you did not wish me dead. Tell me that you are not sorry to see me
again."

Her passion conquered for a moment her fear.

"But I am sorry," she exclaimed. "Our marriage must be annulled. It
was no marriage at all."

"Never," he exclaimed vehemently. "You are mine, Annabel, and nothing
shall ever make me give you up."

"But it is too late," she declared. "You have no right to hold me to a
bargain which on your side was a lie. I consented to become Mrs.
Meysey Hill--never your wife."

"What do you mean--by too late?" he demanded.

"There is some one else whom I care for!"

He laughed hardly.

"Tell me his name," he said, "and I promise that he shall never
trouble you. But you," he continued, moving imperceptibility a little
nearer to her, "you are mine. The angels in Heaven shall not tear you
from me. We leave this room together. I shall not part with you
again."

"No," she cried, "I will not. I will have nothing to do with you. You
are not my husband."

He came towards her with that in his face which filled her with blind
terror.

"You belong to me," he said fiercely; "the marriage certificate is in
my pocket. You belong to me, and I have waited long enough."

He stepped past her to the door and closed it. Then he turned with a
fierce movement to take her into his arms. There was a flash and a
loud report. He threw up his hand, reeled for a moment on his feet,
and collapsed upon the floor.

"Annabel;" he moaned. "You have killed me. My wife--killed me."

With a little crash the pistol fell from her shaking fingers. She
stood looking down upon him with dilated eyes. Her faculties seemed
for a moment numbed. She could not realize what she saw. Surely it was
a dream. A moment before he had been a strong man, she had been in his
power, a poor helpless thing. Now he lay there, a doubled-up mass,
with ugly distorted features, and a dark wet stain dripping slowly on
to the carpet. It could not be she who had done this. She had never
let off a pistol in her life. Yet the smoke was curling upwards in a
faint innocent-looking cloud to the ceiling. The smell of gunpowder
was strong in the room.

It was true. She had killed him. It was as much accident as anything,
but she had killed him. Once before--but that had been different. This
time they would call it murder.

She listened, listened intently for several minutes. People were
passing in the street below. She could hear their footsteps upon the
pavement. A hansom stopped a little way off. She could hear the bell
tinkle as the horse shook its head. There was no one stirring in the
flats. He himself had deadened the sound by closing the door. She
moved a little nearer to him.

It was horrible, but she must do it. She sank upon her knees and
unbuttoned his coat. It was there in the breast pocket, stiff and
legal looking. She drew it out with shaking fingers. There was a great
splash of blood upon it, her hand was all wet and sticky. A deadly
sickness came over her, the room seemed spinning round. She staggered
to the fireplace and thrust it into the heart of the dying flames. She
held it down with the poker, looking nervously over her shoulder. Then
she put more coal on, piled it over the ashes, and stood once more
upright.

Still silence everywhere. She pulled down her veil and made her way to
the door. She turned out the electric light and gained the hall. Still
no sound. Her knees almost sank beneath her as she raised the latch of
the front door and looked out. There was no one to be seen. She
passed down the stairs and into the street.

She walked for a mile or more recklessly, close veiled, with swift
level footsteps, though her brain was in a whirl and a horrible
faintness all the time hovered about her. Then she called a hansom and
drove home.

"Miss Pellissier," Brendon said gently, "I am afraid that some fresh
trouble has come to you."

She smiled at him cheerfully.

"Am I dull?" she said. "I am sorry."

"You could never be that," he answered, "but you are at least more
serious than usual."

"Perhaps," she said, "I am superstitious. This is my last week at the
'Unusual,' you know. We begin rehearsing on Monday at the
'Garrick'."

"Surely," he protested, "the change is all in favour of your own
inclinations. It is your own choice, isn't it?"

She nodded.

"Yes. But I believe that Mr. Earles thinks I am a little mad, and
between ourselves I am not sure about it myself. It is easy enough to
sing these little chansons in an original way--it requires a very
different sort of ability to succeed on the stage."

"You have it," he declared confidently.

She laughed altogether in her old manner.

"I wonder how it is," she exclaimed, "that my friends have so much
more confidence in me than I have in myself."

"They know you better," he declared.

"I am afraid," she answered, "that one's friends can judge only of the
externals, and the things which matter, the things inside are realized
only by oneself--stop."

She laid her fingers upon his arm, and they both stood still. They had
turned into the street, on the opposite side of which were the flats
where Anna lived. Glancing idly up at her own window as they had swung
round the corner she had seen a strange thing. The curtains which she
had left drawn were open, and the electric lights were turned on.
Then, even as they stood there, the room was plunged into darkness.

"There is someone in my rooms," Anna said.

"Is it your maid?" he asked.

"I have given her two days' holiday," Anna answered. "She has gone
down into the country."

"And no one else--has a key?"

"I believe," she said, "that that man must have one. I am safe while I
am there, for I have had bolts fitted everywhere, and a pane of glass
in the front door. But I am always afraid that he may get in while I
am away. Look! Is that some one coming out?"

The front door of the flats stood open, and through it a woman, slim
and veiled, passed on to the pavement and turned with swift footsteps
in the opposite direction. Anna watched her with curious eyes.

"Is it any one you know?" Brendon asked.

"I am not sure," Anna answered. "But, of course, she may have come
from one of the other flats."

"Perhaps," he said, "you had better let me have your key, and I will
go up and explore."

"We will go together," she answered.

They crossed the street, and entering the front door passed up the
outside stone steps of the flat. Anna herself opened the hall door.
They stood for a moment in the passage and listened. Silence! Then
Anna clutched her companion's arm.

"What was that?" she asked sharply.

He had heard nothing. They both listened intently. Again silence.

"I thought that I heard a groan," Anna whispered.

He laughed reassuringly.

"I heard nothing," he declared, "and my ears are good. Come."

He threw open the door of the sitting-room and switched on the
electric light.

"There is no--Good God!" he exclaimed.

He turned round to keep Anna out by force if possible, but he was too
late. She was by his side. She too had seen. The thin stream of blood
on which her eyes were fastened with a nameless horror reached almost
to her feet.

_Chapter XXIV_

A CASE FOR THE POLICE

After that first horrible moment it was perhaps Anna who was the more
self-possessed. She dropped on her knees by his side, and gently
unbuttoned his waistcoat. Then she looked up at Brendon.

"You must fetch a doctor," she said. "I do not think that he is quite
dead."

"And leave you here alone?" he asked, in a hoarse whisper. "Come with
me."

"I am not afraid," she answered. "Please hurry."

He reeled out of the room. Anna was afterwards astonished at her own
self-possession. She bound a scarf tightly round the place where the
blood seemed to be coming from. Then she stood up and looked around
the room.

There were no evidences of any struggle, no overturned chairs or
disarranged furniture. The grate was full of fluttering ashes of burnt
paper, and the easy chair near the fire had evidently been used. On
the floor was a handkerchief, a little morsel of lace. Anna saw it,
and for the first time found herself trembling.

She moved towards it slowly and picked it up, holding it out in front
of her whilst the familiar perfume seemed to assert itself with
damning insistence. It was Annabel's. The lace was family lace, easily
recognizable. The perfume was the only one she ever used. Annabel had
been here then. It was she who had come out from the flat only a few
minutes before. It was she----

Anna's nerves were not easily shaken, but she found herself suddenly
clutching at the table for support. The room was reeling, or was it
that she was going to faint? She recovered herself with a supreme
effort. There were the burnt papers still in the grate. She took up
the poker and stirred the fire vigorously. Almost at the same moment
the door opened and Brendon entered, followed by the doctor.

Anna turned round with a start, which was almost of guilt, the poker
still in her hand. She met the keen grey eyes of a clean-shaven man,
between forty and fifty, quietly dressed in professional attire.
Before he even glanced at the man on the floor he stepped over to her
side and took the poker from her.

"Forgive me, madam," he said stiffly, "but in such a case as this it
is better that nothing in the room should be disturbed until the
arrival of the police. You have been burning paper, I see."

"Are you a detective or a doctor?" she asked calmly. "Do you need me
to remind you that your patient is bleeding to death?"

He dropped on his knees by the man's side and made a hurried
examination.

"Who tied this scarf here?" he asked, looking up.

"I did," Anna answered. "I hope that it has not done any harm."

"He would have been dead before now without it," the doctor answered
shortly. "Get me some brandy and my bag."

It was nearly half an hour before they dared ask him the question.

"Will he live?"

The doctor shook his head.

"It is very doubtful," he said. "You must send for the police at once,
you know. You, sir," he added, turning to Brendon, "had better take my
card round to the police station in Werner Street and ask that
Detective Dorling be sent round here at once on urgent business."

"Is it necessary to send for the police?" Anna asked.

"Absolutely," the doctor answered, "and the sooner the better. This is
a case either of suicide or murder. The police are concerned in it in
either event."

"Please go then, Mr. Brendon," Anna said. "You will come back, won't
you?"

He nodded cheerfully.

"Of course I will," he answered.

The doctor and Anna were left alone. Every moment or two he bent over
his patient. He seemed to avoid meeting Anna's eyes as much as
possible.

"Does he live here?" he asked her presently.

"No."

"Far away?"

"I have no idea," Anna answered.

"Who is the tenant of these rooms?" he inquired.

"I am."

"You will have no objection to his remaining here?" he asked. "A move
of any sort would certainly be fatal."

"Of course not," Anna said. "Had he better have a nurse? I will be
responsible for anything of that sort."

"If he lives through the next hour," the doctor answered, "I will send
some one. Do you know anything of his friends? Is there any one for
whom we ought to send?"

"I know very little of him beyond his name," Anna answered. "I know
nothing whatever of his friends or his home. He used to live in a
boarding-house in Russell Square. That is where I first knew him."

The doctor looked at her thoughtfully. Perhaps for the first time he
realized that Anna was by no means an ordinary person. His patient was
distinctly of a different order of life. It was possible that his
first impressions had not been correct.

"Your name, I believe, is----"

"Pellissier," Anna answered.

"Allow me," the doctor said, "to give you a word of advice, Miss
Pellissier. A detective will be here in a few moments to make
inquiries into this affair. You may have something to conceal, you may
not. Tell the whole truth. It always comes out sooner or later. Don't
try to shield anybody or hide anything. It is bad policy."

Anna smiled very faintly.

"I thank you for your advice," she said. "I can assure you that it was
quite unnecessary. I know less about this affair perhaps than you
suppose. What I do know I shall have no hesitation in telling anyone
who has the right to ask."

"Just so," the doctor remarked drily. "And if I were you I would keep
away from the fire."

Brendon reappeared, followed by a tall thin man with a stubbly brown
moustache and restless grey eyes. The doctor nodded to him curtly.

"Good evening, Dorling," he said. "Before you do anything else I
should advise you to secure those charred fragments of paper from the
grate. I know nothing about this affair, but some one has been burning
documents."

The detective went down on his hands and knees. With delicate touch he
rescued all that was possible of them, and made a careful little
parcel. Then he stepped briskly to his feet and bent over the wounded
man.

"Shot through the lungs," he remarked.

The doctor nodded.

"Bad hemorrhage," he said. "I am going to fetch some things that will
be wanted if he pulls through the next hour. I found him lying like
this, the bleeding partly stopped by this scarf, else he had been dead
by now."

The doctor glanced towards Anna. Considering his convictions he felt
that his remark was a generous one. Anna's face however was wholly
impassive.

He took up his hat and went. The detective rapidly sketched the
appearance of the room in his notebook, and picked up the pistol from
under the table. Then he turned to Anna.

"Can you give me any information as to this affair?" he asked.

"I will tell you all that I know," Anna said. "My name is Anna
Pellissier, sometimes called Annabel. I am engaged to sing every
evening at the 'Unusual' music hall. This man's name is Montague
Hill. I saw him first a few months ago at Mrs. White's boarding-house
in Russell Square. He subjected me there to great annoyance by
claiming me as his wife. As a matter of fact, I had never spoken to
him before in my life. Since then he has persistently annoyed me. I
have suspected him of possessing a skeleton key to my apartments.
To-night I locked up my flat at six o'clock. It was then, I am sure,
empty. I dined with a friend and went to the 'Unusual.' At a quarter
past eleven I returned here with this gentleman, Mr. Brendon. As we
turned the corner of the street, I noticed that the electric light was
burning in this room. We stopped for a moment to watch it, and almost
immediately it was turned out. We came on here at once. I found the
door locked as usual, but when we entered this room everything was as
you see. Nothing has been touched since."

The detective nodded.

"A very clear statement, madam," he said. "From what you saw from the
opposite pavement then, it is certain that some person who was able to
move about was in this room only a minute or so before you entered
it?"

"That is so," Anna answered.

"You met no one upon the stairs, or saw no one leave the flats?"

"No one," Anna answered firmly.

"Then either this man shot himself or some one else shot him
immediately before your arrival--or rather if it was not himself the
person who did it was in the room, say two minutes, before you
arrived."

"That is so," Anna admitted.

"I will not trouble you with any questions about the other occupants
of the flats," Mr. Dorling said. "I shall have to go through the
building. You say that this gentleman was with you?"

"I was," Brendon answered, "most providentially."

"You did not notice anything which may have escaped this lady? You saw
no one leave the flats?"

"No one," Brendon answered.

"You heard no pistol-shot?"

"None."

The detective turned again to Anna.

"You know of no one likely to have had a grudge against this man?" he
asked.

"No."

"There is no one else who has a key to your rooms?"

"No one except my maid, who is away in Wiltshire."

"The inference is, then," the detective said smoothly, "that this man
obtained admission to your rooms by means of a false key, that he
burnt some papers here and shot himself within a few moments of your
return. Either that or some other person also obtained admission here
and shot him, and that person is either still upon the premises or
escaped without your notice."

"I suppose," Anna said, "that those are reasonable deductions."

The detective thrust his notebook into his pocket.

"I brought a man with me who is posted outside," he remarked. "With
your permission I should like to search the remainder of your rooms."

Anna showed him the way.

"Have either of you been out of this room since you discovered what
had happened?" he asked.

"Mr. Brendon went for the doctor," Anna answered. "I have not left
this apartment myself."

Nothing unusual was discovered in any other part of the flat. While
they were still engaged in looking round the doctor returned with a
nurse and assistant.

"With your permission," he said to Anna, "I shall arrange a bed for
him where he is. There is scarcely one chance in a dozen of saving his
life; there would be none at all if he were moved."

"You can make any arrangements you like," Anna declared. "I shall
leave the flat to you and go to a hotel."

"You would perhaps be so good as to allow one of my men to accompany
you and see you settled," Mr. Dorling said deferentially. "In the
event of his death we should require you at once to attend at the
inquest."

"I am going to pack my bag," Anna answered. "In five minutes I shall
be ready."

_Chapter XXV_

THE STEEL EDGE OF THE TRUTH

The manservant, with his plain black clothes and black tie, had
entered the room with a deferential little gesture.

"You will pardon me, sir," he said in a subdued tone, "but I think
that you have forgotten to look at your engagement book. There is Lady
Arlingford's reception to-night, ten till twelve, and the Hatton House
ball, marked with a cross, sir, important. I put your clothes out an
hour ago."

Nigel Ennison looked up with a little start.

"All right, Dunster," he said. "I may go to Hatton House later, but
you needn't wait. I can get into my clothes."

The man hesitated.

"Can I bring you anything, sir--a whisky and soda, or a liqueur?
You'll excuse me, sir, but you haven't touched your coffee."

"Bring me a whisky and soda, and a box of cigarettes," Ennison
answered, "and then leave me alone, there's a good fellow. I'm a
little tired."

The man obeyed his orders noiselessly and then left the room.

Ennison roused himself with an effort, took a long drink from his
whisky and soda, and lit a cigarette.

"What a fool I am!" he muttered, standing up on the hearthrug, and
leaning his elbows upon the broad mantelpiece. "And yet I wonder
whether the world ever held such another enigma in her sex. Paris
looms behind--a tragedy of strange recollections--here she emerges
Phoenix-like, subtly developed, a flawless woman, beautiful,
self-reliant, witty, a woman with the strange gift of making all
others beside her seem plain or vulgar. And then--this sudden thrust.
God only knows what I have done, or left undone. Something
unpardonable is laid to my charge. Only last night she saw me, and
there was horror in her eyes.... I have written, called--of what avail
is anything--against that look.... What the devil is the matter,
Dunster?"

"I beg your pardon, sir," the man answered, "there is a lady here to
see you."

Ennison turned round sharply.

"A lady, Dunster. Who is it?"

The man came a little further into the room.

"Lady Ferringhall, sir."

"Lady Ferringhall--alone?" Ennison exclaimed.

"Quite alone, sir."

Ennison was dismayed.

"For Heaven's sake, Dunster, don't let her out of the carriage, or
hansom, or whatever she came in. Say I'm out, away, anything!"

"I am sorry, sir," the man answered, "but she had sent away her hansom
before I answered the bell. She is in the hall now. I----"

The door was thrown open. Annabel entered.

"Forgive my coming in," she said to Ennison. "I heard your voices, and
the hall is draughty. What is the matter with you?"

Dunster had withdrawn discreetly. Ennison's manner was certainly not
one of a willing host.

"I cannot pretend that I am glad to see you, Lady Ferringhall," he
said quietly. "For your own sake, let me beg of you not to stay for a
moment. Dunster shall fetch you a cab. I----"

She threw herself into an easy chair. She was unusually pale, and her
eyes were brilliant. Never had she seemed to him so much like Anna.

"You needn't be worried," she said quietly. "The conventions do not
matter one little bit. You will agree with me when you have heard what
I have to say. For me that is all over and done with."

"Lady Ferringhall! Anna!" he exclaimed.

She fixed her brilliant eyes upon him.

"Suppose you call me by my proper name," she said quietly. "Call me
Annabel."

He started back as though he had been shot.

"Annabel?" he exclaimed. "That is your sister's name."

"No, mine."

It came upon him like a flash. Innumerable little puzzles were
instantly solved. He could only wonder that this amazing thing had
remained so long a secret to him. He remembered little whispered
speeches of hers, so like the Annabel of Paris, so unlike the woman he
loved, a hundred little things should have told him long ago.
Nevertheless it was overwhelming.

"But your hair," he gasped.

"Dyed!"

"And your figure?"

"One's _corsetière_ arranges that. My friend, I am only grieved that
you of all others should have been so deceived. I have seen you with
Anna, and I have not known whether to be glad or sorry. I have been in
torment all the while to know whether it was to Anna or to Annabel
that you were making love so charmingly. Nigel, do you know that I
have been very jealous?"

He avoided the invitation of her eyes. He was indeed still in the
throes of his bewilderment.

"But Sir John?" he exclaimed. "What made you marry him? What made you
leave Paris without a word to any one? What made you and your sister
exchange identities?"

"There is one answer to all those questions, Nigel," she said, with a
nervous little shudder. "It is a hateful story. Come close to me, and
let me hold your hand, dear. I am a little afraid."

There was a strange look in her face, the look of a frightened child.
Ennison seemed to feel already the shadow of tragedy approaching. He
stood by her side, and he suffered her hands to rest in his.

"You remember the man in Paris who used to follow me about--Meysey
Hill they called him?"

He nodded.

"Miserable bounder," he murmured. "Turned out to be an impostor, too."

"He imposed on me," Annabel continued. "I believed that he was the
great multi-millionaire. He worried me to marry him. I let him take me
to the English Embassy, and we went through some sort of a ceremony. I
thought it would be magnificent to have a great house in Paris, and
more money than any other woman. Afterwards we started for _déjeuner_
in a motor. On the way he confessed. He was not Meysey Hill, but an
Englishman of business, and he had only a small income. Every one took
him for the millionaire, and he had lost his head about me. I--well, I
lost my temper. I struck him across the face, twisted the steering
wheel of the motor, sprang out myself, and left him for dead on the
road with the motor on top of him. This is the first act."

"Served the beast right," Ennison declared. "I think I can tell you
something which may be very good news for you presently. But go on."

"Act two," she continued. "Enter Sir John, very honest, very much in
love with me. I thought that Hill was dead, but I was frightened, and
I wanted to get away from Paris. Sir John heard gossip about us--about
Anna the recluse, a paragon of virtue, and Annabel alias 'Alcide' a
dancer at the _cafés chantants_, and concerning whom there were many
stories which were false, and a few--which were true. I--well, I
borrowed Anna's name. I made her my unwilling confederate. Sir John
followed me to London and married me. To this day he and every one
else thinks that he married Anna.

"Act three. Anna comes to London. She is poor, and she will take
nothing from my husband, the man she had deceived for my sake, and he,
on his part, gravely disapproves of her as 'Alcide.' She tries every
way of earning a living and fails. Then she goes to a dramatic agent.
Curiously enough nothing will persuade him that she is not 'Alcide.'
He believes that she denies it simply because owing to my marriage
with Sir John, whom they call the 'Puritan Knight,' she wants to keep
her identity secret. He forces an engagement upon her. She never calls
herself 'Alcide.' It is the Press who find her out. She is the image
of what I was like, and she has a better voice. Then enter Mr. Hill
again--alive. He meets Anna, and claims her as his wife. It is Anna
again who stands between me and ruin."

"I cannot let you go on," Ennison interrupted. "I believe that I can
give you great news. Tell me where the fellow Hill took you for this
marriage ceremony."

"It was behind the Place de Vendome, on the other side from the Ritz."

"I knew it," Ennison exclaimed. "Cheer up, Annabel. You were never
married at all. That place was closed by the police last month. It was
a bogus affair altogether, kept by some blackguard or other of an
Englishman. Everything was done in the most legal and imposing way,
but the whole thing was a fraud."

"Then I was never married to him at all?" Annabel said.

"Never--but, by Jove, you had a narrow escape," Ennison exclaimed.
"Annabel, I begin to see why you are here. Think! Had you not better
hurry back before Sir John discovers? You are his wife right enough.
You can tell me the rest another time."

She smiled faintly.

"The rest," she said, holding tightly to his hands, "is the most
important of all. You came to me, you wished me to speak to Anna. I
went to her rooms to-night. There was no one at home, and I was coming
away when I saw that the door was open. I decided to go in and wait.
In her sitting-room I found Montague Hill. He had gained admission
somehow, and he too was waiting for Anna. But--he was cleverer than
any of you. He knew me, Nigel. 'At last,' he cried, 'I have found
you!' He would listen to nothing. He swore that I was his wife, and--I
shot him, Nigel, as his arms were closing around me. Shot him, do you
hear?"

"Good God!" he exclaimed, looking at her curiously. "Is this true,
Annabel? Is he dead?"

She nodded.

"I shot him. I saw the blood come as he rolled over. I tore the
marriage certificate from his pocket and burnt it. And then I came
here."

"You came--here!" he repeated, vaguely.

"Nigel, Nigel," she cried. "Don't you understand? It is I whom you
cared for in Paris, not Anna. She is a stranger to you. You cannot
care for her. Think of those days in Paris. Do you remember when we
went right away, Nigel, and forgot everything? We went down the river
past Veraz, and the larks were singing all over those deep brown
fields, and the river further on wound its way like a coil of silver
across the rich meadowland, and along the hillside vineyards. Oh, the
scent of the flowers that day, the delicious quiet, the swallows that
dived before us in the river. Nigel! You have not forgotten. It was
the first day you kissed me, under the willows, coming into Veraz.
Nigel, you have not forgotten!"

"No," he said, with a little bitter smile. "I have never forgotten."

She suddenly caught hold of his shoulders and drew him down towards
her.

"Nigel, don't you understand. I must leave England to-night. I must go
somewhere into hiding, a long, long way off. I killed him, Nigel. They
will say that it was murder. But if only you will come I do not care."

He shook her hands off almost roughly. He stood away from her. She
listened with dumb fear in her eyes.

"Listen, Annabel," he said hoarsely. "We played at love-making in
Paris. It was very pretty and very dainty while it lasted, but we
played it with our eyes open, and we perfectly understood the
game--both of us. Other things came. We went our ways. There was no
broken faith--not even any question of anything of the sort. I met you
here as Lady Ferringhall. We have played at a little mild love-making
again. It has been only the sort of nonsense which passes lightly
enough between half the men and women in London. You shall know the
truth. I do not love you. I have never loved you. I call myself a man
of the world, a man of many experiences, but I never knew what love
meant--until I met your sister."

"You love--Anna?" she exclaimed.

"I do," he answered. "I always shall. Now if you are ready to go with
me, I too am ready. We will go to Ostend by the early morning boat and
choose a hiding place from there. I will marry you when Sir John gets
his divorce, and I will do all I can to keep you out of harm. But you
had better know the truth to start with. I will do all this not
because I love you, but--because you are Anna's sister."

Annabel rose to her feet.

"You are magnificent," she said, "but the steel of your truth is a
little oversharpened. It cuts. Will you let your servant call me a
hansom," she continued, opening the door before he could reach her
side. "I had no idea that it was so abominably late."

He scarcely saw her face again. She pulled her veil down, and he knew
that silence was best.

"Where to?" he asked, as the hansom drove up.

"Home, of course," she answered. "Eight, Cavendish Square."

_Chapter XXVI_

ANNABEL IS WARNED

"You!"

David Courtlaw crossed the floor of the dingy little sitting-room with
outstretched hands.

"You cannot say that you did not expect me," he answered. "I got
Sydney's telegram at ten o'clock, and caught the ten-thirty from the
Gare du Nord."

"It is very nice of you," Anna said softly.

"Rubbish!" he answered. "I could not have stayed in Paris and waited
for news. Tell me exactly what has happened. Even now I do not
understand. Is this man Hill dead?"

She shook her head.

"He was alive at four o'clock this afternoon," she answered, "but the
doctors give little hope of his recovery."

"What is there to be feared?" he asked her quietly.

She hesitated.

"You are my friend," she said, "if any one is. I think that I will
tell you. The man Hill has persecuted me for months--ever since I have
been in England. He claimed me for his wife, and showed to every one a
marriage certificate. He shot at me at the 'Unusual,' and the
magistrates bound him over to keep the peace. I found him once in my
rooms, and I believe that he had a key to my front door. Last night
Mr. Brendon and I returned from the 'Unusual,' and found him lying
in my room shot through the lungs. In the grate were some charred
fragments of a marriage certificate. We fetched the doctor and the
police. From the first I could see that neither believed my story. I
am suspected of having shot the man."

"But that is ridiculous!" he exclaimed.

She laughed a little bitterly.

"I am under police surveillance," she said. "So is Mr. Brendon."

"But there is not a shadow of evidence against you," he objected. "The
man alone could supply any, and if he recovers sufficiently to say
anything, what he would say would exonerate you."

"Yes."

There was a moment's silence. Anna's face was half turned from him,
but her expression, and the tone of her monosyllable puzzled him. He
stepped quickly towards her. Her eyes seemed to be looking backwards.
She distinctly shivered as he forced her to look at him. He was
bewildered.

"Anna!" he exclaimed hoarsely. "Look at me. What is it? Good God!"

An unhappy little smile parted her lips. She clenched her hands
together and leaned forward in her chair, gazing steadily into the
fire.

"I think," she said, "that I will tell you everything. I must tell
somebody--and you would understand."

"I am your friend," he said slowly, "whatever you may have to tell me.
You can trust me, Anna. You know that. I will be as silent as the
grave."

"Not long ago," she said, "you left me in anger, partly because of
this exchange of identities between Annabel and myself. You said that
it would bring trouble. It has."

"Yes."

"Annabel's real reason for wishing to leave Paris, the real reason she
married Sir John Ferringhall, was because of a very foolish thing
which she did. It was--in connection with this man Hill. He personated
over there a millionaire named Meysey Hill, and it seems that he
induced Annabel to go through some sort of marriage with him at the
Embassy."

"Where?" Courtlaw asked quickly.

"In Paris."

Courtlaw seemed about to say something. He changed his mind however,
and simply motioned to her to proceed.

"Then there was a motor accident only an hour or so after this
ceremony, and Hill was reported to be killed. Annabel believed it,
came to England and married Sir John. Now you can understand why I
have been obliged to----"

"Yes, yes, I understand that," Courtlaw interrupted. "But about last
night."

"Annabel knew where I lived," Anna continued slowly. "She has been to
my flat before. I saw her come out from the flat buildings two minutes
before we entered it last night. I picked up her handkerchief on the
floor."

"You mean--you think----"

"Hush! I think that he was concealed in my room, and Annabel and he
met there. What passed between them I cannot think--I dare not. The
pistol was his own, it is true, but it was one which was taken from
him when he forced his way in upon me before. Now you can understand
why every minute is a torture to me. It is not for myself I fear. But
if he speaks--I fear what he may tell."

"You have been to her?" he asked.

"I dare not," she answered.

"I will go," he said. "She must be warned. She had better escape if
she can."

Anna shook her head.

"She will take her risk," she answered. "I am sure of it. If he
recovers he may not accuse her. If he dies she is safe."

He paced the room for a minute or two restlessly.

"There are some people," he said at last, "who seem fated to carry on
their shoulders the burdens of other people. You, Anna, are one of
them. I know in Paris you pinched and scraped that your sister might
have the dresses and entertainments she desired. You fell in at once
with her quixotic and damnable scheme of foisting her reputation and
her follies upon your shoulders whilst she marries a rich man and
commences all over again a life of selfish pleasure. You on the other
hand have to come to London, a worker, with the responsibility of life
upon your own shoulders--and in addition all the burden of her
follies."

"You forget," she said, looking up at him with a faint smile, "that
under the cloak of her name I am earning more money a week than I
could ever have earned in a year by my own labours."

"It is an accident," he answered. "Besides, it is not so. You sing
better than Annabel ever did, you have even a better style. 'Alcide'
or no 'Alcide,' there is not a music hall manager in London or Paris
who would not give you an engagement on your own merits."

"Perhaps not," she answered. "And yet in a very few weeks I shall have
done with it all. Do you think that I shall ever make an actress, my
friend?"

"I doubt it," he answered bluntly. "You have not feeling enough."

She smiled at him.

"It is like old times," she said, "to hear these home truths. All the
same, I don't admit it."

He shook his head.

"To be an actress," he said, "you require a special and peculiar
temperament. I do not believe that there has ever lived a really great
actress whose moral character from the ordinary point of view would
bear inspection."

"Then I," she said, "have too much character."

"Too much character, and too little sentiment," he answered. "Too much
sensibility and too cold a heart. Too easily roused emotions and too
little passion. How could you draw the curtain aside which hides the
great and holy places of life--you, who have never loved?"

"You have become French to the core," she murmured. "You would believe
that life is kindled by the passions alone."

There was silence between them. Then a servant girl brought in a
telegram. Anna tore it open and passed it to Courtlaw. It was from
Brendon.

    "Hill gradually recovering consciousness. Doctor says depositions
    to-night. Recovery impossible.--BRENDON."

He looked at her gravely.

"I think," he said, "that some one ought to warn her."

"It is Number 8, Cavendish Square," she answered simply.

Courtlaw found himself ushered without questions into Annabel's long
low drawing-room, fragrant with flowers and somewhat to his surprise,
crowded with guests. From the further end of the apartment came the
low music of a violin. Servants were passing backwards and forwards
with tea and chocolate. For a moment he did not recognize Annabel.
Then she came a few steps to meet him.

"Mr. Courtlaw, is it not," she remarked, with lifted eyebrows. "Really
it is very kind of you to have found me out."

He was bereft of words for a moment, and in that moment she escaped,
having passed him on deftly to one of the later arrivals.

"Lady Mackinnor," she said, "I am sure that you must have heard of Mr.
David Courtlaw. Permit me to make him known to you--Mr. Courtlaw--Lady
Mackinnor."

With a murmured word of excuse she glided away, and Courtlaw, who
had come with a mission which seemed to him to be one of life or
death, was left to listen to the latest art jargon from Chelsea. He
bore it as long as he could, watching all the time with fascinated
eyes Annabel moving gracefully about amongst her guests, always gay,
with a smile and a whisper for nearly everybody. Grudgingly he admired
her. To him she had always appeared as a mere pleasure-loving
parasite--something quite insignificant. He had pictured her, if
indeed she had ever had the courage to do this thing, as sitting
alone, convulsed with guilty fear, starting at her own shadow, a slave
to constant terror. And instead he found her playing the great lady,
and playing it well. She knew, or guessed his mission too, for more
than once their eyes met, and she laughed mockingly at him. At last he
could bear it no longer. He left his companion in the midst of a
glowing eulogy of Bastien Leparge, and boldly intercepted his hostess
as she moved from one group to join another.

"Can you spare me a moment?" he asked. "I have a message from your
sister."

"Are you in a hurry," she asked carelessly. "A lot of these people
will be going presently."

"My message is urgent," he said firmly. "If you cannot listen to me
now it must remain undelivered."

She shrugged her shoulders and led him towards a small recess. "So you
come from Anna, do you?" she remarked. "Well, what is it?"

"Montague Hill is recovering consciousness," he said. "He will
probably make a statement to-night."

"That sounds very interesting," she answered coolly. "Perhaps I should
better be able to understand its significance if you would explain to
me who Mr. Montague Hill is."

"Your husband," he answered bluntly.

She did not wince. She laughed a little contemptuously.

"You and Anna," she said, "seem to have stumbled upon a mare's nest.
If that is my sister's message, pray return to her and say that the
doings and sayings of Mr. Montague Hill do not interest me in the
least."

"Don't be foolish," he said sharply. "You were seen to leave the flat,
and your handkerchief was found there. Very likely by this time the
whole truth is known."

She smiled at him, an understanding smile, but her words defied him.

"What a beautiful mare's nest!" she exclaimed. "I can see you and Anna
groaning and nodding your grave heads together. Bah! She does not know
me very well, and you--not at all. Do have some tea, won't you? If
you must, go then."

Courtlaw was dismissed. As he passed out he saw in the hall a quietly
dressed man with keen grey eyes, talking to one of the footmen. He
shivered and looked behind as he stepped into his hansom. Had it come
already?

_Chapter XXVII_

JOHN FERRINGHAM, GENTLEMAN

"Confess, my dear husband," Annabel said lightly, "that you are
bewildered."

Sir John smiled.

"My dear Anna," he answered. "To tell you the truth, it has seemed
just lately as though we were becoming in some measure estranged. You
certainly have not shown much desire for my society, have you?"

"You have been wrapped up in your politics," she murmured.

He shook his head.

"There have been other times," he said a little sadly.

Her little white hand stole across the table. There was a look in her
eyes which puzzled him.

"I have been very selfish," she declared. "But you must forgive me,
John."

"I would forgive you a great deal more," he answered readily, "for the
sake of an evening like this. You have actually given up a
dinner-party to dine alone with me."

"And made you give up a political meeting," she reminded him.

"Quite an unimportant one," he assured her. "I would have given up
anything to see you your old self again--as you are this evening."

"I am afraid I have not been very nice," she said sadly. "Never mind.
You must think of this evening, John, sometimes--as a sort of
atonement."

"I hope," he answered, looking at her in some surprise, "that we shall
have many more such to think about."

They were lingering over their dessert. The servants had left the
room. Annabel half filled her glass with wine, and taking a little
folded packet from her plate, shook the contents into it.

"I am developing ailments," she said, meeting his questioning eyes.
"It is nothing of any importance. John, I have something to say to
you."

"If you want to ask a favour," he remarked smiling, "you have made it
almost impossible for me to refuse you anything."

"I am going to ask more than a favour," she said slowly. "I am going
to ask for your forgiveness."

He was a little uneasy.

"I do not know what you mean," he said, "but if you are referring to
any little coolness since our marriage let us never speak of it again.
I am something of an old fogey, Anna, I'm afraid, but if you treat me
like this you will teach me to forget it."

Annabel looked intently into her glass.

"John," she said, "I am afraid that I am going to make you unhappy. I
am very, very sorry, but you must listen to me."

He relapsed into a stony silence. A few feet away, across the low
vases of pink and white roses, sat Annabel, more beautiful to-night
perhaps than ever before in her life. She wore a wonderful dress of
turquoise blue, made by a great dressmaker for a function which she
knew very well now that she would never attend. Her hair once more was
arranged with its old simplicity. There was a new softness in her
eyes, a hesitation, a timidity about her manner which was almost
pathetic.

"You remember our first meeting?"

"Yes," he answered hoarsely. "I remember it very well indeed. You have
the look in your eyes to-night which you had that day, the look of a
frightened child."

She looked into her glass.

"I was frightened then," she declared. "I am frightened now. But it is
all very different. There was hope for me then. Now there is none. No,
none at all."

"You talk strangely, Anna," he said. "Go on!"

"People talked to you in Paris about us," she continued, "about Anna
the virtuous and Annabel the rake. You were accused of having been
seen with the latter. You denied it, remembering that I had called
myself Anna. You went even to our rooms and saw my sister. Anna lied
to you, I lied to you. I was Annabel the rake, 'Alcide' of the music
halls. My name is Annabel, not Anna. Do you understand?"

"I do not," he answered. "How could I, when your sister sings now at
the 'Unusual' every night and the name 'Alcide' flaunts from every
placard in London?"

"The likeness between us," she said, "before I began to disfigure
myself with rouge and ill-dressed hair, was remarkable. Anna failed in
her painting, our money was gone, and she was forced to earn her own
living. She came to London, and tried several things without any
success."

"But why----"

Sir John stopped short. With a moment of inward shame he remembered
his deportment towards Anna. It was scarcely likely that she would
have accepted his aid. Some one had once, in his hearing, called him a
prig. He remembered it suddenly. He thought of his severe attitude
towards the girl who was rightly and with contempt refusing his
measured help. He looked across at Annabel, and he groaned. This was
his humiliation as well as hers.

"Anna of course would not accept any money from us," she continued.
"She tried everything, and last of all she tried the stage. She went
to a dramatic agent, and he turned out to be the one who had heard me
sing in Paris. He refused to believe that Anna was not 'Alcide.' He
thought she wished to conceal her identity because of the connexion
with you, and he offered her an engagement at once. She was never
announced as 'Alcide,' but directly she walked on she simply became
'Alcide' to every one. She had a better voice than I, and the rest I
suppose is only a trick. The real 'Alcide'," she wound up with a faint
smile across the table at him, "is here."

He sat like a man turned to stone. Some part of the stiff vigour of
the man seemed to have subsided. He seemed to have shrunken in his
seat. His eyes were fixed upon her face, but he opened his lips twice
before he spoke.

"When you married me----"

Her little hand flashed out across the table.

"John," she said, "I can spare you that question. I had been about as
foolish and selfish as a girl could be. I had done the most
compromising things, and behaved in the most ridiculous way. But from
the rest--you saved me."

Sir John breathed a long deep sigh. He sat up in his chair again, the
colour came back to his cheeks.

"John, don't!" she cried. "You think that this is all. You are going
to be generous and forgive. It isn't all. There is worse to come.
There is a tragedy to come."

"Out with it, then," he cried, almost roughly. "Don't you know, child,
that this is torture for me? What in God's name more can you have to
tell me?"

Her face had become almost like a marble image. She spoke with a
certain odd deliberation carefully chosen words which fell like drops
of ice upon the man who sat listening.

"Before I met you I was deluded into receiving upon friendly terms a
man named Hill, who passed himself off as Meysey Hill the railway man,
but who was in reality an Englishman in poor circumstances. He was
going to settle I forget how many millions upon me, and I think that I
was dazzled. I went with him to what I supposed to be the British
Embassy, and went through a ceremony which I understood to be the
usual form of the marriage one used there. Afterwards we started for a
motor ride to a place outside Paris for _déjeuner_, and I suppose the
man's nerve failed him. I questioned him too closely about his
possessions, and remarked upon the fact that he was a most inexpert
driver, although Meysey Hill had a great reputation as a motorist.
Anyhow he confessed that he was a fraud. I struck him across the face,
jumped out and went back by train to Paris. He lost control of the
machine, was upset and nearly killed."

"Did you say," Sir John asked, "that the man's name was Hill?"

"Yes," she answered.

"The man who was found dead in your sister's room was named Hill?"

"It is the man," she answered. "I killed him."

Sir John clutched at the table with both hands. A slow horror was
dawning in his fixed eyes. This was not the sort of confession which
he had been expecting. Annabel had spoken calmly enough and steadily,
but his brain refused at first to accept the full meaning of her
words. It seemed to him that a sort of mist had risen up between them.
Everything was blurred. Only her face was clear, frail and delicate,
almost flower-like, with the sad haunting eyes ever watching his.
Annabel a murderess! It was not possible.

"Child!" he cried. "You do not know what you say. This is part of a
dream--some evil fancy. Think! You could not have done it."

She shook her head deliberately, hopelessly.

"I think that I know very well what I am saying," she answered. "I
went to Anna's rooms because I felt that I must see her. He was there
concealed, waiting her return. He recognized me at once, and he
behaved like a madman. He swore that I was his wife, that chance had
given me to him at last. John, he was between me and the door. A
strong coarse man, and there were things in his eyes which made my
blood run cold with terror. He came over to me. I was helpless.
Beside me on Anna's table was a pistol. I was not even sure whether
it was loaded. I snatched it up, pointed it blindly at him, and
fired."

"Ah!" Sir John exclaimed.

"He fell over at my feet," she continued. "I saw him stagger and sink
down, and the pistol was smoking still in my hand. I bent over him.
Anna had told me that he carried always with him this bogus marriage
certificate. I undid his coat, and I took it from his pocket. I burned
it."

"But the marriage itself?" Sir John asked. "I do not understand."

"There was no marriage," she answered. "I was very foolish to have
been deceived even for a moment. There was no marriage, and I hated,
oh, how I hated the man."

"Did any one see you leave the flat?" he asked.

"I do not know. But David Courtlaw has been here. To-night they say he
will be conscious. He will say who it was. So there is no escape. And
listen, John."

"Well?"

"I went from Anna's flat to Nigel Ennison's rooms. I told him the
truth. I asked him to take me away, and hide me. He refused. He sent
me home."

Sir John's head bent lower and lower. There was nothing left now of
the self-assured, prosperous man of affairs. His shoulders were bent,
his face was furrowed with wrinkles. He looked no longer at his wife.
His eyes were fixed upon the tablecloth.

There was a gentle rustling of skirts. Softly she rose to her feet. He
felt her warm breath upon his cheek, the perfume of her hair as she
leaned over him. He did not look up, so he did not know that in her
other hand she held a glass of wine.

"Dear husband," she murmured. "I am so very, very sorry. I have
brought disgrace upon you, and I haven't been the right sort of wife
at all. But it is all over now, and presently there will be some one
else. I should like to have had you forgive me."

He did not move. He seemed to be thinking hard. She paused for a
moment. Then she raised the glass nearer to her lips.

"Good-bye, John," she said simply.

Something in her tone made him look up. In a second the glass lay
shattered upon the carpet. There was a stain of wine upon her dress.

"God in Heaven, Annabel!" he cried. "What were you doing?"

Her voice was a little hysterical. Her unnatural calm was giving way.

"It was poison--why not?" she answered. "Who is there to care
and--John."

His arms were around her. He kissed her once on the lips with a
passion of which, during all their days of married life, he had given
no sign.

"You poor little girl!" he cried. "Forgive you, indeed. There isn't a
husband breathing, Annabel, who wouldn't have blessed that pistol in
your hands, and prayed God that the bullet might go straight. It is no
crime, none at all. It is one of God's laws that a woman may defend
her honour, even with the shedding of blood. While you talked I was
only making our plans. It was necessary to think, and think quickly."

She was altogether hysterical now.

"But I--I went to Nigel Ennison for help. I asked him--to take me
away."

She saw him flinch, but he gave no sign of it in his tone.

"Perhaps," he said, "I have been to blame. It must be my fault that
you have not learnt that your husband is the man to come to--at such a
time as this. Oh, I think I understand, Annabel. You were afraid of
me, afraid that I should have been shocked, afraid of the scandal.
Bah. Little woman, you have been brave enough before. Pull yourself
together now. Drink this!"

He poured out a glass of wine with a firm hand, and held it to her
lips. She drank it obediently.

"Good," he said, as he watched the colour come back to her cheeks.
"Now listen. You go to your room and ring for your maid. I received a
telegram, as you know, during dinner. It contains news of the serious
illness of a near relation at Paris. Your maid has twenty minutes to
pack your dressing case for one night, and you have the same time to
change into a travelling dress. In twenty minutes we meet in the hall,
remember. I will tell you our plans on the way to the station."

"But you," she exclaimed, "you are not coming. There is the
election----"

He laughed derisively.

"Election be hanged!" he exclaimed. "Don't be childish, Annabel. We
are off for a second honeymoon. Just one thing more. We may be
stopped. Don't look so frightened. You called yourself a murderess.
You are nothing of the sort. What you did is called manslaughter, and
at the worst there is only a very slight penalty, nothing to be
frightened about in the least. Remember that."

She kissed him passionately, and ran lightly upstairs. In the hall
below she could hear his firm voice giving quick commands to the
servants.

_Chapter XXVIII_

THE HISSING OF "ALCIDE"

There was a strange and ominous murmur of voices, a shuffling of feet
in the gallery, a silence, which was like the silence before a storm.
Anna, who had sung the first verse of her song, looked around the
house, a little surprised at the absence of the applause which had
never yet failed her. She realized in a moment what had happened. Even
though the individual faces of her audience were not to be singled
out, she had been conscious from the first moment of her appearance
that something was wrong. She hesitated, and for a moment thought of
omitting her second verse altogether. The manager, however, who stood
in the wings, nodded to her to proceed, and the orchestra commenced
the first few bars of the music. Then the storm broke. A long shrill
cat-call in the gallery seemed to be the signal. Then a roar of
hisses. They came from every part, from the pit, the circle and the
gallery, even from the stalls. And there arose too, a background of
shouts.

"Who killed her husband?"

"Go and nurse him, missus!"

"Murderess!"

Anna looked from left to right. She was as pale as death, but she
seemed to have lost the power of movement. They shouted to her from
the wings to come off. She could not stir hand or foot. A paralyzing
horror was upon her. Her eardrums were burning with the echoes of
those hideous shouts. A crumpled-up newspaper thrown from the gallery
hit her upon the cheek. The stage manager came out from the wings, and
taking her hand led her off. There was more shouting.

The stage manager reappeared presently, and made a speech. He
regretted--more deeply than he could say--the occurrence of this
evening. He fancied that when they had had time to reflect, they would
regret it still more. ("No, no.") They had shown themselves grossly
ignorant of facts. They had chosen to deliberately and wickedly insult
a lady who had done her best to entertain them for many weeks. He
could not promise that she would ever appear again in that house.
("Good job.") Well, they might say that, but he knew very well that
before long they would regret it. Of his own certain knowledge he
could tell them that. For his own part he could not sufficiently
admire the pluck of this lady, who, notwithstanding all that she had
been through, had chosen to appear this evening rather than break her
engagement. He should never sufficiently be able to regret the return
which they had made to her. He begged their attention for the next
turn.

He had spoken impressively, and most likely Anna, had she reappeared,
would have met with a fair reception. She, however, had no idea of
doing anything of the sort. She dressed rapidly and left the theatre
without a word to any one. The whole incident was so unexpected that
neither Courtlaw nor Brendon were awaiting. The man who sat behind a
pigeon-hole, and regulated the comings and goings, was for a moment
absent. Anna stood on the step and looked up and down the street for a
hansom. Suddenly she felt her wrist grasped by a strong hand. It was
Ennison, who loomed up through the shadows.

"Anna! Thank God I have found you at last. But you have not finished
surely. Your second turn is not over, is it?"

She laughed a little hardly. Even now she was dazed. The horror of
those few minutes was still with her.

"Have you not heard?" she said. "For me there is no second turn. I
have said good-bye to it all. They hissed me!"

"Beasts!" he muttered. "But was it wise to sing to-night?"

"Why not? The man was nothing to me."

"You have not seen the evening paper?"

"No. What about them?"

He called a hansom.

"They are full of the usual foolish stories. To-morrow they will all
be contradicted. To-night all London believes that he was your
husband."

"That is why they hissed me, then?"

"Of course. To-morrow they will know the truth."

She shivered.

"Is this hansom for me?" she said. "Thank you--and good-bye."

"I am coming with you," he said firmly.

She shook her head.

"Don't!" she begged.

"You are in trouble," he said. "No one has a better right than I to be
with you."

"You have no right at all," she answered coldly.

"I have the right of the man who loves you," he declared. "Some day
you will be my wife, and it would not be well for either of us to
remember that in these unhappy days you and I were separated."

Anna gave her address to the driver. She leaned back in the cab with
half-closed eyes.

"This is all madness," she declared wearily. "Do you think it is fair
of you to persecute me just now?"

"It is not persecution, Anna," he answered gently. "Only you are the
woman I love, and you are in trouble. And you are something of a
heroine, too. You see, my riddle is solved. I know all."

"You know all?"

"Your sister has told me."

"You have seen her--since last night?"

"Yes."

Anna shivered a little. She asked no further questions for the moment.
Ennison himself, with the recollection of Annabel's visit still fresh
in his mind, was for a moment constrained and ill at ease. When they
reached her rooms she stepped lightly out upon the pavement.

"Now you must go," she said firmly. "I have had a trying evening and I
need rest."

"You need help and sympathy more, Anna," he pleaded, "and I have the
right, yes I have the right to offer you both. I will not be sent
away."

"It is my wish to be alone," she said wearily. "I can say no more."

She turned and fitted the latchkey into the door. He hesitated for a
moment and then he followed her. She turned the gas up in her little
sitting-room, and sank wearily into an easy chair. On the mantelpiece
in front of her was a note addressed to her in Annabel's handwriting.
She looked at it with a little shudder, but she made no motion to take
it.

"Will you say what you have to say, please, and go. I am tired, and I
want to be alone."

He came and stood on the hearthrug close to her.

"Anna," he said, "you make it all indescribably hard for me. Will you
not remember what has passed between us? I have the right to take my
place by your side."

"You have no right at all," she answered. "Further than that, I am
amazed that you should dare to allude to those few moments, to that
single moment of folly. If ever I could bring myself to ask you any
favour, I would ask you to forget even as I have forgotten."

"Why in Heaven's name should I forget?" he cried. "I love you, Anna,
and I want you for my wife. There is nothing but your pride which
stands between us."

"There is great deal more," she answered coldly. "For one thing I am
going to marry David Courtlaw."

He stepped back as though he had received a blow.

"It is not possible," he exclaimed.

"Why not?"

"Because you are mine. You have told me that you cared. Oh, you cannot
escape from it. Anna, my love, you cannot have forgotten so soon."

He fancied that she was yielding, but her eyes fell once more upon
that fatal envelope, and her tone when she spoke was colder than ever.

"That was a moment of madness," she said. "I was lonely. I did not
know what I was saying."

"I will have your reason for this," he said. "I will have your true
reason."

She looked at him for a moment with fire in her eyes.

"You need a reason. Ask your own conscience. What sort of a standard
of life yours may be I do not know, yet in your heart you know very
well that every word you have spoken to me has been a veiled insult,
every time you have come into my presence has been an outrage. That is
what stands between us, if you would know--that."

She pointed to the envelope still resting upon the mantelpiece. He
recognized the handwriting, and turned a shade paler. Her eyes noted
it mercilessly.

"But your sister," he said. "What has she told you?"

"Everything."

He was a little bewildered.

"But," he said, "you do not blame me altogether?"

She rose to her feet.

"I am tired," she said, "and I want to rest. But if you do not leave
this room I must."

He took up his hat.

"Very well," he said. "You are unjust and quixotic, Anna, you have no
right to treat any one as you are treating me. And yet--I love you.
When you send for me I shall come back. I do not believe that you will
marry David Courtlaw. I do not think that you will dare to marry
anybody else."

He left the room, and she stood motionless, with flaming cheeks,
listening to his retreating footsteps. When she was quite sure that he
was gone she took her sister's note from the mantelpiece and slowly
broke the seal.

     "DEAREST A----

     "I lied to you. Nigel Ennison was my very good friend, but there
     is not the slightest reason for your not marrying him, if you
     wish to do so.

     "My husband knows all. We leave England to-night.

               "Ever yours,
                  "ANNABEL.

Anna moved softly to the window, and threw up the sash. Ennison had
disappeared.

_Chapter XXIX_

MONTAGUE HILL PLAYS THE GAME

The man opened his eyes and looked curiously about him.

"Where am I?" he muttered.

Courtlaw, who was sitting by the bedside, bent over him.

"You are in a private room of St. Felix Hospital," he said.

"Hospital? What for? What's the matter with me?"

Courtlaw's voice sank to a whisper. A nurse was at the other end of
the room.

"There was an accident with a pistol in Miss Pellissier's room," he
said.

The light of memory flashed in the man's face. His brows drew a little
nearer together.

"Accident! She shot me," he muttered. "I had found her at last, and
she shot me. Listen, you. Am I going to die?"

"I am afraid that you are in a dangerous state," Courtlaw answered
gravely. "The nurse will fetch the doctor directly. I wanted to speak
to you first."

"Who are you?"

"I am a friend of Miss Pellissier's," Courtlaw answered.

"Which one?"

"The Miss Pellissier in whose rooms you were, and who sings at the
'Unusual,'" Courtlaw answered. "The Miss Pellissier who was at
White's with us."

The man nodded.

"I remember you now," he said. "So it seems that I was wrong. Annabel
was in hiding all the time."

"Annabel Pellissier is married," Courtlaw said quietly.

"She's my wife," the man muttered.

"It is possible," Courtlaw said, "that you too were deceived. Where
were you married?"

"At the English Embassy in Paris. You will find the certificate in my
pocket."

"And who made the arrangements for you, and sent you there?" Courtlaw
asked.

"Hainault, Celeste's friend. He did everything."

"I thought so," Courtlaw said. "You too were deceived. The place to
which you went was not the English Embassy, and the whole performance
was a fraud. I heard rumours of it in Paris, and the place since then
has been closed."

"But Hainault--assured--me--that the marriage was binding."

"So it would have been at the English Embassy," Courtlaw answered,
"but the place to which you went was not the English Embassy. It was
rigged up for the occasion as it has been many a time before."

"But Hainault--was--a pal. I--I don't understand," the man faltered
wearily.

"Hainault was Celeste's friend, and Celeste was Annabel's enemy,"
Courtlaw said. "It was a plot amongst them all to humiliate her."

"Then she has never been my wife."

"Never for a second. She is the wife now of another man."

Hill closed his eyes. For fully five minutes he lay quite motionless.
Then he opened them again suddenly, to find Courtlaw still by his
side.

"It was a bad day for me," he said, speaking slowly and painfully.
"A bad thing for me when that legacy came. I thought I'd see Paris,
do the thing--like a toff. And I heard 'Alcide' sing, and that little
dance she did. I was in the front row, and I fancied she smiled at me.
Lord, what a state I was in! Night after night I sat there, I watched
her come in, I watched her go. She dropped a flower--it's in my
pocket-book now. I couldn't rest or eat or sleep. I made Hainault's
acquaintance, stood him drinks, lent him money. He shook his head all
the time. Annabel Pellissier was not like the others, he said. She
had a few acquaintances, English gentlemen, but she lived with her
sister--was a lady. But one day he came to me. It was Celeste's
idea. I could be presented as Meysey Hill. We were alike. He
was--a millionaire. And I passed myself off as Meysey Hill, and
since--then--I haven't had a minute's peace. God help me."

Courtlaw was alarmed at the man's pallor.

"You mustn't talk any more," he said, "but I want you to listen to me
just for a moment. The doctor will be here to see you in five minutes.
The nurse sent for him as soon as she saw that you were conscious. It
is very possible that he will ask you to tell him before witnesses how
you received your wound."

The man smiled at him.

"You are their friend, then?"

"I am," Courtlaw answered.

"Which one?"

"The one whose life you have been making a burden, who has been all
the time shielding her sister. I would have married her long ago, but
she will not have me."

"Bring her--here," Hill muttered. "I----"

The door opened, and the doctor entered softly. Hill closed his eyes.
Courtlaw stood up.

"He has asked to see some one," he whispered to the doctor. "Is there
any urgency?"

The doctor bent over his patient, who seemed to have fallen asleep.
Presently he turned to Courtlaw.

"I think," he said, "that I would fetch any one whom he has asked to
see. His condition is not unfavourable, but there may be a relapse at
any moment."

So only a few minutes after Ennison's departure, while Anna stood
indeed with her sister's open letter still in her hand, Courtlaw drove
up in hot haste. She opened the door to him herself.

"Will you come round to the hospital?" he asked. "Hill has asked for
you, and they will take his depositions to-night."

She slipped on her cloak and stepped into the hansom with him. They
drove rapidly through the emptying streets.

"Will he die?" she asked.

"Impossible to say," he answered. "We have a private room at St.
Felix. Everything is being done that can be."

"You are sure that he asked for me--not for Annabel?"

"Certain," Courtlaw answered.

"Has he accused any one yet?"

"Not yet," he answered. "I have scarcely left his side."

He was still conscious when they reached the hospital and his state
was much more favourable. The doctor and another man were by his
bedside when they entered the room, and there were writing materials
which had evidently been used close at hand. He recognised Anna, and
at once addressed her.

"Thank you--for coming," he said. "The doctor has asked me to give
them my reasons--for shooting myself. I've told them all that was
necessary, but I--wanted to ask your pardon--for having made myself a
nuisance to you, and for breaking into your rooms--and to thank
you--the doctor says you bound up my wound--or I should have bled to
death."

"I forgive you willingly," Anna said, bending over him. "It has all
been a mistake, hasn't it?"

"No more talking," the doctor interposed.

"I want two words--with Miss Pellissier alone," Hill pleaded.

The doctor frowned.

"Remember," he said, "you are not by any means a dying man now, but
you'll never pull through if you don't husband your strength."

"Two words only," Hill repeated.

They all left the room. Anna leaned over so that he needed only to
whisper.

"Tell your sister she was right to shoot, quite right. I meant
mischief. But tell her this, too. I believed that our marriage was
genuine. I believed that she was my wife, or she would have been safe
from me."

"I will tell her," Anna promised.

"She has nothing to be afraid of," he continued. "I have signed a
statement that I shot myself; bad trade and drink, both true--both
true."

His eyes were closed. Anna left the room on tiptoe. She and Courtlaw
drove homewards together.

_Chapter XXX_

SIR JOHN'S NECKTIE

Sir John, in a quiet dark travelling suit, was sitting in a pokey
little room writing letters. The room was worse than pokey, it was
shabby; and the view from the window, of chimney pots and slate roofs,
wholly uninspiring. Nevertheless, Sir John had the look of a man who
was enjoying himself. He seemed years younger, and the arrangement of
his tie and hair were almost rakish. He stamped his last letter as
Annabel entered.

She was dressed for the street very much as her own maid was
accustomed to dress, and there was a thick veil attached to her hat.

"John," she declared, "I must eat or die. Do get your hat, and we will
go to that corner café."

"Right," he answered. "I know the place you mean--very good cooking
for such an out-of-the-way show. I'll be ready in a moment."

Sir John stamped his letters, brushed his hat, and carefully gave his
moustache an upward curl before the looking-glass.

"I really do not believe," he announced with satisfaction, "that any
one would recognize me. What do you think, Annabel?"

"I don't think they would," she admitted. "You seem to have cultivated
quite a jaunty appearance, and you certainly look years younger. One
would think that you enjoyed crawling away out of your world into
hiding, with a very foolish wicked wife."

"Upon my word," he declared, "you are right. I really am enjoying it.
It is like a second honeymoon. If it wasn't for the fear that after
all--but we won't think of that. I don't believe any one could have
traced us here. You see, we travelled second class, and we are in the
least known quarter of Paris. To-night we leave for Marseilles. On
Thursday we embark for South America."

"You are a marvellous courier," she declared, as they passed into the
street. "You see, I will take your arm. It looks so French to be
affectionate."

"There are some French customs," he declared, "which are admirable. I
presume that I may not kiss you in the street?"

"Certainly not, sir," she replied, laughing. "If you attempted such a
thing it would be in order that I should smack you hard with the palm
of my hand upon the cheek."

"That is another French custom," he remarked, "which is not so
agreeable. Here we are. Shall we sit outside and drink a _petit verre_
of something to give us an appetite while dinner is being prepared?"

"Certainly not," she answered. "I am already so hungry that I shall
begin on the _petit pains_. I have an appetite which I dare not
increase."

They entered the place, a pleasant little café of the sort to be met
with in the outlying parts of Paris. Most of the tables were for those
who smoked only and drank wine, but there were a few spread with
tablecloths and laid for dinner. Sir John and Annabel seated
themselves at one of them, and the proprietor himself, a small
dark-visaged man, radiant with smiles, came hurrying up, followed by a
waiter.

"Monsieur would dine! It was very good! And Madame, of course?" with a
low bow. The _carte de jour_ was before Monsieur. He had but to give
his orders. Monsieur could rely upon his special attention, and for
the cooking--well, he had his customers, who came from their homes to
him year after year. And always they were well satisfied. He waited
the pleasure of Monsieur.

Sir John gave his order, deliberately stumbling now and then over a
word, and anglicizing others. When he had finished he took up the wine
list and ordered a bottle of dry champagne.

"I am afraid," he said to Anna afterwards, "that it was a mistake to
order the champagne sec. They will guess that I am English."

Annabel leaned back in her chair and laughed till the tears stood in
her eyes.

"Did you--did you really think that they would take you for a
Frenchman?" she exclaimed.

"I don't see why not," he answered. "These clothes are French, and I'm
sure this floppy bow would make a Frenchman of me anyhow. Perhaps I
ought to have let you order the dinner, but I think I got through it
pretty well."

"You did," Anna exclaimed. "Thank Heaven, they are bringing the _hors
d'oeuvres_. John, I shall eat that whole tin of sardines. Do take them
away from me after I have had four."

"After all," Sir John remarked complacently, "it is astonishing how
easy it is for people with brains and a little knowledge of the world
to completely hide themselves. I am absolutely certain that up to the
present we have escaped all notice, and I do not believe that any
casual observer would take us for English people."

A man who had been sitting with his hat tilted over his eyes at an
adjacent table had risen to his feet and stood suddenly before them.

"Permit me to offer you the English paper which has just arrived, Sir
John," he said, holding out a _Daily Telegraph_. "You may find in it a
paragraph of some interest to you."

Sir John was speechless. It was Annabel who caught at the paper.

"You--appear to know my name, sir," Sir John said.

"Oh, yes," the stranger remarked good-humouredly. "I know you very
well by sight, Sir John. It is my business to know most people. We
were fellow passengers from Charing Cross, and we have been fellow
lodgers in the Rue d'Entrepot. I trust you will not accuse me of
discourtesy if I express my pleasure that henceforth our ways will lie
apart."

A little sobbing cry from Annabel arrested Sir John's attention. The
stranger with a bow returned to his table.

"Read this, John."

               "THE BUCKNALL MANSIONS MYSTERY.

     "Montague Hill, the man who was found lying wounded in Bucknall
     Mansions late on Wednesday night in the rooms of a well-known
     artiste, has recovered sufficiently to make a statement to the
     police. It appears that he was an unsuccessful admirer of the
     lady in question, and he admits that, under the influence of
     drink, he broke into her rooms, and there made a determined
     attempt at suicide. He further gave the name and address of the
     firm from whom he purchased the revolver and cartridges, a member
     of which firm has since corroborated his statement.

     "Hill's confession will finally refute a number of absurd stories
     which have been in circulation during the last few days. We
     understand that, notwithstanding the serious nature of the man's
     injuries, there is every possibility of his recovery."

Annabel pulled down her veil to hide the tears. Sir John filled his
glass with trembling hand.

"Thank God," he exclaimed. "The fellow is not such a blackguard, after
all."

Annabel's hand stole into his.

"And I have dragged you all over here for nothing," she murmured.

"For nothing, do you call it?" he declared. "I wouldn't have been
without this trip for worlds. It has been a real honeymoon trip,
Annabel, for I feel that it has given me a wife."

Annabel pulled up her veil.

"You are a dear," she exclaimed affectionately. "I do hope that I
shall be able to make it up to you."

Sir John's reply was incoherent. He called a waiter.

"Garçon," he said, "will you ask the gentleman at the next table if he
will do me the honour of taking a glass of wine with me."

The stranger came over to them smiling. He had been on the point of
leaving the restaurant. He accepted the glass of wine, and bowed.

"I drink your very good health, Sir John and Lady Ferringhall," he
said, "and I wish you a pleasant journey back to England. If I might
take the liberty, Sir John," he added, with a humorous gleam in his
eyes, "I should like to congratulate you upon your tie."

"Oh, damn the thing!" Sir John exclaimed, tucking the loose ends
inside his coat.

"I propose," Sir John said, "that we pay for our dinner--which we
haven't had--tip the garçon a sovereign, and take a cab to the Ritz."

Annabel shook her head.

"Look at our clothes," she exclaimed, "and besides, the funny little
proprietor has gone down himself to help it along. He would be so
disappointed. I am sure it will be good, John, and I could eat
anything. No, let us dine here, and then go and have our coffee on the
boulevards. We can take our things up with us and stay at the
Continental or the Ritz."

"Excellent," Sir John declared. "We will do Paris like the tourists,
and thank God here comes dinner."

Everything was good. The garçon was tipped as he had never been tipped
before in his life. They drove up into Paris in an open _fiacre_ with
a soft cool wind blowing in their faces, hand in hand beneath the
rug. They went first to a hotel, and then out again on to the
boulevards. The natural gaiety of the place seemed to have affected
them both. They laughed and talked and stared about them. She took his
hand in hers.

"Dear John," she whispered. "We are to begin our married life
to-night--here where I first met you. I shall only pray that I may
reward you for all your goodness to me."

Sir John, frankly oblivious of the possibility of passers-by, took her
into his arms and kissed her. Then he stood up and hailed a _fiacre_.

"Hotel Ritz!"

_Chapter XXXI_

ANNA'S TEA PARTY

"I suppose you haven't the least idea who I am," Lady Lescelles said,
as she settled herself in Anna's most comfortable chair.

"I have heard of you, of course," Anna answered hesitatingly,
"but----"

"You cannot imagine what I have come to see you about. Well, I am
Nigel Ennison's sister!"

"Oh!" Anna said.

"Nigel is like all men," Lady Lescelles continued. "He is a sad
blunderer. He has helped me out of scrapes though, no end of times. He
is an awfully good sort--and now he has come to me to help him if I
can. Do you know that he is very much in love with you?"

Anna smiled.

"Well," she admitted. "He has said something of the sort."

"And you have sent him about his business. He tells me that you will
not even see him. I don't want to bother you, of course. A woman has a
perfect right to choose her own husband, but Nigel seemed to think
that there was something a little mysterious about your treatment of
him. You seemed, he thought, to have some grievance which you would
not explain and which he thought must arise from a misunderstanding.
There, that sounds frightfully involved, doesn't it, but perhaps you
can make out what I mean. Don't you care for Nigel at all?"

Anna was silent for a moment or two.

Lady Lescelles, graceful, very fashionably but quietly dressed, leaned
back and watched her with shrewd kindly eyes.

"I like your brother better than any other man I know," Anna said at
last.

"Well, I don't think you told him as much as that, did you?" Lady
Lescelles asked.

"I did not," Anna answered. "To be frank with you, Lady Lescelles,
when your brother asked me the other day to be his wife I was under a
false impression as regards his relations--with some other person. I
know now that I was mistaken."

"That sounds more promising," Lady Lescelles declared. "May I tell
Nigel to come and see you again? I am not here to do his love-making
for him, you know. I came to see you on my own account."

"Thank you very much," Anna said. "It is very nice of you to come, but
I do not think for the present, at any rate, I could give him any
other answer. I do not intend to be married, or to become engaged just
at present."

"Well, why not?" Lady Lescelles asked, smiling. "I can only be a few
years older than you, and I have been married four years. I can assure
you, I wouldn't be single again for worlds. One gets a lot more fun
married."

"Our cases are scarcely similar," Anna remarked.

"Why not?" Lady Lescelles answered. "You are one of the Hampshire
Pellissiers, I know, and your family are quite as good as ours. As for
money, Nigel has tons of it."

"It isn't exactly that," Anna answered, "but to tell you the truth, I
cannot bear to look upon myself as a rank failure. We girls, my sister
and I, were left quite alone when our father died, and I made up my
mind to make some little place in the world for myself. I tried
painting and couldn't get on. Then I came to London and tried almost
everything--all failures. I had two offers of marriage from men I
liked very much indeed, but it never occurred to me to listen to
either of them. You see I am rather obstinate. At last I tried a
dramatic agent, and got on the music hall stage."

"Well, you can't say you're a failure there," Lady Lescelles remarked,
smiling. "I've been to hear you lots of times."

"I have been more fortunate than I deserved," Anna answered, "but I
only meant to stay upon the music hall stage until I could get
something better. I am rehearsing now for a new play at the 'Garrick'
and I have quite made up my mind to try and make some sort of position
for myself as an actress."

"Do you think it is really worth while?" Lady Lescelles asked gently.
"I am sure you will marry Nigel sooner or later, and then all your
work will be thrown away."

Anna shook her head.

"If I were to marry now," she said, "it would be with a sense of
humiliation. I should feel that I had been obliged to find some one
else to fight my battles for me."

"What else," Lady Lescelles murmured, "are men for?"

Anna laughed.

"Afterwards," she said, "I should be perfectly content to have
everything done for me. But I do think that if a girl is to feel
comfortable about it they should start fairly equal. Take your case,
for instance. You brought your husband a large fortune, your people
were well known in society, your family interest I have heard was
useful to him in his parliamentary career. So far as I am concerned, I
am just now a hopeless nonentity. Your brother has everything--I have
not shown myself capable even of earning my own living except in a way
which could not possibly bring any credit upon anybody. And beyond
this, Lady Lescelles, as you must know, recent events have set a good
many people's tongues wagging, and I am quite determined to live down
all this scandal before I think of marrying any one."

"I am sure," Lady Lescelles said, gently, "that the last consideration
need not weigh with you in the least. No one in the world is beyond
the shaft of scandal--we all catch it terribly sometimes. It simply
doesn't count."

"You are very kind," Anna said. "I do hope I have been able to make
you understand how I feel, that you don't consider me a hopeless prig.
It does sound a little horrid to talk so much about oneself and to
have views."

"I think," Lady Lescelles said, putting down her teacup, "that I must
send Nigel to plead his own cause. I may tell him, at any rate, that
you will see him?"

"I shall like to see him," Anna answered. "I really owe him something
of an apology."

"I will tell him," Lady Lescelles said. "And now let us leave the men
alone and talk about ourselves."

"I am delighted to see you all here," Anna said smiling upon them from
behind the tea-tray, "but I shall have to ask you to excuse me for a
few minutes. My agent is here, and he has brought his contract for me
to sign. I will give you all some tea, and then I must leave you for a
few minutes."

The three men, who had arrived within a minute or two of one another,
received her little speech in dead silence. Ennison, who had been
standing with his back to the window, came suddenly a little further
into the room.

"Miss Pellissier," he said, "I came here this afternoon hoping
particularly to see you for a few moments before you signed that
contract."

She shook her head.

"We may just as well have our talk afterwards," she said, "and I need
not keep poor Mr. Earles waiting."

Courtlaw suddenly interposed.

"May I be allowed to say," he declared, "that I came here with the
same intention."

"And I also," Brendon echoed.

Anna was suddenly very quiet.

She was perhaps as near tears as ever before in her life.

"If I had three hands," she said, with a faint smile, "I would give
one to each of you. I know that you are all my friends, and I know
that you all have very good advice to give me. But I am afraid I am a
shockingly obstinate and a very ungrateful person. No, don't let me
call myself that. I am grateful, indeed I am. But on this matter my
mind is quite made up."

Ennison hesitated for a moment.

"Miss Pellissier," he said, "these gentlemen are your friends, and
therefore they are my friends. If I am to have no other opportunity
I will speak before them. I came here to beg you not to sign that
contract. I came to beg you instead to do me the honour of becoming
my wife."

"And I," Courtlaw said, "although I have asked before in vain, have
come to ask you once more the same thing."

"And I," Brendon said, humbly, "although I am afraid there is no
chance for me, my errand was the same."

Anna looked at them for a moment with a pitiful attempt at a smile.
Then her head disappeared suddenly in her hands, and her shoulders
shook violently.

"Please forgive me--for one moment," she sobbed. "I--I shall be all
right directly."

Brendon rushed to the piano and strummed out a tune.

The others hurried to the window. And Anna was conscious of a few
moments of exquisite emotion. After all, life had still its
pulsations. The joy of being loved thrilled her as nothing before
had ever done, a curious abstract joy which had nothing in it at
that moment of regret or even pity.

She called them back very soon.

The signs of tears had all gone, but some subtle change seemed to have
stolen into her face. She spoke readily enough, but there was a new
timidity in her manner.

"My friends," she said, "my dear friends, I am going to make the same
answer to all of you--and that is perhaps you will say no answer at
all. At present I cannot marry, I will not become bound even to any
one. It would be very hard perhaps to make you understand just how I
feel about it. I won't try. Only I feel that you all want to make life
too easy for me, and I am determined to fight my own battles a little
longer. If any of you--or all of you feel the same in six months' time
from to-day, will you come, if you care to, and see me then?"

There was a brief silence. Ennison spoke at last.

"You will sign the contract?"

"I shall sign the contract. I think that I am very fortunate to have
it to sign."

"Do you mean," Courtlaw asked, "that from now to the end of the six
months you do not wish to see us--any of us?"

Her eyes were a little dim again.

"I do mean that," she declared. "I want to have no distractions. My
work will be all sufficient. I have an aunt who is coming to live with
me, and I do not intend to receive any visitors at all. It will be a
little lonely sometimes," she said, looking around at them, "and I
shall miss you all, but it is the fairest for myself--and I think for
you. Do not avoid me if we meet by accident, but I trust to you all
not to let the accident happen if you can help it."

Brendon rose and came towards her with outstretched hand.

"Good-bye, Miss Pellissier, and success to you," he said. "May you
have as much good fortune as you deserve, but not enough to make you
forget us."

Courtlaw rose too.

"You are of the genus obstinate," he said. "I do not know whether to
wish you success or not. I will wish you success or failure, whichever
is the better for you."

"And I," Ennison said, holding her fingers tightly, and forcing her to
look into his eyes, "I will tell you what I have wished for you when
we meet six months from to-day."

_Chapter XXXII_

SIX MONTHS AFTER

Up the moss-grown path, where the rose bushes run wild, almost met,
came Anna in a spotless white gown, with the flush of her early
morning walk in her cheeks, and something of the brightness of it in
her eyes. In one hand she carried a long-stalked red rose, dripping
with dew, in the other the post-bag.

She reached a tiny yellow-fronted cottage covered with flowering
creepers, and entered the front room by the wide-open window.
Breakfast was laid for one, a dish of fruit and a shining coffee
equipage. By the side of her plate was a small key. With trembling
fingers she opened the post-bag. There was one letter. One only.

She opened and read it at once. It was dated from the House of Commons
on the previous day.

     "MY DEAR MISS PELLISSIER,--

     "To-morrow the six months will be up. For days I have been
     undecided as to whether I would come to you or no. I would like
     you to believe that the decision I have arrived at--to stay
     away--is wholly and entirely to save you pain. It should be the
     happiest day of your life, and I would not detract from its
     happiness by letting you remember for a moment that there are
     others to whom your inevitable decision must bring some pain.

     "For I know that you love Ennison. You tried bravely enough to
     hide your preference, to look at us all with the same eyes, to
     speak to us in the same tone. It was not your fault you failed.
     If by any chance I have made a mistake a word will bring me to
     you. But I know very well that that word will never be spoken.

     "Your great success has been my joy, our joy as well as yours.
     You have made for yourself a unique place upon the stage. We have
     so many actresses who aspire to great things in the drama, not
     one who can interpret as you have interpreted it, the delicate
     finesse, the finer lights and shades of true comedy. Ennison will
     make a thousand enemies if he takes you from the stage. Yet I
     think that he will do it.

     "For my own part I have come fully now into my inheritance. I am
     bound to admit that I greatly enjoy my altered life. Every minute
     I spend here is an education to me. Before very long I hope to
     have definite work. Some of my schemes are already in hand.
     People shrug their shoulders and call me a crazy socialist. Yet I
     fancy that we who have been poor ourselves must be the best
     judges of the needs of the people.

     "You will write to me, I am sure--and from the date of your
     letter I trust most earnestly that I may come back to my old
     place as

               "Your devoted friend,
                    "WALTER BRENDON."

She set the letter down, and drew from her pocket another with a
foreign post mark which had come the day before. This one too she
read.

               "HASSELL'S CAMP,
                    "NEAR COLORADO.

     "On or about the day you receive this letter, Anna, the six
     months will be up. Do you expect me, I wonder. I think not. At
     any rate, here I am, and here I shall be, twenty thousand feet
     above all your poison-reeking cities, up where God's wind comes
     fresh from heaven, very near indeed to the untrodden snows.
     Sometimes I tremble, Anna, to think how near I came to passing
     through life without a single glimpse, a moment's revelation of
     this greatest and most awful of mysteries, the mystery of
     primaeval nature. It is a true saying that in the mountains there
     is peace. One's sense of proportion, battered out of all shape in
     the daily life of cities, reasserts itself. I love you still,
     Anna, but life holds other things than the love of man for woman.
     Some day I shall come back, and I will show you on canvas the
     things which have come to me up here amongst the eternal silence.

     "Many nights I have thought of you, Anna. Your face has flitted
     out of my watch-fire, and then I have been a haunted man. But
     with the morning, the glorious unstained morning the passion of
     living would stir even the blood of a clod. It comes over the
     mountains, Anna, pink darkening into orange red, everywhere a
     wonderful cloud sea, scintillating with colour. It is enough to
     make a man throw away canvas and brushes into the bottomless
     precipices, enough to make one weep with despair at his utter and
     absolute impotence. Nature is God, Anna, and the greatest artist
     of us all a pigmy. When I think of those ateliers of ours, the
     art jargon, the decadents with their flamboyant talk I long for
     a two-edged sword and a minute of Divinity. To perdition with
     them all.

     "I shall come back, if at all, a new man. I have a new cult to
     teach, a new enthusiasm. I feel years younger, a man again. My
     first visit will be to you. I must tell you all about God's land,
     this marvellous virgin country, with its silent forests and
     dazzling peaks. I make no apology for not being with you now. You
     love Ennison. Believe me, the bitterness of it has almost
     departed, crushed out of me together with much of the weariness
     and sorrow I brought with me here by the nameless glory of these
     lonely months. Yet I shall think of you to-day. I pray, Anna,
     that you may find your happiness.

               "Your friend,
                    "DAVID COURTLAW."

     "P.S.--I do not congratulate you on your success. I was certain
     of it. I am glad or sorry according as it has brought you
     happiness."

Anna's eyes were a little dim as she poured out her coffee, and the
laugh she attempted was not altogether a success.

"This is all very well," she said, "but two out of the three are rank
deserters--and if the papers tell the truth the third is as bad. I
believe I am doomed to be an old maid."

She finished her breakfast and strolled out across the garden with the
letters still in her hand. Beyond was a field sloping steeply upwards,
and at the top a small pine plantation. She climbed slowly towards it,
keeping close to the hedge side, fragrant with wild roses, and holding
her skirts high above the dew-laden grass. Arrived in the plantation
she sat down with her back against a tree trunk.

Already the warm sun was drawing from the pines their delicious odour.
Below her stretched a valley of rich meadowland, of yellow cornfields,
and beyond moorland hillside glorious with purple heather and golden
gorse. She tried to compose her thoughts, to think of the last six
months, to steep herself in the calm beauty of the surroundings. And
she found herself able to do nothing of the sort. A new restlessness
seemed to have stolen in upon her. She started at the falling of a
leaf, at the lumbering of a cow through the hedge. Her heart was
beating with quite unaccustomed vigour, her hands were hot, she was
conscious of a warmth in her blood which the summer sunshine was
scarcely responsible for. She struggled against it quite uselessly.
She knew very well that a new thing was stirring in her. The period
of repression was over. It is foolish, she murmured to herself,
foolish. He will not come. He cannot.

And then all her restlessness was turned to joy. She sprang to her
feet and stood listening with parted lips and eager eyes. So he found
her when he came round the corner of the spinney.

"Anna," he cried eagerly.

She held out her arms to him and smiled.

"And where," he asked, "are my rivals?"

"Deserters," she answered, laughing. "It is you alone, Nigel, who have
saved me from being an old maid. Here are their letters."

He took them from her and read them. When he came to a certain
sentence in Brendon's letter he stopped short and looked up at her.

"So Brendon and I," he said, "have been troubled with the same fears.
I too, Anna, have watched and read of your success with--I must
confess it--some misgiving."

"Please tell me why?" she asked.

"Do you need me to tell you? You have tasted the luxury of power. You
have made your public, you are already a personage. And I want you for
myself--for my wife."

She took his hand and smiled upon him.

"Don't you understand, Nigel," she said softly, "that it was precisely
for this I have worked so hard. It is just the aim I have had in view
all the time. I wanted to have something to give up. I did not
care--no woman really cares--to play the beggar maid to your King
Cophetua."

"Then you will really give it all up!" he exclaimed.

She laughed.

"When we go indoors I will show you the offers I have refused," she
answered. "They have all been trying to turn my head. I think that
nearly every manager in London has made me an offer. My reply to all
of them has been the same. My engagement at the 'Garrick' terminates
Saturday week, and then I am free."

"You will make me horribly conceited," he answered. "I think that I
shall be the most unpopular man in London. You are not playing
to-night, are you?"

"Not to-night," she answered. "I am giving my understudy a chance. I
am going up to dine with my sister."

"Annabel is a prophetess," he declared. "I too am asked."

"It is a conspiracy," she exclaimed. "Come, we must go home and have
some luncheon. My little maidservant will think that I am lost."

They clambered down the hill together. The air was sweet with the
perfume of flowers, and the melody of murmuring insects, the blue sky
was cloudless, the heat of the sun was tempered by the heather-scented
west wind. Ennison paused by the little gate.

"I think," he said, "that you have found the real home of the
lotus-eaters. Here one might live the life of golden days."

She shook her head gently.

"Neither you nor I, Nigel, are made of such stuff," she answered.
"These are the playgrounds of life. The great heart of the world beats
only where men and women are gathered together. You have your work
before you, and I----"

He kissed her on the lips.

"I believe," he said, "that you mean me to be Prime Minister."

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:

Typesetting and editing of the original book from which this e-text
has been transcribed was inconsistent. In addition to minor changes in
punctuation, the theater in London in which the main character was a
singer was referred to as the 'Unusual' and as the 'Universal'; this
has been changed to refer to the theater consistently as the
'Unusual'. Additionally, Russell Square, the area in London where the
main character resided was referred to twice as Russell Street; this
has been changed to be consistent throughout this etext. Otherwise,
every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and
intent.

End of Project Gutenberg's Anna the Adventuress, by E. Phillips Oppenheim