conceived a bold design of relieving you of this very charge of yours,
which you are guarding with such praiseworthy solicitude."

"Oh!" said the Englishman, "and how would he go about it?" The idea
appeared to tickle him. He laughed.

"He would follow you and attack you," said I.

The Englishman put his hands on his thighs and simply roared. "He would
have to swim after me," he chuckled. "There is not another launch save
these two between here and Ham!"

"I am honestly glad to hear it," I replied, and, indeed, I was.

"It's a mare's nest," declared the Englishman.

"Oh!" said I. "This Pinsent is a desperate fellow and resourceful. Do
you know, he actually tried single-handed to seize that launch."

"The _Swallow_!" cried the Englishman. "Impossible."

"On the contrary!" I retorted. "He succeeded. He stands before you. My
name is Pinsent. Permit me!"

He was a trifle slow-witted, I fancy. He still looked puzzled, when his
face emerged above the Nile water, after his dive. But I would not let
him return to the punt. Immediately I discovered that the Arabs were
only armed with knives. I had taken the trouble to throw overboard all
the firearms that I could find on the _Swallow_; so I just drove them
aboard the launch and ordered the Frenchman to sheer off and return to
Rakh. He was charmed at the permission.

The Englishman fired at me twice from the water, but he had to keep
himself afloat, so he naturally missed. When he was well-nigh drowned
I hauled him up with a boat hook. It was easy to disarm him in that
condition. I had intended to put him on the tug, but I waited too long.
The tug cut the tow rope before my eyes and without so much as by your
leave puffed after the _Swallow_. The Englishman and I were thus left
lonely on the punt; in middle stream. The current was fairly strong at
that point and making towards a long, low-lying sweep of reedy flats.
I had no mind to land there, however, so after tying up the Englishman
neck and crop, I contrived to hoist a sail and steered for the opposite
bank.

The Englishman and I had nothing to say to each other. No doubt he
recognised the futility of conversation in the circumstances; as for
me, I never felt less inclined to talk. About five o'clock we grounded
under the lee of a pretty little promontory. It was populated with
crocodiles. Nice companions--at a distance--crocodiles--musky-smelling
brutes.

Chapter XI

Good-bye to the Nile

The Englishman was evidently something of a gourmet. I found foie gras,
camembert cheese, pressed sheep's tongues and bottled British ale in
his private locker. But he was as sullen as a sore-headed grizzly. He
sourly declined to eat even though I offered to free his hands, and he
strove to make my dinner unpleasant by volunteering pungent information
on the punishment provided by law for the crimes of piracy, robbery
under arms, burglary, assault and battery, and false imprisonment.
Those, it seems, were the titular heads of some of my delinquencies.
He felt sure that I would get ten years' hard labour, at least. I did
not argue the point with him. After dinner I examined the sarcophagus.
The lid was fastened on with crosswise-running bands of hinged steel,
padlocked in the centre. But it was, strange to say, wedged at one
end with iron bolts about an inch ajar, as if on purpose to allow air
to pass into the coffin. After a little search I discovered a toolbox
in the shallow hold of the punt; and I attacked the bands with cold
chisels and a mallet. Ten minutes' work sufficed. I tossed the broken
bands aside and levered off the lid. My heart beat like a trip-hammer
as I looked into the coffin. I was prepared for a surprise. I received
one. My Arab gazed up at me. The mysterious Arab with the three broken
ribs, who had frightened Miss Ottley and tried to throttle me and
whom I had last seen lying--a corpse--in the cave temple at Rakh. Of
course, Sir Robert Ottley had declared the corpse in the temple to
be identical with that of Ptahmes, the four thousand years dead High
Priest of Amen-Ra. But that was ridiculous. I had only had time to make
a cursory examination of the dead Arab in the cave temple, it is true,
but I am a surgeon, and I had convinced myself that the fellow, so
far from being a mummy, had not been long dead. I had yet to discover
an essential error in my cave temple investigation. My very first
impression had been not death, but suspended animation. And I must have
been right. The later speedy diagnosis had, in sober truth, misled me.
The man was not dead. It had been a case of suspended animation. The
Arab lying in the sarcophagus before me was alive. His broken ribs
were neatly set and bandaged. Otherwise he was swathed from head to
foot in oiled rags. He was lying in an easy position on his back--upon
a doubled feather tick. He was breathing softly but unmistakably. And
he was awake. His extraordinary eyes--they were set fully five inches
apart in his abnormally broad skull--were wide open and staring at me
in a way to make the flesh creep. They were horrible eyes. The whites
were sepia-coloured, the pupils were yellowish, and the iris of each a
different shade of black flecked with scarlet spots. His cone-shaped
forehead was moist and glistening with oil or perspiration. His mouth
was held open by two small rubber-tipped metal bars joined together,
against which his teeth--great brown fangs--pressed with manifest
spasmodic energy.

Now what was Ottley's purpose in taking such extraordinary pains to
transport a living Arab in a dead man's coffin from Rakh to Cairo, and,
perhaps, London?

Perhaps the Arab could tell me. Burning with curiosity, I stooped down
and took from his mouth the mechanical contrivances which held the
jaws apart. The Arab uttered on the instant a deep, raucous sigh. His
eyeballs rolled upwards and became fixed. He appeared to have fainted.
I rushed away to procure some water. That water was in the hold.
Seizing a dipper, I sprang down the steps, hurried to the cask and
filled it. The whole business occupied only a few seconds. I certainly
could not have been away from the deck half a minute, but when I
returned the sarcophagus was empty. The Arab had disappeared. Utterly
astounded, I gazed about me. Had the whole thing been a dream? It
appeared so, but no--I caught sight of a tall, dark figure making off
hot foot across the promontory. He had leaped ashore, a distance of
twelve feet or more, and was running towards the desert. In a second
I was after him. I thought of the crocodiles while in mid air; but it
was too late to turn back at that juncture. My feet landed in a patch
of oozy sand. I scrambled out of it and up the slope among the reeds.
A loud rustle and a stink of musk warned me of a saurian neighbour. I
gave a mighty leap and cleared the reeds. Then I ran as I had never run
before, for my Arab was in front, and a hungry monster came hard upon
my heels. A log lay in my path. It was another crocodile. I cleared it
with a bound and gained the desert. I was hunted for some seconds, I
believe, but I never looked back, so I do not know at what point the
saurian gave up the chase. The Arab was a marvel. He had a lead of one
hundred yards and he maintained it. He had three broken ribs and I was
as sound as a bell. Yet, at the end of twenty minutes not his breath
but mine gave out. I was forced to pause for a spell. He ran on. His
lead doubled. Setting my teeth, I resumed the chase. But I might have
spared myself the trouble. He gradually grew farther and farther away
from me. I did my best, but at last I was compelled to admit myself
beaten. The Arab's tall form grew less and less distinguishable against
the stars. Finally it melted into the mists of the horizon. I was alone
on the desert. I sat down to rest and took counsel with myself. I had
turned pirate and committed, technically, a number of other atrocious
crimes for absolutely nothing. Plainly I could not return to the punt.

First of all, in order to reach it I should have to face the
crocodiles. And even should I escape their jaws again, what could I
do on the river? Sooner or later I should be caught. And I had a very
strong suspicion that Sir Robert Ottley would not hesitate, once I was
in his power, to plunge me into an Egyptian prison. He had evidence
enough to get me a long term of hard labour, and I felt little doubt
but that he would go to a lot of trouble for that, and _con amore_
after the way that I had served him. It did not, therefore, take me
long to resolve to risk the desert rather than rot in an Egyptian gaol.
I had spilt a lot of milk. I was foodless, waterless, and Gods knows
where. Also, I was as thirsty as a lime kiln. But no use crying. What
to do? That was the question. For a start, I lay down and pressed my
cheek against the ground. The horizon thus examined showed a faintly
circled unbroken level line in all directions except the northwest.
There it was interrupted for a space by a mound that was either a
cloud-bank or a grove of trees. It proved to be the latter. I found
there water to drink and dates to eat. Next morning I took my bearings
from the sun, and giving the river a wide berth I pressed on north for
two days and nights on an empty stomach. Then I shot an ibis with my
revolver in a reedy marsh and ate it raw. Next day I climbed into the
mountains and looked back on Assuan and Philæ. But it is not my purpose
to describe my wanderings minutely. It would take too long. Suffice it
to say that I changed clothes with an Arab near Redesieh and entered
Eonah dyed as a Nubian a week later, after crossing the river at El-Kab
in a fisherman's canoe. The Nile was still ringing with my doings, so
I judged it best to proceed on foot to Luqsor. But there I got a job
in a dahabeah that was conveying a party of French savants back from
Elephantine to Abydos. I stayed with them three weeks, hearing much
talk, meanwhile, of a certain rascally Scotch doctor named Pinsent. It
was supposed he had perished in the desert. One day, however, hearing
that Sir Robert Ottley, who had been lying at Thebes, had been seen
at Lykopolis, I deserted from my employ, and walked back to Farschat.
There I bought a passage on a store-boat and came by easy stages
to Beni Hassan. Thence I tramped to Abu Girgeh, where I lay for a
fortnight, ill of a wasting fever, in the house of a man I had formerly
befriended. A large reward had been offered for my arrest, but he
was an Arab of the better sort. So far from betraying me to outraged
justice, he cashed my cheque for a respectable amount and procured me
a passage to Cairo on a river steamer. I entered the ancient city of
Memphis one day at dusk, a wreck of my old self and as black as the
ace of spades. Not daring to reclaim my goods at my lodging-house, I
proceeded forthwith to Alexandria with no wardrobe save the clothes
upon my back, and so anxious was I to escape from Egypt that I shipped
as stoker on a French steamer bound for Marseilles. I could find none
that would take a negro as passenger. The dye pretty well wore off my
face and hands during the voyage, but the circumstance only excited
remark among the motley scum of the stokehole, and I was permitted
to land without dispute. Heavens! how beautiful it was to dress once
more as a European, to eat European food, to sleep on a European bed,
and not to be afraid to look a European in the face. In Europe I did
not care a pin for Sir Robert Ottley and all that he could do to hurt
me. In Egypt his money and influence would have left me helpless to
resist him; but I felt myself something more than his match in the
centre of modern civilisation. He had the law of me, of course, but I
had a weapon to bring him to book. I could hold him up to public scorn
and ridicule. Were he to prosecute me I could put him in the pillory
as a wretch ungrateful for his life saved by my care and skill, a
promise-breaker and something of a lunatic. On the whole, I decided he
would not venture to put me in the dock. And so sure did I feel on that
head that I proceeded to London as fast as steam could carry me.

Chapter XII

The Meeting

Whenever in London my practice for years had been to put up at
my friend Dixon Hubbard's rooms in Bruton Street. We had been
schoolfellows. He was one of the most fortunate and unfortunate
creatures in the world. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he
had inherited from some cross-grained ancestor a biting tongue and
a gloomy disposition. He was an incurable misanthrope and unpopular
beyond words. At college he had been detested. Being a sickly lad,
his tongue had earned him many a thrashing which he had had to endure
without other reprisal than sarcasm. Yet he had never spared that. His
spirit was unconquerable. I believe that he would have taunted his
executioners while they burned him at the stake. I used to hate him
myself once. But one day after giving him a fairly good hammering I
fell so in love with the manly way in which he immediately thereafter
gave me a sound excuse for wringing his neck that I begged his pardon
for being a hulking bully in having lifted hand against a weaker
body but a keener brain and more untamable spirit than my own. That
conquered him. From that moment we were inseparable chums, and on an
average the privilege cost me at least two hard fights a week, for my
code was--hit my chum and you hit me. His gratitude lay in jibing at
me if I lost the fight, and if I won informing me that I was a fool
for my pains. But we understood each other, and our friendship bravely
withstood the test of time and circumstance. I found him nursing an
attack of splenitic rheumatism before a fire in his study, and we were
still only in the middle of July. His man, Miller, had just broken
a Sévres vase, and Hubbard was telling Miller in a gentle, measured
way his views of clumsiness in serving-men. Miller--a meek, dog-like
creature usually--stood before his master glowing but inarticulate
with rage. His fists were clenched and his lips were drawn back from
his teeth. Hubbard was evidently enjoying himself. He watched the
effect of his placid exhortation with a sweet smile--and he applied
his mordant softly uttered gibes with the pride of a sculptor at work
upon an image. Each one produced some trifling but significant change
in Miller's expression. Probably Hubbard was experimenting--seeking
to discover either how far he could go with safety or exactly what it
would be necessary to say in order to make Miller spring at his throat.
They were both so engrossed that I entered without disturbing them. I
listened for a moment and then created a diversion. Miller's tension
was positively dangerous. I walked over, took him by the collar and
propelled him from the room. "You'll find my bag downstairs," I said.
"I've come to stay."

Miller gave me the look of a dog that wants but does not dare to lick
your hand. His gratitude was pathetic. I shut the door in his face.

Hubbard did not rise. He did not even offer to shake hands. He half
closed his eyes and murmured in a tired voice: "The bad penny is back
again, and uglier than ever."

I crossed the room and threw open a window. Then I marched into his
bedroom, seized a water jug, returned and put out the fire.

"You've been coddling yourself too long," I remarked. "Get up and
put on your hat. It's almost one. You are going to lunch with me at
Verrey's."

"I have a stiff leg," he remonstrated.

"Fancy! Mere fancy," I returned.

The room was full of steam and smoke. Hubbard said a wicked thing and
got afoot, coughing. I found his hat, crammed it on his skull and
crooked my arm in his. He declined to budge and wagged a blistering
tongue, but I laughed and, picking him up, I carried him bodily
downstairs to a cab. He called me forty sorts of cowardly bully in his
gentle sweetly courteous tones, but before two blocks were passed his
ill-humour had evaporated. He remembered he had news to give me. We
had not met for eighteen months. Of a sudden he stopped beshrewing me
and leaned back in the cushions. I knew his ways and talked about the
weather. He endured it until we were seated within the grill-room. Then
he begged me very civilly to let God manage His own affairs.

"I am very willing," I said.

He impaled an oyster on a fork and sniffed at it with brutal
indifference to the waiter's feelings. Satisfied it was a good oyster,
he swallowed it.

"I am no longer a bachelor," said he. "I have taken unto myself a wife."

"The deuce!" I cried.

"Exactly," he said. "But the prettiest imp imaginable."

"My dear Hubbard, I assure you----"

"My dear Pinsent, you have blundered on the truth."

"But----"

He held up a warning finger. "It occurred a year ago. We lived together
for six weeks. Then we compromised. I gave her my house in Park Lane
and returned myself to Bruton Street. Pish! man, don't look so shocked.
Helen and I are friends--I see her once a week now at least, sometimes
more often. I assure you I enjoy her conversation. She has a natural
genius for gossip and uses all her opportunities. She has already
become a fixed star in the firmament of society's smartest set and
aspires to found a new solar system. I allow her fifteen thousand
pounds a year. She spends twenty. My compensation is that I am never
at a loss for a subject of reflection. We shall call on her this
afternoon. A devil, but diverting. You will be amused."

"Do I know her, Hubbard?"

"No; you are merely acquainted. Her maiden name was Arbuthnot."

"Lady Helen Arbuthnot!" I cried.

He smiled and shrugged his shoulders. "You will find her changed.
Marriage has developed her. I remember before you went away--was it to
Egypt?--she tried her blandishments on you. But then she was a mere
apprentice. Heaven help you now--if she marks you for her victim."

"Poor wretch!" I commented. "I suppose you can't help it. But you ought
to make an effort, Hubbard, really."

"An effort. What for?"

"To conceal how crudely in love with your wife you are."

He bit his lips and frowned. "Children and fools speak the truth,"
he murmured. Then he set to work on the champagne and drank much
more than was good for him. The wine, however, only affected his
appearance. It brought a flush to his pallid cheeks and made his dull
eyes sparkle. He deluged me with politics till three o'clock. Then we
drove to Park Lane. Lady Helen kept us waiting for twenty minutes.
In the meantime, two other callers joined us. Men. In order to show
himself at home Hubbard smoked a cigarette. The men looked pensively
appalled. They were poets. They wore long hair and exotic gardens in
their buttonholes. And they rolled their eyes. They must have been
poets. Also they carried bouquets. Certainly they were poets. When Lady
Helen entered they surged up to her, uttering little artistic foreign
cries. And they kissed her hand. She gave their bouquets to the footman
with an air of fascinating disdain. Their dejection was delightful.
But she consoled them with a smile and advanced to us. Certainly she
had changed. I had known her as a somewhat unconventional and piquant
débutante. She was now a brilliant siren, an accomplished coquette and
a woman of the world. Her tiny stature made her attractive, for she
was perfectly proportioned and her costume ravishingly emphasised the
petite and dainty grace of her figure. Her face was reminiscent of one
of those wild flowers of torrid regions which resemble nothing grown in
an English garden, but which, nevertheless, arrest attention and charm
by their bizarrerie. It was full of eerie wisdom, subtle wilfulness
and quaint, half-humorous diablerie. In one word, she was a sprite.
She greeted her husband with an unctuous affectation of interest which
would have made me, in his place, wish to box her ears. Hubbard,
however, was as good an actor as herself. He protested he was grateful
for the audience and claimed credit for introducing me. Lady Helen
looked me up and down and remembered that I had owed her a letter for
nearly thirty-seven months. She gave me the tips of her fingers and
then rushed away to kiss on both cheeks a lady who had just entered.
"Oh, you darling!" she twittered. "This is just too lovely of you. I
have longed for you to come."

It was May Ottley. She did not see me at once. Lady Helen utterly
engrossed her. I had, therefore, time to recover from the unexpected
shock of her appearance. I was ridiculously agitated. I slipped into an
alcove and picked up a book of plates. At first my hands shook so that
I could hardly turn the pages. Hubbard glided to my side. I felt his
smile without seeing it. "I smell a brother idiot," he whispered.

I met his eyes and nodded.

"In Egypt, of course?"

"Yes."

"She marries a guardsman next month, I hear."

"Indeed."

"The poor man," murmured Hubbard. "Come out and let us drink his
health."

"No, thank you."

"You'd rather stay and singe your wings, poor moth."

"And you?"

"Mine," said he, "were amputated in St. James Church. She is a lovely
creature, Pinsent."

"Which?"

He chuckled without replying. A footman pompously announced: "Mrs.
Carr--Lord Edward Dutton."

"Bring the tea, please," said Lady Helen's voice.

"She is staring this way at you," murmured Hubbard. "She recognises
your back. No, not quite, she is puzzled."

"She has never seen me in civilised apparel," I explained.

"Are you afraid of her, my boy?"

"Yes."

"Well, you are honest."

I began to listen for her voice. The air was filled with scraps of
conversation.

"Three thousand, I tell you. He cannot go on like that. Shouldn't
wonder if he went abroad. Like father, like son. Old Ranger had the
same passion for bridge."

"You can say what you like, names tell one nothing. In my opinion the
man is a Jew. What if he does call himself Fortescue? Consider his
nose. I am tired of these rich colonials. I have no time for them.
Heaven knows what they are after."

"She will spoil her lower register completely if she keeps on. Her
voice is a mezzo and nothing else. You should have seen the way old
Delman sneered when he listened to her last night."

"My test of a really fine soprano is the creepy feeling the high C
gives one in the small of the back. Delicious. She never thrills me at
all."

"Oh! Lord Edward, how malicious. What has the poor man done to you?"

"He plays billiards too well to have been anything but a marker in his
youth. I believe he kept a saloon somewhere in the States."

"They say it will end in the divorce court. That is what comes of
marrying a milkmaid. And, after all, she did not present him with a
son. Ah, well, it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Young
Carnarvon is his heir still, and his chances of succeeding grow rosier
every day."

"My dear Mrs. Belvigne, if it was not for her red hair, she would be as
commonplace as--as my dear friend Mrs. Sorenson. What you men see in
red hair----"

"Conscience, Lady Helen, is a composition of indulgences. It is a
marriage de convenance between the conventional instinct and the
appetite."

"Dr. Pinsent," said Miss Ottley, "is it really you?"

I turned and looked into her eyes. They were all aglow and her cheeks
were suffused with colour. She gave me both her hands. The room
was already crowded. People entered every minute. Hubbard pointed
significantly at the tea-cups. Miss Ottley and I drifted to the divan.
We watched the crowd through the parted curtains, sipping our tea. We
might as well have been in a box at the theatre watching the play.

"I knew you would escape," she murmured, presently. "The others
believe you to have perished in the desert."

"They consoled themselves, no doubt?"

"My father especially."

"Did he recover his Arab?"

"What Arab?"

"The creature he had imprisoned in the sarcophagus."

"The mummy, you mean. The body of Pthames? Oh, yes, that was safe
enough, but he was in a fearful state until we found the punt. He
feared that you would either steal or destroy the mummy, I believe."

"Miss Ottley!" I cried.

"You must not blame him too much," she murmured; "you know how he had
set heart----"

"Look here!" I interrupted. "Do you mean to tell me that you found the
mummy in the sarcophagus?"

"Certainly. Why?"

"Did you see it?"

"Yes."

"The mummy?"

"Why, of course."

"A dead body, a mummy?"

"Dr. Pinsent, how strangely you insist."

"I'll tell you the reason. When I opened the sarcophagus----"

"Yes."

"It contained not a mummy, but a living man."

"Impossible."

"You think so? The Arab was the very man who frightened you so often in
the temple at the Hill of Rakh."

"Dr. Pinsent!"

"When I removed the lid he leaped out of the sarcophagus, sprang ashore
and fled to the desert. I followed him for several miles. But I could
not catch him. I was compelled to give up the chase. And now you tell
me that you afterwards found a mummy in the coffin which I had left
empty."

"One of us is dreaming," said the girl.

"What was this mummy like?"

"A tall man--with a curious conical-shaped head--and eyes set hideously
far apart in its skull--but you have seen the Arab who frightened
me--and indeed he attacked you at your camp. His mummified counterpart."

"And some of his ribs were broken?"

"I do not know."

"But his body was bandaged. Otherwise he was almost nude."

"Good heavens!" she exclaimed. She put down her cup. "You make me very
unhappy. You force me to recall my horror--in the cave temple. The
wretched uncanny sense of the supernatural that oppressed me there. You
make me remember that I was tortured into a fancy that the mummy was a
ghost--that we were haunted--that--oh! oh! And father has been so kind
to me lately, kinder than ever before."

"He is in London?"

"Yes."

"And the mummy?"

"Yes."

"And Dr. Belleville?"

"He is staying with us."

"Captain Weldon?"

She turned aside her head. "He is in London, too."

"You are shortly to be married, I am informed."

She stood up. "I must really be going," she observed constrainedly;
then she held out her hand. I watched her pick her way through the
crowd to our hostess. It was a well-bred crowd, but it stared at her.
She was worth looking at. She walked just as a woman should and she
bore herself with the proper touch of pride that is at the same time a
personal protection and a provocative of curiosity. Some people call
it dignity. Hubbard materialised from the shadow of a neighbouring
curtain. "My wife has invited me to dinner," he announced. "You, too.
I have made her your excuses because I have a money matter to discuss
that should not be postponed."

"You have my deepest sympathy," I answered, and left him as puzzled to
know what I meant as I was. Something was whispering over and over
in my ear--"Work! work! work!" and whispering in the imperative mood.
I determined to call upon Captain Weldon and procure from him my
manuscript, at once. I remembered he lived in Jermyn Street. I walked
thither as fast as I was able.

Chapter XIII

Hubbard Is Jealous

I encountered the Captain on his doorstep. He was just going out,
hatted and gloved, but on seeing me he abandoned his intention.
His delight was that of a child, and so manifestly genuine, so
transparently sincere, that it warmed my heart. He dragged me into
his sitting-room and wrung my hands again and again, expressing his
pleasure in tones that made the windows rattle. One cannot help
liking a man so simple and at the same time so kind. There are too
many complex people in the world. He had grieved for my supposed loss
more than at his own brother's death, he said, and I believed him.
Very few men care much for their brothers. Then he told me all about
his approaching marriage. It was to take place in five weeks and he
was dreading the ordeal already. He had just finished furnishing his
Wexford country house from top to bottom. They were to settle there
after a honeymoon in Italy and adopt the life and manners of country
magnates, only coming to town for the season. It was Miss Ottley's
desire; she did not care for London smart society, it seemed, and
although he did, he was quite willing to give it up or anything
else indeed to please her. It was pleasant to hear him rhapsodise
concerning her and to watch his happy face. Its spirit made him ten
times handsomer, and although his speech was boyish it did not detract
him from his exuberant virility. He was a man from the crown of his
head to the soles of his feet,--a splendid animal, with just enough
brains to be a force to command respect, and a heart big enough to
fill the whole world with his affection. There was not a single bitter
drop in the cup of his happiness. He was about to marry the woman he
adored. He was enormously wealthy, and his wife-to-be was the only
daughter of a millionaire. His plans for the future were Utopian. He
dreamed of enlarging his estates and providing for at least the welfare
of a hundred families. Wealth was given one in trust for others, he
declared, and he was resolved to make every one around him happy and
contented. As a wedding present to his tenants he had already ordered
the rebuilding of their homes and cottages on a scale of almost lavish
grandeur. Each farmhouse would be a model of luxury; each labourer's
cottage would be a miniature castle with tiled walls, and hot and
cold water attachments. Other landlords were annoyed with him and had
not hesitated to express their resentment. He was spoiling his own
tenants and making them dissatisfied, they said. But the Captain asked
me with eyes aglow how could one want to keep all the good things of
life to benefit a single class? It was monstrous, impossible, absurd.
He only wished he could at one stroke make all the poor in the world
comfortable. "You ought to hear May on the subject," he cried out in a
burst of confidence. "You'd think she was a socialist. But she is only
an angel." Thence he wandered to her father. Sir Robert had given up
all his old stupid ways. He had reformed and was as sane as any man
in England. He had repudiated his ancient attachment to "spooks" and
spirit-rapping, and Mahatmas, and had sent his famous medium, Navarro,
to the right about, much to that gentleman's disgust and indignation.
Sir Robert was now engaged with Dr. Belleville in compiling a history
of the dynasty from papyri they had found in the tomb of Ptahmes. The
Captain still thought that Ottley had treated me very badly, but he
begged me to forgive the old man as he had evidently not been quite
in his mind at the time. "You excited his professional jealousy,
don't you know, old chap," said Weldon. "Sir Robert has one fault--he
is dreadfully vain and he wanted to get all the credit out of his
discovery. He told me so himself. He quite opened up to me on the
voyage home."

A vision of Sir Robert Ottley "opening up" to the Captain occurred to
me. The little, old, inscrutable, shut-in face of the baronet peering
slyly into the frank and unsuspicious countenance of the handsome,
simple-minded guardsman and making a confession of his faults the
while! For why? I could not guess, but I had a feeling that it was
for no straightforward purpose. We dined together, and while we ate I
questioned him about Dr. Belleville. For the first time I saw a shade
on his face. He did not like the doctor. I pursued the investigation.
For a while he fenced with my questions but finally it all came out.
"I have an idea," said he, "that Belleville annoys May. He is in love
with her. Of course one can't blame him for that, but as a guest in her
father's house and her father's closest friend, he has opportunities to
force his attentions, and I believe the brute abuses them. She does not
complain and will tell me nothing--but all the same I have my opinion.
You see, she worships her father so much that she will run no risk of
hurting his feelings. She would put up with almost anything rather
than distress him, and Belleville knows it. He has Sir Robert under
his thumb far more than I like. I hate to think I may be wronging the
fellow--but upon my soul I cannot help distrusting him."

"But you have nothing definite to go upon?"

"Nothing--except this: One day about two weeks ago I went in
unannounced and found her--in tears. I had passed Belleville in the
hall a second earlier. He looked as black as night. And she--well, she
told me, weeping, that she would marry me when I pleased. Up till then
she had always put off naming the day. What would you make of it,
Pinsent?"

"What did you?"

"I concluded that he had been persecuting her and that--well, that she
felt safer with me than with her father. Don't rag me for being vain,
old chap. If you'd seen her cry. She is not that sort of a girl either.
It was the first time I ever knew her to break down, and I've known her
all my life."

"Did you speak to Belleville about it?"

"She forbade me to--but all the same I did. I behaved like an idiot, of
course. Lost my temper and all that sort of thing. He was as cool as a
cucumber. He denied nothing and admitted nothing. He pretended to think
I had been drinking, and that enraged me the more. I was fool enough
to strike him. He got all the best of it. He picked himself up smiling
sweetly and said that nothing could induce him to resent anything
addressed by a person in whom Miss Ottley was interested. The inference
was that he loved her in an infinitely superior way to me. I felt like
choking him for a bit. And would you believe it--he actually offered to
shake hands."

"A dangerous man, my lad. Beware of him."

"He gives me the creeps," said the Captain. "But let's talk of
something else pleasanter."

We talked of Miss Ottley, or rather he did, while I listened, till
midnight. Then he strolled with me to Bruton Street and we parted at
Dixon Hubbard's doorstep as the clocks were striking one.

I found Hubbard seated before the fire, smoking, and staring dreamily
up at a portrait of his wife that rested on the mantel.

"I've found out why I married her, Pinsent," he said slowly. "It was
to benefit a Jew named Maurice Levi--the most awful bounder in London.
She had been borrowing from him at twenty-five per cent. to pay some of
her brother's gambling debts. Levi wanted to marry her, and would have,
too, if I had not stepped in to save him. She is the dearest little
woman in the world. She shed some tears. They cost me about a thousand
pounds apiece."

"Good-night, Dixon," I said gently.

"Tears, idle tears," he murmured. "The poet, mark you, did not speak of
woman's tears." Then he closed his eyes and heaved a deep sigh. "You
find me changed, Pinsent?"

"A little."

"For better or worse? Be frank with me."

"For the better. This afternoon for the first time in our acquaintance
I beheld you in a lady's drawing-room. You are growing tolerant of your
kind."

"I am no longer a misanthrope, but I am rapidly becoming a misogynist.
Yes, I am altered, old friend, greatly altered. At the bottom of my
former misanthropy was a diseased conviction born of vanity that I was
the only person in the world really worth thinking badly about. But
marriage has compelled me to think more badly still of somebody else.
The less selfish outlook thus induced has broadened my mind. I begin to
look forward to a time when my perversion will be complete and I shall
be able without blushing to look any woman in the face and acknowledge
her superiority in innate viciousness."

"I begin to pity your wife, Dixon."

"A waste of sentiment. She has married five and twenty thousand pounds
per annum, and she would be the last to tell you that the institution
is a failure. Few women contrive to dispose as advantageously of the
sort of goods they have to sell. Lady Helen would have made a fortune
as a bagman. But there, I do not want to prejudice you against her. She
likes you, I believe. Perhaps--who knows--but there--good-night."

I was glad to get away.

Chapter XIV

The Pushful Man

A day or two afterwards, while spending an hour in the rooms of the
Egyptology Society I was introduced to a new Fellow, who had been
appointed during my absence from England. His name was Louis Coen. He
was in private life a broker, but his heart and soul were wrapped in
the Cause. He evidently spelt it with a capital, in sympathy, perhaps,
with the vast sums in cash he had already put at the disposal of the
Society for exploration work. He was intensely entertaining. He took me
aside and confided that it was his ambition to transform the Society
into a sort of club. We needed a liquor license and more commodious
premises, it seemed. Then we would _boom_. He offered to provide all
the money requisite and he begged me to use my influence with other
members to get his views adopted. He was one of those men whose
mission in life is to "run" every concern into which they can manage
to insinuate themselves. I was afraid I disappointed him, although I
did my best to be polite. But he was nothing daunted. He declared he
would galvanise the "old fogies" into fresh activity and make us see
things from his point of view or die in the attempt. We might be as
serious as we pleased, but he would force us to be sociable. He had a
nose like a parrot, and was already on the committee of management. He
even proposed to change our name. The Royal Egyptian Club seemed to
him a "real smart monniker." He saved me from an impending mental and
physical collapse by mentioning the name of Sir Robert Ottley. Ottley,
it appeared, was his latest convert. Ottley agreed with him that we
wanted new blood, that our methods were too conservative. Ottley
thought it was ridiculous that everything a member did or discovered
should have to be reported to, and judged about, by a lot of old
fossils. What right had those old "stick-at-homes" to appropriate the
credit of the exertions of the energetic? "Would you believe it," cried
Mr. Coen, "they have had the impudence to demand from him an account
of his recent find--the tomb of an old johnny named Ptahmes--which he
unearthed at his own expense entirely! They have had the 'hide' to
insist that he shall immediately hand over the mummy to the British
Museum and place the papyri before them--them--them--for the purpose of
translation, et-cetera! I never heard a more cheeky proposition in my
life. My friend Ottley would act rightly if he told them to go to the
deuce!"

"What has he told them?" I inquired.

"Oh, he is temporising. He has written to say that he will place his
discoveries at their disposal when he has satisfied himself of their
authenticity, et-cetera. Of course that's all '_gyver_.' The mummy is
genuine enough, so are the papyri. But he naturally wants to have first
'go' at them, and he is fighting for time. Meanwhile, I am organising
the progressives. We can never hope to get this show properly on the
move till we shake things up and reform on sound commercial lines. I
tell you, sir, before I've done with it, I'll make this Society a power
in the land. I'm going to take it up in both hands and chuck it right
in the eyes of the B. P., that means the British Public. And you take
it from me, it's going to stay there. Good-day to you. I'm glad to have
met you. You are a bit antiquated in your notions; but you're a young
man yet, and you'll find you'll have to join my crowd. S'long!"

He shook my hand very energetically and bustled off. I sank into a
chair and began to fan myself. A moment later the president, Lord
Ballantine, entered the room. The poor old gentleman was purple in the
face, spluttering: "Has-has-has that man Coen been can-can-canvassing
you?" he thundered.

I nodded.

"I-I-I'll resign--by God!" cried Lord Ballantine. "It-it-it's too much.
I-I-I," he stopped----gasping for a word, the picture of impotent rage
and misery.

But I felt no sympathy for him. "Why did you let him in?" I asked.

"We-we-we were short of funds."

"And now?"

"He's bought us, or thinks he has, body and soul."

"Who nominated him?"

"Ottley."

I was not surprised to hear it. "He--he's Ottley's broker. Ottley
and he are running the market-change--together. Have you heard. They
have cornered South Africans. They made half a million between them
yesterday. All London is talking about it. And they want to turn us
into a beer garden."

"You'll have to turn them out."

"How can we? We owe them, Lord knows how much."

"Then if you cannot," I said calmly, rising as I spoke, "you'll have to
grin and bear the infliction you have brought upon yourselves. After
all, it's a question of voting."

"You'll stand by us, Pinsent?" he implored.

"My resignation is at any time at your disposal, Ballantine. All the
same, I don't pity you a scrap. You are getting little more than you
deserve. I have been working for three years for the Society without
remuneration, and I am a poor man. Many of your older members are as
rich as Croesus, and yet you must needs import a vulgar semitic broker
to help you out of a hole. Good-afternoon."

I left the poor old fellow helpless and speechless, staring after me
with anguished eyes and mouth agape. That evening I received a letter
from Louis Coen offering to finance my book on the Nile Monuments. He
said he felt sure it would prove a work of rare educational value,
and on that account he was willing to furnish every library in the
English-speaking world with a free copy. Aware, however, that I was
not a business man, he would conduct all the business arrangements
himself. On receipt of the manuscript, therefore, he would forward
me a cheque for £1000 as an instalment in advance of my share of the
profits--fifteen per cent. he proposed to allow me--and he wound up as
follows: "Your acceptance of my offer will commit you to nothing as
regards our chat of this morning. My good friend, Sir Robert Ottley,
put me up to this venture. He has the brightest opinion of your ability
and he is sure your book will prove a success. I am going blind on his
say so. Let me have an answer right away."

I thought a good deal over this precious epistle, but in the end I
did not see why I should not make a little money. I knew very well
that under ordinary circumstances it would be impossible for me to
make £100, let alone a thousand, out of the Nile Monuments. But I felt
little doubt that Mr. Coen had a plan to make even more--somehow or
other. But I had done the man injustice--it was not money he was after.
Reading the _Times_ two mornings later I came upon the following
announcement:

                      "A PATRON OF LEARNING"

     "We are informed that Mr. Louis Coen, F. R. E. S., has induced
     the well-known Egyptologist, Dr. Hugh Pinsent, to commit the
     results of his recent archæological researches on the Nile to the
     enduring care of the printer's ink. Mr. Coen has purchased the
     rights in advance for a large sum of the projected volume, which
     it is said will take the form of an exhaustive treatise on the
     Nile Monuments. It is not, however, Mr. Coen's object to direct
     his enterprise to his own financial benefit. It is his intention
     to produce a splendidly illustrated edition of the book for
     presentation to educational establishments all over the United
     Kingdom in the hope of thus fixing public attention upon the
     enormous historical importance of the work now being carried on
     by the Royal Egyptologist Society, of which Society Mr. Coen is a
     member, and a generous supporter. Mr. Coen is to be congratulated
     upon his latest effort in the interest of popular education.
     It will be remembered that last year he endowed a chair in the
     University of Newcome for study of the ancient Egyptian tongue;
     but it may be confidently expected that his exploitation of Dr.
     Pinsent's history will go much further in popularising a subject
     which is now practically confined to the ranks of leisured
     scholars."

It was not pleasant to think that I had been idiot enough to allow Mr.
Coen to use me as a stepping-stone to notoriety. But it was too late
to object. The thing was done. My consolation was a bigger banking
account than I had had for years. Not even the fact that during the day
I received a score of sarcastic congratulatory telegrams from members
of the Society, could rob me of that satisfaction. But I sent in my
resignation all the same. I felt that I had no right to belong to any
institution run by Mr. Coen. I might meet him there--and if I did, a
police court case of assault and battery would infallibly result.

Chapter XV

A Quaint Love Pact

One evening after a hard morning's work on my book, and a particularly
fatiguing afternoon spent in vainly trying to lift Hubbard out of
a funereal mood, I thought I should make myself a present of a few
minutes' conversation with Miss Ottley. I argued that she would be sure
to spend the evening out somewhere, so I knocked at her father's door a
few minutes before eight o'clock. A gloomy-looking footman opened the
door. Yes, Miss Ottley was at home. He would give her my card. Would I
wait? I would, though I wondered. I heard Dr. Belleville's voice. It
issued from a room that opened on the hall. He was talking shrilly as
though he were angered, and in French, perhaps to spare the feelings
of the servants. He kept repeating that he had made up his mind and
that he would not wait another day for God Almighty. All of a sudden
the door opened and he stalked out looking like the baffled villain in
a melodrama. We came face to face. He stopped dead and glared at me.
"You!" he gasped. "What are you doing here; what do you want?"

I glanced beyond him and saw Miss Ottley. He had been speaking to her,
then, and like that. My blood began to boil. I advanced upon him trying
to smile. I had seen Miss Ottley's face. "I want you to go right back
into that room and pretend you are a gentleman," I said. The girl had
put a kerchief to her eyes. "Quickly!" I added.

Dr. Belleville returned into the room. I followed and closed the door.

"Dr. Pinsent----" he began as I turned. But I cut him short.

"On your knees," I commanded. He went livid. "Dr. Pinsent," said Miss
Ottley, "I beg you not to interfere. You will only make it the harder
for me."

She might as well have spoken to a fence. I never took my eyes from
Belleville. "You know what you ought to do," I murmured. "If you compel
me to teach you, you'll repent the object lesson in a hospital."

He fell on his knees before the girl. "I apologise," he groaned out in
a choking voice.

I bowed him out of the room as deferentially as if he were a woman. He
vanished silently. Miss Ottley was dressed for the opera.

"You are going out?" I asked.

"Y-yes," she said. She was powdering her face before a mirror.

"To the opera?"

"Yes. To meet there Mrs. Austin."

"Dare you walk there--with me for a companion?"

"Oh, yes," she said.

A moment later we found ourselves in Curzon Street. She took my arm.
We walked for two blocks in absolute silence, save that every now and
then she choked back a sob. She was her own mistress again at length,
however. "Why did you come--of all times to-night?" she asked.

"I do not know."

"Did you wish to see my father?"

"No. You."

"Why?"

"I had a subconscious conviction that you might be needing me."

"Truly?" she cried--and pressed my arm.

"That or something else. At any rate, I felt obliged to call. It may
have been from a desire to reassure myself about the colour of your
eyes."

"Ah! I suppose you are wondering--because--Dr.
Belleville--because--I----," she paused.

"I am human," I observed.

"I want you to forget it. Will you, Dr. Pinsent?"

"On the spot."

"That is good of you." Her tone was crisp with disappointment. "You are
indeed a friend."

"But not in need a friend, eh? Come, come, Miss Ottley, you are in
trouble. I am strong and trustworthy and capable. There are times when
a man may tell the truth about himself, and this, I think, is one of
them. Can I help you?"

"No one can help me," she said sadly, "you least of all."

"And why least of all?"

"Because you hate my father."

"Is he in trouble, too?"

"He is the willing but unwitting victim of a wicked, wicked man--but,
oh, what am I saying? Dr. Pinsent, please, please let us talk of
something else."

"You are trembling--May."

"Oh!" she said--and looked at me.

"It slipped out--unconsciously," I stammered. "I did not mean to
be impertinent. I think of you--by that name. Is it impertinent to
think----"

"No, no."

"Then you'll forgive me?"

"What is there to forgive?"

"All that the circumstance implies. Come, after all, I am not sorry for
the slip. Why should I twist its meaning either, like a coward. It is
only the weak who need the shelter of hypocrisy. Look straight before
you--May--and do not turn your eyes. May again, you see."

"You have something to tell me," she said gravely.

"The old, old story, May," I answered with a short but reckless laugh.

"Should you--Dr. Pinsent--do you think?"

"Yes, because the husband you have chosen is a gallant fellow and my
friend. I am too fond of him to wish to do him an ill turn, even in
my own adventure. Why, look you, May, were you to turn to me and say,
'I love you, Hugo Pinsent,' I would answer, 'Yes--and we both love
Frankfort Weldon.'"

"Yes," said Miss Ottley. She stopped and we looked deep into each
other's eyes.

"Yes," she said again. "And we both love Frankfort Weldon."

"God help us," I exclaimed.

"It is a good prayer. God will hear it," she said softly.

"What made you?" I asked a little later; we were walking on again--but
now apart.

"You," she said.

"It is very wonderful."

"And sad," said she.

"But grand and beautiful."

"I shall not go to the opera to-night," she said. "Will you put me in a
cab?"

"You will go home?"

"Yes."

"And Belleville?"

"He will be at work. I shall not see him."

"He threatened you?"

"Not me, but Captain Weldon. He demands that I shall marry him. My
father also wishes it. You see I tell you everything--now. You will
help me, will you not?"

"Of course. But you must teach me how. In what fashion does Belleville
threaten Weldon?"

"He vows--that unless I do as he demands within this week--Captain
Weldon will be found dead in his bed."

"Murder!" I cried.

"He does not scruple to conceal the fact. He declares he has nothing
to fear. He pretends to possess a secret which gives him as great a
power over life and death as Providence. An esoteric power, of course.
It is connected with the discovery of Ptahmes. He claims to have
already tested it. My father has used it in other ways. He has been
experimenting on the Stock Exchange. In ten days he has already doubled
his fortune. Surely of that you must have heard."

"I have heard that he has been speculating with extravagant success.
But that his luck was due to supernatural agency I decline to believe.
In my opinion Belleville is simply putting up a scoundrelly game of
bluff."

"I wish I could think so, too. But I cannot."

"But, my dear girl, consider the probabilities. Belleville's story
belongs to the Middle Ages."

"Yes--but he believes it. I am as sure of that as that I live."

"And is that a reason why you should believe it, too? The man is
perhaps a lunatic."

"Ah!" she said. "I knew that you would take this view. That was partly
why I felt you could not help me."

But her distress cut me to the quick. "It does not matter what view I
take," I muttered hastily. "I'll do anything you wish."

"Anything?"

"Did you doubt it?"

"No."

"Then----"

"Then go and stay with Captain Weldon. He will welcome you, for he
likes you out of mention. Spend the week with him. Do not let him from
your sight at night. Especially guard him while he sleeps. Is it too
much to ask?"

"No."

"There is a cab--stop it, please! Thanks. Now say good-bye to me."

"Good-bye--May." I helped her into the vehicle. "Would it be
permissible to kiss your hand?"

"No!" she said, "but give me yours."

I felt her lips upon my fingers, and with a sort of groan I snatched
them away from her grasp. That was our good-bye.

Chapter XVI

Lady Helen Prescribes for Her Husband

Next morning early I picked a quarrel with Hubbard, and left him biting
his finger nails. I went straight to Jermyn Street with my valise.
Weldon was in bed. I told him I had had a fight with Hubbard and asked
to be put up for a few days. He agreed with acclamation, though I am
sure he was perfectly astounded at my strange request. I proceeded
to astound him further. I mendaciously informed him that my nerves
were in rags and that I was obsessed with a horrible hallucination of
a mysteriously threatened life at night. Would, then, he give me a
shakedown in his own bedroom, just for a week? It is wonderful how easy
lying comes to one after the first plunge. I did the thing thoroughly.
Mind you, I felt all along the utmost scorn for Dr. Belleville's
threats against young Weldon's life. But Miss Ottley had asked me to
look after him, and I was determined to fulfil the trust to the very
foot of the letter. He was a splendid fellow to live with. It gives
me a heartache to remember the anxiety to make me comfortable, the
almost absurd cordiality of his welcome, the unselfish sincerity of
his desire to please. One would have thought me a superior creation,
a sort of divinity in disguise, the way he treated me. I had never
awakened such affection in any living thing before, except in a mongrel
retriever which once upon a time followed me home and which I had to
turn away after it had licked my hand. And the amazing thing was, I
had done nothing in the world to deserve it. I had never put myself
out of my way in the smallest particular to serve the Captain. When we
first met I had treated him with the scantest courtesy and afterwards
with a sort of good-natured contempt. Even now I cannot understand it
properly. It may have arisen from a secret disposition to hero-worship.
Some men are like that. They are fond of investing a sentient
figure-head with exaggerated attributes of majesty and bowing down
before it. It is the survival of an aboriginal instinct to glorify the
insubordinate. Weldon admired two things above all others: strength of
body and strength of mind. In both these gifts he felt himself inferior
to me, therefore he must needs put me on a pedestal. His gratitude
in finding me willing to stoop to ask a favour of him was unbounded.
It resembled that of an Eton fag to a monitor kind enough to take an
interest in his doings. I have said before that he was essentially a
boy at heart. But what an honest, clean-minded, fresh, wholehearted
boy! I found myself liking and admiring him more and more each day. He
taught me one of the greatest truths a man may learn. It is this--there
is a more admirable thing in the world than intellect. Weldon's
intellect was not of the first order. That is why I began by very
nearly despising him. But he was the straightest, truest, manliest and
simplest-minded man I have ever met. And I ended by half-humorously but
none the less sincerely, reverencing him. If it were only for his sake
I shall while I live regard the highest type of brain as incomplete
without a paramount ideal of morality. And the best thing about Weldon
was that he was utterly unconscious of his goodness. He was perfectly
incapable of posing, but he had a fine, robust vanity of sorts, and he
liked to regard himself as a bit of a "sad dog!" Romance was at the
bottom of this. He envied the more than questionable experience of some
of his acquaintances. It was because of the glamour of their perfumed
wickedness. But their callous self-extrication from entanglements after
growing weary of their chains made him long to wring their necks. For
his own part, a certain shop girl had once fallen in love with him. He
twirled his moustache and cast furtive glances at the mirror near him.
It appears he had dallied with the temptation for a while--the "sad
dog"--but Miss Ottley's portrait had saved him. He had kissed the shop
girl once--horror of horrors!--in the Park after dark. He apologised
to her father with a thousand pounds and fled to South America. When
he came back she was married. He had confessed the whole of his truly
dreadful criminality to Miss Ottley in a letter--and she had kept him
waiting three miserable days for a reply. He believed he would have
gone to the dogs headlong if she had refused to pardon him. But she
did not. Vanity told him the reason. But it was beautiful to see the
colour flush his cheeks and his eyes sparkle as he protested that he
couldn't understand why she ever brought herself to speak to him again.
I believe that was as far as Weldon ever got to telling a downright
falsehood; the dear, great gander.

On the third afternoon of my stay at Jermyn Street I was busily at work
writing, when a knock sounded. Weldon was out; he had gone to take
Miss Ottley for a drive in his newest dogcart. His man, too, had a day
off, so I was quite alone. I said "Come in," and there entered Lady
Helen--Hubbard's wife. She was a vision of lace fripperies and arch,
mincing daintiness.

"So! run to earth!" she cried.

I sprang up and offered her a chair.

She settled into it with a swish and a sigh. "Been searching for you
everywhere! I had thought of applying to the police."

I suppose I looked astonished, for she laughed.

I stammered, "Why have you been searching for me?"

She gave me a glance of scorn. "Should a dutiful wife regard with
indifference the sudden desertion of her husband by the only friend he
possesses? Just tell me that."

"You take my breath away."

"No," she flashed, "the 'dutiful wife' did that. Confess!"

"Well, since you insist--I admit that Helen becomes you better than
Joan," I said audaciously.

Her eyes glittered. "May be, my fine gentleman--but would you say
'Dixon' was synonymous with 'Darby'?"

"Not quite. Still, they both commence with a 'D.' That is something,
eh?"

"So does another word which rhymes with lamb," she retorted cuttingly.
"Oh! I might have known that you would take his part. You men always
stick together."

"I beg your pardon, Lady Helen. I consider that you deserve well of
your country. You have improved Hubbard past belief. He is worth
improving."

She smiled. "I have humanised him, just a little, don't you think?"

I nodded.

She leaned forward suddenly and looked me in the eye. "It's only the
commencement, the thin edge of the wedge."

"Oh!"

She began speaking through her teeth. "I'll make a man of him yet if I
have to beggar him in the process."

"I beg you to excuse me."

She fell back and began to laugh. "Oh, how solemn you are. You
disapprove of me. Ha! ha! ha! You don't even begin to hide it."

"You see I do not understand you."

"Yet you disapprove?"

"No. I wonder."

"You are a man, Doctor, that one can't help trusting!" She stood up
and began to move about the room. "I am going to confide in you," she
announced, stopping suddenly.

"A dangerous experiment," I observed.

"One risks death every time one crosses a car-crowded thoroughfare.
I'll take the risk."

I shrugged my shoulders.

She frowned. "You used to like me once. What stopped you?"

"I haven't stopped."

She smiled bewitchingly and, gliding forward, placed her hand upon
my arm. "He wanted to take me away to South America--he owns a ranch
there--and to bury us two for ever from the world. That was his idea of
marriage. It all came of a rooted disbelief in his own ability to keep
me interested in himself while I possessed an opportunity to contrast
him with his social equals. He saw a rival in every man I looked at or
who looked at me. He should have been born a Turk. I should then have
been the queen of his zenana. But no, I must do him justice--he is not
polygamously inclined. Still, he would have shut me up."

"The poor devil," I muttered. "It is his disposition. He cannot help
himself."

"But he may be cured of it," said Lady Helen. "He thinks every woman
is a rake at heart. But he is mad. I for one am not. Mind you, I love
society. I like men. I live for admiration. But as to--pshaw!"--she
spread out her hands.

"You quarrelled?" I inquired.

"No, we argued the matter out and came to an arrangement. We are good
friends. But he does not conceal his opinion that some day or another I
will go to the devil. He thinks it inevitable. Pride, however, forbids
him from looking on except at a distance. That is why he separated from
me. He imagines that no woman can keep true to one man unless she is
immured. The fool, the utter fool! As if walls and locks and keys were
ever an encumbrance. Love is the only solid guarantee of a woman's
faith."

"But my dear Lady Helen, your husband has not the faintest idea that
you love him!"

She drew back gasping. "You--you--you!" she cried. She was scarlet.
Then she said, "How dare you!" She looked so lovely that I no longer
wondered at Hubbard's infatuation.

"You should not have kept it from him," I said severely. "But there,
it's wonderful. How did you ever manage it? He is not an attractive
man. And you--a butterfly. It is a miracle. There must be depths in
you. Are marriages made in Heaven? I thought--he thinks--you married
him for his money. And you love him! I shall never get over this. Lady
Helen, you are a most amazing woman!"

She rushed at me panting with rage and, seizing my arm, shook it with
both hands. "If ever you tell him--I'll--I'll kill you!" she hissed.

"But why?"

"He must find out himself. He must suffer. He deserves it. He has
bitterly insulted me. He has shamed my sex. He must gnaw out his heart.
In no other way can he be made like other men. I'll teach him. I'll
teach him. Oh, if you dare to interfere! But you shan't--you would not
dare."

"No," I said, "I would not dare."

Next second she was in another mood. Her anger melted to pathos and the
little siren began to plead to me. "You know what I really want you to
do is to help me," she murmured, oh! so prettily. "And it is all for
Dixon's sake, or really and truly I would not ask. You see, Doctor, I
am working on a system. Goodness, how I am trusting you! And you can
help, oh! ever so much."

"Only tell me how."

"Do not lose a chance to revile me."

I was staggered. "I beg your pardon, Lady Helen!" I cried.

"Ah! I thought you would understand. Don't you see you are his only
friend? More than that, you are the only man he ever speaks to. He is
a hermit. Well, then, who else is there to reproach me to his ears? To
put his own thoughts of me into words?"

"But what on earth do you want that done for?"

"It will compel him to defend me, first by lip, then by heart."

I confess I whistled.

"I felt it to be necessary to have this talk with you," went on Lady
Helen. "Hitherto he has done all the reviling and you the defending of
me. Is it not so?"

"You little witch."

"And that is not right, since it is he, and not you, who is my husband."

"Lady Helen, you are surely the cleverest woman in the world."

"I have thought the matter out," she answered, with a sad little smile.
"Is it wonderful that a woman should wish to be happy and that she
should fight for that with every weapon she can find?" She rose and
held out her hand. "You will go and make friends soon, will you not? He
is fretting because you have deserted him."

"In a very few days, Lady Helen. I wish I could this moment, but I
cannot."

"You are very busy, eh?"

"I have a task to carry out. It will be finished at the end of the
week."

"So!" she said and shrugged her shoulders. "And are you quite engaged?
Could you not come to me to-night? Your friend Captain Weldon comes,
and some others. We are to have our fortunes told. Signor Navarro has
promised us a séance. Miss Ottley has arranged it. She tells me he is a
truly marvellous clairvoyant, medium, et-cetera. Have you a curiosity
to know your future? Do come! Dixon will be there."

"Thank you very much; yes, I shall be glad to go."

I opened the door for her and she blew me a kiss from the stairs. I
returned to my work, but it was very little I was able to do the rest
of that afternoon. What could have induced Miss Ottley to arrange this
séance? Were her nerves giving way under the strain of Dr. Belleville's
threats? Did she really believe this rascal Navarro capable of
predicting events? Was she becoming superstitious? These reflections
profoundly disturbed me.

Chapter XVII

The Séance

Navarro evidently belonged to the highest and most ingenious order
of charlatanry. He had no assistant, no machinery, no accomplice.
It was almost impossible to suspect any of the audience. There were
only Lady Helen, Miss Ottley, Mrs. Greaves (wife of a Parliamentary
Undersecretary), the Countess von Oeltzen (the Austrian Ambassador's
wife), Weldon, Hubbard, the Count von Oeltzen and myself present. And
the medium scouted the idea of turning down the lights. He left such
devices to impostors, he remarked. He was a tall, thin fellow, with
big, black eyes and a thick-lipped mouth. He had the most beautiful
hands and feet. His fingers were covered with valuable diamond rings.
He had a big bulbous nose and he wore a _tire-boucheau_ moustache and
beard consisting of about sixteen coarse stiff black hairs; four on
each side of his upper lip and eight on his chin. He plucked at the
latter continually in order to display his hands and his rings. It
would have been a difficult matter to find his match in vulgarity, in
ugliness, and impudence. But he was certainly impressive. He talked
of himself in a booming baritone, like a Barnum praising an elephant.
He adored himself and expected to be adored. He spoke with a strong
Irish-Spanish accent. Probably he was an Irishman who had lived in
Spain. But he posed as a full-blooded Castilian who had learned English
from a Cork philomath.

After he had exhausted his vocabulary in describing some of his
clairvoyant achievements he needlessly directed us to be silent. He
had permitted none of us a chance to speak thitherto. We were to wait,
he said, till he began to breathe in a peculiar heavy manner, and then
who so wished to experiment, must take his hands and hold them firmly
for a little while, thinking of the matter next the experimenter's
heart; and then we should see what we should see. With a smile of
lordly self-confidence he reposed his limbs upon a couch and sank back
on the cushions. I glanced around the throng and saw they were all
staring at Navarro--Miss Ottley with parted lips and rapt intentness.
Her expression irritated me. Soon afterwards I met Hubbard's eyes. He
gave me a scowl. I looked at Weldon. He turned and frowned at me. I
directed my attention to Lady Helen. She grew restless and, presently
moving in her chair, glanced rapidly about. She started when our eyes
encountered and impulsively placed a finger on her lips. I hadn't
thought of speaking. I was disgusted. Mrs. Greaves, the Countess and
the Ambassador all in turn gave me scowling glances. It was as if
everybody recognised and resented my secret scepticism. It appeared I
was the only sane person in the room. Oh! no, there was Navarro. He was
sane enough undoubtedly; the rogue. He was making his living. It was
his business to make fools of people. I returned to contemplating him
with a sense of positive relief. At least I could hope to be amused.
He had closed his eyes and was therefore uglier than ever. His whole
body was tense with silent effort. I wondered if some of his audience
were unconsciously imitating him. They all were, except myself. I felt
inclined to get up and shake them for a pack of self-delivered dupes,
lambs self-abandoned to the sacrificial rites of this High Priest of
Thomas-rot. Soon, friend Navarro began to breathe stertorously. So did
his audience, for a minute or two. Then they turned and looked at one
another and at me; and I rejoice to say my calm smile disconcerted
them. But I refrained from glancing at Miss Ottley. I could not bear to
see her look foolish. Perhaps she did not. They pointed at one another.
They feared, it seemed, to speak. Who would be the first? And who would
dare the oracle? The Count von Oeltzen arose. Brave, noble man! He
approached the couch and took Navarro's hand in his own. The medium
was now in a trance. His body was quite limp. A breathless silence
fell upon the gathering. It lasted about four minutes. Then Navarro
began to speak, not in his ordinary booming baritone, but in a high
falsetto--his spirit organ, no doubt. The language employed was German.

"I see," said he, "a short fat man in the uniform of an Austrian
courier. He is seated in a railway train. He is smoking a cheroot.
He has on his knees a small, flat iron box. It is a despatch box. It
contains letters and despatches. He is coming to England----"

"Ah!" sighed the Count.

"Ah! Ah!" sighed the Countess.

"He is on his way to you," went on Navarro. "The despatches are for
you. One of them is in a cipher. It relates to your recall. It----"

But the Count on that instant dropped Navarro's hands as if they had
burnt him and abruptly rose up, the picture of agitation. He turned and
looked at the Countess. She stood up, most agitated, too. "My friends,"
he began. But the Countess said "Hush!" He bowed to her, bowed to Lady
Helen and offered his wife a shaking arm. They forthwith left the room.
It was most dramatic. For a little while everybody sat under a sort of
spell. I was glad, because I felt disinclined to break up the party
by expressing my views on Navarro's revelation, and if any one had
said a word I should have been compelled to speak, I was so angry that
sensible people could allow themselves to be imposed upon so easily.
Moreover, I wished to learn what Miss Ottley's object was. When,
therefore, Mrs. Greaves quietly arose and moved to the couch, I said a
little prayer of thankfulness.

Presently the high falsetto squeaked forth in Irish-Spanish-English.
"I see--a large building, square, very tall. It is made of
steel and stone. It is in America--in New York. It is a
hotel. I see in it a room. There are tables and chairs. Then
one--two--three--four--five--six are there. They play cards. The game
is poker. One loses. He is young. He is English. He has a little cast
in his left eye. His name is Julian Greaves. The floor is littered with
cards. Julian Greaves is annoyed because he loses. He----"

The voice ceased.

Mrs. Greaves was returning to us. She was smiling. She said to Lady
Helen in her calm, slow way, "I believe, my dear, that my naughty son
is at present occupied exactly as you have heard described. Signor
Navarro has a great gift. Good-night, my dear--No, I cannot stay--I
promised the Bexleys. Do not trouble----"

She had gone.

Dixon Hubbard walked over to the couch. I glanced at Lady Helen. She
was biting her lower lip--and holding her breath. I stole across the
room on tip-toe and sat down beside her.

"I see," said Navarro, after the proper interval, "a woman. She is
young and very beautiful. (Oh! artful Navarro.) Her mind is deeply
troubled. The person she cares most for despises her. On that account
she is wretchedly unhappy, although she permits no one to suspect it.
She is not far away. She----"

But Hubbard had dropped the medium's hand like hot potatoes.

"It is your turn, Captain Weldon," he said, with a poor attempt at
jocularity. "Step forward and have the secret of your life laid bare."

He gave his wife a scorching glance and sauntered out of the room.

"How much did you pay Navarro for that last?" I whispered in Lady
Helen's ear.

She gave me a radiant smile. "Nothing to call me beautiful," she
whispered back.

Weldon had taken the medium's hands. Immediately he did so, Navarro
heaved a portentous sigh. I watched his face very narrowly, and
somewhat to my surprise I observed it to turn to a horrid, fishy,
whitish-yellow colour. Presently his eyelids slightly opened,
disclosing the whites. The eyes were fixed upwards rigidly. He looked
simply monstrous. For the first time I doubted his mala fides. There
were many signs of cataleptic trance about him. I stole over to the
foot of the couch and inserted a pin into the calf of his leg. Not a
muscle twitched. Evidently he had hypnotised himself. I tried the other
leg, with an equal result. I became furious. It seemed just possible
that the fellow had some esoteric faculty after all. Science, of
course, scouts the phenomena of clairvoyancy, but in my younger days
I had witnessed so many experiments with hypnotised subjects in Paris
that I had ever since kept an open mind on the question. This time we
waited for quite a while for the medium to begin his manifestations.
Perhaps ten minutes passed and he was still silent. But by that time I
felt convinced of his unconsciousness. "Ask him some question, Weldon,"
I said quietly. "He is not shamming, I believe. In my opinion he is in
hypnotic sleep and cannot act as his own Barnum."

Weldon laughed, but before he could adopt my hint Miss Ottley glided to
the couch and standing at the head of it put her fingers lightly on the
medium's eyes.

"I know what to do," she said, looking at me. "I have seen him in this
state before. He is not a charlatan, Dr. Pinsent, at least when he is
like this. Presently you will see. He will astonish you, I think."

"I wish you'd ask him where the lost key of my saratoga is, May,"
whispered Weldon.

Navarro answered the question instantly, and in his natural
reverberating baritone.

"It is lying on the top of the canopy of your bed in your bedroom in
Jermyn Street."

"By Gad!" cried Weldon. "That's where it is as sure as I stand here. I
tossed it up there a month ago and more--and forgot all about it."

"Hush!" said Miss Ottley. "Think of Dr. Belleville, Frankfort, please."

Weldon frowned. "You might have chosen a pleasanter topic," he muttered.

"Hush!" said the girl again.

A moment later she bent over the medium. "Speak!" she commanded. "Tell
us what you see!"

Navarro sighed. "I see a large room," he began. "It is half library,
half laboratory. One part of it is filled with racks of books and
parchments. At the other end is a dispensary made up of shelves
containing jars of different oils and phials filled with drugs. In the
middle of the room is a table spread with maps and papyri. The papyri
are inscribed with hieroglyphics. Beside the table, standing on two
steel trestles, is a large sarcophagus of lead and iron lined with
silver. The lid is propped against the wall near by. It is ornamented
with the leaden cast of a man. An inscription states that this man is
Ptahmes, a high priest of Amen-Ra. His body was once enclosed within
the sarcophagus. It is now, however, reclining on a couch at a little
distance from the table----"

"Describe it!" said Miss Ottley.

"It is apparently the body of a man of latter middle age. It is of
great proportions. It is almost seven feet in length. But the body is
very lank and shrunken and ill nourished. The head is of extraordinary
shape and dimensions. It is very large and long, and broad. It is
surmounted by a crown of jet-black hair that has recently been cut.
It tapers like a cone above the temples and again like an inverted
cone from the cheek bones to the chin. The nose is long and hooked
like the beak of an eagle. The eyes are closed; I cannot see them. But
they are almond shaped and set far apart in the skull. The mouth is
shrivelled and almost shapeless. The chin is long and pointed. The skin
is dark brown, almost black. It looks unhealthy. The body is clothed
in ordinary European garments. One arm is fastened in a sling. The
chest is, underneath the clothes, swathed in bandages. On the feet
are fastened rubber shoes, on the soles of which are particles of
fresh-dried mud. That is all."

"Proceed!" said Miss Ottley. "There are living people in the room, are
there not?"

"Two," replied the medium after a short pause. "One is seated before
the table poring over a torn piece of papyrus. Beside him on the table
is a dictionary of hieroglyphics to which he constantly refers. He is
a big, thick-set man with black eyes, strongly marked features, and a
black bushy beard. In his hand is a pen. He writes with this pen upon
the paper before him. He is engaged in translating the papyrus. Ha! he
stops. He is looking up at his companion. He is speaking."

"What does he say?"

"He says, 'I cannot altogether reconcile our subject's statements
with the records, Ottley. Either in his long sleep his memory has
somewhat failed him, or in his sleep he has learnt more than he knew
before. It is most annoying; we shall have to question him again.' The
other--a little old man, with white hair and very bright small grey
eyes--replies, 'You are too damned pernicketty, Doctor. Haven't we the
formula, and hasn't it nobly stood the test of practical experience?
What more do you want? Your infernal curiosity would ruin everything if
I let you have your way. Once for all I tell you that Ptahmes belongs
to me, not to you. Damn your science! You've had enough out of him.
I'll not allow him to be used again except for my purposes. He has
disappointed me with the elixir. Well, he'll have to atone by making
me the richest man in the universe. I'll not be satisfied till every
shilling in the world belongs to me--every shilling--every shilling.'
The little man is now laughing like a lunatic. The big man watches him
with a frown, bending his big black brows together. 'But you fool!'
he says very angrily, 'do you forget that these things here--' he
points to the body of Ptahmes--'will soon wear out? Every time that
you drive it to work the friction sheds into dust a portion of its
matter. Is it not better to use its brain than its body? Remember that
we cannot repair his tissues. Unless we make absolutely certain of the
composition of the invisible oil while we have the chance, we may be
left stranded in the end. His body is of secondary importance after
all. It serves you now, but you can just as well serve yourself by
using the oil and doing your own dirty business. But the thing is to
make sure of learning how to replenish the oil when our stock gives
out. That is the all-important matter. And that is why his brain is of
paramount interest to me, and should be to you.'

"The little man says,--'I won't have it, I tell you, we know enough!'
The big man replies,--'Be sensible, Ottley! Remember he lost five
pounds in weight yesterday! He is melting away before our eyes. Come!
I'll make you a proposal. Let me do what I like with Ptahmes and I'll
take his place for your money-making purposes. I'll be the ghost of
the Stock Exchange and find out all you want to know. Now, what can be
fairer than that?'

"The little man is biting his lip. He seems to be thinking," (there was
a pause in the narration). Presently Navarro went on. "The little man
speaks again; he says:--'That is all very well, Doctor, but you know
as well as I do--that you intend to use Ptahmes to destroy your rival.
You haven't the courage to do it yourself.' The big man answers very
quickly, 'And are you brave enough to tackle Pinsent? Yet his existence
threatens all our plans. I firmly believe he has a notion of our ideas
already. He is no fool and an adept at putting two and two together.
Do you suppose he hasn't guessed at the reason of the success of your
enormous transactions on 'Change?' The little man grinds his teeth.
'Curse him!' he shouts. 'Curse him to Hell!' The big man smiles. 'With
all my heart,' he says, 'may he rot there for ever and ever! But all
this proves to us how careful we should be of the waning strength of
our magician. Remember the last time he tried odds with Pinsent on the
Nile he got all the worst of the encounter. Three broken ribs! It's
true we are more advanced in knowledge since then, and now we can make
him quite invisible. But all the same we cannot afford to trifle with
the strength of our subject, considering the two great tasks before
him.'--Ah!----"

The last expression was a groan. The medium moved restlessly, then
groaned again.

"Proceed! I command you!" said Miss Ottley in a trembling voice.

But Navarro for a third time groaned, and he began to struggle on the
couch.

"Oh, God! he is waking up!" cried the girl. "Hold his hands tightly,
Frankfort. He must tell us more! He must, he must!"

But Navarro with a sudden spasmodic writhe and twist, broke away and
sat erect. He was shaking like a man in an ague, and he began to pant
and groan like a wounded animal.

Miss Ottley gasped "Too late!" and wrung her hands.

I handed the medium a glass of water, but he was trembling too
violently to take it of himself. He spilt half the contents on his
knee. I forced the rest into his mouth. It revived him. A little later
he stood up. He was bathed in perspiration, and looked sick. But he
rejected all offers of assistance. He seemed to be very angry. He
declared that we had treated him most cruelly, and that we might have
killed him. He would not be appeased, and he went off in the care of a
footman filled with petulant resentment and mouthing stupid threats.
It may have been a pose, part of his "business" intended for effect to
impress his clients;--probably it was. But I am not sure. He certainly
seemed to be in a highly over-wrought, nervous condition; he could not
easily have affected that.

After he had gone we all sat back in our chairs and stared at one
another. Nobody was in the least haste to speak; we had so much to
think about; and it was plain that "Fancy"--"Well, I never!" and
ejaculations of that ilk did not even begin to meet the conversational
demands of the occasion. Lady Helen was the first to speak.

She said, "Well, I am trying hard to be an ideal hostess and not ask
any questions that might seem impertinent. But will someone tell me, is
it Sir Robert Ottley and Dr. Belleville who are making preparations
for Dr. Pinsent's funeral. I wish to know real badly, because I want
him to do quite a lot of things for me before he crosses over the
divide, and if necessary I shall go to Sir Robert and ask him for my
sake to give Dr. Pinsent a little time to say his prayers."

It was just the flippant tone needed to bring us back to earth again.
Everybody laughed. Everybody was so relieved that the laugh was
unconventionally loud, and it had a tendency to overdo itself.

Then we trotted out the "well-I-nevers!"

"Did you ever hear such a lot of rubbish talk?" demanded Lady Helen.

"It quite took my breath away," said Miss Ottley with a gallant effort
to attain the correct, approved, sociably foolish affectation of
brainlessness.

"The fellow deserves three months without the option for his villainous
slanders," said the Captain heartily. He was honest, anyhow. "Lord
knows I can't stand Belleville at any price," he continued. "But
Navarro went a bit too far, by Gad! I never heard anything more
malicious in my life than his vile insinuations."

"A discharged servant," I observed. "Malice was to be expected from one
of Navarro's type."

"And a foreigner to boot," said the Captain, in the manner of one
absolutely clinching an argument. "Ah, well!" he suppressed a yawn, "he
entertained us--and that's something. Seen the 'Japanese Marriage'
yet, Lady Helen? Miss Ottley and I did an act or two last night. It's
ripping. So--ah! so jolly unusual, don't you know. You get left every
time you think something is going to happen; and when you least expect
it one of the funny little beggars ups and wants to make his friend
a present of his liver on a plate, or cut off his rival's head, or
something."

"Miss Ottley's carriage," announced a footman.

"I asked for it," said the girl to Lady Helen. "My father has been very
poorly all day."

Weldon went away with her. She did not even spare me a glance.

Lady Helen consoled me with the best cigar I have ever received at the
hands of a woman.

She lit a cigarette for herself and curled up on a pile of cushions.

"That man Navarro is a rapacious rascal," she observed presently. "He
wouldn't take a penny less than a hundred to say what he did say to
Dixon. But I did not tell him to call me beautiful," she added.

"I am glad to be certain that the fellow is a rascal," I muttered half
underbreath. But she heard me.

"Surely you knew. His ravings did not take you in," she cried
scornfully. "Everyone knows he simply loathes Sir Robert Ottley. He
used to be the little old millionaire's tin god. Sir Robert hardly
dared to breathe without consulting his oracle. And they say the man
bled him of thousands. No wonder he went mad to find that Sir Robert
had escaped his influence. Ever since then he has been saying the most
awful things. Lots of people believe them, I know, but I never thought
you would."

"I don't." I smiled. I could smile now, for I felt wonderfully
relieved. "But tell me, Lady Helen, just why you employed him to say
that to your husband?"

She puffed out a cloud of smoke. "Dixon is superstitious at heart,"
she replied. "He will not want to, but he will end by believing what
Navarro told him."

"What! that you care for him despising you?"

"Silly!" she cried. "No--not that I care for him--but for another man
despising me--the man for whom _I care_. Have you forgotten Navarro's
words?"

"But why on earth deceive your husband?"

"To make him jealous."

"Of a chimera?"

"No, my friend," said Lady Helen, smiling very strangely. "Of you!
Remember, you have promised to revile me to him. That alone would fix a
suspicious mind like his on you. But to make assurance doubly sure, I
told him this afternoon that it hurt me very much to find that he had
given you a poor opinion of me."

I sprang to my feet, aghast. "But look here--my girl," I cried. "This
is a dangerous game you are playing."

"Are you afraid--are you then a coward?" she flashed.

"Hubbard is my oldest friend. You will make him hate me!" I protested.

"And you will refuse to risk that for his happiness and mine?" she
asked. "Remember, he is my husband, and soured, twisted creature that
he is, I love him!"

"Ah!" said I.

"I could have made you serve me in ignorance," she cried, "but I am
incapable of playing you or any other--save him--a trick like that.
However, say the word and the play ends--this instant. I have no
claim upon you. I'll save you the trouble of telling me that. I am
only a woman fellow-creature, and knight-errants are out of fashion
now-a-days. Well--what is it to be?"

Her words stung like nettles. Such a little spitfire I had never seen
before. But that was the proper way to treat me, and I believe she knew
it. She was as sharp as any needle, that young woman.

"I am not in the habit of breaking my word once given," I growled out.
"Good-night!" Then I stalked off most indignant. But she caught me at
the door, flung her arms round my neck and kissed me on both cheeks.

"You are a darling," she whispered. "And--well--Dixon will have to
hurry and reform--or else--but there--go!"

That is the way clever women bind foolish men to the furtherance of
their caprices. A cuff, a kiss, a piece of subtle, thrilling flattery,
and the trick is done. I was heart and soul in love with another
woman, and yet from that moment Lady Helen Hubbard possessed the right
to walk over me, if she wished to do it. And, mind you, I am not an
out-of-the-way brand of idiot as fools go. It's just a matter of armour
and the weak spot. No suit of armour ever existed that hadn't one. Some
women are born with the faculty of being able to put their soft little
fingers on those places right away.

Chapter XVIII

The Unseen

"For my sake, watch! It is but for two days longer,--the fatal week
will then be over. Oh! I implore you not to let your scepticism make
you careless. I trust you and depend upon you." Weldon gave me the note
himself. It was not signed. He watched me curiously as I read it. I
tore it up and threw the pieces in the grate.

"Miss Ottley is afraid that your friend Belleville meditates doing you
an injury," I said carelessly, "and knowing that I am your guest, she
has appointed me your guardian angel. Evidently she imagines that you
are a more sensible person than I am. She said nothing about it to you?"

"No," replied the Captain. "But she made me promise not to leave your
side for the next two days." He gave a sheepish laugh. "I'm afraid she
has let you in for a lot of boredom, old man. But don't you bother to
be polite! If you feel like kicking me at any time to relieve your
feelings I'll take it lying down. You see, I couldn't help myself.
She has such a way with her--and although I argued and protested and
begged her to consider you--it was no use. I had to give in."

"You needn't apologise, Weldon. I believe I am strong enough to survive
the infliction, and I promise not to kick you. How is Miss Ottley?"

"She is well, although she seems nervous and depressed. That is
probably because her father is ill and she has been nursing him. You
have heard, I suppose, of his latest doings?"

"No. As you are aware, I have not been out of doors for two days, and I
have carefully refrained from newspapers."

"He has cornered the copper market. They say his fortune is increasing
at the rate of half a million a day. But he is not strong enough to
bear the excitement. In my opinion it is killing him. I saw him this
afternoon. He looks ghastly. He was a little delirious, I fancy.
They left me alone with him for a moment or two and he took the
opportunity to warn me not to sleep to-night if I valued my life. He
said a terrible danger is hanging over my head. But Dr. Belleville
came in just then, and it was surprising how sensible he got again,
immediately. Naturally I said nothing of this to May. It would only
have made her miserable. It is wonderful how she dotes on the poor old
fellow. I don't know what she would do if he were to die."

"How did Belleville treat you?"

"For a wonder with the greatest courtesy. He took me aside and begged
me to forget any occasion of offence. He appealed to me as the
successful one--and he gave me his word, unasked, that he would never
again do anything to hurt May's feelings or mine. After all, he's not
such a bad fellow, Pinsent. One must make allowances. It's not his
fault that he is in love with May. He can't help that. My wonder is
that every man who knows her is not."

"I suppose you forgave him?"

"We shook hands, certainly. You wouldn't have me bear malice, would
you? Remember! I'm in a position to be generous--and he made the
advance."

"My dear lad," I answered slowly, "I wouldn't have an atom of you
changed for worlds. You are an absolute ass and all that sort of thing,
but somehow or other you make me want to be the same sort of idiot, and
I feel positively ashamed at times that I cannot."

You should have seen his face flush, and the hangdog way he tried to
pass over the compliment by cursing an untied shoestring and me at the
same time for trying to "pull a fellow's leg."

We went for a ride in the park that afternoon, and just to be pleasant
the Captain forced on me the gift of his finest Arab and a permanent
stall in his stable in which to keep the animal. He knew, the dear
fool, that I could not afford to keep it myself. I believe he would
have suffered tortures had I refused him. But indeed I had no thought.
The gift completely captivated me; I felt like a child with a new
toy, and as proud as any peacock. The horse was a noble creature.
I named him forthwith "Abd-el-Kadir," and the pair of us spent the
evening petting him, until it was time to dine. We had the gayest
possible meal and afterwards went to the Empire, reaching home a little
before midnight like reputable bachelors. The Captain, as usual with
him, fell asleep almost as soon as his head touched the pillow. But
I had a trust to fulfil and, ridiculous as it may seem, as soon as I
heard young Weldon's quiet breathing it began to weigh upon me. All
sorts of mad questions began to ask themselves over in my mind. What
if Sir Robert Ottley and Dr. Belleville had really discovered some
wonderful secret of Nature? What if Belleville had really determined
to assassinate his rival? What if--in that act--he purposed to make
me appear to be the criminal? What if--as the medium had hinted--they
had found a way to make themselves invisible? It was no use calling
myself names, and saying mentally: "Pinsent, for Heaven's sake be
reasonable." Something had come over me. For the first time in my life
I was nervous. Mysterious fears obsessed me. For an hour I lay on my
side and watched the Captain. Then I could stand it no longer. I got up
and stole over to the door. It was locked securely. I looked under both
beds and peered into wardrobes and cupboards. When I had perfectly
convinced myself that Weldon and I were the only occupants of the room
I felt a little better. But only a very little. I resolved to spend
the night watching. I lighted a cigar and then threw myself into an
armchair, fixing my eyes on the Captain. He slept like a babe. I do
not know when it was exactly that I became actually aware of a third
presence in the room. Probably the idea had been gradually growing
upon me, for I experienced no sudden shock of surprise when conviction
displaced doubt. I said to myself, "This person, whoever he may be,
has come here intending to strangle or smother Weldon in his sleep.
But my watchfulness has baffled him. What will he do?" I was soon to
be informed. A slight, a very slight, noise drew my attention to the
farthest corner of the room. Over a little cupboard hung the Captain's
sword in his scabbard. The sword, but not the scabbard, was moving.
The blade was gradually appearing; and my flesh crept to see that it
was, apparently of its own volition, moving, not downwards, but upwards
along the wall.

I distinctly saw its shadow appear and lengthen on the wall. But
no other shadow was cast to explain the cause. For a moment I was
petrified--paralysed by an abhorrence of the supernatural. Then the
sword entirely left the scabbard. It advanced slowly, point downwards,
borne on air into the room. As it moved it swished slightly to and fro.
The invisible hand that held it must have been trembling. The thought
recovered me. I stood up. The sword stopped. I flashed a glance around
the room. The poker in the fireplace attracted my attention. I gave a
sudden bound and reached it. The sword flashed across the room towards
Captain Weldon's bed. God knows how I got there in time to save him,
but I did. The point was quivering at his throat when I dashed it aside
and with the return blow crashed the poker upon a hard thickness of
transparent matter. The clang of steel awoke Weldon, but I had no time
for him. The sword was in retreat. I followed it. It was making for
the door. I raised the poker for another blow, but on the instant the
blade fell crashing to the boards and I heard the key turning in the
lock. I hurled myself against the panels and was brought up against a
body. Thank God, though I could not see it I could feel it. It was a
man. "Weldon!" I shouted, and was locked in a deadly struggle. Over and
over we rolled; the invisible man and I. Weldon stood over us, looking
on like one in a dream. He could only see me, and he thought I had gone
mad and was behaving as maniacs sometimes do. The invisible man was
strong--strong. He twined his hands around my throat and I could not
prevent him. But slowly, steadily, surely, I forced his chin back. I
wished to break his neck. I have an impression he was nude, but cannot
be sure. I twined my right hand in his hair, with my left around his
neck. I drew him to me. I was undermost. To save himself he began to
beat my skull against the boards. It was then that Weldon intervened.
He seized my wrists and tried to lift me up, to save me, as he thought,
from doing myself an injury. But all he did was to save the life of the
invisible man. Weldon's grasp on my wrists forced mine in some measure
to relax. I put forth all my strength, but in vain. The invisible man
used his chance and writhed away from me. I struggled afoot, casting
Weldon off, but too late. The door opened before our eyes and our
enemy, unseen, fled, banging the door behind him. I heard the patter of
feet as he departed. The Captain uttered an oath. "Oh! you fool, you
fool!" I cried at him.

"By George!" gasped Weldon. "Did you see that door?" He rushed forward
and opened it again, peering out into the passage.

I fell into a chair spent and panting.

Presently Weldon came back. He picked up his sword and examined it.
There was a great gap in the edge near the point where I had struck it
with the poker. "What is the meaning of all this?" he cried. I told
him as soon as I was able. But from the first he did not believe me,
and he was honest enough to say so. How could I blame him? The story
sounded incredible, even to me, while I was telling it. Weldon adopted
the most charitable possible view. I had dreamed everything and acted
the somnambulist. He admitted that it was a queer circumstance, the
door opening and shutting so unexpectedly. But no doubt one of the
other lodgers in the house had tried it in passing--some late bird
a bit under the weather, Weldon thought--and finding it yield had
banged it shut again. It was no use retorting that the door had been
locked--Weldon merely laughed and asked what more likely than that I
had turned the latch before smashing his best blade? He was quite upset
about his sword. It had been carried by his grandfather at Waterloo.
He plainly considered the damage I had done to it was the only serious
occurrence of the night. But he strove, like a hero, to keep me from
realising just how bad he did feel about it. I ceased protesting
at last, and abandoned the vain task of trying to convince him of
the deadly peril that had menaced him. He returned the sword to its
scabbard and with a subdued sigh got back into bed again. Within ten
minutes he was fast asleep. As for me, I paced the floor till morning,
thinking, thinking, thinking. I have no shame in confessing that I was
horribly afraid; not of the immediate present, but the future. I did
not expect our mysterious assailant to return that night. But what of
the morrow? I am not a believer in the supernatural or I must have set
down the unseen marauder as a spirit. But I had felt and wrestled with
the thing, and knew it for a man. I had heard the patter of its feet.
Moreover, the memory of the séance and Navarro's dramatic recitation
supplied me with a sort of clue. What if Navarro had not been acting,
but had really been clairvoyant? Who shall dare to define the limits of
the possible? Was it more marvellous that he should have heard and seen
things really happening in a trance, than that I--in full possession of
all my faculties--had wrestled with a man invisible in the bright glare
of an incandescent lamp? I said to myself: "It is necessary to assume
that Navarro is a true medium, if only for the sake of argument. Well,
in that case it is clear that Dr. Belleville and Sir Robert Ottley
had found in the tomb of Ptahmes a papyrus containing a tremendous
scientific secret. This secret is one which teaches its possessors
how to control forces of Nature, in a manner which my imagination
can only guess at, for the production of a physical result which I
have actually experienced. They have learned how to override the laws
of light. They have discovered a means of not only rendering opaque
objects transparent, but positively invisible. And they are using their
secret knowledge to further their nefarious designs. Sir Robert Ottley
is using it to increase his fortune by spying out the financial secrets
of his business rivals. Dr. Belleville is using it to accomplish
the destruction of Captain Weldon, his rival in love. And, in all
probability, they both intend it to remove me from their path because
they fear that I suspect them."

It must not be supposed that I adopted these conclusions with any sort
of confidence. They entered my mind and remained there. But I received
them churlishly and treated them as unwelcome guests. And the only
reason that I did not expel them was because I could not discover, try
as I would, any more substantial or sensible explanation of an event
which they pretended to explain.

When the dawn broke and the light of day began to steal into the room
between the shutters I looked around and shook my head. After all, had
I fallen asleep against my will and dreamed the whole thing, as Weldon
believed? It might be so. The intellect is a strange, elusive, shadowy
affair. It slips from one's control at times. The memory easily clogs.
The imagination is easily overheated. And one is not the best judge of
one's own experiences. Science had taught me so much, at least, that
one cannot always accept the evidence of sense. I began to doubt, to
cast about me, and to vote myself absurd. With the rising of the sun,
I flung back the shutters and looked forth on a vista of chimneys
and leaded roofs. They were so manifestly real and solid and prosaic
that all my brain expanded to a sense of ridicule except one small
part, which began to shrivel up under the douche I poured upon it,
of what I called cold common-sense. But it did not entirely shrivel
up. It insisted on certain reservations. It said to me, "Pinsent, my
man, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of
in your philosophy. You have no right to ill-treat a part of your
intelligence which--even though it may have erred--served you to the
best of its ability. And can you be sure it erred? If it hap that it
did not, you would never forgive yourself for flouting it. Be wise in
time! Don't prejudge the case! Wait and watch! Take precautions! Guard
yourself--and, above all, guard your charge!"

I determined to suspend judgment. Above all, I determined to guard my
charge. But I confess it was with a curling lip I made the resolution.
There is something in sunlight, some all-subduing power which
irresistibly dries up the fountain springs of the imagination. I cannot
conceive a novelist writing a fanciful story in the sunlight. Can you?
And the sunlight was pouring into the room when I came to my resolve.

Chapter XIX

The First Victim

When Weldon woke he did one of the three things of which only gentlemen
of the finest sensitiveness are capable. He gave me one quick, laughing
glance, but perceiving in my solemn visage a predisposition to resent
badinage, he immediately said, "Good-morning, old chap. Hope you rested
well. As usual, I slept like a log--all night." Now, who could help
liking a man of that stamp? Not I, most certainly. And not satisfied
with pretending to have forgotten everything, he resolutely refrained
from so much as glancing at his treasured sword, which I had broken.
My heart went out to him in such a flood of feeling that in order to
conceal how fond of him I was and how grateful, I simply had to be
insulting.

"You needn't tell me you slept," I growled. "You snored like a whole
sty-full of hogs" (which was a lie). "It's a wonder to me you did not
wake yourself."

"Why didn't you shy a boot at my head?" he asked. "I'm awfully sorry,
Pinsent. I can see I kept you awake. You look quite washed out."

"Oh! I'm alright, or will be after a hot bath," I replied ungraciously,
and left the room.

When I returned he had a bottle of champagne ready for me, as a
pick-me-up; and he was hard at work polishing my boots--all this by
way of apology. I swallowed some wine and allowed myself to unbend.
I suggested a ride to work up an appetite for breakfast. He joyously
agreed, so we dressed and went out. A gallop in the park made us as
jolly as a pair of sand boys. We had déjeuner at Verrey's, and then
went to call on Miss Ottley. She was out, however, so I dragged my
charge to an eye specialist in Harley Street. I pretended an eyeache
and had my eyes thoroughly examined. The specialist could find nothing
wrong with them. On the contrary, he congratulated me on a singularly
perfect vision. After that we went to Weldon's club, dawdled there for
a hour and then on the suggestion of Lord William Hurlingham, commonly
known as "Bill," we ran down to Maidenhead for a row on the river.
It was a perfect day and we enjoyed ourselves amazingly, so much so
that we lost count of time and were obliged to dine at a Maidenhead
hotel. It thus came about that it was after nine when we strolled
to the station to return to town. There was a considerable crowd of
holiday-makers on the platform, and one party gave us much amusement.
These details are important to explain what followed. The party
consisted of half a dozen Jews and as many Jewesses. They were all as
gorgeously attired as if they had been attending a regal audience. But
their conversation, conducted in tones loud enough to provoke general
attention, informed us that they had been spending the day on the
houseboat of a certain well-known nobleman of notorious impecuniousness.

Lord Bill, a bit of a wag, made a remark that I did not catch, about
the Jews and their nobleman, which sent Weldon into a convulsion of
laughter. He then turned to me and began to repeat it for my benefit.
Just at that moment the train came rushing into the station. Weldon
stood near the edge of the platform with his back to the line, glancing
sideways at the Jews and trying to restrain his mirth. I had bent my
head the better to hear Lord Bill, who was a short man, but my eyes
were on Weldon. Conceive my surprise to observe him stagger backwards
of a sudden, as though he had been struck on the forehead. He uttered a
startled cry and clawed the air with both hands. For a brief second he
tottered at an angle as though he held on to something which supported
him. But next instant, as if carried off his feet by a great rush of
wind, he went back, back--over the edge of the platform, and before I
could move a muscle or utter a word he had fallen and was lying on the
rails under the very wheels of the onrushing engine. Men shouted, women
shrieked. I sprang forward, and hardly aware of the peril would have
leaped upon the line, but that a dozen hands restrained me. It would
have meant infallibly my death as well as Weldon's, for the train was
not more than a dozen feet off. But I was incapable of reasoning at
the moment. I struggled like a madman with my captors and broke away
from them at last--to stand dazedly staring at the engine for some
horrid seconds. It had stopped. But had it----? With a great effort I
dragged myself forward. The edge of the platform was lined with a crowd
of white-faced, silent people. They made room for me. Several railway
officials were stooping over a frightful object lying between the
pavement and the nearest iron rail. One of them shouted for a doctor,
and there was an immediate movement in the crowd. Two or three men set
off through the station at a run. I closed my eyes. I had never been
so shaken in my life. I had never lost my self-control so utterly.
The wheels of the engine had completely amputated both poor Weldon's
legs midway between the knee and trunk. There followed a hiatus in my
reckoning. When I came properly to my senses I was hard at work tying
up the arteries, assisted by a medical student who had been a passenger
in the fatal train, and a nurse who had apparently been holiday-making
on the river. I remember how anxious she was to save her pretty
muslin gown from the spouting blood. Presently a surgeon who had been
called, appeared armed with proper instruments. With his aid I hastily
replaced the imperfect tourniquets I had improvised out of kerchiefs
and neckcloths with gutta percha bandages, and we removed poor Weldon
from the station to the villa of a gentleman who had charitably placed
his house at our disposal. From the very first I felt that there was
no hope. Not only had my luckless friend lost his limbs and an immense
quantity of blood, but he had suffered internal injuries and a severe
occipital concussion. Within an hour, in spite of all we could do,
symptoms of lung congestion supervened. When it became manifest that
no human skill could save, I wrote a note to Miss Ottley and sent Lord
Bill to London to escort her to her lover's bedside.

After that there was nothing to do but wait. Weldon was deep in a state
of coma. I sat down beside him and watched his poor, wan face. Every
few minutes I administered a stimulant, yet each time asked myself what
use? And were it not better to let him cross the bar in painless sleep
than try to bring him back for a few moments to the agony of suffering
and hopeless separation? Yet I was plagued with the most hateful doubts
and ideas, and so, beyond expression miserable that when two hours had
gone and I marked his pulse failing visibly with the fleeting minutes,
I did that at length which, perhaps, I should have postponed till Miss
Ottley's arrival. But then, it might have been too late. Who knows?
He opened his eyes and looked at me. I could hardly see for sudden
womanish tears.

"Give me your hand!" he whispered. I did so, and he pressed within
it a hard, bulbous object. "Put in--in your pocket. Keep it safe!" he
gasped. "It will--ah."

I obeyed him without glancing at what he had given me. Then I got
up and rang the bell. A great change had come over him. The surgeon
responded to my call.

"It is the end!" he said.

Weldon broke into a fit of coughing and beat the bedclothes with his
hands. We bent over him, seeking to help and soothe him. The paroxysm
passed and for a moment he seemed to sleep. Soon, however, he gave a
strong shudder and opened his eyes again. "Pinsent--you will avenge
me--you have the clue," he said. It was but a breath, but I heard.
Yet I cannot say I comprehended. Indeed, I thought he wandered. But I
answered softly: "Trust me, lad!" And at that he smiled and lay still,
gazing up at me with eyes of deep affection.

"I have sent for her," I whispered.

"Yes," he sighed. "I know; but she will be too late. Tell her--not to
fret!" and at the last word the light faded from his eyes and he was
dead.

Long afterwards Miss Ottley came into the room. She was pale, but
invincibly composed. I gave her his message and left her alone with
the dead. The owner of the house, Lord Bill and the surgeon led me
out into the garden. They spoke to me in decorous hushed voices for a
while, then let me be. I walked up and down the pathway till break of
day, and what I thought about I cannot tell. I remember being closely
questioned by a policeman. Then Miss Ottley took my arm and we walked
to the station. I thought it my place to be kind to her, yet she was
kind to me.

"One might think you cared," she said, and smiled into my face. We got
into a train and as soon as it started Lord Bill broke out crying.
He declared that Weldon was the best fellow in the world and that he
would miss him dreadfully. Then he said in the midst of life we are
in death, and laughed, and without asking permission, he began to
smoke a cigarette. It is strange how differently people are affected
by emotion. I was mentally dazed, and I fancy part of my brain was
benumbed. Miss Ottley was poignantly awake, but her pride, and her
strength of mind served her for a mask. Lord Bill, on the other hand,
acted as responsively to his feelings as an infant. And yet each of us
behaved naturally. I reflected on these things all the way to town.
Lord Bill bade us farewell at the station. Miss Ottley and I drove to
her home in a hansom. During the drive she spoke about the funeral
quite calmly and mentioned poor Weldon's love for big, red roses. His
coffin should be smothered in roses, she declared.

When I helped her to the pavement, she pointed up at a window that was
open. "Dr. Belleville's room," she said, and smiled. "He is enjoying
his triumph. He kept his word to the letter. It is the seventh day. The
seventh day, Hugh Pinsent; that is a terrible man. How shall I possibly
withstand him?"

I shook my head. "You are wrong," I answered dully. "He is not
responsible for this. It was an accident."

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"I am sure of nothing," I replied. "But it seems to me an accident--and
yet. But there. I am incapable of reasoning in my present mood. I shall
see you again. In the meanwhile--think of Weldon's last words to you
and do not grieve too much!"

"And you?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "I have never felt more miserable. And already
I am beginning to fancy I might have saved him."

"How?"

"By going yesterday to your father and Dr. Belleville and forcing them
at the muzzle of a revolver to tell me things they know and which I
want to know."

"You rave," she muttered coldly, and slowly climbed the steps.

I followed her and rang the bell.

"If you persist in thinking my father a bad man, I never want to speak
to you again," she whispered.

There were steps in the passage. I took off my hat to her. "I must
mend my thoughts," I said.

The door opened and Dr. Belleville appeared upon the threshold.

The girl gave him a quick look before which he quailed. But he
recovered quickly. "I sincerely trust you bring good news," he said, in
tones of deep concern.

"The best," answered Miss Ottley, and drawing in her gown she swept
past him with a glance of bitter hate, into the house.

Belleville looked after her, then turned to me, plucking at his jetty
beard and frowning heavily.

"Weldon is better?" he inquired.

"He is dead," I said.

"Poor, poor fellow," sighed Dr. Belleville. "I am greatly pained to
hear it. You were his friend, were you not, Pinsent? I can see that you
are upset. Won't you come in and have a glass of brandy? you look quite
done up."

"No, thank you," I answered. "I must get home and change these
bloodstained clothes--there is to be an inquest this afternoon.
Good-morning."

"Good-morning!" he replied. He was staring at the bloodstains to which
I had purposely directed his attention. But he did not give a sign of
agitation. His face remained as expressionless as wood.

Chapter XX

Lady Helen's Medicine Operates

On arrival at Jermyn Street I changed my clothes and, having collected
all my belongings, I repaired at once to Dixon Hubbard's flat. I could
not endure the thought of spending one unnecessary moment in my poor
dead friend's abode. I saw his honest face and gay, mirth-filled eyes
in every corner; and he smiled at me from every dark nook and shadow
of the trophy-covered walls. Hubbard received me with his usual frozen
politeness. He was still in bed. But I felt an overmastering desire for
human sympathy, so I ignored his manner and told him what had passed.
He was sorry, I think. He had only met Weldon twice, and had merely
exchanged a word or two with him, but he admitted having felt drawn to
the bright and manly lad; and though he said little, it could be seen
that he was shocked to hear of a death so untimely and on all accounts
so utterly regrettable. And he strove to cheer me in his way. After a
long silence, he suddenly remarked on the iron-bound remorselessness of
fate. "There," he said, "was a young fellow just about to taste his cup
of long-anticipated happiness. A man with many friends and no enemies;
universally liked and respected. Yet destiny, without warning, dashed
the cup for ever from his lips. And one cannot console oneself with the
reflection that he has been spared the pain and shame of finding the
contents bitter-sweet and mixed with dregs; for the girl loved him, I
am told, and she was good to look upon, and honest-hearted. What is the
meaning of it all? Omar laughingly declares that the Potter is a Good
Fellow and 'twill all be well. But how many pots have encountered that
experience? Have I--though still I'm here? And you? I'm all awry. The
Potter's hand shook in making me. As for you, you started straight,
but you grow more crooked every day and it's not your fault; you are a
helpless dough puppet in the hands of destiny."

"You think I grow crooked?" I asked, surprised. "Mentally?"

"Morally," he answered, with a sneer. "You picked a foolish quarrel to
leave me, and now you are back again. Why?"

"Can you tell me?"

"I have a theory," he said, with kindly eyes. "Tell me if I am wrong.
My wife has become interested in you. She has marked you for a victim.
At first you were unwilling. You could not even bear to be near me. But
now you are more callous."

"You are wrong," I replied--then suddenly remembered that I had given a
solemn promise to Lady Helen.

No doubt Hubbard marked the change in my expression. His sneer grew
more pronounced. But I had a task to get through somehow.

"Lady Helen, with all due deference to you, Hubbard," I said slowly,
"is not a woman I could ever care about. I feel certain she is even
less interested in me than I am in her. But even were the reverse the
case with her, as you suspect, what odds? I have the utmost contempt
for her; and I think that she deserves--but there, you have the
misfortune to be her husband, so I'll say no more."

His face was scarlet. "What reason have you to despise her?" he
demanded.

"Is it not enough that she has most unwarrantably caused you a great
deal of unhappiness?" I retorted. "Besides, you have told me sufficient
of her character to convince me that she is one of those flighty
butterfly women whom all honest men regard with only one step short of
loathing."

"And you are an honest man?" he sneered.

"I try to be," I answered modestly.

He was furious. In order to hide it, he sprang out of bed, flung on his
dressing-gown and rushed to the bath. I thought of Lady Helen's acute
prevision of the event, and almost contrived to smile. Hubbard had come
within an ace of defending his defamed wife with naked fists on my
impertinent face, according to the simple rules of the Supreme Court of
Appeals of primeval unlettered aborigines.

We tabooed the subject by tacit consent for the remainder of the
forenoon, but Hubbard announced his intention of accompanying me to
the inquest, and as soon as we were seated in the train he opened fire
again.

"I am afraid I have given you an exaggerated idea of Lady Helen's
shortcomings," he commenced, looking anywhere but at me. "I am afraid
I have created a false impression in your mind. I don't want you to
consider her entirely blameworthy, Pinsent; if she were that I should
long ago have ceased to care a pin for her."

I shrugged my shoulders and looked out of the window.

He went on presently. "I'm afraid, Pinsent, I have done a foolish
thing, perhaps even a caddish thing, in telling you anything about
our private quarrel. It did not occur to me at the time that I might
prejudice you against her. To be honest, there were faults on both
sides, and if you knew all you might consider me the more deserving of
censure, her the more deserving of pity."

"My dear old chap," I answered solemnly, "have I known you all these
years for nothing? All you have said only the more assures me of your
chivalry and generosity and tenderness of heart, and makes me feel the
angrier at her insensate incapacity to appreciate your qualities. I
grant you that you hide yourself at times behind a mask of surliness,
but do you mean to tell me that any true woman, any woman, indeed,
even such a frivolous creature as she has proved herself to be, could
have failed to penetrate so transparent a disguise? I can't believe it,
my boy. In my opinion, Lady Helen knows you perfectly for what you are.
But instead of responding with an equal or similar nobility of mind, at
the instance of her innate selfishness she is using her knowledge to
put upon you, to hurt you, to trifle with you, and to drain your purse,
all that she may pass the sort of existence she prefers without the
wheel-brake of your tutelage."

Hubbard moved uncomfortably in his seat. He frowned and bit his lip.
Then he coughed and put up a hand to his brow.

"Damme!" at length he blurted out. "You're as wrong as you can be. It
was I who insisted on the separation."

"But she forced you to it. She broke her marriage vow of obedience, by
refusing to accept the rules of life that you had planned."

"I prescribed conditions which she characterised as grossly
unreasonable and unfair. I am by no means sure now that she was not
right."

"Nonsense, Hubbard. It's a woman's first duty to obey and cleave to
her husband at all costs and whatever be the consequences or fancied
consequences to her comfort or convenience. Marriage imposes that
obligation on the woman in its sacramental character. It is a sacred
obligation and it cannot be violated without the guilt of crime. I
could have no mercy on such a criminal."

Hubbard unbuttoned his coat and threw back the lapels. He seemed hot.
He puffed out his cheeks and began to fan himself with a newspaper.

"Lord!" he muttered. "What strait-laced ideas you have of matrimony.
Upon my soul I cannot follow you. They are out of date. There was a
time, perhaps, when they were necessary. But now! My dear Hugh, you
should reconsider the matter. Your views are somewhat narrow. For years
past the world has been allowing an ever-increasing license to woman.
And who shall say that it is wrong! Woman is a reasoning, responsible
being. I----"

"Nonsense, Hubbard," I interrupted. "Woman is the weaker vessel, and
the more she is restricted the better for her own protection. Look at
the Divorce Court! Thousands of marriages are every year dissolved.
That is all owing to the greater freedom which men have conceded woman
of latter years. Divorce was, comparatively speaking, an unknown
quantity when men asserted the right to confine their wives in proper
bounds and forced them to observe and practise the domestic virtues
both for occupation and amusement. Look around you and consider what
has been brought about by the unwise relaxation of the old, sound laws!
A race of social moths and drones and gad-flies has been created, whose
chief business in life it is to amuse themselves; whose pleasure it
is to spend money often earned with difficulty by devoted fools; whose
delight it is to ensnare and to deceive their former tyrants; whose
estimate of motherhood is an avoidable and loathsome human incident;
whose morality is a resolution to preserve their immorality from public
criticism; whose faith is a shibboleth composed of superstitious
formulæ, and whose religion is occasionally to attend divine service in
some fashionable church arrayed in the latest thing in headgear and a
chic French gown."

Hubbard straightened his shoulders. His expression had grown quite
superior during my tirade, and when it was over, it was plain that he
looked down on me from the heights of a philosophic Aconcagua.

"I would not advertise those opinions if I were you," he observed with
a slight sneer. "They have a grain of truth in them, but not enough to
conceal the brand of special advocate. I suppose you do not wish to be
regarded as a social reformer?"

"I shall be content to reform one woman--if ever I marry," I answered,
with a straight face, though it was hard to keep it straight.

"She has my unmeasured sympathy," said Hubbard. "Once upon a time I was
a woman-hater--but in my most uncharitable moments I was never such a
fool as you. You will forgive my plain speaking?"

"Certainly, Hubbard, certainly. You are not responsible. It is plain
to me that Lady Helen has bewitched you. One of these days you'll be
lauding her as a creature of incomparable excellences--a very paragon
of merit and a pattern of the virtues. I can see it coming. I am sorry,
for, of course, I know what she is."

Hubbard turned crimson. He snapped his teeth together and rapped out:
"See here, Pinsent, we are very old friends, but I'll be damned if I
allow you to disparage my wife. Is that plain?"

I took out my cigarette case. "Perfectly," I murmured.

He glared at me for a moment, then scowled still more blackly and
growled deep in throat: "I can't think what has come over you. You
haven't the least right or cause to hate her. It's positively unmanly.
Especially as she thinks of you far more highly than you deserve. She
feels it, too. You must have shown her how you regard her. She made me
feel a brute."

"Look here, Hubbard," I cried, with a nicely assumed show of
indignation, "I want to oblige you and I want to keep the peace between
us, but I shan't be able to if you keep on defending her when you know
as well as I----"

"What?" he thundered.

"That she is a butterfly!" I thundered back.

"She is not!" he shouted.

"She is!" I said.

"You, you, you imbecile!" spluttered my poor friend. "I tell you
once and for all that is only one phase of her. I don't like it, I
admit," (he began to cool off), "but still it is only a phase. She is
in reality a woman of great depth of character." (He was quite cool by
this.) "I had a conversation with her the other night that astonished
me. Of course, I have always known that she is an educated woman,
but the extent of her knowledge had previously escaped me. She has
a much more than superficial acquaintance with the modern forms of
speculative philosophy. She has read Kant and Spencer and Nietzsche
with understanding: and she is now engaged in the study of Egyptian
history. You have interested her deeply in the subject."

I shrugged my shoulders. "And from all this you conclude?"

"That I have been an idiot not to recognise long ago that she is
my intellectual equal. And I have treated her as if she were an
irresponsible child."

"But she is a woman."

"Quite so," replied this converted woman-hater, "and because she is a
woman, and such a woman, she has the power to bless the man fortunate
enough to win her--her affection--as few men are blessed. Now you can
appreciate my position. I have blindly sacrificed my chance. I----"

"Pish!" I interrupted. "Tell her what you have told me and be blessed!
You'll repent it all your life through."

"It is too late," he groaned. "I have been weighed in the balance and
found wanting. Pride, if nothing else, would always prevent her from
forgiving me. She--liked me once, I think--but now----" He cleared his
throat and forced a wry smile. "She looks upon me as her treasurer and
friend. It was my own choice. I have no right to grumble." Then he
burst out suddenly, "But it's damnable, Pinsent, damnable!"

Lady Helen's medicine was working like a charm. I thought it best
to let well enough alone. So I made a rude effort and changed the
conversation. We soon reached our journey's end.

The inquest was a nightmare dreamed by day. The courtroom was filled
with poor Weldon's relatives. His father, the old baron, ostentatiously
turned his back on me. He seemed to think me in some way responsible
for his son's fate. Weldon's sisters, too, whom I knew slightly,
vouchsafed me no sign of recognition. His younger brother--now the
heir--was the only member of the family who extended the slightest
token of civility. He was so manifestly delighted at the unlooked-for
promotion of his prospects that I read in his warm hand-grip a secret
pæan of joy. He had been intended for that limbo of younger sons and
blue-blooded incompetents, the bar. Happily, the inquest was soon
over. I was only in the box five minutes, and a quarter-hour later the
verdict was recorded: "Accidental death."

Hubbard and I returned at once to London. There arrived, I plunged
into work upon my book and for a space of two days I managed to forget
that the world contained anything but steles and obelisks and mural
hieroglyphic inscriptions which, though always half obliterate with
time, had somehow or other to be made sense of and translated into
English prose.

Chapter XXI

Hubbard's Philosophy of Life

Weldon's funeral was held on the afternoon of the third day following
his death. His body was interred in the vault of his family at their
seat at Sartley, in Norfolk. I was not invited to attend, but I felt I
had to go. Miss Ottley was there with her father and Dr. Belleville.
She was clad in deep mourning, and her face was thickly veiled. One
of Weldon's sisters sobbed throughout the ceremony, yet I do not
think she felt her brother's loss half as deeply as I did. I heard
her whisper to her neighbour once--between sobs--(I knelt immediately