perform the duty owed by them to the countries still oppressed by
savagery, barbarism, or imperfect civilisation.  That spirit was
embodied in a certain secret agreement which he could not, of course,
mention.  The tasks he had spoken of could not be undertaken by their
opponents, who in essential questions were distracted and apathetic.
While the Government would foster true Imperialism, they would not
neglect social and domestic legislation.  The Opposition were living on
the ghosts of the past and amid the tombs of dead policies.

As he resumed his seat there was an outburst of applause.  The country
had long been waiting for some reassuring declaration from the
Government, and this, flashed by the wires from the Press Gallery above,
would in a few hours have the effect of allaying any public misgivings.

But Chisholm, having performed his duty, gathered up his papers and at
once left the House.  In the Lobby one or two men congratulated him, but
he only smiled that rather melancholy smile they knew so well.

The House of Commons nowadays is not such an austere assembly as it was
even a decade ago.  True, Members are sometimes called to St. Stephen's
in October and November, and thus have their vacation plans for Cairo or
the Riviera considerably disarranged; yet the patriotic M.P. now finds
the House the best and cheapest club in London, where he can, if he
chooses, live upon ninepenny steaks and drink gin at twopence a
glassful!  Indeed, nowadays there seems more dining than politics, and
more brilliant entertaining than brilliant oratory.  There are many
distinct coteries in the House, as there must always be among men
divided in political opinion, but the coterie of entertainers is quite
definite and distinct.  Its members are those who have entered upon a
Parliamentary career as a gentleman's due.  They are the political
drones.  They rarely, if ever, speak, but with their many smart
lady-guests support the social side of Parliament right royally.  Harry
Benthall was one of these butterflies among legislators.  When he spoke,
the subject was usually connected with the personal comfort of Members.
Among the boiled-shirt brigade was a man who had sat in the House for
thirty years, and had only spoken once--a speech that lasted one minute;
while Mr. Kinnear, the Parliamentary diarist, has placed it on record
that a certain gentleman representing a county division sat in three
successive Governments without finding his way to the vote office!  The
whole life of such men is taken up in hunting for a "pair."  It is one
of the first duties he feels he owes to himself and to his friends of
the dining-room, or of that latter-day annexe to Mayfair, the Terrace.
Indeed, so popular became the Terrace a couple of seasons ago that each
afternoon it was crowded by _grandes dames_ and young legislators, and
flirting, tea-drinking, and strawberry-eating went on to such an extent
that the merrymaking seriously threatened to stop legislation
altogether.  So that awe-inspiring functionary, the Serjeant-at-Arms,
acting quietly but firmly, issued such orders that "at homes" in
Parliament were suddenly discontinued, and the daily crush at
Westminster became less of a public scandal.

To put it plainly, a new House has grown up.  The old austerity of
legislation in the days of Palmerston and Beaconsfield has nearly
disappeared, and to-day the gentlemen upon whom the right to add M.P. to
their name is bestowed, find to their delight that legislation is really
very largely an arrangement come to between the two front Benches.

As Chisholm passed through the Lobby, pausing at Mr. Pike's office to
obtain some letters, some one cried "Saunderson's up," and all the
idlers knew that the debate upon another matter had commenced, and that
"fun" might be expected.

The Under-Secretary thrust the letters into his pocket, put on his
overcoat, and walked back to the Foreign Office, where some documents
were awaiting his signature, and where he had some instructions to give
his secretary.  On his way across Palace Yard and along Parliament
Street his eyes were fixed upon the pavement, for he was deep in thought
and heedless of all about him.  He walked like a man in a dream.

Before long the blow must fall, he told himself.  How long would it be
deferred?  How many days of grace would his secret enemy give him?

Hour after hour had he endeavoured to find some solution of the problem
how to repel the threatened vengeance.  But there seemed to be no
satisfactory way--absolutely none.

A word from him to his chief might save the situation.  That would mean
open and complete confession.  No, he could not confess to the great
statesman who had reposed such entire confidence in him, and who had
given him the high and responsible office he now held.  He could not; he
dare not face the wrath of Lord Stockbridge, of all men.

He had sinned, and must suffer.  A dozen times during the past night as
he had paced the silent streets of London the suggestion had occurred to
him to resign everything and go abroad at once.  Yet what would that
avail him?  To escape would be only to exhibit cowardice.  The sleep
from which there was no awakening was by far the best mode of release at
which to aim.

Upon a seat at the kerb in Piccadilly, with a ragged outcast as
companion, he had sat a full hour in the most silent watch of the night
thinking the matter over.  After all, he told himself, he was little
better than the shivering wretch beside him.

And now, as he turned the corner of Downing Street, he sighed heavily,
wondering on how many more occasions he would return to his official
headquarters.  Not many, alas!  Nemesis was at his heels.

That night he dined at his club, the Carlton, but returned to his
chambers immediately afterwards.

As he entered his sitting-room, a woman in a striking evening toilet of
pale blue, turning from the fire, rose to greet him.  It was Claudia
Nevill.

"My dear Dudley!" she cried, stretching forth both her hands to him.
"I've been awaiting you for half an hour or more.  Wherever have you
been?"

He had drawn back in annoyance at the moment when she faced him so
unexpectedly.  She was the last person he wished to meet at that moment.

"Oh," he answered rather coldly, taking her hands in greeting, "I dined
at the Club.  I'm not very well," he added wearily.

"But not too queer to go to the Duchess's ball?"

"The Duchess's ball?  I don't understand," he said, looking at her
puzzled.

"Why, surely you keep a note of your engagements, or Wrey does for you?
It's quite three weeks ago since we arranged to go there together."

"To go where?"

"Why, to the Duchess of Penarth's ball.  You of course remembered that
she asked us both, and we promised.  You had a card, no doubt."

"Perhaps I had," he said blankly, for he received so many invitations
that he always left it to Wrey, his private secretary, to attend to the
resulting correspondence.  He had gone little into society, except when
Claudia Nevill took him as her escort.

"Perhaps?" she exclaimed.  "Why, whatever is the matter with you,
Dudley?  You've not been at all yourself for some days past.  Now, tell
me--do."

He was silent for a few moments.

"I told you when I was last at Albert Gate," he said at length very
seriously.  "I thought my words were quite plain, Claudia."

"You spoke all sorts of absurd things about scandals and gossip," she
laughed, reseating herself and motioning him to a chair on the opposite
side of the fireplace.  "But you were not yourself, so I didn't take any
heed of it."

"I told you exactly what I intended doing," he answered, standing before
her, with his back to the fire.  "I am surprised to find you here."

"And who has been putting all these absurd ideas into your head, my dear
Dudley?" asked the brilliant woman in the magnificent Doeuillet ball
toilette.  "You know that we love each other, so what's the use of
kicking against the pricks?  Now go and put on a dress coat and a pair
of gloves and take me to Penarth House, there's a good fellow--the
Duchess expects us."

"Her Grace doesn't expect me, for I declined."

"You declined!" cried his fair companion.  "Why?"

"Wrey declined.  He has recently had orders from me to decline all such
invitations.  Dances only bore me.  I'm too much occupied with official
business."

"Official business!  Bosh!  Leave it alone for a time and enjoy
yourself.  You are really becoming quite the old crony."

"Better that than--well, than to be one of the set who were down at
Fernhurst Abbey."

She glanced at him swiftly, with a curious, half-apprehensive look.

"At Fernhurst?  What do you mean?"

"I mean, Claudia, that there were certain incidents at Fernhurst which
do not reflect much credit upon either the man or the woman."

"And I am the woman, of course?"

He nodded.

"And the man?  Name him."

"A certain foreigner."

"Ah!" she laughed lightly.  "So you've heard all about it already.  You
mean the Grand-Duke.  He was such fun, such a soft-headed fool.  He
actually thought himself in love with me."

"And you allowed him to entertain that impression.  I know the whole of
the facts," he said harshly.

"What you know is, I presume, some absurd tittle-tattle about us," she
replied, a shadow of annoyance upon her face.

"I know sufficient, Claudia, to cause me to alter my opinion regarding
you," he answered very gravely.

"Oh! so you would condemn me unheard?  That is unlike you, Dudley.  I
cannot think chivalry and justice are dead in you."

"I condemn you," he said quickly, looking straight at her.  "I condemn
you for casting aside all your womanly instincts in this mad craze of
yours to lead society and retain your position as a so-called smart
woman.  You cannot see that smartness is merely a synonym for fastness,
and that you are rapidly flinging your reputation to the winds."

"That, my dear Dudley, is a stale story.  You have already told me so
before.  Without offence to you, I would point out that my reputation is
entirely my own affair."

"It concerns me, as well as yourself," he blurted out.  "You cannot
afford to run the risks you are running.  You love distinction, Claudia,
and that is a passion of a deep and dangerous nature.  In a man that
passion is ambition.  In a woman it is a selfish desire to stand apart
from the many; to be, as far as is possible, unique; to enjoy what she
does enjoy and to appropriate the tribute which society offers her,
without caring a rap for the sisterhood to which she belongs.  To be the
idol of society is synonymous with being the butt of ridicule and of
scandal, especially to all who have failed in the same career."

"Oh," she laughed, "you are such a funny old philosopher, Dudley.  You
grow worse and worse."

"I know this," he went on, "that no sooner does a woman begin to feel
herself a leader of society, as you are at this moment, than she finds
in her daily path innumerable temptations, of which she had never before
dreamed.  Her exalted position is maintained, not by the universal
suffrage of her friends, for at least one-half of them would tear her
down from her pedestal, if they were able, but by the indefatigable
exercise of ingenuity in the way of evading, stooping, conciliating,
deceiving; as well as by a continued series of efforts to be cheerful
when depressed, witty when absolutely dull, and animated, brilliant, and
amusing when disappointed, weary, or distressed."

"Oh," she cried impatiently, "I thought we had enough of moralising the
last time we met!  And now you want to re-open the old question."

"No, Claudia," he answered, placing his hand tenderly upon her shoulder,
which was covered only by the strap of pale blue embroidered satin which
held her handsome corsage.  "I only want to show you plainly how in a
woman simplicity of heart cannot be allied to ambition.  The woman who
aspires to be the idol of her fellows, as you do, must be satisfied to
lose this lily from her wreath.  And when a woman's simplicity of heart
is gone, then she is no longer faithful as a wife or safe as a friend.
Her fame is, after all, nothing more than dazzling degradation."

CHAPTER TEN.

MAKES PLAIN A WOMAN'S DUTY.

"And all that philosophy is directed against me?" she asked, looking up
at him seriously.

"It is only just that you should see yourself, Claudia, as others see
you," he said in a more sympathetic tone of voice.  "It pains me to have
to speak like this; to criticise your actions as though I were a man old
enough to be your grandfather.  But I merely want to point out what is
the unvarnished truth."

"All of us have our failings," she declared with a pout.  "You tell me
this because you want to sever your connection with me.  Why not admit
the truth?"

"No.  I tell you this because a woman who seeks to occupy the place you
now occupy is exposed to the pitiless gaze of admiration; but little
respect, and no love is blended with it.  I speak frankly, and say that,
however much you have gained in name, in rank, in fortune, you have
suffered as a woman."

"How?"

"Shall I tell you the actual truth?"

"Certainly.  You will not offend me, I assure you," she replied in a
cynical tone, coquettishly placing her small foot in its neat silk
stocking upon the fender.

"Well, Claudia," he said, "to tell you the truth, you are no longer the
simple-hearted, intelligent, generous, frank and true woman I once
knew."

"Really?  You are extremely flattering!" she exclaimed.  She began to
see that her ruse of boldly returning to him as she had done and waiting
him there, even in defiance of old Parsons, was of no avail.

"I do not speak with any desire to hurt your feelings, Claudia," he went
on.  "I know my words are harsh ones, but I cannot remain a spectator of
your follies without reproving you."

"You would compel me to return to the deadly dulness of tennis,
tea-table gossip, church-decorating and country life in cotton blouses
and home-made skirts--eh?  Thank you; I object.  I had quite sufficient
of that at Winchester."

"I have no right to compel you to do anything," he answered.  "I only
suggest moderation, in your own interests.  On every side I hear
scandalous stories into which your name is introduced."

"And you believe them?" she asked quickly.  "You, my friend, believe all
these lying inventions of my enemies?"

"I believe nothing of which I have no proof."

"Then you believe in what is really proved?"

"Yes."

"In that case you must believe that, even though I possess all the
defects which you have enumerated, I nevertheless love you?"

"In woman's true love," he said slowly, emphasising every word, "there
is mingled the trusting dependence of a child, for she always looks up
to man as her protector and her guide.  Man, let him love as he may, has
an existence which lies outside the orbit of his affections.  He has his
worldly interests, his public character, his ambition, his competition
with other men--but the woman of noble mind centres all in that one
feeling of affection."

"Really?"  She laughed flippantly, toying with her bracelets.  "This is
a most erudite discourse.  It would no doubt edify the House if one
night you introduced the subject of love.  You've grown of late to be
quite a philosopher, my dear Dudley.  Politics and that horrid old
Foreign Office have entirely spoilt you."

"No, you misunderstand me," he went on, deeply in earnest.  "I merely
want to place before you the utter folly of your present actions--all
these flirtations about which people in our rank are always talking."

"Ah!" she laughed; "because you're jealous.  Somebody has been telling
you, no doubt, that the Grand-Duke was always at my side at Fernhurst,
and probably embellished the story until it forms a very nice little
tit-bit of scandal."

"Well, is it not true that this foreigner was with you so constantly
that it became a matter of serious comment?"

"I don't deny it.  Why should I?  He was very amusing, and if I found
him so I cannot see why people should presume to criticise me.  If I had
a husband I might be called upon to answer to him, but as poor Dick is
dead I consider myself perfectly free."

"Yes, but not to make a fool of yourself by openly inviting people to
cast mud at you," he burst forth impatiently.

"Upon that point, Dudley, we shall never agree, so let us drop the
subject," she replied, treating his criticisms airily and with utter
indifference.  "I shall please myself, just as I have always done."

"I have no doubt you will.  That is what I regret, for when a woman
loses her integrity and self-respect, she is indeed pitiable and
degraded."

"Really!" she cried; "you are in a most delightful mood, I'm sure.  What
has upset you?  Tell me, and then I'll forgive you."

"Nothing has upset me--except your visit," he answered quite frankly.

"Then I am unwelcome here?"

"While you continue to follow the absurd course you have of late chosen,
you are."

"Thank you," she replied.  "You are at least candid."

"We have been friends, and you have, I think, always found me honest and
outspoken, Claudia."

"Yes, but I have never before known you to treat me in this manner," she
answered with sudden _hauteur_.  "The other day you declared your
intention of severing our friendship, but I did not believe you."

"Why?"

"Because I knew that we loved each other."

"No," he said in a hard tone, "do not let us speak of love.  Speak of it
to those men who dance attendance upon you everywhere, but with me,
Claudia, be as frank as I am with you."

"Dudley!  It is cruel of you to speak like this!" she cried with a
sudden outburst of emotion, for she now saw quite plainly that the power
she once exerted over him had disappeared.

Chisholm had been sadly disillusioned.  During the past few weeks the
bitter truth had gradually been forced upon him.  Instead of remaining a
real, dignified, high-minded woman of unblemished integrity, Claudia
Nevill had grown callous and artificial, and in other ways hostile to
true womanhood.  But Dudley had always admired her, and once she had
been his ideal.

He had admired her simplicity of heart.  Unquestionably that is a great
charm in a woman, though not a charm so illuminating as integrity,
because it consists more in the ignorance of evil, and, consequently, of
temptation, than in the possession of principle strong enough to
withstand both.  In the days before her marriage her simplicity of heart
was the child of that unruffled serenity of soul which suspects no
mischief to be lurking beneath the fair surface of things--which trusts,
confides and is happy in this confidence, because it has never been
deceived, and because it has never learned that most fatal of all arts,
the mystery of deceiving others.

But all was now changed.  She was no longer the Claudia of old.  She had
degenerated into a smart, brilliant woman, full of arts and subterfuges,
with no thoughts beyond her engagements, her toilettes, and her
vainglorious triumphs.

"I have only spoken what I feel, Claudia!" exclaimed the man still
standing before her.  "I have no power to compel you to heed my
warning."

"Oh, do let us drop the subject, my dear Dudley!" she cried impatiently.
"This lecture of yours upon my duty towards society may surely be
continued on another occasion.  Let us go along to the Duchess's.  As
I've already said, the House has entirely spoilt you."

"I don't wish to continue the discussion.  Indeed, I've said all that I
intend saying.  My only regret is that you are heedless of my words--
that you are blind to the truth, and have closed your ears to all this
gossip."

"Let them gossip.  What does it matter to me?  Now to you, of course, it
matters considerably.  You can't afford to imperil your official
position by allowing all this chatter to go on.  I quite understand
that."

"And yet you come here to-night and ask me to take you to the
Duchess's?" he said.

"For the last time, Dudley," she answered, looking up at him with that
sweet, sympathetic look of old.  "This is the last of our engagements,
and it is an odd fancy of mine that you should take me to the ball--for
the last time."

"Yes," he repeated hoarsely, in a deep voice full of meaning; "for the
last time, Claudia."

"You speak as though you were doomed to some awful fate," she remarked,
looking up at him with a puzzled expression on her face.  Little did the
giddy woman think that her words, like the sword of the angel at the
entrance to Paradise, were double-edged.

"Oh," he said, rousing himself and endeavouring to smile, "I didn't
know.  Forgive me."

"You've changed somehow, Dudley," she said, rising.  She went near to
him and took his hand tenderly.  "Why don't you tell me what is the
matter?  Something is troubling you.  What is it?"

"You are, for one thing," he answered promptly, looking straight into
her splendid eyes.  As she stood there in that beautiful gown, with the
historic pearls of the Nevills upon her white neck, Dudley thought he
had never seen her look so magnificent.  Well might she be called the
Empress of Mayfair.

"But why trouble your head about me?" she asked in a low, musical voice,
pressing his hand tenderly.  "You have worries enough, no doubt."

"The stories I hear on every hand vex me horribly."

"You are jealous of that man who was at the Meldrums' house-party.  It's
useless to deny it.  Well, perhaps I was foolish, but if I promise never
to see him again, will you forgive me?"

"It is not for me to forgive," he said in an earnest voice.  "I have, I
suppose, no right to criticise your actions, or to exact any promises."

"Yes, Dudley, you, of all men, have that right," she answered, her
beautiful breast, stirred by emotion, rising and falling quickly.  "All
that you have just said is, I know, just and honest; and it comes
straight from your heart.  You have spoken to me as you would to your
own sister--and, well, I thank you for your good advice."

"And will you not promise to follow it?" he asked, taking her other
hand.  "Will you not promise me, your oldest man friend, to cut all
these people and return to the simple, dignified life you led when Dick
was still alive?  Promise me."

"And if I promise, what do you promise me in exchange?" she asked.
"Will you make me your wife?"

The look of eagerness died out of his face; he stood as rigid as one
turned to stone.  What was she suggesting?  Only a course that they had
discussed, times without number, in happier days.  And yet, what could
he answer, knowing well that before a few hours passed he might be
compelled to take his own life, so as to escape from the public scorn
which would of necessity follow upon his exposure.

"I--I can't promise that," he faltered, uttering his refusal with
difficulty.

She shrank from him, as if he had struck her a blow.

"Then the truth is as I suspected.  Some other woman has attracted you!"

"No," he answered in a hard voice, his dark brow clouded, "no other
woman has attracted me."

"Then--well, to put it plainly--you believe all these scandalous tales
that have been circulated about me of late?  Because of these you've
turned from me, and now abandon me like this!"

"It is not that," he protested.

"Then why do you refuse to repeat your promise, when you know, Dudley,
that I love you?"

"For a reason which I cannot tell you."

She looked at him puzzled by his reticence.  He was certainly not
himself.  His face was bloodless, and for the first time she noticed
round his eyes the dark rings caused by the insomnia of the past two
nights.

"Tell me, Dudley," she implored, clinging to him in dismay.  "Can't you
see this coldness of yours is driving me to despair--killing me?  Tell
me the truth.  What is it that troubles you?"

"I regret, Claudia, that I cannot tell you."

"But you always used to trust me.  You have never had secrets from me."

"No, only this one," he answered in a dull, monotonous manner.

"And is it this secret which prevents you from making the compact I have
just suggested?"

"Yes."

"It has nothing to do with any woman who has come into your life?" she
demanded eagerly.

"No."

"Will you swear that?"

"I swear it."

"You only tell me that we cannot marry, that is all?  Can I have no
further explanation?"

"No, none."

"Your decision is not owing to the scandal which you say is talked
everywhere?  You give your word of honour that it is not?"

"Yes, I give my word of honour," he answered.  "My inability to renew my
offer of marriage is owing to a circumstance which I am powerless to
control."

"And you refuse to tell me its nature?"

"I regret, Claudia, that I must refuse," he said, pressing her hand.
His lips twitched, and she saw that tears stood in his eyes.  She knew
that the man who had been her lover in the days of her girlhood spoke
the truth when he added, "This circumstance must remain my own secret."

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

DISCLOSES AN UGLY TRUTH.

With hands interlocked they stood together in silence for some minutes.
Neither spoke.  Their hearts were full to overflowing.

This woman, whose remarkable beauty had made it possible for her to ride
rough-shod over discretion, was in those moments of silence seized by
remorse.  She saw that he was suffering, and with a woman's quick
sympathy strove to alleviate his distress.  In a manner that was neither
hysterical nor theatrical, she carried his hand to her soft lips.  Then,
with a sudden burst of affection, she raised her beautiful face to his,
saying:

"All the hard words you have spoken, Dudley, belong entirely to the
past.  I only know that I love you."

He looked at her steadfastly for a few moments, then said:

"No, Claudia.  Our love must end.  It is not fair to you that it should
continue."

"You desire that it should end?" she asked in a strained voice.

"No.  I am bound to leave you by force of circumstances," he replied.
"We can never marry--never."

"But why?  I really can't understand you.  Of late you have been so
strange, so pre-occupied, and so unusually solicitous for my good name."

"Yes," he admitted, "it must have struck you as strange.  But I have
been thinking of your future."

"Did you never think of it in the past?"

"Of the future--when you are alone, I mean," he said gravely.

"What?  Are you going abroad?"

He was silent again, his eyes fixed blankly upon the carpet.

"Perhaps," he said at last.

"And may I not go with you?" she asked in a tender tone of voice.

"No; that would be impossible--quite impossible."  His strangely
despondent state of mind puzzled her.  She tried to penetrate the
mystery which had so suddenly surrounded him, but was unable to see any
light.  She saw, however, that he was nervous and troubled, as though in
fear of some dreadful catastrophe, and endeavoured by low words and soft
caresses to induce him to lay bare his heart.  She, who knew his every
mood and every expression, had never seen him so utterly despondent or
pathetic.  At first she was inclined to attribute it to the failure of
some move on the political chessboard; but he had assured her that such
was not the case.  She could only soothe him by making him feel the
depth of her love.

The words she uttered recalled to him memories of days long past,
recollections of the hours when innocence and youth combined to make
them happy.  Her voice was the same, as sweet and tender as of old; her
face not less beautiful, her lips not less soft, her form just as slim
and supple.  Ah! how madly he had loved her in the days beyond recall!

He stood listening to her, but making no response.  She was speaking of
her devotion to him; of her regret that she had allowed herself to flirt
with others.  She did not know that her lover was hopeless and
despairing--a man condemned to death by his own edict.

As she stood there, the diamonds on her wrist flashing in the lamplight,
he looked at her long and earnestly, and once again marvelled at the
radiant completeness of her beauty.  Was there any wonder that such a
woman was the leader of the smart world, or that every fad or fancy of
hers should become the mode?  No.  She was even more lovely than in the
old days at Winchester.  Her splendid toilettes, often the envy of other
women, suited her handsome features better even than the prim dresses
she used to wear during her girlhood, and she wore jewels with the easy
air of one born to the purple.

Their eyes met, and she with her woman's intuition saw that he was
admiring her, not less ardently than had been his custom until a week
ago.  In his eyes she detected a wistful look, as though he wished to
lay his secret before her, yet dare not.  There was a sadness, a look of
blank desolation, in his face that she had never before seen there.  It
set her wondering.

She knew well the many grave official matters with which he was
constantly called upon to deal at the Foreign Office; of the strain of
speech-making in the House, and of the many weary hours spent in his
private room with his secretary.  Many a time he had confided to her the
causes of his nervousness and gravity; and not infrequently she had been
in possession of official secrets, which, unlike the majority of her
sex, she always preserved, knowing well that to divulge them would
seriously compromise him.

Often and often, after an exhausting evening in the House, he had come
to her at Albert Gate and cast himself wearily upon the blue sofa in her
own cosy boudoir, while she, sitting at his side, had tenderly smoothed
his brow.  It was in those quiet hours that he had made her his
confidante.

She referred to those occasions, and asked him whether he believed her
any less trustworthy now.

"No, not at all, Claudia," he answered, speaking mechanically.  "You
cannot understand.  The secret is mine--the secret of an incident of my
past."

She was silent.  His words were surprising.  She thought that she was
aware of all his past--even of follies perpetrated when he was sowing
his wild oats; but it appeared that there was one incident, the incident
now troubling him, which he had always carefully concealed from her.

"If the secret so closely concerns yourself," she said at last, "surely
I am the person who may know."

"No," he replied briefly.

"But you have told me many other things of a delicate nature concerning
yourself--why may I not know this, and help you to bear your trouble?"
she asked coaxingly.  "However much you may despise me for my frivolity
and vanity, you surely do not think me capable of betraying your
confidence, do you?"

"No," he replied.  "You have never betrayed any secret I have told you,
Claudia, and I have no reason to suppose you would do so now.  But this
matter concerns myself--only myself."

"And you will tell me absolutely nothing?"

"I--I cannot," he declared brokenly.

A long silence again fell between the pair whose names had so long been
coupled by the gossips.  They certainly looked well suited to each
other--he, tall, dark-faced, and undoubtedly handsome; she, brilliant
and beautiful.

"Dudley, dear," she murmured after a pause, placing her hand tenderly
upon his arm, "you are certainly not yourself to-night.  You are in
trouble over some small matter which your own apprehensions have unduly
exaggerated.  Probably you've been working too hard, or perhaps you've
made a long speech to-day--have you?"

"I spoke this afternoon," he replied.  The tone of his voice was
unusually harsh.

"You want a little brightness and relaxation.  Let us go on to the
Duchess's together, and we will waltz--perhaps for the last time."

Those words fell upon his ears with a terrible significance.  Yes, it
would be for the last time.  In his gloomy state of mind her suggestion
commended itself to him.  What matter if people gossiped about them?
They might surely enjoy one last evening in each other's society.  And
how many waltzes they had had together during the past two seasons!  Yet
this was to be the last--actually the last.

She saw his indecision, and hastened to strengthen her argument.

"Your words to-night, Dudley, have shown me plainly your intention is
that we should drift apart.  This being the case, you will not, I'm
sure, refuse me the favour I ask.  You will take me to the Duchess's.
My brougham is below.  I told Faulkes to return at eleven," she added,
as she glanced at the clock.  "Will you not have one last dance with me,
if only as a tribute to the old happiness?"  She spoke in the soft and
persuasive voice that always charmed him.  There were tears in her
wonderful eyes.

"I am really in no mood for a ballroom crush," he answered.  "You know
that I don't care for the Penarth set at any time."

"I know that.  But surely you will let me have my own way just once
more?"

"Very well," he answered reluctantly, with a deep sigh.  "We will go, if
you really wish it."

"Of course!" she cried gladly.  She flung her arms about his neck and
kissed him fervently on the lips.

Did she really love him? he wondered.  And if she did, why did she act
as it was reported that she had acted, flirting outrageously at all
times and in all places with men whose companionship was detrimental to
any woman's good name?  Why had she been planning for him to marry a
girl who was unknown to him?  No.  He could not understand her in the
least.

He touched the bell, and when Parsons came he ordered him to put out his
dress-coat and gloves.

The old man glared at the visitor, for whom he used a title no more
distinguished than "that woman," and went off with a bad grace to do his
master's bidding.

"Parsons doesn't like me in the least," she said with a laugh.  "I
wonder why?"

Though Chisholm knew the reason, he only smiled, and turned aside the
rather awkward question.

Then, when the old man had put his head into the room, announcing that
his master's coat was ready, Claudia Nevill was left alone.

"I wonder what's on his mind?" she mused, sinking into a low chair
before the fire and resting her elbows upon her knees.  "Something
unusual has certainly occurred.  I wonder what story has come to his
ears?--something about me, of course."  The white forehead so
beautifully shaded by her dark hair, which had been well dressed by her
French maid, Justine, clouded slightly, and she stared straight before
her, plunged in a deep reverie; she was indeed a voluptuous _reveuse_.
Life that was _comme il faut_ had no attraction for her.  She was
reflecting upon all that he had said; upon the harsh criticisms and the
ominous warnings of this man whom she had once believed she would marry.
Yes, what he had said was only too true.  Her conscience told her that
she had been at fault; that she had set his affection at nought, and
had, in her mad struggle for supremacy in society, flung prudence to the
winds.  And those ugly scandals whispered here and there?  What of them?
The mere thought of them caused her teeth to set firmly, and her
shapely hands to clasp her cheeks with sudden vehemence.

"No," she said aloud in a mournful voice; "his affection for me has been
killed by my own mad folly.  It cannot have survived all this deception.
To-night is our last night together--the death of our love."

At that moment Dudley re-entered, having exchanged his dinner-jacket for
a white vest and dress-coat, in the lappel of which was a gardenia.
Claudia roused herself quickly, and when she turned towards him her face
betrayed no sign of the _tristesse_ of a moment before.

"I'm quite ready," he said, as, after buttoning his gloves and his coat,
he turned towards the door to open it.

"This is my last visit to you, Dudley," she said, sighing deeply and
gazing round the room with a lingering glance.  "My presence here is no
longer welcome."

What could he reply?  He only looked at her in silence.

She was standing close to him, her pale face anxiously raised to his.
He divined her unuttered request, and slowly bent until his lips met
hers.

Then she burst suddenly into tears.

He put his arm tenderly round her waist saying what he could to console
her, for her emotion distressed him.  Complex as was her character, he
saw that his plain, outspoken words had had their effect.  When he had
told her of his decision that morning at Albert Gate she had been
defiant, treating the matter with utter unconcern; but now, as the
result apparently of full reflection, she had become filled by a bitter
remorse, and was penitent enough to beseech forgiveness.

How little we men know of the true hearts of women!  Could we but follow
the whole course of feeling in the feminine mind; could we trace
accurately the links that connect certain consequences with remote
causes, which often render what we most condemn a necessity from which
there was never a single chance of escape; could we, in short, see as a
whole, and see it clearly, what at present our lack of the right vision
causes us to see in part, and obscurely--all that tempted to wrong, all
that blinded to right--we should not then presume to theorise so glibly;
to set ourselves up as accusers, judges, executioners, in such
unbecoming haste.  We should have mercy upon women, as befits honest
men.

At heart Dudley Chisholm loved the woman he was striving to comfort,
even though his association with her had so nearly wrecked his chance of
succeeding in an official career.  But he hated the artificiality of the
smarter set; he detested the fickleness of the flirt; and he had been
sadly disillusioned by the gossip that had of late sprung up in
connection with the woman who for so long had represented his ideal.

He would have forgiven her without further parley had it not been for
the knowledge that vengeance was already close behind him, and that
before long she must be left without his love and protection.  His
secret caused him to preserve silence; but she, ignorant of the truth,
believed that the spell she had exercised so long was at last broken.

In the hour of her despair she uttered many passionate words of love,
and many, many times their lips met in fervent kisses.  Nevertheless,
both felt that a gulf yawned between them--a wide gulf caused by her own
folly and recklessness.

At length she succeeded in stifling her emotion, drying her eyes, and
concealing the traces of her tears by means of the eau de Cologne he
handed her and a few dexterous dabs with her tiny powder-puff.

Now that she was calmer, he kissed her upon the forehead, drew her cloak
over the still tumultuous breast, and then led her below, where her
brougham was awaiting them.

During the drive to Penarth House, that old-fashioned but well-known
mansion at the western end of Piccadilly, they sat together in silence.

Their hands were clasped.  Both hearts were too full for words.  They,
who had loved one another for so many years, were now together for the
last time.

A deep and bitter sigh escaped Chisholm.  He was going to this ball,
always one of the most brilliant entertainments in London--for the
duchess was a political hostess and frequently entertained "for the
Party"--to drink the cup of pleasure to the dregs, because on the morrow
his place in English officialdom would be empty.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

IS DISTINCTLY ENIGMATICAL.

Distinction among women is rapidly becoming a lost art.  Woman nowadays
is nothing if not modern in her views.  After her presentation, her
natural enthusiasm and charming high spirits usually cause her to take a
too tolerant and rosy view of life, with the result that she degenerates
into being merely smart.  She becomes absorbed in Man and Millinery.
Dress is her keynote.  A lady's luggage has during the past ten years
assumed alarming proportions, and a fashionable woman rushes eagerly to
a house-party for the express purpose of airing the latest triumphs of
Paquin or Lentheric.  She is expected to make as many alterations in her
costume as a quick-change artiste at the music-halls.  In old times a
tailor-made gown was worn for breakfast; but now a smart gown is put on
for the morning meal, afterwards to be changed for a walking-costume or
a suit for motor-driving.  Luncheon demands another dainty gown, and tea
brings out that luxurious and poetical garment, the tea-gown.  At quite
a small party this is sometimes retained for dinner, but for a big
affair a magnificent dress is donned; and the same gown, whether
designed for the morning or the evening, must never be worn twice.

Except when she was entertaining for a political purpose, the Duchess of
Penarth's functions were characterised by an exclusiveness which
belonged more to the mid-Victorian period than to latter-day London.
Her Grace was a well-known hostess, and as her house-parties in
Derbyshire usually included a member of the royal family, her circle of
guests was a small and exceedingly smart one.  If any outsider was
admitted to her balls, he or she was always a brilliant person.  Every
season, of course, sees a new recruit to the ranks of these
distinguished strangers--the latest empire-builder, the newest
millionaire, or the most recently discovered society beauty.  Dudley
Chisholm had several times accompanied Claudia to balls at Penarth
House, and knew well that everything was most magnificently done.

The carriage drew up in the long line that slowly filed into the
old-fashioned courtyard, there to set down the guests.  As Dudley looked
out upon the lights of Piccadilly the rhymer's jingle recurred to him:

  Oh! the tales that you could tell,
                  Piccadilly.
  (Fit for Heaven, fit for hell),
                  Piccadilly.
  Of the folk who buy and sell,
  Of the merry marriage bell,
  Of the birthday, of the knell,
  Of the palace, of the cell,
  Of the beldame, and the belle,
  Of the rest of them who fell,
                  Piccadilly.

Yes, he hated it all.  But it was the end--his last night with the woman
who had for so long held him enthralled.

He believed he had broken the spell when he left her at Albert Gate a
few mornings before; but he now discovered that he had been mistaken.
Her tears had moved him.  Although she was much to blame, he could not
bear to see her suffer.

Up that wide staircase, well-known for its ancient handrail of crystal,
they passed to the ballroom, which, as was usual at Penarth House,
presented a most brilliant _coup d'oeil_.  The women, all of them
splendidly attired, ranged from the freshest _debutante_ to the painted
brigade of frivolous fifty, the members of which exhibit all the pitiful
paraphernalia of the womanhood which counterfeits the youth it has lost
and wreathes the death's head in artificial smiles.  The crush was
great, but even before Dudley and Lady Richard Nevill had entered the
ballroom his beautiful companion was receiving homage from every side.
Her arrival was the _clou_ of the entertainment, and Her Grace, an
elderly, rather stout person, wearing a magnificent tiara, came fussily
forward to greet her.

Chisholm was quick to notice that Claudia had no desire to dance with
any of the host of partners who at once began to petition her.  Many of
the men he knew--and heartily hated.  Young scions of noble houses, a
bachelor millionaire with black, mutton-chop whiskers, a reckless young
peer, in whose company Claudia had often of late been seen, all crowded
about her, smiling, paying compliments, and bowing over her hand.

But to all of these she excused herself.  She was not feeling well, she
declared, and as yet could not possibly dance.  So by degrees her court
slowly dissolved, and for a time she and Dudley were left alone.  As may
be imagined, there was much whispering in all quarters about her
re-appearance in public with Chisholm.

They sat out several dances in a cool anteroom, dimly lit and filled
with palms.  In the half darkness they clasped hands, but they spoke
very little, fearing lest others might overhear.  Chisholm sat as one
dead to all around him.  As he passed through the great ballroom with
its myriad lights and restless crowd he had mechanically returned the
salutes of those who knew him, without recognising a single man or
woman.  In his present mood friends and enemies were alike to him--all
of them so many shapes from the past.

To the woman at his side he clung, and to her alone.  The memory of
their bygone happiness he could not put aside.  He would be compelled to
make his _adieux_ to life very soon--perhaps, indeed, in a few hours--
and his only regret was for her.  He could tell her nothing, and when he
was dead she, like the others, would spurn his memory.

That thought caused him to grip the small, white-gloved hand he held.
His lips moved convulsively, but in that subdued light Claudia could not
detect his agitation.  He was unusually sad and apprehensive, fearful of
some impending catastrophe--that was all she knew.

She had tried to arouse him by making caustic and amusing criticisms
regarding those about them, but all to no purpose.  Her witticisms
provoked no smile.  He seemed utterly lost in his melancholy
reflections.

"Listen!" she said at last.  "There's a waltz.  Let us go."

She rose and led him into the ballroom, where a moment later they were
whirling along together in the smart crowd, compelling even jealous
onlookers to describe them as splendidly matched.  As Dudley steered his
beautiful partner among the other dancers the music caused a flow of sad
memories to surge through his brain--memories of the hundreds of balls
at which they had been happy in each other's love.

He laughed bitterly within himself as he saw her smile at a man she
knew.  Yes, when he was dead she would, he supposed, mourn for him for
the first day and forget him on the second, just as completely as she
had forgotten her indulgent husband.  He saw that look of recognition
exchanged between them; but the man's face was unfamiliar.  He was
young, rather sallow-faced, with a dark-brown beard.

But he made no comment.  As this waltz was their last, why should he
spoil it?  Upon her all argument was expended in vain, he declared to
himself bitterly.

The floor was perfect, the music excellent, and quickly the old flush of
pleasure came back to her face.

"You are enjoying it?" he whispered to her.

"And why don't you, Dudley?" she asked.  "You really ought to put on a
more pleasant expression.  People will remark upon it."

"Let them say what they will," he replied in a hard tone.  "They cannot
hurt me now."

"Well, dear, you look as grave as if you were at a funeral.  Forgive me
for speaking plainly, won't you?"

"I am grave because I cannot take leave of all that I have learnt to
love without a feeling of poignant regret," he answered.  "In future I
shall be debarred from all this."

"Why?  Are you going to enter a monastery, or something?" she asked, her
old easy-going _insouciance_ now returning to her.

"No, not exactly that!" he answered ambiguously.  "Really, I can't make
you out to-night, Dudley," she answered as, now that the waltz had
ended, he was conducting her across the room.  "I do wish you'd tell me
this extraordinary secret which is oppressing you.  Once you used to
tell me everything.  But now--"

"Ah! it is different now," he said.

"Because you mistrust me?"

"No, because our love must end," he replied in a voice so low that none
overheard.

She looked at him swiftly with a pained expression, still unable to
discover the reason of his extraordinary attitude of melancholy and
despair.

"Even if it must be as you have said, surely it is unnecessary to
exhibit your heart upon your sleeve in public?" she argued.  "Your words
have placed upon me a heavy burden of sorrow, God knows!  But I have
learned to wear a mask, and only give myself up to wretchedness in the
silence of my own room."  She spoke the truth.  Well-versed, indeed, was
she in all the feminine artifices.  He knew quite well that her gaiety
was assumed, for he had noticed how her hand trembled, and he had seen
how quickly her breast rose and fell beneath its lace.  Though her heart
was stirred to its very depths, to the smart world in which she
delighted to move she betrayed not a single sign of grief.  She was just
the gay, reckless woman who was so popular as a host and so eagerly
sought as guest, the pretty woman of the hour, the brilliant object of
so much scandal.

"Ah!" he said briefly, "you are a woman."

"Yes," she answered in a deep, intense whisper.  "A woman who has always
loved you, Dudley, and who loves you still!"

At that instant the Duchess of Penarth approached them and carried
Claudia away to be introduced to some notable person--who was "dying to
know" her.  No sooner had she left him than Dudley found himself face to
face with a tall, elderly man who sat for South Staffordshire and was
one of the staunchest supporters of the Government.

Naturally they exchanged greetings, and fell to chatting.  While they
were thus engaged the young brown-bearded man to whom Claudia had given
a covert sign of recognition passed them.

"Do you happen to know that fellow's name?"  Chisholm asked, well aware
that his friend was a popular figure in society and knew every one.

"What, the young fellow now speaking to Lady Meldrum?  Oh, don't you
know?  That's the Grand-Duke Stanislas."

"The Grand-Duke?" echoed the Under-Secretary, as the truth at once
became apparent.  No doubt he had watched them separate and was now on
his way in search of her.

"And is that elderly woman with white hair Lady Meldrum?  I've heard of
her.  Wife of a big iron-founder in Glasgow, isn't she?"

"That's so," his friend answered.  "But haven't you met their ward,
Muriel Mortimer?  She was presented last year.  Awfully pretty girl.
There she is, in cream, sitting close by Lady Meldrum.  You should know
her.  Let me introduce you.  I'm an old friend of the family, you know,
and she's been wanting to know you for ever so long."

At first he held back, declaring that he had to return to the House
before it rose; but the Member for South Staffordshire would take no
refusal, and a moment later the Under-Secretary found himself bowing
before a fair-haired girl with a sweet, innocent-looking face, dimpled
cheeks that blushed slightly as he was introduced, and a pair of large
wide-open blue eyes that looked out upon him in wonder.

About twenty-two he judged her to be, fragile, pretty, almost child-like
in her artless grace.  Her complexion was perfect, and her rather
plainly made toilette of cream chiffon suited her beauty admirably.
Indeed, demure and rather shy, she seemed out of place in that crowd of
the more brilliant butterflies of fashion.

A moment before, Dudley Chisholm had turned away from the dancers and
had intended to drive down to the House in order to while away the rest
of the night, but now this resolution was forgotten, because he had at
once become interested in the girl with whom he had just made
acquaintance, and all the more so when he recollected the colonel's
strange warning down at Wroxeter.  He was bending towards her, speaking
in commonplaces, reflecting the while that there certainly was nothing
in her outward appearance to cause him terror.

And yet the colonel had prophesied correctly in regard to their meeting
and had warned him to avoid her.  Why?  The mystery underlying the words
of his friend was certainly remarkable.

He was really attracted towards her by her childlike absence of
artificiality.  Though the shyness of the _debutante_ had scarcely worn
off, she committed no errors of etiquette.  As she slowly fanned
herself, she talked to him with all the gravity and composure of a woman
of the world.

Lady Meldrum had also been introduced to him by the honourable Member
for South Staffordshire, and she was, he discovered, a rather gushing,
good-looking woman of the type prone to paying compliments quite
indiscriminately.

Women nowadays keep their good looks much longer than they used to do.
The woman of forty, and even the woman of fifty, to-day is not so old as
the woman of thirty was--well, thirty years ago.  For this reason, no
doubt, and because we are becoming so very Continental, the married
women reign supreme, and appear to reign for ever.  It seems absurd to
read in the list of beauties at a ball, the names of mothers and
daughters bracketed together; but, in several instances, if the truth
were told, it should be the daughter's name, and and not the mother's,
which ought to be left out.

"Do you know, Mr. Chisholm, I have already paid a visit to your
chambers," her ladyship laughed.  "Lady Richard Nevill took me up with
her, fearing that I should catch cold while waiting in the carriage.
She has been staying with us down at Fernhurst.  Perhaps you have
heard?"

"She told me so," the Under-Secretary answered, at once summing her up
as a rather vulgar person who had opened the door of society by means of
a key fashioned out of gold.

"And now I must let you into another secret," she went on fussily.  "I
took Muriel to the House the other night, and we heard you speak."

He smiled.

"I don't know what subject you heard me speak upon, Miss Mortimer," he
said, turning to the blue-eyed girl in cream, "but I hope you were
edified."

"I was intensely interested," the young girl said.  "Mr. Blackwood," she
added, indicating the Honourable Member who had introduced them,--"took
us all through the House and showed us the library, the dining-rooms,
the Lobby, and all the places that I'd read about.  I had no idea the
House of Commons was such a wonderful place and so full of creature
comforts."

"Its wonders are very often tiresome," he remarked with a little smile.
"As a show-place, Miss Mortimer, it is one of the sights of England.  As
a place in which to spend half one's days it is not the most
comfortable, I assure you."

"Ah!" exclaimed Lady Meldrum; "of course; I quite understand.  A man
holding such an important position in the Government as you do can have
but little time for leisure.  I saw you with Lady Richard Nevill just
now.  She brought you here, of course."

"Yes," he admitted.  "I go out very little."

"And she induced you to come here with her.  Charming woman!  She was
the light and soul of our party at Fernhurst."

And as the wife of the Jubilee knight continued to make claims upon
Dudley's attention, he was prevented from exchanging more than a few
words with the sweet-faced girl against whom he had been so strangely
warned by the man who for so many years had been one of his closest
friends.

This plump wife of the estimable Scotch iron-founder was a recent
importation into society.  She had, he heard, been "taken up" by
Claudia, and owed all her success to her ladyship's introductions.  It
is not given to every one to entertain a Grand-Duke for the shooting,
and her fame as a hostess had been considerably increased by her good
fortune in this respect.

She chattered steadily until the tall, thin-faced Duke of Penarth
himself strolled past, bowed on catching sight of her, and stayed to
talk for a few moments.  Lady Meldrum did not hesitate when it was
necessary to choose between a sprat and a whale.  She at once turned
aside from Dudley, thus giving him a chance to improve the occasion with
her ward.

Yes, he decided, she was possessed of a charming ingenuousness; and yet
at the same time there was nothing of the school-miss about her.

She had given a very candid and amusing opinion regarding the
controversy which had taken place in the House at the time of her visit,
and had openly expressed her admiration of the determined and outspoken
manner in which he had supported the Government and crushed the
arguments of the Opposition.

"I really suspect you to be a politician, Miss Mortimer," he laughed
presently.  "You seem well-versed in so many points of our foreign
policy."

"Oh," she answered with a smile.  "I read the papers in preference to
novels, that's the reason."

Another waltz was commencing.  As he turned to glance to the centre of
the room, his eyes fell upon a couple gliding together among the
dancers.  He bit his lip, for he recognised them as the Grand-Duke and
the woman who only an hour ago had vowed that she still loved him.

He turned back again to that pale, childish face with the blue eyes, and
saw truth, honesty, and purity mirrored there.

Yet he had been distinctly and seriously warned against her--even her.

Why, he wondered, had the colonel spoken in so forcible a fashion, and
yet refused a single word of explanation?

It was an enigma, to say the least of it.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

TAKES DUDLEY BY A BY-PATH.

To love faithfully is to love with singleness of heart and sameness of
purpose, through all the temptations which society presents, and under
all the assaults of vanity both from within and without.  It is so
pleasant for a woman to be admired and so soothing to her to be loved,
that the grand trial of female constancy is to refrain from adding one
more conquest to her triumphs when it is evidently in her power to do
so.  Obviously her chief protection is to restrain the first indefinite
thoughts which, if allowed to gain clearness and swiftness, may lead her
fancy astray.  Even the ideas which commonly float through the mind of
woman are so rapid and so indistinctly shaped, that when the door is
opened to such thoughts as these they pour in like a torrent.  Then
first will arise a sudden perception of deficiency in the object of her
love, or some additional impression of his unkindness or neglect, with
comparisons between him and other men, and regret that he has not some
quality which they possess; sadness under a conviction of her future
destiny, pining for sympathy under that sadness, and, lastly, the
commencement of some other intimacy, which at first she has no idea of
converting into love.

Such is the manner in which, in thousands of cases, the faithfulness of
woman's love has been destroyed, and destroyed far more effectually than
if assailed by an open, and, apparently, more formidable foe.  And what
a wreck has followed!  For when woman loses her integrity and her
self-respect, she is indeed pitiable and degraded.  While her
faithfulness remains unshaken, it is true she may, and probably will,
have much to suffer; but let her destiny in this life be what it may,
she will walk through the world with a firm and upright step.  To live
solitary may be the cost of her noble behaviour; but often this solitude
will represent a decoration more splendid than any to be received from
the hands of queens and emperors.

I may be accused of a cold philosophy in speaking of such consolation
being efficacious under the suffering which arises from unkindness and
desertion; but who would not rather be the one to bear injury than the
one to inflict it?  The very act of bearing it meekly and reverently, as
from the hand of God, has a purifying and solemnising effect upon the
soul, which the faithless and the fickle never can experience.

Dudley Chisholm sat before the fire in his room until the dawn, trying
to unravel a thousand knots, his mind filled with sad memories and with
bitter regrets in plenty.

Muriel Mortimer had interested him, just as a child sometimes interests
the pedantic philosopher.  He had found hers a frank, open, girlish
nature, as yet unspoiled by its contact with the smart, well-dressed,
vicious set into which the ambitious Lady Meldrum had seen fit to plunge
her.  He admired her as one standing apart from most of the women he
knew, for she had displayed an intelligence and a knowledge of political
affairs that surprised him.  She, on her side, seemed to regard him
rather fearfully, as one of the powers of the State.  This amused him,
and he assured her that he could not honestly claim to be more than the
mouthpiece of the Foreign Office.  Yes, she was as charming as she was
ingenuous.

And Claudia?  He reflected upon all that he had said, and upon all her
answers; yet somehow he could not make up his mind whether she were
really false.

When he recollected the quick passion of her caresses, the tenderness of
her words, the gentle sympathy with which she had asked him to confide
in her, he found it difficult to believe that she could actually forget
him five minutes after leaving him in that ballroom, and waltz airily
with the man with whose name her own was being everywhere coupled.

To him, honest, upright man that he was, this seemed an absolute
impossibility.  He refused to believe it.  Surely she loved him, in
spite of her perplexing caprices; surely she had been seized by remorse
for her own fickleness.

He endeavoured to compare the two women, but the comparison caused him
to start up in quick impatience.

"No!" he cried aloud in a fierce voice.  "A thousand times no!  I love
Claudia--no one else!--no one else in all the world!"

Next day when he entered his room at Downing Street, Wrey, his
secretary, put before him a quantity of documents requiring attention.
He held the responsible office of superintending under-secretary of the
Commercial Department of Her Majesty's Foreign Office, the business of
which consisted of correspondence with our Ministers and Consuls abroad;
with the representatives of the Foreign Powers in England, and with the
Board of Trade and other departments of the Government.  He had been
absorbed in these papers for some hours, snatching only a few minutes
for a glass of sherry and a biscuit at luncheon-time, when Wrey returned
to remind him of a long-standing engagement that evening at the little
town of Godalming, which was in his constituency, four miles from
Albury.

He glanced up from his writing and gave vent to a sharp ejaculation of
annoyance.

"Are you quite certain it is to-night?" he asked, for the reminder was
to him a most unpleasant one.  He avoided speaking in his constituency
whenever he could.

"Yes.  I put it down in the diary a month ago--a dinner given by the
Lodge of Odd Fellows in aid of a local charity."

Dudley groaned.  He knew too well those charity dinners given in a small
room among his honest but rather uncouth supporters.  He dreaded the
tinned soups, the roast beef, the tough fowls, and the surreptitious
tankards of ale in lieu of wine, to be followed by those post-prandial
pipes and strong cigars.  He shuddered.  The dense atmosphere always
turned him sick, so that he usually made his speech while it was still
possible to see across the room.  He was very fond of the working-man,
and subscribed liberally to all charitable objects and associations,
from those with a political aim down to the smallest coal club in the
outlying villages; but why could not those honest sons of toil leave him
in peace?

His presence, of course, gave importance to the occasion, but if they
had found it possible to spare him the ordeal of sitting through their
dinner he would have been thankful.  Out of fifty invitations to
banquets of various kinds, openings of bazaars, flower-shows, lectures,
concerts, entertainments and penny-readings, he usually declined
forty-nine.  As he could not absolutely cut himself aloof from his
Division, on rare occasions he accepted, and spent an evening at Albury,
or Godalming, or some of the less important local centres of political
thought.

The pot-house politician, who forms his ideas of current events from the
ultra-patriotic screeches of certain popular newspapers, was a common
object in his constituency; but in Godalming, at any rate, the great
majority of his supporters were honest working-men.  The little town is
a quaint, old-world place with a long High Street of ancient houses,
many of them displaying the oak-beams of the sixteenth century, and its
politics were just as staunch and old-fashioned as the borough itself.
True, a new town of comfortable villas has sprung up of late around it,
and high upon the hill are to be seen the pinnacles of Charterhouse
School; but, notwithstanding these innovations, Godalming has not
marched with the times.  Because of this the blatant reformer has but
little chance there, and the Parliamentary Seat is always a safe one for
the Conservatives.

Much as he disliked the duty, he saw that it was absolutely necessary to
go down and make pretence of having a meal with that estimable Society
of Odd Fellows.  He rose from his seat at the littered table, at once
feeling a sudden desire for fresh air after the closeness of his room,
and a few minutes later was driving in a cab to Waterloo.  To dress for
such a function was quite unnecessary.  Working men do not approve of
their Member wearing a dinner jacket when among them, for they look upon
a starched shirt as a sign of superiority.  He was always fond of the
country round Godalming, where he had once spent a summer, and as it was
a sunshiny afternoon saw in the occasion an opportunity of taking a walk
through some of the most picturesque lanes in Surrey.

He was tired, world-weary, utterly sick of life.  The duties of his
office pressed heavily upon him; but most burdensome of all was the
ever-present dread that the threatened blow should fall and crush him.
He wanted air: he wanted to be alone to think.

And so, when that afternoon he alighted at Godalming and returned the
salutes of the station-master and book-stall keeper, he started off up
the steep road as far as the Charterhouse, and from that point struck
off by a narrow footpath which led away across the brown ploughed fields
to where the Hog's Back stretched before him in the blue distance.  The
autumn sun shone brightly in the clear, grey sky, and the trees in all
their glory of brown and gold shed their leaves upon him as he passed.

Save the station-master and the book-stall clerk, none had recognised
him.  This was fortunate, for now he was free, out in the open country
with its rich meadows and picturesque hills and valleys, until the hour
when he must dine with his supporters and utter some trite sayings
regarding the work of the Government and its policy abroad.

He was fond of walking, and was glad to escape from Downing Street and
from the House for a single evening; so he strode along down the path
with a swinging gait, though with a heart not light enough for the full
enjoyment of his lovely surroundings.

The by-path he had taken was that which leads over the hills from
Godalming past Field Place to the little old-world village of Compton.
Having crossed the ploughed lands, he entered a thick coppice, where the
path began to run down with remarkable steepness into wide meadows, on
the other side of which lay a dark wood.  The narrow path running
through the coppice terminated at a stile which gave entrance to the
park-like meadow-land.

Descending this path he halted at the stile, leaning against it.  Alone
in that rural solitude, far removed from the mad hurry of London life,
he stood to think.  Each gust of wind brought down a shower of brown
leaves from the oaks above, and the only other sound was the cry of a
pheasant in the wood.

For at least five minutes he stood motionless.  Then he suddenly roused
himself, and some words escaped his lips:

"How strange," he murmured, "that my footsteps should lead me to this
very spot, of all others!  Why, I wonder, has Fate directed me here?"

He turned and gazed slowly round upon the scene spread before him, the
green meadows, the dark wood, the sloping hill with its bare, brown
fields, and the Hog's Back rising in the far distance, with the black
line of the telegraph standing out against the sky.  With slow
deliberation he took in every feature of the landscape.  Then, facing
about, with his back to the stile, his eyes wandered up the steep path
by which he had just descended from the crest of the hill.

"No," he went on in a strange, low voice, speaking to himself, "it has
not changed--not in the least.  It is all just the same to-day, as
then--just the same."  He sighed heavily as he leaned back upon the
wooden rail and gazed up the ascent, brown with its carpet of acorns and
fallen leaves.  "Yes," he continued at last, "it is destiny that has led
me here, to this well-remembered spot for the last time before I die--
the justice which demands a life for a life."

Throughout the district it would not have been easy to find a more
secluded spot than the small belt of dense wood, half of which lay on
either side of the footpath.  So steep was this path that considerable
care had to be exercised during its descent, especially in autumn, when
the damp leaves and acorns were slippery, or in winter, when the
rain-channels were frozen into precipitous slides.

"A life for a life!" he repeated slowly with a strange curl of the lip.
He permitted himself to speak aloud because in that rural, solitude he
had no fear of eavesdroppers.  "I have lived my life," he said, "and now
it is ended.  My attempted atonement is all to no purpose, for to-day,
or to-morrow, a voice as from the grave will arise to condemn me--to
drive me to take my life!"

He glanced at his watch.

"Yes," he sighed.  "Four o'clock!--at this very spot--at this hour on a
wet day in mid-winter--"

And his eyes fixed themselves blankly upon the ground a couple of yards
distant from where he was standing.  "Six years have gone, and it has
remained ever a mystery!"

His face was pale, his brow contracted, his teeth firmly set.  His eyes
still rested upon that spot covered with dead brown leaves.  Certainly
it was strange that the steep and narrow pathway should possess such
fascination for him, for he had wandered there quite involuntarily.  It
is not too much to say that he would have flown to any other part of
England rather than stand upon the spot so closely associated with the
chapter in his life's history that he hoped was closed for ever.

Suddenly he roused himself, and, walking forward a couple of paces,
marked with his stick a square in the dead leaves.  Apparently he was
deep in calculation, for after he had made the mark he carefully
measured, by means of his cane, the distance between the square and the
top of the short ascent.  On either side of the path was a steep
moss-grown bank surmounted by thick hazel-bushes, but on the left a
little distance up was an old wooden fence, grey with lichen.  He
appeared to be deeply interested in this fence, for after going close up
to it he measured by careful pacing the distance between it and the spot
he had marked out.

When this was done, he stood again motionless, his fevered brow bared to
the breezes as though to him that spot were hallowed.  Then, crossing
the stile, he entered the meadow, passing and repassing the narrow lane
as though for the purpose of discovering the exact position an observer
would be compelled to take up in order to watch a person standing at the
point he had marked.

At last he returned, standing again with his back to the stile, his hat
raised in reverence, gazing fixedly upon those dead and decaying leaves.

"Yes," he murmured, "I was mad--mad!  The devil tempted me, and I fell.
Would to God that I could make amends!  But I cannot--I dare not.  No, I
must suffer!"

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

WHICH DEMANDS EXPLANATION.

Chisholm dined that night in the upstairs room of that old-fashioned
hostelry, the Angel, at Godalming, in company with the brethren of the
banner.

He sat at the right of the estimable, fat-handed butcher who presided,
and was informed by him that as the gigantic roast sirloin that was
served was his "own killing," he could recommend it.  They ate, drank,
and made merry, these men banded together by their sacred rites, until
the heat grew so intense that the windows were opened, with the result
that decorous High Street echoed to the volleys of their hearty
laughter.

As drink was included in the cost of the repast, those diners with the
more rapacious appetites--who, indeed, made no secret that they had been
existing in a state of semi-starvation all day in order to eat at
night--drank indiscriminately of the lemonade, beer, wine and whiskey
placed upon the table.  Indeed, as is usual at such feasts, they ate and
drank all within reach of their hands.  But these bearded working-men
and small tradesmen were merry and well-meaning with it all.  After "The
King" had been honoured, they toasted with boisterous enthusiasm "Our
Honourable Member," and joined in the usual chorus of poetical praise,
"For he's a jolly good fellow."

Dudley sat bowing and smiling, yet at heart sick of the whole
performance.  He dreaded the pipes and cigars that would in a few
moments appear.  Shag and clays always turned him ill.  He was no great
smoker himself, and had never been able to withstand the smell of a
strong cigar.

His quick eyes observed a man who was beginning in an affectionate
manner to fondle a well-coloured short clay.  He bent at once to the
chairman, saying that he would now deliver his speech.

"Silence, please, gentlemen!" shouted the rotund butcher, rapping the
table with his wooden mallet after their guest's health had been drunk.
"Silence for our Honourable Member!  Silence--_please_!"

Then Dudley rose eagerly, happy in the knowledge that he was almost
through the ordeal, and, with a preliminary "Mr. Chairman and
Gentlemen," addressed the hundred or so of his faithful supporters,
telling them this and that about the Government, and assuring them of
the soundness of the policy adopted by Her Majesty's Ministers.  It was
not a very long speech, but it was upon a subject of the moment; and as
there were two "gentlemen of the Press" representing the local
advertisement sheets, the one a mere boy, and the other a melancholy,
disappointed-looking man, with a sage and rather ascetic expression, the
speech would appear in the papers, and the Godalming Lodge of Odd
Fellows would receive the credit of having entertained one of England's
most rising statesmen.  The two representatives of the Press, each of
whom took himself very seriously, had been regaled with a bottle of port
and some cigars by the committee, who entertained a hope that they would
thus be induced to give a lengthy and laudatory account of the function.

While Dudley was on his legs the cloud of tobacco-smoke became thicker
and thicker.  Those triumphs of the tobacconist called "tuppenny smokes"
are nauseous when in combination with the odour of food.  Dudley sniffed
them, coughed slightly, sipped some water, and then drew his speech to a
close amid a terrific outburst of applause and a beating upon the tables
which caused the glasses and crockery to jingle.

While this oration was in full blast he noticed a committee-man
uncovering the piano, by which he knew that "harmony" was to embellish
the hot whiskey period.  At last, however, he managed to excuse himself,
upon the plea that he must return to the House for a Division that was
expected; and as soon as he was out in the High Street he breathed more
freely.  Then he hurried to the train, and, entering the express from
Portsmouth, tried to forget the spot he had visited in that small belt
of forest--the scene that too often commanded the most vivid powers of
his memory.

"I was a fool ever to have gone there!--an absolute fool!" he murmured
to himself, as he flung himself back in the first-class compartment when
alone.  "I ran an unnecessary risk.  And that man who came so suddenly
upon me just as I was leaving!  What if he had watched and recognised
me?  If so, he would certainly gossip about my presence there, describe
my actions--and then--"

He was silent; his face became blanched and drawn.

"Even though six years have passed, the affair is not forgotten," he
went on in a hard voice.  "It is still the local mystery which Scotland
Yard failed to elucidate.  Yes," he added, "I was a fool--a confounded
fool!  What absurd whim took me to that place of all others, I can't
imagine.  I'm mad--mad!" he cried in wild despair.  "This madness is the
shadow of suicide!"

Instead of going down to the House he drove back at once to his
chambers.

Upon his table was a note from Claudia, affectionate as usual, and full
of regret that they had not met again on the previous night--when they
had been so suddenly separated at Penarth House.

"What do you think of little Muriel Mortimer?  I saw you speaking with
her," she wrote.  "She was full of you when I met her shopping in Bond
Street this morning.  You have made quite an impression, my dear Dudley.
But don't altogether forget me, will you?"

Forget?  Could he ever forget the woman whom he loved, and yet despised?
Strange that Claudia should have plotted with Lady Meldrum against his
bachelor estate, and should have determined to bring about this marriage
with Muriel Mortimer!

In a frenzy of despair he cast her letter into the flames.  He
recollected the words she had uttered to him in that room on the
previous night, the sweet words of love and tenderness that had held him
spellbound.  No, there was no other woman in all the world save her--and
yet, she was false and fickle, as all the world knew.

Life's comforts are its cares.  He smiled bitterly as he reflected upon
that phrase, which was an extract from one of his many brilliant
speeches.  If a person has no cares, that person must make them, or be
wretched; care is actually an employment, an action; sometimes even a
joy.  And so it is with love.  Life and love must have employment and
action.  There must be responsibility and a striving to reach a goal;
for if not, both the power to endure and the power to give comfort are
shrunken and crippled.

When Dudley Chisholm was young he had long worshipped an ideal.  But
when he found his idol to be undeserving of the idolatry, madness fell
upon him, and he accepted the creed of the prodigal.  Raking over the
ashes of the numerous bonfires he had made, for which his senses had
been the fuel, he now found a revelation of his inner self.  He
recognised for the first time his weakness and his unworthiness.  He
wanted something better than he had known--not in others, but in
himself.  He had discovered a spot of tenderness in his heart that had,
so to speak, remained virgin soil.

"Could a really smart woman possess any nice sense of honour?" he asked
himself for the hundredth time.  If she is endowed with any particular
intelligence, and the world discovers it, then society is prone to think
that she is necessarily a "schemer," and, unless her friends know her
very well, she is soon given a place upon society's black list as an
"adventuress," a term which applies to the whole gamut of West End
wickedness.  No, after all, few women can be both honourable and smart.

His thoughts wandered back into the past, as they so frequently did, and
a moan came from his heart.  He remembered Claudia as an ideal woman of
whom a cruel Fate had robbed him in those days before he learned the
world to be what it is.  And he still loved her--even though this great
gulf yawned between them.

Dudley Chisholm was blind to Claudia's true character.  He was attracted
to her by her intellect and her physical magnetism.  In these days of
her freedom she had dared to be herself, and having knowledge of herself
and of men, she had developed his admiration up to her own standpoint.
She had taught him women as she knew them herself.  She was playing with
all the edged tools of daring because she felt that she was the stronger
of the two, and that he would dare no further than she willed.  She was
charmed with the freedom she allowed herself; while he was, in a manner,
flattered by her apparent constancy to him and by her finding in him
anything that interested a woman of her attainments and popularity.
Thus he had become thoroughly interested, madly infatuated, as well as
honestly in love.

Men so seldom understand the inner nature, the designing nature, if I
may be forgiven the expression, of some women.  Such women are
unscrupulous in their dealings both with men and women.  The West End is
full of them.  They live for what they can get out of their
acquaintances, instead of for what they can do for them.  They give as
much love to all as to one, unless that one should happen to be more
wealthy or distinguished than the others.  Then the wealthy one will get
the largest quantity of attention, while the others will be kept
dangling on the string for use at odd times.  Such women are shrewd.
Mayfair has taught them the art of conversation.  They have reduced it
to a science.  With the innocent face of a child, they learn never to
let the left hand know what the right hand is doing.  And, if the bare
truth be stated, Claudia Nevill was one of these.  She, in her
shrewdness, had handled Dudley with light ribbons.  She had intuitively
understood what kind of woman he preferred, and she had been that
woman--until now, when the bitter truth had been made plain to him.

In this life of ours the tossing between the extremes of happiness and
misery are terribly wearying.  When once life's lessons begin they
continue in a mad headlong rush of events.  During the last few days
Dudley Chisholm seemed to have lived a lifetime.  Fate twisted and
turned him through and round human follies and treachery.  It laughed at
him, beating up all that was false against all that was true in his own
nature, until he found himself in such a _pot-pourri_ of sunshine and
storm that life seemed suddenly too incomprehensible to be endured.

The daintiness of women rivets and enchains men of Dudley's stamp--the
perfume of the hair, the baby-smell of the skin, the frills, the laces,
the violets exuding from the chiffons, the arched foot, the neat ankle,
the clinging drapery--everything, in fact, that means delicate luxury
not to be enjoyed save in the company of a woman.  Awkwardness
disenchants, but well-poised, graceful lines, added to a _chic_ in
dress, hold for ever.  To be essentially feminine places a woman in the
holy of holies in a man's heart.  As Claudia was essentially feminine,
she still held Dudley safe, in spite of that sudden gust of scandal.

Alone, seated in his familiar armchair, he cast aside the heavy thoughts
that had so oppressed him ever since he had stood at that spot deep in
rural Surrey, and looked upon the place every object of which was
photographed upon his memory.  He thought of Claudia, and, remembering
the declaration of her love whispered in that room, felt regret at the
hard words he had uttered.  She had made mistakes and become entangled
in the meshes of the net spread out for her.  Was it not his duty to
extricate her?  He too had made a mistake in not paying respect, at
least outwardly, to the social code, and now the time had come when he
was forced to recognise that necessity.  Yes, in his inner consciousness
he fully realised the mistake he had made.  He had all unconsciously
aided and abetted her in becoming what was known as "a smart woman."

Perhaps, however, his opinion of her would have been a different one had
he been present at that moment in one of the smaller sitting-rooms of
the great mansion at Albert Gate.  It was a cosy apartment, with the
lamplight mellowed to a half tone by the yellow shade; dull greyish blue
was the colour of the silken walls, a cool, restful tint that seemed a
fitting background for the cosy lounge draped with dark Egyptian red and
suppressed greens and yellows.

Upon the couch, in a handsome dinner gown of pale pink trimmed with
black velvet, lazily lounged its mistress among her silken pillows,
slowly waving her fan, while near her in one of the big saddle-bag
chairs sat the Grand-Duke Stanislas smoking a cigarette, his eyes fixed
upon her.

At his throat he wore the ribbon of St. Andrew, one of the highest of
the Russian orders, the splendid diamond cross glittering upon his
shirt-front.  He was on his way to a reception at the Austrian Embassy
given in his honour by the ambassador, but at Claudia's invitation he
had dined with her.

"No, really," she was laughing, "it is not so in England.  I quite admit
that men make it a general accusation against us, as a sex, that we are
ill-natured, unfair, pitiless, in judging one another.  They say that
when women get together, at every word a reputation dies; they say that
as a savage proves his heroism by displaying in grim array the torn
scalps of his enemies, so a woman thinks she proves her virtue by
exhibiting the mangled reputations of her friends; they say--But there
is no end to the witty impertinences and fag-ends of rhymes from
Simonides to Pope, which they fling at us on this subject I have never
heard men so eloquently satirical as when treating with utter scorn the
idea that a woman can possibly elevate herself in the eyes of one of
their sex by degrading, or suffering to be degraded, one of her own; and
in their censure they are right--quite right; but wrong--quite wrong in
attributing this, our worst propensity, to ill-nature and jealousy.
Ignorance is the main cause: ignorance of ourselves and others."

He laughed at her philosophy, and blew a cloud of smoke towards the
ceiling.

"I think, my dear madame, that you must be full of whims, _comme disent
les Anglais_.  A pretty woman like yourself always is," he said in his
marked foreign accent.

"And why not?" she inquired, for he had suddenly changed the channel of
their conversation, and she much feared that he now intended to give her
a _rechauffe_ of his sentimental nonsense.

"Because you brought your friend to the duchess's last night.  I saw
him.  _C'etait assez_."

"You are jealous--eh?"

"Not in the least, I assure you," he answered quite coolly.  "Only it is
pretty folly on madame's part--that is all."

"Why folly?  _O la belle idee_!"

"Madame's _amities_ are of course friendships," he said, raising his
dark eyebrows.  "Nevertheless, she should be warned."

"Of what?"

"Of Monsieur the Under-Secretary," he replied, still regarding her quite
calmly with his dark eyes.  "For her own reputation madame should no
longer be seen with him."

She glanced at her guest quickly, for she was used to men's jealousies.
Yet surely this scion of an Imperial House could not be jealous!

"And for what reason, pray?" she asked, puzzled.  "Because of a
regrettable circumstance," he answered mysteriously.  "Because of a
forthcoming exposure which will be startling.  In a certain
_Chancellerie_ in a certain capital of Europe there reposes a document
which must shortly be made public property."

"Well, and what then?" she asked, not yet grasping his meaning.

"Its publication will bring disgrace and ruin upon madame's friend," he
answered simply.  "That is why I warn you not to be seen again in his
company."

"What do you mean?" she cried, starting up with sudden _hauteur_.  "You
tell me this, in order to turn me from him."

"No, _ma chere_, I tell you a secret which is known in the
_Chancellerie_ of a certain Power antagonistic to your country," he
responded.  "I have told madame the truth for her own benefit."

"You would try to poison my mind against Dudley Chisholm by hints such
as these!" she cried, magnificent in her sudden fury.  "You!--You!  But
let me tell you that I love him--that--that--"

"That you refuse to believe my word!" he said, concluding her unfinished
sentence.

"Yes, that I absolutely refuse to believe you!" she declared
emphatically, facing him boldly in a manner which showed that her nature
had revolted against this attempt to denounce the man she loved.

"_C'est assez_!" he laughed with an air of nonchalance the moment he had
blown a cloud of smoke from his lips.  "Madame has spoken!"

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

IS TOLD IN THE GRASS COUNTRY.

Throughout November Dudley remained in town tied to the House by his
official duties, and saw little of Claudia, who had gone into
Leicestershire for the hunting.  Riding to hounds was her favourite
sport, and she was one of the best horse-women within fifty miles of
Market Harborough.  Each season she went on a visit to Lady Atteridge,
whose husband had a box right in the centre of the hunting-country, and
at every meet she was a conspicuous figure.

An acquaintance she made in the field with the late Empress of Austria,
during a run with the Pytchley across the Grafton country, ripened into
a warm friendship, and on many occasions she had entertained her now
lamented Majesty at Albert Gate.  Nearly every year some foreign royalty
or other is the centre of hunting interest.  Unable to enjoy the race
over the grass in their own land, they come to England for healthful
sport, and generally make Harborough their headquarters.  That season it
was the Grand-Duke Stanislas who rode to nearly every meet, always
accompanied by his equerry.  Hence Claudia and he frequently met, but
since that evening when he had endeavoured to turn her from the man she
loved she had avoided him.  She purposely refrained from attending any
function at which he might possibly be present, and when they were
compelled to meet with the hounds she only bowed, and seldom, if ever,
offered him her hand.

On his part, he was always fussing about her, scolding her for her too
reckless riding across boggy meadows, or at hedges made dangerous by
barbed wires, and always holding himself prepared to render her any of
those many little services which the hunting-man renders the fair sex in
the field.  But on her part she was absolutely indifferent to his
attentions, and at the same time annoyed that he should thus publicly
exhibit his admiration.

Certainly no figure was more neat and _chic_ than hers in its well-cut
habit, her dark hair tightly coiled beneath her becoming hunting-hat.
In the saddle she looked as if she were part of the animal she rode, and
her mare, "Tattie," was a splendid creature, which always came in for a
full share of praise among those who could tell a good hunter when they
saw one.  The men who ride to hounds in the Harborough country are, as a
rule, hard as nails, and as keen and outspoken critics of a woman as of
a horse.  But Claudia Nevill and "Tattie" were both pronounced
first-class, the former because she was so extremely affable with one
and all, even to the farmer's sons who followed the hounds, and blushed
with a countryman's awkwardness when she, the woman of whom the papers
spoke, addressed them.  There was no pride about her ladyship, and the
whole countryside, from Harborough right across to Peterborough,
declared her to be "one of the right sort."

Of course even in the villages there were whispers that she was very
friendly with the Grand-Duke, and the usual deductions were made from
the fact that the latest foreign star in the hunting-firmament was
always riding near her.  But in the country the people are very slow to
give credence to scandal, and the gossip, though active, was not
ill-natured; besides, it had long ago been known that the Foreign
Under-Secretary was passionately attached to her.  Last season Chisholm
had hunted with the Pytchley and had been always at her side, so that
the rustics, and even the members of the hunt had come to regard him as
her future husband, and had pronounced them to be a well-matched pair.

Late one afternoon towards the close of November the end of a busy day
was drawing near.  The meet was at Althorpe Park, Earl Spencer's seat,
and the spinneys all around the park were drawn one after the other; but
although plenty of pretty hunting took place, the hounds did not do any
good.  On drawing No-bottle Wood the greater portion of the large field
managed to get away with the pack as the hounds raced away up wind in
the direction of Harlestone.  The first fox led his pursuers over fine
grass country to a copse near Floore, where the sight of hounds in full
cry, a rare occurrence, caused considerable excitement among the
villagers.  Continuing past Weedon Beck, the fugitive circled round in
the direction of Pattishall, but he was so hotly pressed that he was
obliged to take shelter in a drain near Bugbrook, where it was decided
to leave him.  The second fox, which was started from Dowsby Gorse, gave
a fine run of an hour.  He travelled first to Byfield, thence across the
hilly country back to Weedon Beck, over almost the same district as his
predecessor.  Near Weedon reynard had an encounter with some terriers
belonging to a rabbiting party, but got safely away and finally beat the
pack close to the Nene.

The run had been a very fast one, but both Claudia and Stanislas were
among the few in at the finish.  As many of the hunters jogged homeward
along the Daventry road, the Grand-Duke managed to take up his position
by the side of the beautiful woman whom he so greatly admired.
Stanislas, who was an excellent rider, had left his equerry far behind
in the mad race across hedges, ditches, stubble and ploughed land.
Somewhat bespattered by mud, he sat his horse with perfect ease and with
almost imperial dignity.  To the casual observer there was nothing to
distinguish him from any of the other hunters, for in his well-worn
riding-breeches, gaiters and black coat his appearance was devoid of
that elegance which had distinguished him in London society, and he
looked more like a country squire than the son of an emperor.

They were descending the slope towards a small hamlet of thatched
cottages, when of a sudden he drew his horse closer to hers and, turning
to her, exclaimed in English of rather a pleasant accent:

"Madame is, I fear, fatigued--of my company?"

"Oh dear no," she laughed, turning her fine dark eyes mischievously
towards him.  "Why should I be?  When you are so self-sacrificing as to
leave Muriel Mortimer to Captain Graydon's charge and ride with me, I
surely ought not to complain."

"Why do you speak of Mam'zelle Mortimer?" he asked, at once grown
serious.

"Because you have been flirting with her outrageously all day.  You
can't deny it," she declared, turning to him in her saddle.

"I was merely pleasant to her," he admitted.  "But you English declare
that a man is a flirt if he merely extends the most commonplace
courtesies to a woman.  It is so different in other countries."

"Yes," she laughed.  "Here, in England, woman is fortunately respected,
but it is not so on the Continent."

"I trust that madame has not found me indiscreet," he said earnestly.
"If I have been, I must crave forgiveness, because I am so unused to
English manners."

"I don't think any one need blame you for indiscretion, providing that
Muriel does not object."

"Object?  I do not follow you," he said.

"Well, she may object to her name being bandied about as a woman with
whom you are carrying on an open flirtation."

"You appear to blame me for common civility to her," he observed.  "I
cannot, somehow, understand madame of late.  She has so changed."

"Yes," she answered with a bitter smile; "I have grown older--and
wiser."

"Wisdom always adds charm to a woman," he replied, endeavouring to turn
her sarcasm into a compliment.

"And age commands respect," she answered.

He laughed uneasily, for he knew well her quick and clever repartee.

"I have been wishing to have a word with madame for a long time," he
said, at last breaking a silence that had fallen between them.  "You
have pointedly avoided me for several weeks.  Have I given you offence?
If so, I beg a thousand pardons."

She did not answer for some time.  At heart she despised this Imperial
Prince, before whom half the women in London bowed and curtsied.  She
had once allowed him to pay court to her in his fussy, foreign manner,
amused and flattered that one of his degree should find her interesting;
but all that was now of the past.  In those brief moments as they rode
together along the country road in the wintry twilight, recollections of
summer days at Fernhurst came back to her, and she hated herself.  In
those days she had actually forgotten Dudley.  And then she also
remembered how this man had condemned her lover: how he had urged her to
break off the acquaintance, and how he had hinted at some secret which,
when exposed, must result in Dudley's ruin.

Those enigmatical words of his had caused her much thought.  At what had
he hinted?  A thousand times had she endeavoured to discover his
meaning, but had utterly failed.  If such a secret actually existed, and
if its revelation could cause the downfall of Dudley Chisholm, then it
was surely her duty to discover it and to seek its suppression.  This
latter thought caused her to hesitate, and to leave unsaid the hasty
answer that had flashed into her mind.

"Well," she said at length, "now that you have spoken plainly, I may as
well confess that I have been annoyed--very much annoyed."

"I regret that!" he exclaimed with quick concern.  "If I have caused
madame any annoyance, I assure her it was not in the least intentional.
But tell me how I have annoyed you."

"Oh, it was a small matter, quite a trivial one," she said with affected
carelessness, settling her habit and glancing furtively at the man who
had declared that he held her lover's secret.

"But you will tell me," he urged.  "Please do.  I have already
apologised."

"Then that is sufficient," she replied.

"No, it is not sufficient I must know my offence, to be fully cognisant
of its gravity."

Her brows contracted slightly, but in the fading light he did not notice
the shadow of annoyance that passed across her countenance.

"As I have told you, the offence was not a grave one," she declared.  "I
was merely annoyed, that is all."

"Annoyed by my actions, or by my words?"

"By your words."

"On what occasion?"

"On the last occasion you dined at my house."

For a moment his face assumed a puzzled expression, then in an instant
the truth flashed upon him.

"Ah!" he cried; "I recollect, of course.  Madame has been offended at
what I said regarding her friend, the Under-Secretary.  I can only
repeat my apologies."

"You repeat them because what you told me was untrue!" she exclaimed,
turning and looking him full in the face.  They had allowed their horses
to walk, in order to be able to converse.

"I much regret, madame, that it was true," he replied.

"All of it?"

"All of it."

"And there exists somewhere or other a document which inculpates Dudley
Chisholm?"

"Yes, it inculpates him very gravely, I am sorry to say."

"Sorry!  Why?"

"Well, because he is madame's friend--her very best friend, if report
speaks the truth."  There was a sarcastic ring in his words which she
did not fail to detect, and it stung her to fury.

"I cannot see why you should entertain the least sympathy for my
friend," she remarked in a hard voice.  "More especially for one unknown
to you."

"Oh, we have met!" her companion said.  "We met in Paris long since on
an occasion when I was travelling incognito, and I liked him.  Indeed,
he was dining at the Carlton a week ago at the next table to me."

"And you are aware of the nature of this secret, which, according to
what you tell me, must some day or other bring about his utter
downfall?"

"Ah, no.  Madame misunderstands me entirely," he hastened to protest.
"I am not a diplomatist, nor have I any connection, official or
otherwise, with diplomacy.  I merely told you of a matter which had come
to my knowledge.  Recollect, that a young man in Chisholm's position of
responsibility must have a large number of jealous enemies.  Perhaps it
will be owing to one of these that the secret will leak out."

"It will be used for a political purpose, you mean?"

"Exactly," replied the Grand-Duke.  "Your Government, what with the two
or three contending parties, is always at war, as it were, and the
Opposition, as you term it, may, as a _coup de grace_ to the Government,
reveal the secret."

"But you told me that it was a document, and that it reposed safely in
one of the Chancelleries in a foreign capital, if I remember aright,"
she said.  "Now, tell me honestly, is St. Petersburg the capital you
refer to?"

"No, it is not," he replied promptly.

"And the Embassy in London that is aware of the truth is not in Chesham
Place?"

"Most assuredly not, madame," he replied.

"Cannot you be more explicit," she urged.  "Cannot you, if you are my
friend, as you have more than once declared yourself to be, tell me more
regarding this extraordinary matter which is to create such a terrible
scandal?"

"No, it is impossible--utterly impossible.  If I could, I would tell
madame everything.  But my information really carries me no further than
the bare fact that a certain Power antagonistic to England has been able
to secure a document which must prove the ruin of the most brilliant and
promising of the younger English statesmen."

"And have you really no idea whatever as to the nature of the secret?"

"None."

"From what you tell me one would almost infer that Dudley Chisholm had
been guilty of some crime.  Have you no suspicion of its nature?"

"Absolutely none," her companion declared.  "The only other fact I know
is the whereabouts of the document in question, and that I must keep a
secret, according to my solemn promise."

"You promised not to divulge the direction in which danger lies?" she
said suspiciously.  "Why did you do so?  You surely must have had some
motive!"

"I had none.  The affair was mentioned to me confidentially, and I was
compelled to promise that I would give no indication as to what person
held the incriminating paper.  I told madame of its existence merely to
warn her, and perhaps to prepare her for an unwelcome revelation."

"You refuse to tell me more?" she asked quickly, "even though you must
be aware how deeply this extraordinary matter affects me?"

"I am compelled to refuse, madame," he answered in the same calm,
unruffled tone.  "I cannot break my word of honour."

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

SUGGESTS A DOUBLE PROBLEM.

Fashion, as we call it, is in these decadent days at the mercy of any
millionaire pork-butcher, or any enterprising adventurer from across the
seas.  Victorian literature has declined into the "short story" and the
"problem play," taking its heroines from among women with a past and its
heroes from the slums.  In prose, in verse, and in conversation, the
favourite style is the Cockney slang of the costermonger, the
betting-ring, and the barrack canteen.  Is it not appalling that the
reek of the pot-house, the music-hall, the turf, the share-market, the
thieves' doss-house infects our literature, our manners, our amusements,
and our ideals of life?  Yet is it not the truth?

Dudley, yielding to Claudia's persuasion, gave a large house-party at
Wroxeter during the Christmas recess.  As he was too much occupied with
his public duties to be able to arrange the affair himself, she returned
from Market Harborough and went down to Shropshire to make his
arrangements.  Truth to tell, he was wearied of the nightly discussions
in the House and his daily work at the Foreign Office, and looked
forward to a brief period of relaxation and gaiety, when he could
entertain his friends.  He left everything to her, just as he had done
on several previous occasions.  Very soon after his decision to ask his
friends down to the old feudal castle, Wroxeter was the scene of much
cleaning and garnishing.

Claudia, whose charm of manner was unequalled, was an admirable hostess
of striking individuality, and her own entertainments were always
brilliant successes.  Royalties came to her small parties, and every one
who was any one was seen at her receptions.  She it was who decided what
guests should be asked to Wroxeter, and who sent out the invitations;
then, after seeing that all was in complete readiness, she returned
again to town.  She was a born entertainer, and never so happy as when
arranging a social function, whether it was a dinner, private
theatricals, a bazaar, or a theatre supper at the Carlton.  It follows
that as regards the arrangement of Dudley's house-party at Wroxeter she
was entirely in her element.

A paragraph crept into the papers announcing how the popular
Under-Secretary intended to spend the recess.  This was copied into
hundreds of papers all over the country with that rapidity with which
the personal paragraph always travels.

Of course the invitations were sent out in Dudley's name, and the fact
that Claudia had arranged the whole matter was carefully concealed.  As
the relict of Dick Nevill she had a perfect right to act as hostess on
Chisholm's behalf if she so desired, but Dudley had strenuously refused
to allow this, for people might renew their ill-natured gossip.  He had
no desire to submit either Claudia or himself to a fresh burst of
scandal.

The House rose.  Three days later the guests began to assemble at
Wroxeter, making the old halls echo with their laughter in a manner in
which they had not echoed for many years.  Claudia herself did not
arrive until a couple of days later, but the arrangements she had made
with the housekeeper were perfect.

The guests numbered thirty-three, nearly all of them Dudley's most
intimate friends, including a Cabinet Minister and a sprinkling of
political notabilities.  Among them were, of course, some smart women
and pretty girls; and with a perfect round of entertainment the
Christmas festival was kept in a right royal manner, worthy the best
traditions of the Chisholms.  Holly boughs and mistletoe were suspended
in the great oak-panelled hall, while a boar's head and other old-world
dishes formed part of the fare on Christmas Day.  Outside, the weather
was intensely cold, for snow had fallen heavily and had now frozen,
giving the park and the surrounding hills quite a fairy-like appearance.
It was in every respect such a festival as we most of us desire, "an
old-fashioned Christmas."

The Grand-Duke was in Paris, and Dudley was secretly glad that on this
account he could not be invited.  But among the guests were the portly
Lady Meldrum, whose black satin seemed a fixed part of her, her
inoffensive husband, Sir Henry, and pretty, fair-haired Muriel Mortimer.
Benthall, the Member for East Glamorganshire, was, of course, there,
but the colonel, who had been his fellow-guest for the shooting, had
gone to Cannes for the winter, in accordance with his usual habit.

With such a party, a woman's directing influence was, of course,
indispensable, but Claudia acted the part of hostess in a manner so
unobtrusive that no one could demur.  So skilfully planned was the whole
affair that a perfect round of gaiety was enjoyed each day, with some
amusement to attract everybody.

Compelled to be civil and affable to everybody, Dudley somehow found
himself more often in the company of Muriel Mortimer than in that of
Claudia.  Whether it was that Lady Meldrum's ward deliberately sought
his society, or whether chance threw them together so often, he could
not decide.  At any rate, he played billiards with her, danced with her,
and always found her seat close to his at the head of the table.

On the morning following the revels of Christmas night most of the
guests were late down to breakfast save Muriel, who was one of the first
to appear.  Dudley met her in the great old room and bent over her hand
in salutation.  She had been the prettiest woman at the dance on the
previous night, and her unaffected manner had again attracted him.  But
as he stood before the big wood fire, chatting with her and awaiting the
others, a curious thought crossed his mind.  There, in that very room, a
couple of months earlier, he had been warned against her by the blunt
old colonel; and yet he was now entertaining her beneath his roof.

Their eyes met as they were speaking, and he saw that hers were clear,
blue, wide open, with an expression of perfect frankness.  Yes, she was
altogether charming in her simple morning gown.  Why in the world had
the colonel so distinctly warned him?  What harm could there possibly be
in their meeting?

Claudia, who, strangely enough, evinced no jealousy because of his
constant companionship with her, was standing near the window,
handsomely and becomingly clad, chatting with old Sir Henry Meldrum, now
and then glancing in the direction of the man for whom she had confessed
her love.  Dudley noticed these glances, but went on talking, though
rather mechanically, with the sweet, ingenuous girl whom the colonel had
declared he ought to avoid.  Claudia herself had arranged her seat at
table close to him; she had even suggested on the previous afternoon
that as Muriel liked billiards, her host should play with her, and had
herself whispered in his ear at the dance to invite Lady Meldrum's ward
to be his partner in the "Washington Post."

All this puzzled him, as the truth was slowly revealed to him.  And,
after all, who was this pretty Muriel?

From a dozen different sources he had endeavoured to obtain some
information regarding her birth and parentage, but all he could gather
was of a contradictory nature.  One old dowager had told him that she
was the only daughter and heiress of the late Charles Mortimer, a great
Liverpool ship-owner and intimate friend of Sir Henry's.  From another
source he learnt that she was the daughter of a man who had been for
some years partner with the ironmaster; while a third person hinted
mysteriously that her parentage was unknown, and that she had merely
been adopted by Sir Henry and his wife, chiefly because they were
childless.  All this was perplexing, to say the least of it.

He had laughed heartily when the old colonel had warned him against her,
declaring that he had no desire to make the acquaintance of the pretty
Unknown.  But somehow the mystery surrounding her began to attract him,
and he became eager to fathom it.

Later that morning he met Claudia alone in one of the corridors, and
took her aside to arrange the entertainment for the morrow.  Then, when
they had finished, he put a question to her, point-blank: "Who is Muriel
Mortimer?" he asked.

She glanced at him quickly, evidently taken somewhat aback by the
suddenness of his question.

"My dear Dudley," she laughed, "I should have thought you knew all about
your guests by this time.  She is Sir Henry Meldrum's ward."

"I know that," he said, a trifle impatiently.  "But who were her
parents?"

"I've never heard," she replied.  "I don't think any one knows.
Possibly it is some family secret.  At least, I've always thought so."

"Then you have already endeavoured to find out?"

"Of course.  Curiosity is woman's nature."

"And have you discovered nothing of her birth, or who she is?"

"Nothing whatever.  A month ago I even went so far as to ask Lady
Meldrum."

"And what was her answer?" he inquired eagerly.  "She said that her
parentage was a matter that concerned only Muriel herself.  Indeed, she
seemed quite huffy that I should have dared to broach the subject.  But
you know how sore that kind of person is in regard to certain points."

"Then Lady Meldrum gave no reason why Muriel was her husband's ward?"

"No.  Her reply was a polite negative to all inquiries."

He was silent for a few minutes, leaning against the table and facing
her.

"How did you first become acquainted with this estimable pair, Claudia?
Tell me, for they interest me."

"You mean that Muriel interests you," she laughed mischievously.

"No, I mean that the whole affair appears to me full of mystery."

"I first met Lady Meldrum at a bazaar with which I was connected in aid
of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.  We held a
stall together."

"You had never met her, or known her before?"

"Never.  She was the wife of a Glasgow knight, and quite unknown in
London."

"Was Muriel with her at the bazaar?"

"I did, not see her.  I believe she was away visiting somewhere.  Lady
Meldrum spoke of her, I recollect quite distinctly."

"And it was you who afterwards introduced her in town.  I presume she
owes all her social success to you?"

"Yes, I believe she does," she replied.

"Then I consider it curious that she has never confided in you the
secret of Muriel's birth.  She surely could not expect you to stand
sponsor for a girl of whom you knew nothing?"

"Oh, how absurdly you talk, Dudley!" she laughed airily.  "Whatever is
in your mind?  If Muriel Mortimer amuses you, as apparently she does,
what does her parentage matter?  Sir Henry and her ladyship are
perfectly respectable persons, and even though they may be of somewhat
plebeian origin they don't offend by bad manners.  Can it be that your
thirst for knowledge is due to a vague idea that Muriel might one day be
the _chatelaine_ of this place, eh?"

She looked him full in the face with the dark and brilliant eyes that
had always held him spellbound.  She was a clever woman, and with
feminine intuition knew exactly the power she possessed over the man
whom she loved with a passion so fierce and uncurbed that she had been
led to overstep the conventionalities.

"Muriel Mortimer will never be mistress here," he said in a hard voice,
a trifle annoyed at her final remark.  "You yourself have invited her
here as my guest, and I am bound to be civil, but beyond that--well, I
hope that we shall not meet again after this party breaks up."

"And yet you want to know all about her, with the eagerness of an ardent
lover!" she laughed sarcastically.

"I have reasons--strong ones," he answered firmly.

Again she raised her eyes to his, but rather furtively, as though she
were seeking to discover the reason of this sudden anxiety and was not
quite sure of how much he knew.

"Then if you consider the matter of sufficient importance, why not ask
Lady Meldrum herself?" she suggested.  "To you she may perhaps give a
more satisfactory answer."

"How can I?  Don't be ridiculous, my dear Claudia," said the
Under-Secretary.

"Then if the girl is really nothing to you, let the matter drop," she
urged.  "In what way does her parentage concern either you or me?"

"It does concern me," he answered in a hard tone, his brow clouded by
thought.

"How?"

"For reasons known only to myself," he responded enigmatically.  He was
thinking of the colonel's warning, which had been troubling him ever
since breakfast.  It was the irony of fate that he was now compelled to
entertain the very woman against whom his best friend had uttered the
strange words he recollected so well.  He had broached the matter to
Benthall, but it was evident that the latter was not aware of the
colonel's reasons for denouncing her as an undesirable acquaintance.

A silence had fallen between the pair, but it was at length broken by
Claudia, who said:

"Tell me, Dudley, what is it that is troubling you?"

"Yes," he responded promptly, "I will tell you.  I wish to know the
reason why you invited this family beneath my roof.  You had a motive,
Claudia.  Come now, confess it."

She opened her eyes, startled by his words.

"My dear Dudley," she cried.  "Why, I only invited them because Lady
Meldrum was my friend.  They were extremely kind to me down at
Fernhurst, and I thought that you would be pleased to offer them the
hospitality of the Castle for Christmas.  You had met them at the
Duchess of Penarth's, and both Lady Meldrum and Muriel were never tired
of singing your praises.  They went one night to hear you address the
House, I believe."

"Yes, I know about it.  She told me!" exclaimed the Under-Secretary
petulantly.  "But there's some hidden motive in their actions--of that
I'm absolutely convinced."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

RECOUNTS CURIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES.

Even though the House stood prorogued for yet another ten days,
formidable packets of documents continually reached Dudley Chisholm from
the Foreign Office, sometimes through the post, and at others by special
messenger.  England's relations with the Powers were, as usual, not very
reassuring, hence the Parliamentary Under-Secretary was kept busy, and
every moment he could snatch from his guests was spent in the library
among the heaps of papers with which his table was always littered.
Wrey, his private secretary, was absent on leave, for the holidays, and,
therefore, the whole of the work fell upon him.

Each night, after the men had finished their whiskey and their gossip in
the smoking-room, he would retire to the big, book-lined chamber, and
plunge into the work, often difficult and tedious, which the nation
expected of him.

Usually during the half hour before dinner some of the guests would
assemble in the great, brown, old room to gossip, and the cosy-corner
beside the big wood fire was a favourite resting-place of Muriel's.  She
generally dressed early, and with one or other of the younger men would
sit there and chat until the dinner-bell sounded.  The fine old chamber,
with its overmantel bearing the three water-bougets argent, its lining
of books, and its oaken ceiling was quiet and secluded from the rest of
the house, the ideal refuge of a studious man.

Dudley, having occasion to enter there on the second evening following
his conversation with Claudia, related in the foregoing chapter, found
Sir Henry's ward sitting alone in the cosy-corner, half hidden by the
draperies.  The light from the green-shaded lamp, insufficient to
illuminate the whole place, only revealed the table with its piles of
papers, but upon her face the firelight danced, throwing her countenance
into bold relief.  As she sat there in her pale-blue dress she made a
picture of a most contenting sort.

"What! alone!" he exclaimed pleasantly as he advanced to meet her,
settling his dress-tie with his hand, for he had just come in from a
drive and had slipped into his clothes hurriedly.

"Yes," she laughed, stretching forth her small foot coquettishly upon
the red Turkey rug before the fire.  "You men are so long making your
toilette; and yet you blame us for all our fal-lals."

"Haven't you been out?"

"Yes," she answered; "I went this afternoon into Shrewsbury with Lady
Richard to do some shopping.  What a curious old town it is!  I've never
been there before, and was most interested."

"True it's old-fashioned, and far behind the times, Miss Mortimer," he
said, smiling, as he stood before her, his back to the fire.  "But I
always thought that you did not care for the antique."

"The antique!  Why, I adore it!  This splendid castle of yours is
unique.  I confess to you that I've slipped away and wandered about it
for hours, exploring all sorts of winding stairways and turret-chambers
unknown to any one except the servants.  I had no idea Wroxeter was so
charming.  One can imagine oneself back in the Middle Ages with men in
armour, sentries, knights, lady-loves and all the rest of it."

He laughed lightly, placed his hands behind his back, and looked
straight at her.

"I'm very glad the old place interests you," he replied.  "Fernhurst is
comparatively modern, is it not?"

"Horribly modern as compared with Wroxeter," she said, leaning back and
gazing up at him with her clear blue eyes.  "Sir Henry was sadly imposed
upon when he bought it three years ago--at least, so I believe."

Dudley was at heart rather annoyed at finding her there alone, for a
glance at his littered table caused him to recollect that among those
papers there were several confidential documents which had reached him
that morning, and which he had been in the act of examining when called
to go out driving with two of his guests.  Usually he locked the library
door on such occasions, but with his friends in the house the act of
securing the door of one of the most popular of the apartments was, he
thought, a measure not less grave than a spoken insult.

He was suspicious of the fair-eyed girl.  Although he could not account
for it in the least, the strange suspicion had grown upon him that she
was not what she represented herself to be.  And yet, on the other hand,
neither in actions nor words was she at all obtrusive, but, on the
contrary, extremely popular with every one, including Claudia, who had
herself declared her to be charming.  He wondered whether she had been
amusing herself by prying into the heap of papers spread upon his
blotting-pad, and glanced across at them.  No.  They lay there just in
the same position, secured by the heavy paper-weight under which he had
put them earlier in the afternoon.

And yet, after all, he was a fool to run such risks, he told himself.
To fear to offend the susceptibilities of his guests was all very well,
but with the many confidential documents in his possession he ought in
all conscience to be more careful.

As the evening was biting cold and the keen north-east wind had caught
his face while driving, in the warmth his cheeks were burning hot.
Muriel, practised flirt that she was, believed their redness to be due
to an inward turmoil caused by her presence.  Hence she presumed to
coquet with him, laughing, joking, chaffing in a manner which displayed
her conversational, mobility to perfection.  He, on his part, allowed
her to proceed, eager to divine her motive.

"We go south at the end of January," she said at last, in answer to his
question.  "Sir Henry thinks of taking a villa at Beaulieu this season.
Last year we were in Nice, but found it too crowded and noisy at
Carnival."

"Beaulieu is charming," he said.  "More especially that part known as
_La Petite Afrique_."

"That's where the villa is situated--facing the sea.  One of those four
white villas in the little bay."

"The most charming spot on the whole Riviera.  By the way," he added,
"one of my old friends is already in Cannes, Colonel Murray-Kerr.  Do
you happen to know him?  He was military attach at Vienna, Rome and
Paris until he retired."

A curious expression passed over her countenance as he mentioned the
name.  But it vanished instantly, as, glancing up, she looked at him
with the frank look that was so characteristic.

"No.  I don't think we have ever met.  Murray-Kerr?  No.  The name is
not familiar.  He was in the diplomatic service, you say?"

"Yes, for about fifteen years.  I had hoped he would have been one of
the party here, but he slipped away a week ago, attracted, as usual in
winter, by the charms of Cannes."

"He gambles at Monte Carlo, I suppose?"

"I think not.  He's, nowadays, one of the old fogies of the Junior
United Service, and thinks of nothing but the lustre of his
patent-leather boots and the chance of shooting with friends.  But he's
so well known in town, I felt sure that you must have met him," added
Dudley meaningly.

"One meets so many people," she replied carelessly, "and so many are not
introduced by name, that it is difficult to recollect.  We haven't the
least knowledge of the names of people we've known by sight for months.
And I'm awfully bad at recollecting names.  I always remember faces, but
can't furnish them with names.  The position is often extremely awkward
and ludicrous."

The false note in her explanation did not escape his sensitive hearing.
Her sudden glances of surprise and annoyance when he had mentioned the
colonel's name had roused suspicion in his mind, and he felt convinced
that she was well acquainted with the man who had warned him against her
in such mysterious terms.

"If I remember aright," he said, "the colonel once mentioned you."

"Mentioned me?" she exclaimed with undisguised surprise, and not without
an expression of alarm.  In an instant, however, she recovered her
self-possession.  "Did he say any nice things of me?"

"Of course," he laughed.  "Could he say otherwise?"

"Ah!  I don't know.  He might if he was not acquainted with me."

"Then he is acquainted with you?" exclaimed Dudley quickly.

"No, why--how silly!  I really do not know your friend.  Indeed, I have
never heard of him.  It seems that if what you tell me is correct I have
an unknown admirer."

Dudley smiled.  He was reflecting upon the colonel's warning, and her
replies to his questions made it all the more plain that she was denying
knowledge of a man with whom she was well acquainted.

"Did he say when he had met me?" she asked.

"I don't really recollect.  The conversation took place while several
other persons were talking loudly, and many of his words were lost to
me."

"He discussed my merits before we met at the duchess's, I presume?"

"Yes.  As I had not at that time the honour of your acquaintance, I took
but little heed of the conversation."

She looked at him with a covert glance, and with her fingers turned one
of her rings round and round in a quick, nervous way.  What, she was
wondering, had Colonel Murray-Kerr said about her?  The fact that she
had been discussed by him was to her extremely disconcerting.

"Well," she exclaimed a moment later, with a forced laugh, "as long as
your friend did not speak ill of me, I suppose I ought not to complain
of having my personal points openly discussed!  Most smart women court
the publicity of a smoking-room discussion."

"Yes," he replied in a hard voice, wondering whether her words were
directed against Claudia, "unfortunately they do.  But there are smart
women and smart women.  I trust, Miss Mortimer, that you have no desire
to develop into one of the latter."

"Certainly not," she answered in all earnestness.

Half rising, she put her hand into her dress pocket, ostensibly to
obtain her handkerchief, but in reality to place there a small piece of
paper which she had crushed into her palm and held concealed when Dudley
entered.

Her deft movement as she hid the paper was so swift that it entirely
escaped his notice, while at the same moment Claudia, accompanied by two
of the male guests, came into the library, thus putting an end to their
_tete-a-tete_.

Dudley, still standing before the burning logs, continued chatting to
Sir Henry's ward, but, owing to the arrival of his other guests, it was
no longer possible to keep the conversation in the same channel.

As he sat at dinner he could not prevent his eyes from wandering across
to Muriel and from allowing strange thoughts to flit through his mind.
At what had the colonel hinted in that very room months ago, when he had
warned him to beware of her?  He knew Murray-Kerr to be an easy-going
cosmopolitan, whose acquaintance with diplomatic Europe was perhaps more
extensive than that of any other living man, yet what possible object
could he have had in urging him to be careful when he met that
innocent-looking woman scarcely out of her teens?

Why Claudia had invited a woman who might become her rival in his
affections was another enigma which was puzzling.  There was some
distinct object in this policy, but its real nature he was quite unable
to fathom.

That night there was, as usual, a dance in the old banqueting hall, the
high-roofed chamber that had long ago echoed to the boisterous
merrymaking of those armoured knights whose coats of mail now stood
round, and whose tattered banners hung above.  Until half a century
back, the old stone flooring, worn hollow by the tramp of generations of
retainers, still existed, but Dudley's grandfather had had an oak
flooring placed over it, and it now served as the ballroom, even though
at one end was the enormous hearth, where an ox could be roasted whole,
while the wooden benches, at which the banqueters used to hold revel,
served as seats for those who did not dance.

Few of the guests, however, refrained from the waltzing, so delightful
were the attendant circumstances.  Once during the evening Dudley found
himself taking a turn with Claudia.

"I've wanted to speak to you for nearly an hour past," she whispered to
him, so low that none could overhear.  "Some man, apparently an
undesirable person, has called to see you."

"To see me--at this hour?  Why, it's past midnight!" he exclaimed in
astonishment.

"He will not give any details regarding his business," she went on.  "He
only expressed a desire that none of the guests should be aware of his
presence, and that he might have an interview alone with you."

"A rather curious request at this time of night," her companion
observed.  She noticed that he had turned pale, and that the hand
holding hers perceptibly trembled.  Their glances met, and he saw in her
dark and brilliant eyes the love-look of old that was so unmistakable.
Upon her countenance there was a look of concern, and this he strove at
once to dispel by saying airily:

"I suppose it is some one who wants assistance or something.  Where is
he?"