Chapter V: Part 5

Coming towards us down the aisle was a tall gaunt man, whose piercing eyes gleamed triumphantly from under his bushy eyebrows. He stopped as he reached us, and held out a hand to each. And so for a moment we stood in silence.... Then he spoke:

"The line is unbroken, old friends--the line is unbroken."

Without another word he was gone.

_*VII -- The Real Test*_

*I*

"It depends entirely," remarked the Great Doctor, twirling an empty wine-glass in his long, sensitive fingers, "what you mean by fear. The common interpretation of the word--the method which I think you would use to portray it on the stage"--he turned to the Celebrated Actor, who was helping himself to a cigarette from a silver box on the table in front of him--"would show a nervous shrinking from doing a thing: a positive distaste to it--a probable refusal, finally, to carry out the action. And rightly or wrongly--but very naturally--that emotion is the object of universal scorn. But----" and the Great Doctor paused thoughtfully--"is there no more in fear than that?"

The Well-known Soldier drained his port. "It would be a platitude to remark," he said, "that the successful overcoming of fear is the highest form of bravery."

"That if, for instance, our young friend had overcome his fear this afternoon," said the Rising Barrister, "and had jumped in after that horrible little dog, it would have been an act of the highest bravery."

"Or the most stupid bravado," supplemented the Celebrated Actor.

"Precisely my point," exclaimed the Great Doctor. "What is the dividing line between bravado and bravery?"

The Well-known Soldier looked thoughtful. "The man," he said at length, "who exposes himself to being killed or wounded when there is no necessity, with probably--at the bottom of his mind--a desire to show off, is guilty of culpable bravado. The man who, when his battalion is faltering, exposes himself to certain death to hold them is brave."

"Two extreme cases," answered the Doctor. "Narrow it down, General. What is the dividing line?"

"I suppose," murmured the Soldier, "when the results justify the sacrifice. No man has a right to throw his life away uselessly."

"In those circumstances," said the Rising Barrister, "there can be no fixed dividing line. Every man must decide for himself; and what is bravery to you, might be bravado in me."

The Doctor nodded. "Undoubtedly," he agreed. "And with a thoughtful man that decision may be very difficult. For the fraction of a second he will hesitate--weigh up the pros and cons; and even if he decides to do it finally, it may then be too late."

"Only a fool would have gone in after that dog," said the Actor, dogmatically.

"Women love fools," answered the Barrister, _a propos_ of nothing in particular; and the Celebrated Actor snorted contemptuously.

"Which is why the man who is reputed to know no fear is so universally popular," said the Soldier. "If such a man exists, he is most certainly a fool."

The door opened and their hostess put her head into the room. "You men have got to come and dance," she cried. "There's no good looking at one another and hoping for bridge: you can have that afterwards."

The strains of a gramophone came faintly from the drawing-room as they rose dutifully.

"I cannot perpetrate these new atrocities, dear lady," remarked the Soldier, "but if anybody would like to have a barn dance, I shall be happy to do my best."

"Sybil shall take you in hand, Sir John," she answered, leading the way across the hall. "By the way, young Captain Seymour, the V.C. flying-man, has come up. Such a nice boy--so modest and unassuming."

As they entered the room a fresh one-step had just started, and for a while they stood watching. The two sons of the house, just home from Eton, were performing vigorously with two pretty girls from a neighbouring place; while Sybil, their sister, who was to take the General in hand, floated past in the arms of a keen-eyed, bronzed young man who had won the V.C. for a flying exploit that read like a fairy-tale. The other two couples were girls dancing together; while, seated on a sofa, knitting placidly, were two elderly ladies.

"And where, Lady Vera," murmured the Actor to his hostess, "is our young friend Peter?"

She frowned almost imperceptibly and looked away. "He disappeared after he left the dining-room," she remarked, shortly. "I suppose, in view of what occurred this afternoon, he prefers to be by himself."

The Actor ran a delicate hand through his magnificent grey hair--it was a gesture for which he was famous--and regarded his hostess in surprise. "Even you, Lady Vera!" he remarked pensively. "I can understand these young girls blaming the boy; but for you--a woman of sense----" He shrugged his shoulders--another world-famed movement, feebly imitated by lesser lights.

"I don't think we will discuss the matter, Mr. Peering," she said, turning away a little abruptly.

It had been a somewhat unpleasant incident at the time, and the unpleasantness was still apparently far from over. Madge Saunderson, one of the girls stopping in the house, had been the owner of a small dog of rat-like appearance and propensities, to which she had been devoted. She shared this devotion with no one, the animal being of the type that secretes itself under chairs and nips the ankle of the next person who unsuspectingly sits down. However, _De mortuis_ ... And since its violent death that afternoon, Toots--which was the animal's name--had been invested with a halo. Its atrocious habits were forgotten: it lived in everyone's memory as poor little Toots.

It was over its death that Peter Benton had made himself unpopular. Not far from the house there was a disused mill, past which, at certain times of the year, the water poured in a black, evil-looking torrent, emerging below into a deep pond cupped out in the rocks. For a hundred yards before the stream came to the old mill-wheel the slope of the ground affected it to such an extent that, if much rain had fallen in the hills above, the current was dangerous. The water swirled along, its smoothness broken only by an occasional eddy, till with ever-increasing speed it dropped sheer into the pond, twenty feet below. Occasionally battered things were found floating in that pond--stray animals which had got caught in the stream above; and twice since the mill had closed down twenty years ago a child had been discovered, bruised and dead, in the placid pool below the wheel. But, then, these had been small animals and children--quite unable to keep their feet. Whereas Peter Benton was a man, and tall at that.

Into this stream, flooded more than usual with the recent rain, had fallen poor little Toots. Being completely blind in both eyes, it had serenely waddled over the edge of the small hand-bridge which spanned the water, and had departed, struggling feebly, towards the mill-wheel seventy yards away. At the moment of the catastrophe Peter Benton and Madge Saunderson were standing on the bridge, and her scream of horror rang out simultaneously with the splash.

The man, seeing in an instant what had happened, raced along the bank, and overtook the dog when it had gone about half-way, at the point where the current quickened and seemed to leap ahead. And then had occurred the dreadful thing.

According to the girl, afterwards, he just stood there and watched Toots dashed to pieces. According to the man--but, incidentally, he said nothing, which proved his cowardice, as the girl remarked. He had nothing to say. Instead of going into the water and seizing the dog, he had stood on the bank and let it drown. And he had no excuse. Of course, there would have been a certain element of risk; but no man who was a man would have thought of that. Not with poor little Toots drowning before his eyes.

And his remark at the moment when she had rushed up to him, almost hysterical with grief, showed him to be--well, perhaps it would be as well not to say what she thought. Madge Saunderson had paused in her narrative at tea and consumed a sugar cake.

"What _did_ he say, Madge?" asked Sybil Lethbridge.

"He said," remarked Miss Saunderson, "'Sorry. No bon, as they say. It really wasn't worth it--not for Toots.' Can you beat it?" she stormed. "'Not for Toots!' Poor little heart--drowning before that brute's eyes."

"Of course," said Sybil, thoughtfully, "the mill-stream is very dangerous."

"My dear Sybil," answered Madge Saunderson, coldly, "if you're going to take that point of view I have nothing more to say. But I'd like to know what you'd have said if it had been Ruffles."

The terrier in question regarded the speaker with an expectant eye, in which thoughts of cake shone brightly.

"What happened then?" asked one of the audience.

"We walked in silence down to the pool below," continued Madge. "And there--we found him--my little Toots. He floated to the side, and Mr. Benton was actually daring enough to stoop down and pull him out of the water. It was then that he added insult to injury," she went on, in a voice of suppressed fury. "'Rotten luck, Miss Saunderson,' he said; 'but in a way it's rather a happy release for the poor little brute, isn't it? I'm afraid only your kind heart prevented him being put away years ago.'"

A silence had settled on the room, a silence which was broken at length by Sybil.

"He _was_ very old, wasn't he?" she murmured. Madge Saunderson's eyes flashed ominously. "Eighteen," she said. "And I quite fail to see that that's any excuse. You wouldn't let an old man of ninety drown, would you--just because he was old? And Toots was quite as human as any old man, and far less trouble."

Such had been the official _communique_, issued to a feminine gathering at tea-time; in due course it travelled to the rest of the house-party. And, as is the way with such stories, it had not lost in the telling.

Daisy Johnson, for instance, had retailed it with some gusto to the Rising Barrister.

"What a pity about Mr. Benton, isn't it?" she had murmured before dinner, moving a little so that the pink light from a lamp fell on her face. Pink, she reflected, was undoubtedly the colour she would have for all the shades when she had a house.

The Rising Barrister regarded her casually. "What is a pity?" he asked.

"Haven't you heard?" she cried. "Why, this afternoon poor little Toots--Madge Saunderson's dog--fell into the mill-stream."

"Thank God!" ejaculated the Barrister, brutally.

"Oh, I know he wasn't an attractive dog!" she said.

"Attractive!" he interrupted. "Why, the little beast's snorts reverberated through the house!"

"But still," she continued, firmly, "I don't think Mr. Benton should have let it drown before his eyes without raising a finger to save it. He stood stock-still on the bank--hesitating; and then it was too late. Of course, I suppose it was a little dangerous." She shrugged a delightful pair of shoulders gracefully. "I don't think most men would have hesitated." She glanced at the Rising Barrister as she spoke, and if he failed to alter the "most men" to his own advantage the fault was certainly not hers. It struck him suddenly that pink gave a most attractive lighting effect.

"Er--perhaps not," he murmured. "Still, I expect he was quite right, you know. One--er--should be very careful what one says in cases of this sort."

Which was why a few minutes later he retailed the story to the Celebrated Actor, over a sherry-and-bitters.

"The faintest tinge of the yellow streak," he said, confidentially. "There was something or other in France--I don't exactly recall it at this moment. I know I heard something."

But the Celebrated Actor flatly refused to agree. "I don't know anything about France," he said, firmly. "I know a lot about that dog. If a suitable occasion arises, I shall publicly propose a vote of thanks to young Benton. Would you believe me, sir, only yesterday, when outlining my part in my new play to Lady Vera and one or two others, the little brute bit me in the ankle! True, I had inadvertently trodden on it, but----" He waved a careless hand, as if dismissing such a trifling cause.

From all of which it will be seen what the general feeling in the house was towards Peter Benton on the night in question. And Peter, a very discerning young man, was not slow to realize it. At first it had amused him; after a while he had become annoyed. More or less a stranger in the locality, he had not known the depth of the mill-stream; and he frankly admitted to himself that he had hesitated to go into that black, swirling water, not a stone's throw from the mill itself, in order to save a dog. He had hesitated, and in a second it had been too late. The dog had flashed past him, and he had watched it disappear over the fall by the wheel. It was only later that to him the additional reason of the dog's extreme age and general ill-health presented itself. And the additional reason had not added to his popularity with the animal's mistress.

He quite saw her point of view: he was annoyed because no one apparently saw his. And he was far too proud to attempt any explanation--apart from seeing the futility of it. He could imagine the cold answer--"Doubtless you were perfectly right. Poor little Toots is dead now. Shall we consider the incident closed?"

Savagely he kicked the turf on the lawn outside the window where they were dancing. For three in succession Sybil had had Captain Seymour as her partner, and Peter had hoped----

"Oh, hang that horrible little dog!" he muttered to himself, striding viciously away into the garden.

A brilliant moon was shining, flooding the country with a cold white light, in which things stood out almost as clearly as by day. Half a mile away an unfinished factory chimney, still with its scaffolding round it, rose sheer and black against the sky. Around it new works were being erected, and for a while Peter stood motionless, gazing at the thin column of bricks and mortar.

Only that morning he had watched men at work on it, with almost a shudder. They looked like so many flies crawling over the flimsy boards, and he had waited while one workman had peered nonchalantly over the edge of his plank and indulged in a wordy warfare with the man below. It seemed that unless the latter mended his ways he would shortly receive a brick on his blinking nut; but it was the complete disregard for their dizzy height that had fascinated Peter. He could imagine few professions which he would less sooner join than that of steeplejack. And yet the funny thing was that on the occasions when he had flown he had not noticed any discomfort at all.

Presumably there was some scientific reason for it--something which would account for the fact that, though he could fly at twenty times the height of St. Paul's without feeling giddy, on the occasion when he had looked over the edge of that great dome from the little platform at the top he had been overcome with a sort of dreadful nausea and had had to go back quickly.

"Why, Peter, what are you doing here all alone?" A voice behind him made him look round.

For a moment the dog episode had gone out of his mind, and, with a quick smile, he took a step towards the speaker. "Why, Sybil," he said, "how topping you look! Isn't it a glorious night?" And then suddenly he remembered, and stopped with a frown.

"Peter," said the girl, quietly, "I want to hear about this afternoon from you, please."

"Haven't you heard all there is to be heard?" he answered, a little bitterly. "Miss Saunderson's dog fell into the mill-stream. I failed to pull it out: to be strictly accurate, I failed to attempt to pull it out. That's all there is to it."

They faced one another in the moonlight, and after a while the girl spoke again. "That's not like you. Peter. Why did you let it drown?"

"Because," said the man, deliberately, "I did not consider I was called on to risk my life to save a dog. Even poor little Toots," he added, cynically.

"Supposing it had been a child, Peter?" said the girl, gravely.

"My God!" answered the man, very low. "As bad as that, is it? Oh, my God!"

"They're saying things, Peter: all these people are saying things."

The man thrust his hands into his pockets, and stared with brooding eyes at the black, lifeless chimney.

"Saying I'm a coward, are they?" He forced the words out. "What do you think, Sybil?"

The girl bit her lip, and suddenly put her hand on his arm. "Oh, Peter," she whispered, "it wasn't like you--not a bit!"

"You think," he said, dispassionately, "that I should have been justified--more, that I ought to have jumped into the mill-stream in flood to save that dog?"

But the girl made no answer: she only looked miserably at the man's averted face.

"I don't know," she said at length. "I don't know. It's so--so difficult to know what to say."

Gently Peter Benton removed her hand from his arm. "That is quite a good enough answer for me, Sybil." He faced her gravely. "The thing is unfortunate, because I was going to ask you--to-night----" His jaw set and he turned away for a moment. Then he faced her again. "But never mind that now: the situation, as they say in Parliament, does not arise. I would like you, however, to know that I do not think about the matter at all. For one brief second this afternoon I did think about it; for the fraction of a minute I had made up my mind to go in after the dog. And then I realized how utterly unjustifiable such an action would be. Since that moment--as I say--I have not thought about the matter at all."

"And supposing it had been Ruffles?" asked the girl, slowly.

For a while the man hesitated. Then: "My decision would have been the same," he answered, turning on his heel.

*II*

Inside the house the Celebrated Actor and the Rising Barrister were each proving to their own satisfaction, if not to their partners', that the modern dance held no terrors for them. The two boys were getting warmer and more energetic; Lady Vera, after chatting for a little with the Great Doctor and the Well-known Soldier, had left them to their own devices, and had joined the two elderly ladies on the sofa.

In a corner of the room sat Captain Seymour talking to Madge Saunderson, though, incidentally, she was doing most of the talking; and with them sat the two other girls. Every now and then Seymour frowned uncertainly, and shook his head: the invariable signal for all three girls to lean forward in their most beseeching manner and look adoringly up into his face.

"I wonder," remarked the Doctor, after watching the quartette for a while, "what mischief those girls are plotting?"

The Soldier adjusted his eyeglass and looked across the room. "Probably asking for his autograph," he answered, cynically. "What I want to know is where my teacher has gone to--Miss Sybil."

"I saw her go out into the garden some time ago," said the Doctor. "By Gad, but I'm sorry about this afternoon!"

The Soldier pulled at his cigar. "I am not well versed in the family history," he murmured, "and the connection is a trifle obscure."

"That confounded dog!" answered the Doctor. "Those two are head over heels in love with one another."

"And you think----?"

"My dear fellow," said the Doctor, "Sybil is one of the dearest girls in the country. I brought her into the world; in many ways she is like my own daughter. But--she is a girl. And if I know anything about the sex, she'd find it easier to forgive him if he'd stolen."

A peal of laughter from the quartette opposite made both men look up. Seymour was nodding his head resignedly and Madge Saunderson was clapping her hands together with glee.

"Don't forget," her voice came clearly across the room, "we'll pretend it's a bet."

It was at that moment that Sybil appeared in the window, and the Soldier let his eyes dwell on the girl approvingly.

"What a thoroughbred!" he said at length, turning to the Doctor. "I'm not certain it isn't better--as it is."

"Hang it, man!" said the Doctor, irritably. "The boy is a thoroughbred, too. What did you say yourself after dinner about the results having to justify the sacrifice?"

But the Soldier only grunted non-committally.

It would doubtless be an excellent thing if theory and practice never clashed.

Sybil came slowly into the room, and Madge Saunderson rose with a meaning glance at Captain Seymour.

"Syb," she cried, "we've got the finest bet on you've ever thought of! I've betted Captain Seymour six pairs of gloves that he doesn't climb up Mill Down chimney in the moonlight, and he's betted me five hundred of his most special cigarettes that he does."

For a moment a silence settled on the room, which was broken by Lady Vera. "But are you quite sure it's safe, my dear?" she remarked, searching for a dropped stitch. "It might fall down or something."

Miss Saunderson laughed merrily. "Why, Aunt Vera," she cried, "there are men working on it every day. It's quite safe--only I bet he'll have cold feet, and not get to the top--V.C. and all." She flashed a smile at the flying-man. "And it's a ripping evening for a walk."

The Doctor turned to his companion. "I wonder what that young woman's game is?" he remarked, thoughtfully.

"I don't know," answered the Soldier. "I suppose you've got a good head for heights, Seymour?" he called out.

"Pretty fair, sir," replied the airman, with a grin. "I don't mind twenty thousand feet, so I don't think Mill Down chimney should worry me much."

"The two things are not quite alike," said a quiet voice from the window, and everyone turned to see Peter Benton standing there, with his hands in his pockets. "I've got a shocking head for height myself, but I never noticed it when I was flying."

"I think I will chance it," answered Seymour with a slight drawl, and having recently been supplied with Madge Saunderson's version of the dog accident his tone was understandable.

"Let's all go down and see he doesn't cheat," cried one of the girls, and there was a general exodus of the younger members of the party for wraps. Only Sybil, with troubled eyes, stood motionless, staring out into the brilliant moonlight; while Peter, lighting a cigarette, picked up an illustrated paper and glanced through it. And to the Doctor, watching the scene with his shrewd grey eyes, the only person in the room who seemed ill at ease was the flying-man himself.

"What would the world be like," he remarked to the Soldier, "if woman lost her power to cause man to make a fool of himself?"

"Good Lord! my dear fellow," said the other, "it's only an after-dinner prank. That boy will do it on his head."

"I dare say he will," returned the Doctor. "But it's cheap, and he knows it." He rose. "Shall we go down and witness the feat?"

"Why not?" answered the Soldier. "It may stop Deering telling us again about his new play."

Half an hour later the whole house-party were grouped round the base of the chimney. Close to, it seemed to have grown in height, till it towered above them into the starlit sky. The girls were chattering gaily, standing around Seymour--except for Sybil, who stood a little apart; while the two Eton boys were busily engaged hi deciding on the correct method of ascent. Seated on a pile of bricks sat the four men, more occupied with a never-ending political argument than the performance of climbing the chimney; while in the background, standing by himself, was Peter Benton, with a twisted, bitter smile on his face.

He was under no delusions as to why the bet had been made: just a further episode, thought out by a spiteful girl, to show his conduct that afternoon in a blacker light. On the surface, at any rate, it was more dangerous to the ordinary man to climb this chimney than to go into the mill-stream. And this was being done merely for sport--as a prank; while the other might have saved a dog's life.

With a laugh, Seymour swung himself off the ground, and started to climb. He went up swiftly, without faltering; and after a while even the political discussion ceased, and the party below stared upwards in silence. In the cold white light the climber looked like some gigantic insect, creeping up the brickwork, and gradually as he neared the top the spectators moved farther away from the base of the chimney, in order to see him better. At length he reached the limit of the main scaffolding; only some temporary makeshift work continued for the few feet that separated him from the actual top. He hesitated for a moment, apparently reconnoitring the best route; and Madge Saunderson, cupping her mouth in her hands, shouted up to him:

"Right up, Captain Seymour, or you won't get your cigarettes."

And Seymour looked down.

It would be hard to say the exact moment when the watchers below realized that something was wrong--all, that is, save Madge Saunderson and the other two girls who had been in the quartette.

It was the Doctor who rose suddenly and said, "Heavens! he's lost his head!"

"Don't shout!" said the Soldier, imperatively. "Leave it to me." He looked up, and his voice rang through the night: "Captain Seymour--General Hardcastle speaking. Don't look down. Look up--do you hear me?--look up. At once!" But the face of the aviator still peered down at them, and it almost seemed as if they could see his wide, staring eyes.

"My God!" muttered the Soldier. "What are we going to do?"

"Let's all shout together," said the Actor.

"No good," cried the General. "You'll only confuse him."

And it was then that the quiet voice of Peter Benton was heard. He was talking to Madge Saunderson, who with the other two girls had been whispering together, ignorant that he was close behind them in the shadow.

"Do I understand you to say, Miss Saunderson, that Captain Seymour is only pretending?"

"You had no business to hear what I said, Mr. Benton," she answered, angrily. "I wasn't talking to you."

But the Doctor appeared interested, and very few of either sex had ever hesitated for long when he became serious.

"You will kindly tell me at once whether this is a joke," he said, grimly.

For a moment the girl's eyes flashed mutinously, and then she laughed--a laugh which rang a little false.

"If you wish to know, it is," she answered, defiantly. "I wanted to find out if Mr. Benton would consider a human life worth saving."

She laughed again, as the four men with one accord turned their backs on her.

"Perhaps it would be as well, then," said Peter, calmly, "for you to tell Captain Seymour that the charming little jest has been discovered, and that he can come down again."

She looked at him contemptuously; then, raising her voice, she shouted to the man above: "You can come: down, Captain Seymour: they've found out our little joke."

But the aviator remained motionless.

"Come down," she cried again. "Can't you hear me?" But Seymour's face, like a white patch, still peered down, and suddenly a girl started sobbing.

"It would seem," remarked Peter, "that the plot is going to be successful after all."

The next moment, before anyone realized what was happening, he was climbing steadily up towards the motionless man at the top.

There was only one remark made during that second ascent, and it came from the Doctor.

"You deserve, young woman," he said, quietly, to Madge Saunderson, "to be publicly whipped through the streets of London."

Then silence reigned, broken only by Peter, as he paused every now and then to shout some encouraging remark to the man above.

"I'm coming, Seymour. Absolutely all right. Can't you send for one of your bally machines, and save us both the trouble of climbing down again?"

Between each remark he climbed steadily on, until at last he was within a few feet of the aviator.

"Look away from me, Seymour," he ordered, quietly, gazing straight into the unblinking, staring eyes above. "Look at the brickwork beside you. Do as I tell you, Seymour. Look at the brickwork beside you."

For what seemed an eternity to those below the two men stayed motionless; then a great shuddering sigh broke from them--Seymour was no longer looking down.

It was only the General who spoke, and he was not conscious of doing so. "By Gad! you're right, Doctor," he muttered. "He's thoroughbred right enough--he's thoroughbred."

And the Great Doctor, whose iron nerve had earned for him the reputation of being one of the two finest operating surgeons in Europe, wiped the sweat from his forehead with a hand that shook like a leaf.

Then began the descent.

"Look at the brickwork the whole time, Seymour--and hold fast with your hands. Now give me your right foot: give me your right foot, do you hear? That's it--now the left."

Step by step, with Peter just below him, the aviator came down the chimney, and he was still thirty feet from the bottom when the onlookers saw him pause and pass a hand over his forehead. He gazed down at them, and on his face there was a look of dazed surprise--like a man waking from a dream. Then he swung himself rapidly down to the ground, where he stood facing Peter.

"You've saved my life, old man," he said, a little breathlessly, with the wondering look still in his eyes. "I--don't understand quite what happened. I seemed to go all queer--when I looked down." He laughed shakily. "Dashed funny thing--er--thanks, most awfully. Good Lord! What's the matter, old boy?"

He leant over Peter, who had pitched forward unconscious at his feet.

"I think," remarked the Well-known Soldier to no one in particular, as they walked back, "that the less said about this little episode the better. It was a good deal too near a tragedy for my liking."

"A most instructive case," murmured the Great Doctor, "showing, first of all, the wonderful power of self-hypnotism. I have heard of similar cases in those old-fashioned London houses, where the light in the hall has fascinated people leaning over the banisters two or three stories above it, and caused them to want to throw themselves over."

"And what is your second observation?" murmured the Rising Barrister, who was always ready to learn.

"The influence of mind over matter," returned the Doctor, briefly, "and the strain involved in the successful overcoming of intense fear. Young Benton has never, and will never, do a braver thing in his life than he did to-night."

"Ah!" murmured the Celebrated Actor, running his hand through his hair. "What a situation! Magnificent! Superb! But, I fear, unstageable."

They entered the drawing-room, to find the conversation being monopolized by a newcomer--a captain in the Coldstream. It was perhaps as well: the remainder of the party seemed singularly indisposed to talk.

"Climbin' chimneys? Might be in you flying wallahs' line--but not old Peter. D'you remember, Peter, turnin' pea-green that time we climbed half-way up Wipers Cathedral, before they flattened it?" The Guardsman laughed at the recollection. "No--swimming is his stunt," he continued to everyone at large. "How he ever had the nerve to go overboard--in the most appalling sea--and rescue that fellow, I dunno. It was a great effort that, Peter."

But the only answer was the door closing.

"A good swimmer, is he?" remarked the Great Doctor, casually.

"Wonderful," answered the other. "The rougher it is the more he likes it. He got the Royal Humane Society's medal, you know, for that thing I was talking about. Leave-boat--off Boulogne."

He rattled on, but no one seemed to be paying very much attention. In fact, the only other remark of interest was made by the Rising Barrister, just as the door closed once again--this time behind Sybil.

"That was what I remember hearing about in France," he said, calmly, to the Great Doctor. "You remember I was mentioning it to you before dinner. I knew there was something."

"Wonderful!" murmured the Actor. "Quite wonderful!"

The Rising Barrister coughed deprecatingly, and lit a cigarette.

_*VIII -- "Good Hunting, Old Chap"*_

*I*

The Well-known Soldier leaned back in his chair, and thoughtfully held his glass up to the light.

"Personally," he remarked at length, "I would sooner be sent to prison for five years for a thing I had done than be let out after two and a half for a thing I hadn't."

"An interesting point," conceded the Celebrated Actor. "But to the casual observer, unversed in psychology, it might appear to be merely a choice between five years of hell and two and a half."

The Celebrated Actor, it may be stated, had recently been dipping into various "ologies" in the course of studying his newest and greatest part. Luckily for the sake of the public, the leaves of most of the treatises were still uncut, which ensured that his rendering of the strong, silent Napoleon of finance would not differ appreciably from his own celebrated personality. Incidentally he had never intended that it should, but the author of the play was a serious young man, and the Actor was nothing if not tactful.

"I am inclined to disagree, General," said the Eminent Divine. "Surely the moral support of a clear conscience----"

"Quite," murmured the Actor. "Quite."

"Would cut no ice, Bishop," declared the Soldier. "Two and a half years is too long a time for such a comparatively frail support as a clear conscience. Especially a youngster's."

"Exactly," agreed the Actor. "Exactly. Two and a half years of hell for something one has not done.... Appalling--quite appalling." With great care he continued the delicate process of peeling a walnut.

But the Bishop was not convinced. "All the time he would know that a mistake had been made; that sooner or later he would be cleared in the eyes of the world. Whereas if he was guilty he would know that no such chance existed, and that when he came out from prison he would be an outcast--a jail-bird."

The Soldier shook his head and drained his glass. "Right in theory, Bishop; right in practice, too, if the clearing had been quicker. But two and a half years is too long. Hope would die: a youngster would grow bitter."

"Where is he now?" demanded the Celebrated Actor, sweeping back his hair with the gesture for which he was rightly famous.

"No one knows," said the Soldier, quietly. "He came out a week ago. His brother met him at the prison gates, but Hugh gave him the slip. And since then he's hidden himself. Of course, he could be traced, but his father is wise, I think, in not doing so."

The Bishop nodded. "He will find himself in time; and it's best to leave him alone till he does. A good boy, too."

For a while the three men were silent while the soft summer breeze played gently through the old-fashioned garden outside, and the wonderful scent of the laburnum came fragrant through the open windows.

"I forget exactly what happened," remarked the Actor, at length. "I was producing 'King Lear' at the time, I remember, and----" He glanced inquiringly at the General.

"A fairly common story," returned the Soldier, lighting a cigarette thoughtfully. "The boy had been an ass and owed a lot of money to some bookmaker. Then he plunged on the Derby--the year Signorinetta won at a hundred to one--and went down, like most of us did. Two days afterwards a couple of thousand in cash was missing. Also the books were falsified over a long period. Everything pointed to him, and they found him guilty, though he protested his innocence all through. A month ago the real thief confessed--two and half years too late."

The General shrugged his shoulders, and then suddenly sat motionless, staring with narrowed eyes into the darkness outside.

"Quaint how one's eyes deceive one at night." He sat back again in his chair. "For a moment I thought I saw someone moving by the edge of the lawn."

"And your niece?" pursued the Actor. "Weren't they engaged or something?"

"Yes. It almost broke Beryl's heart. You know, of course, the dog was his?"

"I did not," said the Actor. "Ah! that accounts, of course, for her terrible grief."

"If I had my way," snarled the General, fiercely, "I'd flog that young swine Parker to within an inch of his worthless life. And then I'd put a trap on his own leg."

The Actor nodded. "I agree, General. Personally I am no great dog-lover. They have a way of concealing themselves about the furniture which is most disconcerting should one inadvertently sit upon them. But a trap----"

He shuddered, and poured himself out some more port.

"If only we could get hold of the boy," mused the General, returning to his original theme. "I can guess what he's feeling, and the longer he goes on without the human touch, the harder and more bitter he'll become. He wants to be made to shake hands with reality again; to hit something, if you like--but to get it over. He's bottling it up--I know it; and it's a bad thing for a youngster to bottle up bitterness."

The Soldier rose and strolled over to the window. For a while he leaned against the open frame, smoking quietly, and hardly conscious of the argument which had started in the room behind him. The power of the stage as a pulpit was an evergreen with the Celebrated Actor, and he felt in no mood for a discussion on the matter. The youngster, Hugh Dawnay, was filling his mind, and also Tommy, that morning.

He'd helped the vet. put the little terrier under, with a dose of prussic acid, and after it was over the two men had stared at one another, and then looked away, as is the manner of men who are feeling deeply.

"I hate it, more and more each time," said the vet., gruffly. "Poor little chap!"

"It's worse than a man," snapped the General. "A dog trusts a fellow so--so infernally. Damn that young Parker!"

With which explosion he had blown his nose loudly and stalked off for a long walk.

At length he pitched his cigarette away and turned back into the room. And at that moment, very clear and distinct from somewhere in the garden, there came a low whistle.

"Hush! you fellows, listen!" The argument ceased at his abrupt words, and the two men stared at him, as he stood motionless half-way between the table and the window. "Did you hear that whistle?"

"Personally, I did not," remarked the Actor, "but at the moment I was engrossed in other matters. A vulgar habit--whistling--but not, I regret to say, uncommon."

"There's someone in the garden," said the General. "I thought I saw something move earlier, and just then I heard a whistle most distinctly."

"My dear man," said the Actor, with a beneficent wave of his shapely hand, "are there not maidservants in the house? I fear that soldiering destroys romance."

The Soldier grunted. "Perhaps you're right. My mind was busy with other things. I think I'll take a stroll outside, too, for a bit. Give me a hail when you've finished your discussion."

He moved once more towards the window, only to pause on the threshold.

"Why, Hugh, my dear lad," he said, quietly, "it's good to see you again. Come in."

And the Celebrated Actor and the Eminent Divine, looking up quickly at his words, saw a man standing outside on the path, whose face was the face of one into whose soul the iron had entered.

For a moment or two Hugh Dawnay hesitated. Then, with the faintest perceptible shrug of his shoulders, he stepped into the room. He glanced at each man in turn; then his eyes came back to the Soldier's face and rested there.

"Good evening, General." His voice was quite expressionless. "I must apologize for intruding like this."

"Apologize!" The Soldier smiled at him. "What the devil is there to apologize about? I'm just amazingly glad to see you. Do you know the Bishop of Sussex and Mr. Trayne?"

"I had the pleasure of seeing you act, Mr. Trayne, just before I was so kindly accommodated at His Majesty's expense." Hugh's voice was as expressionless as ever. "I suppose you are still charming London with your art?"

For the first time in his life the Celebrated Actor felt at a loss. Had some charming woman made the remark to him--and many had--he would have known his cue. A deprecating wave of his hands--a half-hearted denial--a delicately turned compliment; it was all too easy. But as he stared at the boy on the other side of the table--the boy with the tired face of a man--the cloak of mannerisms which he had worn successfully for twenty years slipped off, and the soul of the great artist--and he was that, for all his artificiality--showed in his eyes. More clearly, perhaps, than either of the other two, he realized the dreadful laughter which was shaking the boy's soul; realized the bitter cynicism behind the ordinary words. More clearly than they could he saw himself, he saw the room, he saw life through the eyes of Hugh Dawnay.

"I still strut my small part," he said, gravely. "I still win a little brief applause. And if I can help those who see me to forget the bitterness and sorrow of the day, even though it be only for a while, it is enough." He rose, and laid both his hands on the boy's shoulders. "Forgive an old mummer's presumption, my lad. Don't think me an impertinent fool prating of what I do not know and cannot understand. You have been in the depths. God knows how deep and bitter they have been--God and you--unjustly, unfairly--I know that. And to you at the moment we seem typical of the smug respectability which pushed you there. Vain words of regret--empty phrases of sorrow, cannot give you back your two and a half wasted years any more than my playing alters the realities of the past. But maybe the hour or two of forgetfulness helps a man to face the realities of the future. Will you not try to forget, too?"

"And what play will you stage for me, Mr. Trayne," answered Hugh, quietly, "which will help me to forget? Will you cast me for the principal part, or am I to be one of the audience?" The boy threw back his head and laughed silently. "Two and a half years of the same soul-killing monotony. Why, I became an expert at talking to the man next to me, who was a 'lifer.' They couldn't prove he'd actually intended to murder the girl, and his counsel successfully pleaded drink. A charming fellow." Once again he laughed; then, with a quick movement, he thrust his hands in his pockets and, stepping back towards the window, faced the three men for a while in silence.

"For a moment or two you must listen to me," he said, and there was a harsh commanding ring in his voice. "Each of you is old enough to be my father in years; I am older than all of you combined in reality. At least, that is how I feel just now. You, Mr. Trayne, have talked about forgetfulness; in time, perhaps, I shall forget. But there's something inside me at the present moment which is numbing me. I can't feel, I can't think, I can't hate--I'm simply apathetic. I don't want to have anything to do with men; I want to get right away from them. And I'm going--I'm going; but I'm not going alone." He swung round and faced the Soldier. "Do you know why I've come here to-night, General?"

The Soldier looked at him quietly. "To see Beryl? Because she'd like to see you, Hugh."

But Hugh Dawnay shook his head. "No, not to see Beryl. I'm not fit to see her--yet. Perhaps in a year or two--if she isn't--married by then. No, it's not to see any human being; not even her. It's to get Tommy; and take him with me out into the big spaces where, perhaps, in time one may see things differently."

Unconscious of the effect of his words on his listeners, he had turned and was staring into the soft summer night.

"All the time that I've been in prison"--and his voice had lost its harshness--"I've thought, of that little chap. I've sat on my stool in the cell, and I've felt his cold, wet muzzle thrust into my hand: I've seen his eyes--those great brown eyes--staring up at me, asking for a hunt. But there's no hunting in prison--no rabbits: and I used to promise him that when I came out we'd go off together, just he and I--on to the moors somewhere--and be alone. He wouldn't mind even if I'd done it--even if I had stolen the money. That's the wonder of a dog: where he's so infinitely better than a man." The boy gave a little sigh, and for the first time a genuine smile flickered round his lips. "I've been all round the house, whistling and looking for him--but I expect he's in the drawing-room somewhere. With Beryl, perhaps. I wonder, General, if you'd get him for me?"

He glanced at the Soldier, and slowly his eyes dilated, as he saw the look on the older man's face. He glanced at the Bishop, who was staring at the cloth; he glanced at the Actor, who was staring at the Bishop, and suddenly he gave a little choking cry.

"My God!" he muttered, brokenly, "don't tell me that! Don't say that Tommy is--dead!"

It was the Soldier who answered, and his voice was suspiciously gruff.

"The little fellow was mauled in a trap this morning, old chap: and we had--to put him out of the way."

"Mauled in a trap?" The boy's voice was dead. "Tommy mauled in a trap? Who laid the trap?"

And it was the Actor who sat up, with a sudden light in his eyes, and supplied the information.

"Young Parker, who is farming the bit of ground next to here," he said, with almost unnecessary distinctness. "You can see his house through the trees."

"Young Parker? I remember young Parker." Covertly the Celebrated Actor watched the boy's face, and what he saw there seemed to afford him satisfaction.

"Where is the little dog buried?" asked the boy, quietly.

"Underneath the old yew tree," said the General. "Beryl put a ring of stones around his grave this afternoon."

"I see," said the boy. "Thank you. I'm sorry to have troubled you."

The next instant he was gone, and it was the Actor who stopped the Soldier as he was on the point of going after him.

"The boy has got his part," he remarked, cryptically. "At present he requires no prompting."

"What the deuce are you talking about?" demanded the General, irritably.

But the Celebrated Actor was himself once more.

"Leave it to me, my dear fellow," he murmured, magnificently, throwing back his head in another of those famous gestures which were the pride and delight of countless multitudes. "Leave it entirely to me. The stage is set: very soon the curtain will ring up." He stalked to the window, and stood for a moment on the path outside, while the other two looked at one another and shrugged their shoulders.

"Can't feel, can't think, can't hate. That boy feels and thinks and hates--hates, I tell you, at this moment."

With which Parthian shot the Celebrated Actor vanished into the night.

"What on earth is the fellow driving at?" said the Soldier, peevishly.

But the answer to that question was apparently beyond the scope of the Eminent Divine, and in silence the two men listened to the scrunch of the Actor's footsteps on the gravel, growing fainter and fainter in the distance.

*II*

Half an hour later they were still sitting at the table. The Actor had not returned: there had been no further sign of Hugh, and the inaction was getting on the Soldier's nerves. Twice had he risen and gone to the window: twice had he taken a few steps into the darkness outside, only to return and hover undecidedly by the fireplace.

"I feel I ought to go and look for the boy," he remarked for the twentieth time. "Trayne's such an ass."

And for the twentieth time the Bishop counselled patience.

"In some ways he is," he agreed: "in others he's very shrewd. He's got more imagination, General, than both of us put together, and real imagination is akin to genius. Leave him alone: he can't do any harm."

With a non-committal grunt, the Soldier sat down, only to rise again immediately as a tall, slight girl in white came in through the open window. There was a misty look in her eyes, and her lips were faintly tremulous, but she came straight up to the General and put a hand on his arm. The other hand, with a piece of paper clutched in it, she held behind her back.

"Hugh has come back, Uncle Jim," she said. "Did you know?"

"Yes, old lady, I knew. Have you seen him?"

"No, I haven't seen him. Did he--did he come for Tommy?"

The General nodded. "Yes. And I told him what had happened."

For a moment the girl's lips quivered. "Poor old Hugh!"

Very gently the Soldier stroked the girl's hair. "We must give him time, Beryl. He's--he's not quite himself yet. By the way," he added, struck by a sudden thought, "if you haven't seen him, how do you know he's come back?"

The girl's eyes filled with tears. "I went out to Tommy's grave again--I wanted to see that the little fellow was comfortable, and--and--I found this."

She held out the scrap of paper to the Soldier, and then broke down uncontrollably. And the man, having glanced at it, coughed with unnecessary violence and handed it to the Eminent Divine.

"It was just like him--just like Hugh," sobbed the girl. "And Tommy--why, what more would Tommy want?" She picked up the paper and stared at it through her tears. "'Good hunting, old chap.--H.D.' Good hunting. He's got a soul--I know he has. He's having the most glorious chase after bunnies now--somewhere--somewhere else. Isn't he?"

She turned appealingly to the Bishop, but that eminent Pillar of the Church was engrossed in the study of a very ordinary print, and from the assiduous manner he was polishing his glasses he seemed to be having difficulties with his eyesight.

And it was thus a moment or two later that the Celebrated Actor found them.

"Successful." He barked the word grandiloquently from the window. "Utterly and completely successful. The curtain is shortly going up: it would be well if the audience took their seats as silently as possible."

"What do you mean, Mr. Trayne?" The girl was staring at him in amazement through her tears.

"A very human play, my dear young lady, is on the point of being acted. As producer, general manager, and box office combined, I beg to state that there will be only one performance. The financial receipts will be _nil_: the moral receipts will be a soul regained. And who shall say that it is not a more tangible asset?" For a while he stared magnificently at nothing, with one hand thrust carelessly out--that attitude which had long caused infatuated denizens of the pit to stand for hours in dreadful draughts lest they should fail to secure the front row. Then he returned with an effort to things mundane. "Follow me," he ordered, "and do not talk or make a noise."

"Where's the boy, Trayne?" demanded the General, almost angrily. In his own vernacular, he was feeling rattled.

"You shall see in good time. Come."

It was a strange procession which might have been seen wending its way through the darkness a little later. First came the Celebrated Actor--supremely happy, as befits the great showman who has the goods to offer. Then, a few steps behind him, was the Well-known Soldier, periodically muttering under his breath, and with the girl's hand on his arm. Behind them again trotted the Eminent Divine, unable to see very well in the dark, and continually stubbing his toes on various obstructions in the ground.

"Where is he taking us to?" whispered the girl to her uncle.

"Heaven knows, my dear!" he answered, irritably. "The man's an ass, as I've said before."

"But what did he mean about the very human play?" she persisted. "And the soul regained?"

Before the Soldier could answer, the guide turned, and holding up his hand demanded silence.

"We approach the stage," he declaimed. "Silence is essential."