Chapter IX: A Dancing Lesson and its Consequences 86 (4)

Dick expostulated, almost to the extent of bluster, but quite in vain; Flint was already shaking hands with the ladies.

"My dear fellow," said he, "I leave these shores to-night; it's my annual holiday. I'm going to forget my peasants for a few weeks in Paris and Italy. If I lose this train I lose to-night's boat--I found out that before I came; so good-bye, my--"

"No, I'm coming to the station," said Dick; "at least I stickle for that last office."

Mrs. Edmonstone hoped that Mr. Flint--her boy's best friend, as she was assured--would see his way to calling on his way home and staying a day or two. Mr. Flint promised; then he and Dick left the house.

They were scarcely in the road before Flint stopped, turned, laid a hand on each of Dick's shoulders, and quickly delivered his mind:

"There's something wrong. I saw it at once. Tell me."

Dick lowered his eyes before his friend's searching gaze.

"Oh, Jack," he answered, sadly, "it is all wrong!"

And before they reached the station Flint knew all that there was to know--an abridged but unvarnished version--of the withering and dying of Dick's high hopes.

They talked softly together until the train steamed into the station; and then it was Dick who at the last moment returned to a matter just touched in passing:

"As to this dance to-night--you say I must go?"

"Of course you must go. It would never do to stay away. For one thing, your friend, the Colonel might be hurt and bothered, and he is now your best friend, mind. Then you must put a plucky face on it; she mustn't see you cave in after the first facer. I half think it isn't all up yet; you can't tell."

Dick shook his head.

"I would rather not go; it will be wormwood to me; you know what it will be: the two together. And I know it's all up. You don't understand women, Jack."

"Do you?" asked the other, keenly.

"She couldn't deny that--that--I can't say it, Jack."

"Ah, but you enraged her first! Anyway, you ought to go to-night for your people's sake. Your sister's looking forward to it tremendously; never been to a ball with you before; she told me so. By Jove! I wished I was going myself."

"I wish you were, instead of me."

"Nonsense! I say, stand clear. Good-bye!"

Away went the train and Jack Flint. And Dick stood alone on the platform--all the more alone because his hand still tingled from the pressure of that honest grip; because cheering tones still rang in his ears, while his heart turned sick, and very lonely.

XI

DRESSING, DANCING, LOOKING ON

The Bristos dined early that evening, and dressed afterwards; but only the Colonel and Miles sat down. Mrs. Parish was far too busy, adding everywhere finishing touches from her own deft hand; while as for Alice, she took tea only, in her room.

When Mr. Miles went up-stairs to dress, the red sunlight still streamed in slanting rays through the open window. His room was large and pleasant, and faced the drive.

Mr. Miles appeared to be in excellent spirits. He whistled softly to himself--one of Alice's songs; a quiet smile lurked about the corners of his mouth; but since his yellow moustache was long and heavy, this smile was more apparent in the expression of the eyes. He moved about very softly for such a heavy man--almost noiselessly, in fact; but this practice was habitual with him.

His dress-clothes were already laid out on the bed; they seemed never to have been worn. His portmanteau, which stood in one corner, also appeared to have seen little service: it would have been hard to find a scratch on the leather, and the glossy surface bore but one porter's label. But, naturally enough, Miles's belongings were new: a fresh outfit from head to heel is no slight temptation to the Australian in London.

The first step towards dressing for a ball is to undress; the first step towards undressing is to empty one's pockets. With Miles this evening this was rather an interesting operation. It necessitated several niceties of manipulation, and occupied some little time. Miles carefully drew down the blinds as a preliminary, and bolted the door.

He then crossed to the mantel-piece, lit the gas, and felt in his breast-pocket.

The first thing to be removed from this pocket was an envelope--an envelope considerably thickened by its contents, which crackled between the fingers. Miles dropped the envelope into the fender after withdrawing the contents. These he smoothed out upon the mantel-piece; he fairly beamed upon them; they were ten Bank of England ten-pound notes. Then he counted them, folded them into small compass, and transferred them to the trousers-pocket of his evening dress. In doing this his smile became so broad that his whistling ended rather abruptly. It was a pleasant smile.

The next incumbrance of which he relieved himself came from that same breast-pocket; but it was less easily placed elsewhere--so much less that the whistling was dropped altogether, and, instead of smiling, Mr. Miles frowned. Nay, a discovery that his dress-coat had no breast-pocket was followed by quite a volley of oaths. Swearing, however, is a common failing of the most estimable bushmen; so that, coming from a man like Miles, the words meant simply nothing. Miles then tried the trousers-pocket which did not contain the bank-notes; but though the article was--of its kind--remarkably small, it was obviously too large for such a pocket, and for the tail-pockets it was too heavy. Mr. Miles looked seriously put out. His face wore just that expression which might be produced by the rupture of a habit or rule of life that has become second nature. In despair and disgust he dropped the thing into his travelling bag, which he was careful to lock at once, and placed the key in the pocket with the notes: the thing was a small revolver.

There followed, from the waistcoat, penknife, pencilcase, watch and chain, and, lastly, something that created a strange and instant change in the expression of Mr. Miles; and this, though it was the veriest trifle, lying in a twisted scrap of printed paper. He spread and smoothed out the paper just as he had done with the notes, and something was displayed on its surface: something--to judge by the greedy gaze that devoured it--of greater value than the bank-notes, and to be parted with less willingly than the revolver. It was a lock of light-coloured hair.

Mr. Miles again unlocked his travelling bag, and took from it a packet of oiled-silk, a pair of scissors, tape, a needle and thread. It is a habit of many travellers to have such things always about them. Miles, for one, was very handy in the use of them, so that in about ten minutes he produced a very neat little bag, shaped like an arc, and hung upon a piece of tape with ends sewn to the ends of the chord. Holding this bag in his left hand, he now took very carefully, between the thumb and finger of his right hand, the lock of light-coloured hair. He let it roll in his palm, he placed his finger tips in the mouth of the little bag, then paused, as if unwilling to let the hair escape his hand, and, as he paused, his face bent down until his beard touched his wrist. Had not the notion been wildly absurd, one who witnessed the action might have expected Mr. Miles to press his lips to the soft tress that nestled in his palm; but, indeed, he did nothing of the kind. He jerked up his head suddenly, slipped the tress into its little case, and began at once to stitch up the opening. As he did this, however, he might have been closing the tomb upon all he loved--his face was so sad. When the thread was secured and broken, he loosed his collar and shirt-band and hung the oiled-silk bag around his neck.

At that moment a clock on the landing, chiming the three-quarters after eight, bade him make haste. There was good reason, it seemed, why he should be downstairs before the guests began to arrive.

In the drawing-room he found Colonel Bristo and Mrs. Parish. In face benevolent rather than strong, there was little in Colonel Bristo to suggest at any time the Crimean hero; he might have been mistaken for a prosperous stockbroker, but for a certain shyness of manner incompatible with the part. To-night, indeed, the military aspect belonged rather to the lady housekeeper; for rustling impatiently in her handsome black silk gown, springing up repeatedly at the sound of imaginary wheels, Mrs. Parish resembled nothing so much as an old war horse scenting battle. She welcomed the entrance of Miles with effusion, but Miles paid her little attention, and as little to his host. He glanced quickly round the room, and bit his lip with vexation; Miss Bristo was as yet invisible. He crossed the hall by a kind of instinct, and looked into the ballroom, and there he found her. She had flitted down that moment.

Her dress was partly like a crystal fall, and partly like its silver spray; it was all creamy satin and tulle. Or so, at least, it seemed to her partners whose knowledge, of course, was not technical. One of them, who did not catch her name on introduction--being a stranger, brought under the wing of a lady with many daughters--described her on his card simply as "elbow sleeves;" and this must have been a young gentleman of observation, since the sleeves--an artful compromise between long and short--were rather a striking feature to those who knew. Others remembered her by her fan; but the callow ones saw nothing but her face, and that haunted them--until the next ball.

Mr. Miles, however, was the favoured man who was granted the first glimpse of this lovely apparition. He also looked only at her face. Was she so very indignant with him? Would she speak to him? Would she refuse him the dances he had set his heart on? If these questions were decided against him he was prepared to humble himself at her feet; but he soon found there was no necessity for that.

For, though Alice was deeply angry with Mr. Miles, she was ten times angrier with herself, and ten times ten with Dick. Her manner was certainly cold, but she seemed to have forgotten the gross liberty Miles had taken in the afternoon; at any rate, she made no allusion to it. She gave him dances--then and there--since he brought her a programme, but in doing so her thoughts were not of Miles. She gave him literal carte blanche, but not to gratify herself or him. There were too few ways open to her to punish the insults she had received that day; but here was one way--unless the object of her thoughts stayed away.

She hurried from the ballroom at the sound of wheels. In a few minutes she was standing at her father's side shaking hands with the people. She seemed jubilant. She had a sunny smile and a word or two for all. She was like a tinkling brook at summer noon. Everyone spoke of her prettiness, and her dress (the ladies whispered of this), and above all, her splendid spirits. She found out, when it was over, that she had shaken hands with the Edmonstones among the rest. She had done so unconsciously, and Dick, like everybody else, had probably received a charming welcome from her lips.

If that was the case he must have taken the greeting for what it was worth, for he seized the first opportunity to escape from Fanny and Maurice, who were bent upon enjoying themselves thoroughly in unsentimental fashion. He saw one or two men whom he had known before he went to Australia, staring hard at him, but he avoided them; he shrank into a corner and called himself a fool for coming.

He wanted to be alone, yet was painfully conscious of the wretched figure cut by a companionless man in a room full of people. If he talked to nobody people would point at him. Thus perhaps: "The man who made a fool of himself about Miss Bristo, don't you know; went to Australia, made his fortune, and all the rest of it, and now she won't look at him, poor dog!" He was growing morbid. He made a pretence of studying the water-colours on the wall, and wished in his soul that he could make himself invisible.

A slight rustle behind him caused him to turn round. His heart rose in his throat; it was Alice.

"You must dance with me," she said coldly; and her voice was the voice of command.

Dick was electrified; he gazed at her without speaking. Then a scornful light waxed in his eyes, and his lips formed themselves into a sneer.

"You can hardly refuse," she continued cuttingly. "I do not wish to be questioned about you; there has been a little too much of that. Therefore, please to give me your arm. They have already begun."

That was so; the room in which they stood was almost empty. Without a word Dick gave her his arm.

The crowd about the doorway of the ballroom made way for them to pass, and a grim conceit which suggested itself to Dick nearly made him laugh aloud.

As they began to waltz Alice looked up at him with flashing eyes.

"If you hate this," she whispered between her teeth, "imagine my feelings!"

He knew that his touch must be like heated irons to her; he wanted her to stop, but she would not let him. As the couples thinned after the first few rounds she seemed the more eager to dance on. One moment, indeed, they had the floor entirely to themselves. Thus everyone in the room had an opportunity of noticing that Alice Bristo had given her first dance to Dick Edmonstone.

The Colonel saw it, and was glad; but he said to himself, "The boy doesn't look happy enough; and as for Alice--that's a strange expression of hers; I'll tell her I don't admire it. Well, well, if they only get their quarrels over first, it's all right, I suppose."

Fanny noted it with delight. The one bar to her complete happiness for the rest of the evening was now removed. The best of dancers herself, she was sought out by the best. To her a ball was a thing of intrinsic delight, in no way connected with sentiment or nonsense.

Mrs. Parish also saw it, but from a very different point of view. She bustled over to Mr. Miles, who was standing near the piano, and asked him confidentially if he had not secured some dances with Alice? He showed her his card, and the old schemer returned triumphant to her niche among the dowagers.

He followed her, and wrote his name on her empty card opposite the first square dance; a subtle man, this Mr. Miles.

At the end of the waltz Miss Bristo thanked her partner coldly, observed below her breath that she should not trouble him again, bowed--and left him.

Dick was done with dancing; he had not wished to dance at all; but this one waltz was more than enough for him--being with her. Love is responsible for strange paradoxes.

He found two men to talk to: men who gloried in dancing, without greater aptitude for the art (for it is one) than elephants shod with lead. Being notorious, these men never got partners, save occasional ladies from remote districts, spending seasons with suburban relatives. These men now greeted Dick more than civilly, though they were accustomed to cut his brother, the bank-clerk, every morning of their lives. They remembered him from his infancy; they heard he had done awfully well abroad, and congratulated him floridly. They were anxious to hear all about Australia. Dick corrected one or two notions entertained by them respecting that country. He assured them that the natives were frequently as white as they were. He informed them, in reply to a question, that lions and tigers did not prowl around people's premises in the majority of Australian towns; nor, indeed, were those animals to be found in the Colonies, except in cages. He set them right on the usual points of elementary geography. He explained the comprehensive meaning of the term, "the bush."

As Dick could at a pinch be fluent--when Australia was the subject--and as his mood to-night was sufficiently bitter, his intelligent questioners shortly sheered off. They left him at least better-informed men. Thereupon Dick returned to the ballroom with some slight access of briskness, and buried himself in a little knot of wall-flowers of both sexes.

A dance had just begun--scarcely necessary to add, a waltz. Every man blessed with a partner hastened to fling his unit and hers into the whirling throng. After a round or two, half the couples would pause, and probably look on for the rest of the time; but it seems to be a point of honour to begin with the music. As Dick stood watching, his sister passed quite close to him; she happened to be dancing with Maurice, her very creditable pupil, but neither of them saw Dick. Close behind them came a pair of even better dancers, who threaded the moving maze without a pause or a jar or a single false step; they steered so faultlessly that a little path seemed always to open before them; human teetotums, obstacles to every one else, seemed mysteriously to melt at the graceful approach of these two. But, in fact, it was impossible to follow any other pair at the same time, so great were the ease, and beauty, and harmony of this pair. They seemed to need no rest; they seemed to yield themselves completely--no, not to each other--but to the sweet influence of the dreamy waltz.

Dick watched the pair whose exquisite dancing attracted so much attention; his face was blank, but the iron was in his soul. The other wallflowers also watched them, and commented in whispers. Dick overheard part of a conversation between a young lady whose hair was red (but elaborately arranged), and a still younger lady with hair (of the same warm tint) hanging in a plait, who was presumably a sister, not yet thoroughly "out." Here is as much of it as he listened to:

"Oh, how beautifully they dance!"

"Nonsense, child! No better than many others."

"Well, of course, I don't know much about it. But I thought they danced better than anyone in the room. Who are they?"

"Don't speak so loud. You know very well that is Miss Bristo herself; the man is--must be--Mr. Edmonstone."

"Are they engaged?"

"Well, I believe they used to be. He went out to Australia because he couldn't afford to marry (his family were left as poor as mice!), but now he has come back with a fortune, and of course it will be on again now. I used to know him--to bow to--when they lived on the river; I never saw anyone so much altered, but still, that must be he."

"Oh, it must! See how sweet they----"

"Hush, child! You will be heard. But you are quite right; didn't you see how----"

That was as much as Dick could stand. He walked away with a pale face and twitching fingers. He escaped into the conservatory, and found a solitary chair in the darkest corner. In three minutes the waltz ended, and the move to the conservatory was so general that for some minutes the double doors were all too narrow. Before Dick could get away, a yellow-haired youth with a pretty partner, less young than himself, invaded the dark corner, and by their pretty arrangement of two chairs effectually blocked Dick's egress. They were somewhat breathless, having evidently outstripped competitors for this nook only after considerable exertion. The yellow-haired youth proceeded to enter into a desperate flirtation--according to his lights--with the pretty girl his senior: that is to say, he breathed hard, sought and received permission to manipulate the lady's fan, wielded it execrably, and uttered commonplaces in tones of ingenuous pathos. The conservatory, the plashing fountain, and the Chinese lantern are indeed the accepted concomitants of this kind of business, to judge by that class of modern drawing-room songs which is its expositor. At length, on being snubbed by the lady (he had hinted that she should cut her remaining partners in his favour), the young gentleman relapsed with many sighs into personal history, which may have been cunningly intended as an attack on her sympathy, but more probably arose from the egotism of eighteen. He inveighed against the barbarous system of superannuation that had removed him from his public school; inquired repeatedly, Wasn't it awfully hard lines? but finally extolled the freedom of his present asylum, a neighbouring Army crammer's, where (he declared) a fellow was treated like a gentleman, not like a baby. He was plainly in the confidential stage.

All this mildly amused Dick, if anything; but presently the victim of an evil system abruptly asked his partner if she knew Miss Bristo very well.

"Not so very well," was the reply; "but why do you ask?"

"Because--between you and me, you know--I don't like her. She doesn't treat a fellow half civilly. You ask for a waltz, and she gives you a square. Now I know she'd waltzes to spare, 'cause I heard her give one----"

"Oh, so she snubbed you, eh?"

"Well, I suppose it does almost amount to that. By the bye, is she engaged to that long chap who's been dancing with her all the evening?"

"I believe she is; but----"

It was a promising "but;" a "but" that would become entre nous with very little pressing.

"But what?"

"It is a strange affair."

"How?"

"Oh, I ought not to say; but of course you would never repeat----"

"Rather not; surely you can trust a fel----"

"Well, then, she used to be engaged--or perhaps it wasn't an absolute engagement--to someone else: he went out to Australia, and made money, and now that he has come back she's thrown him over for this Mr. Miles, who also comes from Australia. I know it for a fact, because Mrs. Parish told mamma as much."

"Poor chap! Who is he?"

"Mr. Edmonstone; one of the Edmonstones who lived in that big house across the river--surely you remember?"

"Oh, ah!"

"I believe he is here to-night--moping somewhere, I suppose."

"Poor chap! Hallo, there's the music! By Jove! I say, this is awful; we shall have to part!"

They went; and Dick rose up with a bitter smile. He would have given much, very much, for the privilege of wringing that young whippersnapper's neck. Yet it was not the boy's fault; some fate pursued him: there was no place for him--no peace for him--but in the open air.

A soft midsummer's night, and an evening breeze that cooled his heated temples with its first sweet breath. Oh, why had he not thought of coming out long ago! He walked up and down the drive, slowly at first, then at speed, as his misery grew upon him, and more times than he could count. The music stopped, began again, and again ceased; it came to him in gusts as he passed close to the front of the conservatory on his beat. At last, when near the house, he fancied he saw a dark motionless figure crouching in the shrubbery that edged the lawn at the eastern angle of the house.

Dick stopped short in his walk until fancy became certainty; then he crept cautiously towards the figure.

XII

"TO-MORROW, AND TO-MORROW, AND TO-MORROW"

Mr. Miles had written his name no fewer than six times on Alice's card. On finding this out Alice had resolved to recognise perhaps half these engagements--in any case, no more than should suit her convenience. After her dance with Dick she found it would suit her admirably to recognise them all.

For Dick had no word of apology or regret; in fact, he did not speak at all. He did not even look sorry; but only hard and cold and bitter. It was not in the power of woman to treat such a man too harshly.

Alice therefore threw herself into these dances with Miles with a zest which brought about one good result: the mere physical effort gradually allayed the fever of her spirit; with the even, rhythmical motion sufficient peace stole into the heart of the girl to subdue the passionate tumult of many hours. To this tranquillity there presently succeeded the animation inseparable from ardent exercise.

While the music lasted Alice could scarcely bring herself to pause; she seemed never to tire. Between the dances she spoke little to her partner, but filled her lungs with new breath, and waited impatiently for the striking of a new note; and when the new note sounded she turned to that partner with eyes that may have meant to fill with gratitude, yet seemed to him to glow with something else.

Once, when he led her from the heated room, she fancied many eyes were upon her. She heard whispers; a murmur scarcely audible; a hum of wonder, of admiration, perhaps of envy. Well, was she not to be admired and envied? Could she not at least compare with the fairest there in looks? Was there one with a foot more light and nimble? And was not this, her partner, the manliest yet most godlike man that ever stooped to grace a ballroom?--and the best dancer into the bargain?--and the most admirable altogether? These questions were asked and answered in one proud upward glance as she swept on his arm through the throng.

"She never looked so well before," exclaimed Mrs. Parish, in an ecstatic aside to Colonel Bristo; "so brilliant, so animated, so happy!"

"I don't agree with you," the Colonel answered shortly; and he added, with strange insight in one usually so unobservant: "Alice is not herself to-night."

That seemed absurd on the face of it. Who that watched her dancing could have admitted it for a moment? Well, last of all, probably her partner.

The music burst forth again. The dancers flocked back to the room, Alice and Mr. Miles among them. It was the sixth dance, and their third together.

Again they were dancing together, the glassy floor seeming to pass beneath their feet without effort of theirs, the music beating like a pulse in the brain. As for Alice, she forgot her partner, she forgot Dick, she forgot the faces that fled before her eyes as she glided, and turned, and skimmed, and circled; she only knew that she was whirling, whirling, and that for awhile her heart was at rest.

Before the dance was fairly over, Miles led his partner into the conservatory, but said to her: "We will go right through into the open air; it will be so much pleasanter." And he did not wait her consent either--which was characteristic.

The smooth lawn leading down to the river was illuminated, and now that it was quite dark it had a very effective appearance, and was a charming resort between the dances. The lawn was bounded on the right by the little inlet which has been mentioned. A rustic bridge crossed this inlet, leading into a meadow, where seven tall poplars, in rigid rank, fronted the river. Without a protest from the girl, Miles led her over the bridge, and across the meadow, and down to the river's brim, under the shadow of the stately poplars. Most likely she did not heed where they were going; at any rate, they had been there often enough together before--in daylight.

It was a heavenly night; the pale blue stars were reflected in the black still mirror of the Thames, the endless song of the weir was the only sound that broke the absolute stillness of the meadow. No voices reached them from the house, no strains of music. As though influenced by the night, the two were silent for some minutes; then Alice said lightly:

"I am glad you brought me out; I was beginning to stifle. What a lovely night! But I thought there would be a moon. When is there a moon, Mr. Miles?"

No answer but a deep breath, that was half a groan Alice thought. Perhaps she was mistaken. She could not see his face, unless she moved away from him, he was so tall. She repeated the question:

"I want to know when there will be a moon. It would be so delicious now, if it shot up right over there, to be reflected right down there--but why don't you speak, Mr. Miles?"

Still no answer. She drew back a step. He was standing like a monument, tall and rigid, with his hands clasped tightly in front of him and his face turned slightly upward. He seemed unconscious of her presence at his side. Something in his motionless attitude, and the ghastly pallor of his face in the starlight, sent a thrill of vague fear to the heart of Alice. She drew yet a little farther from him, and asked timidly if anything was the matter.

Slowly he turned and faced her. His head drooped, his shoulders sank forward. She could see little beads glistening on his forehead. His hands loosed each other, and his arms were lifted towards her, only to be snatched back, and folded with a thud upon the breast. There they seemed to sink and fall like logs upon a swollen sea.

"Matter?" he cried in a low, tremulous voice; then, pausing, "nothing is the matter!" Then in a whisper, "Nothing to tell you--now."

A strange coldness overcame Alice--the sense of an injury wrought in her carelessness on the man before her. She tried to speak to him, but could find no words. With a single glance of pity, she turned and fled to the house. He did not follow her.

So Mrs. Parish had been right, after all; and she, Alice--a dozen names occurred to her which she had heard fastened upon women who sport with men's hearts to while away an idle month.

She reached the conservatory, but paused on the stone steps, with a hand lightly laid on the iron balustrade--for the floor-level was some feet above that of the garden-path. The music was in full swing once more, but Alice's attention was directed to another sound--even, rapid, restless footsteps on the drive. She peered in that direction; for it was possible, from her position on these steps, to see both the river to the left and the lodge-gates far off on the right--in daylight. She had not long to wait. A figure crossed quickly before her, coming from the front of the house: a man--by his dress, one of the guests--and bare-headed. When he first appeared, his back was half-turned to her; as he followed the bend of the drive she saw nothing but his back! then she lost sight of him in the darkness and the shadows of the drive. Presently she heard his steps returning; he was perambulating a beat. Not to be seen by him as he neared the house, Alice softly opened the door and entered the conservatory. It was at that moment quite deserted. She moved noiselessly to the southern angle, hid herself among the plants, and peered through the glass. It was very dark in this corner, and the foliage so thick that there was small chance of her being seen from without. The solitary figure passed below her, on the other side of the glass; it was Dick: she had been sure of it.

She watched him cross and recross twice--thrice; then she trembled violently, and the next time she could not see him distinctly, because tears--tears of pity--had started to her eyes. If a face--haggard, drawn, white as death, hopeless as the grave--if such a face is a sight for tears, then no wonder Alice wept. Was it possible that this was he who landed in England less than a month ago--so gay, so successful, so boyish? He looked years older. The eager light had gone out of his eyes. His step, so buoyant then, was heavy now, though swift with the fever of unrest. He bent forward as he walked, as though under a burden: a month ago he had borne no burden. Was this the man she had loved so wildly long ago--this wreck? Was this the result of trying to rule her heart by her head? Was this, then, her handiwork?

Her cup to-night was to be filled to overflowing. Even now her heart had gone out in pity to another whom also she had wronged--in pity, but not in love. For here, at last--at this moment--she could see before her but one: the man who had loved her so long and so well; the man who had once held her perfect sun of love--Heaven help her, who held it still!

A faintness overcame this frail girl. Her frame shook with sobs. She could not see. She leant heavily against the framework of the glass. She must have fallen, but a gentle hand at that moment was thrust under her arm.

"Oh, fancy finding you here! Your father sent me--" the pleasant voice broke off suddenly, and Alice felt herself caught in strong and tender arms. She looked up and saw Dick's sister. Her poor beating heart gave one bound, and then her head sank on Fanny's shoulder.

Presently she was able to whisper:

"Take me up-stairs; I am ill. It has been a terrible day for me!"

* * * * *

Mr. Miles still stood by the river, erect, motionless; his powerful hands joined in front of him in an iron knot, his fine head thrown slightly backward, as though in defiance. At first the thoughts in his mind were vague. Then, very slowly, they began to take shape. A little later his expression was soft and full of hope, and his lips kept repeating inaudibly one word: the word "to-morrow."

Then in a moment his mind was chaos.

There is nothing more confusing to the brain than memory. Often there is nothing so agonising and unsparing in its torture, when memory preys upon the present, consuming all its peace and promise like some foul vampire. Miles was now in the clutch of memory in its form of monster. His teeth were clenched, his face livid, the veins on his forehead standing out like the spreading roots of an oak. Spots of blood stood under the nails of his clenched fingers.

The stars blinked high overhead, and the stars deep down in the tranquil water answered them. The voice of the weir seemed nearer and louder. A gentle breeze stirred the line of poplars by the river's brink in the meadow, and fanned the temples of the motionless man at their feet. A bat passed close over him, lightly touching his hair with its wing. Miles did not stir.

Slowly--as it were, limb by limb--he was freeing himself from the grip of the hideous past. At last, with a sudden gesture, he flung back his head, and his eyes gazed upward to the zenith. It was an awful gaze: a vision of honour and happiness beyond a narrow neck of crime--a glimpse of heaven across the gulf of hell.

His tongue articulated the word that had trembled on his lips before: now it embodied a fixed resolve--"To-morrow! to-morrow!"

* * * * *

Mr. Miles became suddenly aware that his name was being spoken somewhere in the distance by a voice he knew--young Edmonstone's. A moment later the speaker was with him, and had added:

"There is someone who wants to speak to you, standing outside the gate."

There was a gleam of triumph in the younger man's eyes that shot out from the misery of his face like lightning from a cloud, throwing that misery into stronger relief. Miles noted this swift gleam, and it struck terror into his heart--at this moment, more than terror. He was as a general who, on the eve of the brilliant stroke that is to leave him conqueror, hears the alarm sounded in his own rearguard. He stared Dick up and down for some moments. When he spoke, it was--to the ear--with perfect coolness:

"Thanks. I half-expected something of the kind; but it is an infernal nuisance to-night. I must get a coat and hat, for I may have to go up to town at once." And he strode away.

Dick watched him out of sight, admiring more than anything he had seen in this man his readiness and resource at this moment. He would have liked to follow Miles, and keep him within reach or sight; but those were not his directions. Instead, he crossed the bridge, at once bore to the left, and crept into the shrubbery. Keeping close to the wall, without stirring a single leaf, he gained a spot within ten paces of the gate, whence he could command most of the drive and a fair slice of the road. In a minute Miles approached at a swinging walk. He passed close to Dick, and so through the gate. At that moment a man emerged from the shadows at the other side of the road; it was the man Dick had discovered in the shrubbery, though he had seen him before--in the Settler's Hut!

The two men were now but a few paces apart; with little more than a yard between them, they stopped. A low chuckle escaped one of them; but without another sound they turned--passed slowly down the road, side by side, and so out of sight.

Dick gasped: it was so very unlike his preconceived notions of arrest!

XIII

IN BUSHEY PARK

"So boss, you know me?"

"I have not forgotten you, you scoundrel!"

Such was the interchange of greetings between the man from the Exhibition and Mr. Miles, the Australian. They had halted at a lamp-post some distance down the road, and stood facing each other in the gaslight.

"That's right. I'm glad you don't forget old mates," said the stout, round-shouldered man. "That's one good thing, anyway; but it's a bad'un to go calling them names first set-off, especially when----"

"Look here," interrupted Miles, with an admirable imitation of his ordinary tone; "I haven't much time to give you, my man. How the deuce did you get here? And what the deuce do you want with me?"

"Oh, so you're in a hurry, are you?" sneered the man. "And you want to get back to the music, and the wine, and the women, do you?"

"Listen!" said Miles smoothly; "do you hear that step in the distance? It's coming nearer; it's the policeman, for certain; and if you don't get your business stated and done with before he reaches us, I'll give you in charge. Nothing simpler: I know the men on this beat, and they know me."

"Not so well as I do, I reckon!" returned the other dryly, and with the quiet insolence of confident security. "And so you're the fine gentleman now, are you?"

"If you like--and for all you can prove to the contrary."

"The Australian gentleman on a trip home, eh? Good; very good! And your name is Miles!"

"It's worth your neck to make it anything else?"

The other thrust forward his face, and the beady eyes glittered with a malignant fire. "You don't lose much time about coming to threats, mate," he snarled. "P'r'aps it'ud be better if you waited a bit; p'r'aps I'm harder to funk than you think! Because I dare prove to the contrary, and I dare give you your right name. Have you forgotten it? Then I'll remind you; and your friend the bobby shall hear too, now he's come so close. How's this, then?--Edward Ryan, otherwise Ned the Ranger; otherwise--and known all over the world, this is--otherwise--"

Miles stopped him with a rapid, fierce gesture, at the same time quietly sliding his left hand within his overcoat. He felt for his revolver. It was not there. He recalled the circumstance which had compelled him to lay it aside. It seemed like Fate: for months that weapon had never been beyond the reach of his hand; now, for the first time, he required it, and was crippled for want of it. He recovered his composure in a moment, but not before his discomfiture had been noticed, and its cause shrewdly guessed. Laying a heavy hand on the other's broad, rounded shoulder, he said simply and impressively:

"Hush!"

"Then let's move on."

"Where?"

"Where we can talk."

The man pointed across the road to a broad opening directly opposite the lamp-post. It was the beginning of another road; the spot where they stood was indeed the junction of the cross and down-stroke of a capital letter T, of which the cross was the road that ran parallel with the river.

"Very well," said Miles, with suspicious alacrity; "but I must go back first to make some excuse, or they will be sending after me."

"Then, while you are gone, I shall confide in your friend the policeman."

Miles uttered a curse, and led the way across the road and straight on. There were no lamps in the road they entered now--no houses, no lights of any kind--but on the right a tall hedge, and on the left trim posts and rails, with fields beyond. They walked on for some minutes in silence, which was at length broken by Miles's unwelcome visitor.

"It's no sort o' use you being in a hurry," said he. "I've found you out; why not make the best of it?"

"What am I to do for you?" asked Miles, as smoothly as though the man by his side were an ordinary highway beggar.

"You'll see in good time. Sorry I've put you to inconvenience, but if you weren't passing for what you ain't you wouldn't feel it so; so you see, Ned Ryan, playing the gent has its drawbacks. Now, after me having crossed the whole blessed world to speak to you, it would be roughish if you refused me your best ear; now wouldn't it?"

"You have just landed, then?" said Miles; and added, after a pause, "I hoped you were dead."

"Thanks," returned the other, in the tone of coarse irony that he had employed from the beginning. "Being one as returns good for evil, I don't mind saying I was never so glad as when I clapped eyes on you yesterday--alive and safe."

"Yesterday! Where?"

"Never mind where. But I ain't just landed--Oh, no!"

Suddenly Miles stopped short in his walk. They had entered again the region of lights and houses; the road was no longer dark and lonely; it had intersected the highroad that leads to Kingston, and afterwards bent in curves to the right; now its left boundary was the white picket-fence of the railway, and, a hundred yards beyond, a cluster of bright lights indicated Teddington station.

"Not a step further," said Miles.

"What! not to the station? How can we talk--"

"You are a greater fool than I took you for," said Miles scornfully.

"Yes? Well, anyway, I mean to say what I've got to say, wherever it is," was the dogged reply. "If you came to town to my lodging, not a soul could disturb us. We can't talk here."

Miles hesitated.

"There is a place, five minutes' walk from here, that I would trust before any room," he said presently. "Only be reasonable, my good fellow, and I'll hear what you have to say there."

The man turned his head and glanced sharply in the direction whence they had come. Then he assented.

Miles led the way over the wooden footbridge that spans the line a little way above the station. In three minutes they walked in the shadow of great trees. The high wall in front of them bent inwards, opening a wide mouth. Here were iron gates and lamps; and beyond, black forms and deep shadows, and the silence of sleeping trees. Without a word they passed through the gates into Bushey Park.

Miles chose the left side of the avenue, and led on under the spreading branches of the horse-chestnuts. Perhaps a furlong from the gates he stopped short, and confronted his companion.

"Here I will settle with you," he said, sternly. "Tell me what you want; or first, if you like, how you found me. For the last thing I remember of you, Jem Pound, is that I sacked you from our little concern--for murder."

The man took a short step forward, and hissed back his retort:

"And the last thing I heard of you--was your sticking up the Mount Clarence bank, and taking five hundred ounces of gold! You were taken; but escaped the same night--with the swag. That's the last I heard of you--Ned Ryan--Ned the Ranger--Sundown!"

"I can hang you for that murder," pursued Miles, as though he had not heard a word of this retort.

"Not without dragging yourself in after me, for life; which you'd find the worse half of the bargain! Now listen, Ned Ryan; I'll be plain with you. I can, and mean to, bleed you for that gold--for my fair share of it."

"And this is what you want with me?" asked Miles, in a tone so low and yet so fierce that the confidence of Jem Pound was for an instant shaken.

"I want money; I'm desperate--starving!" he answered, his tone sinking for once into a whine.

"Starvation doesn't carry a man half round the world."

"I was helped," said Pound darkly.

"Who helped you?"

"All in good time, Sundown, old mate! Come, show me the colour of it first."

Miles spread out his arms with a gesture that was candour itself.

"I have none to give you. I am cleaned out myself."

"That's a lie!" cried Pound, with a savage oath.

Miles answered with cool contempt:

"Do you think a man clears out with five hundred ounces in his pockets? Do you think he could carry it ten miles, let alone two hundred?"

Jem Pound looked hard at the man who had been his captain in a life of crime. A trace of the old admiration and crude respect for a brilliant fearless leader, succeeded though this had been by years of bitter hatred, crept into his voice as he replied:

"You could! No one else! No other man could have escaped at all as you did. I don't know the thing you couldn't do!"

"Fool!" muttered Miles, half to himself.

"That's fool number two," answered Pound angrily. "Well, maybe I am one, maybe I'm not; anyhow I've done what a dozen traps have tried and failed, and I'll go on failing--until I help them: I've run you to earth, Ned Ryan!"

"Ah! Well, tell me how."

"No, I heard a footstep just then; people are about."

"A chance passer," said Miles.

"You should have come with me. Walls are safe if you whisper; here there are no walls."

"You are right. We have stuck to the most public part, though; follow me through here."

They had been standing between two noble trees of the main avenue. This avenue, as all the world knows, is composed of nothing but horse chestnuts; but behind the front rank on either side are four lines of limes, forming to right and left of the great artery four minor parallel channels. Miles and his companion, turning inwards, crossed the soft sward of the minor avenues, and emerged on the more or less broken ground that expands southward to Hampton Wick. This tract is patched in places with low bracken, and dotted in others with young trees. It is streaked with converging paths--some worn by the heavy tread of men, others by the light feet of the deer, but all soft and grassy, and no more conspicuous than the delicate veins of a woman's hand.

They left the trees behind, and strode on heedlessly into the darkness. Their shins split the dew from the ferns; startled fawns rose in front of them and scampered swiftly out of sight, a momentary patch of grey upon the purple night.

"This will suit you," said Miles, still striding aimlessly on. "It is a good deal safer than houses here. Now for your story."

He was careful as they walked to keep a few inches in the rear of Pound, who, for his part, never let his right hand stray from a certain sheath that hung from the belt under his coat: the two men had preserved these counter-precautions from the moment they quitted the lighted roads.

"It is soon told, though it makes me sweat to think of it--all but the end, and that was so mighty neat the rest's of no account," Pound began, with a low laugh. "Well, you turned me adrift, and I lived like a hunted dingo for very near a year. If I'd dared to risk it, I'd have blabbed on you quick enough; but there was no bait about Queen's evidence, and I daren't let on a word else--you may thank the devil for that, not me! Well, I had no money, but I got some work at the stations, though in such mortal terror that I daren't stay long in one place, until at last I got a shepherd's billet, with a hut where no one saw me from week's end to week's end. There I was safe, but in hell! I daren't lay down o' nights; when I did I couldn't sleep. I looked out o' the door twenty times a night to see if they were coming for me. I saw frightful things, and heard hellish sounds; I got the horrors without a drop o' liquor! You did all this, Ned Ryan--you did it all!"

Inflamed by the memory of his torments, Pound raised his voice in rage and hate that a single day had exalted from impotency to might. But rage red-hot only aggravates the composure of a cool antagonist, and the reply was cold as death:

"Blame yourself. If you had kept clean hands, you might have stuck to us to the end; as it was, you would have swung the lot of us in another month. No man can accuse me of spilling blood--nor poor Hickey either, for that matter; but you--I could dangle you to-morrow! Remember that, Jem Pound; and go on."

"I'll remember a bit more--you'll see!" returned Pound with a stifled gasp. He was silent for the next minute; then added in the tone of one who bides his time to laugh last and loudest: "Go on? Right! Well, then, after a long time I showed my nose in a town, and no harm came of it."

"What town?"

"Townsville."

"Why Townsville?" Miles asked quickly.

"Your good lady was there; I knew she would give me--well, call it assistance."

"That was clever of you," said Miles after a moment's silence, but his calm utterance was less natural than before.

"I wanted a ship," Pound continued; "and could have got one too, through being at sea before at odd times, if I'd dared loaf about the quay by day. Well, one dark night I was casting my eyes over the Torres Straits mail boat, when a big man rushed by me and crept on board like a cat. I knew it was you that moment; I'd heard of your escape. You'd your swag with you; the gold was in it--I knew it! What's the use of shaking your head? Of course it was. Well, first I pushed forward to speak to you, then I drew back. Why? Because just then you'd have thought no more of knocking me on the head and watching me drown before your eyes than I'd think of----"

"Committing another murder! By heaven, I wish I had had the chance!" muttered Miles.

"Then, if I'd started the hue and cry, it would have meant killing the golden goose--and most likely me with it. I thought of something better: I saw you drop down into the hold--there was too much risk in showing your money for a passage or trying for a fo'c'stle berth; the boat was to sail at daylight. I rushed to your wife and told her; but her cottage was three miles out of the town, worse luck to it! and when I got her to the quay, you were under way and nearly out of sight--half-an-hour late in sailing, and you'd have had a friend among the passengers!"

"And what then?"

"Why, then your wife was mad! I soothed her: she told me that she had some money, and I told her if she gave me some of it I might still catch you for her. I showed her how the mail from Sydney, by changing at Brindisi, would land one in England before the Queensland boat. I knew it was an off-chance whether you ever meant to reach England at all, or whether you'd succeed if you tried; but," said Pound, lowering his voice unaccountably, "I was keen to be quit of the country myself. Here was my chance, and I took it; your wife shelled out, and I lost no time."