correspondence will
commence to-morrow. Therefore put it through to-night. I shall be at
Stagsden, and copies of all letters outward and inward are to be sent
to me in unsuspicious envelopes.”

George Forbes scribbled a note of the names and addresses, and said:

“I’ll go down to the General Post Office to-night myself. Where will
the woman’s letters be posted?”

“They will pass through the Leicester Post Office. I order that the
greatest care must be taken that no suspicion be aroused. It is secret
and urgent, and I want the copies at the earliest moment.”

“I understand, sir. They had better be photographed, if you want
evidence of handwriting.”

“Yes, tell them to have them photographed. But this is a most secret
matter. The copies are to be sealed and to pass only through one pair
of hands--those of Bennett. They are secret from everybody else.”

“I quite understand, sir. Mr. Bennett is to forward them to you
himself.”

“I expect the correspondence will be very amorous, but that will be an
endeavor to mislead us. The love expressed will mean something
entirely different, just as we had with that affair of the perfumed
gloves during the war,” Darville said. “But the matter is strictly
secret, and the staff are to know nothing. You understand?”

“Perfectly, sir,” replied the podgy little man, who had done years of
excellent Secret Service work for Britain abroad before the war. “I
will see Mr. Bennett to-morrow and explain matters.”

“I’ll be leaving for Leicestershire in the morning. I want no
telephone messages, and all correspondence to be unsuspicious. If I
ring you up from the village post office, I shall do so through B.26.
Not here direct. Tell Bennett that the matter is most serious and
urgent. The two points to watch are Interlaken and Stagsden. We can
examine the incoming letters in Berne, if necessary.”

“We have Kohler at Zurich,” Forbes suggested.

“Ah! I’ve not thought of that. We have good relations in Switzerland
against the Communists. I will think it over, and decide. The Swiss
Post Office will be ready and eager to help us, if we desire it.”

After a further chat Darville wished the assistant secretary
good-night, and went out.

From there he drove to his club in St. James’s Street to pick up his
letters, and then he drove on in the taxi back to the Carlton Hotel,
smiling within himself at the trap which lay open for Edris and her
lover.

No other man in all the country had the power to give such an order as
he had done. All letters when in the post are the property of the
Postmaster-General, except those which he ordered to be opened and
copied as precaution against enemy agents. Many had been the
temptations to examine the correspondence of his own enemies, but he
had always resisted it till now. He was being befooled; all his
happiness, indeed his life, was at that moment at stake, therefore he
considered his action justifiable, even though many might regard it as
mean and despicable. But was not Karl Weiss his betrayer? Was he not
stealing from him the one woman in all his adventurous and brilliant
life?

Edris, all unconscious of Darville’s connection with the Secret
Service, or the steps he had taken, met him next morning bright and
smiling, kissing him with a pretended passion which he knew did not
exist. Indeed, before she had slept the previous night she had sat
down and written to Karl a long, affectionate letter, which she posted
in the hotel during his absence.

After breakfast he drove her to her club for her letters, and
afterwards to her hairdresser in Conduit Street, as her pretty
shingled hair needed attention. There he left her, and went straight
to his secret office, where he sat for some time with his secretary,
Bennett, while he gave further instructions regarding the strict watch
to be kept upon the correspondence of the pair. Bennett was puzzled as
to the reason, but his duty was not to question, but to obey. Seton
Darville’s ever-active brain alone was responsible for the marvelously
acute conduct of that most important and secret department of the
Government. He pitted his brain daily against those of his enemies,
and was often compelled to act remorselessly and unscrupulously in
order to outwit those who were plotting Britain’s downfall.

Bennett had handed him a long report concerning the proposed Bolshevik
propaganda in England, together with a letter in cipher which had
fallen into their hands, and which had, an hour ago, been deciphered
in the adjoining room by two of the staff who were experts in codes.

Dated from Moscow three weeks before, and addressed “To the C.E.C.,
C.P.G.B., London, England,” it showed plainly how the Communists in
Moscow were endeavoring to equip a Red Army in our midst.

It was headed “Instructions to No. 1. Members,” and in itself
emphasized the gravity of the Bolshevik menace. The instructions were:


 “All ex-Service members to get into touch with their friends in the
 Army and Navy forces, and obtain from them revolvers, ammunition,
 Mills hand-grenades; to buy same if unable to obtain in any other way,
 as supplies from other sources are limited.

 “To fraternize with the police authorities, to get to know their
 duties, the time taken to patrol their beats; always to cultivate
 friendship with police officers to enable data to be obtained of their
 strength and places of abode.

 “To obtain strength of military forces, the names of members of the
 responsible military authorities.

 “To assist to organize the unemployed into a fighting force to be used
 in the event of revolution.…

 “No. 1 Section members will repudiate their membership of the
 Communist Party in the event of being taken by military, naval, or
 police authorities while carrying out instructions.”


Seton Darville read it through, a serious expression upon his usually
merry countenance.

“Send it across to Scotland Yard at once. No. 1 Section is the
espionage section. The contra-espionage service must be given a copy,
with full details of how it has been secured.”

“I’ll see they have it at once,” the ex-naval commander said, adding,
“The treason and sedition laws should be codified and brought up to
date, so that anyone preaching armed revolution can be dealt with at
once. If that were done this menace would be stamped out of the
country immediately.”

“Yes; if there is a change of Government in our country we must see
that it comes through the ballot-box, and not by the aid of bomb and
machine-gun,” Darville agreed, and then, after commenting upon the
extreme seriousness of the plot thus discovered, he bade him farewell,
and walked back to the Carlton, where Edris was awaiting him for
lunch.

That afternoon they both left for Stagsden. In the first-class
compartment the girl threw her arms around him and kissed him, asking
in her sweet, winning way:

“Do you really love me, darling?”

For answer he replied in a low voice: “How can you ask such a
question, Carina?” And he smiled at her as he kissed her upon the
lips. They were, alas! no longer responsive to his caresses. The
hideous truth was forced upon him, and could no longer be disguised.
He sat in the corner of the carriage silent and broken. Was it, he
wondered, only a passing infatuation, a foolish fascination that had
seized her when in the presence of Karl Weiss, a silly snow romance
which would soon be forgotten now that she was back in England? Or was
it something deeper--and lasting?

With all his might he strove to suppress the secret knowledge he had
obtained, so that she could suspect nothing. Half an hour after
leaving London, he made pretence of being his old self, saying:

“Now that we are back again, Edris, let us forget all about your
adventure.”

“I want to forget, Seti!” she said. “I do so want to forget. I assure
you there was nothing at all in it. You have no cause whatever for
jealousy. Forgive me. I swear you have not!”

“You swear!” asked he, taking her suddenly in his strong arms. “Say
that again!”

“I swear I am yours, Seti! I love you--and you alone! No man shall
ever come between us. I repeat it!” she added, looking straight into
his face.

“Then Karl Weiss is nothing to you, eh?”

“Nothing,” she declared, though it was with difficulty that she
articulated the word. He saw that she trembled, and put it down to the
emotion from which she was suffering at the moment.

Seton Darville drew her to him and kissed her tenderly as tears came
into his eyes--tears of joy that all his suspicions were ungrounded.

His first impulse was to demand the reason she had lied to him so
consistently, moreover, why she had spent those hours in the arms of
Karl Weiss. But he refrained. The man was his enemy. He had taken from
him all that life possessed, and his one thought was of his subtle and
deadly revenge.




 CHAPTER XXIV.
 A DANCE AT CLARIDGE’S

It was dusk when the car swept into the drive at Stagsden, and as
Edris got out, Lord Simba, her Great Dane, bounded forth to meet her,
while a few moments afterwards Darville, still in his traveling coat,
stood before the welcome fire in the artistic morning-room, being
greeted by his friend General Temperley and his wife.

“It’s awfully good of you, Mr. Darville, to have given Edris such a
jolly time! She wrote saying how much she was enjoying herself at
Wengen,” Mrs. Temperley said.

“Glad you’re safely back, Darville,” exclaimed the General cheerily,
rising from his chair. “It’s been pretty dull here without Edris, for
she’s always lively. You had a good time, eh?”

“Delightful,” replied the novelist, while at that moment Edris, who
had been greeting her magnificent dog, entered, and embraced both her
father and mother.

That night, after dinner, both the General and his wife retired early,
and, after Edris had taken Lord Simba out in the grounds, she sat with
Seton beside the fire.

“Somehow, darling,” she exclaimed suddenly, “I feel that you are not
the same to me as you were. Why?”

He remained silent. What could he say? It was upon the tip of his
tongue to speak frankly and tell her that he knew of her perfidy and
deceit, and to cast her out of his life as worthless. But his better
nature asserted itself, and he crushed down the volcano of anger
arising within him.

“I am just the same to you, darling,” he replied quite calmly. “I love
you. I can say no more.”

“You have been annoyed about Karl--I know it,” she exclaimed. “But do
believe me when I tell you that there is no reason whatever to be
jealous. He is going to Canada, and I shall never see him again. I
bade farewell to him in Interlaken. He leaves from Cherbourg on
Saturday week.”

Darville, a heavy expression upon his face, bent towards her, and,
taking her hand, asked: “Then you have really parted from him?”

“I have.”

“You asked me to obtain a job for him in England. Suppose that I do
so?”

“Oh, it would be awfully good of you to do so, Seti. Do try and fix
him up somehow, won’t you, dearest? I feel so sorry for him.”

“I will try and do so, darling--if it is your wish. But why do you
want to get him here to England?”

“I have no other interest in him except that I like him as a friend,”
she assured him, looking straight into his eyes. “I know you think I
love him, but I assure you I don’t. I love you and you only, Seti. I
shall never love any man except your wonderful self. To me your life,
your achievements, your popularity--all are wonderful. You are my
wonderful lover!” And she threw her arms about his neck and kissed him
again and again.

Her attitude towards him was such as to cause him to wonder once again
whether he had not suffered the canker-worm of jealousy without real
cause. What Bennett had reported might, after all, have been slightly
exaggerated. His age was different from hers, and, after all, had he
not told her that he wished her to have an enjoyable time in Wengen?

As they smoked their cigarettes together he sat gazing upon her smart
figure in her evening gown of cyclamen velvet, and, entranced by the
sweetness of her smiles, he began to dub himself a fool for
entertaining false suspicions concerning the girl who, after all, was
devoted to him, and was wholly his.

When they parted for the night he felt that her kisses were just as
they had been at Hove before Christmas--full of hot passion and deep
devotion. And he, in turn, held her in a long, clinging embrace, his
lips pressed to hers.

On the following morning, when the neat maid brought his early tea,
several letters lay upon the tray. One, in a long envelope of peculiar
pattern, he recognized as being from Bennett.

He tore it open, and found within a note enclosing four photographs,
being those of four pages of a closely-written letter in a small
handwriting. He sprang from his bed and carried them to the light.

He recognized the handwriting of Karl Weiss. The letter was full of
poetry and undying affection, but from it he learnt one staggering
fact--that Edris, though pretending to be his, had _engaged herself to
Karl!_

His friend had betrayed him! They were engaged! _Engaged!_

He uttered a cry of agonized despair, and, covering his face with his
hands, sank into an arm-chair and gave vent to a torrent of tears.

The woman he loved dearer than his life was no longer his!

He rose from his chair and stood motionless. The blow had turned his
heart to stone.

When they met at breakfast Darville said nothing. The knowledge he had
gained of the girl’s astounding deceit held him silent and
broken-hearted. The light of his life had become extinguished. She no
longer belonged to him.

She kissed him when they were alone, and, although locked away in her
room was the letter she had received from Karl, a copy of which was in
Darville’s hands, she still made great pretense of affection.

She drove him that morning into Leicester in her fine blue car, but as
he sat at her side, he spoke only a few words, for the poor fellow’s
cup of bitterness was full to overflowing. Edris and Karl, in their
ignorance, thought themselves amazingly clever, yet next morning’s
post brought another envelope from Bennett, containing photographs of
an amazing love-letter in Edris’s bold handwriting, which not only
revealed the fact that Karl was coming to London purposely to see her,
but which also contained most unkind references to himself, describing
how she was keeping from him the truth regarding her engagement. The
letter breathed love in every line, and towards the man who had
fascinated her she used every term of endearment she could conjure up.

The letter had been posted in secret at the little village post office
at Thurnby, but it had not escaped the eyes which in London were
awaiting it.

Those references to himself cut him to the quick. He had never
imagined that any woman living could be so cruel and base to the man
who was devoted to her. To and fro he paced his bedroom, beside
himself with grief. Her lover was coming to London to meet her in
secret, and they were actually engaged to each other! He felt himself
bewildered, for his brain had been dulled by that most terrible and
unexpected blow. He read and re-read that cruel letter, which was on
its way to Switzerland, until the breakfast gong sounded, when he
descended to grasp the hand that had penned those hard, bitter words.

How he got through that day he hardly knew.

He walked into the village in pretence of buying postage stamps, and
in his absence, Edris flew to her room and wrote the usual daily
letter to her lover, a copy of which duly found its way to Seton.

On the following day, when he was about to leave for London, she
placed her arms around his neck and kissed him a fond adieu, saying:

“You’ll come back in a day or two, Seti, won’t you? I cannot live
without you, my darling. It will be so horribly dull and lonely while
you are away.”

“Yes,” he said in a strange voice, “I’ll come back very soon, Carina.
I’ll endeavor to see my friend concerning Karl.”

“Do, darling. He’ll be so thankful to you.”

Darville recollected her letter, a copy of which reposed in his
pocket, and, nauseated by her abominable deception, entered the car,
raised his hat, and with a forced smile, drove down the drive.

He held his breath as he turned back to wave her farewell.

Then aloud he exclaimed in a bitter, broken voice, tears welling in
his eyes, “And so ends my romance!”

He went down to Hove, and shut himself up in his flat with his
unbearable grief. At evening he would take his pet Pom for a walk
beside the sea, over those same paths where he had walked so
blissfully at Edris’s side at the birth of their love. For hours he
would sit in his rooms, brooding and alone, speaking to himself aloud
between his sobs.

Strong man that he was, he now was inert, broken, and deserted.

He tried to apply himself to his literary work, so as to forget, but
all in vain. The beautiful face of Edris, with its great, gray eyes
and dark, shingled hair, smiled upon him in his fancy, and sometimes
he would set the big arm-chair before the fire and conjure up a
recollection of her seated there, laughing gayly and smoking, just as
she had so often done when he had first revealed his great passion for
her.

As day succeeded day, however, there came to him copies of Karl’s
letters to Edris, and those of her replies. The mean character of the
man who had stolen her heart from him was revealed by his jeering and
insulting references to himself, while his views Edris never
challenged. In one letter she declared that she was tired of him.

That expression caused him the greatest grief, and added much to his
burden of sorrow. She was tired of him, so to that younger man she had
secretly engaged herself on the night of her departure from
Switzerland. Though playing a double game, she still made a hollow
pretense of loving him, for she wrote him constantly letters which
were perfectly charming.

They were, however, strange missives when compared with her letters to
her lover in Switzerland.

One day he received a letter saying that she was coming to London on
business for her father, and asked whether he would meet her at the
Carlton, where she would be staying. He had loaned his rooms for a few
weeks to a friend recently married, therefore he replied by wire that
he, too, would also stay at the Carlton. He had made up his mind that
he would, while wreaking a terrible vengeance upon Karl Weiss, see her
for the last time and speak his mind openly.

Already in the post was a letter to Interlaken, written from a certain
Government department in Whitehall, saying that if he happened to be
coming to London the department would be pleased if he would call.

That department was the Secret Service, which, if he called, would
offer to engage him at a big remuneration if he would pose as a
German, which he could easily do, and go to Moscow to investigate the
new Communist plot against Great Britain. Darville had arranged that
Webster was to pose in his place as director of the department.

Webster and Bennett had been down to Hove, and Darville had arranged
everything. Once Karl Weiss accepted the alluring bait, as he, no
doubt, would--for he loved Secret Service work, as shown by his
success while with the Commission in Germany after the war--then the
rest would be easy. He would travel as a German from Berlin to Moscow,
and it would be easy enough to give anonymous warning to the Soviet
authorities that a British secret agent was in their midst. The hatred
of Seton Darville was now relentless, for, once Karl Weiss crossed the
Russian frontier, then he would never return.

In dealing with an enemy Seton Darville was hard and utterly
unscrupulous, yet such was his strange dual nature that he had the
heart of a child, sympathetic and noble to a degree.

Three days later he met Edris at the Carlton. She had a lady friend
staying with her, and his room was quite close to theirs. When alone
Edris kissed him affectionately before they dressed for dinner. She
having been invited by her friend to go to the theater, Darville was
left alone, when, suddenly, he recollected that he had an invitation
to the Countess of Culford’s dance at Claridge’s, at which many of his
smart friends would be present. So about ten o’clock he took a taxi to
that exclusive hotel, and was soon amid a go-ahead society crowd in
which he was such a well-known figure.

He had danced twice, and was standing idly near the door just at
supper-time, when he heard a female voice behind exclaim in a soft
half-whisper:

“You’ll take me into supper, won’t you, Seton?”

He turned quickly, and found himself face to face with Elaine. A
brilliant, brown-haired figure in a striking dance-frock of gold
tissue, she stood smiling at his expression of sudden surprise.

“I thought you might come here, for I know you always go to Gladys’s
dances when you are in England. So I looked in on the chance of
finding you,” she said, regarding him with dancing eyes. “Where have
you been all this long time?”

“Abroad mostly,” he replied. “But we cannot talk here. Somebody will
see us.”

“Let’s go and have supper, and afterwards drive in the car,” the
pretty young peeress suggested. “I want to talk to you very
particularly.”

They found a corner in the supper-room, where, seated together, he
gazed across at her reflectively. Yes, that provocative smile was just
the same, and the marvelous face, which he had so admired ever since
she had been a schoolgirl, was still as beautiful as ever. He compared
her with Edris, and found at once that, while he loved the latter with
passionate devotion, Elaine merely interested him as an old friend.

The eating of supper was a sham, and, glad to be away from it, they
hurried forth, and he joined her in her fine Rolls a little way along
Brook Street.

“At last, Seton!” exclaimed Elaine when the door of the car was closed
and the driver moved towards Notting Hill Gate, according to her
directions. She placed her hand upon his, and asked very seriously,
“Why have you kept away from me all these months? Don’t you think it
has been just a little cruel of you?” she added with reproach.

“You know the reason. You recollect our parting,” he replied in a low,
tense voice. “I hoped that we should not meet again.”

“Yes,” she said in a tone of bitterness. “You love Edris Temperley--or
is it a mere passing infatuation, Seton, eh?” and she took his hand in
hers.

“I love her,” he replied in a low, tremulous voice. She saw at once
that he was not himself, and wondered whether his emotion was due to
their unexpected meeting.

“You love her, hence you have forsaken me,” Elaine said in a hard
voice.

“There has never been any actual love between us, has there?” he
asked.

“No. You are right. But we have been the firmest of friends,” she
declared. “I could always rely upon you, and now, without you, I feel
lost always.”

“You have your husband,” he pointed out, and as he uttered the words,
he felt her fingers grip his hand convulsively.

“Yes. But--but that does not bring me happiness,” she replied. “You
alone know my secrets--you know the life I lead--one of hollow sham. I
want your companionship, your sympathy, your strong, manly
protection--all that I have now lost”; and she burst into tears.

He endeavored to comfort her. He kissed her on the brow, as he so
often did in the long years of their intimate friendship. Suddenly she
gave way to a paroxysm of grief.

He glanced at the muddled, grief-stricken figure in the magnificent
ermine cloak, and felt impelled to tell her of his own load of sorrow
and anguish. Yet he feared to do so, lest he should lose his strength
of will.

“Come home with me, Seton,” she urged in a voice choked by sobs. “My
husband is in Scotland, therefore we can discuss things--the
future--together and undisturbed.”

“No, Elaine. It would be indiscreet for me to go home with you at this
hour. The servants might talk.”

“Only Kershaw will be up, and he knows you well,” she said, still
holding his hand, and as she spoke, she carried it to her lips. It was
her habit always to kiss his hand when greeting him and when bidding
him adieu.

He felt her lips upon it and drew it away, saying:

“Had we not better return? Let the man drop me at the Carlton. It’s
already getting late--two o’clock.”

With reluctance she ordered the man to take them back to the Carlton,
then she said:

“I think you are treating me very cruelly indeed, Seton. We have both
been such firm friends ever since I was a girl, and ours has been a
valued and Platonic friendship such as few women have ever
experienced. Before my marriage you stood in the place which a lover
might have occupied, and, since, you have been my best and most
devoted friend”; and she choked down a sob. “If my marriage had not
been a loveless one perhaps I might not have appreciated your devotion
to me, but, as it is, my life is unhappy, and now that you have
deserted me in favor of Edris, I feel utterly friendless and alone.
After my bitter experience,” she added, “I don’t wonder that a woman
in my circumstances should take a lover.”

“As I told you, Elaine, our friendship was becoming far too dangerous
for us both. We were too near the borderland.”

“And that is why you refuse to go home with me to talk to-night?” she
asked, raising her tear-stained face to him.

“Yes, it is.”

She drew a long breath, then, losing control of herself, in her
despair she clung to him, and in a fiercely desperate voice asked:

“Why don’t you give up Edris and return to me, Seton? I--I want you! I
can’t live without you now! I am compelled to keep a brave and smiling
face while my heart is breaking. I know that my husband cares no more
for me; he loves somebody else, and would be glad to get rid of me. I
have the villa at Antibes, and also Blacklands. Both are my own
property, besides which I have my own income. You know what it is--so
we shouldn’t starve. It would only be a nine days’ wonder to the
world, and the scandal would soon die and be forgotten. Oh, Seton,
I’ll face it--if you dare to do so!”

The grave-faced man shook his head sorrowfully.

“We have never loved, Elaine,” he answered in a low, tremulous voice.
“I have loved once--but shall never love again.”

“You mean that?” cried the unhappy woman. “You can never love again?”

“Never.”

“But you told me you loved Edris Temperley.”

“Yes, I loved her.”

“Then you don’t love her still?” she asked, much puzzled.

“I do; but--but please do not question me, Elaine. I am in a terrible
quandary. Don’t ask me now for explanations. I may tell you everything
one day, and I know that I shall have your sympathy.”

“You have it already, whatever may be your trouble, Seton,” she
replied. “You have been my friend through all these years, and you are
my friend still. There may have been scandal and gossip about us, but
I know how strictly honorable you are towards a woman”; and she
paused. Then, in an altered voice, she said: “You are behaving
honorably to me, even now when you refuse to accede to my proposal.”

He drew her head down upon his shoulder, and, stroking her hair, said:
“I will still remain your faithful friend, Elaine. But I could never
accept what you suggest. I love Edris,” he whispered, so low and
intense was his voice.

“Then, if so, go to her, Seton! I withdraw my proposal, and I will
stand aside in favor of the girl you love, knowing that you will be
true and honorable towards her. All I hope is that she will, on her
part, appreciate your true worth as a man of character, and never
betray your affection.”

Her words cut him like a knife. They sounded like a biting sarcasm,
even though she was in entire ignorance of the situation.

Almost at that moment the car drew up in the Haymarket before the
entrance to the Carlton. Their hands were clasped, and his left hand
was upon her head.

“Elaine, pray that God will help me in my distress,” he said in a low,
despairing voice. “I may tell you all one day--not to-night. And do
believe me when I say that I am still your best friend, just as I have
ever been.”

“Yes, Seton. I will do as you wish. Go back to Edris; and may you be
very happy is the sincere wish of your Elaine.”

He pressed her hand, and raised it to his dry lips, while she did the
same. Then he stepped out, and raised his hat.

And as the car turned the corner into Pall Mall he saw her bent,
huddled figure, her streaming eyes covered with her hands, and tears
came to his own eyes as he entered the great hotel.

He walked to the lift like a man in a dream. All he knew was that his
great, all-absorbing passion for Edris, even though she had betrayed
him, had held him apart from the one woman in all the world who had
exercised any influence upon his life, and it had prevented him from
taking a step that he most certainly would have regretted.

Truly his love for Edris had that night been put into the crucible and
tested in the furnace of affection.




 CHAPTER XXV.
 DOUBLE CUNNING

Among his letters next morning Seton Darville opened one from his
office containing copies of two letters, one written by Edris from
Stagsden on the previous day to Karl in Switzerland, and the other
written by the man who had betrayed his friendship.

Edris’s letter breathed an undying devotion, and told her lover that,
to her delight, Darville was leaving Stagsden.

The letter from Karl contained a revelation in the sentence: “As you
so earnestly desire to see me again, darling, before I sail for
Canada, I intend to come to London on the 20th. I shall be ten days or
more in London. So get rid of old Darville, who is old enough to be
your father, and let us enjoy some further glorious days together. I
will tell you by what train I will arrive, so will you get me a room
at an hotel, and meet me? I am longing to see your dear face and kiss
your sweet lips again. Now that we are engaged, you must cut yourself
adrift from Darville! I insist upon it. He shall not come between
us--otherwise it will be the worse for him!”

Seton gritted his teeth as he read the lines. “What consummate
mendacity; what treachery; what base intrigue!” he cried aloud. “But
two can play at the same game--you swine! And I shall win, never
fear!” He gave vent to a hollow laugh quite unusual to him.

Karl’s knavery, assisted by the duplicity of the girl who, in
ignorance of Seton’s knowledge, was still posing as his fiancée and
making pretense of strong affection, had staggered him. The true,
honest nature of his own second self, apart from that marvelous tact
and cunning with which he conducted Britain’s Secret Service, revolted
against such low cunning as that low-born Swiss had displayed. He knew
that he had already lost Edris, and now his mind was bent upon a swift
and terrible revenge.

The events of the previous night, his interview with Elaine, and their
tragic parting, crowded upon him while he dressed, and he was himself
astounded at the self-possession he had displayed. Elaine had tempted
him at the very moment when he had discovered Edris’s perfidy. True,
his great love for Edris had been put to the test, and as he went
along the corridor to meet her for breakfast, he was amazed at his own
strength of will.

Edris met him, as usual, with a sweet, entrancing smile. She wore a
smart frock, and with her friend Mrs. Hatherley, equally smart,
chatted over the breakfast-table.

“What time did you come in last night, Seti?” inquired the girl.

“Oh, about two,” he replied. “There was quite a crowd of people I
knew, including Elaine, so I stayed on. I knew you’d be back, and in
bed, after the theater.”

He saw that Edris wanted to be alone with him, so, when they rose from
the table, in order to escape Mrs. Hatherley, who was a charming young
woman and a great friend of Edris’s, he made excuse, and a few minutes
later she came into his room.

“Oh, Seti!” she cried. “Before I went down to breakfast I had such
good news. A telegram from Karl says he is coming on Wednesday to
London because a good berth has been offered him. I wonder what it is.
Do you know anything about it?”

“How should I? He was employed by an International Commission in
Germany, so I suppose the offer may come from them. Well, Edris, much
as I object to your association with that man, I hope he may be
successful in getting the job,” he said grimly. “And now let us talk
of something else, darling.”

“Really, dearest, you are awfully kind to me after your unfounded
suspicions concerning Karl,” she said. “You know I love you; that you
are my great and wonderful lover. You need not fear Karl coming to
London. I would like to go and meet him, but if you forbid it, then I
am in your hands.”

Her arms were entwined about his neck. Her enticing feminine wiles
were wonderful, her artfulness and subterfuge marvelous. Were he not
possessed of that secret information he held he would have believed
her words. But in view of his knowledge they stifled him.

He felt inclined to curse her and uphold her to ridicule. On the
contrary, however, he placed both hands upon her shoulders, and,
looking straight into her gray eyes, asked:

“Tell me the truth, Carina. Do you really love me, or is all this a
mere hollow pretense?”

He saw her face change instantly.

“I--I really love you,” she faltered. “Have I not told you so a
hundred times? Cannot you believe me, darling?”

He drew a long breath as he looked straight into her pretty face, and
then, smiling doubtfully, he sighed, “I suppose I must.”

Next day he accompanied her back to Stagsden, but he perceived that
all her thoughts were of the man she was longing to meet at Victoria
on Wednesday night. He smiled within himself when he thought how
quickly and secretly his hidden hand would send his rival to his doom
in Russia. He knew the man to be boastful and arrogant, fond of
relating his own deeds of daring--fictitious, of course--to the women
whom he could so easily fascinate. The secret inquiries he had made
concerning him showed him to be of that shallow, unstable type of
foreigner, devoid of any of those good qualities which the average
hard-working Swiss possesses. Darville could only think, from the
daily letters he received so full of poetic affection, that he was
fascinating Edris against her will. Indeed, the girl’s letters in
reply had now become briefer, and contained less passion.

She had written in secret to him daily--though she assured him that
she did not write--and the gardener posted her letters in secret.
This, however, did not trouble him, for ere her letters left London
the copies reached him through Bennett, who naturally believed they
had something to do with some enemy plot.

“I suppose you are looking forward to meeting Karl in London?” he
asked her suddenly on the second night that he was back at the fine
country mansion and they were sitting in the firelight alone after
tea.

“No, not exactly,” was her reply. Then she rose, and, crossing to his
chair, sank upon the floor and placed her head against his knee, an
attitude she often assumed when they were alone. “I did not expect
him. I thought he would sail from Cherbourg. I--I didn’t want to meet
him again.”

“That’s very strange,” he remarked, rather indifferently.

“Why? I love you--and only you!”

He did not reply. She looked up into his face, and then, in the fitful
light of the fire, saw a hard, determined look such as she had never
seen there before.

“What’s the matter, Seti?” she asked in her cajoling way, taking his
hand and kissing it.

In an instant he withdrew it, as though he had been stung, and,
rising, said:

“Edris, I’ll tell you what is the matter. You are lying to me!”

“Lying! What do you mean?” she asked indignantly.

“I mean that ever since that day at Interlaken station when you met
Karl Weiss you have deceived me--_deceived me until this very
moment!_”

“I love you!” she cried, her face pale as she sprang towards him. But
he threw her off, and in a cold, hard voice replied:

“Lies flow from your lips like water, Edris! I know the truth! I know
everything! On the night you left Interlaken you threw me over, and
became engaged in secret to Karl Weiss. Deny it if you can!”

She stood open-mouthed, her face blanched, her hands trembling. She
was aghast. She tried to speak, to protest, but was unable to
articulate.

He knew the truth!

“Ah! You, who have all along pretended to love me, are engaged to that
man,” he said. “In your beautiful love-letters to him you have said
hard things about me, and he, in his replies to you, has jeered at me
on account of my age, and poisoned your mind against me. It was you
who urged him to come to London to see you--because you are infatuated
with him. I have known everything from the very first, and I have kept
my silence until now! Go to him on Wednesday! I, too, shall go to
London to-morrow, and----”

“You’ve been reading my letters!” she managed to gasp in dismay.

“Yes, I have! And I had you watched when you met the fellow in
Interlaken. When you returned I knew you were not telling me the
truth,” he said bitterly. “All along I have watched you, and I knew
that you were betraying and deceiving me. I warned you in Wengen that
you were playing with fire, but you, who swore to me that no man
should ever come between us, were already fascinated by the man whom
I foolishly thought to be my friend. Well,” he went on in a broken
voice, after a pause, “you shall go to your lover, and I will go out
of your life. But when you see him, tell him from me that I know the
extent of the base deceit of you both, and----”

“But you won’t leave me, Seti!” she cried in an agonized voice. “I do
love you. I swear that I do!” And she clung to him.

Then, sinking to the ground, she clutched his legs convulsively,
beseeching his forgiveness.

“You can’t leave me!” she cried, sobbing. “You are mine--Seti--my
wonderful lover! What I have told you is true--true! I swear it! I
love you!”

But Darville shook his head. In his grief-stricken eyes stood a look
of blank, unutterable despair, and she saw that her deceit had sunk
too deep into his heart.

“I don’t believe you, Edris,” he said slowly in a low, hoarse voice.
“You cannot love me when you are engaged to another.”

“But I do love you, darling. I swear that I do.”

Seton laughed contemptuously, saying:

“Please do not insult my intelligence further. How can you have the
audacity to tell me that you have a single spark of affection for me
after those letters you have written to your lover? Recall what he
said about me, and how you never contradicted him--the abominable and
insulting things he wrote concerning me. And you actually asked me to
obtain employment for him! Ah, it is all a terrible tragedy for me!
You have been false ever since that accursed day when we set foot in
Switzerland. And I loved you, Edris,” he added in a tense whisper. “I
loved you. But you have trodden my affection under your feet and
become fascinated by a man who, judged by his past, is utterly
unworthy of you!”

“Yes, Seti. I know I’ve been a rotter to deceive you. But how can I
explain?”

“How can you explain the reason of your conduct towards me? I am glad
you admit your double dealing!” he said in a hard tone. “I hope you
are ashamed of yourself. When I have gone to-morrow you will, perhaps,
reflect upon the suffering you have caused me--how I have lived in
hell these many weeks, loving you as devotedly as I have done, and
knowing that you were no longer mine, in spite of your kisses and
false pretense. Your kisses have nauseated me. Your very presence has
become repugnant to me, and your----”

“Seti, forgive me!” she cried in an agonized voice. “Let me try and
explain,” she went on as she clung to him. “I know you won’t believe
me, but I will tell you the truth--now----”

“Thanks, I don’t wish to hear the truth,” he said, his sympathetic
heart having now been turned to stone. “I’m sorry, but I can’t believe
you, whatever you may say, or whatever excuse you may make.”

She held her breath, realizing that all his confidence in her had
gone. Little wonder was it, after all.

She threw out her arms with a despairing gesture and cried:

“Seti, I love you! Think what you may of my behavior, I swear that I
still love you. I’ve acted damnably towards you, I know. But one day,
when you hear and know the truth, you will pity me--even though you
cannot forgive.”

Seton Darville gazed at her tearful countenance, lit only by the
flames of the great wood fire, and remained silent. He still loved her
to distraction, but with the secret knowledge he held, he could not
bring himself to accept any protestation of affection as the truth.

She had urged Karl to come to England, a fact which in itself showed
that she loved him.

He was coming to London where, all unconscious of the fate in store
for him, he would be sent to his doom.




 CHAPTER XXVI.
 REMORSE

That night the pair experienced a feeling of estrangement such as
neither of them had ever felt before.

Edris, while dressing for dinner, was suddenly seized by a fit of
remorse, and throwing herself wildly upon her bed, gave way to a
violent outburst of tears.

“Oh, why did I do it? I must have been mad!” she cried aloud between
her sobs. “Why did I do it, when I love Seti so well? But I know his
nature. He will never forgive me now that he has learned the depths of
my deceit. Yes, I am base and worthless. I am unworthy of his great
passion for me. What must he think? What must he think?” she cried in
despair, as the tears flowed in torrents.

She remembered how Karl, with his craft and cunning, had fascinated
her with those winning ways which he had so often practiced upon other
women. She recalled his pretty speeches--how, by slow degrees, he had
sought to possess her and poison her mind against the man she loved;
how he had so constantly declared that he was too old for her, and the
cruel and harsh things he had uttered concerning the man whom she held
in such esteem and admiration. She admired Karl for his figure, for
his physique, and for his own brave deeds which he related to her,
little dreaming, even then, that her hero was only a pinchbeck one,
and that his strong, manly figure was, after all, only stuffed with
sawdust.

That evening, however, she began, by slow degrees, to gauge the man at
his true worth. For the first time in her life she compared him with
Seton, and at once realized the great difference in their characters.
She began to wonder why she had ever become infatuated with Karl.

Then once again, in her bitter, tearful regret, she cried aloud: “Seti
can never forgive me! He knows the truth! He will go--and will never
meet me again. Oh, God!” she sobbed. “How can I convince him that I
love him, and have loved him all along--that I still love him; that
whatever I may have said--whatever I may have done--I am his, and his
alone?”

A long, deep sigh escaped her, for she saw plainly that he would never
believe that such was the real truth; that he would never believe in
her honesty; that, alas! he would never trust her in future.

“Why did I become engaged to Karl?” she cried to herself, her heart
bursting with grief and remorse. “Why did I tell him that I loved him
when it was not true? I must have been mad--utterly mad that night. He
fascinated me, just as a serpent fascinates a bird. I was helpless in
his hands when, an hour before the train left, he compelled me to
engage myself to him. He knew that I loved Seti, and I told him so.
But he would not hear me. And he forced me to accept him. What I felt
when, half an hour later, I faced Seti at the train--and I thought he
would never know the truth!” the girl sobbed in her bitter anguish,
and in her penitence she prayed earnestly for forgiveness and
assistance.

At the same time Seton was standing in his room grief-stricken and
heart-broken. Even now, when he knew everything, she was keeping up a
hollow pretense of loving him. Why? he asked himself. Was it because
of his popularity that she still sought to remain affianced to him,
yet at the same time meeting her lover in secret? Her protests of love
had sickened him.

“She is false--damnably false!” he cried in his sorrow--a pathetic
figure, bowed and broken. He stood by his bed and leaned upon it,
looking around him bewildered. “And I trusted her! I thought that at
last I had found happiness; that I had found my soul’s affinity, the
perfect woman!”

He choked down his sobs, and, going to the glass, tied his cravat and
reluctantly descended the staircase to the pretty drawing-room, with
its bowls of pink tulips, where Mrs. Temperley was sitting before the
fire.

“Edris tells me she is going to London to-morrow, Mr. Darville,” said
the General’s wife, a tall, well-preserved woman, who had been a great
hostess in India before the retirement of her husband. “You will
remain here with us, won’t you?”

“I fear that I must also go to London to-morrow,” replied the
novelist. “I have an appointment in town to-morrow night. Besides, I
can go up with Edris.”

“No, don’t. Remain with us. Do!” urged Edris’s mother.

But Seton made excuse that he was compelled to leave, and that moment
Edris, in a plain black dinner-frock, entered the room.

When, later on, at about eleven o’clock, they were left alone together
in the morning-room, Edris exclaimed, suddenly gripping his arm and
looking into his face:

“I know, Seti, that you can have no further confidence in me, but I
repeat what I have already said--that I love you, my wonderful lover,
and you alone. Karl is coming to London, and to-morrow night I am
meeting him at Victoria.”

“Yes,” he said brokenly, “I know. You have as him to come to London.”

Edris flushed up. “I do not deny it. I have done it in order to test
my love for you!” she said very seriously, her little hands trembling
upon his shoulders as she tried to bring her face up to his.

“How curious!” he remarked coldly. “You are engaged to me, and yet you
are compelled to test your love for me, eh? I really cannot understand
you,” he added, with a hard expression on his face.

“I know how base and cruel you must think me, Seti,” she cried in her
distress. “I--I can’t ask--I dare not ask you to forgive me. But if I
could only explain, you would, I know, think better of me--perhaps,
indeed, have pity for me.”

“Pity one who has acted as you have acted?” he said with withering
scorn. “You thought me in ignorance of it all--that I was a dotard,
and that I was one to be gulled and tricked. Instead, I am a man
strong in intelligence and health, with faculties more acute, perhaps,
than those of your straw-stuffed lover. No!” cried Darville in his
anger. “Go and meet him. You are longing for the hour, as you wrote to
him in your last letter four days ago.”

Edris did not answer. She knew that it was true that he had more fear
and jealousy of Karl Weiss than of any other man living.

The color mounted to her face and burnt there, but she did not draw
her hands away. His very words conjured up hatred and things she did
not want to think about, and which she resolutely put away at their
first appearance, now that Karl was on his way to London.

“I love you, Seti,” she said after a time, tired and heartsick as she
was. “I know that you have thrown me over because of my despicable
behavior. But I tell you that I will never marry anyone but you, if
that’s any consolation to you.”

He winced.

“Thank you,” he said very coldly.

She hesitated. Then, at last, summoning courage, she said with tears
in her eyes:

“Seti--my darling--can you ever believe, after all that has passed,
after my foolish infatuation, my abominable deceit and lies, that I
still love no other man but yourself?”

“No, Edris,” was his harsh reply, for his heart was now turned to
stone. “I regret I cannot. You are very young, and, the difference in
our ages being so great, perhaps it is, after all, best as it is. At
least, your lover says so!” he added bitterly.

Edris wondered fully what had torn the scales from his eyes so
roughly.

“Don’t you think I love you, Seti?” she cried in desperation. “You
shouldn’t talk like this.”

He put out his hand as though to touch hers, but stopped in time.

“Will you never forgive me?” She caught hold of him. “Seti, kiss me!”

But the man turned his head away. He had become sickened by her
treachery, her falsehoods, and her pretense of love.

Then her pent-up emotions found vent, and she opened the floodgates of
her soul and poured out the truth to him in short, quick
sentences--how the flirtation, begun by the kiss beneath the
mistletoe, had ended in a mutual attraction, and how Karl had forced a
profession of love from her lips, and a promise to marry him, just
before they had parted at Interlaken.

Edris, with tears streaming from her great, gray eyes, told him the
truth. On her knees she implored forgiveness, covering his hands with
passionate kisses.

Alas! it all left him quite cold. She saw that he had become a changed
man.

Next morning he accepted Mrs. Temperley’s pressing invitation to
remain until Edris returned from meeting Karl. He did not wish to
intrude upon their meeting, and, besides, the trap was set for his
enemy by the lucrative appointment awaiting him. It was Wednesday. She
said that she would return to Stagsden on Saturday.

So he went to the station with her. They uttered few words, both being
full of their own thoughts. Edris was going to meet his enemy in order
to see whether she preferred him to Seton Darville! When she entered
the compartment, her companion suddenly whispered to her:

“Do not forget that I await you!”

She turned quickly to him as she stood upon the footboard, and
replied:

“No, Seti, I shall not forget.”

And the train went off, leaving him alone. He saw her smiling face at
the window. She was expectant and happy. Then he turned, and, with
tears standing in his eyes, walked back to the car.

She had gone to meet his false friend, the traitor who had
extinguished the sun of his life.




 CHAPTER XXVII.
 THE TRAP

At ten o’clock on Thursday morning Karl Weiss presented himself at a
certain room in the War Office, as he had been requested by letter,
and there found a grave, gray-haired official awaiting him. As a
matter of fact it was Webster.

When Karl was seated the elder man, leaning back in his writing-chair,
said:

“I understand, Mr. Weiss, from our records here that you have already
been employed by us in certain confidential matters, and that you wish
to reënter our service?”

“That is so,” replied the young man, who looked every inch a German
officer.

“You are able to pass yourself off as a German, eh?”

“I have done it many times, in Berlin and other towns in Germany.”

“Then you could go to Russia with safety, I suppose?”

“With perfect safety. I have a Russian friend in Moscow. He was in
Berlin with me.”

“And you would be prepared to carry out a little confidential mission
for us in Russia?” asked the official seated at the table. “I am
instructed from a certain quarter to offer you a gratuity of one
thousand pounds a year and all traveling and hotel expenses, providing
that you place yourself entirely at the service of the department
engaging you.”

Karl’s heart leapt with joy. From unemployment with only Canada in
prospect, he was to drop into an easy and congenial post--a
confidential mission to Russia!

He accepted with eagerness.

“Very well,” said the gray-haired official. “We need not go over your
references. We have them all here. To-day is Thursday. Will you call
here at eleven o’clock on Monday morning, when an amount will be paid
to you in advance for expenses, and exact instructions given you as to
what information we desire?”

Karl Weiss went out into Whitehall treading on air, and took a taxi to
Edris’s club off Oxford Street, where she awaited him. Meanwhile, the
man who had interviewed the candidate for employment in the Secret
Service, crossed to the office in Trafalgar Square, and rang up
Darville at Stagsden.

When Seton took up the receiver he heard the familiar buzzing, and
knew that his office wished to speak.

“Amerton there?” asked a voice he recognized. The voice used
Darville’s code name.

“Yes. What report?” he asked quickly.

“All settled. He comes again for pay and instructions on Monday at
eleven.”

“Thanks. What report concerning the pair?”

“They dined at the Villa Villa after she met him, and afterwards sat
in the lounge of his hotel. He saw her to the Carlton, and left her at
twelve.”

“Good. Report again to-night at eight,” said Darville in those quick,
business-like tones he used when dealing with confidential matters.
And then he rang off.

When Karl met Edris in the lounge of her club he at once told her the
good news.

“You see your Government trusts me, or they would not give me such a
mission,” he said. “They know what I did for them in Berlin, and they
appreciate it. Now that I am in employment you need not hesitate to
tell old Darville of our engagement.”

“He already knows,” she said. “He has known everything all along, and
that accounts for his strangely suspicious behavior towards me.”

“Known it!” gasped the man. “How? You never betrayed our secret?” he
asked fiercely.

“No. But he has known, nevertheless, and has kept his knowledge of our
treachery to himself.”

Karl’s face clouded, and a hard, evil expression showed at the corners
of his mouth.

“He had better not interfere with my love for you, or he will repent
it,” he said threateningly, and he placed his hand upon his
hip-pocket, where he had his automatic pistol, in order to frighten
her.

To his surprise he saw that she was unmoved by his threats. She had
become quite used to them.

The pair were in ignorance that it was known to Darville that the
Swiss carried a revolver without a permit, and that he had given
orders for his arrest on arrival at Dover as an armed alien, and that
he should be sent back to Switzerland. He had taken that precaution in
order to prevent him coming to London at all, and it was only on the
day prior to his arrival that he had telegraphed and rescinded his
order.

The man who was at enmity with Seton Darville had indeed but little
chance when he chose to use the hidden and subtle power within his
hands.

After luncheon they spent the day walking and sitting in Hyde Park and
in Kensington Gardens, Karl being full of vituperation against Seton.

“I will show him now who will succeed,” he cried angrily, as they were
resting upon a seat in the Broad Walk. “I have a position with the
Government, and I will speak my mind. I will write to him, and defy
him to come between us!”

“You forget that I belonged to Seton before I met you,” she
remonstrated mildly.

“I do not care,” he swung round angrily. “You can never love an old
man like that! I have come into your life. I am young and strong, and
you love me. That you can’t deny, darling. You have told me so.”

For an hour he sat discussing the best way to give Seton Darville his
_congé_.

“You will never find a man who worships you as I do, Edris,” he said.
“You must get rid of him, and take me down to Stagsden before I go to
Russia. I demand to meet the General and your mother.”

There was silence for a few minutes, and then the girl said:

“I have never before had the experience of being loved by two men at
the same time,” and her beautiful eyes clouded. “Your word, demand,
is, however, rather out of place.”

“Forgive me,” the man said instantly, but frowning. “Sometimes I use
your words wrongly. English is, as you know, very difficult to speak
correctly.”

He had made a demand, but tried to evade the consequences of his _faux
pas_, for he saw she was annoyed.

Edris was a girl of spirit, and the little breach soon widened that
afternoon. Since his interview at the War Office he had become
arrogant and overbearing. He told her that he possessed her, and he
openly threatened Darville, if he dared to interfere. The truth was
that he knew from the first that she had money of her own, and was
quick to realize that, as she had fallen beneath his blandishments,
like so many other women had before her, she would be an easy prey.
Now that he held a Government appointment marriage would be easier.

He hated Darville--hated his high reputation, his fame as a traveler,
and his popularity everywhere; he hated to see his books displayed,
hence he jeered at them. In his own estimation, and in the estimation
of the women he fascinated, he was a perfect Adonis, a wonderful hero.
In his own egotism he believed that his appointment had, in itself,
proved his claim to distinction. Neither he nor Edris dreamed that the
hidden hand of the man whose friendship he had betrayed was now raised
against him, and was sending him to his doom. They never dreamed that
their every movement in London was being watched, unseen, by a pair of
alert eyes, and that all their doings were being reported to the
discarded man, who, pale and anxious, was wandering aimlessly in the
grounds at Stagsden with Edris’s great Dane as companion.

Darville, tricked, mortified, and now staggered by the amazing cunning
of the lovers, spoke many times to Lord Simba of his absent mistress,
while the splendid animal, walking grandly at his side, looked up at
him mutely, as though understanding his words. In the coppice he
patted his sleek coat, and said:

“Ah, Simba! To-morrow, old boy, I shall leave you, never to see you
again!”

And with difficulty he swallowed the lump which arose in his throat.

After luncheon he was putting on his coat prior to taking Lord Simba
for another walk when the maid called him to the telephone box in the
hall, and he found that Edris was speaking.

“Seti, could you come to town this evening? I particularly want to see
you. I’m at the Carlton. Can I reserve a room for you? Please don’t
refuse me this one request. I have something particular to say to
you.”

“I thought you did not want me in London while Karl was with you,” he
replied very coldly.

“To discuss matters over the ’phone is impossible, dear. I beg you to
come and see me to-night. Will you come, Seti--for my sake? Do come!”

He hesitated, and made no reply.

“Can you hear me?” she asked in desperation. And then she repeated her
urgent, despairing appeal.

“I really don’t see what object there is in our meeting,” he replied.
“Karl is with you.”

“Yes, but he is going to Russia, not to Canada, and----”

“Well, I will not intrude upon you,” Darville answered. “You will, no
doubt, spend a pleasant evening together.”

“Surely, Seti, you, who have always indulged me in my little whims,
and my wishes, will not forsake me now. I beg of you to come up at
once and see me. I want you. Do you understand those words?”

“Hardly,” he replied with a bitter laugh.

“Do come, Seti--for the sake of our old love,” she implored. “I must
see you to-night. If you catch the 4.40, you’ll be in time for a late
dinner in the grill-room. I’ll be in my room, 246, at ten o’clock,
awaiting you. Surely you will not refuse me this last favor that I ask
of you? I fear, in the circumstances, to ask it, but I--I ask it in
all penitence,” and he heard that her voice was faltering and broken.

For a few seconds he reflected.

“Very well, Edris,” he replied; “I will be with you at ten.”

He could hear the big sigh of relief she gave when he acceded to her
appeal. Then he rang off and went to pack his suit-case.

Punctually at ten o’clock he tapped at the door of room No. 246 in the
Carlton Hotel, and next second she opened it to admit him. She noticed
how hard-faced and austere he was as she closed the door.

She was wearing a wonderful flame-colored dance-frock trimmed with
silver. Womanlike, she held out her hand to him as though nothing had
happened. But he did not take it.

She rushed to him, clasped her arms about him, and kissed him with
tears in her eyes.

“It is so good of you to come, my dear heart. I--I feared that you
would refuse. But I want you--I want to tell you everything, and then
I’ll leave you to judge me as you will.”

“Karl Weiss is my enemy. I hate him,” he said, flashing into bitter
anger, as he stood near the dressing-table.

“Yes, you have just cause to do so,” she sobbed. “I want your
forgiveness, your sympathy--your great love.”

“You cannot want my love, Edris, when you are engaged to that man,” he
said, with a hard, serious expression.

“Oh, I know too well what you must think of me--how you must despise
me as callous and worthless. I have been. I admit it all. But there
have been extenuating circumstances in the crime I have committed--the
crime of so basely deceiving you--the man who loves me, and towards
whom I have been devoted.”

“Devoted!” he echoed jeeringly. “You have shown great devotion to me,
have you not?”

“I have been fascinated, deluded, and misled by the man you believed
was your friend. I had for him a fatal infatuation. Why, I cannot
tell,” she cried, clinging again to him. “From the first moment I met
him in Interlaken I felt some strange spell over me. But I swear that
I have never ceased to love you. I----”

“How can I believe that, in face of his letters to you concerning
myself? Do not forget your deception at Wengen, and the hours you
spent in his arms.” Darville’s face was hard.

“I know I have lied to you,” she went on, “but I have lied in
defense.”

“In defense of what?”

“In defense of him.”

He gazed with tragic fascination at the girl he had loved, worked for,
hoped for, and lost.

“Because you loved him,” he said quietly.

“No, it was not that--I swear it was not. I have never loved him. I
loved only you, Seti. He attracted me by some extraordinary evil power
of fascination he possesses. He fascinated and infatuated me, until I
was as clay in his hands. Whatever caused me to do what I have done, I
cannot tell. When I wrote those cruel letters I could not have been in
my senses. But now I have seen him here in my own country I have
become disillusioned, and I have realized that it is all a tragedy
which I brought upon you--that my infatuation for him is at an end. I
love only you, and, as far as he is concerned, he has now passed out
of my life for ever. Will you believe me?” she added in frantic
appeal. True to her pride and principles, she stood awaiting his
reply, prepared to abide by his decision. She was beaten, and knew it.

She looked up and met his eyes. They were kind, dark, still, and
clear. It was the crucial moment of both their lives.

“Then you have discarded him?” he asked with a sigh. He laughed a
little, with an impatient note.

Edris flushed, and then grew white; her eyes closed for a moment, and
then opened and looked at him. He never forgot them, nor their
expression. The old love-light was returning. It was that which
softened him.

He placed his hand lightly upon her dark, shingled head.

“Yes,” she said, with a catch in her voice, “I have discarded him,
Seti, and I have returned to you, if--if I dare face you again.”

And, again in tears, she fell upon her knees, and, clutching his
strong hand, covered it with hot, passionate kisses.




 CHAPTER XXVIII.
 CONCLUSION

When they met next morning they stood in silence, but she dare not
raise her eyes, and something puzzled him.

“Are you not pleased to see me?” asked Darville, astonished and
dismayed. “You know, darling, that I have forgiven you on condition
that you never see that man again.”

“I know, Seti, dearest!” she cried, raising her ready lips to his.
“But----” and she hesitated. Then, taking a letter in a pale blue
envelope from her bag, she handed it to him unopened. “This came from
him this morning, and, though it may pain you, dearest, it is but
right that you should have it. You may wish to read it. I do not want
to see it. Read it and destroy it.”

He held the letter in his hand for a moment, sorely tempted to see
what his false friend had written, and thus ascertain for himself upon
what terms they had actually parted. His brow clouded for a second,
for he was tortured by undying memories.

“No,” he said, with sudden impulse. “You have left him. That is
all-sufficient. We will destroy it”; and he tore it into small
fragments and cast it into the waste-paper basket. “If he writes
again, give me his letters; I will destroy them unread,” he said.

“My dear, generous darling,” she cried, throwing her arms about his
neck. “You cannot know how perfectly happy I am now that you have
taken me back again to your heart. If I had loved that man I should
have left you. But I never really had any affection for him--only a
mad, foolish infatuation. He seemed to hold me in some uncanny
fascination, but I never forgot my love for you, and when he spoke
disparagingly of you, I always protested. I never ceased to tell him
that I was yours.”

“I believe you, Carina,” Darville said at last, stroking her hair
tenderly. “You will not be troubled by him much longer,” he said, with
a meaning she did not grasp. “He is going to Russia, you say?”

“Yes, he has a Government appointment--quite a lucrative one, I
believe.”

“Well, do not let us discuss him again, dear heart. Let us return to
Stagsden, and to that complete happiness and bliss that was ours
before we went to Switzerland. I have a business appointment at
half-past ten, and we will leave by the 12.30.”

He returned to his room, and stood for a few minutes at the window
deep in thought. His great grief had now given place to serious
reflection. His brows were knit, and his hands were clenched. A fierce
struggle was going on within himself. He recalled all his enemy’s
wiles and trickery, and how very nearly his life had been wrecked by a
man who was a deceiver of women. His blood boiled within him, and when
he reviewed the past, he gritted his teeth and laughed a harsh, unreal
laugh when he thought of the swift vengeance that he would mete out to
his treacherous friend.

Suddenly he paused and bit his lip. He paced the room once or twice
slowly. Then, with sudden impulse, he clasped his hands and threw them
up to heaven, crying in a tense voice of distress:

“May God help me!”

His eyes were fixed above, his lips moved, but not a sound came from
them. He was praying for his own soul.

Presently he grew calmer, and, taking his hat and coat, went out to
his secret office in the hub of the world.

That same afternoon, while Edris and Darville were in the train
returning to Stagsden, Karl Weiss received a letter, delivered by
messenger, informing him with regret that the matter referred to at
his interview had been satisfactorily cleared up, and, such being the
circumstances, his proposed mission was canceled, his services not
being required.

In his ignorance he never dreamed of the influence of Seton Darville,
or of the narrow escape he had had at his hidden but all-powerful
hand. Darville had relented and spared his life.

Indeed, on the morning following Darville received a most cruel and
insulting letter from him, a letter in which the fellow revealed
himself in his true colors. Baffled by Edris’s firm determination to
cut herself adrift from him, his anger found vent in vituperation,
threats, and disgusting references to his age.

Darville read the letter, and, laughing to himself, murmured: “Go to
Canada, my false friend, and consider yourself lucky that you have
escaped with your life!” The letter had been addressed to him,
therefore he did not think it necessary to show it to Edris, and thus
re-open a closed and unhappy chapter of their lives. So he tore it
into fragments, and descended the broad staircase to the dining-room,
where Edris, fresh and charming, stood alone, awaiting his morning
kiss.

That beautiful spring day saw the rebirth of their great and wonderful
love, and Mrs. Temperley, who now knew of their engagement, was not
slow to notice the change that had suddenly come over the pair.

She and her husband had approved of the friendship from the first,
because the General well knew the strong character of Seton Darville,
and both he and his wife preferred seeing Edris the wife of a man of
Seton’s age rather than her marriage with a shallow-minded young man
like Lionel.

That morning, with the sun shining upon the fresh green spring
blossoms everywhere, they wandered arm in arm in the grounds of
Stagsden, blissfully happy in each other’s love, while Lord Simba
played about them, his huge form almost knocking them down when, in
his gambols, he pretended to pounce upon them.

“Do you know, Seti,” she exclaimed, after they had mutually agreed
never to mention the name of Weiss in future, “I have a strange
longing to go back to Interlaken--to the Hotel du Lac--and spend the
early spring there upon the scene of your terrible grief and
suffering. Let us return there, and live a life of happiness such as
we have not yet known--blissful days that will wipe out the terrible
memory of the past.”

“If you wish it, darling, we will go. Any day will suit me.”

And so, a week later, they went back to Switzerland, that peaceful,
picturesque country that both of them loved so well, and, making
Interlaken their headquarters, they wandered about the beautiful
Bernese Oberland to those spots where Darville had experienced such
overwhelming sorrow, when his love was being tested in the crucible of
jealousy and deceit.

One day something recalled to Edris’s mind the winter sports of the
previous year, and she said:

“I wonder I have never heard from little Mrs. Caborn. Do you remember
her? I wrote to her a few months ago, but got no reply.”

He winced, but she did not notice it.

“Oh, I suppose she has forgotten you. Hotel acquaintances are easily
made, and as easily dropped.”

What would she have thought had she known of her friend’s tragic end?

Weeks lengthened into months. The Alpine spring grew into summer, and
they still remained there, both of them having no inclination to
return to England.

One beautiful summer’s evening they were seated beneath the trees in
the pretty shady park at Wengen, at a spot where they had often sat in
those dark days of Edris’s fatal fascination.

“Do you recollect the last time we sat here, darling?” she asked him.
“I lied to you, because I dared not tell you the truth.”

“My loved one, it is all forgiven,” he answered her. “I know that you
remained mine all along.”

He drew her into his arms, and Edris put hers round his neck and clung
tightly to him, and there, at last, she found the peace that she had
always longed for, but until then had never gained.

 * * * * * * *

If you stand on that broad promenade, the Höheweg, at Interlaken,
with its row of handsome hotels, and its great meadows with the wide
valley and the towering eternal snows of the Jungfrau in the
background--one of the most gorgeous views in all Europe--you will
see, upon the wooded mountain-side, a pretty white chalet, with
balconies and wide, overhanging eaves and a wonderful garden of
tangled roses, geraniums and wisteria.

If you ask who lives at that delightful spot, you will be told that it
belongs to Mr. Seton Darville, the famous novelist, who lives there in
peaceful happiness with his charming wife, both of them ardent lovers
of Switzerland and the Swiss, and both extremely popular all over the
Bernese Oberland.

 THE END




 TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Minor spelling inconsistencies (e.g. intrusted/entrusted,
reëntering/re-entering, Zürich/Zurich, etc.) have been preserved.

Alterations to the text:

[Chapter VII]

“Besides he was not certain whether she had come to England” add a
comma after _Besides_.

Change “I had a similar case a _fornight_ ago--an insured parcel” to
_fortnight_.

[Chapter IX]

“Can you leave Paris at ten, and be at Victoria at _5:15_?” to _5.15_.

[Chapter X]

“See you on Saturday, and I’ll be delighted Good-by, Edris.” add a
period after _delighted_.

[Chapter XIX]

“She crossed to where… and, bending, kissed him fondly” add a period
to the sentence.

[Chapter XX]

“all three dined together in the great salle _a_ manger amid the gay”
to _à_.

[Chapter XXIV]

“I am compelled to… while my heart is breaking I know that my” add
a period after _breaking_.

[Chapter XXVI]

“That night the pair experienced a feeling of _strangement_” to
_estrangement_.

 [End of text]






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