The truants; a novel

TH

A.E .W. MASO

LIBRARY

WIVERSITY 07 CALIFORNIA

RIVERSIDE

THE TRUANTS

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

THE FOUR FEATHERS.

CLEMENTINA.

MIRANDA OF THE BALCONY.

THE WATCHERS.

THE COURTSHIP OF MORRICE
BUCKLER.

THE PHILANDERERS.

LAWRENCE CLAVEMNG.

ENSIGN KNIG1ITLEY, AND OTHEB
STORIES.

THE TEUANTS

BY

A. E. W. MASON

AUTHOR OF

"THE FOUR FEATHERS," "MIRANDA OF THE BALCOJiY,"

ETC., ETC.

LONDON

SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15, WATERLOO PLACE

1904

(All rights reserved)

MISTED BT
WILLIAM CLOWES ASD SONS, L'MITrP,
LONDON ASD BECCLE9.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Pamela. Mardale learns a very little History 1

II. Pamela looks ox ... ... ... ... 15

III. The Truants ... ... ... ... 25

IV. Tony Stretton makes a Proposal ... ... 33

V. Pamela makes a Promise ... ... 42

VI. News of Tony ... ... ... ... 49

VII. The Lady on the Stair3 ... ... 58

VIII. Gideon's Fleece ... ... ... ... 71

IX. The New Eoad ... ... ... 77

X. Mr. Chase ... ... ... ... 88

XI. On the Dogger Bank ... ... ... 98

XII. Tony's Inspiration ... ... ... ... 110

XIII. Tony Stretton returns to Stepney ... 120

XIV. Tony Stretton pays a Visit to Berkeley

Square ... ... ... ... 129

XV. Mr. Mudge comes to the Rescue ... ... 138

XVI. The Foreign Legion ... ... ... 145

XVII. Callon leaves England ... ... ... 155

XVIII. South of Ouaf.gla ... ... ... 1GG

vi CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

XIX. The Tcrstike Gate ... ... ... 178

XX. Mr. Chase does xot answer ... ... 188

XXI. Callon redivtvus ... ... ... 198

XXII. Mr. Mudge's Confession ... ... 209

XXIII. Roquebruxe Revisited ... ... ... 217

XXIV. The Exd of the Exfeeimext ... ... 228

XXV. Tony Strettox bids Farewell to the Legion 237

XXVI. Bad News for Pamela ... ... ... 219

XXVII. "Balak!" 256

XXVIII. Homewards 2G7

XXIX. Pamela meets a Straxger ... ... 278

XXX. M. Giraud AGAIN 28G

XXXI. At the Reserve 292

XXXII. Husband axd Wife ... ... ... 300

XXXIII. Millies Story 312

XXXIV. The Next Morxixo ... ... ... 318

XXXV. The Ltitle House in Deanery Street ... 324

XXXVI. The Exd 328

X

THE TRUANTS

CHAPTER I

PAMELA MARDALE LEARNS A VERY LITTLE HISTORY

There were only two amongst all Pamela Mardale's friends
who guessed that anything was wrong with her ; and those
two included neither her father nor her mother. Her mother,
indeed, might have guessed, had she been a different woman.
But she was a woman of schemes and little plots, who watched
with concentration their immediate developments, but had
no eyes for any lasting consequence. And it was no doubt
as well for her peace of mind that she never guessed. But
of the others it was unlikely that any one would suspect the
truth. For Pamela made no outward sign. She hunted
through the winter from her home under the Croft Hill in
Leicestershire ; she went everywhere, as the saying is, during
the season in London ; she held her own in her own world,
lacking neither good spirits nor the look of health. There
were, perhaps, two small peculiarities which marked her off
from her companions. She was interested in things rather
than in persons, and she preferred to talk to old men rather
than to youths. But such points, taken by themselves, were
not of an importance to attract attention.

Yet there were two amongst her friends who suspected :
Alan "Warrisden and the schoohnaster of Roquebrune, the
little village carved out of the hillside to the east of Monte
Carlo. The schoolmaster was the nearer to the truth, for he

B

2 THE TKUANTS

not only knew that something was amiss, he suspected what
the something was. But then he had a certain advantage,
since he had known Pamela Mardale when she was a child.
Their acquaintance came about in the following way —
i He was leaning one evening of December over the parapet
of the tiny square beside the schoolhouse, when a servant
from the Villa Pontignard approached him.

" Could M. Giraud make it convenient to call at the
villa at noon to-morrow ? " the servant asked. " Madame
Mardale was anxious to speak to him."

M. Giraud turned about with a glow of pleasure upon
his face.

. " Certainly," he replied. " But nothing could be more
simple. I will be at the Villa Pontignard as the clock strikes."

The servant bowed, and without another word paced
away across the square and up the narrow winding street of
ftoquebrune, leaving the schoolmaster a little abashed at his
display of eagerness. M. Giraud recognised that in one
man's mind, at all events, he was now set clown for a snob,
for a lackey disguised as a schoolmaster. But the moment
of shame passed. lie had no doubt as to the reason of the
summons, and he tingled with pride from head to foot. It
was his little brochure upon the history of the village —
written with what timidity, and printed at what cost to his
meagre purse ! — which had brought him recognition from
the lady of the villa upon the spur of the hill. Looking
upwards he could just see the white walls of the villa glim-
mering through the dusk, he could imagine its garden of
brim lawns and dark cypresses falling from bank to bank in
ordered tiers down the hillside. i

" To-morrow at noon," he repeated to himself ; and now
lie was seized with a shiver of fear at the thought of the
mistakes in behaviour which lie was likely to make. AVhat
if Madame Mardale asked him to breakfast ? There would
be unfamiliar dishes to be eaten with particular forks. Some-
times a knife should be used and sometimes not. He turned

PAMELA LEARNS A VERY LITTLE HISTORY 3

back to the parapet with the thought that he had better,
perhaps, send up a note in the morning pleading his duties
at the school as a reason for breaking his engagement. But
he was young, and as he looked down the steep slope of rock
on which the village is perched, anticipation again got the
better of fear. He began to build up his life like a fairy
palace from the foundation of this brief message.

A long lane of steps led winding down from the square,
and his eyes followed it, as his feet had often done, to the
little railway station by the sea through which people
journeyed to and fro between the great cities, westwards to
France and Paris, eastwards to Rome and Italy. His eyes
followed the signal lights towards another station of many
lamps far away to the right, and as he looked there blazed
out suddenly other lights of a great size and a glowing
brilliancy, lights which had the look of amazing jewels dis-
covered in an eastern cave. These were the lights upon the
terrace of Monte Carlo. The schoolmaster had walked that
terrace on his mornings of leisure, had sat unnoticed on the
benches, all worship of the women and their daintiness, all
envy of the men and the composure of their manner. He
knew none of them, and yet one of them had actually sent
for him, and had heard of his work. He was to speak with
her at noon to-morrow.

Let it be said at once that there was nothing of the
lackey under the schoolmaster's shabby coat. The visit
which he was bidden to pay was to him not so much a step
upwards as outwards. Living always in this remote high
village, where the rock cropped out between the houses, and
the streets climbed through tunnels of rock, he was always
tormented with visions of great cities and thoroughfares
ablaze ; he longed for the jostle of men, he craved for other
companionship than he could get in the village wineshop on
the first floor, as a fainting man craves for air. The stars
came out above his head ; it was a clear night, and they had
never shone brighter. The Mediterranean, dark and noiseless,

4 THE TRUANTS

swept out at his feet beyond the woods of Cap Martin.
But he saw neither the Mediterranean nor any star. His
eyes turned to the glowing terrace upon his right, and to the
red signal-lamps below the terrace.

M. Giraud kept his engagement punctually. The clock
chimed upon the mantelpiece a few seconds after he was
standing in the drawing-room of the Villa Pontignard, and
before the clock had stopped chiming Mrs. Mardale came in
to him. 8he was a tall woman, who, in spite of her years,
still retained the elegance of her vouth, but her face was
bard and a trifle querulous, and M. Giraud was utterly
intimidated. On the other hand, she had good manners,
and the friendly simplicity with which she greeted him began
to set him at his case.

"You are a native of Roquebrunc, Monsieur?" said
she.

" Xo, Madame, my father was a peasant at Aigucs-
Mortes. I was born there," he replied frankly.

"Yet you write, if I may say so, with the love of a
native for his village," she went on. M. Giraud was on the
point of explaining. Mrs. Mardale, however, was not in
the least interested in his explanation, and she asked him to
sit down.

" My daughter, Monsieur, has an English governess,1'
she explained, " but it seems a pity that she should spend
her winters here and lose the chance of becoming really
proficient in French. The cure recommended me to apply
to you, and I sent for you to see whether we could arrange
that you should read history with her in French during your
spare hours."

M. Giraud felt his head turning. Here was his oppor-
tunity so long dreamed of come at last. It mipht be the
beginning of a career — it was at all events that first difficult

]i outwards. lie was to be the teacher in appearance ; at
t he bottom of his heart he knew that he was to be the pupil,
lie accepted the offer with enthusiasm, and the arrangements

PAMELA LEARNS A VERY LITTLE HISTORY 5

were made. Three afternoons a week he was to spend an
hour at the Villa Pontignard.

" Well, I hope the plan will succeed, said Mrs. Mardale,
but she spoke in a voice which showed that she had no great
hopes of success. And as M. Giraud replied that he would
at all events do his best, she rejoined plaintively —

" It is not of you, Monsieur, that I have any doubts.
But you do not know my daughter. She will learn nothing
which she does not want to learn, she will not endure any
governess who is not entirely her slave, and she is fifteen and
she really must learn something."

Pamela Mardale, indeed, was at this time the despair of
her mother. Mrs. Mardale had mapped out for her daughter
an ideal career. She was to be a model of decorum in the
Early Victorian style, at once an ornament for a drawing-
room and an excellent housekeeper, and she was subsequently
to make a brilliant marriage. The weak point of the scheme
was that it left Pamela out of the reckoning. There was
her passion for horses for one thing, and her distinct refusal,
besides, to sit quietly in any drawing-room. When she was
a child, horses had been persons to Pamela rather than
animals, and, as her conduct showed, persons preferable by
far to human beings. Visitors to the house under Croft
Hill were at times promised a sight of Pamela, and indeed
they sometimes did see a girl in a white frock, with long
black legs, and her hair tumbled all over her forehead,
neighing and prancing at them from behind the gate of the
stable yard. But they did not see her at closer quarters
than that, and it was certain that if by any chance her
lessons were properly learnt, they had been learnt upon the
corn-bin in the stables. Portraits of Pamela at the age of
nine remain, and they show a girl who was very pretty, but
who might quite well have been a boy, with a mass of unruly
dark hair, a pair of active dark eyes, and a good-humoured
face alertly watching for any mischief which might come
its way.

6 THE TRUANTS

Something of the troubles which M. Giraud was likely to
find ahead of him Mrs. Mardale disclosed that morning, and
the schoolmaster returned to his house filled with appre-
hensions. The apprehensions, however, were not justified.
The little schoolmaster was so shy, so timid, that Pamela
was disarmed. She could be gentle when she chose, and she
chose now. She saw, too, M. Giraud's anxiety to justify her
mother's choice of him, and she determined with a sense of
extreme virtue to be a credit to his teaching. They became
friends, and thus one afternoon, when they had taken their
books out into the garden of the villa, M. Giraud confided
to her the history of the brochure which had made them
acquainted.

" It was not love for Roquebrune which led me to write
it," he said. " It was, on the contrary, my discontent. I
was tortured with longings, I was not content with the
children's lessons for my working hours, and the wineshop
for my leisure. I took long walks over Cap Martin to
Mentone, along the Corniche road to La Turbie, and up
Mont Agel. But still I had my longings as my constant
companions, and since everywhere I saw traces of antiquity,
I wrote this little history as a relief. It kept my thoughts
away from the great world."

The garden ran here to a point at the extreme end of
that outcropping spur of rock on which the villa was built.
They were facing westwards, and the sun was setting behind
the hills. It lay red upon the Mediterranean on their left,
but the ravine and front was already dark, and down the
hillside the shadows of the trees were lengthening. At their
feet, a long way below, a stream tumbled and roared amongst
the oleanders in the depths of the ravine. Pamela Bat gazing
downwards, her lips parted in a smile.

" The great world," she said in a low voice of eagerness.
" I wonder what it's like."

That afternoon marked a distinct step in their friendship,
and thereafter in the intervals of their reading they talked

PAMELA LEARNS A VERY LITTLE HISTORY 7

continually upon this one point they had in common, their
curiosity as to the life of the world beyond their village.
But it happened that Pamela did the greater part of the
talking, and one afternoon that fact occurred to her.

" You always listen now, Monsieur," she said. " "Why
have you grown so silent ? "

" You know more than I do, Mademoiselle."

" I ? " she exclaimed in surprise. " I only know about
horses." Then she laughed. " Really, we both know
nothing. "We can only guess and guess."

And that was the truth. Pamela's ideas of the world
were as visionary, as dreamlike as his, but they were not his,
as he was quick to recognise. The instincts of her class, her
traditions, the influence of her friends, were all audible in
her voice as well as in her words. To her the world was a
great flower garden of pleasure with plenty of room for
horses. To him it was a crowded place of ennobling strife.

" But it's pleasant work guessing," she continued, " isn't
it ? Then why have you stopped ? "

" I will tell you, Mademoiselle. I am beginning to
guess through your eyes."

The whistle of a train, the train from Paris, mounted
through the still air to their ears.

" "Well," said Pamela, with a shrug of impatience, " we
shall both know the truth some time."

"You will, Mademoiselle," said the schoolmaster,
suddenly falling out of his dream.

Pamela looked quickly at him. The idea that he would
be left behind, that he would stay here all his life listening
to the sing-song drone of the children in the schoolroom,
teaching over and over again with an infinite weariness the
same elementary lessons, until he became shabby and worn
as the lesson-books he handled, had never struck her till this
moment. The trouble which clouded his face was reflected
by sympathy upon hers.

" But you won't stay here," she said gently. " Oh no I

8 THE TRUANTS

Let me think ! " and she thought with a child's oblivion of
obstacles and a child's confidence. She imparted the wise
result of her reflections to M. Giraud the next afternoon.

He came to the garden with his eyes fevered and his
face drawn.

" You are ill ? " said Pamela. " We will not work
to-day."

" It's nothing," he replied.

" Tell me," said she.

M. Giraud looked out across the valley.

tkTwo travellers came up to Koquebrune yesterday. I
met them as I walked home from here. I spoke to them
and showed them the village, and took them by the short cut
of the steps down to the railway station. They were from
London. They talked of London and of Paris. It's as
well visitors come up to Roquebrune rarely. I have not
slept all night," and he clasped and unclasped his hands.

" Hannibal crossed the Alps," said Pamela. " I read it
in your book," and then she shook a finger at him, just as
the schoolmaster might have done to one of his refractory
pupils.

" Listen," said she. " I have thought it all out."

The schoolmaster composed himself into the attentive
attitude of a pupil.

" You are to become a Deputy."

That was the solution of the problem. Pamela saw no
difficulties. He would need a dress-suit of course for
oilicial occasions, which she understood were numerous. A
horse, too, would be of use, but that didn't matter so much.
The horse was regretfully given up. It might come later,
lie must get elected first, never mind how. In a word, he
was as good as a Deputy already. And from a Deputy to
the President of the French Republic, the step after all was
not so very long. "Though I am not quite sure that I
approve of Republics," said Pamela, very seriously.

However, that was the best she could do in the way of

PAMELA LEARNS A VERY LITTLE HISTORY 9

mapping out his future, and the schoolmaster listened,
seeing the world through her eyes. Thus three winters
passed and Pamela learned a very little history.

Towards the end of the third winter the history books
were put away. Pamela was now eighteen and looking
eagerly forward to her first season in London. And no
doubt frocks and hats occupied more of her thoughts than
did the fortunes of the schoolmaster. Some remorse for her
forgetfulness seized her the day before she went away. It
was a morning of spring, and the schoolmaster saw her
coming down the dark narrow streets towards him. She
was tall beyond the average, but without uugainliness,
long of limb and lightly built, and she walked with the very
step of youth. Her dark hair swept in two heavy waves
above her forehead, and was coiled down behind on the back
of her neck. Her throat rose straight and slim from the
firm shoulders, and her eyes glowed with anticipation.
Though her hair was dark, she was not sallow. Her face
was no less fresh and clear than were her eyes, and a soft
colour like the bloom of a fruit brightened her cheeks. In
that old brown street she shone like a brilliant flower, and
Giraud, as he watched her, felt all at once that he could
have no place in her life, and in his humility he turned
aside. But she ran after him and caught him up.

" I am going to-morrow," she said, and she tried to keep
the look of happiness out of her eyes, the thrill out of her
voice. And she failed.

" It is good-bye, then," said he.

" For a little while. I shall come back to Roquebrune
in December."

The schoolmaster smiled.

"I shall look forward from to-day until that month
comes. You will have much to tell me."

" Yes, shan't I ? " she cried ; and then, lest her eagerness
should hurt her friend, she added, " But I shall not forget
our quiet afternoons on the garden terrace."

10 THE TRUANTS

TkG recollection of them, however, was not strong
enough to check either her thoughts or their utterance.
Late? on perhaps, in after years, she might in her mnsmgs
return to that terrace and the speculations they indulged in,
and the fairy palaces they built, with an envy of the ignorance
and the high thoughts of youth. To-day she was all alert to
grasp the future in her hands. One can imagine her loot-
in- much as she looked in those portraits of her childhood.

° " News of the great world," she cried. " I shall bring it
back. We will talk it over in Roquebrune and correct our
guesses. For I shall know."

As a fact, they never did talk over her news, but that she
could not foresee. She went on her way with a smile upon
her face: all confidence and courage, and expectation, a
brilliant image of youth. Giraud, as he watched her the
proud poise of her head, the light springing step, the thing
of beauty and gentleness which she was, breathed a prayer
that no harm might come to her, and no grief ever sadden

her face. , , . . .

The next morning she went away, and the schoolmastei
lost his one glimpse of the outer world. But he lived upon
the recollections of it, and took again to his long walks on
the Corniche road. The time hung heavily upon Ins hands.
He hungered for news, and no news came, and when in the
month of December he noticed that the shutters were opened
in the Villa Pontignard, and that there was a stir of servants
about the house, he felt that the shutters were being opened
•.Iter a long dark time from his one window on the outside
world He frequented the little station from that moment.
No « Eapide " passed from France on its way to Italy during
his leisure hours but he was there to watch its pj^engers.
Mrs. Mardale came first, and a fortnight afterwards Pamela
descended from a carriage with her maid. _

Giraud watched her with a thrill of longing. It was not
merely his friend who had returned, but his instructor, with
new and wonderful knowledge added to the old.

PAMELA LEARNS A VERT LITTLE HISTORY 11

Then came his first chilling moment of disillusion. It
was quite evident that she saw him as she was stepping on
to the platform. Her eves went straight to his — and yet she
turned away without the slightest sign of recognition and
busied herself about her luggage. The world had spoilt her.
That was his first thought, but he came to a truer under-
standing afterwards. And indeed that thought had barely
become definite in his mind, when she turned again, and,
holding out her hand, came to him with a smile.

" You are well ? " she said.

" Yes," said he.

And they walked up the long flight of steps to Koque-
brune, talking banalities. She gave him none of the news
for which he longed, and they spoke not at all of the career
which together they had mapped out for him. All their
long talks upon the terrace, their plans and their specula-
tions seemed in an instant to Giraud to have become part of
a pleasant, very foolish, and very distant past. He was
aware of the vast gulf between them. "With a girl's in-
imitable quickness to adapt herself to new surroundings, she
had acquired in the few months of her absence the ease, the
polish, and the armour of a woman of the world. He was
still the village schoolmaster, the peasant tortured with vain
aspirations, feeding upon vain dreams ; and in this moment
he saw himself very clearly. Her silence upon their plan
helped him to see himself thus. Had she still believed in
that imagined career, surely she would have spoken of it.
In a word, he was still looking at the world through her
eyes.

" You must come up to the villa,1' she said. " I shall
look forward to your coming."

They were in the little square by the schoolhouse and he
took the words for his dismissal. She went up the hill alone
and slowly, like one that is tired. Giraud, watching her,
could not but compare her with the girl who had come
lightly down that street a few months ago. It dawned upon

12 THE TRUANTS

him that, though knowledge had been acquired, something
had gone, something perhaps more valuable, the elasticity
from her step, the eagerness from her eyes.

Giraud did not go up to the villa of his own accord, but
he was asked to lunch in a week's time, and after lunch
Pamela and he went out into the garden. Instinctively they
walked down to that corner on the point of the bluff which
overhung the ravine and the white torrent amongst the
oleanders in its depths. They had come indeed to the bench
on which they used to sit before Pamela was quite aware of
the direction their steps had taken. She drew back suddenly
as she raised her head.

" Oh no, not here," she cried, and she moved away quickly
with a look of pain. Giraud suddenly understood why she
had turned away at the railway station. Here they had
dreamed, and the reality had shown the dreams to be bitterly
false, so false that the very place where they had dreamed
had become by its associations a place of pain. She had
needed for herself that first moment when she had stepped
down from the carriage. ^

" The world must be the home of great troubles,' said

Giraud, sadly.

" And how do you know that ? " Pamela asked with a

smile.

" From you," he replied simply.

The answer was unexpected. Pamela stopped and looked
at him with startled eyes. _

" From me ? I have said nothing— nothing at all.

" Yet I know. How else should I know except from yuu,
since through you alone I see the world ? "

"A home of great troubles?" she repeated, speaking
lightly. "Not for all. You are serious, my friend, tins
afternoon, and you should not be, for have I not come

back ? " ,

The schoolmaster was not deceived by her evasion-
There had come a gravity into her manner, and a

PAMELA LEARNS A VERY LITTLE HISTORY 13

womanliness into her face, in a degree more than natural
at her years.

" Let us talk of you for a change," said she.

" "Well, and what shall we say ? " asked Giraud, and a
constraint fell upon them both.

"We must forget those fine plans," he continued at
length. " Is it not so ? I think I have learnt that too
from you."

" I hare said nothing," she interrupted quickly.

" Precisely," said he, with a smile. " The school at
Roquebrune will send no Deputy to Paris."

" Oh ! why not ? " said Pamela, but there was no con-
viction in her voice. Giraud was not of the stern stuff

" To break bis birtb's invidious bar."

He had longings, but there was the end.

"At all events," she said, turning to him with a great
earnestness, " we shall be friends always, whatever happens."

The words were the death-knell to the schoolmaster's
aspirations. They conveyed so much more than was actually
said. He took them bravely enough.

" That is a good thing," he said in all sincerity. " If I
stay here all my life, I shall still have the memory of the
years when I taught you history. I shall know, though I
do not see you, that we are friends. It is a great thing
for me."

"For me, too," said Pamela, looking straight into his
eyes, and she meant her words no less than he had meant
his. Yet to both they had the sound of a farewell. And in
a way they were. They were the farewell to the afternoons
upon the terrace, they closed the door upon their house of
dreams.

Giraud leaned that evening over the parapet in the little
square of Roquebrune. The Mediterranean lay dark and
quiet far below, the terrace of Monte Carlo glowed, and the
red signal-lamps pointed out the way to Paris. But he was

14 THE TRUANTS

no longer thinking of bis fallen plans. He was thinking of
the girl up there in the villa who had been struck by some
blind blow of Destiny, who had grown a woman before her
time. It was a pity, it was a loss in the general sum of
things which make for joy.

He had of course only his suspicions to go upon. But
they were soon strengthened. For Pamela fell into ill-health,
and the period of ill-health lasted all that winter. After
those two years had passed, she disappeared for a while
altogether out of Giraud's sight. She came no more to the
Villa Pontignard, but stayed with her father and her horses
at her home in Leicestershire. Her mother came alone to
Roquebrune.

( 15 )

CHAPTER II

PAMELA LOOKS ON

Alan Waerisden was one of the two men who Lad walked
up to Roquebrune on that afternoon of which M. Giraud
spoke. But it was not until Pamela had reached the age of
twenty that he made her acquaintance at Lady Millingham's
house in Berkeley Square. He took her down to dinner, and,
to tell the truth, paid no particular attention either to her
looks or her conversation. His neighbour upon the other
side happened to be a friend whom he had not seen for some
while, and for a good part of the dinner he talked to her. A
few days afterwards, however, he called upon Lady Milling-
ham, and she asked at once quite eagerly —

" Well, what did you think of Pamela Mardale ? "
Warrisden was rather at a loss. He was evidently
expected to answer with enthusiasm, and he had not any
very definite recollections on which enthusiasm could be
based. He did his best, however ; but he was unconvincing.
Lady Millingham shrugged her shoulders and frowned. She
had been married precisely a year, and was engaged in plans
for marrying off all her friends with the greatest possible
despatch.

" I shall send you in with somebody quite old the next
time you dine here," she said severely, and she discoursed at
some length upon Pamela's charms. " She loves horses, and
yet she's not a bit horsey," she said in conclusion, " and
there's really nothing better than that. And just heaps of
men have wanted to marry her." She leaned back against

16 THE TRUANTS

her sofa and contemplated Warrisden with silent scorn. She
had set her heart upon this marriage more than upon any
other. Of all the possible marriages in London, there was
not one, to her mind, so suitable as this. Pamela Mardale
came of one of the oldest families of commoners in Leicester-
shire. The family was not well off, the estate had shrunk
year by year, and what was left was mortgaged, owing in
some degree to that villa at Roquebrnne upon which Mrs.
Mardale°insisted. Warrisden, on the other hand, was more
than well off, his family was known, and at the age of twenty-
eight he was still dividing his life between the season in
London and shooting expeditions about the world. And he
had the look of a man who might do something more.

That visit had its results. Warrisden met Pamela Mar-
dale again and realised that Lady Millingham's indignation
had been justified. At the end of that season he proposed,
and was gently refused. But if he was slow to move, he
was also firm to persevere. He hunted with the Quorn that
winter, and during the following season he was persistently
but unobtrusively at her elbow ; so that Pamela came, at all
events, to count upon him as a most reliable friend. Having
duly achieved that place in her thoughts, he disappeared for
ten months and returned to town one afternoon in the last
week of June. There were letters waiting for him in his
rooms, and amongst them a card from Lady Millingham
inviting him to a dance upon that night. At eleven o'clock
his coupe turned out of Piccadilly and entered Berkeley
Square. At the bottom of the square the lighted windows
of the house blazed out upon the night, the balconies were
banked! with flowers, and behind the flowers, silhouetted
against the light, were visible the thronged faces of men and
women. "Warrisden leaned forward, scrutinising the shapes
of the heads, the contours of the faces. His sight, sharpened
by long practice over wide horizons, was of the keenest ; he
could see, even at that distance, the flash of jewels on neck
and shoulder. But the face he looked fur was not there.

PAMELA LOOKS ON 17

Lad}' Millinghani, however, set his mind at case.

k> You are back, then ? " she cried.

" This afternoon."

" You will find friends here."

Warrisden passed on into the reception rooms. It seemed
to him indeed that all the friends he had ever made were
gathered to this one house on this particular evening. He
was a tall man, and his height made him noticeable upon
most occasions. lie was the more noticeable now by reason
of his sunburn and a certain look of exhilaration upon his
face. The season was drawing to its end, and brown faces
were not so usual but that the eyes turned to them. He
spoke, however, the fewest possible words to the men who
greeted him, and he did not meet the eyes of any woman.
Yet he saw the women, and was in definite quest of one of
them. That might have been noticed by a careful observer,
for whenever he saw a man older than the rest talking to a
girl he quickened his pace that he might the sooner see that
girl's face. He barely looked into the ball-room at all, but
kept to the corridors, and, at last, in a doorway, came face to
face with Pamela Mardale. He saw her face light up, and
the hand held out to him was even eagerly extended.

" Have you a dance to spare ? "

Pamela looked quickly round upon her neighbours.

" Yes, this one," she answered. She bowed to her com-
panion, a man, as "Warrisden expected, much older than
herself, and led the way at once towards the balcony.
"Warrisden saw a youth emerge from the throng and come
towards them. Pamela was tall, and she used her height at
this moment. She looked him in the face with so serene an
indifference that the youth drew back disconcerted. Pamela
was deliberately cutting her partners.

Another man might have built upon the act, but "Warrisden
was shrewd, and shrewdness had taught him long since to
go warily in thought where Pamela Mardale was concerned.
She might merely be angry. He walked by her side and said

c

18 THE TRUANTS

nothing Even when they were seated on the balcony, he
Mt t for her to speak first. She was sitting upon the out-
de tainst the railing, so that the light from the windows
streamed full npon her face. He watched it looking for the
cLTe which he desired. But it had still the one fault he
found with it. It was still too sedate, too womanly for her
vears happened that they had found a comer where

£ made'a" sort of screen, and they could talk in low
mines without being overheard.

« I heard of you," she said. " You were shooting wood-

cock in Dalmatia."

" That was at Christmas."

" Yes. You were hurt there."

« Not seriously," he replied. " A sheep-do- attacked me.
Thev are savage brutes, and indeed they have to be there
are so many wolves. The worst of it is, if you are attacked,
von mustn't kill the dog, or there's trouble.
J' I heard of you again. You were at Quetta, getting

t0gfrhatCr!n'Feb™ary. I crossed by the new trade

"^Sd^C^ndeanite tone, which left him
-Bk no dtae to her thoughts. Now, however she turned
tacyes upon him, aud said in a lower voice, which was very

^""to't you think yon might have told me that you were

zx-^ittz***** 8^ follow,,

wMmVZ ouec or twice, instead ?f letting m bear about

you from any chance acquaintance ? deliberately

Again he made no answer. For he bid uciiucratc.y

PAMELA LOOKS ON 19

abstained from writing. The gentleness with which she
spoke was the most hopeful sign for him which she had
made that evening. He had expected a harsher accusation.
For Pamela made her claims upon her friends. They must
put her first or there was likely to be a deal of trouble.

" Well," she said, with a shrug of her shoulders, " I hope
you enjoyed it."

"Yes. I wish I could have thought you would have
enjoyed it too. But you wouldn't have."

" No," she answered listlessly.

Warrisden was silent. He had expected the answer, but
he was none the less disappointed to receive it. To him there
was no century in the history of the world comparable to that
in which he lived. It had its faults, of course. It was ugly
and a trifle feverish, but to men of his stamp, the men with
means and energy, a new world with countless opportunities
had been opened up. Asia and Africa were theirs, and the
farthest islands of the sea. Pamela, however, turned her
back on it. The new trade route to Seistan had no message
for her. She looked with envy upon an earlier century.

" Of course," he resumed, " it's pleasant to come back, if
only as a preparation for going away again."

And then Pamela turned on him with her eyes wide open
and a look of actual trouble upon her face.

" No," she said with emphasis. She leaned forward and
lowered her voice. " You have no right to work upon people
and make them your friends, if you mean, when you have
made them your friends, to go away without a word for ever
60 long. I have missed you very much."

" I wanted you to miss me," he replied.

" Yes, I thought so. But it wasn't fair," she said gently.
" You see, I have been quite fair with you. If you had gone
away at once, if you had left me alone when I said ' No ' to
you two years ago, then I should have no right to complain.
I should have no right to call you back. But it's different
now, and you willed that it should be different. You stayed

20 THE TRUANTS

by me. Whenever I turned, there were you at my side. You
taught me to count on you, as I count on no one else. Yes,
that's true. Well, then, you have lost the right to turn your
back now just when it pleases you."

" It wasn't because it pleased me."

" No. I admit that," she agreed. " It was to make an
experiment on me, but the experiment was made at my
expense. For after all you enjoyed yourself," she added,

with a laugh.

Warrisden joined in the laugh.

" It's quite true," he said. " I did." Then his voice
dropped to the same serious tone in which she had spoken.
"Why not say the experiment succeeded? Couldn't you

say that ? "

Pamela shook her head.

" No. I can give you no more now than I gave you a
year ago, two years ago, and that is not enough. Oh, I
know," she continued hurriedly as she saw that he was
about to interrupt. "Lots of women are content to begin
with friendship. How they can, puzzles me. But I know
they do begin with nothing more than that, and very often
it works out very well. The friendship becomes more than
friendship. But I can't begin that way. I would if I
could. But I can't."

She leaned back in her chair, and sat for a while with
her hands upon her knees in an attitude extraordinarily
still The jingle of harness in the square rose to Warnsden's
ears' the clamour of the town came muffled from the noisy
streets He looked upwards to the tender blue of a summer
sky where the stars shone like silver ; and he leaned back
disheartened. He had returned to London, and nothing was
changed There was the same busy life vociferous m its
streets, and this girl still sat in the midst of it with the
same lassitude and quiescence. She seemed to be waiting,
not at all tor something new to happen, but for the things,
which were happening, to cease, waiting with the indifference

PAMELA LOOKS ON 21

of the very old. And she was quite young. She sat
with the delicate profile of her face outlined against the
darkness ; the colour of youth was in her cheeks ; the
slender column of her throat, the ripple of her dark hair,
the grace of her attitude claimed her for youth ; she was
fragrant with it from head to foot. And yet it seemed that
there was no youth in her blood.

" So nothing has changed for you during these months,"
he said, deeply disappointed.

She turned her face quietly to him and smiled. " No,"
she answered, " there has been no new road for me from
Quetta to Seistan. I still look on."

There was the trouble. She just looked on, and to his
thinking it was not right that at her age she should do no
more. A girl nowadays had so many privileges, so many
opportunities denied to her grandmother, she could do so
much more, she had so much more freedom, and yet Pamela
insisted upon looking on. If she had shown distress, it
would have been better. But no. She lived without deep
feeling of any kind in a determined isolation. She had
built up a fence about herself, and within it she sat untouched
and alone.

It was likely that no one else in the wide circle of her
acquaintances had noticed her detachment, and certainly to
no one but Warrisden had she admitted it. And it was
only acknowledged to him after he had found it out for
himself. For she did not sit at home. On the contrary,
hardly a night passed during the season but she went to
some party. Only, wherever she went, she looked on.

" And you still prefer old men to young ones ? " he cried
in a real exasperation.

" They talk more of things and less of persons," she
explained.

That was not right either. She ought to be interested
in persons. "Warrisden rose abruptly from his chair. He
was completely baffled. Pamela was like the sleeping

22 THE TRUANTS

princess in the fairy tale, she lay girt about with an
impassable thicket of thorns. She was in a worse case,
indeed, for the princess in the story might have slept on till
the end of time, a thing of beauty. But was it possible for
Pamela, so to sleep to the end of life, he asked himself.
Let her go on in her indifference, and she might dwindle
and grownarrow, her soul would be starved and all the good
of her be lost. Somehow a way must be forced through the
thicket, somehow she must be wakened. Bat he seemed no
nearer to finding that way than he had been two years ago,
and she was no nearer to her wakening.

"No, there has been no change," he said, and as he
spoke his eye was caught by a bright light which suddenly
flamed up in the window of a dark house upon his right.
The house had perplexed him more than once. It took so
little part in the life of the square, it so consistently effaced
itself from the gaieties of the people who lived about. _ Its
balconies were never banked with flowers, no visitors
mounted its steps ; and even in the daytime it had a look of
mystery. It may have been that some dim analogy between
that house and the question which so baffled him arrested
Warrisden's attention. It may have been merely that he
was by nature curious and observant. But be leaned forward
upon the balcony-rail.

« Do you see that light ? " he asked. " In the window
on the second floor ? "
" Yes."

He took out his watch and noticed the time. It was
just a quarter to twelve. He laughed softly to himself and

said —

" Wait a moment ! "

He watched the house for a few minutes without saying
a word. Pamela with a smile at his eagerness watched too.
In a little while they saw the door open and a man and a
woman, both in evening dress, appear upon the steps.
Warriaden laughed again.

PAMELA LOOKS ON 23

" Wait," he said, as if he expected Pamela to interrupt.
"You'll see they won't whistle up a cab. They'll walk
beyond the house and take one quietly. Very likely they'll
look up at the lighted window on the second floor as though
they were schoolboys who had escaped from their dormitories,
and were afraid of beiDg caught by the master before they
had had their fun. There, do you see ? "

For as he spoke the man and the woman stopped and
looked up. Had they heard Warrisden's voice and obeyed
his directions they could not have more completely fulfilled
his prediction. They had the very air of truants. Appar-
ently they were reassured. They walked along the pavement
until they were well past the house. Then they signalled to
a passing hansom. The cab-driver did not see them, yet
they did not call out, nor did the man whistle. They
waited until another approached and they beckoned to that.
Warrisden watched the whole scene with the keenest interest.
As the two people got into the cab he laughed again and
turned back to Pamela.

" Well ? " she said, with a laugh of amusement, and the
quiet monosyllable, falling as it were with a cold splash upon
his enjoyment of the little scene, suddenly brought him back
to the question which was always latent in his mind. How
was Pamela to be awakened ?

" It's a strange place, London," he said. " No doubt it
seems stranger to me, and more full of interesting people
and interesting things just because I have come back from
very silent and very empty places. But that house always
puzzled me. I used to have rooms overlooking this square,
high up, over there," and he pointed to the eastern side of
the square towards Berkeley Street, " and what we have seen
to-night used to take place every night, and at the same
hour. The light went up in the room on the second floor,
and the truants crept out. Guess where they go to ! The
Savoy. They go and sit there amongst the lights and the
music for half an hour, then they come back to the dark

24 THE TRUANTS

house. They live in the most curious isolation with the
most curious regularity. There are three of them altogether :
an old man — it is his light, I suppose, which went up on the
second floor — and those two. I know who they are. The
old man is Sir John Stretton."

" Oh ! " said Pamela, with interest.

" And the two people we saw are his son and his son's
wife. I have never met them. In fact, no one meets them.
I don't know any one who knows them."

" Yes, you do," said Pamela, " I know them." And in
her knowledge, although "Warrisden did not know it, lay the
answer to the problem which so perplexed him.

( 25 )

CHAPTER III

THE TRUANTS

Warrisden turned quickly to Pamela.

" You never mentioned them."

"No," she replied with a smile. "But there's no
mystery in my silence. I simply haven't mentioned them
because for two years I have lost sight of them altogether.
I used to meet them about, and I have been to their
house."

" There ? " asked "Warrisden. with a nod towards the
lighted window.

" No ; but to the house Millie and Mr. Stretton had in
Deanery Street. They gave that up two years ago when old
Lady Stretton died. I thought they had gone to live in the
country."

" And all the while they have been living here," ex-
claimed Warrisden. He had spoken truthfully of himself.
The events, and the people with whom he came, however
slightly, into contact always had interested and amused him.
It was his pleasure to fit his observations together until he
had constructed a little biography in his mind of each
person with whom he was acquainted. And there was never
an incident of any interest within his notice, but he sought
the reason for it and kept an eye open for its consequence.

" Don't you see how strange the story is ? " he went on.
" They give up their house upon Lady Stretton's death, and
they come to live here with Sir John. That's natural
enough. Sir John's an old man. But they live in such

oq THE TRUANTS

seclusion that even their friends think they have retired into

the country." , , , , ,

"Yes, it is strange," Pamela admitted. And she added,
" I was Millie Stretton's bridesmaid."

Upon Warrisden's request she told him what she knew
of the coupje who lived in the dark house and played truant.
Millie Stretton was the daughter of a Judge in Ceylon who
when Millie had reached the age of seventeen had married
a second time. The step-mother had lacked discretion ;
from the very first she had claimed to exercise a complete
and undisputed authority ; she had been at no pains to
BPcnre the affections of her step-daughter. And very little
rouble would have been needed, for Millie was naturally
affectionate. A girl without any great depth of feeling, she
responded easily to a show of kindness. She found it ne thet
difficult to make intimate friends, nor hard to lose them
She was of the imitative type besides. She took her thoughts
and even her language from those who at the moment were
by her ride. Tims her step-mother had the easiest of tasks
but she did not possess the necessary tact. She demanded
o d ence, and in return offered tolerance. The household
a Colon no, therefore, became for Millie a roofstead rather
Urnn a home, and a year after this marriage she betook
r" If and the few thousands of pounds which her mother
hid bequeathed her to London. The ostensible reason for
dep' u c was the invitation of Mrs Charles Rawson, a
friend of her mother's. But Millie had made up her mind
nat a return to Ceylon was not to be endured S omchow
she would manage to make a home or herself in Englan d
She found her path at once made easy. She was pre
with the prettiness of a child, she gave no trouble sh waa
•esh she dressed a drawing-room gracefully, he fitted
, y into her surroundings, she picked up immediately the
ways of thought and the jargon of her new companions. In
a word, with the remarkable receptivity which was hers, she
was ^ery quickly at home in Mrs. Rawson s house. She

THE TRUANTS 27

became a favourite no less for her modest friendliness than
on account of her looks. Mrs. Kawson, who was nearing
middle age, but whose love of amusements was not assuaged,
rejoiced to have so attractive a companion to take about
with her. Millie, for her part, was very glad to be so taken
about. She had fallen from the obscure clouds into a bright
and wonderful world.

It was at this time that Pamela Mardale first met
Millicent Stretton, or rather, one should say, Millicent
Rundell, since Rundell was at that time her name. They
became friends, although so far as character was concerned
they had little in common. It may have been that the
difference between them was the actual cause of their friend-
ship. Certainly Millie came rather to lean upon her friend,
admired her strength, made her the repository of her con-
fidences, and if she received no confidences in return, she was
content to believe that there were none to make. It was at
this time too that Millie fell in with Lady Stretton.

Lady Stretton, a tall old woman with the head of a
Grenadier, had the characteristic of Sir Anthony Absolute.
There was no one so good-tempered so long as she had her
own way ; and she generally had it.

" Lady Stretton saw that Millie was easily led," Pamela
continued. " She thought, for that reason, she would be a
suitable wife for Tony, her son, who was then a subaltern in
the Coldstream. So she did all she could to throw them
together. She invited Millie up to her house in Scotland,
the house Lady Millingham now has, and Mr. Stretton fell
in love. He was evidently very fond of Millie, and Millie
on her side liked him quite as much as any one else. They
were married. Lady Stretton hired them the house I told
you of, close to Park Lane, and took a great deal of trouble
to see that they were comfortable. You see, they were toys
for her. There, that's all I know. Are you satisfied ? "

She leaned back in her chair, smiling at "Warrisden's
serious face.

28 THE TRUANTS

" And what about the old man, Sir John Stretton ? " he
asked.

" I never met him," replied Pamela. " He never went
nut to parties, and I never went to that house."

As she concluded the sentence, a man looked on to the
balcony and, seeing them, withdrew. Pamela rose at once
from her chair, and, with a sudden movement of jealousy,
Warrisden swung round and looked into the room. The
man was well past the middle age, stout of build, and with
a heavy careworn face with no pleasure in it at all. He was
the man who had been with Pamela when Warrisden had
arrived. Warrisden turned back to the girl with a smile of
relief.

" You are engaged ? "

" Yes, for this dance to Mr. Mudge," and she indicated
the man who was retiring. " But we shall meet again — at
Newmarket, at all events. Perhaps in Scotland too."

She held out her hand to Warrisden, and, as he took it,
her voice dropped to a plea.

" Please don't go away again without telling me first,
without talking it over, so that I may know where you are
from month to month. Please promise ! "

Warrisden promised, and went away from the house with
her prayer echoing in his ears. The very sound of her voice
was audible to him, and he never doubted the sincerity of
its appeal. But if she set such store on what she had, why
was she content with just that and nothing more, he asked
himself. Why did she not claim a little more and give a
little more in return ? Why did she come to a halt at
friendship, a mere turnpike on the great road, instead of
passing through the gate and going on down the appointed
way. He did not know that she passed the turnpike once,
and that if she refused to venture on that path again, it was
because, knowing herself, she dared not.

In the narrows of Berkeley Street Warrisden was shaken
out of these reflections. A hansom jingled past him, and by

THE TRUANTS 29

the light of the lamp which hung at the back within it he
caught a glimpse of the truants. They were driving home
to the dark house in the Square, and they sat side by side
silent and with troubled faces. Warrisden's thoughts went
back to what Pamela had told him that night. She had
told him the half, but not the perplexing, interesting half of
their history. That indeed Pamela could not tell, for she
did not know Sir John Stretton, and the old man's warped
and churlish character alone explained it.

It was by his doing that the truants gave up their cheery
little house in Deanery Street and came to live in Berkeley
Square. The old man was a miser, who during his wife's
existence had not been allowed to gratify his instincts. He
made all the more ample amends after she had died. The
fine allowance on which the young couple had managed to
keep a pair of horses and a little brougham was stripped
from them.'

" Why should I live alone ? " said the old man. " I ani
old, Tony, and I need some attention. The house is big,
much too big for me, and the servants are eating their heads
off for the want of something to do." There were "indeed
more servants than were needed. Servants were the sL <rle
luxury Sir John allowed himself. Their liveries were faded,
they themselves were insolent and untidy, but they were
there, in the great bare dining-room at dinner-time, in the
hall when Sir John came home of an afternoon. For the
old man went out each day as the clock struck three ; he
came back each evening at half -past six. He went out
alone, he returned alone, and he never went to his club. He
took an omnibus from the corner of Berkeley Street and
journeyed eastwards as far as Ludgate Hill. There he took
a drink in the refreshment bar, and, coming out, struck
northwards into Holborn, where he turned westwards, and
walking as far as the inn at the corner of the Tottenham
Court Koad, stepped for an hour into the private bar.
Thence he took another omnibus, and finally reached home,

3Q THE TRUANTS

where his footmen received him solemnly in the hall. To
this home he brought Tony and his wife

« There choose your own rooms, Tony, he said ma
nanimou?. « Whit's that F Money ? But what for ?
You'll have it soon enough. '

Tony Stretton suggested that it was hardly possible for
any man, however careful, to retain a ™mmission m the
Stream without an allowance. Sir John, a tall thin
man wTa high bald forehead, and a prim puntamcal face,
looked at his son with a righteous severity.

« A very expensive regiment. Leave it, Tony ! And
live quietly at home. Look after your father, my boy, and
2 won'/ need money," and he stalked upstairs leaving
Tony aghast in the hall. Tony had to sit down and think it
ovT/before he could quite realise the fate which had over-
taken him. Here he was, twenty-six years old brought up
fspend what he wanted and to ask for more when hat was
ended, and he was to live quietly on nothing at all. He
had no longer any profession, he was not clever enough to
e tr upon°a new one without some sort of start and in
addition he had a wife. His wife, it was true, had a few
thousands ; they had remained untouched ever since the
marriage and Tony shrank from touching them no*. He
sat on°one of the hall-chairs, twisting his moustacne and
Btaring with his blank blue eyes at the opposite wall A\ hat
n the" world was he to do ? Old Sir John was quite aware
of those few thousands. They might just as wel i tensed
now he thought, and save him expense. Tony could pay
horn back after his father was dead. Such was Sir John s
«hn and Tony had to fall in with it. The horses and the
Sham and1 all the furniture, the prints the pictures and
S Which had decked <>u< s<> gaily the little house in
Deanery Street went to the hammer. Tony paid off hi
11 and ennd himself with a hundred pounds in hand at
2 en" : and when that was gone he was forced to come to
his wife.

THE TRUANTS 31

" Of course," said she, " we'll share what I have, Tony."

" Yes, but we must go carefully," he replied. " Heaven
knows how long we will have to drag on like this."

So the money question was settled, but that was in reality
the least of their troubles. Sir John, for the first time in
his life, was master in fact as well as in name. He had
been no match for his wife, but he was more than a match
for his son. He was the fifth baronet of his name, and yet
there was no landed property. He was rich, and all the
money was safely tucked away in the public funds, and he
could bequeath it as he willed. He was in a position to put
the screw on Tony and his wife, and he did not let the
opportunity slip. The love of authority grew upon him.
He became exacting and portentously severe. In his black,
shabby coat, with his long thin figure, and his narrow face,
he had the look of a cold self-righteous fanatic. You would
have believed that he was mortifying his son for the sake of
bis son's soul, unless perchance you had peeped into that
private bar in the Tottenham Court Road and had seen him
drinking gloomily alone.

He laid down rules to which the unfortunate couple
must needs conform. They had to dine with him every
night and to sit with him every evening until he went to
bed. It followed that they lost sight of their friends, and
every month isolated them more completely. The mere
humiliation of the position in which they stood caused them
to shrink more and more into their privacy. When they
walked out in the afternoon they kept away from the Park ;
when they played truant in the evening, at the Savoy, they
chose a little table in an obscure corner. This was the real
history of the truants with whose fortunes those of Warrisden
and Pamela were to be so closely intermingled. For that life
in the dark house was not to last. Even as Warrisden
passed them in Berkeley Street, Tony Stretton was saying
over and over again in his inactive mind —

" It can't go on. It can't go on ! "

32 THE TRUANTS

In the after times, when the yapping of dogs in the
street at night would wake Tony from his sleep, and set him
on dreaming of tent villages in a wild country of flowers, or
when the wind in the trees would recall to him a little ship
labouring on short steep seas in a mist of spray, he always
looked back to this night as that on which the venture of his
wife's fortunes and his own began.

( 33 )

CHAPTER IV

TONY STRETTON MAKES A PROPOSAL

Regular as "Warrisden had declared the lives of the truants
to be, on the night following the dance at Lady Millingham's
there came a break in the monotony of their habits. For
once in a way they did not leave the house in their search
for light and colour as soon as they were free. They stayed
on in their own sitting-room. But it seemed that they had
nothing to speak about. Millie Stretton sat at the table,
staring at the wall in front of her, moody and despairing.
Tony Stretton leaned against the embrasure of the window,
now and then glancing remorsefully at his wife, now and
then looking angrily up to the ceiling where the heavy
footsteps of a man treading up and down the room above
sounded measured and unceasing.

Tony lifted a corner of the blind and looked out.

" There's a party next door," he said, " there was
another at Lady Millingham's last night. You should have
been at both, Millie, and you were at neither. LTpon my
word, it's rough."

He dropped the blind and came over to her side. He
knew quite well what parties and entertainments meant to
her. She loved them, and it seemed to him natural and
right that she should. Light, admiration, laughter and
gaiety, and fine frocks — these things she was born to enjoy,
and he himself had in the old days taken a great pride in
watching her enjoyment. But it was not merely the feeling
that she had been stripped of what was her due through

D

34 THE TRUANTS

him which troubled him to-night. Other and deeper
thoughts were vaguely stirring in his mind.

" We have quarrelled again to-night, Millie," he con-
tinued remorsefully. " Here we are cooped up together
with just ourselves to rely upon to pull through these bad
years, and we have quarrelled again."

Millie shrugged her shoulders.

" How did it begin ? " he asked. " Upon my word I

don't remember. Oh yes, I " and Millie interrupted

him.

" "What does it matter, Tony, how the quarrel began ?
It did begin, and another will begin to-morrow. We can't
help ourselves, and you have given the reason. Here we are
cooped up by ourselves with nothing else to do."

Tony pulled thoughtfully at his moustache.

" And we swore off quarrelling, too. When was that ? "

" Yesterday."

"Yesterday ! " exclaimed Tony, with a start of surprise.
" By George, so it was. Only yesterday."

Millie looked up at him, and the trouble upon his face
brought a smile to hers. She laid a hand upon his arm.

"It's no use swearing off, Tony," she said. "We are
both of us living all the time in a state of exasperation. I
just — tingle with it, there's no other word. And the least,
smallest thing which goes wrong sets us quarrelling. I
don't think either of us is to blame. The house alone gets
on our nerves, doesn't it ? These great empty, silent, dingy
looms, with their tarnished furniture. Oh ! they are
horrible ! I wander through them sometimes and it always
seems to me that, a long time ago, people lived here who
suddenly felt one morning that they couldn't stand it for a
single moment longer, and ran out and locked the street
door behind them ; and I have almost done it myself. The
very sunlight conies through the windows timidly, as if it
knew it had no right here at all."

She leaned back in her chair, looking at Tony with eyes

TONY STRETTON MAKES A PROPOSAL 35

that were hopeless and almost haggard. As Tony listened
to her outburst the remorse deepened on his face.

" If I could have foreseen all this, I would have spared
you it, Millie," he said. " I would, upon my word." He
drew up a chair to the table, and, sitting down, said in a
more cheerful voice, " Let's talk it over, and see if we can't
find a remedy."

Millie shook her head.

" We talked it over yesterday."

" Yes, so we did."

" And quarrelled an hour after we had talked it over."

"We did that too," Tony agreed, despondently. His
little spark of hopefulness was put out and he sat in silence.
His wife, too, did not speak, and in a short while it occurred
to him that the silence was more complete than it had been
a few minutes ago. It seemed that a noise had ceased, and
a noise which, unnoticed before, had become noticeable by
its cessation. He looked up to the ceiling. The heavy
footsteps no longer dragged upon the floor overhead. Tony
sprang up.

"There! He is in bed," he exclaimed. "Shall we
go out ? "

"Not to-night," replied Millie.

He could make no proposal that night which was
welcomed, and as he walked over to the mantelshelf and
filled his pipe, there was something in his attitude and
bearing which showed to Millie that the quick rebuff had hurt.

" I can't pretend to-night, Tony, and that's the truth,"
she added in a kinder voice. " For, after all, I do only
pretend nowadays that I find the Savoy amusing."

Tony turned slowly round with the lighted match in his
hand and stared at his wife. He was a man slow in thought,
and when his thoughts compelled expression, laborious in
words. The deeper thoughts which had begun of late to
take shape in his mind stirred again at her words.

" You have owned it," he said.

36 THE TRUANTS

Id had been pretence with you too, then ? " she asked,
looking up in surprise.

Tony puffed at his pipe.

" Of late, yes," he replied. " Perhaps cliiefly since I saw
that you were pretending."

He came back to her side and looked for a long time
steadily at her while he thought. It was a surprise to
Millie that he had noticed her pretence, as much of a
surprise as that he had been pretending too. For she knew
him to be at once slow to notice any change in others and
quick to betray it in himself. But she was not aware how
wide a place she rilled in all his thoughts, partly because her
own nature with its facile emotions made her unable to
conceive a devotion which was engrossing, and partly
because Tony himself had no aptitude for expressing such a
devotion, and indeed would have shrunk from its expression
had the aptitude been his. But she did fill that wide place.
Very slowly he had begun to watch her, very slowly and
dimly certain convictions were taking shape, very gradually
he was drawing nearer and nearer to a knowledge that a
great risk must be taken and a great sacrifice made partly
by him, partly too by her. Some part of his trouble he now
spoke to her.

" It wasn't pretence a year ago, Millie," he said wistfully.
" That's what bothers me. "We enjoyed slipping away
quietly when the house was quiet, and snatching some of the
light, some of the laughter the others have any time they
want it. It made up for the days, it was fun then, Millie,
wasn't it ? Upon my word, I believe we enjoyed our life,
yes, even this life, a year ago. Do you remember how we
used to drive home, laughing over what we had seen, talking
about the few people we had spoken to ? It wasn't until we
had turned the latch-key in the door, and crept into the
hall "

" And passed the library door," Millie interrupted, with
a little shiver.

TONY STRETTON MAKES A PROPOSAL 37

Tony Stretton stopped for a moment. Then he resumed
in a lower voice, " Yes, it wasn't until we had passed the
library door that the gloom settled down again. But now
the fun's all over, at the latest when the lights go down in
the supper room, and often before we have got to them
at all. We were happy last year" — and he shook her
affectionately by the arm — " that's what bothers me."

His wife responded to the gentleness of his voice and
action.

" Never mind, Tony," she said. " Some day we shall
look back on all of it — this house and the empty rooms and
the quarrels " — she hesitated for a second — " Yes, and the
library door ; we shall look back on it all and laugh."

" Shall we ? " said Tony, suddenly. His face was most
serious, his voice most doubtful.

" Why, what do you mean ? " asked Millie. Then she
added reassuringly, " It must end some time. Oh yes, it
can't last for ever."

" No," replied Tony ; " but it can last just long enough."

" Long enough for what ? "

" Long enough to spoil both our lives altogether."

He was speaking with a manner which was quite strange
to her. There was a certainty in his voice, there was a
gravity too. He had ceased to leave the remedy of their
plight to time and chance, since, through two years, time
and chance had failed them. He had been seriously thinking,
and as the result of thought he had come to definite con-
clusions. Millie understood that there was much more
behind the words he had spoken and that he meant to say
that much more to her to-night. She was suddenly aware
that she was face to face with issues momentous to both of
them. She began to be a little afraid. She looked at Tony
almost as if he were a stranger.

" Tony," she said faintly, in deprecation.

" We must face it, Millie," he went on steadily. " This
life of ours here in this house will come to an end, of course,

38 THE TRUANTS

but how will it leave us, you and me ? Soured, embittered,
quarrelsome, or no longer quarrelsome, but just indifferent to
each other, bored by each other ? " He was speaking very
slowly, choosing each word with difficulty.
" Oh no," Millie protested.

" It may be even worse than that. Suppose we passed
beyond indifference to dislike— yes, active dislike. We are
both of us young, we can both reasonably look forward to
long lives, long lives of active dislike. There might too be
contempt on your side."

Millie stared at her husband.

" Contempt ? " she said, echoing his words in surprise. _
"Yes. Here are you, most unhappy, and I take it
sitting down. Contempt might come from that."
" But what else can you do ? " she said.
" Ah," said Tony, as though he had been waiting for
that question, couched in just those words. " Ask yourself
that question often enough, and contempt will come."

This idea of contempt was a new one to Millie, and very
likely her husband was indiscreet in suggesting its possibility.
But he was not thinking at all of the unwisdom of his
words His thoughts were set on saving the cherished
intimacy of their life from the ruin which he saw was likely
to overtake it. He spoke out frankly, not counting the
risk Millie, for her part, was not in the mood to estimate
the truth of what he said, although it remained in her
memory She was rather confused by the new aspect which
her husband wore. She foresaw that he was working
towards the disclosure of a plan ; and the plan would involve
changes, great changes, very likely a step altogether into the
dark. And she hesitated.

- We sha'n't alter, Tony," she said. " You can be sure
of me, can't you ? "

« But wo are altering," he replied. " Already the altera-
tion bus begun. Did we quarrel a year ago as we do now ?
We enjoyed those evenings when we played truant, a year

TONY STRETTON MAKES A PROPOSAL 39

ago " ; and then he indulged in a yet greater indiscretion
than any which he had yet allowed himself to utter. But
he was by nature simple and completely honest. Whatever
occurred to him, that he spoke without reserve, and the
larger it loomed in his thoughts the more strenuous was its
utterance upon his lips. He took a seat at the table by her
side.

" I know we are changing. I take myself, and I expect
it is the same with you. I am — it is difficult to express it —
I am deadening. I am getting insensible to the things
which not very long ago moved me very much. I once had
a friend who fell ill of a slow paralysis, which crept up his
limbs little by little and he hardly noticed its advance. I
think that's happening with me. I am losing the associa-
tions— that's the word I want — the associations which made
one's recollections valuable, and gave a colour to one's life.
For instance, you sang a song last night, Millie, one of those
coon songs of yours — do you remember ? You sang it once
in Scotland on a summer's night. I was outside on the
lawn, and past the islands across the water, which was dark
and still, I saw the lights in Oban bay. I thought I would
never hear that song again without seeing those lights in my
mind far away across the water, clustered together like the
lights of a distant town. Well, last night all those associa-
tions were somehow dead. I remembered all right, but
without any sort of feeling, that that song was a landmark
in one's life. It was merely you singing a song, or rather it
was merely some one singing a song."

It was a laboured speech, and Tony was very glad to
have got it over.

" I am very sorry," replied Millie in a low voice. She
did not show him her face, and he had no notion whatever
that his words could hardly have failed to hurt. He was too
intent upon convincing her, and too anxious to put his belief
before "her with unmistakable clearness to reflect in what
spirit she might receive the words. That her first thought

40 THE TRUANTS

would be " He no longer cares " never occurred to hirn at

all, and cheerfully misunderstanding her acquiescence, he

went on —

" You see that's bad. It mustn't go on, Millie. Let's

keep what we've got. At all costs let us keep that ! "

" You mean we must go away ? " said Millie, and Tony

Sfcretton did not answer. He rose from his chair and walked

back to the fireplace and knocked the ashes from his pipe.

Millie was accustomed to long intervals between her

questions and his replies, but she was on the alert now.

Something in his movements and his attitude showed her

that he was not thinking of what answer he should make.

He was already sure upon that point. Only the particular

answer he found difficult to speak. She guessed it on the

instant and stood up erect, in alarm.

" You mean that you must go away, and that I must

remain ? "

Tony turned round to her and nodded his head.

" Alone ! Here ? " she exclaimed, looking round her

with a shiver.

" For a little while. Until I have made a home for you
to come to. Only till then, Millie. It needn't be so very
long."

xv "It will seem ages 1 " she cried, "however short it is.
Tony, it's impossible."

The tedious days stretched before her in an endless and
monotonous succession. The great rooms would be yet
more silent, and more empty than they were ; there would
be a chill throughout all the house ; the old man's exactions
would become yet more oppressive, since there would be only
one to bear them. She thought of the long dull evenings,
in the faded drawing-room. They were bad enough now,
those long evenings during which she read the evening paper
aloud, and Sir John slept, yet not so soundly but that he
woke the instant her voice stopped, and bade her continue.
What would they ^ if Tony were gone, if there were no

TOXY STRETTON MAKES A PROPOSAL 41

hour or so at the end when they were free to play truant if
they willed ? What she had said was true. She had been
merely pretending to enjoy their hour of truancy, but she
would miss it none the less. And in the midst of these
thoughts she heard Tony's voice.

" It sounds selfish, I know, but it isn't really. You see,
I sha'n't enjoy myself. I have not been brought up to
know anything well or to do anything well — anything, I
mean, really useful — I'll have a pretty hard time too." And
then he described to her what he thought of doing. He
proposed to go out to one of the colonies, spend some months
on a farm as a hand, and when he had learned enough of
the methods, and had saved a little money, to get hold of a
small farm to which he could ask her to come. It was a
pretty and a simple scheme, and it ignored the great
difficulties in the way, such as his ignorance and his lack of
capital. But he believed in it sincerely, and every word in
his short and broken sentences proved his belief. He had
his way that night with Millicent. She was capable of a
quick fervour, though the fervour might as quickly flicker
out. She saw that the sacrifice was really upon his side, for
upon him would be the unaccustomed burden of labour, and
the labour would be strange and difficult. She rose to his
height since he was with her and speaking to her with all
the conviction of his soul.

" Well, then, go," she cried. " I'll wait here, Tony, till
you send for me."

And when she passed the library door that night she did
not even shrink.

42 THE TRUANTS

CHAPTER V

PAMELA MAKES A PROMISE

Millie's enthusiasm for her husband's plan increased each
day. The picture which his halting phrases evoked for her,
of a little farm very far away under Southern skies, charmed
her more by reason of its novelty than either she or Tony
quite understood. In the evenings of the following week,
long after the footsteps overhead had ceased, they sat
choosing the site of their house and building it. It was to
be the exact opposite of their house of bondage. The
windows should look out over rolling country, the simple
decorations should be bright of colour, and through every
cranny the sun should find its way. Millie's hopes, indeed,
easily outran her husband's. She counted the house already
built, and the door open for her coming. Colour and light
bathed it in beauty.

" There's my little fortune, Tony," she said, when once
or twice he tried to check the leap of her anticipations ;
" that will provide the capital."

" I knew you would offer it," Tony replied simply.
'• Your help will shorten our separation by a good deal. So
I'll take half."

" All '."cried Millie.

"And what would you do when you wanted a new
frock ? " asked Tony, with a smile.

Millie shrugged her shoulders.

" I shall join you so soon," .she said.

It dawned upon Tony that she was making too little of

PAMELA MAKES A PROMISE 43

the burden which she would be called upon to bear — the
burden of dull lonely months in that great shabby house.

" It will be a little while before I can send for you,
Millie," he protested. But she paid no heed to the protest.
She fetched her bank book and added up the figures.

" I have three thousand pounds," she said.

" I'll borrow half," he repeated. " Of course, I am only
borrowing. Should things go wrong with me, you are sure
to get it back in the end."

They drove down to Millie's bank the next morning, and
fifteen hundred pounds were transferred to his account.

" Meanwhile," said Tony, as they came out of the door
into Pall Mall, " we have not yet settled where our farm is to
be. I think I will go and see Chase."

" The man in Stepney Green ? " Millie asked.

" Yes. He's the man to help us."

Tony called a cab and drove off. It was late in the after-
noon when he returned, and he had no opportunity to tell his
wife the results of his visit before dinner was announced.
Millie was in a fever to hear his news. Never, even in this
house, had an evening seemed so long. Sir John sat upright
in his high-backed chair, and, as was his custom, bade her
read aloud the evening paper. But that task was beyond
her. She pleaded a headache and escaped. It seemed to her
that hours passed before Tony rejoined her. She had come
to dread with an intense fear that some hindrance would, at
any moment, stop their plan.

" Well ? " she asked eagerly, when Tony at last came into
their sitting-room.

" It's to be horses in Kentucky," answered Tony.
" Farming wants more knowledge and a long apprenticeship ;
but I know a little about horses."

" Splendid ! " cried Millie. " You will go soon ? "

" In a week. A week is all I need."

Millie was quiet for a little while. Then she asked, with
an anxious look —

44 THE TRUANTS

" When do you mean to tell your father ? "

" To-morrow."

" Don't," said she. She saw his face cloud, she was well
aware of his dislike of secrecies, but she was too much afraid
that, somehow, at the last moment an insuperable obstacle
would bar the way. " Don't tell him at all," she went on.
" Leave a note for him. I will see that it is given to him
after you have gone. Then he can't stop you. Please do
this, I ask you."

" How can he stop me ?

" I don't know ; but I am afraid that he will. He
could threaten to disinherit you ; if you disobeyed, he
might carry out the threat. Give him no opportunity to
threaten."

Very reluctantly Tony consented. He had all a man's
objections to concealments, she all a woman's liking for them ;
but she prevailed, and since the moment of separation was
very near, they began to retrace their steps through the years
of their married life, and back beyond them to the days of
their first acquaintance. Thus it happened that Millie men-
tioned the name of Pamela Mardale, and suddenly Tony drew
himself upright in his chair.

" Is she in town, I wonder ? " he asked, rather of himself
than of his wife.

" Most likely," Millie replied. " Why ? "

" I think I must try to see her before I go," said Tony,
thoughtfully ; and more than once during the evening he
looked with anxiety towards his wife ; but in his look there
was some perplexity too.

He tried next day ; for he borrowed a horse from a friend,
and rode out into the Row at eleven o'clock. As he passed
through the gates of Hyde Park, he saw Pamela turning her
horse on the edge of the sand. She saw him at the same
moment and waited.

" You are a stranger here," she said, with a smile, as he
joined her.

PAMELA MAKES A PROMISE 45

" Here and everywhere," he replied. " I came out on
purpose to find you."

Pamela glanced at Tony curiously. Only a few days had
passed since "Warrisden had pointed out the truants from the
window of Lady Millingham's house, and had speculated upon
the seclusion of their lives. The memory of that evening was
still fresh in her mind.

" I want to ask you a question."

" Ask it and I'll answer," she replied carelessly.

" You were Millie's bridesmaid ? "

" Yes."

" You saw a good deal of her before we were married ? "

"Yes."

They were riding down the Row at a walk under the trees,
Pamela wondering to what these questions were to lead, Tony
slowly formulating the point which troubled him.

" Before Millie and I were engaged," he went on, " before
indeed there was any likelihood of our being engaged, you
once said to me something about her."

" I did ? "

"Yes. I remembered it last night. And it rather
worries me. I should like you to explain what you meant.
You said, ' The man who marries her should never leave her.
If he goes away shooting big game, he should take her with
him. On no account must she be left behind.' "

It was a day cloudless and bright. Over towards the
Serpentine the heat filled the air with a soft screen of mist,
and at the bottom of the Row the rhododendrons glowed.
As Pamela and Tony went forward at a walk the sunlight
slanting through the leaves now shone upon their faces and
now left them in shade. And when it fell bright upon
Pamela it lit up a countenance which was greatly troubled.
She did not, however, deny that she had used the words. She
did not pretend that she had forgotten their application.

" You remember what I said ? " she remarked. " It is a
long while ago."

46 THE TRUANTS

" Before that," he explained, " I had begun to notice all
that was said of Millie."

" I spoke the words generally, perhaps too carelessly."

" Yet not without a reason," Tony insisted. " That's not
your way."

Pamela made no reply for a moment or two. Then she
patted her horse's head, and said softly —

" Not without a reason." She admitted his contention
frankly. She did more, for she turned in her saddle towards
him and, looking straight into his face, said —

" I was not giving you advice at the time. But, had I
been, I should have said just those words. I say them again
now."

"Why?"

Tony put his question very earnestly. He held Pamela
in a great respect, believing her clear-sighted beyond her
fellows. He was indeed a little timid in her presence as a
rule, for she overawed him, though all unconsciously.
Nothing of this timidity, however, showed now. "That
was what I came out to ask you. "Why ? "

Again Pamela attempted no evasion.

"I can't tell you," she said quietly.

" You promised."

" I break the promise."

Tony looked wistfully at his companion. That the per-
plexing words had been spoken with a definite meaning he
had felt sure from the moment when he had remembered
them. And her refusal to explain proved to him that the
meaning was a very serious one — one indeed which he ought
to know and take into account.

"I ask you to explain," he urged, "because I am going
away, and I am leaving Millie behind."

Pamela was startled. She turned quickly towards

him.

"Must you?" she said, and before he could answer she
recovered from her surprise. _" Never mind," she continued ;

PAMELA MAKES A PROMISE 47

" shall we ride on ? " and she put her horse to a trot. It
was not her business to advise or to interfere. She had said
too much already. She meant to remain the looker-on.

Stretton, however, was not upon this occasion to be so
easily suppressed. He kept level with her, and as they rode
he told her something of the life which Millie and he had led
in the big lonely house in Berkeley Square ; and in spite of
herself Pamela was interested. She had a sudden wish that
Alan "Warrisden was riding with them too, so that he might
hear his mystery resolved ; she had a sudden vision of his
face, keen as a boy's, as he listened.

" I saw Millie and you a few nights ago. I was at a dance
close by, and I was surprised to see you. I thought you had
left London," she said.

"No; but I am leaving," Stretton returned; and he
went on to describe that idyllic future which Millie and he
had allotted to themselves. The summer sunlight was golden
in the air about them ; already it seemed that new fresh life
was beginning. " I shall breed horses in Kentucky. I was
recommended to it by an East End parson called Chase, who
runs a mission on Stepney Green. I used to keep order in
a billiard room at his mission one night a week, when I was
quartered at the Tower. A queer sort of creature, Chase ;
but his judgment's good, and of course he is always meeting
all sorts of people."

" Chase ? " Pamela repeated ; and she retained the name
in her memory.

" But he doesn't know Millie," said Stretton, " and you
do. And so what you said troubles me very much. If I go
away remembering your words and not understanding them,
I shall go away uneasy. I shall remain uneasy."

" I am sorry," Pamela replied. " I broke a rule of mine
in saying what I did, a rule not to interfere. And I see
now that I did very wrong in breaking it. I will not break
it again. You must forget my words."

There was a quiet decision in her manner which warned

48 THE TRUANTS

Tony that no persuasions would induce her to explain. He
gave up his attempt and turned to another subject.

" I have something else to ask — not a question this time,
but a favour. You could be a very staunch friend, Miss
Mardale, if you chose. Millie will be lonely after I have
gone. You were a great friend of hers once — be a friend of
hers again."

Pamela hesitated. The promise which he sought on the
face of it no doubt looked easy of fulfilment. But Tony
Stretton had been right in one conjecture. She had spoken
the words which troubled him from a definite reason, and
that reason assured her now that this promise might lay upon
her a burden, and a burden of a heavy kind. And she shrank
from all burdens. On the other hand, there was no doubt
that she had caused Tony much uneasiness. He would go
away, on a task which, as she saw very clearly, would be
more arduous by far than even he suspected — he would go
away troubled and perplexed. That could not be helped.
But she might lighten the trouble, and make the perplexity
less insistent, if she granted the favour which he sought. It
seemed churlish to refuse.

" Very well," she said reluctantly. " I promise."

Already Tony's face showed his relief. She had given
her promise reluctantly, but she would keep it now. Of that
he felt assured, and, bidding her good-bye, he turned his
horse and cantered back.

Pamela rode homewards more slowly. She had proposed
to keep clear of entanglements and responsibilities, and,
behold! the meshes were about her. She had undertaken
a trust. In spite of herself she had ceased to be the
looker-on.

( 49 )

CHAPTEE VI

NEWS OF TONY

The promise which Pamela had given was a great relief to
Tony ; he went about the work of preparing for his
departure with an easier mind. It was even in his thoughts
when he stood with his wife upon the platform of Euston
station, five minutes before his train started for Liverpool.

" She will be a good friend, Millie," he said. " Count
on her till I send for you. I think I am right to go, even
though I don't understand "

He checked himself abruptly. Millie, however, paid heed
only to the first clause of his sentence.

" Of course you are right," she said, with a confidence
which brought an answering smile to his face.

She watched the red tail-light of the train until it dis-
appeared, and drove home alone to the big dreary house. It
seemed ten times more dreary, ten times more silent than
ever before. She was really alone now. But her confidence
in herself and in Tony was still strong. " I can wait," she
said, and the consciousness of her courage rejoiced her. She
walked from room to room and sat for a few moments in
each, realising that the coldness, the dingy look of the
furniture, and the empty silence had no longer the power to
oppress her. She even hesitated at the library door with her
fingers on the key. But it was not until the next day that
she unlocked it and threw it open.

For Pamela, mindful of her promise, called in the after-
noon. Millicent was still uplifted by her confidence.

E

50 THE TRUANTS

%- 1 can wait quite patiently," she said ; and Pamela
scrutinised her with some anxiety. For Millicent was
speaking feverishly, as though she laboured under an excite-
ment. Was her courage the mere effervescence of that
excitement, or was it a steady, durable thing ? Pamela led
her friend on to speak of the life which she and Tony had
led in the big house, sounding her the while so that she
might come upon some answer to that question. And thus
it happened that, as they came down the stairs together,
Millicent again stopped before the library door.

" Look ! " she said. " This room always seemed to me
typical of the whole house, typical too of the lives we led
in it."

She unlocked the door suddenly and flung it open. The
floor of the library was below the level of the hall, and a
smooth plane of wood sloped clown to it very gradually from
the threshold.

" There used to be steps here once, but before my time,"
said Millicent. She went down into the room. Pamela
followed her, and understood why those two steps had been
removed. Although the book-shelves rose on every wall
from floor to ceiling, it was not as a library that this room
was used. Heavy black curtains draped it with a barbaric
profusion. The centre of the room was clear of furniture,
and upon the carpet in that clear space was laid a purple
drugget ; and on the drugget opposite to one another stood
two strong wooden crutches. The room was a mortuary
. chamber — nothing less. On those two crutches the dead
were to lie awaiting burial.

Millie Stretton shook her shoulders with a kind of
shiver.

" Oh, how I used to hate this room, hate knowing that
it was here, prepared and ready ! "

Pamela could understand how the knowledge would work
upon a woman of emotions, whose nerves were already strung
to exasperation by the life she led. For even to her there

NEWS OF TONY 51

was something eerie in the disposition of the room. It
looked ont upon a dull yard of stone at the back of the
house ; the light was very dim and the noise of the streets
hardly the faintest whisper ; there was a chill and a dampness
in the air.

" How I hated it," Millie repeated. " I used to lie awake
and think of it. I used to imagine it more silent than any
other of the silent rooms, and emptier — emptier because day
and night it seemed to claim an inhabitant, and to claim it
as a right. That was the horrible thing. The room was
waiting — waiting for us to be carried down that wooden
bridge and laid on the crutches here, each in our turn. It
became just a symbol of the whole house. For what is the
house, Pamela ? A place that should have been a place of
life, and is a place merely expecting death. Look at the
books reaching up to the ceiling, never taken down, never
read, for the room's a room for coffins. It wasn't merely a
symbol of the house — that wasn't the worst of it. It was a
sort of image of our lives, the old man's upstairs, Tony's
and mine down here. We were all doing nothing, neither
suffering nor enjoying, but just waiting — waiting for death.
Nothing you see could happen in this house but death. Until
it came there would only be silence and emptiness."

Millie Stretton finished her outburst, and stood dismayed
as though the shadow of those past days were still about her.
The words she had spoken must have seemed exaggerated
and even theatrical, but for the aspect of her as she spoke
them. Her whole frame shuddered, her face had the shrink- *•
ing look of fear. She recovered herself, however, in a moment.

" But that time's past," she said. " Tony's gone and I —
I am waiting for life now. I am only a lodger, you see. A
month or two, and I pack my boxes."

She turned towards the door and stopped. The hall
door had just at that moment opened. Pamela heard a
man's footsteps sound heavily upon the floor of the hall and
then upon the stairs.

52 THE TRUANTS

" My father-in-law," said Millie.

" This was his doing ? " asked Pamela.

"Yes," replied Millie. "It's strange, isn't it? But
there's something stranger still."

The footsteps had now ceased. Millie led the way back
to her room.

" When I got home yesterday," she related, " I had
Tony's letter announcing his departure taken up to Sir John.
I waited for him to send for me. He did not. I am not
sure that I expected he would. You see, he has never shown
the least interest in us. However, when I went up to my
room to dress for dinner, I saw that the candles were all
lighted in Tony's room next door, and his clothes laid out
upon the bed. I went in and put the candles out — rather
quickly." Her voice shook a little upon those last two
words. Pamela nodded her head as though she understood,
and Millicent went on, after a short pause —

" It troubled me to see them burning ; it troubled me
very much. And when I came downstairs I told the foot-
man the candles were not to bo lit again, since Tony had
gone away. He answered that they had been lit by Sir John's
orders. At first I thought that Sir John had not troubled
to read the letter at all. I thought that all the more because
he never once, either during dinner or afterwards, mentioned
Tony's name or seemed to remark his absence. But it was
not so. He has given orders that every night the room is
to be ready and the candles lit as though Tony were here
still, or might walk in at the door at any moment. I suppose
that after all in a queer way he cares."

Again her voire faltered ; and again a question rose np
insistent in Pamela's mind. She knew her friend, and it

3 out of her knowledge that she had spoken long ago in
Tony's presence when she had said, "her husband should
never leave her." It was evident that Tony's departure had
caused his wife great suffering.

Millicent had let that fact escape in spite of her exaltation.

NEWS OP TONY 53

Pamela welcomed it, but she asked, "Was that regret a
steady and durable thing ? "

Pamela left London the next day with her question
unanswered, and for two months there was no opportunity
for her of discovering: an answer. Often during; that August
and September, on the moors in Scotland, or at her own
home in Leicestershire, she would think of Millie Stretton,
in the hot and dusty town amongst the houses where the
blinds were drawn. She imagined her sitting over against
the old stern impassive man at dinner, or wearily reading to
him his newspaper at night. Had the regret dwindled to
irritation, and the loneliness begotten petulance ?

Indeed, those months were dull and wearisome enough
for Millicent. No change of significance came in the routine
of that monotonous household. Sir John went to his room
perhaps a little earlier than had been his wont, his footsteps
dragged along the floor for a wliile longer, and his light
burned in the window after the dawn had come. Finally he
ceased to leave his room at all. But that was all. For
Millicent, however, the weeks passed easily. Each day
brought her a day nearer to the sunlit farm fronting the
open plain. She marked the weeks off in her diary with a
growing relief ; for news kept coming from America, and
the news was good.

Early in October, Pamela passed through London on her
way to Sussex, and broke her journey that she might see
her friend.

" Frances Millingham is writing to you," she said. " She
wants you to stay with her in Leicestershire. I shall be
there too. I hope you will come."

" When ? "

" At the beginning of the New Year."

Millicent laughed.

" I shall have left England before then. Tony will have
made his way," she said, with a joyous conviction.

" There might be delays," Pamela suggested, in a very

54 THE TRUANTS

gentle voice. For suddenly there had risen before her mind
the picture of a terrace high above a gorge dark with
cypresses. She saw again the Mediterranean, breaking in
gold along the curving shore, and the gardens of the Casino
at Monte Carlo. She heard a young girl prophesying success
upon that terrace with no less certainty than Millicent had
used. Her face softened and her eyes shone with a very
wistful look. She took out her watch and glanced at it. It
was five o'clock. The school children had gone home by
now from the little school-house in the square of Eoquebrune.
Was the schoolmaster leaning over the parapet looking down-
wards to the station or to the deserted walk in front of the
Casino ? Was a train passing along the sea's edge towards

France and Paris ?

" One must expect delays, Millie," she insisted ; and

again Millie laughed.

" I have had letters. I am expecting another. It should

have come a fortnight since." And she told Pamela what

the letters had contained.

At first Tony had been a little bewildered by the activity

of New York, after his quiescent years. But he had soon

made an acquaintance, and the acquaintance had become a

friend. The two men had determined to go into partnership ;

a farm in Kentucky was purchased, each man depositing an

equal share of the purchase money.

" Six weeks ago they left New York. Tony said I would

not hear from him at once."

And while they were sitting together there came a knock

upon the door, and two letters were brought in for Millicent,

One she tossed upon the table. With the other in her hand

Bhe turned triumphantly to Pamela.

" Do you mind ? " she asked. " I have been wailing so

long."

" Read it, of course," said Pamela.

Millie tore the letter open, and at once the light died out
of her eyes, and the smile vanished from her lips.

NEWS OF TONY 55

" From New York," she said, halfway between perplexity
and fear. " He writes from New York." And with trem-
bling fingers she turned over the sheets and read the letter
through.

Pamela watched her, saw the blood ebb from her cheeks,
and dejection overspread her face. A great pity welled up
in Pamela's heart, not merely for the wife who read, but for
the man who had penned that letter — with what difficulty,
she wondered, with how much pain ! Failure was the
message which it carried. Millicent's trembling lips told
her that. And again the village of Roquebrune rose up
before her eyes as she gazed out of the window on the London
square. What were the words the schoolmaster had spoken
when, stripped of his dreams, he had confessed success was
not for him ? " We must forget these fine plans. The
school at Roquebrune will send no deputy to Paris."
Pamela's eyes grew dim.

She stood looking out of the window for some while, but
hearing no movement she at length turned back again. The
sheets of the letter had fallen upon the floor, they lay
scattered, written over in a round, sprawling, schoolboy's
hand. Millicent sat very still, her face most weary and
despairing.

" It's all over," she said. " The friend was a swindler.
He left the train at a station on the way and disappeared.
Tony went on, but there was no farm. He is back in New
York."

" But the man can be found ? "

" He belongs to a gang. There is little chance, and Tony
has no money. He will take no more of mine."

" He is coming home, then ? " said Pamela.

" No ; he means to stay and retrieve his failures."

Pamela said nothing, and Millicent appealed to her.
" He will do that, don't you think ? Men have started
badly before, and have succeeded, and have not taken so very
long to succeed."

56 THE TRUANTS

" No doubt," said Pamela ; and she spoke with what
hopefulness she could. But she remembered Tony Stretton.
Simplicity and good-humour were amongst his chief qualities ;
he was a loyal friend, and he had pluck. Was that enough ?
On the other hand, he had little knowledge and little expe-
rience. The schoolmaster of Roquebrune and Tony Stretton
stood side by side in her thoughts. She was not, however,
to be put to the task of inventing encouragements. For
before she could open her lips again, Millicent said gently —

" Will you mind if I ask to be left alone ? Come again as

soon as you can. But this afternoon " Her voice

broke so that she could not finish her sentence, and she
turned hastily away. However, she recovered her self-control
and went down the stairs with Pamela, and as they came
into the hall their eyes turned to the library door, and then
they looked at one another. Both remembered the conversa-
tion they had had within that room.

" What if you told Sir John ? " said Pamela. " It seems
that he does after all care."

" It would be of no use," said Millicent, shaking her
head. " He would only say, ' Let him come home,' and
Tony will not. Besides, I never see him now."

" Never ?" exclaimed Pamela.

" No ; he does not leave his room." She lowered her
voice. " I do not believe he ever will leave it again. It's
not that he's really ill, his doctor tells me, but he's slowly
letting himself go."

Pamela answered absently. Sir John Stretton and his
ailments played a small part in her thoughts. It seemed
that the library was again to become typical of the house,
typical of the life its inhabitants led. Nothing was to
happen, then. There was to be a mere waiting for things
to cease.

But a second letter was lying upstairs unopened on the
table, and that letter, harmless as it appeared, was strangely
to influence Millicent Stretton's life. It was many hours

NEWS OF TONY 57

afterwards when Millicent opened it, and, compared with the
heavy tidings she had by the same post received, it seemed
utterly trifling and unimportant. It was no more indeed
than the invitation from Frances Millingham of which
Pamela had spoken. Pamela forgot it altogether when she
heard the news which Tony had sent, but she was to be
affected by it too. For she had made a promise to Tony
Stretton, and, as he had foreseen, she would at any cost
fulfil it.

58 THE TRUANTS

CHAPTER VII

THE LADY ON THE STAIRS

Whitewebs, Frances Millingham's house in Leicestershire,
was a long white building with many level windows. The
square main block of the building rose in the centre two
storeys high, and on each side a wing of one storey projected.
Behind the house a broad lawn sloped to the bank of a clear
and shallow trout stream, with an avenue of old elms upon
its left, and a rose garden upon its right. In front of the
house a paddock made a ring of green, and round this ring
the carriage drive circled from a white five-barred gate.
Whitewebs stood in a flat grass country. From the upper
windows you looked over a wide plain of meadows and old
trees, so level that you had on a misty day almost an illusion
of a smooth sea and the masts of ships ; from the lower, you
saw just as far as the nearest hedgerow, except in one quarter
of the compass. For to the south-west the ground rose very
far away, and at the limit of view three tall poplars, set in a
tiny garden on the hill's crest, stood clearly out against the
sky like sentinels upon a frontier. These three landmarks
were visible for many miles around. Pamela, however, saw
nothing of them as she was driven over the three miles from
the station to Whitewebs.

It was late on a February evening, and already dark.
The snow had fallen heavily during the last week, and as
Pamela looked out through the carriage windows she saw
that the ground glimmered white on every side ; above the
ground a mist thickened the night air, and the cold was

THE LADY ON THE STAIRS 59

piercing. When she reached the house she found that
Frances Millingham was waiting for her alone in the big
inner hall, with tea ready ; and the first question which she
asked of her hostess was —

" Is Millie Stretton here ? "

" Yes," replied Frances Millingham. " She has been
here a week."

" I couldn't come before," said Pamela, rather remorse-
fully. " My father was at home alone. How is Millie ? I
have not seen her for a long time. Is she enjoying
herself ? "

Pamela's conscience had been reproaching her all that
afternoon. She could plead in her own behalf that after the
arrival of Tony's letter with its message of failure, she had
deferred her visit into the country and had stayed in London
for a week. But she had not returned to London since, and
consequently she had not seen her friend. She had heard
regularly from her, it is true ; she also knew that there was
yet no likelihood of the hoped-for change in the life of that
isolated household in Berkeley Square. But there had been
certain omissions of late in Millicent's letters which began to
make Pamela anxious.

" Yes," Frances Millingham replied ; " she seems to be
happy enough."

Lady Millingham related the names of her guests. There
were twelve in all, but the first ten may be omitted, for they
are in no way concerned with Pamela's history. The eleventh
name, however, was that of a friend.

" John Madge is here, too," said Frances Millingham ;
and Pamela said, with a smile —

" I like him."

John Mudge was that elderly man whom Allan "Warrisden
had seen with Pamela at Lady Millingham's dance, the man
with no pleasure in his face. " And Mr. Lionel Callon,"
said Frances ; " you know him."

" Do I ? " asked Pamela.

60 THE TRUANTS

" At all events, he knows you."

It was no doubt a consequence of Pamela's deliberate plan
never to be more than an onlooker, that people who did not
arouse her active interest passed in and out of her acquaint-
anceship like shadows upon a mirror. It might be that she
had met Lionel Callon. She could not remember.

" A quarter past seven," said Frances Milliugham,
glancing at the clock. " "We dine at eight."

Pamela dressed quickly in the hope that she might gain
a few minutes before dinner wherein to talk to Millicent. She
came down the stairs with this object a good quarter of an
hour before eight, but she was to be disappointed. The
stairs descended into the big inner hall of the house, and just
below the roof of the hall they took a bend. As Pamela
came round this bend the hall was exposed to her eyes, and
she saw, below her, not Millicent at all, but the figure of a
man. He was standing by the fireplace, on her left hand as
she descended, looking into the fire indeed, so that his back
was towards her. But at the rustle of her frock he swung
round quickly and looked up. He now moved a few steps
towards the foot of the stairs with a particular eagerness.
Pamela at that moment had just come round the bend, and
was on the small platform from which the final flight of steps
began. The staircase was dimly lit, and the panelling of the
wall against which it rested dark. Pamela took a step or two
downwards, and the light of the hall struck upon her face.
The man came instantly to a dead stop, and a passing dis-
appointment was visible upon his upturned face. It was
evident that he was expecting some one else. Pamela on her
side was disappointed, too, for she had hoped to find Millicent.
She went down the stairs and stopped on the third step from
the bottom.

" How do you do, Miss Mardale ? " said the man. " You
have arrived at last."

The man was Lionel Callon. Pamela recognised him
now that they stood face to face ; she had met him, but she

THE LADY ON THE STAIRS 61

had retained no impression of him in her memory. For the
future, however, she would retain a very distinct impression.
For her instincts told her at once and clearly that she
thoroughly disliked the man. He was thirty-three in years,
and looked a trifle younger, although his hair was turning
grey. He was clean shaven, handsome beyond most men,
and while his features were of a classical regularity and of
an almost feminine delicacy, they were still not without
character. There was determination in his face, and his
eyes were naturally watchful. It was his manner which
prompted Pamela's instinct of dislike. Assurance gave to
it a hint of arrogance ; familiarity made it distasteful. He
might have been her host from the warmth of his welcome.
Pamela put on her sedatest air.

" I am quite well," she said, with just sufficient surprise
to suggest the question, " "What in the world has my health
to do with you ? " She came down the three steps, and
added, " We are the first, I suppose."

" There may be others in the drawing-room," said Gallon,
with a glance towards the open door. But Pamela did not
take the hint. For one thing no sound of any voice was
audible in that room ; for another Mr. Callon was plainly
anxious to be rid of her. Even as he was speaking his glance
strayed past her up the staircase. Pamela disliked him ; she
was, besides, disappointed by him of that private talk with
Millicent which she desired. She was in a mood for mischief.
She changed her manner at once, and, crossing over to the
fireplace, engaged Mr. Callon in conversation with the utmost
cordiality, and as she talked she began to be amused. Callon
became positively uneasy ; he could not keep still, he answered
her at random. For instance, she put to him a question
about the number of guests in the house. He did not answer
at all for a moment or two, and when he did speak, it was to
say, " Will the frost hold, do you think ? "

" There's no sign of a thaw to-night," replied Pamela ;
and the sounds for which both were listening became audible

62 THE TRUANTS

— the shutting of a door on the landing above, and then the
rustle of a frock upon the stairs. Mr. Callon was evidently at
his wits' end what to do ; and Pamela, taking her elbow from
the mantelpiece, said, with great sympathy —

" One feels a little in the way "

" Oh, not at all, Miss Mardale," Callon answered hurriedly,
with a flustered air.

Pamela looked at her companion with the blankest stare
of surprise.

" I was going to say, when you interrupted me," she went
on, " that one feels a little in the wav when one has brought a
couple of horses, as I have, and the frost holds."

Callon grew red. He had fallen into a trap ; his very
hurry to interrupt what appeared to be almost an apology
betrayed that the lady upon the stairs and Mr. Lionel Callon
had arranged to come down early. He had protested over-
much. However, he looked Pamela steadily in the face, and
said —

" I beg your pardon, Miss Mardale."

He spoke loudly, rather too loudly for the ears of
any one so near to him as Pamela. The sentence, too, was
uttered with a note of warning. There was even a sugges-
tion of command. The command was obeyed by the lady
on the stairs, for all at once the frock ceased to rustle, and
there was silence. Lionel Callon kept his eyes fixed upon
Pamela's face, but she did not look towards the stairs, and in
a little while again the sound was heard. But it diminished.
The lady upon the stairs was ascending, and a few minutes
afterwards a door closed overhead. She had beaten a retreat.

Callon could not quite keep the relief which he felt out
of his eyes or the smile from his lips. Pamela noticed the
change with amusement. She was not in the mind to spare
him uneasiness, and she said, looking at the wall above the
mantelpiece —

" This is an old mirror, don't you thiuk ? From what
period would you date it ? "

THE LADY ON THE STAIRS 63

Gallon's thoughts had been so intent upon the stairs that
he had paid no heed to the ornaments above the mantelshelf.
Now, however, he took note of them with a face grown at
once anxious. The mirror was of an oval shape and framed
in gold. Under the pretence of admiring it, he moved and
stood behind Pamela, looking into the mirror over her
shoulder, seeing what she could see, and wondering how
much she had seen. He was to some extent relieved. The
stairs were ill-lighted, the panelling of the wall dark
mahogany ; moreover, the stairs bent round into the hall
just below the level of the roof, and at the bend the lady on
the stairs had stopped. Pamela could not have seen her
face. Pamela, indeed, had seen nothing more than a black
satin slipper arrested in the act of taking a step, and a black
gown with some touches of red at the waist. She had, how-
ever, noticed the attitude of the wearer of the dress when
the warning voice had brought her to a stop. The- lady had
stooped down and had cautiously peered into the hall. In
this attitude she had been able to see, and yet had avoided
being seen.

Pamela, however, did not relieve Mr. Callon of his
suspense. She walked into the drawing-room and waited,
with an amused curiosity, for the appearance of the black
dress. It was long in coming, however. Pamela had no
doubt that it would come last, and in a hurry, as though its
wearer had been late in dressing. But Pamela was wrong.
Millicent Stretton came into the room dressed in a frock of
white lace, and at once dinner was announced. Pamela
tinned to Frances Millingham with a startled face —

" Are we all here ? "

Frances Millingham looked round.

" Yes ; " and Lord Millingham at that moment offered
his arm to Pamela. As she took it, she looked at Millicent,
who was just rising from her chair. Millicent was wearing
with her white dress black shoes and stockings. She might
be wearing them deliberately, of course ; on the other hand,

64 THE TRUANTS

she might be wearing them because she had not had time to
change them. It was Milliccnt, certainly, who had come
down last. " I beg your pardon, Miss Mardale," Gallon had
said, and it was upon the " Miss Mardale " that his voice
had risen. The emphasis of his warning had been laid upon
the name.

As she placed her hand on her host's arm, Pamela said —

" It was very kind of Frances to ask Millie Stretton here."

" Oh no," Lord Millingham replied. " You see, Frances
knew her. "We all knew, besides, that she is a great friend
of yours."

" Yes," said Pamela ; " I suppose everybody here knows
that ? "

" Mrs. Stretton has talked of it," he answered, with a
smile.

The " Miss Mardale " might be a warning, then, to
Millicent that her friend had arrived — was actually then in
the hall. There was certainly no one but Millicent in that
house who could have been conscious of any need to shrink
back at the warning, who would have changed her dress to
prevent a recognition ; and Millicent herself need not have
feared the warning had there not been something to conceal
— something to conceal especially from Pamela, who had
said, " I have promised your husband I would be your
friend." There was the heart of Pamela's trouble.

She gazed down the two lines of people at the dinner-
table, hoping against hope that she had overlooked some one.
There was no one wearing a black gown. All Pamela's
amusement in outwitting Gallon had long si nee vanished.
If Tony had only taken her advice without question, Bhe
thought. " Millie's hnsband should never leave her. If he
goes away he should take her with him." The words rang
in her mind all through dinner like the refrain of a song of
which one cannot get rid. And at the back of her thoughts
there steadily grew and grew a great regret that she had
ever promised Tony to befriend his wife.

THE LADY ON THE STAIRS 65

That Millicent was the lady on the stairs she no longer
dared to doubt. Had she doubted, her suspicions would
have been confirmed immediately dinner was over. In the
drawing-room Millicent avoided any chance of a private
conversation, and since they had not met for so long such
avoidance was unnatural. Pamela, however, made no effort
to separate her friend from the other women. She had a
plan in her mind, and in pursuit of it she occupied a sofa,
upon which there was just room for two. She sat in the
middle of the sofa, so that no one else could sit on it, and
just waited until the men came in. Some of them crossed
at once to Pamela, but she did not budge an inch. They
were compelled to stand. Finally, Mr. Mudge approached
her, and immediately she moved into one corner and bade
him take the other. Mr. Mudge accepted the position with
alacrity. The others began to move away ; a couple of
card-tables were made up. Pamela and John Mudge were
left alone.

" You know every one here ? " she asked.

"No, very few."

" Mr. Callon, at all events ? "

Mr. Mudge glanced shrewdly at his questioner.

" Yes, I know him slightly," he answered.

" Tell me what you know."

Mr. Mudge sat for a moment or two with his hands
upon his knees and his eyes staring in front of him. Pamela
knew his history, and esteemed his judgment. He had
built up a great contracting business from the poorest
beginnings, and he remained without bombast or arrogance.
He was to be met nowadays in many houses, and, while he
had acquired manners, he had lost nothing of his simplicity.
The journey from the Seven Dials to Belgrave Square is a
test of furnace heat, and John Mudge had betrayed no flaws.
There was a certain forlornness, too, in his manner which
appealed particularly to Pamela. She guessed that the
apples, for which through a lifetime he had grasped, had

F

6G THE TRUANTS

crumbled into ashes between his fingers. Sympathy taught
her that the man was lonely. He wandered through the
world amidst a throng of acquaintances ; but how many
friends had he, she wondered? She did not interrupt his
reflections, and he turned to her at last, with an air of
decision.

" I am on strange ground here," he said, " as you know.
I am the outsider ; and when I am on strange ground I go
warily. If I am asked what I think of this man or that I
make it a rule to praise."

" Yes ; but not to me," said Pamela, with a smile. " I
want to know the truth to-night."

Mudge looked at her deliberately, and no less deliberately
he spoke —

" And I think you ought to know the truth to-night."

Mudge, then, like the rest, knew that she was Millicent's
friend. Was it for that reason that she ought to know the
truth ?

" I know Gallon a little," he went on, " but I know a
good deal about him. Like most of the men who know him
I dislike him heartily. Women, on the other hand, like
hiin, Miss Mardale — like him too well. Women make
extraordinary mistakes over men just as men do over women.
They can be very blind — like your friend "

Mudge paused for an appreciable time. Then he went
on steadily —

" Like your friend Lady Millingham, who invites him
here."

Pamela was grateful for the delicacy with which the
warning was conveyed, but she did not misunderstand it.
She had been told indirectly, but no less definitely on that
account, that Millie was entangled.

" Callon has good looks, of course," continued Mudge ;
and Pamela uttered a little exclamation of contempt.
Mudge smiled, but rather sadly.

" Oh, it's something. All people have not your haughty

THE LADY ON THE STAIRS 67

indifference to good looks. He is tall, he has a face which
is a face and not a pudding. It's a good deal, Miss
Mardale."

Pamela looked in surprise at the stout, heavily -built bald
man who spoke. That he should ever have given a thought
to how he looked was a new idea to her. It struck her as
pathetic.

" But he is not merely good-looking. He is clever, per-
sistent besides, and, so far as I can judge, untroubled by a
single scrapie in the management of his life. Altogether,
Miss Mardale, a dangerous man. How does he live ? " he
asked suddenly.

" I neither know nor care," said Pamela.
"Ah, but you should care," replied Mudge. "The
answer is instructive. He has a small income — two hundred
a year, perhaps ; a mere nothing compared with what he
spends — and he never does an hour's work, as we understand
work. Yet he pays his card debts at his club, and they are
sometimes heavy, and he wants for nothing. How is it
done ? He has no prospect of an inheritance, so post-obits
are not the explanation."

Mr. Mudge leaned back in his chair and waited. Pamela
turned the question over in her mind.
" I can't guess how it's done," she said.
"And I can do no more than hint the answer," he
replied. " He rides one woman's horses, he drives another
woman's phaeton, he is always on hand to take a third to a
theatre, or to make up a luncheon party with a fourth.
Shall we say he borrows money from a fifth ? Shall we be
wrong in saying it ? " And suddenly Mr. Mudge exclaimed,
with a heat and scorn which Pamela had never heard from
him before, " A very contemptible existence, anyway, Miss
Mardale. But the man's not to be despised, mind. No,
that's the worst of it. Some day, perhaps, a strong man
will rise up and set his foot on him. Till that time he is to
be feared." And when Pamela by a gesture rejected the

68 THE TRUANTS

word, Madge repeated it. " Yes, feared. He makes liis
plans, Miss Mardale. Take a purely imaginary case," and
somehow, although he laid no ironic stress on the word
imaginary, and accompanied it with no look, but sat gazing
straight in front of him, Pamela was aware that it was a
real case he was going to cite. " Imagine a young and
pretty woman coming to a house where most of the guests
were strangers to her ; imagine her to be of a friendly, un-
suspecting temperament, rather lonely, perhaps, and either
unmarried or separated for a time from her husband. Add
that she will one day be very rich, or that her husband will
be. Such a woman might be his prey, unless "

Pamela looked up inquiringly.

" Unless she had good friends to help her."

Pamela's face, distressed before, grew yet more troubled
now. The burden of her promise was being forced upon
her back. It seemed she was not for one moment to be
allowed to forget it.

"I'll tell you my philosophy, Miss Mardale," Mudge
continued, " and I have inferred it from what I have seen.
I do not believe that any man really comes to good unless
he has started in life with the ambition to make a career for
himself, with no help other than his hands and his brains
afford. Later on he will learn that women can be most
helpful ; later on, as he gets towards middle life, as the
years shorten and shorten, he will see that he must use
whatever extraneous assistance comes his way. But he will
begin with a fearless ambition to suffice with his own hands
and head." Mr. Mudge dropped from the high level of his
earnestness. He looked towards Lionel Callon, who was
seated at a card-table, and the contempt again crept into his
voice. "Now that man began life meaning to use all
people he met, and especially women. "Women were to be
his implements." Mr. Mudge smiled suddenly. " He's
listening," he said.

" But he is too far away to hear," replied Pamela,

THE LADY ON THE STAIRS 69

" Xo doubt ; but he knows we are speaking of hirn.
Look, his attitude shows it. This, you see, is his battle-
ground, and he knows the arts of his particular warfare.
A drawing-room ! Mr. Lionel Callon fights among the
teacups. Cajolery first, and God knows by what means
afterwards. But he wins, Miss Mardale ; don't close your
eyes to that ! Look, I told you he was listening. The
rubber's over, and he's coming towards us. Oh, he's alert
upon his battle-ground ! He knows what men think of
him. He's afraid lest I should tell what men think to you.
But he comes too late."

Callon crossed to the sofa, and stood talking there until
Frances Millingham rose. Pamela turned to Mr. Mudge as
she got up.

" I thank you very much," she said gratefully.

Mr. Mudge smiled.

" Xo need for thanks," said he. " I am very glad you
came to-night, for I go away to-morrow."

Pamela went to her room and sat down before the fire.
What was to be done, she wondered ? She could not get
Lionel Callon sent away from the house. It would be no
use even if she could, since Millie had an address in town.
She could not say a word openly.

She raised her head and spoke to her maid.

" Which is Mrs. Stretton's room ? " And when she had
the answer she rose from her chair and stood, a figure of
indecision. She did not plead that John Mudge had ex-
aggerated the danger ; for she had herself foreseen it long-
ago, before Millie's marriage — even before Millie's engage-
ment. It was just because she had foreseen it that she had
used the words which had so rankled in Tony's memory.
Bitterly she regretted that she had ever used them ; greatly
she wished that she could doubt their wisdom. But she
could not. Let Millie's husband leave her, she would grieve
with all the strength of her nature ; let him come back soon,
she would welcome him with a joy as great. Yes ; but he

70 TOE TRUANTS

must come back soon. Oohcrwise she would grow used to
his absence ; she would find his return an embarrassment,
for it would be the return of a stranger with the prerogative
of a husband ; she might even have given to another the
place he once held in her thoughts. And the other might
be a Lionel Callon. For this was Millicent's character.
She yielded too easily to affection, and she did not readily
distinguish between affection and the show of it. She
paddled in the shallows of passion, and flattered herself that
she was swimming in the depths. Grief she was capable
of — yes ; but a torrent of tears obliterated it. Joy she
knew ; but it was a thrill with her lasting an hour.

Pamela walked along the passage and knocked at
Millicent's door, saying who she was. Millicent opened the
door, and received her friend with some constraint.

" Can I come in ? " said Pamela.

" Of course," said Millie.

They sat opposite to one another on each side of the fire.

"I wanted to see you before I went to bed," said
Pamela. " You have not told me lately in your letters how
Tony is getting on."

Millie raised her hand to shield her face from the blaze
of the fire. She happened to shade it also from the eyes of
Pamela ; and she made no reply.

" Is he still in New York ? " Pamela asked ; and then
Millie replied.

" I do not know," she answered slowly. She let her
band fall, and looked straight and defiantly at her friend.

" I have not heard from him for a long while," she
added ; and as she spoke there crept into her face a look of
disdain.

( n )

CHAPTER VIII

Gideon's fleece

Millicent was reluctant to add any word of explanation.
She sat with her eyes upon the fire, waiting, it seemed, until
Pamela should see fit to go. But Pamela remained, and of
the two women she was the stronger in will and character.
She sat, with her eyes quietly resting upon M illicent's face ;
and in a little while Millicent began reluctantly to speak.
As she spoke the disdainful droop of her lips became more
pronounced, and her words were uttered in a note of
petulance.

" He would stay to retrieve his failure. You remember ? "
she said.

" Yes," replied Pamela.

" I wrote to him again and again to come home, but he
would not. I couldn't make him see that he wasn't really a
match for the people he must compete with."

Pamela nodded her head.

" You wrote that to him ? "

Millicent lifted her face to Pamela's.

" I put it, of course, with less frankness. I offered him,
besides, the rest of my money, so that he might try again ;
but he refused to take a farthing more. It was unreason-
able, don't you think ? I could have got on without it, but
he couldn't. I was very sorry for him."

" And you expressed your pity, too ? " asked Pamela.

" Yes, indeed," said Millicent, eagerly. " But he never
would accept it. He replied cheerfully that something was

72 THE TRUANTS

sure to happen soon, that he would be sure to find an opening
soon. But, of course, he never did. It was not likely that
with his inexperience he ever would."

Tony's own words had recoiled upon him. On the
evening when he had first broached his plan to Millicent in
Berkeley Square, he had laid before her, amongst others,
this very obstacle, thinking that she ought to be aware of it,
and never doubting but that he would surmount it. The
honesty of his nature had bidden him speak all that he had
thought, and he had spoken without a suspicion that his
very frankness might put in her mind an argument to
belittle him. He had seemed strong then, because he knew
the difficulties, and counted them up when she omitted
them. His image was all the more pale and ineffectual now
because, foreknowing them well, he had not mastered them.

" I wrote to him at last that it wasn't any use for him to
go on with the struggle. He would not tell me how he
lived, or even where. I had to send my letters to a post-
office, and he called for them. He must be living in want,
in misery. I wrote to him that I had guessed as much
from his very reticence, and I said how sorry I was. Yet,
in spite of what I wrote," and here her voice hardened a
little ; she showed herself as a woman really aggrieved, " in
spite of what I wrote, he answered me in a quite short letter,
saying that I must not expect to hear from him again until
he had recovered from his defeat and was re-established in
my eyes. I can't understand that, can you ? "

" I think so," Pamela answered. She spoke gently.
For there was something to be said upon Millicent's side.
The sudden collapse of her exaggerated hopes, the dreary
life she led, and her natural disappointment at the failure of
the man whom she had married, when once he stepped down
into the arena to combat with his fellow-men. These
things could not fail to provoke, in a nature so easily
swayed from extreme to extreme as Millicent's, impatience,
anger, and a sense of grievance. Pamela could hold the

GIDEON'S FLEECE 73

balance fairly enough to understand that. But chiefly she
was thinking of Tony — Tony hidden away in some lodging
in New York, a lodging so squalid that he would not give
the address, and vainly seeking for an opportunity whereby
lie would make a rapid fortune ; very likely going short of
food, and returning home at night to read over a letter
from his wife of which every line cried out to him, with a
contemptuous pity, " You are a failure. You are a failure.
Come home." Pamela's heart went out in pity, too. But
there was no contempt in her pity. She could not but
admire the perseverance with which, on this, the first time
that he had ever walked hand in hand with misery, he
endured its companionship.

" I think I understand," she said. " You say he answered
you in that short way in spite of what you wrote. I think
it was not in spite of, but because "

Millie Stretton shook her head.

" No, that's not the reason," she replied. She gave one
herself, and it fairly startled Pamela. " Tony no longer
cares for me. He means to go out of my life altogether."

Pamela remembered what store Tony had always set upon
his wife, how he had spoken of her that July morning in the
park, and how he had looked at the moment when he spoke.
It was just because he cared so much that he had taken his
wild leap into the dark. That, at all events, she believed,
and in such a strain she replied. But Millicent would not
be persuaded.

" Before Tony went away," she said stubbornly, " he let
me see that he no longer cared. He was losing the associa-
tions which used to be vivid in his memory. Our marriage
had just become a dull, ordinary thing. He had lost the
spirit in which he entered into it."

Again Tony's indiscreet frankness had done him wrong.
The coon song, which was always to be associated in his mind
with the summer night, and the islets in the sea, and the
broad stretch of water trembling away in the moonlight

74 THE TRUANTS

across to the lights of the yachts in Oban Bay, had become
a mere coon song " sung by some one." Millicent had often
remembered and reflected upon that unfortunate sentence,
and as her disappointment in Tony increased and the pitying
contempt gradually crept into her mind, she read into it
more and more of what Tony had not meant.

" I am sure you are wrong," said Pamela, very earnestly.
" He went away because he cared. He went away to keep
your married life and his from fading away into the colour-
less, dull, ordinary thing it so frequently becomes. He has
lost ground by his failure. No doubt your own letters have
shown that ; and he is silent now in order to keep what he
ha3. You have said it yourself. He will not write until he
is able to re-establish himself in your thoughts."

But would Tony succeed ? Could he succeed ? The
questions forced themselves into her mind even while she
was speaking, and she carried them back to her room. The
chances were all against him. Even if he retrieved his failure,
it would be a long time before that result was reached — too
long, perhaps, when his wife was Millicent, and such creatures
as Lionel Callon walked about the world. And he might
never succeed at all, he was so badly handicapped.

Pamela was sorely tempted to leave the entanglement
alone to unravel itself. There was something which she
could do. She was too honest to close her eyes to that.
But her own history rose up against her and shook a warning
linger. It had a message to her cars never so loudly
repeated as on this night. " Don't move a step. Look on !
Look on ! " She knew herself well. She was by nature a
partisan. Let her take this trouble in hand ami strive to set
it right, her whole heart would soon be set upon Bnocess.
She was fond of Millicent already ; she would become fonder
kl ill in the effort to save her. She liked Tony very much.
The thought of him stoutly perBerering, clinging to his one
ambition to keep his married life a bright and real thing in
spile of want and poverty — and even his wife's contempt,

GIDEON'S FLEECE 75

appealed to her with a poignant strength. But she might
fail. She had eaten of failure once, and, after all these
years, the taste of it was still most bitter in her mouth.

She fought her battle out over her dying fire, and at the
end two thoughts stood out clearly in her mind. She had
given her promise to Tony to be a good friend to his wife,
and there was one thing which she could do in fulfilment of
her promise.

She walked over to her window and flung it open. She
was of the women who look for signs ; no story quite
appealed to her like the story of Gideon's Fleece. She
looked for a sign now quite seriously. If a thaw had set in,
why, the world was going a little better with her, and perhaps
she might succeed. But the earth was iron-bound, and in
the still night she could hear a dry twig here and there
snapping in the frost. No, the world was not going well.
She decided to wait until things improved.

But next day matters were worse. For one thing John
Mudge went away, and he was the only person in the house
who interested her at all. Furthermore, Lionel Gallon stayed,
and he announced some news.

" I have been chosen to stand for Parliament at the next
election," he said ; and he named an important constituency.
Pamela noticed the look of gratification, almost of pride,
which shone at once on Millie's face, and her heart sank.
She interpreted Millie's thought, and accurately. Here was
a successful man, a man who had got on without oppor-
tunities or means, simply by his own abilities ; and there,
far away in New York, was her failure of a husband.
Moreover, Callon and Millicent were much together ; they
had even small secrets, to which in conversation they referred.
The world was not going well with Pamela, and she waited
for the fleece to be wet with dew.

After four days, however, the frost showed signs of
breaking. A thaw actually set in that evening, and on the
next morning two pieces of good news arrived. In the first

76 THE TRUANTS

place, Pamela received a letter from Alan Warrisden. There
was nothing of importance in it, but it gave her his actual
^ address. In the second, Millie told Frances Millingham that
she had received news that Sir John Stretton was really
failing, and although there was no immediate danger, she
must hold herself in readiness to return to town. This to
Pamela was really the best news of all. This morning, at
all events, Gideon's Fleece was wet. She looked out some
trains in the railway guide, and then sent a telegram to
Warrisden to come by a morning train. She would meet
him at the railway station. The one step in her power she
was thus resolved to take.

( 77 )

CHAPTER IX

THE NEW ROAD

Ox the crest of that hill which was visible from the upper
windows of Whitewebs, a village straggled for a mile ; and
all day in the cottages the looms were heard. The sound of
looms, indeed, was always associated with that village in the
minds of Pamela Mardale and Alan Warrisden, though they
drove along its broad street but once, and a few hours
included all their visit. Those few hours, however, were
rich with consequence. For Pamela asked for help that day,
and, in the mere asking, gave, as women must ; and she
neither asked nor gave in ignorance of what she did. The
request might be small, the gift small, too ; but it set her
and her friend in a new relation each to each, it linked them
in a common effort, it brought a new and a sweet intimacy
into both their lives. So that the noise of a loom was
never heard by them in the after times but there rose before
their eyes, visible as a picture, that grey chill day of February,
the red-brick houses crowding on the broad street in a
picturesque irregularity, and the three tall poplars tossing
in the wind. The recollection brought always a smile of
tenderness to their faces ; and in their thoughts they had for
the village a strange and fanciful name. It was just a
little Leicestershire village perched upon a hill, the village
of looms, the village of the three poplars. But they called
it Quetta.

At the very end of the street, and exactly opposite to the
small house from whose garden the poplars rose, there stood

78 THE TRUANTS

an inn. It was on the edge of the hill, for just beyond the
road dipped steeply down between high hedges of brambles
and elder trees, and, turning at the bottom of the incline,
wound thence through woods and level meadows towards
Leicester. It was the old coach road, and the great paved
yard of the inn and the long line of disused stables had once
been noisy with the shouts of ostlers and the crack of whips.
Now only the carrier's cart drove twice a week down the
steep road to Leicester, and a faint whistle from the low-lying
land and a trail of smoke showed where now the traffic ran.
On the platform of the little roadside station, three miles
from the village, Pamela met Alan Warrisden on the morning
after she had sent off her telegram. She had a trap waiting
at the door, and as they mounted into it she said —

" I rode over to the village this morning and hired this
dog-cart at the inn. I am not expected to be back at
Whitewebs until the afternoon ; so I thought we might
lunch at the inn, and then a man can drive you back to the
station, while I ride home again."

" It was bad going for a horse, wasn't it ? " said
Warrisden.

The thaw had fairly set in ; the roads, still hard as
cement, ran with water, and were most slippery. On each
side patches of snow hung upon the banks half melted, and
the air was raw.

"Yes, it was bad going," Pamela admitted. "But I
could not wait. It was necessary that I should see you
to-day."

She said no more at the moment, and Warrisden was
content to sit by her side as she drove, and wait. The road
ran in a broad straight line over the sloping ground. There
was no vehicle, not even another person, moving along it.
AVarrisden could see the line of houses ahead, huddled against
the sky, the spire of a church, and on his right the three
sentinel poplars. He was to see them all that afternoon.

Pamela drove straight to the inn, where she had already

THE NEW ROAD 79

ordered luncheon ; and it was not until luncheon was over
that she drew up her chair to the fire and spoke.

" Won't you smoke ? " she said first of all. " I want you
to listen to me."

Warrisden lit a pipe and listened.

" It is right that I should be very frank with you," she
went on, " for I am going to ask you to help me."

" You need me, then ? " said Warrisden. There was a
leap in his voice which brought the colour to her cheeks.

" Very much," she said ; and, with a smile, she asked,
<k Are you glad ?"

" Yes," be answered simply.

" Yet the help may be difficult for you to give. It may
occupy a long time besides. I am not asking you for a mere
hour or a day."

The warning only brought a smile to Warrisden's face.

" I don't think you understand," he said, " how much one
wants to be needed by those one needs."

Indeed, even when that simple truth was spoken to her,
it took Pamela a little while to weigh it in her thoughts and
give it credence. She had travelled a long distance during
these last years down her solitary road. She began to under-
stand that now. To need — actually to need people, to feel a
joy in being needed — here were emotions, familiar to most,
and no doubt at one time familiar to her, which were, never-
theless, now very new and strange. At present she only
needed. Would a time come when she would go further
still ? When she would feel a joy in being needed ? The
question flashed across her mind.

" Yes," she admitted, " no doubt that is true. But none
the less there must be no misunderstanding between you and
me. I speak of myself, although it is not for myself that I
need your help ; but I am not blind. I know it will be for
my sake that you give it, and I do not want you to give it
in any ignorance of me, or, perhaps " — and she glanced at
him almost shyly — " or, perhaps, expecting too much."

80 THE TRUANTS

Warrisden made no other answer than to lean forward in
his chair, with his eyes upon Pamela's face. She was going
to explain that isolation of hers which had so baffled him.
He would not for worlds have interrupted her lest he should
check the utterance on her lips. He saw clearly enough that
she was taking a great step for her, a step, too, which meant
much to him. The actual explanation was not the important
thing. That she should confide it of her own accord — there
was the real and valuable sign. As she began to speak again,
diffidence was even audible in her voice. She almost awaited
his judgment.

" I must tell you something which I thought never to tell
to any one," she said. " I meant to carry it as my secret
out with me at the end of my life. I have been looking on
all these last years. You noticed that ; you thought perhaps
I was just obeying my nature. But I wasn't. I did not
begin life looking on. I began it as eager, as expectant of
what life could give me as any girl that was ever born. And
I had just my first season, that was all." She smiled rather
wistfully as her thoughts went back to it. " I enjoyed my
first season. I had hardly ever been in London before. I
was eighteen ; and everybody was very nice to me. At the
end of July I went to stay for a month with some friends of
mine on the coast of Devonshire, and — some one else stayed
there, too. His name does not matter. I had met him
during the season a good deal, but until he came down to
Devonshire I had not thought of him more than as a friend.
He was a little older than myself, not very much, and just as
poor. He had no prospects, and his profession was diplomacy.
... So that there was no possibility from the first. He
meant never to say anything ; but there came an hour, and
the truth was out between us."

She stopped and gazed into the fire. The waters of the
Channel ran in sunlit ripples before her eyes ; the red rocks
of Bigbury Bay curved warmly out on her right and her left ;
further away the towering headlands loomed misty in the hot,

THE NEW ROAD 81

still August air. A white yacht, her sails hardly drawing,
moved slowly westwards ; the black smoke of a steamer
stained the sky far out ; and on the beach there were just
two figures visible— herself and the man who had not meant
to speak.

" We parted at once," she went on. " He was appointed
a consul in West Africa. I think — indeed I know — that he
hoped to rise more quickly that way. But trouble came and
he was killed. Because of that one hour, you see, when he
spoke what he did not mean to speak, he was killed." It
seemed that there was the whole story told. But Pamela
had not told it all, and never did ; for her mother had played
a part in its unfolding. It was Mrs. Mardale's ambition that
her daughter should make a great marriage ; it was her
daughter's misfortune that she knew little of her daughter's
character. Mrs. Mardale had remarked the growing friend-
ship between Pamela and the man, she had realised that
marriage was quite impossible, and she had thought, with her
short-sighted ingenuity, that if Pamela fell in love and found
love to be a thing of fruitless trouble, she would come the
sooner to take a sensible view of the world and marry where
marriage was to her worldly advantage. She thus had en-
couraged the couple to a greater friendliness, throwing them
together when she could have hindered their companionship ;
she had even urged Pamela to accept that invitation to Devon-
shire, knowing who would be the other guests. She was
disappointed afterwards when Pamela did not take the sensible
view ; but she did not blame herself at all. For she knew
nothing of the suffering which her plan had brought about.
Pamela had kept her secret. Even the months of ill -health
which followed upon that first season had not opened the
mother's eyes, and certainly she never suspected the weary
nights of sleeplessness and aching misery which Pamela
endured. Some hint of the pain of that bad past time,
however, Pamela now gave to Warrisden.

" I stayed as much at home in Leicestershire as possible,"

G

82 THE TRUANTS

she said. " You see there were my horses there ; but even
with them I was very lonely. The time was long in passing,
and it wasn't pleasant to think that there would be so much
of it yet, before it passed altogether. I went up to London
for the season each year, and I went out a great deal. It
helped me to keep from thinking."

The very simplicity with which she spoke gave an intensity
to her words. There was no affectation in Pamela Mardale.
Warrisden was able to fill out her hints, to understand her
distress.

" All this is a great surprise to me," he said. " I have
thought of you always as one who had never known either
great troubles or great joys. I have hoped that some day
you would wake, that I should find you looking out on the
world with the eagerness of youth. But I believed eagerness
would be a new thing to you."

He looked at her as she sat. The firelight was bright
upon her face, and touched her hair with light ; her dark
eyes shone ; and his thought was that which the schoolmaster
at Roquebrune had once sadly pondered. It seemed need-
lessly cruel, needlessly wanton that a girl so equipped for
happiness should, in her very first season, when the world
was opening like a fairyland, have been blindly struck down.
There were so many others who would have felt the blow less
poignantly. She might surely have been spared.

" You can guess, now," said Pamela, " why I have so
persistently looked on. I determined that I would never go
through such distress again. I felt that I would not dare to
face it again." She suddenly covered her face with her hands.
" I don't think I could," she cried in a low, piteous voice.
" I don't know what I would do," as though once more the
misery of that time were closing upon her, so vivid were her
recollections.

And once more Warrisden felt, as he watched her, the
hi iock of a surprise. He had thought her too sedate, too
womanly for her years, and here she sal shrinking in a positive

THE NEW EOAD 83

terror, like any child, from the imagined recurrence of her
years of trouble. Warrisden was moved as he had seldom
been. But he sat quite still, saying no word ; and in a little
while she took her hands from her face and went on —

" My life was over, you see, at the very beginning, and I
was resolved it should be over. For the future I would get
interested only in trifling, unimportant things ; no one should
ever be more to me than a friend whom I could relinquish ;
I would merely look on. I should grow narrow, no doubt,
and selfish." And, as Warrisden started, a smile came on to
her face. " Yes, you have been thinking that, too, and you
were right. But I didn't mind. I meant to take no risks.
Nothing serious should ever come near me. If I saw it
coming, I would push it away ; and I have pushed it
away."

" Until to-day, when you need my help ? " Yfarrisden
interrupted.

" Yes, until to-day," Pamela repeated softly.

Warrisden walked over to the window and stood with his
back towards her. The three tall poplars stood leafless up in
front of him ; the sky was heavy with grey clouds ; the wind
was roaring about the chimneys ; and the roads ran with
water. It was as cheerless a day as February can produce,
but to Warrisden it had something of a summer brightness.
The change for which he had hoped so long in vain had
actually come to pass.

" What do you want me to do ? " he asked, turning again
to the room.

"I want you to find Millie Stretton's husband," she
replied ; " and, at all costs, to bring him home again."

" Millie Stretton's husband ? " he repeated, in perplexity.

"Yes. Don't you remember the couple who stepped out
of the dark house in Berkeley Square and dared not whistle
for a hansom — the truants ? "

Warrisden was startled. " Those two ! " he exclaimed.
" Well, that's strange. On the very night when we saw

84 THE TRUANTS

them, you were saying that there was no road for you, no
new road from Quetta to Seistan. I was puzzling my brains,
too, as to how in the world you were to be roused out of your
detachment ; and there were the means visible all the time,
perhaps — who knows ? — ordained." He sat down again in
his chair.

" Where shall I look for Mr. Stretton ? " he asked.

" I don't know. He went away to New York, six months
ago, to make a home for Millie and himself. He did not
succeed, and he has disappeared."

" Disappeared ? " cried Warrisden.

" Oh, but of his own accord," said Pamela. " I can't
tell you why ; it wouldn't be fair. I have no right to tell
you. But he must be found, and he must be brought back.
Again I can't tell you why ; but it is most urgent."

" Is there any clue to help us ? " Warrisden asked.
" Had he friends in New York ? "

" No ; but he has a friend in England," said Pamela,
" and I think it's just possible that the friend may know
where he is to be found, for it was upon his advice that Mr.
Stretton went to New York."

" Tell me his name."

" Mr. Chase," Pamela replied. " He is head of a mission
in Stepney Green. Tony Stretton told me of him one
morning in Hyde Park just before he went away. He
seemed to rely very much upon his judgment."

Warrisden wrote the name down in his pocket-book.

" Will he tell me, do you think, where Stretton is, even
if he knows ? You say Stretton has disappeared of his own
accord."

" I have thought of that difficulty," Pamela answered.
"There is an argument which you can use. Sir John
Stretton, Tony's father, is ill, and in all probability
dying."

" I see. I can use the same argument to Stretton himself,
I suppose, when I rind him ? "

THE NEW ROAD 85

" I can give you no other," said Pamela ; " but you can
add to it. Mr. Stretton will tell you that his father does
not care whether he conies back in time or not. He is sure
to say that. But you can answer that every night since
he went away the candles have been lit in his dressing-
room and his clothes laid out by his father's orders, on
the chance that some evening he might walk in at the
door."

That Sir John Stretton's illness was merely the pretext
for Tony's return both understood. The real reason why he
must come home Pamela did not tell. To her thinking
Millie was not yet so deeply entangled with Lionel Callon
but that Tony's home-coming might set the tangle right. A
few weeks of companionship, and surely he would resume
his due place in his wife's thoughts. Pamela, besides, was
loyal to her sex. She had promised to safeguard Millicent ;
she was in no mind to betray her.

" But bring him back," she cried, with a real passion.
" So much depends on his return, for Millie, for him, and
for me, too. Yes, for me ! If you fail, it is I who fail ;
and I don't want failure. Save me from it ! "

" I'll try," Warrisden answered simply ; and Pamela was
satisfied.

Much depended, for Warrisden too, upon the success of
his adventure. If he failed, Pamela would retire again
behind her barrier ; she would again resume the passive,
indifferent attitude of the very old ; she would merely look
on as before and wait for things to cease. If, however, he
succeeded, she would be encouraged to move forward still ;
the common sympathies would have her in their grasp again ;
she might even pass that turnpike gate of friendship and go
boldly down the appointed road of life. Thus success meant
much for him. The fortunes of the four people— Millicent,
Tony, Pamela, and Warrisden — were knotted together at
this one point.

" Indeed, I'll try," he repeated,

86 THE TRUANTS

Pamela's liorsc was brought round to the inn door. The
dusk was coming on.

" Which way do you go ? " asked Warrisden.

" Down the hill."

" I will walk to the bottom with you. The road will be
dangerous."

They went slowly down between the high elder hedges,
Pamela seated on her horse, "Warrisden walking by her side.
The wide level lowlands opened out beneath them — fields of
brown and green, black woods with swinging boughs, and
the broad high road with its white wood rails. A thin mist
swirled across the face of the country in the wind, so that its
every feature was softened and magnified. It loomed dim
and strangely distant, with a glamour upon it like a place of
old romance. To Pamela and Warrisden, as the mists wove
and unwove about it, it had a look of dreamland.

They reached the end of the incline, and Pamela stopped
her horse.

" This is my way," said she, pointing along the highway
with her whip.

" Yes," answered Warrisden. The road ran straight for
some distance, then crossed a wooden bridge and curved out
of sight round the edge of a clump of trees. " The new
road," he said softly. "The new road from Quetta to
Seistan 1 "

Pamela smiled.

" This is Quetta," said she.

Warrisden laid his hand upon her horse's neck, and
looked suddenly up into her face.

" Where will be Seistan ? " he asked in a low voice.

Pamela returned the look frankly. There came a
softness into her dark eyes. For a moment she let her
hand rest lightly upon his sleeve, and did not speak. She
henelf was wondering how far she was to travel upon this
new road.

" I cannot tell," she said very gently. " Nor, my friend,

THE NEW ROAD 87

can you. Only " — and her voice took on a lighter and a
whimsical tone — " only I start alone on my new road."

And she went forward into the level country. "Warrisden
climbed the hill again, and turned when he had reached the
top ; but Pamela was out of sight. The dusk and the mists
had enclosed her.

88 THE TRUANTS

CHAPTEE X

MR. CHASE

The night had come when "Warrisden stepped from the
platform of the station into the train. Pamela was by this
time back at "Whitewebs— he himself was travelling to
London ; their day was over. He looked out of the window.
Somewhere three miles away the village of the three poplars
crowned the hill, but a thick wall of darkness and fog hid it
from his eyes. It seemed almost as if Pamela and he had
met that day only in thought at some village which existed
only in a dream. The train, however, rattled upon its way.
Gradually he became conscious of a familiar exhilaration.
The day had been real. Not merely had it signalled the
change in Pamela, for which for so long he had wished ; not
merely had it borne a blossom of promise for himself, but
something was to be done immediately, and the thing to be
done was of all things that which most chimed with his own
desires. He was to take the road again, and the craving for
the road was seldom stilled for long within his heart. He
heard its call sung like a song to the rhythm of the wheels.
The very uncertainty of its direction tantalised his thoughts.
Warrisden lodged upon the Embankment, and his rooms
overlooked the Thames. The mist lay heavy upon London,
mid all that night the steamboats hooted as they passed
from bridge to bridge. Warrisden lay long awake listening
to them ; each blast had its message for hi in, each was like
tin- greeting of a friend ; each one summoned him, and to
each he answered with a rising joy, " I shall follow, I shall

MR. CHASE 89

follow." The boats passed down to the sea through the
night mist. Many a time he had heard them before, picturing
the dark deck and the side lights, red and green, and the
yellow light upon the mast, and the man silent at the wheel
with the light from the binnacle striking up upon the lines
of his face. They were little river or coasting boats for the
most part, but he had never failed to be stirred by the long-
drawn melancholy of their whistles. They talked of distant
lands and an alien foliage.

He spent the following morning and the afternoon in the
arrangement of his affairs, and in the evening drove down to
the mission house. It stood in a dull by-street close to Stepney
Green, a rambling building with five rooms upon the ground
floor panelled with varnished deal and furnished with forms
and rough tables, and on the floor above, a big billiard-room, a
bagatelle-room, and a carpenter's workshop. Mr. Chase was
superintending a boxing class in one of the lower rooms, and
Warrisden, when he was led up to him, received a shock of
surprise. He had never seen a man to the outward eye so
unfitted for his work. He had expected a strong burly person,
cheery of manner and confident of voice ; he saw, however,
a tall young man with a long pale face and a fragile body.
Mr. Chase was clothed in a clerical frock-coat of unusual
length, he wore linen of an irreproachable whiteness, and
his hands were fine and delicate as a woman's. He seemed
indeed the typical High Church curate fresh that very instant
from the tea-cups of a drawing-room.

" A gentleman to see you, sir," said the ex-army sergeant
who had brought forward Warrisden. He handed Warrisden's
card to Chase, who turned about and showed "Warrisden his
full face. Surprise had been Warrisden's first sentiment, but
it gave place in an instant to distaste. The face which he saw
was not ugly, but he disliked it. It almost repelled him.
There was no light in the eyes at all ; they were veiled and
sunken ; and the features repelled by reason of a queer
antagonism. Mr. Chase had the high narrow forehead of an

00 THE TRUANTS

ascetic, the loose niouth of a sensualist, and a thin crop of pale
and almost colourless hair. Warrisden wondered why any one
should come to this man for advice, most of all a Tony
SLretton. "What could they have in common — the simple,
good-humoured, unintellectual subaltern of the Coldstream,
and this clerical exquisite ? The problem was perplexing.

" You wish to see me ? " asked Chase.

" If you please."

" Xow ? As you see, I am busy."

" I can wait."

"Thank you. The mission closes at eleven. If you can
wait till then you might come home with me, and we could
talk in comfort."

It was nine o'clock. For two hours Warrisden followed
Chase about the mission, and with each half-hour his interest
increased. However irreconcilable with his surroundings
Chase might appear to be, neither he nor any of the members
of the mission were aware of it. He was at ease alike with
the boys and the men 5 and the boys and the men were at
ease with him. Moreover, he was absolute master, although
there were rough men enough among his subjects. The
fiercest boxing contest was stopped in a second by a motion
of that delicate hand.

" I used to have a little trouble," he said to Warrisden,
" before I had those wire frames fixed over the gas-jets. You
see they cover the gas taps. Before that was done, if there
was any trouble, the first thing which happened was that the
room was in darkness. It took some time to restore order ; "
and he passed on to the swimming-bath.

Mr. Chase was certainly indefatigable. Now he was giving
a lesson in wood-carving to a boy ; now he was arranging an
apprenticeship for another in the carpenter's shop. Finally
he led the way into the great billiard-room, where only the
older men were allowed.

"It is here that Stretton used to keep order?" said
Warrisden ; and Chase at once turned quickly towards him.

MR. CHASE 91

u Ob," he said slowly, in a voice of comprehension, " I was

wondering what brought you here. Yes ; this was the room."

Chase moved carelessly away, and spoke to some of the
men about the tables. But for the rest of the evening he
was on his guard. More than once his eyes turned curiously
and furtively towards Warrisden. His face was stubborn,
and wore a look of wariness. "Warrisden began to fear lest
he should get no answer to the question he had to put. No
appeal wTould be of any use — of that he felt sure. His
argument must serve — and would it serve ?

Chase, at all events, made no attempt to avoid the inter-
view. As the hands of the clock marked eleven, and the
rooms emptied, he came at once to "Warrisden.

" We can go now," he said ; and unlocking a drawer, to
"Warrisden's perplexity he filled his pockets with racket-balls.
The motive for that proceeding became apparent as they
walked to the house w^here Chase lodged. Their way lay
through alleys, and as they walked the children clustered
about them, and Chase's pockets were emptied.

" "We keep this house because men from the Universities
come down and put in a week now and then at the mission.
My rooms are upstairs."

Chase's sitting-room was in the strangest contrast to the
bareness of the mission and the squalor of the streets. It
was furnished with luxury, but the luxury was that of a man
of taste and knowledge. There was hardly a piece of
furniture which had not an interesting history ; the en-
gravings and the brass ornaments upon the walls had been
picked up here and there in Italy. A bright fire blazed
upon the hearth.

" "What will you drink ? " Chase asked, and brought
from a cupboard bottle after bottle of liqueurs. It seemed
to "Warrisden that the procession of bottles would never
end — some held liqueurs of which he had never even heard
the name ; but concerning all of them Mr. Chase discoursed
with great knowledge and infinite appreciation.

92 THE TRUANTS

" I can recommend this," he said tentatively, as he took
up one fat round bottle and held it up to the light. " It is
difficult perhaps to say definitely which is the best, but — yes,
I can recommend this."

" Can't I have a whiskey and soda ? " asked Warrisden,
plaintively.

Mr. Chase looked at his companion with a stare.

" Of course you can," he replied. But his voice was
one of disappointment, and with an almost imperceptible
shrug of the shoulders he fetched a Tantalus and a siphon of
seltzer.

"Help yourself," he said; and lighting a gold-tipped
cigarette he drew up a chair and began to talk. And so
Warrisden came at last to understand how Tony Stretton
had gained his great faith in Mr. Chase. Chase was a
talker of a rare quality. He sat stooping over the fire with
his thin hands outspread to the blaze, and for half an hour
Warrisden was enchained. All that had repelled him in the
man, all that had aroused his curiosity, was soon lost to
sight. He yielded himself up as if to some magician.
Chase talked not at all of his work or of the many strange
incidents which he must needs have witnessed in its dis-
charge. He spoke of other climates and bright towns with
a scholarship which had nothing of pedantry, and an observa-
tion human as it was keen. Chase, with the help of his
Livy, had traced Hannibal's road across the Alps and had
followed it on foot ; he spoke of another march across snow
mountains of which Warrisden had never till this moment
heard — the hundred days of a (Lad Sultan of Morocco on
the Passes of the Atlas, during which he led his forces back
from Tafilct to Rabat. Chase knew nothing of this retreat
but what he had read. Yet he made it real to "Warrisden,
80 vividly did his imagination till up the outlines of the
written history. He knew his Paris, his Constantinople.
He had bathed from the Lido and dreamed on the Grand
Canal. He spoke of the peeling frescoes in the Villa of

MR. CHASE 93

Countess Guiccioli above Leghorn, of the outlook from the
terrace over the vines and the olive trees to the sea where
Shelley was drowned ; and where Byron's brig used to
round into the wind and with its sails flapping drop anchor
under the hill. For half an hour Warrisden wandered
through Europe in the pleasantest companionship, and then
Chase stopped abruptly and leaned back in his chair.

" I was forgetting," he said, " that you had come upon a
particular errand. It sometimes happens that I see no one
outside the mission people for a good while, and during
those periods when I get an occasion I am apt to talk too
much. "What can I do for you ? "

The spirit had gone from his voice, his face. He leaned
back in his chair, a man tired out. "Warrisden looked at the
liqueur bottles crowded on the table, with Chase's con-
versation still fresh in his mind. Was Chase a man at war
with himself, he wondered, who was living a life for which
he had no taste that he might the more completely escape a
life which his conscience disapproved ? Or was he deliber-
ately both hedonist and Puritan, giving to each side of his
strange nature, in turn, its outlet and gratification ?

" You have something to say to me," Chase continued.
" I know quite well what it is about."

" Stretton," said Warrisden.

" Yes ; you mentioned him in the billiard-room. "Well ? "

Chase was not looking at Warrisden. He sat with his
eyes half-closed, his elbows on the arms of his chair, his
finger-tips joined under his chain, and his head thrown back.
There was no expression upon his face but one of weariness.
Would he answer ? Could he answer ? Warrisden was in
doubt, indeed in fear. He led to his question warily.

" It was you who recommended Stretton to try horse-
breeding in Kentucky."

"Yes," said Chase; and he added, "after he had
decided of his own accord to go away."
" He failed."

94 THE TRUANTS

"Yes."

" And he has disappeared."

Chase opened his eyes, but did not turn them to his
companion.

" I did not advise his disappearance," he said. " That,
like his departure, was his own doing."

"No doubt," Warrisden agreed. "But it is thought
that you might have heard from liim since his disappearance."

Chase nodded his head.

" I have."

" It is thought that you might know where he is
now."

"I do," said Mr. Chase. Warrisden was sensibly
relieved. One-half of his fear was taken from him. Chase
knew, at all events, where Stretton was to be found. Now
he must disclose his knowledge. But before he could put a
question, Chase said languidly —

" You say ' it is thought,' Mr. "Warrisden. By whom is
it thought ? By his wife? "

" No. But by a great friend of hers and his."

" Oh," said Chase, " by Miss Pamela Mardale, then."

Warrisden started forward.

" You know her ? " he asked.

"No. But Stretton mentioned her to me in a letter.
She has sent you to me in fulfilment of a promise. I
understand."

The words were not very intelligible to Warrisden. lie
knew nothing of Pamela's promise to Tony Stretton. But,
on the other hand, he saw that Mr. Chase was giving a more
attentive ear to what he said. He betrayed no ignorance of
the promise.

" I am sent to fetch Stretton home," he said. " I want
you to tell me where he is."

Chase shook his head.

"No," he said gently.

"It is absolutely necessary that Stretton should come

MR. CHASE 95

back," Warrisden declared with great deliberation. And
with no less deliberation Chase replied —

"In Stretton's view it is absolutely necessary that he
should stay away ! "

" His father is dying."

Chase started forward in his chair, and stared at
Warrisden for a long time.

" Is that an excuse ? " he said at length.

It was, as Warrisden was aware. He did not answer the
question.

" It is the truth," he replied ; and he replied truthfully.

Chase rose from his chair and walked once or twice
across the room. He came back to the fire, and leaning an
elbow on the mantelpiece stared into the coals. Warrisden
sat very still. He had used his one argument — he could
add nothing to it ; he could only wait for the answer in a
great anxiety. So much hung upon that answer for Stretton
and his wife, for Pamela, for himself I The fortunes of all
four were knotted together. At last the answer came.

" I promised Tony that I would keep his secret," said
Chase. " But when he asked for the promise, and when I
gave it, the possibility of his father dying was not either in
his mind or mine. We considered — in letters, of course —
other possibilities ; but not this one. I don't think I
have the right to remain silent. Even in the face of this
possibility I should have kept my promise, I think, if you
had come from his wife — for I know why he disappeared.
But as things are, I will tell you. Tony Stretton is in the
North Sea on a trawler."

" In the North Sea ? " exclaimed Warrisden. And he
smiled. After all, the steamboats on the river had last
night called to him with a particular summons.

"Yes," continued Chase, and he fetched from his
writing-desk a letter in Tony's hand. " He came back to
England two months ago. He drifted across the country.
He found himself at Yarmouth with a few shillings in his

96 THE TRUANTS

pocket. He knew something of the sea. He had sailed his
own yacht in happier times. He was in great trouble. He
needed time to think out a new course of life. He hung
about on Gorleston pier for a day or two, and then was
taken on by a skipper who was starting out short of hands,
lie signed for eight weeks, and he wrote to me the day
before he started. That's four weeks ago."

" Can I reach him ? " Warrisden asked.

" Yes. The boat is the Perseverance, and it belongs to
the Blue Fleet. A steam cutter goes out every day from
Billingsgate to fetch the fish. I know one of the owners.
His son comes down to the mission. I can get you a
passage. When can you start ? "

" At any time," replied Warrisden. " The sooner the
better."

"To-inorrow, then," said Chase. "Meet me at the
entrance to Billingsgate Market at half-past eleven. It will
take you forty-eight hours with ordinary luck to reach the
Dogger Bank. Of course, if there's a fog in the Thames
the time will be longer. And I warn you, living is rough
on a fish-carrier."

" I don't mind that," said Warrisden, with a smile. He
went away with a light heart, and that night wrote a letter
to Pamela, telling her of his interview with Mr. Chase. The
new road seemed after all likely to prove a smooth one. As
lie wrote, every now and then a steamboat hooted from the
river, and the rain pattered upon his window. He flung it
up and looked out. There was no fog to-night, only the rain
fell, and fell gently. He prayed that there might be no fog
upon the Thames to-morrow.

Mr. Chase, too, heard the rain that night. He sat in his
armchair listening to it with a decanter at his elbow half
filled with a liquid like brown sherry. At times he poured
a little into his glass and drank it slowly, crouching over his
fire. Somewhere in the darkness of the North Sea Tony
Stretton was hidden. Very likely at this moment he was

MR. CHASE 97

standing upon the deck of his trawler with his hands upon
the spokes of the wheel, and his eyes peering forward through
the rain, keeping his long night-watch while the light from
the binnacle struck upwards upon the lines of his face. Mr.
Chase sat late in a muse. But before he went to bed he
locked the decanter and the glass away in a private cupboard,
and took the key with him into his bedroom.

H

98 THE TRUANTS

CHAPTER XI

ON THE DOGGER BAXK

The City of Bristol swung out of the huddle of boats off
Billingsgate Wharf at one o'clock on the next afternoon.
Mr. Chase, who stood upon the quay amongst the porters
and white-jacketed salesmen, turned away with an episcopal
wave of the hand. Warrisden leaned over the rail of the
steamer's bridge, between the captain and the pilot, and
shouted a reply. The City of Bristol, fish-cutter of 300
tons, was a boat built for speed, long and narrow, sitting
low on the water, with an upstanding forecastle forward, a
small saloon in the stern, and a tiny cabin for the captain
under the bridge on deck. She sidled out into the fair way
and went forward upon her slow, intricate journey to the sea.
Below the Tower she took her place in the long, single file
of ships winding between the mud banks, and changed it as
occasion served ; now she edged up by a string of barges,
now in a clear broad space she made a spurt and took the
lead of a barquantine, which swam in indolence, with bare
masts, behind a tug; and at times she stopped altogether,
like a carriage blocked in Piccadilly. The screw thrashed the
water, ceased, and struck again with a suggestion of petulance
at the obstacles which barred the boat's way. Warrisden,
too, chafed upon the bridge. A question pressed continually
upon his mind — "Would Stretton return?" He had dis-
covered where Stretton was to be found. The tall grey spire
of Stepney Church rose from behind an inlet thick with masts,
upon the left ; he was already on his way to find him. But

ON THE DOGGER BANK 99

the critical moment was yet to come. He had still to use
his arguments ; and as he stood watching the shipping with
indifferent eyes the arguments appeared most weak and un-
persuasive. Stretton's father was dying, it was true. The
son's return was no doubt a natural obligation. But would
the natural obligation hold when the father was unnatural ?
Those months in New York had revealed one cmality in Tony
Stretton, at all events ; he could persist. The very name of
the trawler in which he was at work seemed to Warrisden of
a bad augury for his success — the Perseverance !

Greenwich, with its hill of grass, slipped behind on the
right ; at the Albert Docks a huge Peninsular and Oriental
steamer, deck towering above deck, swung into the line ; the
high chimneys of the cement works on the Essex flats began
to stand out against the pale grey sky, each one crowned with
white smoke like a tuft of wool ; the barges, under their big
brown sprit-sails, now tacked this way and that across a wider
stream ; the village of Greenhithe and the white portholes of
the Worcester showed upon the right.

" Would Stretton return ? " The question revolved in
Warrisden's mind as the propeller revolved in the thick brown
water. The fortunes of four people hung upon the answer,
and no answer could be given until a night, and a day, and
another night had passed, until he saw the Blue Fleet tossing
far away upon the Dogger Bank. Suppose that the answer
were " No ! " He imagined Pamela sinking back into lassi-
tude, narrowing to that selfishness which she, no less than
he, foresaw ; looking on again at the world's show with the
lack-lustre indifference of the very old.

At Gravesend the City of Bristol dropped her pilot, a little,
white-bearded, wizened man, who all the way down the river,
balancing himself upon the top-rail of the bridge, like some
nautical Blondin, had run from side to side the while he
exchanged greetings with the anchored ships ; and just
opposite to Tilbury Fort, with its scanty fringe of trees, she
ran alongside of a hulk and took in a load of coal.

100 TEE TRUANTS

" We'll go down and have tea while they are loading her,"
said the captain.

The dusk was falling when Warrisden came again on
deck, and a cold wind was blowing from the north-west. The
sharp stem of the boat was cutting swiftly through the quiet
water ; the lift of the sea under her forefoot gave to her a
buoyancy of motion — she seemed to have become a thing
alive. The propeller cleft the surface regularly ; there was
no longer any sound of petulance in its revolutions, rather
there was a throb of joy as it did its work unhindered.
Throughout the ship a steady hum, a steady vibration ran.
The City of Bristol was not merely a thing alive ; it was a
thing satisfied.

Upon Warrisden, too, there descended a sense of peace.
He was en rapport with the ship. The fever of his question-
ing left him. On either side the arms of the shore melted
into the gathering night. Far away upon his right the lights
of Margate shone brightly, like a chain of gold stretched out
upon the sea ; in front of him there lay a wide and misty
bay, into which the boat drove steadily. All the unknown
seemed hidden there ; all the secret unrevealed Beyond.
There came whispers out of that illimitable bay to Warris-
den's ears ; whispers breathed upon the north wind, and all
the whispers were whispers of promise, bidding him take
heart. Warrisden listened and believed, uplif ted by the grave
quiet of the sea and its mysterious width.

The City of Bristol turned northward into the great
channel of the Swin, keeping close to the lightships on the
left, so close that Warrisden from the bridge could look
straight down upon their decks. The night had altogether
come — a night of stars. Clusters of lights, low down upon
the left, showed where the towns of Essex stood ; upon the
light hand the homeward-bound ships loomed up ghost-like
and passed by ; on the right, too, shone out the great green
globes of the Mouse light like Neptune's reading-lamps.
•Sheltered behind the canvas screen at the corner of the bridge

ON THE DOGGER BANK 101

Warrisden looked along the rake of the unlighted deck below.
He thought of Pamela waiting for his return at Whitewebs,
but without impatience. The great peace and silence of the
night were the most impressive things he had ever known.
The captain's voice complaining of the sea jarred upon
him.

" It's no Bobby's job," said the captain in a low voice.
" It's home once in three weeks from Saturday to Monday, if
you are in luck, and the rest of your time you're in carpet
slippers on the bridge. You'll sleep in my chatoo, to-night.
I sha'n't turn in until we have passed the Outer Gabbard
and come to the open sea. That won't be till four in the
morning."

"Warrisden understood that he was being offered the
captain's cabin.

" No, thanks," said he. " The bench of the saloon will
do very well for me."

The captain did not press his offer.

" Yes ; there's more company in the saloon," he said. " I
often sleep there myself. You are bound for the Mission
ship, I suppose ? "

" No ; I want to find a man on the trawler Perseverance."

The captain turned. Warrisden could not see his face,
but he knew from his attitude that he was staring at him in
amazement.

" Then you must want to see him pretty badly," he com-
mented. " The No'th Sea in February and March is not a
Bobby's job."

" Bad weather is to be expected ? " asked "Warrisden.

" It has been known," said the captain dryly ; and before
the lights of the Outer Gabbard winked good-bye on the
starboard quarter at four o'clock in the morning, the City
of Bristol was taking the water over her deck.

"Warrisden rolled on the floor of the saloon — for he could
not keep his balance on the narrow bench — and tried in vain
to sleep. But the strong light of a lamp, swinging from

102 THE TRUANTS

the roof, glared upon his eyes, the snores of his companions
trumpeted in his ears. Moreover, the heat was intolerable.
Five men slept in the bunks — Warrisden made a sixth. At
four in the morning the captain joined the party through
his love of company. The skylight and the door were both
tightly closed, a big fire burned in the stove, and a boiling
kettle of tea perpetually puffed from its spout a column of
warm, moist steam. "Warrisden felt his skin prickly beneath
his clothes ; he gasped for fresh air.

Living would be rough upon the fish-carrier, Chase had
told him ; and rough "Warrisden found it. In the morning
the steward rose, and made tea by the simple process of
dropping a handful of tea into the kettle and filling it up
with water. A few minutes later he brought a dish of ham
and eggs from the galley, and slapped it down on the
table.

"Breakfast," he cried ; and the five men opened their
eyes, rubbed them, and without any other preparation sat
down and ate. Warrisden slipped up the companion, un-
screwed the skylight and opened it for the space of an inch.
Then he returned.

The City of Bristol was rolling heavily, and "Warrisden
noticed with surprise that all of the five men gave signs of
discomfort. Surely, he thought, they must be used to heavy
weather. But, nevertheless, something was wrong ; they
did not talk. Finally, the captain looked upwards, and
brought his hand down upon the table.

" I felt something was wrong," said he ; " the skylight's
open."

All stared up to the roof.

" So it is."

" I did that," "Warrisden said humbly.

At once all the faces were turned on him in great
curiosity.

" Xow why ? " asked the captain. " Don't you like it
nice and snug ? "

ON THE DOGGER BANK 103

"Yes ; oh yes," Warrisden said hurriedly.

" Well, then ! " said the captain ; and the steward went
on deck and screwed the skylight down.

"After all, it's only for thirty-six hours," thought
"Warrisden, as he subsequently bathed in a pail on deck.
But he was wrong ; for the Blue Fleet had gone a hundred
miles north to the Fisher Bank, and thither the City of
Bristol followed it.

The City of Bristol sailed on to the Fisher Bank, and
found an empty sea. It hunted the Blue Fleet for half-a-
dozen hours, and, as night fell, it came upon a single trawler
with a great flare light suspended from its yard.

" They're getting in their trawl," said the captain ; and
he edged up within earshot.

" Where's the Blue Fleet ? " he cried.

" Gone back to the Dogger," came the answer.

The captain swore, and turned southwards. For four
days and nights Warrisden pitched about on the fish-carrier
and learned many things, such as the real meaning of tannin
in tea, and the innumerable medical uses to which " Friar's
Balsam " can be put. On the morning of the fifth day the
City of Bristol steamed into the middle of the fleet, and her
engines stopped.

These were the days before the steam-trawler. The
sailing-ships were not as yet laid up, two by two, alongside
Gorleston quay, and knocked down for a song to any pur-
chaser. Warrisden looked over a grey, savage sea. The
air was thick with spindrift. The waves leaped exultingly
up from windward and roared away to leeward from under
the cutter's keel in a steep, uprising hill of foam. All about
him the sailing-boats headed to the wind, sinking and rising
in the furrows, so that Warrisden would just see a brown
topsail over the edge of a steep roller like a shark's fin, and
the next instant the dripping hull of the boat flung out upon
a breaking crest.

" You will have to look slippy when the punt from the

104 THE TRUANTS

Perseverance comes alongside with her fish," the captain
shouted. " The punt will give you a passage back to the
Perseverance, but I don't think you will be able to return.
There's a no'th-westerly gale blowing up, and the sea is
increasing every moment. However, there will be another
cutter up to-morrow, and if it's not too rough you could be
put on board of her."

It took Warrisden a full minute to realise the meaning
of the captain's words. He looked at the tumbling, break-
ing waves, he listened to the roar of the wind through the
rigging.

" The boats won't come alongside to-day," he cried.

" Won't they ? " the skipper replied. " Look ! "

Certainly some manoeuvre was in progress. The trawlers
were all forming to windward in a rough semicircle about
the cutter. Warrisden could see boat tackle being rigged to
the main yards and men standing about the boats capsized
on deck. They were actually intending to put their fish on
board in the face of the storm.

" You see, with the gale blowing up, they mayn't get a
chance to put their fish on board for three or four clays after
this," the captain explained. " Oh, you can take it from
me. The No'th Sea is not a Bobby's job."

As Warrisden watched, one by one the trawlers dropped
their boats, and loaded them with fish-boxes. The boats
pushed off, three men to each, with their life-belts about
their oil-skins, and came down with the wind towards the
fish-carrier. The trawlers bore away, circled round the City
of Bristol, and took up their formation to leeward, so that,
having discharged their fish, the boats might drop down
again with the wind to their respective ships. Warrisden
watched the boats, piled up with fish-boxes, coming through
the welter of the sea. It seemed some desperate race was
being rowed.

" Can you tell me which is the boat from the Persever-
ance ? " he asked.

ON THE DOGGER BANK 105

" I think it's the fifth," said the captain.

The boats came down, each one the kernel of a globe of
spray. Warrisden watched, admiring how cleverly they
chose the little gaps and valleys in the crests of the waves.
Each moment he looked to see a boat tossed upwards and
overturned ; each moment he dreaded that boat would be
the fifth. But no boat was overturned. One by one they
passed under the stern of the City of Bristol, and came
alongside under the shelter of its wall.

The fifth boat ranged up. A man stood up in the stern.

" The Perseverance" he cried. " Nine boxes." And as
he spoke a great sea leapt up against the windward bow of
the cutter. The cutter rolled from it suddenly, her low
bulwarks dipped under water on the leeward side, close by
the Perseverance boat.

" Shove off ! " the man cried, who was standing up ; and
as he shouted he lurched and fell into the bottom of the
boat. The two men in the bows pushed off with their oars ;
but they were too late. The cutter's bulwark caught the
boat under the keel ; it seemed she must be upset, and men
and boxes whelmed in the sea, unless a miracle happened.
But the miracle did happen. As the fish-cutter righted she
scooped on to her deck the boat, with its boxes and its crew.
The incident all seemed to happen within the fraction of a
second. Not a man upon the fish-cutter had time to throw
out a rope. Warrisden saw the cutter's bulwarks dip, the
sailor falling in the boat, and the boat upon the deck of the
cutter in so swift a succession that he had not yet realised
disaster was inevitable before disaster was avoided.

The sailor rose from the bottom of the boat and stepped
on deck, a stalwart, dripping figure.

"From the Perseverance, sir. Nine boxes," he said,
looking up to the captain on the bridge ; and Warrisden,
leaning by the captain's side upon the rail, knew the sailor
to be Tony Stretton. The accent of the voice would have
been enough to assure him ; but Warrisden knew the face too.

106 THE TRUANTS

" This is the man I want," he said to the captain.

"You must be quick, then," the captain replied.
" Speak to him while the boat is being unloaded."

Warrisden descended on to the deck.

" Mr. Stretton," said he.

The sailor swung round quickly. There was a look of
annoyance upon his face.

" You are surely making a mistake," said he, abruptly.
" We are not acquainted," and he turned back to the fish-
boxes.

"I'm not making a mistake," replied Warrisden. "I
have come out to the North Sea in order to find you."

Stretton ceased from his work and stood up. lie led the
way to the stern of the cutter, where the two men were out
of earshot.

"Now," he said. He stood in front of Warrisden, in his
sea-boots and his oilskins, firmly planted, yet swaying to the
motion of the ship. There was not merely annoyance in his
face, but he had the stubborn and resolute look of a man
not lightly to be persuaded. Standing there on the cutter's
deck, backed by the swinging seas, there was even an air of
mastery about him which "Warrisden had not expected. His
attitude seemed, somehow, not quite consistent with his
record of failure.

" Now," said Stretton, " we must be quick. The sea is
getting worse each minute, and I have to get back to the
Perseverance. You are ? "

" Alan Warrisden, a stranger to you."

" Yes," Stretton interrupted ; " how did you find me out ? "

" Chase told me."

Stretton's face flushed angrily.

" He had no right to tell you. I wished for these few
weeks to be alone. He gave me his word he would tell no
one."

" He had to break his word," said Warrisden, firmly.
" It is necessary that you should come home at once."

ON THE DOGGER BANK 107

Stretton laughed. Warrisden was clinging to a wire
stay from the cutter's mizzen-mast, and even so could hardly
keep his feet. He had a sense of coming failure from the
very ease with which Stretton stood resting his hands upon
his hips, unsupported on the unsteady deck.

" I cannot come," said Stretton abruptly ; and he turned
away. As he turned "Warrisden shouted — for in that high
wind words carried in no other way — " Your father, Sir John
Stretton, is dying."

Stretton stopped. He looked for a time thoughtfully
into Warrisden's face ; but there was no change in his
expression by which Warrisden could gather whether the
argument would prevail or no. And when at last he spoke,
it was to say —

" But he has not sent for me."

It was the weak point in Warrisden's argument, and
Stretton had, in his direct way, come to it at once. Warrisden
was silent.

" Well ? " asked Stretton. " He has not sent for me ? "

" No," Warrisden admitted ; " that is true."

" Then I will not come."

" But though he has not sent for you, it is very certain
that he wishes for your return," Warrisden urged. " Every
night since you have been away the candles have been lighted
in your dressing-room and your clothes laid out, in the hope
that on one evening you will walk in at the door. On the
very first night, the night of the day on which you went, that
was done. It was done by Sir John Stretton's orders, and
by his orders it has always since been done."

Just for a moment Warrisden thought that his argument
would prevail. Stretton's face softened ; then came a smile
which was almost wistful about his lips, his eyes had a
kindlier look. And the kindlier look remained. Kindliness,
too, was the first tone audible in his voice as he replied ; but
the reply itself yielded nothing,

" He has not sent for me."

108 THE TRUANTS

He looked curiously at Warrisden, as if for the first time
he became aware of him as a man acting from motives, not a
mere instrument of persuasion.

" After all, who did send you ? " he asked. " My
wife ? "
" No."

"Who then?"
" Miss Pamela Mardale."

Stretton was startled by the name. It was really the
strongest argument Warrisden had in his armoury. Only
he was not aware of its strength.

" Oh," said Stretton, doubtfully ; " so Miss Mardale sent
you ! "

He thought of that morning in the Row ; of Pamela's
words — " I still give the same advice. Do not leave your
wife." He recalled the promise she had given, although it
was seldom long absent from his thoughts. It might be that
she sent this message in fulfilment of that promise. It
might be that, for some unknown reason, he was now needed
at his wife's side. But he had no thought of distrust ; he
had great faith in Millicent. She despised him, yes ; but
he did not distrust her. And, again, it might be that
Pamela was merely sending him this news thinking he would
wish to hear of it in time. After all, Pamela was his friend.
He looked out on the wild sea. Already the boats were
heading back through the foam, each to its trawler.

" One must take one's risks," he said. " So much I have
learnt here in the North Sea. Look ! " and he pointed to
the boats. " Those boats are taking theirs. Yes; whether
it's lacing your topsail or taking in a reef, one must take
one's risks. I will not come."

He went back to the middle of the ship. The punt of
the Perseverance was already launched, the two fishermen
waiting in it. As it rose on a swell, Stretton climbed over
the bulwarks and dropped into the stern.

"Good-bye," he said. "I have signed on for eight

ON THE DOGGER BANK 109

weeks, and only four have passed. I cannot ran away and
leave the ship short-handed. Thank you for coming ; but
one must take one's risks."

The boat was pushed off and headed towards the Perse-
verance. The waves had increased, the crests toppled down
the green slopes in foam. Slowly the boat was rowed down
to the trawler, the men now stopping and backing water,
now dashing on. Warrisden saw them reach the ship's side
and climb on board, and he saw the boat slung upwards and
brought in on to the deck. Then the screw of the City of
Bristol struck the water again. Lurching through the
heavy seas, she steamed southwards. In a few minutes the
Blue Fleet was lost to sight.

110 THE TRUANTS

CHAPTER XII

tony's inspiration

Warrisden had failed. This was the account of his mission
which he had to give to Pamela Mardale ; and he gave it
without excuses. He landed at Billingsgate Wharf at eleven
o'clock on the second day after the sails of the Blue Fleet
had dropped out of sight behind the screen of breaking waves.
That afternoon he travelled down to the village of the three
poplars. It was night when he stepped out of the train on
to the platform of the little station. One can imagine what
bitter and humiliating thoughts occupied his mind. Away
on the crest of the hill the lights of the village shone brightly
through the clear night air, just as the lights of Margate
had shone across the bay when the steam-cutter had sprung
like a thing alive to the lift of the sea beneath her bows.
Then all the breeze had whispered promises ; now the high
hopes were fallen. " Do not fail ! " Pamela had cried, with a
veritable passion, hating failure as an indignity, lie could
hear the words in the very accent of her voice. Once she
had suffered failure, but it was not to be endured again.
That was what she had meant ; and he had failed. He
drove along that straight road which he had traversed with
Pamela at his side ; he slept under the roof of the inn where
Pamela had claimed his help. The help had been fruitless,
and the next morning he rode down the hill and along the
load with the white wood rails — " the new road " — to tell her
so. The sun was bright ; there was a sparkle of spring in
the air ; on the black leafless boughs birds sang. He looked

TONY'S INSPIRATION 111

back to the three poplars pointing to the sky from the tiny
garden on the crest of the hill. Quetta — yes ! But it
seemed there was to be no Seistan.

He had started early, fearing that there might be a meet
that day ; and he had acted wisely, for in the hall there
were one or two men lounging by the fire in scarlet, and
Pamela was wearing her riding-habit when she received him.
He was shown into a little room which opened on to the
garden behind the house, and thither Pamela came.

" You are alone ! " she said.

" Yes ; Stretton would not come."

" None the less, I am very grateful."

She smiled as she spoke, and sat down, with her eyes
upon him, waiting for his story. The disappointment was
visible upon his face, but not upon hers. Pamela's indeed,
was to him at this moment rather inscrutable. It was not
indifferent, however. He recognised that, and was, in a way,
consoled. It had been his fear that at the first word she
would dismiss the subject, and turn her back on it for good.
On the contrary, she was interested, attentive.

" You found him, then ? " she asked.

" Yes. You would like to hear what passed ? "

" Of course."

" Even though I failed ? "

She looked at him with some surprise at his insistence.

"Yes, yes," she said, a little impatiently.

" "We were nearly three days longer in reaching the
Blue Fleet than we anticipated," he began. " Stretton came

on board the fish-cutter " And Pamela interrupted

him —

" Why were you nearly three days longer ? Tell me
about your own journey out to the fleet from the beginning."

She was, in fact, as much interested in her messenger as
in the errand upon which she had sent him. Warrisden
began to see that his journey after all was not entirely a
defeat. The alliance to which they had set their hands up

112 THE TRUANTS

there in the village on the hill was bearing its fruit. It had
set them in a new relationship to each other, and in a closer
intimacy.

He told the story of his voyage, making light of his
hardships on the steam-cutter. She, on the other hand,
made much of them.

" To quote your captain," she remarked, with a smile,
" it was not a Bobby's job."

Warrisdcn laughed, and told her of Stretton's arrival in
the punt of the Perseverance. He described the way in
which he had come on board ; he related the conversation
which had passed between them at the stern of the cutter.

" He hadn't the look of a man who had failed," Warrisden
continued. " He stood there on the swinging deck with his
legs firmly planted apart, as easily as if he were standing
on a stone pavement. I, on the other hand, was clinging
desperately to a stay. He stood there, with the seas swinging
up behind him, and stubbornly refused to come."

" You told him of his father's illness ? " asked Pamela.

" He replied that his father had not sent for him."

" You spoke of the candles lit every night ? "

" His answer was the same. His father had not sent for
him. Besides, he had his time to serve. He had signed on
for eight weeks. There was only one moment when I thought
that there was a chance I might persuade him ; and, indeed,
my persuasions had really nothing to do with it at all. It
was just the mention of your name."

"My name ? " asked Pamela, in surprise.

" Yes. In answer to a question of his I told him that
I had been sent out by you, and for a moment he
faltered."

Pamela nodded her head in comprehension.

11 1 understand ; but he refused in the end ? "

" Yes. He said, ' One must take one's risks.' "

Pamela repeated the sentence softly to herself ; and
Warrisden crossed over to her side. His voice took a

TONY'S INSPIRATION 113

gentler note, and one still more serious than that which he
had used.

" Do you know what I think ? " he asked. " You sent
me out with a message to Stretton. I think that he has
sent me back with a message for you — ' One must take one's
risks.' He said that he had learned that in the North Sea.
He pointed to the little boats carrying the fish-boxes to the
steamer through the heavy, breaking seas. Each man in
each of the boats was taking his risks. 'Whether it's lacing
your topsail or taking in a reef,' he said, ' one must take
one's risks.' "

Pamela was silent for awhile after he had spoken. She
sat with her hands folded in her lap, and her face most
serious. Then she looked up at her companion with a very
friendly smile ; but she did not answer him at all. And
when she spoke, she spoke words which utterly surprised
him. All the time since the ketches had disappeared behind
the waves he had been plagued with the thought of the
distress which defeat would cause her; "and here she was
saying—

" I am very glad that you went out to the North Sea for
me, even though the journey proved fruitless. It makes us
so much the better friends, doesn't it ? And that is a gain
for me. Think of it that way, and you will not mind the
hardships and the waste of time."

She held out her hand — rather a rare act with her — and
"Warrisden took it. Then came the explanation why defeat
meant so little just at this time.

" I need not have sent you at all," she continued, " could
I have foreseen. Sir John Stretton died yesterday afternoon,
suddenly. I received a telegram last night from Millie. So
Tony will naturally come home when his four weeks are up.
I wrote last night to Millie, telling her where Tony was."
Then she added, " But I am glad that I did not foresee."

She rose from her chair, and they walked out through
the hall to the front of the house. A groom was holding

i

114 THE TRUANTS

Pamela's horse. The others who were hunting that day had
already ridden off. Warrisden helped her into the saddle,
and she rode away.

Sir John had died, and Stretton would now naturally
come home. That explained to "Warrisden how it was that
Pamela made so little of the defeat. But it was not the
whole explanation. Pamela was waking from her long sleep,
like the princess in the fairy tale, and the mere act of waking
was a pleasure. In the stir of emotions, hitherto rigorously
suppressed, in the exercise of sympathies, she found a delight
such as one may find in the mere stretching of one's muscles
after a deep rest. The consciousness of life as a thing enjoy-
able began to tingle in her. She was learning again lessons
which she remembered once to have learned before. The
joy of being needed by those one needs — there was one of
them. She had learned a new one to-day — " One must take
one's risks." She repeated the sentence over to herself as
she rode between the hedgerows on this morning which had
the sparkle of spring. A few days ago she would have put
that view of life away from her. Now, old as it was, simple
as it was, she pondered upon it as though it were a view quite
novel. She found it, moreover, pleasant. She had travelled,
indeed, further along the new road than she was aware. The
truth is that she had rather hugged to herself the great
trouble which had overshadowed her life. She had done so
unwittingly. She had allowed it to dominate her after it
had lost its power to dominate, and from force of habit. She
began to be aware of it now that she had stepped out from
her isolation, and was gathering again the strings of her life
into her hands.

• • • t •

But Pamela was wrong in her supposition that since Sir
John's death the danger for Millicent was at an end. Tony
Stretton would now return home, she thought ; and nothing
was further from Tony's thoughts. At the time when
Pamela was riding through the lanes of Leicestershire on

TONY'S INSPIRATION 115

that morning of early spring, Tony was lying in his bunk in
the cabin of the Perseverance reading over, for the thousandth
time, certain letters which he kept beneath his pillow. This
week he kept the long night watch from midnight until eight
of the morning ; it was now eleven, and he had the cabin to
himself. The great gale had blown itself out. The trawl,
which for three days had remained safely stowed under the
lee bulwarks, was now dragging behind the boat ; with her
topsails set the ketch was sailing full and by the wind ; and
down the open companion the sunlight streamed into the
cabin and played like water upon the floor. The letters
Tony Stretton was reading were those which Millie had sent
him. Disappointment was plain in every line ; they were
sown with galling expressions of pity ; here and there con-
tempt peeped out. Yet he was glad to have them ; they
were his monitors, and he found a stimulus in their very
cruelty. Though he knew them by heart, he continually
read them on mornings like this, when the sun shone down
the companion, and the voices of his fellow sailors called
cheerily overhead ; at night, leaning upon his elbow, and
spelling them out by the dim light of the swinging lamp,
while the crew slept about him in their bunks.

To his companions he was rather a mystery. To some
of them he was just down on his luck ; to others he was a
man " who had done something."

" I suppose you have come out here to lie doggo," said
the skipper to him, shouting out the words in the height of
the gale, when both were standing by the lashed wheel one
night. " I ask no questions. All I say is, you do your work.
I have had no call to slap a haddick across your face. I say
that fair and square. Water 1 "

He concluded his speech with a yell. Stretton saw a
ragged line of wjrite suddenly flash out in the darkness, high
up by the weather bow, and descend with a roar. It was a
wave breaking down upon the deck. Both men flung them-
selves down the companion, and the water sluiced after them

116 THE TRUANTS

and washed them struggling about the floor of the cabin.
The wave saved Strctton from the need to reply, and the
skipper did not refer to the subject again.

Stretton had signed on for this cruise on the Perseverance
because he wanted a time during which he could be quite
sure of his livelihood. So far he had failed. He must map
out a new course for himself upon his life's chart. But for
that work he needed time for thought, and that time, up till
now, he had not enjoyed. The precarious existence which
he had led since he had lost the half of Millie's small
fortune — now a clerk in a store, and a failure ; now a com-
mercial traveller, and again a failure — had left him little
breathing space wherein to gather up his slow thoughts and
originate a new plan. That breathing space, however, the
Perseverance had afforded him. During the long watches on
fine nights, when the dark sails, swinging up and down to
the motion of the boat, revealed and obscured the stars, he
wrestled with the difficult problem of his life.

He could go back when his cruise was over if he chose.
His father was dying ; he faced the fact quite frankly. The
object with which he set out would be, after all, accomplished,
though not accomplished by himself. There would be a
house for Millie and himself independent of the old man's
caprice ; their life would be freed from the shadow of his
tyranny ; their seclusion would come to an end ; they could
let the sunlight in upon their lives. Yes ! But there were
the letters down in the cabin there, underneath his pillow.
Did not they alter the position ? He had gone away to keep
his wife, just, in a word, to prevent that very contempt of
which the letters gave him proof. Must he not now stay
away in order to regain her ? His wife was at the bottom
of all his thoughts. He had no blame for her, however
much her written words might hurt. He looked back upon
their life together, its pleasant beginnings, when they were
not merely lovers, but very good friends into the bargain.
For it is possible to lie the one and yet not the other. They

TONY'S INSPIRATION 117

were good days, the days in the little house in Deanery
Street, days full of fun and good temper and amusement.
He recalled their two seasons in London — London bright
with summer — and making of each long day a too short
holiday. Then had come the change, sudden, dark, and
complete. In the place of freedom, subjection ; in the place
of company, isolation ; in the place of friends, a sour old
man, querulous and exacting. Then had come the great
hope of another home ; and swiftly upon that hope its failure
through his incapacity. He could not blame her for the
letters underneath his pillow. He was no less set upon
regaining her than he had been before on keeping her. His
love for her had been the chief motive of his life when he
left the house in Berkeley Square. It remained so still.
Could he go back, he asked himself ?

There was one inducement persuading him always to
answer " Yes " — the sentence which Pamela had spoken,
and which she had refused to explain. He should be at his
wife's side. He had never understood that saying ; it
remained fixed in his memory, plaguing him. He should
be at his wife's side. So Pamela Mardale had said, and for
what Pamela said he had the greatest respect. "Well, he
could be in a few weeks at his wife's side. But would it not
be at too great a cost unless he had first redeemed himself
from her contempt ?

Thus he turned and turned, and saw no issue anywhere.
The days slipped by, and one morning the fish-cutter brought
to him a letter, which told him that four days ago his father
had died. He could not reach home in time for the funeral,
even if he started at once. And he could not start at once ;
he had signed on for eight weeks.

But the letter left him face to face with the old problem.
Should he go back or should he stay away ? And if he
stayed away, what should he do ?

He came on deck one morning, and his skipper said —

" There's a fog on land, Stretton,"

118 THE TRUANTS

" How do you know that ? " asked Stretton.

The captain pointed to some birds hovering over the
masts of the ketch.

" Those arc land birds," said he. " Look, there's a
thrash and there's a blackbird. You won't find thern so
far from land without a reason. There has been a fog,
and very likely a storm. They have lost their bearings in
the fog."

The birds hovered about the ships of the fleet, calling
plaintively — here, at all events, were men recognisably
belonging to the land they vainly sought. Stretton,
watching them, felt very much like one of those birds. He,
too, had lost his way in a fog, and though he made no outcry,
his need of guidance was no less great than theirs.

Then came a morning at last when the trawl was hauled
in for the last time, and the boat's head pointed towards
Yarmouth.

" When shall we reach harbour ? " Stretton asked
anxiously.

" If this breeze holds, in twenty-four hours," replied the
skipper.

Twenty-four hours 1 Just a day and a night, and
Stretton would step from the deck on to Gorleston Quay ;
and he was no nearer to the solution of his problem than
when he had stepped from the quay on to the deck eight
weeks ago. Those eight weeks were to have resolved all his
perplexities, and lo ! the eight weeks had passed.

He was in a fever of restlessness. lie paced the deck all
the day when he was not standing at the wheel ; at night he
could not sleep, but stood leaning over the bulwarks, watching
the stars trembling in the quiet water. At one o'clock in the
morning the Perseverance passed a lightship. Already the
boat was so near home I And in the hour which followed,
his eight weeks of solitary communing, forced, as it were, by
immediate necessity, bore their fruit. His inspiration — he
Counted the idea no less than an inspiration — came to him

TONY'S INSPIRATION 119

suddenly. He saw all at once his course marked out for him
upon the chart of life. He would not suffer a doubt of it to
enter his mind ; he welcomed it with passion, and the great
load was lifted from his mind. The idea had come. It was
water in a dry land.

A fisherman leaning over the bulwark by Stretton's side
heard him suddenly begin to sing over to himself a verse or
two of a sons; —

t3

"Oh, come out, mah love ! I'm a-waiting fob you hcalil
Doan' you keep yuh window closed to-night."

It was a coon song which Stretton was humming over to
himself. His voice dropped to a murmur, He stopped and
laughed softly to himself, as though the song had very dear
associations in his thoughts. Then his voice rose again, and
there was now a kind of triumph in the lilt of the song, which
had nothing to do with the words —

" De stars all a-gwine put dey little ones to bed
Wid dey ' hush now, sing a lullaby,'
Dc man in de moon nod his sleepy, sleepy head,
And do sandman put a little in his eye."

The words went lilting out over the quiet sea. It seemed
to Stretton that they came from a lighted window just behind
him, and were sung in a woman's voice. He was standing on
a lawn surrounded by high dark trees in the warmth of a
summer night. He was looking out past the islets over eight
miles of quiet water to the clustered lights of the yachts in
Oban Bay. The coon song was tliat which his wife had
sung to him on one evening he was never to forget ; and
this night he had recovered its associations. It was no
longer " a mere song sung by somebody." It seemed to
him, so quickly did his anticipations for once outrun his
judgment, that he had already recovered his wife.

The Perseverance was moored alongside of the quay at
eight o'clock in the morning, and just at that time Millie was
reading a letter of condolence from Lionel Callon.

120 THE TRUANTS

CHAPTER XIII

TONY STRETTOX RETURNS TO STEPNEY

Mr. Chase left the mission quite early in the evening and
walked towards his lodging. That side of his nature which
clamoured for enjoyments and a life of luxury was urgent
with him to-night. As he turned into his street he began to
debate with himself whether he should go in search of a cab
and drive westwards out of the squalor. A church clock
had just struck nine ; he would find his club open and his
friends about the fire. Thus debating he came to his own
door, and had unconsciously taken his latch-key from his
pocket before he had decided upon his course. The latch-
key decided him. He opened the door and went quickly up
to his sitting-room. The gas was low, and what light there
was came from the fire. Chase shut the door gently, and
his face underwent a change. There came a glitter into his
eyes, a smile to his lips. He crossed to the little cupboard
in the corner and unlocked it, stealthily, even though he was
alone. As he put his hand into it and grasped the decanter,
something stirred in his armchair. The back of the chair
was towards him. He remained for a second or two motion-
less, listening. But the sound was not repeated. Chase
noiselessly locked the cupboard again and came back to the
fire. A man was sitting asleep in the chair.

Chase laid a hand upon his shoulder and shook him.

" Stretton," he said ; and Tony Stretton opened his eyes.

" I fell asleep waiting for you," he said.

u When did you get back ? " asked Chase.

TONY STRETTON RETURNS TO STEPNEY 121

" I landed at Yarmouth this morning. I came up to
London tins afternoon."

Chase turned up the gas and lit a cigarette.

" You have not been home, then ? " he said. " There is
news waiting for you there. Your father is dead ! "

" I know," Stretton replied. " He died a month ago."

Mr. Chase was perplexed. He drew up a chair to the
fire and sat down.

" You know that ? " he asked slowly ; " and yet you
have not gone home ? "

" No," replied Stretton. " And I do not mean to go."

Stretton was speaking in the quietest and most natural
way. There was no trace in his manner of that anxiety
which during the last few days had kept him restless and
uneasy. He had come to his decision. Chase was aware of
the stubborn persistence of his friend ; and it was rather to
acquire knowledge than to persuade that he put his questions.

"But why ? You went away to make an independent
home, free from the restrictions under which you and your
wife were living. Well, you have got that home now. The
reason for your absence has gone."

Stretton shook his head.

" The reason remains. Indeed it is stronger now than it
was when I first left England," he answered. He leaned
forward with his elbows upon his knees, gazing into the fire.
The light played upon his face, and Chase could not but
notice the change which these few months had brought to
him. He had grown thin, and rather worn ; he had lost
the comfortable look of prosperity ; his face was tanned.
But there was more. It might have been expected that the
rough surroundings amidst which Stretton had lived would
leave their marks. He might have become rather coarse,
rather gross to the eye. On the contrary, there was a look
of refinement. It was the long battle with his own thoughts
which had left the marks. The mind was showing through
the flesh. The face had become spiritualised.

122 THE TRUANTS

" Yes. the reason remains," said Stretton. " I left Lome
to keep my wife. We lived a life of quarrels. All the little
memories, the associations, the thousand and one small
private things — ideas, thoughts, words, jokes even, which
two people who care very much for one another have in
common — we were losing, and so quickly ; so very quickly.
I can't express half what I mean. But haven't you seen a
man and a woman at a dinner-table, when some chance
sentence is spoken, suddenly look at one another just for a
second, smile perhaps, at all events speak, though no word is
spoken ? Well, that kind of intimacy was going. I saw
indifference coming, perhaps dislike, perhaps contempt ; yes,
contempt, just because I sat there and looked on. So I went
away. But the contempt has come. Oh, don't tliink I
believe that I made a mistake in going away. It would
have come none the less had I stayed. But I have to reckon
with the fact that it-has come."

Mr. Chase sat following Stretton's words with a very
close attention. Never had Stretton spoken to him with so
much frankness before.

" Go on," suid Chase. " What you are saying is — much
of it — news to me."

" Well, suppose that I were to go back now," Stretton
resumed, "at once — do you see? — that contempt is
doubled."

" No," cried Chase.

" Yes, yes," Stretton insisted. " Look at it from Millie's
point of view, not from yours, not even from mine. Look
at the history of the incident from the beginning ! Work it
out as she would ; nay," he corrected himself, remembering
the letters, " as she has. I leave her when things are at
their worst. That's not all. I take half Millie's fortune,
and am fool enough to lose it right away. And that's not
all. I stay away in the endeavour to recover the lost
ground, and I continually fail. Meanwhile Millie has the
dreary, irksome, exacting, unrequited life, which I left

TONY STRETTON RETURNS TO STErNEY 123

behind, to get through as best she can alone ; without

pleasure, and she likes pleasure " He suddenly looked

at Chase, with a challenge in his eyes. "Why shouldn't
she ? " he asked abruptly. Chase agreed.

" Why shouldn't she ? " he said, with a smile. " I am
not disapproving."

Stretton resumed his former attitude, his former tone.

" Without friends, and she is fond of having friends
about her ; without any chance of gratifying her spirits or
her youth ! To make her life still more disheartening, every
mail which reaches her from New York brings her only
another instalment of my disastrous record. Work it out
from her point of view, Chase ; then add this to crown it
all." He leaned forward towards Chase and emphasized his
words with a gesture of his hand. " The first moment when
her life suddenly becomes easy, and does so through no help
of mine, I — the failure— come scurrying back to share it.
No, Chase, no 1 "

He uttered his refusal to accept that position with a
positive violence, and flung himself back in his chair.
Chase answered quietly —

" Surely you are forgetting that it is your father's wealth
which makes her life easy."

" I am not forgetting it at all."

" It's your fathy's wealth," Chase repeated. " You
have a right to share in it."

" Yes," Stretton admitted ; " but what have rights to do
with the question at all ? If my wife thinks me no good,
will my rights save me from her contempt ? "

And before that blunt question Mr. Chase was silent. It
was too direct, too unanswerable. Stretton rose from his
chair, and stood looking down at his companion.

" Just consider the story I should have to tell Millie to-
night— by George ! " he exclaimed suddenly — " if I went
back to-night. I start out with fifteen hundred pounds of
hers to make a home and a competence ; and within a few

124 THE TRUANTS

months I am working as a hand on a North Sea trawler at
nineteen shillings a week."

"A story of hardships undergone for her sake," said
Chase ; " for that's the truth of your story, Stretton. And
don't you think the hardships would count for ever so much
more than any success you could have won ? "

" Hardships ! " exclaimed Stretton, with a laugh. " I
think I would find it difficult to make a moving tale out of
my hardships. And I wouldn't if I could — no ! "

As a fact, although it was unknown to Tony, Chase was
wrong. Had Stretton told his story never so vividly, it
would have made no difference. Millie Stretton had not the
imagination to realise what those hardships had been.
Tony's story would have been to her just a story, calling, no
doubt, for exclamations of tenderness and pity. But she
could not have understood what he had felt, what he had
thought, what he had endured. Deeper feelings and a wider
sympathy than Millie Stretton was dowered with would have
been needed for comprehension.

. Stretton walked across the room and came back to the
fire. He looked down at Chase with a smile. " Very likely
you think I am a great fool," he said, in a gentler voice than
he had used till now. " No doubt nine men out of ten would
say, ' Take the gifts the gods send you, and let the rest slide.
What if you and your wife drift apart ? You won't be the
only couple.' But, frankly, Chase, that is not good enough.
I have seen a good deal of it — the boredom, the gradual ossi-
fication. Oh no ; I'm not content with that ! You see,
Chase," he stopped for a moment and gazed steadily into the
fire ; then he went on quite simply, "you see, I care for Millie
very much."

Chase knew well what weight to give to that short
sentence. Had it been more elaborate it would have meant
less. It needed no other commentary than the quiet sincerity
with which it was uttered.

" Yes, I understand," he said.

TONY STRETTON RETURNS TO STEPNEY 125

Stretton seated himself again in his chair and took out
a briar pipe from his pocket. The pipe had an open metal
covering over the bowl.

" I need that no longer," Stretton said, with a laugh, as
he removed it. Then he took out a pouch, filled his pipe,
and lighted it.

" Have a whisky and soda ? " said Chase.

"No, thanks."

Chase lighted a cigarette and looked at his friend with
curiosity. The change which he had noticed in Stretton's
looks had been just as noticeable in his words. This man
sitting opposite to him was no longer the Tony Stretton who
had once come to him for advice. That man had been slow
of thought, halting of speech, good-humoured, friendly ; but a
man with whom it was difficult to get at close quarters. Talk
with him a hundred times, and you seemed to know him no
better than you did at the moment when first you were intro-
duced to him. Here, however, was a man who had thought
out his problem — was, moreover, able lucidly to express it.

"Well," said Chase, " you are determined not to go
back?"

" Not yet," Stretton corrected.

" What do you propose to do ? "

The question showed how great the change had been,
begun by the hard times in New York, completed by the
eight weeks in the North Sea. For Chase put the question.
He no longer offered advice, understanding that Stretton had
not come to ask for it.

" I propose to enlist in the French Foreign Legion."

Stretton spoke with the most matter-of-fact air imagin-
able ; he might have been naming the house at which he was
to dine the next night. Nevertheless, Chase started out of
his chair ; he stared at his companion in a stupefaction.

" No," said Stretton, calmly ; "I am not off my head,
and I have not been drinking. Sit down again, and think it
over."

126 THE TRUANTS

Chase obeyed, and Stretton proceeded to expound that
inspiration which had come to him the night before.

" What else should I do ? You know my object now.
I have to re-establish myself in my wife's thoughts. How
else can I do it ? What professions are open to me in which
I could gain, I don't say distinction, but mere recognition ?
I am not a money-maker ; that, at all events, is evident. I
have had experience enough during the last months to know
that if I lived to a thousand I should never make money."

" I think that's true," Chase agreed, thoughtfully.

" Luckily there's no longer any need that I should try.
What then ? Run through the professions, Chase, and find
one, if you can, in which a man at my age — twenty-nine —
with my ignorance, my want of intellect, has a single chance
of success. The bar ? It's laughable. The sea ? I am too
old. The army ? I resigned my commission years ago. So
what then ? "

He waited for Chase to speak, and Chase was silent.
He waited with a smile, knowing that Chase could not
speak.

" There must be an alternative," Chase said, doubtfully,
at last.

" Name it, then."

That was just what Chase could not do. He turned in
his mind from this calling to that. There was not one which
did not need a particular education ; there was not one in
which Stretton was likely to succeed. Soldiering or the sea.
These were the two callings for which he was fitted. From
the sea his age debarred him ; from soldiering too, except
in this one way. No, certainly, Stretton was not off his
head.

"How in the world did you think of the Foreign
Legion ? " he asked.

Stretton shrugged his shoulders.

" I thought of most other courses first, and, one by one,
rejected them as impossible. This plan came to me last of

TONY STEETTON RETURNS TO STEPNEY 127

all, and only last night. "We were passing a light-ship. In
a way, you see, we were within sight of home. I was in
despair ; and suddenly the idea flashed upon me, like the
revolving blaze from the light-ship. It is a sound one, I
think. At all events, it is the only one."

" Yes," answered Chase, slowly ; " I suppose there will
be chances, for there's always something stirring on the
Algerian frontier."

" There, or in Siam," said Stretton.

" What arrangements are you making here ? "

" I have written to my lawyers. Millie can do as she
pleases with the income. She has power, too, to sell the
house in Berkeley Square. I made my will, you know, before
I left England."

Chase nodded, and for a while there fell a silence upon
the two friends. A look of envy crept into the face of the
clergyman as he looked at Stretton. He could appreciate
a motive which set a man aiming high. He admired the
persistence with which Stretton nursed it. The plan it had
prompted might be quixotic and quite fruitless, but, at all
events, it was definite ; and a definite scheme of life, based
upon a simple and definite motive, was not so common but
that it was enviable. Stretton was so sure of its wisdom, too.
He had no doubts. He sat in his chair not asking for approval,
not caring for censure ; he had made up his mind. The
image of Stretton, indeed, as he sat in that chair on that
evening, with the firelight playing upon his face, was often
to come to Chase's thoughts.

" There will be great risks," he said. " Risks of death,
of trouble in the battalion."

" I have counted them," Stretton replied ; and he leaned
forward again, with his hands upon his knees. " Oh yes ;
there will be great risks ! But there's a prize, too, propor-
tionate to the risks. Risks I Every one speaks of them,"
he went on, with a laugh of impatience. " But I have been
eight weeks on the Dogger Bank, Chase, and I know — yes,

128 THE TRUANTS

I know — how to estimate risks. Out there men risk their
lives daily to put a few boxes of fish on board a fish-cutter.
Take the risk half-heartedly and your boat's swamped for a
sure thing ; but take it with all your heart and there are the
fish-boxes to your credit. Well, Millie is my fish-boxes."

He ended with a laugh, and, rising, took his hat.

" Shall I put you up for the night ? " Chase asked.

" No, thanks," said Strctton. " I have got a bed at an
hotel. I have something else to do to-night ; " and a smile,
rather wistful and tender, played about his lips. " Good-
bye ! " He held out his hand, and as Chase took it he went
on, " I am looking forward to the day when I eome back.
My word, how I am looking forward to it ; and I will look
forward each day until it actually, at the long last, comes. It
will have been worth waiting for, Chase, well worth waiting
for, both to Millie and to me."

With that he went away. Chase heard him close the
street door behind him, and his footsteps sound for a moment
or two on the pavement. After all, he thought, a life under
those Algerian skies, a life in the open air, of activity — there
were many worse things, even though it should prove a second
failure.

Chase stood for a little before the fire. He crossed slowly
over to that cupboard in the corner at which Stretton's move-
ment in the chair had stayed his hand. Chase looked back
to the armchair, as though he half expected still to see Stretton
sitting there. Then he slowly walked back to the fire, and
left the cupboard locked. Stretton had gone, but he had left
behind him memories which were not to be effaced — the
memory of a great motive and of a sturdy determination to
fulfil it. The two men were never to meet again ; but, in
the after time, more than once, of an evening, Chase's hand
was stayed upon that cupboard door. More than once he
looked back towards the chair as if he expected that again his
friend was waiting for him by the fire.

( 129 )

CHAPTER XIV

TONY STEETTON PAYS A VISIT TO BEEKELEY SQTTAEE

"While Tony Stretton was thus stating the problem of his
life to Mr. Chase in Stepney Green, Lady Millingham was
entertaining her friends in Berkeley Square. She began the
evening with a dinner-party, at which Pamela Mardale and
John Mudge were present, and she held a reception afterwards.
Many people came, for Frances Millingharn was popular. By
half-past ten the rooms were already over-hot and over-
crowded, and Lady Millingham was enjoying herself to her
heart's content. Mr. Mudge, who stood by himself at the
end of a big drawing-room, close to one of the windows, saw
the tall figure of "Warrisden come in at the door and steadily
push towards Pamela. A few moments later M. de Marnay,
a youthful attache of the French Embassy, approached Mr.
Mudge. M. de Marnay wiped his forehead and looked round
the crowded room.

" A httle is a good thing," said he, " but too much is
enough." And he unlatched and pushed open the window.
As he spoke, Mr. Mudge saw Gallon appear in the doorway.

" Yes," he answered, with a laugh ; " too much is
enough."

Mudge watched Callon's movements with his usual
interest. He saw him pass, a supple creature of smiles and
small talk, from woman to woman. How long would he
last in his ignoble career ? Mudsre wondered. Would he
marry in the end some rich and elderly widow ? Or would
the crash come, and parties know Mr. Lionel Gallon no

K

130 THE TRUANTS

more ? Madge never saw the man but he had a wish that
he might get a glimpse of him alone in his own rooms, with
the smile dropped from his face, and the unpaid bills piled
upon his mantel-shelf, and his landlord very likely clamour-
ing for the rent. He imagined the face grown all at once
haggard and tired and afraid — afraid with a great fear of
what must happen in a few years at the latest, when, with
middle-age heavy upon his shoulders, he should see his
coevals prospering and himself bankrupt of his stock-in-trade
of good looks, and without one penny to rub against another.
No presage of mind weighed upon Gallon to-night, however,
during his short stay in Frances Millingham's house. For
his stay was short.

As the clock upon the mantelpiece struck eleven, his eyes
were at once lifted to the clock-face, and almost at once he
moved from the lady to whom he was talking and made his
way to the door.

Mr. Madge turned back to the window and pushed it
still more open. It was a clear night of April, and April
had brought with it the warmth of summer. Mr. Mudge
stood at the open window facing the coolness and the quiet
of the square ; and thus by the accident of an overcrowded
room he became the witness of a little episode which might
almost have figured in some bygone comedy of intrigue.

Gallon passed through the line of carriages in the roadway
beneath, and crossed the corner of the square to the pave-
ment on the right-hand side. When he reached the pave-
ment he walked for twenty yards or so in the direction of
Piccadilly, until he came to a large and gloomy house.
There a few shallow steps led from the pavement to the
front door. Gallon mounted the steps, rang the bell, and
was admitted.

There were a few lights in the upper windows and on the
ground floor ; but it was evident that there was no party at
the house. Gallon had mn in to pay a visit. Mr. Mudge,
who had watched this, as it were, the first scene in the

TONY BTEETTON VISITS BERKELEY SQUARE 131

comedy, distinctly heard the door close, and the sound some-
how suggested to him that the time had come for him to go
home to bed. He looked at his watch. It was exactly a
quarter past eleven — exactly, in a word, three-quarters of an
hour since Tony Stretton, who M had something else to do,"
had taken his leave of his friend Chase in Stepney.

Mr. Mudge turned from the window to make his way to
the door, and came face to face with Pamela and Alan
Warrisden. Pamela spoke to him. He had never yet met
Warrisden, and he was now introduced. All three stood and
talked together for a few minutes by the open window. Then
Mudge, in that spirit of curiosity which Callon always
provoked in him, asked abruptly —

" By the way, Miss Mardale, do you happen to know
who lives in that house ? " and he pointed across the corner
of the square to the house into which Callon had disappeared.

Pamela and "Warrisden looked quickly at one another.
Then Pamela turned with great interest to Mr. Mudge.

" Yes, we both know," she answered. " Why do you

ask ? "

" Well, I don't know," said Mudge ; " I think that I

should like to know."

The glance which his two companions had exchanged,
and Pamela's rather eager question, had quickened his
curiosity. But he got no answer for a few moments. Both
Pamela and "Warrisden were looking out towards the house.
They were standing side by side. Mr. Mudge had an intui-
tion that the same thought was passing through both their
minds.

" That is where the truants lived last July," said Warris-
den, in a low voice. He spoke to Pamela, not to Mr. Mudge
at all, whose existence seemed for the moment to have been
clean forgotten.

"Yes," Pamela replied softly. "The dark house, where
the truants lived and where " — she looked at Warrisden and
smiled with a great friendliness — " where the new road began.

132 THE TRUANTS

For it was there really. It's from the steps of the dark
house, not from the three poplars that the new road runs out."

" Yes, that is true," said Warrisden.

And again both were silent.

Mr. Madge broke in upon the silence. " I have no
doubt that the truants lived there, and that the new road
begins at the foot of the steps," he said plaintively ; " but
neither statement adds materially to my knowledge."

Pamela and Warrisden turned to him and laughed. It
was true that they had for a moment forgotten Mr. Mudgc.
The memory of the star-lit night, in last July, when from
this balcony they had watched the truants slip down the
steps and furtively call a cab, was busy in their thoughts.
From that night their alliance had dated, although no
suspicion of it had crossed their minds. It seemed strange
to them now that there had been no premonition.

" Well, who lives there ? " asked Mudge.

But even now he received no answer ; for Warrisden
suddenly exclaimed in a low, startled voice —

" Look ! " and with an instinctive movement he drew
back into the room.

A man was standing in the road looking up at the
windows of the dark house. His face could not be seen
under the shadow of his hat. Pamela peered forward.

" Do you think it's he ? " she asked in a whisper.

" I am not sure," replied Warrisden.

" Oh, I hope so ! I hope so ! "

" I am not sure. Wait ! Wait and look ! " said
Warrisden.

In a few moments the man moved. He crossed the road
and stepped on to the pavement. Again he stopped, again
he looked up to the house ; then he walked slowly on. But
he walked northwards, that is, towards the watchers at the
window.

" There's a lamp-post," said Warrisden ; "he will come
within th»' light of it. We shall know."

TONY STRETTON VISITS BERKELEY SQUARE 133

And the next moment the light fell white and clear upon
Tony Stretton's face.

" He has come back," exclaimed Pamela, joyfully.

" Who ? " asked Mr. Mudge ; " who has come back ? "

This time he was answered.

" Why, Tony Stretton, of course," said Pamela, impatiently.
She was hardly aware of Mr. Mucjge, even while she answered
him ; she was too intent upon Tony Stretton in the square
below. She did not therefore notice that Mudge was startled
by her reply. She did not remark the anxiety in his voice
as he went on —

" And that is Stretton's house ? "

"Yes."

" And his wife, Lady Stretton, is she in London ? Is
she there — now ? "

Mr. Mudge spoke with an excitement of manner which
at any other time must have caused surprise. It passed now
unremarked ; for Warrisden, too, had his preoccupation.
He was neither overjoyed, like Pamela, nor troubled, like
Mr. Mudge ; but as he looked down into the square he was
perplexed.

"Yes," replied Pamela, " Millie Stretton is at home.
Could anything be more fortunate ? "

To Mudge's way of thinking, nothing could be more
unfortunate. Pamela had come late to the play ; Mr. Mudge,
on the other hand, had seen the curtain rise, and had a
clearer knowledge of the plot's development. The husband
outside the house, quite unexpected, quite unsuspicious, and
about to enter ; the wife and the interloper within : here
were the formulas of a comedy of intrigue. Only, Mr. Mudge
doubtfully wondered, after the husband had entered, and when
the great scene took place, would the decorous accent of the
comedy be maintained? Nature was after all a violent
dramatist, with little care for the rules and methods. Of
one thing, at all events, he was quite sure, as he looked at
Pamela : she would find no amusement in the climax. There

134 THE TRUANTS

was, however, to be an element of novelty, which Mr. Mudge
hud not foreseen.

" What puzzles me,1' said Warrisden, " is that Stretton
does not go in."

Stretton walked up to the corner of the square, turned,
and retraced his steps. Again he approached the steps of
the house. " Now," thought Mr. Mudge, with a good deal
of suspense, " now he will ascend them." Pamela had the
same conviction, but in her case hope inspired it. Tony,
however, merely cast a glance upwards and walked on. They
heard his footsteps for a little while upon the pavement ; then
that sound ceased.

" He has gone," cried Pamela, blankly ; " he has gone
away again."

Mr. Mudge turned to her very seriously.

" Believe me," said he, " nothing better could have
happened."

Tony, in fact, had never had a thought of entering the
house. Having this one night in London, he had yielded to
a natural impulse to revisit again the spot where he and
Millie had lived — where she still lived. The bad days of the
quarrels and the indifference and the weariness were forgotten
by him to-night. His thoughts went back to the early days
when they played truant, and truancy was good fun. The
escapes from the house, the little suppers at the Savoy, the
stealthy home-comings, the stumbling up the stairs in the
dailc, laughing and hushing their laughter — upon these
incidents his mind dwelt, wist fully, yet with a great pleasure
and a great hopefulness. Those days were gone, but in
others to come all that was good in them might be repeated.
The good humour, the intimacy, the sufficiency of the two,
each bo the other, might be recovered if oidy he persisted.
To return now, to go in at the door and say, " I have come
home," that would be the mistake which there would be no
retrieving. He was at the cross-ways, and if he took t lie-
wrong road life would not give him the time to retrace his

TONY STRETTON VISITS BERKELEY SQUARE 135

steps. He walked away, dreaming of the good days to
come.

Meanwhile, Lionel Callon was talking to Millie in that
little sitting-room which had once been hers and Tony's.

Millie was surprised at the lateness of his visit, and when
he was shown into the room she rose at once.

" Something has happened ? " she said.

"No," Callon replied. "I was at Lady Millingham's
party. I suddenly thought of you sitting here alone. I am
tired besides, and overworked. I knew it would be a rest for
me if I could see you and talk to you for a few minutes.
You see, I am selfish."

Millie smiled at him.

" No, kind," said she.

She asked him to sit down.

" You look tired," she added. " How does your election
work go on ? "

Callon related the progress of his campaign, and with an
air of making particular confidences. He could speak without
any reserve to her, he said. He conveyed the impression
that he was making headway against almost insuperable
obstacles. He flattered her, moreover, by a suggestion that
she herself was a great factor in his successes. The mere
knowledge that she wished him well, that perhaps, once or
twice in the day, she gave him a spare thought, helped him
much more than she could imagine. Millie was induced to
believe that, although she sat quietly in London, she was
thus exercising power through Callon in his constituency.

"Of course, I am a poor man," said Callon. "Poverty
hampers one."

" Oh, but you will win," cried Millie Stretton, with a
delighted conviction ; " yes, you will win."

She felt strong, confident — just, in a word, as she had
felt when she had agreed with Tony that he must go away.

" "With your help, yes," he answered ; and the sound of
his voice violated her like a caress. Millie rose from her chair.

136 THE TEUANTS

At once Callon rose too, and altered his tone.

" You have heard from Sir Anthony Stretton ? " he said.
" Tell me of yourself."

" Yes, I have heard. He will not return yet."

There came a light into Callon's eyes. He raised his
hand to his mouth to hide a smile.

" Few men," he said, with the utmost sympathy, " would
have left you to bear these last weeks alone."

He was standing just behind her, speaking over her
shoulder. He was very still, the house was very silent.
Millie was suddenly aware of danger.

"You must not say that, Mr. Callon," she said rather
sharply.

And immediately he answered, " I beg your pardon. I
had no idea my sympathy would have seemed to you an
insult."

He spoke with a sudden bitterness. Millicent turned
round in surprise. She saw that his face was stern and cold.

" An insult ? " she said, and her voice was troubled.
" No, you and I are friends."

But Callon would have none of these excuses. He had
come to the house deliberately to quarrel. He had a great
faith in the efficacy of quarrels, given the right type of
woman. As Mudge had told Pamela, he knew the tactics of
the particular kind of warfare which he waged. To cause
a woman some pain, to make her think with regret that in
him she had lost a friend ; that would fix him in her thoughts.
So Callon quarrelled. Millie Stretton could not say a word
but he misinterpreted it. Every sentence he cleverly twisted
into an offence.

" I will say good-bye," he said, at length, as though he
had reached the limits of endurance.

Millie Stretton looked at him with troubled eyes.

" I am so sorry it should end like this," she said piteously.
" I don't know why it has."

Callon went out of the room, and closed the door behind

TONY STEETTON VISITS BERKELEY SQUARE 137

him. Then he let himself into the street. Millie Stretton
would miss him, he felt sure. Her looks, her last words
assured him of that. He would wait now without a move-
ment towards a reconciliation. That must come from her,
it would give him in her eyes a reputation for strength. He
knew the value of that reputation. He had no doubt,
besides, that she would suggest a reconciliation. Other
women might not, but Millie — yes. On the whole, Mr. Callon
was very well content with his night's work. He had taken,
in his way of thinking, a long step. The square was empty,
except for the carriages outside Lady Millingham's door.
Lionel Callon walked briskly home.

138 THE TRUANTS

CHAPTER XV

MB. MUDGE COMES TO THE RESCUE

Lionel Gallon's visit to Millie Stretton bore, however,
consequences which had not at all entered into his calcula-
tions. He was unaware of the watchers at Lady Millingham's
window ; he had no knowledge of Pamela's promise to Tony
Stretton ; no suspicion, therefore, that she was now passionately
resolved to keep it in the spirit and the letter. He was even
without a thought that his advances towards Millie had at all
been remarked upon or their motive discovered. Ignorance
lulled him into security. But within a short while a
counter-plot was set in train.

The occasion was the first summer meeting on Newmarket
Heath. Pamela Mardale seldom missed a race meeting at
Newmarket dining the spring and summer. There were the
horses, in the first place ; she met her friends besides ; the
heath itself, with its broad expanse and its downs, had for
her eyes a beauty of its own ; and in addition the private
enclosure was separated by the width of the course from the
crowd and clamour of the ring. She attended this particular
meeting, and after the second race was over she happened to
be standing amidst a group of friends within the grove of
trees at the back of the paddock. Outside, upon the heath,
the aii- was clear and bright; a light wind blew pleasantly.
Here the trees were in bud, and the sunlight, split by the
boughs, dappled with light and shadow the glossy coats of
tli^ horses as they were led in and out amongst the boles. A
mare was led past Pamela, and one of her friends said —

MR. MUDGE COMES TO THE EESCUE 139

" Semiramis. I think she will win this race."

Pamela looked towards the mare, and saw, just beyond
her, Mr. Mudge. He was alone, as he usually was ; and
though he stopped in his walk, now here, now there, to
exchange a word with some aquaintance, he moved on again,
invariably alone. Gradually he drew nearer to the group in
which Pamela was standing, and his face brightened. He
quickened his step ; Pamela, on her side, advanced rather
quickly towards him.

'• You are here ? " she said, with a smile. " I am glad,
though I did not think to meet you."

Mr. Mudge, to tell the truth, though he carried a race-
card in his hand, and glasses slung across his shoulder, had
the disconsolate air of a man conscious that he was out of
place. He answered Pamela, indeed, almost apologetically.

" It is better after all to be here than in London on a day
of summer," he said, and he added, with a shrewd glance at
her, "You have something to say to me — a question to ask."

Pamela looked up at him in surprise.

" Yes, I have. Let us go out."

They walked into the paddock, and thence through the
gate into the enclosure. The enclosure was at this moment
rather empty. Pamela led the way to the rails alongside the
course, and chose a place where they were out of the hearing
of any bystander.

" You remember the evening at Frances Millingham's ? "
she asked. She had not seen Mr. Mudge since that date.

Mr. Mudge replied immediately.

" Yes ; Sir Anthony Stretton " — and the name struck so
oddly upon Pamela's ears that, serious as at this moment she
was, she laughed. " Sir Anthony Stretton turned away from
the steps of his house. You were distressed, Miss Mardale :
I, on the contrary, said that nothing better could have
happened. You wish to ask me why I said that ? "

" Yes," said Pamela ; " I am very anxious to know.
Millie is my friend. I am, in a sort of way, too, responsible

140 THE TRUANTS

for her ; " and as Mr. Mudge looked surprised, she repeated
the word — " Yes, responsible. And I am rather troubled."
She spoke with a little hesitation. There was a frown upon
her forehead, a look of perplexity in her dark eyes. She was
reluctant to admit that her friend was in any danger or
needed any protection from her own weakness. The free-
masonry of her sex impelled her to silence. On the other
hand, she was at her wits' end what to do. And she had
confidence in her companion's discretion ; she determined to
speak frankly.

" It is not only your remark which troubles me," she
said, " but I called on Millie the next afternoon."

" Oh, you did ? " exclaimed Mr. Mudge.

" Yes ; I asked after Tony. Millie had not seen him,
and did not expect him. She showed me letters from his
solicitors empowering her to do what she liked with the
house and income, and a short fetter from Tony himself,
written on the Perseverance, to the same effect."

She did not explain to Mr. Mudge what the Perseverance
was, and he asked no questions.

" I told Millie," she continued, " that Tony had returned,
but she refused to believe it. I told her when and where I
had seen him."

" You did that ? " said Mr. Mudge. " Wait a moment."
He saw and understood Pamela's reluctance to speak. He
determined to help her out. " Let me describe to you what
followed. She stared blankly at you and asked you to repeat
what you had said ? "

" Yes," replied Pamela, in surprise ; " that is just what
she did."

" And when you had repeated it, she turned a little pale,
perhaps was disconcerted, perhaps a little — afraid."

" Yes, it is that which troubles me," Pamela cried, in a
low voice. " She was afraid. I would have given much to
have doubted it. I could not ; her eyes betrayed it, her face,
her whole attitude. She was afraid."

ME. MUDGE COMES TO THE RESCUE 141

Mr. Madge nodded his head, and went quietly on —

" And when she had recovered a little from her fear she
questioned you closely as to the time when you first saw
Stretton outside the house, and the time when he went away."

He spoke with so much certitude that he might have been
present at the interview.

" I told her that it was some little time after eleven
when he came, and that he only stayed a few minutes,"
answered Pamela.

" And at that," rejoined Mr. Mudge, " Lady Stretton's
anxiety diminished."

" Yes, that is true, too," Pamela admitted ; and she
turned her face to him with its troubled appeal. " Why
was she afraid ? For, since you have guessed that she was,
you must know the reason which she had for fear. Why was
it so fortunate that Tony Stretton did not mount the steps
of the house and ring the bell ? "

Mr. Mudge answered her immediately, and very quietly.

" Because Lionel Gallon was inside the house."

A great sympathy made his voice gentle — sympathy for
Pamela. None the less the words hurt her cruelly. She
turned away from him so that he might not see her face, and
stood gazing down the course through a mist. Bitter
disappointment was hers at that moment. She was by nature
a partisan. The thing which she did crept closer to her
heart by the mere act of doing it. She knew it, and it was
just her knowledge which had so long kept her to inaction.
Now her thoughts were passionately set on saving Millie,
and here came news to her which brought her to the brink
of despair. She blamed Tony. "Why did he ever go
away ? " she cried. " Why, when he had come back, did he
not stay ?'" And at once she saw the futility of her outcry.
Tony, Millie, Lionel Gallon — what was the use of blaming
them ? They acted as their characters impelled them. She
had to do her best to remedy the evil which the clash of
these three characters had produced. "What can be clone ?"

142 THE TRUANTS

she asked of herself. There was one course open certainly.
She could summon "Warrisden again, send him out a second
time in search of Tony Stretton, and make him the bearer,
not of an excuse, but of the whole truth. Only she dreaded
the outcome ; she shrank from telling Tony the truth, fearing
that he would exaggerate it. " Can nothing be done ? " she
asked, again in despair, and this time she asked the question
aloud, and turned to Mr. Mudge.

Mudge had been quietly waiting for it.

'• Yes," he answered, "something can be done. I should
not have told you, Miss Mardale, what I knew unless I had
already hit upon a means to avert the peril ; for I am aware
how much my news must grieve you."

Pamela looked at Mr. Mudge in surprise. It had not
occurred to her at all that he could have solved the problem.

" What can I do ? " she asked.

" You can leave the whole trouble in my hands for a
few days."

Pamela was silent for a little while ; then she answered
doubtfully —

" It is most kind of you to offer me your help."

Mr. Mudge shook his head at Pamela with a certain
sadness.

"There's no kindness in it at all," he said ; "but I quite
understand your hesitation, Miss Mardale. You were sur-
prised that I should offer you help, just as you were surprised
to sec me here. Although I move in your world I am not
of it. Its traditions, its instincts, even its methods of thought
— to all of these I am a stranger. I am just a passing
visitor who, for the time of his stay, is made an honorary
member of your club. He meets with every civility, every
kindness ; but he is not inside, so that when he suddenly
(•nines forward and offers you help in a matter where other
members of your club arc concerned, you naturally pause."

Pamela made a gesture of dissent ; but Mr. Mudge gently
insisted —

MR. MUDGE COMES TO THE RESCUE 143

" Let me finish. I want you to understand equally well
why I offer you help which may very likely seem to you an
impertinence."

" No, indeed," said Pamela ; " on the contrary, I am
very grateful."

Others were approaching the spot where they stood.
They turned and walked slowly over the grass away from the
paddock.

" There is no need that you should be," Mudge con-
tinued ; " you will see that, if you listen." And in a few
words he told her at last something of his own career. " I
sprang from a Deptford gutter, with one thought — to get on,
and get on, and get on. I moved from Deptford to Peckham.
There I married. I moved from Peckham to a residential
suburb in the south-west. There my wife died. Looking
back now, I am afraid that in my haste to get on I rather
neglected my wife's happiness. You see I am frank with
you. From the residential suburb I moved into the Cromwell
Pioad, from the Cromwell Road to Grosvenor Square. I do
not think that I was just a snob ; but I wanted to have the
very best of what was going. There is a difference. A few
years ago I found myself at the point which I had aimed to
reach, and, as I have told you, it is a position of many
acquaintances and much loneliness. You might say that I
could give it up and retire into the country. But I have
too many undertakings on my hands ; besides, I am too
tired to start again, so I remain. But I think you will
understand that it will be a real pleasure to me to help you.
I have not so many friends that I can afford to lose the
opportunity of doing one of them a service."

Pamela heard him to the end without any interruption ;
but when he had finished she said, with a smile —

" You are quite wrong about the reason for my hesita-
tion. I asked a friend of mine a few weeks ago to help me,
and he gave me the best of help at once. Even the best of
help fails at times, and my friend did. I was wondering

144 THE TRUANTS

merely whether it would not be a little disloyal to him if I
now accepted yours, for I know he would be grieved if I went
to any one but hiin."

" I see," said Mr. Mudge ; " but I think that I can give
you help which no one else can."

It was clear from his quiet persistence that he had a
definite plan. Famela stopped and faced him.

" Yery well," she said. " I leave the whole matter for a
little while in your hands."

" Thank you," said Mr. Mudge ; and he looked up towards
the course. " There are the horses going down."

A sudden thought occurred to Pamela. She opened the
purse she carried on her wrist, and took out a couple of
pounds.

" Put this on Semiramis for me, please," she said, with a
laugh. " Be quick, if you will, and come back."

Though she laughed she was still most urgent he should
go. Mr. Mudge hurried across the course, made the bet,
and returned. Pamela watched the race with an eagerness
which astonished Mr. Mudge, so completely did she seem to
have forgotten all that had troubled her a minute ago. But
he did not understand Pamela. She was, after her custom,
Beeking for a sign, and when Semiramis galloped in a winner
by a neck, she turned with a hopeful smile to her com-
panion—

" We shall win too."

" I think so," Mudge replied, and he laughed. " Do you
know what I think of Lionel Callon, Miss Mardale ? The
words arc not mine, but the sentiment is unexceptionable.
A little may be a good thing, but too much is enough."

( 145 )

CHAPTER XVI

THE FOREIGN LEGION

It was midday at Sidi Bel-Abbes in Algeria. Two French
officers were sitting in front of a cafe at the .wide cross-roads
in the centre of the town. One of them was Captain
Tavernay, a man of forty-seven, tall, thin, with a brown
face worn and tired by the campaigns of thirty years, the
other a young lieutenant, M. Laurent, fresh and pink, who
seemed to hare been passed out but yesterday from the
school of St. Cyr. Captain Tavernay picked up his cap
from the iron table in front of him and settled it upon his
grizzled head. Outside the town trees clustered thickly,
farms were half -hidden amongst groves of fig-trees and hedges
of aloes. Here there was no foliage. The streets were very
quiet, the sunlight lay in dazzling pools of gold upon the
sand of the roads, the white houses glittered under a blue,
cloudless sky. In front of the two officers, some miles away,
the bare cone of Jebel Tessalah sprang upwards from a range
of hills dominating the town, and a speck of white upon its
shoulder showed where a village perched. Captain Tavernay
sat looking out towards the mountain with the lids half-
closed upon his eyes. Then he rose deliberately from his
chair.

" If we walk to the station," he said, "we shall just meet
the train from Oran. A batch of thirty recruits is coming
in by it. Let us walk to the station, Laurent."

Lieutenant Laurent dropped the end of his cigarette on
to the ground and stood up reluctantly.

L

146 THE TRUANTS

" As you will, Captain," he answered. " But we should
see the animals soon enough at the barracks."

The words were spoken in a voice which was almost, and
with a shrug of the shoulders which was quite, contemptuous.
The day was hot, and Lieutenant Laurent unwilling to move
from his coffee and the shade into that burning sunlight.
Captain Tavernay gazed mildly at his youthful junior.
Long experience had taught him to leave much to time and
little to argument. For himself he loved his legionaries.
He had a smile of indulgence for their faults even while he
punished them ; and though his face seldom showed the
smile, and his punishments were not unjustly light, the
culprits none the less knew it was there, hidden somewhere
close to his heart. But then he had seen his men in action,
and Lieutenant Laurent had not. That made all the
difference. The Foreign Legion certainly did not show at
its best in a cantonment. Amongst that motley assemblage
— twelve thousand men, distinct in nationality as in character,
flung together pell-mell, negroes and whites, criminals, adven-
turers, silent unknown men, haunted by memories of other
days or tortured by remorse — a garrison town with its
monotony and its absinthe played havoc. An Abyssinian
rubbed shoulders in the ranks with a scholar who spoke nine
languages ; a tenor from the Theatre de la Monnaie at
Brussels with an unfrocked priest. Often enough Captain
Tavernay had seen one of liis legionaries sitting alone hour
after hour at his little table outside a cafe, steadily drinking
glass after glass of absinthe, rising mechanically to salute
his officer, and sinking back among his impenetrable secrets.
Was he dreaming of the other days, the laughter and the
flowers, the white shoulders of women ? Was he again
placing that last stake upon the red which had sent him
straight from the table to the nearest French depot ? Was
he living again some tragic crisis of love in which all at
once he had learned that he had been befooled and derided ?
Captain Tavernay never passed such a man but he longed to

THE FOREIGN LEGION 147

sit down by his side and say, " My friend, share your secret
with me ; so will it be easier to bear." But the etiquette
of the Foreigh Legion forbade. Captain Tavernay merely
returned the salute and passed on, knowing that very likely
his legionary would pass the night in the guard-room and
the next week in the cells. No ; the town of Sidi Bel-Abbes
was not the place wherein to learn the mettle of the legionary.
Away to the south there, beyond the forest of trees on the
horizon's line, things were different. Let Lieutenant Laurent
see the men in their bivouacs at night under the stars, and
witness their prowess under arms, ces onimaiu would soon
become mes en f ants.

Therefore he answered Lieutenant Laurent in the mildest
voice.

" We shall see them at the barracks, it is true. But you
are wrong when you say that it will be soon enough. At
the barracks they will be prepared for us, they will have
their little stories ready for us, they will be armed witli
discretion. But let us see them descend from the train, let
us watch their first look round at their new home, their new
fatherland. We may learn a little, and if it is ever so little
it will help us to know them the better afterwards. And at
the worst it will be an amusing exercise in psychology."

They walked away from the cafe, and strolled down the
Rue de Mascara under the shady avenue of trees, Tavernay
moving with a long, indolent stride, which covered a deal
of ground with a surprising rapidity, Laurent fidgeting along
discontentedly at his side. M. Laurent was beginning, in
fact, to regret the hurry with which he had sought a com-
mission in the Foreign Legion. M. Laurent had, a few
months ago, in Paris, imagined himself to be irrevocably in
love with the wife of one of his friends, a lady at once
beautiful and mature ; M. Laurent had declared his passion
upon a suitable occasion ; M. Laurent had been snubbed for
his pains ; M. Laurent in a fit of pique had sought the consola-
tion of another climate and foreign service ; and M. Laurent

148 THE TRUANTS

was now quickly realising that he was not nearly so heart-
broken as he had fancied himself to be. Already while he
walked to the station he was thinking that, after all, Paris
was endurable, even though one particular woman could
not refrain from a little smile of amusement when he crossed
her path.

Captain Tavernay had timed their walk accurately. For
as they reached the station the train was signalled.

" Let us stand here, behind these cases," said Tavernay.
" We shall see and not be seen."

In a few moments the train moved slowly in and stopped.
From the furthermost carriage the detachment descended,
and, following a sous-officier in the uniform of the Legion,
walked towards the cases behind which Tavernay and his
companion were concealed. In front came two youths, fair
of complexion and of hair, dressed neatly, well shod, who
walked with a timidity of manner as though they expected
to be questioned and sent packing.

" Who can they be ? " asked Laurent. " They are
boys."

"Yet they will give their age as eighteen," replied
Tavernay, and his voice trembled ever so slightly ; " and we
shall ask no questions."

" But they bear no marks of misery. They are not poor.
Whence can they come ? " Laurent repeated.

" I can tell you that," said Tavernay. He was much
moved. He spoke with a deep note of reverence. " They
come from Alsace or Lorraine. We get many such. They
will not serve Germany. At all costs they ivill serve
France."

Lieutenant Laurent was humbled. Here was a higher
motive than pique, here was a devotion which would not so
quickly tire of discipline and service. He gazed with a
momentary feeling of envy at these two youths who insisted,
at so high a price, on being his compatriots.

" You see," said Tavernay, with a smile, " it was worth

THE FOREIGN LEGION 149

while to come to the station and see the recruits arrive, even
on so hot a day as this."

" Yes," replied Laurent ; and then "look ! "

Following the two youths walked a man tall and powerful,
with the long, loose stride of one well versed in sports. He
held his head erect, and walked defiantly, daring you to
question him. His hands were long and slender, well-kept,
unused to labour, his face aquiline and refined. He looked
about thirty-five years old. He wore a light overcoat of a
fine material, which hung open, and underneath the overcoat
he was attired in evening dress. It was his dress which had
riveted Laurent's attention ; and certainly nothing could
have seemed more bizarre, more strangely out of place. The
hot African sun poured down out of a cloudless sky ; and
a new recruit for the Foreign Legion stepped out of a railway
carriage as though he had come straight from a ball-room.
What sudden disaster could have overtaken him ? In what
tragedy had he borne a part ? Even Laurent's imagination
was stimulated into speculation. As the man passed him,
Laurent saw that his tie was creased and dusty, his shirt-
front rumpled and soiled. That must needs have been. At
some early hour on a spring morning, some four or five days
ago, this man must have rushed into the guard-room of a
barrack-square in some town of France. Laurent turned to
Tavernay eagerly —

kl What do you make of him ? "

Tavernay shrugged his shoulders.

" A man of fashion, who has made a fool of himself.
They make good soldiers as a rule."

" But he will repent ! "

" He has already had the time, and he has not. There
is no escort for recruits until they reach Marseilles. Suppose
that he enlisted in Paris. He is given the fare. At any
station between Paris and Marseilles he could have got out
and returned."

The man in evening-dress walked on. There were dark

150 THE TRUANTS

shadows under his eyes, the eyes themselves were sombre and
alert.

" We shall know something of him soon," said Tavernay.
He watched his recruit with so composed an air that Laurent
cried out —

'• Can nothing astonish you ? "

"Yery little," answered Tavernay, phlegmatically.
" Listen, my friend. One day, some years ago, a captain of
Hussars landed at Oran. He came to Bel-Abbes with a
letter of introduction to mo. He stayed with me. He
expressed a wish to see my men on parade. I turned them
out. He came to the parade-ground and inspected them.
As he passed along the ranks he suddenly stopped in front
of an old soldier with fifteen years' service in the Legion,
] i inch of which fifteen years had been passed in the cells.
The old soldier was a drunkard — oh, but a confirmed
drunkard. Well, in front of this man my young Captain
with the curled moustaches stopped — stopped and turned
very pale. But he did not speak. My soldier looked at him
respectfully, and the Captain continued his inspection.
Well, they were father and son — that is all. Why should
anything astonish me?" and Captain Tavernay struck a
match and lighted a cigarette.

The match, however, attracted attention to the presence
of the officers. Four men who marched, keeping time with
their feet and holding their hands stiffly at their sides, saw
the flame and remarked the uniforms. Their hands rose at
once to the salute.

"Ah! German deserters," said Tavernay. '"They fight
well."

Others followed, men in rags and out of shoe-leather,
outcasts and fugitives ; and behind them came one who was
different. He was tall and well-knit, with a frank open face,
not particularly intellectual, on the other hand not irretriev-
ably stupid. He was dressed in a double-breasted, blue-serge
suit, and as he walked he now and then gave a twist to Lis

THE FOREIGN LEGION 151

fair moustache, as though he were uneasy and embarrassed.
Captain Tavernay ran his eyes over him with the look of a
connoisseur.

" Aha ! " said he, with a chuckle of satisfaction. " The
true legionary ! Hard, finely trained, he has done work too.
Yes ! You see, Laurent, he is a little ashamed, a little self-
conscious. He feels that he is looking a fool. I wonder
what nationality he will claim.'"

" He comes from the North," said Lament. " Possibly
from Normandy."

" Oh, I know what he is," returned Tavernay. " I am
wondering only what he will claim to be. Let us go outside
and see."

Tavernay led the way to the platform. Outside, in front
of the station, the sous-qfficier marshalled his men in a line.
They looked a strange body of men as they stood there,
blinking in the strong sunlight. The man in the ruffled silk
hat and the dress-suit toed the line beside a bundle of rags ;
the German deserters rubbed elbows with the " true legion-
ary " in the blue serge. Those thirty men represented types
of almost all the social grades, and to a man they were
seeking the shelter of anonymity in that monastery of action,
the Foreign Legion.

" Answer to your names," said the sous-officier, and from
a paper in his hand he began to read. The answers came
back, ludicrous in their untruth. A French name would be
called.

" Montaubon."

And a German voice replied —

" Present."

" Ohlsen," cried the sous-officier, and no answer was given.
" Ohlsen," he repeated sharply. " Is not Ohlsen here ? "

And suddenly the face of the man in the serge suit
flashed, and he answered hurriedly —

11 Present."

Even the sous-officier burst into a laugh. The reason for

152 THE TRUANTS

the pause was too obvious ; " Ohlsen " had forgotten that
Ohlsen was now his name.

" My lad, you must keep your ears open," said the sous-
officier. " Now, attention. Fours right. March ! "

And the detachment marched off towards the barracks.

" Ohlsen," said Tavernay, and he shrugged his shoulders.
•• "Well, what does it matter ? Come ! "

" Ohlsen " was Tony Stretton, and all the way along the
Rue Daya to the barracks he was longing for the moment
when he would put on the uniform and cease to figure
ridiculously in this grotesque procession. None the less he
had to wait with the others, drawn up in the barrack-square
until Captain Tavernay returned. The Captain went to his
office, and thither the recruits were marched. One by one
they entered in at the door, answered his questions, and were
sent off to the regimental tailor. Tony Stretton was the last.

" Name ? " asked Tavernay.

" Hans Ohlsen."

" Town of enlistment ? "

" Marseilles."

Tavernay compared the answers with some writing on a
sheet of paper.

" Yes, Marseilles. Passed by the doctor Paul as sound of
body. Yes," and he resumed his questions.

" Nationality ? "

" Swede."

Captain Tavernay had a smattering of most languages,
and he was greatly inclined to try his new recruit with a few
questions in the Swedish tongue. But the etiquette of the
Legion forbade. He went on without a smile —

" Age ? "

" Thirty."

" Vocation ? "

" Fisherman."

Captain Tavernay looked up. This time he could not
help smiling.

THE FOEEIGN LEGION 153

" "Well, it is as good as any other," said he ; and suddenly
there was a sound of cries, and three soldiers burst out of a
narrow entrance on the further side of the parade-ground
and came running across the square to the Captain's quarters.
Both Tavernay and Stretton looked through the door. There
was not a tree in that great square ; the sunlight poured
down upon the bare brown space with a blinding fierceness.
All the recruits but Stretton had marched off ; a second ago
it had been quite empty and very silent. Now these three
men were hurrying across it, shouting, gesticulating with
their hands. Stretton looked at them with surprise. Then
he noticed that one of them, the man running in the middle
and a little ahead of the others, carried a revolver in his
hand and brandished it. Moreover, from the look of his
inflamed face, he was shouting threats ; the others were
undoubtedly shouting warnings. Scraps of their warnings
came to Stretton's ears. " Mon Capitaine ! " " II veut vous
tuer ! " " Eentrez ! " They were straining every muscle to
catch the threatening soldier up.

Stretton strode to the door, and a voice behind him
cried —

" Halt ! "

It was Tavernay who was speaking.

" But he is already halfway across the square."

" Halt ! "

And there was no disobeying the command. Captain
Tavernay walked to the door.

" A Spanish corporal whom yesterday I degraded to the
ranks," said he. " Half a pint of aguardiente, and here's the
result."

Captain Tavernay stepped out of the door and leisurely
advanced towards the running men. He gave an order, he
raised his hand, and the two soldiers who warned him fell
back and halted. Certainly Captain Tavernay was accus-
tomed to obedience. The Spanish ex-corporal ran on alone,
straight towards Tavernay, but as he ran, as he saw the officer

154 THE TRUANTS

standing there alone, quietly waiting his onslaught, his threats
weakened, his pace slackened. He came to a stop in front
of Tavernay.

" I must kill yon ! " he cried, waving his revolver.

" Yon shall kill me from behind, then," said Tavernay,
calmly. " Follow me ! " And he turned round, and with the
same leisurely deliberation walked back to his room. The
ex-corporal hesitated and — obeyed. He followed Captain
Tavernay into the room where Stretton stood.

" Place your revolver on the table."

The Spaniard again obeyed. Tavernay pushed open the
door of an inner room.

" You are drunk," he said. " You must not be seen in
this condition by your fellow-soldiers. Go in and lie down ! "

The Spaniard stared at his officer stupidly, tottering upon
Lia limbs. Then he staggered into the Captain's room.
Tavernay turned back to Stretton and a ghost of a smile crept
into his face.

" (Test da theatre" he said, with a little shrug of the
shoulders. " But what would you have, monsieur ? " And
he spoke to Stretton as to an equal. " You are astonished.
It is very likely not your way in your — fishing-boats," he
continued, with a chuckle. Stretton knew very well that he
meant " army." " But there is no Foreign Legion amongst
your — fishermen." He laughed again ; and gathering up his
piipciu dismissed Stretton to the tailor's. But after Stretton
had taken a few steps across the parade, Tavernay called him
back again. He looked at him with a very friendly smile.

" I, too, enlisted at Marseilles," he said. " One can rise
in the Foreign Legion by means of these" — and he touched
lightly the medals upon his breast. This was Tony Stretton'd
introduction to the Foreign Legion.

( 155 )

CHAPTEE XVII

GALLON LEAVES ENGLAND

Spring that year drew summer quickly after it. The lilac
had been early in flower, the days bright and hot. At nine
o'clock on a July morning Callon's servant drew up the
blinds in his master's room and let the sunlight in. Lionel
Gallon stretched himself in bed and asked for his letters and
his tea. As he drank the tea he picked up the letters one
by one, and the first at which he looked brought a smile of
satisfaction to his face. The superscription told him that it
was from Millie S tret ton. That little device of a quarrel
had proved successful, then. He tore open the envelope and
read the letter. Millie wrote at no great length, but what
was written satisfied Gallon. She could not understand how
the quarrel had arisen. She had been thinking over it many
times since it happened, and she was still baffled. She had
not had a thought of hurting him. How could she, since
they were friends ? She had been hoping to hear from him,
but since some time had passed and no word had reached
her, she must write and say that she thought it sad their
friendship should have ended as it had.

It was a wistful little letter, and as Gallon laid it down
he said to himself, " Poor little girl " ; but he said the
words with a smile rather than with any contrition. She
had been the first to write — that was the main point. Had
he given in, had he been the one to make the advance, to
save her the troubled speculations, the sorrow at this abrupt
close to their friendship. Millie Stretton would have been

156 THE TRUANTS

glad, no doubt, but she would have thought him weak. Now
he was the strong man. He had caused her suffering and
abased her to seek a reconciliation. Therefore he was the
strong man. Well, women would have it so, he thought,
with a chuckle, and why should he complain ?

He wrote a note to Millie Stretton, announcing that he
would call that afternoon, and despatched the note by a
messenger. Then he turned to his other letters, and amongst
them he found one which drove all the satisfaction from his
thoughts. It came from a firm of solicitors, and was couched
in a style with which he was not altogether unfamiliar.

Sir, — Messrs. Deacon & Sons (Livery Stables, Montgomery Street)
having placed their books in our hands for the collection of their out-
standing debts, we must ask you to send us a cheque in settlement of
your account by return of post, and thus save further proceedings.

We are, yours, &c,

Humphreys & Neill.

Callon allowed the letter to slip from his fingers, and lay
for a while very still, feeling rather helpless, rather afraid.
It was not merely the amount of the bill which troubled him,
although that was inconveniently large. But there were
other reasons. His eyes wandered to a drawer in his
dressing-table. He got out of bed and unlocked it. At the
bottom of that drawer lay the other reasons, piled one upon
the other — letters couched in just the same words as that
which he had received this morning, and — still worse ! —
signed by this same firm of Humphreys and Neill. More-
over, every one of those letters had reached him within the
last ten days. It seemed that all his tradesmen had suddenly
placed their books in the hands of Messrs. Humphreys and
Neill.

Callon took the letters back to his bed. There were
quite an astonishing number of them. Callon himself was
surprised to see how deep he was in debt. They littered the
bed — tailors' bills ; bills for expensive little presents of
jewellery; bills run up at restaurants for dinners and suppers ;

CALLON LEAVES ENGLAND 157

bills for the hire of horses and carriages ; bills of all kinds —
and there were just Mr. Gallon's election expenses in Mr.
Callon's exchequer that morning. Even if he parted with
them, they would not pay a third part of the sum claimed.
Fear invaded him ; he saw no way out of his troubles. Given
time, he could borrow enough, no doubt, scrape enough money
together one way or another to tide himself over the difficulty.
His hand searched for Millie Stretton's letter and found it,
and rejected it. He needed time there ; he must walk warily
or he would spoil all. And looking at the letters he knew
that he had not the time.

It was improbable, nay more than improbable, that all
these bills were in the hands of one firm by mere chance.
No ; somewhere he had an enemy. A man — or it might be
a woman — was striking at him out of the dark, striking with
knowledge too. For the blow fell where he could least parry
it. Mr. Mudge would have been quite satisfied could he
have seen Callon as he lay that morning with the summer
sunlight pouring into his bedroom. He looked more than
his age, and his face was haggard. He felt that a hand
was at his throat, a hand which gripped and gripped with an
ever-increasing pressure.

He tried to guess who his enemy might be. But there
were so many who might be glad to do him an ill-turn.
Name after name occurred to him, but amongst those names
was not the name of Mr. Mudge. That shy and inoffensive
man was the last whom he would have suspected to be
meddling with his life.

Callon sprang out of bed. He must go down to Lincoln's
Inn Fields and interview Messrs. Humphreys and Neill.
Summonses would never do with a general election so near.
He dressed quickly, and soon after ten was in the office of
that firm. He was received by a bald and smiling gentleman
in spectacles.

" Mr. Callon ? " said the smiling gentleman, who an-
nounced himself as Humphreys. " Oh yes. You have come in

158 THE TRUANTS

reference to the letters which our clients have desired us to
Bend you ? "

"Yes," replied Gallon. "There are a good number of
letters."

The smiling gentleman laughed genially.

"A man of fashion, Mr. Gallon, has of course many
expenses which we humdrum business people are spared.

Let me see. The total amount due is " And ^Mr.

Humphreys made a calculation with his pen.

" I came to ask for an extension of time," Callon blurted
out ; and the smiling gentleman ceased to smile. He gazed
through his spectacles with a look of the utmost astonish-
ment. " You see, Mr. Humphreys, all these bills, each one
accompanied with a peremptory demand for payment, have
been presented together, almost as it were by the same
post."

" They arc all, however, to account rendered," said Mr.
Humphreys, as he removed and breathed upon his spectacles.

" It would, I frankly confess, seriously embarrass me to
settle them all at once."

" Dear, dear ! " said Mr. Humphreys, in a voice of regret.
" I am very sorry. These duties are very painful to mo,
Mr. Callon. But I have the strictest instructions." And
he rose from his chair to conclude the interview.

" One moment," said Callon. " I want to ask you how
it is that all my bills have come into your hands ? Who is
it who has brought them up ? "

" Really, really, Mr. Callon," the lawyer protested. " I
cannot listen to such suggestions." And then the smile
came back to his face. "Why not pay them in full?"
His eyes beamed through his spectacles. He had an air of
making a perfectly original and delightful suggestion. "Sit
down in this comfortable chair now, and write me out a little

cheque for — let me see " And he went back to his

tabic.

" I must have some time," said Gallon.

CALLON LEAVES ENGLAND 159

Mr. Humphreys was gradually persuaded that the
concession of a little time was reasonable.

" A day, then," he said. " We will say a day, Mr. Gallon.
This is Wednesday. Some time to-morrow we shall hear
from you." And he bowed Callon from his office. Then he
wrote a little note and despatched it by a messenger into the
City. The message was received by Mr. Mudge, who read
it, took up his hat, and jumping into a hansom cab, drove
westward with all speed.

Lionel Callon, on the contrary, walked back to his rooms.
He had been in tight places before, but never in one quite
so tight. Before, it was really the money which had been
needed. Now, what was needed was his ruin. To make
matters worse, he had no idea of the particular person who
wished to ruin him. He walked gloomily back to his club and
lunched in solitude. A day remained to him, but what could

he do in a day, unless ? There was a certain letter in

the breast-pocket of Callon's coat to which, more than once
as he lunched, his fingers strayed. He took it out and read
it again. It was too soon to borrow in that quarter, but his
back was against the wall. He saw no other chance of
escape. He drove to Millie Stretton's house in Berkeley
Square at the appointed time that afternoon.

But Mr. Mudge had foreseen. When he jumped into
his hansom cab he had driven straight to the house in Audley
Square, where Pamela Mardale was staying with some friends.

" Are you lunching anywhere ? " he asked. " No ?
Then lunch with Lady Stretton, please I And don't go
away too soon ! See as much as you can of her during the
next two days."

As a consequence, when Lionel Callon was shown into
the drawing-room, he found Pamela Mardale in her most
talkative mood, and Millie Stretton sitting before the tea-
table silent and helpless. Callon stayed late ; Pamela
stayed later. Callon returned to his club, having said not a
single word upon the momentous subject of his debts.

160 THE TRUANTS

He ordered a stiff brandy and soda. Somehow he must
manage to see Millie Stretton alone. He thought, for a
moment, of writing ; he indeed actually began to write.
But the proposal looked too crude when written down.
Gallon knew the tactics of his game. There must, in a
word, be an offer from Millie, not a request from him. He
tore up his letter, and while he was tearing it up, Mr.
Mudge entered the smoking-room. Mudge nodded carelessly
to Callon, and then seemed to be struck by an idea. He
came across to the writing-table and said —

" Do I interrupt you ? I wonder whether you could
help me. You know so many people that you might be
able to lay your finger at once on the kind of man I want.1'

Callon looked up carelessly at Mudge.

" No. You are not interrupting me. What kind of
man do you want ? "

" I want a man to superintend an important undertaking
which I have in hand."

Callon swung round in bis chair. All his carelessness
had gone. He looked at Mr. Mudge, who stood drumming
with his fingers on the writing-table.

" Oh," said Callon. " Tell me about it."

He walked over to a corner of the room which was un-
occupied and sat down. Mudge sat beside him and lighted
a cigar.

" I want a man to supervise, you understand. I don't
want an expert. For I have engineers and technical men
enough on the spot. And I don't want any one out of my
office. I need some one, on whom I can rely, to keep me in
touch with what is going on — some one quite outside my
business and its associations."

" I see," said Gallon. " The appointment would be—
for how long ? "

" Two years."

" And the salary would be good ? "

Callon leaned back on the lounge as he put the question

CALLON LEAVES ENGLAND ]61

and he put it without any show of eagerness. Two years
would be all the time he needed wherein to set himself
straight ; and it seemed the work would not be arduous.

"I think so," replied Mudge. "You shall judge for
yourself. It would be two thousand a year."

Callon did not answer for a little while, simply because he
could not trust himself to speak. His heart was beating
fast. Two thousand a year for two years, plus the sum for
his election expenses ! He would be able to laugh at that
unknown enemy who was striking at him from the dark.

" Should I do ? " he asked at length, and even then Lis
voice shook. Mr. Mudge appeared, however, not to notice
his agitation. He was looking down at the carpet, and
tracing the pattern with the ferrule of his walking-stick.

" Of course," he said, with a smile, as though Callon had
been merely uttering a joke. He did not even lift his eyes
to Callon's face. " Of course. I only wish you were
serious."

" But I am," cried Callon.

Mr. Mudge looked at his companion now, and with
surprise.

" Are you ? But you wouldn't have the time to spare.
You are standing for a constituency."

Callon shrugged his shoulders.

" Oh, I am not so very keen about Parliament. And
there are reasons why I would welcome the work."

Mr. Mudge answered with alacrity.

" Then we will consider it settled. Dine with me to-
night at my house, and we will talk the details over."

Callon accepted the invitation, and Mudge rose from his
seat. Callon, however, detained him.

"There's one difficulty in the way," and Mr. Mudge's
face became clouded with anxiety. " The truth is, I am
rather embarrassed at the present moment. I owe a good
deal of money, and I am threatened with proceedings unless
it is immediately paid."

M

162 THE TRUANTS

Mudge's face cleared at once.

" Oh, is that all ? " he exclaimed cheerily. " How much
do you owe ? "

" More than my first year's salary."

" Well, I will advance you half at once. Offer them a
thousand on account, and they will stay proceedings."

" I don't know that they will," replied Callon.

" You can try them, at all events. If they won't accept
half, send them to me, and we will make some other arrange-
ment. But they are sure to. They are pressing for
immediate payment because they are afraid they will get
nothing at all by any other way. But offer them a thousand
down, and see the pleasant faces with which they will greet
you." Mr. Madge was quite gay now that he understood
how small was the obstacle which hindered him from paining
Lionel Gallon's invaluable help. " I will write you a
cheque," he said ; and sitting down at a writing-table he
filled out a cheque and brought it back. He stood in front
of Callon with the cheque in his hand. He did not give it
to Callon at once. He had not blotted it, and he held it by
a corner and gently waved it to and fro, so that the ink
might dry. It followed that those tantalising "noughts,"
three of them, one behind the other, and preceded by a one,
like a file of soldiers with a sergeant at the head, and that
excellent signature " John Madge " were constantly before
Gallon's eyes, now approaching him like some shy maiden in
a flutter of agitation, now coyly receding. But to no shy
maiden had Lionel Callon ever said "I love you," with so
glowing an ardour as he felt for that most tantalising cheque.

" I ought to have told yon," said Mr. Madge, " that the
undertaking is a railway abroad."

Callon had been so blinded by the dazzle of the cheque
that he had not dreamed of that possibility. Two years
abroad, even at two thousand a year, did not at all fit in
with his scheme of life.

" Abroad ? " he repeated doubtfully. " Where ? "

CALLON LEAVES ENGLAND 163

" Chili," said Mr. Mudge ; and he looked at the cheque
to see that the ink was quite dry. Perhaps Mr. Mudge's
voice was a trifle too unconcerned. Perhaps there was
something a little too suggestive in his examination of his
cheque. Perhaps he kept his eyes too deliberately from
Callon's face. At all events, Callon became suddenly
suspicious. There flashed into his mind by some trick of
memory a picture — a picture of Mr. Mudge and Pamela
Mardale talking earnestly together upon a couch in a
drawing-room, and of himself sitting at a card-table, fixed
there till the game was over, though he knew well that the
earnest conversation was aimed against himself. He started,
he looked at Mudge in perplexity.

" Well ? " said Mudge.

" Wait a moment ! "

Pamela Mardale was Millie Stretton's friend. There
was that incident in the hall — Millie Stretton coming down
the stairs and Pamela in front of the mirror over the mantel-
piece. Finally there was Pamela's persistent presence at
Millie Stretton's house tins afternoon. One by one the
incidents gathered in his recollections and fitted themselves
together and explained each other. Was this offer a pretext
to get him out of the way ? Callon, after all, was not a, fool,
and he asked himself why in the world Mr. Mudge should,
just at this moment when he was in desperate straits, offer
him 2000/. a year to superintend a railway in Chili ?

" Well ? " said Mudge again.

" I must have time to think over the proposition,"
replied Callon. He meant that he must have time to obtain
an interview with Millie Stretton. But Mudge was ready
for him.

" Certainly," said he. " That is only reasonable. It is
seven o'clock now. You dine with me at eight. Give me
your answer then."

" I should like till to-morrow morning," said Callon.

Mr. Mudge shook his head.

164 THE TRUANTS

" That, I am afraid, is impossible. TVe shall need all to-
morrow to make the necessary arrangements and to talk over
your duties. For if you undertake the work you must leave
England on the day after."

Callon started up in protest. " On the day after ! " he
exclaimed.

" It gives very little time, I know," said Mudge. Then
he looked Callon quietly and deliberately in the eyes.
" But, you see, I want to get you out of the country at once."

Callon no longer doubted. He had thought, through
Mr. Mudge's help, to laugh at Ins enemy ; and lo ! the
enemy was Mudge himself. It was Mudge who had bought
up his debts, who now held him in so secure a grip that he
did not think it worth while to practise any concealment.
Callon was humiliated to the verge of endurance. Two
years in Chili, pretending to supervise a railway ! He
understood the position which he would occupy ; he was
within an ace of flinging the offer back. But he dared not.

" Very well," he said. " I will give you my answer at
eight."

" Thanks. Be punctual." Mr. Mudge sauntered away.
There could only be the one answer. Mr. Lionel Callon
might twist and turn as he pleased, he would spend two
years in Chili. It was five minutes past seven, besides.
Callon could hardly call at the house in Berkeley Square
with any chance of seeing Lady Stretton between now and
eight. Madge was contented with his afternoon.

At eight o'clock Callon gave in his submission and
pocketed the cheque. At eleven he proposed to go, but
Mudge, mindful of an evening visit which he had witnessed
from a balcony, could not part from his new manager so
soon. There was so little time for discussion even with
every minute of Callon's stay in England. He kept Callon
with him until two o'clock in the morning ; he made an
appointment with him at ten, and there was a note of warn-
ing in his voice which bade Callon punctually keep it. By

CALLON LEAVES ENGLAND 165

one shift and another he kept him busy all the next day, and
in the evening Callon had to pack, to write his letters, and
to make his arrangements for his departure. Moreover,
Pamela Mardale dined quietly with Millie Stretton and
stayed late. It thus happened that Callon left England
without seeing Millie Stretton again. He could write, of
course ; but he could do no more.

166 THE TRUANTS

CHAPTER XVIII

SOUTH OF OU ARC LA

" Halt ! " cried Captain Tavernay.

The bugler at bis side raised his bugle to his lips and
blew. The dozen chasseurs d'Afrique and the ten native
scouts who formed the advance guard stopped upon the
signal. A couple of hundred yards behind them the two
companies of the Foreign Legion came to a standstill. The
convoy of baggage mules upon the right flank, the hospital
equipment, the artillery section, the herd of oxen which was
driven along in the rear, in a word, the whole expedition,
halted in a wood of dwarf-oaks and junipers at three o'clock
in the afternoon.

The order was given to gather wood for the night's camp
fires, and the companies were dismissed. Each soldier made
his little bundle and fixed it upon his shoulders. Again the
bugle rang out, sounding the " Fall in." And the tiny force
marched out from the trees of the high plateaux into the
open desert. It was extraordinary with what abruptness
that transition was made. One minute the companies were
treading upon turf under rustling leaves, the next they were
descending a slope carpeted with halfa-grass, which Btretched
away to the horizon's rim. with hardly a bush to break its
bare monotony. At the limit of vision, a great arc like a
mirror of silver glittered out of the plain.

" Water," said a tall, bearded soldier, who marched in
the front rank of the first company. It was he who had
stepped from the train at Bel-Abbes with a light dust-coat

SOUTH OF OUARGLA 107

over his evening dress suit. He passed now as Fusilier
Barbier, an ex-engineer of Lyons.

" No," replied Sergeant Ohlsen, who marched at his side :
" the crystals of a dry salt lake."

In the autumn of last year Ohlsen — or, rather, to give
him his right name, Tony Stretton — had marched upon an
expedition from Mesheria to the Chott Tigri, and knew,
therefore, the look of those tantalising salt lakes. That
expedition, which had conducted a surrey for a road to the
Figuig oasis, had brought him his promotion.

" But we camp by the lake to-night," he added. " The
wells of El-Guethifa are close."

The companies went forward, and above that salt lake
they saw the mirages begin to shimmer, citadels and hang-
ing gardens, tall towers and waving woods and majestic
galleons, topsail over topsail, floating upon summer seas.
At the wells the sheikh of the district was waiting upon a
mule.

" I want fiftv camels with their saddles and their drivers
at five o'clock to-morrow morning," said Tavernay ; and
although as far as the eye could reach there was no moving-
thing upon that vast plain except the small group of Arabs
and soldiers about the well, by five o'clock the camels were
squatting upon the sand with their drivers beside them.
The mules were sent back from El-Guethifa that morning,
the baggage was packed upon the camels, and the little
force, insufficient in numbers and supplies, went forward on
its long and untoward march.

It passed through the oases of El-Maia and Methlili to
Ouargla, at that time the last outpost of French authority.
At Ouargla it rested for a week ; and there, renewing its
supplies, penetrated southwards to survey the desert country
of the Touaregs for the construction of the oft -mooted
trans-Saharan railway. South of Ouargla all the difficulties
of the advance were doubled. The companies went down
through the archipelago of oases in the dangerous Touat

163 THE TRUANTS

oouatry amongst a sullen people, who had little food to
supply, and would hardly supply it. Tavernay led his men
with care, neither practising a discipline needlessly strict,
nor relaxing into carelessness. But he was under-officered,
and his officers even so were inexperienced. Lieutenant
Laurent, a man irritable and unjust, was his second in
command, and there were but two sous-lieutenants besides.
In spite of all Tavernay'a care the convoy diminished. One
day a camel would stumble on the slippery bottom of a salt
marsh, fall, and break its limbs ; the next another would
fail, and die through a long-untended wound, caused by the
rough saddle upon its back. In the ranks of the soldiers,
too, there was trouble, and Laurent was not the man to
deal with it. There was hardly a company of the Legion,
recruited, as it so largely was, from the outcasts and the
men of sorrows, in which there were not some of disordered
minds, some whom absinthe had brought to the edge of
insanity. Upon these the severity of the expedition bore
heavily. Tents had been perforce discarded. The men
slept under the stars. They woke from freezing nights to
the bitter winds of dawn, and two hours after dawn they
were parched by a burning sun, and all the day they
suffered under its pitiless and blinding glare. Storms
whelmed them in lofty spirals of whirling, choking sand.
For a week they would toil over high red mountainous
ground of loose stones ; then would follow the monotony
of bare round plains, piled here and there with black rocks,
quivering and glittering in the heat ; the sun rose day after
day upon their left hand in scarlet, and set in scarlet upon
their right, and they themselves were still the tiny centre
of the same empty inhospitable space ; so that only the dif-
ference of the ground they trod, the feel of soft sand
beneath their feet, where a minute before they had marched
on gravel, told them that they progressed at all. The
worst of the men became prone to disobedience, eager for
change ; and every now and then a soldier would rise upon

SOUTH OF OUAEGLA 169

his elbow in the night time, gaze furtively about over his
sleeping comrades, watch the sentries until their backs were
turned, and then crawl past them into the darkness. Of
these men none ever returned. Or some mania would seize
upon them and fix a strange idea in their brains, such as
that which besieged Barbier, the fusilier, who had once
stepped out of the railway carriage in his evening dress.
He leaned over towards Stretton one evening, and said in a
hoarse, trembling voice —

"I can stand it no longer."

Both men were sitting by a tiny fire, which Barbier
was feeding with handfuls of halfa-grass and sticks. He
was kneeling up in front of it, and by the red waving light
Stretton saw that his face was quivering with excitement.

" What can't you stand ? " he asked.

" It is Captain Tavemay," replied Barbier. He suddenly
laughed in a pitiful fashion, and cast a glance over his
shoulder. " There is a man put on to watch me. Night
and day I am watched by Captain Tavernay's orders. He
wants to fix a crime on me 1 I know. He wants to trap
me. But let him take care ! "

Stretton fetched the doctor, who listened for a while to
Barbier's rambling, minatory talk, and then shrugged hi3
shoulders.

" Hallucinations," said he. " Ideas of persecution.
The commonest form," and having fixed Barbier into his
proper category, he walked away. There was nothing to
be done for Barbier upon this expedition. He had to be
watched ; that was all. Thus for seven hundred miles
the force pushed southwards from Ouargla, and thus from
within it disintegrated as it went. Tavemay could not but
notice the change, but he said nothing to any subordinate.
The men would fight well if fighting happened. That he
knew, and meanwhile he marched on.

It was just when the seven hundred miles had been
completed that Tavernay realised fighting was likely to

170 THE TRUANTS

happen. He went the round of the camp as the sun was
setting, when the rifles were piled and the fires crackling.
Stretton was at his side, and saw his commander stop and
shade his eyes. Tavernay was looking westwards. Far
away against the glowing ball of the sun, which was just,
(lipping down behind the plain, the figure of an Arab
mounted upon a camel stood motionless and black.
Tavernay swung round and looked behind him. On the
crest of a sandhill to the north a second rider stood distinct
against the sky.

Tavernay watched the men for a long time through his
glasses.

"Touaregs," said he, gravely. "Masked Touaregs,"
and that night the sentinels were doubled ; and in the morn-
ing the bugle did not sound the reveille.

Moreover, when the force advanced, it advanced in the
formation of a square, with the baggage camels in the
centre, one gun in the front line, and the other in the rear.
They had marched into the country where the Senoussa
sect prevailed. The monasteries of that body sent out their
missionaries eastward to Khordofan, westwards to Tafilet,
preaching the purification of the Mohammedan religion and
the enlargement of Mohammedan countries now subject to
the infidels. But nowhere had the missionaries raised their
standard with more success than in this Touat country of
the Sahara. The companies marched that day alert and
cheerful. They were consolidated by the knowledge of
danger. Captain Tavernay led them with pride.

" An insufficient force, ill-found, inadequately officered,"
he thought. " But the men are of the Legion." They were
mes mfanU to him all that day.

But the attack was not yet to be delivered. During the
night the two scouts had ridden on their swift Meharis north-
westwards, to the town of Insalah. They knocked upon the
gates of the great mud fortress of Abd-el-Kader, the sheikh,
and were instantly admitted to the dark room where he sat

SOUTH OF OUABGLA 171

upon a pile of rugs. When the eyes of the scouts became
accustomed to the gloom, they saw there was yet another in
the room, a tall man robed in black, with a black mask of
cotton wound about his face so that only his eyes were visible.
This was the chieftain of the Hoggar Touaregs.

" Well ? " said Abd-el-Kader. And the scouts told him
roughly the number of the force and the direction of the
journey.

Then Abd-el-Kader turned to the Touareg chieftain.

" We will let them go further south, since southwards
they are marching," he said, in his suave gentle voice. " A
hundred miles more, and they will be amongst the sand dunes.
Since they have cannon, the attack must be sudden. Let it
be at the wells of Bir-el-Gharamo."

The Touareg chieftain rode out that day towards his hills ;'
and, unmolested, Captain Tavernay's expedition went down
to the dunes. Great waves of yellow sand, sometimes three
hundred feet from crest to base, intersected the face of the
desert ; the winds had given to their summits the overhang
of a breaking sea ; they ran this way and that, as though
the currents of an ocean had directed their course ; they had
the very look of motion ; so that Stretton could not but
remember the roaring combers of the cold North Sea as he
gazed upon these silent and arrested copies. They made of
that country a maze of intricate valleys. Led by a local guide
commandeered from the last oasis, the companies of the
Legion marched into the maze, and on the second day saw,
as they came over a hill, just below them in a narrow hollow,
a mud parapet built about the mouth of a well. This was
Bir-el-Gharamo, and here they camped. Sentries were posted
on the neighbouring crests ; suddenly the darkness came, and
overhead the stars rushed down towards the earth. There
was no moon that night, nor was there any sound of danger
heard. Three times Tavernay went the round of the sentries,
at eight and at ten and at twelve. But at three o'clock, just
as the dawn was breaking, a shot was heard. Tavernay

172 THE TRUANTS

sprang up from the ground, the alarm rang out clear from
the bugle over the infinite waste, the companies of the Legion
seized their piled rifles and fell into battle order with an
incredible neatness and expedition. There was no confusion,
no noise. The square was formed about the well — the
camels were knee-haltered in the middle, the guns placed at
the corners. But it was still dark. A few shots were fired on
the dune3, and the sentries came running back.

" Steady," cried Captain Tavernay. " They are coming.
Fire low I "

The first volley rang out, and immediately afterwards on
every side of that doomed square the impact of the Touaregs'
charge fell like the blow of some monstrous hammer. All
night they had been gathering noiselessly in the surrounding
valleys. Now they had charged with lance and sword from
the surrounding crests. Three sides of the square held their
ground. The fourth wavered, crumpled in like a piece of
broken cardboard, and the Arabs were within the square,
stabbing at the backs of the soldiers, loosing and stampeding
the camels. And at once, where deep silence had reigned a
minute ago, the air was torn with shrill cries and oaths and
the clamour of weapons. The square was broken ; but here
a group of men stood back to back, and with cartridge and
bayonet held its ground ; there another formed ; and about
each gun the men fought desperately. Meanwhile the morn-
ing came, a grey, clear light spread over the desert. Tavernay
himself was with one of the machine-guns. It was dragged
clear of the melee and up a slope of sand. The soldiers parted
in front of it, and its charge began to sweep the Touaregs
down like swathes, and to pit the sand hills like a fall of
rain. About the other gun the fight still raged.

" Come, my children," said Tavernay, " fight well ; the
Touaregs give no quarter."

Followed by Stretton, he led the charge. The Touaregs
gave way before their furious onslaught. The soldiers reached
the gun, faced about, and firing steadily kept off the enemy

SOUTH OF OUARGLA 173

while the gun was ran back. As soon as that was saved the
battle was over. All over the hollow, wherever the Touaregs
were massed, the two guns rattled out their canister. No
Arab could approach them. The sun rose over the earth,
and while it was risiug the Touaregs broke and fled. "When
it shone out in its full round, there was no one left of them
in that hollow except the wounded and the dead. But the
victory had been dearly bought. All about the well, lying
pell-mell among the Arabs and the dead camels, were the
French Legionaries, some quite still, and others writhing in
pain and crying for water. Stretton drew his hand across
his forehead. He was stunned and dazed. It seemed to
him that years had passed, that he had grown very old. Yet
there was the sun new-risen. There was a dull pain in his
head. He raised his hand and drew it away wet with blood.
How or when he had received the blow he was quite unaware.
He stood staring stupidly about him. So very little while
ago men were lying here sleeping in their cloaks, quite strong,
living people ; now they were lying dead or in pain ; it was
all incomprehensible.

" TThy ? " he asked aloud of no one. " Now, why ? "

Gradually, however, custom resumed its power. There
was a man hanging limp over the parapet of the well. He
looked as though he had knelt down and stooped over to
drink, and in that attitude had fallen asleep. But he might
so easily be pushed into the well, and custom had made the
preservation of wells from impurity an instinct. He removed
the body and went in search of Tavernay. Tavernay was
sitting propped up against a camel's saddle ; the doctor was
by his side, a blood-stained bandage was about his thigh.
He spoke in a weak voice.

" Lieutenant Laurent ? "

Stretton went in search. He came across an old grey-
headed soldier rolling methodically a cigarette.

" He is dead — over there," said the soldier. " Have you
a light ? "

174 THE TRUANTS

Laurent had died game. He was lying clasped in the
arms of a gigantic Touareg, and while thus held he had been
stabbed by another through the back. To that end the con-
temptuous smile of a lady far away in Paris had brought him.
He lay with his face to the sky, his wounded vanity now
quite healed. He had earned Tavernay's praise, at all events,
that day. For he had fought well. Of the sous-lieutenants
one was killed, the other dangerously wounded. A sergeant-
major lay with a broken shoulder beside one of the guns.
Stretton went back to Tavernay.

" You must take command, then," said Tavernay. " I
think you have learnt something about it on your fishing-
boats." And in spite of his pain he smiled.

Stretton mustered the men and called over the names.
Almost the first name which he called was the name of
" Barbier," and Barbier, with a blood-stained rag about his
head, answered. Of the two hundred and thirty men who
had made up the two companies of the Legion, only forty-
seven could stand in the ranks and answer to their names.
For those forty-seven there was herculean work to do.
Officers were appointed, the dead bodies were roughly buried,
the camels collected, litters improvised for the wounded, the
goat-skins filled with water. Late in the afternoon Stretton
came again to Tavernay.

l> AVe are ready, sir." Tavernay nodded and asked for
a sheet of paper, an envelope, and ink. They were fetched
from his portfolio and very slowly and laboriously he wrote
a letter and handed it bo .Stretton.

" Seal it," he said, " now, in front of me."

Stretton obeyed.

" Keep that letter. If you gel back to Onargla without
me, give it to the Commandant there."

Tavernay was lifted in a litter on to the back of a camel,
and the remnant of the geographical expedition began its
terrible homeward march. Eight hundred miles lay between
Bir-el-Ghiramo and the safety of Onargla. The Touaregs

SOUTH OF OUARGLA 175

hung upon the rear of the force, but they did not attack
again. They preferred another way. One evening a solitary
Arab drove a laden camel into the bivouac. He was con-
ducted to Stretton, and said, " The Touaregs ask pardon
and pray for peace. They will molest you no more. Indeed,
they will help you, and as an earnest of their true desire for
your welfare they send you a camel-load of dates."

Stretton accepted the present, and carried the message to
Tavernay, who cried at once, " Let no one eat those dates."
But two soldiers had already eaten of them, and died of
poison before the morning. Short of food, short of sentinels,
the broken force crept back across the stretches of soft sand,
the greyish-green plains of halfa-grass, the ridges of red hill.
One by one the injured succumbed ; their wounds gangrened,
they were tortured by the burning sun and the motion of the
camels. A halt would be made, a camel made to kneel, and
a rough grave dug.

"Pelissier," cried Stretton, and a soldier stepped out
from the ranks who had once conducted mass in the church
of the Madeleine in Paris. Pelissier would recite such
prayers as he remembered, and the force would move on
again, leaving one more soldier's grave behind it in the
desert to protest unnoticed against the economy of govern-
ments. Then came a morning when Stretton was summoned
to Captain Tavernay's side.

For two days Tavernay had tossed in a delirium. He
now lay beneath a rough shelter of cloaks, in his right
senses, but so weak that he could not lift a hand, and with
a face so pinched and drawn that his years seemed to have
been doubled. His eyes shone out from big black circles.
Stretton knelt down beside him.

" You have the letter ? "

" Yes."

" Do not forget."

He lay for a while in a sort of contentment, then he said — ■

" Do not think this expedition has been waste. A small

176 THE TRUANTS

force first and disaster ... the big force afterwards to
retrieve the disaster, and with it victory, and government
and peace, and a new country won for France. That is the
law of the Legion. . . . My Legion." He smiled, and
Stretton muttered a few insincere words.

"You will recover, my captain. You will lead your
companies again."

" No," said Tavernay, in a whisper. " I do not want to.
I am very happy. Yes, I say that, who joined the Legion
twenty years ago. And the Legion, my friend, is the
nation of the unhappy. For twenty years I have been a
citizen of that nation. ... I pity women who have no such
nation to welcome them and find them work. . . . For us
there is no need of pity."

And in a few moments he fell asleep, and, two hours
later, sleeping, died. A pile of stones was built above his
grave, and the force marched on. Gaunt, starved, and
ragged, the men marched northwards, leaving the Touat
country upon their left hand. It struck the caravan route
from Tidikelt to Ouargla ; it stumbled at last through the
gates of the town. Silently it marched through the streets
to the French fortress. On no survivor's face was there any
sign of joy that at last their hardships were over, their
safety assured. All were too tired, too dispirited. The
very people who crowded to see them pass seemed part of an
uninteresting show. Stretton went at once to the Com-
mandant and told the story of their disaster. Then he
handed him the letter of Captain Tavernay. The Com-
mandant broke the seal and read it through. He looked up
at Stretton, a thin spent figure of a man overwrought with
sleeplessness and anxiety.

"Tell me how and when this was written," said the
Commandant.

Stretton obeyed, and after he had heard, the Com-
mandant sat with his hand shading his eyes. When he
spoke, his voice showed that he was deeply moved.

SOUTH OF OUARGLA 177

" You know what the letter contains, Sergeant Ohlsen ? "

" No, my Commandant."

" Read, then, for yourself ; " and he passed the letter
across his office table. Stretton took it and read. There
were a few lines written — only a few ; but those few lines
recommended Sergeant Ohlsen for promotion to the rank of
officer. The Commandant held out his hand.

" That is like our Tavernay," he said. " He thought
always of his soldiers. He wrote it at once, you see, after
the battle was over, lest he should die and justice not be
done. Have no fear, my friend. It is you who have
brought back to Ouargla the survivors of the Legion. But
you must give your real name. There is a scrutiny before a
soldier is promoted to the rank of office. Sergeant Ohlsen.
That is all very well. But Lieutenant . Come, Lieu-
tenant who ? "

He took up his pen.

" Lieutenant Sir Anthony Stretton," replied Tony ; and
the Commandant wrote down the name.

N

178 THE TRUANTS

CHAPTER XIX

THE TURNPIKE GATE

It was not, however, only Millie Stretton whose fortunes
were touched by Tony's absence. Wanisden, whom Stretton
had met but the once on board the Cily of Bristol, was no
less affected. On a day of that summer, during which Tony
camped far away on the edge of the Sahara, Warrisden rode
down the steep hill from the village of the three poplars on
his way to Whitewebs. Once Pamela had ridden along this
road between the white wood rails and the black bare stems
of trees on a winter's evening of mist. That was more than
fifteen months ago. The brown furrows in the fields were
now acres of waving yellow ; each black chimp was now an
ambuscade of green, noisy with birds. The branches
creaked in a light wind and rippled and shook the sunlight
from their leaves, the road glistened like chalk. It was ten
o'clock on an August morning, very clear and light. Voices
from far away amongst the corn sounded tiny and distinct,
like voices heard through a telephone. Pound this bend at
the thicket corner Pamela had disappeared on that dim, grey
evening. How far had she since travelled on the new road,
"Warrisden wondered. She was at "Whitewebs now. He
was riding thither to find out.

When he inquired for her at the door, he was at once
led through the house into the big garden at the back.
Pamela was silting in a chair at the edge of the lawn under
the shade of the great avenue of elms which ran straight
from the back of the house to the shallow stream at the

THE TURNPIKE GATE 179

garden's boundary. She saw him at once as he came oufc
from the glass-door on to the gravel, and she rose from her
chair. She did not advance to him, but just stood where
she was, watching him approach ; and in her eyes there was
a great perplexity. Warrisden came straight to her over the
lawn. There was no hesitation in his manner, at all event?.
On the other hand, there was no air of assurance. He came
with a definite object ; so much was evident, but no more.
He stopped in front of her and raised his hat. Pamela
looked at him and said nothing. She did not even give him
her hand. She stood and waited almost submissively, with
her troubled eyes resting quietly on his.

" You expected me ? " he said.

" Yes. I received your letter this morning."

" You have guessed why I have come ? "

" Yes."

" And you are troubled," said Warrisden.

They turned and walked under the branches into the
avenue. Overhead there was a bustle of blackbirds and
thrushes ; a gardener sharpening his scythe in the rose
garden made a little rasping sound. Over all the lawn the
August sunlight lay warm and golden like a benediction.

" I have come to ask you the old question," said "Warris-
den. " "Will you marry me ? "

Pamela gazed steadily ahead as she walked, and she
walked very slowly. She was prepared for the question, yet
she took her time to answer it. And the answer when at
last she gave it was no answer at all.

" I do not know," she said, in a low clear voice.

Warrisden looked at her. The profile of her face was
towards him. He wondered for the thousandth time at its
1 >eauty and its gentleness. The broad, white forehead under
the sweep of her dark hair, the big, dark eyes shining beneath
her brows, the delicate colour upon her cheeks, the curve of
the lips. He wondered and longed. But he spoke simply and
without extravagance, knowing that he would be understood.

180 THL TRUANTS

" I have done nothing for you of the things men often
do when a woman comes into their lives. I have tried to
make no career. I think there are enough people making
careers. They make the world very noisy, and they raise a
deal of dust. I have just gone on living quietly as I did
before, believing you would need no such proof."

" I do not," said Pamela.

"There might be much happiness for both of us," he
continued. And again she answered, without looking at
him —

" I do not know."

She was not evading him. Evasions, indeed, were never
to her liking ; and here, she was aware, were very serious
issues.

" I have been thinking about you a great deal," she said.
" I will tell you this. There is no one else. But that is not
all. I can say too, I think, quite certainly, that there will
be no one else. Only that is not enough, is it ? Not enough,
ut all events, for you and me."

Warrisden nodded his head.

" No, that is not enough," he said gravely.

They walked on side by side in silence for a little while.

" It is only fair that I should be very frank with you,"
she went on. " I have been thinking so much about you in
order that when you came again with this old question, as I
knew you would, I might be quite clear and frank. Do you
remember that you once spoke to me about the turnpike gate
— the gate which I was to open and through which I was to
go, like other men and women down the appointed road ? "

" Yes, I remember."

" You meant, as I understand it, the gate between friend-
ship and the ever so much more which lies beyond ? "

" Yes."

And Pamela repeated his word. " Yes," she said. " But
one cannot open that gate at will. It opens of itself at a
touch, or it stays shut."

THE TURK PIKE GATE 181

" And it stays shut now ? "

Pamela answered him at once —

" Say, rather, that I have raised a hand towards the
gate, but that I am afraid to try." And she turned her face
to him at last. Her eyes were very wistful.

They stopped upon the grass bank of the stream at the
end of the avenue. Pamela looked down into the dark,
swiftly running water, and went on choosing each word,
testing it, as it were, before she uttered it.

" You see that new road beyond the gate is no new road
to me. I have trodden it before, and crept back — broken.
Therefore, I am afraid." She paused. Warrisden was
aware from her attitude that she had not finished. He did
not stir lest he should check what more remained to say, and
that remnant never be spoken at all. And it was well for
him that he did not stir ; for she said, in the same clear, low
voice which she had hitherto used, and just as steadily —

" I am the more afraid because I think that if I did
touch that gate it might open of itself."

She had begun, in a word, to feel premonitions of that
suspense and of that glowing life in which for a few brief
months she had once been steeped. Did she expect a letter
from Warrisden, there was an eagerness in her anticipation
with which she was well familiar. Was the letter delayed,
there was a keenness in her disappointment which was like
the pang of an old wound. And this recognition that the
good days might come again, as in a cycle, brought to her
very vividly the memory of the bad black days which had
followed. Fear of those latter days, and the contrast of
their number with the number of those which had gone
before, drove her back. For those latter days in their turn
might come round again.

Warrisden looked at her and his heart filled with pity for
the great trouble which had overwhelmed her. She stood by
his side with the sunlight playing upon her face and her hair
— a girl brilliant with life, ripe to turn its possibilities into

182 THE TRUANTS

facts ; and she shrank from the ordeal, so hardly had she
been hit ! She was by nature fearless, yet was she desperately
afraid.

" Will nothing make you touch the gate and try ? " he
asked gently. And then, quietly as he spoke, the greatness
of his longing made itself heard. " My dear, my dear," he
said, " will nothing make you take your risks ? "

The words struck sharply upon her memories. She
turned her eyes to him.

" It is strange that you should use those words," she said.
"For there is one thing which might make me take my
risks. The return of the man who used them to you in the
North Sea."

" Tony Stretton ? " exclaimed "Warrisden.

" Yes. He is still away. It is said that he is on a long
shooting expedition somewhere in Central Africa, and out of
reach. But that is not the truth. "We do not know where
he is, or when he will come back."

" Shall I try to find him again ? " said "Warrisden. " This
time I might succeed in bringing him home."

Pamela shook her head.

" No," she answered. " I think I know why he stays
away. And there would be only one way of persuading him
to return. "Well — that means I must not use, unless things
have come to an extremity."

The one means of persuasion was the truth. If she sent
for Tony Stretton again she must explain what that saying
of hers spoken so long ago had meant. She must write why
he should not have left his wife. She must relate the sordid
story, which rendered his return imperative, That she was
prepared to do, if all else failed, in the last resort, but not
till then.

"But the extremity has not been reached," she continued,
"and I hope it never will. I hope Tony Stretton will come
back soon of his own accord. That would be the best thing
which could happen, ever so much the best." She did not

THE TURNPIKE GATE 183

blame Tony for his absence, for she understood the motive
which caused it. In a way, she was inclined to approve of
it in itself, just as a motive, that is to say. It was the
character of Millie Stretton and his ignorance of it which
made his experiment so hazardous. Complete confidence in
his wife's honour, indeed, was to her thinking, and rightly, an
essential part of his motive. She wished him to return of
his own accord and keep that confidence.

"There is not the same necessity,1' she continued,
choosing her words, " that he should return immediately, as
there was when I sent you out to the North Sea ; but it is
possible that the necessity might recur." For she knew that,
though Callon was far away in Chili, letters came from him
to Millie. Only lately a careless remark of Millie's with
reference to that State had assured her of this. And if the
letters still came, though Gallon had been away a year, it
followed that they were answered.

'• In that case you would send for me ? " said Wamsden,

'• Yes. I should rely on you."

And "Warrisden answered quietly, " Thank you."

He asked no questions. He seemed to understand that
Pamela must use him, and, while using him, not fail of
loyalty to her sex. A feeling of self-reproach suddenly
troubled Pamela. She had never told him that she had
used another's help and not his. She wondered whether it
was quite fair not to tell him. But she kept silent. After all,
she thought, the news would only hurt him ; and Mr. Mudge's
help had been help which he could not have given. She went
back to the matter of their relationship to one another.

" So you understand what I think," she said. " I am
afraid. I look for signs. I cannot help doing that. I
have set my heart on keeping a promise which I made to
Tony Stretton. If he returns, whether of his own accord or
by my persuasion, and things go well — why, then " — and she
turned her face from him and said, looking steadily in front
of her — " why, then, perhaps."

184 THE TRUANTS

As she spoke her face changed wonderfully. The mere
utterance of the word aloud conjured up dreams. A wistful
smile made her lips beautiful, her eyes grew dim. Just for a
moment she gave those dreams their way. She looked across
the garden through a mist, seeing nothing of the trees or the
coloured flowers, but gazing into a vision of other and golden
days — of days perhaps to come. Warrisden stood at her
side, and did not speak. But something of those dreams he
guessed, her face had grown so young.

She shook her dreams from her in a few moments.

" So you see, at present," she resumed, " marriage is
impossible. It will always be impossible to me unless I can
bring — everything, not merely companionship, not merely
liking ; out the ever so much more which there is. I cannot
contemplate it at all under any other conditions " — and now
she looked at her companion — " and I believe it is the same
with you."

" Yes," Warrisden replied, " I ask for everything."

He had his convictions, and since there was complete
conlidence between these two, he spoke them now.

" It is unsafe, of course, to generalise on the subject of
women. But I do think this : If a man asks little from a
woman, she will give him even less than he asks, and she will
give it grudgingly, sparingly ; counting what she gives.
And that little, to my mind, is worth rather less than nothing.
Better have no ties than weak ones. If, on the other hand,
a man asks a great deal, and continually asks it, why, the
woman may get bored, and he may get nothing. In which
case he is no worse off than he was before. But if, on the
other hand, the woman does give in return "

" Well ? " tusked Pamela.

" Well, then, she gives ever so much more than he asks,
and gives it willingly with open hands."

Pamela thought the theory over.

" Yes, I think that is generally true," she said. " But,
after all, I am giving you very little."

THE TURNPIKE GATE 185

Warrisden laughed.

44 That's true," he replied. " But then you are not
bored, and I have not done asking."

Pamela laughed too, and their talk thus ended in a
lighter note. They walked towards the house, and as they
did so a woman came out on to the lawn.

" This is Millie Stretton," said Pamela.

" She is staying here ? " cried "Warrisden.

" Yes," replied Pamela, " Before she comes I want to
ask you to do something for me. Oh, it is quite a small
thing. But I should like you very much to do it. Where
do you go to from here ? "

" To London," said "Warrisden, " I have business there."

The business which called him to town had, indeed, only
occurred to him during the last half-hour. It had arisen
from their conversation. It seemed to "Warrisden immediate
and imperative.

" "Will you be in London to-morrow ? " asked Pamela.
" Yes."

" Then I want you to write to me. Just a little letter —
nothing much, a line or two. And I want you to post it,
not by the country post, but afterwards, so that it will
reach me in the evening. Don't write here, for I am going
home. And please don't forget."

Millie Stretton joined them a moment afterwards, and
"Warrisden was introduced to her.

" I have had an offer for the house in Berkeley Square,"
she said to Pamela. " I think I will take it. I shall be
glad to be rid of it."

They went back into the house. "Warrisden wondered
at Pamela's request for a letter, and at her urgency that it
should arrive at a particular time. He was not discontented
with the walk which they had taken under the avenue of
elms. It seemed to him that Pamela was coming slowly
towards him. There was a great difference between her
"No" of last year and her "I do not know" of to-day.

186 THE TRUANTS

Even that " I do not know " while they talked had become
'• perhaps." Had she not owned even more, since she was
afraid the gate would open of itself did she but touch and
try ? His hopes, therefore, rode high that day, and would
have ridden yet higher, could he have guessed why she so
desired a few lines in his handwriting in the evening of the
day after to-morrow.

The reason was this. Repairs, long needed, had at last
been undertaken in the house of Pamela's father, a few
miles away ; and those repairs involved the rooms reserved
for Pamela. There were certain drawers in that room which
had not been unlocked for years, and of which Pamela
sedulously guarded the keys. They held letters, a few small
presents, one or two photographs, and some insignificant
trifles which could not be valued, since their value depended
only on their associations. There were, for instance, some
cheap red beads, and the history of those beads tells all that
need be said of the contents of those locked drawers.

Two hundred years before, a great full-rigged ship,
bound with a general cargo for the Guinea Coast, sailed
down the Channel out of Portsmouth. Amongst the cargo
was a great store of these red beads. The beads were to buy
slaves for the plantations. But the great ship got no further
on her voyage than Bigbury Bay in Devonshire. She
damaged her rudder in a storm, and the storm swept her on
to the bleak rocks of Bolt Tail, dragged her back again into
the welter of the sea, drove her into Bigbury Bay, and
flung her up there against the low red cliffs, where all her
crew perished. The cargo was spilt amongst the breakers,
and the shores of that bay were littered with red beads.
You may pick them up to this day amongst the pebbles.
There Pamela had picked them upon a hot August morning,
vi'iy like to that which now dreamed over this green, quiel
V mini of Leicestershire ; and when she had picked them up
she had not been alone. The locked cabinets held all the
relics which remained to her from those few bright weeks in

THE TURNPIKE GATE 187

Devon ; and the mere touch of any one, however trifling,
would have magic to quicken her memories. Yet now the
cabinets must be unlocked, and all that was in them removed.
There was a bad hour waiting for Pamela, when she would
remove these relics one by one — the faded letters in the
handwriting which she would never see again on any
envelope ; the photograph of the face which could exchange
no look with her ; the little presents from the hand which
could touch hers no more. It would be a relief, she thought,
to come downstairs when that necessary work was done, that
bad hour over, and find a letter from Warrisden upon the
table. Just a few lines. She needed nothing more.

188 THE TRUANTS

CHAPTER XX

MR. CHASE DOES NOT ANSWER

Both Pamela and Millie Stretton walked with Warrisden
through the hall to the front door. Upon the hall-table
letters were lying. Pamela glanced at them as she passed,
and caught one up rather suddenly. Then she looked at
Warrisden, and there was something of appeal in her look.
It was as though she turned to a confederate on whom she
could surely rely. But she said nothing, since Millie Stretton
was at her side. For the letter was in the handwriting of
Mr. Mudge, who wrote but rarely, and never without a
reason. She read the letter in the garden as soon as
Warrisden had ridden off, and the news which it contained
was bad news. Callon had lived frugally in South America —
by Christmas he would have discharged his debts ; and he
had announced to Mudge that he intended at that date to
resign his appointment. There were still four months,
Pamela reflected — nay, counting the journey home, five
months ; and within that time Tony Stretton might re-
appear. If he did not, why, she could summon Warrisden
to her aid. She looked at Millie, who was reading a book
in a garden-chair close by. Did she know, Pamela wondered ?
But Millie gave no sign.

Meanwhile, Warrisden travelled to London upon that
particular business which made a visit there in August so
imperative. It had come upon him while he had been
talking with Pamela that it would be as well for him to
know the whereabouts of Tony Stretton at once ; so that if

MR. CHASE DOES NOT ANSWER 189

the need came he should be ready to set out upon the instant.
On the following evening, accordingly, he drove down to
Stepney. It was very likely that Chase would be away upon
a holiday. But there was a chance that he might find him
clinging to his work through this hot August, a chance
worth the trouble of his journey. He drove to the house
where Chase lodged, thinking to catch him before he set out
for his evening's work at the mission. The door of the
house stood open to the street. Warrisden dismissed his
cab, and walked up the steps into the narrow hall. A door
upon his right hand was opened, and a young man politely
asked Warrisden to step in. He was a fair-haired youth,
with glasses upon his nose, and he carried a napkin in his
hand. He had evidently been interrupted at his dinner by
Warrisden's arrival. He was not dining alone, for a youth
of the same standing, but of a more athletic mould, sat at
the table. There was a third place laid, but not occupied.

Warrisden looked at the third chair.

" I came to see Mr. Chase," he said. " I suppose that
he has gone early to the mission ? "

" No," said the youth who had opened the door. " He
has not been well of late. The hot weather in these close
streets is trying. But he certainly should have something
to eat by now, even if he does not intend to get up."

He spoke in a pedantic, self-satisfied voice, and intro-
duced himself as Mr. Raphael Princkley, and his companion
as Mr. Jonas Stiles, both undergraduates of Queen's College,
Oxford.

"We are helping Chase in his work," continued Mr.
Princkley. " It is little we can do, but you are no doubt
acquainted with the poetry of Robert Browning : ' The little
more, and how much it is ' ? In that line we find our
justification."

The fair-haired youth rang the bell for the housekeeper.
She was an old woman, fat and slow, and she took her time
in answering the summons.

190 THE TRUANTS

" Mrs. Wither, have you called Mr. Chase ? " he asked
"when the old lady appeared at the door.

" No, Mr. Princkley, sir," she replied. " You told mc
yesterday evening not to disturb him on any account until
he rang."

Mr. Princkley turned to Warrisden.

" Mr. Chase was unwell all yesterday, " he said, " and at
dinner-time he told us that he felt unequal to his duties.
lie was sitting in that empty place, and we both advised him
not to overtax his strength."

He appealed with a look to Mr. Stiles for corroboration.

" Yes ; we both advised him," said Stiles, between two
niouthf uls ; " and, very wisely, he took our advice. "

" He rose from his chair," continued Princkley. " There
was some fruit upon the table. He took an apple from the
dish. I think, Stiles, that it was an apple which he took ? "

Mr. Stiles agreed, and went on with his dinner.

" It was certainly an apple which he took. He took it
in his hand."

" You hardly expected him to take it with his foot ! "
rejoined Warrisden, politely. Warrisden was growing a little
restive under this detailed account of Chase's indisposition.

"No," replied Princkley, with gravity. " He took it in
quite a natural way, and went upstairs to his sitting-room.
I gave orders to Mrs. Wither that he must not be disturbed
until he rang. That is so, Mrs. Wither, is it not ? Yes. I
thank you."

"That was yesterday evening ! " cried Warrisden.

" Yesterday evening," replied Mr. Princkley.

" And no one has been near him since ? "

Then Mrs. Wither intervened.

"Oh yes. I went into Mr. Chase's room nn hour
afterwards. lie was sitting in his armchair before the
grata ■"

" Holding the apple in his hand. I think. Mrs. Wither,
you said ? " continued Stiles,

MR. CHASE DOES NOT ANSWER 191

"Yes, sir,"' said Mrs. Wither. "He had his arm out
resting on the arm of the chair, and the apple was in his
hand."

" Well, well ! " exclaimed Warrisden.

" I told him that I would not call him in the morning
until he rang, as he wanted a good rest."

" What did he say ? " asked Warrisden.

" Nothing, sir. As often as not he does not answer when
he is spoken to."

A sudden fear seized upon Warrisden. He ran out of
the room and up the stairs to Chase's sitting-room. He
knocked on the door ; there was no answer. He turned the
handle and entered. Chase had not gone to bed last night.
He was still sitting in his armchair before the grate. One
arm was extended along the arm of the chair, with the palm
turned upwards, and in the palm lay an apple. Chase was
sitting huddled up, with his head fallen forward upon his
breast like a man asleep. Warrisden crossed the room and
touched the hand which held the apple. It was quite cold.
The apple rolled on to the floor. Warrisden turned to the
housekeeper. She was standing in the doorway, and staring
over her shoulder were the two undergraduates.

" He was dead," said Warrisden, " when you looked into
the room an hour afterwards ! "

The three people in the doorway stood stupidly aghast.
Warrisden pushed them out, locked the door on the outside,
and removed the key.

" Mr. Princkley, will you run for a doctor ? " he asked.

Princkley nodded his head, and went off upon his
errand.

Warrisden and Stiles descended the stairs into the
dining-room.

" I think you had better take the news to the mission,"
said Warrisden ; and Stiles in his turn went off without a
word. Mrs. Wither for her part had run out of the house
as quickly as she could. She hardly knew what she was

192 THE TRUANTS

doing. She had served as housekeeper to Mr. Chase ever
since he had come to Stepney, and she was dazed by the
sudden calamity. She was aware of a need to talk, to find
the neighbours and talk.

"Warrisden was thus left alone in the house. It had
come about without any premeditation upon his part. He
was the oldest man of the three who had been present, and
the only one who had kept his wits clear. Both Princkley
and Stiles had looked to him to decide what must be done.
They regarded him as Chase's friend, whereas they were
mere acquaintances. It did not even occur to "Warrisden at
first that he was alone in the house, that he held in his hand
the key to Chase's room. He was thinking of the strange
perplexing life which had now so strangely ended. He
thought of his first meeting with Chase in the mission, and
of the distaste which he had felt ; he remembered the array
of liqueur bottles on the table, and the half-hour during
which Chase had talked. A man of morbid pleasures, that
had been Warrisden's impression. Yet there were the years
of work, here, amongst these squalid streets. Even August
had seen him clinging to — nay, dying at — his work. As
Warrisden looked out of the window he saw a group of men
and women and children gather outside the house. There
was not a face but wore a look of consternation. If they
spoke, they spoke in whispers, like people overawed. A very
strange life I Warrisden knew many — as who does not ? —
who saw the high-road distinctly, and could not for the
life of them but walk upon the low one. But to use both
deliberately, as it seemed Chase had done ; to dip from the
high-road on to the low, and then painfully to scramble up
again, and again willingly to drop, as though the air of
those stern heights were too rigorous for continuous walking;
to live the double life because he could not entirely live the
one, and would not entirely live the other. Thus Warrisdcu
solved the problem of the dilettante curate and his devotion
to his work, and his solution was correct.

MR. CHASE DOES NOT ANSWER 193

But he held the key of Chase's room in his hand ; and
there was no one but himself in the house. His thoughts
came back to Pamela and the object of his journey up to
town. He was sorely tempted to use the key, since now the
means by which he had hoped to discover in what quarter
of the world Stretton wandered and was hid were tragically
closed to him. Chase could no longer speak, even if he
would. Very likely there were letters upstairs lying on the
table. There might be one from Tony Stretton. Warrisden
did not want to read it — a mere glance at the postmark, and
at the foreign stamp upon the envelope. Was that so great
a crime ? Warrisden was sorely tempted. If only he could
be sure that Chase would a second time have revealed what
he was bidden to keep hid, why, then, would it not be just
the same thing as if Chase were actually speaking with his
lips ? Warrisden played with the key. He went to the
door and listened. There was not a sound in the house
except the ticking of a clock. The front door still stood
open. He must be quick if he meant to act. Warrisden
turned to the stairs. The thought of the dead man huddled
in the chair, a silent guardian of the secret, weighted his
steps. Slowly he mounted. Such serious issues hung upon
his gaining this one piece of knowledge. The fortunes of
four people — Pamela and himself, Tony Stretton and his
wife — might all be straightened out if he only did this one
thing, which he had no right to do. He would not pry
amongst Chase's papers ; he would merely glance at the
table, that was all. He heard voices in the hall while he
was still upon the stairs. He turned back with a feeling of
relief.

At the foot of the stairs stood Mr. Princkley and the
doctor. Warrisden handed the key of the room to the latter,
and the three men went up. The doctor opened the door
and crossed to the armchair. Then he looked about the
room.

" N/othing has been touched, of course ? "

o

194 THE TRUANTS

" Nothing," replied Warrisden.

The doctor looked again at the dead man. Then he
turned to Warrisden, mistaking him, as the others had done,
for some relation or near friend.

" I can give no certificate," said he.

" There must be an inquest? "

" Yes."

Then the doctor moved suddenly to the table, which
stood a few feet from the armchair. There was a decanter
upon it half filled with a liquid like brown sherry, only a
little darker. The doctor removed the stopper and raised the
decanter to his nose.

" Ah ! " said he, in a voice of comprehension. Ee turned
again to Warrisden.

" Did you know ? " he asked.

"No."

The doctor held the decanter towards "Warrisden. War-
risden took it, moistened the tip of a finger with the liquid,
and tasted it. It had a bitter flavour.

" What is it ? " he asked.

" Laudanum," said the doctor. " An overdose of it."

" Where is the glass, then, in which it was taken ? "

A tumbler stood upon the table close to the decanter-
Btopper. The doctor took it up.

" Yes, I noticed that," said Warrisden ; " I noticed that
it is clean."

The doctor took the glass to the window, turned it
upside down, and held it to the light. It was quite dry,
quite clean.

" Surely it's evident what happened," said Warrisden.
" Chase came into the room, opened that cupboard door in
the corner there. His keys are still dangling in the lock,
lie took the decanter and the tumbler out, placed them on
th<; table at his side, sat down in his chair with the apple in
his baud, loaned back and quietly died."

" Yes, no doubt," said the doctor. " But I think here

MR. CHASE DOES NOT ANSWER 195

■will be found the reason why he leaned back and quietly
died," and he touched the decanter. " Opium poisoning.
It may not have been an overdose, but a regular practice."
He went to the door and called for Mrs. Wither. Mrs.
Wither had now returned to the house. When she came
upstairs into the room, he pointed to the decanter.

" Did you ever see this before ? "

" No, sir," she answered.

" Or that cupboard open ? "

" No, it was always locked."

" Quite so," said the doctor. " You had better get some
women to help you here," he went on ; and, with Warris-
den's assistance, he lifted Chase from the chair and carried
him into his bedroom.

" I must give notice to the police," he went on, and
again he appealed to Warrisden. " Do you mind staying in
the house till I come back ? "

"Not at all."

The doctor locked the door of the room and took the key
away with him. Warrisden waited with Princkley in the
dining-room. The doctor had taken away the key. It
seemed that his chance of discovering the secret which was
of so much importance to Pamela and Millie Stretton and
himself had vanished. If only he had come yesterday, or
the day before ! He sat down by the window and gazed out
upon the street. A group of men and women were gathered
in the roadway, looking up at the windows and talking
quietly together. Then Princkley from behind said —

" Some letters came for Chase this morning. They were
not taken up to his room. You had better look at them."

Every one took him for a close friend. Princkley brought
him the letters, and he glanced at the superscriptions lest any
one should wear a look of immediate importance. He held
the letters in his hand and turned them over one by one, and
half-way through the file he stopped. He had come to a
letter written upon thin paper, in a man's handwriting, with

196 THE TRUANTS

a foreign stamp upon the envelope. The stamp was a French
one, and there was printed upon it : " Poste d'Algerie."

Warrisden examined the post-mark. The letter came
from Ain-Sefra. Warrisden went on with Ins examination
without a word. But his heart quickened. He wondered
whether he had found the clue. Ain-Sefra in Algeria.
Warrisden had never heard of the place before. It might be
a health resort, a wintering place. But this was the month
of August. There would be no visitors at this time to a
health resort in Algeria. He handed the letters back to
Princkley.

" I cannot tell whether they are important or not," he
said. " I knew Chase very slightly. His relations must be
informed. I suppose Mrs. Wither knows where they live."

He took his departure as soon as the doctor had returned
with the police, and drove back to his rooms. A search
through the Encyclopaedia told him nothing of Ain-Sefra ;
but, on the other hand, he could not look at the article on
Algeria without the Foreign Legion leaping to his eyes at
once — so great and magnificent a part it played in the
modern history of that colony. The Foreign Legion !
Warrisden jumped to the conviction that there was the secret
of Tony Stretton's disappearance. Every reason he could
imagine came to his aid. Let a man wish to disappear, as,
from whatsoever reason, Tony Stretton did, where else could
he so completely bury himself and yet live? Hardships?
Dangers ? Yes. But Tony Stretton had braved hardships
and dangers in the North Sea, and had made light of them.
A detachment of the Foreign Legion might well be stationed
at tins oasis of Ain-Sefra, of which his Encyclopaedia knew
nothing. He had no doubt there was a trooper there, serving
under some false name, who would start if the name of
'• Stretton " were suddenly shouted to him behind his back.

Warrisden wrote no"\vord of his conjecture to Pamela ; he
wished to raise no hopes which he could not fulfil. Convinced
as he was, he wished for certain proof. But in fulfilment

MR. CHASE DOES NOT ANSWER 197

of his promise he wrote to Pamela that night. Just a few
lines — nothing more, as she had asked. But in those few
lines he wrote that he would like her to procure for him a
scrap of Tony Stretton's handwriting. Could she do it ? In
a week the scrap of handwriting arrived. "Warrisden, look-
ing at it, knew that the same hand had addressed the envelope
at Ain-Sefra to Mr. Chase.

"Warrisden was ready now, if the summons to service
should come once more from Pamela.

198 THE TRUANTS

CHAPTER XXI

CALLOX REDIVIVUS

All through that autumn Pamela watched for Tonv's return,
and watched in vain. "Winter came, and with the winter a
letter from Mr. Mudge. Lionel Callon had booked his
passage home on a steamer which sailed on Christmas Eve
from the port of Valparaiso. Pamela received the news one
morning of December. She hunted that day with the Quorn,
and for once her thoughts were set on other matters than this
immediate business. The long grass meadows slipped away
under her horse's feet the while she pondered how once more
the danger of Callon's presence was to be averted. At times
she hoped it would not need averting. Callon had been
eighteen months away, and Millie was quick to forget. But
she was no less quick to respond to a show of affection. Let
Callon lay siege again persistently, and the danger at once
was close. Besides, there were the letters. That he should
have continued to write during the months of his absence was
a sign that he had not forgone his plan of conquest.

Pamela returned home with a scheme floating in her
mind. Some words which her mother had s]>oken at the
breakfast-table had recurred to her, and at tea Pamela revived
the subject.

" Did you say that you would not go to Roquebrune this
winter, mother ? " she asked.

" Yes," Mrs. Mardale replied ; " I have been for so many
winters now. I shall stay in England, for a change. We
can let the Villa Pontignard, no doubt."

CALLON REDIVIVUS 199

" Oh, there is no hurry," said Pamela. She added, " I
shall be going to London to-morrow, but I shall be back in
the evening."

She thought over her plan that evening. Its execution
would cost her something, she realised. For many years she
had not been out of England during the winter. She must
leave her horses behind, and that was no small sacrifice for
Pamela. She had one horse in particular, a big Irish horse,
which had carried her in the days when her troubles were at
their worst. He would follow her about the paddock or the
yard nuzzling against her arm ; a horse of blood and courage,
yet gentle with her, thoughtful and kind for her as only a
horse amongst the animals can be. She must leave him.
On the other hand, her thoughts of late had been turning to
Roquebrune for a particular reason. She had a feeling that
she would rather like to tread again those hill-paths, to see
once more those capes and headlands of which every one was
a landmark of past pain — just as an experiment. She
travelled to London the next day and drove from St. Pancras
into Regent's Park.

Millie Stretton had taken a house on the west side of the

park. It looked east across the water and through the glades

of trees, and in front of it were the open spaces of which

Tony and she had dreamed ; and the sunlight streamed

through the windows and lay in golden splashes on the floors

when there was sunlight in London anywhere at all. "When

she looked from her window on the first morning, she could

not but remember the plans which Tony and she had debated

long ago. They had been so certain of realising them.

Well, they were realised now, for her, at all events. There

was the sunlight piercing through every cranny ; there were

the wide expanses of green, and trees. Only the windows

looked on Regent's Park, and on no wide prairie ; and of the

two who, with so much enthusiasm, had marked out their

imaginary site and built their house, there was only one to

enjoy the fulfilment. Millie Stretton thought of Tony that

200 THE TRUANTS

morning, but with an effort. "What Pamela had foreseen had
come to pass. He had grown elusive to her thoughts, she
could hardly visualise his person to herself ; he was almost
unreal. Had he walked in at that moment he would have
been irksome to her as a stranger.

It was, however, Pamela Mardale who walked in. She
was shown over the house, and until that ceremony was over
she did not broach the reason for her visit. Then, however,
Millie said with delight —

" It is what I have always wanted — sunlight."

" I came to suggest more sunlight," said Pamela. " There
is our villa at Roquebrune in the south of France. It will
be empty this winter. And I thought that perhaps you and
I might go out there together as soon as Christmas is past."

Millie was standing at the window with her back to
Pamela. Sue turned round quickly.

" But you hate the place," she said.

Pamela answered with sincerity —

" Xone the less I want to go this winter. I want to go
very much. I won't tell you why. I>ut I do want to go.
And I should like you to come with me."

Pamela was anxious to discover whether that villa and its
grounds, and the view from its windows, had still the power
to revive the grief with which they had been so completely
associated in her mind. Hitherto she had shrunk rtom the
very idea of ever revisiting Roquebrune ; of late, however,
since "Warrisden, in a word, had occupied so large a place in
her thoughts, she had wished to put herself to the test, to
understand whether her distress was really and truly dead, or
whether it merely slumbered and could wake again. It was
necessary, for TVarrisden's sake as much as her own, that she
should come to a true knowledge. And nowhere else could
she so certainly acquire it. If the sight of Roquebrune, the
familiar look of the villa's rooms, the familiar paths whereon
she had carried so overcharged a heart, had no longer power
to hurt and pain her, then she would be sure that she could

CALLON REDIVIYUS 201

start her life afresh. It was only fair — so she phrased it in
her thoughts — that she should make the experiment.

Millie turned back to the window.

" I do not think that I shall leave London this
winter," she said. " You see, I have only just got into the
house."

" It might spare you some annoyance," Pamela suggested.

" I don't understand," said Millie.

" The annoyance of having to explain Tony's absence.
He will very likely have returned by the spring."

Millie shrugged her shoulders.

" I have borne that annoyance for two years," she
replied. " I do not think I shall go away this winter."

Was Millie thinking of Gallon's return ? Pamela
wondered. "Was it on his account that she decided to
remain ? Pamela could not ask the question. Her plan
had come to naught, and she returned that afternoon to
Leicestershire.

Christmas passed, and half-way through the month of
January Callon called, on a dark afternoon, at Millie
Stretton's house. Millie was alone ; she was indeed ex-
pecting him. "When Callon entered the room he found her
standing with her back to the window, her face to the door,
and so she stood, without speaking, for a few moments.

" You have been a long time away," she said, and she
looked at him with curiosity, but with yet more anxiety to
mark any changes which had come in his face.

" Yes," said he, " a long time."

Millie rang the bell and ordered tea to be brought.

" You have not changed," said she.

" Nor you."

Millie had spoken with a noticeable distance in her
manner ; and she had not given him her hand. With
her back towards the light she had allowed very little of
her expression to be visible to her visitor. When tea was
brought in, however, she sat between the fireplace and the

202 THE TRUANTS

window, and the light fell upon her. Callon sat opposite to
her.

" At last I know that I am at home again," he said, with
a smile. Then he leaned forward and lowered his voice,
ulthough there was no third person in the room. He knew
the value of such tricks. " I have looked forward during
these eighteen months so very much to seeing you again."

Millie's face coloured, but it was with anger rather than
pleasure. There was a hard look upon her face ; her eyes
blamed liim.

" Yet you went away without a word to me," she said.
" You did not come to see me before you went, you never
hinted you were going."

" You thought it unkind ? "

" It was unkind," said Millie.

" But I wrote to you. I have written often."

" In no letter have you told me why you went away,"
said Millie.

" You missed me when I went, then ? "

Millie shrugged her shoulders.

" Well, I had seen a good deal of you. I missed — I
missed — something," she said. Callon drank his tea and
set down his cup.

" I have come to tell you why I went away without a
word. I never mentioned the reason in my letters ; I meant
to tell you it with my lips. I did not go away, I was sr/>f
away."

Millie was perplexed. "Sent away?" she repeated.
" I understood, from what you wrote, that you accepted a
post from Mr. Mudge ? "

" I had to accept it," said Callon. " It was forced on mo.
Mudge was only the instrument to get me out of the way."

" Who sent you away, then ? " asked Millie.

•• A friend of yours — Miss Pamela Mardale."

Millie Stretton leaned back in her chair. "Pamela!"
she cried incredulously. " Pamela sent you away ! Why ? "

CALLON EEDIVIVUS 203

"Because she thought that I was seeing too much of
you."

Gallon watched for the effect which his words would
produce. He saw the change come in Millie's face. There
was a new light in her eyes, her face flushed, she was angry ;
and anger was just the feeling he had meant to arouse, anger
against Pamela, anger which would drive Millie towards him.
He had kept his explanation back deliberately until he could
speak it himself. From the moment when he had started
from England he had nursed his determination to tell it to
Millie Stretton. He had been hoodwinked, outwitted by
Pamela and her friend ; he had been banished to Chili for
two years. Very well. But the game was not over yet.
His vanity was hurt as nothing had ever hurt it before.
He was stung to a thirst for revenge. .He would live
frugally, clear off his debts, return to England, and prove
to his enemies the futility of their plan. He thought of
Pamela Mardale ; he imagined her hearing of his departure
and dismissing him straightway contemptuously from her
thoughts. For eighteen months he nursed his anger, and
waited for the moment when he could return. There should
be a surprise for Pamela Mardale. She should understand
that he was a dangerous fellow to attack. Already, within
a day of his landing, he had begun to retaliate. The anger
in Millie Stretton's face was of good augury for him.

" Pamela ! " cried Millie, clenching her hands together
suddenly. " Yes, it was Pamela."

She bethought her of that pressing invitation to the
south of France, an invitation from Pamela who looked on
the shires as the only wintering-place. That was explained
now. Mr. Mudge had informed Pamela, no doubt, that
Lionel Callon was returning. Millie was furious. She
looked on this interference as a gross impertinence.

Callon rose from his chair.

" You can imagine it, was humiliating to me to be
tricked and sent away. But I was helpless. I am a poor

204 THE TRUANTS

man ; I was in debt. Miss Mardale had an old rich man
devoted to her in Mr. Mudge. He bought np my debts, his
lawyer demanded an immediate settlement of them all, and
I could not immediately settle them. I was threatened with
proceedings, with bankruptcy."

" You should have come to me," cried Millie.

Gallon raised a protesting hand.

" Oh, Lady Stretton, how could I ? " he exclaimed in
reproach. " Think for a moment ! Oh, you would have
offered help at a hint. I know you. You are most kind,
most generous. But think, you are a woman. I am a man.
Oh no ! "

Callon did not mention that Mr. Mudge had compelled
him to accept or refuse the post in Chili with only an hour's
deliberation, and that hour between seven and eight in the
evening. He had thought of calling upon Millie to suggest
in her mind the offer which she had now made, but he had
not had the time. He was glad now. His position was
thereby so much the stronger.

" I had to accept Mudge's offer. Even the acceptance
was made as humiliating as it possibly could be. For Mudge
deliberately let me see that his only motive was to get me
out of the country. He did not care whether I knew his
motive or not. I did not count," he cried, bitterly. " I
was a mere pawn upon a chess-board. I had to withdraw
from my candidature. My career was spoilt. "What did
tluy care — Mr. Mudge and your friend ? I was got out of
your way."

" Oh, oh ! " cried Millie ; and Callon stepped quickly to
her side.

" Imagine what these months have been to me," he went
on. " I was out there in Chili, without friends. I had
nothing to do. Every one else upon the railway had his
work, his definite work, his definite position. I was nothing
at, all, a mere prisoner, in everybody's way, a man utterly
befooled. But that was not the worst of it. Shall I be

CALLON REDIVIVUS 205

frank ? " He made a pretence of hesitation. " I will. I
will take the risk of frankness. I was sent away just when
I had begun to think a great deal about you.'" Millie
Stretton, who had been gazing into her companion's face
with the utmost sympathy, lowered her eyes to the floor.
But she was silent.

" That was the worst," he continued softly. " I was
angry, of course. I knew that I was losing the better part
of two years "

And Millie interrupted him : " How did she know ? "
she exclaimed.

"Who? Oh, Miss Mardale. Do you remember the
evening she came to Whitewebs ? I was waiting for you
in the hall. You came down the stairs and ran up again.
There was a mirror on the mantelpiece. She guessed then.
Afterwards she and Mudge discussed us in the drawing-
room. I saw them."

Millie got up from her chair and moved to the fire-
place.

"It was on my account that you have lost two years,
that your career has been injured," she said, in a low voice.
She was really hurt, really troubled. " I am so very sorry.
What return can I ever make to you ? I will never speak
to Pamela again."

Callon crossed and stood beside her.

" No, don't do that," he said. " It would be — unwise."

Her eyes flashed up to his quickly, and as quickly fell.
The colour slowly deepened in her cheeks.

" What does it matter about my career ? " he continued,
with a smile. " I see you again. If you wish to make me
a return, let me see you very often ! "

He spoke with tenderness, and he was not pretending.
What space did Millie Stretton fill in his thoughts ? She
was pretty, she was sympathetic, she was ready to catch the
mood of her companion. It was not merely an act of retali-
ation which Callon projected. Such love as he had to give

206 THE TRUANTS

was hers. It was not durable, it was intertwined with mean-
ness, it knew no high aims ; yet, such as it was, it was hers.
It gained, too, a fictitious strength from the mere fact that
he had been deliberately kept from her. The eighteen
months of bondage had given her an importance in his eyes,
had made her more desirable through the very difficulty of
attaining her. Millie allowed him to come again and again.
She had a natural taste for secrecies, and practised them
now, as he bade her do, without any perception of the
humiliation which they involved. If he called at her house,
it was after the dusk had fallen, and when she was at home
to no other visitors. They dined together in the restaurants
of unfashionable hotels, and if she drove to them in her
brougham, she sent it away, and was escorted to her door in
a cab. Callon was a past-master in concealment ; he knew
the public places where the public never is, and rumour did
not couple their names. But secrecy is not for the secret
when the secret ones are a man and a woman. It needs
too much calculation in making appointments, too much
punctuality in keeping them, too close a dependence upon
the probable thing happening at the probable time. Sooner
or later an accident, which could not be foreseen, occurs. It
may be no more than the collision of a cab and the summons
of the driver. Or some one takes, one morning, a walk in
an unaccustomed spot. Or the intriguers fall in quite un-
expectedly with another, who has a secret too, of which they
were not aware. Sooner or later some one knows.

It was the last of these contingencies which brought
about the disclosure in the case of Callon and Millie Stretton.
Six weeks had passed since Gallon's return. It was just a
month from Easter. Millie dined with some friends, and
went with them afterwards to a theatre in the Haymarket.
At the door she sent her carriage home, and when the
performance was over she took a hansom cab. She declined
any escort, and was driven up Regent Street towards her
home. At the corner of Devonshire Street, in Portland

CALLON KEDIVIVUS 207

Place, a man loitered upon the pavement with a white scarf
showing above his coat-collar. Millie opened the trap and
spoke to the driver. The cab stopped by the loiterer at the
street corner, who opened the doors and stepped in. The
loiterer was Lionel Callon.

" Drive round Regent's Park," he said.

The cab drove northwards through Park Place and along
the broad road towards Alexandra Gate. The air was
warm, the stars bright overhead, the dark trees lined the
roadway on the left, the road under the wheels was very
white. There was a great peace in the park. It was quite
deserted. In a second it seemed they had come out of the
glare, and the roar of streets, into a land of quiet and cool
gloom. Millie leaned back while Callon talked, and this was
the burden of his talk.

" Let us go to the south of France. I will go first. Do
you follow ! You go for Easter. It will be quite natural.
You stay at Eze, I at the little Reserve by the sea a mile
away. There is a suite of rooms there. No one need know."
Three times the cab drove round the park while Callon
urged, and Millie more and more faintly declined. The
driver sat perched upon his box, certain of a good fare,
indifferent. Inside his cab, on this quiet night, the great
issues of life and honour were debated. Millie had just her
life in her hands. One way or the other, by a 'Yes1 or a
' No,' she must decide what she would do with it, and, to
whatever decision she came, it must reach out momentous
with consequences and touch other lives beyond hers and
beyond those others, others still. Her husband, her relations,
her friends — not one of them but was concerned in this
midnight drive. It seemed to Millie almost that she heard
them hurrying about the cab, calling to her, reaching out
their hands. So vivid was her thought, that she could
count them, and could recognise their faces. She looked
amongst them for her husband. But Tony was not there.
She could not see him, she could not hear his voice. Round

Q

08 THE TRUANTS

and round past the trees, on the white road, the cab went
jingling on, the driver, indifferent, upon his perch, the
tempter and the tempted within.

" Your husband does not care," said Callon. " If he did,
would he stay so long away ? "

" No, he does not care," said Millie. If he cared, would
he not be among that suppliant throng which ran about the
cab ? And all at once it seemed that the hurrying footsteps
lagged behind. The voices called more faintly ; she could
not see the outreaching hands.

" No one need know," said Callon.

" Someone always knows," replied Millie.

" What then ? " cried Callon. " If you love, you will
not mind. If you love, you will abandon everytlnng — every-
one. If you love ! "

He had taken the right way to persuade her. Call upon
Millie for a great sacrifice, she would make it, she would
glory in making it, just for the moment. Disenchantment
would come later ; but nothing of it would she foresee. As
she had matched herself with Tony, when first he had
proposed to leave her behind in 'his father's house, so now
she matched herself with Callon, she felt strong.

" Very well," she said. " I will follow."

Callon stopped the cab and got out. As he closed the
doors and told the cabman where to drive, a man, wretchedly
clad, slouched past and turned into the Marylebone Road.
That was all. Sooner or later some one was sure to discover
their secret. It happened that the some one passed them by
Lo-ni^lit .

( 209 )

CHAPTER XXII

SIR. MUDGE's CONFESSION

On the following morning a telegram was brought to Pamela
at her father's house in Leicestershire. It came from Mr.
Mudge, and contained these words : " Important that I
should see you. Coming down. Please be at home at two."
Punctually Mr. Mudge arrived. Pamela received him in
her own sitting-room. She was waiting with a restless
anxiety, and hardly waited for the door to be closed.

" You have bad news for me," she said. " Oh, I know !
You are a busy man. You would not have come down to
me had you not bad news. I am very grateful for your
coming, but you have bad news."

" Yes," said Mr. Mudge, gravely ; " news so bad that you
must ask your other friend to help you. I can do nothing
here."

It cost Mr. Mudge a little to acknowledge that he was of
no avail in this particular instance. He would rather have
served Pamela himself, had it been possible. He was fully
aware of his age, and his looks, and his limitations. He
was quite willing to stand aside for the other friend ; indeed,
he wished, with all his heart, that she should be happy with
some mate of her own people. But at the same time he
wished her to owe as much as possible of her happiness to
him. He was her friend, but there was just that element of
jealousy in his friendship which springs up when the friends
are man and woman. Pamela understood that it meant
some abnegation on his part to bid her call upon another

p

210 THE TRUANTS

than liimself . She was still more impressed, in consequence,
with the gravity of the news he had to convey.

" Is it Mr. Callon ? " she asked.

" Yes," he replied. " It is imperative that Sir Anthony
Stretton should return, and return at once. Of that I am
very sure."

" You have seen Mr. Callon ? " asked Pamela.

" And Lady Stretton. They were together."

11 When ? "

" Last night. In Regent's Park."

Pamela hesitated. She was doubtful how to put her
questions. She said —

" And you are sure the trouble is urgent ? "

Mr. Mudge nodded his head.

" Very sure. I saw them together. I saw the look on
Lady Stretton's face. It was a clear night. There was a
lamp too, in the cab. I passed them as Callon got out and
said " Good-night."

Pamela sat down in a chair, and fixed her troubled eyes
on her companion.

" Did they see you ? "

Mr. Mudge smiled.

" No."

" Let me have the whole truth," cried Pamela, " Tell
me the story from the beginning. How you came to see
them—- everything."

Mr. Mudge sat down in his turn. He presented to her a
side of his character which she had not hitherto suspected.
She listened, and was moved to sympathy, as no complaint
could ever have moved her ; and Mr. Mudge was the last
j i Kin to complain. Yet the truth came out clearly. Out-
wardly prosperous and enviable, he had yet inwardly missed
all. A man of so wide a business, so many undertakings, so
occupied a life, it was natural to dissociate him from the
ordinary human sympathies and desires. It seemed that he
could have neither time nor inclination to indulge them.

MR. MUDGE'S CONFESSION 211

But here he was, as he had once done before, not merely
admitting their existence within him, but confessing that
vthey were far the greater part of him, and that because they
had been thwarted, the prosperous external life of business
to which he seemed so ardently enchained was really of little
account, He spoke very simply. Pamela lost sight of the
business machine altogether. Here was a man, like another,
telling her that through his vain ambitions his life had gone
astray. She found a pathos in the dull and unimpressive
look of him — his bald, uncomely head, his ungraceful figure.
There was a strange contrast between his appearance and
the fanciful antidote for disappointment which had brought
him into Regent's Park when Callon and Lady Stretton
were discussing their future course.

" I told you something of my history at Newmarket," he
said. " You must remember what I told you, or you will
not understand."

" I remember very well," said Pamela, gently. " I think
that I shall understand."

Pamela of late, indeed, had gained much understanding.
Two years ago the other point of view was to her always with-
out interest. As often as not she was unaware that it existed ;
when she was aware, she dismissed it without consideration.
But of late her eyes had learned to soften at the troubles
of others, her mind to be perplexed with their perplexities.

" Yes," said Mudge, nodding his head, with a smile
towards her. " You will understand now."

And he laid so much emphasis upon the word that
Pamela looked up in surprise.

" "Why now ? " she asked.

" Because, recently, imagination has come to you. I
have seen, I have noticed. Imagination, the power to see
clearly, the power to understand — perhaps the greatest gift
which love has in all his big box of gifts."

Pamela coloured at his words. She neither admitted
nor denied the suggestion they contained.

212 THE TRUANTS

" I have therefore ho fear that you will misunderstand, "
Mr. Mudge insisted. " I told you that my career, such as
it is, has left me a very lonely man amongst a crowd of
acquaintances, who are no more in sympathy with me than I
myself am in sympathy with them. I did not tell you that
I had found a way of alleviation."

"No," said Pamela. She was at a loss to understand
how this statement of her companion was connected with
his detection of Callon and Lady Stretton ; but she had no
doubt there was a connection. Mudge was not of those who
take a pride in disclosing the details of their life and
character in and out of season. If he spoke of himself, he
did so with a definite reason, which bore upon the business
in hand. " No ; on the contrary, you said that you could
not go back and start afresh. You had too much upon your
hands. You were fixed in your isolation."

" I did not even then tell you all the truth. I could
not go back half-way, that is true. I do not think I would
find any comfort in that course even if I could ; but I can
aud I do go back all the way at times. I reconstruct the
days when I was very, very poor, and yet full of hope, full
of confidence. I do not mean that I sit in front of my fire
and tell myself the story. I do much more. I actually live
them over again, so far as I can. That puzzles you," he
said, with a laugh.

Pamela, indeed, was looking at him with a frown of per-
plexity upon her forehead.

" How do you live them again ? " she asked. " I don't
understand."

" In this way," said Madge. "I keep an old, worn-out
suit of clothes locked up in a cupboard. Well, when T find
the house too lonely, and my servants, with their noiseless
tread, get on to my nerves, I just put on that suit of clothes
and revisit the old haunts where I used to live forty and
fifty years ago. Often I have come back from a dinner
party, let myself in at my front door, and slipped out of a

MR. MUDGES CONFESSION 213

side entrance half an hour later on one of my pilgrimages.
You would never know me ; you might toss me a shilling,
that's all. Of course, I have to be careful. I am always
expecting to be taken up as a thief as I slink away from the
house. I would look rather a fool if that happened, wouldn't
I ? " and he laughed. " But it never has yet." He suddenly
turned to her. "I enjoy myself upon those jaunts, you
know ; I really enjoy myself. I like the secrecy. To slip
out of the great, silent house, to get clear away from the
pictures, and the furniture, and the obedience, and to tramp
down into the glare and the noise of the big streets, and to
turn into some pothouse where once, years ago, I used to
take my supper and dream of the future. It's a sort of
hide-and-seek in itself." He laughed again, and then
suddenly became serious. " But it's much more than that
— ever so much more."

" "Where do you go ? " asked Pamela.

" It depends upon the time I have. If it's early I go
down to Deptford, very often. I get into a tram and ride
down a street where I once wandered all night because I
hadn't the price of a lodging. I look at the old cookshop
where I used to flatten my nose against the glass and dream
that I had the run of my teeth. I get down and go into a
public-house, say, with a sanded floor, and have a sausage
and mash and a pot of beer, just as I was doing forty years
ago, when this or that scheme, which turned out well, first
came into my head. But don't misunderstand," Mudge
exclaimed. " I don't set off upon these visits for the satis-
faction of comparing what I was then with what I have
become. It is to get back to what I was then, as nearly as
I can ; to recapture, just for a moment, some of the high
hopes, some of the anticipations of happiness to be won
which I felt in those days ; to forget that the happiness has
never been won, that the high hopes were for things not
worth the trouble spent in acquiring them. I was wet,
very often hungry, always ill-clothed ; but I was happy in

214 THE TRUANTS

those days, Miss Mardale, though very likely I didn't know
it. I was young, the future was mine, a solid reality ; and
the present — why, that was a time of work and dreams.
There's nothing much better than that combination, Miss
Mardale — work and dreams ! "

He repeated the words wistfully, and was silent for a
moment. No doubt those early struggles had not been so
pleasant as they appeared in the retrospect ; but time had
stripped them of their bitterness and left to Mr. Mudge just
that part of them which was worth remembering.

" I had friends in those days," he went on. " I wonder
what has become of them all ? In all my jaunts I have
never seen one."

" And where else do you go ? " asked Pamela.

" Oh, many places. There's a little narrow market
between Shaftesbury Avenue and Oxford Street, where the
gas-jets flare over the barrows on a Saturday night, and all
the poor people go marketing. That's a haunt of mine. I
was some time, too, when I was young, at work near the
Marylebone Road. There's a tavern near Madame Tussaud's
where I used to go and have supper at the counter in the
public bar. Do you remember the night of Lady Milling-
ham's reception, when we looked out of the window and saw
Sir Anthony Stretton ? Well, I supped at that tavern in
the Marylebone Road on that particular night. I was hard
put to it, too, when I used to work in Marylebone. I slept
for three nights in Regent's Park. There's a coffee-stall
close to the bridge, just outside the park, on the north side."

Pamela started, and Mudge nodded his head.

" Yes ; that is how I came to see Lady Stretton and Mr.
Gallon. A hansom cab drove past me just as I crossed the
road to go out of the gate to the coffee-stall. I noticed it
enough to see that it held a man and a woman in evening
dress, but no more. I stayed at the coffee-stall for a little
while talking with the cabmen and the others who were
about it. and drinking my coffee. As I returned into the

MR. MUDGE'S CONFESSION 215

park the cab drove past me again. I thought it was the
same cab, from the casual glance I gave, and with the same
people inside it. They had driven round, were still driving
round. It was a fine night, a night of spring, fresh, and
cool, and very pleasant. I did not wonder ; I rather
sympathised with them," he said, with a smile. " You see,
I have never driven round Regent's Park at night with a
woman I cared for beside me ; " and again the wistful note
was very audible in his voice ; and he added, in a low voice,
" That was not for me."

He shook the wistfulness from him and resumed —

" "Well, as I reached the south side of the park, and was
close by Park Place, the cab came towards me again, and
pulled up. Gallon got out. I saw him clearly. I saw quite
clearly, too, who was within the cab. So you see there is
danger. Mere friends do not drive round and round Regent's
Park at night."

Mr. Mudge rose, and held out his hand.

" I must get back to town. I have a fly waiting to take
me to the station," he said.

Pamela walked with him to the door of the house. As
they stood in the hall she said —

" I thanked yon, before you spoke at all, for putting
your business aside for my sake, and coming down to me. I
thank you still more now, and for another reason. I thank
you for telling me what you have told me about yourself.
Such confessions," and she smiled upon the word, " cannot
be made without great confidence in the one they are made
to."

" I have that confidence," said Mudge.

" I know. I am glad," replied Pamela ; and she re-
sumed : " They cannot be made, either, without creating a
difference. "We no longer stand where we did before they
were made. I always looked upon you as my friend ; but
we are far greater friends now, is not that so ? "

She spoke with great simplicity and feeling, her eyes

216 THE TRUANTS

glistened a little, and she added, " You are not living now
with merely acquaintances around you."

Mr. Mudge took her hand.

" I am very glad that I came," he said ; and, mounting
into the fly, he drove away.

Pamela went back to the house and wrote out a telegram
to Warrisden. She asked him to come at once to — and then
she paused. Should he come here ? No ; there was another
place, with associations for her which had now grown very
pleasant and sweet to her thoughts. She asked him to meet
her at the place where they had once kept tryst before — the
parlour of the inn upon the hill in the village of the Three
Poplars. Thither she had ridden before from Lady Milling-
ham's house of AYhitewebs. Her own house stood, as it were,
at one end of the base of an obtuse triangle, of which White-
webs made the other end, and the three poplars the apex.

( 217 )

CHAPTER XXIII

ROQUEBRUNE REVISITED

There, accordingly, they met on the following afternoon.
Pamela rode across the level country between the Croft Hill
which overhung her house, and the village. In front of her
the three poplars pointed skywards from the ridge. She was
anxious and troubled. It seemed to her that Millie Stretton
was slipping beyond her reach ; but the sight of those trees
lightened her of some portion of her distress. She was
turning more and more in her thoughts towards Warrisden
whenever trouble knocked upon her door. In the moment
of greatest perplexity his companionship, or even the thought
of it, rested her like sleep. As she came round the bend of
the road at the foot of the hill, she saw him coming down
the slope towards her. She quickened her horse, and trotted
up to him.

" You are here already ? " she said. " I am very glad.
I was not sure that I had allowed you time enough."

" Oh yes," said Warrisden. " I came at once. I guessed
why you wanted me from the choice of our meeting-place.
We meet at Quetta, on the same business which brought us
together at Quetta before. Is not that so ? "

" Yes," said Pamela.

They walked to the door of the inn at the top of the hill.
An ostler took charge of Pamela's horse, and they went
within to the parlour.

" You want me to find Stretton again ? " said Warrisden.

Pamela looked at him remorsefully.

218 THE TRUANTS

" Well, I do," she answered ; and there was compunction
in the tone of her voice. " I would not ask you unless the
matter was very urgent. I have used you for my needs, I
know, with too little consideration for you, and you very
generously and willingly have allowed me to use yon. So I
am a little ashamed to come to you again."

Here were strange words from Pamela. They were
spoken with hesitation, too, and the colour burned in her
cheeks. Warrisden was surprised to hear them. He laid
his hand upon her arm and gave it a little affectionate shake.

" My dear, I am serving myself," he said, " just as much
as I am serving you. Don't you understand that ? Have
you forgotten our walk under the elms in Lady Millingham's
garden ? If Tony returned, and returned in time, why, then
you might lay your finger on the turnpike gate and let it
swing open of its own accord. I remember what you said.
Tony's return helps me, so I help myself in securing his
return."

Pamela's face softened into a smile.

" Then you really do not mind going ? " she went on.
" I am remorseful, in a way, because I asked you to go once
before in this very room, and nothing came of all your
trouble. I want you to believe now that I could not ask
you again to undergo the same trouble, or even more, as it
may prove, were not the need ever so much more urgent
than it was then."

" I am sorry to hear that the need is more urgent,"
Warrisden replied ; " but, on the other hand, the trouble I
shall have to bear is much less, for I know where Strctton is."

Pamela felt that half of the load of anxiety was taken
from her shoulders.

" You do ? " she exclaimed.

Warrisden nodded.

'; And what he is doing. He is serving with the Foreign
Legion in Algeria. T thought you might want to lay your
hands on him again, and I wished to be ready. Chance

EOQUEBRUKE REVISITED 219

gave me a clue — an envelope with a postmark. I followed
np the clue by securing an example of Stretton's handwriting.
It was the same handwriting as that which directed the
envelope, so I was sure."

" Thank you," said Pamela. " Indeed, you do not fail
me ; " and her voice was musical with gratitude.

" He was at Ain-Sefra, a little town on the frontier of
Algeria," Warrisden resumed. And Pamela interrupted
him —

" Then I need not make so heavy a demand upon you
after all," she said. " It was only a letter which I was going
to ask you to carry to Tony. Now there is no necessity that
yon should go at all, for I can post it."

She produced the letter from a pocket of her coat as she
spoke.

" Ah, but will it reach Stretton if you do ? " said
Wamsden.

Pamela had already seated herself at the table, and was
drawing the inkstand towards her. She paused at Warrisden's
question, and looked up.

" Surely Ain-Sefra, Algeria, will find him ? "

" "Will it ? " Warrisden repeated. He sat down at the
table opposite to her. " Even if it does, will it reach him in
time ? You say the need is urgent. "Well, it was last
summer when I saw the postmark on the envelope, two days
after we talked together in Lady Millingham's garden. I
had business in London."

" I remember," said Pamela.

" My business was just to find out where Stretton was
hiding himself. He was at Ain-Sefm then ; he may be at
Ain-Sefra now. But it is a small post, and he may not. The
headquarters of the Legion are ?t Sidi Bel-Abbes, in the
north. He may be there, or he may be altogether out of
reach on some Saharan expedition."

There was yet another possibility which occurred to both
their minds at this moment. It was possible that no letter

220 THE TRUANTS

would ever reach Stretton again ; that "Warrisden, searched
he never so thoroughly, would not be able to find the man
he searched for. There are so many graves in the Sahara.
But neither of them spoke of this possibility, though a quick
look they interchanged revealed to each its presence in the
other's thoughts.

"Besides, he wanted to lie hidden. So much I know,
who know nothing of his story. "Would he have enlisted
under his own name, do you think ? Or even under his own
nationality ? It is not the common practice in the Foreign
Legion. And that's not all. Even were he soldiering openly
under his own name, how will you address your letter with
any likelihood that it will reach him ? Just ' La Legion
Etrangere ' ? We want to know to what section of la Legion
Etrangere he belongs. Is he chasseur, artilleryman, sapper ?
Ferhaps he serves in the cavalry. Then which is his
squadron ? Is he a plain foot soldier ? Then in what
battalion, and what rank does he occupy ? "We cannot
answer any of these questions, and, unanswered, they
certainly delay your letter ; they may prevent it ever reaching
him at all."

Pamela laid down her pen and stared blankly at "Warris-
den. He piled up the objections one by one in front of her
until it seemed she would lose Tony once more from her
sight after she had got him for a moment within her vision.

" So you had better entrust your letter to me," he con-
cluded. " Address it to Stretton under his own name. I
will find him, if he is to be found, never fear. I will find
him very quickly."

Pamela addressed the letter. Yet she held it for a little
time in her hand after it was addressed. All the while
AVarrisden had been speaking she had felt an impulse strong
within her to keep him back ; and it was because of that
impulse, rather than with any thought of Millie Stretton
and the danger in which she stood, that Pamela asked
doubtfully —

ROQUEBRUNE REVISITED 221

" How long will you be ? "

" I should find him within ten days."

Pamela smiled suddenly.

"It is not so very long," said she ; and she handed the
letter across to "Warrisden. " Well, go ! " she cried, with a
certain effort. " Telegraph to me when you have found
Tony. Bring him back, and come back yourself." She
added, in a voice which was very low and wistful, " Please
come back soon I " Then she rose from the table, and
Warrisden put the letter hi his pocket and rose too.

"You will be at home, I suppose, in ten days ? " he said.
And Pamela said quickly, as though some new idea had just
been suggested to her mind —

" Oh, wait a moment ! "

She stood quite still and thoughtful. There was a certain
test by which she had meant to find the soundings of heart.
Here was a good opportunity to apply the test. Warrisden
would be away upon his journey ; she could not help Millie
Stretton now by remaining in England. She determined to
apply the test.

" No," she said slowly. " Telegraph to me at the Villa
Pontignard, Eoquebrune, Alpes Maritimes, France. I shall
be travelling thither immediately."

Her decision was taken upon an instant. It was the
logical outcome of her thoughts and of Warrisden's departure ;
and since Warrisden went because of Millie Stretton, Pamela's
journey to the South of France was due, in a measure, to
that lady, too. Yet no one would have been more astonished
than Millie Stretton had she learned of Pamela's visit at this
time. She would have been quick to change her own plans ;
but she had no knowledge of whither Pamela's thoughts
were leading her. When Callon in the hansom cab had said
to her, "Come South," her first swift reflection had been,
" Pamela will be safe in England." She herself had refused
to go south with Pamela. Pamela's desire to go was to her
mind a mere false pretext to get her away from her one

222 THE TRUANTS

friend. If she did not go south, she was very sure that
Pamela would not. There had seemed to her no safer place
than the Riviera. But she was wrong. Here, in the village
of the Three Poplars, Pamela had made her decision.

44 I shall go to Roquebrune as soon as I can make
arrangements for a servant or two," she said.

" Roqucbrune," said Warrisden, as he wrote down the
address. 44 I once walked up a long flight of steps to that
village many years ago. Perhaps you were at the villa then.
I wonder. You must have been a little girl. It was one
February. I came over from Monte Carlo, and we walked
up from the station. We met the schoolmaster."

" M. Giraud I " exclaimed Pamela.

" Was that his name ? He had written a little history
of the village and the Corniche road. He took me under
his wing. We went into a wine shop on the first floor of a
house in the middle of the village, and we sat there quite
a long time. He asked us about Paris and London with an
eagerness which was quite pathetic. He came down with us
to the station, and his questions never ceased. I suppose he
was lonely there."

Pamela nodded her head.

" Very. He did not sleep all night for thinking of what
you had told him."

" You were there, then ? " cried Warrisden.

" Yes ; M. Giraud used to read French with me. He
came to me one afternoon quite feverish. Two Englishmen
had come up to Roqucbrune, and had talked to him about the
great towns and the lighted streets. He was always dreaming
of them. Poor man, he is at Roqucbrune still, no doubt."

She spoke with a great tenderness and pity, looking out
of the window, and for the moment altogether lost to her
surroundings. Warrisden roused her from her reverie.

44 1 must be going away."

Pamela's horse was brought to the door, and she mounted.

44 Walk down the hill beside my horse," she said ; 44 just

EOQUEBKUXE REVISITED 223

as you did on that other day, when the hill was slippery,
your hand upon his neck — so."

Very slowly they walked down the hill. There were no
driving mists to-day, the evening was coming with a great
peace, the fields and woods lay spread beneath them toned to
a tranquil grey. The white road glimmered. At the bottom
of the hill Pamela stopped.

" Good-bye," she said ; and there was more tenderness
in her voice and in her face than he had ever known. She
laid her hand upon his arm and bent down to him.

" Come back to me," she said wistfully. " I do not like
letting you go ; and yet I am rather proud to know that you
are doing something for me which I could not do for myself,
and that you do it so very willingly."

She did not wait to hear any answer, but took her hand
from his arm and rode quickly away. That turnpike gate
of friendship had already swung open of its own accord. As
she rode from Quetta that evening, she passed beyond it, and
went gratefully and hopefully, with the other men and
women, down the appointed road.

She knew it while she was riding homewards to the Croft
Hill. She knew it, and was very glad. She rode home
very slowly through the tranquil evening, and gave herself
up to joy. It was warm, and there was a freshness in the
air as though the world renewed itself. Darkness came ;
only the road glimmered ahead of her — the new road, which
was the old road. Even that glimmer of white had almost
vanished when at last she saw the lighted windows of her
father's house. The footman told her that dinner was
already served, but she ran past him very quickly up the
stairs, and coming to her own room, locked the door and sat
for a long while in the darkness, her blood throbbing in her
veins, her whole heart uplifted, not thinking at all, but just
living, and living most joyfully. She sat so still that she
might have been in a swoon ; but it was the stillness of perfect
happiness. She knew the truth that night.

224 THE TRUANTS

But, none the less, she travelled south towards the end of
the week, since there a telegram would come to her. She
persuaded a convenient aunt to keep her company, who has
nothing whatever to do with this story ; and reaching
Villa Pontignard one afternoon, walked through the familiar
rooms wliich she had so dreaded ever to revisit. She went
out to the narrow point of the garden where so often she had
dreamed with M. Giraud of the outside world, its roaring
cities and its jostle of people. She sat down upon the
parapet. Below her the cliff fell sheer, and far below, in
the darkness at the bottom of the gorge, the water tumbled
in foam with a distant hum. On the opposite hill the
cypresses stood out black from the brown and green. Here
she had suffered greatly, but the wounds were healed. These
dreaded places had no longer power to hurt. She knew that
very surely. She was emancipated from sorrow, and as she
sat there in the still, golden afternoon, the sense of freedom
ran riot in her blood. She looked back over the years to the
dragging days of misery, the sleepless nights. She felt a
pity for the young girl who had then looked down from this
parapet and prayed for death ; who had counted the many
years of life in front of her ; who had bewailed her very
strength and health. But ever her eyes turned towards the
Mediterranean and searched the horizon. For beyond that
blue, calm sea stretched the coasts of Algeria.

There was but one cloud to darken Pamela's happiness
during these days while she waited for Warrisden's telegram.
On the morning after she had arrived, the old euro' climbed
from the village to visit her. Almost Pamela's first question
was of M. Giraud.

" He is still here ? "

" Yes, he is still here," replied the cure ; but he pursed
up his lips and shook his head.

" I must send for him," said Pamela.

The cure said nothing. He was standing by the window,
and almost imperceptibly he shrugged his shoulders as

ROQUEBEUNE REVISITED 225

though he doubted her wisdom. In a moment Pamela was
at his side.

" What is it ? " she asked gently. " Tell me."

" Oh, mademoiselle, there is little to tell ! He is not the
schoolmaster you once knew. That is all. The wine shop
has made the difference — the wine shop and discontent. He
was always dissatisfied, you know. It is a pity."

" I am so sony," said Pamela, gravely, "so very sorry."

She was silent for a while, and greatly troubled by the
cure's news.

" Has he married ? " she asked.

"No."

" It would have been better if he had."

" No doubt, mademoiselle," said the cure, " but he has
not, and I think it is now too late."

Pamela did not send for M. Giraud. It seemed to her
that she could do no good even if at her request he came to
her. She would be going away in a few days. She would
only hurt him and put him to shame before her. She took
no step towards a renewal of their friendship, and though
she did not avoid him, she never came across him in her
walks.

For ten days she walked the old hill paths, and dreams
came to her with the sunlight. They gave her company in
the evenings, too, when she looked from her garden upon
the quiet sea and saw, away upon the right, the lights, like
great jewels, burning on the terrace of Monte Carlo. She
went down one morning on to that terrace, and, while seated
upon a bench, suddenly saw, at a little distance, the back of
a man which was familiar to her.

She was not sure, but she was chilled with apprehension.
She watched from behind her newspaper, and in a little while
she was sure, for the man turned and showed his face. It
was Lionel Callon. What was he doing here, she asked
herself ? And another question trod fast upon the heels of
the first. " Was he alone ? "

226 THE TRUANTS

Gallon was alone on this morning, at all events. Pamela
saw him speak to one or two people, and then mount the
terrace steps towards the town. She gave him a little time,
and then, walking through the gardens, bought a visitors'
list at the kiosk in front of the Rooms. She found Callon's
name. He was the only visitor at a Reserve, on the
Corniche road, which was rather a restaurant than a hotel.
She searched through the list, fearing to find the name of
Millie Stretton under the heading of some other hotel. To
her relief it was not there. It was possible, of course, that
Callon was merely taking a holiday by himself. She wished
to believe that, and yet there was a fear speaking loudly at
her heart. " Suppose that Tony should return too late just
by a few days ! " She was still holding the paper in her
hands when she heard her name called, and, turning about,
saw some friends. She lunched with them at Ciro's, and
asked carelessly during luncheon —

" You have not seen Millie Stretton, I suppose ? "

" No," they all replied. And one asked, " Is she
expected ? "

" I don't know whether she will come or not," Pamela
replied. " I asked her to come with me, but she could not do
that, and she was not sure that she would come at all."

This she said, thinking that if Millie did arrive it might
seem that bIic came because Pamela herself was there.
Pamela went back to Roquebrune that afternoon, and after
she had walked through the village and had come out on the
slope of hill above, she met the postman coming down from
the Villa Pontignard.

" You have a telegram for me ? " she said anxiously.

"Mademoiselle," he replied, "I have just left it at the
house."

Pamela hurried on, and found the telegram in the salon.
She tore it open. It was from "VVarrisdcn. It told her that
Tony Stretton was found, and would return. It gave the
news in vague and guarded language, mentioning no names.

ROQUEBEUNE EE VISITED 227

But Pamela understood the message. Tony Stretton was
actually coming back. " "Would he come too late ? " she
asked, gazing out in fear across the sea. Of any trouble,
out there in Algeria, which might delay his return, she did
not think at all. If it was true that he had enlisted in the
Legion, there might be obstacles to a quick return. But
such matters were not in her thoughts. She thought only
of Callon upon the terrace of Monte Carlo. " Would Tony
come too late ? " she asked ; and she prayed that he might
come in time.

228 THE TRUANTS

CHAPTER XXIV

THE END OF THE EXPERIMENT

The village of Ain-Sefra stands upon a high and fertile oasis
on the very borders of Morocco. The oasis is well watered,
and the date-palm grows thickly there. It lies far to the
south. The railway, in the days when Tony Stretton served
in the Foreign Legion, did not reach to it ; the barracks
were newly built, the parade ground newly enclosed ; and if
one looked southwards from any open space, one saw a tawny
belt of sand in the extreme distance streak across the horizon
from east to west. That is the beginning of the great
Sahara. Tony Stretton could never see that belt of sand,
but his thoughts went back to the terrible homeward march
from Bir-el-Ghiramo to Ouargla. From east to west the
Sahara stretched across Africa, breaking the soldiers who
dared to violate its privacy, thrusting them back maimed
and famine-stricken, jealously guarding its secrets and
speaking by its very silence, its terrible "thus far and no
farther," no less audibly, and a thousand times more truth-
fully than ever did the waves of the sea.

On one noonday Stretton mounted the steps on to the
verandah of the hospital. He looked across open country to
the great yellow line. He thought of the Touaregs hanging
persistently upon the flanks of his tiny force, the long
laborious days of thirst and hunger, the lengthening trail
of graves which he left behind — those milestones of invasion.
He felt as though the desert gripped him again and would
not loose its hold, clinging to his feet with each step he took

THE END OF THE EXPERIMENT 229

in the soft, yielding sand. He had brought back his hand-
ful of men, it was true ; they had stumbled into Ouargla at
the last ; but there were few of them who were men as good
as they had been when they had set out. Even the best, it
almost seemed to him, had lost something of vitality which
they would never recover ; had a look fixed in their eyes
which set them apart from their fellows — the look of those
who have endured too much, who gazed for too long a time
upon horrors ; while the others were for the most part only
fit to squat in the shade and to wait for things to cease.
There was one whom Stretton had passed only a minute
before sitting on the ground under the shadow of the barrack
wall. Stretton was haunted by the picture of that man, for
he was the only white man he had ever seen who did not
trouble to raise a hand to brush away the flies from his face,
but allowed them to settle and cluster about the corners of
his mouth.

There was another in the hospital behind him. Him
the Sahara definitely claimed. Stretton turned and walked
into the building.

He passed down the line of beds, and stopped where a
man lay tossing in a fever. Stretton leaned over the bed.

" Barbier," he said.

Fusilier Barbier had grown very gaunt and thin during
these latter weeks. He turned his eyes upon Stretton, and
muttered incoherently. But there was recognition neither
in his eyes nor in his voice. An orderly approached the bed
as Stretton stood beside it ; and, in a low voice, lest, haply,
Barbier should hear and understand, Tony asked —

" What did the doctor say ? "

" Nothing good, my sergeant," the orderly replied, with an
expressive shrug of the shoulders.

" I am very sorry," said Stretton, gravely.

Certainly Barbier looked to be lying at death's door.
One hand and arm, emaciated and the colour of wax,
lay outside upon the coverlet of the bed. His eyes,

230 THE TRUANTS

unnaturally lustrous, unnaturally large, shone deep-sunken
in dark purple rings. His eyelids were red, as though with
much weeping, and, below the eyes, his face was drawn with
fever and very white. Stretton laid his hand gently upon
Barbier's forehead. It was burning hot. Stretton dismissed
the orderly with a nod. There was a haggard nobility in
Barbier's appearance — his long, finely shaped hands, his
lithe, well-knit figure, all betrayed the man of race. Yet he
had once sunk to babbling about persecution at a fire in the
desert, like any morbid child.

A heavy step sounded in the ward, and Stretton's colonel
stood beside him, a stoutly built man, with a white moustache
and imperial, and a stern yet not unkindly face. It expressed
a deal of solicitude at this moment.

" I have seen the doctor this morning," said the colonel,
" and he has given up hope. Bar bier will hardly live out
the night. They should never have sent him to us here.
They should not have discharged him from the asylum as
cured."

The idea of persecution had become fixed in Barbier's
brain. It had never left him since the evening when he
first gave utterance to it in the desert. The homeward
march, indeed, had aggravated his mania. On his return
he had been sent to the asylum at Bel- Abbes, but there he
had developed cunning enough to conceal his hallucination.
He had ceased to complain that his officers were in a con-
spiracy to entrap and ruin him, no more threats were heard,
no more dangerous stealthy glances detected. He was sent
back to his battalion at Ain-Sefra. A few weeks and again
his malady was manifest, and on the top of that had come
fever.

" I am very sorry," Stretton said again ; and then, after
looking about him and perceiving that the orderly was out
of earshot, he bent down towards Barbier, lower than he had
bent before, and he called upon him in a still lower voice.

But Barbier was no longer the name he used.

THE END OF THE EXPERIMENT 231

" Monsieur le Comte," he said, first of all, and then
" Monsieur de ' ' He uttered a name which the genera-
tion before had made illustrious in French diplomacy.

At the sound of the name Barbier's face contracted.
He started up in his bed upon one arm.

" Hush 1 " he cried. A most extraordinary change had
come over him in a second. His eyes protruded, his mouth
hung half open, his face was frozen into immobility by
horror. " There is some one on the stairs," he whispered,
" coming up — some one treading very lightly — but coming
up — coming up." He inclined his head in the strained
attitude of one listening with a great concentration and
intentness, an image of terror and suspense. " Yes, coming
up— coming up ! Don't lock the door ! That betrays all.
Turn out the lights ! Quickly ! So. Oh, will this night
ever pass ! "

He ended with a groan of despair. Very gently Stretton
laid him down again in the bed and covered him over with
the clothes. The sweat rolled in drops from Barbier's
forehead.

" He never tells us more, my colonel," said Stretton.
" His real name — yes ! — he betrayed that once to me. But
of this night nothing more than the dread that it will never
pass. Always he ends with those words. Yet it was that
night, no doubt, which tossed him beyond the circle of his
friends and dropped him down here, a man without a name,
amongst the soldiers of the Legion."

Often Stretton's imagination had sought to pierce the
mystery. "What thing of horror had been done upon that
night ? In what town of France ? Had the some one
on the stairs turned the handle and entered the room when
all the lights were out ? Had he heard Barbier's breathing in
the silent darkness of the room ? Stretton could only recon-
struct the scene. The stealthy footsteps on the stairs, the
cautious turning of the door handle, the opening of the door,
and the impenetrable blackness with one man, perhaps more

232 THE TRUANTS

than one, holding his breath somewhere, and crouching by
the wall. But no hint escaped the sick man's lips of what
there was which must needs be hidden, nor whether the
thing which must needs be hidden was discovered by the one
who trod so lightly on the stairs. Was it a dead man ?
Was it a dead woman ? Or a woman alive ? There was no
answer. There was no knowledge to be gained, it seemed,
but this — that because of that night a man in evening dress,
who bore an illustrious name, had fled at daybreak on a
summer morning to the nearest barracks, and had buried
his name and all of his past life in the Foreign Legion.

As it happened, there was just a little more knowledge
to be gained by Stretton. He learned it that morning from
his colonel.

" When you told me who ' Barbier ' really was, sergeant,"
said the colonel, " I made inquiries. Barbier's father died
two years ago ; but an uncle and a sister lived. I wrote to
both, offering to send their relation back to them. Well, the
mail has this morning come in from France."

" There is an answer, sir ? " asked Stretton.

" From the uncle," replied the colonel. " Not a word
from the sister ; she does not mean to write. The uncle's
letter makes that clear, I think. Read ! " He handed the
letter to Stretton. A cheque was enclosed, and a few words
were added.

"See, if you please, that Barbier wants for nothing
which can minister to body and soul."

That was all. There was no word of kindliness or affec-
tion. Barbier was dying. Let him, therefore, have medicine
and prayers. Love, wishes for recovery, a desire that he
should return to his friends, forgiveness for the thing which
he had done, pity for the sufferings which had fallen to him
■ — these things Fusilier Barbier must not expect. Stretton,
reading the letter by the sick man's bed, thought it heartless
and callous as no letter written by a human hand had ever
been. Yet — yet, after all, who knew what had happened on

THE END OF THE EXPERIMENT 233

that night ? The uncle, evidently. It might be something
which dishonoured the family beyond all reparation, which,
if known, would have disgraced a great name, so that those
who bore it in pride must now change it for very shame.
Perhaps the father had died because of it, perhaps the sister
had been stricken down. Stretton handed the letter back to
his colonel.

" It is very sad, sir," he said.

" Yes, it is very sad," returned the colonel. " But for us
this letter means nothing at all. Never speak of it, obliterate
it from your memories." He tore the paper into the tiniest
shreds. " We have no reproaches, no accusations for what
Barbier did before Barbier got out of the train at Sidi Bel-
Abbes. That is not our affair. For us the soldier of the
Legion is only born on the day when he enlists."

Thus, in one sentence, the colonel epitomised the character
of the Foreign Legion. It was a fine saying, Stretton
thought. He knew it to be a true one.

" I will say nothing," said Stretton, " and I will forget."

" That is well. Come with me, for there is another letter
which concerns you."

He turned upon his heel and left the hospital. Stretton
followed him to his quarters.

" There is a letter from the War Office which concerns
you, Sergeant Ohlsen," said the colonel, with a smile. " You
will be gazetted, under your own name, to the first lieu-
tenancy which falls vacant. There is the notification."

He handed the paper over to Stretton, and shook hands
with him. Stretton was not a demonstrative man. He took
the notification with no more show of emotion than if it had
been some unimportant order of the day.

" Thank you, sir," he said, quietly ; and for a moment
his eyes rested on the paper.

But, none the less, the announcement, so abruptly made,
caused him a shock. The words danced before his eyes so
that he could not read them. He saluted his colonel and

234 THE TRUANTS

went out on to the great open parade ground, and stood
there in the middle of that space, alone, under the hot noon-
day sun.

The thing for which he had striven had come to pass,
then. He held the assurance of it in his hand. Hoped for
and half-expected as that proof had been ever since he had
led the survivors of the geographical expedition under the
gate of Ouargla, its actual coming was to him most wonder-
ful. He looked southwards to where the streak of yellow
shone far away. The long marches, the harassing anxiety,
the haunting figures of the Touaregs, with their faces veiled
in their black masks and their eyes shining between the
upper and the lower strip — yes, even those figures which
appalled the imagination in the retrospect by a suggestion of
inhuman ferocity — what were they all but con tributaries to
this event ? His ordeal was over. He had done enough.
He could go home.

Stretton did not want for modestv. He had won a
commission from the ranks, it is true ; but he realised that
others had done this before, and under harder conditions.
He himself had started with an advantage — the advantage of
previous service in the English army. His knowledge of the
manual exercise, of company and battalion drill had been of
the greatest use at the first. He had had luck, too — the
luck to be sent on the expedition to the Figuig oasis, the
luck to find himself sergeant with Colonel Tavernay's force.
His heart went out in gratitude to that tine friend who lay
in his bed of sand so far away. Undoubtedly, he realised, his
luck had been exceptional.

ne turned away from the parade ground and walked
through the village, and out of it towards a grove of palm
trees. Under the shade of those trees he laid himself down
on the ground and made out his plans. He would obtain his
commission, secure his release, and so go home. A few
months and he would be home ! It seemed hardly credible ;
j '■'. it was true, miraculously true. He would write home

THE END OF THE EXPERIMENT 235

tbat very day. It was not any great success which he had
achieved, but, at all events, he was no longer the man who
was no good. He could write with confidence ; he could
write to Millie.

He lay under the shadow of the palms looking across to
the village. There rose a little mosque with a white dome.
The hovels were thatched for the most part, but here and
there a square white-washed house, with a fiat roof, over-
topped the rest. Hedges of cactus and prickly pears walled
in the narrow lanes, and now and then a white robe appeared
and vanished. Very soon Stretton would turn his back
upon Algeria. In the after time he would remember this
afternoon, remember the village as he saw it now, and the
Yellow streak of desert sand in the distance.

■

Stretton lay on his back and put together the sentences
which he would write that day to Millie. She would get the
letter within ten days — easily. He began to hum over to
himself the words of the coon song which had once been
sung on a summer night in an island of Scotland —

" Oh, come out, mah love. I'm a-waitin' fo' you heah !
Doan: you keep yuh window shut to-night.
De tree-topa above am a-whisp'rin' to you, deah "

And then he stopped suddenly. At last he began to wonder
how Millie would receive the letter he was to write.

Yes, there was her point of view to be considered.
Stretton was stubborn by nature as few men are. He had
convinced himself that the course he had taken was the only
course which promised happiness for Millie and himself, and
impelled by that conviction he had gone on his way un-
disturbed by doubts and questions. Now, however, his
object was achieved. He could claim exemption from his
wife's contempt. His mind had room for other thoughts,
and they came that afternoon.

He had left his wife alone, with no explanation of his
absence to offer to her friends, without even any knowledge
of his whereabouts. There had been no other way, he still

236 THE TRUANTS

believed. But it was hard on Millie — undoubtedly it was
hard.

Stretton rose from the ground and set off towards the
camp that he might write his letter. But he never wrote it,
for as he walked along the lane towards the barracks a man
tapped him on the shoulder from behind. He was still
humming his song, and he stopped in the middle of it —

"Jus' look out an' sec all de longin' in mah eyes,
An' mah arms is jus' a-pinin' foh to hug you,"

lie said, and turned about on his heel. He saw a stranger in
European dress, who at once spoke his name.

" Sir Anthony Stretton ? "

Stretton was no longer seeking to evade discovery.

" Yes ? " he said. The stranger's face became vaguely
familiar to him. " I have seen you before, I think."

" Once," replied the other. " My name is "Warrisden.
You saw me for a few minutes on the deck of a fish-carrier
in the North Sea."

" To be sure," he said slowly. " Yes, to be sure, I did.
You were sent to find me by Miss Pamela Mardale."

" She sends me again," replied Warrisden.

Stretton's heart sank in fear. He had disobeyed the
summons before. lie remembered Pamela's promise to
befriend his wife. lie remembered her warning that he
should not leave his wife.

'• She sent you then with an urgent message that I
should return home," he said.

" I carry the same message again, only it is a thousand
times more urgent."

He drew a letter from his pocket as he spoke, and handed
it to Stretton. " I was to give you this," he said.

Stretton looked at the handwriting and nodded.

" Thank you," he said gravely.

He tore open the envelope and read.

237

CHAPTER XXV

TONY STRETTON BIDS FAREWELL TO THE LEGION

It was a long letter. Tony read it through slowly, standing
in the narrow lane between the high walls of prickly pear.
A look of incredulity came upon his face.

" Is all this true ? " he asked, not considering at all of
whom he asked the question.

" I know nothing, of course, of what is written there,"
replied "Warrisden ; u but I do not doubt its truth. The
signature is, I think, sufficient guarantee.1'

" No doubt, no doubt," said Stretton, absently. Then he
asked —

" "When did you reach Ain-Sefra ? "

" This morning.1'

" And you came quickly ? "

" Yes ; I travelled night and day, I came first of all to
Ain-Sefra in search of you.1'

" Thank you," said Strettou.

He did not ask how it was that Warrisden had come
first of all to Ain-Sefra ; such details held no place in his
thoughts. "Warrisden had found him, had brought the letter
which Pamela Mardale had written. That letter, with its
perplexities and its consequences, obliterated all other
speculations.

" You have a camp here ? " Stretton asked.

" Yes."

" Let us go to it. The news you have brought has

238 THE TRUANTS

rather stunned me. I should like to sit down and think
what I must do."

The incredulity had vanished from his face. Distress
had replaced it.

" It is' all true, no doubt," he went on, " but for the
moment I don't understand it. Will you tell me where your
camp is ? "

" I will show you the way," said Warrisden.

" I think not. It will be better that we should not be
Been together," Stretton said thoughtfully. "Will you give
me the direction and go first ? I will follow."

Warrisden's camp was pitched amongst trees a hundred
vards from the western borders of the village. It stood in a
garden of grass, enclosed with hedges. Thither Stretton
found his way by a roundabout road, approaching the camp
from the side opposite to Ain-Sefra. There was no one, at
the moment, loitering about the spot. He walked into the
garden. There were three tents pitched. Half a dozen
mules stood picketed in a line, a little Barbary horse lay on
the grass, some Algerian muleteers were taking their ease,
and outside the chief tent a couple of camp chairs were
placed. Warrisden came forward as Stretton entered the
garden.

" Sit down," he said.

" Inside the tent, I think," replied Stretton.

There he read the letter through again. He understood
at last what Pamela had meant by the warning which had
baffled him. Pamela revealed its meaning now. "Millie
is not of those women," she wrote, " who have a vivid
remembrance. To hold her, you must be near her. Go
away, she will cry her eyes out ; stay away for a little while,
she will long for your return ; make that little while a longer
time, she will grow indifferent whether you return or not ;
prolong that longer time, she will regard your return as an
awkwardness, a disturbance ; add yet a little more to that
longer time, and you will find another occupying your

TONY BIDS FAREWELL TO THE LEGION 239

place in her thoughts." Then followed an account of the
growth of that dangerous friendship between Millie and
Lionel Callon. A summary of Gallon's character rounded
the description off. " So come home," she concluded, " at
once, for no real harm has been done yet."

Stretton understood what the last sentence meant, and he
believed it. Yet his mind revolted against the phrase. Of
course, it was Pamela's phrase. Pamela, though frank, was
explaining the position in words which could best spare
Millie. But it was an unfortunate sentence. It provoked a
momentary wave of scorn, which swept over Stretton.
There was a postscript : " You yourself are really a good
deal to blame." Thus it ran ; but Stretton was in no mood
to weigh its justice or injustice at the moment. Only this
afternoon he had been lying under the palm trees putting
together in his mind the sentences which were to tell Millie
of his success, to re-establish him in her esteem, and to pre-
pare her for his return. And now this letter had come. He
sat for a time frowning at the letter, turning its pages over,
glancing now at one phrase, now at another. Then he
folded it up. " Callon," he said, softly ; and then again,
" Lionel Callon. I will talk with Mr. Callon." For all its
softness, his voice sounded to Warrisden the voice of a
dangerous man. And after he had spoken in this way he
sat in thought, saying nothing, making no movement, and
his face gave Warrisden no clue as to what he thought. At
the last he stirred in his chair.

" Well ? " said Warrisden.

" I shall return at once to England."

" You can ? "

" Yes ; I shall start to-night," said Stretton.

" We can go back together, then."

" No ; that's impossible."

" Why ? " asked Warrisden.

" Because I should be arrested if we did," Stretton replied
calmly.

240 THE TRUANTS

k< Arrested ? " Warrisden exclaimed.

" Yes ; you see I shall have to desert to-night."

Warrisden started from his chair.

" Surely there is an alternative ? "

" None," replied Stretton ; and Warrisden slowly resumed
his seat. He was astounded ; he had never contemplated
this possibility. He looked at Stretton in wonder. He
could not understand how a man could speak so calmly of
such a plan. Why in the world had Stretton ever joined the
Legion if he was so ready, at the first summons, to desert ?
There seemed an inconsistency. But he did not know Tony
Stretton.

" You are surprised," said Tony. " More than surprised —
you are rather shocked ; but there is no choice for me. I
wish with all my heart and soul there were," he suddenly
exclaimed, with a sort of passion. "I have foreseen this
necessity ever since you tapped me on the shoulder in the
lane. Because I foresaw it, I would not walk with you to
your camp. Were we seen together to-day, the reason of my
absence might be the sooner suspected. As it is, I shall get
a day's start, for I have a good name in the regiment, and a
day's start is all I need."

He spoke sadly and wistfully. He was caught by an
inexorable fate, and knew it. He just had to accept the one
course open to him.

" You see," he explained, " I am a soldier of the Legion —
that is to say, I enlisted for five years' service in the French
colonies. I could not get leave."

" Five years 1 " cried Warrisden. " You meant to stay
five years away ? "

" No," replied Stretton. "If things went well with me
here, as up till to-day they have done, if, in a word, I did
what I enlisted to do, I should have gone to work to buy
myself out and get free. That can be done with a little
influence and time — only time is the one thing I have not
now. I must go home at once, since no harm has yet ben

TONY BIDS FAREWELL TO THE LEGION 241

done. Therefore I must desert. I am very sorry " — and
again the wistfulness became very audible — " for, as I say, I
have a good name ; amongst both officers and men I
have a good name. I should have liked very much to have
left a good name behind me. Sergeant Ohlsen " — and as he
uttered the name he smiled. " They speak well of Sergeant
Ohlsen in the Legion, Warrisden ; and to-morrow they will
not. I am very sorry. I have good friends amongst both
officers and men. I shall have lost them all to-morrow. I am
sorry. There is only one thing of which I am glad to-day.
I am glad that Captain Tavernay is dead."

Warrisden knew nothing at all of Captain Tavernay.
Until this moment he had never heard his name. But
Stretton was speaking with a simplicity so sincere, and so
genuine a sorrow, that Warrisden could not but be deeply
moved. He forgot the urgency of his summons ; he ceased
to think how greatly Stretton's immediate return would help
his own fortunes. He cried out upon the impulse —

" Stay, then, until you can get free without " And

he stopped, keeping unspoken the word upon his lips.

"Without disgrace."

Stretton finished the sentence with a smile.

" Say it ! Without disgrace. That was the word upon
vour tongue. I can't avoid disgrace. I have come to such
a pass in my life's history that, one way or another, I can't
avoid it. I thought just at the first moment that I could
let things slide and stay. But there's dishonour in that
course, too. Dishonour for myself, dishonour for my name,
dishonour for others, too, whom it is my business— yes, my
business — to keep from dishonour. That's the position —
disgrace if I stay, disgrace if I go. It seems to me there's no
rule of conduct which applies. I must judge for myself."

Stretton spoke with some anger in his voice, anger with
those who had placed him in so cruel a position, anger,
perhaps, in some measure, with himself. For in a little

while he said —

R

242 THE TRUANTS

" It is quite true that I am myself to blame, too. I want
to be just. I was a fool not to have gone into the house the
evening I was in London, after I had come back from the
North Sea. Yes, I should have gone in then ; and yet — I
don't know. I had thought my course all out. I don't
know."

He had thought his course out, it is true ; but he had
thought it out in ignorance of his wife's character. That
was the trouble, as he clearly saw now.

" Anyhow, I must go to-night," he said, rising from his
chair. In an instant he had become the practical man,
arranging the means to an end already resolved upon.

" I can borrow money of you ? "

" Yes."

" And a mule ? "
' " Yes."

<k Let me choose my mule."

They Avalked from the tent to where the mules stood
picketed. "VVarrisden pointed to one in the middle of the line.

" That is the strongest."

" I don't want one too strong, too obviously well-fed,"
said Stretton ; and he selected another. " Can I borrow a
muleteer for an hour or two ? "

" Of course," said Warrisden.

Stretton called a muleteer towards him and gave him
orders.

" There is a market to-day," he said. " Go to it and
buy." lie enumerated the articles he wanted, ticking them
off upon his fingers — a few pairs of scissors and knives, a few
gaudy silk handkerchiefs, one or two cheap clocks, some pieces
of linen, needles and thread — in fact, a small pedlar's pack
of wans. In addition, a black jellaba and cap, such as the
.lews must wear in Morocco, and a native's underclothes and
slippers.

"Brin<.< these things back to the camp at once and speak
to no one ! " said Stretton.

TONY BIDS FAEEWELL TO THE LEGION 243

The muleteer loosed a mule to carry the packages, and
went off upon his errand. Stretton and Warrisden went
back to the tent. Stretton sat down again in his chair, took
a black cigarette from a bright-blue packet which he had in
his pocket and lighted it, as though all the arrangements for
his journey were now concluded.

" I want you to pack the mule I chose with the things
which your muleteer brings back. Add some barley for the
mule and some food for me, and bring it with the clothes to
the south-west corner of the barrack wall at eight. It will
be dark then. Don't come before it is dark, and wait for mo
at the corner. Will you ? "

" Yes," replied Warrisden. " You are going to tramp to
the coast ? Surely you can come as one of my men as far
as the rail-head. Then I will go on and wait for you at
Algiers."

" No," said Stretton ; " our ways lie altogether apart. It
would be too dangerous for me to tramp through Algeria.
I should certainly be stopped. That's my way."

He raised his arm and pointed through the tent door.

The tent door faced the west, and in front there rose a
range of mountains, dark and lofty, ridge overtopping ridge,
and wonderfully distinct. In that clear air the peaks and
gaps, and jagged aretes were all sharply defined. The sun
was still bright, and the dark cliffs had a purple bloom of
extraordinary softness and beauty, like the bloom upon a ripe
plum. Here and there the mountains were capped with snow,
and the snow glistened like silver.

"Those mountains are in Morocco," said Stretton.
"That's my way — over them. My only way. We are on
the very edge of Morocco here."

" But, once over the border," Warrisden objected, " are
you safe in Morocco ? "

" Safe from recapture."

" But safe in no other sense ? "

Stretton shrugged his shoulders.

244 THE TRUANTS

" It is a bad road, I know — dangerous and difficult. The
ordinary traveller cannot pass along it. But it has been
traversed. Prisoners have escaped that way to Fez —
Escoffier, for instance. Deserters have reached their homes
by following it — some of them, at all events. One must
take one's risks."

It was the old lesson learned upon the ketch Perseverance
which Stretton now repeated ; and not vainly learned. Far
away to the south, in the afternoon sunlight, there shone
that yellow streak of sand, beyond which its value had been
surely proved. Warrisden's thoughts were carried back on
a sudden to that morning of storm and foam and roaring
waves, when Stretton had stood easily upon the deck of the
fish-cutter, with the great seas swinging up behind him, and
had, for the first time, uttered it in Warrisden's hearing.
Much the same feeling came over "Warrisden as that which
had then affected him — a feeling almost of inferiority.
Stretton was a man of no more than average ability, neither
a deep thinker, nor a person of ingenuity and resource ; but
the mere stubbornness of his character gave to him at times
a certain grandeur. In Warrisden's eyes he had that grandeur
now. He had come quickly to his determination to desert,
but he had come calmly to it. There had been no excite-
ment in his manner, no suggestion of hysteria. He had
counted up the cost, he had read his letter, he had held the
balance between his sacrifice and Millie's necessity ; and he
had decided. He had decided, knowing not merely the dis-
grace, but the difficulties of his journey, and the danger of
his road amongst the wild, lawless tribes in that unsettled
quarter of Morocco. Again Warrisden was carried away.
He forgot even Pamela at Roquebrune waiting for the
telegram he was to send from Oran on his return. II e
cried —

"I will send back my outfit and come with you. If wo
travel together there will be more safety."

Stretton shook his head.

TONY BIDS FAREWELL TO THE LEGION 245

"Less," said he. "You cannot speak Mogrhebbin. I
have a few sentences — not many, but enough. I know some-
thing of these tribes, too. For I once marched to the Figuig
oasis. Your company would be no protection ; rather it
would be an extra danger."

Warrisden did not press his proposal. Stretton had so
clearly made up his mind.

" Yery well," he said. " You have a revolver, I suppose.
Or shall I lend you one ? "

And, to Warrisden's astonishment, Stretton replied —

" I shall carry no weapons."

Warrisden was already placing his arms of defence upon
the table so that Stretton might make his choice.

" No weapons ! " he exclaimed.

" No. My best chance to get through to Fez is to travel
as a Jew pedlar. That is why I am borrowing your mule
and have sent your muleteer to the market. A Jew can go
in Morocco where no Moor can, for he is not suspected ; he
is merely despised. Besides, he brings things for sale which
are needed. He may be robbed and beaten, but he has more
chance of reaching his journey's end in some plight or other
than any one else."

Thereafter he sat for awhile silent, gazing towards the
mountains in the west. The snow glittering upon the peaks
brought back to his mind the flashing crystals in the great
salt lakes. It was at just such a time, on just such an after-
noon, when the two companies of the Legion had marched
out from the trees of the high plateaux into the open desert,
with its grey-green carpet of halfa-grass. Far away the lake
had flashed like an arc of silver set in the ground. Stretton
could not but remember that expedition and compare it with
the one upon which he was now to start ; and the comparison
was full of bitterness. Then high hopes had reigned. The
companies were marching out upon the Legion's special
work ; even if disaster overtook them, disaster would not be
without its glory. Stretton heard the clear inspiriting music

246 THE TRUANTS

of the bugles, he listened to the steady tramp of feet. Now
he was deserting.

" I shall miss the Legion," he said regretfully. " I had
no idea how much I should miss it until this moment."

Its proud past history had grown dear to him. The
recklessness of its soldiers, the endless perplexing variety of
their characters, the secrets of their lives, of which every now
and then, in a rare moment of carelessness, a glimpse was
revealed, as though a curtain were raised and lowered — all
these particular qualities of the force had given to it a grip
upon his affections of which he felt the full strength now.

" Any other life," he said, " cannot but be a little dull, a
little uninteresting afterwards. I shall miss the Legion
very much."

Suddenly he put his hand into his pocket and took out
of it that letter from the French War Office which his colonel
had handed to him. " Look ! " and he handed it over to
Warrisden. " That is what I joined the Legion to win — a
commission ; and I have just not won it. In a month or
two, perhaps in a week, perhaps even to-morrow, it might
have been mine. Very soon I should have been back at
home, the life I have dreamed of and worked for ever since
I left London, might have been mine to live. It was to
have been a good life of great happiness " — he had forgotten,
it seemed, that he would regret the Legion — " a life without
a flaw. Now that life's impossible, and I am a deserter.
It's hard lines, isn't it ? "

He rose from his chair, and looked for a moment at
Warrisden in silence.

" I am feeling sorry that I ever came," said "Warrisden.

" Oh no," Stretton answered, with a smile. " It would
have been still worse if I had stayed here, ignorant of the
news you have brought me, and had come home in my own
time. Things would have been much worse — beyond all
remedy. Do you know a man mimed Gallon — Lionel
Gallon ? " he asked abruptly. And before Warrisden could

TONY BIDS FAREWELL TO THE LEGION 247

answer, the blood rushed into his face, and he exclaimed,
" Never mind ; don't answer ! Be at the corner of the
barracks with the mule at eight.'" And he went from
the %tent, cautiously made his way out of the garden, and
returned to his quarters.

A few minutes before eight Warrisden drove the mule,
packed with Stretton's purchases, to the south-western
corner of the barracks. The night was dark, no one was
abroad, the place without habitations. He remained under
the shadow of the high wall, watching this way and that for
Stretton's approach ; and in a few minutes he was almost
startled out of his wits by a heavy body falling from the
top of the wall upon the ground at his side. Warrisden,
indeed, was so taken by surprise that he uttered a low cry.

" Hush ! " said a voice close to the ground. " It's only
me."

" And Stretton rose to his feet. He had dropped from
the summit of the wall.

" Are you hurt ? " whispered Warrisden.

" No. Have you the clothes ? Thanks ! "

Stretton stripped off his uniform, and put on the Jewish
dress. He had shaved off his moustache and blacked his
hair. As he dressed he gave two or three small packages to
Warrisden.

" Place them in the pack ; hide them, if possible. That
package contains my medals. I shall need them. The
other's lamp-black. I shall want that for my hair. Glossy
raven locks," he said, with a low laugh, " are not so easily
procured in Ain-Sefra as in Bond Street. I have been
thinking. You can help me if you will ; you can shorten
the time of my journey."

" How ? " asked Warrisden.

" Go back to Oran as quickly as possible. Take the
first boat to Tangier. Hire an outfit there, mules and
horses — but good ones, mind ! — and travel up at once to
Fez. If you are quick you can do it within a fortnight. I

248 THE TRUANTS

shall take a fortnight at the least to reach Fez. I may be
three weeks. But if I find you there, ready to start the
moment I come to the town, we shall save much time."

" Very well ; I will be there."

"If I get through sooner than I expect, I shall go
straight on to Tangier, and we will meet on the road. Now
let me climb on to your shoulders." Stretton made a bundle
of his uniform, climbed on to Warrisden's shoulders, and
threw it over the wall into the barrack yard.

" But that will betray you ! " cried "\Yarrisden, in a
whisper. " They will find your clothes in the morning-
clothes with a sergeant's stripes."

" I cannot help that," replied Stretton, as he jumped
to the ground. " I do not intend to be shot as a thief, for
that is what may happen when a man deserts and takes his
uniform with him. Don't fail me in Fez. Good-bye."

He held out his hand, and, as Warrisden grasped it, he
said —

" I have not said much to you in the way of thanks ;
but I am very grateful, however much I may have seemed to
have been made unhappy by your coming. Since things
are as they are, I am glad you came. I thank you, too, for
that other visit to the North Sea. I will give you better
i hanks when we meet in Fez."

He cast a glance back to the wall of the barracks, and,
in a voice which trembled, so deeply was he moved, he
whispered to himself, rather than to "Warrisden—

" Oh, but I am glad Tavernay is dead ! "

All else that he had said since he dropped from the wall
had been said hurriedly and without emotion. These last
words were whispered from a heart overcharged with sorrow.
They were his farewell to the Legion. He turned away, and,
driving the mule before hiui, vanished into the darkness.

( 249 )

CHAPTER XXVI

BAD NEWS FOR PAMELA

Warrisden struck his camp early the next morning, and
set out for the rail-head. Thence he travelled to Oram
At Oran he was fortunate enough to find a steamer of the
Lambert Line in the harbour, which was preparing to sail
that afternoon for Tangier. Warrisden had three hours to
pass in Oran. He went at once to the post-office and
despatched his telegram to Pamela Mardale at the Villa
Pontignard. The telegram informed her that Tony Stretton
was returning, though his journey might take longer than
she would naturally expect ; and, secondly, that he himself
was sailing that day for Tangier, whither any message
should be sent at once to await his arrival at the English
post-office. The telegram was couched in vague phrases.
Tony Stretton, for instance, was called " The Truant."
Pamela became more and more disquieted by the vagueness
of its wording. She pondered, and in vain, why in the
world Warrisden must be sailing to Tangier. It seemed
certain that there were difficulties in the way of Tony's
home-coming which she had not foreseen, and at the nature
of which she could not conjecture. She sent off a reply to
Tangier —

" Bring truant to Roquebrune as soon as possible.1'

For, on thinking over the new aspect which her problem

presented, now that Lionel Callon had come to the Riviera,

she had come to the conclusion that this was the safest plan.

If Millie Stretton did not come to the south of France, no

250 THE TRUANTS

harm would have been clone ; whereas, if she did, and Tony
went straight home to England, the last chance of saving
her would be lost.

This message, however, did little to reassure Pamela.
For the more she thought of "Warrisden's telegram, the more
she was troubled. Tony was returning. Yes, that was
something — that was a great thing. But he was going to
take a long time in returning, and, to Pamela's apprehension,
there was no long time to spare. And the day after she
had received the telegram she came upon still stronger
reasons for disquietude.

She went down to Monte Carlo in the morning, and
again saw Lionel Gallon upon the terrace, and again noticed
that he was alone. Yet on the whole she was not surprised.
Millie Stretton's name figured as yet in no visitors' list, and
Pamela was quite sure that if Millie Stretton had come south
the name would have been inserted. It was impossible that
Millie Stretton could come to Monte Carlo, or to, indeed,
any hotel upon the Riviera, under a false name. She could
not but meet acquaintances and friends at every step, during
this season of the year. To assume a name which was not
hers would be an act of stupidity too gross. None the less
Pamela was relieved. She avoided Callon's notice, and act-
ing upon a sudden impulse, went out from the garden, hired
a carriage, and ordered the coachman to drive along the
lower Corniche Road in the direction of Beaulieu.

Pamela was growing harassed and anxious. The days
were passing, and no message had yet come from Alan
Warrisden. She suspected the presence of Lionel Gallon
on the Riviera more and more. More and more she
dreaded the arrival of Millie Stretton. There was nothing
now which she could do. She had that hard lot which falls
to women, the lot of waiting. But she could not wait with
folded hands. She must be doing something ; even though
that something were altogether trivial and useless, it still
helped her through the hours. In this spirit she drove out

BAD NEWS FOR PAMELA 251

from Monte Carlo at twelve o'clock, without a thought that
her drive was to assist her toward the end on which she had
set her heart.

She drove past the back of the big hotel at Eze. Just
beyond, a deep gorge runs from the hills straight down to
the sea. The road carves round the head of the gorge and
bends again to the shore. Pamela drove round the gorge,
and coming again to the shore, went forward by the side of
the sea. After a few minutes she bade the driver stop. In
front of her the road rose a little, and then on the other
side of the crest dipped down a steep hill. On her left a
pair of iron gates stood open. From those gates a carriage-
drive ran in two zigzags between borders of flowers down
to an open gravel space in front of a long one-storied build-
ing. The building faced upon the road, but at a lower
level, so that even the flat roof was below Pamela. The
building was prettily built, and roses and magnolias climbed
against the walls, making it gay. The door in the middle
stood open, but there was no sign of life about the house.
Pamela sat gazing down into the garden, with it3 bushes and
brightly-coloured flowers.

Pamela spoke to the driver.

" "What place is this ? " she asked.

" It was only built last year," the man replied, and he
told her enough for her to know that this was the Reserve at
which Lionel Gallon was staying.

" Few people come here ? " said Pamela.

" It is not known yet," replied the driver. " It is such
a little while since it has been opened."

The sun was bright. Beyond the Reserve the Mediter-
ranean rippled and sparkled — here the deepest blue, there
breaking into points of golden light. The Reserve itself
had the look of a country house in a rich garden of flowers
tended with love. In the noonday the spot was very quiet
and still. Yet to Pamela it had the most sinister aspect.
It stood in a solitary position, just beneath the road. In its

252 THE TRUANTS

very quietude there was to her harassed thoughts something
clandestine.

She knew that Callon was in Monte Carlo. She told her
driver to drive down to the door, and at the door she stepped
clown and walked into the building. A large dining-room
opened out before her in which two waiters lounged. There
were no visitors. The waiters came forward. "Would
Madame take luncheon in the room, or on the terrace at the
back over the sea ? "

" On the ten-ace," Pamela replied.

She lunched quite alone on a broad, flagged terrace, with
the sea gently breaking at its foot. The greater portion of
the building was occupied by the restaurant, but at one end
Pamela noticed a couple of French windows. She remarked
to the waiter who served her upon the absence of any visitors
but herself.

" It is only this season, Madame, that the restaurant is
open," he replied.

" Can people stay here ? " she asked.

" Yes. There are two suites of rooms. One is occupied ;
but the other is vacant, if Madame would care to see
it."

Pamela rose and followed him. He opened one of the
French windows. A dining-room furnished with elegance,
and lightly decorated ; a sitting-room, and a bedroom com-
prised the suite. Pamela came back to the terrace. She
was disquieted. It w7as impossible, of course, that Millie
Stretton should stay at the Reserve ; but the whole look of
the place troubled her.

She mounted into her carriage and drove back. In front
of her the great hotel of Eze stood high upon a promontory
above the railway. A thought came to Pamela. She drove
back round the head of the gorge, and when she came to the
hotel she bade the coachman drive in. In the open space in
front of the hotel she took tea. She could not see the
restaurant itself, but she could see the road rising to the

BAD NEWS FOR PAMELA 253

little hill-crest beside it. It was very near, she thought. She
went into the hotel, and asked boldly at the office —

" When do you expect Lady Stretton ? "

" Lady Stretton ? " The clerk in the office looked up
his books. " In three weeks, Madame," he said. " She has
engaged her rooms from the 31st."

" Thank you," said Pamela.

She mounted into her carriage and drove back to Monte
Carlo. So Millie Stretton was coming to the Riviera after
all. She had refused to come with Pamela, yet she was
coming by herself. She had declared she would not leave
England this spring. But she had made that declaration
before Lionel Gallon had returned from Chili. Now Callon
was here, and she was following. Pamela could not doubt
that her coming was part of a concerted plan. The very
choice of the hotel helped to convince her. It was so near
to that at which Callon was staying. Twenty minutes' walk
at the most would separate them. Moreover, why should
Callon choose that lonely restaurant without some particular,
nay, some secret object ? No one, it seemed, visited it in
the day ; no one but he slept there at night. Callon was
not the man to fall in love with solitude. And if he had
wished for solitude he would not have come to the Riviera
at all. Besides, he spent his days in Monte Carlo, as Pamela
well knew. No, it was not loneliness at which he aimed,
but secrecy. That was it — secrecy. Pamela's heart sank
within her. She had a momentary thought that she would
disclose her presence to Lionel Callon, and dismissed it.
The disclosure would alter Callon's plan, that was all ; it
would not hinder the fulfilment. It would drive Millie
and him from the Riviera — it would not prevent them from
meeting somewhere else. It would be better, indeed, that,
if meet they must, they should meet under her eyes. For
some accident might happen, some unforeseen opportunity
occur of which she could take advantage to separate them.
It was not known to Callon that she was on the spot. After

254 THE TRUANTS

all, that was an advantage. She must meet secrecy with
secrecy. She urged her coachman to quicken his pace. She
drove straight to the post-office at Monte Carlo. Thence
she despatched a second telegram to Alan Warrisden at
Tangier.

" Do not fail to arrive by the 31st," she telegraphed ;
and upon that took the train back to Roquebrune. She
could do no more now ; but the knowledge that she could
do no more only aggravated her fears. Questions which
could not be answered thronged upon her mind. " Would
the telegram reach Tangier in time ? What was Alan
Warrisden doing at Tangier at all ? What hindered them
corning straight from Algeria to France ? " Well, there
were tlnee weeks still. She sent up her prayer that those
three weeks might bring Tony Stretton back, that Millie
might be saved for him. She walked up the steps from
Roquebrune station very slowly. She did not look up as
she climbed. Had she done so she might, perhaps, have
seen a head above the parapet in the little square where the
school-house stood ; and she would certainly have seen that
head suddenly withdrawn as her head was raised. M. Giraud
was watching her furtively, as he had done many a time
since she had come to Roquebrune, taking care that she
should not see him. He watched her now, noticing that she
walked with the same lagging, weary step as when he had
last seen her on that path so many years ago. But as he
watched she stopped, and, turning about, looked southwards
across the sea, and stood there for an appreciable time.
When she turned again and once more mounted the steps, it
seemed to him that the weariness had gone. She walked
buoyantly, like one full of faith, full of hope ; and he caught
a glimpse of her face. It seemed to him that it had become
transfigured, and that the eyes were looking at some vision
which was visible to her eyes alone Pamela had come back
Indeed, at the end of all her perplexities and conjectures, to
the belief born of her new love, that somehow the world

BAD NEWS FOR PAMELA 255

would right itself, that somehow in a short while she would
hear whispered upon the wind, answered by the ripples of the
sea, and confirmed by the one voice she longed to hear, the
sentinel's cry, " All's well."

The messages which Pamela had sent to Warrisden
reached him at Tangier. He found them both waiting for
him the day after they had been sent. He had twenty days
in front of him. If Tony kept to his time, twenty days
would serve. He hired a camp outfit, and the best mules to
be obtained in Tangier on that day. The same evening he
bought a couple of barbs, well recommended to him for speed
and endurance.

" They will amble at six miles an hour for ten hours a
day," said one whose advice he sought. Warrisden dis-
counted the statement, but bought the barbs. Early the
nest morning he set out for Fez.

256 THE TRUANTS

CHAPTER X-XVII

" BALAK ! "

There are two cities of Fez. One is the city of the narrow,
crowded streets, where the cry, "Balakl Balak!" * resounds
all day. Streets, one terms them, since they are the main
thoroughfares tluough which all the merchandise of Morocco
passes out to the four quarters of the compass ; but they are
no wider than the alley-ways of an English village, and in
many places a man may stand in the centre and touch the
wall on either side. These streets are paved with big cobble-
stones, but the stones are broken and displaced by the tramp
of centuries. If mended at all, they are mended with a mill-
stone or any chance slab of rock ; but for the most part they
are left unmended altogether. For that is the fashion in
Morocco. There they build and make, and they do both
things beautifully and well. But they seldom finish ; in a
house, dainty with fountains and arabesques and coloured
tiles, you will still find a corner uncompleted, a pillar which
lacks the delicate fluting of the other pillars, an embrasure
for a clock half ornamented with gold filagree, and half left
plain. And if they seldom finish, they never by any chance
repair. The mansion is built and decorated within ; artists
fit the tiles together in a mosaic of cool colours, and carve,
and gild, and paint the little pieces of cedar- wood, and glue
them into the light and pointed arches ; the rich curtains are
hung, and the master enters into his possession. There
follows the procession of the generations. The tiles crack,

* " Take care ! "

"BALAK!" 257

the woodwork of the arches splits and falls, and the walls
break and crumble. The householder sits indifferent, and
the whole house corrodes. So, in the narrow streets, holes
gape, and the water wears a channel where it wills, and the
mud lies thick and slippery on the rounded stones ; the
streets ran steeply up and down the hills, wind abruptly round
corners, dive into tunnels. Yet men gallop about them on
their sure-footed horses, stumbling, slipping, but seldom
falling. " Balak ! " they cry. " Balak I " and the man on
foot is flung against the wall or jostled out of the way. No
one protests or resents.

A file of donkeys, laden with wood or with grain, so fixed
upon their backs that the load grazes each street wall, blocks
the way. " Balak ! " shouts the donkey-driver. And perhaps
some nobleman of Fez, soft and fat and indolent, in his blue
cloak, who comes pacing on a mule no less fat, preceded by
his servants, must turn or huddle himself into an embrasure.
There are no social distinctions in the alley -ways of Fez. It
may be that one of those donkeys will fall then and there
beneath his load, and refuse to rise. His load will be taken
from his back, and if he still refuse, he will be left just where
he fell, to die. His owner walks on. It is no one's business
to remove the animal. There he lies in the middle of the
street, and to him " Balak " will be called in vain.

A mounted troop of wild Berbers from the hills, with
their long, brass-bound guns slung across their backs, and
gaudy handkerchiefs about their heads, will ride through the
bazaars, ragged of dress and no less ragged in the harness of
their horses. " Balak ! " Very swiftly way is made for
them. Balak, indeed, is the word most often heard in the
streets of Fez.

Those streets wind at times between the walls of gardens,
and if the walls are broken, as surely at some point they
will be, a plot of grass, a grove of orange trees hung with
ruddy fruit, and a clump of asphodel will shine upon the
eyes in that brown and windowless city like a rare jewel.

258 THE TRUANTS

At times, too, they pass beneath some spacious arch into a
place of width, or cross a bridge where one of the many
streams of the river Fez boils for a moment into the open,
and then swirls away again beneath the houses. But,
chiefly, they run deep beneath the towering walls of houses,
and little of the sunlight visits them ; so that you may
know a man of Fez, even though he be absent from his
town, by the pallor of his face. A householder, moreover,
may build over the street, if he can come to an agreement
with his neighbour on the opposite side, and then the alleys
suddenly become tunnels, and turn upon themselves in the
dark. Or the walls so lean together at the top that barely a
finger's breadth of sky is visible as from the bottom of a
well.

Into this city of dark streets Warrisden came upon an
evening of gloom. The night before he had camped on the
slope of a hill by the village of Segota. Never had he seen
a spot more beautiful. He had looked across the deep valley
at his feet to the great buttress of Jebel Zarhon, on a dark
shoulder of which mountain one small, round, white town was
perched. A long, high range of grey hills — the last barrier
between him and Fez — cleft at one point by the Foad, rose
on the far side of the valley ; and those hills and the fields
beneath, and the solitary crumbling castle which stood in
the bottom amongst the fields, were all magnified and made
beautiful by the mists of evening. The stars had come out
overhead, behind him the lights shone in his tent, and a
cheerful fire crackled in the open near the door. He had
come up quickly from Tangier, and without hindrance, in
spite of warnings that the road was not safe. The next
morning he would be in Fez. It had seemed to him, then,
that fortune was on his side. He drew an augury of success
from the clean briskness of the air. And that confidence
had remained with him in the morning. He had crossed
the valley early, and riding over the long pass on the other
Bide, had seen at last the .snow-crowned spar of the Atlas on

"BALAK!" 259

the further side of the plain of Fez. He had descended
into the plain, which perpetually rose and fell like the
billows of an ocean ; and in the afternoon, from the summit
of one of these billows, he had suddenly seen, not an hour's
journey off, the great city of Fez, with its crenelated walls
and high minarets, a mass of grey and brown, with here and
there a splash of white, and here and there a single palm-
tree, straggling formlessly across the green plain. The sky
had clouded over ; the track was now thronged with caravans
of camels, and mules, and donkeys, and wayfarers on foot
going to and coming from the town ; and before the Bab
Sagma, the great gate looking towards Mikkes, was reached,
the rain was falling.

"Warrisden had sent on the soldier who had ridden with
him from Tangier, to deliver a note to the Consul, and he
waited with his animals and his men for the soldier's return.
The man came towards dusk with word that a house had
been secured in the town, and "Warrisden passed through the
gate and down between the high battlements of the Bugilud
into the old town. And as he passed through the covered
bazaars and the narrow streets, in the gloom of the evening,
while the rain fell drearily from a sullen sky, his confidence
of the morning departed from him, and a great depression
chilled him to the heart. The high, cracked, bulging walla
of the houses, towering up without a window, the shrouded
figures of the passers-by, the falling light, the neglect as of
a city of immemorial age crumbling in decay, made of Fez
to him that night a place of gloom and forbidding mystery.
He was in a mood to doubt whether ever he would look on
Tony Stretton's face again.

In the narrowest of the alleys, where each of his stirrups
touched a wall, his guide stopped. It was almost pitch-dark
here. By throwing back his head, "Warrisden could just see,
far above him, a little slit of light. His guide groped his
way down a passage on the right, and at the end opened
with a key a ponderous black door. "Warrisden stepped over

260 THE TRUANTS

the sill, and found himself in a tiled court of which the roof
was open to the sky. On the first floor there was a gallery,
and on each of the four sides a long, narrow room, lofty, and
closed with great folding doors, opened on to the gallery. In
one of these rooms Warrisden had his bed set up. He sat
there trying to read by the light of a single candle, and
listening to the drip of the rain.

When he left Tangier, he had twenty-one days before he
need be at Roquebrune in answer to Pamela's summons. He
had looked up the steamers before he started. Four of those
days would be needed to carry them from Tangier to Roque-
brune. He had reached Fez in five, and he thus had twelve
days left. In other words, if Stretton came to Fez within a
week, there should still be time, provided, of course, the road
to the coast was not for the moment cut by rebellious tribes.
That was the danger, as Warrisden1 s journey had told him.
He discounted the timorous statements of his dragoman,
Ibrahim, but one who knew had warned him at El Ksar.
There was a risk.

The night was cold. Warrisden wrapped himself in a
Moorish jellaba of fine, white wool, but he could not put on
with it the Moorish patience and indifference. The rain
dripped upon the tiles of the court. "Where was Stretton, he
wondered ?

He went to bed, and waked up in the middle of the
night. He had left the great doors of his bedroom open ;
the rain had stopped ; and in the stillness of the night he
heard one loud voice, of an exquisite beauty, vibrating over
the roofs of the sleeping city, as though it spoke from heaven
itself. Warrisden lay listening to it, and interpreting the
words from the modulation of the voice which uttered them.
Now it rang out imperious as a summons, dropping down
through the open roofs to wake the sleepers in their beds.
Now it rose, lyrical and glorious, in a high chant of praise.
Now it became wistful, and trembled away pleading, yet
with a passion of longing in the plea. Warrisden could look

"BALAK!" 261

upwards from his bed through the open roof. The sky was
clear again. Overhead were the bright stars, and this
solitary voice, most musical and strange, ringing out through
the silence.

It was the mueddhin on the tower of the Karueein
Mosque. For five hours before the dawn the praises of
Allah are sung from the summit of the mosque's minaret.
There are ten mueddhins to whom the service is entrusted,
and each sends out his chant above the sleeping city for half
an hour. But in the voice of this, one of the ten whom
"Warrisden heard on the first night when he slept in Fez,
there was a particular quality. He listened for it during the
nights which followed ; expected it, and welcomed its first
note as one welcomes the coming of a friend. It seemed to
him that all the East was in that cry.

It brought back to him sunsets when his camp was
pitched by some little village of tents or thatched mud-
houses surrounded by hedges of aloes and prickly pears — at
Karia Ben Ouder, at Djouma— villages where there was no
mosque at all, but whence none the less the voice of a priest
dispersed its plaintive cry across the empty country of mari-
golds and asphodels, startling the white cow-birds and the
storks.

"Warrisden fell to thinking of Tony Stretton. He struck
a match, and looked at his watch. It was close upon the
hour of dawn. Perhaps, just at this moment, by some village
in that wild, dark, mountain country to the south-east, Stretton
stirred in his sleep, and waked to hear some such smnmons
chanted about the village. Perhaps he was even now loading
his mule, and setting forth by the glimmer of the starlight
upon his dangerous road. "Warrisden fell asleep again with
that picture in his mind, and woke to find the sunlight pour-
ing through the square opening of the roof. He drank his
coffee, and mounting a little winding stairway of broken
steps, came out into that other city of Fez, the city of the
roof-tops.

262 THE TRUANTS

Fez is built upon the slope of a hill, and upon some of
the flat roofs "Warrisden looked clown and through the dark
square holes of the openings ; to the parapets of others he
looked up. Upon some there were gardens planted — so, he
thought, must have looked the hanging gardens of Babylon ;
on others, linen was strung out to dry as in some backyard
of England ; the minarets, here inlaid with white and green
tiles, there built simply of bricks and brown plaster, rose
high into the limpid air. And on the towers were the great
nests of storks.

"Warrisden looked abroad, and in the sunlight his hopes
revived. It seemed that it must have been into another town
that he had entered last night. Nowhere could he see the
gash of a street in that plateau of roof-tops — so narrow they
were ; and no noise rose at all, they were so deep. Here the
only sound audible was the chattering of women's voices — for
the roofs are the playgrounds of the women, and "Warrisden
could see them in their coloured handkerchiefs and robes
clustered together, climbing from one house to another with
the help of ladders, visiting their friends. But of all the
clamour which must needs be resounding in those crowded
streets, not even one stray cry of " Balak 1 " reached to this
upper air. Lower down the hill to the east, "Warrisden could
see the city wall and the gate through which Stretton must
pass when he came. And he might come to-day !

That was Warrisden's thought. He went down the stairs,
had his horse brought into the dark street before the door,
and, accompanied by his mchazni, that old soldier who had
ridden with him from Tangier, went out of the city over the
plain towards Sefru. For through that small town of gardens
und fruit at the base of the Atlas spur, Stretton would come.
But he did not come on that day, nor on the next. But, on
the other hand, Ibrahim, "Warrisden's guide, brought bad
news.

He mounted to the roof in the morning, while "Warrisden
sat there after his breakfast, and crouched down behind the

"BALAK!" 263

parapet so that lie might not be seen. For the men leave
the roof-tops to their women-folk, and do not trespass there
themselves.

" Sir," said he, " the road between Djebel Silfat and
Djebel Zarbon is cut. Word has come into Fez this morn-
ing. The Z'mur have come down from the hills, and sit
across the road, stopping and robbing every one."

Warrisden sat up.

"Are you sure ?" he asked. He was, as he knew, in a
country of liars. Ibrahim, in addition, was a coward in the
country districts, though the best of braggarts at Tangier.
He had ridden on his mule slung about with weapons — a
Spanish rifle on his back, a revolver in his belt, and a
Winchester in his hands ; while between the fingers of his
left hand he carried ready four cartridges — but he was none
the less afraid. However, Warrisden remembered that
mountain pass which led from the plain of the Sebou up to
Segota. It was very lonely, it was narrow, the road looped
perpetually round the bases of the round buttresses of Djebel
Silfat. It would certainly be an awkward place wherein to
be entrapped.

" Yes, yes, I am sure," replied Ibrahim, " the Z'mur are
bad men. They might capture you and hold you to
ransom."

Warrisden was inclined to discount Ibrahim's terror of
the Z'mur. The lawless deeds of that wild and fanatical
tribe had been dinned into his ears ever since he had crossed
the Sebou j until he had come to make light of them. But
there was no doubt they terrorised the people ; in the vil-
lages where Warrisden had camped, they were spoken of
with a dread hardly less than that which Ibrahim betrayed.
It would certainly never do to be taken by the Z'mur. They
would be released, no doubt ; but time would be wasted.
They might be kept for weeks in the forest of Marmura.
They would reach Roquebrune too late.

Warrisden had brought with him, as a servant, one of

264 THE TRUANTS

the men who had been with him to Ain-Sefra, and descend-
ing the stairs he called him, and spoke, bidding Ibrahim
interpret.

" Do yon remember the mule which I gave away at Ain-
Sefra ? " he asked. And the man answered, " Yes ! "

" You would know it again ? "

The man was sure upon that point. He described the
marks by which he would recognise the beast.

" Very well," said Warrisden. " Go out to the west of
Fez, and watch the road to Sefru. If you see a Jew come
towards Fez driving the mule, lead him at once to this
house. Watch all day until the gate is closed."

The man went off upon his errand, and Warrisden betook
himself to the vice-consulate. On his return he summoned
Ibrahim, and said —

We must travel by Mequinez and Mediyah. A letter
will be given to us, passing us on from governor to governor.
We can reach Larache, travelling hard, in five days. We
may find a steamer there for Gibraltar. If not, we must go
on, in one more day, to Tangier.

Ibrahim bowed his head and made no further protest.
In the evening Warrisden's servant came back from the
gate ; his watch had been fruitless. Thus three days had
passed. Warrisden became anxious again, and restless.
The seven days which Tony Stretton could take, and still
reach Roquebrunc by the date on which Pamela insisted,
were now curtailed. Six days formed the limit, and even
that limit implied that the journey should be of the swiftest.
Of those six days, three had gone.

The fourth came, and passed. Warrisden rode out upon
the track to Sefru in vain. Even the promised letter did
not come. Warrisden made inquiries. It would come, he
was told. There was no doubt upon that score. But a
Government letter takes a long time in the writing in
Morocco. It was not until the fifth evening that a mes-
senger from the Palace knocked upon the door. These

"BALAK!" 265

were the days when Mulai-el-Hassan ruled in Morocco, and
was on the march against his rebellious tribes for nine
months out of the twelve. Mulai-el-Hassan, at this par-
ticular time, was far away to the south in the Sus country,
and therefore the mountain pass to the north was dangerous.

Warrisden had his letter, however, sealed with the Vice-
roy's seal. But he gazed out over the city as it lay, warm
and ruddy in the sunset, and wondered whether it would
avail at all. His servant had come back from the gate with
his familiar answer. No Jew had driven the mule down the
road into Fez that day. And there was only one more day.

Warrisden descended the stairs to the gallery on the first
floor, and as he came out upon it, he heard voices in the
courtyard below. He looked over the balustrade and saw a
man standing amongst his muleteers and servants. "War-
risden could not see his face. He was dressed in rags, but
the rags were the remnants of a black gabardine, and he
wore a black skull-cap upon his head.

It is likely that Warrisden would have taken no further
notice of the man, but that he cringed a little in his manner
as though he was afraid. Then he spoke in Arabic, and the
voice was timorous and apologetic. Warrisden, however,
knew it none the less. He leaned over the balustrade —

" Stretton ! " he cried out in a burst of joy.

The man in the courtyard looked up. Warrisden would
never have known him but for his voice. A ragged beard
stubbled his cheeks and chin ; he was disfigured with dirt
and bruises ; he was lean with hunger ; his face was drawn
and hollow from lack of sleep. But there was something
more, a wider difference between this ragged Stretton in the
courtyard and the Stretton Warrisden had known than mere
looks explained. The man who had looked up when he
heard his voice loudly and suddenly pronounced had been
startled — nay, more than startled. He had raised an arm
as though to ward off a blow. He had shrunk back. He
had been afraid. Even now, when he looked at Warrisden,

266 THE TRUANTS

and knew that he was here in a house of safety, he stood
drawing deep breaths, and trembling like one who has
received a shock. His appearance told Warrisden much of
the dangers of the journey from Ain-Sefra through the hills
to Fez.

" Yes," said Tony, " I am here. Am I in time ? "

" Just in time," cried "Warrisden. " Oh, but I thought
you never would come 1 "

He ran down the steps into the courtyard.

" Balak I " cried Stretton, with a laugh. " Wait till I
have had a bath, and got these clothes burnt."

In such guise, Tony Stretton came to Fez. He had
gone straight to the vice-consulate, and thence had been
directed to Warrisden's house. When, an hour later, he
came up on to the gallery and sat down to dinner, he was
wearing the clothes of a European, and the look of fear had
gone from his face, the servility from his manner. But
Warrisden could not forget either the one or the other.
Tony Stretton had come through the mountains — yes. But
the way had not been smooth.

( 267 )

CHAPTER XXVIII

HOMEWARDS

The two men smoked together upon the roof -top afterwards.

" I left a man at the gate all day," said Warrisden, " to
watch the track from Sefru. I had brought him from
Algiers. I do not know how he came to miss you."

" He could not know me," said Tony, " and I spoke to
no one."

" But he knew the mule ! "

Tony was silent for a little while. Then he said, in a
low, grave voice, like a man speaking upon matters which he
has no liking to remember —

" The mule was taken from me some days ago in the Ait
Yussi country." And "Warrisden upon that said —

" You had trouble, then, upon the way — great trouble."

Again Tony was slow in the reply. He looked out
across the city. It was a night of moonlight, so bright that
the stars were pale and small, as though they were with-
drawn ; there was no cloud anywhere about the sky ; and on
such a night, in that clear, translucent air, the city, with its
upstanding minarets, had a grace and beauty denied to it by
day. There was something of enchantment in its aspect,
Tony smoked his pipe in silence for a little while. Then he
said —

"Let us not talk about it! I never thought that I
would be sitting here in Fez to-night. Tell me rather when
we start ! "

"Early to-morrow," replied "Warrisden. "We must

268 THE TRUANTS

reach Roquebrune in the South of France by the thirty-
first."

Stretton suddenly sat back in his chair.

" Roquebrune ! France ! " he exclaimed. " We must go
there? Why?"

" I do not know," Warrisden answered. " A telegram
reached me at Tangier. I kept it."

He took the telegram from his pocket and handed it to
Stretton, who read it and sat thinking.

" We have time," said Warrisden, " just time enough, I
think, if we travel fast."

"Good," said Stretton, as he returned the telegram.
" But I was not thinking of the time."

He did not explain what had caused him to start at the
mention of Roquebrune ; but after sitting for a little while
longer in silence, he betook himself to bed.

Early the next morning they rode out of the Bab Sagma
upon the thronged highway over the plain to Mequinez.

The caravans diminished, striking off into this or that
track. Very soon there remained with them only one party
of five Jews mounted on small donkeys. They began to ride
through high shrubs and bushes of fennel over rolling
ground. Stretton talked very little, and as the track twisted
and circled across the plain he was constantly standing up in
his stirrups and searching the horizon.

" There does not seem to be one straight path in
Morocco," he exclaimed impatiently. " Look at this one.
There's no reason why it should not run straight. Yet it
never does."

Indeed, the track lay across that open pluin like some
brown, monstrous serpent of a legend.

"I do not believe," replied Warrisden, "that there is a
straight path anywhere in the world, unless it is one which
has been surveyed and made, or else it runs from gate to
gate, and both gates are visible. One might think the
animals made this track, turning and twisting to avoid the

HOMEWARDS 269

bushes. Only the tracks are no straighter in the desert,
where there are no bushes at all."

They halted for half an hour at eleven, beside a bridge
which crossed a stream, broken and ruinous, but still service-
able. And while they sat on the ground under the shadow
they suddenly heard a great clatter of hoofs upon the broken
cobbles ; and looking up saw a body of men ride across the
bridge. There were about forty of them, young and old ;
all were mounted, and in appearance as wild and ragged a
set of bandits as could be imagined. As they rode over the
bridge they saw Warrisden and Stretton seated on the ground
beneath them ; and without a word or a shout they halted
as one man. Their very silence was an intimidating thing.

" Z'mur," whispered Ibrahim. He was shaking with
fear. Warrisden noticed that the two soldiers who accom-
panied them on this journey to Mequinez quietly mounted
their horses. Stretton and Warrisden rose to do likewise.
And as they rose a dozen of the mounted Z'mur quietly rode
round from the end of the bridge and stood between them
and the stream. Then the leader, a big man with a black
beard turning grey, began to talk in a quiet and pleasant
voice to the soldiers.

" You are bringing Europeans into our country. Now,
why are you doing that ? We do not like Europeans."

The soldiers no less pleasantly replied —

" Your country ? The Europeans are travelling with a
letter from your master and mine, my Lord the Sultan, to
the Governor of Mequinez."

" You will show us then the letter ? "

" I will do nothing of the kind," the soldier replied, with
a smile. The Z'mur did not move ; the two soldiers sat
upon their horses smiling — it seemed that matters had come
to a deadlock. Meanwhile Warrisden and Stretton got into
their saddles. Then the leader of the Z'mur spoke again —

" We passed five Jews riding on donkeys a little while
ago. They were kind enough when we stopped them to

270 THE TRUANTS

give us a peseta apiece. We are going to Fez to offer our
help to the Sultan, if only he will give us rifles and ammuni-
tion. But we shall go home again when we have got them.
Perhaps the Europeans would like to give us a peseta apiece
as well."

"I do not think they would like it at all," said the
soldier. " Peace go with you ! " and he turned his horse and,
followed, by Warrisden and Stretton, the terrified Ibrahim
and the train of mules, he rode right through the forty Z'mur
and over the bridge.

It was an awkward moment, but the men of "Warrisden's
party assumed, with what skill they could," an air of uncon-
cern. Trouble was very near to them. It needed only that
one of those wild tribesmen should reach out his hand and
seize the bridle of a horse. But no hand was reached out.
The Z'mur were caught in a moment of indecision. They
sat upon their horses motionless. They let the Europeans
pass.

Ibrahim, however, drew no comfort from their attitude.

"It is because they wish rifles and ammunition from
the Government," he said. "Therefore they will avoid
trouble until they have got them. But with the next party
it will not be so."

There are three waterfalls in Morocco, and of those three
one falls in a great cascade between red cliffs into a dark
pool thirty feet below, close by the village of Medhuma. By
this waterfall they lunched, the while Ibrahim bared his
right arm to the shoulder, stretched himself full length upon
the ground, and, to the infinite danger of the bystanders,
practised shooting with his revolver. They lunched quickly
and rode on. Towards evening, above a group of trees on a
hill, they saw here and there a minaret.

" Mequinez," exclaimed Ibrahim. " Schoof 1 Mequinez ! "

In a little while fragments of thick wall began to show,
scattered here and there about the plain. Brown walls, high
and crumbling to rain, walls that never had been walls of

HOMEWARDS 271

houses, but which began and ended for no reason. They
were all that was left of the work of Mulai Ismail, who, in
the seventeenth century, had built and planned buildings
about this town until death put an end to all his architecture.
There was to be a wall across the country, from Fez to
Morocco city far away in the south, so that the blind, of
which this kingdom still has many, and then was full, might
pass from one town to another without a guide. Part of
that wall was built, and fragments of it rise amongst the
oleanders and the bushes to this day.

The travellers entered now upon a park. A green mossy
turf spread out soft beneath the feet of their horses, dwarf
oaks made everywhere a pleasant shade ; Stretton had lost
sight now of the minarets, and no sign of Mequinez was
visible at all. The ground sloped downwards, the track
curved round a hill, and suddenly, on the opposite side of a
valley, they saw the royal city, with its high walls and gates,
its white houses, and its green-tiled mosques, and its old
grey massive palaces stretch along the hillside before their
eyes.

One of the soldiers rode forward into the town to find the
Basha and present his letters. A troop of men came out in
a little time and led the travellers up the cobbled stones
through a gateway into the wide space before the Renegade's
Gate, that wonderful monument of Moorish art which neither
the wear of the centuries nor the neglect of its possessors has
availed to destroy. Its tiles are broken. The rains have
discoloured it, stones have fallen from their places. Yet
the gate rises, majestic yet most delicate, beautiful in colour,
exquisite in shape, flanked with massive pillars, and sur-
mounted by its soaring arch, a piece of embroidery in stone,
fine as though the stone were lace. By the side of this arch
the camp was pitched just about the time when the horses
and mules are brought down to roll in the dust of the
square and to drink at the two great fountains beyond the
gate.

272 THE TRUANTS

Later iu that evening there came a messenger from the
Basha with servants bearing bowls of kouss-kouss.

" Fourteen soldiers will ride with you to-morrow," he
said, " for the country is not safe. It will be well if you
start early, for you have a long way to go."

" The earlier the better," said Stretton.

" It will do if you breakfast at five — half-past five," said
Ibrahim, to whom punctuality was a thing unknown. " And
start at six — half-past six."

'"No," said Warrisden. "We will start at five— half-
past five."

That night a company of soldiers kept guard about the
tents, and passed the hours of darkness in calling to one
another and chanting one endless plaintive melody. Little
sleep was possible to the two Englishmen, and to one of them
sleep did not come at all. Now and then Warrisden dropped
off and waked again ; and once or twice he struck a match
and lit his candle. Each time that he did this he saw Stretton
lying quite motionless in his bed on the other side of the
tent. Tony lay with the bed-clothes up to his chin, and his
arms straight down at his sides, in some uncanny resemblance
to a dead man. But Warrisden saw that all the while his
eyes were open. Tony was awake with his troubles and per-
plexities, keeping them to himself as was his wont, and slowly
searching for an issue. That he would hit upon the issue
he did not doubt. He had these few days for thought, and
it was not the first time that he had had to map out a line of
conduct. His course might be revealed to him at the very
last moment, as it had been on the trawler in the North Sea.
Or it might flash upon him in a second, as the necessity to
desert had flashed upon him amidst the aloes of Ain-Sefra.
Meanwhile he lay awake and thought.

They started early that morning, and crossing a valley,
mounted on to that high, wide plain Djebel Zarhon and
Djebel (Jerowann. They left the town of Mequinez behind
them ; its minarets dropped out of sight. They had come

HOMEWARDS 273

into a most empty world. Not a tent-village stood anywhere
beside the track. Far away to the right, in a deep recess,
the white sacred town of Mulai Idris fell down the dark side
of Zarhon like a cascade. A little further an arch of stone
and a few pillars rising from the plain showed where once
the Romans had built their town of Volubilis. But when
that was passed there was no sign of life anywhere at all.
For hours they rode in a desolate, beautiful world. Bushes
of asphodel, white with their starry flowers, brushed against
them ; plants of iris, purple and yellow, stood stirrup-high
upon their path ; and at times the bushes would cease, and
they would ride over a red carpet of marigolds, which would
pale away into the gold of the mustard flower. Flowers were
about them all that day, the red anemone, the blue lupin,
periwinkles, the yellow flower of the cytisus, but no living
things. Even the air above their heads was still. The
country seemed too empty even for the birds.

At eleven o'clock they stopped beside a stream which ran
prettily between trees across their path.

"We shall find no more water until evening," said
Ibrahim. " We will stop here."

Stretton dismounted, and said —

" We can send the mules on and catch them up. It will
save time."

The soldiers shook their heads.

"We are in the Berber country," they said. "We must
not separate."

Stretton looked around impatiently.

" But there is no one within miles," he exclaimed ; and,
as if to contradict him, a man walked out from the bushes
by the stream and came towards them. He had been robbed
on this very track not two hours before by eleven mounted
Berbers. He had been driving three mules laden with eggs
and food to Mulai Idris, and his mules and their loads had
been taken from him. He was walking home, absolutely
penniless, His whole fortune had been lost that day ; and

T

274 THE TRUANTS

when once again the travellers started upon their journey he
ran at a trot beside their horses for safety's sake.

The road mounted now on to stony and mountainous
country. It wound continually, ascending in and out
amongst low, round peaks towards the summit of a great
line of hills which ran from east to west opposite to them
against the sky.

" Beyond the hills," cried Ibrahim, " is the plain of the
Sebou."

A big village crowned the hill just where the track
ascended. It had been placed there to protect the road. In
a little while they came to the brow of the hill, and suddenly
they saw, far below them, the great plain of the Sebou, green
and level, dotted with villages and the white tombs of saints
and clumps of trees, stretching away as far as the eye could
reach. It was afternoon, not a cloud was in the sky, and
the sun shone through the clear, golden air beneficently
bright. The hillside fell away to the plain with a descent
so sheer, the plain broke so abruptly upon the eyes, that the
very beauty of the scene caught the breath away. Both
Warrisden and Stretton reined in their horses, and sat
looking across the plain as a man might who suddenly from
the crest of some white cliff sees for the first time the sea.
And then Warrisden heard his companion begin to hum a
song. He caught some of the words, but not many,

" Oh, come out, mah love, I'm awaitin' foh you heah 1 M
Tony began, and suddenly checked himself with an expression
of anger, as though the words had associations which it hurt
him to recall.

" Let us ride on," he said, and led the way down the
steep, winding track towards the plain.

They pressed on that evening, and camped late in the
Beni Hassan country. Stretton slept that night, but he
slept fitfully. He had not yet come to the end of his
perplexities, and as he rode away from their camping-ground
in the morning he said, impulsively—

HOMEWARDS 275

<v It is quite true. I have thought of it. I am to
blame. I should have gone into the house that night."

He was endeavouring to be just, and to this criticism of
himself he continually recurred. He should have entered
his house in Berkeley Square on the night when he con-
tented himself with looking up to the lighted windows. He
should have gone in and declared what was in his mind
to do. Very likely he would only have made matters
worse. Contempt for a visionary would very likely have
been added to the contempt for a ne'er-do-weel. Certainly
no faith would have been felt by Millie in the success of his
plan. He would have been asked, in a lukewarm way, to
abandon it and stay at home. Still, he ought to have gone
in. He had made a mistake that night.

All that day they rode through the Beni Hassan country
westwards. The plain was level and monotonous ; they
passed village after village, each one built in a circle round
a great space of open turf, into which the cattle were driven
at night. For upon the hills, and in the forest of Mamura
to the south, close by, the Z'mur lived, and between the Beni
Hassan and the Z'mur there is always war. In the afternoon
they came to the borders of that forest, and skirting its edge,
towards evening reached the caravanserai of El Kantra.

The travellers saw it some while before they came to it —
four high, smooth, castellated walls crowning a low hill. It
stands upon the road from Fez to Rabat, and close to the
road from Rabat to Larache, and a garrison guards it. For
you could almost throw a stone from its walls into the trees
of Mamura. Stretton and "Warrisden rode round the walla
to the gate, and as they passed beneath the arch both halted
and looked back.

Outside was a quiet country of grey colours ; the sun
was near to its setting ; far away the broken walls of the old
Portuguese town of Mediyah stood upon a point of vantage
on a hillside, like some ruined castle of the Tyrol. Inside
the caravanserai all was noise and shouting and confusion.

276 THE TRUANTS

[n the thickness of the walls there were little rooms or cells,
and in these the merchants were making their homes for the
night, while about them their servants and muleteers buzzed
like a hire of bees. And the whole great square within the
walls was one lake of filthy mud, wherein camels, and mules,
and donkeys, and horses rolled and stamped and fought. A
deafening clamour rose to the skies. Every discordant
sound that the created world could produce seemed to be
brayed from that jostling throng of animals as from some
infernal orchestra. And the smell of the place was fetid.

" Let us pitch our camp outside ! " said Warrisden. But
the captain of the garrison came hurrying up.

" No," he cried excitedly. " The Z'mur ! The Z'inur ! "

Stretton shrugged his shoulders.

" I am getting a little bored with the Z'inur," said he.

"They have sent in word to us," the captain continued,
" that they mean to attack us to-night."

Stretton looked perplexed.

" But why send in word ? " he asked.

The captain of the garrison looked astonished at the
question.

" So that we may be ready for them, of course," he replied,
quite seriously ; for life in Morocco has some of the qualities
of opera-bouffe. " So you must come inside. You have a
letter from my lord the Basha of Fez, it is true. If the
letter said you were to sleep outside the walls of El Kantra,
then I would kiss the seal and place it against my forehead,
;ind bring out my five hundred men to guard you, and we
should all get killed. But it does not say so."

11 is five hundred men were really short of fifty. Stretton
and "Warrisden laughed ; but they had to go inside the
caravanserai. This was the last day on which they ran any
risk. To-morrow they would cross the Sebou at Mediyah,
and beyond the Sebou the road was safe.

They rode inside the caravanserai, and were allotted a
ell which obtained some privacy from a hurdle fixed in the

HOMEWARDS 277

ground in front of it. The gates of the caravanserai were
closed, the sunset flushed the blue sky with a hue of rose ;
the mueddhin came out upon the minaret which rose from
the southern wall, and chanted in a monotone his call to
prayer ; and then a drummer and a bugler advanced into
the crowded square. Suddenly there fell upon Stretton's
ears, competing with the mueddhin and the uproar of the
animals, the " Last Post."

Stretton started up, amazed, and most deeply moved.
An English officer instructed the Moorish troops. What
more natural than that he should introduce the English calls
and signals ? But to Stretton it seemed most wonderful
that here, in this Eastern country, while the Mohammedan
priest was chanting from his minaret, he should hear again,
after so many years, that familiar tattoo sounded by an
Eastern bugle and an Eastern drum. In how many barracks
of England, he wondered, would that same " Last Post "
ring out to-night ? And at once the years slipped away,
the hard years of the North Sea and the Sahara. He was
carried back among the days when he served in the Cold-
stream. Then arose in his heart a great longing that some-
thing of the happiness of those days might be recaptured
still.

Warrisden and Stretton crossed the Sebou the next
morning, and rode with the boom of the Atlantic in their
ears. Hills upon their left hand hid the sea from their eyes,
and it was not until the next day, when they mounted on to
a high tableland four hours from Larache, that they saw it
rolling lazily towards the shore. They caught a steamer at
Larache that night.

278 THE TRUANTS

CHAPTER XXIX

PAMELA MEETS A STRANGER

Meanwhile Pamela waited at the Villa Pontignard, swing-
ing from hope to fear, and from fear again to hope. The
days chased one another. She watched the arrival of each
train from Marseilles at the little station below, with an
expectant heart ; and long after it had departed towards
Italy, she kept within her vision the pathway np the hillside
to the villa. But the travellers did not return. Expectation
and disappointment walked alternately at her elbow all the
day, and each day seemed endless. Yet, when the next day
came, it had come all too quickly. Every morning it seemed
to her, as she turned her calendar, that the days chased one
another, racing to the month's end ; every evening, tired out
with her vigil, she wondered how they could pass so slowly.
The thirty-first of the month dawned at last. At some time
on this day Millie Stretton would arrive at Eze. She thought
of it, as she rose, with a sinking heart ; and then thrust
thought aside. She dared not confront the possibility that
the trains might stop at Roquebrune, and move on to Italy
and discharge no passengers upon the platform. She dared
not recognise her dread that this day might close and the
darkness come as fruitlessly as all the rest. It was her last
day of hope. Lionel Gallon was waiting. Millie Stretton
was arriving. To-morrow, Tony might come, but he would
come too late. Pamela lived in suspense. Somehow the
morning passed. The afternoon Rapide swept through
towards Mentone. Pamela saw the smoke of the engine

PAMELA MEETS A STRANGER 279

from her terrace, and knew that upon that train had come
the passenger from England. Half an hour ago Millie had
most likely stepped from her carriage on to the platform at
Eze. And still Tony Stretton and "Warrisden lingered.

Towards dusk she began to despair. In a little while
another train was due. She heard its whistle, saw it stop at
the station, and waited with her eyes fixed upon the hillside
path. No one appeared upon it. She turned and went into
the house. She thought for a moment of going herself to
Eze, thrusting herself upon Millie at the cost of any snub ;
and while she debated whether the plan could at all avail,
the door was opened, a servant spoke some words about a
visitor, and a man entered the room. Pamela started to her
feet. The man stood in the twilight of the room : his
back was against the light of the window. Pamela could
not see his face. But it was not Warrisden, so much she
knew at once. It could only be Tony Stretton.

" So you have come," she cried. " At last 1 I had
given up hope."

She advanced and held out her hand. And some reserve
in Tony's attitude, something of coldness in the manner
with which he took her hand, checked and chilled her.

" It is you ? " she asked. " I watched the path. The
train has gone some while."

"Yes, it is I," he replied. "I had to inquire my
way at the village. This is the first time I ever came to
Roqnebrune."

Still more than the touch of his hand and the reserve of
his manner, the cold reticence of his voice chilled her. She
turned to the servant abruptly —

" Bring lamps," she said. She felt the need to see Tony
Stretton's face. She had looked forward so eagerly to his
coming ; she had hoped for it, and despaired of it with so full
a heart ; and now he had come, and with him there had come,
most unexpectedly, disappointment. She had expected ardour,
and there was only, as it seemed, indifference and stolidity.

280 TEE TRUANTS

She was prepared for a host of questions to be tumbled out
upon her in so swift a succession that no time was given to
her for an answer to any one of them ; and he stood before
her, seemingly cold as stone. Had he ceased to care for
Millie, she wondered ?

" You have come as quickly as you could ? " she asked,
trying to read his features in the obscurity.

" I have not lost a moment since I received your letter,"
he answered.

She caught at the words, "your letter." Perhaps there
lay the reason for his reserve. She* had written frankly,
perhaps too frankly she feared at tliis moment. Had the
letter suddenly killed his love for Millie ? Such things, no
doubt, could happen — had happened. Disillusion might
have withered it like a swift shaft of lightning.

" My letter," she said. " You must not exaggerate its
meaning. You read it carefully ? "

" Very carefully."

" And I wrote it carefully," she went on, pleading with
his indifference ; "very carefully."

" It contains the truth," said Tony ; " I did not doubt-
that."

" Yes ; but it contains all the truth," she urged. " You
must not doubt that cither. Remember, you yourself are to
blame. I wrote that, didn't I ? I meant it."

" Yes, you wrote that," answered Tony. " I am not
denying that you are right. It may well be that I am to
blame. It may well be that you, too, are not quite free from
blame. Had you told me that morning, when we rode
together in the Row, what you had really meant when you

said that I ought never to leave my wife " And at

that Pamela interrupted him —

" Would you have stayed if I had explained ? " she cried.
And Tony for a moment was si lent. Then he answered
slowly —

" No ; for I should not have believed you." And then

PAMELA MEETS A STRANGER 281

he moved for the first time since he had entered the room.
" However, it can do neither of us any good to discuss what
we might have done had we known then what we know
now."

He stopped as the door opened. The lamps were brought
in and set upon the tables. Tony waited until the servant
had gone out, and the door was closed again ; then he
said —

" You sent a telegram. I am here in answer to it. I
was to be at Roquebrune on the thirty-first. This is the
thirty-first. Am I in time ? "

" Yes," said Pamela.

She could now see Tony clearly ; and of one thing she
at once was sure. She had been misled by the twilight of
the room. Tony, at all events, was not indifferent. He
stood before her travel-stained and worn. His face was
haggard and thin ; his eyes very tired, like the eyes of an
old man ; there were flecks of grey in his hair, and lines
about his eyes. These changes she noticed, and took them
at their true value. They were signs of the hard life he
had lived during these years, and of the quick, arduous
journey which he had made. But there was more. If
Tony had spoken with a measured voice, it was in order that
he might control himself the better. If he had stood with-
out gesture or motion, it was because he felt the need to
keep himself in hand. So much Pamela clearly saw. Tony
was labouring under a strong emotion.

" Yes you are in time," she cried ; and now her heart
was glad. " I was so set on saving both your lives, in keep-
ing you and Millie for each other. Of late, since you did
not come, my faith faltered a little. But it should not have
faltered. You are here ! You are here ! "

"My wife is here, too?" asked Tony, coldly; and
Pamela's enthusiasm again was checked. " "Where is she ? "

" She arrives in the south of France to-day. She stops
at Eze. She should be there now."

282 THE TRUANTS

She bad hoped to see the blood pulse into his face, and
some look of gladness dawn suddenly in bis eyes, some smile
of forgiveness alter the stern set of his lips. But again she
was disappointed.

Tony seemed to put his wife out of his thoughts.

" And since your message was so urgent," he continued
deliberately, " it follows that Callon comes to-day as well,"
and he repeated the name in a singularly soft, slow, and
almost caressing voice. " Lionel Callon," he said.

And at once Pamela was desperately afraid. It needed
just that name uttered in just that way to explain to her
completely the emotion which Tony so resolutely controlled.
She looked at him aghast. She had planned to bring back
Tony to Millie and his home. The Tony Stretton whom
she had known of old, the good-natured, kindly man who
loved his wife, whom all men liked and none feared. And
lo ! she had brought back a stranger. And the stranger
was dangerous. He was thrilling with anger, he was antici-
pating his meeting with Lionel Callon with a relish which,
to Pamela, was dreadful.

" No," she exclaimed eagerly. " Mr. Callon has been
here all this while, and Millie only comes to-day."

" Callon has been waiting for her, then ? " he asked
implacably.

" Oh, I don't know," Pamela exclaimed in despair. " I
have not spoken to him. How should I know ? "

" Yet you have no doubts."

" Well, then, no," she said, " I have no doubt that he is
waiting here for Millie. But she only arrives to-day.
They have not met until to-day. That is why I sent the
telegram."

Tony nodded his head.

" So that I might be present at the meeting ? "

And Pamela could have cried out aloud. She had not
thought, she had not foreseen. She had fixed all her hopes
on saving Millie. Set upon that, she had not understood

PAMELA MEETS A STRANGER 283

that other and dreadful consequences might ensue. These
consequences were vivid enough before her eyes now. All
three would meet — Tony, Millie, and Lionel Callon. What
would follow ? What might not follow ? Pamela closed
her eyes. Her heart sank ; she felt faint at the thought of
what she had so blindly brought about.

" Tony 1 " she exclaimed. She wrung her hands together,
pleading with him in short and broken sentences. " Don't
think of him ! . . . Think of Millie. You can gain her
back ! ... I am very sure. ... I wrote that to you, didn't
I ? . . . Mr. Callon. ... It is not worth while. ... He
is of no account. . . . Millie was lonely, that was all. . . .
There would be a scandal, at the best. ..." And Tony
laughed harshly.

" Oh, it is not worth while," she cried again piteously,
and yet again, " it is not worth while."

" Yet I am anxious to meet him," said Tony.

Suddenly Pamela looked over his shoulder to the door,
and, for a moment, hope brightened on her face. But
Stretton understood the look, and replied to it.

" No, Warrisden is not here. I left him behind with our
luggage at Monte Carlo."

" Why did he stay ? " cried Pamela, as again her hopes fell.

He could hardly refuse. This is my affair, not his. I
claimed to-night. He will come to you, no doubt, to-
morrow."

" You meant him to stay behind, then ? "

" I meant to see you alone," said Tony ; and Pamela
dared question him no more, though the questions thronged
in her mind and tortured her. Was it only because he
wished to see her alone that he left Warrisden behind ?
Was it not also so that he might not be hampered afterwards ?
Was it only so that another might not know of the trouble
between himself and Millie ? Or was it not so that another
might not be on hand to hinder him from exacting retribu-
tion ? Pamela was appalled. Tony was angry— yes, that

284 THE TRUANTS

was natural enough. She would not have felt half her
present distress if he had shown his passion in tempestuous
words, if he had threatened, if he had raved. But there
was so much deliberation in his anger, he had it so com-
pletely in control ; it was an instrument which he meant to
use, not a fever which might master him for a moment and
let him go.

" You are so changed," she cried. " I did not think of
that when I wrote to you. But, of course, these years and
the Foreign Legion could not but change you."

She moved away, and sat down holding her head between
her hands. Stretton did not answer her words in any way.
He moved towards her, and asked —

" Is Callon, too, at Eze ? "

" No, no," she cried, raising her head, thankful, at last,
that here was some small point on which she could attenuate
his suspicions. " You are making too much of the trouble."

"Yet you wrote the letter to me. You also sent the
telegram. You sent me neither the one nor the other
without good reason." And Pamela dropped her eyes again
from his face.

" If Callon is not at Eze," he insisted, " he is close by !"

Pamela did not answer. She sat trying to compose her
thoughts. Suppose that she refused to answer, Tony would
go to Eze. lie might find Millie and Callon there. On the
other hand, it was unlikely that he would. Pamela had seen
that quiet, solitary restaurant by the sea where Callon lodged.
It was there that they would be, she had no doubt.

" Where is Callon ? " asked Tony. " "Where does he
stay ? "

Pamela closed her ears to the question, working still at
the stern problem of her answer. If she refused to tell him
what he asked, Millie and Callon might escape for to-night.
That was possible. But, then, to-morrow would come.
Tony must meet them to-morrow in any case, and to-morrow
might be too late.

PAMELA MEETS A STRANGER 285

" I will tell you," she answered, and she described the
place. And in another minute she was alone. She heard
the front door close, she heard Tony's step upon the gravel
of the garden path, and then all was silent. She sat holding
her throbbing temples in her hands. Visions rose before
her eyes, and her fear made them extraordinarily luminous and
vivid. She saw that broad, quiet terrace over the sea where
she had lunched, the lonely restaurant, the windows of that
suite of rooms open on to the terrace. A broad column of
light streamed out from the window in her vision. She
could almost hear voices and the sound of laughter, she
imagined the laughter all struck dumb, and thereafter a cry
of horror stabbing the night. The very silence of the villa
became a torture to her. She rose and walked restlessly
about the room. If she could only have reached Warrisden !
But she did not even know to which hotel in all the hotels
of Monte Carlo he had gone. Tony might have told her
that, had she kept her wits about her and put the question
with discretion. But she had not. She had no doubt that
Stretton had purposely left him behind. Tony wished for no
restraining hand, when at last he came face to face with
Lionel Callon. She sat down, and tried to reason out what
would happen. Tony would go first to Eze. Would he find
Millie there ? Perhaps. Most likely he would not. He
would go on then to the restaurant on the Corniche road.
But he would have wasted some time. It might be only a
little time, still, however short it was, what was waste of
time to Tony might be gain of time to her — if only she
could find a messenger.

Suddenly she stood up. There was a messenger, under
her very hand. She scribbled a note to Lionel Callon, hardly
knowing what she wrote. She bade liim go the instant when
he received it, go at all costs without a moment's delay.
Then, taking the note in her hand, she ran from the villa
down the road to Roquebrune.

286 THE TRUANTS

CHAPTER XXX

M. GIRAUD AGAIN

The dusk was deepening quickly into darkness. As she ran
down the open stretch of hillside between her villa and the
little town, she saw the lights blaze out upon the terrace of
Monte Carlo. Far below her, upon her right, they shone like
great opals, each with a heart of fire. Pamela stopped for
a second to regain her breath before she reached Roquebrune.
The sudden brightness of those lights carried her thoughts
backwards to the years when the height of trouble for her
had been the sickness of a favourite horse, and all her life
was an eager expectation. On so many evenings she had
seen those lights flash out through the gathering night while
she had sat talking in her garden with the little schoolmaster
whom she was now to revisit. To both of them those lights
had been a parable. They had glowed in friendliness and
promise — thus she had read the parable — out of a great,
bright, gay world of men and women, upon a cool, twilit
garden of youth and ignorance. She thought of what had
come in place of all that imagined gaiety. To the school-
master, disappointment and degradation ; while, as for
herself, she felt very lonely upon this evening. " The world
is a place of great sadness." Thus had M. Giraud spoken
when Pamela had returned to Roquebrune from her first
season in London, and the words now came back to her

again.

She ran on through the narrow streets of Roquebrune,

M. GIRAUD AGAIN 287

her white frock showing in the light from the shops and
windows. She wore no hat upon her head, and more than
one of the people in the street called to her as she passed and
asked her whether she needed help. Help, indeed, she did
need, but not from them. She came to the tiny square
whence the steps led down to the station. On the west side
of the square stood the school-house, and, close by, the little
house of the schoolmaster. A light burned in a window of
the ground floor. Pamela knocked loudly upon the door.
She heard a chair grate upon the floor-boards. She knocked
again, and the door was opened. It was the schoolmaster
himself who opened it.

" M. Giraud I" she exclaimed, drawing her breath quickly.
The schoolmaster leaned forward and stared at the white
figure which stood in the darkness just outside his porch ;
but he made no reply.

" Let me in ! " cried Pamela ; and he made a movement
as though to bar the way. But she slipped quickly past him
into the room. He closed the door slowly and followed
her.

The room was bare. A deal table, a chair or two, and a
few tattered books on a hanging bookshelf made up all its
furniture. Pamela leaned against the wall with a hand to her
heart. M. Giraud saw her clearly now. She stood only a
few feet from him, in the light of the room. She was in
distress ; yet he spoke harshly.

" Why have you come ? " he cried ; and she answered,
piteously, " I want your help.1'

At that a flame of anger kindled within him. He saw
her again, after all this long time of her absence — her whose
equal he had never spoken with. Her dark hair, her eyes,
the pure outline of her face, her tall, slim figure, the broad
forehead — all the delicacy and beauty of her — was a torture
to him. The sound of her voice, with its remembered
accents, hurt him as he had thought nothing could ever hurt
him again,

2 88 THE TRUANTS

" Really ! " he cried, in exasperation. " You want help ;
so you come to me. "Without that need would you have
come ? No, indeed. You are a woman. Get your fine
friends to help you ! "

There were other follies upon his tongue, but he never
spoke them. He looked at Pamela, and came to a stop.

Pamela had entered the cottage bent with a single mind
upon her purpose — to avert a catastrophe at the little
restaurant on the Corniche road. But M. Giraud was before
her, face to face with her, as she was face to face with him.
She saw him clearly in the light as he saw her ; and she was
shocked. The cure had prepared her for a change in her old
comrade, but not for so complete a disfigurement. The
wineshop had written its sordid story too legibly upon his
features. His face was bloated and red, the veins stood out
upon the cheeks, and the nose like threads of purple ; his
eyes were yellow and unwholesome. M. Giraud had grown
stout in body, too ; and his dress was slovenly and in dis-
repair. He was an image of degradation and neglect. Pamela
was shocked, and betrayed the shock. She almost shrank
from him at the first ; there was almost upon her face an
expression of aversion and disgust. But sorrow drove the
aversion away, and immediately her eyes were full of pity ;
and these swift changes M. Giraud saw and understood.

She was still his only window on the outside world.
That was the trouble. By her expression he read his own
decline more surely than in his mirror. Through her he
saw the world ; through her, too, he saw what manner of
figure he presented to the world. Never had he realised how
far he had sunk until this moment. He saw, as in a picture,
the young schoolmaster of the other days who had read
French with the pupil, who was more his teacher than his
pupil, upon the garden terrace of the Villa Pontignard — a
youth full of dreams, which were vain, no doubt, but not
ignoble. There was a trifle of achievement, too. For even
now one of the tattered books upon his shelf wa3 a copy of

M. GIEAUD AGAIN 289

his brochure on Roquebrane and the Upper Corniche road.
With perseverance, with faith — he understood it in a flash —
he might have found, here, at Roquebrune, a satisfaction
for those ambitions which had so tortured him. There was
a field here for the historian, had he chosen to seize on it.
Fame might have come to him, though he never visited the
great cities and the crowded streets. So he thought, and
then he realised what he had become. It was true he had
suffered great unhappiness. Yet so had she — Pamela Mar-
dale ; and she had not fallen from her pedestal. Here shame
seized upon him. He lowered his eyes from her face.

" Help ! " he stammered. " You ask me to help you ?
Look at me ! I can give you no help ! "

He suddenly broke off. He sat down at the table, buried
his face in his hands, and burst into tears. Pamela crossed
to him and laid her hand very gently upon his shoulder.
She spoke very gently, too.

" Oh yes, you can," she said.

He drew away from her, but she would not be repulsed.

" You should never have come to me at all," he sobbed.
" Oh, how I hate that you should see me like this ! Why did
you come ? I did not mean you to see me. You must have
known that ! You must have known, too, why. It was not
kind of you, mademoiselle. No, it was not kind ! "

" Yet I am glad that I came," said Pamela. " I came,
thinking of myself, it is true — my need is so very great ; but
now I see your need is as great as mine. I ask you to rise
up and help me."

" No, leave me alone ! " he cried. And she answered,
gently, " I will not."

M. Giraud grew quiet. He pressed Ins handkerchief to
his eyes, and stood up.

" Forgive me ! " he said. " I have behaved like a child ;
but you would forgive me if you knew how I have waited
and waited for you to come back. But you never did. Each
summer I said, ' She will return in the winter ! ' And the

u

290 TIIE TRUANTS

winter came, and I said, ' She will come in the spring.' But
neither in winter nor in the spring did you return to Koque-
brune. I have needed you so badly all these years."
" I am sorry," replied Pamela ; " I am very sorry."
She did not reproach herself at all. She could not see,
indeed, that she was to blame. But she was none the less
distressed. Giraud's exhibition of grief was so utterly
unfamiliar to her that she felt awkward and helpless in face
of it. He was yet further disfigured now by the traces of
weeping ; his eyes were swollen and red. There was some-
thing grotesque in the aspect of this drink-swollen face, all
convulsed with sorrow. Nothing could well lie less in sym-
pathy with Pamela's nature than Giraud's outburst and
display of tears ; for she was herself reticent and proud.
She held her head high as she walked through the world,
mistress alike of her sorrows and her joys. But Mr. Madge
had spoken the truth when he had called upon her in
Leicestershire. Imagination had come to her of late. She
was able to understand the other point of view — to appreciate
that there were other characters than hers which must needs
fulfil themselves in ways which were not hers. She put her-
self now in M. Giraud's place. She imagined him waiting
and waiting at Roquebrune, with his one window on the
outside world closed and shuttered — a man in a darkened
room who most passionately desired the air without. She
said, with a trace of hesitation —

" You say you have needed me very much ? "
'• Oh, have I not?" exclaimed Giraud ; and the very
weariness of his voice would have convinced her, had she
needed conviction. It seemed to express the dilatory passagv
of the years during which he had looked for her coming, anil
had looked in vain.

" Well, then, listen to me," she went on. " I was once
told that to be needed by those whom one needs is a great
comfort. I thought of the saying at the time, and I thought
that it was a true one. Afterwards" — she began to speak

M. GIRAUD AGAIN 291

slowly, carefully selecting her words — " it happened that in
my own experience I proved it to be true — at all events, for
me. Is it true for you also ? Think well. If it is not true
I will go away as you bade me at the beginning ; but if it is
true — why, then I may be of some little help to you, and you
will be certainly a great help to me ; for I need you very
surely."

M. Giraud looked at her in silence for a little while.
Then he answered her with simplicity, and so, for the first
time during this interview, wore the proper dignity of a man.

" Yes, I will help you," he said. " What can I do ? "

She held out the letter which she had written to Lionel
Callon. She bade him carry it with the best speed he could
10 its destination.

" Lose no time ! " she implored. " I am not sure, but it
may be that one man's life, and the happiness of a man and
a woman besides, all hang upon its quick receipt."

M. Giraud took his hat from the wall and went to the
door. At the door he paused, and standing thus, with an
averted faee, he said in a whisper, recalling the words she
had lately spoken —

" There is one, then, whom you need ? You are no
longer lonely in your thoughts ? I should like to know."

" Yes," Pamela answered gently : " I am no longer lonely
in my thoughts."

" And you are happy ? " he continued. u You were not
happy when you were at Roquebrune last. I should like to
know that you, at all events, are happy now."

" Yes," said Pamela. In the presence of his distress she
rather shrank from acknowledging the change which had
come over her. It seemed cruel ; yet he clearly wished to
know. He clearly would be the happier for knowing.
14 Yes," she said ; "lam happy."

" I am very glad," said M. Giraud, in a low voice ; " I
am very glad." And he went rather quickly out by the
door.

292 THE TRUANTS

CHAPTER XXXI

AT THE RESERVE

Tony Stretton walked quickly down from the Villa
Pontignard to the station. There he learned that an hour
must elapse before a train to Eze was due. Inaction was at
this moment intolerable to him. Even though he should
get to Eze not a minute the sooner, he must hurry upon his
way. lie could not wait upon this platform for an hour,
suspense so tortured him. He went out upon the road and
began to run. He ran very quickly. The road turned
sharply round the shoulder of a hill, and Stretton saw in
front of him the lights of Monte Carlo. They were buuehed
in great white clusters, they were strung in festoons iu the
square and the streets. They made a golden crescent about
the dark, quiet waters of the bay. Looking down from this
shoulder of the hill upon the town at such an hour one seems
to be looking upon a town of fairyland ; one expects a sweet
and delicate music to float upwards from its houses and
• harm the ears. Tony's one thought was that beyond that
place of lights lay Eze. He came to an electric tram which
was on point of starting. He entered it and it rattled him
quickly down the hill.

At Monte Carlo he sprang into the first carriage which
he saw waiting for a fare, and bade the coachman drive him
quickly out to Eze. The night had come ; above his head
the stars shone very brightly from a dark sky of velvet.
The carriage passed out of the town ; the villus grew more

AT THE RESERVE 293

scarce ; the open road glimmered ahead of him a riband of
white ; the sea murmured languorously upon the shore.

At this moment, in the lonely restaurant towards which
Tony was driving in such haste, Lionel Gallon and Millie
Stretton were sitting down to dinner. The table was laid
in the small, daintily furnished room which opened on to the
terrace. The windows stood wide, and the lazy murmur of
the waves entered in. The white cloth shone with silver, a
great bowl of roses stood in the centre and delicately per-
fumed the air. Thither Millie had come in fulfilment of
that promise made on a midnight of early spring in Regent's
Park. The colour burned prettily on her cheeks, she had
dressed herself in a pink gown of lace, jewels shone on her
arms and at her neck. She was, perhaps, a little feverish in
her gaiety, her laughter was perhaps a little over loud.
Indeed, every now and then her heart sank in fear within
her, and she wished herself far away. But here Lionel
Gallon was at his ease. He knew the methods by which
victory was to be won. There was no suggestion of triumph
in his manner. He was considerate and most deferential,
and with no more than a hint of passion in the deference.

" You have come," he said. His eyes rested upon hers,
and he left them to express his gratitude. He raised her
hand to his lips and gently took the cloak from her shoulders.
" You have had a long journey. But you are not tired."
He placed her chair for her at the table and sat opposite.
He saw that she was uneasy. He spoke no word which
might alarm her.

Meanwhile Tony was drawing nearer. He reached the
hotel at Eze, and drove through its garden to the door.

" Is Lady Stretton in the hotel ? " he asked.

" No, sir. Her ladyship went out to dinner nearly an
hour ago."

" Thank you," said Tony. " She arrived this afternoon,
I think ? "

" Yes, sir. What name shall I give when she returns ? "

294 THE TRUANTS

" No name," said Tonv. And he ordered his coachman
to drive back to the road.

When he had reached it he directed the man again.

" Towards Beaulieu," he said ; and in a little while, on
his left hand, below the level of the road, he saw the lights
of the Reserve. He stopped at the gate, dismissed his
carriage, and walked down the winding drive to the door.
He walked into the restaurant. It was empty. A waiter
came forward to him.

" I wish you to take me at once to Mr. Callon," he said.
He spoke in a calm, matter-of-fact voice. But the waiter
nevertheless hesitated. Tony wore the clothes in which he
had travelled to Roquebrune. He was covered with dust,
his face was haggard and stem. He had nothing in common
with the dainty little room of lights and flowers and shining
silver, and the smartly dressed couple who were dining there.
The waiter guessed that his irruption would be altogether
inconvenient.

" Mr. Gallon ! " he stammered. " He has gone out."

Tony heard the rattle of a metal cover upon a dish. He
looked in the direction whence the sound came — he looked
to the right-hand side of the restaurant. A door stood 0]xm
there, and in the passage beyond the door he saw a waiter
pass carrying the dish. Moreover, the man who had spoken
to him made yet another mistake. He noticed the direction
of Tony's glance, and he made a quick movement as though
lo bar that passage.

44 He is here," said Tonv ; and he thrust the waiter aside.
He crossed the restaurant quickly and entered the passage.
The passage ran parallel to the restaurant ; and, at the end
towards the terrace, there was another door upon the opposite
^i<lr. The waiter with the dish hail his hand upon the door-
handle, but he turned at the sound of Stretton'fl step. He.
too, noticed the disorder of Tony's dress. At the same
moment the man hi the restaurant shouted in a warning
e —

AT THE RESERVE 295

u Jules ! "

Jules stood iu front of the door.

" Monsieur, tins room is private," said be.

"Yet I will take the liberty to intrude," said Tony,
quietly.

From behind the door there came the sound of a man's
voice which Tony did not know. He had, indeed, never
heard it before. Then a woman's laugh rang out ; and the
sound of it angered Tony beyond endurance. He recognised
it beyond the possibility of mistake. It was his wife who
was laughing so gaily there behind the closed door. He
thought of the years he had spent in the determination to
regain his wife's esteem, to free himself from her contempt.
For the moment he could have laughed bitterly at his per-
sistence as at some egregious folly. It seemed all waste —
waste of time, waste of endeavour, Avaste of suffering. She
was laughing ! And with Lionel Callon fur her companion !
The cold, black nights of the North Sea and its gales ; the
arid sands of the Sahara ; all his long service for her ending
in that crowning act of desertion — the story was clear in his
mind from beginning to end, detailed and complete. And
she was laughing in there with Lionel Callon ! Her laughter
was to him as some biting epigram which epitomised the way
in which she had spent the years of his absence. His anger
got the better of his self-control.

" Stand away," he cried, in a low, savage voice, to the
waiter. And since the man did not instantly move, he seized
him by the shoulders and dragged him from the door.

" Monsieur 1 " the man cried aloud, in a frightened
voice, and the dish which he was carrying fell with a clatter
on to the floor. Inside the room the laughter suddenly
ceased. Tony listened for a second. He could not hear
even a whisper. There was complete silence. He smiled
rather grimly to himself ; he was thinking that this was not,
at all events, the silence of contempt.

Could he have seen through the door into the room he

296 THE TRUANTS

would have been yet more convinced. All the gaiety vanished
in an instant from Millie's face. She was sitting opposite
the door ; she sat and stared at it in terror. The blood
ebbed from the cheeks, leaving them as white as paper.

" Monsieur 1 " she repeated, in so low a whisper that even
Gallon, on the other side of the small table, hardly heard the
word. Her lips were dry, and she moistened them. " Mon-
sieur ! " she whispered again, and the whisper was a question.
She had no definite suspicion who " Monsieur " was ; she
did not define him as her husband. She only understood
that somehow she was trapped. The sudden clatter of the
dish upon the floor, the loudness of the waiter's cry, which
was not a mere protest, but also a cry of fear, terrified her ;
they implied violence. She was trapped. She sat paralysed
upon her chair, staring across the table over Gallon's shoulder
at the door. Gallon meanwhile said not a word. He had
been sitting with his back to the door, and he twisted round in
his chair. To both of them it seemed ages before the handle
was turned. Yet so short was the interval of time that they
could hardly have reached the terrace through the open
window had they sprung up at the first sound of disturbance.

Thus they were sitting, silent and motionless, when the
door was pushed open, and Tony stood in the doorway. At
the sight of him Millie uttered one loud scream, and clapped
her hands over her face. Callon, on the other hand, started
up on to his feet. As he did so he upset his wine-glass over
the table-cloth ; it fell and splintered on the polished floor.
He turned towards the intruder who so roughly forced his
way into the room. The eyes of that intruder took no
account of him ; they were fixed upon Millie Stretton, as she
sat cowering at the table with her hands before her face.

" What do you want ? " cried Gallon. " You have no
right here ! "

"1 have every right here," said Tony. "That is my
wife ! "

It was blill his wife at whom he looked, not at all

AT THE RESERVE 297

towards Callon. Gallon was startled out of his wits. De-
tection he had always feared ; he had sought to guard
against it by the use of every precaution known to his
devious strategy. But it was detection by Pamela Mardale
and her friends, who had once already laid him by the heels ;
the husband had never entered into his calculations. He
had accepted without question Millie's version of the husband
— he was the man who did not care. In some part of the
world he wandered, but where no one knew ; cut off from
all his friends — indifferent, neglectful, and a fool. Even
now he could not believe. This might be some new trick
of Pamela Mardale's.

" Your wife ! " he exclaimed. " That is not true."
" Not true ? " cried Tony, in a terrible voice. He stretched
out his arm and pointed towards Millie. " Look 1 "

Millie flinched as though she feared a blow. She
dropped her head yet lower. She held her fingers over
her eyelids, closing them tightly. She had looked once
at Tony's face, she dared not look again. She sat in
darkness, trembling. One question was in her mind.
" Would he kill her ? " Callon looked at her as he was
bidden. Millie was wont to speak of her husband
with indifference, and a suggestion of scorn. Yet it was
her manifest terror which now convinced Callon that
the husband was indeed before him. Here the man was,
sprung suddenly out of the dark upon him, not neglectful,
for he had the look of one who has travelled from afar very
quickly, and slept but little on the way ; not indifferent, for
he was white with anger and his eyes were aflame. Callon
cursed the luck which had for a second time brought him
into such ill straits. He measured himself with Tony, and
knew in the instant that he was no match for him. There
was a man, tired, no doubt, and worn, but hard as iron,
supple of muscle and limb, and finely trained to the last
superfluous ounce of flesh ; while he himself was soft with
luxury and good living. He sought to temporise.

298 THE TRUANTS

u That is no proof," said he. " Any woman might be

startled " And Tony broke fiercely in upon his starn-

mered argument —

" Go out," he cried, " and wait for me ! "

The door was still open. Outside it in the passage the
waiters were clustered, listening. Inside the room IVIillie
was listening. The order, roughly given, was just one which
Callon for very shame could not obey. He would have liked
to obey it, for confronting husbands was never to his liking ;
all his art lay in eluding them.

"Go out!" Tony repeated, and took a step forward.
Callon could not cut so poor a figure as to slink from the
room like a whipped schoolboy. Yet it would have gone
better with him had he eaten his leek and gone.

" It would not be safe to leave you," he babbled. And
suddenly Tony caught him by the throat, struck him upon
the fac:-, and then flung him violently away.

Gallon reeled back through the open windows, slipped
and fell at his full length upon the terrace. His head struck
the stone flags with a horrible sound. He lay quite still in
the strong light which poured from the room ; his eyes were
closed, his face quite bloodless. It was his business, as
Madge had said, to light amongst the teacups.

Tony made no further movement towards him. Tin-
waiters went out on to the terrace and lifted him up and
curried him away. Then Tony turned towards his wife.
She had risen up from her chair and overturned it when
Tony had flung the interloper from the room. She now
crouched shuddering against the wall, with her eyes fixed
in terror npon her husband. Ashe turned towards her sin:
uttered a sob and dropped niton her knees before him. Thai
was the end of all her BCOrn. She kneeled in deadly fear,
admiring him in the very frenzy of her fear. She had no
memory for the contemptuous letters which she had written
and Tony hud carried under his pillow on the North Sen.
Her little deceits and plots and trickeries to hoodwink her

AT THE RESERVE 299

friend6, her little pretence of passion for Lionel Gallon — she
knew at this moment that it never had been more than a
pretence — these were the matters which now she remembered,
and for which she dreaded punishment She was wearing
jewels that night — jewels which Tony had given her in the
good past days when they lived together in the house in
Deanery Street. They shook and glittered upon her hair,
about her neck, upon her bosom and her arms. She kneeled
in her delicate finery of lace and satin in this room of luxury
and bright flowers. There was no need for Tony now to
work to re-establish himself in her thoughts. She reached
out her hands to him in supplication.

" I am not guilty," she moaned. ,; Tony : Tom* ! "

300 THE TRUANTS

CHAPTER XXXII

HUSBAND AND WIFE

The lnan who was no good had hid triumph then. Only
triumph was not at all in his thoughts.

" Oh, please ! " he said very quietly, " get up from
your knees. I don't like to see you there. It hurts

me."

Millie raised her eyes to him in wonder. He did not
mean to kill her, then. All his violence, it seemed, was
reserved for that poor warrior of the drawing-rooms who had
just been carried away stunned and bleeding from the
terrace. When Tony spoke to her his voice was rather that
of a man very dispirited and sad. He had indeed travelled
through the mountains of Morocco hot with anger against
Gallon the interloper ; but now that he had come face to
face again with Millie, now that he had heard her voice with
its remembered accents, the interloper seemed of little
account, a creature to punish and be done with. The Bad-
ness of his voice penetrated to Millie's heart. .She rose and
nood submissively before him.

In the passage outside the door the waiters were clustered
whispering together. Tony closed the door and shut the
whispers out Upon the terrace, outside the window, a man
was hesitating whether to enter or no. Tony went to the
window.

" Who are you ? " he asked. " What do you want ? "

"I am Griraud, the schoolmaster of Roquebrune," said

HUSBAND AND WIFE 301

the man, timidly. " I bring a letter from Mademoiselle
Mardale."

" Let me see it ! " said Tony ; and he held out his hand
for the letter. He glanced at the superscription and gave it
back. " It is not for me," he said, and M. Giraud went
away from the terrace. Tony turned back to his wife. His
mind was full of a comparison between the ways in which he
and she had each spent the years of absence. For him they
had been years of endeavour, persisted in through failure
and perplexity until success, but for her, was reached. And
how had Millie spent them ? He looked at her sternly, and
she said again in a faltering voice —

" I am innocent, Tony."

And he replied —

"Could you have said as much to-morrow had I not
come back to-night ? "

Millie had no answer to that question — she attempted
none ; and it was even at that moment counted to her credit
by her husband. She stood silent for a while, and only the
murmur of the sea breaking upon the beach filled the room.
A light wind breathed through the open window, cool and
fragrant, and made the shaded candles flicker upon the
table. Millie had her one poor excuse to offer, and she
pleaded it humbly.

" I thought that you had ceased to care what became of
me," she said.

Tony looked sharply at her. She was sincere — surely
she was sincere.

" You thought that ? " he exclaimed ; and he replaced
her chair at the table. " Sit down here ! Let me under-
stand ! You thought that I had ceased to care for you ?
When I ceased to write, I suppose ? "

Millie shook her head.

" Before that ? "

Tony dropped into the chair on which Gallon had been
sitting.

302 THE TRUANTS

" Before that ? " he exclaimed in perplexity. " When ?
Tell me ! "

Millie sat over against him at the table.

" Do you remember the evening when you first told me
that you had made up your mind to go away and make a
home for both of us ? It was on that evening. You gave
your reason for going away. We had begun to quarrel —
we were drifting apart.1'

" I remember," said Tony ; " but we had not ceased to
care then, neither you nor I. It was just because I feared
that at some time we might cease to care that I was re-
solved to go away."

" Ah," said Millie ; " but already the change had begun.
Yes, yes ! Things winch you thought you never could
remember without a thrill you remembered already with
indifference — you remembered them without being any
longer moved or touclK'd by the associations which they
once had had. I recollect the very words you used. I sat
as still as could be while you spoke them ; but I never forgot
them, Tony. There was a particular instance which you

mentioned — a song " And suddenly Tony laughed ;

but he laughed harshly, and there was no look of amusement
on his face. Millie stared at him in surprise, but he did not
explain, and she went on with her argument.

k- So when you ceased to write I was: still more
convinced that you had reaped to care. When you re-
mained away after your father had died I was yet more
sure."

Tony leaned across the white table-cloth with its glitter-
ing silver, and fixed his eyes on her.

" I will tell you why I ceased to write. Every letter
which you wrote to me when I was in New York was more
contemptuous than the letter which had preceded it. I had
failed, and you despised me for my failure. I had allowed

myself to be tricked out of your money " And upon

thnt Millie interrupted him —

HUSBAND AND WIFE 303

" Oh no ! " she cried ; " you must not say that I
despised you for that. No ! That is not fair. I never
thought of the money. I offered you what was left."

Tony had put himself in the wrong here. He recognised
his mistake, he accepted Millie's correction.

" Yes, that is true," he said ; " you offered me all that
was left — but you offered it contemptuously ; you had no
shadow of belief that I would use it to advantage — you had
no faith in me at all. In your eyes I was no good. Mind,
I don't blame you. You were justified, no doubt. I had
set out to make a home for you, as many a man has done
for his wife. Only where they had succeeded I had failed.

If I thought anytliing at all " he said, with an air of

hesitation.

" Well ? " asked Millie.

" I thought you might have expressed your contempt
with a little less of unkindness, or perhaps have hidden it
altogether. You see, I was not having an easy time in New
York, and your letters made it very much harder."

" Oh, Tony," she said, in a low voice of self-reproach.
She was sitting with her hands clenched in front of her upon
the table-cloth, her forehead puckered, and in her eyes a
look of great pain.

" Never mind that," he replied ; and he resumed Ins story.
" I saw then quite clearly that with each letter which you
received from me, each new instalment of my record of
failure — for each letter was just that, wasn't it ? — your
contempt grew. I was determined that if I could help it
your contempt should not embitter all our two lives. So I
ceased to write. For the same reason I staved awav, even
after my father had died. Had I come back then I should
have come back a failure, proved and self -confessed. And
your scorn would have stayed with you. My business
henceforth was to destroy it, to prove to you that after all I
was some good — if not at money-making, at something else.
I resolved that we should not live together again until I

304 THE TRUANTS

could coine to you and say, ' You have no right to despise
me. Here's the proof.' "

Millie was learning now, even as Tony had learnt a
minute ago. All that he said to her was utterly surprising
and strange. He had been thinking of her, then, all the
time while he was away ! Indifference was in no way the
reason of his absence.

" Oh, why did you not write this to me ? " she cried.
'; It need not have been a long letter, since you were un-
willing to write. But just this you might have written. It
would have been better, kinder " — and she paused upon the
word, uttering it with hesitation and a shy deprecating
smile, as though aware that she had no claim upon his
kindness. " It would have been kinder than just to leave
me here, not knowing where you were, and thinking what
I did."

" It is true," said Tony, " I might have written. But
would you have believed me if I had ? No."

"Then you might have come to me," she urged.
" Once — just for five minutes — to tell me what you meant
to do."

" I might," Tony agreed ; " in fact, I very nearly did.
I was under the windows of the house in Berkeley Square
one night." And Millie started.

" Yes, you were," she said slowly.

" You knew that ? "

" Yes ; I knew it the next day." And she added, " I
wish now, I think, that you hud come in that night."

" Suppose that I had," said Tony ; " suppose that I had
bold you of my fine plan, you would have had no faith in it.
You would merely have thought, 'Here's another folly to
be added to the rest.' Your contempt would have been
increased, that's all."

It was quite strange to Millie Siretton that there ever
could havo been a time when she had despised him. She
saw him sitting now in front of her, quiet and stern ; she

HUSBAND AND WIFE 305

remembered her own terror when he burst into the room,
when he flung Gallon headlong through the windows, when
he turned at last towards her.

" We have been strangers to one another."

" Yes," he replied ; " I did not know you. I should
never have left you — now I understand that. I trusted you
very blindly, but I did not know you."

Millie lowered her eyes from his face.

" Nor I you," she answered. " What did you do when
you went away that night from Berkeley Square ? "

" I enlisted in the Foreign Legion in Algeria."

Millie raised her head again with a start of surprise.

" Soldiering was my trade, you see. It was the one
profession where I had just a little of that expert knowledge
which is necessary nowadays if you are to make your
living."

Something of Ins life in the Foreign Legion Tony now told
her. He spoke deliberately, since a light was beginning
dimly to shine through the darkness of his perplexities. Of
a set purpose he described to her the arduous perils of active
service and the monotony of the cantonments. He was
resolved that she should understand in the spirit and in the
letter the life which for her sake he had led. He related
his expedition to the Figuig oasis, his march into the
Sahara under Tavernay. He took from his pocket the
medals which he had won, and laid them upon the table-
cloth before her.

" Look at them," he said ; " I earned them. These are
mine. I earned them for you ; and while I was earning
them what were vou doing1 ? "

Millie listened and looked. Wonder grew upon her.
It was for her that he had laboured and endured and
succeeded ! His story was a revelation to her. Never had
she dreamed that a man would so strive for any woman.
She had lived so long among the little things of the world —
the little emotions, the little passions, the little jealousies

x

306 THE TRUANTS

and rivalries, the little aims, the little methods of attaining
thern, that only with great difficulty could she realise a
simpler and a wider life. She wa.s overwhelmed now. Pride
and humiliation fought within her — pride that Tony had so
striven for her in silence and obscurity, humiliation because
she had fallen so short of his example. It was her way to
feel in superlatives at any crisis of her destiny, but surely
she had a justification now.

" I never knew — I never thought ! Oh, Tony ! " she
exclaimed, twisting her hands together as she sat before
him.

" I became a sergeant,'5 he said. " Then I brought back
the remnants of the geographical expedition to Ouargla."
lie taxed his memory for the vivid details of that terrible
retreat. He compelled her to realise something of the
dumb, implacable hostility of the Sahara, to see, in the
evening against the setting sun, the mounted figures of the
Touaregs, and to understand that the day's march had not
shaken them off. She seemed to be on the march her-
self, wondering whether she would live out the day, or,
if she survived that, whether she would live out the
night.

" But you succeeded ! " she cried, clinging to the fact that
ihey were both here in France, with the murmur of the
Mediterranean in their ears. " You came back."

" Yes, I came back. One morning I inarched my men
through the gate of Ouargla — and what were you doing upon
that day ? "

Talking, perhaps, with Lionel Gallon, in one of those
unfrequented public places with which London abounds !
Millie could not tell. She sat there and compared Lionel
Callon with the man who was before her. Memories of the
kind of talk she was wont to hold with Lionel Callon
n.-<uirred to her, filling her with shame. She was glad to
think that when Tony led his broken, weary force through
the gate of Ouargla Lionel Callon had not been with her —

HUSBAND AND WIFE 307

had indeed been far away in Chili. She suddenly placed her
hands before her face and burst into tears.

" Oh, Tonv," she whispered, in an abasement of humilia-
tion. " Oh, Tony."

" By that homeward march," he went on, " I gained my
commission. That was what I aimed at all the while, and
I had earned it at the last. Look 1 "

He took from liis pocket the letter which his colonel had
handed to him at Ain-Sefra. He had carefully treasured
it all this while. He held it out to her and made her
read.

" You see ? " he said. u A commission won from the
ranks in the hardest service known to soldiers, won without
advantage of name, or friends, or money. Won just by
myself. That is what I strove for. If I could win that I
could come back to you with a great pride. I should be no
longer the man who was no good. Yon yourself might even
be proud of me. I used to dream of that — to dream of
something else."

His voice softened a little, and a smile for a moment
relaxed the severity of his face.

" Of what ? " she asked.

" Out there among the sand hills, under the stars at
night, I used to dream that we might perhaps get hold again
of the little house in Deanery Street, where we were so happy
together once. We might pretend almost that we had liyed
there all the time."

He spoke in a voice of great longing, and Millie was
touched to the heart. She looked at Tony through her tears.
There was a great longing astir within her at this moment.
Was that little house in Deanery Street still a possibility ?
She did not presume to hope so much ; but she wished that
she could have hoped. She pressed the letter which she held
against her breast ; she would have loved to have held it to
her lips, but that again she did not dare to do.

" At all events, you did succeed." she said ; " I shall be

303 THE TRUANTS

glad to know that. I shall always be glad — whatever happens

now."

" But I did not succeed," Tony replied. " I earned the
commission, yes ! — I never held it. That letter was giveo to
me one Monday by my colonel at Ain-Sef ra. You mentioned
a song a minute ago, do you remember ? . . . I had lost the
associations of that song. I laughed when you mentioned it,
and you were surprised. I laughed because when I received
that letter I took it away with me, and that song, with all
that it had ever meant, came back to my mind. I lay
beneath the palm trees, and I looked across the water past
the islands, and I saw the lights of the yachts in Oban Bay.
I was on the dark lawn again, high above the sea, the lighted
windows of the house were behind me. I heard your voice.
Oh, I had got you altogether back that day," he exclaimed,
with a cry. " It was as though I held your hands and
looked into your eyes. I went back towards the barracks to
write to you, and as I went some one tapped me on the
shoulder and brought me news of you to wake me out of my
dreams."

Just for a moment Millie wondered who it was who had
brought the news ; but the next words which Tony Bpoke
drove the question from her mind.

" A few more weeks and I should have held that com-
mission. I might have left the Legion, leaving behind me
many friends and an honoured name. As it was, I had to
desert — I deserted that night."

Ee spoke quite simply ; but, nevertheless, the words fell
with a shock upon Millie. She uttered a low cry : %< Oh,
Tony I " she said.

" Yes," he said, with a nod of the head, " I incurred that
disgrace. I shall be ashamed of it all my life. Had I been
eaught, it might have meant an ignoble death ; in any case,
it would have meant years of prison — and I should have
deserved those years of prison."

Millie shut her eyes in horror. Everything else that Ik

HUSBAND AND WIFE 309

had told her, every other incident — his sufferings, his perils
— all seemed of little account beside this crowning risk,
this crowning act of sacrifice. It was not merely that he
had risked a shameful death or a shameful imprisonment.
Millie was well aware that his whole nature and character
must be in revolt against the act itself. Desertion ! It
implied disloyalty, untruth, deceit, cowardice — just those
qualities, indeed, which she knew Tony most to hate, which
perhaps she had rather despised him for hating. No man
would have been more severe in the punishment of a deserter
than Tony himself. Yet he had deserted, and upon her
account. And he sat there telling her of it quietly, as
though it were the most insignificant action in the world.
He might have escaped the consequences — he would certainly
not have escaped the shame.

But Millie's cup of remorse was not yet full.

" Yet I cannot see that I could do anything else. To-
night proves to me that I was right, I think. I have
come very quickly, yet I am only just in time." There
was a long stain of wine upon the table-cloth beneath
his eyes. There Callon had upset his glass upon Tony's
entrance.

" Yes, it was time that I returned," he continued. " One
way or another a burden of disgrace had to be borne — if I
stayed, just as certainly as if I came away ; I saw that quite
clearly. So I came away." He forbore to say that now the
disgrace fell only upon his shoulders, that she was saved
from it. But Millie understood, and in her heart she
thanked him for his forbearance. " But it was hard on me,
I think," he said. " You see, even now I am on French
soil, and subject to French laws."

And Millie, upon that, started up in alarm.

"What do vou mean ? " she asked breathlessly.

" There has been a disturbance here to-night, has there
not ? Suppose that the manager of this restaurant has sent
for a gendarme ! "

310 THE TRUANTS

With a swift movement Millie gathered up the medals
and held them close in her clenched hands.

" Oh, it does not need those to convict me ; my name
would be enough. Lot my name appear and there's a deserter
from the Foreign Legion laid by the heels in France. All
the time we have been talking here I have sat expecting that
door to open behind me."

Millie caught up a lace wrap which lay upon a sofa. She
had the look of a hunted creature. She spoke quickly and
feverishly, in a whisper.

" Oh, why did not you say this at once ? Let us go ! "

Tony sat stubbornly in his chair.

"No," said he, with his eyes fixed upon her. "I have
given you an account of how I have spent the years during
which we have been apart. Can you do the same ? "

He waited for her answer in suspense. To this question
all his words had been steadily leading ; for this reason he
had dwelt upon his own career. Would she, stung by her
remorse, lay before him truthfully and without reserve the
st)ry of her years ? If she did, why, that dim light which
shone amidst the darkness of his perplexities might perhnps
shine a little brighter. He uttered his question. Millie
bowed her head, and answered —

« I will."

"Sit down, then, and tell me now."

" Oh no," she exclaimed ; " not here ! It is not safe.
As we go back to Eze I will tell you everything."

A look of relief came upon Tony's face. He rose and
touched the bell.

A waiter appeared.

" I will pay the bill," he said.

The waiter brought the bill and Tony discharged it.

"The gentleman— M. Gallon," the waiter said. "A
doctor has been. He has a concussion. It will be a little
time before he is able to be moved."

" Indeed ? " said Tonv, with indifference. He walked

HUSBAND AND WIFE 311

with his wife out of the little gaily-lighted room into the big,
silent restaurant. A single light faintly illuminated it.
They crossed it to the door, and went up the winding drive
on to the road. The night was dry and clear and warm.
There was no moon. They walked in the pure twilight of
the stars round the gorge towards Eze,

312 THE TRUANTS

CHAPTER XXXIII

millie's story

They walked for a while in silence, side by side, yet not so
close but that there was an interval between them. Millie every
now and then glanced at Tony's face, but she saw only his
profile, and with only the glimmer of the starlight to serve her
for a reading-lamp, she could guess nothing of his expression.
But he walked like a man utterly dispirited and tired. The
hopes, so stoutly cherished during the last few years, had all
crumbled away to-night. Perpetually his thoughts recurred
to that question, which now never could be answered — if he
had gone into the house in Berkeley Square on that distant
evening when he had been contented to pace for a little while
beneath the windows, would lie have averted the trouble
which had reached its crisis to-night at the Reserve ? He
thought not — he was not sure ; only he was certain that he
should have gone in. He stopped and turned back, looking
towards the Reserve. A semicircle of lights over the door-
way was visible, and as he looked those lights were suddenly
extinguished. He heard Millie's voice at his side.

" I will tell you now how the time has passed with me."
And he saw that she was looking steadfastly into his eyes.
" The story will sound very trivial, very contemptible, after
what you have told me. It fills me utterly with shame. But
T should have told you it none the less had you not asked for
it — I rather wish that you had not asked for it ; for I think
I must have told you of my own accord."

She spoke in a quick, troubled voice, but it did not

MILLIES STORY 313

waver ; nor did her eyes once fall from his. The change in
her was swift, no doubt. But down there in the Reserve,
where the lights were out, and the sea echoed through empty
rooms, she had had stern and savage teachers. Terror,
humiliation, and the spectacle of violence had torn away a
veil from before her eyes. She saw her own life in its true
perspective. And, that she might see it the more clearly
and understand, she had the story of another life wherewith
to compare it. It is a quality of big performances, whether
in art or life, that while they surprise when first apprehended,
they appear upon thought to be so simple that it is astonish-
ing surprise was ever felt. Something of that quality Tony's
career possessed. It had come upon Millie as a revelation,
yet, now she was thinking : " Yes, that is what Tony would
do. How is it I never guessed ? " She put him side by side
with that other man, the warrior of the drawing-rooms, and
she was filled with shame that ever she could have preferred
the latter even for a moment of madness.

They walked slowly on again. Millie drew her lace
wrap more closely about her throat.

" Are you cold ? " asked Tony. " You are lightly clothed
to be talking here. We had better perhaps walk on, and
keep what you have to tell me until to-morrow."

" No," she answered quickly, " I am not cold. And I
must tell you what I have to tell you to-night. I want
all this bad, foolish part of my life to end to-night, to be
extinguished just as those lights were extinguished a minute
since. Only there is something I should like to say to you
first." Millie's voice wavered now and broke. " If we do
not walk along the road together any more," she went on
timidly, "I will still be glad that you came back to-night.
I do not know that you will believe that — I do not, indeed,
see why you should ; but I should very much like you to
believe it ; for it is the truth. I have learned a good deal,
I think, during the last three hours. I would rather go on
alone — if it is to be so — in this dim, clean starlight, than

314 THE TRUANTS

ever be back again in the little room with its lights and
flowers. Do you understand me ? "

" I think so," said Tony.

" At all events, the road is visible ahead," she went on.
" One sees it glimmering, one can keep between the banks ;
while, in the little lighted room it is easy to get lost."

And thus to Millie now, as to Pamela when she rode
back from her last interview with Warrisden at the village
of the three poplars, the riband of white road stretching
away in the dusk became a parable.

"Yes," said Tony, "perhaps my path was really the
easier one to follow. It was direct and plain."

" Ah," said Millie, " it only seems so because you have
traversed it, and are looking back. I do not think it was
so simple and direct while you walked upon it." And Tony,
remembering the doubts and perplexities which had besieged
him, could not but assent.

" I do not think, too, that it was so easy to discover at
the beginning."

There rose before Tony's eyes the picture of a ketch-
rigged boat sailing at night over a calm sea. A man leaned
over the bulwarks, and the bright glare from a lightship ran
across the waves and flashed upon his face. Tony remem-
bered the moment very clearly when he had first hit upon
bis plan ; he remembered the weeks of anxiety of which il
was the outcome. No, the road had not been easy to find
at the beginning. He was silent for a minute, and then he
said gently —

" I am sorry that J asked you to tell your .story — I am
sorry that I did not leave the decision to you. But it shall
l>e as though you told it of your own accord."

The sentence was a concession, no less in the manner of
its utterance than in the words themselves. Millie took
heart, ami told biin the whole story of her dealings with
Lionel Gallon, without excuses and without concealments.

" I seemed to mean so much to him, so little to you,"

MILLIE'S STORY 315

she said. ''You see, I did not understand vou at all.
You were away, too, and he was near. I do not defend
myself."

She did not spare herself, she taxed her memory for the
details of her days ; and as she spoke the story seemed more
utterly contemptible and small than even she in her abase-
ment had imagined it would be. But she struggled through
with it to the end.

"That night when you stood beneath the windows in
Berkeley Square," she said, " he was with me. He ran in
from Lady Millinghani's party and talked with me for half
an hour. Yes, at the very time when you were standing on
the pavement he was within the house. I know, for you
were seen, and on the next day I was told of your presence.
I was afraid then. The news was a shock to me. I thought,
u Suppose you had come in ! "

" But, back there, in the room," Tony interrupted, " you
told me that you wished I had come in."

" Yes," she answered. " And it is quite true ; I wie! ,
now that you had come in."

She told him of the drive round Regent's Park, and of
the consent she gave that night to Lionel Gallon.

" I think you know everything now," she said. " I have
tried to forget nothing. I want you, whatever you decide
to do, to decide knowing everything."

" Thank you," said Tony, simply. And she added —

" I am not the first woman I know who has thrown away
the substance for the shadow."

Upon the rest of that walk little was said. They went
forward beneath the stars. A great peace lay upon sea and
land. The hills rose dark and high upon their left hand,
the sea murmured and whispered to them upon the right.
Millie walked even more slowly as they neared the hotel at
Eze, and Tony turned to her with a question —

" You are tired ? "

$'Xo," she answered,

316 THE TRUANTS

She was thinking that very likely she would never
walk again on any road with Tony at her side, and she was
minded to prolong this last walk to the last possible moment.
For in this one nigbt Tony had reconquered her. It was
not merely that his story had filled her with amazement and
pride, but she had seen him that night strong and dominant,
as she had never dreamed of seeing him. She loved his
very sternness towards herself. Not once had he spoken
her name and called her "Millie." She had watched for
that and longed for it, and vet because he had not used it
she was the nearer to worship. Once she said to him with
a start of anxiety —

" You are not staying here under your own name ? "

" No," he replied. " A friend has taken rooms in Monte
Carlo for both of us. Only his name has been given."

"And you will leave France to-morrow ? "

" Yes."

" Promise ! " she cried.

Tony promised, with a look of curiosity at his wife.
Why should she be so eager for his safety ? He did not
understand. He was wondering what he must do in this
crisis of their lives. "Was he to come, in spite of all his
efforts, to that ordinary compromise which it had been his
object to avoid ?

They reached the door of the hotel, and there Tony halted.

" Good night ! " he said ; he did not hold out his hand.
He stood confronting Millie with the light from the hall
lamp falling full upon his face. Millie hoped that he would
say something more — just a little word of kindness or for-
giveness— if only she waited long enough without answering
him ; and Bhe was willing to wait until the morning came,
lie did indeed speak again, and then Millie was sorry that
she had waited. For he said the one really cruel thing
amongst all the words he had said §that night. He was not
aware of its cruelty, he was only conscious of its truth.

"Do you know." he said— and upon his tired face there

MILLIE'S STORY 317

came a momentary smile — " to-night I miss the Legion very
much." Again he said " Good night."

This time Millie answered him ; and in an instant he
was gone. She could have cried out ; she could hardly
restrain her voice from calling him back to her. " Was
this the end ? " she asked of herself. " That one cruel
sentence, and then the commonplace Good night, without so
much as a touch of the hands. AVas this the very end ? "
A sharp fear stabbed her. For a few moments she heard
Tony's footsteps upon the flags in front of the hotel, and
then for a few moments upon the gravel of the garden path ;
and after that she heard only the murmur of the sea. And
all at once for her the world was empty. " "Was this the
end ? " she asked herself again most piteously ; " this, which
might have been the beginning." Slowly she went up to
her rooms. Sleep did not visit her that night.

318 THE TRUANTS

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE NEXT MOBBnJTG

Thlee was another who kept a vigil all the night In the
Villa Pontignard Pamela Mardade saw from her window the
morning break, and wondered in dread what had happened
upon that broad terrace by the sea. She dressed and went
down into the garden. As yet the world was grey and cool,
and something of its quietude entered into her and gave her
peace. A light mist hung over the sea, birds sang sweetly
in the trees, and from the chimneys of Rocjuebrune the blue
Htnoke began to coil. In the homely suggestions of that
blue smoke Pamela found a comfort. She watched it for a
while, and then there came a flush of rose upon the crests of
the hills. The mist was swept away from the floor of the
sea, shadows and light suddenly ran down the hillsides, and
the waves danced with a sparkle of gold. The sun had
risen. Pamela saw a man coming up the open slope from
Roquebrune to the villa. It was M. Giraud. She ran to
the gate and met him there.

" "Well ? " she asked. And he answered Badly —

" I arrived too late."

The colour went from Pamela's cheeks. She set a hand
upon the gate to steady herself. There was an expression of
utter consternation on her face.

"Too late, I mean," the schoolmaster explained hurriedly,
'• bo help you, to be of any real service to you. But the
harm done is perhaps not so great as you fear."

He described to her what he had seen — Lionel Callon

THE NEXT MORNING 319

lying outstretched and insensible upon the pavement, Tony
and Millie Stretton within the room.

"We removed M. Callon to his bedroom," he said.
" Then I fetched a doctor. M. Callon will recover — it is a
concussion of the brain. Pie will be ill for a little time, but
he will get well.''

" And the man and the woman ? " Pamela asked eagerly.
" The two within the room ? What of them ? "

" They were standing opposite to one another." The
schoolmaster had not seen Millie on her knees. " A chair
was overturned, the chair on which she had sat. She was
in great distress, and, I think, afraid ; but he spoke quietly."
He described how he had offered Tony the letter, and how
Tony had closed the door of the room upon the waiters.

" The manager did not know what to do, whether to semi
for help or not. But I did not think that there was any
danger to the woman in the room, and I urged him to do
nothing."

" Thank you," said Pamela, gratefully. " Indeed, you
were in time to help me."

But even then she did not know how much she was
indebted to the schoolmaster's advice. She was thinking of
the scandal which must have arisen had the police been
called in, of the publication of Millie's folly to the world of
her acquaintances. That was prevented now. If Tony took
back his wife — as with all her heart she hoped he would — he
would not, at all events, take back one of whom gossip would
be speaking with a slighting tongue. She was not aware
that Tony had deserted from the Legion to keep his tryst
upon the thirty-first of the month. Afterwards, when she
did learn this, she was glad that she had not lacked warmth
when she had expressed her gratitude to M. Giraud. A look
of pleasure came into the schoolmaster's face.

" I am very glad," he said. " When I brought the
doctor back the two within the room were talking quietly
together ; we could hear their voices through the door. So

320 THE TRUANTS

I came away. I walked up to the villa here. But it was
already late, and the lights were out — except in one room on
an upper floor looking over the sea — that room," and he
pointed to a window.

"Yes, that is my room," said Pamela.

" I thought it was likely to be yours, and I hesitated
whether I should fling up a stone ; but I was not sure that
it was your room. So I determined to wait until the morning.
I am sorry, for you have been very anxious and have not
slept — I can see that. I could have saved you some hours of
anxiety."

Pamela laughed in friendliness, and the laugh told him
surely that her distress had gone from her.

" That does not matter," she said. " You have brought
me very good news. I could well afford to wait for it."

The schoolmaster remained in an awkward hesitation at
the gate ; it was clear that he had something more to say.
It was no less clear that he found the utterance of it very
difficult. Pamela guessed what was in his mind, and,
after her own fashion, she helped him to speak it. She
opened the gate, which up till now had stood closed between
them.

" Come in for a little while, won't you ? " she said ; and
she led the way through the garden to that narrow corner on
the bluff of the hill which had so many associations for them
both. If M. Giraud meant to say what she thought he did,
here was the one place where utterance would be easy.
Here they bad interchanged, in other times, their innermost
thoughts, their most sacred confidences. The stone parapet,
the bench, the plot of grass, the cedar in the angle of the
corner — among these familiar things memories must throb
for him even as they did for her. Pamela sat down upon
the parapet and, leaning over, gazed into the torrent far
below. She wished him to take his time. She had a thought
that even if he had not in his mind that utterance which
she hoped to hear, the recollection of those other days.

THE NEXT MOKNING 321

vividly renewed, might suggest it. And in a moment or two
he spoke.

" It is true, mademoiselle, that I was of service to you
last night ? "

" Yes," replied Pamela, gently ; " that is quite true."

" I am glad," be continued. " I shall have that to
remember. I do not suppose that I shall see you often any
more. Very likely you will not come back to Roquebrune —
very likely I shall never see you again. And if I do not, I
should like you to know that last night will make a difference
to me."

He was now speaking with a simple directness. Pamela
raised her face towards his. He could see that his words
greatly rejoiced her ; a very tender smile was upon her lips,
and her eyes shone. There were tears in them.

" I am so glad," she said.

" I resented your coming to me at first," he went on —
11 1 was a fool ; I am now most grateful that you did come.
I learnt that you had at last found tbe bappiness which I
think you have always deserved. You know I have always
thought that it is a bad thing when such a one as you is
wasted upon loneliness and misery — the world is not so rich
that it can afford such waste. And if only because you told
me that a change had come for you, I should be grateful for
the visit which you paid me. But there is more. You
spoke a very true word last night when you told me it was a
help to be needed by those one needs."

" You think that too ? " said Pamela,

" Yes, now I do," he answered. " It will always be a
great pride to me that you needed me. I shall never forget
that you knocked upon my door one dark night in great
distress. I shall never forget your face, as I saw it framed
in the light when I came out into the porch. I shall never
forget that you stood within my room, and called upon me,
in tbe name of our old comradeship, to rise up and help you.
T think my room will be ballowed by that recollection,"

Y

322 THE TRUANTS

And he lowered bis voice suddenly and said, " I think I shall
see you as I saw you when I opened the door, between
myself and the threshold of the wineshop ; that is what I
meant to say."

He held out his hand, and, as Pamela took it, he raised
her hand to his lips and kissed it.

" Good-bye," he said ; and turning away quickly he left
her up in the place where she had known the best of him,
and went down to his schoolroom in the square of Roque-
brune. Very soon the sing-song of the children's voices was
droning from the open windows.

Pamela remained upon the terrace. The breaking of old
ties is always a melancholy business, and here was one
broken to-day. It was very unlikely, she thought, that she
would ever see her friend the little schoolmaster again. She
would be returning to England immediately, and she would
not come back to the Yilla Pontignard.

She was still in that corner of the garden when another
visitor called upon her. She heard his footsteps on the
gravel of the path, and, looking up, saw AVarrisden approach-
ing her. She rose from the parapet and went forward to
meet him. She understood that he had come with his old
question, and she spoke first. The question could wait just
for a little while.

" You have seen Tony ? " she asked.

" Yes ; late last night," he replied. " T waited at the
hotel for him. ITe said nothing more than 'Good night,' and
went at once to his room."

" And this morning ? "

"This morning," said Warrisden, " he has gone. I did
not Bee him. He went away with his luggage before I was
up, and he left no message."

Pamela stood thoughtful and silent.

"It is the best thing he could have dune," Warrisden
continued ; " for he is not safe in France."

- Not safe ? "

THE NEXT MORNING 323

" No. Did he not tell you ? He deserted from the
French Legion. It was the only way in which he could
reach Roquebrane by the date you named."

Pamela was startled, but she was startled into activity.

" Will you wait for me here ? " she said. " I will get
my hat."

She ran into the villa, and coming out again said, " Let
us go down to the station.''

They hurried down the steep flight of steps. At the
station Warrisden asked, " Shall I book to Monte Carlo ? " .

" No ; to Eze," she replied.

She hardly spoke at all during the journey ; and War-
risden kept his question in reserve — this was plainly no time
to utter it. Pamela walked at once to the hotel.

" Is Lady Stretton in ? " she asked ; and the porter
replied —

" No, Madame. She left for England an hour ago."

" Alone ? " asked Pamela.

" No. A gentleman came and took her away."

Pamela turned towards Warrisden with a look of great
joy upon her face.

" They have gone together," she cried. " He has taken
his risks. He has not forgotten that lesson learnt on the
North Sea. I had a fear tins morning that he had."

" And you ? " said "Warrisden, putting his question at
last

Pamela moved away from the door until they were out of
earshot. Then she said —

" I will take my risks too." Her eyes dwelt quietly upon
her companion, and she added, " And I think the risks are
very small."

324 THE TRUANTS

CHAPTER XXXV

THE LITTLE HOUSE IX DEANERY STREET

Pamela construed the departure of Tony and Lis wife
together according to her hopes. They were united again.
.She was content with that fact, and looked no further, since
her own affairs had become of an engrossing interest. But
the last word has not been said about the Truants. It was
not, indeed, until the greater part of a year had passed that
the section of their history which is related in this book
reached any point of finality.

In the early days of January the Truants arrived in
London at the close of a long visit to Scotland. They got
out upon Euston platform, and entering their brougham,
drove off. They had not driven far before Millie looked
out of the window and started forward with her hand upon
the check-string. It was dusk, and the evening was not
clear. But she saw, nevertheless, that the coachman had
turned down to the left amongst the squares of Bloomsbury,
and that is not the way from Euston to Regent's Park. She
did not pull the check-string, however. She looked curiously
at Tony, who was sitting beside her, and then leaned back in
the carriage. With her quick adaptability sin- had fallen
into a habit of not questioning her husband. Since the
night in the South of France she had given herself into his
hands with a devotion which, to tell the truth, had some-
thing of slavishness. It was his wish, apparently, that the
recollection of that night should still be a barrier between
them, hindering them from anything but an exchange of

THE LITTLE HOUSE IN DEANERY STREET 325

courtesies. She bowed to the wish without complaint. To-
night, however, as they drove through the unaccustomed
streets, there rose within her mind a hope. She would have
stifled it, dreading disappointment ; but it was stronger than
her will. Moreover, it received each minute fresh encourage-
ment. The brougham crossed Oxford Street, turned down
South Audley Street, and traversed thence into Park Street.
Millie now sat forward in her seat. She glanced at her
husband. Tony, with a face of indifference, was looking out
of the window. Yet the wonderful thing, it seemed, was
coming to pass, nay, had come to pass. For already the
brougham had stopped, and the door at which it stopped was
the door of the little house in Deanery Street.

Tony turned to his wife with a smile.

" Home ! " he said.

She sat there incredulous, even though the look of the
house, the windows, the very pavement were speaking to her
memories. There was the blank wall on the north side
which her drawing-room window overlooked, there was the
sharp curve of the street into Park Lane, there was the end
of Dorchester House. Here the happiest years of her life,
yes, and of Tony's, too, had been passed. She had known
that to be truth for a long while now. She had come of late
to think that they were the only really happy years which
had fallen to her lot. The memories of them throbbed
about her now with a vividness which was poignant.

" Is it true ? " she asked, with a catch of her breath.
" Is it really true, Tony ? "

" Yes, this is our home."

Millie descended from the carriage. Tony looked at her
curiously. This sudden arrival at the new home, which was
the old, had proved a greater shock to her than he had
expected. For a little while after their return to England
Millie had dwelt upon the words which Tony had spoken to
her in the Reserve by the sea. He had dreamed of buying
the house in Deanery Street, of resuming there the life which

326 THE TRUANTS

they had led together there, in the days when they had been
good friends as well as good lovers. That dream for a time
she had made her own. She had come to long for its fulfil-
ment, as she had never longed for anything else in the world ;
she had believed that sooner or later Tony would relent, and
that it would be fulfilled. But the months had passed, and
now, when she had given up hope, unexpectedly it had been
fulfilled. She stood upon the pavement, almost dazed.

" You never said a word of what you meant to do," she
said with a smile, as though excusing herself for her un-
responsive manner. The door was open. She went into the
house and Tony followed her. They mounted the stairs into
the drawing-room.

"As far as I could," Tony said, "I had the houso
furnished just as it used to be. I could not get all the
pictures which we once had, but you sec I have done my
best."

Millie looked round the room. There was the piano
standing just as it used to do, the carpet, tlie wall-paper
were all of the old pattern. It seemed to her that she had
never left the house ; that the years in Berkeley Square and
Regent's Park were a mere nightmare from which she had
just awaked. And then she looked at Tony. No, these
latter years had been quite real— he bore the marks of them
upon his face. The boyishness had gone. Xo doubt, she
thought, it was the same with her.

Tony stood and looked at her with an eagerness which
she did not understand.

" Arc you glad ? " he asked earnestly. " Millie, are you
pleased ? "

She stood in front of him with a very serious face. Once
a Bmile brightened it ; but it was a smile of doubt, of
question.

" I am not sure," she said. u I know that you have been

very kind. You have (low this to please inc. But "

And her voice wavered a little.

THE LITTLE HOUSE IN DEANERY STREET 327

« Well ? " said Tony.

" But," she went on with difficulty, " I am not sure that
I can endure it, unless things are different from what they
have been lately. I shall be reminded every minute of other
times, and the comparison between those times and the
present will be very painful. I think that I shall be very
unhappy, much more unhappy than I have ever been, even
lately."

Her voice sank to a whisper at the end. The little house
in Deanery Street, even in her dreams, had been no more
than a symbol. She had longed for it as the outward and
visible sign of the complete reconciliation on which her heart
was set. But to have the sign and to know that it signified
nothing — she dreaded that possibility now. Only for a very
few moments she dreaded it.

" I don't think I can endure it, Tony," she said sadly.
And the next moment his arms were about her, and her head
was resting against his breast.

" Millie ! " he cried in a low voice ; and again " Millie ! "

Her face was white, her eyelids closed over her eyes.
Tony thought that she had swooned. But when he moved
her hands held him close to her, held him tightly, as though
she dreaded to lose him.

" Millie," he said, " do you remember the lights in Oban
Bay ? And the gulls calling at night above the islands ? "

" I am forgiven, then ? " she whispered ; and he answered
only —

" Hush ! "

But the one word was enough.

328 THE TRUANTS

CHAPTER XXXVI

THE END

TONY wished for no mention of the word. He had not
brought her to that house that he might forgive her, but
because he wanted her there. If forgiveness was in question,
there was much to be said upon her side too. He was to
blame, as Pamela had written. He had during the last few
months begun to realise the justice of that sentence more
clearly than he had done even when the letter was fresh
within his thoughts.

" I have learnt something," he said to Millie, " which I
might have known before, but never did. It is this.
Although a man may be content to know that love exists,
that is not the case with women. They want the love
expressed, continually expressed, not necessarily in words,
but in a hundred little ways. I did not think of that.
There was the mistake I made : I left you alone to think
just what you chose. Well, that's all over now. I bought
this house not merely to please you, but as much to please
myself ; for as soon as I understood that after all the
compromise which I dreaded need not be our lot — that
nfter all the life together of which I used to dream was
possible, was within arm's reach if only one would put out
an arm and grasp it, I wanted you here. As soon as I
was sure, quite sure that I had recaptured you, I wanted you
here."

He spoke with passion, holding her in his arms. Millie
remained quite still for a while, and then she asked —

THE END 329

" Do you miss the Legion ? As much as you thought
you would — as much as you did that night at Eze ? "

He answered, " Xo " ; and spoke the truth. On that
night at Eze he had not foreseen the outcome of his swift
return, of his irruption into the gaily lighted room murmurous
with the sea. On that night he had revealed himself to
Millie, and the revelation had been the beginning of love in
her rather than its resumption. This he had come to
understand, and, understanding, could reply with truth that
he did not miss the Legion as he had thought he would.
There were moments, no doubt, when the sound of a bugle
on a still morning would stir him to a sense of loss, and he
would fall to dreaming of Tavernay and Barbier, and his
old comrades, and the menacing silence of the Sahara. At
times, too, the yapping of dogs in the street would call up
vividly before his mind the picture of some tent village in
Morocco where he had camped. Or the wind roaring
amongst trees on a night of storm would set his mind
wondering whether the ketch Perseverance was heading to
the white-crested rollers, close-reefed between the Dogger
and the Fisker Banks ; and for a little while he would feel
the savour of the brine sharp upon his lips, and longing
would be busy at his heart — for the Ishmaehte cannot easily
become a stay-at-home. These, however, were but the
passing moods.

Of one other character who took an important if an
unobtrusive part in shaping the fortunes of the Truants a
final word may be said. A glimpse of that man, of the real
man in him, was vouchsafed to Warrisden two summers
later. It happened that "Warrisden attended a public dinner
which was held in a restaurant in Oxford Street. He left
the company before the dinner was over, since he intended
to fetch his wife Pamela, who was on that June evening
witnessing a performance of " Rigoletto " at the Opera
House in Covent Garden. 'Warrisden rose from the table
and slipped out, as he thought at eleven o'clock, but on

330 THE TRUANTS

descending into the hall he found that he had miscalculated
the time. It was as yet only a quarter to the hour, and
having fifteen minutes to spare, he determined to walk.
The night was hot ; he threw his overcoat across his arm,
and turning southwards out of Oxford Street, passed down a
narrow road in the neighbourhood of Drury Lane. In those
days, which were not, after all, so very distant from our own,
the great blocks of model dwellings had not been as yet
erected ; squalid courts and rookeries opened on to ill-lighted
passages ; the houses had a ruinous and a miserable look.
There were few people abroad as Warrisden passed through
the quarter, and his breast-plate of white shirt-front made
hi in a conspicuous figure. He had come about half the way
from Oxford Street when he saw two men suddenly emerge
from the mouth of a narrow court a few yards in front of
him. The two men were speaking, or rather shouting, at
one another ; and from the violence of their gestures no
less than from the abusive nature of the language which they
used, it was plain that they were quarrelling. Words and
gestures led to blows. Warrisden saw one man strike the
other and fell him to the ground.

In an instant a little group of people was gathered about
the combatants, people intensely silent and interested — the
sightseers of the London streets who spring from nowhere
with inconceivable rapidity, as though they had been waiting
in some secret spot hard by for just this particular spectacle
in this particular place. Warrisden, indeed, was wondering
carelessly at the speed with which the small crowd had
gathered when he came abreast of it. He stopped and
peered over the shoulders of the men and women in front
of him that he might see the better. The two disputants
had relapsed apparently into mere vituperation. Warrisden
pressed forward, and those in front parted and made way
for him. He did not, however, take advantage of the
deference shown to his attire ; for at that moment a voice
whispered in his ear —

THE END 331

" You had better slip out. This row is got up for
you."

Warrisden turned upon his heel. He saw a short, stout,
meanly dressed man of an elderly appearance moving away
from his side ; no doubt it was he who had warned him.
Warrisden took the advice, all the more readily because he
perceived that the group was, as it were, beginning to
reform itself, with him as the new centre. He was, however,
still upon the outskirts. He pushed quickly out into the
open street, crossed the road, and continued on his way. In
front of him he saw the stout, elderly man, and, quickening
his pace, he caught him up.

" I have to thank you," he said, " for saving me from an
awkward moment."

" Yes," replied the stout man ; and Warrisden, as he
heard his voice, glanced at him with a sudden curiosity.
But his hat was low upon his brows, and the street was dark.
M It is an old trick, but the old tricks are the tricks which
succeed. There was no real quarrel at all. Those two men
were merely pretending to quarrel in order to attract your
attention. You were seen approaching — that white shirt-front
naturally inspired hope. In another minute you would have
been hustled down the court and into one of the houses at the
end. Yrou would have been lucky if, half an hour later, you
were turned out into the street stripped of everything of
value you possess, half naked and half dead into the bargain.
Good night ! "

The little man crossed the road abruptly. It was plain
that he needed neither thanks nor any further conversation.
It occurred, indeed, to Warrisden that he was deliberately
avoiding conversation. Warrisden accordingly walked on to
the Opera House, and, meeting his wife in the vestibule, told
her this story while they waited for their brougham.

As they drove together homewards, he added —

" That is not all, Pamela. I can't help thinking — it is
absurd, of course — and yet, I don't know ; but the little

332 THE TRUANTS

stout man reminded me very much of some one we both
know."

Pamela turned suddenly towards her husband —

" Mr. Mudge ? " she said.

" Yes," replied Warrisden, with some astonishment at
the accuracy of her guess. " He reminded me of Mudge."

" It was Mr. Mudge," she said. For a moment or two
she was silent ; then she let her hand fall upon her husband's :
" He was a very good friend to us," she said gently — " to all
of us."

THE END

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SONGS OF ACTION.

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THIRD

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Crown 8vo. 6s,

stirring story.'

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AKfiA MAKHi the most charming romances
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CLEG KELLY.

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=»

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