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THE CELTIC LIBRARY 

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CLASS OF 1893 



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Cornell University Library 
PR4964.M49R51897 

The riddle ring, a novel. 

■::3 519 800 





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http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92401 351 9800 



THE RIDDLE RING 



OPINIONS OF THE PRESS 

ON 

THE RIDDLE RING 



' "The Riddle Ring" is a good story, full of vivacity and ingenuity, which 
carry'the reader pleasantly along. . . . The book is essentially a novel of plot 
and incident, and the mystery of the ring is quite mysterious enough to stimu- 
late curiosity without torturing it.' — Guardian. 

' Though a sufficiently tragic fate involves the villain, there is a brisk and 
cheerful pace about Mr. McCarthy's pedestrian muse. . . . The book is so 
brightly written, that one is not careful to inquire whether coincidence is pushed 
too far in the interpretation of the ring and its story.' — Athenceum. 

' In " The Riddle Ring " Mr. Justin McCarthy gives us a good story, with a 
well-managed mystery at the centre of it. ' — Spectator. 

' Taken as a whole, "The Riddle Ring" is excellent of its kind, and the 
author's many admirers will read it with interest and pleasure. ' — Lady's Pictorial. 

' Every regular novel-reader will find her attention glued to the story, from 
dedication to colophon.' — Times. 

' The story is of a thoroughly healthy and pleasant flavour ; full of touches of 
gentle satire and of pictures of men, women, and places that are, without effort, 
graceful and natural." — Scotsman. 

' Mr. McCarthy has told his story with the facility of a practised novelist ; he 
enlists the reader's sympathy in the first chapter and holds it unto the last.' — 
Daily Chronicle. 

• Mr. McCarthy has the monopoly of sensation and quietness in his admirably 
thought-out novels. . . . The experimental philosopher and consummate rascal 
of this remarkably clever novel, Sir Francis Rose, is the best character portrait 
Mr. McCarthy has produced since he drew " The Comet of a Season ;" and the 
conduct of the story, largely accomplished by ' ' talk," always vigorous and true 
to the type of the talkers, is highly artistic.'— World. 

' Written with a cleverness that would render less sensational material in- 
teresting. . . . One may safely maintain that Mr. McCarthy is often bright and 
entertaining in the midst of diflRculties that would have entirely overcome any 
ordinary writer.' — Morning Post. 

' Mr. McCarthy lightly blends comedy and tragedy, and the result is a 
pleasantly moving and exciting romance. . . . The romance is one to be read in 
a holiday mood, and when taken up will not, we think, be easily laid down.'— 
Daily News. 

• The story is admirably told, and there is not a page which is not full of 
iaieKH.— Norfolk Chronicle. 

■An eminently bright and readable story. . . . Perhaps the best figures in 
the book are the two women. . . . It is in the delineation of them and of the 
hero that we see the light and easy touch by which Mr. McCarthy, as a novelist, 
has made his mark. — Glasgow Herald, 



THE RIDDLE RING 



A NOVEL 



BY 

JUSTIN MCCARTHY 

AUTHOR OF 

'DEAR LADY DISDAIN,' 'CAMIOLA,' 'THE COMET OF A SEASON,' 

' DONNA QUIXOTE * A FAIR SAXON,' ETC. 




A NEW EDITION 



LONDON 
CHATTO & WINDUS ^'>(y 



To COURTAULD THOMSON. 

Mr DEAR CoURTAULD, 

You showed me the actual existing 'Riddle Ring,' told 
me the story of its chance discovery, and explained your reading of 
the letters and the figures on it. You suggested to me to start a 
story from the discovery. As the idea of a novel with this inspira- 
tion came from you, I think the least thing I can do is to dedicate 

the book to you. 

Very truly yours, 

JUSTIN McCarthy. 



CONTENTS 



I. JIM conhad's find - . » - 1 

II. THE SLAVE OF THE RINO - » • - 10 

HI. jim's new acquaintances- • - - 19 

IV. MR. ALBERT EDWARD WALEY » - 32 

V. MR. waley's chief « . - -41 

VI. CLELIA VINE - - . ., « 48 

VII. MR. MARMADUKE COFFIN - - . - 64 

VIIL SOMEONE HAS BLUNDERED - « . - 76 

IX. MR. WALEY AS RECRUITING-SERGEANT - - 89 

X. 'I COULD HAVE LOVED YOU, BUT ' - •98 

XI. THE SWEET SORROW OF PARTING - »• ^114 

XII. BACK TO LONDON - - - -< ■» 124 

XIIL SIR FRANCIS ROSE- - •- - - 132 

XrV. 'THAT LADY IS NOT NOW LIVING*- • - 144 

XV. 'will you STAND IN WITH US?" - - l60 

XVL A LETTER AND A MEETING - • - 172 

XVII. AN EPOCH-MAKING DAY - - - -187 

XVIII. JIM IS AN UNWELCOME MESSENGER - - 198 

XIX. 'HAST THOU FOUND ME OUT, O MINE ENEMY?' " 210 



viii CONTENTS 

OHAPTEB rmt 

XX. 'thy kindness freezes' - - - - 226 

XXI. ' WHY SUMMON HIM AND TRUST NOT ME ?' - 237 

XXII. WHAT MR. WALEY DID WITH HIMSELF - - 246 

XXIII. WHAT THE CHIEF DID WITH HIMSELF - - 20l 

XXIV. 'WHAT IS TO BE DONE FIRST?' - - - 273 
XXV. WHAT IS TO BE DONE NEXT? - ' " 287 

XXVI. A LEAP IN THE DARK - - - 300 

XXVII. THE RING RETURNED - - - - 310 



THE RIDDLE RING 



CHAPTER I. 

JIM Conrad's find. 

Jim Conrad, a young Englishman lounging about Paris at 
the time when this story begins, found a ring which he at 
once assumed to have a mystery connected with it. It 
appealed to his young and romantic fancy, and it seemed 
to tell him that it had come in his way with a mission for 
him to fulfil, and perhaps even a story for him to tell. It 
clearly, as he thought, told a tale of a lovers' quarrel, and 
he was in the mood just then to sympathize with anybody 
into whose love a quarrel had pierced. 

In any case, all stories about rings had a cmious 
fascination for Conrad. There was the ring of Polycrates ; 
there was Aladdin's ring ; there was the ring of Amasis ; 
there was the ring put upon the finger of the statue of 
Venus, and suddenly clasped and clutched by the enchanted 
mai'ble. There was the ring with which the Doge used to 
wed the Adriatic. There was the ring that Pharaoh gave 
to Joseph, and there was the ring of Solomon, and Portia's 
ring, and the ring of Posthumus in ' Cymbeline,' and all 
manner of other rings in poetry, legend, and romance. 
Conrad delighted in all these rings, and was a devoted admi rer 

1 



2 THE RIDDLE RING 

of ' The Ring and the Book.' How, then, could he avoid 
being impressed by the fact that a ring with an apparently 
mysterious story encircling it had come in his way, and 
invited him to imlock the heart of its mystery ? 

Jim Conrad was passing by the Arch of Triumph, the 
Arch of the Star, one morning in Paris, and entered the 
Bois de Boulogne. It was a morning in late summer or 
early autumn. Jim Conrad came to Paris just then 
because he wanted to have Paris all to himself. The 
Parisians would have gone away, and the English and 
Americans would not yet have come. There was only one 
piece being played at all the Parisian theatres just then, 
and that bore the name of ' Relache.' Jim Conrad tried 
even to see the Venus of Milo at the Louvre, but on his 
first attempt he found that the gallery was closed ' for the 
business of repairs,' and he made no further attempt. 
' Let it go,' he said, ' as eveiything else goes — ^for me.' 

From which it will be inferred that poor Jim Conrad 
was in some mental trouble. So he was. He had come to 
Paris in order to relieve his mind by making it more miser- 
able than ever, and brooding alone and lonely over his 
trouble. Alone and lonely may seem at first to the 
irreverent reader to be mere repetition and tautology. The 
irreverent reader, if he will please to devote his powerful 
mind to one moment's thinking over the subject, will see 
that he is entirely wrong. One may be alone without 
being lonely. We all find it healthy and satisfactory to 
be alone now and then ; but to be lonely is the blood- 
poisoning of the soul. 

Poor Jim Conrad was lonely. The girl whom he loved, 
or fancied he loved, had thrown him over and married a 
rich man old enough to be her father. Many a London 
young man no older than Jim would have taken this coolly 



JIM CONRAD'S FIND S 

enough, and accepted it as part of his ill-luck. Girls will 
do these things — they do them every day — Fred to-day, 
George to-morrow, Arthur yesterday. And then, too, the 
lads sometimes throw over the lasses, as every wise man's 
son doth know. But, unfortunately, Jim Conrad had a 
fatal trick of taking things seriously. At least, he took 
things seriously where his heart and his aiFections were at 
all concerned. He was an odd sort of young man. He 
was decidedly good-looking — ^he was tall and well made, 
and wore his clothes with the unconscious way of one who 
has been born to show off clothes to advantage. He was 
great in all manner of games and sports, and was a capital 
amateur actor and manager. He was poor. He was the 
younger son of a younger son, and his own personal 
property amounted to five hundred a year all told — ^the 
money left him by his mother, who was dead. But he was 
determined to make his way in literature, for he had, from 
his college days, an inborn passion for literature, and he 
saw a great career before him — a career which had not yet 
quite begun. He had written nothing — at least, nothing 
for publication — ^but he meant to write. His friends had 
always said : ' Why don't you write something, Jim .'"' 
And he proposed with all the confidence of another Mont- 
rose to make the girl he loved — or thought he loved — 
famous by his pen. The girl, who had at first been taken 
by his face, his figure, his clothes, and his manners, did 
not care twopence about being made famous by his pen. 
She captivated an elderly millionaire, and she calmly threw 
Jim Conrad over. She told him in the very frankest way 
what she was doing, and why she was doing it. ' I should 
like very much to marry you, Jim. I would rather marry 
you than any other man if you had the oof ; but, then, you 
haven't, and I don't believe you'll ever get it — and I can't 



4 THE RIDDLE RING 

wait all my life — and I've got a good chance now with this 
old fool — and of course I am not an idiot, and I don't 
mean to throw my chance away. Perhaps he'll die soon 
and leave me a widow — and then I don't say that you and 
I may not arrange matters.' 

Then Jim left her. He saw that he had thrown his 
time utterly away on her. He saw that she never could 
have been the woman he had supposed her to be. He found 
a gi-eat desert in his heart. To have loved and lost may be 
better than never to have loved at all, but to have loved 
and to find out that the object of one's love is not worth a 
single thought, even in the way of anger, is not a cheering 
experience to look back upon. That was Jim Conrad's 
condition when he went over to Paris to try for some way 
of distracting himself from the memory of his folly. He 
did not even carry self-respect along with him. How could 
he feel any respect for himself who had been taken in by a 
woman like that ? 

So he wandered listless through the Bois de Boulogne 
eating his own heart. He had come to Paris not merely 
because he was fond of Paris — although he was — ^but 
because he had had much of his bringing-up there, and he 
thought it would do him good to go back to the place 
which he had known before he knew her. In the mind of 
some men, and perhaps of a very few women, place and 
eissociation go together like substance and shadow. There 
are men — there are certainly men ; I will not vouch for 
women — to whom every place they know floats double — 
the place and its shadow, the association. Therefore, Jim 
Conrad, in his fancied distress — is there any fancied 
distress ? does not the mere fancy make it real ? — sought 
out his old haunts in Paris because they brought him 
associations of a happy, cai'eless time before he knew her. 



JIM CONRAD'S FIND 6 

He strode over a high railing, and lost himself in an 
utterly unfrequented glade of the artificial wood. He 
wanted to go away even from the sound of feet, the sound 
of voices. He did not care to hear the nursemaids bab- 
bling to the children. Like all disappointed people, he 
was for a time a thorough egotist. He saw his own 
trouble in the grass, in the sky, in the crowd, in the 
solitude. 

Suddenly, as he plunged along across the well-kept grass, 
he was called away from the thought of his own trouble 
by seeing a shining object on the turf before him. It was 
something that glittered at him out of the grass, and that 
in an odd sort of way seemed to appeal to him. He 
stooped and took it up. It was a ring — a thick, heavy 
ring of gold. It was apparently a ring of antique make 
and fashion. Naturally he looked round to see if anybody 
was within call who might have dropped it. No, there 
was no one anywhere in sight ; he had the glade all to him- 
self. Yet it was plain from the first that the ring had 
been lately dropped or thrown away. The night had been 
rainy, the early morning had kept up the rain. The ring 
was as dry as if it had been dropped on the Egyptian sands 
in front of the Sphinx, near the Pyramids. It was a ring 
which might have been worn by man or woman — a man 
with a hand at all slender could have worn it on his little 
fineer ; a woman who had not a hand too solid could have 
worn it on her middle or even her third finger. It looked 
more like a man's ring, certainly, it was so solid and heavy. 

' Curious,' Jim thought, ' how anyone could drop so 
heavy a ring and not notice its absence from the finger to 
which it belonged.' 

Anyhow, he took it for granted that the owner would 
soon come back to recover the lost possession, and as he 



6 THE RIDDLE RING 

had nothing particular to do with himself, he resolved to 
wait until the owner came and gladdened his heart, or hers, 
by its restoration. So he lounged about, and sat on 
the grass, and leaned on the fence, and wove odd fancies 
about the ring. Two hours idled and slipped away in this 
dreamy fashion, and no one came to look for the ring — ^in 
fact, no one came near him. 

Then an idea occurred to him. Was the ring dropped 
at all ? or was it not rather thrown away ? It pleased Jim 
to fancy himself already a writer of romance, and as such 
able to analyze human nature, and out of the merest 
glimpses of observation light up a whole story. So he set 
to thinking out a story, and nobody came near to interrupt 
his thoughts or to claim the ring. He settled down to the 
conclusion that the ring was thrown away, and thrown away 
by a woman. It was flung away in a woman's impatient 
burst of anger and scorn. It was a question of slighted 
love — of faith cruelly broken. It was the gift of a false 
lover. Oh yes, Jim felt quite siu-e the ring was thrown 
away by a woman. He felt that she must be young ; he 
felt that she must be beautiful ; he felt for the time as sure 
of this as if elderly ladies never dropped a ring, never 
threw away a ring, never were disappointed in their lovers 
— as if ugly women never had occasion to bemoan the 
perfidy of their pretended admirers. Other things being 
equal, one would naturally have thought the action of a 
woman disappointed in love wotild suggest a lack rather 
than a superabundance of attractions. But Jim just then 
did not choose to think it so. He saw Ariadne deserted 
by Theseus. Likewise, he convinced himself — and here 
his reasoning was more plausible, and even more sound — 
that a love affair of the purer order — love affair between 
the unmarried — was concerned, and not an intrigue of any 



JIM CONRAD'S FIND 7 

discreditable kind. There was, indeed, as will be seen, a 
third possibility, which did not then come into his mind. 

He said to himself that no woman, disappointed in any 
scandalous intrigue, would throw away in a public place a 
ring which might afterwards come to be a piece de convic- 
tion against herself. Such a woman might have thrown 
the ring into the Seine, but she would not have flung it 
recklessly on the tiu-f of the Bois de Boulogne. No ; the 
ring could betray nothing of which its wearer was ashamed. 
She was disappointed, and she did not care who knew it. 
Let it go — all ! 

Why might it not have been a man who threw that ring 
away ? Suppose a man had been given a ring by his sweet- 
heart, and she had proved false, and they had quarrelled, 
why might not he have flung it away there in the Bois de 
Boulogne.? Jim reasoned this out, too. A man would 
not have been likely — so Jim reasoned out the case — to 
throw away a ring. He would probably have sent it back 
at once to the woman who had proved faithless, or he 
would simply have left it in his desk or in one of his 
drawers, and tried to forget all about it. What puzzled 
him a little was why, if the Bois de Boulogne was chosen 
for the flinging away of the ring, that particular spot 
should have been chosen. 

Then an explanation occurred to him which fitted in 
with his theory of the deserted and disappointed woman, 
whose grief had suddenly flamed up in passion. The 
place in which he had found the ring was not a place 
where women would naturally walk. It could only be got 
at by scrambling over the railing and running the risk, no 
doubt, of ofiicial remonstrance and reproval from angry 
police authority. It would be very hard indeed for any 
woman, even if she wore the divided skirt^ to scramble over 



8 THE RIDDLE RING 

that railing; and why should an ordinary petticoated 
woman want to scramble over it in the broad light oi 
day ? 

So Jim Conrad settled finally down to his conclusion 
that the ring had not been dropped, but that it had been 
thrown away. Some woman, standing on the other side 
of the railing, and without the least idea of crossing the 
barrier, had deliberately taken off the ring and flung it 
away — flung it as far as she could, from her hand, and 
from her heart, and from her life — ^flung it away in the sad 
and sickly hope that she was flinging memory, and dis- 
appointment, and disillusion along with it. 

Then Jim began to study the ring itself more closely 
than he had done before. It had a number of letters 
beautifully enamelled round the outside, each letter in a 
different colour. Inside the ring were some figures in 
dark -blue enamel. The lettei-s round the outside gave no 
indication whatever of where one ought to begin, in order 
to decipher the meaning — if any meaning they had. Jim, 
of course, assumed that they had a meaning ; no mortal 
takes the pains of having letters enamelled on a ring if 
they have absolutely nothing to express. The letters ran 
thus, if one began at random — suppose with the letter C : 

C.Y.O.F.A.R.A.A.T.N.I.C.S.I.O.8.R. 

Not much to be made of that — at the first glance, at all 
events. On the inner surface of the ring were the figures 
3,290, and following, with a little space between, 14,293. 
That was all. 

Evening began to lower, and Jim left the place, taking 
the ring with him, and went home to his hotel. After a 
night and day of puzzling, he began to flatter himself — 
and he believed he had a special gift in the deciphering 



JIM CONRAD'S FIND 9 

of hieroglyphics— he began to think that a suspicion of 
meaning was dawning on him. His theory was that one 
must begin with the letter F, and take every alternate 
letter following, and by this process you get the name 
Francisco. Then you begin again with the second R, 
which was not used up in the ' Francisco,' and go back- 
wards on the same alternating principle, and thus you get 
the name ' Rosita.' Francisco and Rosita — common names 
enough in Italian or in Spanish. This reading, to be sure, 
left two letters unaccounted for — the Y that follows the 
first C, and the A that follows the F, and which were 
taken in by neither of the names. 

The figures, he took it, were dates written straight out. 
Clearly enough, they meant the third day of the second 
month of 1890, and the fourteenth day of the second 
month of 1893. The two unused letters — ^were they not 
simply the Spanish form of 'Alas ' taken backwards ? Here 
he could find no better solution. He had then got to this 
— that the ring symbolized some sort of love affair between 
a Francisco and a Rosita, presumably Italian or Spanish, 
or one Italian and the other Spanish ; that the eras of the 
love afiair were the third of February, 1890, and Valen- 
tine's Day in 1893 — ^three years and a little more ; and 
that the ring bore melancholy evidence of something ill- 
omened in its short word of pathos or of despair. 

What was the meaning of the zone of time, if such an 
expression may be used, which was indicated by the two 
sets of figvu-es with their several dates ? Why did the 
lovers' era limit its enamelled record to the days between 
early 1890 and early 1893 ? Was that done in advance .'' 
Clearly it could not have been. Nobody, whether man or 
woman, would think of having a ring engraved with a 
funeral inscription in advance of love's funeral. There are 



10 THE RIDDLE RING 

those who have their gravestones cut and inscribed long 
in advance ; but no one ever heard of a gravestone with 
the date imprinted in advance. No sane human beings 
would have thought of engaging themselves for three years 
and a few days, and no more. An engagement which was 
bound to last so long might surely be expected by the 
lovers to last until its very fulfilment. At least, that is 
how a pair of lovers might naturally be expected to reason 
out the question. Of course the two dates might have 
been meant to mark two stepping-stones in the love 
career — ^the day when the lovers first met, for example, 
and the day when they got married. But, then, why the 
syllable of despair ? And why was the ring flung away .'' 

Death, in its natural course, could have nothing to do 
with the tale. No one flings away a memorial of a be- 
loved companionship cleft cruelly apart by death. Even 
misunderstanding, quarrel and rancour do not often sur- 
vive a death. ' Dead, dead ! That quits all scores,' says 
Meg Merrilies in ' Guy Mannering.'' 



CHAPTER IL 

THE SLAVE OF THE EING. 

Jim considered himself quite safe to put away any theory 
which brought death — that is, a natural and a lamented 
death — into the puzzle. But a death by crime.? How 
about the possibility of a death by crime ? Suppose a 
husband and wife had quarrelled — suppose it were a case 
of grounded or groundless jealousy — and the husband had 
torn from his wife's finger a ring which he had given her 
jn happier days, and had killed her, and then flung the 



THE SLAVE OF THE RING 11 

ring away ? Or suppose it were merely the case of such a 
quarrel between a pair of lovers, with the same result ? 
But there remained the same impossibility of accounting 
for the syllable of despair. No man having killed his 
wife or his sweetheart would have been at the pains of 
commemorating the fact with the dates of lovership or 
marriage and the syllable of despair by an inscription 
subsequently engraved for the mere purpose of throwing 
the ring away. 

The explanation in any case would have been incon- 
sistent with Jim's fond belief that the ring was thrown 
away by a woman. Still, he said to himself that he was 
not going to leave any possible solution of the mystery 
untested merely because something might seem to conflict 
with a favourite theory of his own. A crime of some kind 
was quite possible. But he studied the papers for days 
and days, and he found no record of what we may call any 
appropriate crime. He found, indeed, two cases of suicide 
with somewhat corresponding dates, and he went to the 
Morgue to study for himself. But one was that of a red- 
faced and seemingly very dranken artisan in a blouse, and 
the other that of a poor half-starved little sempstress girl, 
whose wan and needle-marked fingers did by no means 
seem adapted to the wearing of that ciurious and costly 
rino". He made inquiry at the Prefecture of PoKce, but 
could hear of nothing. He did not, however, give up the 
ring. He utterly dechned to shut himself out of the 
mystery altogether. He had already advertised in the 
Paris journals, stating that an Enghsh gentleman, who 
could be heard of by writing to certain initials at the 
Grand Hotel, had found a ring in the Bois de Boulogne 
on the date of the finding, and inviting the owner to 
claim the lost property. His appeal to the world in 



12 THE RIDDLE RING 

general brought out no reply whatever. Yet it seemed 
almost certain — at all events, extremely probable — ^that 
the woman who had flung away the ring must still have 
been in Paris soon after he had picked it up in the Bois de 
Boulogne. He felt a strong conviction that the owner 
of the ring did not want to know an)rthing more about it. 
But the ring bore the two names — assume that a woman 
had thrown it away, would not the date and the fact of a 
ring being discovered bring home some idea to the mind 
of the man whose name was interlocked with hers ? Yes, 
certainly, if he were in Paris. But the theory of Jim 
Conrad was that the lover had left Paris — ^had deserted 
the girl in a new passion for some other woman — and that 
then she had thrown away the ring. Here, then, the 
theory would fit in well enough. One of the pair whose 
names were interlocked would not have the ring again ; 
the other knew nothing about its rejection and its dis- 
covery. 

Jim took the ring to several high-class jewellers in 
Paris, and endeavom-ed to get at some conjecture as to its 
origin and history. It was an old ring, they all agreed — 
the legend had been put on it within the last few years — 
the figures at a somewhat later time than the outer in- 
scription. The opinion was strong, almost unanimous, 
that, despite the seeming evidence of the names, it w£is not 
an Italian or a Spanish ring. It certainly was not a 
French ring. Nor was it German, although it looked 
more like a German or Scandinavian piece of work than 
anything belonging to Southern Europe. One expert in 
the craft made a declaration which set Conrad's nerves 
thrilling. He declared his firm conviction that it was an 
English family ring. ' Then,' Conrad thought, ' the work 
of discovery, if that be true, becomes easier and easier. It 



THE SLAVE OF THE RING 13 

cannot be hard to find out in London the family histoiy 
of such a ring. It cannot be hard to find out just now in 
Paris the names of any English people who may have been 
staying here at this unwonted time.' 

Conrad had many friends in Paris ; he had many friends 
especially at the British Embassy. Some of the young 
men belonging to the Embassy were still compelled to 
remain in town. Of these he made inquiries, but his 
friends could not assist him much. He could only ask 
them vaguely about English famihes who had lately been 
in Paris or were stiU there. They could only tell him of 
the Ronaldsons, who had run up for a few days from 
Dieppe; of the Strathsbys, who were going back to 
Scotland; and, quite inappropriately, of the delightful 
American girls who had stayed to the very last of the 
season, but whose mother had carried them away, no one 
quite knew where, several weeks ago. There was nothing 
satisfactory in this. Conrad did not want quite to give 
up his secret — to let it pass into other hands. He cherished 
it ; he clung to it ; it gave him a motive for living — ^which, 
as he thought, he sadly wanted. He began to forget his 
own trouble in studying out and striving to construct the 
story of his self-created heroine. An idea began to get 
hold of him. Why should he not make a story of it .'' 
Why not try his literary hand in that way ? But he put 
the idea aside. Suppose the real heroine of the tale came 
to find that somebody had turned her and her misfortune 
into 'copy.' He could not bear the thought. No, it 
must be his secret alone — and hers, of course ; but it must 
not be given to the big stupid public at so much a page. 
With the audacity of a novice in literature, Conrad did 
not contemplate the possibility of editors and publishers 
nleclining the completed copy with thanks. No; his 



14 THE RIDDLE RING 

thought was of a story ringing in the public ear far and 
wide, becoming the talk of the day, and so at last reaching 
the ear and wounding the heart of the poor suffering and 
secluded heroine. 

The more he brooded over the whole subject, the more 
the heroine became a real and concrete being to him. He 
thought very little about the lover, except that now and 
then he flung an execration along his undiscovered path. 
His theory was that the girl was young, that the man was 
much older — perhaps a married man who had passed him- 
self off as single, and so won the girl's guileless affections ; 
and the discovery came, and the ring was flung away. 
What, in any case, had all this to do with Jim Conrad ? 
Were not his affections blighted utterly ? What was it 
to him whether there was in the world one more disap- 
pointed being than he had known of before ? Suppose he 
could find her out, what good could he do for her ? He 
could hand her back her ring, of course ; but, assuming 
that she had deliberately thrown it away, it did not seem 
likely that she would be very grateful for having it handed 
back. 

Still, we are afraid that a disappointed lover, even in 
•the early bitterness of his disappointment, is not the least 
.likely of men to open his heart to a new sensation, even 
to the chance of a new wound. The actual fact is that 
Jim began to dream and moon about this imaginary 
heroine until he almost persuaded himself that he had 
been appointed by Providence to find her out and charm 
-her grief away. All this was very absurd, to be sure; 
but, then, these romantic yoimg men will be absurd some- 
times — always. 

Every day regularly Jim made a pilgrimage to the Bois 
-de Boulogne, and hung about the spot where he had found 



THE SLAVE OP THE RING 15 

his perplexing possession. The idea was in his hiind that 
if the owner of the ring should still be in Paris she might 
be tempted to haunt the place with which she had such 
melancholy associations. The impulse of most people is 
to avoid such a scene — ^but it is not the impulse of all. 
There are some who have the ghost's faculty highly and 
morbidly developed in them, and cannot keep themselves 
from revisiting a scene of suffering. It would be more like 
a man than like a woman, Jim thought, to haunt the grave 
of a buried happiness, but still there might be women too 
who would do it. This woman might be one who would 
do it. 

So he went to the place every day, and lingered there 
and watched every woman, and, indeed, every man, who 
passed the railings, and who gave any glance, however 
short and sudden, in the one particular direction. 

But no one stopped there, man or woman — nor did any 
woman who passed give him the idea of a heroine and a 
tragic story. He was so often there, lingering about the 
same place, that he began to recognise faces of men and 
women who appeared to be regular passers-by there — and, 
indeed, people began to notice him, and more than one 
sergent de ville appeared to take a deep and curious 
interest in his movements, or, rather, in his lack of any 
particular movement. But he haunted the place, all the 
same, and let authority form any suspicions it pleased. 

Jim got into a way of sitting up late in his bedroom of 
nights, studying the ring. He used to set it before him 
on his table and survey it, as though by constant turning 
it over and over he could get at the heart of its mystery. 
He thought of wearing it publicly on his neck-tie, and 
thus offering it on exhibition and seeing whether somebody 
would not claim it. But here, again, came in the pos- 



16 THE RIDDLE RING 

sibility of hurting the soul of the fair sufferer. If she 
were still in Paris, and happened to see her ill-gifted ring 
thus published and blazoned forth by a stranger, what 
would her feelings be — her sense of desecrated grief? No ; 
that expedient could not be tried. In any case it would 
probably come to nothing. The advertisements in the 
papers had not procured him one single question, answer, 
or suggestion of any kind. 

Jim began to grow tired of Paris, and to think he had 
better be going back to London. He ought to get to 
work of some kind, he told himself. He must not let his 
life drift idly by, he said to his fighting soul. All the 
time there was in his mind the unacknowledged anxiety to 
show the ring to some of the great London jewellers, and 
find out from them whether it was of English make, and 
whether it would be possible to get at anything about its 
family history — supposing such history to belong to it. 
He had little difficulty in reconciling his conscience to the 
fact that he was keeping a ring which did not belong to 
him, and which, no doubt, he ought to have handed in at 
the Prefecture of Police. An Englishman in Paris, as a 
stranger not domiciled there, does not attach any particular 
sanctity to the supposed rights of the authorities over 
treasure trove. Conrad's mind followed the ring into a 
dusty collection of labelled articles, such as one may see 
in the Lost Property Office in Scotland Yard — umbrellas, 
parasols, ladies' purses, opera-glasses, and such-like, and he 
saw the interesting ring lying there imclaimed for ever — 
of no use to anyone, even the owner. No ; he felt that 
he, and no one else, was for the moment the rightful heir 
to the ring he had found. He would look out for the 
owner in a thoughtful and a delicate way, and would know 
how to act if a chance should arrive. ITie police authorities 



THE SLAVE OF THE RING 17 

would not trouble themselves in the least about the busi- 
ness. The lost ring would have no more meaning for them 
than a lost walking-stick or a dropped garter. 

Sometimes he became possessed by a fear that he had 
either lost the ring or was destined to lose it. He bought 
a little blue silk bag, and in that bag he stowed his treasure 
of nights, and tied up the silver string about the neck of 
the bag, and hid it under his pillow with his watch. More 
than once in every night he waked up and felt for the bag 
and assured himself that it was safe, and sometimes got up 
and lit his ' bougie,' and took the ring out to make sure 
that no thief, clever as one whom Herodotus tells of, had 
stolen into his room, and stealthily got the bag from under 
his head and taken out the ring, and put the empty bag 
back into its idle place. 

The whole story — ^his imagined story — ^began to get on 
Jim Conrad's nerves. It was growing to be quite a reality 
for him. Perhaps the morbid state of his mind, caused by 
his recent disappointment, had a great deal to do with his 
earnestness about this other disappointment, which in no 
wise concerned or could concern his life. He was, in fact, 
that most susceptible and irredeemable of all creatures — 
the poet who does not write verses. He had all the attri- 
butes of the poet, except the capacity to work off his trials 
and sufferings in poetry. The genuine poet has an im- 
mense advantage in that way. As soon as the first shock 
of any trouble is over, he sits down and works off his 
agonies in verse, and he reads over his poem and corrects 
and improves it, and puts its rhymes and rhythms right, 
and by the time he has come to the end of the process he 
has pushed his pain a good distance away from him. But 
Conrad was not in the way of writing poems, although he 
had felt all a poet's self-created passion for his false. true- 



18 THE RIDDLE RING 

love, and he had not that way of working himself out of 
his misery. So he took to this story of the ring, and he 
realized it, and made it part of his constant preoccupation, 
until it became something like a torture to him. 

' I will go back to London,' he said to himself resolutely. 
' I will go back to-morrow, and I will see whether some 
London jeweller can't give me a hint which may help me 
to the family history of this ill-gifted ring.' 

So he took what he told himself should be his last tramp 
to the place where he had found the ring, and he explored 
the ground once more. No new revelation was vouchsafed 
to him, but he was once again confirmed in the opinion 
which he had formed after many days of careful observation 
— that no woman ever got over those railings. Such a 
performance would have created quite as much consterna- 
tion as if a woman had walked into one of the lakes. That 
was something to encourage him in his quest. If the ring 
was worn by a woman — and it could hardly have been 
worn by a man — it was not dropped, it was not lost : it 
was thrown away. 

Jim was staying at the Grand Hotel. The days were 
telling on Paris, and the English and Americans were 
already beginning to come in. The table cThote hitherto 
had been a very dull business for him. He had not spoken 
to a soul on either side of him. This day, he thought to 
himself, would be his last, and he was glad of it, because 
of the English and Americans who were beginning to come 
in, and whom he would fain avoid in his egotistic, misan- 
thropic, and misogynist mood of mind. He returned to 
the Grand Hotel, and sat at one of the little tables in the 
court-yard, and smoked a cigar 5 and drank a petit verre. 
A carriage drove past his table, and he saw two ladies get 
outran elder and a younger. There were heaps of luggage 



JIM'S NEW ACQUAINTANCES 19 

on and in the carriage, and there was quite a little commo- 
tion of clerks, porters, page-boys, and other attendants, 
round the carriage and the ladies and the luggage. 



CHAPTER m. 

jim's new acquaintances. 

CoNEAD looked on in a lazy, half-awakened sort of curiosity. 
The younger lady got out first, and really all he saw of her 
was a dainty little foot in the prettiest of high-heeled 
shoes, and the foam of some gauzy petticoat-work just 
above. The foot was so small and dainty and neat that 
Conrad at once set down its owner as an American girl. 
But the girl helped her mother out, and they talked to 
the attendants, and by their accent Conrad knew that 
they were English — even that they were Londoners. He 
became interested now, and he saw the face of the elder 
lady quite plainly, but the young woman still kept her 
veil down. They disappeared at first into the office of the 
hotel, and then they crossed the courtyard and went up 
the flight of steps. So they vanished, and in five minutes 
more Jim had ceased to think about them. 

But he had not seen the last of them — not by any 
manner of means. When he got to his place at the table 
di'Mte in the evening, he found that there had been some 
changes. A good many new arrivals were visible. His 
next-door neighbours, a very heavy Belgian gentleman and 
his wife, had apparently taken their departure. 

There were new faces on either side of the table, and 
next to him were the two ladies he had seen in the court- 
yard — mother and daughter, as he at once assumed them 



:^0 THE RIDDLE RING 

to be. He had seen the elder lady's face very clearly, and 
this was she. The daughter was seated next to him. He 
cast some shy glances at her, and he actually caught her 
sending a shy glance at him. 

She w£is a pretty young woman, and her voice sounded 
musically in the lonely ears of Jim Conrad. He had been 
leading a very solitary life lately, and had not spoken to a 
woman for ever so long — at least, as it seemed to him — in 
reality for perhaps about three weeks. So he felt as if he 
should like to talk to the girl and to her mother — yes, posi- 
tively also to her mother ; for he felt that the talk of bright 
and pleasant women would cheer him up somehow. An 
occasion soon presented itself. He passed the pepper to the 
girl, or rendered her some other such momentous and 
heroic service, and she thanked him in words, and still 
more with a glance from her sparkling eyes. Then they 
got into conversation, into which the mother almost at 
once put her word. 

They were decidedly very agreeable people, the mother 
and daughter, and they came from London. Like all 
Londoners abroad, they soon began talking of people they 
knew at home. Londoners are the most thoroughly pro- 
vincial creatures in all the world, for they are hardly ever 
interested in anything but the concerns of their own pro- 
vince. The two women soon fovmd that they and Jim had 
some acquaintance in common at home. 

Then the girl asked him if he didn't like the Gaiety, 
and he said oh yes, he adored the Gaiety, although he did 
not add that he seldom went there ; and the mother hoped 
that he was fond of the opera, and he proclaimed himself 
a devotee of the opera, to which he hardly ever went. 

Will falsehood of this kind be recorded against us at the 
Judgment Day ? Is one morally responsible for anything 



JIM'S NEW ACQUAINTANCES 21 

he says in the effort to start conversation with people whom 
he has not met before, and whom he is anxious to talk to ? 
After all, a man might adore the Gaiety, and yet not 
happen to go very often to the shrine of his adoration, 
and might be devoted to the opera without being ready 
always to pay a guinea for his stall. 

' Are you fond of novels ?' Jim asked the daughter at a 
chance pause in the conversation, and when he felt that he 
must start something new. 

' Oh no !' she answered, opening round eyes at hira, and 
then dropping her eyelids with a decisive air. 'I hate 
novels !' 

' Hate novels ! Why on earth do you hate novels ?' 

He was himself inspired with the hope of being a 
novelist some time or other, and this declaration damped 
him. 

' I hate novels — yes — because they give false views of 
life.' 

She opened her eyes at him widely again. 

' But tell me : how are they false views of life ? 

' Everything ends happily or everything ends tragically, 
and that is not so in life. In life nothing ends at all.' 

' Come, now ; life itself does' ' 

' Yes ; but generally in some humdrum and undramatic 
way. I don't call that ending. In life things are mostly 
commonplace, monotonous, and dull.' 

' Very well ; assuming that you are right, is not that 
one more reason for our desiring a life of fiction, which 
shall not be commonplace and monotonous and dull .?' 

' Oh no ; I want to have the truth, and nothing but the 
truth.' 

' Don't you like fairy-stories ?' 

' Given as fairy-stories — about the Prince changed into 



22 THE RIDDLE RING 

a cat, and Beauty and the Beast and the ogre, and the 
"Arabian Nights," and all that — oh yes, to a certain 
extent, just as I am amused by the absurdities at the 
Gaiety. But given as a picture of real English life, no, 
most certainly not. I look on such stories as I should on 
a map or a Bradshaw if it had all its boundaries and 
figures wrong.' 

' Decidedly,'' thought Conrad, ' this is a flower of our 
very latest civilization. This is Girton and all the rest of 
them expressed in one dogmatic little mind.' But he 
liked the talk, all the same. 

' My daughter takes very strong views about fiction,' 
the mother said, with a smile. ' But she can't persuade 
me to give up my novel-reading. I am quite unhke her ; 
I am fond of any novel that is at all good. I think a 
good novel so brightens life for us.' 

' Oh no,' the girl interposed ; ' it darkens life, confuses 
it, bewilders our very instincts ; tells us nothing but lies 
about life, about the very thing of which we want to know 
the truth.' 

Conrad was amused, and was determined to draw her out. 

' But come,' he said ; ' I want you to give me your idea 
as to the want of truthfulness in fiction.' 

She laughed a merry little laugh. 

' Truthfulness in fiction,' she said. ' Why, there you 
have settled the whole question. How can there be truth- 
fulness in fiction .'' If it is truthfulness, it can't be fiction ; 
if it is fiction, it can't be truthfulness — don't you see ? 

' You have caught me with an epigram,' he answered ; 
' but I must defend my position, all the same. A story 
may not describe the literal facts known to anyone's actual 
experience, but it may be a very good, and even a very 
faithful, picture of life, for all that.' 



JIM'S NEW ACQUAINTANCES 23 

' So I always say,' the elder lady chimed in. 

' But that is what I say the novels are not,' the per- 
tinacious damsel insisted. ' I say they are utterly unhke 
real life in every way, and that their whole purpose and 
business seem to be to make us believe that life is some- 
thing quite different from what it really is. You might 
as well bring up a girl on the principle that dancing is the 
real business of her life.' 

' Many girls are brought up on that principle.' 

' So I say — ^that is my case,' the argumentative young 
woman persisted. ' But do you approve of that ? Would 
you have girls brought up in that way ?' 

She looked at him as seriously as if she were the mother 
of a family of girls, and he were an elderly legislator. 

' No,' he said, ' I don't suppose I should. I haven't very 
much considered the question of the education of girls. 
But I don't see how that affects the value of a novel. 
Novels, so far as I know, don't teach us that girls ought to 
be brought up only for balls and dancing.' 

' No ; but ' — and she stopped and shrugged her shoulders 
with an air that plainly denoted that if she might she 
would have said, ' How stupid you are !' or ' How stupid 
men are !' — ' don't you see that the novelist teaches a 
principle of life just as false as the very lesson which you 
admit you condemn ? Take the one great falsehood — the 
novelist teaches that the only important thing in life is 
for a man and woman to fall in love.' 

' Yes,' he said, a little slowly, some thoughts about his 
own life coming up cheerlessly to his mind ; ' and isn't it a 
matter of some importance in life .?' 

'Not the least in the world,' she declared promptly. 
' What does it count for in the real work of hfe ? For a 
man nothing at all — no, nothing at all.' 



24 THE RIDDLE RING 

' Oh ! but pray excuse me- 



' I know — I know what you would say, and, of course, 
for a while all young men think it a very serious business. 
But how does it ever affect the serious part of their lives ? 
For women it is a little — not very much ; for men it is 
nothing at all.' 

'This young lady has been disappointed,' Conrad 
thought. 'Either she has never found a lover' — and 
glancing round at her pretty face, now a little flushed by 
the heat of the argument, he fancied that was not quite 
likely — ' or she has foimd the lover unworthy, and she 
tries now to argue herself into the belief that love counts 
for nothing in human afiairs.' For, indeed, she did seem 
as if she were not so much arguing with him as arguing 
with herself — perhaps arguing down herself. 

' Do you know,' he said, ' I have read some French poem 
or ballad or something which says that in the world there 
is nothing but that.' 

' Nothing but what ?' she asked disdainfully. 

' Well, of coui'se, nothing but love.' 

' That is just the kind of sentimental nonsense a French 
poet would write.' 

' He says that it is the one thing which is higher than 
the stars, greater than the sun, stronger than the sea.' 

' What nonsense — what utter nonsense ! Why, at the 
very most, love is an episode, an incident. Look at all 
these people here : how much do you suppose love has to 
do with any of their feelings and their ambitions, and 
their hopes, and their fears, and all the rest of it ?' 

' I would venture to say that it eithei: has or had a very 
great deal to do with the feelings of every creature here, 
man or woman, young or old.' 

Conrad was now throwing his soul into the discussion. 



JIM'S NEW ACQUAINTANCES 25 

She smiled contemptuously. 

' I am sure it has nothing to do with my life, or my 
hopes, or my fears,' she said. 

' Well, you are very young ; you have not begun yet. 
Your time will come.' 

' Oh no, it will not. And, then, there's mamma ; she 
had never any love-trouble in her life — had you, dearest .?' 

It was a little disappointing to be referred thus directly 
to mamma on the delicate subject of love-troubles. The 
mamma was a very good-looking, lady-like person of about 
forty-five, with a sweet and gentle expression ; but, still, 
one would not natvurally turn to her for a discourse on the 
troubles of love, 

' My dear,' she said gently, ' you talk too fast and too 
carelessly ' 

' Oh no, please don't say that,' Conrad interposed. 

' But my daughter is right enough ; it does so happen,' 
the mother went on composedly, ' that I never have known 
anything about love-troubles. I was married at the desire 
of my people when I was very young to a man much older 
than myself, for whom I had both esteem and affection, 
and he died not many years after our marriage, and I was 
very sorry for him — and that was my only love-trouble ; 
and I don't suppose it was exactly what the poets would 
call love, or what my daughter thinks the novelists set out 
for us as the great business of our lives.' 

Conrad was a little embarrassed for the mother when 
the impetuous daughter so suddenly appealed to her for 
her experiences of life and love. But he thought it would 
not be possible for any lady to get out of the difficulty 
with more grace and sweetness. He began to like them 
both. 

' I am afraid I have got the explanation of your views 



26 THE RIDDLE RING 

of life,' he said to the girl. * Your mother has, on the 
whole, passed an untroubled existence, and you think that 
all life is like that.' 

There was a touch of hypocrisy about this speech, for 
he was thinking all the time that while the mother told 
her simple story there was something in her tones and in 
her eyes which seemed to say that she would have parted 
with some of that quietude of life and reciprocal esteem 
for even a little of the rapture and the trouble of love. 
But he could hardly suggest this to her or her daughter, 
and so he made to the yovmg lady his hypocritical little 
speech. 

'No,' the young lady answered decisively. 'Mamma, 
for all her novel-reading, has seen life in its true propor- 
tions. I think the novelists have done a world of mischief 
by their absurdly false teaching.' 

' So if ever you start a republic of your own, you will 
have no novelists allowed to become citizens .?' 

' Like Plato and the poets. Didn't he propose to shut 
all poets out of his Republic ?' 

' I believe he did,' said Conrad modestly. 

He was a little alarmed at the contiguity of a young 
lady who knew anything about Plato, but it was open to 
him to hope that she had read the philosopher only in her 
brother's cribs. 

' Then, I should certainly do the same with novelists,' 
she said, smiling ; ' at least, until I had taught them how 
to write about life.' 

The dinner came to an end, and the young lady began 
gathering up her handkerchief, her fan, and her gloves. 
They exchanged bows. Jim walked behind them out of 
the dining-room, and presently they all found themselves 
in the lift together. 



JIM'S NEW ACQUAINTANCES 37 

' Will you come into our sitting-room and have a cup of 
coffee with us ?' the elder lady graciously asked. ' I should 
like to talk to you about our friends the Draymonts — 
indeed, they are relations of mine, or, at least, of my 
husband's — and I have not seen them for some time. We 
have not been in London very lately.' 

Jim was only too delighted to accept the friendly in- 
vitation. He had not known very well what to do with 
his evening, and it would probably have ended in his going 
up to his bedroom and smoking a cigar or two, and read- 
ing languidly a yellow-coloured novel, perhaps by Paul 
Bourget, or for a lighter mood Richard O'Monroy, and 
having his attention always distracted by a mental re- 
currence to the particular riddle of life which was occupy- 
ing his mind just now. It was very pleasant for him to 
go and have a talk with these two women. He had told 
them his name, and they told him their names. They 
were Mrs. Morefield and her daughter Gertrude. Mrs. 
Morefield had often heard of Conrad through her husband's 
relatives, about whom she spoke, and was even sure that 
she had in her eai'lier days known Conrad's mother. 
Conrad had vaguely heard of Mrs. Morefield as a benefi- 
cent lady of large means. So that an acquaintanceship 
was already established, with a fair promise of its blossom- 
ing into a friendship. There could be nothing very 
dangerous in a friendship where the young lady concerned 
had set her soul against love. 

Conrad, however, was not thinking of all that. He was 
only thinking that the two women were very agreeable, 
and that he was spending a very pleasant evening, thanks 
to them. 

They had a very pretty sitting-room, which they had 
already pulled about and redecorated to please themselves, 



28 THE RIDDLE RING 

and which, they told him, they pm-posed still further to 
pull about and redecorate next day, until they had ejected 
from it every appearance of a commonplace hotel room, 
and made it like a home that they could love. 

' Are you staying here long P' Conrad naturally asked. 

' Our stay is uncertain,' Mrs. Morefield answered, in a 
half-melancholy tone. ' We are going to take charge of 
a friend.' 

' An invalid ?' the young man asked sympathetically. 

' Oh no, not in the common sense of the word — a friend 
who has been suffering a good deal of late.' 

Miss Gertrude suddenly interposed. 

' Dear mamma, Mr. Conrad won't care to hear anything 
about family stories.' 

' My dear, this isn't a family story.' 

' Well, it's a sort of a family story, and I am sure he 
would not care to hear it.' 

Conrad felt a little abashed — snubbed, somehow — ^he 
could not tell why. What was the reason why he should 
be supposed to be cut off from all sympathetic interest in 
the lives and sufferings of his fellow-creatures ? 

' Why shouldn't I be interested in this story. Miss More- 
field ?' he asked courageously. 

' Well, I don't want you to be interested in it.' 

' Why not .?' 

' Because you said you are going to write novels, and I 
don't want any true story that concerns any of my friends 
to be put into any novel.' 

Conrad smiled. It amused him to think how every 
woman fancies that some commonplace tale of suffering she 
has heard of or known of would enchant the reading public 
if moulded into a novel. 

*I see you have a good many photographs here,' he said, 



JIM'S NEW ACQUAINTANCES 29 

for the sake of turning the conversation. ' You are fond 
of photographs ? 

' Photographs of my friends — ^yes, if they are good hke- 
nesses — ^I only care for what is true in life.' 
' But you are fond of art ?' 

' Oh no ; I hate it ! Art — ^the thing they call art is all 
falsehood; it only serves to turn the minds of men and 
women away from the true ends of life.' 

' Yes ? — and what are the true ends of life .?' 
'Helping one another — nothing more. Helping one 
another to be brave and true and helpful to others, and so 
to be happy.' 

' Come,' thought Conrad, ' this is indeed a terrible little 
woman.' 

' May I look at some of the photographs ? he asked. 
' Oh yes, of course,' the mother said. 
Miss Gertrude said nothing ; she made no objection. 
' Now, that is a beautiful photograph,' Jim said, study- 
ing one that was standing in a pretty little frame of its 
own on a small table. 

'It is generally considered so,' Gtertrude said coldly. 
' I brought it down by mistake ; I don't generally keep it 
here ; I keep it in my own room.' 

It was the face of a young woman apparently about the 
age of Gertrude herself. It was a beautiful and melan- 
choly face. It was a rather long face, with deep, appealing 
eyes under long lashes, and a mouth which seemed to 
quiver with sensibility. Conrad felt certain that the 
original of the portrait had a pale face and delicate skin. 

' I shall bring down some other photographs,' the girl 
said, and she hurried away, taking that one particular 
photograph with her. 

'My daughter has odd views of life,' Mrs. Morefield 



30 THE RIDDLE RING 

said, with a half-melancholy smile. 'She has taken up 
with many of the new ideas about what woman ought to 
be and to do, and about the degradation of her being a 
mere satellite or planet of man.' 

' Oh, she will get over all that, Mrs. Morefield,' Conrad 
cheerily hastened to say. 'She is far too pretty and 
attractive a girl to be allowed to hold such views of life 
for very long, you may be sure.' 

' Please don't say anything like that to her, if you don't 
want to offend her moi-tally.' 

'Which I don't.' 

' Very well ; then, don't say anything like that to her. 
It makes her angry to have it suggested that woman's 
business in life is falling in love and being married. To 
tell you the truth, she has been rather encouraged in her 
ideas by the story of a young friend of hers — her friend 
from schoolgirl days — who was very romantic, and chose 
to fancy herself in love, and was — well, was disappointed. 
The story was not a common story, but — ^well, of course 
it would not interest you. I suppose nothing is very 
uncommon in life. We have come to Paris to meet her. 
Hush, please !' 

For the daughter had come into the room again. 

Conrad learned from the conversation they had that the 
health of the elder lady was very poor, and that she could 
never stand a London winter. So they lived abroad here 
and there for the greater part of their lives. They wintered 
on the Riviera, they wintered in Sicily, they wintered in 
Egypt. They were going, they thought, this season to 
pass the winter in Algiers. Mrs. Morefield gave a signifi- 
cant glance at Conrad as she told him this, and he felt 
quite satisfied that they were going out to Algiers to 
accompany or to meet- the love-lorn young damsel of 



JIM'S NEW ACQUAINTANCES 81 

whom she had spoken to him. Yes, they never passed a 
winter in London, or anywhere in England. 

' I think you are very happy to be out of England in 
the winter !' Conrad exclaimed. 

' It is a dreary life for Gertrude,' Mrs. Morefield said. 

' Mamma !' the girl exclaimed, with a ring of anger in 
her voice. 

' Well, I know you would not admit it, dearest, but it 
is hard for a young woman to be out of all the society to 
which she natiu-ally belongs, and to be for the greater part 
of her life a stranger to her own country.' 

' But, dear mamma, you know I don't believe in any of 
that nonsense about one's country. Men and women are 
brothers and sisters all the world over, and why should it 
matter where they were born.'' An Algerian is just as 
much to me as an inhabitant of Belgravia or Bloomsbuiy 
or anywhere else you like. The question of nationality is 
an antiquated heresy.' 

' When you form your republic, you will shut that out 
too .?' Conrad said, with a smile. 

' Absolutely,' she answered, with resolute eyebrows. 

Conrad kept wondering in his own mind how much of 
this principle of hers was founded on a determination not 
to let her mother know that it was any trouble to her to 
live in almost perpetual expatriation. He had formed his 
opinion of the pair of women already. 

Jim Conrad sat in the balcony bf the courtyard of 
the Grand Hotel that night smoking a cigar. He was 
naturally in a somewhat pensive mood. His treasure- 
trove in the Bois de Boulogne had, however, to some 
extent distracted his thoughts from the painful memory 
of his false true-love. He was vacuously watching the 
' carriages roll in which brought the visitors from railway- 



82 THE RIDDLE RING 

stations, and from the few theatres which were already 
beginning to open their eyes one after another, like 
hibernating animals, only that the sleep was through 
summer, and not through winter. 

A little voiture rattled up, and a tall, youngish-looking 
man leaped out. Conrad saw at the first glance that he 
was an Englishman. He paid for his carriage, if we may 
put it so, in fluent French, with a strong English accent. 
Then he ran rapidly up the steps, and took a chair near 
to Conrad in front of the flower-pots, and looking down 
on the coiutyard. 

He drew out a cigar-case, took a cigar, and fumbled in 
his pockets for a match-box. Conrad produced his match- 
box and handed it to him. An acquaintanceship at once 
sprang up. The new-comer wore a light tweed overcoat 
with a cape. He threw back the coat on settling down, 
and showed a dress-suit — London evening pattern — 
underneath. He had on his head a gray tweed fore-and- 
aft cap. He did not, to Conrad's critical eye, look quite 
a gentleman, but he certainly seemed to be a man accus- 
tomed to the ways of gentlemen. His style appeared just 
a little pushing, but he was quite self-possessed. 

' Travelled a good deal, I should say,' Conrad thought. 



CHAPTER IV. 

MR. ALBERT EDWARD WALEY. 

CoNRAD had, without the least excuse for any such con- 
viction, made up his mind of late that a great career was 
to open for him in fiction. The adventiure of the dropped 
ring, if we do not vulgarize his experience by naming it in 



MR. ALBERT EDWARD WALEY 33 

the same words as those which describe the once familiar 
dodge of the London streets, had impressed him with the 
idea that he had a destiny in that way. So he was 
always looking out for the materials of a possible story. 
It was, of course, to be a good deal about himself; and he 
had some thought when he first came to Paris of showing 
up his false true-love in a way that she and she only would 
understand, and so driving her on to a late repentance. 
But the finding of the ring had taken away his attention 
somewhat from that purpose of mere revenge. So he was 
looking just now rather to the outer world for his materials, 
and when he saw the new-comer get out of the carriage in 
the courtyard, it suddenly occurred to him that something 
might possibly be done with that new-comer. 

He was a little put out by the manner in which the 
new-comer acknowledged the coiurtesy of the proffered 
match-box. 

'Thanks, old chap, was the form of acknowledgment. 
' I see you are a Briton, like myself.' 

Now, it is an extraordinary, and, indeed, an altogether 
inexplicable, fact that the most patriotic Englishman never 
cares to be set down in Paris as obviously and unmistakably 
English. So Jim Conrad only answered coldly : 

' Yes, I am an Englishman.' 

He did not ask himself why, as he had already condemned 
the other man to be English, the other man should not in 
his turn condemn him to be English. 

' Couldn't do better, could you ? 

' Certainly not,' Jim said, his native pride returning. 

' Been long in Paris, sir T 

' Few days only,' Jim replied. 

He was not much in a humour to be talked to about 
nothing, and he did not now particularly like the ways 

3 



34 THE RIDDLE RING 

of the new-comer ; there seemed no promise in them 
now, 

' Been here before, no doubt ?' 

' Oh yes, several times ; was partly brought up here.' 

'So was I. Lord bless me ! what a raw lad I was when 
I first came to Paris !' 

' Well, we most of us begin Paris pretty early,' Conrad 
said. 

He was rather softening; there was something good- 
natured and cheery in the sound of the man's voice. 

' So we do, so we do ; and the Americans, too, don't 
they? I have often said to myself, "What would Paris 
do, only for the English and the Americans .?" ' 

' I have sometimes thought,' Jim said, ' that Paris would 
do a gi-eat deal better if the English and the Americans 
never came near her.' 

' No, you don't mean that .'' Ah, yes, I see now — raising 
the prices and all that, and encouraging all sorts of swindles 
and dodges. Well, I dare say there is something in that, 
now that you call my attention to it.' 

As a matter of fact, Jim had not called his attention to 
it, but he was willing to admit that his new acquaintance 
had interpreted his meaning fairly well. 

' Yes,' he conceded, ' I think that between us — ^the 
English and the Americans — we have done a good deal to 
spoil Paris.' 

' Lord bless us ! you're quite right. Why, I am old 
enough to remember the Court of the Second Empire — 
although you mightn't think it, to look at me — and poor 
Louis Napoleon, and De Morny, and all the lot of them. 
Gad, sif ! the English and the Americans were all over the 
place ; and I was very young then, but I was in the swim 
of things, I tell you, and a jolly good time I had of it, too.' 



MR. ALBERT EDWARD WALEY 35 

'I should not have thought you were old enough to 
remember all that-^I mean, to have been in the swim of 
it, as you say,' Conrad observed, looking with some interest 
at the man's youthful face, clean-shaven but for a small 
moustache. 

' Ah, bless you, yes ! I'm in my forty-fifth year, though 
nobody would take me to be so old, and I began life so 
early that I sometimes feel as if I must be seventy-five or 
ninety-five. But what's the odds so long as a man has a 
good time of it, eh ? So I say, at all events.' 

' Well, it's a cheerful philosophy,' Conrad observed, as his 
new friend was evidently expecting him to say something. 

' Philosophy ! Lord bless you ! nothing of the kind. 
Not much philosophy about me. It's my way, that's all, 
and I can't help it. I tell you, I have had a jolly lot of 
troubles in my time, and I'm in trouble now, at this very 
moment.' 

' Sorry to hear it,' Conrad said. ' You don't seem much 
cast down.' 

'Well, where's the good of letting on? But I don't 
mind telling you, as you are a countryman of mine, and 
the first Englishman I have spoken to in Paris this time — 
and I like the looks of you — ^that I am in trouble. Fact 
is, I have lost my pal — best friend I ever had.' 
' Dead .P' Conrad asked sympathetically. 
' No, no — not so bad as that, I hope. In fact, he would 
be rather a difficult fellow to kill off" — ^he's so well up to 
everything. But I don't know what has become of him, 
and I want to find him, and I've been about all sorts of 
places trying to make out something about him, and I 
can't make out any mortal thing, so far.' 
' You have been trying in Paris .?' 
' In Paris ! Oh no ! Lord bless you ! he ain't here 



S6 THE RIDDLE RING 

now — Tm sure of that much. No, I have been trying to 
trace him through New York, and San Francisco, and 
New Orleans, and Sydney, and — oh, well, such lots of 
places. I have been almost round the world hunting for 
him, and everywhere I go I meet people who know him, 
but no one who knows where he is. None, none, none ! 
" Where is he .'''" every chap asks me, and I can only say, 
" It's no use asking me. I came here to ask you, and if 
you don't know, I don't know." ' 

' Strange, isn't it ?' Conrad asked, not, however, feeling 
any very deep interest in the inquiry. 

' Strange ! Well, I should think it was — ^to me, anyhow. 
I don't seem to be able to get on without him ; I don't 
seem to be myself without him. I miss him more and 
more every day.' 

' You were great friends i"' 

' Friends ! Lord bless you ! yes, we were that ! And 
yet it was only because he was such a good sort of a chap 
that we were friends. What was I ? Only the game- 
keeper's son, and he was one of the family who owned the 
estate. But they sent me to school with him, and to 
college with him. He learned everything that came in his 
way, and I learned just nothing at all, or so little that, 
when I forgot all about it, it didn't seem to make much 
difference in my stock of education. But I could do a 
lot of things that he could do, only he did every blessed 
thing much better — or better, anyhow — than I could do 
it. Riding, and shooting, and skating, and yachting, and 
cricket-playing, and card-playing, and billiards, and starting 
speculations, and — oh, well, all sorts of things. We could 
do pretty well anything, only he could do most things 
better than I, And such a good-looking fellow, too. The 
pretty girls ran after him, I can tell you.' 



MR. ALBERT EDWARD WALEY S7 

*He must have been a wonderful man,' Conrad said, 
smiling to himself at the enthusiasm of his new com- 
panion. 

There seemed something sincere, too, in the enthusiasm, 
which touched him in an odd sort of way. He began to 
wish that he could find himself admiring any human being 
quite as much as that. 

' He was all that,' said the admirer decisively. 

' Well, I hope you will soon find your friend,' Conrad 
said, and he threw some real sympathy into the tone of 
his voice. 

' Oh yes ; I'm safe to find him somehow or other. Onl r 
what puzzles me is why he doesn't let me know.' 

That was a puzzle out of which Conrad could not 
possibly extricate him. So he rose to say good -night. 

' We shall meet again, I hope .?' the stranger said. 

' I hope so,' Conrad answered, more or less sincerely. 

' Staying long in Paris .f 

* I don't quite know. It depends on things.' 

' So does my stay. I have a heap of things on hand. 
Fm thinking of going to London for a bit. You are stay- 
ing in this hotel while you do stay, I suppose .-'' 

' Yes. I am thinking of going back to London, too.' 

' Back to London ? Then, of course, you live in 
London .f" 

' Yes, I live in London.' 

' Have you ever noticed,' the newcomer asked, ' how 
every foreigner — everybody not English, I mean — if he 
heai-s of an Englishman, at once takes it for granted that 
he must live in London ? Why should an Englishman 
live in London if he doesn't want to ? They don't seem 
to understand much about our county families, do they .?' 

Conrad was rather amused at the idea. 



38 THE RIDDLE RING 

' I must say,' he admitted, ' that I have noticed that 
veiy often.' 

' Noticed it ! Why, sir, I have found it everywhere all 
over the globe. You say to a man in Florida, in Mel- 
bourne, in Tokio, in Brisbane, in Madras, in Cape Town — 
anywhere you like — " I have come from England," and at 
once he says, " Oh yes ; you live in London." Why 
should I live in London .'' I ask you to tell me that.' 

He was growing quite excited in his resentment at the 
idea of being set down as inevitably a Londoner. 

'You come from Manchester, perhaps, or Liverpool,' 
Conrad insinuated, well knowing with what scorn both 
these great Northern cities look down upon the Metropolis 
of England. 

' Manchester ! Liverpool ! No, sir, not I. I come 
from the ancient soil of England — from the yeomanry of 
England. I am not ashamed of it, I can tell you — ^I am 
proud of it.' 

' Quite right,' Jem said soothingly, and not altogether 
without sympathy. ' As a matter of fact, I am not a 
Londoner. I have been living in London lately, but I 
come from one of the counties.' 

' I am very glad to hear it. May I ask your name .?' 

Conrad pulled out a card-case and handed him a card. 
It bore the name of ' James Pierrepoint Conrad, 27, Clarges 
Street, Piccadilly, and Voyagers' Club, St. James's Square, 
London.' 

' Voyagers' Club ! Yes, I have been there a good many 
times,' the stranger said. ' My old pal is a member of 
that club. Conrad, eh?' 

' Conrad — yes.' 

' One of the Conrads of Northumberland ?^ 

' Yes, a very humble member of that large family,' 



MR, ALBERT EDWARD WALEY 39 

' A good North-Country man, like myself. I think I 
; must have known it from the first. Well, look here, let's 
dine together. You are not going off to-morrow ?' 

' No, not to-morrow, I think.' 

'Then dine with me. I'll take you to some first-rate 
place — not that you mayn't know your way about Paris as 
well as I do ; but, then, good Lord ! you are so awfully 
young ! I learned the art of dining in Paris mider De 
Momy and Persigny, and the lot. There's my card.' 

Conrad took the card and read it by the light of one of 
the electric lamps close to him. It bore .the name of 
' Albert Edward Waley, Manhattan Club, New York, and 
English Club, Constantinople.' 

' I come from Northumberland too,' Mr. Waley said. 
' Do you know how I got my first names ? My people 
called me Albert Edward after the Prince of Wales. See 
the reason why ?' 

' Well, I suppose loyal feeling "* 

' Loyal feeling — ^yes, to be sure ; but there was more 
than that.' 

' Oh, there was more than that .?' 

' Yes, to be sure. Our name was Waley, and they 
thought I might as well have the loyal advantage of it. 
Waley is very like Wales — don't you see ?' 

' Yes, certainly,' Conrad answered, considerably amused. 
' I think you are quite entitled to all the honoiu- that may 
come from the resemblance of the two words.' 

'Well, my people thought it, anyhow; and as I was 
not consulted on the matter at the time, I can't be fairly 
accused of trying to bring myself any nearer to royalty than 
my humble state allows me to do. But never mind about 
all that — will you come and dine with me to-morrow ?' 

' Yes, with pleasure,' Jim said. 



40 THE RIDDLE RING 

He began to be interested in Mr. Waley, and, indeed, 
to like him. After the fashion of the would-be literary 
man, he satisfied his own soul by telling himself that he 
might make -some copy out of his new acquaintance, Mr. 
Waley. 

' Thafs all right,' Mr. Waley said cheerily — ' thafs all 
right. You see, we are both from the North-Country. 
I'll let you know the time and place to-morrow, and we'll 
have a good dinner, I tell you. Are you going into the 
billiard-room ? No ? Well, I am fond of a little game of 
billiards, and I'm not a bad hand at it. Mind you, I 
would not let you try a game with me if anything heavy 
was on.' 

' Oh, I can play fairly well,' Conrad said, rather annoyed. 

' Yes, of course, I know — ^that sort of thing. You 
young fellows care more about poetry, I suppose, than 
about games of billiards. I don't myself. Grown too old, 
I fancy. Lost the hang of the poetic business, I dare say. 
Well, you won't come ?' 

' Thanks, not to-night,' Conrad answered. 

Then the two new acquaintances separated. Mr. Waley 
went to the billiard-room, and Conrad went to his bed- 
room and stepped out on his balcony, and looked at the 
moon, and thought over all manner of poetic or half- 
poetic things, and, among the rest, of his false true-love, 
and of the mysterious ring. 



MR. WALEY'S CHIEF 41 



CHAPTER V. 

MR. WALEy's chief. 

Jim Conrad dined with his new friend at the appointed 
time and place. The place was one of the very best 
restaurants in Paris ; the dinner, of course, was excellent. 
Conrad congratulated Mr. Waley on the success of the 
meats and the wines. 

' Yes, it's good,' Mr. Waley said sententiously ; ' almost 
as good as you could once get at Delmonico's in New 
York.' 

' That's about the best ?^ Conrad inquired. 

' Was the very best,' Mr. Waley said, with authority. 
' Been knocking about the world a good deal, and I ought 
to know.' 

Jim had not been knocking about the world very much, 
and had no claim to anything like universal knowledge. 
So he let the assertion go undisputed, having, indeed, no 
reason whatever to dispute it. He found his new com- 
panion odd, fresh, intelligent, and entertaining. They 
were now smoking, over their coffee. 

'Glad to see you smoke cigars, and not cigarettes,' 
Waley observed. ' That's what a North-Country man 
ought to do. I don't like cigarette-smoking. I think 
it's simply trifling with a serious business.' 

' Good enough for women, you think, no doubt ?' 

' Quite so ; yes. Just good enough for women. I don't 
think much of the women. They are generally in the 
way, don't you find .'" 

' Tliey are sometimes sadly in the way,' said poor Jim, 



42 THE RIDDLE RING 

thinking of his own bitter experience, and perhaps inclined 
to be a little confidential under the influence of the wines 
and the cigars and the soft evening air. 

'They are always in the way,' Mr. Waley declared 
emphatically. 

To give further emphasis to his declaration, he smote 
his hand somewhat heavily on the table with the manner 
of a man who drives a nail into the coffin of an opponent's 
argument. 

' I hope you don't speak from experience,' Conrad mildly 
said. 

' By Jove ! yes, I do — in my own person and that of my 
pal. He made an awful mistake, and so did I. But he 
began it ; I only followed suit with him, as I did with 
everything he did.' 

« What did he do .?' 

« What did he do .? What didn't he do ? Why, he just 
got married.' 

' Well, but such a lot of men do that.'' 

' Yes, a lot of men — a lot of the sort of men that you 
might pick up here and there out of the gutter ; but not 
such men as my pal. By Jove ! he did knock himself out 
of time when he got married.' 

' How was that .-' But pray do forgive me if I am asking 
unreasonable questions. I really am not curious about 
other people's afikirs.' 

' Oh no, you are not a bit unreasonable. You see, I 
began telling you the story, and it's only natural that you 
should like to hear a little more about it. Well, he 
married, I am told, an awfully nice girl — ^I never set eyes 
on her — ^but. Lord bless you ! he could marry any girl he 
liked. Well, for awhile she just spoiled him.' 

' Spoiled him ? How was that ?' 



MR. WALETS CHIEF 43 

' She was very handsome and clever, he told me. And, 
do you know, he actually fell dead in love with her.' 

' But I was under the impression that men generally fell 
dead in love with girls before they married them.' 

' Oh, God bless your heart ! nothing of the kind. Now- 
adays men generally marry for money, don't you think ? 
But this girl hadn't any money to speak of, and so, you 
see, it was absurd of him to think of marrying her. But 
he fell in love with her, and he kept on loving her after 
they were married ; and that was how she spoiled him.' 

' Still, I don't see how that spoiled him.' 

' Well, she set herself to elevate his moral tone and all 
that, and she drew him away from some of his habits — 
what she called his bad habits — bad habits, stuff and 
nonsense ! He was making a lot of money at billiards, 
and at Monte Carlo, and at Epsom, and in the City, too ; 
he had the head of a Rothschild for speculation and 
finance. He could start a company out of a patent for 
the renovation of old buttons if he took it into his head ; 
and, by Jove ! she succeeded for a while in convincing him 
that he mustn't do anything of the kind, and that he must 
go in for what she called an honourable way of living. 
Honourable way of living ! As if a man is not entitled 
to live by his cleverness ! I was sorry for it all. I knew 
it wouldn't last ; I knew it couldn't last. And, of course, 
it didn't last.' 

' No, I suppose not,' Conrad said. 

His attention was now beginning to wander somewhat. 
If you have never known, or even seen, a particular man, 
it is rather hard to take an interest in his moral or immoral 
development. 

' No, of course not. He soon began to grow tired of it 
all, and he used to tell me about it. But in the mean- 



44 THE RIDDLE RING 

time, don't you see, I had followed the bad example 
myself : I went and got married.'' 

' Oh, you did ; and was it a bad example ?' 

' Why, yes, of course it was. I hadn't any heart in the 
business ; but I didn't seem as if I could get on without 
my old pal. He was my chief, though, and not my pal ; 
and I felt awfully lonely, and there was a widow woman 
who I thought rather liked me — and she had a good little 
pot of money at her disposal — and in sheer despair I asked 
her to marry me.' 

' And she consented .?' 

' Yes, she consented ; but she didn't let me get hold of 
much of the money, and after a while she got not to like 
my ways, don't you know. Said I wasn't made for ladies' 
society — only fancy ! As if lots of pretty girls hadn't 
liked me well enough. And, in fact, we couldn't hit it off 
at all, and so we agreed to differ — I mean, we agreed to part.' 

' You separated ?' 

' Yes, of course we separated. What was the good of 
it to me ? I used to have ten times more trouble in 
extracting a fiver out of her than I should have in winning 
ten times the money at Epsom, or anywhere else you like 
to name. And she said that I made love to the maids — 
which was utter nonsense, for she took jolly good care to 
have them ugly enough to frighten Don Juan into good 
behaviour. So we separated. Well, absence makes the 
heart grow fonder, isn't it said in some song ? I can't say 
that I feel it quite in that way. The longer we are 
separated, the less I want to be back with her again. I 
dare say it's very wrong of me ; but, don't you see, I can't 
help it, and what a man can't help I don't think ought to 
be set down to his own fault. Don't you agree with me 
in that ?' 



MR. WALEY'S CHIEF 45 

' Well, I am afraid it is rather a serious question for 
moralists, and I am not quite sure that I should be able 
to grapple with it.' 

'One can't grapple with all these things,' Mr. Waley 
said contentedly. ' One has only to do the best he can.' 

' For himself or for others ?' Conrad asked, with a tone 
of sweet innocence. 

' Oh, for himself, of course. One is only put into the 
world to take care of himself. I am not sent into the 
world to take care of you — now am I ? Come, I put it to 
yourself.' 

' No, of course ; I quite admit that,' Conrad answered, 
with a smile. ' But you seem to think a great deal about 
your friend.' 

' Yes — ^yes ; but he is my friend and my pal and my 
chief. He is all the same as a piece of myself — twiggy- 
vous, as the song says in one of the halls in London. 
That's quite a different thing — quite another pair of shoes, 
if I may use such a vulgar expression.' 

' Yes — ^yes ; I quite see that,' Conrad said. ' But your 
friend — how did his marriage go off ?' 

' Just about as badly as my own. I don't know anything 
for dead certainty, because he was a sort of chap that 
wouldn't always tell you everything. There was no betting 
on him sometimes, don't you see. But I rather understood 
from him that the girl couldn't stand any more of him. 
Between ourselves, I was not altogether surprised. You 
see, it's not all women, or even all sorts of women, who 
can understand and settle down to the goings on of a man 
like him. Perhaps she didn't quite like the ways in which 
he made his money — women are so queer about some 
things. Perhaps she may have thought that he was a 
little too fond of being admired by handsome women — 



46 THE RIDDLE RING 

even after his marriage. You see, some girls don't ever 
understand what men are like — men like my pal, I mean — 
and they can't make allowance. Men are men, you know, 
and women are women — don't you agree with me in that T 

' Oh yes, I quite agree with you in that,' Conrad replied, 
with a very becoming gravity. 

' Thought you would. Well, anyhow, he's gone.' 

' Gone ?' 

'Yes, gone, and without letting me know a word. 
That's the trouble of it. I don't know where to get hold 
of him. I have been to see a man to-day who knew him — 
a man here in Paris. He was mixed up with him in some 
affairs, but, of course, he doesn't know anything about him 
now. How could he, if I don't T 

' What sort of a man ? Conrad asked, by way of showing 
that he kept up an interest in the whole question, as Mr. 
Waley seemed to expect, rather than out of any motive of 
direct personal curiosity. 

' Well, he isn't a man you could make much account of 
by his position in life, or his occupation, or his personal 
appearance, but he is a man who is up to some things, too. 
Tell you what he is : he is just a hair-cutter's assistant in 
the English and American hair-cutting shop — you know, 
there in the Rue de la Paix. Just you go there and get 
your hair cut by him, and draw him out, if you can. He 
can tell you a lot of things about everybody, if he will 
only talk — just mention my name, if you like — ^but the 
trouble is to get him to talk.' 

' Wonderful man !' Conrad exclaimed. ' A hair-cutter 
who will not talk ! I never before heard of the like.' 

Mr. Waley stopped and considered. 

' I don't know,' he said, in a depressed tone of voice. 
' I knew a woman who could remain absolutely silent for 



MR. WALEY^S CHIEF 47 

two whole days running, and not even answer a question, 
when she wanted to annoy her husband.' 

' Yes, but that is a different case,' Conrad repHed. 

' Different in a manner — ^yes ; but what a woman can 
do for a purpose, why shouldn't a hairdresser do with no 
purpose at all ?'' 

' The question is unanswerable,' Conrad willingly con- 
ceded. 

After a while, the coffee and the cigars and the talk 
came to a natural end. Mr. Waley invited Conrad to go 
with him to some entertainments with which he proposed 
to wind up, or rather, perhaps, to begin, the business of 
the evening. Conrad, however, refused to share in any 
further festivities for that night. He was not in the 
humour for entertainments. He went home to the Grand 
Hotel, and sat in the courtyard, and smoked. 

He had become curiously interested in Mr. Waley. The 
man puzzled him — the man with apparently the many pur- 
suits, both in business and pleasure, and the one devotion. 
Clearly Mr. Waley's devotion to his ' pal,' as he usually 
called him — ' his chief,' as he preferred in more thoughtful 
moments to call him — was as that of the spaniel to his 
master. Yet there did not seem much of the spaniel's 
nature about Mr. Waley. He appeared to Conrad to 
have aU the temperament of the fearless and conscienceless 
adventurer. Conrad ' sized him up,' to use Mr. Waley's 
adopted American phrase, a^ the sort of man who, if born 
some centuries before, would have been a daring chief of 
Free Lances, or a privateer in the interest, first of himself, 
and next of Elizabeth's England. He might perhaps have 
made a name for himself in history, Conrad thought, and 
now where would his temperament and his destiny conduct 
him ? He had evidently not much scruple as to the par- 



48 THE RIDDLE RING 

ticular rights or wrongs of a purpose or a policy, and his 
only conscience, so far as Jim had any opportunity of 
observing, had shrunk into his absolute devotion to his 
friend. 

What could the friend be like? Was he the sort of 
commanding figure that the fancy of his adoring follower 
painted him ? Or was the adoring follower simply a victim 
of the delusion common" to most adorers ? Anyhow, the 
question had some interest for Conrad, and took him for 
the moment out of himself. He wondered if he should 
ever meet the object of so much adoration, and what he 
should think of him if he did meet him, and whether there 
could really be any man who had not forced his way into 
history, and who yet could have deserved the kind of all- 
encompassing homage which Waley bestowed upon his 
idol. For nothing said by Waley had suggested that his 
chief was a famous person, the mere mention of whose 
name would carry with it universal applause. 

One man in Paris, at all events, knew something about 
him besides Mr. Waley — the English assistant in the hair- 
diesser's shop. Jim made up his mind that he would very 
soon get his hair cut, and endeavoiu? to rouse the silent 
Briton into talk. 



CHAPTER VI. 

CLELIA VINE. 

Cone AD put off his return to London, he did not perhaps 
quite know why. Possibly the principal reason was that 
the Morefields interested him, and he was, all unconsciously, 
anxious to be interested in something as well as his ill- 
gifted ring. They did not, however, appear at the table 



CLELIA VINE 49 

d''h6te any more. They had evidently arranged their 
sitting-room to their satisfaction, and they preferred to 
dine in their own apartment. He missed them, and was 
almost sorry he had not kept to his original purpose and 
left for London. But he received a civil little note, askin;i 
him to have luncheon with them the next day, and to dine 
with them and some English friends on the day but one 
after. Then he changed his mind, and was glad he had 
not gone back to London. 

Gertrude Morefield interested and amused him. She 
did not seem a lovable creature, he thought — lovable, that 
is, in the young man's sense — and in any case, of course, 
he said to himself, he could never care for any woman 
again. But he was amused and piqued by her absurd 
little theories about life, and he admired her devotion to 
her mother. 

The devotion had to be divined. It was not made 
manifest in any patent way. The girl seemed to have 
few opinions in common with her mother. She sometimes 
even spoke to her mother in a tone that was at least half 
snubbing. 

She did not seem to Jim to be altogether a good-tem- 
pered girl ; but she was evidently devoted to her mother, 
and was willing to pass the greater part of her life in 
foreign health-resorts, because she thought it might do 
her mother good. Of course, Jim knew very well that 
there were numbers of English girls who would do just the 
same thing for the same purpose. But he was not quite 
certain whether there were so many good English girls 
who would do quite the same thing without trying to 
make some little capital out of it in the way of a reputa- 
tion for self-sacrifice. 

On the day after the luncheon-party, Conrad took the 



50 THE RIDDLE RING 

two women to see some picture-galleries and other sights- 
He was amused with the comments of Gertrude on some 
of the pictures. She found the same fault with them for 
the most part that she found with fiction. 

' Where is truth ?' she asked with asperity, as they stood! 
before a famous picture in the Luxembourg. ' There are 
no women with such perfect figures as that,' she proclaimed 
dogmatically, and almost angrily. 

' No .?' Conrad asked gently. ' But, even so, is not 
that only another reason for giving us a glimpse of the 
ideal ?' 

' Give me the truth,' she said inexorably. 
' Is ugliness truth .'"'' 

' I don't care. If it is, give it to us, and let us know 
from the first what we have to put up with.' 
' Then, do you think we are all ugly ?" 
' Oh yes — most of us.' 

' Gertrude, my love !' her mother gently interjected. 
' No, pray, Mrs. Morefield, let us have this out. Am I 
ugly ?' 

' Well, I think all men are more or less ugly ; but, then,, 
ugliness does not matter in a man.' 

'I certainly don't think you are ugly. But I don't. 

mean to enlarge on that particular illustration '' 

' No, don't,' she said, with puckered eyebrows, and look-- 
ing, Conrad thought, amazingly and cruelly pretty. 
' But don't you think any woman beautiful ?' 
' Oh yes ; her face, perhaps, or her eyes, or her figure ; : 
but there isn't any perfection, and the painters and the- 
sculptors have no right to try to take us in.' 

' I see. So when you form your republic, the painters • 
and sculptors will be kept out of it, along with the-- 
uovelists, and the poets, and the patriots i" 



CLELIA VINE 5a 

* Yes, certainly, unless they learn to paint and chisel on 
the right principles.' 

' Quite so. And the right principles — what are they .?' 

'My principles, of course,' the young lady said com- 
posedly. 

' Nothing could be settled better,' Gonrad replied, with 
humorous deference. She appeared to him to be perfectly 
serious. 

He was greatly amused, and not ill pleased, when 
Gertrude, on their parting for the day, gave him a very 
friendly pressure of the hand, and told him that when he 
found the hotel at all dull, she and her mother would be 
glad if he would pay them a visit at their rooms in the 
evening. He found the hotel very dull, and he paid them 
a visit in their rooms. 

Then the evening came for the dinner-party. He, poor 
youth ! not yet recovered from a hopeless disappointment 
which was to blight his whole life, dressed himself, never- 
theless, with exceeding care. He was amazingly particular 
about his shirt-front, his neck-tie, his silk socks, his shoes, 
and all the rest of his gear. Man's broken heart not un- 
comTOonly prefers to be covered by a very white, smooth, 
and stiff shirt-front. Yet it is certain that Conrad did 
not recognise in himself the faintest suggestion of any 
sentimental feeling towards Miss Morefield. But he was 
lonely, and she was pretty and very peculiar and interest- 
ing, and she was a young woman and he was a young man ; 
and she had made Paris become suddenly interesting to 
him, who had no longer any interest in anything. 

Nothing could be better arranged than the little dinner- 
party in Mrs. Morefield's rooms. The dining-room was 
small, but it was daintily fitted up, and looked, with its 
lowers and its fronds, like a dining-room in some graceful 



52 THE RIDDLE RING 

home, and not at all like a dining-rooin in a big hotel. 
The table was round, and brought the guests pleasantly 
together. 

In the drawing-room Jim had been presented to the 
lady he was to take in to dinner. She was a handsome 
and tall young Englishwoman — the company were all 
English, apparently — Lady Diana Congreve, the wife of 
the Hon. Henry Congreve, a handsome young soldier, 
who was the younger son of the Earl of Wychfield. Lady 
Diana was undoubtedly younga* than Jim, but by virtue 
of her being a married woman, even though but lately 
married, she gave herself airs, and in a moment impressed 
him with the conviction that she considered herself in- 
finitely more aged and authoritative than he could possibly 
be. He was a little late in arriving. He had been on his 
usual pilgrimage to the Bois de Boulogne, and he had 
hardly time to see anyone except his hostess and her 
daughter, and Lady Diana, and he conducted her from 
the drawing-room at the front of the floor to the dining- 
room at the back. 

' Do you know the people here ?'' she asked as she went 
along beside him. 

' I don't think so — at least, I haven't had time to see 
anybody, except you, and, of course, the Morefields.' 

' So, of the company generally, you have only seen me ?' 

'Yes; and I don't know that I want to see anybody 
else.' 

' Oh, come, that is very crude as a compliment. In my 
time boys were not allowed to pay compliments. Now, 
where are we, I wonder ? My sight is short ; I can't read 
the names on these cards.' 

' I can read them "" 

' You can read already ! Precocious boy 1' 



CLELIA VINE 53 

Conrad had hardly seated himself at the dinner-table, 
when, happening to glance all unconsciously down his 
right-hand side, he became aware of the photographed 
girl turned back into an original. Yes, that was the 
original of the photograph — about that there could be no 
mistake. She was dressed very quietly in a black silk 
evening gown, which set off the whiteness of her shoulders 
and her arms. But what Conrad noticed especially was 
the exquisite moulding of her pale face and the brightness 
of her deep, dark blue eyes. To him just then they looked 
xmder the larap-light almost black — that is, as far as eyes 
ever can be really black. Afterwards he came to know 
that they were only a very deep gray, backgrounded with 
blue. 

Something made the girl look up and look in his direc- 
tion, and their eyes met for a moment. 

' I should like to have that woman for a friend,' Jim 
Conrad thought, with a sudden thrill at his heart. 

He pulled himself together, and rattled away in talk 
with his dinner-table partner ; but he did not always quite 
know what she was sajring to him, or what he was saying 
to her. Still, they managed to get on somehow, and he 
could flatter himself that he had contrived to occupy her 
attention fairly well, all things considered. 

' Can you tell me who that girl is on the other side of 
the table ?' Lady I )iana suddenly asked, ' there ' — and she 
nodded her chin — ' the pale girl in black, I mean.' 

' Yes ; I think I know who she is, for I was shown a 
photograph of her. Mrs. Morefield showed it to me the 
other day. She is a friend of the Morefields — I don't 
know anything more about her than that. I don't know 
her name.' 

' Don't you think she is a very remarkable-looking girl T 



S4 THE RIDDLE RING 

' Very ; indeed, I think she is very handsome.' 

'Handsome ! Well, no, I would not say handsome, but 
ffemarkable — decidedly remarkable. She seems to me the 
sort of woman who must have a story behind her. Don't 
you think so P' 

' Oh yes, I certainly think so,' Jim said abstractedly. 

' Evidently you are not much taken with her — you dis- 
cuss her in that casual sort of way. Now, if I were a man, 
I think I should be greatly taken with her.' 

' Indeed !' Jim said, not knowing in the least what he 
was saying. ' I wonder why you should think so .''' 

' Think what .'' Think that you are not taken with her, 
or that I should be if I were a man ?' 

' I beg your pardon,' poor Jim said vaguely. 

' I do believe you have not been listening to a single 
word I was saying. Now I withdraw all my former 
opinions, and I am coming fast to the conclusion that the 
girl in black has bewitched you.' 

' But I never saw her before, and I have never spoken to 
her.' 

' Well,' Lady Diana said complacently, ' if I know any- 
thing of young men, you will see her to-night in the 
drawing-room, and you will speak to her, and you will 
remember the night because of her. Well, look here, will 
you come to me after you have talked to her and tell me 
what you think of her .'*' 

' I dare say she is a very commonplace sort of woman.' 

Jim endeavoured to be very cool and indifferent. 

' You don't think it a bit,' said Lady Diana. 

The English fashion of the dinner - table was not 
followed. The ladies and gentlemen had coffee together 
and cigarettes — for those who would smoke them. Lady 
Diana enjoyed a cigarette, and cared not who knew it. 



• CLELIA VINE 65 

' Hal and I smoke and drink together,' she said, nodding 
at her handsome husband. 

' But you can't join me with a cigar,' Hal said, ' and you 
are not equal to a brandy-and-soda.' 

'If men may «moke, women may smoke,' Gertrude 
asserted. 

' Certainly,' Mr. Congreve admitted ; ' and if men drink 
a whisky-and-seltzer, a woman has a right to drink two — I 
don't mean to drink also — I mean, to drink two whiskies 
and two seltzers, or, perhaps, two whiskies and one seltzer.' 

' You don't take woman seriously,' Gertrude said sternly. 

' He doesn't take me seriously,' Lady Diana said with a 
smile. 

' You don't take yourself seriously, dear.' 

' Why should I .^ I can get more fun out of life by not 
taking anything seriously — even myself.' 

The girl whose photograph Jim had seen took no part 
in the general conversation. She talked in a low tone 
with Mrs. Morefield, and occasionally vouchsafed a remark 
to the man who had taken her in to dinner, whom Jim 
afterwards discovered to be a fashionable London physician 
who had obtained recent renown by the promulgation of 
the doctrine that all disease came from the use of salt, and 
could be cured by a liberal imbibing of hot water in which 
iron nails had been soaked. 

The company at last wandered off to the drawing-room. 
There Conrad promptly forsook Lady Diana, although 
when she seated herself on a sofa she made a motion with 
her skirts as if to afford a space for him. He at once 
made for Miss Morefield. 

' I have recognised the original of the photograph,' he 
whispered ; he had grown wonderfully confidential with 
her of late. 



56 THE RIDDLE RING 

' Of course you have. Well, isn't she striking ? Don't 
you think her very handsome ? 

' Really I do, and I know you are not the sort of girl 
who wants to hear her pretty friends disparaged.' 

' Oh no, indeed ; I want to hear my friends praised. 
But you must not call her pretty — I can't have that.' 

' No, she is much more than pretty ; she is quite different 
from anything pretty. I can imagine people thinking her 
not beautiful, because she is too much out of the common 
pattern — the pattern of the commonplace handsome 
English women whom Natui'e reels off by the dozen.' 

' You must not speak contemptuously of any women,' 
Miss Morefield said, with puckering eyebrows. ' And it 
ought not to matter whether a woman is handsome or 

ugly — ' 

' Oh, but it does, though,' Jim fervently interjected. 

' An ugly woman has her place in the scheme of the 
universe as well as a pretty one.' 

' I suppose so ; but I don't work the scheme of the imi- 
verse, and so the ugly women don't concern me.' 

' I am very glad you don't work the scheme of the 
universe, for you would certainly work it very badly, and 
after the fashion of a very silly young man. You must be 
awfully young.' 

' Older than you, anyhow.' 

' But a woman is always much older than a man in 
proportion to years, and it makes me feel that you 
are so ridiculously young when you talk as if there was 
nothing in the world to be thought of but a woman's 
pretty face. It makes me angry to hear men prate like 
that.' 

' But you yourself called my attention to the face of 
your friend, and you were angry when I carelessly spoke of 



CLELIA VINE 57 

it as pretty, because you did not think the word was half 
good enough.' 

'What has that got to do with the question? I say 
that she is handsome, and I want to have justice done to 
her ; but I do not love her merely because she is hand- 
some. Never mind, we won't argue about her, or about 
woman's beauty, and whether it ought to be the only thing 
thought of when we are making our estimate of woman's 
place in life. Don't you want to be introduced to my 
friend, Miss Vine — Clelia Vine ?' 

' Of course I do. What a pretty classical name — Clelia ! 
I am most anxious to make her acquaintance.' 

' Acquaintance ! I don't think she is a girl who cares 
much about multiplying acquaintances. If she does not 
soon take to you as a friend, she will contrive to let you 
know.' 

' And then,' Conrad asked in affected dismay, ' what 
shall I do ?' 

' Fall back on me,' Miss Morefield promptly answered, 
with a saucy, kindly smile. 

' Ah ! then I am all right, happen what will,' Conrad 
said ; and the good-humoured little lady brought him up 
and presented him to her friend. 

Some man was talking to Miss Vine, but he politely 
gave way when Conrad was brought up by the daughter of 
the hostess, and Jim settled himself down in the chair 
beside the girl with the deep, dark eyes. She gave him a 
sweet and gracious welcome, frank, unconcerned, almost 
commonplace in its frankness. Jim had expected some- 
thing more in the style of the Tragic Muse. 

' I am very glad to meet you, Mr. Conrad. I have heard 
a great deal about you to-day from Mrs. Morefield and 
from Gertrude. Gertrude Morefield is my dearest friend.' 



58 THE RroDLE RING 

* Yes, and I have heard about you, and I have studied 
your photograph, and I recognised you the moment I saw 
you at the dinner-table.' 

' The photograph is a very good likeness,' the girl quietly 
said. ' It was done specially for Gertrude. I am very 
fond of her, although we don't always quite agree in our 
views of things.' 

' What are your views of things ?'' 

' Oh, well, perhaps it is there that the difference comes: 
in. I can't say that I have any particular views of things, 
and she has, and she thinks that all women ought to have. 
I haven't read as much as she has, and I don't know enough 
to form any opinions worth the forming, and I am afraid 
she thinks me a little egotistical.' 

'Egotistical.? That certainly was not the opinion of 
you which she expressed to me.' 

' Oh no, I dare say not. I know she thinks vei-y highly 
of me, and she certainly would not give me away to a 
stranger ; and, indeed, all her geese are swans, as I have 
often told her. But just because she likes me she thinks 
I ought to take a deeper interest in human affairs.' 

' She is an enthusiast about human affairs,' Conrad said. 

' She is — but it is curious — she is a downright enthusiast 
about her mother and her friends, and she can discuss the 
problems of life with the composure of an ancient philo- 
sopher. She puzzles me sometimes, but I love her always. 
I do hope she will be happy.' 

' Why should she not be ? Some man will make her 
happy.' 

Miss Vine smiled. 

' I'm sure Gertrude would say, if she heard yoMf " How 
like a man to say that !" ' 

f To say what ?' 



CLELIA VINE 69 

* To say that some man will make her happy.' 

' But surely a man is ordained, one might say, to make 
a woman happy ?' 

'A man is ordained, perhaps, to make a woman un- 
happy.' 

She spoke those words with a sudden expression of 
earnestness and of conviction. Then, as if she felt she 
had been showing too much of earnestness and conviction, 
she at once relapsed into her ordinary tone of voice. 

' You have not known Gertrude Morefield long ?' 

' No ; only met her and her mother quite lately. But 
we have some close friends in common. I like them very 
much — the mother and daughter.' 

' In my mind,' she said, ' their existence raises the average 
of humanity. I only hope that child will be happy.' 

' Well, she professes that she will be able to keep free 
from one of the great troubles of humanity.' 

' What is that ?' 

' Oh, come, now : falling in love, of course.' 

' Has she been telling that to you .?' 

' Yes — as a matter of casual talk, not as any matter of 
confidence.' 

' AVhat did she tell you .?' 

' She told me that she never had been in love.' 

' Oh, that !' and the girl made an impatient movement 
with her shoulders. 

' Yes, that ; but she also said that she never meant to 
fall in love. Of course, I know that lots of girls say that,' 

' She isn't like lots of girls, and I am sure she meant it 
when she said it. But I know well that there is a loving 
heart under all that philosophic exterior, and I am afraid 
about her, and I want her to be very happy.' 

* And you think she can't be if she falls in love ?' 



60 THE RIDDLE RING 

' Oh no ; I did not say that. But she is a girl likely to 
be disappointed if she does not meet with the right man. 
You know that her mother is in very delicate health ?' 

' Yes, I know that.' 

' She only keeps alive by going about to warm climates 
in the winter, and I don't think she knows how much 
danger she is in. But Gertrude knows it. One of her 
troubles is to keep in perpetually good spirits, so that her 
mother may not think that she is alarmed. Of course, if 
anything were to happen to her mother, and the right 
man had not come ' 

She stopped. 

'Well, then?' 

' Then I suppose Gertrude and I Avould give up civiliza- 
tion together, and start off in companionship for some 
wilderness.' 

' Come, I hope that won't happen.' 

' I think it would please me well. Not the death of my 
dear friend Mrs. Morefield — Heaven forbid ! — but to go 
away from civilization with Gertrude, and live our own 
lives, and not think about the world any more. But I 
suppose it would not suit her,' she added, with a half- 
suppressed sigh. ' That is • another reason why I wish she 
could find that right man and fall in love with him, or at 
least let him fall in love with her.' 

' I am sure such a life would not suit you in the least,' 
Jim said earnestly. 

' You do not know me — ^you know nothing about me.' 

' I hope to know you,' he said gently. ' I hope you will 
allow me to know you.' 

' Oh yes, surely ! Any friend of the Morefields is already, 
by right of friendship, a friend of mine. You know I am 
staying with them, and shall be travelling with them. You 



CLELIA VINE 61 

will see me if you come to see them, and of course you will 
do that.' 

' Yes, of course I shall do that.' 

The company was evidently on the break-up. One or 
two guests had already gone. Jim felt a strong anxiety 
to get a touch of his new friend's hand before leaving. 
His proper course was doubtless to say good-night to his 
hostess first, and then to her daughter, and then to get 
out of the room with a general, all-round bow. But he 
felt that he could never get back to Miss Vine once he 
had taken farewell of the Morefield women, and he was 
rendered desperate. He must touch her hand. 

' Good-night,' he said, and he held out his hand. 

She put hers into it, but she gave him not the faintest 
pressure — simply laid her hand in his and allowed him to 
clasp it. It felt cold to his touch. He was sorry he had 
taken any pains to get at this parting salutation. Then 
he found his hostess. 

' Don't go just yet,' she said. * You see, we are under 
the same roof — ^you are at home. Stay a little and talk 
to us.' — 

Jim delightedly stayed. 

The outer guests, if we may call them so, took their 
leave. Lady Diana asked Jim to come and see her in 
Biarritz, if he went that way in the season, and Jim 
promised that he cei-tainly would call at her villa if he 
went that way, knowing full well that he had not the 
slightest intention of going that way. 

' Now,' said Miss Morefield, when the outer world had 
departed, ' let us draw our chairs together and talk.' 

' What shall we talk about .?' Jim asked tentatively. 

'Let us talk about life,' Miss Morefield promptly 
answered. 



62 THE RIDDLE RING 

' But what is life ?' Jim asked, trying to throw himself 
into the spirit of Miss Morefield's investigation. 

' That's just what I want to find out/ Miss Morefi^eld 
answered. 

' I think I know enough about life,' Mrs. Morefield said 
with a smile. ' I think I am content with my experiences, 
and only ask that I may not have any worse. To me, life 
is resignation.' 

' To me, life is hope,' said Miss Morefield. 

' Doesn't somebody say,' Miss Vine struck in, ' that the 
one lesson of life is renunciation — " Thou shalt renounce" ? 
It is Goethe, isn't it .''' 

' It is Goethe,' Jim answered. ' But we must not take 
it that way — we must not take it as his own view of 
things. He puts the sentiment into the mouth of his 
world-wearied Faust.' 

' The feeling has always appealed to rae,' she said. 

' But, surely, at your time of life, you cannot be un- 
happy .'*' Jim said bluntly. 

' I am living,' she replied. 

'Come, this talk is getting too gloomy,' Mrs. More- 
iield said. ' We ought to have some ghost-stoiies to 
enliven us.' 

Conrad wished very much that the young lady who had 
made this cheerless answer was an outside guest as well as 
the others. But he wished this only because she would 
then have had to go away, and would have left him alone 
with the mother and daughter, and he could have asked 
them all about her and about her story, and why she 
«eemed so depressed, and why her views of life were those 
of the world-wearied Faust before he started on his new 
tour of youth and emotion and of experience to be drawn 
'£:om every source and every age. But the girl was stay- 



CLELIA VINE 63 

ing witii the Morefields in their rooms, and he had to go 
away without learning anything of her history. 

'You stay in Paris — ^how long?' he asked of Mrs, 
Morefield, as he was taking his leave. 

' In Paris — ^how long, Gertrude ? How long do we stay 
in Paris ?' 

' Well, mamma, until it is time for us to go some- 
■where else — where we shall still find something like 
summer.' 

' We have to follow the sun, Mr. Conrad,' Mrs. More- 
field said with a saddened smile. 

' Happy you who can follow him !' Conrad replied. ' I 
have to go back to London for the winter, and we shan't 
get much sun there.' 

' I hate London,' Miss Vine declared. 

'Oh, come, you are an unpatriotic young English- 
woman,' Mrs. Morefield protested. 

' Mamma,' Gertrude interposed, ' you know what I think 
of the abominable heresy of patriotism. Why should not 
Clelia like France better than England, and Paris better 
than London, if she feels so inclined i*' 

" But I am afraid I hate Paris, too,' Clelia said in a low 
tone. 

' Have you just come from London ?' Conrad asked. 

' Yes, she has just come from London,' Mrs. Morefield 
■answered for her. 

Miss Vine did not answer for herself. Conrad thought 
he saw a glance pass between the two girls. 

'Is this your first day in Paris.?' he asked, hardly 
knowing why he put such a question. 

' My first day in Paris ? Oh no ! I have spent years in" 
Paris.' 

' No — I meant your first day in Paris this time.' 



64 THE RIDDLE RING 

' She came yesterday,' Mrs. Morefield said, again answer- 
ing for her. 

The young girl still made no answer for herself, and 
Jim fancied that he again saw a line of light flash from 
the eyes of one girl to the eyes of the other. 

' May I call to-morrow p' he asked of Mrs. Morefield. 

'Not may, but must,' Gertrude Morefield answered, 
with her winsome smile. 

Jim went to his room feeling less disconsolate than he 
had felt most times of late. The dark-eyed girl was a 
puzzle to him, and he thought of her much as he sat, later 
on, in the courtyeird and smoked. 



CriAFTER VII. 

MR. MARMADUKE COFFIN. 

The days went and went, and Jim did not leave Paris. 
He began to feel as if he should never care to leave 
Paris — so long as the existing conditions endured. Yet 
his life was in a certain sense monotonous. He spent aU 
his spare time with the Morefields, and consequently with 
Clelia Vine. Perhaps it would be putting it better to say 
that he spent with them all the time that they could 
spare to him. They were enjoying Paris until the weather 
should begin to get a little too cold for Mrs. Morefield, 
and while there was yet a chance of a fairly warm journey 
to whatever place they had settled to winter in. As yet 
they put off any definite plans on that subject. When 
the time came, they could always settle quickly, Mrs. 
Morefield said. So they lingered, and Jim Conrad 
lingered, too. 



MR. MARMADUICE COFFIN 65 

He was greatly interested in Miss Vine's curious way of 
life. She was an English girl bom and brought up on the 
Continent. Her father was an Englishman, but he had 
spent the greater part of his working lifetime as a physician 
for English and American patients along the shores of 
the Riviera in winter and spring, and while the summer 
heat kept foreign visitors away he betook himself to 
attending English and American patients at inland baths 
in France — Roy at and such-like. His wife died young — 
he died comparatively young — and Mrs. Morefield, who 
had. been a patient, and a grateful patient, of his, took 
charge for a while of his only child. Clelia was thoroughly 
English in ways and feelings, but she had only once been 
in England until she had grown up, and that was for a 
fortnight's holiday in London, which she enjoyed intensely. 
It was curiously interesting to Jim to talk with this 
English girl who had been so little in England, and who 
now for some reason hated London. 

He was always made welcome in the rooms of the 
Morefields. He became their escort to all sorts of places. 
Gertrude leaned to practical science; Clelia decidedly 
cared and understood more about art; Mrs. Morefield 
liked everything that anybody else liked, provided she 
cared for the anybody else. Jim began to feel warm and 
cheered and happy again. He was on the way In forget 
his. fickle sweetheart, and he was on the way to forget the 
mystery of the ring. He had never spoken of the ring to 
the Morefields or to Miss Vine. He felt that it was a 
secret confided by fate to him alone, and that he must not 
breathe it out to anyone else. He did not feel sure that 
Gertrude Morefield would take much interest in it. He 
thought her the sort of girl who has more concern in pro- 
moting the happiness of the general than in sympathizing 

5 



66 THE RIDDLE RING 

with the distresses of the individual. She would no doubt 
have thought the woman who threw away the ring a very 
feeble-minded and pitiable creature. Suppose her lover 
had proved unworthy of her — what then.? Why should 
she lament ? If she had proved unworthy of him, then 
indeed she might regret and repent and sorrow. But, in 
any case, was there not the great heart of humanity 
throbbing and bleeding all around her? and how could 
she conscientiously find time to give herself serious trouble 
about some ridiculous lover who had proved himself as 
inconstant and as treacherous as men generally do under 
all conditions ? 

We do not say this was the reasoning of Gertrude 
Morefield, or that it would have been if she had known 
anything concerning the mystery of the ring. But this 
was the way in which Jim reasoned that she would reason 
if he were to try to interest her in the subject, and so he 
did not make any effort to interest her in it. So we thus 
reason about each other's reasoning every day in our lives. 

But Miss Vine ! If he could have been tempted into 
telling his ring-story to anyone, he would have been 
tempted into telling it to her. For hers seemed to him 
a nature simply overflowing with sympathy. Out of her 
eyes came such looks of expressive kindness. Every story 
of distress seemed at once to go straight to her heart. 
Still, Jim did not feel free somehow to tell that story, and 
in any case he could only have told it to Clelia if he and 
she were alone ; and he hardly ever saw her alone, except 
for a chance moment or two when there was not time for 
the beginning of any story-telling. The result of all this 
was that the question of the ring began to occupy less and 
less of Jim's attention. Now, when he woke at night he 
thought of Clelia, and not of the ring. Her coming had 



Mr. marmaduke coffin 67 

banished the ring from his thoughts. She was to him a 
far more interesting problem. There was a strange sort 
of maturity about her. She was a very young woman — 
twenty-two, perhaps, certainly not more ; she was actually 
a little younger than Gertrude Morefield, so Mrs. More- 
field and Gertrude had told him, and yet there was a 
certain tone of command and a suggestion of experience 
about her. 

The more Jim Conrad saw of Miss Vine, the more he 
• came to delight in her society. He went to the rooms of 
the Morefields every day, and he began to put off indefinitely 
jhis return to London. For some reason which was not 
:made plain to him, the Morefields postponed their choice 
'of a winter residence. Tlie real reason, in all probability, 
was just that which they professed— that they wanted to 
.have all the fine weather they could in Paris before starting 
off anywhere else. So Jim thought he might as well lingei* 
Jong enough to see them fairly off the premises. He was 
for the moment careless about his future. He was in the 
'worst position in which a young man can be placed ; he 
.had just enough to live on, and not enough to prosper on. 
-A greater incentive to idleness cannot be devised for the 
■condition of an ordinary mortal. So he stayed and he 
.stayed. 

It became more and more clear to him that Miss Vine 
was offering him every inducement to stay. From her he 
-received the most cordial welcome. Sometimes he almost 
•fancied that Mrs. Morefield and Gertrude were a little 
■cold to him. Sometimes Mrs. Morefield, with an air of 
motherly sympathy, asked him why he was wasting so 
'much of his time in Paris. Sometimes Gertrude said she 
-supposed they must soon make up their minds to lose him. 
J JBut Miss Vine never said an3l;hing of the kind. She 



68 THE RIDDLE RING 

always urged him to come again to-morrow. Our poor 
youth began to be fairly bewildered. He might have told 
himself, if he were to judge from externals only, that 
Clelia was falling in love with him. But he was a modest 
young man, not wholly without experience, and somehow 
he could not think that ; at all events, he did not admit 
that to his mind. She seemed, he thought, all too frank 
and friendly ; and yet there were moments when he caught 
her eye, and might almost have been prevailed upon to 
think that there was a secret understanding between them, 
and that they stood apart from all the world. 

It began to be a curious position. Every day he was 
more and more drawn to Miss Vine. Every day she 
became more and more openly friendly with him. Every 
day she more and more urged him to remain in Paris, and 
every day Mrs. Morefield gently remonstrated with him 
for wasting so much of his time, and Gertrude told him 
frankly that she wondered how one could be a man and 
not have something more definite to do in the world. All 
the time he could not see that the Morefields were any the 
less friendly to him than they had been before. He could 
not doubt their friendship; their faces — as Dr. Johnson 
said of the Thrales — were never turned to him but in 
kindness ; and yet they must have seen that he was drawn 
more and mort towards Clelia Vine. 

' What is,' he asked himself, ' the mystery of Clelia 
Vine ?- 

Once he ventiu-ed to ask Mrs. Morefield, when she and 
he happened to be alone, whether there was not a sad 
story behind Miss Vine. 

Mrs. Moi-efield answered hurriedly : 

' Yes, I believe thei-e is. I have no doubt there is ; but 
I don't know what it is, and I have not asked. My 



MR. MARMADUKE COFFEST 69 

daughter knows, but she is an unimpeachable friend, and 
she would not tell anyone. I dare say she would tell me 
if I asked her ; but I have never asked her, and you need 
not ask her, for she would never tell you.' 

' Oh, I should never think of asking her.' 

' No, it would be of no use. She has the most extreme 
and romantic notions of the obligations of friendship.' 

' Can anyone have too extreme notions about that .''' 

'No, I suppose not — ^I am sure not,' Mrs. Morefield 
answered quietly. 

Apparently a little less of the extreme in life would 
have satisfied her. Perhaps her daughter was a little too 
intense for her. 

' One thing,' she said, brightening up, ' j'ou may count 
upon — nothing in Clelia Vine's story will tend to Clelia 
Vine's discredit.' 

' Oh, of course, I knew that,' Jim exclaimed emphatically. 

' How did you know it ?' 

' Because I know her.' 

' But you don't know her very well .?' 

' I have eyes, and I can see,' he replied. 

'Yes,' she said, in a subdued kind of tone, almost as 
with a suppressed sigh ; ' you have eyes and you can see — 
her. At all events, you are quite right in the conclusion 
you have come to. Gertrude adores Clelia, and whatever 
the story is, she knows the whole of it.' 

' And you have never asked her ?' 

' Never ; why should I ? I have the most implicit trust 
in Gertmde, even in her judgment.' 

' But she is so young.' 

'She does not think that young women ought to be 
treated like children, and she is a great believer in friend- 
ship.' 



70( THE RIDDLE RING 

' Oh yes, of course,' Conrad said, somewhat dejectedly. 

He was not very fond, perhaps, of theories about life, 
and just then Miss Gertrude herself came into the room, 
and the story of Clelia Vine, and the theories of woman's 
friendship to woman, and man's right to interfere, and the 
independence of daughters, and the reserved authority of 
mothers, were put aside for the time. 

Conrad left the Grand Hotel in the early afternoon, and 
sauntered listlessly, melancholy, slow, along the streets, 
not troubling himself to think much of whither he was 
going ; puzzled a good deal about this new human interest 
which seemed to be growing strangely, inexplicably, up in 
his heart. Suddenly he found himself in the Rue de la 
Paix, and all at once he remembered the talk of his ac- 
quaintance, Mr. Albei-t Edward Waley, and the recom- 
mendation to go and see the English hair-cutter in the 
English and American hair-cutting saloon. He had noticed 
the place often in passing along the street, but he had 
never entered it. He pulled up now in his walk, and 
thought that that would be a very good time to have his 
hair and beard touched up a bit. 

Neither hair nor beard much needed touching up. Jim 
was a tidy sort of man, and took good care to keep him- 
self always well groomed ; but, still, it was an opportunity. 
So he went in. It was an ordinary Paris hair-cutting 
room, large and well arranged. There were several assist- 
ants hanging about, not many of them occupied in active 
duties. It was a slack time of the afternoon. If it were 
not, Conrad would not have cared to go in. He onlj 
wanted, like poor King Lear, to discourse with his philo- 
sopher ; and philosophic discourse on any expected subject 
would hardly have been compatible for him with a crowd 
of listeners. So he felt a sort of anticipatory sense oi 



MR. MARMADUKE COFFIN 71 

success or good luck when he saw that the chairs were 
many and the occupants few. 

'Monsieur.'" one of the attendants asked, with cour- 
teously inquiring gesture, and all the appearance of a bland 
willingness to gratify every wish of the customer. 

' I want someone who knows English well,'' Conrad 
answered, with the bluffest British air. 

Conrad spoke French very well indeed fqr an English- 
man, but for the moment it suited him better to suppress 
his accomplishments in that way. 

'Pardon, monsieur, we all speak a little English here. 
We do attend on the English and the American gentle- 
men — and the American gentlemen, they do not always 
speak the French.' 

'But I want an Englishman to whom I can explain 
things,' Conrad insisted. 

His little game rather interested him. He was a suc- 
cessful amateur actor, as has already been said. 

' We have an Englishman here, monsieur, if monsieur 
only condescends to put himself to the pain of taking a 
chair for a few minutes. The Englishman wiU be at the 
service of monsieur almost at once.' 

So Conrad put himself to the pain of taking a chair, 
and he waited for the English hairdresser. Meanwhile, he 
studied the room and its occupants, to see if he could not 
find out his fellow-countryman. 

Oh yes, he knew him in a moment, and he knew him 

chiefly through his silence. There were a few hair-cutters 

and hairdressers working away at their patients, if we may 

. so call them, and they were all chattering cheerily in 

, French, or in English as she is spoken — all but one, and 

: that man was absolutely silent. 

Jim devoted the few moments he had of interval to a 



72 THE RIDDLE RING 

study of the man's face and manner. He had the firm jaw 
of an Englishman — even, Jim would have said, of a North- 
Country Englishman. Otherwise there was not much 
English-looking about him. He had a bald forehead, and 
the thin hair that arrayed itself about his ears was dark 
almost to blackness. He had a heavy moustache, and a 
thick beard clipped square. He had long, heavy eyelids 
which usually hid his eyes, just as a curtain might have 
done. But when the curtain was raised the dark eyes 
flashed keenly enough. Conrad could see, and Conrad 
thought he detected in them now and then a sudden 
upward glance, such as a hunted animal might show if he 
were expecting a pursuer from this side or that. The 
man appeared to be well on in the forties ; was rather 
under the middle size, but very strongly and squarely 
built. 

Conrad was disposed to pride himself, to himself, on his 
new-bom and gi-owing power of observation. As a novelist 
in embryo, he was pleased to tell himself that he could 
read the hearts of people, although an occasional twinge 
of the critical conscience reminded him sharply that per- 
haps he was only reading them all wrong. Still, he felt 
great interest in watching this particular man. The man 
still worked on in grim and stony silence. The chattering 
Frenchmen plied their craft as if they loved it. The 
solemn Briton seemed more like an executioner preparing 
for his dismal work, and naturally reluctant to distract 
from penitent thoughts the minds of his foredoomed 
victims, than like one engaged in ministering to the com- 
fort and the grace of his fellow-creatui-es. Conrad had 
happened on a time of day when it was not likely that 
many men would be inclined to settle down and have their 
hair cut or their beards shorn, and therefore he soon foynd 



MR. MARMADUKE COFFIN 73 

himself with very few companions in the place, and was 
quickly under the hands of the English operator. 

' Monsieur ?'' the man asked in what you might call good 
thick British-French accent. 

' You are English,' Conrad said ; ' speak to me in your 
own language. I am English — can't you see ?' 

Conrad adopted this blunt style with a purpose. The 
man who has made a reputation for silence is not likely to 
be shaken out of his habitual self by long words or elo- 
quence. 

'What do you want done?' the sombre hairdresser 
asked politely, but cui-tly. 

' Hair and beard trimmed ; not too much. Don't want 
to he turned into a different man. Want to remain as I 
am, only better. See ?' 

'I see.' 

' Go ahead, then.' 

The man was evidently a little puzzled, but he was not 
easily put out. So he went at once to his work. There 
was silence for a moment. 

' Look here,' Conrad said suddenly. ' Been long in 
Paris ?' 

' Twenty years — there or thereabouts.' 

' Like it .?' 

' Hate it.' 

' Where do you come from .?' 

' London last.' 

' Why didn't you stay there ?' 

' Hate London.' 

' Worse than Paris ?' 

' Much worse.' 

' What place do you like ?' 

' No place that ever I was in.' 



74 THE RIDDLE RING 

' What's the matter ? Climate ?' 

' No ; don't trouble my head about climate.' 

' No ? Then what do you trouble your head about ?' 

' Many things.' 

Conrad thought he had pursued that sort of personal 
inquiry far enough, and that he had better give the silent 
man some friendly hint that might make him a little more 
confident. So he suddenly changed his subject. 

' Ever met a man named Waley .''' 

'WhatWaley.?' 

' Well, he gave me his card — Albert Edward Waley.' 

' Yes, I know him. North-Country man ?' 

' Yes ; so am I.' 

' Thought so ; so am I. Yes, I know Mr. Waley. 
He's a good sort. He would stand by a man if the man 
was in trouble.' 

' I thought so.' 

' Know him well .!" 

' Oh no ; met him only two or thi-ee times ; liked him. 
He is staying at the Grand Hotel.' 

' I know.' 

' So am I. He advised me to come and see you.' 

' What do you want to see me for ?' 

' Don't know.' 

' Why did you come ?' 

' Because he told me.' 

' What did he say I could do for you ?' 

' Tell me things.' 

' What things .?' 

' Didn't say. Anything I wanted to know.' 

' What do you want to know i" 

' Don't think I want to know anything in particular.' 

* Then, why did you come ?' 



MR, MARMADUKE COFFIN 75 

' Because he told me.' 

The hair-cutting and trimming work being done at that 
moment, Jim got up from his chair, was duly brushed 
down, put on his coat, and was preparing to go his way. 
He considered that his best policy, if he wanted this 
habitually silent man to talk, was to say as little as 
possible himself, and not to show the slightest desire for 
special information. Moreover, he had only come to 
study the characteristics of a silent hairdresser with a view 
to the remote possibility of finding some hint for a figure 
in a novel. So for the day he could not do anything 
more. 

'Good-afternoon,' Conrad said. 'Like to talk to you 
some other time.' 

' Call on you at the Grand some night — may I .?' the 
hairdresser asked. 

' Delighted ! We'll have a smoke. When .?' 

' To-morrow night, eleven ; we are late here.' 

' To-morrow night, eleven. My card — see i^' 

' Thanks ; my name is Coffin.' 

'Coffin.?' 

' Yes — why not .''' 

' Isn't a cheerful name,' Jim said bluntly, still acting his 
self-assumed part. 

' Not much about me is cheerful. Marmaduke Coffin.' 

' All right, we defy augury ! See you to-morrow night. 
Coffin.' 

And so they parted. 

Jim was infinitely amused by his day's adventure. The 
name of Marmaduke Coffin completed his delight. It was 
utterly impossible that a taciturn English hair-cutter, in a 
Paris shop, who bore the name of Marmaduke Coffin, 
should not have some food for romance somewhere stowed 



76 THE RIDDLE RING 

away in his life. Then all the conditions under which he 
had sought acquaintance with Marmaduke Coffin seemed 
auspicious for his purpose. 

Who on earth was Albert Edward Waley ? Who could 
his people be who had such an odd idea of making him 
like the Prince of Wales by tacking on Albert Edward to 
Waley — for that and no other purpose ? And why did it 
happen that Albert Edward Waley should have fallen in 
his, Jim Conrad's, way, and taken to a liking for him? 
Why should Albert Edward Waley have spontaneously, 
and with no obvious purpose, advised him to go and make 
acquaintance with Marmaduke Coffin ? And who was the 
lost and all-accomplished ' pal ' or chief .'' "V^Tio were this 
Mystic Three ? 

Jim delightedly told himself that he had come on a 
very gold-mine of romance. If a story did not blossom 
out of all that, then he could not see where a story could 
come from, for a raw beginner. Could he work the ring 
in by any artistic process? Well, no, he thought not. 
The story of the ring, according to his present feelings, 
was not for the public. But Jim began to think that he 
bore a charmed life in the matter of romance — that he 
had a sort of divining-rod for literary copy. Only that 
with the divining-rod one knows exactly what he is seek- 
ing for. Jim did not know. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

SOMEONE HAS BLUNDERED. 

Jim knocked at the door of the Morefields' sitting-room 
soon after luncheon the following day. He was longing 
to tell theifl al) abput his new acquaintance, Marmaduke 



SOMEONE HAS BLUNDERED 77 

CoiBn. He liked to tell them — and they evidently liked 
to hear — any scrap of news or of experience out of the 
common. The three women loved to be amused in that 
way, and it delighted Jim to amuse them. Especially 
charmed was he when he could make Miss Vine's pale face 
light up with a smile. Her smile was a transformation — 
it really illumined her eyes, and changed for the moment 
her whole expression. He felt sure he could make her 
smile if he gave her some idea of the humours of Marma- 
duke Coffin. 

His first knock remained unanswered. He could hear 
the tones of a piano and of an accompanying voice, or, to 
put it more correctly, of a voice and an accompanying- 
piano. He knew it was Clelia's voice, and he would not 
disturb her song. The voice sounded low and divinely 
sweet, and perhaps he might have said divinely sad as well. 
She was singing to the Morefields, he thought. He would 
come back a little later. But the song ceased, and he 
knocked again — a very gentle tap. He wanted it to 
convey the idea that he would not harshly interrupt for 
all the world. Jim was positively becoming quite faint- 
hearted. A voice — the same voice — invited him to come 
in, and he went in, and saw that Miss Vine was seated at 
the piano, with her back turned to him. She did not 
turn round at once. She probably fancied that the knock 
came from one of the hotel attendants. Jim stood for a 
second or two studying her shapely figure as she sat. 

' I beg pardon for disturbing you,' he began, in rather 
an awkward sort of way. He felt sure that he was 
awkward. 

Miss Vine turned round and greeted him with eyes that 
were undoubtedly lit up by the genuine spirit of welcome. 
Jim could not fail to see that. 



78 THE RIDDLE RINGf 

' Mr. Conrad ! I am so glad you have come* 
' I didn't know you were alone,'' Jim said apologeficalfy, 
' Doesn't matter, does it ?' she asked. ' We were expect' 
ing you ; but Mrs. Morefield and Gertrude had to go out 
for a short time, and they delegated me to entertain you 
in their absence — ^which I am very glad to do, to the veiy 
best of my power, at all events.' 

' I hope I don't interrupt your singing T 

' Oh no ; I was only crooning something to myself to: 

pass the time. I am not much of a singer '' 

' But you have a very sweet voice ' « 

' There isn't much range in it, and I am really not 
musical in the better sense at all. Won't you sit down ? 
The Morefields won't be long.' 

Conrad was very fond of the Morefields, but at the' 
moment he did not feel particularly anxious that they 
should hurry home. He began to find his heart beating. 
He took a seat, and was about to give Miss Vine some 
account of Marmaduke Coffin. But in an instant he- 
changed his mind, and resolved that Marmaduke would, 
keep very well until the Morefields came in. 
' What are you doing to-day ?' he asked. 
' I don't know until Mrs. Morefield comes back ; you' 
do not want to go back to London just yet .P' she asked, in 
a kindly and a winning tone. 

There was a look of friendly interest in her eyes which, 
touched the heart of the young man, and almost, as it- 
seemed to him, melted it. Certainly it melted away any 
lingering resolve to return to London. 

' I suppose I ought to go back,' he said doubtfully. - 
' But I don't know that I feel any strong personal inclina- 
tion to return. I — I would much rather be here — ^be with-' 
you — all !' 



SOMEONE HAS BLUNDERED 79 

He hastily put in the little word ' all,' because he feared 
otherwise the expression of his wish to be 'with you' 
might sound premature and be disconcerting. 

' Then why should you go back ? Why not stay with 
us as long as we remain in Paris ? Why not come with 
us to Algiers, or wherever we make up our minds to go ? 
— ^if we ever do male ' dp our minds. If you decide to go 
with us, then you snail have a voice in settling where to 
go, which, I can tell you, we three women find it pretty 
hard to decide for ourselves.'' 

' You see,' he began hesitatingly, ' I ought to be doing 
some work in life. I have only a very small fortune. It 
is enough for me just now ; but — well, I don't know how 
to put it — it wouldn't be enough for one's future life, 
don't you see F 

He was very awkward and much confused. She was 
neither awkward nor confused. She took his words with 
a gratified smile. 

' Of course, I understand,' she said. ' You don't fancy 
I am a baby .?' 

And her look and her manner had all that easy and 
assured superiority which young married women naturally 
assume even when they are actually younger than the 
particular young man they are talking to. The look and 
the manner had often puzzled Conrad and set him think- 
ing. Miss Vine was distinctly and unmistakably younger 
than he, and he could not understand why she should 
assume this appearance of greater experience in life. 

' Well, if you know '' 

' Why, of course I know. You mean that you have not 
money enough to get married on.' 

' Yes,' he answered, very much confused ; ' I do mean 
that.' 



80 THE RIDDLE RING 

' Would that really matter much in your case ?' 

If Conrad was puzzled before, he was positively be- 
wildered now. Would it matter much in his case ? Why, 
the Morefields had both told him that Miss Vine was 
poor. 

' Why shouldn't it matter much in my case .'" he asked 
awkwardly. 

' Have you so poor an opinion of women .'' Do you 
think that women care for nothing but money T 

' No ; I never said or thought anything of the kind.' 

' Why ' — she was breaking out into emotion — ' if I 
loved a man, I should not care one straw if he hadn't a 
farthing in the world !' 

'Ah, yes; but a poor man might hesitate to bring a 
girl whom he loved into that most trying of all lives — a 
life of genteel poverty. I can understand a pair of loving 
gipsies ; but genteel poverty in London !' 

She looked at him impatiently. 

' I don't see where the genteel poverty comes in in this 
case.' 

She shrugged her shoulders in her sensitive, impatient 
way. 

' I see it only too well,' he said dejectedly. Then the 
pi-oud thought came up to his mind : ' If this brave girl 
cares for me, and believes in me, and is willing to trust 
her fortunes to me, why should I refuse to make myself 
happy ? Why should I not take her and work for her, 
and try to make her happy .?' Full of this thought, he 
caught her hand in his hands. She seemed a little sur- 
prised, but was not in the least discomposed, and allowed 
it to remain in his keeping for a moment. 

' Do you want me to help you ?' she asked gently. 

To help him ! The words and the tone bewildered him. 



SOMEONE HAS BLUNDERED 81 

' You can do more than help me,' he stammered, feeling 
once again on very insecure ground. 

'I cannot do more than help you,' she said, and she 
stood embarrassed now ; ' but I will help you all I can.' 

' Surely,' he pleaded, ' you can do more than just give 
me a helping hand ?'' 

He could not believe, even in that moment of wild 
hopefulness, that she really meant to express her willing- 
ness to help him out with his desire to ask her to marry 
him. 

' What else could I do ?'' she asked blandly. 
' It is for you to decide .?' he said. 
' For me to decide — ^me !' 
' For whom else, in Heaven's name .?' 
' Oh ! I am afraid we don't quite understand each other,' 
she said, in some confusion ; and she rose from her chair. 
' I am so sorry !' 

' Surely we can make it quite clear,' Jim said eagerly, 
for he felt that he was about to be dismissed, and that his 
audience was coming disastrously to an end. 

' Yes, yes, of course we can ; it was my fault altogether. 
I shall see it all clearly some other time, soon — but not 
just now. I am very impulsive ; I don't always give myself 
time to think over things. It was a fault of mine since I 
was a child. Good-bye for the present.' 

' But I shall see you again ?'' unhappy Jim asked for- 
lornly. 

' Yes — oh yes,' she answered, with an embarrassed 
manner ; and then she added more decisively : ' Yes, Mr. 
Conrad, I should be very glad to see you soon again. I 
am afraid I have been making some sort of mistake. It is 
no matter, perhaps, but we had better have it out, I 

think.' 

6 



82 THE RIDDLE RING 

'When can you let me see you?' the perplexed and 
disconsolate Jim asked. He hardly knew where he was 
now. 

' I don't know. Not to-day. The Morefields are just 
coming in, and they will expect you to take them some- 
where. Have you any place in yom* mind .'''' 

' Oh, there are lots of places.' 

' That's all right. They will want to see something 
new.' 

' Are you not coming ?' 

' I ? No, I can't go to-day. I have to write a lot of 
letters ; and, anyhow, I have done my duty — at least, I 
haven't done my duty, for I was told off to entertain you 
until they came back, and I am afraid I have not much 
entertained you.' 

' When will you see me ?' Jim asked. 

' When .'' I don't know, but I will send for you — ^per- 
haps to-morrow, if you will come.' 

' I shall come,' Jim said gloomily, as if he were invited 
to come up for sentence. In fact, he had a kind of 
vaguely pervading idea that he was to be invited to come 
up for sentence. 

Then the Morefields came in, and Gertrude greeted Jim 
with so sweet and kind a look, and such a sympathetic 
pressure of the hand, that he fancied she must surely know 
what his hopes had been, and what was to come of them, 
and she must have pitied him in her sisterly and compas- 
sionate little heart. He looked into her eyes with a sense 
of tender gratefulness, and she dropped her eyelids under 
his glance, and a colour came into her cheeks. ' She has 
the true soul of sympathy, that girl,' Jim thought. 

Then they talked about what they were going to do, 
and Jim suggested all sorts of places to see, and at last 



SOMEONE HAS BLUNDERED 83 

they agreed upon their arrangements. And then it was 
discovered, for the first time by the Morefields, that Miss 
Vine could not go with them. Mrs. Morefield and Gertrude 
were sorry. Jim was probably a good deal more sorry, 
although he knew that, even if Clelia had consented to 
accompany them, he should not have had the slightest 
chance of any real talk with her, and this no doubt helped 
to reconcile him to her remaining at honie. For he was 
sure that he would have found it aU too tantalizing to be 
with Clelia and not to have an opportunity of asking her 
what had gone wrong between them. He was so fond of 
the Morefields that he wanted to give himself up altogethier 
to the task of amusing them, and making the day pleasant 
for them, and he knew that under the conditions he was 
not capable of doing this if Miss Vine were to be one of 
the company. 

This is the way of enamoured youth. It would often 
rather be without the loved object altogether than not 
have the loved object all to itself. Under present condi- 
tions, with the loved object present, Jim could not possibly 
attend to the Morefields. With the loved object out of 
sight, he could at all events make himself agreeable, and 
help a little to render life pleasant for people whom he 
loved to please. 

So he took the Morefields to see all sorts of places which 
had associations worth treasxuring, and he thought Miss 
Morefield more than ever kind and sweet, and he was 
touched by many a grateful glance of her eyes, and he 
hoped that she might soon meet someone who could love 
her and appreciate her, and make her ' spirits all of com- 
fort,' as someone in Shakespeare puts it. So Jim had, on 
the whole, a quietly happy day ; but he excused himself 
from dining with the mother and daughter. He felt under 



84 THE RIDDLE RING 

a sort of obligation to remain away until Clelia had called 
him up for judgment and passed sentence. 

Some readers may, perhaps, have come already to the 
conclusion that Jim Conrad was a very fickle young man, 
who did not know his own mind — a very light-o'-love, in 
fact. He had just been lamenting the loss of one sweet- 
heart. Why, it may be asked by censorious observers, 
should he already be seeking for another? Perhaps, to 
begin with, there is no condition in which the heart — of 
man, at least — so yearningly stretches out its tendrils to 
find a new love as that into which it feels itself plunged 
when it has been cruelly shaken out of the old love. But 
the truth is that when Jim fell in with his so-called first- 
love, he was in that time of life and that form of tempera- 
ment when a young man must fall in love with some woman 
or perish in the attempt. He was in love with being in 
love. He was in love with his beautiful betrayer — ^he 
thought her beautiful ; others, no doubt, did not — just as 
Romeo was in love with Rosaline. Romeo was in love with 
Rosaline because the time had come when he must begin 
to be in love with some woman. Rosaline came in his way, 
and he fomid her, and fancied that he fell in love with her. 
But was his love for Juliet the less sincere because he really 
loved her after having fancied that he loved another ? Did 
he not die for Juliet — and what could he have done more 
to prove his love .'' He certainly did not die for Rosaline. 
Why should anyone not allow to Jim Conrad that which 
we all allow to Romeo ? Jim was certainly not anything 
like so picturesque a figure as Romeo — but he has his equal 
rights as a man and a brother. 

Jim dined somewhere, and looked in at a theatre, and 
felt dismal, and ' eagerly he wished the morrow,' like the 
unhappy young man in ' The Raven.' He dragged himself 



SOMEONE HAS BLUNDERED 85 

home forlornly to the Grand Hotel, and he sat in the 
courtyard and called for cognac and a syphon, and set 
himself to smoke. Presently he heard a cheery voice 
ringing in his ears, and, behold ! he saw Mr. Albert Edward 
Waley before him. 

' Hello !' Mr. Waley exclaimed. ' I am so glad to see you. 
May I sit down here and join you in a smoke and a drink ?' 

' Why, certainly,' Jim said. ' I am delighted to see you."' 

And really he was, for he was glad to be roused out of 
his melancholy and his uncertainty, and the gladsome voice 
of Mr. Waley sounded quite musically to his somewhat 
lonely sense. 

'Well, look here, I have some good news to tell you,' 
Mr. Waley exclaimed. 'Here, gar^on — du cognac, s'il 
vous plait. Thanks, old man' — ^this was to Jim — 'don't 
trouble yourself; I have a cigar.' 

' Well, what is your good news ?' 

' Of course, it don't greatly concern you, but I take you 
to he a good-natured sort of chap, and you will be glad to 
hear it.' 

' I am sure I shall, if it pleases you,' Jim brought out 
feebly. 

He was still thinking of Clelia Vine. 

' It's this : I have heard from my pal — my chief, I mean 
— ^you know.' 

' Not really .?' 

Jim was not quite absorbed in interest. 

' Yes, but I have, though. And do you know where he 
is just now, of all places in the world ?' 

' Sorry to say I have not the slightest idea. In Paris ?' 

' In Paris ? Not a bit of it ! But fancy, I have been 
hunting him half over the world, and he writes me from 
London !' 



86 THE RIDDLE RING 

' How lucky for you he is so near f 

' Yes, it is lucky for me, and I shall go over to-morrow. 
He is full of good spirits, and has quite a new thing on, 
which he says is the best thing he ever tumbled into.' 

' Some sort of a speculation T 

' Speculation, bless you ! Well, yes, I suppose some 
people would call it a speculation. But somehow, to my 
mind, it seems rather too big a thing for that sort of name. 
I say, old man, I wish we could bring you into it. Can't 
you be prevailed upon to stand in T 

' I am afraid I haven't any head for finance,' Jim mumbled 
languidly. 

He was not without interest in his companion, but he 
knew he could not form any sensible opinion as to the 
scheme. Besides, he was thinking of his next interview 
with Miss Vine, and what might possibly come of it. 

' Finance ? Oh, bless you ! this is something rather 
bigger than mere finance. I say, didn't you tell me you 
were a book-writing sort of chap .?' 

* I told you I had a great ambition to write books — 
works of fiction — novels, you know,' Jim put in modestly. 

' Well, well ! yes, to be sure ! See there now ! You 
have an ambition to write novels ! Well, and why 
not?' 

'Well, why not ?'' Jim rejoined, now rather amused. 

' As I say, why not ? But look here : you might make 
a first-class Al copper-fastened soi-t of novel out of many 
a thing we could put you up to — ^take my word for it.' 

Mr. Waley's eyes were sparkling with excitement, and 
he poured out more cognac and di'enched it — ^but did not 
drench it quite too lavishly — from the syphon. 

Some of the pulses of Jim's romantic nature were stin-ed 
by the suggestion of this possible opening of a new vein 



SOMEONE HAS BLUNDERED 87 

of romance for him. The instinct of the embryo novelist 
thrilled him into a new and lively interest. He was think- 
ing, too, that to-morrow might be a fatal day in the story 
of his love-affair. He felt very much in the mood of the 
immemorial lover who says to his own soul overnight that 
if she will not have him to-morrow he will take the Queen's 
shilling before the evening. 

' What is your enterprise, may I ask T he said, with an 
air of becoming languor and personal unconcern ; for, look 
you, he was not going to give himself away and acknow- 
ledge himself a person who was quite ready to join in any 
manner of imdertaking. 

' Well, it looks like a pretty big thing this time. We 
have been in a lot of adventures and enterprises together, 
and some of them turned out successes, and some of them 
tinned out very considerable failures, I can tell you. I am 
not a chap that minds a failure now and again, I may say. 
I'd much rather have a big, exciting failure than a dull 
little twopennv-halfpenny success. Now, if I size you up 
properly — and I think I do in a general sort of way know 
my man when I see him— I should say that you were a 
chap of just the same humour. It takes a good deal to 
frighten you, I'll be bound ?' 

' Well, I don't think I am more easily frightened than 
my neighbours,' Jim replied modestly. 

The compliment — ^for it was evidently meant to be 
accepted as a compliment — pleased him all the same. He 
was still a very young man. 

'No, I shouldn't fancy you were. Well, I'll tell you 
something about it. But I say — look here — there's another 
man I must see — man I told you of, in fact — ^hairdresser, 
Rue de la Pais — ymi know. Have you seen him T 

'Marmaduke Coffin? Oh yes, I have seen him, and,' 



88 THE RIDDLE RING 

Jim said, suddenly remembering the fact, 'he is coming 
here to have a smoke at eleven this very night.' 

■Tim, to tell the truth, had been forgetting the appoint- 
ment. 

' Don't mean to say so ! I am glad ! That's very 
lucky, for I shouldn't be quite certain of how to get hold 
of him to-night. Did he positively say he would come at 
eleven ?' 

' He did, positively.' 

' Then, he's sure to be here punctual as the needle to 
the pole, or grandfather's clock, or anything else you like. 
It's now twenty-five minutes to eleven. We shan't have 
long to wait.' 

' You are going over to-morrow ?' 

' Like a shot. I'd go over to-night if I could ; but 
that can't be worked, and I should like to see old Coffin 
anyhow.' 

' Does Coffin go over too ?' 

' Over to London .?' 

' To London — yes.' 

' Oh no ! Lord bless you, no ! Coffin never goes any- 
where. He always stays here. He don't like London. 
Besides, he has his work to do here.' 

' His work ?' 

' Why, yes ; didn't you see him .?' And Mr. Waley broke 
into a merry laugh. ' Why, hair-cutting, of course. What 
else could it be .?' 

Jim saw that there was some immense joke concealed 
under the words, but he could not pretend to make it 
out. 

' Well, I suppose hair-cutting is his business,' Jim said 
rather sulkily. 

In life few things are more irritating to the nervous 



SOMEONE HAS BLUNDERED 89 

temperament than to be kept outside a joke — ^to have a 
little joke going on 'apart,' and not to be allowed to 
share its humours. Jim fancied himself to be at least as 
clever as most people in seeing a joke. 

Mr. Waley indulged himself in a fresh burst of laughter. 

' Why, of course hairdressing is his business. I used to 
hear at school that there was a difference between vocation 
and avocation — one was the regular thing, don't you know, 
and the other was a sort of interlude. Let me see, now — 
let me pull myself together. How was it .'' Yes, of course 
— vocation was the regular business, and anything else was 
the avocation. I give you my word, I am not quite certain 
which is Coffin's vocation and which is his avocation.' 

Jim did not think he was bound to care much either 
way, and he certainly had no intention of expressing any 
curiosity on the subject. So he smoked his cigar and 
sipped his brandy-and-water in silence for a time. Mr. 
Waley did not remain silent. He kept talking on about 
anything that came uppermost to his mind, and did not 
seem to notice whether Jim wa^ listening to him or not. 
Jim, for his part, was beginning to get a little bit weary 
of the companionship. But he was not going to lose his 
chance of a sensation story just yet. 



CHAPTER IX. 

ME. WALEY AS RECRUITING-SERGEANT. 

Jim looked up at the clock in the courtyard and saw that 
it was just eleven. Mr. Waley's eyes followed Jim's glance. 
Mr. Wtdey in another second gave Jim a nudge with his 
elbow. 



90 THE RIDDLE RING 

'See,' Mr. Waley murmured, 'here comes our man — 
just up to time : he always is.' 

And Jim saw Marmaduke Coffin entering the courtyard. 
Coffin was dressed neatly, wore a light overcoat, looked 
quite a gentlemanly sort of man. He was dressed in 
English fashion rather than in French. 

' Hello !' Mr. Waley called to him ; ' come this way.' 

Coffin had been glancing round the courtyard to look 
for his friends, or, rather, for his host. He seemed a little 
surprised on seeing Mr. Waley with Jim. But his surprise 
found no expression in words, and after one glance not 
more expression in looks. 

' Glad to see you, Mr. Coffin,' Jim said. 

Unconsciously Jim seemed to have made up his mind 
that ' Mr.' CoflBn was demanded by the neat dress and the 
tall hat. 

' Not kept you late, I hope ?' Mr. Coffin asked, with a 
quite jaunty sort of air. ' Mr. Waley, I am so glad to 
see you.' 

' Have a drink. Coffin ?' said Jim, forgetting for the 
moment the tall hat and the neat get-up. 

' Thank you, Mr. Conrad ; some brandy, please, and the 
syphon ; and a cigar, if you don't mind.' 

These delicacies were all forthcoming. Then Waley 
began what might be considered serious talk. 

' Look here. Coffin,' he said, ' I am going to London 
to-morrow morning by the first train.' 

' Thought you would,' said Coffin. 

' How the devil did you know .?' Waley asked, with an 
emphasis that somewhat astonished Jim Conrad. 

'Didn't know. Didn't say I knew. Said I thought 
so.' 

' Why did you think so ?' 



RECRUITING-SERGEANT WALEY 91 

' How can a man know why he thinks anything ? Come, 



now 



I' 



' I think he has you there,' Jim said, not wanting to be 
mixed up in any manner of disputation, and rather anxious 
to be rid as soon as possible of both these English 
worthies. ' How can anybody know why he thinks any- 
thing ? I am sure I don't know half my time.' 

' No, that's right enough,' Mr. Waley answered, some- 
what more blandly. ' But I fancied. Coffin, that you had 
some reason for what you said.' 

'No reason at all, Mr. Waley. I seldom wait for 
reasons.' 

' Well, anyhow, I am going over to-morrow to London.' 

' Yes ; well, what to do there .?' 

' To meet the chief 

' Quite so.' 

Mr. Coffin's face expressed no manner of emotion. 

' Yes ; he is in London.' 

' Gentlemen,' Jim blandly interposed, ' I am afraid I am 
rather in the way. I am sure you want to talk over some 
business affairs, about which, of course, I know nothing. 
Now, if you don't mind, I shall just go to my room and 
scratch off a letter or two, and then we can all three settle 
down to a quiet smoke.' 

Jim was in truth beginning to be a little puzzled about 
his companions, and the kind of work they might be having 
in hand. The days of the highway robber were clearly 
over, and the mysterious community described in Paul de 
Kock's 'Moustache,' who thrived on making unlicensed 
spirits, would hardly now take much for their money, and 
coining would not be a safe and paying speculation, and 
financial swindles were not generally managed by an inner 
circle of three, one being a hairdresser ; and, in short, Jim 



92 THE RIDDLE RING 

could make nothing of it. All the same, he still thought 
it decidedly interesting, and was not anxious to lose more 
of it than he becomingly could. 

' Don't you go, Mr. Conrad,' Waley said impressively, 
' Don't you think of going unless you really want to. We 
ain't talking any treason here, we ain't making any plans 
against the rule of Queen Victoria, God bless her ! and 
here's her jolly good health ;' and he tossed off another 
glass of cognac-and-water. ' Nor yet, I give you ray word 
against the Republican Government of France, which now 
kindly protects us here, and receives us as its guests — at 
our own expense, of course. Good Lord ! I remember the 
rattling days of the Second Empire. What a time we 
had then ! And I told you, Mr. Conrad, I was in the 
swim of it.' 

' Yes, you told me,' said Conrad. ' It must have been 
awfully interesting.' 

' It was, I tell you.' 

' But I am sure I am keeping you from your business 
talk all the same,' Jim said blandly, ' and so I shall leave 
you together — shall I say for half an hour ? There will 
be time enough after.' 

'Now, look here, Mr. Conrad,' Waley said, 'I shall 
speak right out with you. I want everything on the 
square. The first time I set eyes on you, here in this 
hotel, I took a liking to you. Here, in this very coiui;- 
yard where we are now sitting, and Coffin with us — ^I mean 
Coffin with us now, of course ; he wasn't with us then — 
that first time.' 

Mr. Coffin solemnly bent his head in admission of the 
fact of an absence which he regretted. 

'When I saw you that first time, I said in my own 
mind, " Now, that's a real man, an Englishman — blood. 



RECRUITING-SERGEANT WALEY 93 

bone, and breeding." Then, when I heard that you were 
one of the Conrads of the North-Country — why, man 
alive, I know all about them ! I was brought up, I may 
say, in the very shadow of their ancestral halls, and my 
chief knows all about them too. And I know a lot about 
you, Mr. Conrad ; and I know that you are a little down 
on your luck, as a man might say. I mean that you ain't 
likely to succeed to a great big fortune.' 

' Mr. Waley,' Conrad interrupted somewhat sternly, ' I 
have not met you here to-night to discuss my private 
affairs. I can't help your knowing about me what every- 
body can learn who takes the trouble to inquire ; but I don't 
mean to discuss my family history or my personal condition 
with any stranger, however well-intentioned he may be.' 

Jim rose to his feet. 

' No offence, Mr. Conrad — no offence,' the imperturbable 
Waley pleaded. ' I didn't mean any harm. I give you 
my sacred word of honour. You see, my people were 
only a sort of adherents or vassals, so to speak, of the 
Northumbrian Conrads in old days, and I talk with the 
perhaps privileged freedom of the old retainer. Sit down 
again, and let us have it quietly out.' 

Jim had his weaknesses. One of them was an intense 
pride in his old Northumbrian family. Mr. Waley had 
touched that chord of weakness when he ascribed his rash 
talk to the privileged freedom of an old retainer. So Jim 
sat down again. Jim never liked being out of temper. 
Some men delight in it. It annoyed him. 

' Well, Mr. Waley,' he asked, ' what do you want to say 
to me ?' 

' It's just this : I think you are a sort of lad who ought 
to be put in the way of making your fortune, and I dare 
say the chief could put you in that way just now.' 



94 THE RIDDLE RING 

' I should be very glad indeed to make a fortune,' Jim 
said ; ' few people could want it more. But I should first 
like to know how the fortune was to be made, and who 
the men are with whom I am to make it.' 

' Right you are !' Mr. Waley exclaimed. ' Just the 
very answer I should have expected from a Northumbrian 
Conrad. Well, I can't tell you to-night what's up, for I 
don't know until I see the chief.' 

'But you must know what your line of enterprise 
generally is ?' 

' Oh yes ; I can tell you all about that.' 

' What is it ? banks, railways, ship-canals, evening news- 
papers, theatres, music-halls — ^that sort of thing .?' 

'Mr. Conrad, we have souls above that sort of thing. 
We are — ^bend down your ear, please ; there may be all 
sorts of listeners at these little tables here — we are ex- 
plorers.' 

' Explorers .?' Jim asked in amazement, and now at last 
beginning to doubt the sanity of his companion. Mr. 
Coffin sat with an aspect of undisturbed and impenetrable 
gloom. 

' Explorers, yes, that's it,' Mr. Waley said, nodding ever 
so many times, and beaming over with the kindliest smiles, 
as if he had now put everyone at his ease and disclosed a 
welcome secret. 

' Stanley, Emin Pasha, Burton, that sort of thing i"' 
Conrad asked in perplexity. ' I don't see great fortunes 
in that.' 

' Oh no, I don't mean that. We don't care twopence 
about the sources of the Nile any more than we care for 
watchine the transit of Venus. We find out new soil where 
money is to be made, oil here, wheat there, ivory somewhere 
else, gold, copper, anything you please — oyster-beds even— 



RECRUITING-SERGEANT WALEY 95 

and we get up an international wrangle about it, don''t you 
know, and then we try to make the best bargain we can 
for our rights. But we always give Old England the best 
chance ; don't make any mistake about that. Yes, we do. 
But if we have found out a thing, we have a right to be 
paid for our find. Only fair that,. ain't it ?'' 

' But I haven't heard much of your operations,' observed 
the bewildered Conrad. 

' We only make the beginnings, don't you see, and we 
don't care to obtrude our own names on the public. Other 
people are only too glad to get all the credit when they 
have bought us out. The real competitors are the Ameri- 
cans and the Germans, and lately the French. But the 
Americans are the most eager of all, I can tell you, and 
they are not by any means bad hands at a bargain.' 

' Does Mr. Coffin do much exploring .?' Jim asked, 
with a wondering glance at that silent and melancholy 
person. 

' Well, he explores in his own way, and in his own field, 
but he don't waste his health and strength much in tropical 
climates. There's a lot of information to be picked up 
among the English and the Americans who come here to 
Paris in the season — or out of the season, I should say — 
out of the Paris season. Mr. Coffin, I tell you, got a good 
deal of his education, as I did, under the Second Empire.' 

' But I thought you told me you had been in Paris only 
about twenty years i" Jim asked, turning to Coffin. 

' Only twenty years for good — or evil,' Mr. Coffin grimly 
observed ; ' but I was in Paris off and on before that time, 
and I served the Second Empire a good deal in London.' 

' In what capacity, may I ask .'" 

' In the capacity of observer, among the French refugee 
population in Ijondon-r— Leicester Square quarter, mostly,' 



96 THE RIDDLE RING 

' Observer ? Is not that rather a fine and a long word 
for it ?' 

Mr. Coffin looked up, looked down, thought for a 
moment, and said, with a curious twinkle in his eye : 

' Spy, you mean ?' 

' Yes, I did mean something like that.' 

' Wrong,' Mr. Coffin calmly said. 

' Quite wrong,' Mr. Waley triumphantly declared. 
' Britons, sir, never, never, never can be slaves — or spies.' 

' All the same, I don't quite understand,' Jim put in. 
' Did you make any reports to the Prefect of Police, here 
in Paris ?' 

' Not one,' Coffin answered, wholly unperturbed. 

' But you must have communicated the results of your 
observation — let us call it — to somebody in Paris.' 

Mr. Waley smiled a benignant smile. 

' Why, certainly,' he interjected, in a suddenly assumed 
American accent. 

' Yes,' Coffin answered, without showing in his voice the 
slightest trace of any manner of embarrassment. 'I re- 
ported to the chief.' 

'To Mr. Waley's chief.?' 

' To Mr. Waley's chief.' 

' Who was certainly not the Prefect of Police >'' 

' Certainly not.' 

' You may bet your bonnet-strings on that,' Mr. Waley 
interposed blandly. 

' Well, gentlemen,' Jim said — he was beginning to be 
impatient — ' I have not the least idea what or whom you 
are talking about, or what the exploring business is that 
you are concerned in, or who the chief is, or who anybody 
is, or who either of you two may happen to be ; and I 
don't see how I could possibly help you in your exploring 



RECRUITING-SERGEANT WALEY 97 

expeditions, seeing that I am not an explorer — at least, I 
have never been so far in my life.' 

' Half a moment, Mr. Conrad,' Waley interposed, placing 
his right thumb halfway up the first joint of his right fore- 
finger, as if to indicate the exact division of time to be 
allotted to him. ' Half a moment, Mr. Conrad, sir ! We 
don't want to press you into any service for which you 
might feel yourself disinclined from the first. But I think 
we could find you good work to do, and make good use of 
you.' 

' I don't want to be made use of,' Conrad intei-posed, 
somewhat in a sharpened tone. 

' Half a moment, Mr. Conrad, sir ' — and the right fore- 
finger repeated the same gesture with the right thumb — 
' half a moment. Will you just wait a bit, until I have 
seen the chief and am in a position to tell you what we 
are going to be asked to do .'' I don't know myself just 
yet — ^not the least in the world. I have only heard from 
the chief that he has got some good, strong thing in hand, 
and until I see him and talk with him I shan't know anv 
more. You are not staying long here, I suppose ? May I 
call to see you in London .?' 

' You have my address,' Conrad said, rather sullenly. 

'Yes, I have your address, but you might not care to 
see me, all the same. You have worked yourself, I can 
see, into a wrong notion about our enterprises, and I want 
you to get the right ideas. Fancy my letting a Conrad of 
Northumberland into anything unworthy of his family and 
their fame !' 

Waley stood up, and there was a certain moisture in his 
eyes, and there was a tremble in his voice. 

Conrad was in many ways a tender-hearted youth, and 
was inclined to believe in the sincerity of people, and 



98 THE RIDDLE RING 

once again the allusion to the Conrad family touched 
him. 

' Come to see me whenever you like,' he said hurriedly. 
' I don't know how soon I shall be in London, but my 
return can't be many days off. Come and see me, by all 
means ; and now let us have our smoke out, and talk of 
something else. Mr. Coffin can tell us something about 
life in Paris.' 

' I know nothing about what is called life in Parisj' 
Mr. Coffin solemnly remarked. ' I never go in for amusing 
myself.' 

' Oh, by Jove ! I do,' Mr. Waley declared emphatically. 

When Jim went to his room that night, he found that 
a little note had been left for him. It only said : 

' I shall be alone at two to-morrow, and shall be glad to 
see you. 

' Clelia Vine.' 



CHAPTER X. 

'I COULD HAVE LOVED YOU, BUT- 



CoNRAD thought but little next day of his mysterious com- 
panions of the previous night, and of their enterprise and 
their explorings and their chief, and all the rest of it. He 
did not quite like to dismiss them as two lunatics — and he 
was disposed to think that, lunatics or not, they were 
honest good fellows. But they did not occupy his mind 
overmuch. They did not occupy his mind, for instance, as 
Miss Vine did. 

He was rather glad to know that Waley had left Paris, 
and could not come in his way again for the moment. 



'I COULD HAVE LOVED YOU' 99 

He had not the least idea of visiting soon the hairdresser's 
shop in the Rue de la Paix. He lounged about the 
Boulevards and the. Champs Elysees idly and unrestingly ; 
he did not, according to his wont, go to the Bois de 
Boulogne — and at last it became nearly time to call on 
Miss Vine. 

He found her as he had expected — as she had told him 
— alone. 

' Perhaps I ought not to have asked you to come to see 
me,' she said, 'but I so often act on mere impulse — and 
my impulse drove me that way.' 

' I am very glad you did send for me, Miss Vine '' 

' Yes ; we got into some misunderstanding yesterday — ■ 
at least, I did — and I should like to have things made 
clear.' 

' And I, too,' Jim uttered fervently. 

' Yes, I am glad that we are of one mood — so far, at all 
events. I know that by sending for you I lay myself open 
to misunderstanding — ^but you will not misunderstand. I 
think we must have a very frank and outspoken talk just 
now. I think I am sorry — ^but "" 

' You may take it for granted,' Jim said passionately, 
' that I shall not misunderstand anything you say or any- 
thing- you do ^ 

' Yes, I am sure of that. That is why I venture to talk 
to you in a way that I suppose most women would think a 
shocking way ' 

' Talk to me in any way you will, I shall know that you 
mean it only to be kind to me — ^for my good.' 

' I mean it only for your happiness — and mine — — ' 

' And yours ? Yours .?' 

' Yes, indeed, mine — for it would make me unhappy to 
see you unhappy.' 



100 THE RIDDLE RING 

' You have it in your power to make me happy— — * 

' Ah, yes,' she said, a faint flush covering for a moment 
her usually pale face ; ' that is just what I fancied — what 
I feared ! I must speak out now : you will not think I 
am urged by any motive of idle self-conceit, but I would 
much — oh, ever so much! — rather you thought me self- 
conceited than coquettish or cold or hard-hearted.' 

' I couldn't think you anything of the kind,' he protested. 

But his heart was sinking, for he could guess well enough 
what sort of answer was to come. He could guess the 
answer, but not the wherefore. 

' I fancied yesterday,' she said — ' and you must tell me 
honestly and courageously if I was mistaken in my fancy — 
oh ! I shall be so glad if I was mistaken in it '' 

' You were not mistaken in it,' he interposed doggedly. 

'Oh, but you haven't heard what I was going to 
say ' 

' I know what you were going to say, and I shall spare 
you the pain of saying it. You were not mistaken — ^you 
were never less mistaken in your life than when you came 
to think that I was in love with you ! That is what you 
were going to say, is it not .'' I have at least saved you 
that much pain — the pain of putting it into words.' 

' You have saved me the pain,' she said. ' It was kind 
of you — it was like you. Will you do something even 
more kind and generous still .'' Will you say you can spare 
me the pain of telling you anything more ? Will you say 
you know the rest i" 

'No,' he answered passionately, and looking straight 
into her eyes, which drooped before his as before too 
strong a light, ' I will not do that. I must hear all you 
have to tell me. I will not give up until I know not 
merely what your answer is, but why and wherefore.' 



'I COULD HAVE LOVED YOU' 101 

' The why and wherefore I am sure you will not insist 
on having when I have told you what you compel me to 
say. I cannot marry you, Mr. Conrad. There ! is it not 
a shame of me ? You have never asked me to marry you, 
and I suppose everybody in the world would say I had got 
but the just punishment for my self-conceit and forward- 
ness if you were to reply quietly that you never had any 
idea of asking me.' 

* But you know I had every idea of asking you. You 
saw the words trembling on my lips many a time. I saw 
by the very manner in which you turned your eyes away 
that you saw it. Well, you will not marry me. Is that 
your positive and yoiu* final answer ?' 

' It is my positive and final answer.' 

'And now will you tell me why? Do you not care 
about me.? Or, look here, is it not possible that you 
might come to care about me .''' 

' Oh yes, indeed,' she answered quietly ; ' very possible 
and very likely that I might come to care about you, if I 
let my feelings take that way.' 

'Then, you do care about me!' he exclaimed, almost 
triumphantly. 

' Yes, I do, very much indeed. I admire you ; I have 
faith in you ; I find you a delightful companion. I am 
sure I know you, and I believe you are a man to make a 
woman happy. But I cannot marry you, and I cannot 
love you.' 

* Cannot love me — or will not ?' 

' Must not,' she answered in a sweet, low tone. ' If it is 
of any comfort to you to know that I could have loved 
you if we had met under diflFerent conditions — ^if we had 
met earlier, perhaps — only then it might have been too 
early.' She spoke these words as one following some 



102 THE RIDDLE RING 

track of thought wholly her own, and which his mind 
could not tread. ' Yes, under happier conditions I could 
have lov6d yoiu, I should have loved you.' 

Even the purest love of man to woman is so blended 
with self love that poor Jim found some consolation at 
that moment for her absolute refusal by her confession 
that she could have loved him; for he could interpret 
that in only one way — she did love him, she did actually 
love him. It was not the common sort of obstacle that 
stood in his way. At least he was to be spared the pain 
of hearing her say that she cared for him as a sister cares 
for her brother. 

' Some wall is between us ?' Jim asked. 

' A wall is between us indeed.' 

' Walls have fallen down before now.' 

' This wall is not likely to fall down. Mr. Conrad, I 
owe you too much confidence, and I like you too well, not 
to let you know the whole reality, and not to put my 
secret absolutely into your hands. Mr. Conrad, I am 
married !' 

«0h!' 

Conrad gave an inarticulate groan, and sprang from his 
seat. He saw nothing for a moment — ^he felt as if the 
floor were rocking under his feet, and the windows darken- 
ing before his eyes. 

' Yes, I am married. I do not expect to see him again.' 
She paused over the word ' him ' ; she seemed as if she 
could not or would not say 'my husband.' 'But I am 
married — and he is young ; he is well able to fight with 
life, and I wish him well, and I wish him happy, but I do 
not wish to see him again. There, do not ask me any 
more. I need not tell you never to breathe a word of this 
to anyone else.' 



'I COULD HAVE LOVED YOU' 103 

'Ohr 

He made an impatient motion as if to repudiate and 
shake away any possibility of his being guilty of such an 
offence. 

' No, of course, I know you will not. I don't even know 
why I said anything about it.' 

' Does anyone else know of this ?'' 

'Gertrude Morefield alone. She knows everything, 
except that I have told you. I shall not tell her that for 
the present, but I shall tell it to her some time — soon, 
perhaps, if things should go as I could wish.' 

' What things, and what do you wish .?' 

Poor Jim dropped back into his seat, still so stunned 
by the news that he felt himself putting questions in a 
queer, perfunctory sort of way. It came back upon his 
memory strangely how he felt one day when he got a 
heavy fall in the hunting-field, and was unconscious for a 
time, and that when he came partly to himself again he 
began asking commonplace questions of those around him 
concerning the incidents of the field. 

' I should wish for the happiness of some of my friends,' 
she said, with a sweet smile, ' if it could be.' 

' Don't wish for my happiness,' Jim said. 

'Why not.?' 

' Oh, how can you .?' he asked, almost angrily. ' You 
know that I can't be happy any more than you can.' 

'I cannot be happy, certainly,' she said. 'Nothing 
could bring about happiness for me. The wreck that I 
have made of my own life — and — and of the lives of 
others, will be a bitter memory to me all through my 
time. But, my friend, you are different ; things are not 
quite so bad with you. There are other women in the 
world ' 



104 THE RIDDLE RING 

' Not for me,' he interposed vehemently. 

' You think so now — yes, and I honour you for it ; but 
Time brings change.' 

He made an impatient gesture of protest. 

' No, I don't want to make too much of that now ; but 
it is a truth, my friend. Once I thought there couJd be 
no man in the world but one for me. But stay — yes, 
there is something more I do wish to tell you. I want to 
excuse myself in your eyes.' 

' There is no need,' he said sullenly. ' I blame you for 
nothing.' 

' I blame myself so much, and I cannot have it on my 
mind without telling you. I want you to know why I did 
not bluntly discourage you days and days ago, when it 
could have been done in the easiest way.' 

' Yes,' he said, ' you might tell me that. I am sure you 
had only the kindest purpose, but I think I should like you 
to tell me of that.' 

' I encouraged your coming here from the first, did I 
not ?' she asked, with a certain hesitation. 

' Yes, I thought you did.' 

' And I was always very friendly and confidential with 
you, was I not ?' 

' You were, indeed ; I thought so always,' poor afflicted 
Jim said, all the memories of those happy days crowding 
back upon him and crushing him. ' Yes, you made me 
love you.' 

' I never meant it, my friend. I encouraged you, urged 
vou, because I thought I was helping you. I liked you 
from the first, and I thought you liked me, but not in that 
way. Listen' — and she sank her voice almost to a 
whisper — 'I thought you liked me because — ^because — I 
was the friend of Gertrude Morefield !' 



'I COULD HAVE LOVED YOU' 105 

Jim once again sprang from his seat. 

'Good God !' he said. ' How could you have thought 
that?' 

« I did think it. Why shouldn't I ? You knew her ; I 
am sure you admired her. Why should I not have 
thought that you cared for her? She liked you, and 
thought highly of you, and — well, anyhow, there was 
nothing to make me see why you should not have been in 
love with her. And I thought you were in love with her 
— I did indeed, and until quite, quite lately. I thought 
you came to see me only because by seeing me you got to 
see her. Yes, I did. It was only yesterday I found out 
the truth ; for I know it is the truth, since you have told 
me so.' 

' Oh yes, it is the truth,' he said sadly. 

' And then I made up my mind that I must tell you, at 
the risk of any misconception — misconstruction — any- 
thing.' 

' There isn't any — ^there couldn't be any,' Jim murmured. 

'No, I know that now — yes, of course; indeed, I 
thought it then. I love her so much, and I like you so 
much — oh yes, I have so much love for you — that I 
thought it would be happy for you both to be brought 
together. I believed I was doing you both a service. 
Well, come, I have been very blunt and outspoken with 
you ; may I be a little more blunt and outspoken still ? 
May I .?' 

' Say anything you please.' 

* The tone of your voice sounds a little harsh. Is your 
heart bitter towards me ? 

' No, God knows !' he said. 

His heart was torn with love for her, compassion for 
her, the hoiTor and despair of losing her. 



106 THE RIDDLE RING 

' Well, what I want to say is this : ' Is it too late even 
yet ? Is it quite too late ?' 

' Too late for what ?' 

« Too late for her ?' 

' Clelia ! Clelia ! Do you really think love can be for- 
gotten in that way — in that space of time ?' 

' Most things may be forgotten,' Clelia said, with a sad 
smile. 'I have found it so. Love may be forgotten; 
promises, pledges, may be forgotten ; honour may be for- 
gotten ; yes, even self-interest may be forgotten '' 

' Is nothing, then, remembered f he asked disconsolately, 
wonderingly, as he looked into her quick-moving, gleaming 
eyes. 

' I don't know,' she answered stammeringly. ' Perhaps, 
with a woman like me, the sense of injury, the hatred of 
treason, of betrayal, is likely to be immortal. But come, 
let us talk more quietly. Let us, whatever we do, not 
get into sentiment. I have dealt fairly with you ; I have 
told you a great deal. I have tried to console even your 
self-love ' — and these words went to the very heart of the 
young man, for he could not but know that self-love is 
mixed up with the other love, with the deep and passionate 
love for another. ' Now you know that I cannot marry 
you. I have really no husband, and I shall never have a 
lover. You and I can never come nearer than we are at 
this moment— never, never! We are friends — ^real, true 
friends — and we never can be anything else. Why can 
you not love my fiiend — my other friend ? I love her. 
She is well worth the love of any honourable man. Oh ! if 
I had only known such a man when I was younger — when 
I was yoimg !' 

The girl started from her seat and stood by the window 
for a moment, with her back turned to him. What 



'I COULD HAVE LOVED YOU' 107 

memories, he wondered, were passing through her perturbed 
mind as she moved away from him and looked out of that 
window ? Suddenly she turned round and faced him anew. 

' You would make her happy," she said abruptly, ' and I 
think she would make you happy. Oh, my dear friend, 
the thing we call passionate love is much best left alone in 
this world ! It never comes to anything but frustration 
and disappointment. She is a good girl, and a loving girl, 
and a clever girl. If I were a man, I should love her. Why 
should you not try to love her — if only for my sake T 

' I can't transfer my love,' he said, almost sullenly. ' It's 
not like a public-house license with me. I can't have 
you, that's quite clear. I don't want any other woman.' 

' You told me yourself you were in love before ^' 

' I told you I thought I was in love.' 

' Very well ; you think you are in love with me now.' 

' Think !' he said angrily. 

' Oh, my friend, I do not wish to hurt you in any way. 
You do love me now; but you thought you loved the 
other woman. I do not ask who she was — it is no concern 
of mine to know ; and perhaps — ^perhaps you may be cured 
of this hopeless love for me. You have told me that you 
love me, and at first it terrified me, knowing what I did, 
and what you did not know. But I confess it — and, oh ! 
forgive me when I say it — that it did gladden me to hear 
from your own lips that you loved me ! How wicked I 
am ! and yet not so wicked as to let you go on without 
knowing the whole tnith !' 

'I have no thought of blame for you, Clelia,' he said. 
' I shall hold you always in my heart. I shall never trouble 
you any more. I told you before this that I have one 
'merit which a woman ought to prize — I am a man very 
easily got rid of,' 



108 THE RIDDLE RING 

' Oh !' she exclaimed — ' got rid of? As if I wanted to 
get rid of you !' 

' I don't accuse you of any personal intention that way,' 
he said, with a melancholy smile. 'But it is clear that 
you and I can't keep together on the same terms any more. 
Very well ; I give you up. But I think I would rather 
that you did not recommend me to take some other woman 
to fill your place.' 

' You hardly know how good and sweet she is.' 

' What does that matter ?' he asked. ' She is not you.' 

* She is ever so much better.' 

' Then, she is too good for me, and so it comes to the 
same.' 

' Must I tell you something more .?' Clelia asked, in a 
tone of one who makes a last appeal. 

' I've said already — tell me anything you like.' 

' Mr. Conrad, listen : Gertrude Morefield is in love with 
you.' 

' She isn't ; I don't believe it. She has told me herself 
over and over again that love has never entered into her 
life.' 

' Love had not knocked at her door, perhaps, when you 
first came her way ; but now it is difierent. Most girls talk 
like that — ^until the man comes — the man who makes them 
learn a different stoiy. I understand every thought in the 
girl's mind, and every feeling in her heart, and she is in 
love with you — Jim !' 

The word 'Jim' penetrated him with a curious inter- 
mixture of pleasure and pain. The thrill of pleasure came 
first, and then the pang of pain suddenly followed. Never 
had she called him by his familiar name before — there was 
the sudden sense of rapture. But she called him by his 
name now as she was striving to interest him in another 



*I COULD HAVE LOVED YOU' 109 

woman — striving to hand him over to another woman — 
she called him by his name to signify that there might be 
friendship and affection between them, and nothing more 
— and there came in the pain. She could not have chosen 
any better, more tender, more hopeless form of signifying 
to him that all was over between them except friendship. 
And to the lover friendship seems so barren and so cold 
and so cruel ! When the lover can warm himself in winter 
by the light of a star, he will be able to comfort himself 
for the refusal of a woman''s love by the offer of her friend- 
ship. 

Jim was a plucky and a manly fellow. He was quite up 
to the comprehension of the fact that everything does not 
go comfortably and right with men in human affairs. He 
pulled himself together. 

' All right,' he said. ' What do you want me to do .'"' 

' I want you to forget me.' 

Then he broke down. 

' That be !' he said abruptly, and then at once 

grew ashamed of himself, and hastily explained. 'I beg 
pardon, I am sure — I didn't mean that, of course — ^but 
what I did mean to say was that I can't quite promise to 
forget you — all at once, anyhow. You must ask me some- 
thing easier,' he added, with a smile that did its best to be 
heroic. 

' I ask you something which I am sure will be much for 
your own good and your own happiness in the end '' 

' Yes .?' he interjected dismally. 

' I ask you to think of Gertrude Morefield. I tell you 
that she is the sweetest girl I know, and the truest and 
fondest — she is worth a score of me — and she is in love 
with you, Jim, as sure as '' 

' As I am in love with you !' 



110 THE RIDDLE RING 

' Yes,' she answered, with a reckless smile on her pale 
face ; ' and as sm-e as I should be in love with you — if I 
could — if I dared.' 

' And do you think,' he asked almost sternly, ' that that 
is a good way of prevailing on me to go and make love to 
another woman — to tell me that you know I am in love 
with you, and that you would love me if you dared ?' 

' I do — ^yes, I do : for we are reasonable creatures, and 
we are not mere boy and girl — and you cannot marry me 
— and I cannot — love you — and we both know that there 
are different kinds of love — and that the wild romantic 
love is not the one that wears the best. Yes, I have been 
very outspoken with you; I have shown you ray whole 
heart. Nothing is possible between us but friendship; 
and if you only feel as I do, nothing is impossible for us 
but the extinction of our friendship !' 

' Friendship is ice f he exclaimed. 

' Friendship is solid earth,' she answered, ' and love is 
the glow of the sky which we cannot reach — or the light 
of the stars which thrills our souls on a bright summer 
night, but cannot guide our way. Come, now, I am growing 
sentimental myself, and I don't intend to do that. Well, 
will you think of what I have told you .?' 

' Think of the hard fact that you are mamed, and cannot 
love me ? How soon do you fancy I shall cease to think 
about that ?' 

' Oh no, my friend ; I know that you will think about 
that. What I meant was to ask you to think over what 
I have told you about Gertrude Morefield. Remember, 
her mother may be carried oif at any time, and she may 
be left alone.' 

' And then you would propose to go out of civilization 
altogether .?' 



* I COULD HAVE LOVED YOU' 111 

' I would much rather she remained in civilization, if she 
were sheltered by you.' 

Jim's mind was passion-tossed. He was madly in love 
with Clelia, he had the deepest feeling of compassion for 
her, and yet he was angry with her. He was hurt by the 
thought that she could turn him over to any other woman. 
She could not really have cared about him, he thought, if 
she could coolly propose that he should thus transfer his 
love, and give another woman the key of his heart, or 
invite another woman to have the key to his heart, but not 
his heart. And yet what better could he do ? Young men 
in love have no horizon — no proportions — ^no perspective. 
Jim could see nothing for him in the future but the futile 
love for a woman he could not marry, whom he could not 
make happy. If there was in the world some other woman 
whom by marrying he could make happy, why not turn to 
some use an existence which would otherwise be all in vain ? 

' Yes ; I will think of what you have told me.' 

His voice choked a little as he spoke. An unaccustomed 
moisture came into his eyes. 

' That is all I ask,' she replied. 

' But it won't come to anything,' he said abruptly, and 
he rose to go. 

She hardly appeared to be listening. 

' Oh yes, one thing more I must ask of you ; and I shall 
beseech it of you, if you will,' she said, ' and if nothing.less 
than a beseeching prayer will avail to touch you ' 

' Oh !' the poor young man groaned out, ' as if you had 
not only to ask whatever you wanted of me !' 

' Yes, yes, I know — I know quite well ; oh, my friend, 
I understand you quite ! Do you think I do not under- 
stand a nature like yours ? Do you think I am not able 
to understand it ?' 



112 THE RIDDLE RING 

Poor Jim was embarrassed. He did not know that his 
was a peculiarly exalted nature, and yet he did not want 
to be rude enough to disparage her gift of divining by her 
own fancy some peculiarly exalted nature ; so he only said : 

' I will promise anything you ask me to promise.' 

' And you will keep your word, I know.' 

' A man always keeps his word,' Jim said, almost sternly. 

* Yes, I know — a man that is a man. But a woman 
that is a woman does not always keep her word. Any- 
how, you are not a woman, and you will keep your word. 
Well, then, promise me this ' 

' I will promise you anything you like !' 

' Promise me that you will never try to find out who my 
husband is, or anything of my unhappy story, or try to 
meet my husband, or try to do anything at all to help me 
— in that way, of course, I mean.' 

' From my soul,' he said fervently. ' I can promise to 
do just as you wish in all that relates to your life-history.' 

' And not more ?' she asked, with a sweet, inviting smile. 
' Not all that relates to the life-history of someone else — 
of someone else .?' 

' Oh, I have gone far enough,' he said impatiently. ' I 
can't promise to love anybody but you.' 

There was a moment's pause. Then he began again : 

' I suppose I must not go with you to Algiers, or Egypt, 
or wherever you are going .''' 

' Oh no,' she said ; ' you must not go with us. You 
see, you say you are very fond of me ' 

' Say ! say ! I am very fond of you,' he interrupted her 
quite angrily. 

' Well, yes ; I know what you mean, and I believe all 
you tell me. But if that is so, or since it is so, it is quite 
clear, my friend, that you and I had better not go travelling 



'I COULD HAVE LOVED YOU' 113 

about in company, even though we have other companions 
— or, as I would rather put it now, because we have other 
companions.' 

* Why is it worse because we have other companions T 
he asked, in a sinking and sickly tone. 

' Why ? Because, if I am anything at all real, I am a 
good friend to my friend.' 

' But what has that to do ' 

' What has that to do ? As if you didn't know ! 
Because Gertrude Morefield is my friend, and I will not 
have you going about with her and thinking of me all the 
time.' 

* I should be thinking of you all the time,' he said grimly. 
' So you have told me, and I believe you ; and therefore 

I must not have it, and I won't have it. Tell me you 
will think of Gertrude, and you may go over the world 
with us.' 

' I am very fond of Miss Morefield,' he said, in a stammer- 
ing sort of way ; ' but I cannot think of her while you are 
there.' 

' Well, and you know you must not think of me at all ! 
I have told you more than I ought to have told, but I 
wanted to save you from needless pain if I could ; and so 
I gave you the full opportunity of getting out of all 
difficulty by saying that you were not likely in the least 
to fall in love with me. You see, you missed an easy 
chance of escape.' 

' How can you talk like that .?' he asked. ' Is there not 
full truth between you and me .?' 

' Oh yes, I hope so — I feel so.' 

' Then, let us talk the truth. I love you, and I shall 
always love you ' 

' Oh, hush, my friend ! I must not listen to talk like 

8 



lU THE RIDDLE BlNd 

that ; and you, if I know you, will not want me to listen 
to it. Let us not spoil a dear and possible friendship by 
a wholly impossible attempt at love. Do remember that, 
after all, there is nothing better in life than friendship, 
and that, whether we like it or not, there is nothing else 
possible between you and me.' 

' Then, I must not go with you ?'' he pleaded. 

' No ; certainly you must not. I will urge Mrs. More- 
field to leave Paris at once, and you can say that you have 
to go back to London.' 

' Must I go back to London ?' asked Jim distractedly. 

' You must indeed. You must find a career there, and 
you may find out when you are there the woman that you. 
really love.' 

' I have found her,' he said. 

' No ; you thought you had. You thought you had 
foimd her once before ; try the third wave — that, they 
say, lifts one to success and the shore.' 

' Oh !' he exclaimed, and he left her. 

She would not forget that fanciful, that fancied first 
love of his. The words she spoke stung him. His heart 
was bitter against her, and yet how he loved her ! 



CHAPTER XL 

THE SWEET SORROW OF PARTING. 

Jim's last night in Paris had come. What a time he had' 
had of it in Paris — this time ! How happy he had been 
^how miserable he had been ! How delightful, how dis- 
tressful, how perplexed and utterly fatile, it had been!- 
Now all was over, and he was going back to London, to 
Clarges Street and the Voyagers' Club, and he must take' 



THE SWEET SORROW OP PARTING 115 

up the work — the prosaic work — of life again, or rather, 
indeed, for the first time and at the beginning. 'Muss 
selber nun Philister sein,' as the German student-song puts 
it; must come down from his high horse of fancy and 
imagination and impossible love-making and be himself a 
Philistine and a worker, like everybody else. And a 
Worker for what ? He could live well enough, he could 
pay for his daily bread, and his club and his clothes — and 
what did he want else, now that his dreams had all evapo- 
rated .'' Or why not go to some new country .'' A new 
country is a new career. Why not California, or Australia, 
or South Africa ? 

Ah! and the thought flashed suddenly through him. 
Why not hear fully out the schemes of Waley .'' Why 
not get to know the mysterious chief, who would doubtless 
turn out to be not mysterious at all, but only some plucky 
British adventurer with a heart for any fate ? What 
could suit Jim better in his present mood ? Westward 
ho ! — ^Eastward ho ! — Northward ho ! — Southward ho ! — 
anywhere ho ! — it was all one to him. 

' I am glad to go back to London,' he said to himself. 
' I have no further business here ^ — as, indeed, he had not. 

For days and nights, under the charm of Clelia Vine's 
company, he had forgotten all about the mystery of the 
ring. Now, he could not tell why, he took it out and 
studied its hieroglyphics all over again. Was it because 
it soothed him to remind himself that others had sufifered 
and were suffering as well as he ? Perhaps that was the 
reason at the bottom of his consciousness, but on the sur- 
face of his consciousness no reason showed itself. It seemed 
to him as if he had taken up the ring by the merest hap- 
hazard. But having taken it up, he studied it anew and 
tried to read its riddle. 



116 THE RIDDLE RING 

He put it before him on his dressing-table that last 
night in Paris, and he began to think — ^not of it, but of 
himself. He had been hit very hard this time, he thought. 
He had been hit two ways — he was bitterly disappointed 
about Clelia, and he was, perhaps, to be the source of 
bitter disappointment to Gertrude, for whom already he 
felt a warm affection. He could never forget how when 
he was in the depths of his first love-trouble she came and 
all unconsciously stepped between him and his fighting 
soul. He remembered the music of her voice that first 
night when he ventured to speak to her. It seemed as if 
she had come to him and put a friendly hand upon his 
shoulder, and spoken words of encouragement into his ear, 
and told him that there weis something yet to live for in 
the world. And now he came to learn that she had grown 
to care about him — and he must disappoint her. For he 
could not help himself — ^he loved Clelia Vine. And Clelia 
had only encouraged him because she believed that through 
her he was seeking to approach Gertrude Morefield. 

There was enough for him to think about without em- 
barrassing himself in futile and speculative conjectures 
over the troubles and the disappointments of other and 
unknown lovers whose very existence he had only come to 
guess at by deciphering the hieroglyphic posy of a ring. 
But to study the ring mystery, which of late he had nearly 
forgotten, had a new fascination for him now. He began 
to feel as if he had been ungrateful to the ring — ^had re- 
nounced his duty to it while he thought he was happy — 
had wholly forgotten the woman with the wrecked life 
whom he had created for himself out of his own conjec- 
tures during the first days of his visit to Paris. He did 
not allow himself to think as to how he should meet the 
Morefields again, or whether he ought to meet them again. 



THE SWEET SORROW OF PARTING 117 

He did not even occupy himself much with any conjectures 
as to the sad story of Clelia's life. What would be the 
use? She was gone from him — she could be nothing to 
him ; the very kindness and very tenderness of her words 
and her manner to him filled him with a new despair. 
She was so frank with him, because she never had really 
cared for him. Her great anxiety about him was to try 
to get him to offer himself to another woman. He set 
himself deliberately to study the ring lying before him, 
and almost began to regard it as a talisman which he 
ought for ever to have kept with him, and which he had 
laid aside and forgotten. The talisman was bound to 
have its revenge, he thought. At last, worn out with 
thinking, he went to bed, and fell asleep with the ring 
under his pillow. He seemed as if he could not sleep 
without it now — as if he must never part from it again 
until he had read its mystery, and found out its rightful 
owner. 

Then he woke with a great start and a cry. The cry it 
was that wakened him. For he had had a dream which 
seemed to him extraordinary now, and yet was as a dream 
that might well have come before. Was it a mere night- 
mare ? or was it an inspiration ? He thought that he was 
sitting somewhere with Clelia, long before — ^before he had 
ever met her — and he saw on her finger the ring which he 
now held in his cai'e, and under the pillow. Yes, there it 
was on her finger, with its enamelled and hieroglyphic 
letters on the outside. The whole idea broke upon him 
like a revelation, and yet, when he began to waken up 
fully and to get his senses clearly about him, he could not 
think that it was anything but a wild chimera of the 
night. 

^1 the same, it took possession of hini. Clelia ha4 



118 THE RIDDLE RING 

been in Paris longer than Mrs. Morefield knew of ; that he 
had thought quite certain, even when he did not attach 
the slightest importance to the possibility. For some 
reason or other the two girls had not allowed Mrs. Moi'e- 
fieM to know exactly the day on which Miss Vine came to 
Paris. There was not much to go on in that — but there 
possibly was something. The di-eam might be explained 
easily enough. All unconsciously to himself Conrad might 
have been working the story of Clelia into the mystery of 
the ring, and full consciousness may have burst forth in 
blossom, as it often does, in a dream. 

The idea seized hold of him. Francisco — Rosita — there 
was nothing to suggest Miss Vine in that. Still, here is a 
young and beautiful woman with a sad story of some kind, 
who was in Paris the day when the ring was thrown away, 
and whose presence in Paris that day was known only to 
her one most intimate friend — surely there was something 
suggestive in all that ? What could he do ? How could 
he test the truth of any conjecture ? What right had he 
even to attempt to find out.'' Mrs. Morefield had said 
she never made any attempt to get at Clelia's secret — why 
should he propose to be less discreet ? Oh yes ; he told 
himself a reason soon enough, as he sat up in his bed that 
perplexed morning. Because he might be able to help 
her ; because he was a man and knew the world — did he, 
poor fellow ? — and because he could desire nothing more 
than to devote himself to her service. To do him justice, 
this was the uppermost thought in his mind. She was 
entangled in an unhappy marriage, and of course there 
was no hope or chance for him. But youth is often very 
generous in its love, and glories in the idea of suppression 
and self-sacrifice and service rendered to the loved one at 
the cosi; of one's own self-effacement and surrender. As 



THE SWEET SORROW OF PARTING 119 

men grow older this feeling grows colder, but it is some- 
times very fond and true in youth. 

This was the feeling that filled Jim Conrad's mind. All 
hope for himself must die. But he might be able to serve 
and to help her. How, he did not even stop to consider. 
It w£is the early hour of a lovely autumnal morning in 
Paris, and the sun was streaming in at the windows, and 
all the world was young again, and anything seemed 
possible to the generous and half-poetic mind. Jim had 
now a sudden, wild, inane longing to see Miss Vine — if 
she must be called Miss Vine — once again before he went 
back to London and to his new life. But he did not want 
to see her in the presence of the Morefields, and he had 
yet to pay his formal visit of farewell to the Morefields, 
and he did not want a common farewell to all. 

How times had changed for him since that day — the 
other day, ages ago, a few weeks ago — since first he met 
the Morefields at the table d''Mte! All the world had 
changed for him since then. And he had a strange fore- 
shadowing creeping over him that the change which had 
been was as nothing to the change that would be. In the 
mind and in the heart, in the spirit and in the sense of 
this healthy, vigorous, plucky, well-read, well -cultured 
young man, there was what Hamlet calls ' a kind of fight- 
ing,' that sometimes, he could not tell wherefore, made 
him wish that he were a woman and could relieve his feel- 
ings by what women, c,all_' a good cry.' But in place of 
having a good cry Jim had a bad breakfast. Not thai 
the food of the Grand Hotel was bad, but that the 
appetite somehow would not come just then for any food. 

Then he wandered out and found his way to the Bois 
de Boulogne, and to the accustomed place. He leaned 
over the railings and looked at the still somewhat far- 



120 THE RIDDLE RING 

distant spot where he had picked up the ring — ^the ill- 
gifted ring, as he assumed it to be. His dream had 
naturally revived his interest in the ring, and he thought 
he would go and stand, as nearly as his memory would 
allow him, on the very spot where he had found it. 

' I want to see it for the last time,' he said to himself, 
' for I shall never come to Paris again.' 

Alas ! how easily fond youth tells itself in its heart- 
trouble that it will never come to this, that, or the other 
particular place again ! 

Just as he was about to scramble over the railings he 
happened to look round, and light came into the avenue, 
for there was Clelia Vine walking slowly and all alone on 
the footpath, and coming towards him. 

Suddenly, irresistibly, the thought of his dream flashed 
up in his mind. He went to meet her. The unexpected 
meeting seemed to have embarrassed them both. She was 
the first to recover her self-possession. 

' So early,' she said with a kindly smile, and something 
very like a blush. 

' I often walk here in the morning,' he answered stupidly. 
' Don't you .?' 

'Sometimes — yes — not often — seldom indeed — only 
when the mood takes me.' 

' The mood ? What mood ?' 

' Why, that mood,' she answered, now with self-posses- 
sion quite recovered. ' The mood to walk out early, and 
to walk here.' 

' Oh yes,' he said blankly, ' quite so.' Then he hurriedly 
added : ' I am leaving for London to-night, you know.' 

' As if I didn't know ! As if I hadn't driven you 
away !' 

' Oh no, you haven't driven me away.' 



THE SWEET SORROW OF PARTING 121 

'Well, of covu-se you will see Mrs, Morefield and 
Gertrude before you leave Paris ?' 

' Yes, indeed yes. I could not possibly leave without 
saying good-bye to them ; I owe them too much of kind- 
ness.' 

' You speak very solemnly,' she said, with a somewhat 
melancholy smile. ' It is not likely that you are to say a 
farewell of them for ever.' 

' Well, I don't know. I have vague ideas of going into 
some quite new fai'-off country and striking out some new 
path — ^but never mind about that just now. What way 
are you walking ?' 

' I was thinking of turning back,' she said sadly. 

For she knew what was meant by the longing to go off 
to the far foreign country. 

' May I walk a little with you ? I am not going back 
to the hotel just yet.' 

' Oh yes, I shall be delighted — at least, I don't quite 
know about being delighted, for I am sorry to hear you 
talk about throwing yourself away on some strange and 
far-off country.' 

' One must do something.' 

' One needn't do that.' 

They now turned round and began to walk slowly 
towards the Arch of Triumph and the city. They walked 
for a few paces in silence. Conrad had much to say, or 
thought he had, but the words froze upon his lips. A 
woman less sincere than Clelia would have affected not to 
notice his embarrassment. She came to the point at once. 

'You have something to say to me, Mr. Conrad; I 
know you have.' 

' Not very much, or to any gi-eat purpose ; but '' 

'Yes, tell me.' 



122 THE RIDDLE RING 

She spoke encouragingly, winningly. 

'Is there anything I could help you in?' he asked 
bluntly. 

' You ? Oh no, there is nothing — ^nothing at all.' 

' Why not .P' 

' Because — ^what could you do ?'' 

' Ah, well, that is exactly what I do not know ; but you 
might, perhaps, be able to tell ine.' 

' Oh no, there is nothing. You see, I have good friends.' 

' Women — yes.' 

' Come, now, don't let Gertrude hear you speak in that 
contemptuous tone about women and their help !' 

'Indeed, I had not the faintest notion of the kind. 
Only there are things in which a man can help a woman 
better than a woman can. Don't you remember the story 
of the Woman's Rights woman in America who happened 
to get left alone in a log-house on the frontier of an 
Indian territory .?' 

' No. What was the matter with her ?' 

' Well, she confessed to her secret heart that, when it 
came to a question of loading and discharging a shot-gun, 
she kinder preferred to have a man around.' 

Clelia smiled a sort of thanks-for-kind-inquiries smile. 

' Yes,' she answered ; ' but there is no need of a shot- 
gun in this case.' 

' No, I suppose not ; but you would understand my 
illustration, all the same.' 

' My dear friendj of course I understand your illustra- 
tion. I think I understand you and your illustration too. 
But, in plain words, you can do nothing for me. Nothing 
in life can ever be well with me again ' 

' Oh, pray don't talk like that !' he exclaimed pas- 
sionately, in protest against this sentence of despair. 



THE SWEET SORROW OF PARTING 123 

I 'What is the use of not, saying it ? I don't say it to 
everyone. I say it only to you- — and to Gertrude ; I have 
never said it even t6 Mrs. Morefield, whom I love with 
quite a tender affection. Nothing in life can ever be well 
with me again.' 

' I do not even know your trouble,' he said rather sullenly. 

' You do not. Why should you be troubled with it ? 
You cannot help me out of my trouble.' 

' Is your husband living .?' he asked abruptly. 

' He is — at least, I suppose he is ' 

' Do you hope he is .?' j 

The words escaped him before he quite understood what 
their eifect on her Would be. 

She drew herself back with the appearance of a certain 
shock. 

' My husband is my husband !' she said coldly. ' I am 
not likely to wish for his death.' 

' No — no — of course not,' poor Jim said disconsolately. 
' I didn't mean that at all !' 

' Then I wonder, Mr. Conrad, what did you mean ?' 

'I really don't know. I had a vague but very strong 
sense of wishing to serve you somehow ; and I suppose I 
wanted first of all to get at the facts of your story.' 

' You can't get at the facts of my story, or any of them,' 
she said, ' unless I choose to tell you ; and I shall not tell 
you, for it would not do me any good or you any good. 
Now, Mr. Conrad, listen to me. You have been very 
kind, and sympathetic-, and sweet to me. I value — oh, 
you do not know how much — ^your kindness and your 
sweetness and yom: sympathy ; but it is only a waste of 
your time to try to help me in any way. , There are others 
whom you might help ; yo^ can't help me, You do not 
know anything about me,' 



124 THE RIDDLE RING 

'Suppose I should ever know — suppose I should ever 
come to guess something about you F 

' You could not,' she said composedly ; ' it is impossible.' 

' Impossible ! Oh, nothing in life is impossible. I may 
know yet.' 

' About me ?' 

' About you — you — ^you !' 

She stopped short. 

' You have told me,' she said, ' that you will never try 
to find out.' 

' Yes, I have told you that, and of course I shall never 
try to find out. But suppose I were, by some strange 
fate, intermixed somehow in your life ?'' 

' That, I hope, Mr. Conrad ' 

' Mr. Conrad ! You called me Jim only yesterday.' 

She smiled a sweet, pleading smile. 

' Then I was saying good-bye.' 

' Now you are really saying good-bye.' 

' Very well, then, if it pleases you — Jim.' 

' Yes — ^go on.' 

' What were we saying ? Oh yes, you said that you might 
by some strange fate be intermixed somehow in my life.' 

' Yes— well ?' 

' Well, I hope you will never be, for your sake and for 
mine. There, good-bye.' 

That parting weis over. 

CHAPTER XII, 

BACK TO LONDON. 

Jim Conrad found himself again in London. He had 
been there for several weeks. It was late in the year, and 
there was a dull slight fog, not disguising, but only con- 



BACK TO LONDON 125 

fusing, reality, and even Piccadilly looked dismal, and 
Jim's heart went metaphorically down to his boots. He 
shivered mentally over the prospects of the winter. He 
had been hurt very badly, he told himself again and again, 
and all there was left for him was to get over it as soon as 
he possibly could. Life looked very dreary before him, 
and the only prospect that seemed to attract him weis that 
of going away to some new country on some new enter- 
prise, and not coming back any more. When one is very 
young one has such dreams. Later on, men learn that 
they generally come back from all sorts of places, and that 
London does not care whether they come or whether they 
go. That, too, is somewhat of a healthful, invigorating 
experience, which helps to knock the nonsense out of one. 
But the experience had not yet come to . Jim Conrad, and 
so he brooded over his personal trouble in his own sort 
of way. 

Of course, he was far too manly and too well trained a 
youth to show any of his troubles to the outer world. 
For all his boyish nature, he had a good deal of the 
reflective social philosopher about him, and he was quite 
possessed of the fact that nobody cares a straw for the 
love-troubles of anybody else. Jim could remember some 
terrible bores, who used to inflict upon him all the story 
of their own griefs and failures in love. These were cer- 
tainly many shades less exasperating than the class of cads, 
well bom or lowly, who came on him with long tales of 
their triumphs and conquests in love. For such as these 
Jim had nothing but contempt, and could not even put on 
an appearance of patience and sympathy. 

But the poor fellows who liked to tell of their misfor- 
tunes ought by that very right, that sacred right, of 
misfortune, to have some claim to be heard by com- 



126 THE RIDDLE RING 

passionate ears. Yet, all the same, Jim found them bores, 
and he was sm-e they would in their turn find him a bore 
if he were to ask them to listen to his tale of woe. So he 
kept his tale of woe to himself ; and he suffered much, but 
without any parade of his sufferings. He did not choose 
that any daws should peck at his heart. Therefore he did 
not wear it on his sleeve. 

He quite appreciated his own experiences. He thoroughly 
understood the vast difference between the sort of senti- 
mentalism in which he had spontaneously indulged himself 
towards his good-for-nothing first-love, and the deep un- 
sought-for passion with which he was filled for Clelia Vine. 
In truth, a young man's first-love, like a young woman's, 
is in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred a mere phantom 
and ecstasy. The young man or the young woman is 
longing to be in love with somebody, and the first alluring 
figure which comes in the way seems heaven-sent to be the 
object of homage. 

Jim now smiled half pitifully, half contemptuously, at 
his facetious and fanciful attempt at love-making, and 
thought to himself often, even in his present distress, how 
lucky it was for him that the girl had found a better 
match, and had frankly thrown him over. Suppose it had 
been his fate to marry that girl! He would rather, a 
thousand times rather, have his present disappointment 
than that sort of success. And yet what a short time had 
passed since his Rosaline seemed all-sufficing to him ! — the 
time before he met Juliet — Clelia Vine. 

Clelia Vine! The name sent a sort of pang through 
him. Clelia Vine ! Was Vine her name now ? No, he 
supposed not, he assumed not. She had probably, for 
whatever reason, gone back to her maiden name. Mrs. 
Morefield always called her Clelia Vine, and yet did not 



BACK TO LONDON 127 

know that she ever had been married. Should he ever 
come to know her name ? Should he ever come to know 
her husband ? It would be strange if he did come to 
meet him without knowing in the least who he was. 
Such things were very possible in a place like London, 
where everybody comes and whence everybody goes, and 
where, roughly speaking, nobody really knows anything 
about anybody. 

Meanwhile Conrad went about in the usual way. He 
frequented the Voyagers' Club ; he looked into a theatre 
now and then ; he read the morning and the evening 
papers ; he strolled sometimes in the lonely and spectral 
Row. Not many of his more intimate friends were yet in 
town. There were hardly any doors to open to him. As 
he put it himself, there was hardly a house where, if he 
knocked, there was any chance of the latch being lifted. 
But there were still, or already, a good many of his 
chance and bachelor friends knocking about town, and on 
the' whole Jim had a fairly good time. He tried over 
and over again to settle down and begin his first novel, 
but his mind did not seem to bite into any subject. If he 
had been really hard up, he would probably have found a 
story long before. But if a young man has enough to 
live upon for the present without recourse to literature, he 
is apt to be very fastidious about his first choice of a 
literary venture. Jim had a vague notion still that he 
ought to write something about the ring, but it was only 
a vague notion, and had not consolidated or crystallized 
itself at all so far. 

It should be said that he had shoVn the ring to a 
London goldsmith and jeweller, with whoril his family 
had lotag been acquainted, and whom he felt that 
he could trust, and from this authority he learned that 



128 THE RIDDLE RING 

the ring was undoubtedly of an English family pattern, 
but was apparently made in India, of delicate-fingered 
Indian workmanship. Some member of an English house- 
hold, being in India, had probably had a family ring 
duplicated under the hands of Indian artificers. 

This may have brought Conrad a little nearer to the 
gate of the mystery, but it certainly did not furnish him 
with any clue or thread to guide his way in that direction. 
It did not seem to give any vitality to his dream in Paris 
— ^that last night there. He was beginning to be in a sort 
of way impatient with the ring, in the mood of Alexander 
when he relieved his mind about the plaguing Gordian 
knot. He sometimes could have found it in his heart to 
throw the ring into the Thames or the Serpentine. 

Jim's rooms at Clarges Street were on the second-floor. 
The sitting-room had a balcony, and looked on the street. 
The rooms were modest, like their owner's means. Still, 
they had what might be called an air of expectancy about 
them. The younger son of a younger son, if he feels him- 
self conscious of any capacity in himself at all, is always 
bound to be expectant. Such a youth cannot but think 
that he will some day or other add to his gift of birth his 
gift of brains. 

Now, Jim Conrad had got into the confirmed habit of 
believing that he had in him that which passeth show — in 
other words, that he had a literary endowment which 
would one day be materialized into cheques. Therefore, 
he had set out his sitting-room and bedroom with a certain 
appearance of luxury. He was fond of great books in 
precious editions, with imcut leaves and approved bindings. 
He was fond of first editions, and other such costly and 
keenly -competed -for possessions. Perhaps he did not 
greatly cai-e to read the books which he had thus stored up 



BACK TO LONDON 129 

in the precious packets ; at all events, if he did read the 
texts of the authors, and he sometimes did, he wisely pre- 
ferred to read them in cheap editions. 

His sitting-room contained some good etchings and 
some fine prints. Also, there were some colour-sketches, 
given him by professional painters and others, mostly, 
perhaps, by amateur artists who were friends of his, and 
among his books were counted, it should be said, many 
presentation copies, chiefly, it is true, by authors who had 
not as yet achieved supreme distinction. On the whole, 
there was a look of ease, and even of luxury, about the 
rooms which might have beguiled many a fond creditor, 
and have suggested the idea of great expectations. 

Jim had had his own expectations. A near relative, 
who was very rich, had once undertaken to have charge of 
the boy and to make him his heir ; but the near relative 
had, at the age of fifty-five, fallen in love with a pretty 
and penniless young woman, and married her, and become 
the parent of two children, the eldest a boy, and there 
was an end of Jim Conrad's chances. Jim did not mind 
very much. The world wa^ all before him, and he had 
enough to live on in his mother's money, and he thought 
his uncle was right enough in marrying again ; and, any- 
how, the world was all before him, and he did not care. 
But his rooms in Clarges Street still bore evidence to the 
existence of the days when he believed that he was the 
destined heir to his uncle's fortune. Even yet, when that 
hope had set for ever, Jim managed to keep on buying 
curious editions, and had a credit with Hachette for the 
looking out of obsolete volumes and rare chap-books. 
Each man has his own idea of a prize ; but, vmluckily for 
himself, Jim Conrad had set his heart on a considerable 
variety of prizes. He wanted the best of everything, and 



130 THE RroDLE RING 

he certainly ought to have had his uncle's fortune in order 
to gratify his wants. 

Nobody knew whence he had got the literary ambition 
which had for a long time filled his mind. Not one of his 
family had done much, or, indeed, anything, in the literary 
way. The Conrads of Northumberland had, on the whole, 
rather despised literatm-e. They were somewhat of the 
opinion of the German official at one of the small German 
courts of past days, who, in giving his authoritative 
directions as to precedence, declared that the professors 
and the literary men ranked immediately after the boot- 
blacks. But Jim, thus wholly discouraged, had from his 
earliest days had a passion for literature and art. He 
was constantly in the company of painters, and poets, and 
dramatists, and critics, and novelists, and the writers of 
leading articles, and such-like folk. He loved the Voyagers' 
Club because he had a vast yearning for foreign travel, and 
he made it part of his ambition to scorn: the seas some 
day. He had some diffidence when it was first proposed to 
him that he should be put up for membership at the 
Voyagers' Club. 

' But I have never voyaged,' he pleaded. 

' My good fellow,' one of his friends said, ' we are a very 
old club ; and do you know what the travelling qualifica- 
tion is ?'' 

No, Jim did not know. 

' Five hundred miles out of London !' 

' Ob, I think I have accomplished that,' Jim modestly 
said. ' Would Naples do .?' 

' Right you are,' his friend replied ; and in due cc-arse 
of time Jim was elected a member of the Voyagers' Club. 

Jim was, on the whole, very happy when he got settled 
down into his independent bachelor's quarters and the 



BACK TO LONDON Igl 

Voyagers' Club. He visited other clubs as well — ^literary, 
dramatic, and journalistic. He frequented the first nights 
at the theatres, and he went behind when the curtain had 
fallen, and was received and welcomed cordially with hosts 
of other friends by the managers and manageresses and the 
leading actors and actresses, and drank champagne to their 
healths and successes, and had a bright time of it generally. 
Then he knew a good many men in politics ; and, in fact, 
he had a varied opportunity of studying London life, which 
he naturally enjoyed. But amidst all these different attrac- 
tions and distractions he had pretty well made up his mind 
that his gift and his desire was to be a writer of fiction — 
when his love affair came across him, and for the time, at 
least, knocked all the fiction out of him. 

Then he went off^ to Paris to distract his mind away 
from his love-trouble ; and then, as we have seen, he fell 
into a far deeper love-trouble. It is very much like that 
in ordinary life. If you try to get over a light trouble 
here, you only fall under a much heavier trouble elsewhere. 
So when Jim Conrad came back to London, he came back 
utterly hopeless and disconsolate, telling himself that the 
only thing for him in life to do was to go in dismally for 
literature, and dismally to stick to it, or else to get off" on 
any wild enterprise to some foreign country, and make a 
career there, or get killed there — and so end. He gave 
a fair chance to the literary project. He sat down before 
the desk for hours together, and stared at the paper and 
his blotting-pad, and could not begin his novel. 

' It won't do,' he said to himself. ' I must try a new 
career and a far-off' country.' 

It was in this mood of mind that he found himself 
thinking more and more of Mr. Waley and Mr. Waley's 
chief. 



THE RIDDLE RING 



CHAPTER XIII. 

SIE FEANCIS ROSE. 



Jim went to dine at the Voyagers' Club one evening. He 
never dined at home. In Clarges Street lodgings they do 
not count on single young men dining at home. The 
season had not quite arrived for Jim or anybody else to be 
much invited out to dine, and so he was very glad of the 
Voyagers' Club. There were not many people in the 
dining-room when he went in ; but he went in rather 
early, for he intended to see something at a theatre that 
night, and seeing anything at a theatre meant an early 
dinner ; and Jim had not yet grown old enough to be 
much put out by an early dinner. So he settled down to 
his table, and he looked over the bill of fare ; and he did 
not seem to care what he had to eat, but he chose — with 
an air of interest that ought to have impressed any ordinary 
waiter — some oysters and a soup and a grill, and that sort 
of thing, and then he felt relieved. He was still in that 
time of youth when a man thinks that he ought not to let 
the club waiters know that he cares little or nothing about 
the actual materials of his dinner. 

Suddenly he heard a vigorous voice that he knew. At 
a table near to him two new-comers were sitting down. 
Looking up, he saw Mr. Waley and a man who was 
unknown to him — a youngish-looking man, with a pince- 
nez and a pale, handsome face. The moment he looked 
up, his eyes met the eyes of Mr. Waley, and fomid in them 
an instant and a gladsome recognition. 

' Now, I call this a most remarkable meeting !' Mr. Waley 



SIR FRANCIS ROSE 133 

exclaimed, in his cheery way. ' You are the two chaps — 
the two men, I mean — ^that I most particularly wanted to 
bring together. And so here we are, don't you know. 
Mr. Conrad, I want to introduce to you my friend and 
fellow North-Country man, Sir Francis Rose.' 

Sir Francis Rose ! Jim had often heard the name in his 
earlier days. It was the name of a younger son of a great 
Northumbrian family, who had had a very stormy youth, 
and wandered through many countries, and was supposed 
to have been engaged in various extraordinary enterprises ; 
and Jim had vaguely heard of late that the prodigal had 
returned to England, having, by an utterly unexpected 
series or succession of deaths, become the heir to the title 
and the estate. 

If he had bad time to think of the matter, Jim would 
have expected to see a man of Herculean proportions and 
dare-devil appearance. He saw, however, a slender man, 
not much above the middle height, with a pale, handsome 
face, and deep dark eyes, whose light was dimmed by a 
pince-nez, with close, delicate, decisive lips, opening to 
show white teeth ; a man quietly but fashionably dressed ; 
a man with a somewhat melancholy and outworn expres- 
sion; a man apparently about forty years of age, or a 
little more, perhaps. 

' How early he must have gone into life !' was almost 
the first thought that came into Jim's mind. 'Why, I 
used to hear of his extraordinary doings when I was only 
a child.' 

All this passed through Jim's consciousness in a single 
flash of enlightenment. 

The introduction was satisfactorily accomplished, and 
Sir Francis Rose and Jim Conrad shook hands. 

' Now, look here,' Mr. Waley said, beaming with delight. 



134 THE RIDDLE RING 

' are you begmning dinner, or axe you nearly through, as 
they say in America ?' 

' I am only just beginning,' Jim said, to whom alone the 
question could have been addressed. 

' Then, why shouldn't we three dine together ?' Waley 
urged. 'I have been particularly wanting you two to 
meet, and now, you see, Providence in its particularly 
kindly way arranges for the meeting.' 

'I shall be only too glad,' Jim said frankly. 'I was 
just sitting down to a lonely dinner, and I shall be 
delighted to have good company.' 

' I am sure it is only too kind of you, Mr. Conrad,' Sir 
Francis Rose said, in a sweet clear voice. ' I always felt 
sure I should meet you somewhere, and my friend Waley 
often talked to me of you. I am so glad that Waley and 
I are lucky enough to have the chance of dining with you 
so soon, and I am not sorry to say in this unexpected sort 
of way.' 

Waley bustled about to give orders for the combination 
of the dinners. Jim noticed at a glance that the business 
of making an-angements fell to the pai-t of Waley, although 
he did not understand that Waley was a member of the 
club, and he understood that Sir Francis Rose was. The 
waiters, having received Mr. Waley's instructions, looked 
to Sir Francis, and Sir Francis simply nodded his assent. 
The arrangements were made, and the three were dining 
together. Jim had been thinking of a pint of claret for 
himself, but Mr. Waley had already commanded champagne 
all round. 

' I am glad to have the chance of making your acquaint- 
ance, Mr. Conrad,' Sir Francis said, in his singularly sweet 
voice — a voice the tones of which seemed to caress the ear. 
'I am glad because you are a North-Country man like 



SIR FRANCIS ROSE 1S5 

myself — I know your name quite well, of course, and I 
know something about your family — and I am glad, too, 
because my friend Waley has been telling me about you.' 

' I am very much pleased to meet you, Sir Francis,' Jim 
said. ' I need hardly tell you that I have often heard your 
name up in the North-Country.' 

' And not mentioned with absolute commendation, I 
dare say,' Sir Francis observed, with a quiet smile. 'I 
know quite well that for a long time the sound of my name 
was a sound of fear to most of my friends, and I dare say 
to all of my family. People hadn't got accustomed in those 
days to young men striking out a path for themselves, 
and became quite shocked if the country squire's son was 
audacious enough to make money in a new way in a money- 
making world. Well, I have now become the country 
squire myself — ^but I am not quite certain whether I shall 
be able to settle down to country squiredom for the rest 
of my life.' 

He spoke carelessly, as if it did not much matter either way. 

' Not while Albert Edward Waley is at your elbow to 
drive you along,' his friend and admirer said with animation. 

It was curious and interesting to note, as Jim thought, 
how Mr. Waley gazed upon his chief with eyes in which 
delight and admiration beamed, or rather blazed. Jim's 
heart went out to Waley merely because of his undisguised 
devotion. 

' I don't care,' he said to himself, ' what they have done 
or what they are doing ; I like that poor chap because of 
his honest devotion to his chief.' 

' You were thinking of going abroad, Mr. Conrad ? I 
mean, somewhere quite off the beaten track. So our friend 
Waley has been telling me lately.' 

^Yes. I want to go somewhere — for a time^ at least. 



136 THE RIDDLE RING 

I want to get fresh ideas — ^new material. I want to write 
books and things.' 

' Something has gone wrong,' Rose said, with a melan- 
choly and very sympathetic smile. ' Yes ; I could see that 
in your face. Something goes wrong with most men, and 
drives them into adventure. It is good for them in the 
end. If something had not gone wrong with me when I 
was — well, yes, somewhere about your age, I should probably 
have remained in England and led a respectable life, and 
been unspeakably dull and bored — bored and boring. I 
could never have been the social outlaw of five continents.' 

' I don't know that I have had any particular ambition 
in that way,' Jim answered smilingly. ' But I do want to 
knock about a little, and see other worlds than those I 
have seen already.' 

' Take care,' Sir Francis said gravely. ' Remember, if 
you begin, you will probably have to go on. The thirst 
will come in drinking. I have almost always found that 
if you start by wanting novelties, you will finish by wanting 
novelties, and will die perhaps in trying to get them.' 

' Well,' Jim answered composedly, ' a man can but dree 
his weird.' 

' I don't think I know the meaning of that,' Waley 
interposed. 

' It is not necessaiy that you should, my dear Waley,' 
Rose said, with the gentle tone of one who seeks to quieten 
a too questioning child. ' You don't want to know every- 
thing, do you, and to leave nothing to Mr. Conrad and me ?* 

' Oh, you both know a lot more than I do. But if it's 
anything improper ' 

' V^Tiich it certainly is not,' said Jim. 

' Probably if it was I should know something about it,' 
Mr. Waley said, in a contented sort of tone. ' I suppose 



SIR FRANCIS ROSE 137 

it's poetry of some sort, and I never could make anything 
of poetry. But I like a sensation.' 

' He does, Mr. Conrad,' the chief observed. ' I never 
yet saw the sensational encounter or crisis of any kind that 
could put Albert Waley out.' 

Waley smiled delightedly at this commendation. 

'A man must be good for something,' he pleaded, in 
modest self- depreciation ; 'and if I was to be easily 
frightened, why, then, don't you know, I shouldn't be good 
for anything in this world. Chaps like you and Mr. Conrad 
have lots to spare ; but chaps like me haven't, and that's 
where it is.' 

' Mr. Waley is a good deal of a philosopher,' Jim said. 
' I saw that in him on our very first acquaintance.' 

' What you see in him, you'll see in him to the end,' Sir 
Francis said. 

' That's so,' Mr. Waley briefly aflnrmed. 

He had picked up a good deal of American phraseology 
in America. 

' I have not been to this club for a long time until lately,' 
Rose said. ' I used to be fond of it in my earlier London 
days. But of late I have not been so much about London, 
and, then, I fancy I should be a very unpopular personage 
at most of my clubs if I had the extreme unwisdom to go 
to any of them very often. Do you know that I used to 
be rather proud of saying, when I was younger, and more 
defiant of the world's laws, that I could get any candidate 
black-balled at any club I belonged to ?' 

' How could you do that ?' Jim asked, somewhat simply, 

' How, my dear boy .'' You are youthful, to be sure ! 
Why, of course, by proposing or seconding him.' 

Jim saw that he had missed a point, and allowed his 
languid friend to entrap him in a certain sense. 



138 THE RIDDLE RING 

' Yes, I was very unpopular then,' Sir Francis went on ; 
' and, do you know, I rather enjoyed it. Now I don't— at 
least, I don't think so. I am not young any more. I don't 
quite know whether I would be young again if I could. 
But, anyhow, I am not young, and I don't take the same 
joy in strife that I once did. Do you know that I have 
sometimes had, for all my friend Waley may say, an idea 
of settling down into the life of a quiet country squire, 
and seeing how that would suit me ? If I really felt an 
inclination that way, I would follow it out whithersoever 
it might lead me.' 

' I shall never have the chance of trying it,' said Jim ; 
' and,' he added decisively, ' I don't care.' 

'Well, I like your plucky way of looking at things. 
Don't care is good enough for most affairs in life. I think 
I might say it has been my motto always. But, somehow, I 
should have thought you had more of what is called earnest- 
ness and principle — ^yes, principle — in you. I should have 
thought you would want to know what you ought to do.' 

' Yes ; I should like to know what I ought to do,' Jim 
said doggedly, as if he were maintaining some truth which, 
for the moment, he felt rather ashamed of admitting. 

' I thought so. Do you know that I feel inclined to 
envy you T 

' To envy me ? Yes ? Why ?' 

' Because I sometimes think it must be a relief to the 
mind to have that kind of moral compass to steer by. 
Yes, I have sometimes thought that. I never had any 
feeling of the kind myself. I always thought that it was 
quite as free to me to steer one course as another, and so 
I always followed my own fancy.' 

'Most men do, I am afraid,' Jim said, not knowing 
exactly what he ought to say, 



SIR FRANCIS ROSE 139 

* Yes, most men do, perhaps ; but I am told that they 
have heart-struggles, and conscience-struggles, and aU that 
sort of thing. Now, I have never felt anything of the 
kind — no, never once. I have made my own sensations 
and my own inclinations my guide, and have followed 
them wherever they chose to carry me, and they have 
carried me fairly well so far. I have knocked a great deal 
of enjoyment out of life. I have been in all manner of 
queer adventures and out-of-the-way places. Why, I re- 
member when I was once caught and carried off by a 
lioness in South Africa.'' 

And he stopped, and began, apparently, to think it all 
over again. 

' Yes,' Jim stimulated him, much interested, ' a lioness 
in South Africa ?' 

'Well, let. me see — of course, that lioness in South 
Africa. Look here, she had for the moment frightened 
away some of my friends, and the lioness took me up in 
her mouth and trotted away with me as easily as a cat 
might carry off a mouse. Her jaws bit into me, and I 
soon fainted with pain and loss of blood ; but as long as I 
had any consciousness left I only felt that I was going 
through a new sensation — that and nothing more, I do 
assure you. Please don't think I am bragging about my 
courage. It wasn't a question of courage. Many a man 
of ten times my courage in the face of danger would have 
felt quite differently.' 

' I think I understand,' Jim said quietly. 

He felt that he did understand. 

' You see, another man and a better man and a braver 
man might have thought nothing of that vulgar joy in 
mere novelty of sensation. It's merely vulgar, I know it. 
While the lioness was carrying him off, the better and 



140 THE RIDDLE RING 

braver man would have been thinking of his wife and his 
children away in England, and how they would feel when 
they read the completed story of his trip with the lioness, 
and he wouldn't have enjoyed the whole adventure. I 
had no children to think of, and not much else to think of 
at that time, and so I was able to appreciate the sensation. 
You have no idea how curiously it all felt.' 

' I am sure I should have been horribly afraid,' said Jim, 
in the profoundest sincerity. 

'No doubt you would — of course you would,' Rose 
replied placidly ; ' any very young man would. You see, 
a young man has so much to live for, and so much to look 
forward to — so many lives to enjoy, in fact — and he 
naturally doesn't want to have all his prospects cut ofF by 
the bite of a villainous old cat of a lioness ; but I had 
gone through the best part of my life, and had enjoyed 
all the familiar and what I may call the routine sensations, 
so I had a certain kind of enjoyment in the new sensation 
of being carried off by a lioness. Not that I was not very 
glad when I recovered my senses — for, as I told you, I 
fainted off quite soon — to find that I was among my 
friends again, and that I was alive, and it was the lioness 
who was dead. I was glad to live to have some other new 
sensations, even yet.' 

' Well,' Jim said, ' you have plenty of time still before 
you for all manner of new sensations.' 

' Ah, well, I am getting on in years, although I can't 
say that I feel the pull just yet. But the pull will come, 
and very soon, no doubt.' 

' Then there will be the sensation of growing old,' Jim 
said, with a smile. 'That will be something new, and 
something, I hope, to be enjoyed — on your comprehensive 
principle,' 



SIR FRANCIS ROSE 141 

*Ah, yes — the art of being a grandfather, as Victor 
Hugo describes it, that might count for something. But, 
then, I can't be a grandfather, because I have not been a 
father.' 

Jim suddenly remembered what Waley had told him 
about the chieFs unhappy marriage, and did not follow 
farther out on that branch of the conversation. 

There was silence for a moment, and then Rose began 
again : 

' You are staying in town for some time, are you not, 
Mr. Conrad ?' he asked of Jim. 

' Oh yes, I am staying in town for some time, I think. 
I am not quite certain about my movements ; but just at 
present nothing actually beckons me out of town.' 
' Ah, I see,' Rose said, with his quiet smile. 
Jim did not quite see what it was that Rose saw ; but. 
he did not think it necessary to make any inquiry, and so 
that matter, too, dropped. 

Jim had got it into his mind that Sir Francis regarded 
him somehow as the victim of a love-lorn passion, and it 
is a cm-ious thing how few yoimg men care to be regarded 
in that sort of light. Young men in general may fan and 
feed on the disappointed passion all to themselves; but 
they do not want elder and more experienced men to spy 
it out at once and tacitly to condole with them upon it. 

' Well, I hope we shall meet often. I have an enter- 
prise in my mind that may come to something, and if you 
want a change of scene, for any reason — for any reason — 
you can have a chance of it, if you will.' 

' Thanks,' said Jim bluntly ; ' we shall meet again.' 
'We are sure to meet again,' Rose said sweetly, and 
then the little company broke up. 

Rose and his henchman went one way ; Jim went another. 



142 THE RIDDLE RING 

Jim was undoubtedly much impressed by bis new 
acquaintance. He was in a manner fascinated by Sir 
Francis Rose. In the first instance, he was a good deal 
surprised. From all that he had vaguely heard, and even 
more vaguely remembered, of the Northumbrian wanderer, 
he had formed the idea of a man of commanding presence 
and self-asserting manner — a picture of what might be 
called a young lady's pirate, if young ladies cared anything 
about pirates in these days of introspection and problems 
of sex. Again, when he heard from Waley of his all- 
accomplished, all-commanding, unnamed chief, he had also 
made up his mind to the idea of some strong and strenuous 
figure. He smiled at his own absurdity. 

' Surely,' he thought to himself, ' I might have known 
that a man is always the very opposite of what you expect 
him to be. The wild revolutionist of the platform is a 
meek, domestic little man in private, rather apt to be 
afraid of his wife. The advocate of peace at any price is 
a burly, dogmatic giant — and so on. I might have 
known. I am afraid I shall not very soon master the 
novel-writing trade, to which I am trying to apprentice 
myself 

After all this surprise, however, came a certain distrust. 
Jim was inclined to shrink from the sort of fascination or 
mastery that even already Rose was beginning to exercise 
over him. There seemed something uncanny, if one might 
put it so, about his outworn melancholy, and his avowed 
craving for the perpetual stimulant of new sensation. 
Had he any scruples? Had he any principles.? No 
doubt he had the ordinary code of honour which every 
man brought up as an English gentleman professes to 
adopt. He doubtless would not cheat at cards or at 
billiards. But he would probably without the smallest 



SIR FRANCIS ROSE 143 

reluctance or hesitation win the money of men who could 
not play as well as he could. Yes, but did not all men 
do that? Conrad asked himself. Sir Francis Rose had 
certainly taken some pains — if he were a man who could 
be said to take pains about anything — ^to impress him 
with the fact that everything he did was ' done upon the 
square,' as Mr. Waley would probably have put it, and 
assuredly no i-umours had ever reached Jim's ears at all to 
the discredit of the roving Northumbrian in that way. 

Still, it was not all this which puzzled Jim so much as 
Sir Francis Rose himself, and his tone and his frank ad- 
mission that he lived only for new sensations and surprises, 
and at the same time the kindly way in which he every 
now and then stopped to warn Jim against being led to 
follow his example. It was plain to Jim that Sir Francis 
felt a certain interest in him — perhaps a sort of local 
interest in him — but did not think him by any means a 
capture sufficiently important in the adventuring way to 
take any particular trouble about. He seemed to regard 
Jim as one might regard a bright and plucky schoolboy — 
and nothing more. 

If Jim had been just a little more introspective, he might 
have come on the self-discovery that he was only made the 
more eager to share in one of Rose's enterprises by the 
very warnings which Sir Francis gave to young men not to 
set their hearts too much on new sensations. 

For, although he certainly felt fascinated in one sense, 
Jim felt a little irritated too. There was the immemorial 
irritation of the young man against the man who, not yet 
old or nearly old, seems to have had such a varied experi- 
ence of life, and makes much of it, and blandly patronizes 
the younger man for whom all that is as yet only a possi- 
bility, and for whom, perhaps, it is never to come. Jim 



144 THE RIDDLE RING 

was annoyed in a curious way at the superior sort of 
manner in which Sir Francis Rose seemed to take it on him- 
self to assume what Jim's troubles were, and to suggest 
the best remedy for them. It was the manner of a man 
who wished to say : 

' I have drained all life's sensations to the dregs, and 
you, poor youth ! have hardly taken the first sip of them, 
and will never, I venture to think, di'ink anything like so 
deep down in the cup as I have done.' 

Therefore Jim, as he walked home that night, was per- 
haps conscious, above all other things, of a desire to let Sir 
Francis Rose know that he, too, Jim Conrad of the North- 
umbrian Conrads, had an adventurous spirit and a daring 
heart, and that to him adventures would come easy. He 
was almost morbidly anxious to meet Sir Francis Rose 
again. As he walked homeward, his thoughts, however, 
began to arrange themselves in more artificial order. 

'I might make copy out of it,' he said to himself. 
' There might be the idea of a rattling good story got out 
of it, if he were to give me a chance of an adventure.' 

So he beguiled his mind. 



CHAPTER XrV. 

•that lady is not now living.' 

The livid, monotonous London winter had worn itself out, 
and spring was coming again. Jim Conrad continued to 
meet his two friends now and again at the Voyagers' Club. 
Rose talked incessantly about the scheme he had in pre- 
paration, and in which he proposed to enlist the services 
of Conrad. But Jim did not yet know in the least what 



'THAT LADY IS NOT NOW LIVING' 145 

it was all about, and Sir Francis seemed to wish to convey 
to him each time the idea that the moment had not yet 
quite arrived when the seal of secrecy might be fairly 
broken. Jim waited without impatience. He would have 
been glad to get a chance of some stirring part to play 
which would take him out of England and out of his re- 
collections, and might give him a hope of writing a rattling 
story, and so opening up a literary career. For he began 
to think of late that he had not the imaginative faculty 
which could construct a story all ' out of his own head,' as 
the children say. He began to fear that he had not even 
imagination enough to construct a story out of a text sup- 
plied to him. For look at the discovery of the cast-away 
ring ! Surely there were men and women who, if set down 
to make a story out of that theme, as a teacher of painting 
puts his pupils to work each and all on one given subject, 
would each of them within a limited amount of time make 
a story which could solve the enigma in some striking and 
plausible way — each giving it a different interpretation, 
and each interpretation commending itself to a different 
order of mind. 

But Jim had tried to make a story — ^any sort of intelli- 
gible and coherent story — out of the ring mystery, and 
had failed. ' It is all to no purpose,' he began to think. 
'I have no imagination — I have no invention. I must 
give up the whole idea of story-telling, or go and find 
some adventures that have simply to be written down and 
made to glow from first sight with their genuine sur- 
roundings and atmosphere. Perhaps I ought to give up 
the business altogether. But I will not give it up yet,' he 
said to himself doggedly. ' I do believe I have something 
in me — and, anyhow, it is about the only thing I have to 
live for.' So he longed to be sent on some perilous expedi- 

10 



146 THE REDDLE RING 

tion anywhere, and although he could not quite make out 
what Sir Francis Rose was doing in the expeditionary way, 
he was still most anxious to get a chance of proving that 
he could do something brave and clever. 

One morning, as he was consuming his early tea and 
toast, he got a letter from Sir Francis Rose. It was dated 
from a flat in the near neighbourhood of Berkeley Square. 
Berkeley Square has of late been much invaded by the 
pUes of red brick flats. Its aristocratic pretensions are 
rudely shadowed by these huge and aggressive structures 
— populous enough, or at all events trying to be populous 
enough for a city insula of Imperial Rome. Young as 
Conrad was, he could recollect a time when the builder's 
flat had not yet profaned the immediate neighbourhood of 
Berkeley Square. Even at that moment the thought 
crossed his mind — but he had other things of greater im- 
port to think about, and so he let it cross and go its way. 
He opened the letter, and found that it was a pressing 
invitation to come to luncheon that day — they two alone 
— to talk over a matter of some importance perhaps to 
both of them. Jim thought the matter over for a moment 
or two, then decided to go, and sent ofl' a telegram to 
announce his acceptance of the invitation. Then he strolled 
along Piccadilly to St. James's Square, and he had a look 
in at the Voyagers' Club to read the papers. 

There were not many men in the newspaper-room, and 
he had almost his ' pick and choose ' of the papers. He 
took up the latest Galignani, and was turning it over 
rather apathetically, but still with a sort of idea that he 
might find something there about the movements of 
certain vanished friends of his, when his eyes rested on a 
paragraph which made his heart and his throat swell. It 
was this : 



♦THAT LADY IS NOT NOW LIVING' 147 

'Death of a Beneficent English Lady. 

' Our readers will grieve with us to know of the death 
of that most generous and beneficent of Englishwomen, 
Mrs. Morefield, widow of the late Rochester Morefield, of 
Morefield Hall, Shrewsbury, and formerly of Morefield 
Lodge, South Kensington, London. The fame of Mrs. 
Morefield as a benefactress belongs not only to England, 
but to the northern and southern shores of the Mediter- 
ranean. On the Riviera, in Southern Italy, in Sicily, in 
Egypt, in Algeria, her philanthropic exertions were well 
known and thoroughly appreciated. She had given 
public parks to crowded neighbourhoods ; she had founded 
colleges for the teaching of girls ; she had provided play- 
grounds in quarters alive with poor children ; and all she did 
with a quiet beneficence which shrank from making itself 
known. Mrs. Morefield had long been in delicate health 
— said to have arisen from lung-troubles and heart-troubles 
combined. She had for many years been compelled to 
pass her winters abroad. She was lately staying at a villa 
which she had taken just outside Algiers on the way to 
Birmandreis, when she was attacked by a sudden faintness, 
and expired almost wibhout warning. Her daughter. Miss 
Gertrude Morefield, and a young lady, a close friend of 
the family, were with her when she died. It is assumed 
that Miss Morefield will be the sole heiress of her mother's 
great wealth.' 

Jim put down the paper, and he could not help feeling 
as if he should like to shed tears. The news gave him a 
terrible shock, which was rather increased than made less 
by the formal stereotyped manner of the newspaper 
announcement. He had from the very first been greatly 
charmed by Mrs. Morefield. Her sweet and lucid nature 



148 THE RIDDLE RING 

had a great attraction for him. He always thought he 
could see quite into her kindly, forbearing, and loving 
temperament. He had watched with a really tender 
interest her anxious care of her daughter — ^her fear lest her 
own ill-health and her enforced absences from London 
might become a weariness to Gertrude. He had observed 
how she watched for any indications of weariness or dis- 
content on the part of Gertrude, as another anxious 
mother might look out for the warnings of insipient con- 
sumption on the cheek or the lips of her only daughter. 
He had noticed, too, the sort of sweet unconscious rivalry 
that seemed to be going on between mother and daughter ; 
the struggle of the one to find out, the struggle of the 
other to conceal, any, even the faintest, suggestion of dis- 
satisfaction with the mode of life which the health of the 
mother imposed upon them. In an early chapter of this 
story it has been said that on this kind of observation 
Conrad soon made up his mind eis to the natures of the 
two sweet women, and every day and every hour he had 
spent with them only deepened his conviction. And now 
Gertrude was alone in life ! Now she might go where she 
pleased — there was no longer any motive for that sweet 
and loving self-sacrifice ! Oh, how well he knew that she 
would miss even that very self-sacrifice ! How well he 
knew what a delight it was to her to make her mother 
believe that she cared nothing about London, and nothing 
about England or about home, lest the fond mother might 
reproach herself with being even the innocent cause of the 
daughter's frequent expatriation ! His eyes were dimned 
as he thought of that girl left alone — without the mother 
for whom she lived — in some picturesque, dreary, intoler- 
able Moorish villa outside Algiers — dreary and intolerable 
in the shadow of that death, but hardly more dreary and 



'THAT LADY IS NOT NOW LIVING' 149 

intolerable than any other place in all the world would be 
just now. 

He knew she would not be alone — not all alone. Clelia 
would be with her. But, lover though he was, he could 
not bring himself to believe that the companionship even 
of Clelia would be as much to Gertrude as it would be to 
him. Still, it was a relief to know that Clelia would be 
with her — that Clelia would stay with her — that Clelia, 
having known misery herself, would understand how to 
succour the miserable. A keen pang of pain went through 
him as he remembered what things Clelia had said to him 
about Gertrude and about Gertrude's care for him, and 
he had for a moment a wild thought of hurrying off to the 
southern shore of the Mediterranean, and taking Gertrude's 
hand in his and telling her that some day he would try his 
best to make her happy again. Why should he not ? 
Clelia could never be any more than his friend, and she 
had told him that she would be his friend none the less if 
he were to marry Gertrude. Why should he not ? Alas ! 
he could give no reason why, except that he had rendered 
up his heart to a woman who could not marry him, who 
could not and would not allow herself to love him. 

Conrad was certainly not ungenerous or selfish. His 
love-troubles seemed for the moment of small account when 
compared with the bereavement of poor Gertrude More- 
field. He remembered the kindness, sometimes almost 
motherly, with which Mrs. Morefield had always welcomed 
him. He remembered how lonely and unhappy he was 
when she and her daughter were cast, like sunlight, across 
his darkling way, and hot tears of gratitude and of grief 
came into his eyes. He read the paragraph in the paper 
over and over again, as if he could spell some sort of in- 
direct consolation out of its jomrnalistic English. Then 



l50 THE RIDDLE RING 

he remembered his engagement to luncheon, and he had a 
moment's thought of sending a wire to say he could not be 
there. 'But to what avail?' he asked himself. 'Had I 
not much better go through my common work of life as 
though nothing had happened ? What good would it do 
to poor Gertrude Morefield, crying over the body of her 
dead mother, to know that I in London stayed away from a 
business Imicheon ? Will they, will either of them, write 
to me ?' he wondered. ' Will they leave me to know 
nothing more of this than I have learned from the news- 
paper ?' Just now, of course, he could not expect Miss 
Morefield to write ; but would Clelia not write ? Alas ! 
there is much selfishness in love, be the lover as unselfish as 
mortal man can be. It did send a thrill of warm hope 
through Conrad's heart — ^the thought that Clelia might at 
such a time as that make up her mind to write to him and 
tell him everything, and ask him for his friendly counsel. 
Would they go, these two young women, alone, as Clelia 
had once predicted, out of the range of civilization — out 
into the social wilderness? Should he henceforth never 
more have sight or hearing of them — of either of them — 
of her — of her? He could not think it; he would not 
believe it. 

' I shall see them again,' he said almost aloud. ' I shall 
see her again,' he whispered to his own heart. 

Then he pulled himself together, and he took up his hat 
and went forth, determined to be to all appearance just the 
man he was before he opened the startling newspaper. 

Whatever the speculations in which Sir Francis Rose 
was just now engaged, they certainly would not have 
appeared to be altogether unsuccessful in this their early 
stage of progi-ess. The flat which Sir Francis Rose occu- 
pied was part of a house which stood at a corner of the 



'THAT LADY IS NOT NOW LIVING' 151 

street, bulging and asserting itself into aggressive red- 
brick prominence. Furthermore, when Jim Conrad came 
to the door and got out of his cab, he found a man in 
lively standing on the steps — ^white marble steps — quite 
outside the threshold, and not at all waiting to open the 
door, who asked him if he was not Mr. Conrad come to 
see Sir Francis Rose. So Jim, not in a mood to be much 
abashed by this elaborate preparation, declared that his 
name was Conrad, and that he had come to see Sir Francis 
Rose. Then the outer man — the man in the uniform — ■ 
rang the bell, and when the door was opened by the 
liveried menial, common to the whole building, he an- 
nounced that this was Mr. James Conrad, come by 
appointment to see Sir Francis Rose. Whereupon Jim 
was consigned to another ofRcial, who was charged with 
the business of escorting him into the presence of Sir 
Francis Rose. 

Jim might, perhaps, have been more impressed by all 
this arrangement if he had not gone into the club on his 
way, and seen the account of the death of Mrs. Morefield. 
As it was, he could hardly manage to fix his attention 
upon anything. He was ushered into the lift, although 
the whole of the dizzy height he had to scale was but that 
of two flights of broad, shallow marble stairs. He was 
then shown into Sir Francis Rose's study, and received a 
warm greeting from Sir Francis Rose himself. 

' I am glad you are punctual,' Rose said, glancing at the 
little clock that stood on the chimney-piece. 

' I think I am always punctual,' Jim said. 

'We North-Country men are. It is in our blood, I 
fancy. A Southerner, especially a Londoner, never is 
punctual— he couldn't be, even if he tried ; and, of course, 
like a sensible man, he doesn't try, knowing full well that 



152 THE RIDDLE RING 

he can't do it. Men should never try to do what they 
know they can't do ; it only bores them and their fellow- 
men. Don't you think so ?' 

' Well, I like to try to do things.' 

' Ah, yes, because you can do them.' 

A sweet silvery chime as of tiny bells was heard. It 
sank into the room ; it tinkled on the tufted floor. 

' That's for lunch,' Sir Francis said. ' I got that chime 
of tiny silver bells from one of the confiscated convents in 
Italy. I bought them for a mere trifle. I hate gongs and 
harsh noises of any kind. Come, let us have luncheon.' 

With a wave of his hand he gracefully motioned Conrad 
towards the corridor, and then to the dining-room door. 
Nothing could be more exquisite than the quiet ornamenta- 
tion of the room, and the look of the table, with its flowers, 
its fruits, its silver, its glass, and its china. 

Jim had usually a good appetite, but to-day could not 
greatly enjoy his lunch. 

' You have a capital cook. Sir Fi'ancis,' he said, for that 
very reason. 

' I can't help wishing now and then,' Sir Francis said, 
with a tone of genuine yearning in his voice, ' that they 
would invent a new meat or two and a new wine or two. 
Curious, isn't it, that invention is limitless in every other 
way except in the matter of food and drink .'" 

' I find the old foods and drinks fairly good,' said Jim, 
with a smile. 'This fillet steak is excellent, and that 
frozen salmon seemed to me a dish fit for an emperor, and 
I don't find any fault with this very capital claret.' 

' No ?' Sir Francis said, with something like a sigh. ' I 
fancy, at least I hope, that these things I offer to you to 
eat and drink are fairly good in their way. But why can't 
we have something newer and more original ?' 



' THAT LADY IS NOT NOW LIVING ' 153 

' Why not rather stick to the whisky you're used to ?' 
asked audacious Jim, quoting from a popular music-hall 
song. 

' Ah ! but there it is. I hate getting used to anything ; 
or perhaps, to put it more frankly and correctly, I ought 
to say that when I get used to a thing I begin to detest it. 
I get to hate the joints and the cutlets, and the steaks and 
the chops, and the salmon and the entrees, and all the 
rest. I am tired of sherry and claret, and Rhine wine and 
champagne and port. I want some new sort of drink — 
new and original, don't you know, in its very idea. Can 
inventive science really do nothing, do you think .''' 

' I am afraid I haven't turned my attention resolutely 
that way,' Jim answered. 'The fact is, I don't think I 
ever saw the wine that I couldn't drink and enjoy, if I 
were in the mood for drinking at all.' 

' And all sorts of meats — beef and roast mutton, and 
that sort of thing ; boiled beef and carrots .?' 

' You should see me when I am a little hungry.' 

' Again you are to be envied,' Sir Francis said, with 
once more something like a sigh. 'I always crave for 
something new. I have tried horseflesh, of course, but 
there is nothing really new in that. You get as much 
used to it in a week as you do to boiled neck of mutton 
or any other utterly uninteresting and unpoetical abomi- 
nation. And, do you know, I rather enjoyed myself 
dvu-ing the siege of Paris. I was quite a young fellow at 
the time, as you may imagine, and I was with my father. 
He took it into his head to see the whole thing right 
through, and I was, of course, only too delighted. It 
seemed to me, as it would to most young men, the most 
charming thing in the world to be a besieged resident. 
But my poor father, although he stood out to the end 



154 THE RIDDLE RING 

with all the pluck of a Northumbrian Rose, was terribly 
distressed by the food — ^the goats, and horses, and dogs, 
and cats and rats. Even then I quite enjoyed the novelty 
of the sensation — the dining off a cat and supping off a rat, 
and wondering what you could possibly get for breakfast 
and dinner the next day. But, of course, one was young 
then, and as we get on in life we grow corrupted, and we 
only like dinners when they are good.' 

Jim suddenly awoke from a silence. 

' I hope you will excuse me. Sir Francis, if I seem a little 
out of sorts to-day. The truth is, that just before coming 
here I went into the club and took up a paper, and there 
I saw a scrap of news which very much distressed me.' 

' My dear boy, I am so sorry ! Nothing serious in a 
personal way, I hope .'''' 

' No, not in that sense. The death of a dear friend.' 

' Oh !' Sir Francis spoke in a tone of relief. ' But 
who is dead ? So much depends upon that. Not she, I 
fondly trust .''' 

'Alas! There is no she, in that sense,' Jim replied. 
' No, it is nothing of the sort. Only a dear old lady of 
whom I had come to be very fond.' 

' Well, well, old ladies must die, my dear Conrad, and I 
fancy your life will go on much the same. A near relation 
of yours ?' 

' Oh no — merely a friend.' 

' Ah, yes ; well, that's all right — I mean, that is not so 
bad. You will soon get over that.' 

' Yes, I dare say ; but there are other lives very dear to 
me that may not rally quite so soon.' 

Jim was more than half conscious that, in thus giving 
way to sentimentality in the presence of Sir Francis Rose, 
he was making himself somewhat ridiculous. But he could 



'THAT LADY IS NOT NOW LIVING' 155 

not help himself, somehow. His heart, according to the 
old saying, was in his mouth. 

* Other lives ? Oh yes, was it her mother ?'' 

' My dear Sir Francis, as I have said already, there isn't 
any her or she, or however you like to put it. But this 
dear old lady — and she wasn't very old, either — who has 
just died was the mother of a great friend of mine, and 
the friend of another.' 

There was a moment's pause. Then Rose sp^e in his 
low, clear voice : 

' I think you are to be envied, Conrad — ^to be envied, on 
the whole. I do indeed. I have been turping it over in 
my mind for this last minute or two, and I have come to 
the conclusion that you are really a man to be envied.' 

' I hadn't thought it,' Conrad said, rather depressedly. 
' It had not quite occurred to me. Would you mind telling 
me how and why I am a man to be envied ?' 

' Well, if you ask me, this is fliy idea. The ordinary 
man is wholly wrapped up in himself. Nothing matters 
to him that does not concern himself. The misery of a 
whole continent is of no concern to him, if it does not 
happen to touch any interest of his own. You see .?' 

'I don't know that I do see. I don't believe that it 
is so.' 

' You are still so young,' Sir Francis said, with his very 
sweetest smile. 

' Still, I don't quite see what your point is.' 

' My dear boy, I am making no point. I am only telling 
you that you are very much to be envied, so long as you 
can feel troubled about the concerns of other people.' 

'Yes, but that is what I don't see,' Jim said, almost 
sharply. ' I fancy most people are sorry for the troubles 
of their neighbours. But suppose they are not generally, 



156 THE RIDDLE RING 

why should a man be enviable who is ? Is it not merely 
adding the troubles of others to his own ?' 

' My dear boy, not at all. Don't you see that all through 
life — ^well, of course, you have not got very far through life 
— all one's own aflFairs are more or less bound to go wrong ? 
The more you succeed, the more you want to succeed. 
The higher you climb, the higher you pitch your standard 
of climbing. The more sensations you gratify, the more you 
want to gratify. Every blockhead of us is in his little way 
an Alexander, and the more worlds he conquers the more 
he wants to conquer. Now you see what I mean, don't you ?' 

' No, I can't say that I do any clearer than before,' Jim 
somewhat doggedly replied. 

'Not really.? Well, I'll explain. My idea is that a 
man's heart and soul — or what we have agreed to call 
heart and soul — are as a common matter of fact bound 
up with his own affairs. Very well, then, I take it to be 
a common matter of fact also that a man's affairs almost 
invariably go wrong with him.' 

' Oh, come now !' Jim protested. 

' Yes, they do ; yes, they do. You see, as I said before, 
the more success a man has, the more he wants to succeed, 
and what does that mean ? Why, what can it mean but 
failure ? You make three millions — you want to make five 
millions ; you don't make five millions. What is that but 
failure ?' 

' Still, you have the three millions.' 

' I know ; but you wanted the five, and you have failed ; 
and there you are, the possessor of three millions, eating 
your heart out because you are not the possessor of five ! 
Now, I have put this allegory of millions to you as the 
most practical and intelligible way in which I could express 
my ideas, but I may say that I do not myself so much care 



'THAT LADY IS NOT NOW LIVING' 157 

about the millions themselves. I have tried for money, 
gambled for money, won money, lost money, made vast 
sums, spent vast sums, but I have not cared very much for 
money as money all the time.' 

' No ? Then, what did you care for .?' Jim asked, with 
a somewhat languishing interest. 

His heart was in the coffin there — not of Caesar, but of 
poor, kind, sweet JMrs. Morefield, and he must have pause 
till it came back to him. 

' I cared for new sensation, my dear Conrad. I think 
nothing in life is real but sensation. I want to feel my 
blood dance racily through my veins. I don't — ^honestly, 
I don't — see anything else in life but that. Well, I haven't 
asked you here to tell you all about myself, and my cravings 
after new sensations. My dear boy, I beg your pardon.' 

' No, no, don't beg my pardon,' Conrad said. ' It was I 
who began the whole talk. And I was interested ever so 
much in what you were saying. But what I don't under- 
stand, and what you haven't quite explained, is why it 
should be an enviable thing for me that I should feel the 
troubles of other people added on to my own.' 

' No ? Don't you see .?' 

'Not a blink.' 

' Well, well ! How very odd ! And you are a poetic 
and imaginative sort of young fellow ! Don't you see that 
if a man's own affairs are bound always to go wrong — at 
least, to go comparatively wrong — it must be a great relief 
to him if he can have his attention drawn away for ever so 
little to the troubles of other people ? That is the reason 
why I often envy the men who, like you, are so much more 
sympathetic and philanthropic, and all the rest of it, than 
I am myself. The troubles of others are some distraction to 
you. I am very much afraid that they are none at all to me,' 



158 THE RIDDLE RING 

' I am afraid,' said Conrad somewhat wearily, ' it is of 
no use arguing the matter over ; and, anyhow, I am sorry 
I bothered you for a moment with my troubles, although 
I don't believe one little bit that you are nearly as in- 
diiferent to the troubles of others as you make yourself 
out to be ' 

' Oh, well, if it came to helping people, and giving them 
a lift and all that, I don't think I should be altogether 
wanting.' 

' No ; I am sure you would not.' 

' But even then, do you know, I think it would be in 
great measure the virtue of the new sensation — or perhaps 
the relief of getting rid of them.' 

' Let it be what it will,' Jim said somewhat more cheerily 
than before, ' so long as the helping hand is given. But 
there, I don't want to worry you with my personal or my 
indirect troubles any more. Indeed, I should never have 
said a word about them, but that I was afraid you might 
think I was down in the mouth — ^perhaps about something 
which I could not put into outspoken words. But, of 
course, I could not expect you to enter into my troubles. 
I don't suppose you ever heard of the people whom the 
troubles have hit most nearly, and because of whom the 
troubles are a concern to me.' 

' Exactly — there it is,' Sir Francis Rose remarked in the 
tone of one who thinks that the whole question may now 
fairly be allowed to drop. 'When one does not know 
people personally, it is very hard to feel any interest in 
their troubles or their joys. You walk down to your club, 
and you see the bills of the evening papers, and you read 
in big letters : " Great Cyclone on the Malabar Coast — 
Loss of Five Thousand Lives "; " Hurricane in Madagascar 
— One Thousand Inhabitants Homeless " — and who care» 



* THAT LADY IS NOT NOW LIVING' 159 

about all that ? If one had ever seen or known any one 
of the fellows, he might, perhaps, care — although, to speak 
the honest truth, I don't think the knowledge would do 
more than to give him a keener interest in the event, and 
therefore — in the frank, true sense — to make him the more 
glad that it had happened. Do you follow me ?' 

Jim shook his head. No ; he had not been quite follow- 
ing him, in the sense of agreeing with him. But he had 
been listening to him with a certain awed curiosity. He 
felt that there was much ghastly truthfulness in what Sir 
Francis Rose was saying, and the admission that there was 
so much horrible inevitable truth mixed up with it only 
made it grate upon his nerves all the more. 

'These friends of yours — friends of the dead lady, I 
mean, whose troubles you make your troubles — were they 
men or women .?' 

' Women,' said Conrad — ' two young women ; one the 
daughter I spoke of— or did I ? — another her close friend.' 

' Yes. Well, I dare say I never heard the name of either 
of them.' 

' I don't suppose you ever did.' 

' Then, don't you see how hard it would be for me to be 
sorry for them ? By any extreme of possibility, I could 
only be sorry for them because you were sorry for them ; 
and on that principle our good friend Waley ought to be 
sorry for them because I was sorry for your being sorry for 
them, and our silent friend in Paris, Marmaduke Coffin, 
ought to be sorry for them because Waley was sorry for 
my being sorry for your being sorry for their being sorry. 
And so it goes on, like the ripple on the beach that is 
tossed oiF at Liverpool and goes on to New York, or breaks 
at San Francisco, and melts on the shore of one of the 
Sandwich Islands. My dear boy, that is not the sort of 



160 THE RIDDLE RING 

sensation which, according to my idea of things, makes life 
worth living.' 

' All right ; let it pass,' Conrad said, with a certain feeling 
of self-reproach because he had inadvertently started the 
subject sacred to him, not knowing whither it was to lead, 
or, indeed, that it was to lead to anything. ' You were 
talking of some scheme you wished, or, I should say, were 
good enough to tell me of.' 

' Yes, yes. Let us leave speculation, and go to business.' 



CHAPTER XV. 

'will YO0 STAND IN WITH US i" 

So they went back into Sir Francis Rose's study, and they 
settled down to talk about work. ' Leave speculation, and 
go to business,' were the words of Rose when they got up 
to quit the dining-room. But the business seemed to Jim 
Conrad to be speculation of the most daring kind. Rose 
expounded his plans in his sweet, thrilling, musical voice, 
and Conrad could not conceal from himself that it carried 
a witchery along with it. Jim could not help thinking 
that if the owner of such a voice cared to fascinate women 
there were but few women whom he might not fascinate. 
Nor could he keep down a sudden strange unmeaning wish 
that no woman he cared for, or might ever care for, should 
come within the spell of that voice. 

But the plans — ^the business ? Well, it was very much 
as Mr. Waley had described it, only that his was the merest 
sketch, and Sir Francis Rose filled in all the details and 
gave the thing life. The plan was a plan of discovery — a 
rovino- commission all over the world to find new fields and 



' WILL YOU STAND IN WITH US F 161 

works for the capitalist. Sir Francis in his enterprise went 
in for anything. He recognised that the civilized nations 
had wakened up again to all the old enthusiasm for ex- 
ploring and adventure. The passion for new fields of 
enterprise and of gain had sprung up in the hearts of 
peoples who heretofore had felt no touch of such a fever. 
It had always burned more or less steadily, more or less 
fitfully, in the hearts of Englishmen and of Dutchmen. 
But now there was France — there was Italy — there was 
Germany — there were the United States — although, of 
course, the United States thus far had in general found 
ample scope and room in their own vast and varied domains. 
But the capitalist of the United States was quite willing 
to venture beyond his own borders when there was any 
chance of a way to make money. In old days, when a 
discoverer found out a new promise of wealth in some far- 
off region, he annexed it for his king or he sold it to his 
king. Now, the plan, as Sir Francis Rose pointed out in 
eloquent and glowing words, was to sell the discovery to 
a capitalist, or to a syndicate of capitalists, and let the 
capitalists annex it or exhaust it for themselves. 

Sir Francis did' not himself take much interest in the 
forming of companies. He preferred to allow other men 
to form the companies and take the responsibilities. He 
stipulated, of course, for a certain proportion ef shares to 
begin with, and at the first profitable moment he sold the 
shares, got the money, and was free of the company's re- 
sponsibilities. He became almost rapturous as he described 
the triumph of finding some new source of wealth for others, 
and of making some wealth out of it himself. Sir Francis 
dwelt especially on the safety of the enterprises. Jim felt 
a little puzzled. It seemed to him that the safety of an 
enterprise was not exactly the one element in the situation 

11 



162 THE RIDDLE RING 

which, according to his judgment, would be most likely to 
captivate Sir Francis. He even went so far as to hint 
something of this. 

' For me .P' Sir Francis said sweetly. ' No, I must confess 
that for myself the dash of risk is pleasant in most cases. 
Who would care for the hunting-field if there were really 
no danger there ? But I should be very sorry to draw any 
of my friends into dangerous situations. My friends may 
not care for new sensations quite as much as I do.' 
' Tell me, Sir Francis,' Jim said, ' two things.' 
' Will tell you anything, my dear Conrad.' 
' First, why did you think of asking me to take part in 
any of your enterprises ; and next, what do you want me 
to do .P' 

' I have the greatest pleasure in answering both your 
questions. Why did I ask you to join me in some of my 
enterprises ? Really and truly, because Waley put the 
idea into my head.' 

' But what did Waley know about me ?' 
' Waley took a liking to you — instinctively, I think — 
perhaps as you are both, like myself, men from the North- 
Country. He told me you were just the man he wanted 
— clever, bold, energetic, a North-Country man, and a man 
in trouble of some sort who would be glad to get into a 
new field of life. Do you know that Waley is my brains- 
carrier ? 

' I did not know ; I should never have guessed it.' 
' Yes, but he is,' Rose declared earnestly. ' I only 
amuse myself and kill time, and all that, but Waley is in 
deep earnest about everything. Waley has all the gift of 
the divining-rod. I verily believe that if there were some 
new metal, or some new diamond, or some new force in 
industrial science to be found in Crim Tartary or the un- 



'WILL YOU STAND IN WITH US? 163 

trodden regions of Central Australia, Waley would have a 
vision in the night which would guide him to the very 
source of the discovery. Don't you make any mistake 
about it, my dear Conrad, Waley is the inspiration of all 
this work which I have taken up, and I am at best the 
ornamental expounder.' 

' He does not seem to be very rich — Mr. Waley.' 

' No,' and Sir Francis looked a little dashed ; ' no, I 
admit that. We have not had quite time yet to amass a 
really considerable fortune. But that, I can tell you, is 
no fault of Waley's ; it is rather a fault of mine— and of 
Fate. He would stick to a thing until it was fairly ex- 
hausted. I can't ; that is not my way. I want something 
new. The moment we are well on with one thing I am 
inclined to say, " Now then — next." That, I suppose, is 
not exactly the way of permanent success.' 

' No, it certainly does not seem like it to the unpractised 
mind.' 

' But that is not Waley's fault. His one great fault is 
that he is too much devoted to me. I feel it often; I 
have told him so often. The worst of it is, the more 
frankly I tell him of it, the more and more he becomes 
devoted to rae.' 

Yes, Jim thought he could understand. The more the 
chief preached against too much devotion, the more the 
devotion became too much. Jim had for some time been 
forming a high opinion of the gallant soul of Mr. Waley. 

' Then the second question,' Conrad reminded Rose. 
' What do you want me to do ? 

' Oh, to be sure — ^yes, I was forgetting. Well, we want 
you to go out prospecting somewhere — anywhere, but to 
some new place.. Waley will find out the place and start 
you on your mission. Of course, it is not to be a mission 



164 THE RIDDLE RING 

in our name ; it is all your own chance or your own ad- 
venture, you see. Rut you will stand in with us. It must 
be some new place. Not South Africa, and not the familiar 
parts of South America. All these are rather played out, 
we think. And not diamonds ; and certainly not rubies. 
We want to hit on something quite new.' 

' Rut how on earth am I to find something quite new in 
some spot of the world quite new to me .?' 

' Leave all that to Waley. He mil put you up to every- 
thing ; he will look after your outfit and all that ; he will 
give you inspiration. If you can get into a row with the 
natives of whatever the place is, all the better. The papers 
will then take the business up and boom it.' 

' Rut suppose I were to get killed ?' Jim asked, with a 
smile. 

Sir Francis Rose looked up at him with quick and 
earnest eyes. 

' My dear Conrad,' he said emphatically — and his voice 
thrilled musically into Conrad's ear — ' I hope Waley has 
not for once made a mistake. He told me he was con- 
vinced, from what he had observed — and he is a very keen 
observer — that you were a young man who did not care 
three straws about life — I mean, for the mere sake of 
living.' 

Was there ever a young man who would not be touched 
and roused by such a way of putting the matter ? 

Jim Conrad, a sensible fellow enough in ordinary affairs, 
saw himself at once as the hero of some ruined romance — 
as a man who cared nothing for life, and only courted the 
uttermost danger that might come in his path. His late 
disappointment in love — his great disappointment — 
blended naturally in with that thought, and he became in 
the moment the man to lead a forlorn hope — any forlorn 



'WILL YOU STAND IN WITH us?' 165 

hope. In youth no quality seems so fascinating, so honour- 
able, so romantic, so heroic, as a readiness to throw one's 
life away. 

' Yes, I care little for life,' Jim said, ' if I can't have, or 
as I can't have, the things I set my heart on. Waley was 
right enough there.' 

' I was sure Waley would be right, and I am quite in 
sympathy vrith you, my dear Conrad. Life is a poor 
thing enough, even at the best ; and at anything short of 
the best it is not worth having at all. I have always 
acted on that principle, and I find it saves one a vast 
amount of anxiety and of trouble and of terror. Well, 
then, we'll talk to Waley more definitely about all this, 
and hear what new ideas he has to give. You are with us, 
I take it .?' 

'Well,' Jim answered good-humouredly, 'the basis of 
negotiations is found, as the diplomatists say.' 

'Yes, yes; I quite understand. I was a diplomatist 
myself for a short time. Did you know .?' 

' Yes, I had heard.' 

'Of course you have heard. I was turned out of the 
service — at least, I was requested to find some other field 
for my talents. I couldn't help taking part in a revolu- 
tion in Mexico — I thought the chance of a new sensation 
was far too good to be lost — and they didn't like my con- 
duct at the Foreign Ofiice ; the men of routine and red 
tape could not stand it, and there was nothing for it. I 
had to go. I am very glad now that I had to go. Diplo- 
macy is the most stupid work, unless when occasionally 
tempered by revolution. Well, well, excuse me for bringing 
in all this talk about myself. We shall see Waley to- 
morrow, and he will tell us exactly what he wants to have 
done, and where and how it is to be done.' 



166 THE RIDDLE RING 

' One question here, Sir Francis, before I go.' 

' As many questions as you like, my dear Conrad.' 

' Only one. What part does our silent friend, Marma- 
duke Coffin, play in all this business ?' 

Sir Francis smiled. 

' A very useful but a very humble part. Coffin is our 
general finder-out — not chucker-out ; don't confound two 
quite different functions — our general finder-out.' 

' I am afraid I don't quite understand.' 

'Why, don't you see.? If you want anything found 
out, Coffin is the man to find it out for you. He has the 
instinct of a sleuth-hound himself for running in the trail 
of a scent. Nobody knows or cares about him, and he 
tries to know all about everybody. I don't believe there 
is anything he couldn't find out if only you gave him a 
little time. He is to be trusted absolutely. I think he is 
bound to me partly, as Waley is, because we are all North- 
Country men.' 

' He doesn't seem to make much money out of the busi- 
ness,' Jim could not help remarking. 

' No ; he has not made much money yet, but he is in 
^ hopes of getting something out of the business some time. 
■' He has an ambition in life.' 

' Yes, and that is ?' 

' Don't know, I'm sure ; perhaps to settle gome son or 
daughter in life.' 

' He has a son or a daughter ?' 

' My dear fellow, I don't know — ^never asked. We don't 
ask questions of each other.' 

' Has he a wife i"' 

' In a manner, yes ; that I do know — ^he told me. She 
lives here in London. She was a bad lot, I believe, and 
led him a devil of a life, and he went away and settled in 



'WILL YOU STAND IN WITH us?' 167 

Paris. I hope to do something for him some day. In 
the meantime, I could trust him with my life ; and do you 
know, Conrad, I am quite sure he would kill a man with- 
out asking a question if I wanted a man killed and were 
to tell him to do it.' 

' He seemed to me a man of extraordinary self-control 
and determination,' Conrad said ; ' but I hope his energy 
will never be taxed in that particular sort of way.' 

' Oh, no, no ! what nonsense — what nonsense !' Sir 
Francis said with a musical laugh. 'We have nothing to 
do with killing. It is not in our line one little bit. Mine 
was only a hasty illustration. We are for making, and 
not marring ; we want to make our own fortunes, and arc 
not unwilling to that end to help other people to make 
their fortunes too. I think we make a capital triumvirate 
— ^Waley, CofRn and I. Waley is the inspiration ; I am 
the working manager. CoiBn presides over the intelligence 
department.' 

' How did you all come together i" 

'Well, you see, to begin with, we were all young 
together, on my good old grandfather's estate. And then 
there is something which draws men together however 
different they may be in fortune and position and inclina- 
tions, and all the rest of it, and makes them comrades 
whether they will or no. Don't you think there is some- 
thing in that .?' 

' Yes, indeed, I am sure there is — a great deal in that 
more than we can yet understand.' 

' I am sm^e of it,' Sir Francis Rose said, with an air of 
composed conviction. 'I dare say Science will tell us 
something some day — when Science condescends to con- 
cern herself a little more with human beings and a little 
less with dogma — about that, curious, unexplained, but 



168 THE RIDDLE RING 

very certain attraction of some men towards some other 
men.' 

Perhaps in his secret mind Conrad was just then inchned 
father to study the curious, unexplained, but perfectly 
certain attraction of some particular man to some par- 
ticular woman, and some ptirticular woman to some par- 
ticular man. But he accepted in good faith the theory of 
Sir Francis Rose, and was willing to wait until Science 
should work it all out and make its springs quite clear. 

' Well, that is how we have drifted together, we three,' 
Sir Francis said, as if the whole thing was thereby quite 
settled and done with. ' Of course, there are many more 
hands to the work, but we three hold the strings of the 
management in our grip. I suppose the same law of 
attraction led Waley to you, and me to you through 
Waley. Anyhow, I feel as if I had known you all my 
life, and I should without a moment's hesitation trust my 
life to you.' 

Jim was touched. 

' You might — it would be safe,' he said quietly. 

' Of com"se, I know it. By the way, talking of secrets, 
I should say that Waley and Coffin and myself are bound 
together by a common misfortune from which you as yet 
are wholly exempt ; and will be, I trust, for all your life, 
although I only piously trust it.' 

' Yes ; what is that .'' Do, please, give me warning in 
time.' 

' Not the least use, my dear Conrad, in giving you or 
any other man a warning as to that particular rock ahead. 
If he is going to run upon it, he will run upon it, cry out 
who may.' 

'But what is it.?' 

' Can't you guesi ? Ah, well, you are very young. We 



'WILL YOU STAND IN WITH US?' 169 

all made a sad mistake; we each married the wrong 
woman.' 

Conrad could hardly help laughing at this blunt declara- 
tion, given out as it was in a tone of absolute resignation. 
He tried to be very grave as he said : 

' I am sorry to hear that.' 

'Yes, I knew you would be. It fell out in different 
ways. I married a woman who was much too good for 
me, and she bored me to death, and I couldn't stand her. 
Waley married a woman who was not half good enough 
for him, and she bored him, and she could not stand him. 
Coffin married a woman who was not good enough for 
anyone, and he began to make up his mind that if he were 
to stay too long with her he would certainly lose his head 
some day and kill her — and so, as I told you, he took his 
flight, and he settled in Paris. But he would come over 
here if ever we wanted him, at any risk — even at the risk 
of meeting his wife.' 

' And having to kill her .?' Conrad asked. 

' Oh no ; not the slightest necessity for that now. He does 
not live with her any more, and he has his life all to himself.' 

' It seems a sad story,' Jim said. 

' Coffin's ? Yes, oh yes ! But don't you think they all 
are sad stories ? 

' I suppose so,' Jim said doubtfully, thinking to himself 
a wife too good for a man was a burden that any man 
might be willing to endure. 

' Well, anyhow, that is not to our present purpose, and 
I don't quite know why I gave you all these private 
histories. I suppose because of that mysterious law of 
attraction about which we have just been talking. So be 
it. The immediate question is, are you inclined to stand 
in with us i"' 



170 THE RroDLE RING 

'I am inclined — yes. But before giving a definite 
answer, I should first like to have a talk with Waley and 
find out exactly what he wants me to do. Until I know 
that, I could hardly give you an answer. Sir Francis. I 
know my own capacity pretty well, and Waley does not. 
I know what I should be able to do. If he wanted a hair 
of the Soldan's beard or a blast of Oberon's horn, I am 
sure I could not get either for him.' 

' No, and I am afraid Waley would not care much about 
them even if you did. Very well, you shall see Waley 
to-morrow ; I shall wire to him to call on you — and will 
you see me the day after — here ?' 

' Yes, certainly. At what hour .?' 

' Oh, let me see — come to luncheon if you don't mind. 
We both must have luncheon somewhere, and it saves time 
to have it together and talk over matters of business.' 

' So it does. I shall come. Have you business ofilces 
in the City .?' 

' My dear Conrad,' Sir Francis exclaimed, in a tone of 
some astonishment, ' nothing of the kind ! We are not a 
limited company, or a company of any kind. We are a 
comradeship of enterprising gentlemen, who desire to 
develop wherever they can the world's resources, of any 
kind and in every direction, and to make money for our- 
selves out of the fruits of our genius — shall I call it ? — 
and our energy. That's quite a different sort of thing, 
can't you see, Conrad, from a company with a board of 
directors, and preference shares, and meetings of share- 
holders, and hostile resolutions, and all that inconvenient 
bother !' 

' Yes, I see that it is different, and I suppose I shall 
come to understand not only the difference, but the reasons 
for the difference, in good time.' 



'WILL YOU STAND IN WITH us?' 171 

'Of course you shall. You shall understand all 
about it.' 

'Well, meantime, I think we quite understand each 
other. Sir Francis,'' Jim said warmly, for he was a little 
touched at the outspoken candour which had taken him 
so far into an unsought confidence. ' I'll talk over matters 
with Waley to-morrow, and I shall be with you here the 
day after.' 

'Thanks, ever so much. That is all that I could 
possibly expect. Good-bye, my dear fellow.' 

' Good-bye.' 

So they shook hands and parted. Jim Conrad went 
down the staircase — ^he did not trouble about the lift — 
with a mind which wonder and puzzlement had filled. 
What did Sir Francis Rose and Waley want of him in this 
curious companionship ? What was the companionship ? 
Was it a reality at all .-' Had it any form and purpose 
and system ? It was clear that he had not to do with 
three maniacs. Rose seemed alive with cleverness and 
vivacity and shrewdness, and, besides, Rose was now a 
man of fortune, and was under no necessity for mixing 
himself up in wild speculations. Mr. Waley seemed the 
very embodiment of health and manly strength and water- 
tight sanity. The soundness or the madness of Marmaduke 
Coffin would not have been of much account in any case. 
Rose had clearly defined Coffin's business in the comrade- 
ship as that of the finder-out, and a man with only half 
his senses about him might be a perfect genius at the work 
of finding out. 

The whole thing seemed to Jim attractive, romantic, 
highly fascinating. It flattered his youthful self-esteem 
to have been taken into such full confidence, and to have 
been treated as a young man who was not afraid to go 



172 THE RIDDLE RING 

into danger, and might be trusted to make his way out of 
it. Undoubtedly there was an indescribable attraction for 
him in the voice and the manners and the winning, confi- 
dential ways of Sir Francis Rose, and yet there seemed 
something subtle and dangerous in them, too. He put 
all further thought away, and determined to wait for a 
decision imtil he should have talked with Waley. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

A LETTER AND A MEETING. 

CoNUAD had a long talk with Waley the next day, and the 
result was that he determined to stand in, as Rose had put 
it, with the enterprises of the Dauntless Three. He satis- 
fied himself, he thought, that there was nothing about the 
undertakings which was not honourable and straight- 
forward, although there was a good deal of personal risk, 
and even of recklessness. It was, in fact, an unsystematized 
Company of Founders, who had to look all over the world 
for new developments and new opportunities of foundation. 
Waley 's designs were sometimes stupendous in their vast- 
ness, and sometimes almost grovelling in their pigmy pro- 
portions. The first dream of his life was to find the 
substitute for coal — the cheap and ready substitute for 
coal as a house-warmer and an engine-driver. 

' The man who can get at that, my dear Conrad,' he 
confidentially said, 'will make the biggest fortune ever 
made in this world. And it is bound to come, I tell you. 
Somebody will find it soon, and why should not you and I 
manage somehow to get hold of it ? You think it over of 
nights. I keep awake a good deal thinking it over, but I 
haven't tumbled on to it yet.' 



A LETTER AND A MEETING 173 

That was a grand scheme, a heaven-scaling scheme. 
But Waley was not always Titanic. 

' There's a neat little fortune, a snug little fortune,' he 
said to Conrad, lowering his tone, perhaps as if he thought 
somebody might be listening to this minor proposal who 
could not possibly think of rising to the grander thought, 
and also, perhaps, as if a lowered tone of voice were better 
suited to a lowered tone of enterprise — 'there's a neat 
little fortune to be made by the man who invents a sub- 
stitute for ink. Think of it, deai* boy ! Half a moment 
now ' — and the right thumb met the upper joint of the 
right forefinger. ' Just think of it half a moment. Think 
of a pencil which can write as darkly as ink — whether it 
be black, blue, red, violet, or whatever you will — and will 
be as indelible as ink. Think of the total abolition of the 
ink-bottle and the pen — the pen that corrodes in the ink 
— the ink that blots the fingers, the ink that upsets and 
ruins your desk, and the fountain-pens that shed their 
black life-blood into your waistcoat -pocket ! Half a 
moment, Mr. Conrad — think of all that ! It must be 
within the resources of the chemical world to create a sub- 
stance which will make such a pencil ; or there is such a 
substance deep in the earth or lying on the surface in 
some part of the world, only waiting for the man of genius 
to recognise it and carry it away and put it to its use. 
Half a moment, Mr. Conrad — why should you not be that 
man T 

Conrad only shook his head at the suggestion. He 
feared he should not recognise the substance even if he 
were to come across it, and as to inventing some chemical 
compound to serve the same object, he regarded such an 
achievement as utterly beyond the range of his intellect. 
' Well, we must send you somewhere,' Mr. Waley ob- 



174 THE RIDDLE RING 

served cheerily. ' It would be hard if we could not find 
some place where your pluck and your ideas would come 
in handy. You want to go pretty far away, don't you .!" 

' The farther the better.' 

'Right you are. That's just what I should have said 
myself at your age. Of course, as one begins to get a 
little on in life, one isn't so wildly anxious for far foreign 
travel. We might begin with something easy. Now, 
there's Patagonia. I'm told there's a lot to be found in 
Patagonia.' 

' A lot of what ?' 

' Oh, I don't know ; a lot of all sorts of things, if one 
only went out and kept his eyes peeled, as they say in 
America. How would Patagonia suit you .?' 

' Patagonia,' said Jim with the utmost gravity, ' would 
suit me nicely.' 

In truth, Patagonia would have suited him then just as 
well a-s any other distant place. So long as he got clear 
of London and of Paris, he did not care much whither 
Fate might take him. And it would go hard if the 
makings of a new and stirring romance were not to be 
found somehow in Patagonia. 

Perhaps he might make some wonderful discoveries 
there — who knows ? And his mind went back humorously 
to the saying about Goldsmith and the wheelbarrow. 

'I may find something entirely new and precious,' he 
said to himself, ' in the Patagonian form of wheelbarrow.' 

We need not go deeper into the Patagonian enterprise, 
because, as the course of this story will soon make it clear, 
Jim Conrad never had any opportunity of undertaking it. 
But it had some influence on his fortunes in the fact that 
it made him agree to stand in with the triumvirate in 
their schemes, that it gave him a new interest in life, and 



A LETTER AND A MEETING 175 

that it beguiled his thoughts away from too frequent con- 
templation of himself and his heart-troubles. 

He saw a great deal of Sir Francis Rose, and he could 
but feel sometimes with a sort of shudder that the fascina- 
tion of the man was growing upon him. Of Waley he 
began to think better and better every day, although he 
often allowed himself a quiet smile at Waley 's multitudinous 
projects. 

At one time he used to wonder how a man of Sir Francis 
Rose''s refinement could be content with the companionship 
of a man like Waley. Now, when he began at ominous 
moments to find a shiver of distrust going through him as 
to Rose, he suddenly pulled himself up and satisfied himself 
with the assurance that a man who was trusted by Waley 
must be thoroughly worthy of trust. For he had come 
fully to believe in Waley as a gallant and a generous 
spirit, a chivalric, unselfish, and exalted Sancho Panza, 
although he could see little of the Quixote in Rose. 

So the days passed pleasantly enough for Conrad — in a 
way. He began to regard all his past mode of life as done 
with, and about to be wholly blotted out in enterprise 
quite new to him. That, he said to himself, was the best 
thing that could happen to him. He wanted to get away 
as soon as might be to Patagonia or elsewhere. If he were 
to meet Clelia Vine again, he did not feel quite sure whether 
all his longing for self-exile would resist one softening, 
kindly glance from her eyes. And to what avail staying 
in London or anywhere to be near her ? He could never 
be near her in the true sense. She was a married woman — 
she could not love him. He was beginning to think now 
that she had never really cared for him at all. He was 
beginning to doubt whether even in the beaten way of 
friendship she had ever cared much about him. For, why 



176 THE RIDDLE RING 

did she never write ? Why did she tell him nothing about 
the changed existence of herself and Gertrude Morefield ? 
If she had gone with Gertrude, as she once spoke of going, 
out of the reach of civilization, why not one kindly, friendly 
parting word — "tis said, man, and farewell!' No; not 
even that parting phrase of Mark Antony to his devoted 
follower, that phrase compressing into its merest formality 
so much of friendship and regret, and pity and pathos : 
nothing of that kind had reached him from her — from the 
woman who had told him she would have loved him if she 
could have loved him without shame. 

Every day, every hour of every day, he kept expecting 
to hear from her. His first thought every morning as he 
awoke was : ' Has a letter come from her ?'' Every knock 
of the postman made his heart almost to stand still in a 
pause of agonized expectation until the little tray of letters 
had been put into his hand, and he saw that there was none 
from her. Every night when he returned from dinner- 
party or theatre, and when he took his lonely candle, pale- 
burning like a Welsh corpse-candle, into his little sitting- 
room, his heart stood still again until he had mastered his 
emotion and reached the table, and found that among the 
letters brought by the last post there was none for him 
from her. 

The postman ought to be a thoughtful and melancholy 
creatvue. He must surely, if he has any faculty of thinking 
at all, be able to understand that not one letter in every 
thousand he cairies can bring satisfaction to him or her 
who receives it. He must know that every bundle of letters 
he delivers at any given door fails to contain at least one 
letter which somebody in the house is yearning for, and 
which, if it came, would mean to that somebody the whole 
contents of the delivery. To be a contented postman one 



A LETTER AND A MEETING 177 

ought to be a misanthrope. For out of every package of 
letters delivered at any house the majority are assuredly 
wearisome and disagreeable to receive, and the whole lot 
are to somebody detestable because they do not contain 
the one particular letter for which the heart of that some- 
body yearns, pines, and bleeds. 

Jim Conrad sometimes felt like this, and turned this 
over in his mind as day after day, and night after night, 
he longed and looked for a letter from Clelia Vine, and no 
letter came. One night at last his good luck found him. 

He was dining at the Voyagers' Club with Rose, they 
two alone. They were fast comrades now, and they had 
gone to a theatre, and had seen pretty dancing, which the 
elder man enjoyed with a quite youthful delight, and on 
which Conrad, his mind perturbed and distracted with 
other thoughts, found it hardly possible to keep his atten- 
tion fixed. Then they went back to the Voyagers' Club 
for a cigar and a whisky-and-soda. 

'When shall I see you to-morrow.?' Sir Francis asked, 
as the time was coming for breaking off the sitting. 

' Whenever you like.' 

' Well, you may as well come to luncheon. Then I have 
to drive about to a lot of places — only shops and business 
things — and if you have nothing to do we might go about 
together, and we can talk all the time.' 

' All right ; that will suit me admirably.' 

' Then, that's settled. I say, my dear Conrad, I shall 
miss you when you go away.' 

' Away, where .?' 

' Well, to Patagonia, I suppose.' 

' Oh yes, of course, to Patagonia. I was forgetting for 
a moment — I mean, for the moment.' 
I ' Cool young customer !' Rose said with a smile. ' It is 

12 



178 THE RIDDLE RING 

nothing, apparently, to you to be sent packing off to 
Patagonia.' 

' Patagonia or any other place is much the same to me.' 

' And yet you are fond of London .?' 

' Yes, I am very fond of London, while I am in London ; 
but just now I don't care how soon I get out of London.' 

' Ah, yes, I understand,' Sir Francis said, with a quiet 
and sympathetic smile ; ' the old heart-trouble, of which 
I know nothing, and of which, my dear Conrad, I don't 
want to know anything, unless at any time you might like 
to tell me something about it. I have had some heart- 
troubles myself in my day.' 

' I don't know that I have much to tell,' Conrad said 
not uncheerfully ; ' I suppose I am very much like every- 
body else in that way.' 

' In life, my dear Conrad, nobody's trouble is quite like 
the trouble of anybody else. I have learned that these 
long years. You will learn it some time.' 

They were now standing at the door of the club. Rose 
hailed a hansom. 

' Good-night,' he cried. ' Don't forget luncheon to- 
morrow.' 

Conrad walked home. He found his faithful candle 
waiting for him on the hall table ; he lighted it, and went 
mechanically upstairs. 

When he got into his sitting-room, he could just see, by 
the pinched and jflickering light of his candle, that a letter 
for him — only one — was lying on his table, and even by 
the light of that imsatisfactory candle he saw that the 
writing on the envelope was the writing of Clelia Vine. 

'We have arrived in London, but we have not yet 
positively settled anywhere, and may change our ground 



A LETTER AND A MEETING 179 

to-rOorrow. I will let you know to-morrow evening where 
we are to be found. Our further movements are all quite 
uncertain. We came here through Spain to avoid France. 
Gertrude has suffered much, though she won''t admit it, and 
bears bravely up. When you see us, don't say anything 
about her trouble. If she wishes to speak to you about 
it, you had better leave her to do so. You have been 
thinking of us, I know, and we have been thinking of you. 

' Clelia. 

' I ought to have written to you before, but I couldn't ; 
I hadn't the heart.' 

That was all ; but it was a great deal for Conrad. He 
put the letter to his lips ; then he went downstairs again, 
carrying his candle, which he put on the hall table, and 
there he extinguished it, and then he wandered out into 
the night, for he felt that he could not sleep for some 
horn's yet. It was not long after midnight, and the night 
was divine in moonlight. 

Conrad loved a long, lonely tramp at night through 
silencing London. He loved such a tramp at all times, 
but especially at night, when anything had fast, deep hold 
upon his mind and his heart. He wandered on, hardly 
knowing whither he was going. He passed along Picca- 
dilly, he turned into Grosvenor Place, and he made for 
the nearer end of the Chelsea Embankment. A vague 
thought took him that he should like to see that moon 
shining on the river. 

Before he reached the Embankment, or even the old 
Chelsea Hospital, with its clock-face shining a pale yellow 
against the silver of the moonlight, he came upon a dull 
little street, which he had often passed through in the 
daytime. It was a street made up for the most part of 



180 tHE iiit)DLE nma 

mean little dwellings and two or three small stables 
There were two or three laundries there, and one or two 
public-houses; there was a shop for the sale of stuffed 
birds. So far as these were concerned, nothing could well 
be less attractive or picturesque ; but there was an attrac- 
tion which had often drawn Jim Conrad that way. 

At the farther end of the street, as he was now entering 
it, and on his right-hand side, there stood an old ivy- 
covered church within a walled and railed enclosure of its 
own. The church had a square tower with battlements, 
like the keep of an old Norman castle; it had oblong 
windows, narrow and curiously suggestive of defence in 
time of civil trouble. 

Conrad knew nothing about the church — did not even 
know its name ; he had never troubled to find out, although 
he might have found out by simply crossing the street and 
reading the announcements of sermons and services and 
church social entertainments which were placarded, in 
print and white paper, on a two-legged, splay-footed 
notice-board which stood on the grass within the en- 
closure, but he had never had the curiosity to look. 
What had always fascinated him was the church itself, 
with its strange, old-world, militant sort of look, the 
church standing proud and lonely there among those petty 
shops and mean little houses, and frowzy women huddled 
at doorsteps, and dirty children enjoying themselves with 
skipping ropes and tip-cat, and waltzing on the pavement 
to the hideous discord of a barrel-organ. But now, this 
night, there was no nerve-disturbing barrel-organ ; there 
were no uncombed and blatant women; there were no 
children with skipping-ropes or other instruments of 
torture. All was peaceful, all was still, as if it were fair 
Melrose by moonlight, and only the stately, battlemented, 



A LETTER AND A MEETING 181 

ivy-clad church remained. The moon flooded it with 
light, and Conrad gazed at it in a curious sort of rapture. 

What on earth had it to do with Jim Conrad ? How 
could an old church in a London slum help him on through 
the troubles of his life ? He could not tell. The wisest 
man that ever lived could not tell — could not have told. 

All Conrad knew was that he had been inspired — ^no, 
not merely inspired, but actually driven, to look on that 
stately old church by Clelia Vine's letter, and that he 
could not help himself. That is just as good an explana- 
tion as can be given for many, not to say most, of the 
mysterious impulses of our lives. Nor could Jim Conrad 
tell then, or now, why, after having looked on that battle- 
mented church, he should forthwith stride off to the flat 
in the immediate neighbourhood of Berkeley Square and 
look up at the windows, and observe, with a certain 
interest, that the lights in Sir Francis Rose's rooms 
burned brightly still, at two hours after midnight. Jim 
did not stop to ask himself what possible connection there 
was between Clelia Vine's letter and the Chelsea church, 
between the Chelsea church and Sir Francis Rose's 
lodgings. 

Jim was punctual at luncheon the next day — ^that day, 
it should rather be said — ^for he had not gone to bed 
before the new day had fairly settled itself down upon the 
world. Sir Francis and he talked over many schemes and 
projects. 

" You sat up late last night,' said Jim, during a pause 
in the discussion of practical or visionary schemes. 

' So I did,' said Rose ; ' I often do. But how did you 
know — about last night, I mean ?' 

' Well, I happened to pass under your windows, and I 
saw that your lights were burning,' 



182 THE RIDDLE RING 

' Yes, yes ; you were at some festive gathering in this 
quarter, no doubt ?' 

' No, indeed ; I had been wandering on the fringe of the 
Chelsea region. I had been looking at a very picturesque 
old church that I have taken a fancy to in a slum near the 
old Chelsea Hospital.' 

Sir Francis Rose looked up with puckered brows and a 
curious appearance about him, as of one who gets a dim 
suspicion that some trap is being laid for him. 

' What is your church .?'' he asked, in a hoarse, embar- 
rassed voice — a voice which had lost in a moment all its 
music ; 'whereabouts is it ? What do you know about it ? 

' About it .'' Oh, I know absolutely nothing. Only it 
has caught my fancy, and I go and see it every now and 
then.' 

'But you haven't told me what chvu-ch it is or where 
it is.' 

Jim looked up a little disconcerted. He had not ex- 
pected to find his innocent little narrative excite so much 
keen interest. 

'Oh, it's only a church in a little street call Pagan's 
Row, not far from the old Hospital.' 

' The church in Pagan's Row .?' Sir Francis Rose asked, 
still turning his puckered eyebrows on to Jim's face. 
' What do you know about it — ^have you any association 
with it — have you heard anything about it .''' 

'I don't know anything about it,' Jim said, rather 
ciu^ly. ' Do you .?' 

' Yes, I do ! Yes, my dear Conrad, I do. But it 
doesn't matter in the least. It is only an odd sort of 
coincidence that you should have been there last night, and 
have come straight away here.' 

'I don't know anything about any coincidence in the 



A LETTER AND A MEETING 183 

matter,' Jim said, ' and I don't know why I put you to the 
trouble of hearing anything at all about my utterly un- 
important midnight wanderings.' 

' London is full of coincidences,' Rose observed gravely. 

' All right,' Jim replied ; ' let them coincide.' 

For he was still a little annoyed at the way in which his 
passing reference to his harmless midnight wanderings had 
been taken by his chief. 

After a while a hansom was called, and the two drove 
out together. Sir Francis Rose seemed by this time to 
have forgotten all about the church in Chelsea, and the 
coincidence, whatever it was. They called at the bookshop 
in Berkeley Square, and at the Berkeley Hotel, and other 
places. 

It was a beautiful day of the earlier spring. It was one 
of those rare days which make the more picturesque quarters 
of London look romantic and enchanting. Jim Conrad 
drank in the very life and rapture of the hour. The letter 
he had received had filled him with a strange sense of 
hopefulness. The letter and the weather seemed to be 
part of the one spell. 

' I'll not go in,' Jim said, as they stopped at an engraver's 
in Piccadilly ; ' I'll wait here for you.' 

He did not want to bury himself even for five minutes 
in a dull back-room of a shop. 

'AH right,' said Rose carelessly; 'I shan't keep you 
very long.' 

Jim looked along Piccadilly eastward. He felt somehow 
uplifted to a mood of enchantment. It was the letter, no 
doubt. He glanced into the shop as if to make sure that 
Rose was not present to see an3rthing that might be going 
to happen. He could not tell why, but he felt as if he 
j pould i^ot always trust himself in an over- wrought eniotiona,! 



184 THE RIDDLE RING 

mood with Rose. Rose had lived through and lived down 
all moods, Jim thought. In which thought, of course, he 
was utterly wrong ; but the talk of exhausted worldly ex- 
perience in which Rose so often indulged had quite taken 
in the younger man, and made him believe that Rose had 
lived down, had outlived, all human emotion. Rose would 
have been greatly pleased to hear that he had succeeded in 
producing such an impression on his young friend. 

And then Conrad looked up again, and the whole street, 
the whole scene, was blotted out for him, and he saw nothing 
but two great melancholy eyes looking fixedly at him. 
And then he jumped out of his cab. An open carriage 
had stopped beside him on the pavement, and he saw Clelia 
Vine, and afterwards — when his eyes lent themselves to 
other realities — he saw Gertrude Morefield. Both women 
were in mourning. Gertrude was looking thin and wasted. 

Jim took the hand of each girl in his. For some occult 
reason, wholly unexplained in his own mind, he called them 
'Gertrude' and 'Clelia.' Probably he thought it was a 
way of showing his sympathy. 

' You got my letter ?'' Clelia asked, and she gave him a 
meaning glance, which told him that the talk must soon 
be over. 

' Yes ; but it gave me no address.' 

' We were too unsettled as to our doings. Now we have 
found a place. We have not a moment to spare. Good- 
bye !' 

' But I shall hear from you .?' 

' Oh yes, of course,' she answered, with a sweet smile and 
a tint of blush. ' I shall send you our address this evening. 
You must come and see us as soon as you can. Gei-trude 
wants to see you, and so do I.' 

' Do you stay long in town ?' 



A LETTER AND A MEETING 185 

' You shall know all when I see you. Now good-bye.'' 

She held out her hand; he pressed it, and then took 
Gertrude's half-extended hand. He found no pressure in 
that. Gertrude had not spoken one word. 

The carriage was just driving away as Sir Francis was 
coming out of the shop. He stared at the ladies ; neither 
of them looked at him. His eyebrows contracted. He set 
his lips closely together. He was evidently trying to keep 
down or conceal the effect of a sudden surprise. 

' What is the matter .?' Jim asked, in no little astonish- 
ment. He had never seen Rose under the influence of 
surprise — ^had not supposed that there was anything on 
earth that could surprise him. But Jim was destined in 
that matter to be a little surprised himself. 

' I don't know what is the matter with you, Conrad,' Sir 
Francis said, in a peevish tone. ' You have nothing about 
you to-day but coincidences. First you start the church 
in Pagan's Row, and then '' 

' And then ?' Jim asked. ' What's the " and then," and 
what's the matter with the church in Pagan's Row ?' 

' Well, but, I say, these confounded coincidences rather 
pitch a man off his balance. Who were the ladies you 
were just now speaking to i*' 

' Is there any coincidence in that .?' Jim asked, almost 
angrily. He did not by any means like the new manner 
of his friend, and was much inclined for the moment to 
stop the cab, get out, and leave Sir Francis Rose to the 
enjoyment of his own humours. 

Sir Francis evidently began to think that he had lost 
his head rather too much. He pulled himself together 
with a laugh, and said : 

' My dear Conrad, I must really apologize for my bad 
temper, and beg you to excuse me. The truth is, that I 



186 THE RIDDLE RING 

fancied I recognised one of the ladies in the carriage, and 
my mind had been turned in the direction of the lady I 
supposed I had known by your confounded allusion to the 
church in Pagan's Row. Dear boy, I was secretly married 
in that church ! I was only too anxious to forget all about 
it, but, you see, you wouldn't let me.' 

' How on earth could I know ?' 

' Why, of com-se, my dear, good friend, you could not 
possibly know. But in some of my moods I am a mere 
bundle of nerves, and the allusion to the church in Pagan's 
Row, followed up by my fancied recognition of one of the 
ladies you were speaking to, was too much for me — ^bowled 
me over, in fact. Do forgive me if I seemed rude or petulant. 
I didn't mean to be anything of the kind, I do assure you.' 

' All right,' Jim answered cheerily. ' It doesn't matter 
in the least. The ladies I was talking to are the girls of 
whom I told you ; one of them has lost her mother.' 

' Ah ! I did not so much notice her.' 

' But how do you know which was which, as you don't, 
I fancy, know either of them ?' 

' Well, I take it that the one in the deepest moimiing 
was the daughter of the dead mother.' 

' You seem to have looked at them pretty closely,' Jim 
said, with a somewhat questioning smile. 

' One takes in a good deal at a glance, when it has 
been his habit to train himself to observation,' Sir Francis 
replied, now once again completely master of his voice and 
of himself. 

' Whom did you suppose the other lady to have been ?' 
Jim asked, with a sudden, shuddery sort of feeling passing 
through him. 

' My dear boy, I thought — ^if you wiU have it — that she 
was my wife j' 



AN EPOCH-MAKING DAY 187 



CHAPTER XVII. 

AN EPOCH-MAKING DAY, 

' That she was my wife !' 

That she was the wife of Sir Francis Rose ! That Clelia 
Vine was not Clelia Vine any longer, but a sort of mys- 
terious, unacknowledged, disallowed Lady Rose, cut poor 
Jim quite to the heart. Yet he could not but believe that 
at last he knew the truth. For the moment his whole 
mind seemed to be set upon no purpose beyond the effort 
to make it appear that he knew nothing at all about the 
matter. It was his first thought that Clelia Vine — the 
woman whom he knew and loved as Clelia Vine — should 
know before anyone else knew what had been forced upon 
him to know, and should know how she stood with regard 
to that knowledge of his, and prepare herself to meet the 
new conditions. So he braced himself up to a great effort, 
and he took the words of Sir Francis Rose with entire 
composure. He was anxious to learn as clearly as he could 
what were the elements of the situation with which Clelia 
Vine might have to deal. 

' Like your wife ?'' he asked in a sort of half-curious tone. 
' Did you really think so ? 

' Yes, my dear Conrad ; by Jove, I did !' 

' Your wife was — I mean, is — I think you told me, very 
pretty ?' Jim asked, trying to seem all cool, and careless, 
and serene. 

'Very pretty — ^yes, very pretty. The likeness, or the 
imaginary likeness, sent quite a thrill through me. Of 
course, it couldn't have been my wife, but for the moment 
I was taken aback.' 



188 THE RIDDLE EING 

' Did the lady see you ?' 

' No ; I am quite sure she did not — or the other one, 
either. They were both looking away from me — looking 
after you, I have no doubt, as was indeed but highly 
natural.' 

' I can tell you the names of the ladies. One was Miss 
Gertrude Morefield, daughter of Mrs. Morefield, who has 
died ' 

Sir Francis seemed to Jim to be a little startled by the 
name, but he spoke with an air of perfect indifference. 

'All right, my dear Conrad. Never mind about the 
name. Of course, it was all an absurd mistake of mine, 
and I think you are mainly responsible for it, with your 
unsesisonable allusion to the church in Pagan's Row. The 
other lady — she, too, I suppose, is unmarried .'''' 

Jim could not prevent a flush coming into his face, and 
he found it difficult to answer. 

' ril tell you her name,' he said, and he felt that Rose 
was studying him all the time. 

' No, no, my dear fellow ; that would be indiscreet of 
me. Perhaps it is she who is responsible for the Pata- 
gonian expedition. Well, I am getting out here. Could 
you manage to look in at the Voyagers' at eleven to-night ? 
A man is coming to see me there — Captain Martin — 
whom I should like you to know.' 

Jim was, for the moment, absorbed in thought. Then, 
as he was getting out of the cab, he merely said, ' Yes, Fll 
be there,' and they parted. 

Poor Jim's mind was indeed tempest-tossed. He had 
little or nothing to go upon, and yet he felt convinced 
that he had made a terrible discovery. Then, as when a 
flash of lightning clears up the darkness for a moment, but 
only to make the path more dark and difficult for the way 



AN EPOCH-MAKING BAY 189 

that has yet to be traversed, Conrad saw for the instant 
all the realities of the situation, but was stricken blind as 
to what was to follow. Now he read for the first time, 
and in letters of light, the story of his strangely found, ill- 
gifted ring. Francisco — Rosita — he had discovered it all ! 
Rose had called himself Francisco ; she had evidently once 
been called in fond playfulness Rosita, because of his 
family name of Rose. 

Jim knew it all now. The flash of lightning had illu- 
mined the immediate darkness. But how as to the way 
that still lay before him ? Was it not darker and more 
perturbed than ever ? Was he not the sworn comrade, it 
might almost be said, of the man who, whatever his wrong- 
doings, was the lawful husband of the woman whom poor 
Jim Conrad adored ; the woman whose friends adored her ; 
the woman of the blameless life, of the exalted moral con- 
science ; the woman who had told Jim Conrad that she 
would have loved him — him ! — if she were free to love at 
all, but who, out of her willingness to love, if such love 
were possible, had besought of him to love another woman 
and marry her.? 

His heart seemed bui-sting within him. There are times 
when mere emotion submerges for the moment even the 
common physical powers of hearing and of sight. Such a 
moment had come to — had come upon — plucky Jim Con- 
rad. He knew it, and in his heart he was not ashamed. 
He was determined not to betray his real self. 

He had, as has been said, little or nothing to go upon. 
Yet he was convinced. What had he to go upon ? Only, 
in the first instance, the strange confusion of Sir Francis 
Rose when he heard of the church in Pagan''s Row; the 
sudden surprise of Rose on seeing one of the women in the 
carriage; his declaration that she seemed like his wife; 



190 THE RIDDLE RING 

and Jim's own very limited knowledge of Clelia Vine's 
story, and the names upon the ring. 

But there was something more than all this — something 
which even the Psychical Society itself would find it hard 
to explain. At his very first meeting with Sir Francis 
Rose, Jim had - felt himself drawn by some mysterious 
feeling which had almost as much in it of repulsion as 
of attraction. There was a vague sense of fear in it — the 
sort of fear which tells us that this meeting and this hour 
forbode sorrow to some other meeting and some other hour. 

Never for a moment while under the full fascination of 
Rose's gay and gallant temperament, of his com-age, his 
undaunted animal spirits, his bright talk, his frankly- 
proffered friendship, had Jim been free from a curious half- 
consciousness that all this could not last, and that one day 
or other Rose and he might be brought — he could not tell 
how — into antagonism — he could not imagine about what. 
Now that the first faint light of an explanation was given, 
Jim took it as a revelation. 

' I always felt it,' he said to himself. ' I felt it when I 
didn't know anything about it.' 

He was certain now that Sir Francis Rose was the 
Francisco of the ring, and the husband of Clelia Vine. 

That night Jim received a line from Clelia, merely tell- 
ing him that Gertrude and she were staying at a private 
hotel in Albemarle Street, Piccadilly, and asking him to 
come to see them next day. Later on that night he kept 
his appointment, and went to the Voyagers' Club to meet 
Sir Francis Rose and his friend. The friend was intro- 
duced to him as Captain Martin. He was a tall, well-set- 
up man, with a gorgeous shirt-front. He had been in 
Patagonia, Sir Francis said of him ; but Captain Martin 
did not seem to have the common weakness of all or most 



AN EPOCH-MAKING DAY 191 

travellers, from Herodotus and Sinbad the Sailor down- 
wards. He did not seem to care to say much about 
Patagonia, and, indeed, Jim did not want to hear much 
on that subject just then. 

Jim was not in a mood to concern himself greatly about 
Patagonia. He was still possessed with a vague idea that 
the best thing he could do under all the conditions would 
be to take himself out of the way somewhere — anywhere ; 
but he was not in the mood for appreciating instructions 
as to a definite journey to Patagonia in particular. He 
did not stay long — made a fresh appointment with Rose 
and went his way. 

The three had been sitting and smoking in the little 
recess at the head of one of the flights of stairs — not in 
the regular smoking-room. There was no one now within 
hearing of Rose and Captain Martin. 

' You would know him again .''' Rose asked of the gallant 
Captain, nodding in the direction of the disappearing 
Conrad. 

'I should think so, Sir Francis,' said the subservient 
Captain Martin. 

' Well, look here : I want you to keep a close eye on 
him. He lives in Clarges Street. There is his address. Let 
me know where he goes every day for the next week or so.' 

' All right. Sir Francis.' 

' And be sure you don't let him see you.' 

' Oh, ril take good care of that.' 

'You can find out, I dare say, something about the 
people he goes to see — two ladies, very likely. You can 
manage to get something out of the servants, can't you ?' 

' I dare say I can manage that. Sir Francis ;' and the 
gallant Captain grinned again, as if quite pleased with 
himself. 



192 THE RIDDLE RING 

'Very good. Then, you can go now. I have some 
letters to write.' 

Captain Martin rose, made an obsequious bow, and 
went his docile way. Now, the Army List contains the 
names of more than one Captain Martin, but it does not 
contain the name of that Captain Martin. For that 
Captain Martin was simply a private detective, who, 
having a good presentable appearance, and looking in 
evening dress quite like enough to a military man to pass 
muster, was employed by many men like Sir Francis Rose, 
who had a desire occasionally to find out what other people 
were doing. He was only the sort of assistant, however, 
whom Sir Francis Rose employed for very easy jobs of work. 

Soon after Captain Martin had gone, Sir Francis had a 
visit from Mr. Waley. The good Waley was shown in, 
and sat with his chief in the recess above the stairs ; and 
they had cigars. Mr. Waley seldom, except at meals, 
removed a cigar from his mouth, unless with the reason- 
able object of putting another cigar in. The two friends 
talked for a while over various business projects, and the 
refreshing whisky-and-soda went its round. 

Suddenly Sir Francis said : 

'Look here, Waley: I want Maimaduke Coffin over 
here soon.' 

' Coffin over here ? You don't mean that ! He won't 
like to come, will he ?' 

' All the same, he'll have to come.' 

' What in the nation can you want him for .?' 

' Well, I may have use for him — I may want him to do 
something that he can do better than anybody else.' 

'Half a moment, chief — and here the thumb went, as 
a matter of course, halfway up the first joint of the fore- 
fino-er ; ' am I to know anything about this business ? 



AN EPOCH-MATaNG DAY 193 

' Not for the moment, my dear Waley.' 

' But later on ?' 

'Later on? Why, of course — you shall know every- 
thing.' 

' That's enough. When do you want Coffin ?' 

' Let me see. I'll tell you to-morrow.' 

' All right,' said the faithful Waley. 

So they timied to talk about other things. 

The time came when, in the ordinary course, parting 
ought to take place. It seemed to the considerate Waley 
that it ought to take place all the more promptly just 
then because the mind of his chief had evidently been 
quite away for many minutes from the subjects of con- 
versation. So he stood up, and was about to say good- 
night. 

'Not yet, Waley, please,' Sir Francis interposed, with 
a suddenly awakened interest and energy. ' Sit down for 
a moment or two longer.' 

'All right,' the dutiful Waley answered, and he sat 
down and waited. 

There was absolute silence for a few seconds. Then Sir 
Francis struck his clenched hand on the little table in 
front of him. 

' Tell me, Waley,' he asked, ' have you not known days 
when you are suddenly made aware — you can't tell how — 
that something is going to happen to you — that you are 
going to do something, to undertake something, which 
may change the. whole course of your life ? Have you not 
known such days as that, Waley .'"' 

The cautious Waley thought for a little. 

'Well, no,' he answered slowly; 'I can't say that I 
have. You see, when I'm going to make a venture of any 
kind, Tvc generally thought it all out beforehand, and I 



194 THE RIDDLE RING 

know what the risks are, and Fm equal to it all, naturally ; 
and so it doesn't come upon me like a streak of greased 
lightning, don't you see, Sir Francis ?' 

' But, good heavens, man ! do you mean to say that you 
have never had a day when it was borne in upon you that 
you had come to a new crisis in your life ? I believe the 
novelists would call it an epoch-making day ?' 

'Dare say they would — I could believe anything of 
them, although I don't know much about them, for I ain't 
a novel-reader myself. But my wife used to read novels.' 

' Oh, confound your wife !' 

' Confound my wife if you like, for aU I care,' Waley 
said rather stiffly ; ' but I believe, whatever the faults of a 
man's wife may be, it is not usual in the circles which you 
adorn, chief, and in which I don't shine, to confound a 
man's wife to his face. Leave the husband to confound 
her for himself; that's my idea of the proper way to do 
things.' 

And Mr. Waley again stood up with an air of injured 
dignity. 

Sir Francis knew very well that Mr. Waley was no mere 
led-captain, and serf, and sycophant. He had, indeed, on 
the whole, more respect for his faithful henchman than he 
had for anyone else in the world. 

' Sit down again, Waley : I beg yom- pardon most sin- 
cerely. I did not mean to say anything in the slightest 
degree disrespectful to Mrs. Waley. But I forgot myself. 
I am in an irritable condition of the nerves, and the 
mention of anybody's wife puts me out. Sit down, my 
dear fellow, and accept my sincere apologies.' 

' Oh, it's all right,' the good-natured Waley answered 
eagerly, his sudden anger quite faded out of his face and 
of his heart. ' Don't you talk about apologies — nothing 



AN EPOCH-MAKING DAY 195 

of the sort is wanted between you and me. But you were 
talking of epoch-making days' — for Waley considered 
that common politeness made it necessary for him to bring 
back the conversation to the point at which it had been 
broken off, and thereby to show that he took a deep and 
friendly interest in it. 

' Yes,' Sir Francis said, but in a somewhat languid and 
even melancholy tone, quite different from that in which 
he had suddenly started the subject. ' I have found such 
epoch-making days now and again in my time, and I am 
satisfied that this is one of them. I know it, Waley ! I 
could not be more sure of it if one were to rise from the 
dead and warn me of it.' 

' Has anything happened ? Waley asked in a tone of 
something like alarm ; for there was no mistaking the 
earnestness of his chief. 

'Nothing has happened, nothing whatever. I mean, 
nothing that anybody would call anything. You see, if 
anything tremendous had happened, there would be no 
particular wonder in my knowing that the day was an 
epoch in ray life. No, Waley, there is nothing to tell. 
But I know that I shall do something which will change 
the whole course of my life.' 

' What put that into your head .?' 

' Two or three words, a glimpse at a face, a fancied re- 
semblance — I don't well know what.' 

' But what do you want to do .'*' 

' Ah, my good Waley, there you have me,' Sir Francis 
replied, with a smile. He had now quite recovered his 
self-conti-ol. "You must ask me something easier, I 
don't know what I want to do, but I feel it borne in 
upon me that I shall do something.' 

' Don't you go to do anything rash,' Waley said, with 



196 THE RIDDLE RING 

much anxiety in his voice ; ' and don't you go to do any- 
thing without consulting me. Don't you remember the 

awful muddle we made over those Black YaiTa mines ' 

' The awful muddle we made ? The awful muddle / 
made, my dear Waley,' Sir Francis interposed, with a 
sweet smile. 

' Well, what I mean is this : the awful muddle we made 
between us, because for once we acted without consulting 
together.' 

' My dear Waley, nobody could gloss over my stupid, 
headstrong blunder in that case more charmingly than 
you do.' 

' Never mind about all that ! But don't you go to do 
anything without our talking it out in advance.' 

' This is a different sort of thing ; it has nothing to do 
■with mines and ventures and all that sort of prosaic 
business.' 

' All the same, I should feel a sight more comfortable if 
I knew that I was to be talked to before anything was 
done.' 

' But it may be something which concerns me alone.' 
' Don't matter about that ; a man isn't often the best 
judge of his own affairs, don't you see ? 

' Yes, that's all right ; but there come times when a 
man must act for himself — when he must follow his star.' 

' Oh, bother his star ! that sort of thing is all rot and 
poetry ! I say,' Waley asked, suddenly seized with a new 
idea, ' is it about this business, or this idea of yours, or 
whatever it is, that Coffin is to be brought over to 
London .? That's what I want to know.' 

' Yes, Waley, it is. I want Coffin to find out a few 
things for me. It may come to nothing — T don't know ; 
Jjut perhaps I shall want to make use of him. Don't ask 



AN EPOCH-MAKING DAY 197 

me for any more explanations. You see, I can't tell you 
anything ; and, really, as I said before, there is nothing to 
be told; 

'Yes, but now look here. Only half an hour ago — 
there or thereabouts — when you told me you wanted 
Coffin over in London, you said I would know all at the 
right time. Now you tell me I am not to know. How is 
this .'' I can''t see into it rightly.' 

'My dear Waley,' Sir Francis said, rousing himself 
again into a little animation, ' you know that I can't do 
without you in anything. Yes, of course I shall keep to 
my word. Of course you shall know in good time.' 

'Honour bright, honest Injin?' Waley asked, using as 
his two closing words a phrase borrowed from his American 
reminiscences. 

' Honour bright !' 

' And before anything is done ? 

'Yes, certainly,' Sir Francis answered, with the air of 
one who is growing wearied of the discussion. ' I promise 
you, Waley, that you shall be called into council before 
anything is done.' 

' All right,' said Waley, rising again ; and then he took 
his leave. 

As he passed into the street, he muttered to himself : 

' Never saw the chief like that since the night when he 
told me he had put everything he had into the Black 
Yarra mines, and that it was borne in upon him that the 
Black Yarra was to come to grief, and I had so much 
trouble to keep him from blowing his brains out !' 

And so he went his way. 

' I wish I hadn't told him anything,' Sir Francis said to 
himself as he got into his cab to go home. 'But I 
couldn't help it ; the impulse was on me ; I must say 



198 THE RIDDLE RING 

something to somebody. Perhaps it is just as well. I 
may want some control. Suppose it's all nonsense and 
nothing ! Suppose it wasn't she ! Oh, but it was she !' 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

JIM IS AN UNWELCOME MESSENGEE. 

It was with a beating heart that Jim Conrad found him- 
self at the door of the private hotel in Albemarle Street 
next day. In an odd sort of way, he could not help con- 
trasting the well-ordered commonplace of the hotel with 
his own disturbed and impassioned mood. It did not look 
like the sort of place to hold a woman with a story like 
that of Clelia Vine ; for he felt sure that he knew most of 
her story now. Nor did it even seem a fitting place to 
enclose the grief and the bereavement of Gertrude More- 
field. As if a tragic story must always be told in tragic 
tones — as if grief must for ever carry a funeral wreath ! 

He rang the bell ; these small, well-ordered private 
hotels in the West End do not have their doors always 
open to the stranger, as the doors of the good Axylus were 
in the ' Iliad.' A page-boy opened for him, and when Jim 
asked for Miss Morefield, he was bidden to follow the 
youth, and was conducted into a sitting-room on the first- 
floor, and politely informed that the fact of his arrival 
would be made known to Miss Morefield. 

He had a few minutes in which to study the room. He 
could see that it was in itself, in its furniture, and in its 
preconceived arrangements, a model of the best -class 
sittino--room in the small private hotel of the West End. 
5ut he could also see ths^t the room had bee^ disarranged, ' 



JIM IS AN UNWELCOME MESSENGER 1D9 

re-arranged, and almost reconstructed. The table had 
been taken away from its conventional place in the centre 
of the room — Jim could see that — and had been set against 
one of the walls, and it was covered with books and flowers. 
On the formal sofas were thrown pretty pieces of Eastern 
work — ^Algerian work, as Jim assumed — made up for the 
most part of silk and of gold embroidery. It was not 
possible, of course, to abolish a;ltogether the vapid framed 
engravings that were supposed to adorn the walls ; but 
there were several pretty sketches set up that showed of 
artistic taste and refinement testing itself in crooked high- 
staired Algerian streets and in Kabyle villages. Jim could 
see in his mind's eye the two girls reconstructing the room, 
and determined amid all their trouble to make it a habitable 
home for mortals endowed with some manner of artistic 
culture. His mind went back to the room in the Paris 
hotel, where he had first been entertained by the More- 
fields, and it must be owned that he felt a certain difii- 
culty in controlling the outer and visible expression of his 
emotions. 

Then there was a tread of light feet on the stairs, and 
a rustle of petticoats, and in a moment Gertrude Morefield 
and Clelia Vine were in the room. Jim could not help 
noticing a certain difference in the way in which the girls 
met him. Miss Morefield was perfectly composed and 
serene. She greeted him with a friendly welcoming smile, 
which seemed to have nothing of a past behind it. But 
the tears sprang into Clelia's eyes as she held out her hand 
to welcome him. Jim understood the different ways of the 
two girls in a moment, and by instinct. Gertrude had, of 
course, set up for herself some theory as to how women 
should comport themselves in the most solemn trials of 
Jife. Clelia had no theory; she let her feelings show 



200 THE RIDDLE RING 

themselves if they would. He thought Clelia was looking 
handsomer than ever. The thought brought a pang with 
it. She was looking handsomer because the very expres- 
sion of sorrow that spoke out of her eyes and from the 
deep shades beneath her eyes and from her trembling lips 
seemed to cry out for sympathy and comfort, and he had 
nothing but bad news to bring her. For he had made up 
his mind that he must tell her how he had become acquainted 
A\ith her story and with her husband. 

Then they talked. The girls told him all about their 
travels and about their uncertainty as to where they were 
going next. They did not think of staying very long in 
London ; but, then, they were quite uncertain as to their 
prospects and projects, ' and,' Clelia said, ' we are, as you 
know, fatally independent.' 

'Yes, I know,' Jim said, and he did not quite know 
what to say next. 

' We were thinking of going to America,' Gertrude said. 
' I suppose that in the New World we should get some new 
ideas as to the destiny of womanhood and of the whole 
human race.' 

' But is it much of a new world ?' Jim asked. ' Hasn't 
it, too, grown pretty old already .?' 

' Oh no, I think not — I hope not !' cried Gertrude 
fervently. ' I am sure we shall find some new ideas still 
there.' 

' We thought of going to India, too,' Clelia said, ' and 
to China and Japan. My sentiments lead me rather to 
the old places than to the new. But, then, I am afraid I 
have not the earnest purpose that fills Gertrude's heart — 
the purpose to do good to womanhood and to the human 
race in general, man and woman.' 

' Come, Clelia, I won't allow you to say that of yourself 



JIM IS AN UNWELCOME MESSENGER 201 

— even to Mr. Conrad, who knows you. You must not 
believe a word she says of that kind, Mr. Conrad. She is 
as much concerned in doing good to women and to men as 
I am. Oh, what a way to put it ! — as if I were trying to 
praise myself and to make out that I was bent on becoming 
a great public benefactress !' 

'Never mind, dear,'' Clelia said. 'No one who knows 
you will ever suppose that you made any attempt to get 
praise or honour for yourself. Certainly Mr. Conrad knows 
you too well for that.' 

' Oh yes,' Jim said quietly, and yet with a certain shy- 
ness in his voice. ' I know Miss Morefield quite too well 
for that.' 

He had given up calling the girls by their names. The 
time for effusiveness, he thought, had gone by- He was 
made shy only because he could not help remembering how 
Clelia had striven to make him fall in love with Miss 
Morefield and had urged him to make love to her. 

Then they came to more general talk, and Jim lingered 
on and on only too gladly. 

They were dining rather early. Miss Morefield pressed 
Jim to stay and join their little dinner. Jim stayed most 
willingly. The company of these two young women was 
genial to him. In a curious soi't of way he seemed to look 
upon Gertrude Morefield as one who out of her sorrow had 
grown older, and attained to something like the position 
of a matron. When first he knew her, and, until now, all 
the time he had known her, she was a girl under the charge 
of her mother. Now she was all alone, and privileged to 
act for herself. Now she could choose her own place of 
residence — could travel or sit still just as she pleased. It 
seemed natural to Jim that she should ask him to stay to 
dinner, and that he should accept the invitation. 



202 THE RIDDLE RING 

So they dined together — ^they three. 

' Tell me,' Gertrude said, ' the name of the champagne 
you used to like.' 

' Oh, any wine will do for me,' Jim answered abruptly. 

' Yes, but I know there was a wine you did especially 
like — a champagne of some brand. My mother knew all 
about it, and always ordered it for you. Please let me do 
the same.' 

Jim felt a little astonished that she should thus talk of 
her mother in connection with so trivial a subject. Perhaps 
his face showed in its expression something like the thought, 
for she looked at him fixedly, and then said : 

' You wonder at my speaking of my mother in that 
way ? Yes, I know you do. But do you really think my 
mother is actually dead — dead — dead for me ?' 

Jim was unable to make any reply. 

Gertrude replied for herself. 

' My mother is just as much alive for me now as if she 
sat by my side,' Gertrude calmly declared. ' It is only as 
if I were here and she were in San Remo. It is only a 
question of the time of separation ; we shall meet again 
soon or late. She lives for me still, and I for her. I don't 
believe in death. There is no such thing as death !' 

' In that sense,' said Jim, ' you speak the truth. There 
is no such thing as death ; but we commonplace mortals 
cannot feel so nobly and so piurely as that. I cannot. To 
me death is death.' 

' And to me,' said Clelia sadly. ' I agree with you. I 
admire Gertrude for taking so exalted a view of life and of 
eternity ; but I cry over my losses, and I think them my 
losses, all the same.' 

' I believe in the continuity of humanity,' said Geiirude 
solemnly. 



JIM IS AN UNWELCOME MESSENGER 203 

' I suppose I do, too, if I quite knew what it was,' Clelia 
declared ; ' but I don't think I do know. And, besides, 
darling Gertrude, you are peculiar in one way. When you 
continue your humanity into another world, there is no One 
likely to be there whom you will dread to meet. Some 
others are not so lucky. You will go to rejoin your mother. 
There are women who — well, I adored my mother, and if 
she alone could claim me in the other world, ah ! then I 
should be glad to say that there was no such thing as death!' 

Jim was astonished. He had never before heard Miss 
Vine, as he must still call her, make such open allusion to 
the peculiar conditions of her life. He was touched by 
the confidence it showed between her and Gertrude — 
between her and him. 

' No,' Gertrude said decisively, and as one who felt that 
the time had come to close the discussion, ' I never could 
admit that my mother was dead to me. She is not ; she is 
alive for me ; she is with me always.' 

Jim looked up at her, and he could see that, for all her 
convictions, and for all her confidence, and for all her 
refusal to recognise the existence of such a thing as death, 
her eyes now, and for the first time, were swimming in 
tears. Alas ! set up any theory of life or death you will, 
life and death remain life and death, and are proven by 
our own tears as well as by our own smiles. Jim was sure 
that Gertrude's theory commanded her mind, but he was 
equally sure that it did not command her heart, and he 
could see for himself that it had no manner of control 
over the tears in her eyes. 

' Come,' said Clelia courageously ; ' all this time we have 
not ordered the champagne, and we don't even know what 
we are to order. Do you know, Mr. Conrad, a man told 
Tpe not very long ago tha,t he felt suie a wonjan's only idea 



204 THE RIDDLE RING 

of dinner — apart, of course, from a regular dinner-party- 
was something on a tray. Do you think we are as bad as 
that?' 

' Well, not all of you,' Jim said, delighted to give the 
talk a little brighter flow. 

Then they talked of many things. The girls unfolded 
some of their vague plans to Jim ; Jim found in his mind 
some objection to every one of them. His first wish was 
that they should stay in London while he was there ; but 
he had, to do him justice, a stronger and a deeper feeling 
than that. He knew that they could not possibly settle 
on any plans until Clelia had become possessed of the story 
he had to tell her. It was a grim duty he had to perform, 
but he had to perform it. He wondered to himself whether 
he should get a chance of speaking to her alone that night, 
or whether he should have to go away without telling her 
anything, and then write to her and ask her to see him and 
hear what he had to say. He felt as if he could not speak 
before Gertrude, although he had not the slightest doubt 
that whatever he told to Clelia would be told at once by 
her to Miss Morefield. 

The dinner passed over. Jim was allowed to smoke a 
cigarette ; he would have been allowed to smoke a cigar if 
only he had had the courage to ask for such a permission. 
The windows were open, and the soft spring air of the 
twilight came freely in. The lamps were lighted. 

' Oh,' Gertrude said abruptly, and rising from her chair, 
' I must finish a letter. Do excuse me ; and please, Clelia, 
don't let Mr. Conrad go mitil I come back — ^I shan't be 
long.' 

' Oh, I shan't go,' Jim replied. 

Then Clelia and he were alone, and Clelia turned to him 
with an impatient look. 



JIM IS AN UNWELCOME MESSENGER 205 

* Come,' she said eagerly ; ' you have something to tell 
me. I see it in your eyes ; I saw it all the evening.' 

' I have something to tell you. Do you know who is in 
town, and has seen you ?' 

Clelia's eyebrows contracted, and she pressed her hand 
suddenly, unwittingly, against her heart, and a flush came 
over her face ; she had not in her mind the slightest doubt 
as to what she was going to hear. 

' Tell me,' was all she said. 

' Your husband is in town, and has seen you.' 

' Oh God !' she murmured ; then her head sank. 

' Yes, it is true,' Jim said. ' I came to tell you.' 

' But how do you know T she asked, somewhat defiantly, 
lifting her head again, and looking fixedly into his face. 
' Who told you ? I never told you even his name.' 

' No, you never did, but I know it now. You are Lady 
Rose.' 

' Lady Rose .'' Lady ? Is his father dead T 

' Yes, and your very question settles it all for me. Your 
husband is now Sir Francis Rose. You were once called 
Rosita by him because of his family name, were you not .'' 
and he called himself Francisco. And I found the ring 
which you threw away one day in the Bois de Boulogne, 
and I little thought when I found it that I should ever 
come to know you and to — and — yes — yes — I can't help it 
— ^and to love you.' 

' Oh, hush, hush, my friend !' she said, in a low and 
frightened tone ; ' you must not talk like that ; you must 
not think like that.' 

' I can't think any other way,' Jim said doggedly. ' I 
shall think of you always like that. But I'll not speak 
about it, if you like. No, never once again. I can promise 
that — that's about all I can promise. After all, what does 



206 THE RIDDLE RING^ 

it matter to you whether I love you or not ? It is no fault 
of yours if I do love you.' 

' It does matter to me ever so much,' she interrupted. 
' I want you to be happy, and you can't be happy if you 
throw your love away '' 

' It's my own love,' Jim replied, in the same tone and 
mood. ' Let me thi-ow it where I like. You can't prevent 
me.' 

' I can't, indeed ; I wish I could ! And I believe all you 
say, and I almost wish I didn't. And so you found that 
ring ?' she said eagerly, turning the perilous talk away. 

' I found it, yes ; why did you thi-ow it away ? It was 
you who threw it away, of course ?' 

' Oh yes, it was I.' 

' Yes, I knew that ; I figured it all out, but only lately 
— quite lately. It cost me many sleepless nights before 
that, I can tell you.' 

' Poor boy !' she said gently and compassionately. ' What 
led you to take any interest in the ring of somebody utterly 
unknown to you .?' 

' How could I tell you .-' It was fate, I suppose ; at least, 
that is the grand way in which the writers of romance would 
put it. I knew from the very moment when I picked it 
up that it would have something to do with my life, and 
so it has — so it has. Tell me : why did you throw it away .''' 

' My friend, I can't tell you that. I have so much 
sense of loyalty and of what you men call honour — and 
which you say is unknown to women ' 

' I never said anything of the kind, and I never thought 
anything of the kind,' Jim grumbled out. 

' Well, never mind ; I only meant some men. I have 
so much of the sense of loyalty and of honour left in me 
that I will not arraign my husband to anyone — even to 



JIM IS AN UNWELCOME MESSENGER 207 

Gertrude, even to you. There ! let us be done with that. 
Tell me : does he know that he saw me ? Does he know 
that I am in London ? 

' I think not. But if he cares to take the pains, he can 
easily enough find out.' 

' He will not care to take the pains. I am nothing to 
him.' 

' I read him differently,' said Jim sadly. 

She looked at him with a glance of keen inquiry, but 
she restrained herself and said nothing on that subject. 

' You must tell me about the finding of that ring,' she 
said, ' another time, not now. And you must give me 
back the ring.' 

' If you wish for it, certainly.' 

' If I wish for it ! Yes. If I could wish for anything ! 
I only wish I could wish for anything — even for the moon !' 

She smiled a wild smile, and the heart of the young man 
was touched to the very quick. He longed to touch her 
hand in merest token of sympathy, but he did not dare to 
do it. Indeed, to what purpose should he do it.'' She 
knew all that he felt just as well as he did. A pressure of 
the hand would make no diiFerence. Into the story of her 
life love was now forbidden to come. 

Clelia recovered her composure in a moment, and spoke 
in quiet, subdued tones. 

' You shall tell me about the ring another time. 
Gertrude will be back in a few moments.' 

' What do you mean to tell her i"' 

'About what.?' 

'Well, about what I have just told you.' 

' About my husband being in London i"' 

' Yes.' 

' Oh, I shall tell her that he is in London. I shall tell 



208 - THE RIDDLE RING 

her, my friend, all that I tell to you — but no more. She 
will not ask to know any more. She has full trust in me — 
you have full trust in me ?'' 

' I have indeed,' he said fervently. ' I trust in you as 1 
trust in heaven.' 

' Generosity of youth ! Take care that you don't turn 
out cynical later on, and talk of women as if they were 
beings that came from a different place — not heaven. Is 
not that the fashion of the present day .''' 

' I know nothing of the fashions of the present day,' 
Jim said vehemently. ' I know what I think about you.' 

' Thank you,' she said gently. 

' Look here, hadn't you better think of leaving London 
soon ? I don't want you to go, but would it not be well ?' 

' To avoid being seen ? 

' Yes ; perhaps to avoid being persecuted.' 

' Oh, there is no fear,' she said, not without bitterness. 
' Wliy should he persecute me ? It was not from me it 
came. Well, well, well, never mind. Still, if Gertrude 
wishes to go, I shall have no wish to stay. There is 
nothing to keep me in London.' 

' Nothing .?' poor Jim asked, quite forgetting himself 
for. the moment, and putting a question which he ought 
not to have put. 

She turned on him with a look of kindness and com- 
passion. 

' Nothing !' she said firmly. ' The less you and I see 
of each other for the present — ah, perhaps for ever — the 
better. Hush ! here is Gertrude.' 

And Gertrude came into the room, and they talked 
about things in general. 

' Don't leave to^ra without letting me know,' Jim said, 
as he was getting up to say good-bye. 



JIM IS AN UNWELCOME MESSENGER 209 

' Oh no ! surely not,' Gertrude said, with round wonder- 
ing eyes at his words. 

Why, she asked herself, should he imagine that they 
would leave town without letting him know ? 

Jim saw her surprised look, and knew he had said a 
stupid thing. His heart was touched. He could not 
bring himself readily to believe that the girl cared about 
him ; but the mere fact that her closest friend had told 
him that she did care about him seemed to bring Gertrude 
into a relation of unspoken sympathy to him. He did 
not disguise from himself the truth that he had not of late 
been thinking very much about her at all. He had been 
absorbed in his own love-affair : he had no time or thought 
for her. He was like everybody else in this — man and 
woman. Nothing is so self-centred as love ; no, not even 
hunger, not even thirst. 

Jim made no attempt to set right his blunder, and he 
took his leave, with permission to call again next day, 
and any day as long as the girls remained in town. The 
moment he got into the street his mind was again 
absorbed in Clelia. Gertrude dropped wholly out of his 
consideration. He would have thought of her, if he had 
time ; but then he had not time. He was wholly taken 
up with Clelia. Some of her words puzzled him. He 
tiuTied over and over again what she said about her 
loyalty to her husband. ' Can it be,' he asked himself 
with a pang, 'that in her heart there is even still some 
trace of love for him .'' Can it be that she would even yet 
be open to his talk and to his persuasions if he chose to 
exert them ?' And then again for one moment he put 
the question to himself: ' Would it not be better that she 
should go back to him, and make the best of her married 
life, since she was married and could not escape from 

14 



210 THE RIDDLE RING 

marriage ? But ' No, no, no !' Jim resolutely said to 
himself; 'with that man she never could be happy; with 
that man she never could live !' Poor Jim believed that 
he was absolutely unselfish, and was thinking only about 
her when he came to this conclusion. Perhaps he was. 
Certainly, the more he had seen of Sir Francis Rose, the 
greater and more growing had been his suspicion, or his 
conviction, that behind all that gay and reckless and 
debonair exterior there was in hiding and on the watch 
a reckless, a selfish, and a ruthless nature. Why he 
thought all this he could not explain ; but it had for a 
long time back been borne in upon him. 

' Well,' he said to himself at last — and the assurance 
brought him some poor and pitiful little comfort — ' he 
has no motive in trying to win her back. He has nothing 
to get by her.' 

In which self-offered assurance Jim made two mistakes : 
one as to character, and one as to fact. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

'hast TH017 FOUND ME OUT, O MINE ENEMY?' 

The gallant Captain Martin paid several visits to Sii: 
Francis Rose diu-ing the days that immediately followed 
the roving commission which had been given to him. 
Apparently, the information which he supplied to his 
patron was clear enough to tell Rose that the time had 
come when he ought to make a move, and he saw his way 
to the making of it. 

' The other' lady,' sai^ the warhke Captain, ' will be out 
ftillihe afternoon.' ' ' '" .< 



'HAST THOU FOUND ME OUT?' 211 

'Oh! And Miss Vine?' 
' Miss Vine ? she will be alone.' 
' Do you know anything about Mr. Conrad ?' 
'Mr. Conrad and Mr. Waley have an appointment 
together for the City at two o'clock, and their business 
will last them a couple of hours.' 

' Grood ! That's all right.' 

Captain Martin crouched his shoulders ; he meant that 
for bowing. 

' Did you say anything at the hotel .?' 

' Yes ; I explained that you were a near relation of Miss 
Vine ' 

' By marriage,' Rose interposed, with a faint smile. 

' Well, I'm not quite sure that I said by marriage ' 

' Doesn't matter at all.' 

' No. And I said that Miss Vine would be expecting you 
to-day, and that you were to be shown up when you called.' 

' Suppose they don't show me up when I call ?' 

' They will, Sir Francis.' 

' Suppose they ask questions ?' 

' There will be no questions asked. Sir Francis. 

Captain Martin spoke in the assured tone of one who 
has taken all his precautions and made the way quite clear 
and safe. 

' Good !' said Rose. ' You seem to have managed this 
business well, Martin.' 

' I always try to manage matters well for gentlemen 
whom I serve. Sir Francis.' 

' I know you do,' Sir Francis replied genially. 

And the interview came to an end. 

Sir Francis made his way to Albemarle Street, and 
found the hotel, and asked to be shown up to Miss Vine's 
sitting-room. There was no difficulty, and there were no 



212 THE RIDDLE RING 

questions asked ; he was shown up at once. The attendant 
stopped at the door of a room on the first-floor. 

' Is this Miss Vine's room ?'' Sir Fi'ancis asked. 

' Yes, sir.' 

' Then, please announce Sir Francis Rose.' 

The attendant threw the door open, and announced in 
the clearest tone, ' Sir Francis Rose,' and Rose entered and 
closed the door behind him, and found himself after a 
moment face to face with his wife. 

The whole situation seemed to him to be full of the 
deepest, or at all events the most piquant, interest. It 
was a gain to him, a new sensation to him, and therefore 
a joy to him, to hav« a moment like that. 

For the first second or so when he entered the room he 
did not see Clelia. At the farther end of the room, close 
to a window, there was a solid writing-table — ^not a mere 
lady-like trifle at all, but a good substantial writing-table. 
It was rich with ferns and flowers ; behind the ferns and 
the flowers Clelia sat writing. 

When the announcement was made, she sprang up from 
her seat, with pallid face and gleaming eyes. She kept, 
however, a perfect mastery of herself while the attendant 
was in the room. When she heard the door close she 
advanced a little from behind her entrenchment of ferns 
and flowers and desk, and confronted Rose, in agitation 
indeed, but undismayed. 

' Hast thou found me out,' she said in thrilling Biblical 
language, ' O mine enemy .?' 

She was carried out of herself and her ordinary speech 
by the shock of the meeting. 

' I have found you out,' Rose answered, in a voice made 
puiposely low and pathetic ; ' but I am not your enemy. 
I want to be your best friend.' 



•HAST THOU FOUND ME OUT?' 213 

' Oh !' she murmured, with a shudder that really shook 
her whole frame. 

' Why do you hate me, Clelia ? I still love you.' 

'Oh, for shame!' she exclaimed. 'Shame — shame — to 
talk like that — after all that has passed — all that we 
know !' 

'I still love you,' he repeated. 'Do you know that 
since that day — only a few days ago — when I first saw 
you — ^this time — I was fascinated by you ? Yes, I was ! 
Do you know that at first I hardly knew you, you had 
gi'own to have such an ivoi-y-pale complexion ? I never 
could admire what I may call a pallid-pale complexion or 
a sallow-pale complexion ; but such an ivory-pale com- 
plexion as yours ' 

' Do you think we need go on with this talk ?' she asked 
contemptuously. 'Do you think I care what you may 
fancy about my complexion, or what anybody may fancy ? 
Think of my life made miserable by you ; of my youth 
gone in suffering through you ; and then, if you will, talk 
to me about my complexion.' 

' I am not paying you empty compliments,' he said ; ' I 
am only telling you how I felt.' 

'Very well, you like my ivory-pale complexion. You 
have told me that. But that, I suppose, is not all you 
have come here to tell me.' 

' No ; I have come to tell you much more.' 

' Well, go on ; it can all be told very shortly, can't it .'" 

'You are impatient, but I find no fault. It shall be 
told as shortly and as quickly as words can tell it. Clelia, 
I know how much wrong I have done you, and I want to 
repair it and to atone for it.' 

' Listen,' she answered steadily ; ' it is not a question of 
wrona done to me. A woman could soon forget that ! 



214 THE RIDDLE RING 

God knows, we women axe only too ready to forget the 
wrongs done us by men in whom once we trusted and 
whom once we loved. It is not that.' 

' Then, you are willing — or, at least, not unwilling->-to 
forgive any wrong that I may have done you? That 
would be a relief to my soul.' 

' Oh, I am not thinking about any wrong done to me. 
It is over — it is gone — and I have no further concern 
with it.' 

' Then, can we not make it up ?' he asked, in a gentle 
and pleading voice, in the softest tone — a delicate tone 
which only appealed for pity, and forgiveness, and con- 
fidence. 

The tone went like a sharp blade through Clelia's heart 
and nerves, for all its pleading sweetness and its melting 
softness. She had heard it too often before. 

' Make it up !' she exclaimed. ' As if we had merely 
had some trumpery quarrel over some paltry and pitiful 
question !' 

' I have lead rather a wild life,' he pleaded. ' You 
knew that before you married me.' 

' No !' she cried. ' I never did ! You took good care 
that I never should. You told me yourself that you had 
led a wandering life, and that you had been a ne'er-do- 
well, but that you had done nothing cruel, or mean, or 
wicked. Did you not tell me all that ?'' 

' A man in love may surely be forgiven if — when he is 
pressing a woman to marry him — ^he does not tell her all 
the literal truth about his past life.' 

' No, he may not be forgiven ! He may not be forgiven 
for telling falsehoods. I didn't want you to tell me the 
literal truth about all your past life. But you told me, 
again and again, that there was nothing in your past life 



'JETAST THOU POUND ME OUT?' ^15 

of which a man of honour could have reason to be ashamed. 
And I believed you ! Oh, what a fool I was to believe 
you ! But I did— I did !' 

' But you surely must have guessed at something ? You 
must have heard some talk in Northumberland ? 

' What did I care — what would any girl have cared under 
such conditions — for the talk of some county families ? I 
had yotu- own assurance, and, of course, I believed it — and 
that was more to me than the talk of a dozen counties. 
When a girl loves a man she believes him.' 

' Then, you did love me — at that time .?' he said, with a 
gleam of satisfaction in his eyes. 

' Oh yes, I loved you at that time ; you know it well. 
I should not have believed you if I had not loved you. I 
should not have loved you if I had not believed you. I 
thought, perhaps, you had gambled and spent a wild life 
in many countries. I fancied you had run deep into debt 
and set your people against you. But I thought that was 
ail, and I made up my mind that your people were unjust 
and ungenerous to you — and any girl could tell you how a 
woman would feel in such a case towards a man whom she 
loved.' 

' You believed me then.' 

' I believed every word you said to me.' 

' Well, and what has changed you, after all T 

' Changed me ? I am not changed ! I was entrapped, 
and that was all. The man I married was not the man I 
thought I was marrying. There is the whole story. I 
thought I was marrying a lover, and a hero, and a gentle- 
man, and a man of honour, and ' 

' Yes — ^go on.' 

' Is there any need for me to go on any further i"' 

' Yes, there is. Tell me whom you were really marrying.' 



216 THE RIDDLE RING 

He spoke now in a deep stem tone. 
' I was manying ' — and she paused and turned away 
from him with the contemptuous words — ' I was marrying 
—you.' 

' That defines me very well to myself, but it does not 
give me quite a clear idea of myself as I appear in your 
eyes. Tell me, Clelia — Rosita' — she contracted her 
shoulders nervously at the name of Rosita — ' tell me exactly 
whom you married !' 

' I married a man who had lived various and shameful 
lives under various names in many countries. I married a 
man who had swindled widows and orphans. I married a 
man who had bought his own safety more than once by 
betraying his comrades.' 

' Of course you were natiu-ally angry about that little 
affair with your mother's money. I don't blame you. I 
admit that I acted very badly about that. But I never 
meant her to lose the money. I meant to pay it back.' 

' Why didn't you ask her to lend it .? She would have 
lent it. I could have prevailed upon her to lend it. She 
would have done it for me.' 

' I managed it clumsily, I confess,' he said thoughtfully. 
' Let me see now — what was it I did say ? Oh yes : that 
I knew a splendid investment — ^yes, I remember — ^where it 
would be all safe and that sort of thing. That was wrong.' 
' And you kept on for two years making her believe that 
her poor little fortune was safe and was growing.' 

' Yes, yes, that was wrong ; haven't I said so ? But at 
the time I was ten-ibly pressed for some debts — money 
I owed — some unlucky connections formed before our 
marriage.' 

' Not all before our marriage.' 

« Not all, perhaps, but nearly all. And, then, I wanted 



'HAST THOU FOUND ME OUT?' 217 

to keep up my character in your eyes, and to keep our 
home happy ; and if I had not had the money things 
might have come out, and you would have been dis- 
appointed in me, and I did so love you.' 

• I should have been far less disappointed in you if you 
had told me all and trusted to me,' she exclaimed. ' I was 
a mad girl at that time — mad, mad ! — and I might have 
loved you and clung to you in spite of all. But why do 
we go on talking about all this now .? I did cling to you, 
even then. Did I throw you away ? Did I leave you ? 
Or did you deliberately leave me and throw me away — 
yes, actually throw me away .''' 

' It must have looked like that, I suppose,' he answered 
calmly. ' I was in one of my absurd moods, and I thought 
I had gone too far to be taken back on any decent terms ; 
and so it seemed to me at the moment the only good turn 
I could do for you was to get out of your sight for ever. 
I thought we could never be happy again, and there is 
something in my nature which makes me hate not to be 
happy.' 

He spoke these last words in a reflecting sort of way, 
and looking at her as if he were propounding some interest- 
ing moral proposition, concerning which he expected to 
have her full sympathy. She listened and she looked at 
him. At last she said : 

* I feel a sort of compassion for you — I do indeed.' 

' You would — ^you would if you knew me,' he exclaimed 
with eagerness. ' I sometimes feel a compassion for myself.' 

' Ah yes ; that I can quite understand. I do know you 
— I know you only too well. You always seem to me now 
like a man who was bom without a conscience, even more 
than that — like a man who was born without a soul.' 

' Do you know,' he said, quite sei-iously, ' I have some- 



^18 THE RtDDLE RlN(^ 

times thought the same thing about myself. I have some- 
times thought that I have no soul ; but can there be such 
a thing ? Of coiu-se, all sorts of materialists say that we 
none of us have any souls, and on that point I am not 
qualified to express any dogmatic opinion. But would it 
be possible for one man to have no soul while all other 
people, or, at all events, most other people, had souls .'' 
That seems to me unlikely, and yet it has often occurred 
to me as if it must have happened in my case. Because I 
never feel really sorry for anything, or responsible about, 
anything.' 

' Well,' Clelia said sadly, after a pause, ' it is of no use 
our talking about these things — at least, I mean it is of 
no use our arguing about them. We see everything from 
such a different point of view. I could not live with you 
again. You have no sense of right and wrong.' 

' Oh, come ! what is right, and what is wrong .''' 

' When I had become convinced of that by bitter and 
cruel experience,' she said, unheeding his interruption, ' I 
felt that my life was a failure, and that we could never 
indeed, as you have said, be happy again. Still, I clung 
to you, and I hoped against hope. Then you threw me 
off, and after that my heart became as adamant. Yes, it 
did!' 

' Threw you off ! Well, is not that rather a harsh ex- 
pression .''' 

' Call it by any name you like.' 

' You mean when I sent you that ring ? 

' When you sent me that ring, with the engraved message 
— that message of mock tragic farewell which it conveyed.' 

' I thought it only fair. I was making a fool of myself 
at the time. I had fallen terribly in love with a woman 
who was not really fit to tie your shoe-strings, and I thought 



'HAST THOU POUND ME OUT?* ^19 

it was only right to give you a hint that way. Apropos, 
where is the ring ? Have you got it ?' 

* No, I have not.' 

' What has become of it ?' 

' I flung it away. I flung it from me in the Bois de 
Boulogne, near the railings where I gave it to you, where 
you gave me that other ring — near the place where we 
first met long before.' 

' Was it not rather imprudent to throw the ring away 
in such a public place ? Somebody might pick it up.' 

' I didn't care about that, so long as I was rid of it.' 

' It might spell out a story.' 

' What did I care then whether it did or not ? What 
do I care now ? Can you not understand my misery and 
my madness ? Nothing could alter the story, let who will 
spell it out.' 

' Well,' he said slowly, as if he were thinking over some 
new proposition in social science, ' I suppose women never 
look at these things quite as men do.' 

' I suppose not. I hope not — if men in general look at 
them as you do. But they don't — I know they don't.' 

' Indeed ! has anyone been trying to teach you ? Don't 
believe him ; he is sure to be only a humbug.' 

She paid no attention to this remark, or, rather, she 
simply tossed it from her. 

' You have not told me yet,' she said, ' why you came 
here, or how you found me out.' 

' I came to do my best to make up matters between us.' 

' Make up matters ! Do you think it is a commonplace 
quarrel about some trumpery difference of opinion .'" 

' No, no. I don't say that ; but I do say that there is 
no reason why we should not be content with each other, 
and be together again. Listen to me, Rosita.' 



220 THE RIDDLE RING 

' Oh ! please don''t use that name again !' 

' ril use any name that pleases you,'' he said sternly ; 
' Clelia, Lady Rose — anjrthing you will — my wife, if you 
will put up with that. I have come to tell you something.' 

' Tell it to me, and then go away and leave me with my 
misery.' 

' I have not come to leave you with your misery. I 
have come to take you from your misery I have come to 
make you happy.' 

' Oh !' she groaned. 

' Yes, I have — if only you will consent to act like a 
sensible woman.' 

' Well, tell me what a sensible woman ought to do. I 
shall listen." 

' Why, of course, she ought to take back her husband 
when he comes to her repentant, and confesses his errors, 
and simply pleads for pardon and for pity. Listen, 
Rosita, my wife. I have come here because I love you ; 
because the very moment I saw you the other day I fell in 
love with you again — all over again. I said to my soul, 
" Why did I ever fail to appreciate that divine woman .''" 
I did indeed ; I did, on my honour. " How could I have 
allowed myself to be fooled away from her by any idle 
illusions of my own .?" I only want to be redeemed and 
regenerated. Take me ; redeem me ; regenerate me.' 

His voice sounded exquisitely in its pleading cadence. 
Francis Rose knew its fascination. For the moment he 
felt divinely happy. He delighted in his power of stage- 
play. There was an entire novelty about the situation 
which positively fascinated him. 

' Heaven knows,' she said sorrowfully, ' that if I believed 
I could do any good for you I would try to do it, even at 
the utter sacrifice of myself. But, oh ! I know it is all of 



'HAST THOU FOUND ME OUT!" 221 

no use. It amuses you now to play this part. When 
once this had been played, and played successfully, you 
would want to be amused by trying some quite different 
part. We both know — ^you and I perfectly well know — 
that we could not make life happy, or even endurable, for 
each other. Ah, no ! Gone is gone ; dead is dead !' 

' I am in love with you,' he declared, ' as I never was 
before, and you must come with me.' 

' So far as my own feelings are concerned,' she said, 
' you know that I would rather go into the Thames than 
return to you. But I can't throw myself into the Thames, 
because I can't commit such a crime. I suppose I was 
sent into the world for some purpose, and I must stay here 
until I am ordered away. But so far as my own feelings 
are concerned, I should welcome the river as a relief.' 

'You were always poetic,' he declared admiringly. 
' You were always a curious mixture of poetry and re- 
ligion. I used to think that the two didn't often go 
together. I fancied that if a woman was very poetic that 
meant the longing to dash herself against the bars of the 
cage — ^to try to break bounds, kick over the traces, and all 
that. But you were always so religious and self-restrained. 
I used to wonder at it, and I used to admire it, too, 
sometimes. But I tell you straight out that I did not 
properly appreciate you. Oh yes. I have not the slightest 
hesitation in admitting that. Now I see things quite 
differently, and I see what a fool I was not to have under- 
stood better, and I am madly in love with you again. 
Again? Oh, more than ever! Come, Clelia; I am not 
lost past redemption. Give me another chance! You 
will not be sorry for it ; you will find that I am not alto- 
gether undeserving — you will indeed.' 

' Merciful Heaven !' she murmured in an agony of per- 



222 THE RIDDLE RING 

plexity. ' If I could only believe that there was anything 
true in all this !' 

'You can believe it; you must believe it; you shall 
believe it !' 

He made a movement towards her. She drew back 
from him. 

.' One moment,' she said. ' Frank ' — for the first time 
she called him by his name, and a thrill of pride and 
joy passed through him as he heard the word. 

' By Jove ! I have triumphed,' he thought, and his eyes 
lighted with all the fire of success. 

Her heart, indeed, was melting towards him ; and not 
so much towards him as towards the possible thought that 
she might yet help to make him happy ; to make him a 
better man — to redeem him, as he put it himself. And 
yet it seemed as if she could not trust him. She had been 
deceived so often before. 

' Frank,' she said again, ' I don't want to bring up old 
stories ; it would be of no use to either of us to go over 
such things. But I do know that many of your 
troubles ' 

' You may call them by a harsher name,' he said in a 
submissive tone, ' if you like.' 

' Why should I .= What good would that do ? Well, 
what I was going to say was this : you suffered much from 
want of money ' 

' Yes, didn't I? I loved to be happy, and to make 
people happy '' 

' Well, well,' she broke in rather impatiently, because 
somehow that was not exactly the impression of his 
nature which remained upon her mind. ' What I was going 
to say was this.' 

She seemed to have great difficulty in saying it. She 



•HAST THOU FOUND ME OUT?' 

looked at the carpet ; she glanced up to the ceiling. Her 
struggling voice would not come. Francis Rose listened 
with eagerness and wondering expectancy. 

' I was very poor,' she began, and then she stopped again. 

' What did that matter to me ?' he asked heroically, still 
very eager. ' I knew you were poor when I asked you to 
be my wife.' — ' What is coming ?' he wondered. ' These 
women are so odd.' 

' Yes ; but men don't always quite appreciate the sacrifice 
they are going to make.' She could not help remembering 
how often her want of money had been flung in her face — 
how often her husband had told her that she was under an 
immense obligation to him for having condescended to 
marry ' a beggar-girl.' Her face almost crimsoned for a 
moment, but she resolutely put all such thoughts away. 
' What I want to say is this,' she went on : ' I am not poor 
now. A kind and dear friend whom I have lost ' — and the 
tears came into her eyes at the thought — ' has divided her 
fortune between her daughter and me. It was a large 
fortune undivided. It is a large fortune for me. It is 
riches for me when I tdke my share. I did 'not want it, 
but they wbtild insist on it.' 

Half unconsciously she tiurned Tier eyes upon his face 
and studied his expression.' Had he been less self-con- 
trolled^ less skilled in moulding the mask of his face, she 
miglit have "found him biit oriie more. But, utterly sur- 
prised as he Vas, wildly delighted as he was, eager for a 
fecoriciliation* as he was, he did not allow any gleam of joy 
to light up under his pince-nez. He only said : 

' I am glad, if it will help to make you happy ; but I 
am not thinking of your money — I am thinking of your- 
self.' — ' I wonder how will that do .?' he thought at that 
critical moAient. 



224 THE RIDDLE RING 

' What I want to say is this,' she began once again with 
what she wanted to say. ' I want to say that I should 
like you to share — the money with me. Oh, I should be 
so glad to give it ! It might make you happy ; and thei-e 
would be enough — far more than enough — ^for me; and 
even to leave me with the means of doing some good if it 
came in my way.' 

' Thank you,' he said quite coldly, ' I ask you for your 
love, and you ofiFer me half your money ' 

' Oh, as much as you like — as much as you will have,' 
she interrupted. 

' Thank you again. I ask for bread, and you give me a 
stone ! I want you. I claim yom* forgiveness, and — ^well 
— ^your love ; and you offer to divide yoiu- money with me ! 
Thank you, Lady Rose ; no, I don't want yom* money. I 
have enough for myself. I have come in for what property 
there is in the old place, and as I have never hitherto had 
much to do with it, it has not been particularly encumbered, 
and I propose to live a life worthy of a man who is head 
of the house of the Northumbrian Roses. I shall live like 
a gentleman again, as my ancestors did — as I might have 
done myself if it had not been for want of money and too 
much temptation. I am glad to hear that you are well 
cared for, Rosita ; but I did not come to talk about your 
money. I came to talk about yourself and your love. 
Come, Rosita, do try to understand that years and trials 
and ill-luck — yes, and lately good luck — may alter a man ! 
Responsibility alters a man. I am now the head of my 
house.' 

A sudden outburst of passion flamed through her. Some- 
thin »■ in his melodramatic tone shocked her. She could 
not believe in him. She was fin:ious with herself for having 
gone even for a moment near to believing in him. 



'HAST THOU FOUND ME OUT?' 225 

' Responsibility will not alter you !' she exclaimed vehe- 
mently ; and he drew back, surprised for the moment at 
her unexpected display of fierce emotion. ' You will never 
be anything other than what you were and what you are. 
You are play-acting at this very moment '' 

' So I am, by Jove !' he thought to himself. ' How 
confoundedly clever she is I' 

' Play-acting, play-acting ! There was never any reality 
about you for good or ill ; there was never any real Francis 
Rose — ^but only a play-actor and a mummer !'' 

He drew back as if he had been struck in the face. 

' No more play-acting and mumming, my lady,' he said 
in a stem voice. ' You shall find that I am terribly in 
earnest this time. I'll conquer you ! I'll tame you — take 
my word for that !' 

' You'll never make me care for you ' 

' I don't mind about that ; I'll bring you to your knees 
before me ' 

She made a scornful gesture. 

' Yes, I will. You shall be my wife again.' 

' Never !' she said more gently — more gently perhaps 
because her mind was all made up by this time. 

' Just wait and see. I'll pass you under the yoke. I'll 
be a kind husband to you ; but there shall be no petticoat 
government in my house ! You shall shed many a tear for 
this; but I'll make a good wife of you. So I bid you 
good-bye for the present ; but I'll come again when, where, 
and how you least expect.' 

'Stay a moment,' she said quietly, although with trembling 
lips and limbs. ' Once again I make you my offer : you shall 
have as much of my money as you like to take.' 

' Thank you. I shall have you and your money, both, 
when I choose to take them.' 

15 



226 THE RIDDLE RING 

' You forget,' she said contemptuously, ' that we are 
living in a civilized country. There are laws in England 
to protect even women.' 

' Not to protect mutinous wives,' he said, with a mocking 
laugh, as he was tiu^ning to go. 

' One can leave England,' she said. 

' You can leave England,' he replied, ' but you cannot 
leave me. You can't shake me off now that I am in love 
with you again, and am determined that you shall be my 
wife again. I have ways of finding out things, and I shall 
find you out wherever you go and wherever you are. Good- 
bye for the moment. We shall meet again soon.' 

Then, with a manner once more composed, he left her. 

She sat down and covered her face with her hands, and 
the immediate strain being relaxed, she found her woman's 
relief in a burst of tears. She was glad he could not see 
her then. 



CHAPTER XX. 

'thy kindness freezes.' 

Sir Francis dined alone that evening at the Voyagers' 
Club. He avoided seeing Conrad or anyone ; he wanted 
to be alone for a time at least, and to think things over. 
All the day he had been treading on air. It seemed to 
him as if he must have a sort of halo of happiness round 
his head. He felt supremely happy ; he had a cluster of 
new sensations with which to make his life very well worth 
living. The determination to recapture his wife was a 
positive delight to him. 

' She shall fall in love with me yet — ^by Jove ! she shall. 
I'll woo her as the lion wooes his bride. She'll think all 



'THY KINDNESS FREEZES' 227 

the better of me for it. I understand a woman like that. 
How her eyes flashed ! By Jove ! what a triumph to re- 
capture such a woman !' 

All this he kept saying to himself and thinking over and 
over again. What a woman to sit at the head of one's 
table and entertain with, he thought ; for he had got a 
new ambition now. He had long been a social outlaw ; 
now he yearned, above all things, to reconquer West End 
society. He had voluntarily dragged his name and his 
family down into the dust in many countries ; but all the 
time he had been vain of his birth, even while, with 
deliberate cynicism, he degraded and debased it. For he 
was, as Clelia had said, and as he admitted frankly to him- 
self \yhen she said it, always a play-actor. He was always 
playing a part ; he had played the part of the betrayer 
more for the sake of playing the part than for the sensuous 
pleasure of the betrayal ; he had played the part of the 
loving husband, and he had played the part of the cynical, 
brutal husband ; now it would be his happiness to be a 
leader of society, with a charming wife to manage things 
for him. 

' That's how we do it !' he said to himself exultingly, in 
the slang of our day. 

But after he had dined he felt that he wanted to talk 
over the whole subject, and there was nobody with whom 
he could talk it over freely except the faithful Waley. 
Moreover, he had certain ideas, at present only seething in 
his head, which he hoped that the faithful Waley might 
help him to put into bodily shape, and even into bodily 
action. 

So he sent a messenger to the faithful Waley's lodgings 
to ask Waley to come to him as quickly as he could. He 
knew that Waley's habits were methodical, and that after 



228 THE RIDDLE RING 

ten or half-past ten at night he might be counted on until 
any hour of the morning. 

About eleven o''clock Sir Francis was smoking in the 
quiet recess which has been more than once described in 
this story, and, if we may say so, in another story as well. 

Then Mr. Waley quietly appeared upon the scene. 

' Just got your message, chief, and so I came along.' 

' All right, Waley ; glad to see you.' 

' Nothing vei-y serious, I hope ?'' Waley asked anxiously. 

Sir Francis looked upstairs and downstairs. There was 
nobody near ; save for the reading-rooms and smoking- 
rooms, the club was empty. 

' Waley, I have made a fool of myself !' 

' What, again ?' Waley asked, with a broad grin. 

' Yes, again. No, by Jove ! I don't think I have, but I 
was very near doing it — I all but did it ; and then it turns 
out that I didn't, after all. Look here, Waley: I've struck 
ile again.' 

' You generally do strike ile,' Waley said, ' wherever you 
strike at all ; so I'm not much surprised. But would you 
mind telling us a little about it .?' 

'.Yes, of course I'll tell you — first of all, how I was near 
making a fool of myself. Waley, I have seen my wife !' 

' Not really .?' Waley asked, with a manner of comparative 
indifference. 

' Yes, I did ! I saw her for the first time a few days 
ago ; I mean, of course, for the first time since we fell 
out — separated — all that, you know.' 

' Yes, I hold on to your meaning. Go ahead.' 

' Well, I saw her by chance a few days ago. Did I tell 
you ? No ? I dare say I meant to tell you, but I forgot 
all about it.' 

' All right,' Waley observed, not caring much either way. 



'THY KINDNESS FREEZES' 

* Waley, I saw her again to-day !' 

'Did you really? Well?' 

' Well, listen to me, Waley. I have fallen madly in love 
with her !' 

' Oh, come now,' Waley protested. 

' Yes, but I have, though. I can't imagine how I ever 
came to think that stupid little brute of a girl could be 
worth causing her a moment's pain ! I am madly in love 
with her, Waley — only fancy ! madly in love with my own 
wife ! What do you think of that ?' 

' Does seem odd, don't it ?' Waley asked, not, however, 
without a smile of something like gratification expanding 
over his not unhandsome face. 

' Yes ; she is bewitching — she is divine ! I can't tell you 
how I felt at meeting her again !' 

'I know how I should feel if I were to meet my wife 
again,' Waley said ; ' and I rather think I know how she 
would feel, too !' 

' Yes ; but, then, your wife, my excellent Waley, was no 
doubt a worthy and deserving woman, but mine is a goddess.' 

' Half a second, please. Some time in finding it out, 
weren't you .?' 

' I was, Waley ! We are strange beings — some of us ! 
I did not know that I had loved her so much ^ 

' No ; I never heard you say so at any time before ^' 



* How could I say it, Waley ? I didn't know it myself- 



' Ah yes, there it is, you see ! Still, I'm pleased that you 
have found it out at last. But I don't see how you have 
made a fool of yourself unless you propose to give up 
everything else, and tie yourself on to your wife's petticoat- 
tail like somebody in the play — ^Antony, wasn't it ? No, I 
believe she wasn't quite exactly his wife ; but the notion is 
the same, don't you know.' 



230 THE RIDDLE RING 

' How I was near making a fool of myself was this,' Rose 
answered gravely and slowly. ' I fell so suddenly dead in 
love with her that I begged and prayed of her to take me 
back again — yes, I did ! And I thought all the time that 
she hadn't a penny of money ! You know my way — it was 
a thrilling sensation to me, the thought of capturing her 
again — and she might have had me back to her there as 
she stood !' 

' For how long ?' Waley curtly asked. 

' For how long ? Oh, well, that is not quite to the 
point. Still, judging by my present sensations, I should 
say for ever and ever '' 

' Present sensations !' Waley interposed, with the accent 
on the 'present.' 

' My excellent good Waley, who can know about the 
sensations of the future ? Have we the divine gift of 
prophecy, you and I ?' 

' About some things, I almost think I have,' Waley said, 
with a twinkle in his eye. 

' Oh, but come, look here — we are rather wandering 
away from the point. This is how I was near making a 
fool of myself. Now let us see how, after all, I didn't.' 

' Yes, I rather want to come to that.' 

' There is an absence of the poetic about you, Waley, 
which I sometimes am inclined to deplore.' 

' Oh, Lord ! there is an absence of all sorts of good 
things about me which somebody is always deploring. I 
have heard my wife make many a deploring of that kind, 
and I dare say she was quite right, poor old dear !' 

' She was quite right,' Rose said decisively. " But we 
were not talking about her. We were talking about my 
being very near to making a fool of myself, and not 
making a fool of myself, after all.' 



*THY KINDNESS FREEZES' 231 

' Right you are.' 

' Well, here it is. My wife is an heiress, and I never 
knew it until to-day.' 

' By Jove ! you don't mean that .?' Mr. Waley exclaimed, 
with a suddenly kindling interest. 

' Yes, she is indeed ! She has been left a whole lot of 
money, and she offered to give me half of it, or more than 
half, if I liked.' 

'Come! that is good business,' Waley declared, with 
lighting eyes ; ' apd you take it, of course .?' 

' Take it, my dear Waley ? How little you understand 
such a woman as that.' 

'Well, but tell us ' 

'Why, of course, I rejected it with a lofty disdain.' 

' Well, I never !' 

' Don't you see that that is the very way to charm a 
woman like that i"' 

'You see, I haven't had the pleasure of knowing 
her.' 

'You may take her on my description. That is the 
very way to get her back. I mounted the high^horse-^- 
the heroic horse — at once ! I declared that I .scorned .her 
money, and that I only wanted her love. And see here, 
Waley, I'll have both. I am madly in love with her ! I 
want her money — of course I want her money — ^but I am 
in love with her as I never was before. She must come 
back to me. Waley, if she does not consent, I'll carry her 
off by force ! I will ! You shall help me, Waley !' 

' Oh ! I'll help you in anything fast enough ; and, of 
course, the wife belongs to her husband, and he may carry 
her off whenever he likes. I suppose that's as good 
law as they make. But I don't think we often hear of 
husbands cari-ying off their own wives much in our day — 



^3^ l^Hfi RIDDLE RING 

I mean, when the husbands have ah-eady dropped the 
good ladies down for a considerable time.' 

' Well, if she won't come by smooth ways she shall by 
rough ! If she won't come by fair ways she shall by foul ! 
Do you know, Waley, I feel already thrilled by this new 
sensation ! It makes life worth living. I was just begin- 
ning to find life gi-owing a little dull and monotonous. 
My life was getting to be as colourless as a subterranean 
stream '' 

' Fve been in .the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky,' Mr. 
Waley interjected, with what seemed to him sufficient 
appositeness. ' The fishes there are aU blind, because 
they don't want any eyes. What would be the good of 
eyes where they couldn't see .?' 

* I want eyes,' Sir Francis exclaimed enthusiastically, ' if 
only to look on her ! Waley, you shall see her !' 

' Delighted, I am sure.' 

*I am afraid you don't think me quite in earnest, 
Waley. But I am — this time I am. I shall have her 
back, and then, of course, I shall have the money too. 
What a wonderful stroke of luck ! I wasn't thinking 
about money, I was only in love with her, and suddenly 
she turns round and offers me half of her fortune, or more 
if I want it. Waley, don't you think it is enough to make 
a man believe in what we read, in good books, you know, 
about conjugal love, and virtue, and all that.? Doesn't it 
really seem as if virtue was to be rewarded in my own case .'' 
I fell in love with my wife — absolutely fell in love with 
her — with my own wife — and for her own sake absolutely, 
absolutely for her own sake ! Well, a man ought to fall 
in love with his wife, ought he not .f" 

' If he hasn't done it before, yes, cei-tainly,' Waley said, 
in the tone of an oracle. 



'THY KINDNESS FREEZES' 283 

• Or if, having once fallen in love with her before, he 
has somehow happened to fall out of love with her, is it 
not his duty to fall in love with her again ?' 

' Half a second, Sir Francis ;' and the right thumb and 
forefinger came together. ' I am not much of an authority 
on people"'s duties, but I should say it certainly was,'' 
Waley answered somewhat grimly. 

He was not overjoyed at the appearance of a woman on 
their somewhat venturous and enterprising stage. He 
did not want the chief to become too soft-hearted and 
domestic, and yet he had always had an uneasy conscious- 
ness that somehow the chiefs wife had not been altogether 
well treated. 

' Well, then, you see, I was fulfilling my duty all be- 
cause of love, and here is the reward of the fulfilment of 
duty ! Do you know, Waley, it ought to be enough to 
give a man a new impulse towards the good. It might 
inspire one towards the leading of a better life.' 

' What, the chance of getting the money i" 

' No, no ! how can you be so material ? The fact that 
the chance of getting the money came after the resolve 
to win back her love. Don't you see, Waley ? Good 
heavens, man ! how can you be so dull as not to see ?' 

' Fm a dull man natm-ally,' Waley said, with a broad, 
good-humoured smile. 'I can't help myself. Nature 
made me.' 

' Nature didn't make you dull ; you are not dull — ^you are 
nothing of the kind. You can get at an idea often much 
quicker than I can. How can you be so dull in this case ? 
Look here, Fll go over it all again. I have neglected my 
wife. I have deserted her. Good ' 

' Bad, I should call it,' said the prosaic Waley. 

' Yes, yes ; in that sense I admit, of course. But, then. 



234 THE RIDDLE RING 

take what comes next. I repent, I determine to reform, 
I seek out my wife, I tell her I am sorry for what I have 
done, I tell her I am in love with her more than ever ; I 
ask her to forgive me, to take me back, to reform me, to 
regenerate me ; and then I find out, to my utter surprise, 
that she has a lot of money about which I never heard ! 
Does that not strike you, Waley, as if virtue were really 
made its own reward, as if the powers above had marked 
out my future for me ?' 

' I am afraid I don't see it — quite.' 

' My dear Waley, I am afraid you are rather a sceptic' 

' Don't think I altogether know what a sceptic is ; but 
in this case I suppose the young woman would have come 
in for the fortune whether you had fallen in love with her 
again or not.' 

' You don't understand me,' Sir Francis said, in a tone 
of disappointed feeling. ' I suppose it would be of no use 
my trying to make you understand me on a question like 
that.' 

' We generally understand each other pretty well — don't 
we, chief.?' Waley asked in a somewhat puzzled and almost 
querulous voice. 

' We do — we do ; but on points of feelings, the higher 
sentiments, perhaps we don't always quite hit it off '' 

'Oh, very like,' interrupted the downright Waley. 
' I'm not much on the higher sentiments. But just tell 
nie what you mean to do, and how I can help you, and I'll 
do all I can.' 

'But I haven't quite thought it out yet, Waley. I 
don't quite see my way yet. You see,' he added some- 
what fretfully, ' I generally get hold of an idea myself, and 
then I pass it on to you to work it into action for me. 
But I can't well do that in this case, can I, Waley ?' 



<THY KINDNESS FREEZES' S35 

* Oh, by Jupiter, no !' Waley promptly replied. ' I 
haven't the least idea of what ought to be done in this 
case. When it comes to a question between husband and 
wife, then Fm about the worst chap in the world to be 
able to give advice that's worth the having.' 

' Well, I must think it over,' Sir Francis said, somewhat 
tartly. 

He had got the idea into his head that there was a faint 
note of mutiny or of something approaching to it in 
Waley's voice. He did not like that. He had been for a 
long time accustomed to rely on Waley's promptings in 
everything. He had always relied implicitly and un- 
questioningly on himself to find out what he wanted to 
have done ; but he had always relied on Waley to suggest 
the way by which the object might be gained or the enter- 
prise worked out. Now that he had set his heart upon 
this new enterprise, he found nothing suggestive, or even 
responsive, about Waley's tone and manner. 

There was a certain artistic or aesthetic — aesthetic in the 
old sense of the word — sensitiveness in Rose's nature and 
nerves that often enabled him to scent out from far off 
the evidences of a coming danger as ' the leaves of the 
shrinking mimosa' are said to feel far in advance the 
tramp of the horse's feet on the prairie. 

So now Rose appeared to foretell the coming of a crisis, 
when Waley would not work with him quite as cordially 
as he had always worked before. He had known that 
Waley had a strong objection to the intrusion of a woman 
into any of the common enterprises of himself and his 
chief. But he had known, too — and it was of much 
greater importance to him now — that despite Waley's 
quarrel with his own wife, and his separation from her, 
and his relief at getting rid of her, there was a curious 



236 THE RIDDLE RING 

vein of compassionate tenderness to women deep down in 
Waley's odd nature, and that he would be likely enough 
to insist that men must play the straight game with 
women, whatever they did. 

Rose told himself again and again — was telling himself 
as he sat there talking with Waley — ^that he meant to 
play the straightest game with Clelia Rose that ever could 
be played. He simply meant to make his wife — his own 
lawful wife — ^fall in love with him again, and come back to 
him again. There was nothing in his proposal, in his 
enterprise, of which pale-lipped morality itself could dis- 
approve. On the contrary, it was the very thing which 
the palest-lipped morality ought to go earnestly in for. 
Now, as Rose well knew, his devoted Waley did not by 
any means go in for pale-lipped morality. On the con- 
trary, Waley had done, or sanctioned, many things over 
which — ^to use Carlyle's phrase — ' moralities not a few must 
shriek aloud.' But, still, Rose had always been conscious 
in an oblique kind of way that there were sentimental 
weaknesses in Waley of which he himself could render no 
account to his conscience. 

When Rose wanted a thing done for his own purpose, 
that purpose became the guide of his conscience; other 
guiding light he had none, and wanted none. But he had 
noticed in his faithful henchman a sort of conscience 
which naturally and at the first modelled itself on the 
conscience of the chief, and yet which might possibly be 
roused into vague doubt, and then into downright 
question. 

Sir Francis Rose felt towards Waley this night — he 
could not quite tell why — a little in the mood of Shake- 
speare's Eng Richard towards Buckingham when he makes 
a secret proposal, and meets with no genial response. 



•WHY SUMMON HIM?' 237 

' Tut, tut, thou art all ice — thy kindness freezes !' Sir 
Francis Rose thought the kindness of Waley was somewhat 
frozen that night, and the idea gave him food for contem- 
plation. Perhaps he was wrong, he said to himself. 
Waley was very friendly and comradelike, but his kindness 
did somehow seem to freeze. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

•why summon him ^AND TEUST NOT ME?' 

The faithful Waley was looking out of the windows of the 
red flat near Berkeley Square one evening about seven, 
a few nights after the evening when we saw him last. He 
was somewhat puzzled in mood. He had not been quite 
able to account for the manner of the chief these few days 
past. He did not by any means approve of the ' petticoat 
interest ' which to all appearance the chief had lately been 
determined to import into the dramatic fiction of the lives 
of the little confederacy. 

Waley had a sort of superstition on the subject. It 
amounted to this : They three, Sir Francis, Waley himself, 
and Marmaduke Coffin — poor, good, absurd old Coffin ! — 
had all been equally unlucky in their married lives. No 
flitch of bacon could be won by any of them in any con- 
ceivable Dunmow festival. Why, then, transport the ill- 
luck along with them P Why take up with it again 
voluntarily and unsought ? Why run out of one's way to 
get hold of it? Waley had probably never heard of 
Hogarth's sign representing 'The Man loaded with 
Mischief,' which used to hang in Oxford Street up to quite 
recent years. The Man loaded with Mischief had his 



238 THE RIDDLE RING 

wife seated on his shoulders. To Mr. Waley's mind, a 
man was loaded with mischief who had his wife or any 
other woman on his shoulders. 

Suddenly a cab stopped at the door, and Marmaduke 
Coffin stepped cautiously out. There was a dispute about 
the cab-fare, and then Coffin crossed the pavement. He 
glanced quickly, quietly, either way before he rang the 
bell at the door. 

There was something very peculiar about the walk of 
Mr. Marmaduke Coffin. The front of the foot— the toes 
— seemed to take a sudden and strong grip of the earth. 
They held on to it, and relaxed the grip but slowly and 
cautiously. No matter how quick the pace of the moving 
man, the same peculiarity could be noticed in the move- 
ment. That is, it could be noticed by anybody who had 
an eye for noticing anything. Nine out of every ten 
people have not such an eye. To them nothing is peculiar 
— it is all as by lot, God wot. But anybody who had an 
eye a little better instructed would have noticed the 
peculiar movement of Mr. Marmaduke Coffin's walk. 

The same peculiarity might be traced in the movement 
of the beasts whom the noble savage pursues, and in the 
movement of the noble savage himself. The instinct in 
each case is that of not going too far in either direction to 
be able to turn and wind with a single throb and impulse 
of will. Put as much force as you fairly can on the im- 
pulse ; but, all the same, catch the earth, and grip it so 
that you may be ready to turn and wind at any moment 
with all your full strength, all your full speed. That is 
really the foundation and secret of this peculiarity of 
movement. It was a secret which showed itself in the 
step of Marmaduke Coffin. But it made no impression 
whatever on the unimaginative and uninquiring mind of 



' WHY SUMMON HIM ?' 239 

Mr. Albert Edward Waley. Mr. Waleyhad not many 
friendships, but when he did make a friendship he generally 
took it for granted. 

Waley himself promptly opened the door of the flat. 

' Hello, my noble sportsman !' Waley exclaimed. ' So 
you have come over, have you ?' 

'Did you expect that I was not going to come over, 
Mr. Waley ?'' Coffin mildly asked. 

' Oh no, Coffin ; I knew you would come, old boy, and 
that was only my way of welcoming you — see .?' 

' I am sure you meant it well, Mr. Waley.' 

'Why, of course I did, Coffin. What else on earth 
should I have meant it for ? But now that you have come, 
do you know what you have come for .?' 

' No, I don't, Mr. Waley ; but I make no doubt you can 
tell me.' 

' I ? Not a bit of it, old man. But you really don't know .?' 

' I don't know anything. I got your letter ' 

' Yes, yes, of course.' 

' And then I came.' 

' And then you came — and that's all .?' 

' That's all, Mr. Waley. I wait for further details, as 
they say in the newspapers.' 

'Do they.?' Mr. Waley asked somewhat distractedly. 
' I hadn't noticed.' 

' Do they — ^what .?' Mr. Coffin asked, a little out of tune 
with the latest question. 

' Oh, well ' — Mr. Waley pulled himself a little together 
— ' I wasn't quite thinking of what the newspapers say, or 
about the further details they may find it necessary to 
wait for. 'iVhat I wanted to ask was whether the chief 
hadn't given you any hint about the business for which he 
brought you over here.' 



240 THE RIDDLE RING 

' No, Mr. Waley ; I didn't ask him any questions.' 

' Why, of course you did not,' Waley exclaimed earnestly. 
' He knows what is best ; he knows what he wants done. 
I don't ask him any questions, I can tell you. But I 
thought perhaps he might have let you know what he was 
bringing you over to London for, and told you to tell me.' 

' No, Mr. Waley,' Coffin answered, with all the quietude 
of self-conscious honesty ; ' he told me nothing at all.' 

' And he didn't even tell you to ask me i" 

'No, Mr. Waley, he didn't.' 

' All right,' Waley said, in restored good spirits ; ' he'll 
tell me when the right time comes. He said that he would, 
and of course he will.' 

Marmaduke Coffin let his eyes fall on the carpet as he 
heard these words from Mr. Waley. It had appeared to 
his mind as if he must have been summoned over from 
Paris to London on some very peculiar business. He had 
certainly counted when he came over on finding Waley in 
the full secret, and on receiving instructions from him ; 
but it did not take him long to get hold of the fact that 
he was brought over to London for business which, so far 
at least, had been kept out of the knowledge of Albert 
Edward Waley. This was to him like a note of coming 
promotion. We all know what a trouble it is when any 
service is clogged by a lack of promotion. We have had 
to make niles about this in the army and the Civil Service 
of our country, by virtue of which some of the grandest 
triumphs that were accomplished for the State in other 
days could not be accomplished for the State in our days. 

This we call progress. Now, there were no such rules, 
to be sure, in the service to which Mr. Marmaduke Coffin 
had devoted himself, and he well knew that he might go 
on imtil the age of ninety-five, should he live so long, 



'WHY SUMMON HIM?* 241 

without receiving any promotion, if any other man could 
do the work he was wanted for better than he could. So 
he felt a thrill of pride and hope and joy when he heard 
that he had been called over from Paris to undertake some 
business about which as yet Mr. Waley had not even been 
consulted. Mr. Waley, on the other hand, felt a little 
put out by the fact that he had not been consulted, but 
his loyal heart was easily satisfied by the assurance that lie 
would be allowed to know in good time, and that it would 
all come out right. 

There was a silence for some seconds. Then Coffin spoke 
in his laconic, monosyllabic sort of way. 

' Chief not in ?' 

' No, he's not in now ; if he were, I shouldn't have kept 
you waiting all this time, Coffin, old boy.' 

' In — when .''' 

' He didn't say, my sententious youth. Didn't say a 
word to me about expecting you this morning, or waiting 
in for you ; but I think you had better wait a little here. 
I think he is dining with some chaps at the Voyagers', and 
it's very likely he'll want to see you later on.' 

' Thank you, Mr. Waley, I'll wait. My time is his.' 

' All right, old man ; so is mine. Well, tell me all the 
news from Paris. Not the fashionable news. Coffin. I 
know you ain't just the sort of man to take an interest in 
the news that would suit the Ladies' Pictorial.'' 

Just at that moment the sharp ring of a telegraph mes- 
senger was heard at the door. Waley jumped up. 

' Excuse me a moment. Coffin,' he said breathlessly. ' I 
always like to take in these messages myself when I get 
the chance.' 

' Right,' said the sententious Coffin. 

In a moment Waley was back, looking a little crestfallen. 

16 



242 THE RIDDLE RING 

' It's a telegram for you, Coffin,' he said bknkly. 

Coffin took it and opened it with his usual air of melan- 
choly indifference to events of life, strokes of fate, sudden 
inrushes of good luck, and all the rest. 

' Chief wants me at the Voyagers' at ten-thirty,' he said 
concisely. 

' Oh, he does ; all right,' Waley murmured. 

' Then I needn't wait here any longer .?' Coffin asked. 

' Don't see any necessity. Don't give yoiurself up too 
much to the pleasures of the capital. Coffin. You are a 
rare old boy, I know, for the pleasures of the capital.' 

' I'll go and get shaved,' said Coffin. ' Some of the 
shops in Bond Street don't close until eight. Just half- 
past seven now.' 

' Until ten-thirty your time is yoiu- own,' Waley said. 
' Use it, and don't abuse it, old chap.' 

' Thanks,' Coffin replied ; and hp vanished from the 
room with his peculiar tread — ^the movement of one who 
felt that he might find enemies and dangers ^nd pitfalls- 
and snares anywhere along his way. 

' Rum chap. Coffin !' Waley murmured to himself.- 
' Wonder, if he really likes anyone ? Think he does Kke 
the chief. Don't think he likes me. Wonder if he hates- 
most people, and would do them an ill turn— or is it only 
his manner ? People have such odd sorts of manners some- 
times.' 

His reflections were cut short by hearing a latchkey turn 
in the front-door. The chief, he thought. He must have- 
met Coffin on the stairs. 

Sir Francis Rose came in. He was not looking quite so- 
bright and airy as usual. A shade of embarrassment, and 
even of sombreness, was over him. He saluted Waley with- 
an air of indifference. 



'WHY SUMMON HIM?' 243 

' Ho, Waley !' was all he said. 

' You expected me, chief, didn't you ?' Waley asked. 

' Expected you ? Oh yes ; of course I did.' 

' Did you meet Coffin .'' He has been here.' 

The chief contracted his eyebrows, and a curious light 
flashed from under them. 

' Yes ; I met Coffin. It's all right,' he replied. 

' You don't want me just now .f" 

Waley rose to his feet. 

' Just now ? Yes, I do. I have time enough yet. Sit 
down.' 

The obedient Waley sat down, and waited silently for 
the next words of his chief. 

' Look here, AValey : you must get this young fellow off 
as fast as possible to Patagonia, or somewhere else. The 
sooner the better.' 

' What young fellow .?' Waley asked in some surprise. 

They had not been talking of any young fellow. It has 
been already mentioned more than once that Mr. Waley's 
many excellent qualities did not include much imaginative 
faculty, or much gift of what may be called dramatic 
insight into the feelings and the preoccupations of the 
minds of other human beings. He had not for the moment 
the slightest idea of what his chief was thinking or talking 
about. 

'This young fellow, Jim Conrad. He is rather in the 
way here just now, and I wqnt him out of the way.' 

' Oh,' Mr. Waley said rerfectively, ' I dare say that will 
be easy enough.' 

' All right. I am very glad.' 

' Yes ; that ought to be easy work. My idea is that he 
wUl be only too glad to get away anywhere, and the farther 
awav the better.' 



2U THE RIDDLE RING 

' Good,' Sir Francis said, turning in his chair contentedly. 
' Then, get him away, Waley, there's a good chap.' 

'Fact is,' Waley said confidently, 'there's something 
wrong with the poor lad. I fancy it must be the old story.' 

' What old story ?' 

'Well, isn't there something that people always say 
about cherchez lajhnme ? 

' Yes. How is that ? What do you mean ?' Rose asked 
sharply, and with suddenly-contracting eyebrows. 

' I have long had it in my mind,' Waley answered slowly 
and gravely, ' that some woman is at the bottom of the 
whole affair. He is in love with some girl who won't have 
him or can't have him, and he wants to go away anywhere 
out of the whole business. When a young chap like that 
is crossed in love, he always wants to go away somewhere 
out of civilization. Lord bless you ! I have been like that 
myself in my younger days. You don't know much about 
it, chief, I dare say, for the women have generally done 
the love-making for you. But I can see his case with half 
an eye.' 

Rose looked keenly again at Waley. Could it possibly 
be that Waley knew anything or suspected anything of 
the real state of affairs ? But Waley's expression was one 
of utter simplicity and innocence. 

' Odd thing !' Mr. Waley went on in a sort of philosophical 
study of life and the ways of men. ' Odd phrase that, 
being crossed in love ! Now, I have long been of opinion 
that the real cross in love is where the girl is willing to 
have you. By Jove ! what becomes of the love then ? 
How soon it all melts away ! But he don't think that just 
now, bless you ! Yes ; I fancy I shall not have much diffi- 
culty in getting him off to Patagonia.' 

Sir Francis flung himself back in his chair. Every word 



♦WHY SUMMON HIM?' 245 

that Waley was saying made him only the more convinced 
that Conrad would not go to Patagonia just now. He felt 
a passion of hatred and jealousy rising in his mind against 
Jim Conrad. But it would have been an unspeakable 
torture to his vanity and his self-love to know that Waley 
suspected anything of the feelings that were thrilling 
through his heart. To Waley he must always seem the 
conquering hero among women — the irresistible Don Juan 
— ^the wrecker of female hearts. It would be a pitiful 
come-down for him if his devoted follower were to find 
out that Sir Francis Rose could be jealous of any man — 
especially on account of Sir Francis Rose's own wife. He 
hastened to assume a tone of less keen interest in the matter. 

' Well, get him away as soon as you can, Waley. Of 
course, I need not tell you to make good use of him. He 
might be made of great service to us in some business or 
other.' 

' Oh, you trust me to turn him to good account. He's 
a clever young fellow, and a plucky young fellow, and we'll 
put him on for all he's worth — you may depend upon that.' 

' I can depend upon you for anything, Waley — I know 
that quite well.' 

' So you can,' said the gratified Waley. ' I'll soon find 
something for him to do. I have taken, somehow, a great 
fancy for the lad.' 

' Yes ; he's a very good fellow,' Rose said, with an air 
of indifference. ' Where are you off" to, Waley .?' 

Waley had not had any intention of going off" anywhere 
just then ; but he took the hint and got up. 

' Do you want me to come to you at the Voyagers' later 
on ? Waley asked. 

' Voyagers' ? No, I think not ; I don't think I need 
trouble you,' 



THE RIDDLE RING 

^ Coffin is coming, ain't he ?' 

* Coffin ? Oh yes, Coffin is coming, by the way. Yes, 
yes, so he is. But I need not trouble you — just yet,, at all 
events-.' 

' All right,' said the obedient Waley ; and he took his 
leave. But he was thinking to himself as he went out of 
the room. ' Can't make out the chief these last few days,'' 
he was saying to himself. ' He promised me I should know 
everything, and so far I don't know anything. And Coffin 
is to see him to-night, and I am not to see him. Odd ! 
He says he don't want to trouble me ; but, by Jove ! it 
troubles me a good deal to be left out of the swim in all 
this.' 

Suddenly he heard the voice of his chief calling after 
him. His mind brightened as he ran quickly back. 

" I am to go to the Voyagers', after all,' he said to himself, 

' Oh, it's only this, Waley. I don't think I shall be at 
home all day to-morrow, and it isn't worth while giving 
you the trouble of coming here. Good-night.' 

' What a lot of scruple about giving me trouble !' Waley 
said to his own heart. ' Something new, all this awful 
care about not giving me trouble !' He lighted another 
cigar as he stood on the threshold. ' It's awfully early,' 
he thought. ' I don't quite well know what to do with 
myself.' 

CHAPTER XXn. 

WHAT MR. WALEY DID WITH HIMSELP'. 

Waley wandered forth into the evening air, his mind filled 
with all manner of vague, inarticulate thoughts. Some- 
thing had happened, he could not help thinking — some- 
thing which was to alter the course of his life. He did not 



WHAT WALEY DID WITH HIMSELF 247 

kn6t(r what it was or what it could be ; but the words which 
his chief had lately spoken kept ringing in his ears and in 
his memory. 

' Epoch-making days !' 

He had not thought of such a thing before. He had not 
realized any such idea, even when Sir Francis Rose had 
talked about the epoch-making days ; but now, "Somehow, 
he began to find a problem and a study in it. Is it possible 
that this was to be an epoch-making day for him ? Why 
had Marmaduke Coffin been summoned to a council from 
which he was to all appearance to be deliberately shut out? 

He suddenly remembered that he had not yet had any 
dinner. He was so much accustomed to dine with the chief 
when they both had an evening to spend together, that he 
had not realized the fact that he was to dine alone on an 
evening when the chief was to see Marmaduke Coffin later 
on at the Voyagers', and when he might have expected to 
dine with the chief, or, at least, to have a later appointment 
at the club. 

' Come,' he said to himself cheerily ; ' I have not been 
enjoying myself much lately. FU go and have a good 
dinner somewhere, and then I'll go and have a good laugh 
at one of the halls ' — ^meaning thereby, of course, one of 
the music-halls. So, after a moment of deliberation, he 
called a hansom, and drove to the Cafe Royal in Regent 
Street. ' 'Twill do me a lot of goods'^ he said to himself, 
' and knock the cobwebs oiF me.' 

He found a small table unoccupied at the Cafe Royal, 
and he ordered a nice little dinner and some champagne, 
and determined to start an evening's enjoyment. And as 
he was waiting for his dinner, his eyes happened to fall 
upon a mirror in front of him, and in it he saw a weary, 
deeply-lined, haggard, and almost trapcE^l f^c^ ; axid e^fter 



9A8 THE RIDDLE RING 

a second or two of wonder as to why anybody apparently 
in such a dismal mood should ever come into such a place 
of entertainment, he suddenly realized the fact that the 
face of the dismal Johnnie was his own countenance. He 
started a little, and then he said to himself : 

' Quite time to go to one of the halls and be made to 
laugh : something's the matter with me.' 

Then, as they were setting his soup before him, he saw 
another dismal face passing by him — a face as dismal as 
his own. And he recognised this other Knight of the 
Rueful Countenance, and he hailed him : 

' I say, Mr. Conrad, where are you going to ? come and 
sit here along o' me.' 

And Jim Conrad stopped, and Conrad's melancholy phiz 
broke into a smile as he saw Waley, and Conrad sat down 
beside him with right goodwill, and ordered a dinner. And 
the pint of champagne was countermanded, and a goodly 
quart bottle was set upon the table. 

' You look as if you were down upon your luck,' Waley 
observed by way of greeting to his friend. 

' I was just going to say the same of you,' Conrad 
sympathetically observed, after he had settled down. 

' No ; were you really, now ? How very odd ! I'm so 
glad to have caught hold of you.' 

' Thanks. I'm very glad to have been caught hold of 

The sound of Waley's friendly voice was musical in the 
young man's ears just then. 

' I'm rather inclined for a spree to-night,' Waley said. 
' Have you anything on hand ? I had a sort of notion of 
o-oing to one of the music-halls. I want to be set laughing. 
AV hat do you say .?' 

' All right. I'll go and laugh — if I can.' 

The conversation languished. There was a long pause. 



WHAT WALEY DID WITH HIMSELF 849 

The two were alone at their table, quite away from the 
rest of the little world. 

' Have a pull at the fizz,' Waley said. 

' Thanks,'' Conrad answered, and he finished a glass of 
champagne at a draught. 

Still the talk, somehow, did not flow. 

' Anything the matter with you, old man .?' Waley asked 
after another interval, as he scanned with kindliness his 
companion''s face. 

' I don't know that there is anything very particular, or 
unexpected, at all events. But what about you T 

' About me ? Well, I don't know.' 

There was another pause, and the courses of the dinner 
went and came. 

Then Waley suddenly said : 

' There was something the chief was saying to me the 
other day — and it did not quite take hold of me at the 
time — ^but now I begin to feel that it bit in : I can't tell 
you the why and the wherefore, but there it is. It has 
caught on to me, somehow.' 

' Yes ; what was it .-'' 

'Well, it was like this, don't you know. The chief 
asked me, says he, "Don't you find that there are some 
days which are epoch-making days.?" Yes, I am sure 
those were his words, Conrad — may I call you Conrad ?' 

' Oh yes, by all means ; why not ?' 

' We are friends, ain't we V 

' Yes, I hope so.' 

' I feel very friendly to you, anyhow.' 

' Well, and so do I to you,' Conrad said, not without a 
half-note of impatience in his voice. 

' That's all right. You are a man I know I can trust,, 
and I tell you that you can trust me.' 



250 THE lUDDLE RING 

' You needn't tell me. I do trust you.' 
' All right. What were we talking about ?' 
' About what Rose called epoch-making days.' 
' Yes, yes — ^how did it pass for a moment out of my 
head ? Well, he asked me if I didn't find that some days 
seemed to be epoch-making days — when one felt that some- 
thing was going to happen that might change the whole 
run of one's life.' 

' Yes ; and what did you say ?' 

' Well, I said — like a fool, I suppose — that I hadn't ever 
particularly noticed anything of the kind. Have you ever 
had any such ideas about any day that ever made an im- 
pression upon you ?' 

' Yes, Waley, I have had such ideas.' 

Jim's mind went back at once to the day when he found 
his mystic ring, and he felt that that was indeed an epoch- 
making day in his life. 

' See that, now ! I suppose it was want of education 
and book-reading and poetry, and all that sort of thing, 
in me ; but, do you know, I never had any thought of the 
kind in my mind up to that time.' 

' Not up to that time ? And now ?' 

' Now I think I do begin to understand the feeling. I 
have a strong notion in my mind that these last few days 
mean something to me — something that may mean a big 
change in my life — only I don't know what it is all about, 
or what is going to come of it. No, not the least httle 
bit in the world.' 

' Why trouble yourself about it, Waley ?' 

' Lord bless you ! how do I know ? I can't help troubling 
myself about it. The feeling is there, don't you know. I 
can't get rid of it.' 

jTim began to listen with some genuine interest tO' \a^ 



WHAT WALEY DID WITH HIMSELF 251 

friend's vague outpouring as to his condition of mind. 
He had come to have a high opinion of Waley's robust 
and manly good sense, and he well knew that up to that 
time Waley's one central idea had been that of a spaniel- 
Hke devotion to his master. Whatever doubt or brooding 
was in his mind must, Jim felt assured, be a doubt or 
brooding on that subject. The doubt or the brooding co- 
incided very curiously with certain doubts which had been 
springing up in Jim's own mind during the last few days. 
But he did not want to get any deeper into Waley's con- 
fidence than Waley was himself willing that he should 
penetrate. So he remained silent for a moment or two. 
Then Waley began again, as if with an eiFort to toss the 
whole subject away. 

' Well, well,' he said, ' there's no use in making ourselves 
uncomfortable by talking over all that kind of gloomy 
thing now. You are right about that — why trouble our- 
selves ? When the thing comes, whatever it is, we shall 
know all about it, eh ? Look here, let's talk of something 
else. How about Patagonia .?' 

' About Patagonia ? Yes, what about Patagonia ?' 
' When shall you be ready to go out there ?'' 
Nothing had been farther from Jim's mind for many 
days than the idea of his going out to Patagonia just then, 
' I don't quite understand what you want of me in 
Patagonia.' 

' Well, if it comes to that, no more do I. But the chief 
is very keen about it.' 

' What does he want me to do in Patagonia i"' 

' Oh, that, of course, he'll tell you. He always knows 

exactly what he wants. I can tell you enough to start 

you ; when you are ready to go, he'll tell you all the rest' 

' Waley,' said Jim gravely, ' I ha,ve something to do in 



252 THE RIDDLE RING 

London just now. When that is over, I am ready to go 
to Patagonia or any other part of the world as soon as you 
want me to go — ^the sooner the better for me.' 

' Will it take long ?' Waley asked in a low and kindly 
tone. 

' Will what take long ?' 

' Oh, come ! don't you see — ^the thing that you want to 
settle.' 

It occurred to Jim that it might take long indeed if he 
were to attempt a final settlement of that trouble — that it 
might admit of no final settlement — that the best efforts 
he could make might only tend to unsettlement. But he 
merely answered : 

' I can't tell you just yet, Waley.' 

' The chief wants you to go at once — at once.' 

' Has he told you so ?'' 

' Told me so to-day.' 

And even as Waley was speaking the thought went 
across his mind for the first time : ' Why does the chief 
want this young fellow out of London .?' And then another 
flash of guesswork came on him, and he sat following its 
light in his uncouth sort of way, £ind there was silence 
again for a moment or two. 

' You're in trouble, old pal, ain't you ?' he began, in the 
kindliest tone his voice could assume ; ' and I wonder if 
you might tell me what it is. I'm ever so much older 
than you, and I've knocked about the world twenty times 
more than you have. Could I help you at all .?' 

' No, Waley — thanks, my dear fellow. I am afraid there 
is nothing to be done. And I am not sure that the world 
would call it a trouble of mine. Well, I couldn't explain 
even if I had any right to explain ; and I am not a very 
good hand at explanation, anyhow.' 



WHAT WALEY DID WITH HIMSELF 253 

'Nobody is who feels a thing,' Waley said sympatheti- 
cally. ' Why, I have a doubt and a trouble on my own 
mind just at this moment, and be hanged if I could explain 
them to myself, not to talk of explaining them to other 
folk. But your trouble — don't think me rude or too 
curious — it is something about a woman, ain't it, now ?' 

He put his big hand gently and kindly on Jim Conrad's 
knee. 

Jim winced a little, flushed a little, and then said man- 
fiiUy: 

'Yes, Waley, old man, I don't mind confessing to you 
that much : it is about a woman. Don't a^sk me any more.' 

'My dear boy, not another word. I've been through 
that sort of thing myself — lots of times. You say I can't 
help you at all i'' 

Jim shook his head. 

' Could the chief help you ? 

The question was put in perfect innocence, but it made 
Jim Conrad start and wince and grow red. 

' No — no — ^no !' he said shai'ply. ' I don't care to talk 
about the matter any more, Waley.' 

Now, the vague suspicion that had come up at first in 
Waley's mind was an idea that Conrad might be in love 
with some girl, whose attractions had somehow got hold 
of the chief also. Waley firmly believed the chief to be 
irresistible in his love-making, and Waley's general notions 
of women were drawn from experiences in which educated 
varieties of taste did not reckon for very much. Waley 
had accepted £is a position governing all others the fact 
that^the chief was irresistible to women. If he was irre- 
sistible to one woman, why not to all women ? Was not 
that the common-sense of it ? So he took it at once for 
granted that Jim Conrad's trouble was simply because his 



254 THE RIDDLE RING 

■ ' mash,' as Waley would have called her, had taken it into 
!her silly feminine head to fall in love with Sir Francis 
-Rose. He spoke out on the spur of the moment — incau- 
'tious to those whom he believed to be his friends, while 
•cautious as a Red Indian to human beings of the outer 
-range. 

' I don't think you need have any trouble of mind about 
"'the chief in that way, Conrad, my son,' he said, with a 
.genial, reassuring smile. 

' In what way .'" Jim asked, all amazed. 

' Oh, well, don't you know, in that way. Look here, I'll 
i;ell you a secret, and of course you won't breathe a word 
oi it to a mortal. It's this : the chief has fallen in love 
— with whom do you think .'' — you would never guess — 
"with his own wife ! Yes, sure as death ! And I am con- 
foundedly sorry for it, because it may spoil him for many 
a good enterprise. Oh, by Jove ! these women — ^how they 
do come across us at every hand's turn ! Yes, he's fallen 
in love with his own wife all over again, and he wants to 
^et her back to him, and, I tell you, if he wants to get her 
back he'll get her back ! I suppose, anyhow, it's better 
■than falling in love with some woman who isn't his wife — 
more moral and all that. I say, old man, this ought to be 
;good news for you, and yet somehow you don't look quite 
•as if it was. I say, sit up and tell us what is the matter.' 

Jim had indeed for the moment fallen quite out of 
time. He could hardly catch on at first to the train of 
■ideas which Waley had in his mind when Waley en- 
'deavoured to reassure him by telling him that the chief 
•had fallen in love a,gain with the chief's own wife. Even 
;still it was but a vague perception of the notion that 
'came over him. That, however, was a poor and altogether 
isecondary consideration. The one thought uppermost in 



WHAT WALEY DID WITH HIMSELF 255 

his mind .was fixed upon Waley's declaration tiiat Rose 
had again fallen in love with his wife, and was determined 
to get her back. 

' I can't believe it, Waley,' he exclaimed. ' He doesn't 
care thi-ee straws about her. He deserted her ; he cast her 
away ; he flimg her from him in her youth and her beauty ;- 
and — oh, good heavens ! what am I talking about i" 

' Blest if I know,' Waley said very gravely ; while, for' 
all his disclaimer of knowledge, a shrewd suspicion wa& 
beginning to creep in and to light its little glow-worm, 
lamp, or firefly lamp, as it might be, in the dusk of un- 
certainty. 

' Oh, that's the way,' he said to his own soul. 
' Never mind, Waley,' Jim said hurriedly ; ' let's not 
talk of this any more. I don't suppose I quite know what 
I am talking about. I say, did I drink too much of that 
champagne ?' 

' No, 'taint that,' Waley said in a kindly tone. ' Just 
look at the bottle, and help yourself again, and then pass- 
it on. Don't you see i" 

By this time Waley, with his natural shrewdness, pricked 
further on by the secrecy of the chief, had come to the- 
conviction that something serious was being planned about 
which he had not been consulted, and was not to be con- 
sulted, and which threatened to be serious for Jim Conrad. 
The rights and the wrongs of the matter were wholly un-- 
jirliawn to him ;. but* "he was' very anxious to know some-- 
thing about them. Suddenly he started off on the track 
of blunt inquiry, and, having gulped down another glass* 
of champagne, he burst out : 

' I say, look here, old pal : you haven't been making" 
love to the chief's wife, or anything of that kind, have^ 
you ?' 



256 THE RIDDLE RING 

Poor Jim's barrier of reserve quite broke down. 

' I didn't know she was his wife,' he said — the conversa- 
tion was carried on almost in a whisper — ' I didn't know 
she was anybody's wife.' 

' Oh, but you do know now .?' 

' Oh yes, I do know now ; she told me.' 

' ^Vhat do you mean to do .?' 

' To save her from him, if I can. He's a brute and a 
beast and a scoundrel !' 

' Look here, Conrad,' Waley interposed, not ungently ; 
'I can't stand hearing this said of the chief; it wouldn't 
be proper on my part, and I shan't.' 

' All right,' Conrad replied ; ' then you need not stand 
it. I shall leave you to yourself. Good-night.' 

So Conrad started up from the table. 

' Now, now, now !' Waley said soothingly. ' See how 
hot and hasty you young chaps are. Sit down again, 
Conrad, my son. By Jove ! you might be a son of mine, 
so far as years go, anyhow. Look here : I am a good 
deal on your side of this business lately, although I know 
very little about it.' 

' I can't tell you anything,' said Jim, sitting down again, 
however. 

' Don't want you to tell me a word more than you feel 
at liberty to tell to a true friend, if my honourable friend 
will allow me so to call him,' Waley said, with a vague 
recollection of what he had heard now and then when he 
sat in one of the galleries of the House of Commons. 

' Well, there,' Jim murmured : ' I was in love with her 
before I knew that she was married, and she had no reason 
to tell me her secret at first ; but when she found out that 
I was in love with her — when I told her so, in fact — then 
she let me know that she was married, and that her 



WHAT WALEY DID WITH HIMSELF 257 

husband had deserted her, and that there could be nothing 
between us — ^between her and me — ^but only friendship, 
and that at a distance. Oh, good God ! how I felt ! I 
knew that her husband was a scoundrel, but I didn't know 
who he was.'' 

' Now, now ! You only know one side of the story.' 

' See here, Waley. Has he deserted his wife, or has he 
not ? 

' Well, if you press me for an answer, I am afraid he has.' 

' And, now, does he want to get her back i*' 

' Oh yes ; I told you so. He has fallen madly in love 
with her all over again.' 

' Yes. But does he know that she has lately come in 
for a large fortune — does he know that, Waley ?' 

' I am afraid he does know that — ^in fact, he told me so.' 

' And is that the renewal of love T 

' Well, you see, the chief is a man of what people call a 
complex character. I suppose the money may have some- 
thing to do with it.' 

'Yes, I dare say,' Jim interjected grimly. 

' I know — I know ; but I don't think it has everything 
to do with it. I don't believe it's the money and nothing 
else. The chief is a sort of man who can't bear to be cut 
out of anythiiig or left out of anything. So long as he 
had merely dropped the young woman, it didn't seem to 
matter much to him. Stay, now ; I'm only putting the 
case from his point of view, and it's no use fussing. But, 
of course, when it came to his wanting to get hold of the 
young woman again, and she not wanting to be got hold 
of by him, why, that, don't you see, is another pair of 
shoes. Well, now, what do you propose to do ? He is 
her husband, ain't he ?' 

* Unhappily, he is.' 

17 



268 THE RIDDLE RING 

' He hasn't lost any of his rights — he hasn't deserted iot 
long enough, has he ?' 
' Unhappily, no.' 

' Very well. Then, where do you come in ? You don't 
want her to run away with you, now, do you ?' 

' Waley, don't talk in that infernal way. I wonder 
what she would say to me if I were to hint at such a thing.' 
' I know — I know,' Waley said in a conciliatory tone, 
not meaning that he knew precisely what words the lady 
would use under such conditions, but that he knew she 
would say exactly what Jim Conrad assumed that she 
would be sure to say. 

' She isn't like the women we meet in the world, Waley. 
I want you from the first — from the very first — ^to under- 
stand that.' 

'Yes, yes, of course — I quite understand that. The 
chief told me as much as that himself. He took it all 
upon himself — said it was all his own fault, and that he 
was not worthy of her — you know that sort of thing,' 
Waley added, with the best piu"pose, but with, perhaps, a 
little want of tact. 

'She is the purest and the noblest woman that ever 
lived !' Jim burst out again, and then shot an eager glance 
around him to make sure that nobody had heard him. 

' Yes, yes ; of course she is — they all are,' Waley said 
again with the kindest purpose, but again with a little 
want of tact. ' But, you see, that only makes the difficulty 
all the greater. What do you propose to do ? You know 
that she is married ; you know that her husband is going 
to claim her again ; you know that she is a woman who 
wouldn't run away with you or anyone else. Then, what 
in the world do you propose to do .?' 

' I'll tell you what I propose to do, Waley. I am not 
such a fool as you suppose ' 



WHAT WALEY DID WITH HIMSELF 259 

' Never said you were a fool of any sort, dear boy — never 
sjipposed it. Give you my word of honour.' 

'Doesn't matter — doesn't matter whether you did or 
not. What I want to do now is to get her free from 
him — if I can. If I feel sure that she is free from him, I 
shall be content never to see her again. Yes, I shall ! I 
should be willing to enter into a bond never to see her 
again, never, never, in all my life, if only I could know 
that she was free from him. And to bring that about, 
Waley, I'll do all that I can, and I tell you I shall think 
little of any possible danger to myself if I can secure that 
freedom for her.' 

'You are a good chap,' Waley said slowly, 'and I 
believe in my soul you mean all that you say. But how 
do you propose to get her away from him .?' 

'She has friends,' Jim answered. 'She has one great 
friend — a woman — who will go to the farthest end of the 
earth with her. I shall help them to get away.' 

' You can't. He will find them out. He will do any- 
thing when he has set his heart upon it.' 

' His heart ! His heart ! Has he any heart .''' 

'Well, I thought he had once upon a time, and I hope 
he has still. I do believe, honest Injin, that he has Set 
his heart upon her again. I do believe that he is really" in 
love with her. He's an awfully odd sort of man, but he'll 
have his way.' * 

'Waley,' said Conrad, speaking in a low, suppressed 
tone, ' sooner than that he should get hold of her again 
I'll kill him.' 

' My good fellow,' Waley answered, in the calmest voicsj 
'.if you come between him and any design of his, he is 
much more likely to kill you.' 

Waley meant what he said. During all their talk he had 
been turning over in his mind some vague possibilities. 



260 THE RroDLE RIN(i 

' Let him, if he can,' Conrad said. ' I'll see to that ! If 
I am attacked from behind I can't protect myself, and my 
life, like the life of everybody else, is at the mercy of any 
assassin. Why, there was a man killed not fifty yards 
from this very place last night, here in the West End of 
London ! I can only take my chance of that. If anyone 
attacks me from the front, I fancy I can give a good 
accoimt of myself and of him. But I'll not let him get 
hold of her if I can help it. No, not if I were to kill him !' 

' Let us think this over,' Waley said, ' and talk it over 
another time, as soon as we can. I want to pass it all 
through my mind, do you see, and size it up, if I can, and 
see what it all comes to. We are talking of killing as if 
we were in some parts of the world where I have been, and 
where anybody who likes kills anybody he dislikes, and 
very few questions asked about the business afterwards. 
But I'll look into the matter, and tell you what idea I get 
of it. It wants some cool thinking over. Of course, we 
keep all this to ourselves for the present .'" 

' Of course — of course.' 

' Very good. FIJ let you know. I dare say you don't 
feel much inclined for any of the halls to-night ?' 

« Oh no ; not I.' 

*No more do I. Let's go.' 

So they parted. Waley kept asking himself, as he 
wandered towards his lodgings : 

' Was it for this Coffin was brought over ? Or for this 
and something else ?'' 

He had had Sir Francis Rose's own assurance that he 
meant to get hold of his wife by fair means or foul, and 
that idea at the time did not seem wholly to shock Waley's 
moral sense, which, indeed, had stood a good deal of 
shocking already. But it was clear that, since he had 



WHAT WALEY DID WITH HIMSELF 261 

failed quite to fall in enthusiastically with his patron's 
ideas on this subject, he had been lefb somewhat out in 
the shade, and this very night he had noticed how the 
face of the chief grew dark when he spoke of the necessity 
of getting Conrad out of the way — ^to Patagonia, or any- 
where else. 

And now Coffin was on the scene, and Coffin had been 
summoned over in the first instance, and according to the 
usual fashion, through him, Waley ; and now, behold, 
he was put aside, and Coffin was taken into lonely con- 
fidence. Was it that Coffin was summoned in the first 
instance to help in nothing but the carrying off of Rose's 
own wife — an enterprise in which Waley might possibly 
have been expected to assist ? Was it possible that now 
his help might be required for a darker deed .'' Waley's 
much revolving mind brooded deeply over this possibility 
as he went his way through the flashing and clattering 
streets. 

CHAPTER XXin. 

WHAT THE CHIEF DID WITH HIMSELF. 

While all this conference was going on between Jim 
Conrad and Mr. Waley at the Cafe Royal, Sir Francis 
Rose was dining alone at the Voyagers' Club. He talked 
to nobody when he could avoid it; and the Voyagers' 
Club was rather a social, conversational, friendly, chatty 
little club — not at all like the monumental old-fashioned 
clubs of the Waterloo Place region, or the overcrowded 
and noisy ' caravanserais ' of the Northumberland Avenue 
quarter. It was not, however, the humour of Sir Francis 
Rose to talk this night, and to those who approached him 
he soon made it clear that good-fellowship was not the 



*62 THE RIDDLE RING 

Sort of thing he wanted then. He had a way of conveying 
his sentiments very clearly without drawing on any great 
store of eloquence, and the few who accosted him on this 
particular evening promptly recognised the fact that he 
wanted to be let alone. At the Voyagers' Club people did 
not mind that. 

Almost everybody had now and then on his mind a new 
expedition or enterprise of some kind which had to be 
carefully thought out, and which would not be the better 
for even the friendliest interruption. So there was no 
fault found with Rose, and he was allowed to think un- 
disturbed over his enterprise — whatever it might be. 

Rose had just now a good deal to think over. There 
was new matter in his mind, and his mental balance was 
a little shaken by the novelty of emotion which he had 
allowed to take possession of him. 

Love had since his very boyhood been a familiar, a 
welcome, a delightful disturber of his heart. But how 
about hate ? Hate had not up to this counted for much 
in the self-centred nature of Francis Rose. He had, of 
course, in his varied career had many an outburst of 
sudden angry passion, taking to itself for the hour the 
mood of hate. He had killed a man more than once in 
his time — and in countries where, as Waley said to 
Conrad, if you do kill a man, nobody takes much trouble 
about a prosecution at criminal law. 

But the intense pleasure that Rose had always found in 
new sensation had generally been the excitement of risk 
and of danger ; of success or failure in enterprise ; the 
excitement of love-making; the excitement of studying 
himself under new conditions. Now, however, he found 
the keen sensation of intense hatred taking fast grip on 
him. He felt himself hating Jim Conrad, and according 



WHAT THE CHffiF DID WITH HIMSELF gCS 

to his fashion he cherished the new feehng, and cuddled it, 
and made much of it, and was determined to give it its head. 

Just at the moment when he had become inflamed again 
with love for the wife whom he had not merely abandoned, 
but thrust from him with his cruel parting message con- 
veyed through the ring and its inscription — ;just as he had 
resolved to win back her love, to conquer her and to capture 
her — just as he had found that to get her back would be 
to become possessed of money enough to enable him to 
take again that place in society which he had wantonly 
thrown away and now was passionately eager to recover — 
just at that crisis came in the young man who stood, as 
Rose was convinced, in the way of his reconquering his 
wife's affections. He had no doubt that Jim Conrad was 
madly in love with Clelia Rose; and how if Clelia Rose 
were in love with Jim Conrad ? It was quite possible. He, 
Francis Rose, had cast her off; he had sent her that ring, 
with its confoimded message telling her bluntly that their 
love-story had all come to an end. 

What in the world had possessed him, he now asked 
himself, to do such a thing ? Why could he not have 
remained away as other adventurous husbands do, until it 
suited him to come back — and never come back if he did 
not feel inclined for a move that way ? But he must be 
theatric ; he must be romantic ; he must have a new sensa^ 
tion ; he must do things in a way that jio one had donp 
things before. He well remembered the impulse that came 
on him. The ring was a copy of an old family ring which 
had come down to Clelia's father, who had the duplicate 
wrpught in India, and gave it to Clelia, and Clelia had 
given it to Rose in Paris just before their marriage, and 
asked him to wear it day and night for her sake. Then 
they had invented, together, their fantastic little anagran^ 



THE RIDDLE RING 

— Rpsita to Francisco — and had it enamelled on the ring. 
And then — and then — and then he had made some excuse, 
after the first year of their marriage, for leaving her and 
wandering off on one of his entei-prises. He propitiated 
himself by remembering that it was only after she had 
foimd him out, and had reproached him, and had told him 
that he was not the man she believed herself to have married, 
he first wanted to get away and be free ; and the idea at 
last occurred to him to get the ring engraved inside with 
signs that might signify the close of their married life, and 
so send it to her to let her know that all was over between 
her and him. He well remembered — and he felt a self- 
comforting pride in the recollection — ^that at the time he 
really thought he was conveying his announcement of the 
inevitable in a very considerate, graceful, and romantic form, 
such as might possibly even soothe the morbid feelings of 
a young married woman whose husband did not find him- 
self able to put up with married life any longer. Even 
still he could not help thinking that the thing, as it had 
to be done — and he was convinced then that it had to be 
done — was put into generous, regretful, and even tender 
shape. 

But, oh ! how he wished now that it never had been 
done ! Why, even if he had been absent for many more 
years than he actually was absent, he could have invented 
any tale of a wrecked ship, a desert island, a capture by 
savages — anything, anything ! Clelia had so trusting a 
nature that, if he had only managed her well, he was sure 
he could have got her to believe that he heid been captured 
by a Barbary rover, and sold into slavery among the 
Paynims. Now he saw clearly what he might have so 
easily done and said : 

'I hated myself, Clelia — I had forfeited your love — I 



WHAT THE CHIEF DID WITH HIMSELF 265 

had forfeited it deservedly — ^I could not endure civilization 
any more, or the sight of the place in which we had once 
been happy, and so I rushed off to the wildest regions I 
could find, longing for death, striving for death, and with 
only one hope in my heart, that when she heard of my 
early fate Clelia would feel sorry for me, and forgive me !' 

Why, to be sure, that would have been the right thing 
to do! That would have fetched her — that would have 
fetched any nice woman. But he had spoiled all with his 
absurd valedictory ceremony and her confounded old ring. 
And now in came this young fellow with his youth and his 
sentiment — and a horribly well-set-up young fellow too — 
and he went and fell in love with Clelia, and who on earth 
was to say that she had not fallen in love with him ? Some 
men would throw her over for ever, acknowledging all the 
while that it was their own infernal bungling that had 
made the mess. 

' But I am not the man to do that sort of thing,' Sir 
Francis said to his own soul, with proud self-appreciation. 
* She did love me once, and she shall love me again. I'll 
make her ; by Jove ! I'll tame her. I'll carry her off if I 
have to keep her in a cage. A week of imprisonment will 
bring her round to me. And as for him !' 

Oh, if they were only in some of the far-off regions which 
he had studied not wisely but too well ! Something must 
be done with him. If Waley could not manage to send 
him out to Patagonia or some such place — and Waley 
seemed, somehow, like chilling off this last day or two — 
why, then, it must be seen what counsel with Marmaduke 
Coffin had to offer. A good fellow, Marmaduke Coffin — a 
thorough good fellow, afraid of nothing, sticking at nothing. 
Yes, it must be seen what Marmaduke Coffin would have 
to advise. 



§66 THE RIDDLE RING 

And at that moment a waiter came and told him that a 
gentleman wished to see him — ^Mr. Marmaduke Coffin. 

Sir Francis Rose almost started as he heard the name. 
He knew, of course, that Coffin was coming ; he was ex- 
pecting him, he had ordered him to come, he had fixed 
this place and the hour, and yet he almost started when 
at that precise moment he heard the announcement of 
Coffin's name. It was as if in some old story a sudden 
purpose of evil had called up in bodily presence some 
demon agent to press it on and carry it out. 

Sir Francis Rose was not easily startled, and the shudder 
soon passed off, and he felt ashamed of himself for having 
felt even the slight and momentary shock. After all, no 
mortal can be always a perfect master of himself. The 
saint has his moments of shrinking from martyrdom. The 
bravo sometimes starts at a shadow, and fears each bush 
an officer. 

Rose gave directions that Coffin should be shown into 
the little recess with which we are already well acquainted, 
in front of the window in one of the corridors, where people 
sometimes smoked who did not care to mount up to the 
regular smoking-room. It was Rose's fixed and deliberate 
belief that conspiracy of any kind was most safely carried 
on in public. A recess in a corridor just near a flight of 
stairs, with people always going up and down — who could 
suspect anything of conspiracy there ? 

Rose found Marmaduke Coffin in this little recess. 
Coffin rose and bowed as if he were greeting a conspirator 
of a higher class than himself — nothing more. Then 
Rose ordered cigars and whisky and soda. That being 
accomplished, and the waiter having disappeared, Rose 
came to business at once. 

' I am glad you have come, Coffin.' 



WHAT THE CHmF DID WITH HIMSELF 2G7 

' Of course I came,' CofBn answered. 

' Yes. You are not a man of many scruples, CofEn. I 
have always known that of you.' 

' Haven't any scruples,' Coffin replied. 

' Of course not ; no sensible man has.' 

' Waley has,' Coffin said. 

Sir Francis started once again, and looked into Coffin's 
impassive face, trying to find an expression of meaning 
there. , He found none. Coffin seemed like a man who 
is propounding some abstract scientific truth. 

' Yes, Waley has scruples ; I have found that out,' Rose 
said after a moment's pause, during which he had been 
questioning himself as to whether Coffin could possibly 
have divined what was passing in the mind of his chief. 
Rose might as well have sought an explanation of what 
the blotting-pad was thinking by staring on the blotting- 
pad's ink -besmirched surface. 

' You have your own ambition. Coffin.' 

'I have my own ambition.' 

' Yes, I know. Come now, what is it ? You have not 
got much out of our joint enterprises so far, have you ?' 

'Nothing at all.' 

' Of course, I know that. But you still expect ?' 

' I still expect.' 

' What do you want ?' 

' I want to be my own master.' 

' Come, I quite understand that sort of ambition. Now 
then, what sort of mastership do you want to have i"' 

' I should like to set up a hair-cutting and hairdressing 
shop of my own — ^Rue de la Paix, Paris.' 

Rose would have liked to smile, but knew that any such 
expression of amusement would be ill-timed. He was, 
however, intensely amused. Fancy what human ambition 



Missing Page 



Missing Page 



^70 THE RIDDLE RING 

' Yes, yes, if it can possibly be avoided, of course,' his 
chief hurriedly said. 'Only you know that I am riot 
counselling any act of violence — you quite understaiid 
that? What?' 

'I quite understand that you are not counselling any 
act of violence, only you want the man out of the way.' 

' Yes, if he can't be prevailed upon to take himself out 
of the way and let me be rid of him.' 

' Prevailed upon by you, or by me .''" 

' Prevailed upon by Waley.' 

' I see. Waley tries to talk him over, and if Waley 
fails, then I come in .>" 

« That's about it.' 

' That's about it,' Coifin echoed contemplatively. 

' You've got the whole business.' 

' And no questions asked .''' 

' You may be sure I shan't ask any questions. Other 
people may, of course.' 

' They may ; I don't mind about that.' 

' But you will remember that I have not advised you to 
•do anything rash or violent ? 

' Chief,' said Coffin solemnly, ' a bargain is a bargain as 
between man and man. That's what I always say, and 
-what I say I stick to. You give me the money to buy 
the house in the Rue de la Paix, and that's all you have 
got to do with the business — except to tell me when 
Waley has failed in his job, and when I come in.' 

'You shall know that in good time. This money — 
!must it be paid all at once, Coffin ?' 

' No ; I can arrange about that. If I have your word, 
I can manage the business myself at any time that suits you.' 

' You have my word. Coffin ; you can trust me.' 

' I trust you,' Coffin said grimly. ' And now, will you 



WHAT THE CHIEF DID WITH HIMSELF 271 

tell me the man's name, and whereabouts he is likely to be 
fornid r 
* You know the man already.' 

' Do I ? That makes it all the easier to manage. What 
is he called ?' 

Then Rose bent over and whispered a name. 
No gleam of surprise or emotion of any kind passed over 
Coffin's face. 

' Thought he was going out to Patagonia,' he said, after a 
moment of silence, and with gloomy, unabated coolness. 

' I wanted him to go, but he seems to be backing out of 
it. He appears to prefer London just now,' Rose added, 
with a bitterness of tone which he could not repress, which 
it relieved him not to repress, although in another instant 
he told himself that he was a fool for expressing any 
emotions during the arrangement of such a purely business 
transaction. 

' Don't wonder,' Coffin said ; ' I shouldn't like to have to 
go out to Patagonia just now.' 

' No,' Sir Francis said, with a half-smile. ' The Rue de 
la Paix has more charms — and the wife Number Two !' 

' Right you are,' Coffin responded, without even half a 
smile. 

'But don't you know that wife Number Two is a 
dangerous business ? You may be extradited and brought 
over here and tried for bigamy.' 

Somehow or other, although Coffin was ,JElQse's chosen 
instrument, and seemed made for the purpose, there was 
something about his imperturbable coolness that irritated 
Rose. With all his physical daring. Rose felt that there 
were things he could not take so coolly, and it annoyed him. 
' Nothing venture, nothing have,' said Coffin, in tone as 
earnest as if the proverb were then spoken for the first time 



272 THE RIDDLE RING 

on earth. « I run that risk for the woman — I run the other 
risk for the house.' 

'The other risk ?' 

' The risk of the removal, don't you know !' 

Was Coffin really trying to make a joke ? The answer 
never can be given. 

' The removal ! What removal ?' 

'The removal of our friend, who don't want to visit 
Patagonia. Don't wonder at him. Patagonia must be a 
very stupid place.' 

' To anyone who has lived in the Rue de la Paix.' 

' That's it.' 

' Come in to-morrow. Waley is not coming.' 

'All right.' 

' Well, I suppose we have said enough.' 

Rose stood up. He put it not peremptorily, but gently. 
He was anxious to conciliate as far as he possibly could. 
But he began to find something uncanny, even to him, in 
the indifference of his follower to all risks and to all codes. 

' Said all we want to. Sir Francis ? Too much talk 
never of any use between men who understand each other.' 

' Won't you have another whisky and soda ?' 

' No, thanks. Don't care much for drinks.' 

' Another cigar, then 7' 

' Well, yes — another cigar — ^just to carry me home.' 

He had his cigar, and he went his way. As he crossed 
St. James's Square he murmured to himself: 

' Thought I should get hold of that house in the end. 
Knew I should. Hope that young fellow won't take it 
into his silly head to knock under, and go to Patagonia 
after all.' 



•WHAT IS TO BE DONE FIRST?' 273 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

'what is to be done first?' 

' What is to be done — above all, what is to be done first ?' 
Such was the thought that was rushing round and round 
in Jim Conrad's bewildered mind, like the blind wave in 
the cavern, the long sea-hall, which Tennyson pictured. 
Such was the thought that surged and stormed blindly 
enough, and beat for a while all purposelessly in poor 
Conrad's mind as he left Mr. Waley's company on that 
epoch-making night. It was now clear that Rose had 
determined to get back his deserted wife by force, if needs 
were ; and in such force he would unquestionably, as Waley 
had pointed out, have at least the traditions of English 
law on his side. Jim did not care three straws about the 
threatened danger to himself. He would not have minded, 
anyhow ; it would not have turned him from his purpose 
for one moment ; in such a matter he did not hold his life 
at a pin's fee. But, in fact, he did not now believe there 
was any such danger. He reasoned, as most of us do, from 
our common daily experience. 

' I have never heard of assassinations after the Sicilian 
or the Corsican fashion in England,' he would have said ; 
' and I don't believe that anything of the kind is going to 
be attempted for my especial benefit.' 

That danger, therefore, did not really enter into his 
calculation. But the other was a danger, clear, probable 
— all but certain. The very sensation of capturing and 
carrying o£F in London the wife whom he had deserted 
would, as Jim knew, be a delightful experience to a man 
like Sir Francis Rose. 

18 



274 THE RIDDLE RING 

But what was to be done ? What was to be done first ? 
It was now ten o'clock — no more. Could he call at Clelia's 
hotel at such an hour, and put her on her guard ? It would 
be better, much better, he thought, if in the first instance 
he were to see Gertrude Morefield. He could speak more 
freely to her ; he could learn from her what were likely to 
be Clelia's resolves at such a moment of danger. It seemed 
a strange sort of proceeding to call on a young lady at a 
West-End hotel about ten o'clock in the evening ; but he 
knew that Miss Morefield was not the least in the world 
conventional, and that she would have insisted on the right 
of girls to carry latch-keys if she had thought about such 
a matter at all. Anything, Jim told himself, would be 
better than allowing a whole night to pass without giving 
Clelia, directly or indirectly, some warning of the danger. 
So he drove to the hotel where the girls were staying, 
almost as nervous about asking to see a young woman after 
ten o'clock as if he were doing some deed calculated to 
fright the isle from its propriety. 

Arrived at the hotel, he went to the office, asked to see 
Miss Morefield, and wrote upon the card he was sending 
up : ' Important — want to see you particularly,' and 
deeply underlined the 'you.' He was promptly shown 
into a small drawing-room, which was quite empty, and 
the lights of which were turned down. The lights were 
turned up again, and he was left alone for an anxious 
moment. 

Then he heard a rustle of skirts, and Miss Morefield 
came into the room. She was looking pale, but very 
pretty, and was no more discomposed than if it had been 
Jim's riegular habit to call at ten o'clock every night. 
She quietly' shook hands with him, and came to the point 
at once. '''' 



•WHAT IS TO BE DONE FIRST?' £75 

' What is the matter ?' she asked. 

' That brings me here so late ?' 

She seemed to chafe at the awkward, unnecessary ques- 
tion, born of Jim's confusion, 

' Yes, yes, tell me. You wanted to see me particularly ?' 

' Yes, I wanted to see you, and not Miss Vine — not at 
first, anyhow.' 

' It concerns her, then ? 

' It concerns her.' 

' Tell me.' 

' Do people come in here much ? he asked, glancing 
round at the empty room. 

'Not at .this hour; later, yes, when the theatres are 
over. We can talk here quite safely. Go on.' 

' Miss Vine's husband — I mean, of course, Lady Rose's 
husband — ^is in London now.' 

' I know ; she told me. She has seen him.' 

' He is determined that she shall return to him.' 

' She will not ; she has told me. We have talked it all 
over. She will die first ; she has told me so.' 
• 'AH the same, he is determined to get her back.' 

'He can't get her back.' 

' He will try. You do not know the man. I know a 
good deal of him, and I know that he is capable of any- 
thing.' 

' There are laws,' the girl said contemptuously. ■ 

' There are no laws that can prevent a husband from re- 
suming his hold over his wife.' 

' True !' Gertrude said, with a light of anger flashing 
triumphantly into her eyes. ' You have said it : there 
are no laws in this country, or in any other, I suppose, to 
protect women against the brutal tyranny of men.' 

'Well, well,' Conrad said, a little impatiently, for he 



276 THE RIDDLE RING 

thought the general question of woman''s rights and 
woman's wrongs was rather out of place just then, and he 
did not know how soon some of the theatres might be 
closing ; ' at all events, I don't believe there are any laws 
which would enable Lady Rose to escape from the control 
of her husband.' 

He hated speaking of ' Lady Rose,' but what could he 
do ? He could not go on talking of ' Miss Vine ' escaping 
from her husband, and he did not like to speak of ' Clelia.' 

Miss Morefield saw this, and frowned a little. 

' Let us call her Clelia,' she said ; ' I detest to hear her 
called Lady Rose.' 

There was a generous flush on the girl's face, 

' So do I,' said Jim earnestly. 

And somehow Gertrude seemed to flush again. 

' Well, what I came for,' Conrad went on, ' is to warn 
her of the danger — to warn you in the first instance, for 
you understand her, and you can tell her aU you think she 
ought to know — and then, if she likes to see me, she can 
send for me.' 

' But you have told me nothing, except that there is 
danger. Danger of what ? There is no danger is his try- 
ing to get her to go back to him ; she will not go.' 

' Then he will carry her off by force !' 

' My dear Mr. Conrad, this is not Circassia. This is safe 
and commonplace London. People don't do these things.' 

' I tell you. Miss Morefield, that you are mistaken. 
This man will do that, or any other thing that he makes 
up his mind to. I have come at a knowledge which 
appears to me absolutely certain that he is determined to 
have her back again, and it will be only a delightful new 
sensation to him to carry her off by mere force.' 

Jim felt somewhat disappointed in Miss Morefield's 



•WHAT IS TO BE DONE FIRST?' 277 

manner. She did not seem, he thought, as much alarmed 
as she ought to be about her friend. Poor Jim had his 
mind full only of one subject, and he made that quite 
plain. Perhaps he made it just a little too plain under 
the circumstances. Decidedly, he was not very clever in 
understanding the feelings of girls. 

A change came over Gertrude's manner. She dropped 
her eyes, and remained silent for a moment. Then she 
spoke in a much softer tone. 

' Mr. Conrad, both she and I have absolute confidence in 
you, and in your judgment, and in your friendship. If 
you tell us that you really think there is danger ' 

* I know there is,' he exclaimed — ' utter danger !' 

' Then I am sure there is danger.' 

' I can't tell you how I came to know it,' he said, ' but 
there it is.' 

' We can take it on your word,' she answered, with a 
sweet, resigned kind of smile, which touched Jim Conrad 
much, although he did not at the moment think of its 
significance ; ' and it is for you and me to guard her 
against it. We are her friends.' 

' She has no better friends,' Jim declared earnestly. 

' She has no other friends now. Well, what can we do i*' 

' Had we not better tell her at once ? I mean, had you 
not better tell her .■" 

' Perhaps so — oh yes, I think so. But just a moment 
first. When do you think this attempt might be made ?' 

' I don't know. Any time. This night, perhaps.' 

' In this hotel — full of people i"' 

'It's not likely, but it would be quite possible. The 
man is equal to anything. Suppose he gave his name ; 
suppose he is known here to be the man he represents 
himself to be ; suppose he claimed his wife. She couldn't 



278 THE RIDDLE RING 

say that she wasn't his wife ; you couldn't say it. Who 
would prevent him from taking her in his arms and 
carrying her off ?' 

' This is terrible !' said the girl, turning pale. 
, ' If I were here,' said Jim, ' I'd kill him rather than let 
him carry her off.' 

'If I were she,' said Miss Morefield, 'I'd kill myself 
rather than let him carry me off, and I hope she'll do it.' 

Jim shook his head sadly. The same thought had some- 
times flashed through his own mind and through his own 
heart. 

' It mustn't come to that,' he said in a despondent tone 
that half belied the assurance of his words. 

' If I were she, I'd rather do it,' said the impetuous little 
maid, ' than drag out life in enforced companionship with 
a wretch like him.' 

' Well, hadn't we better see her and talk with her ? Jim 
asked, feeling it hopeless then and there to argue back to 
first principles in morals. ' Or would you rather tell it all 
to her yourself, and send for me to-morrow, supposing that 
you want me ?' 

' Oh no ; you must come now and see her at once. You 
must tell us what we are to do.' 

' All right ; let us go.' 

Gertnide led the way. They went upstairs without 
exchanging a word as they went. Then they reached the 
sitting-room, and Gertrude opened the door and went in, 
and said : 

' Clelia dear, here is Mr. Conrad.' 

Clelia had been leaning on the chimney-piece with head 
drooping. Before she had time to tui-n round, Jim had 
caught sight of the attitude and interpreted it. 

The attitude was not that of anxiety, into which doubt 



*WHAT IS TO BE Done first?* s79 

and possibility may enter. It was the attitude of one who 
expects to hear the worst, and only waits in enforced 
patience until the worst be formally annoimced. 

Then Clelia turned round and gave Jim her hand. It 
was a hand of marble coldness. 

' I knew it was about me when you sent for Gertrude. 
I knew that you two were conspiring together to save me 
from some danger — you two — my best, my only friends.'' 

Jim's heart was touched beyond all expression when he 
remembered that but a few minutes before Gertrude herself 
had said just the same thing, in only slightly different 
words — ^that she and he were Clelia''s only friends. 

'You could not have two friends on this earth,' he ex- 
claimed, 'who would go farther to keep you from harm.' 

' As if I did not know that !' and with an almost childish 
impulse of confidence she took for a moment a hand of 
each in hers, and Jim felt in his very soul that it would be 
a rapture for him to die defending her. ' Well,' Clelia 
went on, having put down her outbreak of emotion, ' tell 
me your news. I shall not be frightened. Perhaps I can 
already guess it.' 

' Perhaps you can,' Jim answered sadly ; and then, as 
Gertrude seemed to leave him to tell the tale, he told her 
in a low, rapid, but clear voice, just what he had told Miss 
Morefield. 

' I was afraid it would come to this,' Clelia said quietly. 
' Well, what is to be done ? I will not go back to him. I 
feel like some heroine of a melodrama ;' and she smiled a 
wan smile. ' I will never be taken alive.' 

' Quite right !' Gertrude exclaimed, stamping her little 
foot, and with a warlike flash from her bright eyes. 
, ' Well, it must not come to that,' Jim said soothingly. 

'But what's the good of saying that.'" Gertrude de- 



280 THE RIDDLE RING 

manded impatiently, imperiously. ' Tell her what she is 
to do — ^how she is to escape.' 

In all this confasion, Jim looked with some surprise at 
the pretty impulsive girl, with the puckered eyebrows and 
the angry eyes. There were moods of Gertrude to-night 
which he could not quite understand. 

' You must both get away out of this,' he said, as quietly 
as he could. 

' Yes, yes ; we know all that. We are not going to stay 
here to be taken like rats in a hole. Where can Clelia get 
to this night — ^this very night ? Tell us — ^tell us. Can't 
we get to the Continent this very night .'" 

'You can't go to the Continent to-night,' Jim said. 
' There is no train to Dover or Folkestone before the 
morning.' 

' But we can go somewhere — somewhere out of this, can't 
we ?' the unsatisfied girl insisted. ' I don't care where we 
go, if we only get out of London.' 

' Have you much luggage t" asked Jim, thrown into a 
practical mood of consideration by the girl's impracticable 
impatience. 

' Luggage ! luggage ! As if we were likely to drag 
around great piles of Saratoga trunks ; or as if it would 
matter whether we left them behind !' 

Now, it was becoming clear to Jim in his practical mood 
that for the two women to decamp from a West End hotel 
at eleven o'clock at night would be simply to give Sir 
Francis Rose or anybody else the easiest way of getting on 
their track. But he w£is at first almost afraid to say this, 
lest Gertrude might think him too easy-going about Clelia's 
safety — which, indeed, was the last thought likely to come 
into Gertrude's mind. 

' Let us risk this night,' Clelia said, with a quiet smile. 



♦WHAT IS TO BE DONE FIRST?' 281 

• Night brings counsel, are we not told ? and morning 
brings comfort. To-morrow we may be able to see our 
way a little clearer — whether the comfort comes or not.' 

'But suppose something does happen to-night?' Jim 
broke in, with a renewal of his former alarm. ' Suppose 
he chooses to make a melodramatic business of it this very 
night ? I tell you that the man only lives on sensation, 
and that his whole life is one long indulgence in the delight 
of new emotions. It might just suit him to make a grand 
melodramatic scene here this very night ' 

' But against that we can have no security,' Clelia said. 
In her heart she could not help wondering how entirely 
Jim's analysis of her husband's nature and temperament 
agreed with her own. ' We can't get away to-night with- 
out giving an alarm, and calling attention to our flight. 
To-morrow we may be able to do something better. Let 
us part for the night, Mr. Conrad ; and you can come and 
see Gertrude and me to-morrow.' 

' Yes, I think you are right,' Jim answered, almost re- 
luctantly. ' I don't see that anything much can be done 
to-night. Anyhow, I am strongly against your going to 
the Continent. Nobody can cross the Channel in these 
days without its being found out by anybody who cares to 
know, and who can follow in a few hours. Much better 
go to New York. To-mon"ow — well, I shall have thought 
something out. I am sure you had better keep in London 
and lie low for a day or two, but not here, of course — ^not 
here. You can't go into a suburb ; the people in a suburb 
always take notice of new-comers. No, no, some crowded 
central place where strangers are going and coming all day 
long. How long may I stay here and talk to you ?' He 
looked first at Clelia and then at Gertrude. ' Which of 
you is hostess ?' 



282 THE HIDDLE UlN^ 

' I suppose I ought to be hostess,' Clelia said with com- 
posure, ' because I am a man-ied woman. But then, you 
see, I don't pass for a married woman here. Which of us 
is hostess, Gertrude dear ?'' 

' Oh, how do I know, and what does it matter ? Who 
cares which of us is hostess .?' 

' Well, which of you will tell me how late I may stay 
with you to-night ? Must I go before the theatres empty 
out and people come back here .?' 

' If you ask me,' Gertrude said, ' I don't care three straws.' 

' I think,' Clelia interposed, ' you had better go now, 
Mr. Conrad. There is nothing to be gained by seeming 
to be eccentric. We are in a country of conventionality.' 

' Oh, conventionality !' Gertrude exclaimed, and it seemed 
as if she could say no more. 

That one word appeared to express thoughts too deep 
for words — at all events, for words that had to be spoken 
within a limited lapse of time. 

' Come to-mon-ow, Mr. Conrad,' Clelia said. ' Come to 
breakfast or to luncheon.' 

She spoke with as much quietude as if she were an 
ordinary London hostess inviting some friend to an every- 
day sort of entertainment. Jim was immensely impressed 
by her courage and her coolness. 

' Never mind about breakfast or luncheon,' he said ; 
' may I come at ten ? I shall have thought things out by 
then, and I don't suppose now that anything will happen 
to-night. Anyhow, we must chance it.' 

' Come at ten by all means,' Clelia answered. ' Nothing 
will happen to-night.' 

Jim was about to take his leave. 

' I want to say a word or two to you before you go,' Clelia 
said. ' Gertrude darling, would you mind leaving us for 
a few minutes ?' 



WHAT IS TO BE DONE FIRST?* S83 

' No,' Gertrude returned, ' not the least in the world. 
But I, too, want to say a word to Mr. Conrad before 
he goes.' 

'Oh, do youi"' Clelia asked, with a glance of bright 
good humour. 

'Yes, I do,' Grertrude affirmed doggedly. 'So, Clelia, 
when you have talked with Mr. Conrad, you can go away 
for the night, don't you see ? — ^I mean, from this room, of 
course. I shall come to you in your bedroom.' 

'Very well, dear,' Clelia answered, and Gertrude dis- 
appeared. 

The moment she had gone the whole manner of Clelia 
changed. An intense earnestness settled on her which 
made her face seem like that of the statue of a stem, 
despairing goddess. 

' My friend,' she said, in a low, firm tone, ' I appeal to 
you as the one only friend who could help me at this pass 
as I want to be helped. The help I ask from you I could 
not ask from Gertrude.' 

' What is there that I would not do for you ?' 

' Perhaps you will not do this for me, but I do so hope 
and so trust that you will.' 

' Tell me ! tell me !' Jim said breathlessly. 

' Well, you know as well as I do, you believe as well as 
I do, that life — mere life — life — life is not a great thing — . 
is not the only thing — life without love, and the sense of 
honour and purity. Oh, you must understand !' 

And Jim began to understand. 

'Then,' she went on, 'will you bring me, when you 
come to-morrow — at ten o'clock, wasn't it.? — a strong, 
sharp dagger.? I shouldn't be able to make any use of 
the common or garden knife of commerce,' she said with 
another wan smile. ' It would bend, or break, or some- 



284 THE RIDDLE RING 

thing, and I want to be quite, quite sure. Bring me a 
sharp, strong dagger with a keen point and a broadening 
blade. I promise you that it shall only be used in the 
very, very last resort ; but I want to use it effectively 
then. You will do this for me — you will not refuse? 
You must understand the feelings of a woman — ^the 
horror, the loathing ! You will do this for me ^ — and her 
voice sank into an exquisite sweetness and plaintiveness of 
tone — ' my friend — in this my very only friend ?"" 

Jim had a moment of bewildering doubt and agony. 
Then he said firmly : 

' I will do this. That man shall not get hold of you. 
Better go to your God.' 

'Thank you,' she said fervently, and she pressed his 
hand. ' And one thing more : If the worst should happen, 
or the better — if, anyhow, poor Gertrude should be left 
alone — you will turn your thoughts to her, will you not ? 
— will you not .''' 

She did not wait for an answer — for an answer which 
Conrad could not have given — but she turned away, and 
ran out of the room. 

In a moment Gertrude entered. 

' I don't want to keep you long,' she said, with a certain 
vague suggestion of scorn in her voice ; ' but I want you 
to do one thing for me, and not to tell anybody of it. I 
want you to buy me a good, small revolver, and come here 
at half-past nine to-morrow, and explain it all to me, and 
show me how to use it, and then load it for me.' 

'What on earth do you want a revolver fori"' Jim 
asked, with a quite involuntary emphasis on the 'you.' 
The thought in his mind was, ' You are safe enough. 
Francis Rose does not propose to carry you oft'.' 

'I want it to defend Clelia. If that ^vretch tries to 
carry her off I will shoot him !' 



'WHAT IS TO BE DONE FIRST?' 285 

' Oh ! I wouldn't do that,' Jim remonstrated. ' It 
would be absurd.' 

' All right,' she said, with scornful eyes ; ' I can buy it 
for myself. There is a gunsmith's in this street, only a few 
doors off. I noticed it to-day. But I thought a man 
might be of some use to one — only, I suppose, he can't be. 
Well, we can do without him — some of us, at all events.' 

Jim was bewildered. Clelia's request was tragic ; 
Gertrude's bordered terribly on the comic. 

' Would they sell the girl a revolver .?' he asked of him- 
self. 'Yes, I suppose they would. I'd better see that 
she gets a safe little weapon that won't burst in her hands 
on the first go-off.' He remembered in his boyish days 
having bought a little Derringer in a London shop after 
long scraping up of pocket-money, and how, at the very 
first pulling of the trigger, the Derringer simply burst, 
and a fragment of the barrel's metal lodged in his right 
hand, and could not be got out for weeks after. ' That is 
the sort of weapon she would be sure to buy,' he thought — 
' only with five or six chambers to increase the danger.' 

' Well ?' she asked impatiently. 

' All right,' he answered, ' or all wrong — ^I don't know 
which — ^I'll bring you the revolver to-morrow.' 

' Thank you, and good-night.' 

In a moment he was alone, and he went down the stairs 
and got into the hall, and passed out into the street, hardly 
knowing where he was or what he was doing. He had 
engaged to supply two young women with deadly weapons 
— one to commit suicide, the other to kill an enemy. His 
mind was completely topsy-turvy. Was the genteel, elegant, 
commonplace Albemarle Street hotel about to become a 
sort of Front de Boeurs castle ? And he knew that both 
the women from whom he had just parted were absolutely 
in earnest. 



286 THE RIDDLE RING 

' Very well,' he said to himself, 'the laws can't help us. 
Some of us have only to act as the outlaw acts.' 

The hotel stood not far from the opening of Grafton 
Street. As Jim turned into Grafton Street, he suddenly 
came in the moonlight on Sir Francis Rose's acquaintance, 
Captain Martin, the Patagonian traveller, who was so 
curiously modest, and even reticent, about his experiences 
in Patagonia. The meeting did not impress Jim at the 
time, but he remembered it afterwards. They exchanged 
a salutation huiTiedly, and Jim passed through Grafton 
Street, and then wandered vaguely down Bond Street to 
Piccadilly. He was uncertain what to do. He would have 
liked to stand guard over Clelia's hotel all night long. He 
did, in fact, come back to the spot again and again. Hour 
after hour he revisited the scene, never leaving interval long 
enough for any complicated series of incidents to take place 
in the meantime. 

At last it became to his mind quite clear that nothing 
was likely to happen that night, and he knew he had many 
things to think out before he was to return there next day, 
and so he went home. 

Meanwhile the gallant Captain Martin had gone straight 
on to the Voyagers' Club and asked for Sir Francis Rose. 
Sir Francis Rose, it seemed, had left the club long before. 
Then Captain Martin went to the street near Berkeley 
Square, and found that the lights in his patron's flat were 
out. He thought that perhaps Sir Francis had not yet 
retmned, and so he lingered longer — ^lingered very much 
longer; but at last he gave it up for that night. Sir 
Francis must have gone to bed, and it certainly was not 
worth disturbing him merely to tell him that Mr. Conrad 
had paid a late visit that night to the hotel in Albemai-le 
Street. 

' To-morrow will do,' he said. 



WHAT IS TO BE DONE NEXT ? ^87 

CHAPTER XXV. 

WHAT IS TO BE DONE NEXT? 

Jim Conead thought it out that night with every fibre of 
his brain active and strained in the business of thinking. 
He wanted to prepare against all the difficulties — to stop 
all the earths, in the foxhunter's phrase. He felt sure at 
last that he had a plan as near to perfection as might be, 
in readiness for the morning's meeting. This was the out- 
line of his plan : Clelia and Gertrude were to go to New 
York from Southampton; they had been thinking and 
talking of going to the United States, and they might as 
well go now. The steamers that sail from Liverpool touch 
nearly all at Queenstown, and if Sir Francis Rose got a 
hint of his wife's having left from Liverpool, he would be 
waiting for her and ready to board the steamer at Queens- 
town ; but the steamers sailing from Southampton make 
for the Atlantic straightway, and have no port to touch at. 

There were many advantages, Conrad thought, in Clelia's 
going to New York. If once she got safely off, and by 
one of the fast steamers, there could be no possible pursuit 
for some days to come. Pursuit to the Continent is a 
matter merely of hours. 

Then, Conrad did not believe that in New York the 
judicial authorities would be apt to trouble themselves 
much with intervention merely because an English married 
lady, whose husband did not profess to have any charge 
against her, had made a voyage to New York with another 
lady, even without his permission. 

Jim's idea, therefore, was that he should call at th§ 
Albemarle Street hotel early, bringing his sheaves with 



288 THE RIDDLE RING 

him — ^that is, his revolver and his dagger — ^for distribution, 
that he should divulge his whole scheme to the young 
women, and that, if they acceded to it, he should at once 
take berths for them in the first steamer sailing from 
Southampton. This day was Thursday, and the next 
steamer would leave Southampton at noon on the Saturday. 
That was coming to close quarters indeed ; but, then, there 
were two lines of first-class steamers running every Saturday 
between Southampton and New York, and it was not a 
time of the year when Europeans rush across the Atlantic. 
Excepting for the depth of the winter, the early spring is 
perhaps the time when the Englishman has least idea or 
opportunity of undertaking a trip to America ; therefore, 
Conrad had little doubt that he should be able one way or 
another to secure berths for Clelia and Gertrude and their 
maids. 

Meanwhile, he thought the best thing to do would be 
to take rooms for them at one of the great hotels near to 
Westminster Bridge, and, by consequence, to the Waterloo 
Station — this end, if we may put it so, of Southampton. 

He had thought first of a small hotel or of quiet 
lodgings in one of the narrow streets running off the 
Strand down to the river. But on turning the matter 
over in his mind he came to the conclusion that the safest 
thing of all would be to go to one of the great big flaring, 
crowded hotels of the Northumberland Avenue quarter. 
No one would be likely to assume that two women seeking 
escape from London would even for a single night domicile 
themselves in one of these vast open public places. He 
would go and take berths in the steamer — he would go 
and take rooms in the hotel; and later on the maids 
could quietly convey the luggage to the right place. But 
in the meanwhile Clelia and Gertrude would have to be 



WHAT IS TO BE DONE NEXT? 289 

left alone, and he could not bear the idea of leaving them 
at the Albemarle Street hotel until he had arranged 
everything for their flight. Sir Francis would be almost 
certain to go to Albemarle Street that day and seek his wife. 
What was to be done ? Conrad racked his brain, and 
at last worked out an idea. He had thought of bestow- 
ing the young women in the National Gallery — ' No one 
ever goes to the National Gallery,' he said to himself. No 
— ^he suddenly pulled up — that might be a reasonable 
description of things in general ; but suppose anybody did 
go to the National Gallery, or suppose anybody were seen 
going into the National Gallery — suppose anybody were 
followed into the National Gallery — what protection would 
be afforded there for the pursued.? The officials would 
simply bimdle all the disputants into the street, and Sir 
Francis would have a good chance of securing his end. 
Jim had got to another and a better idea. He would 
deposit the ladies in the gallery of one of the courts of 
law in the Strand, and let them wait there until he had 
arranged all about the passages and the hotel. Suppose 
Sir Francis Rose, by an extraordinary possibility, were to 
find out that his wife was in the gallery of one of the 
courts of law — and supposing that anybody, not being a 
practising lawyer there, could find his way into any of the 
courts of law — and suppose he were then and there to 
claim his wife, and insist on carrying her off by force, 
what would happen to him.'' The judge, if he con- 
descended to interrupt public busineae by listening to his 
appeal, and did not at once order him to be turned into 
the street, would simply tell him that he must proceed to 
enforce his rights by the ordinary legal process, and then, 
if he persevered in his interruption, would commit him to 
prison for contempt of court. All things considered, Jim 

19 



SCO THE RIDDLE RING 

Conrad came to the conclusion that there was no sanctuary 
in the world so absolutely safe in its protection as the 
shelter of one of the law courts in the Strand. Jim could 
not help thinking, amid all his excitement and his frank 
recognition of the possibility of some terrible tragedy 
being close at hand, that the shelter in the law court was 
something fit to suggest a scene to Mr. Gilbert. 

He was up early; he had hardly slept all night, his 
mind had been so engrossed by his plans, and by the whole 
crisis, and by the all but certainty that he was soon to see 
Clelia for the last time. Come what would, it was all 
over between him and her. He had promised her that, 
should she get off free, he would never make any attempt 
to see her again. He would keep his word. For the 
moment he did not allow himself much time to think over 
even this. The effort to help her sustained him. The 
hour had not come for thinking of his own hopeless love. 
That would come later on ; there would be plenty of time 
for it when she had gone. What was he to do with him- 
self when all that dream was over, and there remained 
nothing for him but the cold and crude and cruel routine 
and realities of daily life ? Yet it is due to him to say 
that such were not the thoughts now uppermost in his 
mind. He was thinking only of how he might be most 
serviceable to her. He had got into that exalted frame of 
mind, that noblest of manly moods, whether it concerns a 
cause or a woman, when the man says to himself, and feels 
what he says : ' Let me perish, so it be well with you.' 

He was with the yoimg women in good time, and before 
he saw Clelia he gave Gertrude her revolver, and likewise 
a careful instruction in the use of it — a lesson which he 
directed rather with a view to her own personal safety 
than to any effective attack upon an enemy. Gertrude 



WHAT IS TO BE DONE NEXT? 291 

was very proud of the weapon and the instruction, and 
said that now at last she felt like a man. Conrad thought 
that if she felt like one particular man her feelings were 
by no means to be envied ; but he forbore from uttering 
his sentiments on that point. Both Clelia and Gertrude 
accepted his plans quite cordially. Clelia was just as 
wilhng to go to New York as to Paris, and, indeed, saw 
all the advantages that Jim eagerly pointed out. .The; 
rest was easy. The maids were to remain in Albemarle 
Street until Jim had taken berths in the steamer and 
rooms in the hotel, and came back and told them so. 
Then they were to carry the luggage to the hotel for 
which he had arranged. Meanwhile Clelia and Gertrude 
were to spend a delightful afternoon in one of her Majesty's 
Courts of Justice in the Strand, and to wait there until 
Jim should come to release them, and to consign them to 
the shelter of the Northumberland Avenue hotel. 

The plan worked very smoothly. Clelia and Gertrude 
had the advantage of hearing the trial of a very important 
action which was brought to recover damages for injuries 
caused to the wife of the plaintiff by the servant of an 
omnibus company who had allowed his omnibus to knock 
her down in Old Broad Street, City. The court was not 
crowded, and there was plenty of room for the ladies in 
the gallery, where Jim had bestowed them. They did not 
give an absorbing attention to the case. They talked in 
low whispers to each other about matters of more immediate 
personal interest. Even the verdict of the jury failed to 
awaken them to any strong emotion — especially, perhaps, 
as neither of them had the least idea about which way the 
verdict went. Their thoughts were filled with Conrad's 
coming back ; with the news he would bring them ; with 
the chances of their getting pff to New York ; with the 



29a THE RIDDLE RING 

chances of their getting out of London undiscovered and 
unmolested by Sir Francis Rose. The time did not even 
seem to hang upon their hands. We too commonly make 
up our minds to the belief that hours of anxiety are 
necessarily slow in their passing. There is an anxiety 
which sometimes compresses and condenses time. 

Meanwhile the hours that Clelia and Gertrude lingered 
and whispered through in her Majesty's court of law in the 
Strand were well employed by Jim Conrad in driving round 
to the offices of steamship companies and to big North- 
umberland Avenue hotels. He was lucky enough to secure 
berths in one of the steamers leaving Southampton on 
Saturday — the very next day — and his heart thrilled with 
his success. Only think of it! The poor youth was in 
love with Clelia Rose, and yet his heart thrilled with the 
success which took her away from him — in all probability 
for ever. Love is cruelly selfish sometimes, but sometimes, 
too. Heaven be praised ! it is utterly unselfish. ' I have 
saved her,' Jim Conrad thought ; and for the moment that 
was all he thought about. 

He took rooms at one of the big hotels — that was easy 
work. Then he drove back to Albemarle Street and packed 
off the maids. Nothing had been heard, he knew by negative 
evidence, of Sir Francis Rose. When the maids and the 
luggage were off the premises, he stood for half a moment 
at the door of the hotel. Just at that half-moment, to his 
surprise. Captain Martin happened to be passing by. They 
exchanged a salute. This time the encounter set Jim 
thinking, but he could make nothing of it. 

Then he went back to the law court in the Strand, and 
he set forth to the ladies what he had done, and gave them 
their steamer tickets, and told them about the hotel, and 
put them into a cab, and all was over. 



WHAT IS TO BE DONE NEXT? 293 

Captain Martin had been looking for his patron early 
that morning, but had failed to find him. Sir Francis Rose 
had not been home all night. Captain Martin, not knowing 
anything better to do, had strolled up to Albemarle Street 
again later on, and there he saw Jim Conrad standing at 
the door. He went back again and again to the flat out 
of Berkeley Square, and at last, and when the day was 
pretty far advanced, he succeeded in seeing Sir Francis 
Rose, who had just come in from a revel at a fast country 
house some twenty miles from London, where he had been 
playing deeply and winning largely. The smile of a winner's 
exultation passed off Rose's features when he heard the 
news that Captain Martin had to tell. 

' Why didn't you tell me this before .?' he asked, in all 
the blind mechanical rage of a man who wants to be furious 
with somebody, and forgets that he himself is alone to 
blame. 

'Because I couldn't find you,' was the answer, given 
politely, but with a certain tone of injured dignity. ' You 
weren't at home, and you didn't tell me where you were 
going, or how I could communicate with you.' 

'There's something in that,' Rose admitted blandly, 
sadly. 'How very like me to do such a thing as that! 
Well, we must go to Albemarle Street at once ; and you, 
my esteemed and gallant friend, must go in your capacity 
of detective officer, accompanying me, and not as a spldier 
and a Patagonian explorer.' 

For all his fierce, impassioned fury against Conrad, Rose 
began to see a certain element of humoiu- in the situation. 

It is needless to say that they came too late. The ladies 
had gone, and had left no address. Nobody knew where 
they had gone to. It was no affair of the manager of the 
hotel. One of the ladies might be the wife of the gentle- 



294 THE RIDDLE RING 

man. The manager neither accepted nor disputed the 
statement; but the names in the hotel books were not 
those of married ladies. The manager, in fact, was totally 
indifferent, and did not seem to care a button when he 
was informed that one of those who called on him was a 
detective officer. Sir Francis Rose stormed a good deal at 
first, but then became gradually impressed with the con- 
viction that he was making a fool of himself. So he lefb 
the hotel and stalked out into the evening air of Albemarle 
Street. Then he put the police part of the investigation 
into the hands of the gallant Captain Martin, especially 
enjoining him to have the Dover and Folkestone steamers 
looked after, and, of course, not to make any row, but to 
see where the ladies were going, if he could get at them. 
Rose gave all these directions with an increasing conviction 
that Martin would be sure to go to the wrong place and 
do the wrong thing. Martin suggested that it might be 
well to make inquiries at all the big London hotels. Sir 
Francis Rose smiled compassionately. 

' Just like a professional detective,' he said. ' As if 
there was the least chance of their going to one of the big 
hotels ! But try there if you like.' 

The professional pride of the detective was offended, 
and he did not try. 

Sir Francis rushed back to his flat. He was in a mood 
of storm, and he blew up the waves of the storm as a 
malign sea-god might do who was determined on some act 
of destruction. He sent a messenger at once for Coffin. 
He was furious with Coffin because nothing had been done. 
Why had not Coffin carried out his promise — his pledge ? 
Did he expect to get the house in the Rue de la Paix for 
nothing ? Did Coffin believe that he. Rose, was a fool .'' — 
a ' blind buzzard idol,' as Milton says ? The idea and the 



WHAT IS TO BE DONE NEXT ? ^95 

words came into Rose's mind. He had read them in some 
quotation from Milton's prose writings long and long ago, 
and they had not flashed back upon his memory until nbw. 
' Do they all believe I am a blind buzzard idol ?' he 
savagely asked himself. ' Does Waley ? Does that sham 
Sir Galahad — ^that self-constituted squire of dames — Jim 
Conrad, believe it .'' Does Clelia believe it .''' He would 
soon let them know — let them all and every one know — 
how confoundedly they were mistaken. 

He looked at his watch ; for amid all his storming he 
remembered that he had arranged a pleasant little dinner- 
party at the Savoy Restaurant, and he was not going to 
be put ofl^ that by anybody. It was now seven o'clock. 

Then he heard the electric bell at his outer door tingle, 
and then there was a quick knock at his study deor, and he 
shouted ' Come in,' and Marmaduke Coffin crept into the 
room with the familiar stealthiness of tread, and with a 
countenance of composed and self-satisfied gloom. 

' So you have done nothing •' Rose said fiercely, 

' Couldn't do anything. Hadn't a chance.' 

' My Heaven !' Rose exclaimed, ' I am well off between 
you. Waley can't get this young fellow even to leave the 
country, and you can't get him '' 

' Out of the world,' said Coffiij grimly. 

' Out of the world — yes, if you like to put it in that 
way,' Rose answered, with a contemptuous toss of his head. 

' Put it any way you like, chief,' said the imperturbable 
Coffin. 

' I suppose I must take it in hand myself,' Rose said 
with increasing scorn ; for he began to be afraid that both 
his retainers were cooling In their ardour for his cause. 

' Good idea,' Coffin said, nodding with an air of grave 
approval — something like that which an undertaker might 



S96 lim RIDDLE RING 

assume as he accepted a suggestion about the arrangement 
of the hearse. 

' What do you mean by a good idea ?' 

' Idea of your going into the thing yourself. Go to his 
house, lodging, whatever it is, demand to know about your 
wife, talk up and loud. Quarrel follows — I'll take care of 
him in quarrel. Judicial inquiry — injured husband seek- 
ing lawful wife — row — attack on injured husband — faithful 
friend, too zealous, defends him — assailant killed — nothing 
planned — no murder — all parties get easily oflF. Injured 
husband leaves court without stain on character — zealous 
friend gets twelve months at most — and then house Rue 
de la Paix !' 

' By Jove ! I think there's something in what you say,' 
Rose declared, and his eyes sparkled with cruel satisfaction. 
He had always felt a little doubtful about the conse- 
quences to himself in case he should secure the assassina- 
tion of Conrad. In his present mood of hatred and revenge 
he would not have been deterred by any such consideration 
— that is, he would not have held back the murderous hand. 

Still, it might be a very serious business for him, and 
even if he should get out of the country all right, it would 
perhaps involve questions of extradition and all that 
troublesome sort of thing, allowing a traveller no rest any- 
where for the sole of his foot. He thought there was a 
stroke of positive genius in Coffin's suggestion. 

' Thou art the best of the cut-throats !' he exclaimed. 

* Am I really ?' Coffin asked, quite gratified. 

•I was only quoting from Shakespeare,' Rose added 
hurriedly. 

' Indeed,' said Coffin placidly ; ' I never read Shake- 
speare. I saw a play of his once in Peiris — ^I don't re- 
member where, and I forget what it was.' 



WHAT IS TO BE DONE NEXT? 297 

Then he shut his mouth. 

Rose strode up and down the room, thinking the whole 
thing right out. He had not in his mind the slightest 
suspicion as to the integrity of his wife. Neither when he 
loved her madly, as he did once before, and as he did now, 
or when he hated her madly, as he had done before, did he 
ever fail to recognise the genuine purity of her nature. 
But he hated Conrad none the less. 

There was a pause. Rose looked at Coffin as if he ex- 
pected him to say something oracular. Coffin was equal to 
tiie occasion. The oracle spoke. 

• Send for Waley,' Coffin said. 

'What in the name of patience do we want with 
Waley ? Rose asked angrily. 

He was for the moment quite disappointed with the 
oracle. 

'Waley will go to help you in recovering your wife. 
Waley no man of violence. Good witness, Waley — show 
that it was all only a row — ^no plan — no thought of killing 
anyone.' 

' By Jove ! you are right again,' Rose exclaimed. * Coffin, 
you positively shine to-night. You may count on that 
house in the Rue de la Paix, provided, of course, you get 
the job done.' 

' Leave the job to me. You pitch into Conrad pretty 
hard, threaten him, make him attack you — mind, make 
him attack you. Leave the rest to me. We'll call Waley 
as evidence.' 

* Go for Waley at once,' Rose said. 

' No. Better you wire for Waley yourself. 
' Why so ?' 

' Better. Will please him to be sent for by you. Thinks, 
perhaps, he is left too much out of the business — inner 



298 THE RIDDLE RING 

circle, you know. Send for him and consult him — make 
it all right.' 

' What put that idea into your head ?' Rose asked 
sharply. 

' Have a head — idea got into it — that's all.' 

' Yes, you have a head,' Rose said in a tone of admira- 
tion. ' I am sure you are right in this, too. I'll wire for 
Waley at once.' 

' I'll take the wire,' Coffin said. 

' Why so ? I can send it by the messenger.' 

' Better I should take it.' 

' For what reason .'' They might know you at the post- 
office.' 

' All right. That's it ?' 

'That's what.?' 

' I take a message asking the man who is not violent to 
come with us. Shows there is no plan for killing prepared 
by anyone. See .P' 

Sir Francis's features relaxed into a smile for the first 
time that evening. He was beginning to wonder how he 
had failed to see Coffin's striking qualities so long. He 
wrote the message asking Waley to come to him at half- 
past eleven — for he meant to enjoy his dinner — and handed 
it to Coffin for delivery ; and then alone he waited in some 
anxiety — not as to what was to be done — for about that 
his determination did not falter — but about the manner 
of doing it. 

He did not believe for a moment that Conrad had any 
plan for carrying off his wife. He knew perfectly well 
that nothing of the kind had ever entered into Conrad's 
head, and he was equally sure that had it entered there, it 
would have to pass out again quite unfulfilled. But he 
felt none the less hatred to Conrad on that account; The 



WHAT IS TO BE DONE NEXT? 299 

conviction was settled deep down in his heart that but for 
Conrad he should have got his wife again — with her money. 

The little dinner-party was very pleasant, and Rose left 
it reluctantly. His weakness was that he never at any 
given moment quite knew which enjoyment he preferred. 
He went home and met Waley, and told his story. 

'Don't believe a word of it,' Waley quickly answered. 
' What I mean is that I am quite sure you are misinformed, 
chief. I know the young chap pretty well. I can size up 
any man when I come to study him, and I don't believe 
he ever thought of doing anything of the sort.' 

' You seem to have a high opinion of him, Waley,' Rose 
said with passionate contempt in his look and his voice. 

' So I have.' 

'Well, at any rate, your impeccable friend has been 
helping my wife to get away from me ' 

' That's quite another pair of shoes, don't you see ? A 
man might do the one thing who wouldn't do the other.' 

' Do you dare to back him up, Waley — ^here, to my face .'" 

' I don't back him up. I believe a man ought to be very 
careful how he interferes between husbands and wives, any- 
how — I suppose that is religion, ain't it ? But there are 
degrees in wrong-doing, I take it for granted.' 

' The man who interferes between me and my wife shall 
pay the penalty for it !' Rose exclaimed. 

' Quite right,' came in the raven voice of Coffin, who had 
been with Rose before Waley arrived. 

'Let it be so,' Waley said. 'What do you propose 
to do.?' 

' I'll go to his rooms, and I'll talk to him, and he must 
tell me where my wife has gone, or I'll know the reason why.' 

' Suppose he doesn't know ?' Waley asked in perfect good 
faith. 



SOO THE RIDDLE RING 

' Oh, rot ! He does know. I have evidence that he was 
there this very day, and late last evening also.' 
' Suppose he won't tell ?' 

' He shall tell. I'll drag the story from his very throat !' 

' Well, do you want me to go with you on this expedition ? 

' Yes ; I think you ought to be with me. I think you 

ought to stand by and help me. Are you my friend, or 

are you my enemy ?' 

' I am your friend, chief, and not your enemy, as you 
know well ; and just because I am yoiu- friend I'll go with 
you on this business. Who else is going ? You don't 
want a crowd, I suppose ?' 

' Coffin is going,' Rose said, not without a certain visible 
reluctance and a scrutinizing look at Waley's face. 

' Oh, Coffin's going ? All right. Yes, I'll go, certainly. 
But I should have thought two to one would be enough 
for all pvuposes.' 

' How do I know what confounded devil's work such a 
scoundrel may be up to ?' 

' Oh, you take it in that way ! Very well, I'm with you, 
chief. I can see fair play, at all events, if I can do nothing 
else.' 

Rose cast a keen, distrustful glance at him, but said 
nothing. 

' When shall we go .''' Waley asked. 
Rose answered : ' Now.' 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

A LEAP IN THE DARK. 

JjM CoNEAD returned late to his home in Clarges Street. 
His long day's work was done. He had taken leave of his 
friends. He had made every arrangement for them, and 



A LEAP IN THE DARK SOI 

he was to see them no more. They were all agreed that 
he must not see them off by the train for Southampton, 
and that they were to go their way alone. Clelia, he knew, 
would not write to him — at least, for a long time. 

It could hardly be said that the sacrifice was consum- 
mated, for in his case there was no sacrifice to consummate. 
Clelia was a married woman, and a pure woman, and there 
was nothing for him to sacrifice ; he had nothing to give 
up which could have been his, which he could have held. 
But he felt like one who had lost all that makes life dear. 
He looked mournfully, pathetically, and yet with a certain 
grim sense of the ludicrous, at the fitting-up of the rooms 
in which he had taken so much pride and pleasure, while 
yet it was not all certain — not all quite certain — that his 
hopes and his love must be blighted. He sat down and 
smoked a cigar, and glanced at the books and the pictures, 
the etchings and the colour-sketches, which had once been 
a delight to him to arrange in their places. 

The one desire — ^the immemorial desire — of the young 
man whose love is made hopeless was borne in strongly on 
him. He had now no thought but for the consolation of 
going away — of travelling far and wide ; of drenching and 
drowning his grief in years of wandering. Some lines of a 
great and now all-but-forgotten poet came into his mind-7— 
lines that he had not seen or thought of since he was a 
romantic boy, and he felt their force with a thrilling in- 
tensity : 

' I care not to what land ye bear, 
So not again to mine.' 

' Now is the time for Waley and Patagonia,' he muttered 
to himself. ' Now let Waley arrange for me what plans 
he will in Patagonia. Patagonia is not by any means too 
far away for me. I should like to go to the land east of 



302 THE RIDDLE RING 

the sun, west of the moon,' and he thus came in his poetic 
rhapsody to a more modem poet than the author of 
' Childe Harold.' 

It was late — wellnigh on to midnight. He was roused 
by a sharp and reiterated ring at the electric bell in the 
hall-door. He felt sure that the servants were all in bed, 
and, as it so happened, he was now the only lodger in the 
house. He ran quietly downstairs and opened the door, 
at which, even as he stood there, another pressure sent the 
bell tingling once again through the house, and he could 
hear a voice outside which seemed to be speaking in re- 
monstrance against the hastily repeated summons. Jim 
undid the bolts and the chain, opened the door, and saw, 
in the soft moonlight, three men standing on the pave- 
ment. The whole purpose was made clear to him when 
he heard the voice of Sir Francis Rose. 

'I have come to know what you have done with my 
wife !' Rose said fiercely. 

Even in that note the voice sounded strangely musical. 

Conrad's courage and composure came back to him in a 
moment. He was not much surprised, after all. Some- 
thing like this was to be expected ; the wonder was that 
he had not expected it. 

' If you will come in, and come upstairs. Sir Francis 
Rose,' he said very quietly, ' I shall be quite ready to give 
you any explanation that it is in my power to give.' 

' All right ! all right !' the cheery voice of Waley came 
in. 'That is just what we want to have. Come in, 
chief ; we mustn't make a row. This sort of thing is best 
talked of quietly, and indoors.' 

' Quite right ! quite right !' soimded the deep funereal 
notes of the solid Coffin. 

The three came in, and Conrad closed the door. They 



A LEAP IN THE DARK 803 

mounted the stairs in absolute silence, and Conrad showed 
them into his room. 

'It is a little late,' he said, 'and the house is quiet. 
There are only women-servants, and they are all in bed, ■ 
and I don't want any noise made. But I am quite willing, 
Sir Francis Rose, to talk to you on any subject you wish 
to mention ' 

' YouVe got to !' Coffin grumbled in. 

' Shut up, Coffin !' Waley urged in a low tone. 

'Where is my wife.?' Rose demanded, striding quite 
closely up to Conrad, and looking him fiercely in the face. 

'Easy now, easy !' said the peace-making Waley. 

'Your wife is a lady for whom I have the deepest 
respect,' Jim answered calmly. 

' Respect ! Confound your respect ! Where is she .?' 

' That's the question,' Coffin said. 

' Shut up, Coffin !' Waley again interposed. ' She isn't 
your wife, anyhow.' 

' I cannot tell you where your wife is,' Jim replied. ' I 
know she is determined not to trust herself again to you.' 

' You seem to know too much about her.' 

' There are things one can't help knowing.' 

' You helped her to get away from me ?' 

' I did ; and another friend, much closer and dearer to 
her — a woman.' 

' I know — I thought so ! You hear, Waley ; you hear, 
Coffin.?' 

Waley merely nodded. Coffin groaned : 

' Yes, I hear. Regular conspiracy, nothing else. 

' Shut up. Coffin !' Waley broke in. 

' Will you fight me like a m9,n .?' Rose demanded of Jim. 

'We don't fight duels in England nowadays,' Jim 
answered. 



304 THE RIDDLE RING 

' Then, you are a coward ?' 

' I don't suppose I am any braver than other men. But 
I shouldn't be a coward if I wanted to kill you. I don't.' 

' We don't fight duels in England nowadays !' Rose said 
scoffingly. ' You have been out of England, haven't you 
— in countries where men do fight duels ?' 

' I have,' Jim answered gravely. 

A thought had come up in his mind, and he was trying 
to turn it over. 

' Will you come to Calais, or Boulogne, or Ostend ?' 

Jim had had his thought out. 

' Yes,' he said. ' Whenever you like. To-morrow ?' 

' Come, that's all right ; nothing can be fairer,' the con- 
siderate Waley remarked, anxious to bring the whole busi- 
ness to any soi-t of compromise, or close, if only for the night. 

' But how about Lady Rose in the meantime .''' croaked 
Coffin. 

' Confound you !' Waley muttered. 

Rose caught at the hint. 

' Yes, what about my wife ?' he demanded. ' You are 
right. Coffin. What about her ? I see now the meaning 
of your sudden burst of courage. I should be away at 
Boulogne or Ostend while your pals were enabling my wife 
to get away from me. That's your dodge !' 

' You have given the invitation ; I accept it,' Jim said 
coldly. 

' And a very fair thing,' Waley declared. 

Then Rose found himself in a dilemma. He saw no 
way out of it for the moment but to lose his temper and 
throw the rest on fate. For the moment, too, he forgot 
the precise nature of his bargain with Coffin ; or he saw 
no likelihood that Jim would give him a chance of having 
it carried out according to the conditions. 



A LEAP IN THE DARK 305 

' You are a cowaxd,' he exclaimed, ' and I couldn't fight 
with you! I am a gentleman, and not a sentimental 
trickster ! But I can chastise you, thank Heaven !' 

He had a light cane in his hand, and he rushed on Jim 
and struck him across the face and shoulders. Jim 
gripped him with all his strength, and twisted the cane 
from his hands, and flung it across the room. Waley 
tried in vain to part the struggling men. Rose was tear- 
ing like a madman ; Jim was perfectly composed, and was 
only striving to ward off the attack. At last, when he 
had had too much of the struggle, he gripped his arms 
round Rose's waist, lifted him fairly off his feet, and threw 
him across the room. Rose was dashed against the 
opposite wall, and brought to a stand there ; and there 
he fell, and there he lay. 

' Easy now,' Waley said, putting a restraining hand on 
Jim's chest. ' You're not to blame ; but let him alone.' 

' I didn't want to touch him, Waley,' Jim replied angrily. 

Then Coffin found himself confronted with the most 
serious dilemma of his recent career. He had based all his 
calculations on the understanding that Rose would pro- 
voke Conrad to make an attack on him. The moment this 
was done, Coffin would plunge forward to save the life of 
his patron. Conrad was a younger and much stronger 
man than Rose, and it was not to be supposed that he. 
Coffin, could exactly know how far Conrad might not 
carry his murderous purpose. Therefore, to save his fipend 
and patron's life from what he might well believe to be an 
imminent danger, what could be more natural, more pardon- 
able, and even more praiseworthy, than that he should rush 
in between, and make that life certain at any cost .' 

' I shall get something for it,' he had always reasoned to 
himself, ' but what will it be ? Unpremeditated action — 

20 



THE RIDDLE RING 

mere defence of tny friend — six months — twelve months — 
that sort of thing. And then there is the house in the 
Rue de la Paix.' 

But now behold how things had fallen out ! There was 
Rose the aggressor — Rose, who had clearly striven his best 
to harm Conrad — and there was Conrad, who had at last 
merely flimg him off like a spatter, and was now standing 
composedly, and to all appearance with no desire to harm 
mortal man ! Alas ! how easily things go wrong ! 

Still, Coffin made up his mind that something must be 
done for the money. He had no faith in the revolver ; he 
had the true assassin''s faith in the knife. He made up his 
mind. He drew his knife, he sprang on Conrad, and he 
screamed out : 

' You murderer, you want to kill my friend !' and ha 
brandished the knife on high. 

But for Coffin's one moment of hesitation, excusable, no 
doubt, under the suddenly altered conditions, it would 
probably have been all over with Jim Conrad. For 
nothing could have been farther from Jim's thought than 
to suppose that anybody, except, perhaps. Sir Francis Rose, 
really wanted to kill him. Therefore, he was not standing 
on his guard, and was not thinking about any manner of 
personal danger. He was only hoping that he had not 
done Sir Francis any serious harm in the heavy fall which 
he could not help giving him. But Coffin's one moment 
of consideration had been the ruin of Coffin's plan, for it 
gave Waley time to be on the watch, and to understand 
the situation. Just as the knife was raised he seized Coffin 
by the back of the collar, and dragged him away with a 
strength which Coffin found it hopeless to resist. He 
'flimg Coffin on the floor, and clutched both of his wrists 
■with a tremendous grip. 



A LEAP IN THE DARK 807 

' Quick, quick !' he called to Jim ; ' take the knife from 
him and open the window and call for the police.' 

Rose was still lying on the floor, either stunned by the 
sharp fall, or not caring to rise until something definite 
should happen. 

Waley was holding CoiSn down by main strength. 
Suddenly an alarmed tapping of various sets of knuckles 
was heard at the door. 

' Tell the servants they have no business here,' Waley 
called to Jim. 'Let them send quietly for the police. 
You and I can hold these two here until they come.' 

' No, no, no police !' Jim called out. 

He was thinking of Clelia's name dragged into an ignoble 
quarrel. 

Jim opened the door and had a confused vision of the 
landlady and some other women, who had evidently got 
out of bed 'just as they were,' to adopt a way of expressing 
it which they would probably have used, and he quietly 
told them that there was no further danger, and that they 
might go to bed again. 

Meanwhile, Rose had staggered to his feet. He was pale 
to ghastliness ; he saw that the whole scheme was a failure, 
and that it was his own hasty action which had made the 
failure complete. His hate was now turned from Conrad 
to Coffin ; he hated Coffin all the more because he had 
himself given to Coffin the reason for his moment of delay 
in decisive action. 

' Let him get up, Waley,' Rose said imperiously. ' We 
don't want any police ferreting into all this business. Let 
him get up, I tell you, and let him go away. Mr. Conrad 
and I can settle any accounts we have to settle in our own 
way, without the help of you, or of Coffin, or of the police.' 

' I have no accounts to settle,' Jim said contemptuously. 



308 THE RIDDLE RING 

' If any man attacks me in front I shall take good care of 
myself, and perhaps he may not be altogether glad of his 
attempt. I could have done so just now if I had suspected 
anything. I don't want the police any more than Sir 
Francis Rose does.' 

'You had better let me get up,' Coffin called out, 
struggling with his legs on the floor, and striving with all 
his might and main to lift Waley from off his chest. 

He could not manage it, however. 

' Let him get up, Waley,' Jim said ; ' let us have an end 
of all this one way or another.' 

* Have you got the knife ?' Waley asked eagerly. 

' Yes, I've got the knife safe enough. Let him get up.' 

Waley rose to his feet. 

' Get up, you murdering ruffian !' he said. 

And in rising he gave Coffin a contemptuous touch of 
his foot. 

' I don't want to do anybody any harm,' Coffin murmured, 
with bated breath. ' Thought that chap was going to kill 
my friend — lost my temper, that's all.' 

' Your friend, you infernal bungling coward !' Rose cried. 
' You don't want to do anyone any harm ? No, of course 
you don't. Take that !' 

And he struck Coffin a violent blow on the face. 

Coffin saw that the game was up, so far as he was con- 
cerned ; the chance of the house in the Rue de la Paix was 
utterly gone. 

He was seized with all the fury of despair. 

' Look here, Mr. Conrad and Mr. Waley,' he exclaimed, 
' that man who has hit me — ^that man engaged me to kill 
Mr. Conrad ! It's a put-up job, I tell you. Let him deny 
it if he dares.' 

Rose endeavoured to strike at him again, but Waley 



A LEAP IN THE DARK 809 

threw his stalwart form between them, and held Rose ofF. 
Rose mastered himself once again. He turned away with 
a swagger, and said : 

'You all appear to be such good friends that I don't 
seem as if I ought to intrude on so charming a comradeship 
any longer. I shall recover my wife in spite of you all. 
Good-night, gentlemen !' 

Then he turned and left the room, and they heard him 
moving to the stairs. But there was a noise below, of 
heavy footsteps. 

' By Jove ! they have sent for the police,' Waley said. 
• They were right, and Fm awfully glad of it.' 

Rose came rushing back into the room. Before any of 
them could guess what he meant to do, he had thrown up 
the window. 

' I am not going to be caught in your infernal trap,' he 
cried ; and he strode into the balcony, climbed over the 
railing, and dropped into the street below. Conrad and 
Waley ran to the window ; Coffin remained where he was, 
wholly impassive now, A heavy fall was heard, and then 
a faint, low moaning. Rose had evidently in his passion 
miscalculated the depth of the descent. No sound of 
flying feet was heard, only the low moaning, like that of 
some stunned and wounded animal. 

' I'm afraid he has done for himself now,' Waley said, 
with a deep note of pity and of grief in his voice. 

' I am afraid he has,' Jim echoed ; and there was horror 
in his heart. 

' Serve him right !' growled the funereal voice of Coffin. 
' Why did he break his bargain .?' 

Then the police came in, and there were a few rapid 
; words of explanation ; and Jim and Waley went down to 
, the street with the officers. Sir Francis Rose was lying 



310 THE RIDDLE RING 

with his head and one arm terribly fractured. He had 
evidently cannoned against something in his fall, and come 
head downwards on to the pavement. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE RING RETUBNED. 

The long anxious hours of the night wore themselves 
away. Rose had been carefully lifted up, and tenderly 
carried to Jim's room and stretched upon Jim's bed. A 
doctor and a surgeon were sent for. Both agreed that 
Rose could not then be removed to his own home or to 
any hospital. Both seemed to be of opinion that there 
would be no need of any intermediate removal. Rose had 
been terribly injured on the head. 

The police soon left the place, having taken the names 
of all those present with a view to a probable inquest. 
Mr. Coffin, having given his name, had quietly left the 
sitting-room and descended the stairs and disappeared, 
never to appear again, so far as this story is concerned. 
Jim and Waley both ' spotted ' him, to use Waley's phrase, 
as he was making off; neither had the faintest idea of 
detaining him. To what end should he be detained ? The 
less said about the whole tragedy the better. Jim was 
thinking of Clelia ; Waley was thinking of the chief, for 
whom he once had such admiration — for whom he had 
still so much regret. 

For a long time Rose was insensible. He merely kept 
moaning on; but for the moaning, the listeners could 
hardly have known whether he was alive or dead. The 
surgeon found that his brain was pressed upon by a frag- 
ment of bone, and after a while a successful operation 



THE RING RETURNED Sll 

relieved Jhe. patient from that oppression, and he recovered 
his senses, and even his spirits, and he made inquiry about 
himself jn quite a cheery sort of way : 

' A question of days, doctor, or a question of hours ? 

' A question of hours, I am afraid.' 

' Well,' he murmured in a low tone, ' one must die at 
one hour or another. Odd how true it is, that old story, 
that nobody ever believes it of himself ! I never believed 
that anything could kill me ; now I tumble off a balcony, 
by mere accident, and, lo and behold, I kill myself.' 

Even then Rose had his wits about him enough to do 
his best to set the belief going that his impending death 
was but the result of a commonplace sort of accident. 

The morning came, first pallid and then roseate. 
Meanwhile, at the urgent recommendation of Jim Conrad, 
the doctor — whose close services were not then needed — 
had gone to seek Lady Rose. He took with him a few 
lines from Conrad, simply asking her to put herself in the 
hands of the doctor, and announcing that Sir Francis was 
lying dangerously ill. It was agreed among them all that 
the doctor was the best messenger who could be charged 
with such an errand, and he was quite willing to under- 
take the mission. 

About eight o'clock Rose turned to the surgeon, who 
was alone in the room with him, and quietly said : 

' I have an odd fancy — ^I should like to see my wife, 
Lady Rose. I don't know where she is just now, but I 
dare say Mr. Conrad could tell you.' 

' I know where she is,' was the quiet answer. 

' You do — ^yes ? Where is she i*' 

' She is here.' 

And in a moment he had left the room, and Clelia had 
entered it, and was standing by the bed. 



312 THE RIDDLE RING 

' Come near me, Clelia,' he whispered ; ' come nearer — 
nearer — quite near.' 

She drew close to him, and bent over him, her heart 
beating, the tears standing in her eyes. The end was 
coming. She felt for a moment as if it might be the end 
of the world. 

' Clelia, do you forgive me — do you forgive me all ? 

The whole past came back upon her. In the sudden 
light of consciousness illumined by that flash of memory, 
she saw her girlhood and her youth — ^her hero-worship and 
her strong love. And there beneath her, just about to 
die, was her first love and her husband. All the wrong, 
the quarrel, the stain, the shame, passed out of her mind, 
and she could only remember Francis Rose as her first love 
and the husband of her youth. 

' Oh, Francisco ? she murmured, ' God knows how truly 
I forgive you ! Oh, I forgive you with all my heart, and 
with all my soul and all my strength. Forgive you! 
forgive you f 

And she stooped down and kissed him on the forehead, 
compassionately, tenderly. 

He turned as if a little wearily. 

'That's all right,' he said, cheerily enough. 'And I 
forgive you, Clelia.' 

She drew back a little, shocked and pained. For with 
the forgiving words from him the memory of her wrongs 
came back to her. It is very sweet to be forgiven when 
one is conscious of having done wrong, but to be forgiven 
when one has strained the most generous faculties of one's 
nature is a little hard, even at a death-bed. 

' You forgive me ?' she asked — ' for what .!" 

And then she felt compunction for having put such a 
question to a dying man. 



THE RING RETURNED SIS 

Sir Francis smiied a quiet, amused smile — distinctly 
amused, although he was dying. It was so like a woman, 
he thought, to put such a question. 

'I forgive you, Clelia,' he said, 'for having been all 
through your life too good for me, and so making me 
think that we couldn't get on together. That's all I have 
.to forgive you for ; but it's a great deal, dear girl ! for a 
bad lot like me. One gets tired of finding his wife always 
too good for him. Do you know, I was rather glad, on 
the whole, to find that you had enough of the world, and 
the flesh, and the devil in you to let that other fellow fall 
in love with you !' 

She had been kneeling beside him. Now she rose up. 

' Must we part like this ? she said. ' Oh, Frank ! do 
not let us part like — ^like this.' 

Then there was a pause. The current of his thoughts 
seemed to have changed. He spoke abruptly, his voice 
still quite clear : 

' Don't you trouble about me, Clelia. The whole thing 
was my fault ; I know that well enough. But I couldn't 
help myself. And I'm not a bit sorry to be going off. I 
have muddled things in this world. So I want a new 
sensation. I have got pretty well all that is to be got out 
of this world, and, do you know, I am greatly interested 
in the idea of some quite new and fresh experience. I 
wonder what it will be like .?' 

' Oh, Frank,' she pleaded passionately, ' don't talk like 
that ! Oh, don't, don't ! it's all so serious — so terrible.' 

' Serious ? terrible ? No, I don't think so. Anyhow, I 
want to find out what it is all about. I tell you, Clelia, 
I want a new start. Don't you trouble about me.' 

'Oh!' she exclaimed under her breath, and she tossed 
ner head impatiently. 



314 THE RIDDLE RING 

She strove that he should not see it, but she could not 
help her impatience. To see him meet death in this sort 
of spirit ! To think that he could feel no more than that ! 
Only a vague curiosity and a desire for some manner of 
new sensation ! 

There was another pause. Then he asked, in tones less 
clear and more gasping than before : 

' Clelia, did you ever get back that ring .?' 
' Yes, Frank,' she said softly. 
' He gave it to you ?' 

' Yes — oh yes ; it was mine ; and, of course, when he 
knew that he gave it back to me.' 
' Have you it now — with you here .?' 
' Oh yes.' 

' Would you mind giving it back to me, Clelia ? I have 
a fancy that I should like to carry it with me — to put it 
out of your way for ever. Then, you can forget, if you like, 
that I ever threw you away, and that you ever threw the poor 
old ring away, and so we ai-e quits. Do you see the idea ?'' 
She was not wearing the ring. She had it in a little 
purse which she carried in her pocket. She found the 
purse and took out the ring. It was a strange thought 
that came into her mind just then : the thought of how 
methodical it all was, how formal it was, how that which 
might have been strange and thrilling if one were to read 
it described in a novel seemed so much a matter of course 
here and now — between life and death. 

She had given up all hope of prevailing on him to take 
death seriously. He could not, he would not ; he was still 
acting a play. 

' Oh,' she thought, with a rush of pity and compassion 
flooding through her heart, 'if, after all, that was his 
nature, if he could not help it, if play-acting throughout 



THE RING RETURNED 815 

life was his doom and not his choice, then may that be to 
his account with the Power which will not misjudge him 
as I have misjudged him! Ah, who made him a play- 
actor, after all ? and shall he not find pity and pardon ?' 
So she put the ring upon his finger. 
His eyes had been closed. He opened them and smiled. 
' Suppose it turned out to be a talisman,' he said — ' a 
kind of emblem of forgiveness .-' Well, anyhow. Til take 
it with me — as far as I can. Oh, don't you cry, Clelia ! 
I haw had a good time in this world. I got almost every- 
thing I wanted, and now I leave you to have a good time. 
You can marry your friend.' 

' Oh, for pity's sake,' she pleaded, ' don't say things like 
that !' 

' Why not .'' Why shouldn't you marry him ? He is 
awfully fond of you — I found out that — and I don't see 
why you should not be fond of him. I never gave you a 
fair chance of keeping on being fond of me. I don't mind 
your marrying him. Clelia, will you kiss me on the lips — 
on the lips .''' 

She stooped silently over him and kissed him. 
'Do you know, Clelia, I felt that kiss delightful. I 
think this is the most interesting hour to me of all our 
married life — yes, the most interesting by far. Wasn't 
there some great Roman who, when he was dying, said to 
his friends that he felt himself turning into a god? — 
wasn't there ? wasn't there .'" 

He rolled his head upon the pillow, and looked eagerly 
into her dimming eyes with his eyes quick-glancing, and 
seeming to have a sudden ray of new life in them. 

'I think there was. I don't know — I am not sure. 
Why should we think of such things now .?' 

* Because I feel so like all that. I am longing for the 



^16 THE RIDDLE RING 

new experience — the other world ; but it is a delight to 
linger just this moment with you. Come, I think you will 
admit that I am meeting death like a man, and a North- 
Country man. Will you kiss me again ?' 

She was bending her lips towards him, when he suddenly 
drew away. 

' No,' he murmured faintly ; ' it would only spoil the 
effect. Such a sensation could never be reproduced. 
Once, and only once, for a moment like that ! Nothing 
now left but the other sensation — the other quite new 
sensation — the world elsewhere l' 

Then he turned his head slightly away, and his eyes 
closed again. A complete silence reigned all round. 
Clelia was as much the victim of a new sensation as any 
that could meet her husband in the far world to which he 
was yearning to go. She was terrified — ^horrified — by his 
way of encountering death. She had, even in her limited 
experience, looked on death before, but never on such a 
death as this — never a death that was treated by the 
dying mortal as a new and dramatic experience, as the 
curious and interesting prelude to yet more strange, and 
perhaps even more interesting, experiences ! 

TTiis was indeed a way of looking at things which was 
shocking to a woman with the nature and the feelings of 
Clelia Vine. There was something ghastly, something that 
oppressed her with a sense of the unnatural, and even the 
diabolic, about it. She gazed on the face of the dying 
man as she might, in another age, have gazed on the face 
of one possessed by a demon — the face of one in whom any 
supernatural or subnatural transformation might be ex- 
pected. And, meanwhile, the face of the dying man was, 
in its expression, calm, composed, and sweet as the placid 
countenance of a sinking saint. 



THE RING RETURNED 317 

There is not much left to tell. The inquest was held, 
and ended only in a verdict of ' Accidental death,' although 
it was described in the papers as 'The Clarges Street 
Mystery.' There had been a quarrel — blows were inter- 
changed. The police had been brought in by the people 
of the house. Sir Francis Rose, dreading to have his family 
name mixed up in any such affair, had in a moment of im- 
pulse tried to get out by the window, and missed his mark 
and fallen on the pavement. All that happened was truly 
told, only the cause of the quarrel did not come out. It 
had, indeed, nothing to do with the question for the 
coroner's jury. 

The passages taken for New York were merely trans- 
ferred to another boat. Clelia and Gertrude went out to 
New York, and Gertrude concerned herself there and else- 
where in America with the cause of woman's true advance- 
ment. She carried the flag, with Clelia in the quiet back- 
ground, out to San Francisco, and up to Lake Superior, 
and down to New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico. 
Conrad did not see either of them before they left. It 
was understood that he should hear from them — some 
time. 

Waley went abroad on some enterprise to South 
America. He pressed Conrad to go with him, but Conrad 
remained in Europe, and wandered about there aimlessly 
for a long time. He could not pull himself together all 
at once. He gave himself a loose rein and went his way, 
dreaming of brighter days to come — which days came. 

He heard news of Clelia at last. Gertrude wrote to 
him, and then Clelia, too, wrote to him — and more than 
a year passed before they three met once again. They 
met at Venice, and there Jim and Clelia were married. 
ITien Clelia and Jim proposed to travel slowly on to 



318 THE RIDDLE RING 

Egypt. Gertrude took leave of them bravely. She meant 
to return for awhile to the United States, where she 
seemed to see a wide sphere of influence opening befor 
her. 

' I ought to be very happy,' she said. ' Until now I 
have had only a sister ; now I have a sister and a brother.' 

She kissed Clelia fondly, and Clelia returned her kisses. 

'Now,' murmured Clelia, her eyes glancing in tears, 
' kiss your brother, Gertrude.' 

And Gertrude put her arm timidly, tenderly, on Jim's 
shoulder, and drew him down to her and kissed him. 

And Jim's novel? It will be finished, perhaps, some 
time. If not, the world will still go on — ^there are so 
many novels nowadays ! But both Jim and Clelia are 
resolved that he shall not live a useless life — ^that he shall 
be ' not a shadow among shadows, but a man among men.' 



thk eni>. 



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An Soru and 



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AJl In a Gurden Fair. 

Dorothy Fonter. 

tTncIe Jack. 

The World Went Very 
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Children of Gibeon. 

Herr Faulus. 

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A Living Ll«. 

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Annan Water. 
Foxglove Manor. 



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The BUnor Chord. 

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Armadale. J AfterDark, 

No Name. 

Antonlna. 

BasU. 

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Queen of Hearts. 

My Miscellanies. 

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Han and Wife. 

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Hearts of Gold. 

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The Firm of Glrdlettone. 

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A Daughter of To-day. j Vernon's Aunt. 

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Fatal 2ero. 

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One by C^e. { Ropes of Sand. 

A Dog and his Shadow. Jack Doyle's Daughter. 

A Real Queen. j 

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Pandnrang Harl. 

^ EDWARD GARRETT. 

The Capel Olrls. 



28 



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The Red Bhlrts. 

By CHARLES GIBBON. 

Robin Gray. I The aolden Sbafb. 

Loving a Dream. { 

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The Lost Helresi. I The Foaslcker. 

A Fair Oolonlit. | The Qolden Rock. 

Bv B. J. GOODMAN. 
The Fate of Herbert Wayne. 

By Rev. S. BARING GOULD. 
Red Spider. | Eve. 

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Corlnthla Marazlon. 

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By BRET HARTE. 
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A, Sappho of Green 
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Susy, i Sally Dows, 
-tell-B' 



BellRlnger of Angel's. 



Hamlin's. 
Clarence. 
Barker's Lnck. 
Devil's Ford, tcelslor.' 
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Beatrix Randolph. 

David Foindexter's Dis- 
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The Spectre of the 
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Garth. -.-^-«— ^-,-. 

Ellice Qnentin. 

Sebastian Strome. 

Dnst. 

Fortune's Fool. 

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Ivande Blron. 

By I. HENDERSON. 
Agatha Page. 

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The Common Ancestor. 

By Mrs. HUNGERFORD. 



Lady Vemer's Flight. 
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A Point of Conscience. 
Nora Creina. 
An Anxious Moment. 
April's Lady, 



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The Leaden Casket. I Self- Condemned. 
That Other Person. | Mrs. Jnliet. 

By C. J. CUTCLIFFE HYNE. 

Honour of Thieves. 

By R. ASHE KINO. 

A Dravn Game. | * The Wearing of the Green. 

By EDMOND LEPELLETIER. 

Madame Sans-Giline. 

By HARRY LINDSAV. 

Rhoda Roberts. 

By HENRY W. LUCY. 
Gideon Fleyce. 

By E. LYNN LINTON. 



Patricia Eemball. 
Under which Lord? 
*Ky Lover | lone. 
Paiton Oarew. 
Soiriiig the Wind. 



The Atonement of Learn 

Dnndas. 
The World Well Lost. 
The One Too Many. 
Dnicle Everton. 



By JUSTIN McCarthy 

A Fair Saxon. Donna Quixote. 

Linley Rochford. Maid of Athens. 

Dear Lady Disdain. The Comet of a Season. 

Camlola. The Dictator. 

Waterdale Neighbours. Red Diamonds. 
My Enemy's Daughter. The Riddle Ring. 
Blias Misanthrope. 

By JUSTIN H. MCCARTHY. 
A London Legend. | The Royal Otarlsto0her. 

By GEORGE MACDONALD. 
Heather and Snow. ) Fhantastes. 



By L. T. MEADE. 

A Soldier of Fortune. I The Voice of 
In an Iron Grip. | Charmer. 

By LEONARD MERRICK. 

This Stage of Fools. 

By BERTRAM MITFORD, 

The Gun-Rmmer, • • - 



The Luck of Gerard 

• Sldgeley. _ 

By J. E. MlfDDOCK. 
Maid Marian and Robin Hood. 
BasUa the Jester. I 7oung Lochiuvar. 

By D. CHRISTIE MURRAY. 



The King's AssegaL 
Renshaw Fannlng'i 

QUMt. 

UD* 



Cvnic Fortune. 
The Way of the World. 
Bobl^ln's Little Girl. 
Time's Revenges. 
A Wasted Crime. 
In Direst Peril. 
Mount Despair. 
A Capful o' Nails, 



A Life's Atonement. 
Joseph's Coat. 
Coals of Fire. 
Old Blazer's Hero. 
Val Strange. | Hearts. 
A Model Father. 
By the Gate of the Sea. 
A Bit of Human Nature. 
First Person Singular. 

By MURRAY and HERMAN, 
The Bishops' Bible. I Paul Jones's Alias. 
One Traveller Returns. J 

By HUME NISBET. 
' Ball Up 1 ' 

By W. E. NORRIS. 
Saint Ann's. | Billy Bellev. 

By G. OH NET. 
A Weird Gift. 

By Mrs. OLIPHANT. 
The Sorceress. 

By OUIDA 



Held in Bondage. 

Btrathmore. 

ChandoB. 

Under Two Flags. 

Idalia. lQa.g9. 

Cecil Castlemalne's 

Tricotrin. | Puck. 

Folle Farine. 

A Dog of Flanders. 

Pascarel. | Slgna. 

Princess Napraxine. 

Ariadne. 



Two Little Wooden 

In a Winter City. iShoei 

Friendship. 

Moths. I Rnfflno. 

PlplBtrello. 

A village Commune. 

Blmbl. -| Wanda. 

Frescoes. | Othmar. 

In Maremma. 

Syrlin. [ Guilderoy, 

Santa Barbara. 

Two Offenders. 



By MARGARET A. PAUL. 

Gentle and Simple. 

By JAMES PAYN. 



High Spirits. 
Under One Roof. 
Glow-worm Tales. 
The Talk of the Town 
Holiday Tasks. 
For Cash Only. 
The Burnt Mllliott. 
The Word and -Uie WUL 
Sunny Stories. 
A Trying Patient. - 



Lost Sir Massingberd. 
Less Bladk than We're 

Fainted. 
A Confidential Agent. 
A Grape from a Thorn. 
In Penl and Privation. 
The Mystery of Mir- 
By Proxy. [bridge. 
The Canon's Ward. 
Walter's Word. 

By WILL PAVNE. 
Jerry the Dreamer. 

By Mrs. CAMPBELL PRAED. 
Outlaw and Lawmaker. I Mrs. Tregaskiss. 
Ohrlstlna Chard. | 

By B. C. PRICE. 
Valentina, | Foreigners. I Mrs. Lancaster's Rival, 

By RICHARD PRYCE. 
Miss Maxwell's Affections, 

By CHARLES READE. 



Peg Wofflngton ; and 
Christie Johnstone. 

Hard Cadi. 

Cloister A the Hearth. 

Never Too Lat^ to Mend 

The Course of True 
Love Never Did Run 
Smooth ; and Single- 
heart andDoubleface. 

Autobiography of a 
a Thief; Jack of all 
Trades ; A Hero and 
a Martyr ; and The 
Wandenng Heir, 

Griffith Gaunt. 



Love Me Little, Love 

Me Long. 
The Doublb Marriage. 
Foul Play. [Place. 

Put Yourself in Hfa 
A Terrible Temptation. 
A Simpleton. 
A Woman-Hater. 
The Jilt, & otherStories ; 

&aood stories otMen 

and other Animals. 
A Perilous Secret. 
Readlana; and SlblQ 

Characters, 



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By Mrs. J. H. RIDDELL. 

Weird Storlea. 

, ^ By AMELIB RIVES. 

Barbara Sering. 

By F. W. ROBINSON. 

Tbe Bands of Justice. | Woman in the Dark. 

By DORA RUSSELL. 
A Country fiweetheart. | The Drift of Fate. 
By W. CLARK RUSSELL. 



My Shipmate Loulae. 
Alone on Wide Wide Sea 
The Phantom Death. 
Is He the Man ? 
The Good Ship 'Mo- 
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The Convict Ship. 
Heart of Oak. 
The Tale of the Ten. 



Bound the Qalley-Flre. 
In the Middle Watch. 
A Voyage to the Gape. 
Book for the Hammock. 
The Mystery of the 

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Harlowe. 
An Ocean Tragedy. 

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Ouy Waterman. I The Two Dreamers. 

Bound to the Wheel. | The Lion in the Path. 

By KATHARINE SAUNDERS. 

Margaretand Elizabeth I Heart Salvage. 
Gideon's Kock. Sebastian. 

The High Mills. | 

By ADELINE SERGEANT. 
Dr. Eudicott's Experiment. 

By HAWLEY SMART. 

Without Love or Licence. 1 Long Odds. 
The Master of Bathkelly. | The Outsider. 

By T. W. SPEIGHT. 
A Secret of the Sea. I The Master of Trenance. 
The Grey Monk. | A Minion of the Moon. 

By ALAN ST. AUBYN. 



A Fellow of Trinity. 
The Junior Dean. 
Master of St.Benedlct'i. 
To his Own Master. 



In Face of the World. 

Orchard Damerel. 

The Iremlett Diamonds. 



By JOHN STAFFORD. 

Doris and L 

_ By R. A. STERNDALE. 

The Afghan Knife. 

By BERTHA THOMAS. 
Proud Malsie. | The ViolinPlayer. 

_ By ANTHONY TROLLOPE. 

The Way we Live Now. | Scarborough's Family 



Fran Frohmann. 

By FRANCES 

Like Ships upon the 
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E. TROLLOPE. 

I Anne Fnrness. 
Slabers Progress. 



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By C. C. FRASER-TYTLER. 
Mistress Judith. 

By SARAH TYTLER. 
Lady Bell. I The Blackhall Ghosts. 

Burled Diamonds, The Macdonald La8s.\ 

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The Queen against Owen [ The Prince of Balklstan 

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The Scorpion : A Romance of Spain. 

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Sons of Belial. 

By ATHA WESTBURY. 

The Shadow of Hilton Fembrook. 

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Cavalry Life and Beglmental Legends. 
A Soldier's Children. 

By MARGARET WYNMAN 
My Flirtations. 



The Downfall. 
The Dream, 
Dr. Pascal. 



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The FellfUi. 

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Carr of Carrlyon. . | Confidences. 

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Brooke FincCley's Daughter. 

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All Sorts and Condi- 
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The Captains' Boom. 

All in a Garden Fair. 

Dorothy Forster. 

Uncle Jack. 

The World Went Very 
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Herr Paulns. 

For Faith and Freedom. 



To Call Her Mine. 
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The Holy Rose. 
Armorel of Lyonesse. 
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iihanotls. 
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[i(Ut of I 



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itei 



Chronicles of No-man's 
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Califomlan Stories. 

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The Luck of Roaring 

Camp. 
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Flip. I Man^Ja. 

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A Waif of the Plains. 
A Ward of the Golden 
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Uncle Sam at Home. 



30 



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The Slartyrdom of Ma- 
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Shadow of the Sword. 
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The Charlatan. 

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Deceivers Ever. | Jnliet'e Guardian. 

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BaiU. 

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Miss or U^s. 7 

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Pretty Miss HevUle, 
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Hearts of Gold. 

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The Evangelist ; or. Fort Salvation. 

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The Foontaln of Youth. 

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A Castle in Spain. 

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Our Lady of Tears. | Circe's Lovers. 

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fifcdtches by Boz. 



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In the Grip of the Law. 
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The Man-Hunter. 
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Canght at Last I 
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Duncan? 
Man from Manchester. 

ADetectlve's Triumphs 

The Mystery of Jamaica Terrace. 

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Roxy. 

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Never Forgotten. Seventy - five Brooke 

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strange Secrets. 

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Filthy Lucre. 

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King or Knave? 



Olynipia. 
One by _ 
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r One. 



Romances of the Law. 

Ropes of Sand. 

A Dog and his Shadow. 



Queen Cophetua. 

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Beth's Brother's Wife. | The Lawton Girl. 

Prefaced by Sir BARTLE FRERE. 

Fandurang Hori. 

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One of Two. 

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The Capel Girls. 

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A Strange Manuscript. 

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Robin Gray. 
Fancy Free. 
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Corlnthla Morazion. 

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The Days of his Vanity. 

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Love— or a Hame. 
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Treason Felony. 

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Fated to be Free. 

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My Dead Self. 

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Colonial Facts and Fictions. 

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A Drawn Game. I Passion's Slare. 

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Madame Bans-Gene. 

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Ths Lindsays. 

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Fatricla Eemball. 
The World Well Lost, 
TTnder which Lord? 
Fasten Carew. 
' My Love I * 
lone. 

By HENRY W. 
Gideon Fleyce. 

By JUSTIN 

Dear Lady Disdain. 
Waterdale Neighbours. 
My Enemy's Daughter. 
A Fair Saxon. 
Linley Rochford. 
Miss Misanthrope, 



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Dundas. 
With a Silken Thread. 
Rebel of the Family. 
Sowing the Wind. 
The One Too Many. 
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Mr. Stranger's Sealed Packet. 

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Eeather and Snow. 

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The Evil Eye: I Lost Bose. 

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A Romance of the Nine- 1 The Kew EepabliCi 
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Opeu I S^esame I l A Harveit of Wild Oafai. 

Fighting the Air. | Writtsn in Fir«, 

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Hau-a-dozea Saaghterji. 

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A Secret of the Sea. 

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A Soldier of Fortune. 

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The Man who was Good. 

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Touch and Go. | Mr. DorlUion. 

By Mrs. MOLESWORTH. 

Hatnercourt Rectory. 

c. . ™ Py J- E- MUDDOCK. 

Stories Weird and Won- 1 From the Bosom of th« 

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Joseph's Coat. A Bit of Human Nature. 

Coals of Fire. First Person Siugular. 

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A Life's Atonement. Mount Despair. 

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Saint Ann's. 

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Whlteladies. I Tne Greatest Heiress In 

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Ohandos, 

IdaUa. 

Under Two Flags. 

Cecil Castlemaine'sGage 

Tricotrin. 

Puck. 

Folle Farine. 

ADogof Flanden. 

Fascarel. 

Signa. 

Princess Naptaxine. 

In a Winter City. 

Ariadne. 

Friendship. 



Two Lit. Wooden. Shoes. 
Moths. 
Bimbl. 
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A Village Gommnno 
Wanda. 
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In Maremmt« 
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R'uffino. 
Syrlin. 

Santa Barbara, 
Two Offenders. 
Ouida's Wisdom, Wit, 
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.Geutfe and Simple. 

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Lady Lovelace. 

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The Mystery of Marie Koget. 

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The Romance of a Station. 
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Outlaw and Lawmaker. 
Christina Chard 

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The giySards of Clyffe. 

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Found Dead. 

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Like Father, Like Son. 
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Not Wooed, but Won. 
Less Black than We're 

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Itia Never Too Late to A Terrible Temptation. 



Mend. 
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The Double Marriage. 
Put Yourself in His 

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Love Me Little, Love 

Me Long. 
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Love. 
The JUt. 
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Hard, Cash. 

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By P. W, ROBINSON. 

Women are Strange. I The Hands of Justice. 

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An Ocean Tragedy. 

My Shipmate Louise. 

Alone on Wide Wide Sea. 

The Good Ship ' Mo- 
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On the Fo'k'sle Head. 

In the Middle Watch. 

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A Country Sweetheart. 
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Gaslight and Daylight. 

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Guy Waterman. 1 The Lion in the Path. 

The Two Dreamers. | 

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Joan Merryweather. I Seba&tian. 

The High Mills. Margaret and Eliza- 

Heart Salvage. | beth. , 

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The King o' Bells. 
Mary Jane's Memoirs, 
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Tales of Today. 
Dramas of Life. 
Tinkletop's Crime. 



My Two Wives. 

Zeph. 

Memoirs of a Landlady. 

Scenes from the Show. 

The 10 Commandments. 

Dagonet Abroad. 



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A Match in the Dark. 



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Without Love or Licence. 

The Plunger. 

Beatrice and Benedick, 

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Back to Life, 

The LondwaterTragedy. 

Burgo's Bomance. 

Quittance in Full. 

A Husband from the Sea 



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Dyke. 
The Golden Hoop. 
Hoodwinked. 
By Devious Ways, 

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A Fellow OL Trinity. I To His Own Master. 
The Junior Dean. Orchard Damerel. 

Master of St.Benedlct's I In the Face of the World. 

By R. A. STBI^NDALB. 
The Afghan Knife. 

By R. LOUIS STEVENSON. 

New Arabian Nights. 

By BERTHA THOMAS. 

Cressida. I The Violin-Flayer. 

Proud Malsie. I 

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Diamond Cut Diamond. 

By P. ELEANOR TROLLOPE. 
Like Ships upon the I Anne Furness. 
Sea. I Mabel's Progress. 

By ANTHONY TROLLOPE 



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The American Senator 
Mr. Scarborough's 

Family. 
GoldenLion of Qranpere 



Fran Frohmann. 
Marion Fay. 
Kept in the Dark. 
John Catdlgate. 
The Way We Live Now, 

By J. T. TROWBRIDQEc 
Farnell's Folly. 

By IVAN TURGENIEFF, &c. 
Stories trom Foreign Novelists. 

By MARK TWAIN, 



A Pleasure Trip on the 

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Huckleberry Finn. 
MarkTwaln's Sketches. 
Tom Sawyer. 
A Tramp Abroad. 
Stolen White Elephant. 

By C. C. FRASBR-TYTLER. 

Mistress Judith. 



Life on the Mississippi. 

The Prince and the 
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A Yai^ee at the Court 
of King Arthur. 

The £1,000,000 Bank- 
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The Huguenot Family. 
The Blackball Ghosts. 
What She Came Through 
Beauty and the Beast. 
Cltoyenne Ja^ueline. 



The Bride's Pass, 
Burled Diamonds. 
St. Muneo's City. 
Lady Bell. 
Noblesse Oblige. 
Disappeared. 

By ALLEN UPWARD. 

The Queen against Oweu. I Prince of Baltiitan. 

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The Marquis of Oarabas. 

By WILLIAM WESTALL. 

TrUBt-Mopey. 

By Mrs. F. H. WILLIAMSON. 

A Child Widow. 

By J. S, WINTER. 

Cavalry Life, I Begimental Legends, 

By H, F. WOOD. 
The Passenger from Scotland Yard. 
The Englisluniui of the Bne Coin. 
By Lady WOOD. 
Sabina. . 
By CELIA PARKER WOOLLEY 

Bachel Armstrong ; or, Love and Tlieoloiry. 

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The Forlorn Hope. l Castaway. 

Land, at Lost. ' 



Ghetto Tragedies. 



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