Red Harvest.........................................................................................................................................................1

"SUPPOSING" The man at a London club looked towards his colleague, as he put the question:

"Supposing you were heir to a quarter of a million sterling, but on the day of succession a child was born, and

A few days prior to this conversation, four men were sitting at a small table in the Toledo Restaurant.

Everyone knows the Toledo. That night it was crowded. The room is small and so severely plain that it

almost jars the appetite, and seems an everpresent suggestion for an ap�ritif. It is panelled with scarlet

tapestries, and at one end is a long aquarium, in which endless varieties of fish glide and peer out through the

Pentelow was there, Marchant sat opposite, Fenning lounged in the far corner, and Paul Cazalet was facing

him. The first three were enjoying the reverie which comes with the coffee and liqueurs, when Cazalet strode

"Been letting off steam again, Cazalet?" said Marchant. "I heard something about it when I came up the

street, but I was too infernally hungry to buy a paper. What's it all about this time?"

Cazalet smiled, and the strong, cleanshaven face flushed with pleasure. The mouth was a thin, firm line, and

"Same old themebloodtaint," he laughed. "Kenwood has been bullying his way too far; half the House is

afraid of him. He has a fine vocabulary, that man, and it carries conviction. Yes, I suppose I did let off steam

tonight. But Kenwood forgets that there are criminals and criminals, half deserve all they get, and as for the

"And what do you know about it, anyway?" asked Fenning. He seemed little more than a boy, for although he

was twenty seven his face had failed to record the march of years. His features were finely cut, and some

would have traced in them a certain type of beauty, effeminate yet attractive. The eyes were dark, and set

well back under long, black brows, the lips weak yet warm and passionate. He was smoking a lean Italian

cigar, and as he spoke he held it before his face and watched the rising spiral of smoke with a sense of

"I hate to hear a man condemn who has probably never been tempted," returned Cazalet. A waiter swept

down with a pot of caviare, and he stopped him. "Yes, just that, please," he said. "And hurry with the toast.

My appetite is killing me tonight." He dug out two spoonfuls carefully and put it on his plate. Then he

turned his attention to Fenning again. "Well, Jimmy, and what are you doing outside Paris?" he asked.

"Habit, dear boy, only habit. Paris is unendurable when she is not there." He flicked the ash from his cigar

"Ah! The latest affaire!" Cazalet said with a laugh. He watched Fenning's nervous fingers clutch the stem of

his liqueur glass and tip the crimson contents down his throat. "Whenever I hear of you, rumour tells me that

you are in love with a different woman, and rumour's a chattering jade. Who is it this time?"

"A duchess very much bored with life," broke in Marchant, the Jew stockbroker, under his breath. "Has a

little money, a husband she contrives to lose at every opportunity, and, her pet spaniel having died, she has

"Marchant's a fool, or very drunk. He doesn't understand pretty women," exclaimed Fenning. "She's a queen,

"They're all queens till you compel them to abdicate," said Paul. "Fenning's in love for the ninetieth time; and

Pentelow pulled his long grey moustache and tilted his bullet head. His was a hard, brutal face, typical of the

man who has built up his position in the world from the lowest depths of poverty to an exchequer running

into untold thousands. Even as he lounged there tired men and womenthe white slaves of his Lancashire

cotton millsslept the deep sleep of exhaustion, a little more lifeblood drained from their very hearts than

was the case yesternight, maybe, by the man they never saw, but whose hand lay heavy as that of the worst

"I'm just a bit sick of your preaching," he grunted, and the smile on Cazalet's face broadened. He knew

Pentelow's mood when an empty champagne bottle stood at his elbow. "An arch humbug like you ought to

have a licence to speak on sane subjects. I listened to half your speech and then came out. Arrant rota

rehashed sermon, and, as Fenning says, what the devil do you know about bloodtaint anyway? I'm blunt,

"I'm not quite sure whether your honesty or mine is the worst form of that virtue," Cazalet replied with a

laugh. "I've got one or two cold truths docketed against you concerning those Drayton mills. I could give you

a column next week that would make you desire to see the colour of the Mediterranean water in your

Pentelow flung back his head, an ugly flush creeping slowly across his forehead. Cazalet's words were

"I should never run away from the ravings of a crazy political journalist," he said bitterly.

Cazalet turned his attention to the Sole Colbert, and carefully spread the liquid butter with the edges of his

knife. He ate two mouthfuls, then leaned across the table and spoke in an undertone to Pentelow.

"I don't want to stir up muddy water, but you've pitched a challenge at me, more or less. Of course the case of

Jessie Philpot," he said, but Pentelow put up his hand with an angry gesture. "I'm sorry if that touches you,"

he continued. "You think I am in a quarrelsome mood tonight, friend Pentelow, but I am feeling rather the

reverse. I'd like to shake your hand and remember you as the best pal at a dinner table I know. But I want you

to understand why I have never taken up that horrible business in print. I have too much respect for your

daughter. That's the whole stupid reason. I do not strike indiscriminately without thinking of the dependents

of those who will be disgraced by the publicity of scandal. I know what your daughter would feelshe who

is just about to marry a man who loves her to distraction. No, I am not honest, but sometimes, dear Pent.,

devilishly tenderhearted. I hate causing either a woman or an animal pain, but I would torture a man to any

"Then I wish you would make a start on Fenning. He is getting sentimental about his little duchess," broke in

Marchant, to clear the air. "When you consider the wistful expression in his eyes"

"She's probably at the opera now. I let a friend buy her a dinner at the Ritz on condition that he told me if she

He was leaning back with his head against the mirror behind him as Cazalet glanced up.

Apparently Fenning did not hear the words, for he was intent on watching two men who were just rising from

the table at the other side of the room. His eyes were half closed, but Cazalet knew the mood of the boy. He

turned and looked round. The two men, obvious foreigners both of them, were in evening dress, well

groomed, too, and handsome. The elder of the pair was a short military looking man, his moustache grey and

"Some old army colonel out for an evening's amusement," Cazalet said laughingly, as he laid down his knife

and fork. He looked across at Fenning, who was watching the pair disappear through the curtained door.

"Yes, Servia. And don't talk so that the whole room may listen. The fellow who is speaking abominable

English to the waiter at the next table has sharp ears. You could scarcely open an illustrated paper in Vienna

"He is not quite so modest," Fenning said. "But it must be a relief to him to fancy he is unrecognised. If he

had not decided to take a little trip to Londonshall we say for his health?I might be dreaming in my bed

in Paris at this moment. Don't talk any more, Cazalet, but enjoy that excellent fillet of beef which is getting

cold in front of you. Later on glance to the far corner of the roomto the extreme righta girl is sipping

coffee there. Don't let her see you, but if you like a little comedy, watch her."

Cazalet began to eat in a desultory fashion, but his appetite had vanished. He muttered maledictions on the

cooking, which was unimpeachable. Then, swallowing a glass of Niersteiner, he began to look round the

The girl who was sitting there had just put down her coffee cup, and their eyes met. She had a small oval

face, with delicate colouring and skin soft and unspoiled. Her hair had in it the dull warm glow of copper, and

was deftly coiled around her head in a manner which suggested profusion. Her mouth was small with very

red lipsred with the rich red of poppiesher eyes grey, and it seemed even at a distance as if there were an

outer ring of black around the pupils that made them appear large. Such eyes would make any face, Cazalet

told himself. And the straight narrow eyebrows above only made them more wonderful.

She turned away, but he continued to look at her for some time, believing himself unobserved. Nevertheless

an adjacent mirror enabled her to see his interest in her, though he was unaware of it. She had obviously

dined alone, for the table was set for one, and as he looked he saw that she was dressed in a gown of white

and wore a circlet of pink coral around her throat. Her solitude and seeming lack of interest in anything that

"That is what I've been trying to find out for the past hour," Fenning drawled back. "It has cost me precisely

five liqueurs to pass the time in which to study her. I have my suspicions as to why she is dining here."

"Very well, my fine diplomat, keep your secret. But wouldn't your little duchess like to see the admiration in

your eyes for the lady with the copper hair? Gad, wouldn't she pull your ears for you?"

Cazalet produced his cigar case and began to smoke; he tipped the cognac the waiter had brought into his

coffee and swallowed it at a gulp. Then he leaned across the table and touched Marchant's arm.

"You mean the Penstone demise? Yes, convenient, isn't it? Someone told me about it at lunch."

"I almost fancy my creditorsand they are legiongiving me the finest dinner in London," rejoined

Cazalet. "They have been very patient and so genially polite. They knew, most of them, that when a certain

peer died, I should probably be a very rich man, and this morning's paper must have made them happy. And

don't forget that a journalist who retains a seat in the House on Grub Street guineas isn't exactly the man to

bank on for choice. If it weren't so undignified, I'd have the brutes out and feed 'em."

"You always wandered under a lucky star. It's a habit with some men," explained Marchant.

"As a matter of fact the circumstances are rather peculiar," Cazalet said. "Penstone was an old mana very

old manand two years ago he married a young girl of twentysevencarried away by his wealth and

position, I believe she was. She is a Russian or something. I have only seen her twice; the last time was about

a year ago, when I went down to Penstone Place to lunch. I remember her welltall, dark hair, and strong,

very strong eyes. Cold as a frozen statue, but handsome. You have to look at her. She compels you, and

"Oh, like a native; speaks several languagesall that sort of thing. Travelled a good deal, I believeat least

I always gathered as much. Penstone unearthed her somewhere abroad, found her luggage for her at a railway

station in Bavaria. Regular old gallant, Penstone. Couldn't help butting against a romance some time or other;

lucky to have escaped so long. Well, he told me after his marriage that he was going to cut his fortune into

two halves. I, his only nephew, was to have one half in the event of his having no issue, and she the other. In

the event of issue, however, I was to have little or nothing. Pretty fair arrangement I thought. As I told you, I

have seen neither of them for a year. The old chap was ailing, and he would have thought I was there to grab.

"This morning. There will be the usual legal points to be settled, I suppose. Then the widow will take her half

and I shall take mine. I don't know what she will do, let loose with a quarter of a million, but I know that my

"And could nothing make a man of you except moneyyou with your brains?" Marchant asked with a touch

"I'm afraid not. Respectability is a matter of pounds, shillings and pence; it's too difficult a problem for a man

to attempt on a flat purse. I shall change my whole mode of life. No more going to the House to make

speeches that will annoy Pent. I'm going to see life. I'm thirtysix, and it's time I did."

Pentelow leaned across the table, his eyes wide open, and his arms folded on the white cloth, a sardonic grin

"Do you think you are worth a quarter of a million by Lord Penstone's death?" he asked.

Pentelow got up silently, crossed the room to where his coat hung, and came back with a copy of an evening

paper in his hand. He sat down without speaking, and began to turn over the pages idly, till, finding what he

"A few moments ago you almost threatened to give me a knockdown blow," he said. "I bear you no malice,

but, my friend, I fear it is my unhappy duty to give you one. I shall have to listen to your infernal nonsensical

Cazalet took the paper and looked at the stoppress column on which Pentelow laid his finger. Slowly, and

with the expression changing on his face as he did so, he began to read. It was a short telegram printed in

blurred type: LORD PENSTONE'S DEATH. Lady Penstone prematurely gave birth to a son this evening,

due to the shock caused by her husband's death. We are glad to state that both mother and son are doing well.

Cazalet dropped the paper and lay back in his chair. His cigar dropped from his hand and fell to the floor,

where it rolled under the table unobserved; his face was white and bloodless. There were cold fingers

clutching at his heart, and something was hammering at his brain till it seemed to spring with pain at every

blow. Fenning clutched his sleeve and sent the waiter for some brandy; Marchant, conscious that he must do

Pentelow sat quietly drawing the smoke from his cigar in fierce draughts. His little bloodshot eyes whipped

round the room, and met those of the occupants of the other table with inquiry and challenge.

Everyone had observed the episode, everyone was staring hard. The bearded foreigner of whom Fenning had

been speaking was clutching his serviette and had half risen in his chair to offer help till he read the blunt

dismissal in Pentelow's eyes. Even the girl at the far corner had put down her cigarette and turned in her

Cazalet revived as the brandy drove the blood back to his brain. He swung an arm half across the table and

"What a jest!" he choked. "Who would have thought that the most infernal luck could have dealt the cards

"What are you going to do now?" Marchant asked in his even, businesslike voice. He was always looking to

the future, always weighing the chances, the one faculty which had made him a rich man when every other he

"Do now?" Cazalet glanced up, the growing colour creeping into his cheeks, the old debonair manner, the

happygolucky courage renewing their power. "Do now? Saints above! What can a man do when he's hit

sideways like that? What chance has he got? What good are his resolves when the power to carry them out

He lounged back and closed his eyes, but there was a smile on his lips. He was unaware that the bearded

foreigner had risen from his seat and, approaching the table, had laid a card on his plate. He touched Cazalet's

Cazalet gave a start, sat up and laughed. The man before him was bowing, and with the exaggerated courtesy

"Silly fool!" exclaimed Cazalet. He picked up the card, and looking at it for a moment was about to put it into

"You will give him a call?" said Fenning. "Look, man, there's something scribbled on the back. Don't lose

Cazalet pushed the card into his pocket. He looked round the room seeing nothing. Marchant nodded to

The girl at the far table had left the room; only when Cazalet glanced across to where she had sat was he

"Couldn't wait here for your pleasure all the evening," replied the other. "She followed your fine friend out. I

have been waiting for her to do so for the last hour. I rather think I've learned a thing or two tonight, Paul."

Cazalet got up slowly. He wandered aimlessly across the half empty room to where his coat hung on the

peg. Then he clambered laboriously into it and nodded to the three at the table.

"I'll be in the House tomorrow, and I'll make them sing," he said by way of greeting. "I've changed my

He walked slowly down the stairs, pausing at almost every step. He did not know where he wanted to go; he

only felt that the bottom had dropped out of everything. He was ambitionless now; he had no sheet anchor to

which to cling. The old life, the continual struggle, the false veneer of apparent affluence, the hideous

mockery of it all came rolling back with united forces. He clung to the banisters, feeling that his legs were

The thirst for air sent him down to the street. And there the touch of the cold wind on his face made him stop

and open his lips to drink it in. He crossed the small hall to the open street and stood waiting, picturing

tomorrow as he had imagined it and tomorrow as it would be when it came to him. He scarcely felt the

light touch on his arm, but he looked down into the bright eyes of the girl who had occupied the table in the

far corner of the room above. Her white hand, with no rings upon it, rested on the sleeve of his arm. The half

light, the rays of the electric jet touching the loose strands of her hair till they were filigree gold, the perfume

creeping out from the fold of the blue and gold wrap she wore, her splendid eyes swift with the play of a

dozen emotionsthey formed a picture these things, which his mind took to itself and loved and set up in

"Where?" he asked her, and wondered at the miracle that had brought her to his side.

"Yes? Weirdlooking chap, wasn't he? Might have been an anarchist or a Tower Hill prophet."

She gripped her hands together, and he looked at the weft her long white fingers made.

"Oh, you are nothing to me," she exclaimed. "We shall probably never meet again"

"There are no `buts.' Do you think I am going to let a divinity steal into my life and stroll out again without

even leaving a card? Five minutes ago I told myself there was no good fortune in the world. and I came down

"I won't," he flung back; "but I'll escort you to the uttermost ends of the earthin a cab!"

"Dear lady, I'll keep it if only to remind me of you," he answered. "If you would give me that pink

She went from him without a word. He saw her climb into a cab, and saw it sweep round the corner with the

"This is what they would call the parting of the ways, and a woman leads," he muttered to himself. "And I

He stood looking up the street. The memory of her face seemed to cling to his mind; the perfume she used

FOR a moment Cazalet was nonplussed. Impulse dictated one line of action; discretion suggested another.

And the sense of adventure, dormant though ever present in his blood, was slowly stirring. Today the old

life had ended; tomorrow it would begin again. But just where the two epochs merged a woman had crept

He stood looking at the foolish card he held in his hand; then he jabbed it into his pocket. She was an episode,

so he would have told himself. Other womenwere there not many others who had dropped over the horizon

of his memory just as she would do? Life, after all, was merely a shuffling and reshuffling, a grand

He walked for some time along the street, which teemed with the mystery of London late at night. He crossed

silent squares, but little pictures of her facethe half profile, now the features in strong relief against a

background of the darkwere living memories still. He walked on and on. It was the crowd of carriages

outside Lady Chesney's house in Berkeley Street that reminded him of the fact that he had promised to look

Even as he passed through the heavy doors he could hear the subdued echo of a string band, and the mutter of

a hundred tongues engaged in animated conversation. The whole world of moneyed London seemed to be

gathered here. Yet he entered the crowded room, a silent figure alone, till the human tide caught him up and

He found himself peering into the face of a woman upon whom the heavy lightsflaming remorselessly

from every angle revealed a thin, ascetic expression, a pasty complexion covered with an obvious layer of

powder. The slight rouged lips curled into an unconscious sneer which an attempt to smile could not

straighten out; her sharp nose emphasised the puffiness of her cheeks. Large diamond earrings swung

vulgarly in her ears, and on one hand a group of oldfashioned rings looked like a smother of gold with a

jewel here and there striving to thwart the monotony. Lady Chesney's maid had told her she was looking her

best that night, and Lady Chesney's conscience told her that the maid was lying. She even hated Cazalet for

the apparent lack of interest he showed when he spoke to her. He was a man of moods, and she knew it, and

would have chided him for not leaving his mood on the doorstep. To him Lady Chesney was one of those

women who, familiar as we may be with them, produce a feeling of strangeness at every meeting because

vulgarity has no common chord of sympathy. She was vulgar, but she was necessary to London society, and

Cazalet endured her much as he would a bluebottle that fussed round his room when his mind was wandering

"Ah, Mr. Cazalet, you dear, kind fellow," she said, with a little flutter of excitement, and, sidling up to him,

she looked into his face. He knew by her forced enthusiasm that the echo of his speech in the House had

already extended here. "I knew you would come. I told Toby all along you would." The dark eyes warped to

points of jet. "I heard of your speech tonight; they are discussing it everywhere. What a steady climb up the

"I hoped I would have been in front of the speech," he laughed. "And you, Sir Toby"

He turned aside to shake hands with Sir Tobias Chesney, a little man who had crept nervously round his

wife's tall figure and stood meekly at her side, biting the fragment of his grey moustache. He held out a

skinny white hand, heavily marked with blue veins, and looked up blinkingly into Paul's face like an owl

"Anabel thought she recognised the back of your head at lunch at the Carlton today," Sir Tobias explained,

conscious that he must say something. "She tells me you have made a great speech. Anabel is so uptodate,

"Oh, lie down, Toby," retorted Lady Chesney, using the phrase she always employed towards her husband

and pet spaniel alike. "Mr. Cazalet must be tired of the very mention of politics to night."

"Frankly, I am," Paul replied. "I am going to have a fearful whipping from the papers in the morning."

"But you are never afraid of the criticsyou?" Lady Chesney returned. She shook her head and sent the

waves of colour rushing across the diamonds in her ears. "Why, when Toby was in the House he used to

"Possibly the comment was always favourable; that makes all the difference," said Paul.

"On the contrary. The papers always said Toby didn't count, and in the end I almost had to believe the papers.

Paul looked quickly round the crowded room. There were dozens of faces that he knew, dozens more he

remembered having seen in the illustrated journals. Politicians from opposite benches, musicians, writers,

medical men, and actresses. The centre of attention at one corner seemed to be the leading lady at a

wellknowntheatre given over to musical comedy, who was surrounded by a dozen brainy men trying to

talk down to her. Hard by a society woman who could talk was endeavouring to keep up a desultory

conversation with a fairhaired fop just past his majority who had an amazing passion for puppywalking

and wanted everyone to know it. A golfing bishop forgot his sheep, and was talking teeshots with a

The sight sickened Paul. The absolute insincerity of the whole gathering filled him with a passing sense of

disgust. He knew that Lady Chesney had scraped together everyone with a name with whom she had any

acquaintance; he knew that she had asked him there merely to show him off as one of the strong men of the

"You must know everyone here." Her words drew him back to the knowledge that she was still by his side.

Paul was not listening. He caught the mention of his own name, muttered in an undertone a few yards away.

"That's Paul Cazaletthe tall chap there. Fearful rotter really, but he has the strength of his convictions. I

admire the scoundrel for his brazen effrontery. He thinks he's reforming the earth. Has big ideas about

criminals, bloodtaint and all that sort of thing. But, mark my words, he will never do any good in the world.

I would put up a party of respectable citizens to shoot him, and bury him as a hero to his cause!"

Paul glanced at his hostess, and knew by the expression in her eyes that she had overheard. He laughed and

"Popularity, Lady Chesney!" he said. "Just that! To stick to one's convictions is to some a sin. But do not

think I mind. Young Fremlin meant me to hear every word. He doesn't love me, you know. I once corrected,

in the Press, his method of spending his leisurea fearful thing to doand he will never forgive me for it.

But I dare say he's right. And, you know, other people's corns have a fearful attraction for my boots!"

"I think his manners are appalling!" Lady Chesney replied, and strove to turn the subject. "That interesting

girl over there," she added, nodding to the far corner of the room. "No one has been able to discover exactly

Looking across, Paul saw the girl of the restaurant standing in the centre of a group of men and women. She

was laughing, her eyes full of fire and merriment; but suddenly the grave expression settled on her face, and

"Who is she? You don't know her? I'm glad. She's frightfully interesting." Lady Chesney became impressive.

"Her name is Jean Lorimer; you must meet her. People say she's mysterious, but I have found her to be just

an unassuming English girl, full of cleverness, full of charm. She has no living relatives, enough money to

make her independent, and you will hear her name in Paris, Berlin or in Vienna. Her brother was of the same

"In Servia?" exclaimed Paul. He remembered what Fenning had told him about the strangers at the Toledo;

remembered, too, how this girl had urged him to forgo the appointment with the foreigner whose card he

"It's a horrible story," she replied. "I've only heard bits of it. He was given a life sentence; she had the chance

"The price was too high. Do you wonder, then, that the ambition of her life is vengeance? Look at her now!

She's lovely; she ought to make a big society match. Lord Temperley raved over her till he married the

"Oh, Jean loathed him. Odd name, Jean. I suppose it's really foreign, but we've made it fearfully English and

fearfully common. For myself I like foreign names when they are in taste. Unfortunately, if one uses them for

Sir Tobias had shifted a step nearer. He felt that he had discovered a chance to say something, and he took it.

"My dear," he said, laying his hand on his wife's arm, "your views are too revolutionary. Surely travel has

broadened our minds. May I correct you by saying that it is almost vulgar in England now to call one's child

"Not in the best families, Toby. You have forgotten that Sir Crichel named his fourth Ebenezer, after your

second name, only last week, in spite of public opinion. You know what Lady Marion said: she wanted Ivan.

"There is enough romance in the writings of Solomon to suffice for all generations," her husband answered in

a tone almost of apology. "But, unhappily, most biblical names are associated with moneylenders."

"Toby, you wander so," she said. "I am painfully aware that I have heard the name Jean before. You

remember that French maid we had, Tobythe one who stole all those things? Her name was Jean, or was it

"But you would not class Miss Lorimer with a felon," Paul broke in. "Will you introduce me?"

He crossed the room, and as they approached the girl looked up. Paul detected the slight flicker of her

eyelids, the subtle change of expression in her face. The large eyes seemed charged with a look of inquiry, of

reproach. She might have been standing on the pavement, looking steadily at him and begging him to

abandon the invitation on the mad foreigner's card. Why should she have pleaded with him? Why, indeed,

should she be here? She had recognised him. The single glance from her told him that. And he knew by the

"Well, that is my view of the case," he heard her say. "I don't believe there is any woman who is not at some

time of her life bored to death by her husband. Marriage isn't really the goal of a woman's life."

"Necessary? Oh, you dear, delightful believers! It's a luxury like truffles and champagne to a man with thirty

shillings a week. True, many do without itgenerally because of their sordid incomes. A man who doesn't

want to marry isn't really a man. He knows, nevertheless, that marriage makes him respectable: it makes him

"Gad, that's straight from the shoulder, anyway," laughed a greyhaired Hussar colonel. "When I paid my

"And found the uninteresting receipt wonderfully reminiscent, eh?" exclaimed his friend.

"Marriage," Lady Chesney was saying, "we women have been arguing it since Eve taught us housekeeping."

"Eve?" she cried. "Must we always follow Eve? She wasn't a woman, or she would have created a Paquin in

"My sex!" she answered him. "And yours? To many of you the gown is the woman. Cupid's only rival is a

Regent Street milliner. I was telling your friends so but a moment ago, and they answered that all marriages

were made in heaven. And heaven wouldn't even admit the trimmings of many of them!"

"Could ever a woman defend a woman!" laughed Paul. "What a shambles you would make of a woman's

Paul had swung himself into the argument. He bowed as his hostess slipped away, conscious that she had

"If you had argued like that to me when we met on the steps of the Toledo tonight you might have made me

She looked down, and he studied the jewelled fillet in her hair for a moment before replying. It is difficult to

"I think, perhapsI shall," he said lamely. "But come, we've got to talk it out. That alcove yonder"

He followed her across the room, and set a chair for her behind the thick screen of palms, and held up a

cushion to place at her back. Then he balanced himself on the edge of a wicker lounge opposite.

"Because you will regret it if you do. I have another reason, but that should not trouble you now. Do you

think I don't know all about you? I probably know as much about your powers, your abilities as you do

"The Count wants the help of a clever man in another part of Europe. You are a clever man," she answered

Paul leant forward. "How do you know his object in asking me to meet him?" he said.

He saw her white throat heave quickly. She turned her eyes away; for the moment she was silent.

"There are things I cannot tell youthings I would not if I could," she answered under her breath. "Only let

"I suppose not. There is no reason why it should. But most women hate to see a man spoil himself."

He was puzzled and bewildered by her attitude towards him. He looked steadily into her grey eyes, but could

discover no clue thereonly he saw that they were wonderful eyes, wistful and challenging. He felt the new

awakening interest in her; the smooth sweetness of her voice; the delicate shaping of her face, the glory of her

hair, each rang some separate note of sympathy. Never since those years ago when he had placed all the love

of which he was capable into another's keeping to have it wantonly destroyed had he felt the same living

She was leaning forward in her chair, her head in her hands, her lips quivering. Paul got up and stood at the

window overlooking the terrace so that the night air might rush in upon his face. The jargon of voices near at

hand irritated him when he tried to follow every note of the violins singing some dreamy waltz of

Waldteufel's; even the flapping of a giant moth against the glass outside played with his nerves tonight.

"You know," he said, returning to his chair, "we ought to have you in the House. Your fearless remarks just

before I was introduced to you made me wish we had you as a recruit for the Opposition. But you were a little

She looked up and smiled; there was a note of sympathy in his voice that invited confidence.

"Oh, I think not. I suppose every woman has her ideas about marriage," she said. "I wonder if I understand

men better than most women, or whether I don't understand them at all! I might tell you that I shall never

marry, and you would probably answer me with the usual masculine exaggeration. Your heart would tell you

that I was a girl who ought to be shaken while your lips uttered the prettiest of compliments."

"And I would answer you that I could never love a man for the whole of my life. I should always be thinking

that when the passion flame had burned itself out my husband would follow the example of most other men.

He would drag me through forty years or more of passable indifference, using me as the minimum standard

"Oh, you little cynic!" he cried with the sudden call of friendship. "Some day you will remember those words

The lights shaped the beauty of her face; there was a world of feeling in her eyes. He put his fingertips on

Something about herthe subtleness of her, the little heart that beat to a rhythm he misunderstoodgave

out an emotion which found refuge in his blood. He seemed to grow older as he waited there; he seemed to be

talking to a woman whom he might have treated as a child, one to whom some natural instinct in him offered

"The man who loves you," he said again. "There's an empty altar in your heart, but you'll fill it some day."

"You'll find itthe real love, that is," he said. "It's waiting for you somewhere. Heaven knows it may be in

some strange corner of the world, or in some quaint street in our own London, which your footsteps might

never tread of their own free will. But you won't miss itthere's Divine Providence. We call it chancean

ugly, stupid word that means nothingour excuse if you would have it sofor failing to admit the Supreme

intervention. But you'll marry, you'll be happy, wonderfully happy. And a happy marriage, by heaven! it's

culture, a divine mould that takes off the rough corners; that makes black appear white, and paints glory into

"There's no short cut for you. You're prejudiced. You don't know what things are. Lifechildrenwatching

them grow up appealing to little minds by some big call from our own when we've roughed it, that's

gaining, that's achievement. We make men, we throw them out into the world, roughcast often, because we

haven't the power to finish them. But the world's a grand old finishing school; it admits no faults, it flogs to

"I once placed my whole faith in a woman," he said. "We all do at some time or another."

"My faith brought knowledge." He shrugged his shoulders. "The marriage I had planned would have been

one of the world's misfits. I see it now, but she saw it then. She saved us both from catastrophe. A charming

woman, forceful, strong, fighting for her place in the world, without an ounce of solid domesticity in her

"Yes," he said. "I dislike the unsexed female who clambers into the male sphere and leaves her own work in

the world unfinished. She is a notoriety seeker. The big heroines of life never enter the limelight."

"A polite way of saying that you dislike every woman who doesn't sit patiently at home and make her own

"You are. You're worse. You would save all the adventure of life for the overestimated male! I've had one

ambition in my life. I've wantedvengeance." She broke off and turned her head away. He remembered

"Come," he said, "we're getting serious. Let's go back to the crowd and the laughter. There are tears in that

"It is not too far West for me," he said. "Come, I will take you." He made a movement to lead her back to the

"Will you let me give the driver the address and promise never to ask him for it or seek it out?"

"Of course," he answered. "We shall meet again, I know it. But it will be in your good time."

A few minutes later they made their way down the broad staircase together, and into the night air. A footman

found his cab, and Paul stood aside while she spoke to the driver. Then he followed her in, and carefully

For a few minutes they sat without speaking, and the cab rattled through the streets. But he could see the

outline of her profile whenever they passed a lamp. She was looking straight ahead, her eyes wide open and

"In Servia?" he ejaculated. He strove to get a glimpse of her face in the darkness. The even tones in which she

had pronounced the words betrayed nothing. And when the next lamp swept past her face was expressionless.

"In Servia?" he exclaimed again. "Nothing is farther from my thoughts than to go there."

"There is Count Stolpin; he has a wonderfully persuasive tongue," she reminded him.

She had given him the key of the situation, and in a moment the secret was declared. He remembered

Fenning's words, his interest in the girl, the two foreigners at the Toledo, and could mentally hear Fenning

saying again: "That man is the future king of Servia." He knew now that he trod the very portals of

adventureknew, too, that this girl beside him had put out a restraining hand to keep him back. And she was

going alone. Instantly all the savour of the old humdrum life in London dropped out. The new day had begun.

She choked down an exclamation, but any words she uttered were lost in the rattle of the cab.

A moment more and they were jerked to a standstill against the kerb at the foot of a long row of houses. He

stood on the pavement while she got out. Then she was holding out her hand and looking up into his face.

"Won't you alter your mind and remain true to London and success?" she asked in a quiet voice.

She turned away, and he watched her run up a short flight of steps, thrust a key into the latch, and enter. As

the door closed he wondered whether he would ever know the house again, till by the weak light of the street

lamp he observed that the steps were painted green, except where a passage about a yard wide was

For a moment he stood looking at the house, an endless string of thoughts rushing through his mind. Then as

he would have reentered the cab he saw the figure of a man walk quickly out of the darkness to the other

"I would know that man's figure among a million," he muttered to himself. "What the devil was Fenning

THE Dover express rushed wildly through the night, dragging itself round sharp curves with the shriek of

tortured metal as the flanges of the wheels bit into the rails. Through tiny villages it thunderedvillages

where solitary lights still gleamedswinging now to the right or left, so that the moon, breaking occasionally

through the heavy clinging banks of cloud, appeared above the ridge of hills, then vanished, only to dance

Paul Cazalet stood in the corridor of a firstclass carriage and clung to the windowrail firmly with both

hands. His tall lithe figure swung to the oscillations of the train, but he continued to stare through the glass,

his mind a slave to the pictures that wove themselves out of the darkness. He put his hand in his breast pocket

at last and produced a crumpled card, held it so that the light from the lamp fell upon it, and carefully studied

Turning the card over he saw scribbled on the back in pencil: "If you have courage and seek adventure meet

me on the deck of the Diomed, in Dover Harbour, on Friday night. Come alone. Your absolute safety is

He replaced the card in his pocket, shrugged his shoulders, and laughed to himself.

"Two nights ago she warned me against keeping this appointment," he muttered to himself, "and just because

I am so beastly curious, here I am rushing to keep it. Stolpin will have received my wire, and will expect me.

And Jean?I wonder why I ever thought twice about her? I wonder if she had not warned me if I would

He could find no answer to the question, and turning, glanced back for a moment at the compartment he had

left. In the far corner an old man, wrapped almost to the chin in heavy rugs, snored loudly, his head inclined

till his white beard, bunched up against his arm, resembled a ball of tow. Near to him was a girl of

twentytwo or thereabouts. Her lower lip hung limply as she slept, thereby just spoiling the natural beauty of

her expression, her right hand was loosely held by the young man in the next seatobviously her

husbandand she smiled, just as he too smiled. Cazalet wondered whether in their dreams the twain had

Opposite them was an old lady, sharp featured, ascetic, leaning stiffly back against the cushions in an attitude

of dignity and unrest. In one hand she clasped a small handbag, in the other a brownpaper package neatly

fastened and sealed; and, as she slept, her waxen eyelids seemed but partially to conceal eyes that still looked

down in custody of her possessions. Against her was a cur�, lounging grotesquely in a halfcircle like an

uncoiling centipede, with his parted lips laying bare a large gold tooth, till any softness there might have been

about his features was lost in the diabolical leer that clung around his lips. Paul surveyed the whole group of

them. He let his imagination wander till it brought him up at one point; each of these men and women was

bent on some definite mission. As for him, the world was wide, and from a yacht lying somewhere in the dark

he was to find his path. He turned to the window again, dropped it, and drank in the night air, lunging it till

The train rattled into Dover, swung across points, and fell away to an easy speed that dwindled into a crawl.

Lights, wrapped in little halos of fog, seemed like bleared eyes staring at him out of the murk. Buildings,

black and illdefined, rolled past with easy movement. Then came the masts of shipping, the yellow splashes

of light falling across pools of water on the damp quays, the rank smoke pressed down by the wet hands of

The train wound its way along the pier and drew up beside the boat. Passengers started one by one from

slumber, blinked, re arranged themselves, and clutched at the light luggage on the racks. And Paul, carrying

his portmanteau, got out and walked back along the concrete path to the "Lord Warden." On reaching the

station he left his portmanteau in the cloakroom and went out towards the parade.

The night was pitch dark, for the moon had fallen into a cloudbed, but ships' lights rolled in grotesque

patterns over the black face of the waters. To find a yacht in the harbour seemed to be an impossibility under

such conditions. Two men passed him, heads low, pressing against the wind, but from them he could learn

nothing. He walked on till he heard footsteps clamping heavily in the shingle near at hand. He waited a

moment, and a waterman loomed out of the darkness, and, climbing to the pavement, almost collided with

The waterman pointed his thumb over his shoulder to a corner of the harbour, where a single light swung

"Out there," he said. "That's it. A white craft." He was staring into Paul's face again. "What do you want with

"My business, I believe?" Paul retorted. "I wish to hire a boatI want to row out to her myself."

He could just see the face of the manthe long, squarecut beard and the small wolfish eyes gleaming out

The man climbed down to the shingle again and walked forward, careless if the other were following him. He

made his way to the water's edge, where a boat was lying, and stood waiting there for Paul to overtake him.

Then a coin changed hands, and in a moment more a boat slipped quietly out into the darkness.

Simultaneously the waterman, clutching the sovereign closely in his hand, stumbled towards a publichouse.

The loneliness of night upon the waterthat loneliness which seems even at certain hours in the darkness to

drop upon a crowded linerdisappears in a sense of companionship when other shipping is at hand. Yet the

night was very still. The wind was dropping. A spray of stars appeared like a jewelled net across the sky.

Boats, swinging idly at their anchors, carried no life upon them. But to Paul, as he glided quickly past, they

were as living things that watched him. He was strong at the oar, and in twenty minutes he swung under the

stern of the vessel that stood out a white and beautiful thing as he approached. Then it was that he noticed

that a boat trailed in the water, and that the rope holding it reached to the deck.

He glanced up and saw a man standing looking down at him. The gleam of his cigarette showed in the dark,

and Paul could scent the tobacco. But the man waiting there did not speak until Paul hailed him.

Paul began to fasten the rope, and quickly climbed up to the deck. He was looking into the face of the Count,

"Come down into the cabin, and we can talk there," said the latter. "We are alone. Knowing you were

coming, I let the crew go ashore. We can talk with perfect freedom. . . . It's damned cold."

He stumbled down the gangway, and Paul followed. He had no doubts, no fear of treachery. But the sense of

adventure was romping in him. He felt that the hour was good, and that all it might hold for him was only

In the cabin luxury was evident everywhere. A silver electric lamp stood on the table, limning the delicately

carved furniture that stood in every corner. On the writingdesk was a pile of papers, a spirit decanter, and a

liqueur carafe, with a number of glasses, large and small, clustering around. These the Count carefully moved

"Try a cigarette. These are Russian," he said, pushing forward a small silver box. "Or if you would prefer a

Paul lit a cigarette from his own case. It was the initial act of caution. He fixed his eyes on the man before

"You are the first man I have ever trusted in my life," he said, as he threw the match aside. "Not until now

have I troubled to ask myself exactly why I am here. And, frankly, I don't know."

"I will tell you, even at the risk of appearing profane." The Count smiled. "It is the hand of God."

"Really, I don't know." Paul lay back and smoked quietly. "Nothing, I suppose. I act on impulse always. I put

your card in my pocket that night on impulse. By impulse I took it out again the next day and carefully

studied its inscription, and so, by impulse, I came here. Tell me what you have to say. It is important, since

"You were a man seeking adventure," the Count reminded him; "and that was the man whose help I needed.

Remember, I know of you. I am a foreigneryes, but my world is your world, the world of diplomacy, of

secrecy, and swift action. I brought you here because I knew you were a man of courage, a man at the loose

end of things, who wanted something big to do and a motive for doing it. That's why I brought you here."

"A good guess, and I like your candour. I see you've got a map there." He put out his hand towards the pile of

The Count gave a start of surprise. The shot in the dark had told. He hesitated a little, studying the

Englishman as if he would read what was passing in his mind. His failure to do so framed his next question.

"Be as candid with me as I am with you. Tell me, do you know my reason for asking you to come here?"

Paul watched the puzzled expression of the other. Once he looked round as if he heard a shuffling footstep in

"Believe me, I do not," said Paul, with a sudden sense of irritation. "My dear Count," he said, "when I can

discover a thing in London I don't come to a lonely yacht in Dover harbour to look for it. You know, and I

know, that certain people connected with a kingdom in the Balkans dined at the Toledo on a night not a week

ago. We both watched them. . . . There, I have shown you my hand: now turn up yours."

For a diplomat the Count was unusually dense, or he would have discovered that he had been tricked by bluff.

"Ah! I understand," he said. "You saw him too. Possibly you know the story. That is the man they are trying

"Everything. There have been stories in the Press, but they are inspired. There are not two people in England

today who know that Russia is about to bring off the greatest coup in southern Europe she has ever

attempted. She wants a Karageorgevitch on the throne, and that man is at present at Genevaa little man

who hates turmoil and conflict when he can live the solitary life he has known for years. Offer him a

kingdom, and of his own free will he would refuse it. But the party behind himthat party means"

"Good God!" Paul exclaimed. "What are you telling me? Or are you mad? And you want me to be mixed up

The Count closed his eyes. The lids, deep and sensuous, were the colour of wax. He nodded his head slowly

"I want you to help mehelp me prevent the greatest crime of the century," he began in a low, even voice. "I

The Count stared hard at the man before him, but a flicker of the eyelashes was all the sign he had that his

visitor was impressed by the announcement. At length Paul sat upright, pitched his cigarette away, and with

"You know what I am," he said; "a gentleman of fortune, if you care to give me so pleasant a designation. I

am no man's master, and no man is mine. I care for nothing but the cards Fate puts into my hands. I play the

game as I know itnot always strictly according to rules, perhaps. But the world you and I know, Count, is

"A gamble!" the Count exclaimed. "You back your man; he rises or falls. That's our game, my friend!"

"And why not? What does it matter to me if forty kings are murdered in their beds tomorrow? And yet, just

because you came to me at a moment when everything was at an end with me, just because we met in that

absurdly unromantic manner, I am prepared to believe you. I fancy I shall start for Belgrade to morrow, and

The final sentence passed unnoticed by the Austrian. He had begun turning over papers, letters, maps, and

"We are twin brothers, danger and I," Paul replied. "We have ever been; we could not live alone for long."

"As far as any man ever did, yet I have not lived a century. . . . A curious question, Count."

"No; a necessary one." He turned and looked Paul in the face. "Oh, I think I know you well enough," he said.

"You would be prepared for trickery. You are no babe reared in a nursery for this kind of work. But beware

of any woman who makes love to you, Cazalet. Possibly you will feel the clasp of soft arms, the caress of

warm lips with all the sweetness of the world upon them. I know. I've tasted life and found it good.

Remember that no one can give conviction to a lie like a woman. It takes a man half a lifetime to learn

"My dear Count," Cazalet began, "how careful you are to explain to me that a woman is the same in all parts

of the world! Drop platitudes. Tell me what you want me to do. More than that, tell me what I'm going to

The Count got up, and, unlocking a drawer in the desk, produced a little roll of notes; these he pushed across

"That is merely to interest you in the adventure," he said. "There you will find a thousand pounds in your

good English money. For the rest, this envelope contains a few rough notes. Tomorrow night at six o'clock

you will meet a man in the Madeleine in Paris. You will go there ostensibly for Vespers at six. Just inside the

eastern door on the right there is a little altar. You will see a man there: dark, and aged about thirty. You will

follow him out. And beneath his coat collar he will show you a little silver badgelike that. He will tell you

all you wish to know. Will those notes interest you sufficiently to carry you so far?"

Paul picked up the bundle of notes screwed up in the elastic band, and threw it across to the desk. But he

"I have sufficient for a firstclass ticket to Paris upon me already," he said. "I believe I have even enough for

my return passage, though I don't think I'll need it. But I have not yet made up my mind, Count, as to whether

"I rather think, my friend, that in the morning you will find the colour good," the Count replied. "True, they

He had crossed the cabin and was pushing the notes back into the desk. There was a break in the

conversation. To the Austrian it seemed as if his guest were trying to make up his mind. Then the faintest

suggestion again of a footfall on the thick carpet beyond the halfopen door preceded a revolver shot. The

Count appeared to roll against the desk, and drop backwards heavily to his chair, as a burning wave of

powdersmoke crawled slowly up through the atmosphere of the room, playing in little ripples about the

In an instant Paul was on his feet, his ears ringing with the echoes of the explosion. He sprang towards the

Count, but he knew by that instinct which comes only with the presence of death that he was too late. A

splash of red sprang out at the Count's collar, his lips hung limply, twitching once, twice, as if groping for

words that would not come, and his eyes searched the cabin looking for something which he could not find.

The invisible presence of death was in the room. Paul felt it; the cold touch of something indefinable, but

something that brushed his cheek and left it cold as if icy fingers had rested there.

The door had closed. The smoke ripples still played round the farther corner and fought with each other at the

small aperture of the porthole; the red stain became brighter on the white linen of the man in the chair. And

his face grew whiter. The long nervous fingers shot out to touch something in the air and fell back with the

drop of the arm loose and numb. The very fingernails were changing colour before the eyes of the other

So Paul waited there, his face blanched, his eyes wide and staring, looking down upon a man who went

slowly out to meet death and fought it every inch of the way, till he drooped his head at last just a little to one

side, and took a long deep breath and gave up his soul to his Maker with that submission which marks the

Paul knew he was dead; he felt the possession of death in the chamber. And then as suddenly the light in the

cabin expired, and the whip of the darkness upon his nerves hurled him to the door.

It was locked. He was alone in the room with the dead man and his secret. But above the reek of the blending

tobacco smoke and flavour of burnt powder came the scent of lilies; at first mild and fleeting till it seemed to

IN moments of great crises the mind often detaches itself from the main flood of things, to dwell upon some

trivial detail which has small bearing on the situation. Thus did it first occur to Paul that he was standing

dragging at a locked door in the dark, with papers screwed in one hand which were something of a key to the

diplomacy of half Europe. That a man had been shot and lay dead, concealed by the darkness a few yards

away, did not enter the range of his calculations compared to the importance with which his mind clothed the

papers in his hand. And as the seconds passed and he remained struggling at the door and fumbling for a key

which reason should have taught him was on the other side, an instinct convinced him that the hand that had

He groped in his pocket and drew out a matchbox, and proceeded to strike a light. He held the vesta aloft and

glanced round the room. Then he picked up the heaviest chair he could see. The match dropped from his

fingers and died out, a red spot on the thick carpet. For a moment he hesitated, then hurled the chair above his

head and brought it crashing down on the panel of the cabin door. There was a sound of splintering wood, he

found the aperture and groped through it with his fingers, then swung the chair against the yielding panels

again and again with all the strength his frenzy lent him. The wood scattered in flying splinters, and a sharp

In five minutes he had battered a hole in the door wide enough to permit him to pass through. The sweat was

streaming down his face, and something that was warm trickled along his fingers till he felt it drip from his

nail. A smarting pain in the fleshy part of his hand told him that a splinter had cut deep.

His mind was working with the rapidity of an engine. He did not wait, but, stuffing the papers into his pocket,

clambered through the broken door. Once in the corridor beyond he felt with his fingers along the wall till he

reached the companion way. Overhead he could see small cohorts of clouds rushing.

He went up on deck quickly. At the rail he waited; nothing moved except a few swaying masts, and the

outline of his boat bobbing on swirling currents. Yet there must be someone aboard; he gripped his revolver

Conflicting desires surged in his mind. The nameless terror of an invisible foe somewhere near at hand

produced uneasiness. A few feet below a man lay dead, he could not get the sight of him out of his memory.

He had to face things; he must search the vessel. But there were the papers in his pockets; nor was it

He beat forward to where the ladder still trailed down the yacht's side towards his boat. He reached it and

began to descend when the moon cast adrift from a screen of watery cloud. And ahead of him he could see

the little fleet of torpedo boats lying beyond the clustering smaller craft at their moorings.

He paused. Nothing moved. There was no sound except the wind whispering in the rigging overhead and the

melodious lapping of the water against his boat. He dropped lightly down, cast the rope adrift and picked up

the oars. But when he looked up a small gliding thing had shot out of the shadows at the far end of the

harbour and sidled up to a lone torpedo boat that lay without lights almost at the harbour mouth. He could

just discern the pigmy figures moving at the ship's rail. Then another figure climbed slowly, laboriously on to

the larger craft. He strained forward, staring through the dark. It was a woman.

He was floating idly in the shadowed water under the yacht's side. What a story it was! The two of them

talking underground diplomacy in the cabina shota dead man on a deserted vessel, a little boat slipping

off into the dark! What would the world say if he were arrested and told the story as he knew it in support of

his innocence? It would just close its dim old eyes and laugh! And the woman climbing on to a torpedo

He dipped the oars deep in the water. The Diomed was slipping into the blackness. Before him was the big

world of adventure. He was running away from evidence that would have hanged a saint. The torpedo boat

was moving. He could hear the low mutter of engines, the throb of a propeller. And the light closed down.

Out somewhere in the dark he heard a man's shout he saw the flash of sparks from a moving funnelfor

just the fraction of a second a mast cut across the light at the pier head, and then as quickly disappeared.

The words came to Paul from some craft at anchor. Could it be that a foreign warship had crept unobserved

into the harbour in order that the crime on the yacht might be carried out? The whole thing seemed so

He had touched the shore, the keel grating softly on the shingle where he crept gently in to the land. There

was no one on the seafront, the whole place seemed deserted, and he walked hurriedly towards the town.

But suddenly he stopped, as his mind groping backward had unlocked one of the secrets it held captive.

His memory painted a little cameo for him; the night at the Toledo, her face looking up at him and those big

eyes of hers. The blue wrap and the perfumethe voluptuous perfume that seemed to cling about her and

It was the same; but that vessel driving for the open sea might contain any woman in the world except this

A searchlight sprang suddenly out of the dark and rolled in a splendid fan of light over the water. In it Paul

could see a small black object, that moved and twisted like an insect driven to frenzy by a ray of sunlight

penetrating the darkness of its retreat. He watched it fascinated. He became numb to his own peril, to the

"Ah, the searchlight has found her again!" He was muttering to himself now. "But she'll escape yet. Heaven,

He liked the fight, the small craft running hard before the pack of sleuthhounds. He watched it till the pitch

"They'll never catch her now," he said to himself as he went on. Nor did he pause to ask himself why he was

glad. But no evidence in all the world would convince him that he had nearly met the little lady of the grey

eyes aboard the Diomed that night. Given as the truth it would ever sound a lie.

JAMES FENNING stretched himself and yawned. He was conscious first of the strong sunlight streaming

through a window in a cascade on to his face, then of the fact that he had a headache. A conglomeration of

noises began to settle and sort itself out into its respective denominations on his ears. He heard the sounds of

awaking day in Paristhe low rumble of handcarts, the crack of whips and the growled curse of the

cabdriver. He heard the scuffle of feet on the pavements, a boy whistling a popular air from the "Boule

Mich," picked up in some gamin slum, and the chirping of roof sparrows pleased with the sun.

So Fenning yawned again. Another Paris day had begun, another day of hot pavements and tropical nights.

He was used to these sounds, used almost to the ache across his eyes, and he cursed the Caf� du Lion d'Or;

asked himself aloud if he had really kissed the little Spanish dancer with the wonderful eyes, and got slowly

He shuffled his feet into a pair of woollined slippers which in colour exactly matched his blue sleepingsuit.

Then he sat on the edge of the bed and surveyed himself in the mirror across the room, just as men do when

they feel very ill at ease with the world and are slow to admit it. But he smiled at his reflection as he would

have done to an old friend. Why does a man feel a kindred sympathy for his own rakish likeness in the glass

after a wild night of petits verres, red lips, and fragmentary memories? There is nothing so human in the

world as one's own reflection at seven o'clock in the morning on such an occasion; the best of friends lack the

same sense of sympathy, the same understanding. So James Fenning smiled again, admired the colour of the

He began to grope round the room for his razor and shaving pot, wishing that the headache would go. It was

then that he noticed the white glove on the table. He picked it up, examined the seams, the creases where it

"Silly little kid," he muttered to himself. "I wonder why she wanted me to keep that glove? It spoiled the pair.

And her name Clarice. Ah, I remember. Heaven! Some girls have eyes! And what was it she was saying

He dressed slowly, but all the while his thoughts were coming back with their accustomed range and power.

The will of the man, the sheer effort to thwart physical inertia, brought with it a subtle form of strength that

enabled him to recover quickly from the effects of the night in the nether world of Paris. But now as he was

about to leave the room he stopped and looked vacantly at the door as if he saw something in the room or felt

the presence of itthe presence of the better man himself as he might have beenand unconsciously he

"Jimmy, you fool," he said very quietly, lest the better man should hear, "if you had only run straight, if you

He flung open the door with an impetuous gesture, and stood with his hand on the edge of it, and a draught

blowing on to his face. He had reached a line of reasoning which had never disturbed him before, and

because it was in revolt with the whole tenor of his life found himself unable to deal with it now. He was

conscious of the quirk in his moral fibre, of a power that ebbed and flowed through every vein of him and

"What's the good of supposing?" he exclaimed. "That night at the restaurantI knew then what she might

have meant in my life. And she's mixed up in this hellbroth in the Balkans, so I will probably run across her

somewhere. I'd sell any woman if I had the chance, just because I couldn't help it. But herI wonder if I'd

He crossed the dark landing almost to fall into the arms of another man who was standing just inside the

"No, you wouldn't, old man," a voice exclaimed in his ear. "I don't know who the lady is, but it's not in you to

"Cazalet! Good Lord!" Fenning came to a full stop, blank amazement on his face. "You here in Paris, by all

that's wonderful! How does it come about, you who hate Paris as you hate sin, and what has brought you to

Cazalet dropped into an easy chair, threw his hat on the floor at his feet, and laughed.

"Walked in, Jimmy. You forgot to bolt your door last night. Lively evening, eh, Jimmy?"

Fenning reached for the orange packet of cigarettes on the table, and tearing back the paper held it out.

"I suppose you would call it that. Anyhow, you know what my life is. That's right, burn some of this bad

He pushed the tray containing the coffee jug and rolls to one side, and lounged against the edge of the table.

Cazalet nodded. "Haven't you had your breakfast?" he counter questioned. "The coffee looks cold."

"My breakfast never varies on occasions like thesefour cigarettes and an absinthe at halfpast ten. By

eleven I am game for anything." He laughed at the disgust on Cazalet's face. "Oh, I know you think I'm

killing myself," he said. "But remember the sort of life I have to lead. Most people would call me a spy who

gets his living by consorting with the biggest blackguards in the biggest cities in Europe. In some respects

they would be correct; on the other hand, sometimes very far from the mark. Many of the best men and

women I know flutter through the nether world of Paris. They have no creed except plunder and pleasure, but

there is more human nature in some of them than in all the saints of your English middle classes. Lame dogs

are either killed or helped over stiles in this world I move in. A curious world, too, Cazalet."

"But I couldn't live without it. And I love these men and women, boy. Aye, I love 'em. They're human to the

"If you would only drink convivially with them in sodawater you wouldn't let your coffee get cold so often,"

he said. "I would like to take you in hand, Jimmy, and put you through a course of training. Remember, I'm

no prude. Thousands of men call me a blackguard, but I have a deep appreciation of life, and I hate to see it

chucked away. I would, for the good of your soul, give you a month of grenadine, and pull you down to plain

"Saints! Did you ever know a man divulge a secret on soda water? Why, the chilliness of it makes him shut

up his mouth in sheer hatred of everybody. And a womanthe woman who knows the things I want to

"Then it must be a pretty rotten life, yours," Cazalet said. "I thought Fleet Street and Westminster were bad

"I remember," Fenning said, with a grin, "that the last time we metit was at the Toledo, and you had a

shock that night but I recollect your saying that you were going to take a short cut to the devil. Is that why

"I don't know." Cazalet thought he traced a note of curiosity in the question, easily as it had been put. "I came

"My portmanteau is at the hotel. I wired to England for the rest this morning. I can't go south till it arrives."

"I can give you the whole day up to four o'clock," Fenning responded. "You hate Paris, I know; but I'll make

"I'm lazy. I want to go no farther than the Louvre, and the finest d�jeuner the Taverne Royale can give us to

finish up with. It sounds like a common or garden tourist itinerary, but I want to get away from the main

An hour later and they were walking through the Tuileries Gardens towards the Louvre, Fenning chattering

on every subject under the sun in his usual careless manner. He gave Cazalet wordpictures of life among the

human wolves who haunt the steppes of the nether worldpariahs, most of them, from the social life of the

great city. He dressed them with colour and pagan ideas of virtue all his own, turning them round so that only

their better natures were revealed, just as one might turn a puppet to hide the patches in the paint.

Cazalet had never really understood Fenning till now. He had always imagined him a man who accepted just

what the gods chose to give him, who picked up his living in precarious fashion in the byways of

underground diplomacy, who cared not whether he had money or debts so long as a life of semiluxury were

not denied to him. But now he found him a student of human nature, a man with the mission of humanity, a

thinker, who could adapt himself to the haunts of the rich or poor with equal liking. And yet, could he have

looked down a little deeper into Fenning's soul, he might have glimpsed the tragedy that lay therethe

tragedy of the man who, finding so much he could love and admire in the poorest human derelicts, was the

Fenning did not shield himself. He had no selfexcuse; indeed, while he was talking, Cazalet fancied once or

twice that he had no shame for his shortcomings. But most people have as much pride in their vices as in their

virtues. To possess no vice proclaims a lack of knowledge of the world, and there are times in the life of

every man when he likes to be thought worldly. In Fenning it might have been a pose; to Paul it was

He was silent. He revelled in Fenning's chatter. He might have been looking at the soul of the man who lived

for the hour. The warmth of the sun dropping through the full foliage, clustering fresh and wonderful on the

trees, stirred him to better feelings. Things about him became interesting. Much as he hated Paris, he began to

feel now the sense of enchantment which she provides for others. To his sensitive nature Paris had always

seemed an abscess on the heart of France into which all the puerility of a great race drew in its natural course.

It was a narrow view. Fenning had told him so a hundred times, but he clung to it as he might to an old

threadbare superstition. The artificiality of Parisian life, just plastering over the brutality and coarseness that

lay so close beneath the surface, sickened him. Paris, he told himself, was even now but half civilised. Paris

bedecked herself with beautiful architecture and every possible adornment of beauty to hide the ugly

nakedness of her soul, the lust that lurked there, the brutality. The restless pursuit of pleasure, the cruelty, the

whole gamut of crime kept under poor restraintall these things garnished up to appeal to the brute passions

were as obtruding forces unsoftened by any understanding, or love for a wonderful city and a wonderful

people. If he could have watched Paris at work, if he could have dreamed as Paris dreamed, the responding

chord would have been struck. But Fenning, by the sheer conviction of his talk, was translating a life of

"The little duchesshow is she?" he inquired during a break in the conversation. "Another memory of that

"Oh, Stephanie?" Fenning burst into a peal of laughter. "She was a dear, was Stephanie. She went to Monte

on Wednesday. Met a wealthy whitehaired American at the Ambigu one eveningsat next to him in the

stalls or somethingand she discovered between acts one and two that he would pay her debts at the tables.

Wonderful woman, Stephanie! Could convince a man that she had loved him almost from the moment when

she first opened her little violet eyes. As for me, I spent pounds in buying her filets de volailleher favourite

dishjust to revel in her smile. She had a wonderful smile, had Stephanie, but no soul. She has forsaken the

"I have told myself a hundred times that I am the luckiest man in the world, till I found one luckier than I.

Eternal fidelityGod! we've sworn it and believed in ittill someone else taught us a new creed. A deeper

"And what is there in a woman of Stephanie's type to interest you, let alone fascinate you, Jimmy?" Cazalet

"She interested me. I cannot explain her. I wouldn't like to try. You can't explain a woman who fascinates

you; she's the world walking on the world. Stephanie's many moods are like ripples on a pond, blowing this

way and that in the cross strata of wind, the absolute shallowness of her at times was to me a big object lesson

in life. I knew she was mercenary. I knew she was shallow. I loved her little tempers, then hated her for them.

I studied her as one of a species. I was interested in her just that. I never loved her. I knew from the first I

never loved her. And then I folded her up in my thoughts whenever I left her, much as one lays away a curio

"No, you would not. When you recognise the littleness of her world, and yet how complete it is for her, you

must needs look on fascinated. You cannot help yourself. You are surprised and amused by turns. The most

repulsive thing attracts because you must look at it. Stephanie was worldly; to you or me she must be

interesting. But the socalled educated sections of society hate a worldly woman because they do not

"Run your mind back to that night at the Toledo for a moment, Jimmy," he said. "Remember that table at the

"I always call her `the girl in the white frock'Josephine stepped out of an eighteenth century miniature,"

Fenning shrugged his shoulders. He was on his guard in a moment, the old instincts of conflict and subterfuge

that had wrapped him about with an armour all his life choosing his words for him.

"Oh, very little," he answered. "Isn't it queer, Cazalet, how women who are by birth and education mapped

out for a quiet life, a domestic life, hear the call of adventure, and must respond to it? She's a diplomatic

freelance, I should say, and that means perdition for a woman unless she knows the ropes. But there's

something behind it allthere must be. She'll probably get tired of it in a few months, and rank herself a

failure till she makes a big success as some man's wife. A woman seldom reasons, Paul: she acts on impulse.

That is what she has done; but some day the real call will come to her, and she will heed it. She'll love a man

with her whole soul. She'll count love for what it isthe biggest thing in life. I read it all in her face that

"Yes. Don't look innocent. The house with the green steps. A house very far West. You were there, because I

Cazalet glanced at him, but he observed no more than a quick tightening of the lips and a set expression

drawing slowly over his face. They went on together in silence. It was as if something had sprung up from the

ground that was unseen, yet made its presence felt and walked between them. And so in silence they entered

The common interest of both in Art for a while brought them together again. But in the first gallery their

tastes jarred. Cazalet left Fenning staring in silent worship at the Murillos; while he strode irritably ahead till

he found his favourite Corots, unaware that Fenning was watching his every movement.

"Come away from that grey daub," Fenning whispered in his ear. "Don't you know, man, that that picture just

reflects your mood? You can tell a man's temperament by his favourite artist, and yours is very grey just

"Grey?" Paul exclaimed. "All the colour in the world can be shown with a brush and a tube of grey paint

He pointed to the picture before him, and Fenning stood looking, preening his head this way and that with the

"A tube of grey paint and a mood, Paul. Yes, it's there. Give me colour, but thatthat's wonderful. The man

They waited together, staring at the little Corot in the corner. It was a small pool, and it seemed to waken to

life, the very waters to move, and the leaves to pulse to the breath of day as the eye bore the artist's meaning

to the brain. The canvassed figures beside it stood out and breathed and seemed to quiver just as one would

imagine life awaking in marble. And these wood nymphs, changed from paint to flesh and blood, were

stealing through the gentle wreaths of grey gauzethe tones that lie upon valley pools at dawn, and rise from

them with the morning. The mists were moving! They clambered around the trees, and put their damp breath

upon the cool leaves; they caught the fragile reflections that cling to the breasts of still watersreflections

that stole into long, gaunt shadows where the willows leaned to the heavy overlying banks; and then, with

some starting flame of light, rose like a spirit affrighted. The concealed wonder of the thing inflamed

"I hate your deep colours. One of your Murillos would kill my appetite if it hung in my diningroom," Paul

was saying. "But just give me those softlimned branches against the mist, that faint glow leaping from slow

waters when day creeps on. I have seen it thousands of times in those Normandy valleys . . . Come, Fenning,

"An artist would say that picture is a meal," said Fenning. "But I am not an artist. I fancy a trout at the

Royale. I want the best d�jeuner in Paris; then we shall agree." He linked his arm in his friend's. "I cannot

"Do you know," Fenning began, shuffling his stride to suit his companion's, "if you are in doubt as to how far

you agree with a man, take him into a picture gallery just one hour before a late lunch." He looked at his

watch. "You'll probably be bitter enemies for exactly that hour. But you'll vote your friend the best critic over

"Then you think we'll agree about everything in the world over lunch?" asked Paul, with a laugh. "Jimmy,

"No, we won't agree about one thing ever," he said aloud. "The girl with the corals. We both think we are the

only man she ought to marry. But it's all vanity, Paul. Neither of us is worthy to kiss her little satin shoe.

You'll carry the Josephine miniature in your heart all your life. So shall I. We've got to: it's the picture on the

altar we've set up. And we know all the time that we could go just one better than the other to make her

happy. We would sell our cramped souls to the devilat his own price, by gad!to give her a moment's

happiness. But we'll never get her, either of us. We shall just be lookerson. Some man will marry her who

won't know the wonder of her as we do. But, old chap, we'll both keep her image stuck up to say our prayers

It was frank confession. To Paul they were words of challenge. Yet he loved the man beside him for his

"Not fools, Pauljust slaves. But give a pretty woman her slaves, or she will perish of ennui."

"She isn't that sort," exclaimed Paul. "She wouldn't spoil a man's life. She wouldn't play the fool with a man,

because she knows it's a crime. It's not a social crime. Society would call her a brick for turning down an

"You know about the hundred others. I suppose you would say she was the hundred and first?" Fenning

suggested. "You think I'd just class them all together. You would say I was lying if I said I loved her."

"I have no doubt. We blackguards don't mate with the angels. But she's pretty big, Jim."

"I know that. Women mess about with men's lives. Don't mean to, but they do. And they make men out of

silly idiots sometimes. I'd like to try and live up to that girl for five years without her knowing. Of course I

couldn't do it, no more could you. She'll marry the man who's born to grow up good."

"She'll wreck herself if she does," said Paul. "No man grows up good. He cultivates respectability as he might

a radish. I don't believe in the clearconscience bridegroom. If I had a son I'd say to him, `Sow your wild

oats, sow 'em doublerowed if you like, but sow 'em, and sow 'em deep. Then go to the woman whom God

made for you and say, "I've reaped my harvest; I've learned all the world can teach me, and it's a simple, silly

"If she were a real woman she'd say nothing; she'd have heard nothing. But she'd know she'd captured a bit of

"But she'll jilt us, Paulboth of us. Aren't we rather foolish comparing notes like this?"

"Oh, I suppose we'll go on worshipping a girl with wonderful eyes whom we once knew. And we'll get a bit

of consolation out of our dismissala man who craves for the woman he cannot have always does. We'll

know that we meant a few moments of her life to her. And those moments, Paul, will be our eternities."

They walked on till they reached the Taverne Royale, and each told himself that he could read the mind of the

other, each felt a sense of superiority, the growing knowledge of things as he had shaped them out for

himself. At the glass doors Fenning stopped and bought a paper from the newsboy as he passed.

"Hear what he was shouting?" he said. He tore back the paper and bent over it. He ran his eye up and down

"Here it is. `Murder of Count Stolpin.' . . . You remember that man, Paul. He gave you his card at the

"Yes, killed on his yacht, the Diomed, in Dover Harbour last night. No clue to the murderer. But a foreign

torpedo boat was seen leaving the harbour shortly after the affair must have taken place. Here's a stoppress

"If you had an atom of imagination, you would say it might be the truth," Fenning retorted.

They took possession of a small table. Fenning remained studying his paper. "You don't understand what it

all means; I do. You don't see the fearful significance of it," he said when the waiter thrust the menu card in

"And after that?" Paul said. He leant across the table and transferred the menu to his friend's plate. As he did

so he heard the crinkle of the papers in his breast pocket. The sound irritated his nerves, and made him for a

"I'm for cutlets and petits pois," he jerked out. "Yes, I wonder what the motive was? And the man in the

boatI wonder what he knows? Really our police are getting infernally slack. And the torpedo boat with the

"Who said there was a woman on the vessel?" he asked. "The paper said nothing about that."

It was a moment of stress. Paul took a coin from his pocket and laid it on the table.

"Fenning, are you so young that you don't know that there's a woman in everythingeven a torpedo boat,

when there's murder going? See, here's a twentyfranc piece. It's yours if it doesn't turn out that there's a

woman at the bottom of this affair, that a woman is the pivot on which it turns."

FENNING devoured his trout moodily and almost without speaking. He glanced up now and then to find

Paul's eyes upon him, then with some cursory remark about the cosmopolitan gathering at the near tables, he

continued the solemn ritual of his d�jeuner. He emptied his small bottle of Graves, slowly ate the last morsel

of Roquefort that lay on his plate, placed a black Italian cigar carefully between his lips, and folded his arms

There is nothing that unnerves a man so much as being cooped up in a crowd any member of which may be

his enemy. Cazalet had eaten scarcely anything, and his eyes never ceased to watch every person in the room

"Then let's get out of this place; it's stifling," he replied. He signed to the waiter, and hurriedly paid the bill

"I prescribe an absinthe for youyou are not yourself," Fenning said, slipping his arm through that of his

"I can't get it off my mind. And my nerves are all on edge too. Depression after a Royale lunchit's

They reached a caf� near the end of the Rue Caumartin, and sat down at one of the marbletopped tables.

"The little green god will put some colour into the streets for you yet," Fenning said, when the waiter brought

"For which reason you drink this unholy stuff?" Paul pointed to the road. "Is absinthe going to blind your

Fenning looked in the direction indicated. What he saw was merely an episode in the one long procession of

pain of the Paris streets, a cab from which a driver slashed a tottering, limping beast to a gallop, that he might

filch an extra sou from the spruce, overfed youth who lolled back in the carriage in an attitude of smug

"You've got to shut your eyes to all that if you want to enjoy life," he said. "What could you do? Write one of

your bitter articles in the English press? It's dead, man, as soon as the paper is out of currency. Knock the

"It's a pretty hopeless thing, civilisation, sometimesthe brute stalks everywhere."

"But if there were no misery, we who have missed it wouldn't find it good to live," Fenning said. "It's all this

ugliness that makes the better things more beautiful. You ought to be a contented man; you've most things

Paul picked up the spoon, and, placing it across the glass, began to pour the water drop by drop through the

"As you say, what can I do?" he said. "I suppose we're all brutes at heart. Civilisation has only given us a

He put down the carafe, and sipped at his glass in silence. Fenning had only shown him how impotent he

was. The years spent in fighting cruelty with the Press as his doubleedged weaponwhat had it brought

him, what reform could he ever tell himself he had achieved? And it was a form of madness with him, this

crusade against brutality, but his whole life's work would be no more than a drop in the ocean, lost and

swallowed up. He could not deaden the cry of the child, driven against its little wisdom to attempt some task

which God whispered into its cramped soul as impossible. He could not stem the gasping of the flogged beast

that meant nothing to the illformed caricature of its Creator who plied the thong.

"You've begun at the wrong end. Stop the torture of humanity and then come down to the beasts," Fenning

was saying. "You're trying, I know, but things will always be as they are. By the way, that speech of yours

"It's the last I'll make for many a day. I don't think I ever want to see the House again."

"So soon! And what about today? I want to show you some of my wolves, my criminals you will never

"Then you'll get your fill of pleasure and tell me in the morning that my criminals are saints in ragged

"You shall buy me one tonight when I tell you my frank opinion of your friends," Paul laughed.

"Come, let's be moving," he said. "How can a caf�keeper make his place pay on two absinthes and a table

They strode off side by side. Almost as they reached the corner of the Grand Hotel Fenning felt a touch on his

arm and turned. A man was standing there looking uncertainly up into his face. He was dressed in rough

cloth, a little out of keeping with the garments of those who jostled him upon the pavements; one might have

met him in Montmartre. The hair of his head, coming down in a wave at the back of his ears from under his

tweed cap, was marked with grey. And he glanced quickly at Paul with an expression of doubt flashing across

his face, looked again, then pulled Fenning aside and said something in an undertone.

Paul waited, vexed and annoyed at the interruption. But something about the man's face seemed vaguely

familiar to him. Somewhere in the many episodes of his life he had met this man and had spoken to him, the

very tones of his voice told him that. He was juggling with his memory when Fenning interrupted.

"You'll be round at eight, then. I must see this fellow; it's important. You don't mind?"

"And you shall watch my menagerie and finish up with a little supper at the Croix d'Argent. I've planned it all

He broke away laughing, but the merriment on his face dropped into seriousness as he joined the waiting man

Cazalet retraced his steps. He had yet an hour to spare, and he spent it at a caf� table, watching, as he loved to

watch, the life that changed on these boulevards even as the hour changed. He could have told the time by the

type of women who passed along the great thoroughfare. The clothing of sombre typethe grey and

blackmelted imperceptibly into more gaudy colours. The expression on the faces of the men appeared

brighter, happier as the day closed down. Paris threw off her shackles as he waited; she grew smiling and

He got up at length and walked down to the Madeleine. People were passing up the great steps, old men in

solemn black, the younger generation in brighter clothes; widows with heads bowed as if their memories

were more than they could bear; a slutof allwork in a neatlypatched dress; a Society woman rubbing

shoulders with her, and for the first time in the day forgetting that she was better than those about her. Paul,

naturally observant, watched the miracle, amazed at the levelling of classes under the test of reverence. He

At the bottom of the aisle he stood waiting. The glow of lights, the solemn show, the soft mutter of a bell, the

wisp like passing of figures to and fro against some distant altar, had in them all the mystery of worship of

the intangible, of the unseen Force. He stepped to one side with muted footsteps. He bowed his head with the

respect that compels, and felt the sense of Power, impossible to define, yet which was everywhere. He was

conscious for the first time in his life of the presence of Might very near him. He realised, too, the fraternity

that linked to him the common seller of cabbages, or some such commerce, who had just risen from his knees

with the settled determined look upon his face that comes with understanding. Cazalet stood there, vaguely

mystified, yet knowing that in the great city of eternal pleasure, of brutality and sin, there yet lurked a

sanctity where faith found its sheet anchor, where hatred, lust, and cruelty fell away like a load at the church

Three figures were kneeling at the altar just inside the door. He scanned them one by one; an old man whose

kneejoints almost creaked as he knelt, his lips curling in an expression of pain, a woman in heavy mourning,

and another whom he seemed to recognise. The hand thrust out along the rail with the large emerald ring on

the second finger recalled that of a woman he had once known. Her head was bowed over the rail, one hand

covering her face. It was the build of her figure, the delicate slimness of her hands, and the long narrowing

fingers that shaped some picture in his memory. And yet had he not felt a sense of recognition for the man

who had accosted Fenning in the street? It was merely the play of his imagination; the stress of the last few

He crept a little way up the aisle and sat in an empty chair. He scarcely knew what was going to happen, but

A voice was chanting a Benedicite; he listened to the music of it, the melody which the building developed in

the human speech. The fragrant odour of incense came floating to him in little waves that stilled his senses; a

pool of crimson light was falling on the flagstone at his side from some window. He took in all these things in

an abstract manner, when every moment he expected a hand to touch his shoulder. The moments passed, and

the worshippers began to go out, and he got up and joined them. A fine rain had begun to fall. Slowly he

The two stood looking at each other, a little uncertain, neither for the instant daring to speak. Then Fenning

put up his hand to his coat, and lifting the collar showed a small badge of silver and enamel hidden behind it.

"Fate's a good jester," he answered. "Or shall we lay the jest to the credit of the dead? I've been carrying

papers about all day to give to the Count's messenger." He thrust his hand inside his coat, produced a packet

and gave it to Paul. "I had no idea you were the man, but just a suspicion crossed my mind when I met that

"The man to whom you gave a sovereign at Dover for a boat in which to row out to the yacht. He recognised

you. He even believes you are the man who shot Count Stolpin dead in his cabin."

Paul closed his eyes as if trying to recall the night on that windswept pavement when he had asked a man

emerging from the darkness for the hire of a boat. "Yes, I remembered his face."

"The Count sent him there on purpose to meet you, it seems. At first I thought the man was lying. I did not

think you would get embroiled in this business; I never believed you would dare."

"Desperateyou?" he exclaimed. "At any rate you must hide yourself in Paris or leave it quickly," he said. "I

am no alarmist, but I mean what I say. I have told you that the greatest ruffian has his virtue; that man's

fidelity to the Count is his. It's an eye for an eye, Paul. He is one of my wolves."

"No, come with me," he said. "They will never suspect you in my rooms, but they would plunder an hotel in

half an hour for a man they wanted. The papers will be quite safe in my bed. I have an excellent straw

mattress. It's there I hide things. And I leave my door open for anyone to walk in and look round. I even

provide the absinthe and a carafe of water on the table. They love my hospitality too much to rob me. Yes,

you are quite safe there. I'll rig you up in some clothes and hide you tonight in the middle of those who

would take your life. Come, we are being watched. That woman on the top of the steps is a spy; we've been

playing hideandseek with each other for weeks. And she's one of those women who do know the ropes."

Paul glanced back and saw a woman looking down at them. There was an expression of half surprise, half

"Take me away from here quickly," he exclaimed fiercely. "You can't mean thatit's impossible."

Paul staggered through the gates on his friend's arm. His head was swimming, his feet dragging with the

"You lie!" Paul exclaimed with heat. "You don't know. She's fooled you like the rest of us. We're all dupes.

"Man, you're raving. I don't know that you are not stark, staring mad! You are talking like an idiot. Lady

Penstone?" He burst into a loud laugh. "Don't you remember the night at the Toledo? Have you forgotten so

soon? The paperthat little bit Pentelow pointed out to you? The sudden birth of Lord Penstone's heir that

robbed you of your inheritance. Damn it, man, you're no good at this game! You're mad!"

"Mad, am I?" he burst out. "Don't you think a mercenary brute like I am would remember every feature of the

"Yes, Jimmy, and I'm going through with itI'm going to Belgrade. We'll take our tally of the reckoning

"Going through with it when you're probably worth a quarter of a million? And you think you're sane? Little

fishes! Men don't do that in their right minds; they fight, fight like the deuce for what is theirs by law. You're

going back to prove that will, Cazalet, and open up the biggest fraud the English papers have got hold of for

"You're wrong, Jimmywrong all the time," Cazalet laughed back. He walked quickly forward now like a

"Run away from a fortune. Just because of a girl! Oh, you amazing male!" he exclaimed. Then he added, as if

PAUL was quite certain that the coat fitted him vilely. He turned about in front of Fenning's small

lookingglass, better to judge the effect. His every pose only increased his irritability. There were great

creases running away from the buttons. Then the thing was too long, to begin with, and the shoulders looked

as if they had lumps of clay secured beneath them. He turned up the collar, only to find that it completely hid

He turned halfsavagely upon Fenning, who sat upon the corner of the bed and rocked with laughter.

"Why trouble to explain, dear boy? The thing is so perfectly obvious. How can an overfed person of your

stamp expect to disguise himself as a lath? It's so mighty ridiculous! Of course, they'll think you picked it up

at some secondhand shop, and that the Jew who kept it `had' you badly. It's easy enough to dress up a man

to look a gentleman; but to disguise a gentleman as a street loafer is not a matter of dress, but of intelligence.

You have the, misfortune to be a rogue without looking it. To dress down to you would require a Clarkson."

"Your usual splutter!" exclaimed Paul. He began to unfasten the buttons carefully lest they should fly off like

bullets under the strain. "I would refuse to be found dead in a costume like that," he said.

"As you like," Fenning answered. "All the same, if you don't assume a dress in keeping with your conscience,

you'll have no choice in the matter of life or death. Remember, Paul, I accept no responsibility. I'm not a

" Yet you want me to go somewhereheaven knows where dressed as a buffoon! You want me to defraud

"Wrong, old man," Fenning answered. "You are one of them. Oh, don't think I have false ideas about you.

"You may be a respectable member of Parliament. Votes made you that, but platform lying brought those

votes. You're a fraud; I'm a fraud; but we're going among men who don't burke the truthruffians at heart,

maybe, but they are honest in their ideals. They believe in anarchypossibly in massacre: it's their primitive

way of looking at things. Aye, you shall see my wolves tonight, Paul. And that coatwhy, it clothes your

"You're infernally blatant tonight," he said, irritably. "I am getting tired of this clowning."

"The truth isn't always palatable, even to a political journalist," said Fenning. He got up, put his hands in his

pockets, and began to walk the room. "What was that woman doing at the Madeleine?" he asked.

"You will write to England after that extremely interesting episode in Dover Harbour? You dear innocent! Of

Paul realised what, in the excitement of the hour, had escaped his memory. Since he had been robbed of his

inheritance by a trick, he could not hope to regain it by open warfare. He dared not disclose his whereabouts,

dared not make a single inquiry. Few men develop a taste for facing a charge of murder.

"Shot Count Stolpin? My Paul, you have more perception. You are so disgustingly scrupulous, and even you

would have taken better precautions for getting away. You've got a brain; you wouldn't let it play the

sluggard while someone cut your throat. Besides, you had nothing to gain, so far as I can see. And you didn't

"And why not? It seems so feasible that the police will probably pay no attention to it. They have not reached

the romantic age yet. For a foreign warship to drop in among the craft in Dover Harbour! Good Lord, Paul,

your most intelligent constable would never listen to such a tale. He would tell you that the fleet would not

permit it. No; they will look, all of them, for the man in the rowingboat. . . . Be frank, and tell me what

Paul related every incident of that night's adventure, and all the while Fenning strode the room, his forehead

"At least a dozen, dear boy. I haven't sorted them out yet. And they all want labelling with their respective

merits. Come, now. Stolpin knew you were going to keep the appointment on the yacht. He knew more: he

knew you had decided to go to Servia. And yet, how did he know? His instructions to me were most explicit;

he knew his man. And if I had thought awhile I might even have recognised you from those instructions,

"You thought I hadn't the pluck of a mouse. You believed I was merely piqued by my ill luck that night at the

"Of course. The report of that kid's birth hit you badly. I saw that. I thought you would return to Parliament

"I might have doneyes, I might have done," Paul said quietly. But his thoughts went swinging backback

to a night when Life opened out her arms to him, when the tocsin of the greater world sounded with

clamouring insistence. He remembered those words in the cab: "We shall meet in Servia." And following

them his own answer, "Nothing is farther from my thoughts than to go there." Yet he was going to Belgrade

"That night at the Toledo, Fenningthe girl in the white frockwhat became of her?" He put the question

"Yes," Fenning went on in his cool, even voice, "she's number eleven in my suspicions."

Paul said nothing. The whole world seemed to be twisting round before his mind. He breathed hard. It

seemed to him that the subtle odour of lilies of the valley was being pumped into his lungs like chloroform.

The atmosphere of the room grew to reek of it, at least, so he fancied. And if he told what he knew heaven,

The mood passed. His senses steadied at the prospect of argument. He must fight for her, he knew that. And

the suspicions must be driven from Fenning's mind before their fragile roots took hold and grew.

"It's absurd!" he cried. "It couldn't be, Fenning. You understand women as well as I; and can you see that girl

stealing aboard a yacht and shooting a man in cold blood? That girl, mark you. She had no grudge against

Fenning shrugged his shoulders; a wave of smoke from his cigarette, rank and stale, floated out to his

"Some women will sacrifice anything for ambition, advancement; cause any suffering, any pain," he said.

"We think so, you and I, since it pleases us; selfdelusion is the first symptom of devotion. I have quite an

open mind, but she is number eleven in my suspicions. Even you may shoot a better man than Stolpin yet,

Paul. When a woman is roused from herselfthen you might as well try to dam the ocean, or climb a poplar

to touch the stars. And a woman in search of adventure tchut! I know the whole rabble of them. Tell me, to

"I'll tell you. Why does a City clerk on thirty shillings a week throw up his position for a doubtful post at a

small increase of salary somewhere else? He burdens himself with anxiety; he may never retain his post a

month, and he knows it before he takes the plunge. It's the call of adventure singing through his blood. And

you are going to Belgrade in answer to the same call. You have no interest in the political turmoil there, no

grievance, no axe to grind, but you are going. Don't you see that adventure, more than any other impulse,

shapes the life of every man and woman amongst us? We hear its call and we go blindly. We must go. Strike

out adventure from our lives and we become mere machines, pulsing to a common rhythm; but machines all

the time. Adventure makes the accidents of life; the accidents create the failures and shape the successes.

Adventure is a big soulmonger; it buys us and sells us according to our own market value. Some have more

courage than others: they are worth more. The rest wander along through life in a rut: they don't count. They

"But supposing it's not adventure that is sending me to Belgrade at all? What if it were something more

"I know what you mean," Fenning answered. "Your own questions have told me. If you want to tell the truth,

ask a question with an obvious answer. That's by the way. You are going because of a woman; but love is the

most deadly bait of adventure, and you of all men ought to know it. Remember, whatever the means, we are

ready to be bought body and soul by the main chance if what we term the right colour turns up. We call it

good or bad luck. Men and women are doing it every day; some by the hearthside, others in the circles of

"You do at heart. Aren't we all gamblers? The woman gambles on her husband's love when she marries; the

man gambles day by day for another shilling a week, another fifty pounds a week. But the fundamental force

is at the back of it all. It begins and ends in adventurethe disregarded instinct, the controlling power,

nevertheless, that makes both sexes common slaves. Don't think I'm moralising: I'm not. But when I go back

over your footsteps for the past few days, do you think I don't see how completely you've been sold in the

Paul produced the two wallets of papers, the one given him by Count Stolpin but a few minutes before he

took the lead in his heart, and the second thrust into his hand at the base of the Madeleine steps by Fenning.

"There is no need to open that one," Fenning said, thrusting aside the package worn to the creases of his own

pocket. "It contains introductions to a number of people in Belgrade letters of mark and so forth. The

honour of half a dozen of the principal officers in the Servian army is in that sealed envelope; it won't stand

the light of day. But they are useful, these men. Prime them with slivovits and black cigars, and they'll be

Fenning detected the first note of distrust. He looked up sharply from under his heavy blacklashed eyelids.

His thumb had forced its way under the ungummed portion of the envelope flap, and he withdrew it quickly.

"You don't think I should betray you?" he inquired. His voice was a little unsteady.

"If I doubted you should I be content to leave those papers in your rooms? My orders were to open this

Fenning threw the packet across the table irritably. He got up lazily. "That's the worst of our world," he said;

"friendship isn't current coin. Not till you know the depth of a man's villainies do you trust him. You think

you don't know me yet, so let my wolves convince you. Come, get into that coat again, button it tight, push

this cap down over your ears, and let's call a cab. You can go in evening dress and pose as a peer of the realm

if you choose; but you'll be happier in that coat. One suspects a villain as readily in evening dress as in rags."

He held out his hand for the packets, and Paul handed them over and waited while he pushed them into a

small crevice in his mattress. Then he sat down again and watched Cazalet dress. In a few minutes they were

In the streets the wind bit hard. The cold was sweeping up from the river. The wet chill touched and damped

their cheeks. A rickety fiacre with a stumbling horse lurched past, and Fenning hailed it. He let Paul climb in

and stood on the pavement, fingering his cigarette case and muttering something to the driver.

He jumped quickly into the vacant seat, and rolled himself up in a comer like a centipede. Neither spoke, but

Cazalet could see his little beady eyes staring straight ahead as the splashes of light from passing gaslamps

caught them. They swung down an endless network of streets, twisting and turning till the points of the

compass became hopelessly entangled in Paul's mind. Now along cobbled alleys they wentalleys that

broke suddenly into gaudilylit boulevards, and all the while the carriage rocked and bumped in crazy

fashion, and the ceaseless thud of the lash on lean flanks never varied its monotony. Spires, blurred and

ridiculous in the deceptive light that deformed them, reared themselves into the mist that clung above the

They turned a corner sharply, and a blare of laughter rose at them from a low brasserie. On the kerb beside

itthe pallor of the gaslight striking one side of her face and giving an evil twist to the expressiona

woman stood gibing at two men in evening dress, one of whom was clutching drunkenly at his friend's arm.

The scenes, the sounds, made up a portrait of life that forced itself upon Cazalet's memory. They were

rushing into the dark again, where heavy buildings dwindled into lean effigies of modern architecture, where

the roofs, thrown as if by some giant hand this way and that, stood out against the moonlight like the jagged

edges of a saw. The lights in the streets grew fewer and more feeble. From somewhere came the shriek of a

child. And in the darkest corners grotesque, squalid figures clung about forbidding doorways, and turned

white, starved faces to the cab as it swept past. It was as if the very air was charged with human suffering,

"Have you discovered what she was doing at the Madeleine?" Fenning's words recalled Cazalet from his

dream. "Of course she's a spy, we know that. But the farce of a child? And is her husband really dead?"

"I think you would, because you mean to see this thing through. There's something of the brute, pigheaded

fighter about you. Tell me. If her husband were dead and there were a child she would handle a fortune?"

"Which she might devote to anything. It might pay her way in Belgrade, for instance, supplemented with

"Of course you do, because you are greedy for your share, and you want the taste of adventure first.

"Well, to put the case frankly, I should say that a very pretty farce has been played in the old country. There

was a funeral no doubt, but I would wager there's lead in the coffin. And a few hundredweight of lead will

carry a ton of conviction. As for the child who has cheated you out of your heritagedear boy, how

"I don't think I care very much what has happened just now," Paul confessed. "There will be a day for

squaring the account; it may be tomorrow or a year and a day from now; it does not very much matter."

"You appear to be sure; I'm not," Fenning replied doubtfully. "The plot seems to me so infernally clever. For

you and I alone suspect that anything is wrong. We know that something is wrong. But you cannot lift a

"Don't put yourself to the trouble. We're in Belleville. And here the game begins. That door thereunder the

brokendown lamp that badly needs a coat of paintthat's where my wolves snarl. And in a moment you

The cab rasped to a standstill against the kerb, and Fenning jumped out. In a moment Paul was at his side on

the pavement, his nerves taut and ready for any emergency. They were standing at a black door, down which

little streams of rust from the iron clamps had coursed and left their stains. Fenning knocked sharply twice,

and waited with a laugh on his face as if to be taken into a very good supper. And he was humming the latest

Shuffling footsteps sounded beyond, a lock was drawn back and a grizzled face peered slowly round the

No word was spoken. The door was closed and bolted again. Overhead a red lamp burned, and threw ruddy

shadows that capered over the walls and danced a twostep on the glass of the pictures. A few framed

photographs hung at odd angles around one of them, that of the dead Karageorgevitch, Alexander, some

red, blue and white ribbon had been entwined. And just below was a maroon Serb dress with a bullet hole

through the back scorched by a pistol fired at close quarters. The inscription beneath it told of a patriot who

had left a memory, On the floor of the large hall a few Pirot rugs were scattered, and at the top of the staircase

dark red curtains hung about the entrance to the room. Paul could just hear the melody of a violin playing a

He glanced at the man who had opened the door. He had the hard, rugged face of a Serb, the high

cheekbones, and the broad forehead with the bronze skin stretched tightly across it. He bowed as Fenning,

Paul, as he followed, contrasted his dress with the apparent luxury of the surroundings. But Fenning was

holding back the curtains for him; in a moment he would have passed through, but he felt a light touch on his

He was looking down into her little oval face. And he drew aside, ashamed of his appearance, but the

loveliness of her held him captive. He studied her white throat where the fur cloak she wore was thrown

open, then her red lips, her eyes like star flames. She smiled at his dress till he flushed unconsciously.

"In Servia, little lady. Aye, you told me that. But we are miles from Servia tonight," He took her two hands

"We are not so far away from Servia as you think," she answered. "The heart of her is here."

Fenning had entered the room unobserved, and for a moment the two stood there. Then Paul followed her

The room was ablaze with lights, and the hot atmosphere passed in waves across their faces. Men and women

mingled in clusters around little Oriental tables, talking, laughing, and gesticulating. Russians, Magyars,

Serbs, Frenchmen, over there a gaudily dressed Turk, here a woman with the wonderful fresh complexion of

northern Europe; they were all playing their parts in the great drama. A few in evening dress rubbed

shoulders with the natives of the slums of capitals, the roughly clad, their cheeks dug out by suffering. But

purpose was written upon the face of each. The sleek catlike creature who leered up at Paul with bloodshot

eyes grasped Jean's hand with a smile of recognition. If she had dined well and he had last fed on a crust at

daybreak there was no distinction. Paul caught the spirit of the situation; verily the democracy of the Servian

He grew lighthearted; the mood of these people enchanted him like a good wine. Classhatred was dead;

they lived for the moment, rich men and poor, lovers of a country which to some of them was but a vague

memory. These men and womenwere they not the wastage of a Balkan nation linked by some mongrel

sense of patriotism? The sound of the national airs and a glass of plum brandy would lift them up to heaven.

To Paul it was as if he looked upon a strange country from afar. It requires a national crisis to breed

patriotism, and there was some factor at work here, some invisible cog in the machinery that gave him

wonder. They might cry out for freedom, but he would not understand them. Was not the little nation of the

mountains always free? A king's unfortunate marriagewould they turn the State topsyturvy for that?

His eyes sought Fenning, where he was engulfed in the human tide that surged about him. He saw him there,

laughing, his head thrown back, his clear white teeth revealed, a slave to the verve of the hour. That he was

worshipped it was easy to see. They loved him, these human wolves. A girl, pretty with the prettiness of the

South, with eyes in which passion lived, was thrusting a glass filled with golden liquid into his hand, and

Fenning drank deep. He handed back the empty glass and a jest with it; she flushed and smiled. There was a

new sparkle in her eyes, a fluttering of her lips that responded to the throb of her heart. She loved him, the big

nature of him, the heart of him beating to the music of humanity. Paul saw the reflection of her love grow

He had never understood Fenning till now, and he looked on in silence. Then he found a chair for the girl at

his side, and set it at one of the tables. She sat down and looked up laughing into his face.

"You're interested, amused," she persisted. "At any other time you would have called these people ruffians

"And could you blame me?" he argued. "I almost felt a knife blade between my shoulders when that

longhaired rat offered you some icedcoffee! All this, too, in Paris! And I have been wondering why I

"I will tell you why you came." She bent forward and spoke so quietly that he had to lean down to catch her

He started and said nothing; he could find no words to answer her. For she had thrown down the glove of

THAT his life lay in her hands he knew in a moment. The very words she had uttered, the halfveiled threat

in them, told him that Fenning had brought him to a hotbed of anarchy, to the very heart of the enemy, and

it needed but a word from this girl and these brute beasts would turn. She then was the daughter of revolution;

her own words confessed it. He looked at her, and there was no prayer for mercy in his eyes. His only thought

"How long has it taken you to arrive at that conclusion?" he asked carelessly at last. She was still smiling at

him, and for the first time it seemed that there might have been all the cruelty of the world crowded into those

"It was not a very hard riddle to solve, was it?" she said. She whipped out a little filmy handkerchief and

"Hardly," he replied. He stood away from her, his arms folded, his mouth puckered and angry. "No, hardly.

"I am aware of it. He was shot in Dover Harbour twentyfour hours ago. The papers are full of the story; to

"To me a coldblooded murder," he flung back. "You can't disguise murder as scandal except in the

newspapers. Let us flavour the newspaper reports with the truth, and say that he was shot by a woman."

"Possibly I know more." He looked at her quizzically, but she did not flinch. It was not a challenge, but an

attempt to force his selfimportance. "Ah, here's Fenning. He sponsored me. And all your taunts will be like

water on a duck's back. No one ever convinced Fenning yet that he had done something he ought not to do."

Fenning came up to the table with a waiter at his heels. He was flushed with excitement, and his eyes were

"Miss Lorimer," he cried, taking her hand. "If I had known you were to be here" He glanced up at the

waiter. "Oh, what does this person want?" he said petulantly to nobody in particular. "Of course we will have

something," he added. "Yes, a bottle of Duminy. They keep the most delightful wines here because we

haven't the money to pay for them. The patriots drink slivovits, and think they are on the Teratsia at Belgrade.

But it's so horribly plebeian when one is debating thrones. Yes, Albert, a bottle of Duminy. You'll find one if

you grovel long enough in the cellarand coffee in an hour." He gave a na�ve glance at Paul. "My friend

here has never seen anything like this in all his life," he said to Jean. "He'll be telling me presently that I

brought him here under false pretences. He expected a teameeting, and discovers himself in a bomb

"Where they make bombs that don't go off," broke in Paul bitterly. "The damper the squib, the more talk

"And why not? Would you have me take them seriously? As I understand it, they are here to enjoy

"Wait, my Paul," said Fenning. "Keep your ears primed, for Fran�ois is going to play. If you have not heard

Fran�ois you have never heard melody. He's a trimmer on the railway at twentyfive francs a week, and he

Paul glanced down the room and saw a cadaverouslooking creature climb slowly to the platform with an old

instrument tucked beneath his arm. He stood there for a moment facing his audience, his long lean fingers

toying with the strings of the violin. His coat was illcut and green with age, his trousers bagged to the bend

"Berthold of the Opera House heard him once by accident and raved," Fenning explained, as the waiter

"Only Providence that watches over such sparrows could tell you," Fenning rejoined. "He is always here, yet

we know nothing about him. They have never heard his music elsewhere in Paris, for he will only play to

patriots. But persuade him to play from a public platform and he could coin a statue of himself in gold in a

week. He is a droll, is Fran�ois." Fenning tapped his forehead significantly. "Genius," he said, "just that."

The thunder of applause broke over the crowded room as the violinist lifted his instrument to his shoulder

with the tenderness of a child. But he never smiled, the set expression about the mouth never changed. He

bowed, leant forward, frowned. And Fenning holding his glass in his long, tapering fingers clinked it against

the others. "To you, Miss Lorimer, and you, Paul." For a moment he hesitated, the glass half way to his lips,

"The Draga March!" someone cried and laughed. "The humour of the man!" A growl of sarcastic mirth rolled

in a wave round the room. Hard by a Serb coupled an oath with a queen's name, and spat on the floor.

"May I inquire what this most excellent joke is?" Paul ventured in a whisper. "I hear a march divinely played,

"It's the Draga March." Fenning bent low across the table. "They've gone mad on it in Belgrade; it's almost a

national air among the Royalists. It was written to the Queen. The army marches to it when it wants to, and

they get drunk to its lilt in the caf�s whilst they talk scandal. Oh, the Draga March is a capital cause for levity,

Paul sat silent in amazement. Yet the wonderful melody of the thing, played as this man played it, made him

want to rise to his feet and shout. It had in it all the passion of a restless people, the whole fund of rapturous

song run riot. He could hear in it the tread of marching troops, the big thunder of winds down the mountain

Then someone shuffled his foot on the floor, another followed. A murmur sprang up from a distant corner,

and was carried round the room in an echo. A moment more and the fixed silent figures at the tables were

moving, feet were beating on the floor, fists banging on the tabletops, a glass was overturned and fell with a

crash as the last chords dropped into silence. Lowering his instrument from his shoulder the player stepped

back, the flush of excitement on his face. He had played as no other man could play. And he had had his jest.

Shouts of mingling execration for the tune and of applause to the man who had played it rose above the peals

A woman had shrieked it, and the mob took up the cry. Oaths in many tongues were spat out like bullets from

a gun. A jester, frenzied with passion, rushed up to the violinist as he climbed down from the platform and

Fenning was in an ecstasy. He rocked with laughter and clapped his hands like a child.

"How the wolves gambol!" he cried. He glanced at Paul. "Would you ever have believed, dear boy, that there

"Or so much tragedy," exclaimed Paul. "And all this hatred for a woman most of them have never even

Jean said nothing. She was leaning back in her chair, her eyes closed beneath lids as white and delicate as

wax. Her face had paled, so heightening the colour of her lips. And in the midst of the din and turmoil she

With a quick excuse Fenning got up and rushed into the midst of the jostling mob. He leapt on to a chair, his

face pallid with excitement, and called for three cheers for Draga till a dozen hands tore him down. Paul

marvelled at the madness of the man. If only these dolts knew that at this very hour their idol had brought in

He turned to Jean. When he touched her hand that rested on the arm of the chair it was cold.

"You hate all this?" he said in an undertone. "You're very much of a woman at heart; I discovered as much

The weary expression faded from her face. She took a sip of her wine and smiled at him across the rim of the

He knew it was a boast. She had stifled her woman's heart, but her words did not convince him. He

remembered Fenning's remark of the morningthat she was a woman out of her sphere.

She answered the question with her eyes, but no word passed her lips. She held his life in the hollow of her

hand, and she would give it back to him. He felt mean and contemptible; he longed for a breath of the open

"You would never reach the door," she answered in a whisper. He dropped back and forced a yawn.

"It would be so much more pleasant to die than endure this babel," he said, with a show of courage. "I hate

"I am bored by the clamour, not by the sentiment," she answered him, and her voice was brave and strong.

"Fran�ois should never have played that march. It always drives them to madness. Did you ever see such

He followed the direction of her eyes and laughed. Someone had raised the violinist shoulder high; another

had found an icebucket, and placed it inverted upon his head in ridicule of the crown; a third had unwound

"How frank the woman is!" exclaimed Paul. "And the noise! The proper thing to do here seems to be to shout

to perdition a woman who is probably sleeping most comfortably in her bed, and tell yourself you are freeing

Fenning came hurrying back. He flooded his glass with champagne from the bottle on the table till the foam

"My good Paul," he began, "you are about to hear oratory. Faidherb is going to speak, and when Faidherb has

swallowed five absinthes he could run Europe. But they tell me he ordered the ninth an hour ago. Already,

"So we will prepare for a very maudlin and senseless diatribe," said Paul. "Courage then. Let Faidherb

The excellent Faidherb climbed the platform laboriously. He was a short, stumpy man, who seemed to have

been rolled by Nature with some giant rollingpin that left him with curious angles and halffinished

contours. His face was lean, though his hands were red and fleshy. A tangle of jet black hair hung limp and

wet upon his forehead; one corner of his mouth was twisted with an ugly curve, as if at some time he had

received a vicious blow there. His ears clung like useless ornaments to the side of his head, and when he

The voice that leapt from the man was like the squeal of a bird. For three minutes he stood uttering words that

meant nothing. And he played with his fingers as if trying to marshal facts that flittered beyond grasp at the

tips of them. Then he told an anecdote of Belgrade; another, and flavoured it with a story from the kitchen of

the Konak. Faces that were studying glasses turned one by one towards him; the ash of cigarettes dropped

away and did not grow again. And slowly and carefully he drew in the web of his argument. He told them in

forty words that Servia was dying, and convinced them in a hundred. He pictured the wildness of her

mountains and the great open freedom of her lonely valleys. He taunted them with the cramped life of her

cities and townships, the narrow boundaries of citizenship, and the heavy hand of the Obrenovitch that was

making for decadence. Paul half turned in his seat the better to catch the words.

"A dynasty that does not understand the peoplethere's theory enough for all your preaching, Cazalet," he

Paul laughed. What, then, was the creed of this man who could be swayed to either party by a few fiery

A prolonged pause made him glance at last towards the platform. Faidherb was standing rigid. His eyes stared

over the sea of upturned faces. Some looked furtively around to discover the cause of the break in the speech.

"What is the matter?" Jean touched Fenning's arm. "Why does he wait?" She had grown white; her very lips

The words sped from the platform like lightning through the chamber. Chairs were flung back and

overturned; men and women rose to their feet, a tide ready to hurl itself against whatever object opposed it.

The mob forced itself this way and that. Paul felt himself almost lifted from his feet in the press and carried

towards the door. He caught a vision of the pale, frightened face of Jean. He put out his arm in an effort to

prevent the maddened beasts jostling her. And they were being forced back and back they were at the door.

He tried to speak to her, to shout to Fenning a few yards away; but the howling of the rabble drowned his

He must get her out, but he knew not how. A drinkmaddened Magyar pitched a dead weight against him,

and with a blow of his fist Paul beat him to the ground. Another caught, staggering, at Jean's dress to save

himself from the battering fists behind him; he swung round and forced Fenning almost into Paul's arms.

They were thrown hither and thither like shingle in a riot of boiling breakers. Fenning, beating with the fury

of a maniac at every upturned face, was laughing and spitting taunts with every blow he struck.

"You frightened curs!" he shouted, as he drove his knuckles home like steel against a man's eyes. "Strike,

The devil in the man was flung loose. The flail of blows never ceased to fall, beating and beating against

coarse flesh. And they stood, these two, fighting with the hellish hatred of a million fiends, linked by the

common desire to shield the woman behind themthe woman who never winced or uttered a sound.

Some invisible force pushed the crowd forward. A man fell headlong down the stairs, halfstunned by a

terrific uppercut from Paul's fist. Then from out of the rabble another leapt high in the air, and the light

He shrieked the words at Fenning and fell upon him. Paul leapt too late. Something had come between them,

and even as the knife fell Jean was almost in his arms. He saw the start of blood at her shoulder as she

Fenning caught her when she would have dropped. There was murder in his eyesa curse on his lips.

"She's hurt!" he cried. "Take her, Cazaletget her down the stairsto my rooms. Leave meto

Paul picked her upa featherweight, she seemedand he felt the blood roll slowly over his hand. He

stumbled down the stairs. Something that was red and warm was still trickling through his fingers. He would

ever remember it, and the scent of the perfume that rose from the folds of her dress. He would remember her

little white face, the closed eyes, the torment that puckered her lipsthen the faint smile that slowly shaped

He was through the door, and climbed with her in his arms into a waiting cab. He flung an order to the driver,

He saw nothing of the streets as he passed them. He was almost unconscious of the fact that she was leaning

"She did it for himshe did it for him." He whispered the words to himself. It was all he could remember.

They still tell of that fight in Belleville. How a giant at the head of the stairs flew at a welded mass of eighty

men, and, like some awful instrument of war, beat with the whirling regularity of a machine at anything in his

path; beat and beat again, laughing as the blood started and ran, as men fell stunned and broken; beat and beat

They would have killed him. Already they had torn his coat in ribbons from his back. But a woman forced

her way to the head of the staircasea woman who laughed in derision, till some slunk away and listened

"Fools! Dolts! Imbeciles!" She was beside herself with laughter and mingled rage. She hugged the banisters

and turned a mocking face towards the struggling crowd. "You idiots!" she shrieked again. "Your spy has

They made way for the broken specimen of humanity that, crouching, half fell, half leapt down the staircase,

and stood at the bottom leering up at the horde from the doorway. He bowed in mock courtesy, yet his every

"Friends, patriotsgood night!" His words were smooth and gentle; they knew he was mocking them. "And

you, Lady Penstone, my debut into your society will ever be remembered. From my heart I thank you!"

THE light was burning in an upper window when Fenning reached the doorway. He stood for a moment

fumbling with the key in the lock, his strength waning, and the blood trickling in a tiny stream from his

He pushed open the door, and, drawing himself inside, closed it softly after him. For a moment he clung to

the banisters, breathing hard. He wondered if he would ever reach the top of the stairs. How far away that

streak of light seemed where it came from under the door. Then he began to stumble upward.

At the sound of dragging footsteps the door above opened a little, and Cazalet came out. He went down a few

Fenning leaned against the balustrade. The lamp hanging on the wall far down the corridor showed blood

"They go mad like this sometimes, my Paul. You cannot herd with beasts and expect never to feel their teeth.

And yet I love 'emaye, I love 'em. And I would lead 'em into Belgrade if money did not mean so much. I

He closed his eyes. Cazalet thought his mind was wandering. He half carried him into the small sittingroom,

laid him on the couch, and forced some water between his lips. Then he moistened a handkerchief in the jug

and began to wipe the blood from the battered face. Fenning winced with pain, but did not utter a sound.

"Splendid! She's sleeping now. Gad, it'll take a month of Sundays to get that eye right."

"Yes, they rather liked that eye," laughed Fenning. "It had an infernal attraction for them. . . . You got a

"Certainly. He's cleansed and bound the wound. Nothing serious, he says. A splintered button saved her. A

Fenning held out his broken knuckles for Paul to rinse them over a basin. A layer of ointment was put on

"Yes, Paul, they nearly did." Fenning pointed to the bedroom door. "She's in there?"

"Sleeping on your bed. We shall be able to move her in the morning. The doctor is coming to see about it at

"Listen!" he said in an undertone. "You can hear her breathing. I left the door ajar in case she needs anything,

or the wound gives her pain. What drunken pigs they were! She's suffered a lot, Jim."

They stood there, the two of them side by side. When Paul looked at Fenning he saw that a smile had crept

"I'm glad we got her out, old chap," Fenning muttered. "I don't know what would have happened to us

"Don't talk about it," said Paul. He pushed his companion back to the couch. "You've got to sleep there," he

said. "You need rest. You stood most of the racket, you know. And I'm going to watchjust here. See?"

He took up his position in an armchair outside the bedroom door, but Fenning came painfully back to him.

He lowered himself without speaking to the floor till his back rested against the wall.

"No, partner," he grinned; "there's no drones in this hive. We'll both watch. Remember those brutes may not

have done with us yet. They let me go because they thought they had enjoyed a fight with the wrong man.

But they know that the three of us are mixed up together somehow. They might even come here and make

"There's a brace of revolvers waiting in that drawer in case the door bangs. I don't think the beasts would

reach the head of the stairs unless they climbed over a mountain of dead." He closed his eyes and opened

Cazalet was silent. Motive, he knew, could make a man love anything. And she had saved this man at his

side; he would always remember that. So he envied him, just as he might a comrade to whom the angels had

Once or twice he glanced at Fenning. His head was turned upwards, and the candle on the table opposite was

playing on his white face. He saw his lips twitch with a spasm of pain now and then, but yet they seemed to

smile. The room was very still. He could hear the heavy breathing of the sleeper in the chamber beyond; once

he heard her mutter a name in her sleep, but, though he pressed his ears against the crevice, he could not

catch the word. Fenning was lolling back, his eyes closed, his lips apart, his breath coming in long gasps.

Minutes, then hours seemed to crawl by. There was no progress of time except when the clanging of clocks

proclaimed it. A beetle came floundering through the open window and fell a helpless thing in the candle

flame. And presently there was a creak on the stairs as of a man's stealthy footsteps, and Paul crossed to the

The night crept on. The sounds beyond in the great city hummed away to a whisper. In the room behind him

he could still hear the even breathing, the rustle of the bedclothes as the sleeper swung out one arm, and

turned with a little mutter of halfwaking pain. Fenning was sleeping heavily. His head had dropped to his

The candle guttered and died down, and a faint steel grey began to outline the curtains at the window. And

lounging there, it seemed to Paul that soft fingers were touching his eyelids as if the wings of sleep were

fluttering in front of his face. He fought against the inertia, the growing sense of helplessness, then dropped

Suddenly he sprang up with a cry. He felt the touch of someone near him, a presence, it might have been, that

had come into the room. He was on his feet, but Fenning was still sleeping; he had leaned over on his side so

that his face was nearly level with the floor, and long blue marks were beginning to show on the white flesh.

Paul walked across to the window and looked out. There was no life in the streets, no sound on the silent

Crept like a frightened child." He went back to the chair till presently he heard the rustle of clothing in the

room beyond. Jean came through the doorway. She had slipped on her coat and stood clutching the curtain

and looking down upon the sleeping form of Fenning, bending once to listen to his breathing.

"We must let him sleep," she said. "He was our hero last night. He saved your life and mine."

"You are right," Paul answered. "He saved your life and mine." He wondered if she had read what was

passing in his thoughts: had divined the insensate jealousy of the man who slept there. He turned his head

He had risen, and was standing before her. He felt a swift desire to clutch her hands. Some power was

fighting with him, urging him to draw her arms to his shoulders till her fragrant lips touched his own. He

needed her now, realised the great emptiness in his life that only a womanthis womancould fill.

He would never forget that moment; he would live it again through all the years to come. Afterwards he

remembered the things he might have told her, he shaped the passionate phrases that might have carried to

her soul some sense of his wild reasoning. But what little had he done for her? To Fenning had gone the

"You offered your life for his last night." He was smiling and pointing to the sleeper. "God has loaded him

He knew it was open confession; he saw her eyelids flicker as he muttered it. There was no need to fight

longer against something that was stronger than himself. Some day he might laugh at the incident, and the

They sat there in the half light, and talked in whispers. And still Fenning slept. But as Paul spoke to her it was

with the knowledge that he was the intruder; that he might be speaking to her across a gulf. The sanctity of

He led her back to her room and told her quietly and firmly that she must sleep. At the door he paused and

Then he closed the door upon her, and went quickly across the room to the cupboard in the corner, and took

down his coat. He felt the two envelopes in his pocket where he had replaced them before Fenning's return.

The Orient express bore Paul Cazalet southward as the sun grew upward and strengthened through the mists.

With him he carried the memory of her warm white fingers against his lips, and he asked no more of the day

PAUL had risen early. He wandered leisurely through his toilet, and made his way down the creaky wooden

stairs to the stuffy sittingroom below, where a scant breakfast of strong coffee and coarse meal rolls had

In the small hostel he was the only personage beside the fat Serb keeper, his wife, and the slut who had but

just left the room. In this he was fortunate. What his mission was or why he had come appeared to be no

concern of theirs. He was a foreigner, so they left him severely alone; possibly they did not understand his

pronunciation of the Slav tongue as he knew it, and they looked vacantly at him when he chose the easier

course and addressed them in French. He had shrugged his shoulders and turned away. As for madame, she

scolded the slattern for loitering or for her curiosity in a foreigner who didn't matter.

And so with the hostelkeeper. Before the hour of ten had struck he had begun to drink himself into that state

of sotten inertia which made up his day. His wife and the slattern busied themselves with the housework, and

laid the wooden tables in the courtyard with spotless cloths and knives and forks for visitors who never came.

When informed that a foreigner had taken up his residence he merely bowed his head and drank deeper. If the

stranger brought moneygood; if he could be relieved of itexcellent. Madame might be trusted to see to

Paul finished his meal, crossed to the window set high in the wall, and throwing it open wide, looked out. The

pigmy panorama of Servian life stretching out before his eyes interested him. The rough cobbles set

diagonally across the street, the white washed houses with the russet roofs hurling back the flare of the

suneverything spoke of change. Men and women were passing slothfully to and fro. Army officers in

wellcut uniforms of grey strutted up and down with an overflowing sense of racepride. And around the

stalls by the roadside groups of figures clung: men in black or maroon coats trimmed vulgarly with gold,

women with large brass headornamentstheir skirts dragged high from the slobber of their feetdug their

hands into the open sacks of scarlet paprika beans, and haggled with the stallkeeper, then went off

grumbling, their purchases under their arms. They moved slowly and doubtfully, these people, as if all the

burden of the world hung around their shoulders. And for the welfare of these folk who had no interest in life

save themselves, one half of Europe was prepared to quarrel with the other half. Paul closed the window and

He sat down at the table and began to go through his wallet, and from a little budget of sealed letters he

produced one which the Count had given him in Dover Harbour. It was addressed to M. Nichodim, 44 Rue de

la Save. He fastened his wallet again and strapped it beneath his vest. Then he went in search of one,

He made his way down the precipitous streets to where the River Save flowed green and turgid to meet the

heavier waters of the Danube. The byways narrowed as he walked till they became no more than

alleysalleys where scarcely a breath of wind seemed to break the mingling odours of garlic and bad

drainage. He saw there the blending of many races: the sleek darkhaired Serbs, smoothskinned Jewesses

haunting the entrances to forbidding doorways, decrepit Turks hugging the steps of the kafanas and sucking

at their narghilis. Old men, young men, children, the offspring of a dozen races, moved objectless hither and

thither, as if waiting for the day to grow old, that tomorrow might dawn and become even as today.

For an hour Paul explored the passages that drew back from the river till at length he found the street he

sought. And hardly had he taken a dozen steps down it than he saw the number 44 scrawled over the doorway

He opened the door and went in; the shabby sittingroom was empty. For a moment he stood and waited on

what might be the very threshold of Adventure; then he knocked softly at the door beyond. A moment later

and a small man with black hair just changing to grey came like some silent sleuthhound through the door,

"A small matter, monsieur," he said lightly, as the other carefully folded the paper and put it in his pocket.

He held open the door for Paul to pass to the inner room, then came in and closed it after him. It was a small

chamber with a little window that looked as if it had not been opened for years, and through it a ray of light,

dodging between the chimney stacks, came percolating in. Paul took the big chair in the corner. A small

wood fire was burning dimly in the grate despite the heat of the outer atmosphere, and leaning forward he

He looked up at last and caught the small ferret eyes of Nichodim fastened upon him. And the expression he

"You have come far," Nichodim volunteered, fidgeting with the papers that lay strewn across the table.

"Possibly. Dover Harbour is a few leagues away. Your Belgrade is not easy to reach when"

The little shrivelled creature: splayed out his hands. "Who shall say? Yesterday we were strong; today we

are weak. The murder of Count Stolpin has hurt us much. He would have saved Servia."

"For the Austrian wolf to devoura most estimable salvation," Paul laughed. "M'sieu, you know your

Belgrade; you know what they call Austria here: the thing that does not sleep but acts."

Paul nodded. "The Count came to me; I did not seek him out," he said. "He gave me a mission, and I, a man

very tired of things in my own country, accepted it. Let me tell you now, that nothing on earth would turn me

from my purpose." He unfastened his vest, released his wallet and spread out four envelopes on the table.

Nichodim examined them one by one, then began scribbling on a paper at his desk. After a while he rose to

his feet, pushed the letter into an envelope and sealing it passed out of the door. He returned in a moment,

Paul half rose from his chair petulantly. "If you think I am a fool, say so now!" he exclaimed.

"Pardonten thousand pardons!" M. Nichodim was upset, his dignity injured. He became a mountain of

humility. He ventured to talk to himself, and so loud that the other could hear it. "No, the Count never made a

mistakeit is wellit is good." He rubbed his hands together with a hissing sound; then he leaned across

"The streets were very quiet when you came through today." He was speaking in quite a different voice

now. The nervousness of the man, feigned or otherwise, had dropped away. His nerves were braced: every

fibre strung. "There was no sign of agitation among the people. In the caf�s there is no sound, you do not hear

even the whisper of discontent. But yesternight a band of scoundrels, who have power behind them, sent an

"But what do you want with methat's what I'm here to know?" Paul demanded, irritated by Nichodim's

"How simpleif the other man doesn't disoblige by turning up," he said with a laugh. The situation was

"Oh, we have seen to that. He is locked up tightly enough in the monastery at Stranova. You have to

"He is respectable? He has no vicesno past that you are going to overhaul with your muckrakes?"

"On the contrary; I believe this youth is everything one could desire: a student, a lover of religion, of books.

To be mixed up with a throne would be his last wish in the world. But let me explain, in a dozen words. They

"That you will soon discover. For the present let the word stand for a European Power."

"So, if you like it. And they want to put another man on the throne. They cannot draw the exking Milan into

the embroglio. They would had they dared, but the barrier was too strong against them. I am speaking now of

"Yes, Captain Galatz of the French Army, now buried in the monastery of Stranova as a monk. M'sieu, you

"If this son appears among these wouldbe regicides, as they presume he will, what then?"

"Cunning fellow, you!" Nichodim shook with a little chuckle of satisfaction. "Yes, they have summoned him

from Paris. He was on his way here, lured by the bait of a woman. We saw to thatthe Count and I. We

intercepted his arrival and lodged him most comfortably at Stranova. There he remains, behind bars. And

meanwhile these scoundrelsmen who hold high honours in the Servian armyawait his coming. The

"I see." Paul stopped and looked across at the man before him. "And he found me."

"Yes, he found you." The little man sank into his chair and gave a chuckle of laughter. "Yes," he repeated,

"I am a patriot. I would save Servia from the hands of those who would destroy her," he said. "This youth,

this Captain Galatz, on the throneEurope would never acknowledge him. Where did he come from?" He

shrugged his shoulders. "And his mother?" Again came the expressive shrug of the shoulders. "And what

would you have of such a court as that? For such disaster these maniacs demand the abdication of a king. The

"We want no patchwork kingdom here," he said. "The Obrenovitch dynasty has done much for Servia. And

Servia in the hands of these madmenach! We are lost! The tragedyyou see it? These ruffians hold the

upper hand; it is for this great nation we shall work. Dragathey hate her, the people spit at her name. And

the rich, will they bow to a woman who was once a peasant? They say their prayers to the good God to help

"To the fattest portion they can grab," Paul broke in. "It's a way we have in England."

"You will help; you will be the saviour of a great nation," Nichodim conceded impressively.

"You seem very certain of your point," said Paul. "But I confess I am still puzzled. I play another man's

partgood. You lock him up while I masquerade as his shadowgood. But the game does not end there.

"It is so easy. As Captain Galatz you will be welcomed by these pigs; they will tell you their plans. And you

The little creature looked up into Paul's face and narrowed his eyes. For a moment he failed to understand his

man. His fingers began to fold themselves together; he looked furtively around the room. A wayward sparrow

cavilling on the window sill attracted his attention. Some moments passed before he spoke again.

"True, when it comes to understanding the ways of a spy," Paul retorted. He gripped Nichodim's arm. "I am

not here to bandy international compliments with you; we will leave that to our respective governments. Tell

me what you are, or I book my return ticket to London tonight. I'm not a man of mysteries. I can be

"A letter from me and you are a persona grata among these conspirators," he said. "Colonel Paschnovich

would treat you as the very ruler of Servia. Give him a chance and he would place a crown upon your head."

"A paper one that would crumple at the first breath of wind. So youyou are one of these?"

"I would help my country," Nichodim explained by way of excuse. "If you understand diplomacy then you

would know that we do not stand on ceremony. You are the Count's choice, and the Count never made a

mistake. See you here." He went across to a cupboard, unlocked it, and from the steel safe within withdrew a

gold cross set heavily with turquoises. He put it into Paul's open palm with a laugh.

"A mere gewgaw," he said. "But it is proof of your identity. It belonged to King Milanhis name is even

now engraved at the foot of it. It will carry you unharmed through the ranks of these madmen; they will trust

you, believe in youyou, Captain Galatz. Remember they have never seen their hero, and they are reserving

"If I could believe that you did not lie!" Paul began. "Almost you tempt me to test you."

"I want no more than that," he answered. He began fumbling for his cigarettes. He felt that the ground was

good beneath his feet and longed for the taste of tobacco. He rolled some black hashish in a film of paper and

placed it daintily between his coarse lips. Then he pushed a letter towards Paul across the table and leisurely

struck a match. "Captain Galatzyour introductions to Colonel Paschnovich," he said. "They meet a week

hence in the passage in the Rue d'Ornumber 22, at the house of Lazar the Jew. Walk inkill your nerves

and play your game. The good Lazar shall expect youI will see to that. So! You English love sporthere

"To the devil with your notes!" he said. "I don't understand your game yet. It seems that you play it blindfold,

but sometimes I prefer the light of day. I will touch your money when you've washed it. For the moment

leave me alone. I take your letter, yes, and from tonight I am Captain Galatz of the French army, with a taste

for a throne. I want a juggle with fortune, and you shall clear up the mess we make, if you like."

He picked up the letter and put it in his pocket. He was still staring at Nichodim, who watched him through

his shield of tobacco smoke. He went towards the door, but of a sudden he turned.

"My friend," he said easily. "Let us suppose for a moment that I had turned you downhad thrown your own

Nichodim dropped to his chair and lolled back in it with a smile upon his lips. Putting out his hand he struck

Instantly the door opened, and scarcely before Paul was aware of their presence two men were in the room.

He noticed that each held a revolver, and, turning, he peered into the levelled muzzles. With a laugh

"You see," he said, the ugly smirk spreading wide on his face, "we take no chances here. I should have given

you credit for knowing as much. The issues are too great to brook defeat. And the man who pulls the strings

"Scarcely. You know the Kalamegdan gardens? Ah, I see you do. The children play on the grass there; in the

quiet woods lovers plight their troths. The birds sing, when the evening comes down the finest bands of the

city take up the music of the day. So much you see, so much you hear. But beneath there, down, deep down

"I know my Belgrade better than you think, m'sieu," Paul replied warmly. "And your State prisons are the

"You English are too kind to those who would stick a knife in your back. You wait till the deed is done, and

then crush out the reptile. We are different herewe kill the reptile first. Some day we will go to the

Kalamegdan together. You shall see not men there but beasts. They dig their long fingernails into the slimy

walls, sometimes they beat their brains out." He shrugged his shoulders. "An order from me" he was

"Tell meyou roguean order from you" Paul gripped his arm till he winced with the pain. Nichodim

Paul opened the door. In the dim corridor he could see the gaunt figures of the janitors as they waited.

"Monsieur Nichodim," he said, "you are the most delightful scoundrel I have ever met."

He passed out into the street, while the cringing figure in the doorway stood watching and wondering what

THE moon swung low above the tops of the mountains, and threw a coverlet of silver across the face of the

river. Some would have said that Belgrade slept. A few spots of light here and therea weak gas flare at the

street corner alone strove to keep slumber from the eyes of the city. A cart rumbled over the cobbled roads, at

the very water's edge a group of dark figures crouched over something which they were searching with the

aid of a lantern. The wind stirred, a muffled roll of laughter came from a remote corner in the city's heart, the

river lapped against the stone steps. And straight into the sheet of light sprang a boat, rowed swiftly by two

oarsmen, who, directly the light struck across them, steered the craft nearer into the shadow.

The boat passed on. It carried no lights, end those aboard it spoke no word. But crouching in the stern, a

heavy shawl over her head, was a woman. She listened to the steady dip of the oars, to the panting of the men

who strove at their task. And sitting almost at her feet was a priest, his face hidden as he crouched with his

With a sharp turn the boat drew into the steps at the foot of a narrow street, and grated against the stonework.

Then without a sound the men laid down their oars and jumped out, while the priest got up slowly and drew

himself laboriously on to the steps, as if he were afraid of losing his balance. He held out his hand to the

woman and pulled her up beside him, and so the two together passed into the shadow of the street.

Once beneath the light of a lamp the priest turned and glanced into her face. He traced the first outline of fear

there; she who had never shown fear of anything was trembling now. He felt her arm quivering as he held it

"A little farther along on the rightjust where that lamp is." He pointed ahead. "I am going too fast, I am

"No, no," she muttered as he carefully suited his stride to hers. "We have not much time. I was afraid to come

"Afraid?" The priest laughed. "Afraid whensee there!" The gaunt shadow of a man drew silently into the

blackness of a doorway; they saw his white face gleaming in the murk as they passed him. "Afraidwith

"You would have known nothing of this meeting? I am here to serve you; you need not be afraid of danger."

The priest gave a quick laugh, and looked into her face. "Madam, you would compel me to tell you the truth,"

In a moment she had come to a standstill, and, turning upon him, caught his arm in sudden fear. Her face was

close to his, the big black eyes staring at him, and in his nostrils was the perfume of the Houbigant about her.

"The truth? Tell metell me what you mean!" She pressed one hand to her breast and closed her eyes. Her

"You should know the truth, since you have trusted me till now, and you must trust me to the end. You spoke

of the protection of the Church, madam; but do you think the Church would lend its protection so far?"

"The night is primed with ears," he said. The even footfalls sounded on the rough paving, the man's strong

"I think the Church would not go so far even for the Queen," he said in an undertone. "Not till today,

madam, have you recognised the gravity of the situation. This meeting tonight is to force your abdication.

You wished to attend it; you had your own reasons. And you were not afraid. You who have fought fear all

your life and won, could know no fear when you were playing for your throne. Colonel Slana asked me to

devise a scheme for your safety. Madam, there was only one. You should come under the protection of the

"Madam, it was so simple. A priest had to be found. I am the priest, though I have been no nearer to holy

She gave a smothered cry and seemed to stumble. He clutched her arm firmly and held it till she shook him

"Who are you, and what are you, that you should trap me? God in heavenColonel Slana did this?"

"This is no time for argument, madam. He is the most loyal servant you have, and would keep the sword from

your breast with his own. He trusts me; is not that enough? Do you know so little of him that you think he

would take risks? He is even now dining with the King, and concocting a most wholesome explanation of

your absence at the table. The King trusts Slana, you trust him, and I trust him because he is paying me

handsomely for this night's adventure. And believe me that if I failed, if any harm came to you, I should not

"He will have to answer to me." She spat the words out in a passing frenzy of spite.

"He will be glad to do so if you achieve your mission," the other returned. "And here is the passage. It is dark,

but I can grope the way with my fingers along the wall. Follow me closely, please. The door is just under that

lamp at the end. I know, for I have explored it carefully in daylight, without my cloak of penitence then, or

They were in pitch darkness, but he could hear the rustle of her cloak behind him, and her quick breathing as

He just heard the stifled exclamation and turned. As his eyes became accustomed to the darkness he could

define the outline of her figure where she stood leaning against the wall, her hands to her face.

"No, noa little afraidafter all, the threatsto go among them like thisto be torn to pieces maybe! Did

ever a queen sink to this before, I wonder?" She was a little hysterical and whimpering like a child.

"Some queens have risked more for the man they love," he answered her, and led her forward again. And

when they waited at the door he saw by the faint flicker of lamplight across her face the lines of

He forgot for a moment that she was Queen. He touched her hand with his own, and smiled into her face.

Within the room fourteen men were staring into the face of one who had come among them a stranger.

"Abdication or death. Those, Captain Galatz, are our terms." A grizzled army colonel with a heavy sensual

"Yes," echoed the young lieutenant who sprawled languorously, his hands folded round a glass of Negotin.

The cloud of tobacco smoke whirled higher, a glass tinkled where a trembling hand was trying to fill it from a

decanter of crimson slivovits. Someone in a moment of bravado had thrown a revolver across the table, and it

Paul calmly flicked the ash from his cigarette as he spoke. He looked down the line of red, drinksodden

faces. The very atmosphere of the place was false. Every man amongst them was a coward for all his idle

boasting; Paul knew human nature well enough to realise it. Their merriment was forced; they drew

nervously at their cigarettes, and congratulated themselves on having found their catspaw.

At any other time he would have laughed at the situation. That such as these should sway the destinies of a

kingdom as he assuredly knew they did! They had torn a woman's reputation to shreds as he listened. They

talked of murder and honour in the same breath. And these men had set themselves up as the judges of a

"Generous? Would you show generosity to such a !" The colonel pitched an expletive into the air, and

followed it with a gulp of cigarette smoke. "She came from the gutter; she shall go back to the gutter. And

"I am not sure that I desire the burden," Paul returned. "I have had no training for kingship."

Paul bowed. They could not have told him that he mocked them. He was fingering the little Milan cross and

"He will reject the terms, of course. He will fight for his throne and for his Queen. If he would have remained

to rule Belgrade alone we might have made terms. I will not flatter you, sir, to the extent of saying that in this

case we should have called you from Paris to rule us. But he is bound to that woman, body and soul. He

"I rather like the man for that," said Paul. He watched the anger spring to the face of some, and smiled. "You

know, a man who will stick to a woman through a perfect hell on earth when he has raised that woman from

the gutter, may be a fool, but never a knave. I do not defend Draga. You tell me that she would drag him

through the mud before the eyes of his people. You tell me that she is without honour or scruples, that she

lives a life of brutal persecution of those who will not fawn at her feet. You may be true. I am not here to

judge. But at least give her the credit of having put the character into the man the turned him from a crass

youth into a figure of strength in a few weeks. He has fought for her; he will fight again. But no man fights

for an entirely worthless woman; she must have at least some virtue that condones her faults."

The lieutenant chuckled at his jest. The Negotin was good, and he drank again. He had expected an explosion

of laughter and met only scowls. But Paul's defence of the woman they hated was not the savouring necessary

A thin, pinched figure of a man, with sunken, sallow cheeks and ruddy hair, rose to his feet and leant across

"On the contrary, my friend, I should say that we understand each other very well."

"I would suggest accuracy, and substitute the word `wife,' since he has married her," Paul returned.

"And I can give you proof. The" A greyheaded veteran of the Turkish war had risen to his feet, but the

"We are not here to exchange confidences. Captain Galatz, if I understand him, declines the crown of Servia."

"Come, gentlemen; let us each put our cards on the table." Paul leant forward in his chair. "Do you think I

don't understand you? Your motive in getting me here was to put up a candidate for your throne. But you

wanted a candidatenothing more. You wanted a man who would shield another while the `kitchen' work

was being done, and then politely withdraw into the background. In your hearts you have named your king,

but it is not Adolph Galatz. Your future king prefers the atmosphere of Switzerland. He has no desire to be

drawn into a political maelstrom of this kind. If you lose, you lose; if you win, he may or may not accept your

throne. That is how I read your cards. As for me, I am quite content with the situation. You want me to play a

part. You want a dummy to push along while you springclean the throne. Really, gentlemen, I don't know

why I have come so far for so execrable a cause; but, having come, here I remain. I have a keen desire to see

this thing through. I may even enjoy my stay in Belgrade. The air here suits my appetite marvellously!"

The words were sprung with sarcasm, but they heeded it not. They wondered at the honesty of the man.

Someone filled his glass with plum brandy; another sent an open cigarettecase swinging across the polished

The colonel was on his feet again. An old wound across his cheekthe relic of some brawling dayshad

grown scarlet against the pallor of his face. The bushy eyebrows narrowed, and a new fire came into the eyes.

"You hear!" he cried, and there was a note of triumph in his voice. "Captain Galatz is with us. For me, I want

no better leader in Belgrade. I will go further, and say that I want no better king."

"We are patriots; it is a question of honour! That a country should be dragged to perdition at the whim of a

"A harlot!" cried a third, and flung his empty glass on the table in a paroxysm of passion.

The fevered blood of those about him was whipped to a torrent. Some rose to their feet. Others sat leering at

"Draga!"the colonel spat out the name"we have only one sentence for Draga, and that"

He had not seen the heavy thick curtains at the door drawn slowly back, nor a woman's white face staring in

at him; but in a moment more he was conscious that a woman had stepped into the room, and she stood, one

hand grasping the curtain, the other limp at her side, her head thrown back, and hate ungovernable

hateblazing at him from her sloeblack eyes. Her cloak had fallen away from her shoulders, revealing the

white summer dress that lay beneath. Some of those at the table wondered at the strength on her face with a

wonder akin to admiration. The weaker cowered, and the others glared upon her in unspoken challenge.

There was a glitter in her black hair; from the jewels at her throat sprang a thousand points of fire.

She came slowly into the room as the speaker faltered. For a moment the silence of death fell upon the

assembly. No one spoke, no one moved. The blood drew away from the faces of some, leaving the flesh

white and flaccid. And out there in the darkness beyond the curtains they could see the dim form of the

"Draga!" She uttered the name fearlessly. "What of her? You were speaking of her, Colonel Paschnovich.

PAUL rose to his feet and put a chair for her at the head of the table, while the others could only stare as if

waiting for her to speak and to mock them. The bravest felt a little afraid; they knew that at the moment she

There was no sound in the room except the rustle of her dress as she took her place; then she let her eyes

wander at will from one to the other, studying each face as if she could read what the brute expression

reflected of the mind. Beneath the lacefilm her breast was heaving, and her hands resting on the dull polish

of the table moved aimlessly about till her fingers entwined in a grip of strength.

The soldier's face hardened. He scowled at her from beneath his shaggy eyebrows.

"If it is your wish, madam," he answered, brusquely. He leaned towards her. "I wonder why it is your

"We do not bargain tonight, madam. May I, therefore, in all respect ask you to withdraw?"

"To tell you that you must leave Belgradeand not alone. The King will accompany you."

"It is the nation that speaks. And if you refuse you will go by force. I have nothing to add to that."

Someone growled assent. The answering anger in her eyes belied the smile upon her lips.

"You will not go alone. The King will not permit it. A month ago we were fools enough to believe he would."

"It was your wish then to drive me from my husband's side; tonight, your conspiracy has taken a deeper

turn: it seeks the overthrow of both. How little you know of your King! How little you know of me!"

She spoke softly, yet the taunt bore home no less severely. And beyond the door the priest was waiting,

listening. An ugly flush began to creep over the colonel's face; but for a moment they stared at each other in

silent combat, the woman tapping a fingernail restlessly on the table. She lifted her head.

"Cannot you see what Servia means to her King?" she exclaimed. "The desire of his life. Her destinies his one

thought throughout his day. He lives for Servia; he dreams of Servia; the love of her has given him strength,

"Mere prattle, madam," the colonel snapped. "We are not here to extol your husband's virtues. With respect I

again suggest that you might find the atmosphere of the palace more pleasing tonight."

"And I refuse. You shall hear me. Who are you to judge a king you who have never known the trials of a

crown?" The sudden storm in her voice dropped away. "If I were to go" she began.

"private life would suit Your Majesties so much better," Colonel Paschnovich finished.

"He will wreck a nation." The colonel lifted his glass and sucked at his wine. Then he leaned back in his chair

"It is because I know his ambitions, his purpose, that I have come to you," the Queen retorted. "I need no pity

for myself. I do not resent your hatred of me, harsh though it often appears. I am a daughter of the people,

and for that you have no forgiveness. Your King cares nothing for your taunts or your threats. If he knew that

I had come to youand come to plead he might deem it cowardice he could never condone. But for

myself I do not plead. I am only a woman who loves her husband, and, because I love him, because he is

everything in my world, I am prepared to renounce position, power, and go alone from Servia should my

She broke off and caught her breath in a sob. They looked at her, furtive, doubtful. A chair was shifted on the

"It is our misfortune that he was born to wear a crown," she went on, and it seemed as if she were speaking

more to herself than to them. "Often it has been a crown of thorns to him, to me. The world is very hard to a

woman who loves a man above her station; it has no pity, no helping hand to offer. It could never understand

that what it called my heart of stone was only a woman's heart after all, ready to love freely those who from

the start have preferred to he my foes. My every action has been misunderstood, my every motive

misconstrued. But with Sasha I would have been happy even in the most lonely places of the world, for I

In her earnestness she had called her husband by the pet name she had always used. To some this little touch

of affection would have lent the colour of sincerity; but to those assembled her words were little more than a

"We appreciate your readiness to leave Belgrade, madam," Colonel Paschnovich replied, "and the sooner you

"And if I go, what then? What guarantee have I that you will not overthrow the dynasty that is working for

Servia? Don't you know the thing of torture you have made of my life? No woman can withstand these

continual threats against her husband, the ceaseless persecution in public and private that has been

remorselessly carried on. I married Sasha, believing that I could help him, as he tells me I have helped him.

Yet sometimes in communion with my own conscience I know that I have failed. But this continual warfare

destroys a woman's confidence in herself. She cannot fight her husband's battle for ever alone; she needs

allies, firm friends who, understanding that her love for her husband is the one thing that counts in her life,

will help her. That is what I have sought and what I have failed to findthose friends. And since it would

seem that I am bringing my husband to destruction I will go, and go alone, whether he permits it or not. Nor

will I go from fear of you, but simply because I love him too well to be a stumbling block in his path. If you

are men, you will give me a guarantee that my abdication shall allay this hatred and conspiracy."

Colonel Paschnovich nodded once, twice. He put out his hand, and lit a fresh cigarette carefully. Then he lay

back, his bloodshot eyes fixed on the ceiling. A few yards away someone tittered; another gave vent to a little

cough of derision: signals these which told the Queen who waited there that her world was crumbling to

"On having realised that you are a menace to the welfare of the country, you are to be congratulated,

madam," the colonel said sullenly at last; "but we give you no guarantee. As a monarch, your husband has

signally failed; as a ploughman, he might have been a success. Plain words, but the occasion demands them."

The insult wrenched to pain every fibre of her, and they saw her face change even as they looked. The

expression of womanhood, the touch of sympathy around the mouth melted away into bitterness. She

She had played her gameplayed it and lost. In more sober moments they might have detected by her every

gesture the character of the woman. She had come from the people, proud in her conquests, a king's mate, the

foremost woman in the land she who had once been almost a gipsy. To unbend such pride were a task

more difficult than to break a steel bar in the fingers. Yet out of it the love of a woman for the man she had

married emerged triumphant, and prideselfopinion and all the attributes of her positionwere scattered

to the four winds. A woman born at the top of the hill might go down if the whole kingdom of her love lay at

Paul looked at her, amazed. He alone could read the thoughts that passed in procession through her mind; he

alone realised what her words had cost her. He was drawn to her in a sudden flood of sympathy, and by

She silenced him with an angry sweep of her hand, and a deep colour began to swell beneath her dark skin.

"So then, cowards, you shall hear my last words!" Her lips, rich and full, quivered with the passion of battle.

Dignity, selfcontrol were swept aside in one great wave of emotion. The wild blood of the gipsy was

rushing through her veins; it governed her, and set her whole frame trembling. She was no longer a queen,

but a woman driven to conflict, fighting for everything that was of worth to her, and ready to fight to the last

hedge, the last ditch. "I am still Queen," she exclaimed, "and as Queen I shall remain in Belgrade. For my

husband's sake I was prepared to make the greatest sacrifice a woman can make desertion from his side in

the firing line. I would have risked his contempt, his loathing for me all the days of his life. I would have

destroyed his very love for me if it would have helped him or made his way easier. Yes; I would have gone

down to the lower depths again for Sasha. But not nownot now! You have had your choice, you have made

your decision, and you shall abide by it. You have drawn me closer to his side, and given me new strength to

fight for him." She half turned towards the curtains, then with a smile of contempt flung all the hatred of her

life into her last taunt. "I have marked you every one, and there are still prison cells that shall make room for

An empty threat, her heart told her. What would her resolve avail? A blow at the people. For a moment she

She swayed towards the curtains and wrenched them aside. Fear, rage and hatethe whole gamut of

emotionsswung fourteen men to their feet, and Colonel Paschnovich drew his sword and darted towards

her as if he would have cut her down where she stood. But in a moment the priest had stepped between them,

They stood huddled together like driven sheep. And in the turmoil no one heard the cry that left Paul's lips.

He took a step forward and stared into the eyes of the priest, but the latter had turned away with a laugh.

Paul knew that a word from him and the woman would never have reached the street. One thing alone kept

these men from committing murder beneath his eyes, and thatfear of the blackrobed figure who stood

smirking at them from the aperture. And if he denounced the priest as a sham the power of the Church was

His admiration for the woman, her courage and selfsacrifice, decided his line of action. Without a word he

hurried down the passage in front of them and opened the street door. When she had passed out he put his

"You have played a clever game tonight," he whispered in English, "a very clever game, Fenning. And, you

Then he shut the door from the inside with a bang, and took the precaution of drawing the key and slipping it

COLONEL SLANA had just completed a late dinner. He lounged heavily in his chair, looking aimlessly at

the wall in front of him, and sucking sensuously at a rich cigar. He was alone in the room except for the

ghosts of dead things that seemed to flutter through the uncertain atmosphere, and dance in wonderful

The memories pleased him. His thick lips puckered in a smile, the narrow rat'seyes grew narrower and

closer yet. The irongrey hair had been carefully brushed back, and the moustache as carefully tended. The

entire pose of the man and everything about him suggested one responsive to the senses, who loved pleasure,

who loved luxury, and won his golden hours from life and carried the memory of them for years. He was a

sensualist of that order which is guarded. He would throw no dice with scandal and chance what odds turned

up. He valued his military reputation and his close friendship and confidence with the King and Queen too

well for that. But he ate and drank well; he would rather go hungry than touch coarse food or wine, just as

there are men who clothe their senses with a dignity which will cause them to endure selfsacrifice rather

So Colonel Slana, chief of the bodyguard on which the monarch depended for his safety, ate well and loved

well, and revelled in the passion of voluptuous music, and liked fine colours and perfumes about the rooms

he inhabited. He was, in short, an exquisite of that rare type which combines military strength and brutality

with the slender sensitiveness of a neurotic. His afterdinner cigar with the final sips of his wine to flavour it

was a process of worship, a solemn ritual so zealously followed that the very presence of halfdead flowers

Ten o'clock had just struck, but the night was very still. Long red curtains were drawn across the room which

hid the open French windows in order to repel the draught, for although the first flush of summer was on the

threshold of the world the nights were damp and chill. Far out in some distant square a band was playing; he

could just hear the lilt of it, and the swing of the melody, wavering as the wind moved, pleased him the more.

He remembered the tune now. He had danced with one of the most wonderful women he had ever seen only a

month agone, how her hand had quivered on his arm when the violins sang that rhapsody. Yes, he

remembered every twist and turn of it, and, remembering, poured out some fresh wine and drank in silence to

that woman's eyes. For the toasts that taste sweetest as we swallow them are those to a day that is past and

has found its halo, to a woman's face we piece together only in fragmentary memories.

Outside in the courtyard the trees fluttered, their leaves cavilling with the passing breeze. He could hear

distant steps on the gravel of sentries going to their posts, a violin or two winging a song across the night

from the royal apartments. He took these things in vaguely, even as the mind records little details while one is

but scarcely conscious of them. Then the door opened almost behind him, and the priest came in

The Colonel got up quickly and half pushed his guest into an easy chair set at the corner of the table.

"Where, but in the royal apartments, very tired, and not a little badtempered. Excitement plays the deuce

with a woman's nerves. As I left her she was mercilessly chiding an official because the court bootmaker had

sent up two extra pairs of boots in the hope that she would buy them. This morning she would have

purchased the lot; tonight she has rejected the entire parcel for the man's impudence. One ought to study the

"Not precisely. I have no appetite for food, but I am monstrously in need of a drink."

Colonel Slana pressed a bell under the table, and a flunkey appeared. He ordered liqueurs and a fresh bottle of

wine, and waited almost in silence till the man brought them. The latter was opened and the glasses flushed.

"We really had quite a good time," said Fenning as he put down his empty glass, and they were alone again.

He got up and threw off the black cloak he wore and removed the closefitting wig. Then, sweeping his hand

across his cropped hair, he sat down and took a cigarette from the box at his elbow.

"You know, you have the most astounding set of rogues in Belgrade," he said. He spoke in French with the

easy lazy accent of a man who realises the wonderful possibilities of expression that tongue possesses.

"Really you should exterminate the vermin. I had the greatest difficulty in the world to persuade them not to

A swift flash of alarm spread over the face of the other. "You mean that?" he said.

"As I liveyes." Fenning leant across the table, and looked the other squarely in the eyes. "Has it ever

"Yes, but for her the throne would totter tomorrow. I know that well enough; you know it; the world that

knows anything at all knows it too. But nevertheless, my friend, if you do not put some of those fools in the

"So you are afraid of a handful of cutthroats. Why, if they attempted to give trouble, the army"

"Yes, what about the army? It would come out at their call tomorrow. Do you know so little of Belgrade

then that you put your faith in uniforms with the hearts of traitors behind them? If so, my colonel, you have

much to learn. Beyond these closed doors what do you hear? Nothing. Go into the streets, the caf�s you

hear only mutterings. But don't they carry some warning of the storm to your ears? Here you are in a little

castle of your own attached to the palace. There are big walls beyond, the doors are guarded by sentries. No

one moves in the gardens, the fountains play in the moonlight, there is no living thing in the shadows. So!

But a sense of security is the most fatal prop in the world; one day it bends in the middle and breaks. You

"Admirably. And tonight has warped your nerves. The Queen treats the matter in far too serious a spirit

because, being a woman, she has her moments of fear. She has convinced you that there is danger. Yet no one

"You seem to know a good deal about the underworld," he added, brushing his lips with his tongue. "But

there are some things you do not know. You would probably smile, for instance, if I told you that those

"I don't think I should. But why talk about it? I do not invite your confidence. This wine is extremely good,

"I'm fearfully sleepy," he said when the glass stood empty again. "With your permission I will go back to my

hotel. It was a good thing for you that I brought that letter from the Count, eh?"

"Yesfor an Austrian! A kind of isolated patriotism I seem to have met before. It generally ends in big

concessions or planting an army in your neighbour's vineyard. And, if I may mention it, colonelas I have

shortly to be goingmight I trouble you for a small amount? I have tried very hard to drown my mercenary

soul in your good wine and failed dismally. Money is a fearful drag on one, but a necessary millstone borne

without overestimating the weight. My fee for tonight's work I may say, incidentally, is ten thousand

Fenning spoke casually, and pulled slowly at his cigarette, without looking at the other. Then he examined

"Ten thousand francs. You must be mad! I have put aside for you a wallet containing one thousand."

"How damnably inconvenient," he said quietly. "I am really afraid you must find nine more wallets."

Colonel Slana flushed. The look in Fenning's eyes did not reassure him. He read his man quickly, and knew

"I have only a thousand here. I could not obtain more, even if I desired, without approaching the King," he

said guardedly. "I am not quite sure what he would say, but I have a shrewd idea. He might invite you to

"A pleasure, I assure you. But we will not have to go to the King. Dear lord, no, we will not trouble His

Majesty. You see, you obtained nearly double that amount from him this morning for secret service purposes,

bribery, and a few other things. In England we'd call it corruption, and dirty business at that. I will go further,

"Possibly. Some infernal spy. A nasty word, but we have no time to hunt the dictionary for a better." Fenning

spoke slowly with the old accustomed drawl. And he was enjoying his cigarette because it was the best

"You wouldn't know my name, so you cannot flatter me. My name is FenningJames Fenning, but more

generally called Jimmy. A man always very short of money; a fine diplomatist; a man who knows more about

Belgrade and the present situation than you do. Drinks a littleinherited vice thatlives by his wits, loves a

good dinner, but a good bottle of wine better. Seems to secure by some meansheaven knows howthe

confidence of most people, and is really very useful when he's paid in proportion. Hates cant, considers

women mere pawns in a game, has a smattering of rather polished manners. Brought an introduction to you

stolen from another man's wallet, and signed by Count Stolpin. The poor fellow is dead, and cannot repudiate

He looked across the table with an air of ease which proclaimed him to be very well at home with everybody

The Colonel's hand went under the table as if to ring the bell, but Fenning spoke again.

"I wouldn't ring that bell. You will only create a scandal. Let me talk to you for a moment. You know, it

wasn't a bad idea putting up a dummy for Colonel Paschnovich and his rabble to worship. Quite an excellent

idea, really. You kidnapped the other manwhat was his name? Oh, yes, Galatz. Stuck him in the monastery

and ran out this other fellow as substitute. You did not want me to know this, and you really wouldn't like

"Overhear it?" The Colonel brought his fist down on the table with a crash. "What matters! Do you think I am

"I rather think you have to. The money, I believe, is kept in that safe in the corner. My information is

For answer the Colonel slipped out a revolver and laid it beside his plate; a second later Fenning placed a

"A duel in the gardenmoonlightif need be a band to play. The King watching from the window at the

first shot, believing that they have called for his crown already. Fine, Colonel, fine! And with a girl looking

"You fool, you utter fool!" The Colonel thought he had found humour in the situation, and lolling back in his

chair he laughed heartily. "I grant you that you are clever, my friend," he said. "But, you know, we don't let

men like you walk at random in Belgrade. In Paris or London, yes, but in Belgrade, no. If I ring this

"Not alone?" Colonel Slana flung his chair aside and gripped his weapon. Simultaneously Fenning did the

same. For a moment they stood looking into each other's faces. Then the Englishman moved a foot forward as

stealthily as might a cat, and, springing at the man before him, struck the revolver from his hand with a single

Colonel Slana, gripping his wounded wrist, dropped into his chair with an oath. The suddenness of the attack,

the subtlety with which Fenning had lured him into the netthat and the wine fumes playing around his

brain robbed him of his presence of mind. Once his hand went to the bell under the table, but the look of

security in Fenning's eyes made him involuntarily withdraw it again. And Fenning, sitting on the corner of his

chair, watched him with a laugh about his lips, and the hand that held the revolver balanced on the edge of the

"The point is this," he said. "I hate making a row. I hate trouble because someone always gets hurt. And

really there is no need that we should quarrel, since as friends we can be of service to each other. Remember

you are the administrator of a pretty piece of trickery. You have engaged an Englishman to pass himself here

as Captain Galatz, son of the dead King Milan. You have for the moment fooled your enemies. But when I

tell you that that Englishman is my friend, and that it was through my instrumentality that Count Stolpin

"Yes, my friend, Paul Cazalet, one of the cleverest political journalists in England, a man headstrong, with

the love of adventure running like fire through his blood. And it was I who brought about the meeting

between Cazalet and the Count. Moreover, at my instigation, a rumour was circulated through the London

press to the effect that the birth of a child had robbed Cazalet of his inheritance. Of course, there was no

child. But Cazalet was the one man needed, and, believing himself thus ruined, it was easy for the Count to

bend him to his will at the proper hour. The entire scheme worked without a hitch." Fenning gave a deep sigh

of satisfaction. "Yes; I think I have been rather clever over the whole thing. You, my dear Colonel, have

played only the most insignificant part. I might almost say that you have had nothing to do with it at all."

The Colonel sat mute as if stupefied. That the other spoke the truth he had proof enough. How else did he

know the Englishman's name? He was appalled by the depth of the plot into which he had unwittingly fallen;

even as the seconds ticked themselves away he grew steadily afraid of the man before him. For here, within

the security of the stone walls of which he had boasted, and within a few yards of the King himself, was a

man who almost had it in his power to bring about a cataclysm involving even the throne.

The peril of the situation, the thundering of his own heart decided his next action. He got up slowly and,

taking a key from his pocket, unlocked the safe. He threw the massive doors back, and began grovelling

among the contents. Then he turned and pitched some packets across the table. In the sheer terror which

possessed him he forgot the presence of another person in the room. Had he listened or been able to stifle the

beating of the mighty forces in his brain, he would have detected some movement behind the curtains.

Fenning took the packets and opened them with the care of a man who suspects a trick in every movement of

his adversary, and as cautiously he counted the money they contained. His fingers were nerveless; his. every

pose calm and collected. He had no fears, no thought but for the moment. Then he put the packets in his coat

"A health unto His Majesty!" he cried, lifting the glass. "In England we'd drink it with musical honours!"

The Colonel returned to his seat, the ease of the other inspiring him with a new sense of security. He would

have his man arrested in the morning and brought into this very room a prisoner. And the Kalamegdan had

"I don't know who you are, but I give you credit for a clever piece of knavery," he said, and bowed his head

"Damn it! this is thundering good wine," Fenning exclaimed. "You must excuse me. I will fill again. I fear I

am rather an expensive guest to entertain; but I have rendered you a good service. For aught I know I have

tonight saved the crown of Servia. I might even boast that I have saved the Queen's life. I rather think she

will tell you so after the coffee in the morning, my Colonel." He moistened his lips from his glass and smiled.

"You know," he said, "I think Her Majesty rather likes me. In any case, you must not forget that you are my

sponsor to her. It was so fortunate that I came to you with the introduction I did, else, my friend, I believe that

even you would have mistrusted me. And mistrust is such an unpalatable thing with good wine."

The Colonel's hand carefully crept across the table; a moment more and it would have closed over Fenning's

revolver, but the latter noticed the movement and drew the weapon a foot farther away from him.

"Aye, a good revolver this," he said, examining it. He threw back the breech and displayed the cartridges.

"Look at that. You won't find another breech like that on the Teratsia. And I bought it from an American in

Paris who was very drunk. One louis! Let me empty it, and you shall have it for two. . . . Yes; it was a

catastrophe that we should have been overheard to night, but unfortunately a necessary one." He paused a

moment, and, still gripping the revolver, half turned as if he could detect some movement behind the curtains.

"The devil! I have no time to waste words with you, but tell your story. In any case it can have no bearing on

" Possibly. But I think you already regret that most excellent dinner we ate at the Regent last night. The

volaille, I remember, was superb; the asparaguswhat flavour! And the winedear heaven, what wine!

There were lights and glamour, and fair facesa wonderful band out in the trees. You saw a woman there;

"She was pretty, You admired her. It was a reckless thing to do, my Colonel. Or, having done so, you should

have condoned the offence by avoiding wine. I believe you even asked me for an introduction; moreover, I

"I am devilish clumsy at explaining things. But she is my friend, and, as it happensit is perhaps rather

unfortunate in this caseshe is one of the principal spies in Belgrade, and she is in your rooms now!"

Colonel Slana clung to the edge of the table; he was almost on his feet when Fenning waved him back.

"A spy? She could never reach here. The place is too well guarded. And what would your object be?"

Yet even as the Colonel spoke he felt a growing suspicion of the scarlet curtains that were moving to and fro

"Let me close the doors," he said. "I have no wish that we should be overheard."

"There is no need; the night is hot," said Fenning. "You ask me my object. You do not know me, you don't

really, or you would be well aware that it is my custom to have an object for most things I do." He spoke

calmly, as if he had the whole night in which to explain himself, while his antagonist sat fretfully watching

him, the sweat beading his hot forehead. "Imagine for a moment how easy it would be for you to ring that

bell and have me arrested! You have felt so inclined more than once within the last halfhour, but you are so

excellent a host that you have always restrained your hand. In a few moments you are going to let me pass

"Scarcely that. But you daren't ring that bell. If a spyand a woman, toowere found in your rooms! My

dear Colonel, what would His Majesty say? His confidence shaken, his faith in you gone. Verily you might

find the air of Belgrade unsavoury! So you see you must let me go out and my colleague with me: you cannot

touch either of us. You are too afraid of scandal. You have too much respect for your official position. And

there are several pairs of eyes in Belgrade that might shed crocodile tears at your downfall. A few red lips

that would laugh perhaps. These butterfly creaturesdear Colonel. You were ever fond of the summer."

The taunt in the last few words struck the man to life. He was beaten, beaten on every point, but some

slumbering sense of dignity awoke in him. He leapt towards Fenning, then came to a fullstop before him,

A smothered cry arose from beyond the curtains that shielded the open doorsa low cry of fear. Then a

movement followed as if the person hidden there was about to withdraw to the open air beyond. For a

moment the curtains swayedit might have been by the pressure of handsand Fenning stepped up to them

A woman stood there, the graven image of fear. The colour had drained from her cheeks, and the look in her

eyesFenning knew he would never forget it. It reminded him of the same expression he had once seen in

the eyes of a young and lovely woman whose lover had abandoned her to the underworld of Paris eyes that

were refused the mercy of tears. For a woman weeps only for a broken playthingseldom at the realisation

Jean waited there, careless of what was passing in the room, ignorant almost of the presence of the other man.

She could only look at Fenning. And it seemed to her even then that there was some crudity about his face

which she had never observed there before, as if the ugliness of his soul had put its shadow over every

feature. She grew conscious of it vaguelythis new ugliness in him. And she was dead to fear, dead to any

emotion save that of loathing, of utter abandon to the hatred which comes to a woman only when a man has

"It was for thisyou needed me here to shield you. I was to be the lure?" Almost she was incoherent.

Her words fell upon Fenning like the first blows of the lash. He became as suddenly conscious of a sense of

shame, a thing he had never known before. From any other woman the taunt would have meant nothing. But

she seemed to be beatingbeating upon an open wound. He sought the only refugethat of confession.

PAUL almost collided with her as she turned the corner. But for the moon swinging high above the roofs he

would never have seen her face. Yet the little figure, hurrying forward with bent headcould he not pick it

The street was deserted except where a sleepy zaptieh, armed to the teeth, patrolled a dozen yards of rough

pavement at the far end of it. A few lights still winked at the night from the palace windows; the distant

laughter of drunken men filtered up from the coffeehouses in a neighbouring quarter. For the rest Belgrade

He stopped, and half turned when she would have passed him, and she shrank back with a quick mutter of

She answered him with a cry of recognition. She was panting, her eyes wide open and staring, as if some

"You told me we should meet in Servia," he laughed; "and, bless my soul, when we keep the appointment

"I know," he said. "It's these infernally dark streets. They would hang the urban council for this in England.

"It was nothing very serious." He took an ungloved hand. She was cold, and trembling. "It's cured. I was

"Waiting outside that door, knowing you were safe in there," he explained. "That was the one great thing that

"Jimmy Fenning," he broke in. "I can guess as much. Jimmy was ever a gallant to a pretty woman. If you had

"No, no. I don't wish to speak about it. . . . All men are beasts!" she flung out.

"Friend Fenning is in disgrace. I do not know what he has done, but we will consider him whipped and put in

"And you think I would discuss it with youyou who are the candidate for a throne?" she asked, catching

"Women are always doing that," he parried; "and you are going to do it again. You're going to trust me when

I urge you to leave Belgrade tomorrow. I want you to return to England. Belgrade will be no place for a

"Will you go, little girl?" he said. "You asked me once not to come here, and I disobeyed you. But now I am

"Go back? Why talk about it? You tell a woman she is frightened of danger and think it pleases her."

"It pleases her more to know that a man is so anxious for her safety as to warn her."

"I would take you back but for a duty I owe to people I have never met before in my life."

"Is it ever a waste of time to argue with a pretty woman?" he answered. "If I were kind to you I would have

you arrested as a spy. Would you be herded with fanatics when the madness takes them? At least, you would

He grew serious in a moment. He knew that she had mocked him. She was gibing at him as might a child at a

puny monarch with a paper crown. He bent forward till his face was close to hers, and now her eyes were

very grave, as if a quick realisation had come to her of what was passing in his mind.

For a while he hesitated. He could find no words to answer her: no words that would tell the worship his heart

dictated. He watched a wisp of hair play over her face in the beat of the wind, and her little white fingers

come up and brush it aside. Even as he waited she seemed to assume a place of greater import in his life than

she had done that night in Paris, and to bring fulfilment of things predestined. She was the woman chosen for

him out of the big gamble of Adventure; so he reasoned. And she needed him there in the loneliness of a

"There is only one kingdom I wish to rule," he said softly as he bent over her. "If you would go back to

England! Ah! if you would do so much for me that I might follow and find my kingdom there!"

The sound of her name on his lips was like a rich note of music, or it may have been as a clarion call which

broke down the walls of reserve and spoke of the complete surrender of himself. The future grew rich with

promise as the minutes passed. It was as if the curtains of Tomorrow had been drawn aside that he might see

She had turned her head, nor could he observe the lustre that had crept into her eyes. The wind across his lips

had in it the taste of sweet trees. Overhead the jostling leaves of the ilex whispered in little rising tones of

melody, and her face was scarred with the fretted light falling through the thick foliage.

"You cannot tell what you have beenhave meant to me," he said. "Hitherto my life has been full of

striving, but little attainment. I had big ambitions always before me like beacon lights which I was ever trying

to reach. And then that night at the ToledoI thought that the dark had blotted out those beacons for ever,

He felt the quickened clasp of her hand on his sleeve as he had done that night in London.

"Yesyou," he answered her. "Though my feet had stood on the very edge of the precipice you guided them

into the sweet meadows. I was facing disaster. I had reached that grey hour which waits for every man

somewhere in his life. But with you came the sunshine: the colour appeared in everything again. I felt myself

answering to some outside influence. A woman can do that for a man. He may not recognise it immediately,

for he is often just a child, selfconfident, too selfreliant, till gradually he learns that some greater power is

moulding him in spite of himself. It has been so with me. In all my world of broken ambitionsof things that

might have beenthere has been only one ruling force." He spoke steadily, with the strength of a.man who

has come to understanding. "I never knew it till now, though conscious long since of its presence, its

indomitable working. And that power, Jean, is you. I believe every man is sent to earth to find his way by

devious paths to his affinity, and he feels that influence subconsciously long before he ever sees the woman

She was staring at the white walls of the palace as if she did not heed him. He bent a little closer to her, and

"It has been a curious winding path," he said. "But it has led me to you. And nowhow small everything

else appearsthe conflict of powers for this bubble throne, a dozen forces intriguing to tear a queen from her

husband's side without pity. I am like a man who looks through roseate glasses that hide all the ugliness of

things around. An hour ago this place was to me a den of beasts; now I only know that the night is beautiful

"So much that I urge you to leave Belgrade. I have only fear for you here. Tomorrow a group of men may

shout the doom of the throne, and the army will cry the echo. The blood of a nation which has slept for years

is slowly waking into action, and when this happens you will be less than a pawn in a big game. And after all,

your mission herewhat good is it going to bring into your life? You will have gained nothing, unless it be

that you have learned to know the world better, and found only sadness in the discovery."

"Interfering in other people's quarrels can become a very uninteresting pastime. I have already discovered

that," he said. "I would like to give everything up to my love for you, to work for it, to start a fresh life in

England for youwith you. Remember that when a man drops love out of his life he sheds the only garment

he has borrowed from Heaven. And some day, Jean, if not now, you will come to understand, and feel glad

"Perhaps," she said. "But I have no love for England now. I want to remain in Belgrade. And it is glorious

adventureto me it is all my life. Nor is this the moment for me to turn back. I gave my trust to a man only

to find tonight that he has abused it. You cannot expect a woman to run away from defeat. I'm stubborn,

"The thing I want most in the world tonight is to cry quits with the man who has spoiled my faith in him. I

would like to put all the gall into a letter to him and post it before regret came with the morning. Now speak

"Spitfire! There, will that please you?" he laughed. "And walk along with me, little Spitfire! My arm in

yoursso. That zaptieh has his eye cocked at us. He would love an international complication by arresting

He strode beside her, a song in his heart, and the scales of blindness covering his eyes. For if he could have

analysed dispassionately every word and mood of her he would have found her to be a woman standing at

parting ways, smarting under the whip of something that was hurting her pride, ambitious still, careless for

But withal she was glad that Paul was at hand; she was glad of his friendship; it acted as a balm to her

suffering faith in his sex. And she was subconscious of a little note of selfishness. She knew what he had

offered herlove, big and sheltering and strong. At the moment it struck no responding chord, but only a

thankfulness for the sense of security it brought, companionship in a desert waste. It was like a cup of water

when she would have fallen by the way, and she could go forward now, revived, encouraged.

"That he should have made you suffer," he began. "Fenning was never kind to women."

"Kind to women!" she echoed bitterly. His words drove her to decision, and broke her pride so that she could

bend and kiss the hand that had hurt her. "Kind to women!" she said vehemently. "He has been very good to

me. He sheltered and shielded me; he nearly gave his life for me. A woman never forgets a thing like

thatbig things like that. You think I don't understand him, but I do. He has been brought up in a hard

world, and he told me once that no one had ever turned a hand to help him. He had just had to fight, to live by

his wits, by artifice and subterfuge. Yes, he gave me the whole story. I remember, he was sitting by the

window in his rooms nursing his broken handit was the day after you wentand he told me, not out of

selfpity, but with a brave courage that didn't care. If I had said that I was sorry for him he would have taken

the insult to heart. So I just listened, and said `Yes' and `No,' and pretended I was watching the traffic in the

"Don't you see how a man gets hardened in a school like that?" she went on. "He has disappointed me

tonight, that is all. I should have known that no man could endure so much without growing to the belief

that a woman counts for very little. Selfdefence is his natural armament. You cannot expect a man in his

world to know much about sympathy; it's stifled out of him before it can ever take root."

"You are throwing my own arguments in my face," Paul answered. "I have always declared that a man's

environment shapes the man. I have preached that doctrine and stuck to it through thick and thin. Prison

makes the criminal commit more crimes, rough usage begets cruelty in the sufferer. So I have said, and so I

have believed. And yet I thought better of Jimmy. I felt sure he would win out when it came to a big test. I

even gave him credit for being the exception to the rule, the very man who could have laughed at me and

"I used to think so," she answered him. "I thought so that day in Paris, when he told me about himself. He

told me he could never run straight. Yes, that was the expression he used. I think he meant to warn me against

himself. And I thought of what you had saidthe speeches you had made about the criminal taint and the

"I made a resolve that I would stand by him just as he had stood by me that night in Belleville when I was

"He cannot be cured; he can't run straight; it's in his blood. That I should come to confess that!" he said.

It was his first doubt in his own argument. Yet she scarcely heard him, so low did he speak. And with slow

reasoning he began to survey the case of Fenning. If he loved this woman his affection would have offered

some defence against the inborn taint of the trickster. He had failed the first timebut would he fail the

second? There was just that possibilitywould he fail the second time? Should he not be given the benefit of

She did not know the thoughts that were passing in his mind. She was looking down the long street, and

could he have seen the expression on her face he would have said that she bore for him no more than a

feeling of sympathy, but for the man who had fooled her a love that passed all understanding.

"Take me home. I hate Belgrade tonight," she exclaimed suddenly. "The H�tel de la Croixwill you take

They walked down street after street in silence. He said good bye to her in the illlit doorway.

"Here I am back at my prison," she said, and laughed. He waited until the door had closed softly behind her,

And ere she snuffed the candle in her little bedroom, Jean threw herself beside her bed in the abandon of

Paul heard the news in the caf� on the following evening. Of Jean he had seen nothing. The band in the

gardens had just finished the Draga March; he sat tapping his fingers to the lilt of it on the marbletopped

table. He paid no attention to the idle chatter, but he was compelled to listen to the little wizened man with

the white moustache at the next table, who was talking treachery in French to his companion.

"The dogs!" he was saying. "They have arrested a woman. An English girlthe prettiest spy in Belgrade.

Slana has sent her to the Kalamegdan. Slana never takes risks. And they'll kill her there, the cowards!"

Paul got up without a word, and walked away towards the H�tel de la Croix to make inquiries, muttering to

himself as he went. "The pretty English spyin the Kalamegdan prison. The cowards!" he cried. "The

THE dawn was stirring above the city when Paul arose. For him the night had been a torture that appeared to

have no end. He was a man whose moods quickly produced strong exhilaration or depression, and the latter,

deepening with the darkness, had faced him with the futility of the situation. Hour by hour he had lain in bed

staring with hotrimmed eyes at the grim shadows thrown over the ceiling by the small oillamp, his mind

running the whole gamut of a fantasia of thought, choosing a hundred different courses of pursuit, only to

abandon them as quickly as they had been chosen. He became the slave of his imagination and abandoned

himself to it, just as people of strong impulse become hypersensitive to the slightest setback, and suffer it

Half dressed, he opened the window and looked out. The light was touching the roofs dimly, shaping their

contours till the ugliness of the mongrel architecture became still more ugly, and slowly the coming day

moved the languor from his senses. He grew restive; his blood would answer no call save that of action. His

pulses quickened to the sounds of the morning, the rumble of a handcart over the rough cobbles below, a

siren rasping from some slowmoving vessel out on the broad grey river, the halfhearted tramp of soldiery

He watched the light grow up and drank in the wet chill air. And he remembered that the light as it

strengthened was creeping through the window of a small cell where a girl prayed with lips tired of prayer for

help she believed could never come. He could read her mind, and became conscious of some form of mental

telepathy between himself and her; felt, even as she felt, her impotence against the Juggernaut of

As he put on his coat he remembered the letter in his wallet. His first impulse had been to go to Nichodim

with threats to expose the entire plot, to surrender his part as a puppet prince unless the release of Jean were

assured. And Nichodim would have answered himwith a cell. Or Slana? A jest at his tender English heart,

and would he have a glass of wine to rouse his courage! For Slana took no risks, and there is seldom mercy

where there is risk. But the letter in his wallet, given him by Stolpin with others that night in Dover

Just before midday he presented himself at the palace, and in a quarter of an hour the bead curtain that

covered the door of Draga's private boudoir was held aside that he might enter. He passed into an empty

room. The atmosphere was aromatic with scented Russian tobacco, and in a small ashtray upon a polished

He stood still and glanced round the chamber. It was plainly yet tastefully furnished. The walls were panelled

with bronze silks, a divanheavily cushioned with the same colourwas thrown across one corner. The

pictures were crude and chosen for the blending of their colours rather than for artistic skill, and on all the

tables were photographs, some framed, other propped against odd pieces of eggshell china and glass

ornamentsphotographs of Alexander, her husband. In a far corner, hastily thrown into a chair, was a piece

of needlework in a square frame with a newspaper lying beside it. The concentration of these impressions

convinced him that the room was furnished by a woman for her comfort and not for regal display. It was a

room a Queen might scorn, but a woman could love. And Draga was a woman, but, so Belgrade would have

him believe, never a Queen. Her tastes were not regal, her senses dulled to that realisation of sovereignty

which creates the personality of the ruler. Yet she was strong with some subtle form of strength which those

The door at the end of the room opened and closed; and Paul, turning, found himself looking into the eyes of

She spoke slowly, fearlessly, though but a few hours before she had named him for one of a gang of

"The trick, madam, was performed last night," Paul answered her. "The letter you hold in your hand identifies

Removing the needlework from the chair, she sat down and pointed him to a chair facing her.

"It is proposed to put a son of King Milan on the throne," Paul ventured, rushing to the point at once.

"One hears rumours. Belgrade demands such chatter; it is the city's dull season."

"I am that sonfor the hour that the play lasts," Paul replied. He watched her eyes widen as he spoke.

"Captain Galatz, of the French army; a worthy fellow, probably quite happy with his books in the monastery

where it has pleased those who pull the strings to place him while I play his part in Belgrade."

"I am Captain Galatzso they have named me. Last night, at that house in the passage in the Rue d'Or, I was

tempted to tell you. For a moment I forgot my part. I was tired of being associated with cowards. I forgot I

"A plain Englishman, madam, Paul Cazalet, as that letter tells you. Some have named me for an adventurer,

some for a genius, others for a fool. On the impulse of a moment I started on the errand which brought me

here; where that errand will end I do not know. Almost, I might say, I do not care. But I am here to serve you,

He spoke earnestly as if he were expounding to her the whole mission of his life. A smile crept over her face.

He had seen women smile like that before, but without the same sympathy, the same attraction.

In the caf�s they had marvelled at the fascination of Draga; to the ignorant, who were informed upon things

no better than the swineherds in the mountains, it was a form of witchery which had absorbed a king and

would overthrow a throne. It was a judgment come to Servia for not maintaining the prestige of Kossovo.

That ancient battlefield was their source of glory that never failed them. They were ever patriots over

Kossovo; it was the world's battle. And Dragawhat did she know of such pride, such racehonour, she who

was once a gipsy? She was a woman of coarse instincts, lacking beauty, even dignity; so they had told him.

The fools! A few hours ago he could only wonder at her courage, faced as she had been by a gang of

desperadoes; his colleagues the men he could have spat upon. Every woman has her big moments when she

really rules. And in all his memories of Draga this would be hers. The subtle wonder of her, the simplicity of

manner, the melody of her voice, the deep sloe eyes that had brought a monarch to her feetall these things

were sensed by him in the abstract and convinced him of the strength of her personality.

"I am grateful to you," she said. "Colonel Slana should have sent you to me before. He is a strange man; he

tells me but little of his schemes, though I must admit knowledge of this one. Yes, he should have sent you."

"Some mad acts are being perpetrated in Belgrade, madam. I learned last night that there was such a folly as

overzeal. It is usually the fault of the most trusted, for the knowledge of trust can give one an exaggerated

sense of dutycan even inspire mistakes. It is easy to err like that when one is slave to a cause."

"Yes, I suppose so. The more we strive the greater our mistakes. I, too, have learned that. You speak of

"Yes, Colonel Slana. A most admirable servanta zealot to the core. And he has sent to the Kalamegdan an

"He was very much afraid of this girl last night if he thought it necessary to arrest her in the small hours of

the morning. And Heaven knows why. If she had deserved her punishment I should not be here. His action is

"I preferred to come to the fountainhead. The Colonel knows my mission. In everything else I am in accord

with him. To have argued with him would have been useless. One does not find many drops of blood in a

"Perhaps. But discipline, madam, is a sense; one learns it, feels it by example, by the knowledge of strength,

not by the act of a bully. When so many openly conspire; when one hears treason at every street corner, in

every caf�, it is cowardice to shut up a girl whilst traitors walk free. It is comicopera justice. Men would

"What is Colonel Slana afraid ofyou can tell me that? What is there about this English girl that he fears?"

The reply came from the figure who stood holding apart the bead curtains in the act of stepping into the

room; and, turning, Paul saw the look of malice on Colonel Slana's face as he waited there. His heavy eyes

were half closed, and beneath the grey moustache his lips were working. He returned the Englishman's bow

"Come, Colonel. We want you. You know Mr. Cazalet?" The Queen advanced as if to introduce them.

"He called upon me a week ago. He has been in close touch with me since then. He gave me a letter from

Count Stolpin. I am familiar with his mission; I have done my best to aid him. Yes, madam, I quite approved

of the Count's choice, though I would have preferred a stronger man. You want candour, Mr. Cazalet; you

"You seem unusually anxious about this girl," said the Colonel, with a laugh that was half a taunt.

"But you have placed her in the Kalamegdan prisonyou have good reason?" asked the Queen.

"Yes. I wish to investigate her movements. They are somewhat obscure. I might say that they give cause for

"Suspicions! We live on suspicions; we look for the hand of the traitor everywhere," she said. "My husband

would shut up every traitor in Belgrade. Only this morningbecause of the article in the Zastavahe said

he would have every revolutionary in Belgrade arrested. He would banish half the officers in the army, if

necessary. I convinced him of the futility of it all. To arrest on suspicion, Colonel, is to declare the weakness

The sullen answers came like shots from a gun. Stepping forward, the Queen looked hard into his face.

The last sentence, flung out, it might have been, as a challenge, compelled Paul to silence by its import. The

intrusion of Fenning at this stage had a meaning which he could not, dared not, translate. And was it, then, for

this that Jean had shielded him? His mind offered a dozen different explanations, and belief in any of them

would have suggested treachery of one man to another if that man were innocent. Yet he remembered with

ceaseless insistence the words Fenning had uttered that morning in Paris: "I'd sell any woman if I had the

chance, just because I couldn't help it." The idea was impossible. Men did not sell a womanpitch her at the

first opportunity into the common meltingpot of humanityon the temptation of a moment, where there

Fenning had loved this girl. There was that night at Bellevillehe had watched outside the door of Jean's

room. And Paul had read the expression on his face thenthe fear that she was suffering, the love for

heryes, love for a woman who might build him again into some semblance of his former self The whole

man was a riddle inexplicable, astounding. Argue it from a dozen points and the one fact remained: that he

had loved this woman with his brute nature, with all that was crude and untamed in him, but with a strength

The seconds floated past, and all the time Paul's mind worked in some deeper psychological study. To a

normal individual the action attributed to Fenning was impossible; but the bloodtaintthe big enemy,

indestructible, rolling through a man's veins, enslaving him, moulding him step by step for its own issues,

evolving out of him a creature under subjection, crushing down the while all will and moral fibrethis was

beyond the pale of his reckoning. He had supposed Fenning to be a complex type of man usually

misunderstood. The outward appearances of him allowed for certain degrees of honesty, integrity and moral

grit. He was a man loved by men, ofttimes adored by women for all his occasional display of weakness. But

underneath there now appeared the creature within, growing till it controlled the whole creation of what had

been a man, changing one's perspective of him while yet one looked. It was the moral evolution of a man who

was going under. Bloodtaint was creating its own kind all the while, a big tide gaining and never receding

For such a one Paul had always felt a sympathy, sometimes childish in its extreme. But in the space of a few

moments he had grown to hate Fenning. His precepts should have made him cry, "I am my brother's keeper, I

will make him whole!" Instead, he wanted to destroy, to kill the man, weak though he might be, who had

injured the woman he loved. His principles, as applied to himself, were as a house built on sand. In a

moment's space he judged his theories and found them wanting; in a moment's space he learned that so long

as there were big forces such as love in the world, brutality would continue, the strong trampling over the

weak; crime would go on, prisons remain filled. For years he had fooled himself; for years he believed he

"He did what was required of himI can say no more," Colonel Slana replied evasively.

For a moment Colonel Slana hesitated. His mind, attuned to every strategic movement, to every cunning,

worked coolly to response. An expression settled slowly over his face. It might have been of resolve or

knavery. He felt himself to be in the position of a man who holds every trump card in the pack. He could

afford his pose, his nonchalance; he was about to justify them. The pale blue eyes seemed to retreat into the

"I will be frank, madam," he said at last. He spoke with the condescension of a man ready to depart from his

accustomed rule and explain the motive of his action. "She was introduced to me a few nights ago, this girl. I

had heard of her; I sought the introduction. A charming girl, very. Beautiful, with wonderful eyes. She taught

me during the first few minutes that her eyes were her stockintrade. She was reserved, yet she appeared

"Oh, well, it might have ended there. A few pretty words, a smile or two, a glass of winethe common coin

of a friendship that is never more than an episode. But, as it so happened, a member of your own

householdMademoiselle Stengel, to be exactwarned me that this demure English girl was suspected in

Paris of having murdered Count Stolpin, that she had come here in the pay of Russia. Such a rumour, and

from such a source too" He bowed. "You would not have had me disregard it, madam?"

"This rumour was subsequently confirmed by what the priest said. He declared her to be a spy. I resolved to

test herto find out what manner of woman she was, and if her reserve was merely a form of disguise. I

"I mean, m'sieu, that I invited her to come to my private rooms last night as a friend. And she told me."

Paul lurched forward. He clenched his fists, urged by some dominating force to batter the sardonic grin from

the face of the man before him. He felt choking, as if a band of ice were about his throat. But for the presence

And yet in after years he marvelled at his selfcontrol at that moment. He had not spoken or uttered a sound,

because there was nothing he could say. To declare the lie was merely to state an obvious fact. He rather

remembered the emotions that passed in rapid succession through him. At first an intense loathing of the man

Then he thought of Jean. He had heard the reputations of women dragged through the mire in many places, in

low brasseries, at Society dinner tables. And at such times he had felt momentary revolt, no more than that:

just something that ruffled him, even as a breeze might ruffle the surface of still water, and, passing, leave it

placid as before. But this was a blow that struck at the very heart of him, that seared him as might a

whitehot iron, and left a burning pain. "All men are beasts," she had told him once, and he had laughed; but

now he knew that in the heart of the most polished gentleman stalks some beast in a gilded cage.

"Or this man a liar," Cazalet burst out. "In any case, I can insist on a thorough investigation. If it is refused,

then I must return to my country at once, and demand protection for English girls from being tricked into

"Right? By the common right of friendship. There will be a full inquiry. Her Majesty will not refuse it."

"On the contrary," she replied. "Return this afternoon, Colonel, prepared to give me the fullest details. We

Colonel Slana knew that he was dismissed. He bowed and walked out with the easy grace that never deserted

him, nerveless, selfconfident. For a second they stood watching the curtains through which he had passed

She read the expression on his face. When she spoke again it was in a low voice, tender and sympathetic.

"I will do what I can," she said; "but I cannot recommend the King to set her free till inquiries have been

"One trusts an Englishman," she answered him. "I would set her free today. Would you give me your word

"So little of it that, release me from my mission, and I will undertake to remove this girl from Belgrade; if

"That I cannot say," Paul answered. "She belongs to that type of woman who is not turned from her purpose

at the dictates of a man. She distrusts men. She believes that behind the masculine mind is a motive in

everything. She had never had cause, so far as I am aware, really to trust a man; she has sought

selfdependence, and followed it blindly. It has led her into many mistakes; it may lead her into many more.

Frankly, madam, I do not really know how I should get her out of Belgrade; but I would get her out of it if it

"That is as you please," she said. "If she has not actually broken the law, then she shall not remain the law's

prisoner. That is my point. To herd up one's enemies, innocent and guilty alike, on the national

wasteheapthe foolishness of it! Freedom of speech and thoughta long way round to internal good, but

the only sure way. To live one's life as one willsah, if we all had that freedom! It does not come from the

throne, but from the spirit of the race. In Belgrade we are learning the lesson at the wrong end. If a man hates

"It is the common creed here," he said. "You imprison a man for expressing his opinion, and permit the

newspapers that create those opinions to pursue a campaign of calumny unchecked."

"It is your custom in Belgrade. In England we do it more delicately," Paul said with a laugh. "Our newspapers

lead a man to the borderland, but no farther. If he steps beyond it he does so at his own peril; but,

nevertheless, the Press is shaping our deeds, our thoughts, our very mode of life. We hate a politician because

we are told to; we adore another for the same reason. We pay a halfpenny a day for our political zeal, for

being told how to live, how to think. We do not want our own opinions; we seldom have the courage of them.

We follow some man who, sitting in an office, writes what he thinks, and several hundred thousand minds

will think the same tomorrow morning. If he has a disordered liver and the gall runs through his pen more

freely than usual, then thousands have a liver tomorrowa mental liver, to give the complaint its proper

name. The Press has its moods, yet we are not afraid of them, nor heed them; we just bring our own opinions

into line. It is so much easier; and, after all, is not the Press our friend, and a brave fellow!"

His philosophy amused her. She thought for a moment, then said: "And if we suspend the newspaperswhat

"Most certainly. A man with a disordered opinion of everybody and everything gets rid of his bile by

agreeing with his morning paper. It is his daily liver tonic. It is as necessary to the modern mode of life as the

very bread he eats. He must have it, it is part of him. Take it away, and he would break out into a

revolutionary and a cracker of heads. He would strive for an ideal which the newspapers teach him is

"You speak like the cold northerner you are," she answered him. "Impulse plays a greater part in our lives

than in yours. We love deeply, we hate deeply; that is the sum total of everything. We cannot adjust our lives

to the circumstances that occur in them as easily as you do. And so in Belgrade. The army may be affected,

but it is the mood of the moment. I believeit is my faiththat the heart of Servia beats true to the throne.

It is swayed by impulse, by the passing opinion of the hour. One becomes an object of national hate before

one is aware that enemies exist. But to do one's duty and be judged by itthat is my prayer. The people will

understand, but not yet. And nothing will be achieved by forcing them to understand by brutality. Ignore your

"Dangerous today, but the mood will pass. These things always do; they right themselves by some process

of evolution. Sometimes I am impatient; I cannot see the end. Yet one can do no more than work and wait.

Maybe I cannot demand love, but I can earn it. . . . And so with this girl. Her nametell me."

She went to the table, and he listened to her pen scratching on a piece of paper.

"I will mention the matter to His Majesty when I am sure of the facts. Meanwhile, you are at liberty to find

out all you can. You would like to see Mademoiselle Stengel? She is my new ladyinwaiting. An estimable

"There is nothing I should like better," Paul said. "To find out how she came by the absurd notion that Miss

Lorimer had anything to do with the Count's murder. The thing is preposterous, unthinkable."

The Queen handed him the note and rang the bell. In a few moments Mademoiselle Stengel had entered the

He muttered the name foolishly, fighting with his amazement, grasping at selfcontrol only to find it elusive.

He smiled inanely. His mind was framing things, bare notions of things undreamed of before, opening up

Mademoiselle StengelLady Penstone. Something was shouting the two names in his ears, beat by beat the

Flushed and angry, she stared at him. He had bowed. And the Queen was watching the play of the little

The other woman was looking at him. It remained for her to speak. She came forward doubtfully, and glanced

at the Queen. Then she fixed her eyes on Pauleyes from which every expression seemed to drift. He

watched a wisp of sunlight coming through the window flood the glory of her hair.

She smiled and put out her hand. "Yes, we have met before. We used to call you Monsieur the Rogue. Do

For a moment he did not reply. He was amazed at the easiness with which she handled the situation.

Monsieur the Rogueyes, he remembered that. It was during lunch at Penstone Castle. Lord Penstone had

detailed to his young wife some of the charges brought against Paul in one of the newspapers. And Paul had

"It was a happy thought of yours, that name," he exclaimed jestingly. "But I wonder if I really earned it? I

suppose I did. And for the moment I had forgotten I was ever dishonest. To forget one's vices, ah, if we could

The Queen was smiling. The Englishman had forgotten his ill humour and found an old friend. How small

"Monsieur the Rogue! A good name," she said. "And they tell me that there is no roguery like that of an

Englishman in search of adventure. He wants to speak to you, mademoiselle, about some absurd rumour."

She went to the door and turned. "Goodbye, Monsieur the Rogue!" she laughed back at him and disappeared.

HE knew that she was studying him with the care of a player who mentally checks the position of the game

before making the next move. But of a sudden she turned and walked quickly from the room, and Cazalet

followed her in silence. She hurried in front of him down a long corridor hung with skins and scarlet rugs,

secured to the walls at odd angles and without regard to order. From the quaint corners above the windows

the heads of big beasts peered at them out of deep shadows and half lights. He wondered at this blending of

gloom and luxury, the reflection of a crude sense of comfort which, in an English house, would not be

In the small receptionroom they entered the same disorder was presentbarbaric, irritating. Glass and

metal ornaments were everywhere, without reason or distinction. Above them were heaped weapons of

various ages: old Oriental swords, a French bayonet from the campaign of '70, clustered with rust at the hilt;

crude Serb knives, and, hanging at an impossible angle in one corner, a British cavalry sabre of the Waterloo

period. In the centre of the room was an old table, richly carved, but one leg near the window had been

"I wonder," he said, "when we are going get tired of this game of spoofyou and I."

"If it pleases you to be facetious, at least talk so that I can understand you," she said.

"Which is often misleading," she declared. "I suppose you are here because I happen to have entered the

It was a question he could scarcely disregard. To him it was full of significance.

"No," he answered her. "I would tell you if it were. This is no moment for us to play cat and mouse.

Moreover, my curiosity would never have carried me so far; it needed a deeper interest than that. I don't

know that we have had so much sympathy for each other that one should draw the other across Europe.

"I fancy that the last time I thought about you I condemned you to the North Pole. Servia had not entered my

calculations. I confess I was not enamoured of my lamented uncle's marriage; there was no reason why I

should be. You stepped into my life from somewhere in Europe. I knew no more than that, I was never told

any more. And remember what they said about me in London: I was mercenary, unscrupulous, a spendthrift,

"For once they refrained from telling a lie. Chance brought us here in some common cause; that does not

"Oh, that is easily explained. My father was in the service of the Servian Court for a quarter of a century. I

have always had friends in Belgrade, friends at the Court. Is it so surprising that I should want to come

"She knows I was not left in penury. Not that Her Majesty chooses her friends for their money or the lack of

it. But that is beside the point. I have answered your question. Now tell me about this rumour. Belgrade is full

of rumours, and explanations of them are not often found in the palace. But I will help you if I can."

Cazalet smiled at her tranquillity. Her last words were uttered in a tone of rebellion, of protest. The change of

attitude proclaimed a slight weakening; her desire to fend his questions placed his chances in the ascendant. If

she had nothing to hide she would have met his curiosity with candour, so much is the common law of

As the seconds passed he began to gain some insight into her thoughts, to interpret every little disguise of

nervousness. Yet to all appearances she was quite calm, she was not afraid of him. He read the strength on

her face as he looked at her, the strength in her eyes, the strength of her thin lips, and watched the slow

moving of her supple fingers over the polished wood of the table. If she dreaded what he might ask of her she

"This is rather more than a rumour, it is an actual statement of fact," he answered her. "So much a fact that an

English girl has been sent to the Kalamegdan prison on the strength of it. You know to whom I refer. You had

your reasons for associating this girl with the murder of Count Stolpin. And those reasonswhat were they?"

"Really, I don't think I had much to do with it," she laughed. "One hears things. I merely repeated what others

"A woman who plays with diplomacy sometimes burns her fingers. It is rather more difficult than juggling

"Diplomacy has never had much meaning for me," she said. For a second she hesitated, then with the quick

intellect of a woman grasped at the first impulse to trade on the weakness of her sex.

"Cannot you understand what a hideous position mine has been?" She hurled the words fiercely at him. "I

loved my husband. Of course, you would never believe me, but I did. I am a young woman possessing, so

they tell me, a certain amount of charm. I am left alone in the world, I want friends, the society of those who

understand me. I have moneymoney that will enable me to take my place among those in the world to

which I once belonged. No doubt it might have been expected that I should be involved in the political

vortex; a woman never escapes so long as they can make of her a means to an end."

"A means to an end?" he repeated after her. "Yes, I understand that. And the means to the end in your

"This girlwhat is she to me? Is there anything in her life that can link it up to mine?"

"I believe so; I am sure of it." He approached nearer to her, and looked coldly, almost brutally into her face.

"No," she declared. "No, no, no. If she is a menace to those who have helped me when I most needed friends,

what is she to me but an enemy? Am I to caress the hand that would strike down those who care for me? I

know little about her, and I do not wish to add to that knowledge. If I helped you to free her she would

probably be the first to turn against me. Oh, I know my sex very well. I am not a saint, I do not pretend to be,

and I have no extravagant ideas about charity or the human kindness of woman to woman. And after all, if

the girl was in my way" She threw out her hands. "You are a man, and you have never had the

"If you like. She was a menace. And what would you ask of me thenI, a woman alone?"

She drew away from him as if stung. The dread she had felt of him silenced her. She could have answered

him a torrent of words swept in a mad jumble across her mindbut she was glad afterwards that they

remained unuttered. She half turned, and pulling a small cambric handkerchief from her bodice, pressed it to

"We are only just beginning our settlementyou and I," Paul said. "There are many things we will have to

"I rather fancy the Law will compel you to return. But that is not a question for the moment."

He paused, staring at the fluttering handkerchief she held to her lips; for the first time had come to him the

reek of perfume, powerful and aromatic. With recognition there came back a whole torrent of memories. He

remembered the night on the yacht, and the same perfume mingling with the rising stench of powder in the

corridor. It had impressed itself upon his mind, just as the picture of Count Stolpin lolling back dead in the

How dull he had been. The clue was here, the small piece of cambric in her hand held it.

"You can threaten me, my brave coward!" she cried. She clenched her hands and leant towards him with

passion in her eyes. "Go home to England and tell them how you hunted a woman across Europe to rob her of

her inheritance. Give them a glimpse of your mercenary soul! Get the newspapers behind you you will

"And the woman who went to the Courtto spy! What shall we say of her?" he answered. "The question of

money does not enter into our adventure at all just now. What motive you had in trading on an old friendship

with the King and Queen, to worm your way into their confidence and steal the secrets there, I do not know,

nor is it for me to judge. At present only one thing in the world concerns methe English girl in the

Kalamegdan, indirectly placed there by you to draw suspicion from yourself. I have learned a good deal since

He made a movement as if to do so, but paused before her and stared into her face.

"Ah, but we met since then. You have not forgotten, you cannot have forgotten. It was such a short time ago.

He passed down the corridor alone. But he heard the cry she only partially choked back, and it told him all he

CAZALET stood in the street again, and paused a moment, uncertain of action. The traffic passed him by in

its endless stream; the glare of the sun beat down upon his head. Faces that seemed familiar to him appeared

in the crowd and disappeared before he could give them a thought; yet, had he considered a moment, he

would have remembered that he was watched, as is customary with all foreigners, from the moment he

entered Belgrade, and a daily record kept of his movements. For was he not in the city where the undercurrent

of all Europe flowed, where cohorts of Austrian and Russian spies moved and worked, plotting, informing,

bribing, with crime as the substance on which they lived? They came and went, these strivers in silence. They

had their day, and dropped out as secretly as they had come. They spent their money and made their friends,

laughed, ate and drank, when tomorrow their haunts might know them no more. No one inquired; they had

been the comrades of an hourand the Kalamegdan prison never divulged its secrets. A man went quietly

through those heavy gates a political offender, guarded by two greyfrocked police, and looked up at the sun

This was BelgradeBelgrade, the glittering white city of the South; Belgrade, where the world seemed to

stir but slowly, the city of eternal secrets. The trains came rolling with the thunder of giant surf over the great

Save bridge. Zaptiehs, indolent in the heat of the sun, lolled at the street corners, with eyes that seemed to

sleep and yet were ever conscious. Dark, forbidding alleyways and dirtstrewn lanes breathed of a heaving

life hidden away in secret courtyards and stunted houses, where the very roofs bent over to conceal more

securely the things within. And from everywhere came a thousand odours of burnt coffee, garlic, the stench

of spirits and refuse, that seemed to move in the sweep of the wind. And the medley of soundsthe cry of

children in play or pain; the rasping wail of a hawker in rags, crouching beneath the shadow of the walls to

protect himself from the sun, and clutching a basket of red beans; the yelp of a dog; the fluttering of clouds of

dust over pieces of newspaper strewn everywhere; andfar down in the bowels of this underworldthe

shriek of a woman in agony. Insects buzzed; horses floundered past, sweating and gasping in the heat, over

the cobbled roads. By night the same sounds continued, with only a few lamps to hurl patches of light into

this Hades where men and women lived and moved and struggled for the common right to live. Here, in these

manmade caverns of iniquity, the average spy lived his little life, jostled and laughed with the patriot or

This was Belgrade as it moved past Paul's feet. For him the mingling sounds and sights had no appeal; he

looked down the street, but saw nothing there. He was on the threshold of some action the nature of which

but dimly appeared to him. The Queen's letter in his pocketsurely there was the chance he sought. To gain

admission to the prisonwith such a letter there would be no difficulty. To see the woman he lovedthe

woman who shaped the thoughts that flowed in an endless tide through his mind, to set her free. Yes, if he

could only do that set her free! The thing obsessed him. The chance was at his hand, but a blank wall of

difficulty lay beyond. Failure, and she might rot in these underground caverns for ever; success, and he would

throw ambition to the wind and follow her to the uttermost end of the earth. His mind was beating to the

He left the city behind, and walked out through the narrow road that led to the mountains. A company of

soldiers came swinging in towards Belgrade, their trousers white with the dust. There was no shelter from the

sun; the very earth crackled beneath the glare; and now the houses became fewer and dwindled into

whitewashed huts, set like bright spots against the background of russet mountains, greycapped, as old men

Turning a corner sharply, he came upon a village, and on the large sunbaked plateau before it saw a group

of figures. They were dancing and singing, the lilt of their voices came floating down to him on the wind,

They were dancing the Kolamen and women, grouped in a circle and clutching each other's belts; but one

end of the Kola remained open, where the kolovogya, or leadera young Serb of twentyfour or

thereabouts, who grasped the belt of the young girl at his sidethrew himself this way and that in sheer

reckless abandon, his head flung back, his hair floating in the wind, his eyes afire, and his lips apart as he

shouted the refrain. He might have been a figure from a bacchanalian picture. For a while Paul kept his eyes

upon him, the centre of a wreath of movement. Around him a string of figures swung with the grace and ease

of a wellrehearsed ballet. Three steps to the right they moved, then three to the left. And the wild song rose

and fell to the echo of pattering feet; a cluster of colour swirled through a cloud of dust and disappeared into

it again. Now a shout, and the whole company swung round like a gigantic centipede; the end of the broken

circle swept over the ground as might the arm of a reaping machine. Then, changing hands, the dancers

would reform and dance as before. Some would have termed it hardly a dance, but rather a quickstep,

which, if exaggerated a little, would have been a leap, crude and graceless, with the dancers answering to the

Paul crept a little nearer. From the shelter of an old stone wall he could see without being seen. The sounds

and colour fascinated him. He might have been looking at some giant kaleidoscope in which the paramount

colours were maroon and white, merging through the eddying clouds of brown dust. White skirts faded into

yellow and slipped away into the dustfog. But the upper circle of maroonthe maroon of the women's

tunics never faltered; it was strong, predominating. And above it again came a white ring from their caps,

with wonderful jets of white flame, like slender splinters of lightning playing about the throats of these

women where the sun fell aslant on the necklets of silver coins they wore. The coins were jingling to the

rhythm of the step, the whole blending into a subdued melody, almost a whispering.

"Zveka, zveka, zveka!" Forward they came three steps. "Zveka, zveka, zveka!" And they were retreating

again. The song grew and sank as they moved; a woman's cry of pleasure broke the lilt of it. After a while he

The maroon circle bulged and dropped away, the white upper line thinned down, footsteps grew tuneless and

So they had danced while a girl beat out her knuckles against the wet walls of a cell; and so the heart of

Servia had ever sung while tragedy gnawed at the core. A dynasty tottering and a nation dancing to the tune

of pleasure, though but a few leagues distant a Queen fought with only the battlecry of duty to aid her.

The moon was in full flood across the river, and the hour of ten was striking by the clocks of the city. Cazalet,

hesitating for a moment, glanced up at the great gates and the stone walls of the Kalamegdan prison. There

was no sound of life anywhere except for the muffled tread of a janissary in a distant corridor, and two

peevish lights flickering against the draught in the Governor's quarters. For the rest, it might have been a

palace of the dead. Piles of cannonballstrophies from the ancient Turkish warslay at intervals in the

forecourts, and beside one of them he perceived the figure of a sentry, his rifle grounded, and the muzzle of it

The man stared at him, then pointed over his shoulder without a word, fumbled with his rifle, and readjusted

his attitude into one of greater ease. But he half turned so that he could watch the Englishman's movements

Paul approached the door, and hammered with the carefully polished knocker. There was no reply. He

knocked again, and, groping for the bellhanger, started a bell clanging harshly in the heart of the building.

Minutes passed; he might have been asking admission from the dead. Then slow footsteps sounded on the

flagstones, the door opened a little, and a uniformed official with heavy eyes leered out at him.

The Governor was away, and would not return for two days; he could see no one at this hour of the night. To

Paul the curtly delivered verdict came as a benison. The atmosphere of sloth that pervaded the place was

The man straightened up, and his mouth twisted into an ugly smirk. A letter from the Queenit was of small

import. A letter from the King, and he would have grovelled at the word. Still, it might be as well to consult

He said as much, and closed the door in Paul's face. In ten minutes he was back again; the door was opened

as cautiously, and he beckoned his visitor inside. Holding a small iron lamp in his hand, he ambled down a

long corridor, turned twice to the right sharply, and, knocking at a door, held it open for Paul to pass into the

lighted room. This chamber appeared to stand in the centre of a small square, from which corridors, stone

flagged and damp, seemed to run in all directions. Far down them Paul could see a lamp hanging to the wall

He entered the room, and the door was closed silently behind him. The air reeked with the stench of spirits

and strong tobacco smoke which could find no outlet. For a moment he stood blinking his eyes like a bat,

then he looked at the coarsefeatured man coiled in an easy chair at the table, whose bearded chin rested on

his hand. To Paul he resembled a wild beast; the long, unkempt mane, with silver threads showing in the

damp blackness of it; the small, bloodshot eyes; the coarse, ugly hands, knotted with rheumatism, might

scarcely be human. The flabby mouth hung loosely, showing a row of yellow teeth, and the clothes were dirty

and drinkstained. A glass, halffull of deep red brandy, stood in a little sea of overturned liquid which had a

scum of tobaccoash and lapped at the corners of some playingcards. At the other end of the table were

more cards, strewn in disorder, as if they had been hastily thrown down, and near them a second glass of

brandy, almost untouched. Someone else had been in the room; for, as Paul pulled the vacant chair round

He explained his visit and produced the Queen's order, and taking it the Serb stared over the edge of the paper

at his visitor with an expression of drunken curiosity. He was unused to callers at this hour, for the outside

world forgot the Kalamegdan when it could no longer see its gates, just as it seldom remembered that within

The fellow bent over the letter and studied it carefully, then held it up to the light to see the watermark. Even

though his wits were wandering amid the fumes of the spirit he retained some watchful sense that helped him

"The chances are that she will be awake," Paul replied, and knew that he spoke the truth. "I will take the risk

He shot a look of suspicion at Paul as he put the question. He was in a mood to like the Englishman, and he

"There is no need," Paul answered. "It is good of you, m'sieu. But I only require a few words with her in

His eyes studied each point of the room as he spoke. So far there had seemed no chance of escape, the

windows were tightly closed, and, from the manner in which they were barred, looked as if they had never

been opened. Nor had he been able to take sufficient note of the network of corridors without to observe any

means of egress or hiding. He would have to grasp the moment when it came and grapple with the chance of

The Servian scrambled to his feet unsteadily. He was a huge fellow, and he stood looking aimlessly about

him, as if his fuddled brain were trying to follow a certain line of thought. The puckers on his forehead

suggested that the task was difficult. Then he went to a board, and took down a key from a cluster that hung

"I might send someone with youbut no, I'll come myself," he said. "You are one of the Queen's friends,

and we always study them; yes, we always study them here." There was significance in his words, and a

meaning to the grin that spread over his face, but to Paul both were unintelligible. "You see," he went on.

"The Queen sends all those she loves here. The signature on the warrant is always that of the King, but we

This was the sentiment of Servia, the creed of a nation. If the King erred it was the Queen who made him;

any action that irritated the people was not the will of the King, but inspired by the woman who was once his

mistress and now his consort. It was the penalty the nation must pay for permitting the union, and the nation

The Serb was pleased that his meaning had been understood. He was inclined to be discursive.

"You know what women are," he said, sobering up as a draught of air cooled his face. "They're all alike,

catsjust cats! And so at the Court; they fightfight like mad beasts. The losers come in here. We get all

the husbandsthat's the Queen's idea of justice, to put the husband away and leave her enemy a widow! We

have a gallery of husbands here; some I wot of are a great deal happier than they were outside!" He laughed

"A sentiment one would hardly express to one's wife," said Paul. If there was a way of salvation it lay in

"Tell your wife she's a goddess and try to believe it; it's the quicker way in the end," the Serb growled. He

picked up a lantern from the corner and lit it slowly, and with a hand that trembled.

"Yesterday," he went on, poking the wick with the match till it spluttered into flame, "a young man was put

"His wife boasted that she omitted to kiss the hands of the Queen at the last assembly. She was summoned to

Court, commanded to kiss the Queen's hand, and dismissed. In an hour we turned the key on her husband.

He ambled across the room and opened the door. A wind swept in and almost extinguished the lantern, but

shielding it with his hand he led the way into the corridor. His thick soft boots made no sound on the stone

flags, and Paul followed close at his heels, measuring his man as he did so. A blow and the fellow in his

The path led steadily down hill, as if to the very bowels of the world. And presently the stonepaving ceased,

and they were treading the crude earth. The air grew more rank with every step they took; first it reeked of

mould and decay, then the stench deepened till the lungs seemed bursting. The light of the lamp as it played

on the walls showed them to be dark greenas if they had been the slimy sides of shipsand shining with

moisture. Here and there patches of mildewed decay had fallen, leaving the stonework bare, and the feet sank

The horror of it, the presence of this awful tomb around him filled Cazalet with unspeakable dread. He saw

rats scuttle away from under nailstudded doors down which little streams of moisture trickled. He heard

sounds that seemed to come from no human throat, moans in which all the agony of the world seemed to be

concentrated. Somewhere, behind one of these black patches that denoted the presence of doors, a woman

was sobbing and laughing by turns. He stopped and listened, as if compelled by the invisible hand of horror.

The sobbing changed to a low crooning soundthe sound a woman might make to a child against her breast,

then words, muttering and piteous, followed, only to break off in a choking cough. And on the other side of

him a smothered flopping noise broke from under the door, where a man in the agony of despair was beating

the flat of his hands against the walls with a steady thud, thud, in the belief that he was pushing the walls

Paul shuddered, and the Serb, holding up the lantern to his face, laughed at the pallor of it.

"You would like to see," he said, and made a movement as if to draw back the shutter at one of the spy holes.

"No, spare me that," Paul cried. He pushed the man in front of him. "Go on. I don't want to see more of this

They moved forward again, and the sobbing of the woman, which had ceased at the sound of voices, broke

out again in a low wail that rose note by note to a shriek. Down they went, down, ever steadily downward.

Once they passed under an oil lamp fixed to the wall, and glancing up at it Paul saw a giant slug drawing

itself steadily across the square face of the glass, leaving a smudgy trail behind it.

In the midst of this horror Jean was enduring a living death. The thought tortured him, and awoke to passion

the brute in his blood. He felt all the emotions become subservient to one insensate desirethe desire to kill

the loathsome thing that stalked beside him, the thing in man's shape that stood for justice as they interpreted

it here. There was no torture chamber which a freak imagination had fashioned in his mind that could

compare to this. Men and women were buried here living, existing here in the dark till life slipped quietly

into death, and so slight was the transition as to be no more than the changing of one dream into another.

Yet, despite the mingling sounds, he felt himself to be alone, with only this creature beside him, alone in

some secret place where he could kill his man and place his secret in the keeping of the tomb. He was stirred

by the emotion which hides the horror of murder from the mental eyes of the man who would commit it. The

sounds about him became almost forgotten and lost the power to record impression on his mind; the clank of

chains, the moaning cry of those stricken with physical and mental torture and fear of the dark, the scratchy

rustle of a heavy body turning in a bed of straw to listen, the faint rattle of a tin pannikin as a rat scampered

across it in terror of approaching footsteps, the sound of the name of God breathed hoarsely from lips tired

with blasphemythese things became mere attributes of the situation without direct bearing upon it. He felt

It was Chance that had brought him to this, and Chance that completely turned the trend of things during the

moments which followed. For the Serb stopped suddenly and looked up at the number burned into the wood

of the door. He muttered something in an undertone, and began fumbling with the key in the lock. It turned

slowly with a rasping sound, the door scraping on its hinges as he forced it back. Then, picking up the lantern

from the ground, he held it high above his head and let the light flow into the cell. It flooded the whitewashed

walls till they seemed charged with the brightness of magnesium. But the cell was empty! From the wall a

chain with an open gyve at the end hung loose in the straw strewn about the stone floor.

Paul drew back into the passage and looked inquiringly into the face of his companion.

The Serb's face was expressionless. The look upon it might have been one of blank amazement or cunning.

"They must have moved the prisoner." He garbled the words, and shuffled to a cell door a few feet away,

holding up the light again to distinguish the number upon it. "They must have moved the prisoner. The wrong

cell." He kept on repeating the words to himself aimlessly, foolishly, as if he did not mean the other to hear.

"I don't understand," he said at length. He was laughing a little, as if at the anger of the Englishman. "We

Paul felt the knuckles of dread knocking at his heart. Was he too late? What had Slana done since the

morning? And the leer on his face as he passed from the Queen's chamber, purposeful, significant! But the

Servian had pushed open the door of the second cell, and was focusing the light of the lantern to break the

gloom. Paul moved close to him and stared in. He caught sight of something lying in the strawa dark

object in rags, torn and filthy, and with the flesh showing through the rents in theman object which lived

It was the first glimpse of the horror; the fear which he had felt up till this moment had been the outcome of

sound working upon his imagination. But before him was the visible, more horrible than the imagination had

pictured. He stood still, unable to move or utter a sound. Nor was it this sudden coming upon realisation that

appalled him. He would have cried out, but horror sealed his lips as with an iron band. The thing in the straw

that moved painfully had once been a man, but now the long white hair drooped around his shoulders,

partially hiding his face. From his hands that worked convulsively in the straw the flesh seemed to have

shrivelled up, leaving the knucklebones as points that might have been sharpened with a knife. The face was

starchy white and flabby, like the flesh of dead men, with pits in the cheeks and under the eyes.

And this thing, chained inanimate to an iron staple in the wall, was a man he had once known!

He watched recognition grow in the eyes of the prisoner, he saw the slow working of the mouth, the hands

come upraised from the straw in appeal, the long fingers twisting and untwisting. And down the wall there

were tiny furrows where this creature had torn into the blackened mildew with his broken nails. It was not a

man, but an animal. It had the appearance of an animal, the same hunted eyes, the same cringing movements.

And blood weals showed across one side of the whitened face as if they had been made with the lash of a

The cry; the piteous shriek ran in long echoes down the vast corridors, and brought back on its wings the

moans of a dozen others. It lashed Cazalet into sudden consciousness, and snatching the lantern from his

companion's hand, he went into the cell and held it towards the prisoner's face, so that the redlidded eyes

The Serb caught at his arm and would have pulled him away, but he shook him off.

"He is a foreign madman," he said in Slav. "Come away. He talks all day about something; at times he raves.

We don't understand. He's mad, I tell you. He'll die soon. He's dying now. Can't you see?"

The figure in the straw tried to raise himself to his knees, only to fall back with a little cry of exhaustion.

"Paul," he whimpered. He was gripping Cazalet's legs with his feeble hands. "Paul, you come to set me free! .

He seemed to be looking past Cazalet to the wall beyond, as if he were studying some mental picture

reflected there. And still Paul did not answer. Instead, he stooped down and caught the chain that bound the

wretched man, tore at it, stamped with his rough boots upon the staple in the wall till a cloud of rust rose in a

powder to his nostrils. He cut the flesh from his fingers and pounded the chain till it burst through the leather

He turned upon the Serb. The hideous face of the man was puckered in a smile of derision.

"That chain held a man for forty years," the brute told him. "He died when he had almost rasped through one

of the links. He strove for years, and we repaired the link in an hour. The folly of it all!" He shook his head.

"Set him free!" he exclaimed. "Do you Servian pigs know what you are doing, or are you a race of maniacs?

"Your uncle here, m'sieu!" He chuckled over the jest and found it good. "All Englishmen are related in a

The imbecile! Had Cazalet beaten him to his knees it would have driven no comprehension into the sodden

brain. He turned to the whimpering creature at his feet, and, bending down, took one of the withered hands in

Lord Penstone sank back in the straw wearily, and in a moment Cazalet had turned and caught the Servian by

He swung the hairy brute against the wall of the cell, but the man broke aside and was free. The light was

gleaming down the curved blade of a knife he held in his hand, as he crouched in the corner, glowering upon

But the hour of vengeance was not yet. When Paul, turning his back upon him, knelt down and lifted Lord

Penstone's head to his knee, the Servian resheathed the knife. Even now he had not the courage to kill an

Englishman when tomorrow's inquiry might send him to the mines; and the old peer was babbling again and

"I remember that night in the rosegarden at Penstoneshe was thereIrmaI remember there was a

strong moon, and I watched her face changeI wanted a son, I told her. Yes, I remember that."

"Go on," said Paul. It seemed to him that he was on the threshold of confession. Things became obvious to

him as he listened to the senseless chatter; incidents, the whole string of past events, formed in his mind, took

definite shape and place. He bent lower. He uttered sympathetic wordswords of courage, of promise.

He felt the clammy hands of the other creeping up his wrist like the grasp of some coldblooded thing, some

The old man's hold relaxed. He had swooned. The mouth dropped, white waxen lids closed over the filmy

eyes. A crisis had arrived; Paul knew it, sensed the coming of death. This man, whom he had believed dead

and yet lived, might never speak again. If he did, Paul knew it would be for the last time. He waited,

listening, watchful. And in the silence his mind pictured a woman in the royal palace, the woman who had

committed her husband to a bourne from which there was no returnthis man with the lost memory who

With a sudden inspiration Paul approached the Serb. He slipped his hand into his pocket and produced a little

roll of notes, then unrolled them slowly, and watched the effect upon the brute face of the other.

"That man's dying; you know it, I know it. He will not live till morning," he said.

"And I want to buy a night's freedom for him; comfort, if you prefer to put it like that, till daybreak."

It was the Servian's last effort against temptation. But Paul saw the gleam in the vicious eyes.

"Then we will gamble for his freedom, and you, my friend, shall hold the stakes. Take these notes."

"Yes, to your roomunless you would provide a better one." The firm tone quelled the remonstrance of the

other. "If he lives till morning you set him free; if he dies you still hold the notes. Are you afraid of the

"A note on your records that the prisoner had diedand who knows? But if he lives till morning I will

double the sum you hold the moment he leaves the prison. Does that interest you?"

"I think we might risk that," he said. "God looks after the sparrows sometimes," he added, as if to conciliate

Paul stepped back into the cell. The prisoner lay in a stupor muttering little broken sentences as if he were

"It was in the rosegarden; yes, it is Irma's face I see there she laughed. And then"

"Come and free his legs," Paul demanded in a sharp undertone, and producing a key from his pocket the

Servian bent over and fumbled with the rusty lock. "You do not understand his tongue, you only see the

fringe of a great conspiracy. This man is innocent, and has lost his memory. With the sight of me has come

The Serb threw the chains apart with a clatter. Then he drew back into the passage, nervous, like a man afraid

of something that would emerge from the darkness. He leant against the wall listening, and his ears, trained to

the big silences of this underground pit, detected the slow tread of footsteps in the distance. He darted back

into the cell, dragging the lantern along the ground, and made as if to close the door.

The soft pattering footsteps were coming nearer. But still Paul did not obey. He lifted the prisoner a little

higher, forced open the coarse shirt, and placed his hand over the heart. He could just feel its movement,

The Serb began fumbling with the light, but his trembling fingers missed the screw, and with a quick

"No!" he exclaimed. "He shall have light so long as his eyes have life to see itaye, if it costs you a century

in the mines!" And with a vicious kick of his foot he sent the door crashing open again.

The Serb, trapped in a frenzy of fear, said nothing. If the Governor had returned! Already he felt the bite of

the thong on his back. And the mad Englishman chattering still! He hurled a curse at the soul waiting to take

its last journey. Then stealthily he crept towards the door again, one hand on the hilt of the halfsheathed

Paul did not heed him. He was listening to the wild muttering of the creature beside him. Lord Penstone had

"It was Irma's voice . . . I do not remember what she said . . . If God would give me understanding."

That he might pass into unconsciousness and never remember! To Paul it was an unspoken prayer.

A few seconds more and the dark figure of the man came into the circle of light. Paul got up, clutched the

lantern, and stared into the face of Fenning. He felt no impulse to cry out; the hour of surprise was gone. And

the Servian, slinking from the darkness of the cell into the light, grinned as if the weight of anxiety on his

"So you, too, are in this," Paul said. His voice was loaded with menace, and he kept his eyes fixed on

"In what? If you thought I knew that I should meet you here, my Paul" Fenning laughed. Had this been

"You probably imagined I was too poor a fool to know anything of the plot," Paul said.

"Indeed, no," Fenning replied. "We always seem to be meeting in odd places, you and I. I thought you would

turn up somewhere. The devil brings us very close together, Paul. You talk of a plot. I do not understand."

"Good God, no!" Fenning came nearer and strained his eyes into the murk. "Lord Penstonethat!"

"I do. My remark was a shot in the dark. I thought it might have been so. I knew what that woman was. But

Fenning spoke earnestly. Liar and rogue he might be, but it was the truth now; Cazalet read as much in his

Fenning bent over Lord Penstone and listened to his breathing. They watched him, saying nothing. He got up

at length and shook his head; he had seen Death wrapping itself about the old man's face.

"We can talk afterwards," Paul said. "Help us to get my uncle away from here. We are going to take him to

It was a long and painful process, but between them they carried him there. And the old peer seemed to sleep

with a smile on his face. Broken sentences left his lips at times; he was ever trying to remember, but his

Creator had put up a barrier which his mind was never destined to pass. They laid him on the rough couch,

and the Serb trickled a little brandy through his parted lips. The fire of the liquid in his throat caused him to

open his eyes; he smiled faintly at Paul in recognition. The old spirit of the man awoke, and for a moment

"Ah, Paul, they cannot kill me even here," he said. "You will take me back to Penstoneback to Irma. She

He sighed and half turned his head. And they waited, all three of them, afraid to break the big silence of the

room. Outside in the city a clock was booming; they could hear the muffled sound of it through the thick

window. But the minutes slipped past like hours. At last Fenning told them that the old man slept, and if God

Paul went across to the door, and Fenning followed him, while the Serb sat on the corner of a chair and

watched the sleeper, not in any attitude of sympathy, but drawn by a curious fascination which affects some

people, who, seeing others pass from life to death, wonder what their own passing will be.

"I didn't know Penstone was here," he said. "I believed he was dead. I did not think this infernal trickery

"There are some things you have to learn," Fenning replied. "They will be asking questions in England soon.

It was the first suggestion of the enmity between them, the first demonstration on the part of either that they

"As a matter of fact I came here to see Jean Lorimer. I have an order from the Queen."

"For nothing? You may as well explain," he replied. "We have lost the power to hurt each other. We are both

conscious of one omnipotent fact, that we love the same woman. We learnt it that morning in Paris, and we

told ourselves it would never make any difference. It was only selfdeceit, belief in a specious friendship.

And I tell you that I came here tonight to see her, to get her out of this fearful place if I could."

"I was here when you came," Fenning put in. "Odd how we always seem to be bumping against each other."

"You came to try to rescue her." Fenning took Paul's arm and looked closely into his face; his eyes seemed

like points of flame in the semidarkness. "I had already done that an hour before!"

"Yes, I got her outwith the help of that man." He pointed over his shoulder to the room behind them. "I

merely came back to make a little settlement with him. Then you were announced. I wanted to hear what you

"Then where is she?" Paul asked. The sudden flush of anger rushed to his cheek. "Do you think she should be

"Is there any choice in the matter, my friend?" the other resumed. "She is quite safe. Satisfy yourself with

"Yes, shame me with that if you will," Fenning retorted. The words were the lash on his back again, the one

thing in his life for which he would never find selfforgiveness. "It is true, every word of it. It was all through

me; for that I can never atone to her. And I risked my life to get her out, because if I am found in Belgrade

now" He gave a snap of his fingers. "It will be just like that with me. You may throw my code of

honour in my face, but it's my code, not yours. I live by it; it's elastic; a puling, helpless sort of thing to you,

perhaps, but it brings me what I want. And I want this woman. I want her as I have never wanted anything in

my life. It is because I am what I am that I want her so. It is because I know the sort of man I am, the sort of

life I lead, that I desire her. I want her to build me up again; and she'll do it, Paul, by the living God, she'll do

The frank confession, shameless and replete with brutality, drove the hot blood pounding through Paul's

"Do you imagine for one moment" (he spoke quietly and in a voice under perfect control) "that I am going to

stand by and see you tear a woman's soul to pieces to save your own? Any woman, that isleaving her out

"To my level, yes," Fenning broke in. "And I care for her so much, man, that pulling her down will give me

pleasure, because her victory shall be the greater on that account. She won't be the only woman engaged in

mission work in her own brave life. She won't be the only woman who could, if she dared, get up and say,

`See what my husband is: it is I who made him.' And the women like thatthe big missionaries we hear

nothing about are worth more beside the hearth than the family Testament on the mantelshelf. She's going

to learn my world, and she it is who will make the ugliness of it beautiful. That's the way I look at things. To

"You speak like some uncivilised savage that buys a woman as he might any article for his mud hut," said

Paul hotly. "You're talking of something even worsetheft. You have rescued this girl and you would claim

her. And what do you think would be her opinion of all thisof you? You are so absurdly pagan, Fenning.

You don't know that directly a woman's respect for a man dies she grows to hate the sight of him. There is no

passion, no love, conventional or unconventional, that can override the loss of respect. Respect is the rock on

which happiness between man and womanlove of sex to sexis built; take it away and you bring together

two warring forces, hating with the elemental hatred that is inborn and prevents our little world becoming an

Eden. You must understand that. And if you know anything of women you will know that until the end of her

"The old conventional argument," he said. "But desperate remedies are generally unconventional. This

remedy is decidedly desperate; we might even call it daring. I'm not a saint, Paul. The old habits will need

"By playing on her emotions as the man who rescued her from a living death. It is the act of a coward. I

Fenning turned aside with a laugh. His fingers worried the cloth cap he held in his hand; he knew that beneath

"Your ancient theory, worn threadbare," he jeered. "My ancestors went and caught their women, loved them,

fought for them, raised children by them. Animal instinct, you will tell me. Perhaps; but they were born so.

And yours, my friendwere they so much better than mine? Are you so much better for all your civilisation,

"Consider her? Jerusalem! Don't we clothe her with all the worship our ragged souls can give? Don't we fight

for her still not with stones and sticks maybe, but with every artifice that makes for progress that she may

share it? Paul, you are a good fellow, but a poor philosopher. Your laws won't put the world right, but this

He reentered the room and threw something on the table. Then he came out trailing a smoking lantern in his

hand. Without another word he went down the passage. A door opened and clanged again; a blast of fresh air

It was at daybreak that Lord Penstone opened his eyes for the last time. Paul, leaning beside the couch,

snatched at the broken sentences, but they conveyed nothing. The old man was still wandering in his

rosegarden with a sheaf of memories. And he slipped back and died with the telling of them on his lips.

DURING the time Fenning had been present at the little tragedy in the Kalamegdan prison, Jean waited in the

cottagelittle more than a cavern of stones it appeared to befor him to come to her. The events of the past

two hours were confused in her mind. She had recollections of the opening of the door of her cell; of two

faces looking in at herone of which she recognised as that of Fenningof passing emotions of fear and

hesitation. Then a wild drive through the night in a cart that rocked springless as it was drawn at a gallop over

the pits in the road; the groping for the door of the cottage in the dark with the aid of an oil lamp, the musty

smell of the place as they entered it alone, the three whitewashed rooms. And then she remembered the few

words he had said as he left her in one of the small chambers, how he would return in an hour to take her

She went over these things mentally, and put them in their respective places as she leaned at the open window

and listened to the lapping of the river against the very wall of the cottage. He had spoken of taking her away,

and she had not paused to consider what the future might be. Whither? And alone or with whom? She had

arrived at that point of implicit trust that obeyed unquestioningly. Verily she understood that in seeking

vengeance she had found defeat, how full and overwhelming she realised only now. Twice had she come to

Belgrade hoping that the man who had brought about her brother's destruction in the Servian capital three

years before might be delivered into her hands. And she had failed. Captain Zanolich, the man she sought,

remained in the royal service; he might even now be in the palace, the doors of which were barred to her.

True, she had met and philandered with him, but the hour of destruction was not yet. He, the destroyer, would

go free, while she suffered the torture which the knowledge of failure brought to her. But could a woman put

right the iniquity of a nation, or call down the wrath of God upon the man who had robbed her?

She was a woman alone, waiting to be taken out of danger by Fenning whom she had despised; as helpless,

she knew herself to be, as the smallest child. And if it had not been for him she might have achieved her

She crouched in the low wooden chair at the window with her head in her hands, afraid to think of the future.

A candle was guttering on the rude mantelshelf, and on the table the lamp still smoked where he had put it

down. He had opened the window for her, and the dampness came in and seemed to clothe her, she felt it

touching her like tired hands passing over her flesh. She knew that Belgrade must be two or three miles away;

she could just see the lights of the city through the river mist. And she was alone in the house, waiting for

The moon was dredging through a sea of thin cloud, a faint glint was smeared over the water, and by it she

could just detect the pinebelt at the edge of the cottage. She felt a growing unrest at the solitude. That

strange blending of night sounds which creates a presence in the imagination, and compels Nature to assume

a mastery over the mental compass, provoked in her now a sense of awe. Almost at her feet the river crept

past, contorting itself around tree stumps, and showing for the fraction of an instant a glimpse of its black

depths below the folds of the lightsprung ripples. And then some sound that came from nowhere and yet

was everywhere would slip out on the wind, slight and inconsequent, but, remaining in the memory, would

appear to grow louder in circles till another noise disturbed it. A frog croaked and moved with a rustle in wet

grassesa rustle of something damp forcing itself against an obstruction equally damp; sedges touched each

other and swung back in the wind, while the moonlight steered deftly down their blades like tiny swords in

play. Behind them last year's leaves, whipped into restlessness by the breeze, hissed like water on redhot

The river flowed, the pines rocked and creaked, an insecure bird fell with a heavy flop to the branch below. A

rat gnawed at a stick so close to the waiting woman that she could see its tiny eyes glimmering like

diamonds. And over all was the damp sweet smell of the earth that clings around wet trees, and scents the

She did not know that the door had opened and closed again; but she heard the man's step in the room when

his boot struck against a chair. She turned, vaguely fearful of something she could not define, now that she

knew Fenning had come back. He was looking at her with a strange fierce light in his eyes. He had thrown

"Well, of course you won't expect me to stay here for ever," she exclaimed petulantly. "You said something

"No, not now. You would not get beyond the hills. They would catch you at the hills."

"We might attempt it tomorrow. I will find out what is happening in the city. Half Belgrade is drunk

tonight, but the other half is uncommonly sober. I don't know what is taking place; there is an air of unrest

She walked to the door, crept down the passage and opened the door beyond; he stood waiting in the room,

wondering what she was going to do. She returned in a few minutes and stood like a ghost in the doorway.

"I told you that you would not go ten miles without capture," he answered sharply.

The helplessness of the situation, which before had been merely an irritation, developed into fear. And

waiting and watching there, her mind trailed slowly back over the past few days and formed a summary of

everything appertaining to the man before her. Above everything was the knowledge that it was through him,

through him entirely, that she was now shut up in this house with him; that he had by some deft handling of

events and the situations they created brought about the impasse. It might have been accidental or otherwise.

Then, remembering the episode in Colonel Slana's rooms, her mind formed its own resolutions. She drew into

"Why did you bring me here?" she asked. There was strength in her voice, courage in her eyes.

"But why should you wish to hide me? Don't you remember how you decoyed me, tricked me?"

"But you think you owe me something," she went on remorselessly. She was growing afraid of him, afraid of

his sullen replies to her questions; it was fear that shaped her words. "You made a profit, we will say, by a

piece of trickery, and I was the means by which you made it. And no man likes to remain in debt to a woman.

You thought you must pay things back somehow. You must get me out of the hands into which I had fallen

through youyou must pay off the debt. So you would take me to the frontier, turn my feet towards

"Don't put it like thatit's brutal, unnecessary. It wasn't that," he told her. "I can't explain to you, but it

wasn't that. I think my soul dropped into hell that night in Slana's room, and returned to me purged. I came to

realise clearly the unutterable horror of the thing I had done. It wasn't as if you were an ordinary

"I mean a woman who was nothing to me. I should probably not have suffered anything then. I should have

called you a little fool for being in Belgrade at all, and have told myself that you deserved all you got. It's no

good offering you cheap sentiment, or trying to make my soul beautiful beneath a coat of whitewash. I told

you about myself that day in Parisyou rememberit was an ugly confession, and I was sorry afterwards

that I had told you. There were times when I felt I would rather you had a better opinion of me. But I didn't

recollect any of these things the day I arranged the episode in Slana's rooms. I wanted to beat the man, and

make him pay for his absurd faith in me. I didn't care how I did it, but I meant to do it. The desire became a

cravingto hold him at my mercy, to make him payI had to go forward to it, using every means to the

"I may have thought. I don't remember. If I did, it would not have turned me from my purpose then. Of

course you can't understand thatI expect it makes you hate me, but it's true true, every word of it. You

don't understand the depths to which men of my stamp will sink. And then when one has fallen a notch lower

than ever beforereached the very dregs of life as it werethere comes the reaction. It is the process of

going down two steps and climbing back one, slipping, slipping, all the time. Moral immersion is really as

hard as drowning. People say it's easy: it's not; to start with, anyhow, it's the torture of the damned, the

fighting back for the one step, the ghastly depression of falling back two. Real sin is moral hopelessness, the

abandon that a drowning man assumes if he realises in a vague fashion that he has risen to the surface for the

He bent over the table and turned up the lamp a little. She saw that his fingers were shaking. She wanted to

say something to make the selfimposed task easier for him; yet was aware that he had no claim upon her

"You think I didn't care; to you all that happened that night was a piece of moral jugglery." He leant on the

edge of the table and swung his leg aimlessly to and fro, trying to appear at his ease. "It wasn't that. And the

reaction brought just as strong a desirethe desire to try and atone, however trifling the atonement might be,

for what I had done to you. That is why I bribed that brute in the prison to set you free, that is why I have

She did not understand the strangeness of the man, his utter sacrifice of dignity. It seemed to her an

interpretation of what she had believedthat he wished to atone for motives of self interest, to salve a

"I would not go back to Englandwith you," she declared vehemently. "I don't think I want to go with you

anywhere. Even out of here nowI'd rather be alone; to take the chance of what happened by myself. At the

She saw him wince beneath the words; a fleeting desire that she could recall them came over her.

"You wouldn't do itI wouldn't let you do it!" he said, approaching. She saw the quick set of resolve about

his mouth. However much she might hate him, he was master of the situation, and to her surprise she found

herself scarcely resenting it. Her heart told her that she had forgiven his crime against her long ago; her

dignity answered that she should never forgive him, or at least let him know that forgiveness were possible.

The play of moods across her disguised the truth that lay secret in the depthsthe love she felt for him.

"You've got to trust yourself to me, tonight, or for days and days maybe. We may have to lie hidden in the

mountains. God knows what is going to happen. You came here without counting the risk, and you cannot

say to yourself `I am tired of it all,' and expect some fairy carpet to carry you back to England while you

close your eyes. You'll have to do everything I tell you without rebellion and trust to me."

He spoke firmly, almost brutally, then going across to the grate began fumbling with the fuel there, and set

light to it with the candle. He knelt down and watched the sticks catch, poured a little of the liquid fat from

For a little while he waited staring at the fire he had made, then he went into the outer room, and returned,

carrying a covered basket. He opened it and drew out some dried meats and bread and a bottle of wine and

two glasses, and set them carefully on the table, taking care to put her plate exactly opposite to his own on the

"Sit down and eat," he said. He sat down himself, knowing she would obey. "You must be famished. It's not

quite a supper at Maxim's, is it? But it is the best I could do. . . . You ought to have the appetite of a horse."

She took her place opposite him and said nothing, but kept her eyes fixed on the open window. He cut off a

chunk of bread for her, then gingerly helped her to some slices of meat. To him it was a meal of Lucullus; it

might have been savoured with the finest wines and all the skilled art of a Paris chef.

She spoke only when he asked her a direct question, and ate scarcely anything. The very smell of the food

seemed to choke her. The bread was stale, for the sun's heat had beaten through the basket; there was a rasp

in the wine that made the tongue tingle and burn. It was her first taste of the native wine of Servia; to her it

was vinegar. But he revelled in the sight of her red lips in the glass, with the red wine creeping up to meet

them. And she never met his eyes, but bent her head low over her plate, till at last she threw down her knife

"I can't eat," she exclaimed. "It chokes me. I'm not hungry; I feel as if I could go on living without ever eating

again. I suppose it's fear or something. I'm silly. Don't think I don't appreciate what you brought; it's not that.

"I think I do," he said. "You're only very tired of me. You hate me, but you're trying not to, trying desperately

hard. You think I'm kind to you in a disinterested sort of way, and that you ought to be grateful. I know what

you feel. A girl with your eyes can't conceal what is passing in her mind. Your eyes don't lie."

Mechanically he swept the plates to one end of the table without speaking to her again. He lounged beside the

fire, wishing he could do or say something, and very conscious of disaster. The flames had expired and only a

dull ember remained at one corner, and kneeling down he began to prod at the damp wood. Afterwards he

wondered if it were a miracle that made her come softly round the table and bend over his shoulder and ask if

she could help him. He made some inconsequent remark about her blacking her fingers, but he knew she had

driven disaster from the room. Then she dropped into the rough chair by his side, and sat silently watching

"How wet your boots are!" he exclaimed at last, turning with a suddenness that startled her. "You can't live in

"They're not wet really," she answered, drawing her feet beneath her skirts. "No, they're not wet. It's only the

He reached out and caught one reluctant foot. Then he began to unfasten the laces, while she bent over him,

"You've got to take them off. You're going to stay here all night. You've got to take them off!"

He held her foot as in a vice. He shook off the unlaced boot and threw it to one side. The second boot

followed the first; then, groping for a log in the grate, he pushed it towards her.

"Put your feet on that. So. Let them get the warmth of the flame. Wet boots are the devil. I don't want you to

get ill, not while you're with me, anyway." The callousness of the final remark jarred, yet she could find no

She put out her feet slowly, a hot flush rising on her cheeks. That he should see her stockinged feethe, of

all men! But one small foot crept on to the log, and when he was looking away from her the other followed.

He crouched closely down on to the very edge of the hearth, spreading out his hands to catch the heat. She

hated him for his silence; herself for her obedience to him. Once she pictured Indian idols she had seen

crouching like that, the hideousness of them half suggested by the brutish profiles. His pose was ugly, and

such of his face as she could see appeared vicious in the flamelight. But in this man centred, for the hour at

any rate, the whole heart of her world. He was to beand she was conscious of the necessity of him, she

He looked up at her quickly. It might have been that he saw something in the flames, or that he had become

more conscious of her presence, the magnificence of her. He rose slowly to his knees, taking her wrists in his

hands and drawing her towards him till his face was very near to hers. She was afraid, yet not afraid of him.

His fingers were pressing into her flesh, the breath of him was upon her cheeks. He was very near to her, and

the sense of him rippled slowly, then more rapidly through her being. But the cry that was upon her lips

dropped away when he spoke to her, for the sound of his voice came as something she had been waiting for

"Jean," he whispered hoarsely, "I love you." He buried his face in the folds of her dress. "I love you! How I

She put her hands upon his head and pushed back at him, her long fingers in his hair.

"Why not? Tell me why not!" He threw his head back and stared up at her, and looking down she searched

the deeps of his eyes, and saw there what she had sought, what her heart told her now she had hoped

forlove that burned for her, that struck a responding call in her that cried out with clarion voice: "You are

my man, God made you for me, shaped you for me, cleft into your brain a love for me that would spring up

Things about her became dead; the shrill whistle of a steamer on the rivershe never heard it; she saw the

passing of steamer lights, but she did not heed them; the rattle of the wind about the corners of the windows,

the voice of it reminding her of the greater life withoutshe never heard these things. His lips touched her,

somethingshe knew not whatbroke in cascades of fire about her, his arms were just the borders of the

world. Her head drooped, drawn by a fascination as of steel to lode, her lips met his.

"Jean," he cried. "JeanI want you; a sheer hulk of human wreckage though I am. I want you; want

youwant you! My little world meant nothing till you entered into it; you began things for me, and with you

everything ends. I would like to load you with rich treasuresthe gold and frankincense of all life has to

To Fenning the words brought reincarnation. He heard the doors of the old life clang, just as he knew that

the gates of the new life had opened. Something had emerged out of himself, creating and unfolding

possibilities, hopes, desiresgreat impracticable desires. He had, as it were, awakened suddenly to the

realisation that love is the borderland of life, and hitherto he had been content with a narrow patch well

within the border. It is in such moments that the greatest scoundrels of the world sometimes find their way to

He put his hands on her shoulders and held her at arm's length, and for a few seconds looked at her in

"If I could give you my ideal," he said. "I can't describe it it's another man, somehow, the kind of man I

used to think I'd loathe. You've unravelled some quaint cord in me that had become buried under; you've

made me desire to climb up to some decent pinnacle for you; the desireaye, it's more than thatthe

craving that you might be able to take paper and pencil and reckon me up as if you were taking an inventory,

"I'd hate you as a saint," she said. "I'd always be afraid you were going to tumble down from your pedestal

and get broken. Women don't like men like that; it's such a weary business trying to live up to them. If I ever

married, I'd want a man who would teach me his value by simple ruleofthumb lessons, by little tiny

insignificant things that only children might think of. And if he hadn't a vice, I'd be afraid he would cultivate

He caught one of her hands, and spreading it open, pressed his lips on the palm.

"I know," he said. "I'm beginning to understand. You're teaching meyouyou maligned icicle! Nothing

matters, save that the world is in two halvesthe man on the one and the woman on the other. . . . Marry me,

"No, never. We'd never agree. We're not babies, we can talk plain facts to each other."

"You're afraid of me," he said at last. "Afraid of the strain of rottenness in methe rank rottenness. It's

thereI know it; it's there all right. And it wants a dynamite bomb to blow it up. You are the dynamite

bomb; you will destroy it and remodel me. I am the crude clay, and you will create an elegant vessel out of

me. It will be your pastime, your ambition. It'll take yearsI know all about thatbut you won't be afraid;

you'll be ever so proud of each little conquest. And Iwhy, I'll just love you for your little tyrannies, hating

them at times, and the next moment kissing the rod with vows of obedience. We'd live down things. We'd

make it a success, that marriage, by sheer subjection to each other, blind worship."

She saw the strong love for her on his face; and yet his words still lacked conviction. A few moments before

she had been on the point of surrender; the blunt, halfbrutal way he had spoken to her had aroused a

knowledge of the mastery of his sex in a difficult situation. It brought no retort to her lips because she

appreciated the fact that only by brute strength would he steer them through the peril. And she liked the sight

of the brute in him, it denoted the fighter, not the churl she might have thought him in London. But that night

"It could not be as you say," she answered him. "Not after all that happened that night. I don't think I could

She dropped her head. He felt a hot tear fall on his hand where it clung to hers.

"Won't a lifetime of adoration and service blot it out? Is there no mercy somewhere that will make a woman

"But she could condone it, and so prove the greatness of her sex. Women are doing that every day,

overlooking things which a man would never shut from his mental vision. A man can't bend to forgive frailty

He took both her hands, hot and restless they were in his own, and pulled her gently to him. He put his arms

around her, and crushed her to him till he could feel the wild throb of her heart. It seemed like the whole

world pulsing steadily beneath his fingers. He buried his lips in her hair where the burnish of it shone in the

"It had to bethe meeting like thisthis march of events all that has happened was shaped for us." His

lips were against her face; he was trembling as he held her. "You and I set out on some mission without

seeing or asking to know the end. And this is the end. You and I here. We don't care what happens. I ask

nothing of today, tomorrow, for ever, so long as it gives me you. And youif you care, if you could care,

"The perfect woman does not desire the perfect man to mate," he said in a little crooning undertone. "It is her

life work to create elegance from the crude. And you, Jean, you need a man in your life; not a perfect man,

but one with many faults, whose weakness you can turn to strength. You've hated men, hated them all the

time. You came into the man's field, the mad underworld of secret diplomacy, and failed. You will go on

failing. No, don't draw away, you've got to hear the truth. Only vicious women succeed at this game, vicious

women who degrade their charms, drag their very womanliness in the mire to attain an end. You have been a

woman trying to fight with a man's strength, and without using the lure of your charms. It's all wrapped up in

thatyour failure. You might have succeeded and been no longer a woman, but an unsexed creature, with

big disappointments at the end of your life. Such women are current coin at this game; you buy things with

them, use them as means of barter. Do you think I don't know? And I tell you that I never knew what a

"Good heavens! Am I some queer thing without an ounce of domesticity in its whole ugly soul?" he cried.

"Yes. You ought to marry a woman who'd settle down, not an adventuress! Fancy marrying a woman you

remembered as a spy, the sexlessness of her, the thing dressed in silks and satins who had once lacked

"It's true," she argued. "The restlessness is in my blood; I can't help it. You made me what I am"

"It was the effect of the things you said to me a year ago. We were talking about spies and spying. It was at

Lady Castleton's. I cannot explain things to you now, but I set out to hurt those who killed the only relative I

had. And I knew, too, that the pursuit of vengeance would take me out of myself, away from the humdrum

life of the average unmarried girl in her twenties. I was sick of myself, sick of every day as it came to me."

"It was what you said that fired my ambition. My blood was crying out for the destruction of the destroyer."

She leant towards him. "I came here with the intention of using every artifice and charm of which I was

"Captain Zanolich, of the Servian army. Hatred of him was choking my life out. He killed my brother!"

"Poret? Dear old Jules!" he exclaimed, and the tears vanished from her eyes. "He's sold his soul for

halfadozen governments, and never succeeded in robbing one of them!" He swung himself on to the corner

of the table. "Fancy your knowing Jules! He owes me a hundred francs, the old ruffian, and says he won't pay

lest it should break our friendship! Dear blundering old Jules! And he made a spy of you!"

"Look here, little goddess!" he cried. "Some chance words of mine fired youwrecked you."

"Think of other men's wives who know what I'd been! How they'd look down on me! I wouldn't mind, but I'd

hate it for you. There have been moments when I would have stopped at nothing to find things out. That's a

"One I'd always be glad to remember, little brave!" he exclaimed. "A perfect woman would kill me with

boredom. I'd have to sit and look at her and wonder if she were becoming worldsoiled. But one who'd been

through the whole trough of adventure! Oh, you glorious woman! It's your faults I love, your little frailties.

Without your faults you'd be horrible; without your wilfulness you'd be unbearable. It's the intractability of a

woman that makes her fascinating; she must obey the man in the big moments of life, and make him her slave

"It's the contrasts that make the successes." He watched the firm set of her lips, the swift denial in her eyes.

"I'd prove it if there were a square inch of lookingglass about," he went on. "I'd make you look in it. You'd

see how that band of sapphire ribbon about your hairwhich, by the way, I notice you have deftly placed

there since you came here, little ladymakes the wonderful copper of it more wonderful. A harmonising

colour would have been a failure. And how carefully you must have smuggled that little piece of ribbon

through the Kalamegdan! It shows how splendidly feminine you are. A man would have smuggled in a razor

She said nothing. He seemed to sway her, carry her puny arguments before him with every attack. Some

knowledge of the preordination of things came to her. She stood a little away from him, weighing the words

he had uttered, till the barrier between them became as a little ditch, crossed by a single step. They had started

from different points, with different objects, different ideals, yet had been drawn together in one of the most

lonely spots in Europe. She knew she was fighting destiny, wasting her strength against some overpowering

force. Had it not been so she would have felt that ungovernable revulsion at his presence, a nausea at the

touch of his lips against her own, which could never have been lived down. It was useless to burke the truth

longer; she could find no hatred for the man who had tricked her, simply because she loved him. Given the

same conditions she might have despised a strong man, but the weakness of this one, the coat of frailty he

"I ought to loathe youI ought not to be here," she exclaimed. "I know what I ought to do, but things,

"Rich! Yes, that's the word. I am rich, I know that. Being loved is a form of treasure, something they can't

His hands ran up to her shoulders, clasped at the back of her neck, and tilted her face towards him.

"No," she cried vehemently. "No, you know that, you can't help knowing it. Do you think I would remain

here alone with you otherwise, whatever the circumstances? Do you think I'd be here with any man? But I'm

not afraid of you; you've tried to make me hate you, and you've failed. You've told me all the worst about

you. I don't care. I don't think I care for anything now except to be with you. It's like that with me; I'm past

fighting for things as people say they ought to be. I'm wanting you to be with me for all the rest of my life,

"Yes, surrender, absolute and unconditional." Her head was on his shoulder, and he could feel the movement

of her lips against his face as she spoke. "I think it's thatjust that. If you go down, I'm going with you. I'm

going with you to the end of the world. To hold you up when you falter. In the awful moments of failure that

may come to you with the great horrible loneliness, I'll be there. You'll be glad because I'm there. I want to go

out with youout into the world, and help you. If you knew what that meant to a woman, the right to help."

She was trembling in his arms, trembling from the knowledge of her newfound sanctuary.

"For the rest of my life to be alone with youalone just as we are here," he said. He talked to her as if he

were teaching a child a fairy story. "They speak of desert islands in books, but in real life we find those

islands. They are pitched in the swirl of the human sea; the big solitude of soul understanding soul, and the

millions about us merely passing by and never knowing. That will be our island. I won't have to spend half

the day catching your dinner on a lonely rock in the midPacific, but you will get the same devotion and in

the same solitude as out there. People will say, `They have married;' they will judge us by their own

standards. But they won't knowit'll be our secret, this rare understanding and worship that creates our

"You've never kissed a man like that before," he exclaimed. "I know; a man always knows when a woman's

heart throbs on her lips. And the first timeyou kissed meof your own free will!"

"It's not the first time!" She spoke quietly, a little flush ripening in her cheeks.

"Good heavens, girl! do you think I would have forgotten! Do you think I don't feel, don't know Heaven

"The night at Belleville. I never meant you to know. You were sleeping, both of you, one each side of the

door, when I came out in the early morning. And I felt grateful to you both; not the old conventional

gratitudeit was more than that. You weren't just friends; you looked like guardians shielding me. And I

bent down and kissed you. Paul Cazalet stirred. Something aroused him. I thought he might have seen. But

"Slept on? When I might have opened my eyes in Paradise?" he said. "You kissed me! If God would give me

back that moment! Kiss me, Jean. Again, ten times againlike thatas if you didn't care for anyone else in

He made up a couch for her with five chairs, and half closed the window so that she should not feel the

draught. There was no sound in the room, only the mutter of the river life creeping in with the fan of the

"It will be daylight soon. I shall sit up and think about things, and wait for the morning and you." He went to

the door that opened into the adjoining room. For a moment he waited, holding the door half open, then he

"And Nemanya comes with the cart in the morning. We can trust Nemanya. He's the only honest man in

Servia. And then we'll make for Paris. Paris, Jeanthat's where our lives begin, yours and mine."

He kissed her, turned down the lamp and drew the table nearer to the rough bed he had made for her so that

For some time she sat listening to the night sounds without, and his muffled tramp in the adjoining chamber.

At times the silence was so profound that she knew he rested. Her eyes closed, to open again as the scuffle of

his feet began again. And then the turmoil in her brain fought with sleep, till the warring forces drew away

Towards dawn she heard the sharp creak of a door and sat up. But nothing stirred. The shadows in the room

lengthened with the growing dawn, but still the lure of the night was about her. She closed her eyes again,

IT was the sunlight, stretched like a white band of ribbon across the opposite wall, that drove the weariness

from Jean's eyes when she opened them. She could see the river, a sheet of silver soft and undulating, no craft

She sat up and listened. There were no signs that Fenning was stirring; The footsteps in the outer room no

longer sounded, nor could she hear his breathing when she waited for a moment with her ear against the

She endeavoured to arrange her tousled hair as deftly as she could without a mirror to aid her, and to shuffle,

And so the minutes passed till the better part of an hour had slipped by. She began to walk noisily about the

room, jostling chairs purposely in the hope that he might waken. Once she called his name, but he did not

She grew fearful with a vague nameless terror. And yet when she considered things, when her mind ranged

the full import of the day just breaking, what was there to fear? Her life was entering some new phase,

An impulse made her cross the room quickly and knock at the rough wooden door set back in the wall. But

no reply came; she knocked again, and then the very silence of the place seemed to swell and grow and

become almost a tangible presence. A louder blow sent a stream of echoes flooding through the house till she

thumped on the woodwork to drown their mocking. She became rapidly afraid. Conviction told her she was

She knew he had gone; she knew she would never see him again. Already, while yet she stood wondering,

her mind floated forward, year by year it might have been, decade by decade, striving to realise what she

would think of him when those years were at an end. Would he be just a man who had passed across her orbit

Some papers flapped to and fro in the wind; one was pinned to the table by the two top corners. She tore it

free from the pins, and, sitting down on a chair, began to read. It was a curious letter, modelled under great

mental stress, and yet to her it was as the vivisection of a man's heart. She read it through once, half

comprehending; then studied it again. "DEAR LITTLE LADY,I have left you, deserted you at the very

moment when perhaps you most needed my help. I have gone back to Paris. You will ask why. The answer is

hereBecause I love you. I have spent the night realising things; I have grown to know what you mean to

me, what I mean to you. And because of this I have left you for ever. You will grow to hate me because of

this, and if you do I ought to thank God for releasing you from bondage that would mean your destruction.

"Yes, it would be destruction for you. You would have to sink down to my levelI intended at first that you

should, since it would mean my salvation. When once you had fallen so far you might carry me up with you.

"I know what it would mean. I know what I am, what I have been, what I always should be. I should be

ashamed of my first lapse from the new life, and I know that lapse would come. I should hate the mute

forgiveness in your eyes. Cazalet talks a lot about bloodtaint; I always laughed at him till tonight, but he is

desperately right. I am convinced that the strain in the blood controls. And I'm not going to injure you, nor be

the weight on your life. I believe it's the only decent thing I've ever done, this leaving you. If I had married

"What moral weakness, what rottenness! And yet with it all I love you. If I did not I should drag you to

destruction and glory in the possession of you. For I love that wonderful light that springs into your eyes at

times, that curving of your lips, the sunlight on your hair, the very sense of your presence near me. I love

your little frailties, I love the big influence of you, all that is you and part of you. I love the knowledge that

you are in the world, the streets that you have walked. I love the presence of you in my dreams, the soft touch

of your hands that comes to me in slumber. And I love the memory of your voice, the memory of your face,

the memory of that dress you wore when I first saw you, the very shape of your little boots stained by the wet

"And so I have gone back to Paris. I shall pick up the old threads where I laid them down, a better man for the

"You will marry a strong man, and be happy! I want you to marry a strong man. I should know then that I had

"P.S.You can trust Nemanya. He will lead you to safety. He will take you to Semlin. Go with him and take

She crushed the letter in her hand. He had gone, but she did not wish him back. She had told him her secret,

and he had carried it away as if it were the spoil of combat. She thought the whole course of things over,

spoke the truth to herself, and yet would not believe it. Her lips framed the word desertion; her mind distorted

it into couragethe courage that means the yielding up of something that one wantssomething that has

She waited in the room, regretting things she might have done, the words she might have spoken. If she had

sat beside him all through the night, just as he had sat outside her door that night in Paris! She was as much

his guardian as he had been hers when he slept wounded at her lintel. She ought to have talked things out to

him to a finish, influencing him, bending his will towards the path she had mapped out for themselves. If she

had not wasted those hours in slumber, had taught him to know that she was giving as well as receiving

Ultimately the craving of the woman for the man chosen out of the toil of circumstance came to her. She

would go to him and claim him, bring him back to her, drop her sex because he was hers by right, and

strengthen him out of the strength of suffering. He was hershers because he had conquered her. It was not

for him to dictate terms now; the hour was passed. The day was hers. A little distance away the railway led to

A little distance awayand yet half the world, it seemed, to reach it. The going to Paris to him, the

confession that he had become so much a part of her that she could not leave him, that she must follow him

for ever and he must give himself to her! Her withering dignity took courage again, and found new strength.

It was surrender, impossible, despicable. And yet he had stood by her and she could not go, pride would not

let her; sex, selfesteem, the whole gamut of earthly prejudices arose as an overpowering barrier in her path.

But the voice of her mind was answering that she must see him; the blood in her veins throbbed his name as it

She heard the grinding of the cartwheels at last in the rough road without. A moment more and Nemanya

was in the room, his hat in his hand, his heavy footsteps sounding through the silent house. He was surprised

to find her alone, and yet there was no accounting for the movements of lovers; sixty years in the world had

"The road to the hills is guarded. We cannot go there." He smiled at her dainty accent. He had never believed

"Two miles." He held up his hands. "Ah, it would be impossible. Every train is watched."

Sudden decision quickened in her. She would not go to Paris. Better anything than the absolute surrender of

herself to a man who would have tired of her. It might be harsh judgment upon him, but it was the dictate of

her mood, and she felt the cruelty inborn in every woman urging her. She would not go to Paris. And it might

"You could hideyou would be practically alone till you could reach the railway. You would be safe

thereI think so. But nowhere else. No, I should not have earned my money if I took you anywhere else.

"On a ship in the river?" she asked dully. Her eyes wandered aimlessly across the opposite wall.

"Yes. She does not sail for a week. The captain is a friend of mine. He will look after you, and I should

always be at hand when you wanted me. It is the one place where you could hide."

He led the way out to the road and she followed him. The weak light of the early sun was gleaming in her

eyes when they started along the road towards the white city. At this moment it looked like the city of hope.

FOR two days Paul Cazalet searched Belgrade, burrowing into all the secret corners in which he believed

Fenning might be taking refuge with the girl he loved in his custody. He feared the mercilessness of the man,

a dread of what he might impose upon her. His brutal outspokenness that highs in the prison was but an index

to the extremes to which a rank nature was prepared to go. He haunted the riverside, the sickening

stenchreeked alley ways that crept thin and tapering down to the water, the Turkish coffeehouses in the

old town, with their brazen fronts and dens of iniquity behindhe searched them all with eyes that never

tired or faltered. But of those for whom he searched all trace was lost. The white city of the south had

He got back to his hotel late on the night of the second day after he had explored the depths of the

Kalamegdan prison. Lord Penstone's body lay at the Embassy awaiting the necessary papers from England; a

dilatory Skoupshtina was busy meanwhile considering a weak apology for an English peer finding his way to

a Servian prison at all. It had been an accident of safety; every government would understand that. And the

Paul found a small pile of letters on his table. He opened them slowly one by one. The first was from Lady

Chesney in London, and addressed to his old chambers in Piccadilly. She deplored the dullness of the season,

and begged him if he were in Paris to hasten home that his presence might lend interest to her

drawingrooms. Another letter came from Scotlanda note from the agent at Penstone, saying that a dozen

local officials wanted him to return and investigate a little problem that was puzzling them. He pitched the

"So they've got on the scent at last," he muttered. "And about time they did. Dunderheaded idiots! They smell

Four other letters remained; he took them in rotation. A moneylender's advice as to how to have money by

taking up five thousand upon note of hand alone, a pianotuner's plaintive request that he might be allowed to

tune the piano in Cazalet's chambers which he did not possess, and a whisky advertisement. The last letter of

all bore no stamp. It was in a grimy envelope, and had evidently been delivered by hand. He ripped it open

quickly. "Come at once to the steamer Kruna lying beside the quay. You are in grave peril. Do not attend any

"What the devil! Steamer Kruna! Some old barge. What is she doing there, And Fenning, too, I wonder!"

He got up and groped for his hat and stick. To him it was a call from the dark. She was there; that was all he

cared. She might be in danger; he could not tell. But she had remembered him, warned him of some

unforeseen peril, the existence of which he was unaware. The letter was like her voice speaking to him; he

felt the consciousness of her somewhere close at hand; the very loneliness of her leapt from the letters

The subdued light that creeps from the river over Belgrade by night came upon him like a soft clinging wave

as he went down the street. He struck off the main street into a narrow byway where flaming oillamps were

being hung in irregular rows on the bars above the cramped shops. Lights were springing up with weak yet

steady insistence in the caf�s, slinking ragged figures crept by in the murk. He clutched his revolver more

closely in his pocket. They would pass him by, these pariahs of the streets, but at any moment he might see

The gloom gathered as he pressed against it. He reached the quayside where the black sluggish waters went

rolling into the light and out again, chuckling against the stone steps, gurgling and sucking at some wooden

staging. The moon dropped from a bank of cloud like a rich jewel shaken out of a lucky bag, and sent a

million tiny shafts of light quivering among the masts of ships. And Cazalet moved slowly, cautiously, with

A narrow gangway connected it with the shore, and he went quickly across, and stood on the deck waiting for

a moment to be accosted. Then he started towards the companionway, and suddenly found himself staring

He spoke in Serb, and the man glanced at him doubtfully. But the scrutiny seemed to convince him of Paul's

nationality, for he led the way down the stairs to the cabin. He passed along the dark alleyway, Paul

following at his heels. There was no lamp burning, but the moonlight broke in patches over the teak walls.

Then he stopped and knocked softly at a door; it was partly open, and Paul saw a girl emerging from the

He was grateful for the note of anxiety in her voice. He followed her into the cabin and closed the door.

"Good heavens!" he cried. "How you've changed! The torture of that prison must have nearly driven you

"Oh, don't talk about that," she said breathlessly. "We've only a few minutes to spare."

"The captain here. They must be searching for me, I think. He eyes me so closely, watching me as a cat does

a mouse, yet professing all the time friendship for me. I know he would sell me if he could find a purchaser."

"Yes, I would. I think I'd trust any Englishman now. I suppose I'm broken by that prison life or something.

I've got to the don'tcare stage; I know that I'm not so afraid of that prison as I thought I was. The other ship

She was talking a little incoherently. The wild look in her eyes, the words she uttered without any connecting

He pushed her gently into a chair, and watched her bend over the table and bury her head in her hands. She

sat like that for a moment, breathing heavily, and with little fits of shivering passing over her.

"It was moored close to us, and I could hear all that passed in the cabin," she answered him. "Remember, our

ship was supposed to be deserted, with only two men on board at times to look after her."

She got up and pulled back a small curtain, disclosing a porthole through which he could see the river.

"The other vessel was just there, only a few yards between us. And men would come to her in boats, two or

three at a time. It seemed so strange that, inspired with distrust as I am, I used to wait here in the dark and

watch from the corner of the curtain. I thought at first they were coming to take me back to that awful place

again. I don't think I was frightened. I think I just wanted the suspense to end."

"Yes, most of it. I could not hear everything, of course, but the voice carries far over water."

"Who are they?" He began to walk up and down, snapping out the questions at her.

"That I cannot tell you. To begin with it was seldom I saw anyone; I simply heard that muttering going on,

then one voice raised higher than another. Finally they would come off in the boats again. But I know they

"Yes. . . . That night you met me outside the palaceyou did not know where I had been?"

"I heard as much, but I would not believe it. If it hadn't been for the presence of the Queen I would have

"Because you would never have gone thereof your own free will. What did you know of Slana that you

"Belief in myself, belief that I was going to achieve something by going. I believed I should hear things

"I have probably saved your life. Shall they say then that I came to Servia for nothing?" She passed her

handkerchief nervously over her dry lips. "Listen," she said. "I heard there what you were. You are the man

who is playing the part of Captain Galatz. You were attending these meetings in the Rue d'Or. They believed

in you, the conspirators would make you their tool so long as it pleased them. And you were content because

you had an Englishman's curiosity to inquire into other people's business, and found it more fascinating than

your work at home. Do you think I don't know what manner of man you are I who have watched your

"You advised me not to come to Servia, I admit that," he said. "It is because you took that much interest in

me that I came. Tell a man who loves a woman that he is afraid of danger, and you kill fear at once. And in

advising me not to come to Servia you implied that I should find fear at the end of the journey. Is this the end

of the journey being here with you like this? If so, I'm glad. For I'm going to take you back to England

"I don't think you are. I've changed my mind. I'm not going to England, I'm going to Paris."

"Yes. I feel that everything calls me to Paris, the restlessness in my blood, the cry of it for excitement, life. I

should hate England now. I want to feel Paris rushing past me in its mad, reckless fashion, the ever

"You would tire of it," he told her. "You would get unutterably tired of it all too soon. Already I am tired of

"Because your throne is usurped. The real Captain Galatz is already in the city. I heard them say so on that

She went across to the window again, and deftly drew back the curtain. Then, leaning to one side, she pointed

"That is itit was moored quite close here until this morning. I think they suspect us; they've seen someone

"There was no suggestion of such a thing two days ago. What has happened since I do not know. I should

"You won't," she cried. "I'd lock you in here first." He looked into her blazing eyes and knew that for the

moment she was dictator. "I heard what they said," she went on. "The meeting is at ten."

"Do you know why I have been keeping you here like this? To save you from further folly. You came

prepared for adventure, and you shall have your fill of it tonight. They are going to the palace after

midnight, these scoundrels, to force the abdication of the King and to kill the Queen. Five hundred Austrian

agents poured into Belgrade yesterday; they are scattered throughout the city. Five hundred of them, the first

"Austrian influence was to save the Obrenovitch dynasty," he replied. "The man who sent me suspected that

murder would be done unless it could be prevented. But Austrian agents in the city! Slana is too cautious for

She crossed the cabin and turned the key in the lock. And she stood there clutching the handle of the door

"You know meknow why I came," she said quickly. "I was on the side of freedom, but not freedom by

murder. Moreover, there was another reason. There was one man in Servia I wished to meet. But let that pass.

What I have seen and what I have heard is knowledge enough for me. Five hundred Austrians stirring up

strife after the chaos brought about by assassination, an army flung across the river to restore order and

incidentally to remain in Servia! Cannot you see how you in your turn have been duped? How Servia may

"Facts!" she retorted quickly. "I have knowledgeI heard these things. You probably take me for an

imaginative little fool. But I have never had so much common sense in all my life as I have now. We've all

been playing a big game, but now we're down to the bedrock of hard solid reasoning and action. We've got to

do something, we cannot philander any longer. You would like nothing better than to go into a hotbed of

murder, even if you received your deserts for your trickery on these men. You would probably perish

thinking yourself a martyr to a cause. But I can see farther than you. Go to the palace, to Slana, to any official

you can trustbetter still, to the King or Queen and tell them what an English girl who is really only a

pawn in the game has heard, and that she knows what is going to happen. Convince them. If I were a man I'd

risk anything. You don't mend things by letting fanatics loose. You've got to go. It's your great chance."

"And I who came here hoping for the overthrow of the autocrats and the freeing of Servia send you on it.

How do you reconcile that to my principles? There is danger, of course grave danger for you. I have not

"I believe I would go anywhere if you wished it," he said. "But I think you're overwrought. You imagine

things. Galatz may be in Belgrade, five hundred Austriansprobably humble trippers bent on an

outingmay be in Belgrade, but I don't think they have come to murder yet. But I'll go, if"

"No," he answered. "I know that. But I'm going for you. I don't believe in your augury, but I'm going for you.

"Yes, you would," she replied, and gripped his hand as he passed her in the doorway.

He said nothing further, but went slowly up the companion way. He knew she was following him, he heard

the rustle of her dress, and was conscious of her presence, of the perfume of her floating up to him on the hot

wind, the gladness that she was near. And he believed in some intuition which told him that he would never

see her again; indeed to him this was the hour of farewell. But this going out on some service for her was the

manner in which he would have passed from her life had he been given the choice. It was the crumb of

She was going to Paris, to Fenning. Already, it seemed to him, her love had preceded her. She had been

carried away by the belief that Paris held all in the world for her. And he knew that while Fenning called

from afar she would answer. The realisation came to him as he reached the deck and stood waiting there,

looking at nothing, hearing nothing, almost unconscious that she was near him. He wondered what influence

the unstable temperament of Fenning would have upon a girl all wilfulness and moods. Which would bend to

the other, which absorb the other? How would the strength of this craving stand the strain of years, or would

it grow ugly and tawdry, a something ever crying for satiation and receiving none? And yet they were

He still hesitated. The lapping water continued to chant its vespers against the stone steps; away down the

quayside a few scattered lampflames wobbled in the wind. The very thraldom of the night seemed to be

"You'll work when you get to England; you'll go back into the old swim," she was saying.

"Yes. There's a finality about work; it's the sort of alternative we have held up to us, a sop when everything

else fails. I suppose I'll fall into the old rut just as I might put on an old coat again."

"May the heavens fall first! I couldn't stand the solitude of being the best badgered man in the

"And if God lets things be as we plan them that will have helped you. I'll watch you fighting the old battle, a

stern brave fight you always made of it, and I'll be proud of you. You won't know it, but I will be. That's a

woman's perquisite, this pride; something she hugs to herself and puts away in a little jewelcase in her

"If I thought it was that," he began, but she clutched his sleeve quickly and drew him back into a corner.

"Look there!" she whispered. She bent close to him till her lips were near his face, and pointed out across the

He fixed his eyes on the silent vessel ahead, and saw a group of men coming down the stoneflagged quay

towards it. A light appeared at the ship's side; it guided them. They were bending forward and moving slowly

as if they carried a heavy weight. They reached the vessel and went scuffling across the gangway, six of them

in all, dragging and pushing at something that hung shapeless between them. Cazalet heard the hard footfalls

He hurried to the rail, yet crouching there could see nothing. Down the river he watched some circles

broadening out across the water till they disappeared, and the glassy surface grew placid again. He expected

He was about to draw away when a black object bobbed up from the shadow at the side of the Kruna. It

dropped into the darkness again, only to reappear a few yards from where he stood, floating slowly down

with a thin wash of water rippling over it. In the moonlight it was white and ghastly. A cry was on his lips.

The dead thing floated away into the dark, leaving him standing there with the cold sweat beading his

forehead. They had trapped him, Nichodim, the little wizened spy of the Rue de la Save! Verily the dread

IF you know your Belgrade you know the "Srbski Kruna." Mayhap you have sat at one of the little tables on

its veranda and sipped coffee and slivovits while a band in the Kalamegdan gardens opposite plays the

dreamy intoxicating melodies of the south. You roll yourself up in your chair and watch the night come down

and the lights pop out. And ever the music goes on ceaselessly, now soothed, now crescendo as the warm

wind carries it towards you. The coffee grows cold, but you have forgotten it. Someone has filled again the

liqueur glass, but it is so dark that you can scarcely distinguish whether it is empty or otherwise. You drink in

the air, warm and soft like a good wine that pleases the tongue. The blood beats to the rhythm of the wild

waltz they are playing; figures flit through the dark, mere vignettes that create no memory. And

somewherefar away as it might be on another hemispherelife, civilisation, the whole great unsolvable

problem is twisting and turning, but its burden is gone; for you it has no meaning.

Tonight the caf� was crowded. In the smokehaze at the back of the room were the laughing faces of

women. But around the tables on the veranda a number of men crouched over their glasses and spoke in

undertones, and laughed aimlessly. Someone brought a light, but they sent him away. They wanted the

gloom, the shadowy faces of their companions rather than the white glare that revealed the fear written across

"I sent two notes to you, pig of a fellow," she whispered into the ear of a young lieutenant. "You forgot even

He reached across his chair and swung his arm round her and pulled her near to him, till the reek of her

"You're wonderful tonight, Helene," he exclaimed. "And by God! what eyes! Like those stars out there." He

He fought for her red lips so close to his own, but she struck him lightly across the face.

"So much for you!" She was laughing at his discomfiture. "You couldn't make love tonight if you tried ever

She sprang away from him as he lurched to his feet, and, catching her arm, dragged her to himself by brute

"Kiss me, you glorious witch!" he cried. She struggled with him in mock anger, and beat her little fists

against his tunic, but his hot lips found refuge on her own. "Thousand devils!" he exclaimed. "Those lips

He flung her arm wide and stood away from her, devouring her with his heavyridded eyes. A roar of

A crimson liquid splashed into the glass of the lieutenant, filled it and ran over. The youth dropped heavily

into his chair again with a grunt of content and watched the woman as she passed out, now turning to throw a

grimace at him. But the incident had stirred his blood; it struck the key of the situation. He lolled back,

breathing in heavily the night air; he sucked at the wine, but a sudden spasm of fear gripping him, his teeth

"Ten o'clock. Two hours more to go. Oh, stop that infernal band. No, the Draga March again. By God, yes;

Kasnitch got up slowly. He turned and scattered a string of oaths, but no one heeded them. Then he went

They shuffled their feet on the floor to the tune of it. A heavy, scarletfaced rogue, his eyes glittering like

those of a wild beast, produced a revolver and began to beat time with the butt on the table. A glass was

raised. They drank, every man of them, some mysterious toast which only half of them understood. An empty

"That toast again!" A man in the far corner had raised his glass above his head, and it shivered in the cold

palsy of fear that shook his hand. "That toast again. Tonight! We never lived till tonight. To freedomto

Fear fought with the mad fever of intoxication. The hours crawled past, and they waited, holding their breath

till their lungs ached, while the echo of the chiming quarters died away. The heat of the night swept their

faces with a warm dew. One, swayed by a passing mood of panic, clutched his glass till the stem broke. The

They struggled up, a table was overturned; there was a smash of glass and an oath. A sword dragged over

stone steps; the click of a revolver sounded. And as they swept out of the door they could see the red ring that

Into the pitch black of the street they went, grotesque figures that seemed to leap and roll. A woman drew

away from them with a frightened cry, but no one noticed her. They rushed on like hungry sleuth hounds,

drink maddened, afraid, yet brave with the courage of cowards. The walls threw back the echo of their

Meanwhile Paul Cazalet had hurried up the steep street from the river towards the guardhouse where he

knew he would find Colonel Slana, panting as he ran. Personal enmity, his inborn dislike of the man, were

effaced. He was charged with a mission, a woman had sent him, and it was not the moment to heed such

As he entered the King Milan Street a battery of artillery was coming slowly down. A strange hush lay over

the city; the few idlers in the street hung at the kerb asking questions which no one could answer.

"The King is in danger!" A man had said it, and an echo seemed to carry the words to those who waited.

The troops came on to unlimber at the corner of the palace. Men looked at each other and glanced at the set

faces of their officers. A hundred questions were unanswered, a hundred more remained unspoken. What did

the call meanwhere was the King? The Queen had abdicatedrumour had told them that. But the

Cazalet went onward to the palace gate. The sentry studied his letter of mark carelessly. He was tired to death

of the fuss, and the languor of the night made his eyes heavy. Colonel Slana was probably in bed. But the

In a quarter of an hour Paul was facing the colonel in his rooms. He was fully dressed, there was no trace of

fear on his face. He heard the Englishman's story calmly and without interruption, or even surprise. He told

himself it was no more than he had expected. He had warned the King, he had endeavoured to convince the

"To the palace!" he said. He charged his revolver and slipped it beneath the flap of his tunic. "Quick, you

must follow me. The King may believe you. I have failed. I've done my best, but I've failed. Only the

intervention of God" His voice trailed off; Paul caught the note of emotion in it.

"At least we can urge them to escape," he said. "It's the only chance. We've got to do it. Those troops are not

They passed through a door and down a long corridor, Paul following close at the heels of the other. Then of

a sudden they came to a full stop as an explosion shook the very foundations of the building. The blast of it

"Dynamite!" Slana cried. "By God! they've blown the door down!" He plunged on through a maze of

passages, looking into rooms, the doors of which swung idly open in the dark. The hot breath of the night

wind came to them through open windows, bearing with it the acrid smell of explosive. He plunged up a

staircase, Paul stumbling after him, revolvers drawn, blood racing, and teeth gripping into set lips. From afar

came a scream; they heard the rush of feet over thick carpeted floors. A shot was firedtwo.

In that wild moment when life became a mere thing that depended on the cast of the dice, Paul felt a

friendship stirring in him for the man at his side. His every action, his courage, seemed to clothe him with the

cloak of dignity; his reverence for the monarchy had become a creed. He might have drunk deeply of the cup

of life; wine, women, the thousand and one pleasures that beset those in high placesfor all these he had no

thought now. The blood call had come to him, the sense of duty, bred and interbred through many

generations, was exerting itself. He had lived and he could die, hugging life to him and yet kissing the lips of

honour. Once Paul caught a glimpse of his eyes as he swung round in the light, and passion blazed there, as if

he had found inspiration, the fugitive thing upon which men get their fingers only when they play the losing

stake as they have played the winning, with firm faith in themselves and with dignity dealing the cards.

He knew he was going to his death; Paul read it in his face. For the shots were growing louder, explosion

followed explosion, bullets splintered through doors far down the long corridors, and cries and oaths mingled

in a vehement roar of passion. Swords were rattling against door lintels and crashing through the glass of

pictures, but the colonel never faltered. He was one man going to meet a score, and he went onhis hand a

little firmer on his clutched revolver maybea stronger set about his lips, but fear was dead in him. A rush

of black figures swept across a corridor in an overwhelming body into a darkened room, and without a word

Paul heard the cry from a distant room. And at the same time there rang out an appeal for help in his own

tongue. He could just see the huddled figure of a woman lying prone upon the floor of a salon as he peered in

through the darkness. The colonel had disappeared; he felt as if a firm friend had passed from him for ever.

But in the dim shadow of the room he held up a woman, and tried to staunch the blood where it rolled in giant

Muffled shots came from the streets, shot after shot answered them from the Queen's boudoir beyond. Men

In the darkness they were groping round the room, kicking against furniture, and sprawling over objects that

lay unseen in their path. The cascade of shattered glass never ceased where revolvers were blindly fired at

pictures. And then came the zip of leather, a sword was plunged through a richly upholstered divanthe

crash of rare china dashed into the metal grates; laughter, oaths of derision, of balked vengeance, curses upon

a thousand saints that forbade their fingers to find candles. A match was struck, a faint flicker spluttered up

A little circle of figures stood round the candle while the wick caught the flame. They were defeated no

longer; with a light they could kind and kill. They moved in one body towards the door that led into the

bedroom, and before it they saw the waiting man. Slana stood there, the revolver in his hand, his face white,

but the expression upon it was not of fear, but rather of conquest. In the finer moments of his life he had

marked out in his imagination a death for himself, a death that would come to him in service to a monarchy

which, in his mind, had the sanctity of a superstition. Rights and wrongshe had nothing to do with these.

Alexander may have ruled wisely or with the hand of a tyrant, for this he had no care. It was not the hour of

judgment, but of duty; the yielding up of life that those who came after him and bore his name might yet

A man with a shaking hand was holding the candle up so that the light of it fell across the colonel's face. But

It was the challenge of an ant to a mountain. A roar of laughter greeted it, the swordpoint dropped, the jest

was too good to be spoiled by a clot of blood. This man should live; he should make merry at the funeral

It was the ribaldry that roused the colonel's blood to action. Of a sudden he moved, his arm lifted, and he

fired once, twice at those before him. Two men dropped, a third struck the weapon from his hand and drove

his sword through the colonel's shoulder. Yet he went on. With clenched fist he struck at the white bloodless

faces, hammered into the eyes of them as if he would have beaten the life away. And with the start of blood

he rushed forward; some fell and clung about his legs, dragging him down, and still he fought. Now he half

rose to his feet, hands clutching at him, finger nails digging bloody into his flesh. A revolver was flung at his

face but he dodged, and struck a fierce jab at the man who had aimed it so that he dropped with his hands up.

The moments sped, and yet he lived. His face was beaten out of shape with the batter of knuckles and

weapons, but, blind and bleeding, he drove his fist like the piston of some great machine that should kill with

every blow. A man's wrist snapped in his grip, when the sight had passed from his eyes for ever. So he

fought; it was his hour. And he died smiling, just as he had wished to die, with men hurt and bleeding around

him, men whom he had crippled by the sheer force of his hands, with the bare bones of his knuckles from

The human tide surged on over the broken body of a hero. It rushed from room to room, the steady encroach

of destruction unsatiated. Rare hangings, gorgeous silks from the East, were torn out, only to clog the feet of

those who pressed forward; a hundred art treasures lay in fragments, the sport of the cavalry boots that

ground them to powder into the thick carpets. And above the sounds of destruction and the oaths of thwarted

vengeance came the howl of men's voices without, just as a mob might clamour for some evidence of their

leaders' work. Pity was dead, justice became an elementary superstition. It was the hour of beasts.

One man, his face wizened in frenzy, was firing at the large portrait of the dead King Miloschfiring into

the eyes that looked down at him as if they had been the eyes of a living man. Another sprawled across a

writing table in the Queen's boudoir, tearing the fragile drawers into splinters of wood with his clawlike

hands, and rending the letters they contained into a thousand fragments. A third, so drinkmaddened that all

sense of reason had long since left him, picked up the knitting upon which Draga had been engaged during

the evening and tore at the stitches, ripped every weft of the work to shreds, and felt the delight of

achievement. But there came no sound of the hidden quarry, only the cries from without. "Hurry! For the love

The tide turned and ebbed back upon its pathback through those rooms again, back over the shamble of

"To the new palace!" The very trees seemed to whisper it as they shivered in the wind.

Black capering figuresa dozentwoscorewent scampering across the courtyard, blacker than the

shadow, and murder made them blacker still. It needed but the glare of hell and a man might have told his

A woman's cry for help, and the answera shot that shattered the glass about her face! And the maddened

rabble was pouring back once more! They scaled the stairsa door that had blown to in the wind and caught

But for a woman's cry of despair the double windows of the palace would have held their secret. And now the

mob had reached the room, which, searched before, had yielded nothing. They overturned the

furnitureone, his revolver outstretched, tore down the curtains and drew back at what he saw. The man and

the woman hiding there crouched, whitefaced, half clothed. The black hair of the Queen hung loose about

her shoulders; her eyes were pits of fire. And quickly as the light broke in upon them she drew in front of her

Two revolvers snapped. A volley broke out . . . The last of the House of Obrenovitch lay huddled on the

They hurled the body of the King through the window, and told each other they had freed Servia. They

"It's finished, mon vieux!" said a colonel, wiping his sword on the rug. "Finished! And the air breathes the

He glanced at himself in the cracked mirror, and was aghast at the pallor of his face. But the lieutenant

spoken to had edged towards the door. He was shivering with excitement and the fear of some unnameable

"I don't like the flavour of this room." He spat on the thick carpet. "It's rank."

"Nor I." The colonel passed his tongue across his parched lips. He glanced over his shoulder towards the

window, and went out and joined the group of figures standing at the head of the stairs, muttering in

frightened whispers. "That's what it is rank," he said to the man beside him. "Let's go and get a brandy, for

They passed down the stairs one after the other. No one spoke. But some were conscious of the presence of

dead things that followed them from the dark corners, and laid clammy hands upon their shoulders. Across

But the day was dead; tomorrow the episode would be but a memory. And what a tale for the caf�s in the

In a room close at hand Paul Cazalet held the yielding form of Irma, Lady Penstone, in his arms, whilst with

every shudder she gave the life ebbed from her. Only the light from a lamp in the courtyard showed him her

He lifted her up a little to ease the words upon her lips. She opened her eyes and fixed them on his own.

He said nothing, but looked at her, wondering at the strange jugglery of circumstance that had brought them

together here. About them the building was very still. He knew the King was dead, for death seemed to be

stalking through the dark corridors, and he could hear the voice of tragedy in the silence. Outside was

clamour and confusion, shouts, the rumble of wheels, cheers, the cries of frightened people where the guns, in

the mad ecstasy of delight displayed by their drivers, would have run them down. A child crying somewhere

out there in all this vast wilderness of disturbance, a clattering horse on the stones beneath the windowa

strange conflict of sounds. And within, the great silence that he listened to, and only a woman's sobbing

He saw the pallid light reveal the beauty of her face. "You are a beautiful woman. I never knew it till now,"

he could have told her, but his lips forbade the message. She had not recognised him, and for that he was

He reached out his hand and grasping the carafe of water put it to her lips, and held it there while she sipped.

"But they kill themkill them neverthelessstrangle their souls. And what do we ask for? We love; we are

"Of such is the kingdom of earth. It's what we need above everything," he said, as much to ease his own

"I'm glad," he said. "You'll be better soon," but he knew she would not live till the day.

"It was all for his ambition," she said a little joyously, disregarding the promise he had made to her.

"He could not marry me. But he wanted moneymoney for the cause. I married that I might fill his hands

"Yes, my husbandpoor fool. Yet not so great a fool as I. Today Lazar told me that he hated mehe had

never loved me. He wanted power and position for another womanthis English girl he had made love to,

and whom they threw into the Kalamegdan. I had helped him to it; unconsciously for this I had worked. How

"You loved him," he said, controlling his voice with difficulty. He swept her hair back from her forehead.

"It's the one almighty law of nature that the woman shall give everything for the man she loves. She doesn't

"For him success was everything," she said. "And I helped him to it. I gave him what his own hands could not

Paul bent a little lower. She did not feel the trembling of his hand on her own.

"Yes, Count Stolpin. Lazar said the Count would wreck his schemes, would bring about his imprisonment.

He felt the wild flutter of her heart as the moments of her life counted themselves away. He crouched there

silent, afraid to move, yet he could not have named the cause of his fear. But a new trend of thought had

"I do not know. I did not seethe lights went out, and I rushed to the door, andI think it was then I felt the

"I saw a mass of faces. I couldn't remember. Don't move it's darkit's getting darker."

"It will be dawn soon," he told her. "Could you lie back against the corner? So! I would fetch a doctor."

He sat staring into the dark and wondered if she heard him. She said nothing; he no longer felt the labouring

of her heart. The minutes passed, and the words he expected from her never came. He waited. He could hear

a clock clanging once, twice. Then of a sudden he felt her head slowly sliding down his arm. He clasped her

And still he waited. He knew that death had come into the room, the presence of it was about him; he could

almost feel its contact as he had done that night on the yacht. He lowered her to the ground and stood up; by

some odd chance her face was still lying in the stream of light across the chamber. Then quietly he went out

And in his own quarters Captain Zanolich sipped at a glass of brandy. He bent over the table and examined

the lock of his revolver, then shut the weapon with a snap. He felt glad that he had fired the shot.

"Yet you put her on your visiting list. Andyesit was only a week before we left London that you called

"To get rid of her, of course," Lady Chesney replied in quick rebuke. "You can't make an enemy without

"I'm afraid I don't follow your reasoning, my dear. You're beyond me; you're so clever."

The little manalmost lost in the big padded armchair of the Paris hotelfelt hot and flushed. An

argument with his wife always affected him like that. He knew it was equivalent to fighting a battle with

"I agree, my dear. It's wandering now. Going round and round trying to discover why you should call on

Rosa Mendl in order to make an enemy of her. I can't seeshall I call it your line of attack?"

"I hardly expected you would." Lady Chesney sat up stiffly, and withered her husband with a look. "If only

"You were always clever," he said meekly by way of indicating complete surrender. He reached for the

"Drawingrooms, Toby. What did you think of your drawing room when you were married?"

The question amazed him, and the tense expression of inquiry on her face amazed him the more. He sat

looking at her with protruding eyes like a frightened owl disturbed in a chimney stack.

"Good Lord! I had forgotten we ever had one," he said. "I suppose we did, though. Must have done. A

scramble of odd chairs and things. What did I think about it? I probably thought it was the most unhealthy

collection of unnecessary household appendages ever got together by diligence and perseverance."

"You may talk like that now. Gratitude to the woman who got together thisthis collection, as you are

pleased to describe it, could not enter your brain. But you were proud of that drawingroom then. I remember

"Money? No. Deuced hard up. I married in debt, and I've been in debt ever since, with you as the principal

creditor. Seems like that to me. I don't know where we would have been if you had not happened along and

"The drawingroom. Every young bride raves over her drawing room, and would like to discuss it with you.

Remember, they've only been married two months. Of course I discussed it with her, shared her enthusiasm."

"I know what I felt about mine. Everyone had to agree with me. If they didn't I hated them. I agreed with her

"What of it?" he said with mild spirit. "I don't suppose she expected you to covet the place. Really, I can't see

the drift of all this. What did it matter if you liked her drawingroom or not? You hadn't got to live in it. It

"Oh, lie down, Toby," she exclaimed. "Don't you see that when I delicately suggestedonly delicately, mind

youthat the tones of the drawingroom were really bilious in their relation to each other, and that bad

pictures were such antique taste, it finished things? Finished thempouf!like that!" She snapped her

thumb and finger in the air to indicate finality. "She couldn't return my call after that; she'd be afraid to. She

was afraid to see my house, lest she discovered how incorrect her own furnishing was. And a young wife is as

sensitive as a jelly fish about furniture. Still, I did my duty. I had to call. It is a duty I have never flinched

"But I don't see why you should destroy her faith in her taste," retorted the little man, quivering slightly. It

was the nearest approach to anger he dared venturethis quivering like a nervous animal.

"Because I wanted to disagree thoroughly with her palate. That's why. I can't do with her, Toby."

"Well, one must make something. It's paid him evidently. He wouldn't go on making furniture for his health."

"His manners are like most of his cabinets I've seen lacking in polish," she beat in.

"You don't like to find them here at the same hotel as yourself, that's it. That's what it means. You wouldn't

like to have to say you know her. You hated the thought of her at the next table at lunch, eating the same

menu. It was gall and wormwood to you, the sight of her, having to breathe the same air with her. You would

like to hurt her, humiliate her, because she has married a man of whom you disapprove, though before her

marriage you could not do enough for her. It's like all you womenpride. I'm getting tired of pride. We're all

prideyou and I; you know we are. You like to see crests and things about everywhere, and know good

people, and be talked about because you entertain. If there were no newspapers to record the things you do

you wouldn't do them. It's like racing or lying or thieving, and things like thatwhen you begin you have to

Lady Chesney leant forward in her chair and stared at him openmouthed. She had never heard him talk like

this before. It was her first glimpse of rebellion during the forty years of their marriage. And conscious that

he had overstepped the mark, stolen suddenly into a strange country as it were, the little man endeavoured to

"It's the heat, Toby," she said excusingly at first. "You never could stand it."

"If Rosa had married Paul Cazalet instead of this other person you would have forgiven her anything," Sir

Toby replied lamely. "You wanted her to marry Cazalet. It would have given you infinite happiness to think

"Mr. Cazalet is not a fool. He knows that marriage is expected of every man, especially when there are not

enough men to go round. And Rosa certainly was mad on him at one time. You won't even admit that, I

"Cazalet has his work to do," he replied evasively. "He will prefer to paddle his own canoe, unless he has

been killed in this horrible business in Servia. If you would permit me I would like to read the latest account

"Very well. Read on." Lady Chesney got up and walked towards the window. "A man's love for a murder

She walked away, but before Sir Toby had read a column she was back again with a man by her side.

"I found him in the hall, and rescued him from a horde of clamouring porters," she explained.

"Yes. Same old London. We all drift back there in the end. We've got a big corner in our hearts for London

"Yet to us it is frightfully fascinating." Lady Chesney grew enthusiastic. "For the past few days my eyes have

been glued to the newspapers. Perfectly hideous business altogether. It reminds one of Charles the First and

"I should think not. But I knew you would be coming home after my letter. And Parliament has been so stale

"If they'll have me. I sometimes wonder if they will tolerate a deserter. Have you been in Paris long?"

"The heatit gets me in the back of the legs; gout or rheumatics or some old weakness, 'fernally silly thing,"

"Age be hanged! I never felt so young in my life!" replied Sir Toby, who had a secret fear of death.

"By the way, Mr. Cazalet," broke in Lady Chesney, catching his sleeve, "I saw a friend of yours in Paris this

"Jean Lorimer. I introduced you. You remember her that night? You took her home."

"Positive. She was walking very quickly or I should have stopped to speak to her. Quite an interesting girl. I

Paul waited a moment, tapping his foot against the leg of a chair. Then he held out his hand.

"You must excuse me if I run off," he said. "I've enough luggage piled up in the hall to build a barricade.

"But we shall see you again?" A note of anxiety crept into Lady Chesney's voice. "You're not going home

"It depends. I don't think so. You know how restless an Englishman is on his way home."

"And how cruel to his friends," she beamed. "But there is that Penstone businessit was all in the

"I have been away a long time. Possibly I haven't heard. Tell me," he said, wondering what she would

"The disappearance of Lady Penstone, a very strange affair altogether. Surely you must have heard?"

"Oh, yes. I had letters, of course. That's why I'm going home," he said. "Goodbye, Sir Toby. You'll be back

"Very much so. We've turned down a lot of birds at Tavisham this year. You'll have to come along. Put in a

"And I would have liked to talk to you about this Belgrade affair. The papers seem to give such piffling

Lady Chesney's eyes fixed upon her husband and seemed to smite him with reproof.

"Oh, lie down, Toby," she exclaimed. "When a man escapes from a lot of savages he doesn't want to be

"True, my dear. Quite true." He turned to Paul. "Au revoir, Mr. Cazalet. Excuse the French. I know six words

Paul laughed and departed. They watched his big figure stride across the hall. Then Lady Chesney

Lady Chesney glanced at the door, then she bent down and whispered in her husband's ear.

"I bet you a pair of gloves that Paul Cazalet marries Jean Lorimer within six months."

"What wildgoose chase are you on now?" he asked. He put his hands in his pockets and stared at her. "Of

"Course. Damn silly thing, really. But, barring accidents, such as the girl being a nonstarter, married

already, or any little thing like that, I'll give you a dozen pairs of gloves if she does."

"Thanks," replied Lady Chesney. "I'll write to Hobbes and Pennant, and cancel my standing glove order.

Steer out o'er the deep . . . to have spoken awhile." JEAN LORIMER walked quickly through the streets of

Paris. All she had dreamed of the city, the insistence of its call for her, was as something that is dead. The

pavements were hot and stifling in the June sun, and yet here, in the restless heart of things, she had come to

The events, the little incidents of the past weeks, came ceaselessly across her mind like the tumbling waves of

a sea. The terrors of Belgrade on the night of the assassination, and, preceding them, the dread hours in a

dungeon beneath the earth, the cottage by the Save, the refuge on the ship, the flight from Belgrade two days

after the tragedy, with the help of Nemanya, the coming to Paris with one intentionthe desire to go to

himhe who had chained her life to his by invisible fetters all these things appeared to her now as the

To Paul Cazalet she gave no thought. The courage of the man, the cool calculating way of him which had

always struck her as a strong trait, his readiness slavishly to obey her bidding became mere attributes which

she admired in the abstract. That after the night of tragedy in Belgrade he had searched the city for her and

followed her to France she had no idea. He was the last person she would have looked for in Paris at this

She had longed for Paris, yet today it frightened her. There was a strangeness in the atmosphere, as if she

had come back to the city an old friend who had been forgotten and whose place had been usurped. The

intimacy, the friendliness of the streets no longer existed; the rushing clamour struck a note that jarred. The

living, pulsing thing Paris had always been to her shed its romance like a woman who has dropped her youth.

In the sounds which at other times would have sung to her of life and pressing on, there was an undertone, as

easily detected as a single bad note in a welltuned orchestra. Yet her heart might have told her that Paris was

She found the house at last, after what had been practically two days' searching. She recognised it by the bent

iron lamp that hung over the doorway, and she went in and climbed the steps slowly, as if the weight of

millstones were about her feet. She wondered what Fenning would say to her when they met; what she would

say to him. She must explain things, though there seemed nothing that had not been spoken between them.

She had read his heart, his life right back to the earliest times, she knew him with an intimacy that seemed to

have come to her through the space of years of friendship. And yet they had met but a few weeks ago.

She paused at times as she climbed the stairs and framed little sentences, the words she would speak to him,

but they illexpressed her meaning, and were quickly discarded in favour of others. She wanted the simplest

"I have come back to you, followed you because I cannot do without you. You have made"

Mentally she threw the words aside with a shrug of disgust. Her dignity was flogging her with whips; she

could never cringe like that. And how cumbersome the words sounded; she would not remember half of

She reached the top of the stairs and stood holding the banisters, her mind following a new trend of thought

like flame along a trail of powder. What would she do when she was inside the room, how would she stand,

what would be her whole attitude, of surrender or conflict still? She prayed for the power to hurl six words at

himsix words that would completely change his outlook, his opinions, that would recall him to herself and

bind him with bonds he could never break. She remembered the long staircase, she could see it reversed in

her mind, as it had appeared when she came down the day they had started for Belgrade together.

"I was unconscious when I came up this staircase before," she muttered to herself, remembering the night at

Belleville. "I wonder how close he was to me!" It was a woman's reasoning, illogical, trusting. For God made

a woman's mind a thing of beauty, but forgot to balance it with the power to mistrust where she has placed

She was waiting outside the door. Fear had gone, unless it be that the surprise of her coming would urge him

to anger. She was a woman grown out of herself, obsessed by the desire for action, no longer a slave to the

puny horrors of her brain. She opened the door boldly and walked in without knocking.

The room was empty. It carried the heavy odour of tobacco smoke that had secreted itself in the curtains and

the fabrics with which it was adorned. And from a halfempty glass came the pungent odour of spirits. There

were cigarette ends littering the desk, a scatter of them in the grate, and a curtain badly burned where a

lighted cigarette had been placed too close against it. It was the room of a man whose mind moved beyond its

She crossed the chamber and pulled back the curtains at the far end. The little anteroom there was empty

and disclosed the same disorder. Beyond it again she could define the outlines of a bedroomthe room in

which he had nursed her after that struggle at Belleville. It seemed familiar to her, the window at which she

had stared for hours together whilst lying on her back, the door half ajar through which she had expected him

She sauntered into the outer room again, breathing the atmosphere as it seemed to ooze from the walls. And

there were little familiar touches here and there that she loved, trifles that seemed to be part of him, the

household gods of a man who lived alone. In a silver ashtray on the mantelpiece she noticed a dead

carnation, reminding her of an incident of those past weeks, when she had torn the flower from a bunch of

pink blossoms he had given her, and handed it back to him as a souvenir. She picked it up and it was still in

He came to a full stop when he saw her, and for a few seconds that seemed like eternities they stood looking

at each other. She could almost see the blood draining from his cheeks, and by some process of mental

telepathy knew what he was going to say. It was as if she could read the halfformed words on his lips.

"Shouldn't have come? You wanted me to comewanted me ever since you left me in that cottage!"

Without premeditation she had spoken the truth, and now the effect of her words was revealed like an

She went up to him, and gripping the lapels of his coat, remained looking up into his face.

"You didn't intend it, but God did, Fate did," she said. "And you haven't altered a bit!"

She was laughing. A song was ringing in her heart. Here was the beginning of lifealone in the great city,

just the two of them, to struggle together, to make good together. She felt that here, amidst all the turmoil of

the streets, the crowd and press of things, there was that splendid isolation of which he had spoken, and

which he had compared to a lonely island. Here was solitude with the clamouring sea without, the ceaseless

tide of humanity that could never reach them. And what did it mean? To live as the heart of each told the

other they should live, content in the joy of today, careless for the fears of to morrow. It was the sight of

him there that awoke the thing in her that was still. In her heart something was living and beatingbeating

with the wings of freedom. They were on the thresholdshe knew itand with her hand in his they would

"Altered? Good Lord! You didn't expect me to alter in eight days, did you?" he said, catching the infection of

"No, no, of course not. Altered towards me, I mean. You might have forgotten. I don't know. Those eight

days have seemed an eternity." She looked away from him, her eyes going slowly round the room.

"Eight eternities," he answered her, and hated himself for the words, since they gave the voice to his love for

"I don't care," she exclaimed suddenly. "I'm here. I'm going to stay here. I'm yours. You conquered me with

the strength of your love when I should have hated you. You crushed me by making me hate you, and then

turning my hatred to love. You brought me here. You can't jeer at me now. I'm yours. D'you understand

The cords in his throat swelled, and pain drove roughhoofed across his face, but she saw nothing. He put out

his hand and touched hers, and the magic of her seared like a fire through his flesh. But for the power that

wrestled with him he would have crushed her in his arms, and so linked their lives together for all time.

"It can't be. You know that," he answered sharply. And he was surprised at the strength of his voice, the sheer

command. "It can't beI told you. We can't marry. It's all a farce. We've been thrown together too much; we

ought to have seen where we were drifting. I ought to have held back; I'm the brute, the cur!"

"Want you? What's the good of wanting? Want you! Shall I ever cease to want you? I've gone down into hell

"A man understands himself when a woman sees in him nothing but good smeared over evil," he answered.

"You don't know how I live; you don't know half the things you would have to know about me. Good

heavens! You would never be able to hold up your head and call yourself a decent man's wife if I married

"Have you forgotten what you told mewhat I should do for you?" she asked quietly.

"It isn't temptation. It's not that; it's greater than that. I've really only understood things since I came back to

Paris. It's born in a man this thing, a form of moral parasite, that clings to him and does not leave go. Hard

training might have beaten it out of me, but the day for that is gone. You can't cure bloodtaint in a

generation. Cazalet will tell you that, it's his great big theory. It's stronger than laws or doctrines, stronger

than prison bars, stronger than suffering. You obey; you've got to obey. You fight and give in; you give in

and fight again. And all the time something is going out of you, and another thing is setting instrength on

"You're afraid of yourself; afraid to trust yourself to me," she said. "Try me. Let me be your confessor. Tell

me about all that is worst in youhide nothing. I shall not be ashamed or despair. I wouldn't be afraid. Let

me be the physician, diagnose the ill, and prescribe the treatment that will bring about the big cure."

"I don't ask you to tell me now," she said quietly. "I don't want to know now. I wouldn't want you to tell me

"You wonderful woman!" he cried. "If I let you, I should hurl myself into the Seine for very cowardice!"

He took her hand and raised it slowly to his hot lips, then let it fall listlessly to her side again. Her last words

seemed to open up a new vista, so that he saw things he had never seen hitherto. He saw a woman's love as he

had only dreamed it, and knew by some sudden access of knowledge, beyond thought or question, how

impossible it was to sacrifice it on the altar of himself. His brain throbbed, and his mind went out on a lonely

"Little girl," he said. His voice was very quiet, and had a strange melody in it. "One does not sacrifice the big

women of the world to the weaklings. We try to stem evolution, which in its natural progress would stamp

out the weakest, by framing social laws that they may survive. We tell ourselves that we are progressing

thereby, but we are not. Progress is found in the mating of strength to strength, the building up, the going

forward. Not by waiting for the laggards shall we march in the advanceguard. We'd never be the pioneers

"We'd find destruction. I know it. You'll learn it some day." He fidgeted with a book on the desk. "Will you

"I think you will," he answered. "You've got to learn your lesson. You've got to know things."

He watched her, standing at the head of the staircase. Then he slowly closed the door and shut her out.

He sat down in the room alone and stared at the wall opposite. What was the good of going on, what was

there left for him to do? A dozen resolvesthe ghosts of things he might have donestalked in gaunt

procession across his mind. And life as he had dreamed it was slowly slipping away from him, because his

He had striven often to analyse himself, to lay naked for examination his temperament, and the whole process

was a thing of disgust. The meanness of himself, what an old friend it was, how it clung to him! The poverty

of his every attribute of manhoodhard barren soil which in other men was fertile and fruityieldingthe

gradual going down, mentally, morally, dropping into that serene oblivion where things never matter because

selfrespect is dead. He was not the straightforward criminal, the honest criminal. He knew that. That taint

might have yielded to drastic treatment, such as a great sacrifice, or the knowledge of the great possession

that waited for him to take. But he saw in himself only the mean slinking thinga man afraid of the law

because the law had the power to hurt him, and he shrank from pain both mental and physical; a man who

worked with the hand of treachery, who lived for himself, and would hurt others that he might live. And he

knew that, whereas crime might be a thing a man can take to himself by some freakish instinct of his brain in

His first intention in getting rid of Jean for a few hours was that he might go away and seek refuge

somewhere beyond her finding. When she came back he would be gone, and he would never return. But the

better fragments of his brain taught him that his departure in this fashion might be reckoned by her as, what it

was, a form of fear; no yielding up of love, but in its way a puny heroism. "He loved me so much that he was

afraid of himself and had to go," she might say. And if her love endured, as he believed it to be an endurable

thing, she would still shield him in the sanctuary of her heart, or the image of him crowned with the laurels of

her regard. Such a notion of heroism might uplift him in her mind; there would be no ending of things. And

some day they might meet again. He was frightened of that. He knew what would happen, his mind was on

the threshold of it even now. The old fires would rekindle, and burn with a flame more consuming than

before. He would be powerless to fight this battle twice. He would marry her. And their marriage would be

He rose to his feet with a strong desire for the definite line of action which was shaping in his brain. He knew

there was one thing that must be done, and that to destroy her love, shatter it without sympathy, with brutality

if need be, as one weeds out a flower by the root that it may not blossom again. So picking up his hat he went

When he returned an hour later he was not alone. The woman who accompanied him was frail, slightly built,

and with a small pathetic face that might have been recently stained with tears. She watched him

questioningly as he closed the door, studied every expression of his face with some nervous inner dread.

He began to tidy up the room without speaking. And it struck her then that he was doing unnecessary things,

such as moving various objects on the desk and table aimlessly, shifting them from one position to another

and back again, as if his sole motive was to keep himself occupied. Always he had his back turned to her, and

when occasionally he glanced in her direction it was with a strange furtive look in his eyes that made her fear

It was her quiet sobbing that caused him to turn round at last and stare, as if he could not believe the evidence

of the sound he heard. And he saw that she had buried her head in her handkerchief, and was leaning forward

"What are you crying for?" he asked quickly. "Don't carry on like this. I hate to see a woman crying; it's so

She did not answer him; the quivering handkerchief still covered her face. He felt that in some way he was

becoming enmeshed in a side issue, a byway that bothered him rather than caused anxiety. At any other time

he would have let her cry to her heart's content, and carefully tidied his bookshelf while she did so, but he felt

it incumbent upon him now to do something to put an end to a source of irritation. So he went across and

touched her shoulder, and stood looking down at the narrow nape of her neck where it emerged from the

She dropped the handkerchief and twisted it shapelessly in her twining fingers, binding it round the

forefinger, then wrenching it away again with strong nervous tension. And all the while her eyes were fixed

"Yesit's thatI'm afraid, I think. I don't know why. Why have you brought me here?"

"You silly little fool," he answered her. "You've got nothing on earth to be frightened about."

"Then why am I here with youlike this?" she asked in so quiet a tone that he scarcely heard the words.

"Because you came," he responded with vicious annoyance. But the sound of the choking sob she gave made

him choose a gentler tone. "Don't worry your little head, petite. It's all right, Everything's quite all right.

You're afraid of your own shadow." He patted her head and dropped into the chair facing her.

"I only wanted you to come here to play a part." He laughed. "Easiest money you've ever earned. Nothing to

do but look pretty and alluring, and answer a few plain questions if you're asked them."

"Of course. That's beside the point anyway. This is a mere business arrangement. If you thought I was such

"I don't think it. It's cruel of you to talk like that," she whimpered. "I felt I owed you somethingthere was

To humour her he began to chatter about their first meeting, till the colour came back to her cheeks and a

"Heaven knows where you would have been if I hadn't been there," he said laughing. "I came along at the

right moment as a sort of guardian angel, I suppose. If you are superstitious you would say I was brought

there for the purpose of saving you from an extremely objectionable fellow, when you were just holding your

breath before you jumped to destruction. As a matter of fact I happened there owing to an unquenchable

"You saved me. You know that; you saved me. I always wanted to thank youreally thank you."

"Save you? S'pose I did. More by accident than design, though. I liked the look of your pretty face then; it

"I know I loved that man's scowl when I took you away and marched with you down the passage in front of

him. What a brave couple we were. And how we laughed afterwards! I felt in a mood for a fight. I don't know

what had happened, but I longed to feel my knuckles against a man's flesh. Then I took you home in a cab,

and gave you twenty francs because you were pretty. And, hang it! I believe I even kissed you in the doorway

with the driver looking on! Queer thing to do when you think of it. You were nothing to me. I wasn't sorry for

you really, but you just fitted my mood. It was one of the few times in my life when I felt I wanted to protect

"Courage," she said with awakening interest in him. "That's what made you do it."

"I don't think so; at least I might have done at the time. I remember one night walking over a lot of barges

that were strung together down there by the Pont Neuf. I stopped in the middleit was as black as your

hatand I asked myself why I was climbing about with a certain drop to death on every side of me unless

some miracle guided my footsteps aright. What was I doing it for, what was the motive? One of the fellows

had thrown Remy's hat on to the end barge, and I was going after it. Of course I had a motive. I fancy the bet

"But with me," she said, "I think it was that you didn't want to see a woman destroy herself."

"I only think what the motive was in those moments when I call myself up for judgment before my ideals.

"But you have not brought me here this evening and offered me forty francs in order to tell me that," she said.

"I don't think forty francs could be got out of me so easily," he answered. Then he leant forward and spoke

"Just sit in that room and smoke cigarettes and say that?" she exclaimed with a little cry of pleasure.

"I'll sit in that big cosy chair, and put my feet up. So!" She suited the action to the words, and lay back with

"The cigarettes, my friend. And an ashtray. So! Dear obedient husband! And shall I be discovered darning

your socks, or would you like me to hide the needlemarks on my fingers? I've got a maidno? And I think

I'll read an English novel just to show I'm studying the language. And what will my hated rival have to drink?

He loathed her for her prattle, but said nothing. He must live for the hour and adapt himself to the

circumstance, crushing down feeling, strangling the very nerves that would have urged desertion of his task.

He left her alone there and waited in the outer room; walking round and round, then backwards and forwards

like some feardriven beast. She called to him and he answered her when it pleased him, but more often

preserved a rigid silence. He hated the presence of the woman in the room, the knowledge that she was there.

He paused at length and leaned against the mantelpiece, studying, as a means of thought, the cigarette

between his fingers which had grown as cold as the ash that had fallen from it. And even though he was

waiting for the soft tap at the door it set his heart pounding when it came, so that a rigor seemed to hold him

Jean came in slowly, she looked round the room and hung a little away from him, afraid, uncertain. Her eyes

He stood transfixed. Something made him put out his hand, a second power, following quickly in the wake of

the first, compelled him to withdraw it again. It was the last stage of the conflict, and, though he was spent

and the very soul of him a faltering thing, the remnants of a mongrel courage held him to his resolve. She

came nearer to him, and lifted her face, shameless of the trace of tears in her eyes.

"I hated going down those stairs aloneit was as though you had turned me away," she said wistfully.

"It was that." He spoke in a voice he scarcely recognised as his own. "Yes, it was that. I did turn you away."

He paused, appalled by the hideous horror that had flamed up in her eyes. For some movement beyond the

curtains, or the instinct that those curtains concealed someone, made her go across and pull them sharply

aside. She gave a cry, vehement, but as quickly restraineda cry that bore to him the knowledge that the

thing he wished to kill was dead, that her world, as he had helped her to build it. had broken into little pieces

The curtain tore from the hook beneath the weight of her hand. He turned his head away as if the shame made

cowards of his eyes. And the other woman threw aside her book with a careless attitude and rose to her feet.

"What's this, Jimmy!" she cried. "A visitor? English? Ciel. We haven't any tea!"

A shuddering sob made her tighten her lips. She came a little nearer, looked for a moment into his face, and

backed towards the door, slowly, step by step, as if afraid of an enemy that might strike her should she avert

"I owed this woman a debt." He pointed to the girl who, standing between the curtains, watched the tragedy

in amazement, uncomprehending. "She's been everything to me. D'you hear thateverything. She had to

Still she said nothing. But at the door she waited as if powerless to turn the handle, till it was opened quickly

He stood looking from one to the other. And passion blazed in his face; he stepped forward, his fists

"Take me away!" she exclaimed. She broke into a storm of sobs. "I'm coming with you. I can't stay. This

Two minutes passed. Fenning thought that the hour hand of the little clock had crept round twice. The door

closed, and he heard shuffling footsteps going down the stone staircase. Another eternity and a door banged.

The other woman was fussing with the broken curtain and straightening a crumpled cushion.

He waited a moment looking round the room. Then he went slowly to the mantelpiece and tore to shreds the

"Don't you remember? All of us together at the Toledoin this very room, andby gad, yesat this very

"Was that the night you showed Cazalet the report of that Penstone business in the paper, and he went off to

"Yes. That night. Fenning was here, too." Pentelow lay back and looked round the half empty room. It was

late, and most of the diners had slipped away to the theatres or their clubs. He lit a cigarette and let the smoke

drift across his face. "I thought Cazalet was finished with that evening," he added.

"Yet when I came back from the East two months ago I heard his name everywhere. He'd jumped up like a

mushroom in a single night. The political world had found a new genius in a man it had always mistrusted.

South Lanchester washed its hands of him, but they had got him in for Camford just before I started. I saw

"Yes," rejoined Pentelow, "he settled that tangle over the Penstone estates, and he roped in a pot of money

when things were straightened out." He produced his cigarcase as Marchant pushed aside his plate. "Try

"But it wasn't thatthe money, I mean." Marchant took the cigar and snicked off the end of it with his

thumbnail, then he leant across the table. "It was this way, Pent. Exactly eight months ago Cazalet woke up.

Previously he'd never cared very much about anything; he was a more or less idle, clever man, if you

understand me. He could have climbed the political ladder as easily as he has done now at least four years

ago if he had tried. But he didn't try; he didn't want to try. He just drifted along in an aimless sort of way, but

all the while the other benches were afraid of him as one might be of a volcano which is ever dangerous. He

let off steam when he liked, and people said he was one of the cleverest men in the House till he went to sleep

"I remember I told him that night he was mad," said Pentelow. "And when he married a girl from nowhere I

"You were pretty wide of the mark, my friend," he returned. "Don't you remember the girl Fenning was

talking about that night? She sat at that little table in the corner over there, the one covered with pink

"I'm afraid I could never remember which of Fenning's girls was which," said Pentelow gruffly. "What's

"That's precisely what I was going to tell you." For a moment Marchant paused and drew at his cigar.

"Dead! Not Jimmy? Good heavens!" The big filmy eyes widened in a stare of horror.

"Yes, there's not much to tell," said Marchant. "I went East in September, and I caught sight of Jimmy at the

moment of going aboard at Marseilles. We had a drink together in the saloon as the vessel started. But he was

very quiet. Changed, I thought; a different man. He would say nothing; he seemed interested in nothing. Then

I lost track of him, in fact I kept out of his way because I thought he didn't want to talk to me. Jimmy had

"It was some days later. I was sent for to go to cabin 41. Fenning was lying there. I knew he was dying, read

the truth in his face, and he saw that I knew. He was too far gone to write and he asked me to take down a

letter at his dictation, and then deliver it when I got back to England. I did so, and he just had strength enough

to sign it. It was a letter to a woman, Pent. You and I never understood Fenning."

"The woman we saw here that nightthe girl he pointed out to us. I just remember her in the white frock she

"No, not quite. They had met and loved, it seemed, but he knew he'd only have dragged her down. Of course

he would; why, you and I could have told him that a year ago. He deserted her; she followed him to Paris, and

there he led her to believe that he had married another woman. The lie killed her love for him; he meant to

"Yes," he said. "That wasn't Fenning as we knew him, eh? But, as I said, you and I never understood him.

Odd how some men mess up their lives and clear up the muddle at the end, a sort of moral housecleaning

before going out. And this letter to her was confession. He told her how he had picked up this woman in the

street to play the part. He told her more than that, what she meant to him, she to whom he had lied. Mind you,

Pentelow, I'm not a sentimental sort of brute, but I didn't recognise my handwriting when I had finished

"A bright moonlight night and the ship stopped dead. So light it was that every bit of rigging had its shadow

on the water. Then they hurled something overboard wrapped in a sailcloth, and someone was muttering

words from a book. I couldn't stand any more. I went back to my cabin and thought over the letter in my

"That's the woman Cazalet marriedthere's no need for you to tell me that," he said.

"Say, rather, the woman who made Paul Cazalet," replied Marchant. "I used to wonder what manner of

woman she was, till I went to her house one evening to deliver Fenning's letter. It was after her marriage, of

course. And I remember that all the way there I was telling myself that a woman who had loved could not

hurl that love away at a word and marry another, and Fenning had made his sacrifice in vain, he had wasted it

on a woman who never cared. That was my reasoning, and it made me feel a brute. I was glad that I had it in

my power to hurt her. But when I met her she was surrounded by her friends, and they had been talking that

day of giving her husband an under secretaryship. It was when I saw her that I knewI knew."

"She loved him, by heaven, yes. She was proud of him. There was triumph in her eyes, pride in every word

she spoke. Pent, there are some things I don't understand about women. . . . I left soon after that."

"A queer yarn," said Pentelow. "I suppose she just read the letter and laughed, eh?"

"Never read it, I said." Marchant nodded across the room as he spoke. A man and a woman had entered and

taken their places at the little table in the corner. Pentelow looked on in silence. The woman was fingering

one of the pink carnations, and tapped the scented petals of it against her lips as she watched her husband.

And when Paul spoke to her the fires of happiness and a great content kindled in her eyes, and in her laugh

"Come," he said. "It is the night of celebration. And we don't come in here. Fenning would have told us that

"Might as well." They walked along in silence. "Say, Marchant, about that letter."

"Don't be a fool, Pent. Should a man deliver a letter from the dead if it will destroy a woman's love when it

has found its havenage? Should he tear down what the other's sacrifice built up? The weakness of Fenning

made him dictate that message; a stronger man would have closed his lips for ever. And if I had given it to

her, it would have opened up again the whole problem, to remain unsolved so long as she lived, it would have

stolen her from the side of the man who loves her and to whom she has given herself, that she might revere

"Haven't you seen things with your own eyes tonight?" counterquestioned the other.

"Do with it? Do with it? Man alive! What should anybody do with a letter like that when it would destroy a