Thorne Guy
The Drunkard

And Ingworth was a coward; not a physical coward, for he would have stood up to any one with nothing but glee in his heart, but a moral one. Lothian, he knew, wouldn't have minded the scandal a bit, here or anywhere else. But to Ingworth, cooled instantly by the lean grip of the landlord, the prospect was horrible.

And to be held by another man below one in social rank, landlord of an inn, policeman, or what not, while it rouses the blood of some men to frenzy, in others brings back an instant sanity.

Ingworth remained perfectly still.

For a second or two Lothian watched him with a calm, almost judicial air. Then he flushed suddenly, with a generous shame at the position.

"It's all right, Helzephron," he said. "It's a mistake, a damned silly mistake. As a matter of fact I lost my temper. Please let Mr. Ingworth go."

Mr. Helzephron possessed those baser sides of tact which pass for sincerity with many people.

"Very sorry, I'm sure," he droned, and stood waiting with melancholy interest to see what would happen next.

"I'm very sorry, Dicker," Lothian said impulsively; "you rather riled me, you know. But I behaved badly. It won't do either of us any good to have a rough and tumble here, but of course" .. he looked significantly at the door.

Ingworth took him, and admired him for his simplicity. The old public school feeling was uppermost now. He knew that Gilbert knew he was no coward. He knew also that he could have knocked the other into a cocked hat in about three minutes.

"I was abominably rude, Gilbert," he said frankly. "Don't let's talk rot. I'm sorry."

"It's good of you to take it in that way, Dicker. I'm awfully sorry, too."

Mr. Helzephron interposed. "All's well that ends well," he remarked sententiously. "That's the best of gentlemen, they do settle these matters as gentlemen should. Now if you'll come with me, sir, I'll take you to the lavatory and you can sponge that blood off your face. You're not marked, really."

With a grin and a wink to Lothian, both of which were returned, Ingworth marched away in the wake of the landlord.

The air was cleared.

Gilbert was deeply sorry for what he had done. He had quite forgotten the provocation that he had received. "Good old sportsman, Dicker!" he thought; "he's a fine chap. I was a bounder to hit him. It would have served me jolly well right if he'd given me a hiding."

And the younger man, as he went to remove the stain of combat, had kindly and generous thoughts of his distinguished friend.

But, che sara sara, these kindly thoughts were but to bloom for an hour and fade. Neither knew that one of them was so soon to be brought to the yawning gates of Hell itself, and, at the very last moment, the unconscious action of the other was to snatch him from them.

Already the threads were being woven in those webs of Time, whereof God alone knows the pattern and directs the loom. Neither of them knew.

The barmaid, a tall, fresh-faced young girl, came down the room and took the empty glasses from the table.

"I say, Mr. Lothian," she remarked, "it's no business of mine, and no offence meant, but you didn't ought to have hit him."

"I know," Gilbert answered, "but why do you say so?"

"He's got such nice curly hair!" she replied with a provocative look from her bright eyes, and whisked away to the shelter of her counter.

Lothian sighed. During the years he had lived in Norfolk he had seen many fresh-faced girls come and go. Only a few days before, he had read a statement made by Mrs. Bramwell Booth of the Salvation Army that the number of immoral women in the West End of London who have been barmaids is one quarter of the whole..

At that moment, this Miss Molly Palmer was the belle des coulisses of Wordingham. The local bloods quarrelled about her, the elder men gave her gloves on the sly, her pert repartees kept the lounge in a roar from ten to eleven.

Once, with a sneer and as one man of the world to another, Helzephron had shown Lothian a trade paper in which these girls are advertised for —

"Barmaid wanted, must be attractive."

"Young lady wanted for select wine-room in the West End, gentlemen only, must be well educated and of good appearance, age not over twenty-five."

"Required at once, attractive young lady as barmaid – young. Photograph."

.. A great depression fell upon the poet. Everywhere he turned just now ennui and darkness seemed to confront him. His youth was going. His fame brought no pleasure nor contentment. The easy financial circumstances of his life seemed to roll over him like a weed-clogged wave. His wife's love and care – was not that losing its savour also? The delightful labour of writing, the breathless and strenuous clutching at the waiting harps of poetry, was not he fainting and failing in this high effort, too?

His life was a grey, numbed thing. He was reminded of it whichever way he turned.

There was a time when the Holy Mysteries brought him a joy which was priceless and unutterable.

Yes! when he knelt at the Mass with Mary by his side, he had felt the breath of Paradise upon his brow. Emptied of all earthly things his soul had entered into the mystical Communion of Saints.

To husband and wife, in humble supplication side by side, the still small voice had spoken. The rushing wind of the Holy Ghost had risen around them and the Passion of Jesus been more near.

And now? – the man rose from his chair with a laugh so sad and hollow, a face so contorted with pain, that it startled the silly girl behind the bar.

She made a rapid calculation. "He was sober when 'e come," she thought in the vernacular, "and 'e can stand a lot, can Mr. Lothian. It's nothing. Them poets!"

"Something amusing you?" she said with her best smile.

Lothian nodded. "Oh, just my thoughts," he replied. "Give me another whiskey and soda – a fat one, yes, a little more, yes, that'll do."

For a moment, a moment of hesitation, he held it out at arm's length.

The sunlight of the afternoon blazed into the glass and turned the liquid to molten gold.

The light came from a window in the roof, just over the bar itself. The remainder of the room was in quiet shadow.

He looked down into the room and shuddered. It was typical of his life now.

He looked up at the half open window from which the glory came.

"Oh, that I had the wings of a dove!" he said, with a sad smile.

Molly Palmer watched him. "Juggins!" she thought, "them poets!"

But Lothian's words seemed to call for some rejoinder and the girl was at a loss.

"Wish you meant it!" she said at length, wondering if that would meet the occasion – as it often met others.

Lothian laughed, and drank down the whiskey.

The light from above faded almost instantly – perhaps a cloud was passing over the sun.

But, au contraire, the shadow of the room beyond had invitation now. It no longer seemed sombre.

He went into the shadows and sat down in the same chair where he had been before.

He smiled as he lit another cigarette. How strange moods were! how powerful for a moment, but how quickly over! The letters in his breast pocket seemed to glow out with material warmth, a warmth that went straight to his heart through the cloth and linen of his clothing. The new Ego was fed. Rita!

Yes! at least life had given him this and was it not the treasure of treasures? There was nothing coarse nor earthly in this at least!

The music of the Venusberg throbbed in all his pulses, calling, calling from the hollow hill. He did not realise from where it came – this magic music – and that there is more than one angelic choir.

Rita and Gilbert. Gilbert and Rita!

The words and music of one song!

So we observe that now the masked musicians in the unseen orchestra are in their places.

Any little trouble with the Management is over. Opposition players have sorrowfully departed. The Audience has willed it so, and the band only awaits its leader.

Monsieur L'Ame du Vin, that celebrated conductor, has just slid into his seat. He smirks at his players, gives an intelligent glance at the first violin, and taps upon the desk.

Three beats of the baton, a raised left hand, and once more the oft repeated overture to the Dance of Death commences, with the Fiend Alcohol beating time.

Ingworth came back soon. There was a slight bruise upon his upper lip, but that was all.

The two men – it was to be the last time in lives which had so strangely crossed – were friends in a sense that they had never been before. Both of them looked back upon that afternoon during the immediate days to come with regret and sorrow. Each remembered it differently, according to the depth of individual temperament. But it was remembered, as an hour when strife and turmoil had ceased; when, trembling on the brink of unforeseen events to come, there was pause and friendship, when the good in both of them rose to the surface for a little space and was observed of both.

"Now, Dicker, you just watch. They'll all be here soon for their afternoon drink – the local bloods, I mean. It's their substitute for afternoon tea, don't you know. They sit here talking about nothing to friends who have devoted their lives to the subject. Watch it for your work. You'll learn a lot. That must have been the way in which Flaubert got his stuff for 'Madame Bovary.'"

Something of the artist's fire animated the lad. He was no artist. He hadn't read "Madame Bovary," and it wouldn't have interested him if he had. But the plan appealed to him. It fitted in with his method of life. It was getting something for nothing. Yet he realised, to give him his due, a little more than this. He was sitting at the feet of his Master.

But as it happened, on that afternoon the local bloods were otherwise employed, for at any rate they made no appearance.

Lothian felt at ease. He had one or two more pegs. He had been so comparatively abstemious since his accident and under the regime of Dr. Morton Sims, that what he took now had only a tranquillising and pleasantly narcotic influence.

The nervous irritation of an hour before which had made him strike his friend, the depression and hollow misery which succeeded it, the few minutes of lyrical exaltation as he thought of Rita Wallace, all these were merged in a sense of bien être and drowsiness.

He enjoyed an unaccustomed and languid repletion in his mind, as if it had been overfed and wanted to lie down for a time.

Mr. Helzephron sat down at their table after a time and prosed away in his monotonous voice. He was a man of some education, had read, and was a Dickens lover. He did not often have the opportunity of conversation with any one like Lothian and he made the most of it. Like many common men who are anxious to ingratiate themselves with their superiors, he thought that the surest way to do so was to abuse his neighbours, thus, as he imagined, proclaiming himself above them and flattering his hearer. Lothian always said of the landlord of the George that he was worth his weight in gall, and for a time he was amused.

At five o'clock the two visitors had some tea and toast and at the half hour both were ready to go.

"I'll run round to the post office," Ingworth said, "and see if there are any late letters."

"Very well," Gilbert answered, "and I'll have the horse put in."

The afternoon post for Mortland Royal left the town at three, and letters which came in by the five o'clock mail were not delivered at the village until the next morning unless – as now – they were specially called for.

Ingworth ran off.

"Well, Mr. Lothian," said the landlord. "I don't often have the pleasure of a talk with you. Just one more with me before you go?"

They were standing together at the bar counter when a page boy entered the lounge and went up to his master. "Please, sir," he said, "the new young lady's come."

"Oh, very well," Helzephron answered. "I'll be out in a minute. Where is she?"

"In the hall, sir. And shall Boots go down for her trunk?"

"Yes; tell him to go to the station at once with the hand-cart. A new barmaid," he said, turning to Gilbert, "for the four ale bar, a woman of about thirty, not much class, you understand, wouldn't do for the lounge, but will keep the working men in order. It's astonishing how glad they are to get a job when they're about thirty! They're no draw then, and they know it. The worst of it is that these older women generally help themselves from the till or the bottle! I've had fifty applications for this job."

He led the way out into the hall of the hotel, followed by Lothian, who was on his way to the stable yard.

A woman was sitting upon a plush-covered bench by the wall. She was a dark gipsy looking creature, coarsely handsome and of an opulent figure. She stood up as Helzephron came out into the hall, and there seemed to be a suggestion of great boldness and flaunting assertion about her, oddly restrained and overlaid by a timidity quite at variance with her appearance.

The landlord was in front, and for a moment Lothian was concealed. Then, as he was about to wish Helzephron good afternoon and turned for the purpose, he came into view of the new barmaid.

She saw him full face and an instant and horrible change came over her own. It faded to dead paper-white. The dark eyes became fixed like lenses. The jaw dropped like the jaw of a ventriloquist's puppet, a strangled gurgle came from the open mouth and then a hoarse scream of terror. The woman's arms jerked up in the air as if they had been pulled by strings, and her hands in shabby black gloves curved into claws and were rigid. Then she spun round, caught her boot in the leg of the chair and fell in a swoon upon the floor.

The landlord swore in his surprise and alarm.

Then, keen as a knife, he whipped round and looked at Lothian.

Lothian's face expressed nothing but the most unbounded astonishment. Help was summoned and the woman was carried into the landlord's private office, where restoratives were applied.

In three or four minutes she opened her eyes and moaned. Lothian, Helzephron and a chambermaid who was attending on her, were the only other people in the office.

"There, there," said the landlord irritably, when he saw that consciousness was returning. "What in heaven's name did you go off like that for? You don't belong to do that sort of thing often I hope. If so I may as well tell you at once that you'll be no good here."

"I'm very sorry, sir," said the poor creature, trembling and obviously struggling with rising hysteria. "It took me sudden. I'm very strong, really, sir. It shan't happen again."

"I hope not," Helzephron answered in a rather more kindly tone. "Elsie, go into the lounge and ask Miss Palmer for a little brandy and water – but what took you like this?"

The woman hesitated. Her glance fell upon Lothian who was standing there, a pitying and perplexed spectator of this strange scene. She could not repress a shudder as she saw him, though both men noticed that the staring horror was going from her eyes and that her face was relieved.

"I'm very sorry," she said again, "but the sight of that gentleman coming upon me sudden and unexpected was the cause of it."

"This gentleman!" Helzephron replied. "This is Mr. Gilbert Lothian, a famous gentleman and one of our country gentleman in Norfolk. What can you have to do with him?"

"Oh, nothing sir, nothing. But there's a very strong resemblance in this gentleman to some one" – she hesitated and shuddered – "to some one I once knew. I thought it was him come back at first. I see now that there's lots of difference. I've had an unhappy life, sir."

She began to sob quietly.

"Now, drink this," said the landlord, handing her the brandy which the chambermaid had just brought. "Stop crying and Elsie will take you up to your room. Your references are all right and I don't want to know nothing of your history. Do your duty by me like a good girl and you'll find me a good master. Your past's nothing to me."

Lothian and the landlord went out into the stable yard where the rainbow-throated pigeons were murmuring on the tiled roofs, and the ostler – like Mousqueton – was spitting meditatively. They discussed this strange occurrence.

"I never saw a woman so frightened!" said Mr. Helzephron. "You might have been old Bogy himself, Mr. Lothian. I didn't know what to think for a moment! I hope she doesn't drink."

"Well, I suppose we've all got a double somewhere or other," Lothian answered. "I suppose she saw some likeness in me to some one who has ill used her, poor thing."

"Oh, yes, sir," Helzephron replied. "That's it – she said as much. Half the plays and novels turn on such likenesses. I used to be a great play-goer when I was in London and I've seen all the best actresses. But I'm damned if I ever see such downright horror as there was in that girl's face. He must have been a bad un whoever he was. Real natural tragedy in that face – William, put in Mr. Lothian's horse."

He said good-bye and re-entered the hotel.

Lothian remained in the centre of the yard. He lit a cigarette and watched the horse being harnessed. His face was clouded with thought.

It was very strange! How frightful the poor woman had looked. It was a nightmare face, a face of Gustave Doré from the Inferno engravings!

He never saw the woman again, as it happened, and never knew who she was. If he had read of the Hackney murder in the papers of the year before he had given it no attention. He knew nothing of the coarse siren for whose sake the poisoned man of Hackney had killed the wife who loved him, and who, under an assumed name, was living out her obscure and haunted life in menial toil.

Dr. Morton Sims might have thrown some light upon the incident at the George perhaps. But then Dr. Morton Sims never heard of it and it soon passed from the poet's mind.

No doubt the Fiend Alcohol who provided the incidental music at the head of his orchestra was smiling.

For the Overture to the Dance of Death is curiously coloured music and there are red threads of melody interwoven with the sable chords.

CHAPTER VI
AN OMNES EXEUNT FROM MORTLAND ROYAL

 
"Wenn Menschen auseinandergehn
So sagen sie – auf Wiedersehn!
Ja Wiederseh'n."
 

– Goethe.

Dickson Ingworth returned from the post office with several letters.

He handed three of them to Lothian. One was a business letter from the firm of Ince and Amberley, the other an invitation to a literary dinner at the Trocadero, the third, with foreign stamp and postmark, was for Mary Lothian.

As they drove out of the town, Ingworth was in high spirits. His eyes sparkled, he seemed excited.

"Good news by this post, Dicker?" Gilbert asked.

Ingworth had been waiting for the question. He tried to keep the tremulous pleasure out of his voice as he answered.

"Well, rather. I've just heard from Herbert Toftrees. When I saw him last, just before I came down here, he hinted that he might be able to influence things for me in a certain quarter." ..

He paused.

Gilbert saw how it was. The lad was bursting with news but wanted to appear calm, wanted to be coaxed. Well, Gilbert owed him that!

"Really! Has something come off, Dicker, then? Do tell me, I should be so glad."

"Yes, Gilbert. It's the damnedst lucky thing! Toftrees is a topping chap. The other day he hinted at something he might be able to do for me in his deep-voiced, mysterious way. I didn't pay much attention because they say he's rather like that, and one mustn't put too much trust in it. But, by Jove! it's come off. The editor of the Wire– Ommany you know – wants somebody to go to Italy with the delegation of English Public School Masters, as special correspondent for a month. They've offered it to me. It's a big step, Gilbert, for me! They will pay awfully well for the job and it means that I shall get in permanently with the Wire."

"I'm awfully glad, Dicker. Splendid for you! But what is it exactly?"

"The new movement in Italy, anti-Papal and National. It's the schools, you know. The King and the Mayor of Rome are frightfully keen that all the better class schools, like our public schools, you know – shall be taken out of the hands of the Jesuits and the seminary priests. Games and a healthy sort of school life are to be organised for the boys. They're going to try and introduce our system if they can. A Harrow tutor, a Winchester man, undermasters from Haileybury, Repton and Denstone are going out to organise things."

"And you're going with them to tell England all about it! I congratulate you, Dicker. It's a big chance. You can make some fine articles out of it, if you take care. It should introduce your name."

"Thanks awfully, I hope so. It's because I got my running blue I expect. But it's jolly decent of the old Toffer all the same."

"Oh, it is. When do you go?"

"At once. They start in four days. I shall have to go up to town by the first train to-morrow."

"I'm sorry, but of course, if you must" ..

"Oh, I must," Ingworth said importantly. "I have to see Ommany to-morrow night."

Unconsciously, as he urged the cob onwards, his head sank forward a little, and he imitated the grave pre-occupation of Lothian upon the drive out.

Mary Lothian was sitting in a deck chair in front of the house when the two men came through the gate. A little table stood by the side of her chair, and on it was a basket of the thin silk socks her husband wore. She was darning one of the expensive gossamer things with a tiny needle and almost invisible thread.

Mary looked up quickly as the two men came up to her. There was a swift interrogation in her eyes, instantly suppressed but piteous in its significance.

But now, she smiled.

Gilbert was all right! She knew it at once. He had come back from Wordingham quite sober, and in her tender anxious heart she blessed God and Dr. Morton Sims.

She was told of Dickson's opportunity. Gilbert was as anxious to tell, and as excited as his friend. "Oh, I am so glad, Dicker!" she said over and over again. "My dear boy, I am so glad! Now you've got your chance at last. Your real chance. Never come down here again if you don't make the most of it!"

Ingworth sat down upon the lawn at her feet. Dusk was at hand. The sun was sinking to rest and the flowers of the garden were almost shouting with perfume.

Rooks winged homeward through the fading light, and the Dog Trust gambolled in the middle-distance of the lawn as the cock-chafers went booming by.

.. "Think I shall be able to do it, Mrs. Gilbert?"

"Of course you will, Dicker! Put your very heart into it, won't you! It's your chance at last, isn't it?"

Ingworth jumped to his feet. "I shall do it," he said gravely, as who should say that the destinies of kingdoms depended upon his endeavours.

"And now I must go in and write some letters. I shall have to be off quite early to-morrow, Mrs. Gilbert."

"I'll arrange all that. Go in and do your letters. We're not going to dine till eight to-night."

Ingworth crossed the lawn and went into the house.

Gilbert drew his chair up to his wife.

She held out her hand. He took it, raised it to his lips and kissed it. He was at home.

"I'm glad, dear," Mary said, "that Dicker has got something definite to do. It will steady him. If he is successful it will give him a new sense of responsibility. I wouldn't say anything to you, Gillie, but I have not liked him so much this time as I used to."

"Why?"

"He doesn't seem to have been treating you quite in the way he used to. He's been talking a good deal to me of some people who seem to have taken him up in London. And I can't help knowing that you've done everything for him in the past. Really, Gillie, I have had to snub him quite severely, for me, once or twice."

"Yes."

"Yes. He assumed a confidential, semi-superior sort of air and manner. In a clumsy, boyish sort of way he's tried to suggest that I'm not happy with you."

Lothian laughed bitterly. "I know," he said, "so many people are like that. Ingworth has good streaks like all of us. But speaking generally he's unstable. I've found it out lately, too. Never mind. He's off to-morrow. Oh, by the way, here's a letter for you, dear, I forgot."

Mary took the letter and rose from her chair. Arm in arm they entered the house together and went upstairs to dress for dinner.

Gilbert had had his bath, had changed, and was tying his tie in front of the dressing table mirror, when the door of his room opened and Mary hurried in.

Her hair was coiled in its masses of pale gold, and a star of emeralds which he had given her was fixed in it. She wore a long dressing robe of green silk fringed with dull red arabesques – he had bought it for her in Tunis.

A rope of camels' hair gathered it in round her slender waist and the lovely column of her neck, the superb white arms were bare.

"What is it, dear?" he said, for his wife's fair face was troubled.

"Oh, darling," she answered, with a sob in her voice, "I've had bad news from Nice."

"About Dorothy?"

"Yes, Miss Dalton, the lady nurse who is with her has written. It's all been no use, Gillie, no use at all! She's dying, dear. The doctor from Cannes who has been attending her has said so. And Sir William Larus who is at Mentone was called in too. They give her three weeks or a month. They've cabled to India but it's a forlorn hope. Harold won't be able to get to her in time – though there's just a chance."

She sank down upon the bed and covered her face with her hands.

She was speaking of her sister, Lady Davidson, who was stricken with consumption. Sir Harold Davidson was a major in the Indian Army, a baronet without much money, and a keen soldier. Mary's sister had developed the disease in England, where she had been ordered from Simla by the doctors there. She was supposed to be "run down" and no more then. Phthisis had been diagnosed in London – incipient only – and she had been sent to the Riviera at once. The reports from Nice had become much worse during the last few weeks, and now – this letter.

Gilbert went to his wife and sat down beside her upon the bed, drawing her to him. He was fond of Dorothy Davidson and also of her husband, but he knew that Mary adored her sister.

"Darling," he said, "don't give way. It may not be so bad after all. And so much depends upon the patient in all illnesses – doesn't it? Morton Sims was telling us so the other night, you remember? Dolly is an awfully sporting sort of girl. She won't give in."

Mary leant her head upon his shoulder. The strong arms that held her brought consolation. The lips of the husband and wife met.

"It's dear of you to say so," Mary said at length, "but I know, dear. The doctor and the nurse have been quite explicit. Dorothy is dying, Gillie, I can't let her die alone, can I?"

"No, dear, of course not," he replied rather vaguely, not quite understanding what she meant for a moment.

"She must have some one of her own people with her. Harold will most likely not arrive in time. I must go – mustn't I?"

Then Gilbert realised.

His swift imagination pictured a lonely hotel death-bed among the palms and mimosa of the Côte d'Azur, a pretty and charming girl fading away from the blue white and gold with no loving hands to tend her, and only the paid services of strangers to speed or assuage the young soul's passage from sunshine and laughter to the unknown.

"You must go to her at once, sweetheart," he said gravely.

"Oh, I must! You don't mind my leaving you?"

"How can you ask it? But I will come with you. We will both go. You will want a man."

Mary hesitated for a second, and then she shook her head.

"I shall manage quite well by myself," she said. "It will be better so. I'm quite used to travelling alone as you know. And the journey to Nice is nothing. I shall be in one carriage all the way from Calais. You could come out after, if necessary."

"I would come gladly, dear."

"I know, Gillie, and it's sweet of you. But you couldn't be of use and it would be miserable for you. It is better that I should be alone with Dolly. I can always wire if I want you."

"As you think best, dear. Then I will stay quietly down here."

"Yes, do. You have that poem to work on, 'A Lady in a Library.' It is a beautiful fancy and will make you greater than ever! It's quite the best thing you've done so far. And then there's the shooting."

"Oh, I shall do very well, Molly. Don't bother about me, dear."

She held him closer. Her cool white arms were around his neck.

"But I always do bother about you, husband," she whispered, "because I love you better than anything else in the world. It is sweet of you to let me go like this. And I feel so much happier about you now, since the doctor has come to the village."

He winced with pain and shame at her loving words. A pang went right through him.

It passed as swiftly as it had come. Sweet and loving women too often provide men with excuses for their own ill conduct. Lothian knew that – under the special circumstances of which his wife knew nothing – it was his duty to go with Mary. But he didn't want to go. He would have hated going.

Already a wide vista was opening before him – a freedom, an absolute freedom! Wild music! The Wine of Life! Now, if ever, Fate, Destiny, call it what he would, was preparing the choicest banquet.

He had met Rita. Rita was waiting, he could be with Rita!

And yet, so subtle and tortuous is the play of egoism upon conscience, he felt pleased with himself for his ready concurrence in his wife's plans. He assumed the rôle she gave him with avidity, and when he answered her she thought him the best and noblest of men.

"It will be dreadful without you, darling, but you are quite right to go. Send for me if you want me. I'll catch the next boat. But I have my work to do, and I can see a good deal of Morton Sims" – he knew well, and felt with shame, the cunning of this last statement – "and if I'm dull I can always run up to town for a day or two and stay at the club."

"Of course you can, dear. You won't feel so lonely then. Now about details. I must pack to-night."

"Yes, dear, and then you can go off with Dicker in the morning, and catch the night boat. If you like, that is."

"Well, I shouldn't gain anything by that, dear. I should only have to wait about in Calais until one o'clock the next day when the train de luxe starts. But I should like to go first thing to-morrow. I couldn't wait about here the whole day. Dicker will be company of sorts. I shall get to town about two, and go to the Charing Cross Hotel. Then I shall do some shopping, go to bed early, and catch the boat train from the station in the morning. I would rather do it like that."