Chapter II

“_Thus we know not the day, nor the morrow,_
_Nor yet what a night may bring forth,_
_Nor the storm, nor the sleep, nor the sorrow,_
_Nor the strife, nor the rest, nor the wrath._”

In the winter garden of a big hotel in Harrogate the visitors were assembling for tea. One couple sat apart from the rest of the guests; they were the object of many curious and contemptuous glances. The girl was about twenty-seven. She had a weak, worn face, dreamy, gray eyes, and a mass of golden hair. Her companion was a coal-black negro, ostentatiously dressed, who hung over her with an air of possession.

A stir at the far end of the room made her turn to a man near, who was leaning against a pillar watching the assembly in a bored manner.

He was a mulatto of the best type, verging on forty, well but quietly dressed. He stood nearly six feet three in height, but his massive shoulders made him appear less tall than he really was. His was a powerful face, European in feature. The negro taint showed only in the pale brown of his skin, and a peculiar blueness in the whites of his eyes.

“Mr. Lebrassa, I think that’s the post,” she said. “Please go and see if there are any letters for me.”

The request brought his eyes to the couple.

“With pleasure, Miss Seaton,” he replied.

His voice was that of a man of culture; in it was no trace of the stilted, jerky intonation usual with his kind.

Lebrassa passed through the winter garden into a lounge hall beyond, where the letters were being sorted. On making his request he received one addressed to “Miss Molly Seaton”--a letter in a flaming crimson envelope.

The unusual color made him look at it with some curiosity. As he turned it over a name written across the flap caught his eye.

“Leslie Graham.”

On seeing it, he started as if suddenly stung, and from his lips there came a fierce, smothered exclamation of astonishment and triumph.

For a moment he stood with the missive crushed to a red streak in his hand. Then slipping it into his pocket he went back to the winter-garden.

At his return Molly looked up anxiously.

“Is there nothing for me?” she questioned quickly.

“No. Nothing.”

She sighed, and the dreary look on her face deepened.

The mulatto watched her closely.

“You’re disappointed,” he said.

“I was hoping to get a letter from a friend in Paris.”

Presently Lebrassa left the winter garden, and made his way upstairs to his private sitting-room. Once there he locked the door. Seating himself in front of the fire, he opened the scarlet letter.

As he drew out the contents a photograph fell to the floor. This he picked up and glanced at. Then putting the picture on the table by his side he started the letter.

It had a Paris address and ran as follows:

_My Own Darling Molly_,

Things have gone our way at last! I can see your dear eyes opening when you receive this startling epistle, startling as regards color and contents. It is the red letter day of my career, so I speculated in a box of this glowing carmine to celebrate the occasion.

How does £300 a year sound for me, Leslie Graham? At one time living on your bounty, Molly mine. I can’t believe it’s really true, yet provided you come with me the job is mine. It means so much. It means we can always be together now. It means you won’t have to do another day’s work. It means space and color and fresh air and sunshine, all the things you must have and that we’ve always wanted. It really means I’ve got a job as foreign correspondence clerk to a shipping firm in Marseilles.

My gift for languages, the only thing I inherited from my dear old dissipated father, is going to prove as useful to me as it was to him. It found him a job in every corner of the earth, and if it does the same for me we shall get round the world, Molly mine, and your silly old lungs will behave themselves properly in sunny climes.

Now I’ll give you the whole campaign.

When I last wrote I gave you an inkling of it. I stood as good a chance as anyone. I had every qualification they wanted. For two weeks I waited, getting sicker and sicker every day. Messieurs Dupont, Baroche et Cie. made no acknowledgment of my existence. Imagine my surprise and delight when with my coffee and rolls this morning came a letter from the firm, requesting me to present myself at their Paris office at my earliest convenience.

You may be sure I went, tout suite. They examined me in all the required languages and I came off with flying colors. Then they tested my shorthand, bookkeeping and typewriting, and finally had an inquest on my testimonials.

Unfortunately I had one great fault--I was very young.

Then, Molly mine, I told them all about you. That settled it. They were no longer the Inquisition, burning to find some flaw in my composition, qualifications and testimonials, but two really nice, bald-headed, old gentlemen, quite anxious to entrust their foreign correspondence in my keeping provided you are there to vouch for my respectability and keep me anchored to my job.

So, Molly, old thing, in the near future, I hope we shall have a little place all our very own by the sunny Mediterranean. I’m coming to see you on Saturday, and I shall land up at your hotel in time for dinner. So-long.

Always your loving
Leslie.

P.S. Enclosed is a photograph of our little lot, so you will see hard work has not aged me beyond recognition. L.G.

Lebrassa read the letter through a second time. Then he got to his feet and went to Cooper’s room. In shirt sleeves the negro was seated before a mirror, vigorously brushing his wool.

On seeing the mulatto he got to his feet.

“Well, Cooper, have you fixed up with your little white girl yet?” Lebrassa asked.

For a moment the negro stared at his visitor in blank astonishment, as if the question were the last he had expected. Then a look of hungry passion came to his face.

“I wish to God I had,” he answered.

“There should be no difficulty,” Lebrassa said. “She’s a weak, easily-persuaded creature. I’ve a reason for wanting her married to you by next Saturday.”

“But that only gives me three days,” Cooper said in a despondent manner.

“Well, if you don’t make her overlook your color before the week is out, there’ll be very little chance for you. An Englishman is coming here on Saturday whose desire is much the same as yours. I’m going to interview him, and I want to tell him among other things that his proposed fiancée has eloped with a nigger. If he’s anything like his father, the news should prove a trifle disconcerting.”

In wild excitement the negro took a step forward.

“Not de Tourville’s son!” he exclaimed.

“Every circumstance points to it. He bears an alias Lionel de Tourville adopted, and possessed a father as dissipated, moreover a man who had been to most parts of the world.”

“Then vengeance is ours at last!” Cooper yelled.

“Possibly,” Lebrassa answered, coolly. “However, this man’s fate is my concern alone. Yours is to carry out my wishes.”

“What about Nanza?” Cooper asked. “He will want a hand in this.”

At the mention of the name the mulatto’s eyes narrowed.

“Nanza!” he said contemptuously. “What of him?”

With a savage, brooding air, Lebrassa returned to his own quarters.

On entering, the photograph lying on the table took his attention. Again he picked it up. Across the back was written in a small, firm hand:

“Puzzle, find Leslie Graham.”

He glanced at the picture. It was a group of eight young people, five men and three girls.

A girl’s face took his attention. She was hardly more than a child, delicate and refined-looking, who was smiling out at the world in rare good fellowship and kindliness. And it seemed to Lebrassa her smile was directed at _him_!

His glance went from her to the young men. At each in turn he looked, wondering with which he had to deal. Then his gaze came back to the girl’s face and stayed there. Until the dinner gong sounded, he sat looking at it, wondering bitterly if she would smile at him in such a friendly manner if she knew he was a “nigger.”

When the dinner gong went booming through the big hotel, he tore off the rest of the photograph and threw it into the fire. But the small, smiling, friendly face he put carefully into his pocket-book.