With Mrs. Ellsworth, however, it would be different. There would lie the stumbling-block; but with all danger from the Browning ended, the girl was in no mood to borrow trouble for the future, even a future already rushing into the arms of the present.

"I should always fire the first shot in the air," Ruthven Smith went on, "unless directly threatened."

"Lucky for me," replied the other. "I don't want to die yet. And it would have been hard lines, as I was trying to do you a good turn: rid you of a thief if there were one. But I suppose you or some servant must have left the light on in your room."

"I'm pretty sure I didn't," said Ruthven Smith, still speaking with the nervousness of a suspicious man, yet at the same time slowly, half reluctantly, pocketing his pistol. "We must find out how this happened. Perhaps there has been a thief——"

"No sign of anything being disturbed in your room," the younger man assured him. "However, you'd best have a look round. If you like"—and he laughed a frank-sounding laugh—"I'm quite willing to be searched before I leave the house, so you can make sure I'm not going off with any booty."

"Certainly not! Nothing of the kind! I accept your explanation," protested Ruthven Smith. He laughed also, though stiffly and with an effort. "I have no valuables in my luggage—I have brought none with me. It's not worth my while to open the boxes in my room, as there's nothing there to tempt a thief. Still, one gets a start coming to a quiet house, at this time of night, finding a light in one's windows that ought to be dark, and then seeing a man walk out of one's room. My nerves aren't over-strong. I confess I have a horror of night alarms. I travel a good deal, and have got in the habit of carrying a pistol. However, all's well that ends well. I apologize to you, and to Miss Grayle. When I know you better, I hope you'll allow me to make up by congratulating you both on your engagement."

As he spoke, in his prim, old-fashioned way, he began to descend the stairs, taking off his hat, as if to join the girl whom in thought he had wronged for an instant. "Nelson Smith" followed, smiling at Annesley over the elder man's high, narrow head sparsely covered with lank hair of fading brown.

It was at this moment Mrs. Ellsworth chose to appear, habited once more in a hurriedly donned dressing gown, a white silk scarf substituted in haste for a discarded nightcap. Panting with anger, and fierce with curiosity, she had forgotten her rheumatism and abandoned her martyred hobble for a waddling run.

Thus she pounced out at the foot of the stairway, and was upon the girl before the three absorbed actors in the scene had heard the shuffling feet in woollen slippers.

"What does this mean?" she quavered, so close to Annesley's ear that the girl wheeled with a start of renewed alarm. "Who's this strange man in my house? What's this talk about 'engagements'?"

"A strange man!" echoed Ruthven Smith, prickling with suspicion again. "Haven't you met him, Miss Grayle's fiance?"

"Miss Grayle's fiddlesticks!" shrilled the old woman. "The girl's a baggage, a worthless baggage! In my room just now she struck me—beat my poor rheumatic knuckles! For five years I've sheltered her, given her the best of everything, even to the clothes she has on her back. This is the way she repays me—with insults and cruelty, and smuggles strange men secretly into my house at night, and pretends to be engaged to them!"

The dark young man in evening dress passed the lean figure in travelling clothes without a word and, putting Annesley gently aside, stepped between her and Mrs. Ellsworth.

"There is no question of 'pretending'," he said, sternly. "Miss Grayle has promised to marry me. If our engagement has been kept a secret, it's only because the right moment hadn't come for announcing it. I entered your house for a few moments to-night, for the first time, on an errand which seemed important, as Mr. Ruthven Smith will explain. I don't feel called upon to apologize for my presence in the face of your attitude to Miss Grayle. It was our intention that you should have plenty of notice before she left you, time to find someone for her place; but after what has happened, it's your own fault, madame, if we marry with a special licence, and I take her out of this house to-morrow. I only wish it might be now——"

"It shall be now!" Mrs. Ellsworth screamed him down. "The girl doesn't darken my doors another hour. I don't know who you are, and I don't want to know. But with or without you, Annesley Grayle leaves my house to-night."

"Mrs. Ellsworth, surely you haven't stopped to think what you're saying!" protested Ruthven Smith. "You can't turn a girl into the street in the middle of the night with a young man you don't know, even if she is engaged to him."

"I won't have her here, after the way she's treated me—after the way she's acted altogether," Mrs. Ellsworth insisted. "Let her go to your cousins' if you think they'd approve of her conduct. As for me, I doubt it. And I'm sure she lied when she said they'd asked her to dine with them to-night. I don't believe she went near them."

Ruthven Smith, who had made a surprise visit at the Archdeacon's and dined there, had heard no mention of Annesley Grayle being expected. For an instant he was silenced, but the girl did not lack a defender.

"She will not need to beg for Archdeacon Smith's hospitality," said the young man. "And even if Mrs. Ellsworth implored her to stay, I couldn't allow it now. I will see that Miss Grayle is properly sheltered and cared for to-night by a lady whose kindness will make her forget what she has suffered. As soon as possible we shall be married by special licence. Go to your room, dearest, and put together a few things for to-night and to-morrow morning—just what will fit into a hand-bag. If there's anything else you value, it can be sent for later. Then I'll take you away."

The words were brave and comforting, and a wave of emotion swept Annesley's soul toward the mysterious, unknown soul of her knight. It was so strong, so compelling a wave that she had no fear in trusting, herself to him. He was her refuge, her protector.

For a moment of gratitude she even forgot he was mysterious, forgot that a few hours ago she had been ignorant of his existence. When remembrance flooded her brain, her only fear was for him. What if the watchers should still be there when they went out of the house together?

She had turned to go to her room as he suggested when suddenly this question seemed to be shouted in her ear. Hesitating, she looked back, her eyes imploring, to meet a smile so confident that it defied fate.

Annesley saw that he understood what was in her mind, and this smile was the answer. For some reason he thought himself sure that the watchers were out of the way. The girl could not guess why, unless he had spied on the taxi from Ruthven Smith's window and saw it go. But she would soon learn.

Her room was a mere bandbox at the back of the "addition," behind Mrs. Ellsworth's bedroom and bath; and dashing into it now, the new, vividly alive Annesley seemed to meet and pity the timid, hopeless girl whose one safe haven these mean quarters had been. She tried to gather the old self into her new self, that she might take it with her and comfort it, rescuing it from the tyrant.

The two trunks she had brought five years ago were stored in the basement box-room; but under the camp bed was her dressing-bag, the only "lock-up" receptacle she possessed. In it she kept a few letters and an abortive diary which in some moods had given her the comfort of a confidant.

The key of this bag was never absent from her purse, and opening it with quivering hands, the girl threw in a few toilet things for the night, a coat, skirt, and blouse for morning, and a small flat toque which would not crush. Afterward—in that wonderful, dim "afterward" which shone vaguely bright, like a sunlit landscape discerned through mist—she could send for more of her possessions. But she would have nothing which had been given her by Mrs. Ellsworth, and she would return the dress and cloak she was wearing to-night.

Three minutes were enough for the packing of the bag; then, luggage in hand, she turned at the door for a last look, such as a released convict might give to his cell.

"Good-bye!" she said, with a thought of compassion for her successor. And passing Mrs. Ellsworth's room she would have thrown a farewell glance at its familiar chairs and tables, each one of which she hated with a separate hatred; but with a shock of surprise, she found the door shut.

That must mean that the dragon had retreated from the combat and retired to her lair!

Not to be chased from the house by the sharp arrows of insult seemed almost too good to be true. But when Annesley arrived, bag in hand, in the front corridor, it was to see Ruthven Smith standing there alone, and the door open to the street.

"Mrs. Ellsworth has gone to her room," he explained, "and—er—your friend—your fiance—is looking for a taxi, not to keep you waiting. He didn't leave till Mrs. Ellsworth went. I don't think he would have trusted me to protect you without him, though I—er—I did my best with her. Good heavens, what a fury! I never saw that side of her before! I must say, I don't blame you for making your own plans, Miss Grayle. I—I don't blame you for anything, and I hope you'll feel the same toward me. I'd be sorry to think that—er—after our pleasant acquaintance this was to be our last meeting. Won't you show that you forgive me for the mistake I made—I think it was natural—and tell me what your married name will be?"

Annesley looked anxiously at the half-open front door. If only the absent one would return and save her from this new dilemma! If she did not speak, Mr. Ruthven Smith would think her harsh and unforgiving, yet she could not answer unless she gave the name adopted temporarily for convenience. She hesitated, her eyes on the door; but the darkness and silence outside sent a doubt into her heart, cold and sickly as a bat flapping in from the night.

What if he never came back? What if the watchers had been hiding out there, lying in wait and, two against one—both bigger men physically than he, and perhaps armed—they had overpowered him? What if she were never to see him again, and this hour which had seemed the beginning of hope were to be its end?



CHAPTER VII

THE COUNTESS DE SANTIAGO

"You don't wish to tell me the name?" Ruthven Smith was saying.

The repetition irritated the girl, whose nerves were strained to snapping point. She could not parry the man's questions. She could not bear his grieved or offended reproaches. If he persisted, through these moments of suspense, she would scream or burst out crying. Trembling, with tears in her voice, she heard herself answer. And yet it did not seem to be herself, but something within, stronger than she, that suddenly took control of her.

"Why should I not wish to tell you?" the Something was saying. "The name is the same as your own—Smith. Nelson Smith." And before the words had left her lips a taxi drew up at the door.

There was one instant of agony during which the previous suspense seemed nothing—an instant when the girl forgot what she had said, her soul pressing to the windows of her eyes. Was it he who had come, or——

It was he. Before she had time to finish the thought, he walked in, confident and smiling as when she had left him a few minutes—or a few years—ago; and in the wave of relief which overwhelmed her, Annesley forgot Ruthven Smith's question and her answer. She remembered again, only with the shock of hearing him address the newcomer by the name she had given.

"I hear from Miss Grayle that we are namesakes," Mr. Ruthven Smith said, as "Nelson Smith" sprang in and took the girl's bag from her ice-cold hand.

"I—he asked me ... I told him," Annesley stammered, her eyes appealing, seeking to explain, and begging pardon. "But if——"

"Quite right. Why not tell?" he answered instantly, his first glance of surprise turning to cheerful reassurance. "Now Mrs. Ellsworth is eliminated, I'm no longer a secret. And I expect you'll like to meet Mr. Ruthven Smith again when you have a house to entertain him in."

So speaking, he offered his hand with a smile to his "namesake"; and Annesley realized from the outsider's point of view the peculiar attraction of the man. Ruthven Smith felt it, as she had felt it, though differently and in a lesser degree. Not only did he shake hands, but actually came out to the taxi with them, asking Annesley if he should tell his cousins of her engagement, or if she preferred to give the news herself?

It flashed into the girl's mind that it would be perfect if she could be married to her knight by Archdeacon Smith; but she had been imprudent too often already. She dared not make such a suggestion without consulting the other person most concerned, so she answered that she would write Mrs. Smith or see her.

"To say that you, too, are going to be Mrs. Smith!" chuckled the Archdeacon's cousin in his dry way, which made him seem even older than he was. "Well, you can trust me with Mrs. Ellsworth. If she goes on as she began to-night, I'm afraid I shall have to follow your example: 'fold my tent like an Arab, and silently steal away.' Ha, ha! By the by, I dare say she's owing you salary. I'll remind her of it if you like—tell her you asked me. It may help with the trousseau."

"Thank you, but my wife won't need to remind Mrs. Ellsworth of her debt," the answer came before Annesley could speak. "And she will be my wife in a day or two at latest. Good-night! Glad to have met you, even if it was an unpromising introduction."

Then they were off, they two alone together; and Annesley guessed that the chauffeur must have had his instructions where to drive, as she heard none given. Perhaps it was best that their destination should not be published aloud, for there are walls which have ears. It occurred to the girl that precautions might still have to be taken. But in another moment she was undeceived.

"I thought old Ruthven Smith would be shocked if he knew the 'safe refuge' I have for you is no more convent-like than the Savoy Hotel," her companion laughed. "By Jove, neither you nor I dreamed when we got out of the last taxi that we should soon be in another, going back to the place we started from!"

"The Savoy!" exclaimed Annesley. "Oh, but we mustn't go there, of all places! Those men——"

"I assure you it's safer now than anywhere in London!" the man cut her short. "I can't explain why—that is, I could explain if I cared to rig up a story. But there's something about you makes me feel as if I'd like to tell you the truth whenever I can: and the truth is, that for reasons you may understand some day—though I hope to Heaven you'll never have to!—my association with those men is one of the things I long to turn the key upon. I know that that sounds like Bluebeard to Fatima, but it isn't as bad as that. To me, it doesn't seem bad at all. And I swear that whatever mystery—if you call it 'mystery'—there is about me, it sha'n't hurt you. Will you believe this—and trust me for the rest?"

"I've told you I would!" the girl reminded him.

"I know. But things were different then—not so serious. They hadn't gone so far. I didn't suppose that Fate would give you to me so soon. I didn't dare hope it. I——"

"Are you sure you want me?" Annesley faltered.

"Surer than I've ever been of anything in my life before. It's only of you I'm thinking. I wanted to arrange my—business matters so as to be fair to you. But you'll make the best of things."

"You are being noble to me," said the girl, "and I've been very foolish. I've complicated everything. First, by what I told Mr. Ruthven Smith about—about us. And then—saying your name was Nelson Smith."

"You weren't foolish!" he contradicted. "You were only—playing into Fate's hands. You couldn't help yourself. Destiny! And all's for the best. You were an angel to sacrifice yourself to save me, and your doing it the way you did has made me a happy man at one stroke. As for the name—what's in a name? We might as well be in reality what we played at being to-night—'Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith.' There are even reasons why I'm pleased that you've made me a present of the name. I thank you for it—and for all the rest."

"Oh, but if it isn't really your name, we sha'n't be legally married, shall we?" Annesley protested.

"By Jove!" he exclaimed. "I hadn't thought of that. It's a difficulty. But we'll obviate it—somehow. Don't worry! Only I'm afraid we can't ask your friend the Archdeacon to marry us, as I meant to suggest, because I was sure you'd like it."

"I should. But it doesn't matter," said the girl. "Besides, I feel that to-morrow I shall find I've dreamed—all this."

"Then I've dreamed you, at the same time, and I'm not going to let you slip out of my dream, now I've got you in it. I intend to go on dreaming you for the rest of my life. And I shall take care you don't wake up!"

Afterward there came a time when Annesley called back those words and wondered if they had held a deeper meaning than she guessed. But, having uttered them, he seemed to put the thought out of his mind, and turn to the next.

"About the Savoy," he went on. "I want to take you there, because I know a woman staying in the hotel—a woman old enough to be your mother—who'll look after you, to please me, till we're married. Afterward you'll be nice to her, and that will be doing her a good turn, because she's apt to be lonesome in London. She's the widow of a Spanish Count, and has lived in the Argentine, but I met her in New York. She knows all about me—or enough—and if she'd been in the restaurant at dinner this evening she could have done for me what you did. I had reason to think she would be there when I bolted in to get out of a fix. But she was missing. Are you sorry?"

"If she'd been there, you would have gone to her table and sat down, and we—should never have met!" Annesley thought aloud. "How strange! Just that little thing—your friend being out to dinner—and our whole lives are to be changed. Oh, you must be sorry?"

"I tell you, meeting you and winning you in this way is worth the best ten years of my life. But you haven't answered my question."

"I'll answer it now!" cried the girl. "Meeting you is worth all the years of my life! I'm not much of a princess, but you are St. George."

"St. George!" he echoed, a ring of bitterness under his laugh. "That's the first time I've been called a saint, and I'm afraid it will be the last. I can't live up to that, but—if I can give you a happy life, and a few of the beautiful things you deserve, why, it's something! Besides, I'm going to worship my princess. I'd give anything to show you how I—but no. I was good before, when I was tempted to kiss you. You're at my mercy now, in a way, all the more because I'm taking you from your old existence to one you don't know.

"I sha'n't ask to kiss you—except maybe your little hand if you don't mind—until the moment you're my wife. Meantime, I'll try to grow a bit more like what your lover ought to be; and later I shall kiss you enough to make up for lost time."

If, five hours ago, any one had told Annesley Grayle that she would wish to have a strange man take her in his arms and kiss her she would have felt insulted. Yet so it was. She was sorry that he was so scrupulous. She longed to have him hold her against his heart.

The thought thrilled her like an electric shock a thousand times more powerful than the tingling which had flashed up her arm at the first touch of his hand, though even that had seemed terrifying then. But she sat still in her corner of the taxi, and gave him no answer, lest she should betray herself.

Her silence, after the warmth of his words, seemed cold. Perhaps he felt it so, for he went on after an instant's pause, as if he had waited for something in vain, and his tone was changed. Annesley thought it, by contrast, almost businesslike.

"You mustn't be afraid," he said, "that I mean to stay at the Savoy myself. Even if I'd been stopping there, I should move if I were going to put you in the hotel. But I have my own lair in London. I've been over here a number of times. Indeed, I'm partly English, born in Canada, though I've spent most of my life in the United States. Nobody at the Savoy but the Countess de Santiago knows who I am, and she'll understand that it may be convenient for me to change my name. Nelson Smith is a respectable one, and she'll respect it!

"Now, my plan is to ask for her (she'll be in by this time), have a few words of explanation on the quiet, not to embarrass you; and the Countess will do the rest. She'll engage a room for you next to her own suite, or as near as possible; then you'll be provided with a chaperon."

"I'm not anxious about myself, but about you," Annesley said. "You haven't told me yet what happened after you went upstairs at Mrs. Ellsworth's, and how you knew those men were gone. I suppose you did know? Or—did you chance it?"

"I was as sure as I needed to be," Nelson Smith answered. "A moment after I switched on the electricity in the room up there I heard a taxi drive away. I turned off the light so I could look out. By flattening my nose against the glass I could see that the place where those chaps had waited was empty; but in case the taxi was only turning, and meant to pass the house again, I lit the room once more, for realism.

"That's what kept me rather long—that, and waiting for the dragon to go. Otherwise I should have been down before Ruthven Smith trapped me.

"For a second it looked as if the game of life was up. And then I found out how much you meant to me. It was you I thought of. It seemed beastly hard luck to leave you fast in that old woman's clutches!"

Annesley put out her hand with a warm impulse. He took it, raising it to his lips, and both were startled when the taxi stopped. They had arrived at the Savoy: and though Annesley seemed to have lived through a lifetime of emotion, just one hour and thirty minutes had passed since she and her companion drove away from these bright revolving doors.

The foyer was as brilliant and crowded as when they left at half-past ten. People were parting after supper; or they were lingering in the restaurant beyond. Nobody paid the slightest attention to the newcomers, and Annesley settled down unobtrusively in a corner, while her companion went to scribble a line to the Countess de Santiago.

When he had finished, and sent up the letter, he did not return, and again the girl had a few moments of suspense, thinking of the danger which might not, after all, be over. Just as she had begun to be anxious, however, she saw him coming with a wonderful woman.

Annesley could have laughed, remembering how he had said the Countess would "mother" her. Any one less motherly than this Juno-like beauty in flame-coloured chiffon over gold tissue it would be hard to imagine.

The Spanish South American Countess was of a camelia paleness, and had almond-shaped dark eyes with brooding lashes under slender brows that met. In contrast, her hair was of a flame colour vivid as her draperies, and her lips were red.

At first glance Annesley thought that the dazzling creature could not be more than thirty; but when the vision had come near enough to offer her hand, without waiting for an introduction, a hardness about the handsome face, a few lines about the eyes and mouth, and a fullness of the chin showed that she was older—forty, perhaps.

Still, Annesley hoped that her lover had not asked the lady to "mother" his fiancee. She had not the air of one who would be complimented by such a request.

As Annesley put her hand into that of the Countess, she noticed that this hand was as wonderful as the rest of the woman's personality. It was very long, very narrow, with curiously supple-looking fingers exquisitely manicured and wearing many rings. Even the thumb was abnormally long, which fact prevented the hand from being as beautiful as it was, somehow, unforgettable.

"This is a pleasure and a surprise," began the Countess, smiling, her eyes appearing to take in the full-length portrait of Annesley Grayle with their wide, unmoving gaze. When she smiled she was still extremely handsome, but not so perfect as with lips closed, for her white teeth were too short, somewhat irregular, and set too wide apart. She spoke English perfectly, with a slight foreign accent and a roll of the letter "r."

"My friend—Nelson Smith" (she turned, laughing, to him), "has told me ex-citing news. We have known each other a long time. I think this is the best thing that can happen. And you will be a lucky girl. He, too, will be lucky. I see that!" with another smile.

Annesley was disappointed because the beautiful woman's voice was not sweet.

"Now you must engage her room," Nelson Smith said, abruptly. "It's late. You can make friends afterward."

"Very well," the Countess agreed. "And you—will you come to the desk? Yet, no—it is better not. Miss Grayle and I will go together—two women alone and independent. Lucky it's not the season, or we might find nothing free at short notice. But Don—I mean Nelson—always did have luck. I hope he always will!"

She flashed him a meaning look, though what the meaning was Annesley could not guess. She knew only that she did not like the Countess as she had wished to like her lover's friend. There was something secret in the dark eyes, something repellent about the long, slender thumb with its glittering nail.



CHAPTER VIII

THE BLUE DIAMOND RING

Annesley had not expected to sleep. There were a million things to think of, and it was one o'clock before she was ready to slip into bed in the green-and-white room with its bathroom annex. But the crowding experiences of five hours had exhausted the girl. Sleep fell upon her as her head nestled into a downy pillow, and she lay motionless as a marble figure on a tomb until a sound of knocking forced itself into her dreams.

She waked with a start. The curtains were drawn across the window, but she could see that it was daylight. A streak of sunshine thrust a golden wedge between the draperies, and seemed a good omen: for the sun had hidden from London through many wintry weeks.

The knocking was real, not part of a dream. It was at her door, and jumping out of bed she could hardly believe a clock on the mantelpiece which said half-past ten.

"Who is it?" she asked, timidly, fearing that the Countess de Santiago's voice might answer; but a man replied: "A note from a gentleman downstairs, please, and he's waiting an answer."

Annesley opened the door a crack, and took in a letter. The new master of her destiny had written:

Hurrah, my darling, our affairs march! I have been arranging about the licence, et cetera, and I believe that you and I can join forces for the rest of our lives to-morrow—blessed day!

How soon can you come down and talk over plans? I've a hundred to propose. Will you breakfast with me, or have you finished?

Yours since last night, till eternal night,

N. S.

The girl scribbled an answer, confessing that she had overslept, but promising to be down in half an hour for breakfast. She did not stop to think of anything but the need for a quick reply; yet when the note was sent, and she was "doing" her hair after a splash in the porcelain bath (what luxury for the girl who had been practically a servant!), she re-read her love-letter, spread on the dressing-table.

She liked her lover's handwriting. It seemed to express character—just such character as she imagined her knight's to be. There were dash and determination, and an originality which would never let itself be bound by convention.

Perhaps if she had been critical—if the handwriting had been that of a stranger—she might have thought it too bold. Long ago, when she was a very young girl, she had superficially studied the "science" of chirography from articles in a magazine, and had fancied herself a judge. She remembered disliking Mrs. Ellsworth's writing the first time she saw it, foreseeing the selfishness which afterward enslaved her. Since then she had had little time to practise, until the day when she heard from "Mr. N. Smith" after her answer to his advertisement in the Morning Post.

One reason for feeling sure she could never care for the man was because his handwriting prejudiced her in advance, it was so stiff, so devoid of character. How different, she reflected now, from the writing of the man who had taken his place!

She made such haste in dressing that her fingers seemed to be "all thumbs"; and when at length she was ready she gazed gloomily into the mirror. Last night she had not been so bad in evening dress; but now in the cheap, ready-made brown velveteen coat and skirt and plain toque to match, which had been her "best" for two winters, she feared lest he should find her commonplace.

"The first thing I do, when he's had time to look me over, must be to tell him he's free if he wants his freedom," she decided. And she kept her word, when in the half-deserted foyer she had shaken hands with a young man who wore a white rose in his buttonhole. "Please tell me frankly if you don't like me as well by daylight," she gasped.

"I like you better," he said. "You're still my white rose. See, I've adopted it as your symbol. I shall never wear any other flower on my coat. This is yours. No, it's you! And I've kept the one I took last night. I mean to keep it always. No danger of my changing my mind! But you? I've lain awake worrying for fear you might."

He held her hand, questioning her eyes with his.

She shook her head, smiling. But he would not let the hand go. At that hour there was no one to stare. "The Countess didn't warn you off me?"

Annesley opened her eyes. "Of course not! Why, you told me you were old friends!"

"So we are—as friends go in this world: 'pals,' anyhow. She's done me several good turns, and I've paid her. She'd always do what she could to help, for her own sake as well as mine. But her idea of a man may be different from yours."

"She wasn't with me long," explained Annesley. "She said I needed sleep. After she'd looked at my room to see if it were comfortable, she bade me 'good-night,' and we haven't met this morning. The few remarks she did make about you were complimentary."

"What did she say? I'm curious."

"Well, if you must know, she said that you were a man few women could resist; and—she didn't blame me."

"H'm! You call that complimentary? Let's suppose she meant it so. Now we'll have breakfast, and forget her—unless you'd like her called to go with us on a shopping expedition I've set my heart on."

"What kind of a shopping expedition?" Annesley wanted to know.

"To buy you all the pretty things you've ever wished for."

The girl laughed. "To do that would cost a fortune!"

"Then we'll spend a fortune. Shall you and I do it ourselves, or would you like to have the Countess de Santiago's taste?"

"Oh, let us go without her," Annesley exclaimed, "unless you——"

"Rather not. I want you to myself. You darling! We'll have a great day—spending that fortune. The next thing we do—it can wait till after we're married—is to look for a house in a good neighbourhood, to rent furnished. But we'll get your swell cousins, Lord and Lady Annesley-Seton, to help us choose. Perhaps there'll be something near them."

"Why, they hardly know I exist! I doubt if Lady Annesley-Seton does know," replied the girl. "They'll do nothing to help us, I'm sure."

"Then don't be sure, because if you made a bet you'd lose. Take my word, they'll be pleased to remember a cousin who is marrying a millionaire."

"Good gracious!" gasped Annesley. "Are you a millionaire?"

Her lover laughed. "Well, I don't want to boast to you, though I may to your cousins, but if I'm not one of your conventional, stodgy millionaires, I have a sort of Fortunatus purse which is never empty. I can always pull out whatever I want. We'll let your people understand without any bragging.

"I think Lady Annesley-Seton, nee Miss Haverstall, whose father's purse has flattened out like a pancake, will jump for joy when she hears what you want her to do. But come along, let's have breakfast!"

Overwhelmed, Annesley walked beside him in silence to the almost deserted restaurant where the latest breakfasters had finished and the earliest lunchers had not begun.

So the mysterious Mr. Smith was rich. The news frightened rather than pleased her. It seemed to throw a burden upon her shoulders which she might not be able to carry with grace. The girl had little self-confidence; but the man appeared to be troubled with no doubts of her or of the future. Over their coffee and toast and hot-house fruit, he began to propose exciting plans, and had got as far as an automobile when the voice of the Countess surprised them.

She had come close to their table without being heard.

"Good morning!" she exclaimed. "I was going out, but from far off I saw you two, with your profiles cut like silhouettes against all this glass and sunshine. I couldn't resist asking how Miss Grayle slept, and if there's anything I can do for her in the shops?"

As she spoke her eyes dwelt on Annesley's plain toque and old-fashioned shabby coat, as if to emphasize the word "shops." The girl flushed, and Smith frowned at the Countess.

"No, thank you," he replied for Annesley. "There's nothing we need trouble you about till the wedding to-morrow afternoon. You can put on your gladdest rags then, and be one of our witnesses. I believe that's the legal term, isn't it?"

"I do not know," said the Countess with a suppressed quiver in her voice, and a flash in the eyes fixed studiously on the river. "I know nothing of marriages in England. Who will be your other witness, if it's not indiscreet to ask?"

"I haven't decided yet," returned Smith, laconically.

"Ah, of course, you have plenty of friends to choose from; and so the wedding will be to-morrow?"

"Yes. One fixes up these things in next to no time with a special license. Luckily I'm a British subject. I never thought much about it before, but it simplifies matters; and I'll have been living in this parish a fortnight to-morrow. That's providential, for it seems that legally it must be a fortnight. I've been up since it was light, learning the ropes and beginning to work them. Even the hour's fixed—two-thirty."

(This was news for Annesley also, as there had been no time to begin talking over the "hundred plans" Smith had mentioned in his letter.)

"You are prompt—and businesslike!" returned the Countess, and again the girl blushed. She did not like to think of her knight of romance being "businesslike" in his haste to make her his wife. But perhaps the Countess didn't mean to suggest anything uncomplimentary. "At what church will the 'ceremony take place' as the newspapers say?" she went on. "It is to be a fashionable one?"

"No," replied, Smith, shortly. "Weddings in fashionable churches are silly unless there's to be a crowd; and my wife and I are going to collect our circle after we're married. I'll let you know in time where we are going. As you'll be with the bride you can't lose yourself on the way, so you needn't worry."

"I don't!" laughed the Countess. "I'm at your service, and I shall try to be worthy of the occasion. But now I shall take myself off, or your coffee will be cold. You have a busy day and it's late—even later than our breakfasts on the Monarchic three weeks ago. Already it seems three months. Au revoir, Don. Au revoir, Miss Grayle."

She finished with a nod for Annesley, and turned away. Smith let her go in silence; and the girl watched the tall figure—as perfect in shape and as perfectly dressed as a French model—walk out of the restaurant into the foyer.

She seemed to have taken with her the golden glamour which had made up for lack of sunshine in the room before her arrival; or if she had not taken it, at least it was dimmed. Annesley gazed after the figure until it disappeared, because she felt vaguely that it would be best not to look at her companion just then. She knew that he was angry, and that he wanted to compose himself.

The Countess was as handsome by morning light, in her black velvet and chinchilla, as at night in flame colour and gold. But—the girl hoped she was not ill-natured—she looked meretricious. If she were "made up," the process defied Annesley Grayle's eyes; yet surely never was skin so flawlessly white; and such golden-red hair with dark eyes and eyebrows must be unique.

"Great Scott, I thought she meant to spend the morning with us!" Smith broke out, viciously. "I realize, now I've seen you together, that she's not—the ideal chaperon. But any port in a storm!"

"I thought you liked her," Annesley said.

"So I do—within limits. At least I appreciate qualities that she has. But there are times—when a little of her goes a long way."

"I'm afraid she realized that you weren't making her welcome," Annesley smiled. "You weren't very nice to her, were you?"

"I was as nice as she deserved," the man excused himself.

"But she was good to me last night!"

"She owes it to me to be good. It's a debt I expect her to pay, that's all, and I'm not sure she's paying it generously. You needn't be too grateful, dear."

"Perhaps, as she's known you some time, she feels you're sacrificing yourself," Annesley defended the Countess. "I don't blame her!"

"She's sharp enough to see that I'm in great luck," said Smith. "But I suppose there's always a dash of the cat in a woman of her race. I hope there's no need to tell you that she has no right to be jealous. If she had, I wouldn't have put you within reach of her claws. There are assorted sizes and kinds of jealousy, though. Some women want all the lime-light and grudge sparing any for a younger and prettier girl."

Annesley laughed. "Prettier! Why, she's a beauty, and I——"

"Wait till I introduce you to Mrs. Nelson Smith, who's going to be one of the best-dressed, best-looking young women in London, and you'll be sorry for the poor old Countess," returned Smith, warmly. "You can afford then to heap coals of fire on her head, which can't make it redder than it is. Meanwhile, it occurs to me, from the way the wind blows, you'd better go carefully with the lady! Don't let her pump you about yourself, or what happened at Mrs. Ellsworth's. It's not her business. Don't confide any more than you need, and if she pretends to confide in you understand that it will be for a purpose. The Countess is no ingenue!

"But enough about her," he went on, abruptly. "She sha'n't spoil our first breakfast together, even by reminding me of gloomy meals I used sometimes to eat with her when we happened to find ourselves in each other's society on board the Monarchic. I was feeling down on my luck then, and she wasn't the one to cheer me up. But things are different now. Have you noticed, by the way, that she has a nickname for me?"

"Yes," Annesley admitted. "She calls you 'Don.'"

"It's a name she made up because she used to say, when we first met, I was like a Spaniard; and I can jabber Spanish among other lingos. It's more her native tongue, you know, than English. I only refer to it because I want you to have a special name of your own for me, and I don't want it to be that one. It can't be Nelson, because—well, I can never be at home as Nelson with the girl I love best—the one who knows how I came to call myself that. Will you make up a name for me, and begin to get used to it to-day? I'd like it if you could."

"May I call you 'Knight'?" Annesley asked, shyly. "I've named you my knight already in my mind and—and heart."

He looked at her with rather a beautiful look: clear and wistful, even remorseful.

"It's too noble a name," he said. "Still—if you like it, I shall. Maybe it will make me good. Jove! it would take something strong to do that! But who knows? From now on I'm your 'Knight.' You needn't wrestle with 'Nelson' except when we're with strangers.

"And—look here!" he broke off. "I've another favour to ask. Better get them all over at once—the big ones that are hard to grant. You reminded me last night that we wouldn't be legally married if I didn't use my own name. That may be true. I can't very well make inquiries. But just in case, I'm giving my real name and shall sign it in a register. That's why our marriage must be quietly performed in a quiet place. It shall be in church, because I know you wouldn't feel married if it wasn't, but it must be in a church where nobody we're likely to meet ever goes; and the parson must be one we won't stand a chance of knocking up against later.

"Managed the way I shall manage it, there'll be no difficulty. Mr. and Mrs. Blank will walk out of the vestry after they've signed their names, and—lose themselves. No reason why they should ever be associated with Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith. Do you much mind all these complications?"

"Not if they're necessary to save you from danger," the girl answered.

"By Jove, you're a trump! But I haven't come to the big favour yet. Now for it! When I write my real name in the register, I don't want you to look. Is that the one thing too much?"

Annesley tried not to flinch under his eyes. Yet—he had put her to a severe test. Last night, when he said that it would be better for her not to know his name, she had quietly agreed.

But there was the widest difference between then and now. At that time they had been strangers flung together by a wave of fate which, it seemed, might tear them apart at any instant. In a few hours all was changed. They belonged to each other. This man's name would be her name, yet he wished her to be ignorant of it!

If the girl had not thought of him truly as her knight, if she had not been determined to trust him, the "big favour" would indeed have been too big.

Despite her trust, and the romantic, new-born love in her heart, she was unable to answer for a moment. Her breath was snatched away; but as she struggled to regain it and to speak, a bleak picture of the future without him rose before her eyes. She couldn't give him up, and go on living, after the glimpse he had shown her of what life might be!

"No, it's not too much," she said, slowly. "It's only part of the trust I've promised to—my knight."

He gave a sigh of relief. "Thank you—and my lucky star for the prize you are!" he exclaimed. Some men would have offered their thanks to God, or to "Heaven." Annesley noticed that he praised his "star."

This was one of many disquieting things, large and small; for she had been brought up to be a religious girl, and was mentally on her knees before God in gratitude for the happiness which illuminated her gray life. She could not bear to think that God was nothing to the man who had become everything to her. She wanted to shut her eyes to all that was strange in him; but it was as difficult as for Psyche to resist lighting the lantern for a peep at her mysterious husband in his sleep.

For instance, there was the Countess de Santiago's reference to their association on board the Monarchic, which Knight had refrained from mentioning. He had spoken of it after the Countess had gone, to be sure; but briefly, and because it would have seemed odd if he had not done so. It had struck Annesley that his annoyance with the lady was connected with that sharp little "dig" of hers, and she could not sweep her mind clean of curiosity.

The moment the Monarchic's name was brought up she remembered reading a newspaper paragraph about the last voyage of that great ship from New York to Liverpool. Fortunately or unfortunately, her recollection of the paragraph was nebulous, for when she read news aloud to her mistress she permitted her mind to wander, unless the subject happened to be interesting. She tried to keep up a vaguely intelligent knowledge of world politics, but small events and blatant sensations, such as murders, burglaries, and "society" divorces, she quickly erased from her brain.

Something dramatic had occurred on the Monarchic. Her subconscious self recalled that. But it was less than a month ago that she had read the paragraph, therefore the sensation, whatever it was, must have happened when Knight and the Countess de Santiago were on board, coming to England, and she could easily learn what it was by inquiring.

Not for the world, however, would she question her lover, to whom the subject of the trip was evidently distasteful. Still less would she ask the Countess behind his back.

There was another way in which she could find out a sly voice seemed to whisper in Annesley's ear. She could get old numbers of the Morning Post, the only newspaper that entered Mrs. Ellsworth's house, and search for the paragraph. But she was ashamed of herself for letting such a thought enter her head. Of course she would not be guilty of a trick so mean. She would not try to unearth one fact concerning her Knight—his name, his past, or any circumstances surrounding him, even though by stretching out her hand she could reach the key to his secret.

He talked of things which at another time would have palpitated with interest: their wedding, their honeymoon, their homecoming, and Annesley responded without betraying absent-mindedness. It was the best she could do, until the effect of the "biggest favour" and the doubts it raised were blurred by new sensations. She would not have been a normal woman if the shopping excursion planned by Knight had not swept her off her feet.

The man with Fortunatus' purse seemed bent on trying to empty it—temporarily—for her benefit: if she had been sent out alone to buy everything she had ever wanted, with no regard to expense, Annesley Grayle would not have spent a fifth of the sum he flung away on evening gowns, street gowns, boudoir gowns, hats, high-heeled paste-buckled slippers, a gold-fitted dressing-bag, an ermine wrap, a fur-lined motor-coat, and more suede gloves and silk stockings than could be used (it seemed to the girl) in the next ten years.

He begged for the privilege of "helping choose," not because he didn't trust her taste, but because he feared she might be economical; and during the whole day in Bond Street, Regent Street, Oxford Street, and Knightsbridge she was given only an hour to herself. That hour she was expected to pass, and did pass, in providing herself with all sorts of intimate daintiness of nainsook, lace, and ribbon, too sacred even for a lover's eyes.

And Knight spent the time of his absence from her upon an errand which he did not explain.

"I'll tell you what I did—and show you—to-morrow when I come to wish you good morning," he said. "Unless you're going to be conventional and refuse to see me till we 'meet at the altar,' as the sentimental writers say. I think I've heard that's the smart thing. But I hope it won't be your way. If I didn't see you from now till to-morrow afternoon I should be afraid I'd lost you for ever."

Annesley felt the same about him, and told him so. They dined together, but not at the Savoy. The Countess's name was not mentioned, yet Annesley guessed it was because of her that Knight proposed an Italian restaurant.

When he left her at last at the door of her own hotel everything was settled for the wedding-day and after. Knight was to produce two friends, both men, to one of whom must fall the fatherly duty of giving the bride away. He suggested their calling upon her in the morning, while he was with her at the Savoy, in order that they might not meet as strangers at the church, and the girl thought this a wise idea.

As for the honeymoon, Knight confessed to knowing little of England, outside London, and asked Annesley if she had a choice. Would she like to have a week or so in some warm county like Devonshire or Cornwall, or would she enjoy a trip to Paris or the Riviera? It was all one to him, he assured her; only he had set his heart on getting back to London soon, finding a house, and beginning life as they meant to live it.

Annesley chose Devonshire. She said she would like to show it to Knight.

"I think you'll love it," she told him. "We might stay at several places I used to adore when I was a child. And if we get to Sidmouth, maybe you'll have a glimpse of those cousins you were talking about, the Annesley-Setons. I believe they have a place near by called Valley House; but I don't know whether they live there or let it."

"We'll go to Sidmouth," he said.

The girl smiled. His desire that she should scrape acquaintance with Lord and Lady Annesley-Seton seemed boyish and amusing to her, but she did not see how it could be brought about.

Next morning at eleven o'clock, when Annesley had been up for two hours, packing her new things in her new trunks and the gorgeous new dressing-bag, she was informed that Mr. Nelson Smith had arrived. The girl had forgotten that Knight had hinted at something to tell and something to show her on the morning of their marriage day, and expected to find his two friends with him; but he had come alone.

"We've got a half-hour together," he said. "Then Dr. Torrance and the Marchese di Morello may turn up at any minute. Torrance is an elderly man, a decent sort of chap, and deadly respectable. He'll do the heavy father well enough. Paolo di Morello is an Italian. I don't care for him; but the troublesome business about my name is a handicap.

"I can trust these men. And at least they won't put you to shame. You can judge them when they come, so enough talk about them for the present! This is my excuse for being here," and he put into Annesley's hand a flat, oval-shaped parcel. "My wedding gift to my bride," he added, in a softer tone. "Open it, sweet."

The white paper wrapping was fastened with small red seals. If the girl had had knowledge of such things she would have known that it was a jeweller's parcel. But the white, gold-stamped silk case within surprised her. She pressed a tiny knob, and the cover flew up to show a string of pearls which made her gasp.

"For the Princess, from her Knight," he said. "And here"—he took from the inner pocket of his coat a band of gold set with a big white diamond—"is your engagement ring. Every girl must have one, you know, even if her engagement is the shortest on record. I've the wedding ring, too. But it isn't the time for that. A good-sized diamond's the obvious sort of thing: advertises itself for what it is, and that's what we want. You'll wear it, as much as to say, 'I was engaged like everybody else.' But if there wasn't a reason against it, this is what I should like to put on your finger."

As he spoke, he hid the spark of light in his other hand, and from the pocket whence it had come produced another ring.

If she had not seen this, Annesley would have exclaimed against the word "obvious" for the splendid brilliant as big as a small pea which Knight put aside so carelessly. But the contrast between the modern ring with its "solitaire" diamond and the wonderful rival he gave it silenced her. She was no judge of jewellery, and had never possessed any worth having; but she knew that this second ring was a rare as well as a beautiful antique. It looked worthy, she thought, of a real princess.

Even the gold was different from other gold, the little that was visible, for the square-cut stone, of pale, scintillating blue, was surrounded by a frame of tiny brilliants encrusting the rim as far as could be seen on the back of the hand when the ring was worn.

"A sapphire!" Annesley exclaimed. "My favourite stone. Yet I never saw a sapphire like it before. It's wonderful—brighter than a diamond."

"It is a diamond," said Knight. "A blue diamond, and considered remarkable. It's what your friend Ruthven Smith would call a 'museum piece,' if you showed it to him. But you mustn't. He'd move heaven and earth to get it! Nobody must see it but you and me. It wouldn't be safe. It's too valuable. And if you were known to have it, you'd be in danger from all the jewel thieves in Europe and America. You wouldn't like that."

"No, it would be horrible!" Annesley shuddered. "But what a pity it must be hidden. Is it yours?"

"It's yours at present," said Knight, "if you'll keep it to yourself, and look at it only when you and I are alone together. I can't give it to you, precisely, to have and to hold (as I shall give you myself in a few hours), because this ring is more a trust than a possession. Something may happen which will force me to ask you for it. But again, it may not. And, anyhow, I want you to have the ring until that time comes. I've bought a thin gold chain, and you can hang it round your neck, unless—I almost think you're inclined to refuse?"

Another mystery! But the blue diamond in its scintillating frame was so alluring that Annesley could not refuse. She knew that she would have more pleasure in peeping surreptitiously at the secret blue diamond than in seeing the "obvious" white one on her finger.

"I can't give it up!" she said, laughing. "But I hope it isn't one of those dreadful historic stones which have had murders committed for it, like famous jewels one reads of. I should hate anything that came from you to bring bad luck."

"So should I hate it. If there's any bad luck coming, I want it myself," Knight said, gravely.

"I wish I hadn't spoken of bad luck to-day!" the girl remorsefully exclaimed. "But I am not afraid. Give me the ring."

He gave it, and pulled from his pocket the slight gold chain on which he meant it to hang. He was leisurely threading the ring upon this when two men looked in at the door of the reading room.

One of the pair was of more than middle age. He was tall, thin, and slightly stooping. His respectable clothes seemed too loose for him. His hair and straggling beard were gray, contrasting with the sallow darkness of his skin. He wore gold-rimmed spectacles, and peered through them as if they were not strong enough for his failing sight.

The other man was younger. He, too, was dark and sallow, but his close-cut hair was black. He was clean shaven and well dressed. He wore a high, almost painfully high, collar, which caused him to keep his chin in air. He might be a Spaniard or an Italian.

Annesley had certainly not seen him before. She told herself this twice over. Yet—she was frightened. There was something familiar about him. It must be her foolish imagination which took alarm at everything!

But, with fingers grown cold, she covered up the blue diamond.



CHAPTER IX

THE THING KNIGHT WANTED

When Dr. Torrance, who was to give her away, and the Marchese di Morello, who was to be Knight's "best man," had been introduced to Annesley, she laughed at the stupid "scare" which had chilled her heart for a moment.

If Knight had remained with her after his friends finished their call, she might have confessed to him how she had fancied in the tall, dark young man a likeness to one of the dreaded watchers. Until Knight spoke their names she had feared that the pair looking in at the door were there to spy; that one, at all events, was disguised—cleverly, yet not cleverly enough quite to hide his identity. But Knight said good-bye, and went away with his friends, giving the girl no chance for further talk with him.

They did not meet again until—with the Countess de Santiago—Annesley arrived at the obscure church chosen for the marriage ceremony. There Dr. Torrance awaited them outside the door, and took charge of the bride, while the Countess found her way in alone; and Annesley saw through the mist of confused emotion her Knight of love and mystery waiting at the altar.

During the ceremony that followed he made his responses firmly, his eyes calling so clearly to hers that she answered with an almost hypnotized gaze. His look seemed to seal the promise of his words. In spite of all that was strange and secret and unsatisfying about him, she had no regrets. Love was worth everything, and she could but believe that he loved her. This strong conviction went with the girl to the vestry, and made it easier to turn away when his name—his real name, which she, though his wife, was not to know—was recorded by him in the book.

They parted from Torrance, Morello, and the Countess at the church door, an arrangement which delighted Annesley. In the haste of making plans, she and Knight had forgotten to discuss what they were to do after the wedding and before their departure; but Knight had found time to decide the matter.

"These people were the best material I could get hold of at a moment's notice," he remarked, coolly, when he and Annesley were in the motor-car he had hired for the journey to Devonshire. "We've used them because we needed them. Now we don't need them any longer. It seems to me that a newly married couple ought to keep only dear friends around them or no one. Later we can repay these three for the favour they've done us, if you call it a favour. Meanwhile, we'll forget them."

Knight had neglected no detail which could make for Annesley's comfort, or save her from any embarrassment arising from the hurried wedding. Her luggage had been packed by a maid in the hotel, and—all but the dressing-bag and a small box made for an automobile—sent ahead by rail to Devonshire. She and Knight were to travel in the comfortable limousine which would protect them against weather. It did not matter, Knight said, how long they were on the way.

At Exeter they would visit some good agency in search of a lady's maid. Annesley said that she did not need a woman to wait on her, since she had been accustomed not only to taking care of herself but Mrs. Ellsworth.

Knight, however, insisted that his wife must be looked after by a competent woman. It was "the right thing"; but his idea was that, in the circumstances, it would be pleasanter to have a country girl than a sharp, London-bred woman or a Parisienne.

In Exeter an ideal person was obtainable: a Devonshire girl who had been trained to a maid's duties (as the agent boasted) by a "lady of title." She had accompanied "the Marchioness" to France, and had had lessons in Cannes from a hair dresser, masseuse, and manicurist. Now her mistress was dead, and Parker was in search of another place.

She was a gentle, sweet-looking girl, and though she asked for wages higher than Mrs. Ellsworth had paid her companion, Knight pronounced them reasonable. She was directed to go by train to the Knowle Hotel at Sidmouth (where a suite had been engaged by telegram for Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith and maid) and to have all the luggage unpacked before their arrival.

Flung thus into intimate association with a man, almost a stranger, Annesley had been afraid in the midst of her happiness. She felt as a young Christian maiden, a prisoner of Nero's day, might have felt if told she was to be flung to a lion miraculously subdued by the influence of Christianity. Such a maiden could not have been quite sure whether the story were true or a fable; whether the lion would destroy her with a blow or crouch at her feet.

But Annesley's lion neither struck nor crouched. He stood by her side as a protector. "Knight" seemed more and more appropriate as a name for him. Though there were roughnesses and crudenesses in his manner and choice of words, all he did and said made Annesley sure that she had been right in her first impression. Not a cultured gentleman like Archdeacon Smith, or Annesley's dead father, and the few men who had come near her in early childhood before her home fell to pieces, he was a gentleman at heart, she told herself, and in all essentials.

It struck her as beautiful and even pathetic, rather than contemptible, that he should humbly wish to learn of her the small refinements he had missed in the past—that mysterious past which mattered less and less to Annesley as the present became dear and vital.

"I've knocked about a lot, all over the world," he explained in a casual way during a talk they had had on the night of their marriage, at the first stopping-place to which their motor brought them. "My mother died when I was a small boy, died in a terrible way I don't want to talk about, and losing her broke up my father and me for a while. He never got over it as long as he lived, and I never will as long as I live.

"The way my father died was almost as tragic as my mother's death," he went on after a tense moment of remembering. "I was only a boy even then; and ever since the 'knocking-about' process has been going on. I haven't seen much of the best side of life, but I've wanted it. That was why, for one reason, you made such an appeal to me at first sight. You were as plucky and generous as any Bohemian, though I could see you were a delicate, inexperienced girl, brought up under glass like the orchid you look—and are. I'm used to making up my mind in a hurry—I've had to—so it didn't take me many minutes to realize that if I could get you to link up with me, I should have the thing I'd been looking for.

"Well, by the biggest stroke of luck I've got you, sooner than I could have dared to hope; and now I don't want to make you afraid of me. I know my faults and failings, but I don't know how to put them right and be the sort of man a girl like you can be proud of. It's up to you to show me the way. Whenever you see me going wrong, you're to tell me. That's what I want—turn me into a gentleman."

When Annesley tenderly reassured him with loving flatteries, he only laughed and caught her in his arms.

"Like a prince, am I?" he echoed. "Well, I've got princely blood in my veins through my mother; but there are pauper princes, and in the pauper business the gilding gets rubbed off. I trust you to gild my battered corners. No good trying to tell me I'm gold all through, because I know better; but when you've made me shine on the outside, I'll keep the surface bright."

Annesley did not like the persistent way in which he spoke of himself as a black sheep who, at best, could be whitened, and trained not to disgrace the fold; yet it piqued her interest. Books said that women had a weakness for men who were not good and she supposed that she was like the rest. He was so dear and chivalrous that certain defiant hints as to his lack of virtue vaguely added to the spice of mystery which decorated the background of the picture—the vivid picture of the "stranger knight."

When they had been for three days in the best suite at the Knowle Hotel, and had made several short excursions with the motor, he asked the girl if she "felt like getting acquainted with her cousins."

She did not protest as she had at first. Already she knew her Knight well enough to be assured that when he resolved to do a thing it was practically done. She had had chances to realize his force of character in little ways as well as big ones; and she understood that he was bent on scraping acquaintance with Lord and Lady Annesley-Seton. Had he not decided upon Sidmouth the instant she mentioned their ownership of a place in the neighbourhood? She had been certain that he would not neglect the opportunity created.

"How are we to set about it?" was all she said.

"Oh, Valley House is a show place, I suppose you know," replied Knight. "I've looked it up in the local guide-book. It's open to the public three days a week. Any one with a shilling to spare can see the ancestral portraits and treasures, and the equally ancestral rooms of your distinguished family. Does that interest you?"

"Ye-es. But I'm a distant relation—as well as a poor one," Annesley reminded him with her old humility.

"You're not poor now. And blood is thicker than water—when it's in a golden cup. It's Lord and Lady Annesley-Seton's turn to play the poor relations. It seems they're stony. Even the shillings the public pay to see the place are an object to them."

"Oh, I'm sorry!" exclaimed Annesley.

"That's generous, seeing they never bothered themselves about you when they had plenty of shillings and you had none."

"I don't suppose they knew there was a me."

"Lord Annesley-Seton must have known, if his wife didn't know. But we'll let that pass. I was thinking we might go to the house on one of the public days, with the man who wrote the local guide-book. I've made his acquaintance through writing him a note, complimenting him on his work and his knowledge of history. He answered like a shot, with thanks for the appreciation, and said if he could help me he'd be delighted. He's the editor of a newspaper in Torquay.

"If we invite him to lunch here at the Knowle, he'll fall over himself to accept. Then we'll be able to kill two birds with one stone. He'll tell us things about the heirlooms at Valley House we shouldn't be able to find out without his help—or a lot of dreary drudgery—and also he'll put a paragraph about us in his newspaper, which he'll send to your cousins. Now, isn't that a combination of brilliant ideas?"

"Yes," laughed Annesley. "But why should you take so much trouble—and how can you tell that the editor's paragraph would make the Annesley-Setons want to know us?"

"As for the paragraph, you may put your faith in me. And as for the trouble, nothing's too much to launch my wife on the top wave of society, where she has every right to be. I want Mrs. Nelson Smith to have her chance to shine. Money would do the trick sooner or later, but I want it to be done sooner. Besides, I have a feeling I should like us to get where we want to be, without the noisy splash money-bags make when new-rich candidates for society are launched. Your people will see excellent reasons why their late 'poor relation' is worth cultivating.

"But trust them to save their faces by keeping their real motive secret!" with a touch of sarcasm. "I seem to hear them going about among their friends, whom they'll invite to meet us, saying how charming and unspoilt you are though you've got more money than you know what to do with——"

"I!" With the protesting pronoun Annesley disclaimed all ownership of her husband's fortune, whatever it might be.

"It's the same thing. You and I are one. Whatever is mine is yours. I don't swear to make you a regular, unfailing allowance worthy of the new position you're going to have, because you see I do business with several countries, and my income's erratic; I'm never sure to the day when it will come or how much it will be. But there's nothing you want which you can't buy; remember that. And when we begin life in London, you shall have a standing account at as many shops as you like."

Annesley made no objection to Knight's plan for luring the journalist into his "trap," which was a harmless one. According to his prophecy, Mr. Milton Savage of the Torquay Weekly Messenger accepted the invitation from his correspondent, and came to luncheon on the day when the public were free to view Valley House.

He was a small man with a big head and eyes which glinted large behind convex spectacles. Annesley was charming to him, not only in the wish to please Knight but because she was kind-hearted and had intense sympathy for suppressed people. Mr. Savage was grateful and admiring, and drank in every word Knight dropped, as if carelessly, about the relationship to Lord Annesley-Seton.

Knight allowed himself to be pumped concerning it, and also his wife's parentage, letting fall, with apparent inadvertence, bits of information regarding himself, his travels, his adventures, and the fortune he had picked up.

"I'm the exception," he said, "to the proverb that 'a rolling stone gathers no moss.' I've gathered all I want or know what to do with; and now I'm married I mean to take a rest. I haven't decided yet where or how, but it will be somewhere in England. We're looking for a house in London, and later we might rent one in the country, too."

Annesley admired his cleverness in touching the goal; but somehow these smart hits disturbed rather than amused her. Knight's complexity was a puzzle to her. She could not understand, despite his explanations, why these fireworks of dexterity were worth while. Knight was a brave figure of romance. She did not want her hero turned into an intriguer, no matter how innocent his motive.

After luncheon they drove five or six miles in the motor to Valley House, a place of Jacobean times. There was an Italian garden, and an English garden containing every flower, plant, and herb mentioned by Shakespeare. Each garden had a distant view of the sea, darkly framed by Lebanon cedars and immense beeches, while the house itself—not large as "show" houses go—was perfect of its kind, with carved stone mantels, elaborate oak panelling and staircases, leaded windows, and treasures of portraits, armour, ancient books, and bric-a-brac which would have remade the family fortune if all had not been heirlooms.

There was not a picture on the walls nor an old piece of jewellery in the many locked glass cabinets of which Mr. Milton Savage could not tell the history as he guided the Nelson Smiths through hall and corridors and rooms with marvellous moulded ceilings. The liveried servant told off to show the crowd over the house had but a superficial knowledge of its riches compared with the lore of the journalist; and the editor of the Torquay Weekly Messenger became inconveniently popular with the public.

He was not blind to the compliment, however; and, motoring into Torquay at the end of the afternoon with his host and hostess, expressed himself delighted with his visit.

That night was his night for going to press, but he found time to write the paragraph which Nelson Smith expected. Next morning a copy of the Messenger, with a page marked, arrived at the Knowle Hotel, and another, also marked, went to Valley House.

The bride and bridegroom were at breakfast when the paper came. There were also three letters, all for Knight, the first which either had received since their marriage.

Knight cut open the envelopes slowly, one after the other, and made no comment. Annesley could not help wondering if the Countess had written, for an involuntary glance had made her sure that one of Knight's letters was from a woman: a purple envelope with a purple monogram and a blob of purple wax sealed with a crown. He read all three, put them back into their envelopes, rose, dropped them into the fire, watched them burn to ashes, and quietly returned to his seat. Then, as if really interested, he tore the wrapping off the Torquay Messenger.

"Now we shall see ourselves in print!" he said, and a moment later was reading to Annesley an account of "the two most interesting guests the Knowle Hotel has entertained this season." Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith were described with enthusiasm. They were young and handsome. He was immensely rich, she was "highly connected" as well as beautiful, having been a Miss Annesley Grayle, related on her mother's side to the Earl of Annesley-Seton.

The modesty of the young couple was so great, however, that, though the bridegroom was a millionaire well known in his adopted country, America, and the bride quite closely linked with his lordship's family, they had refused to make their presence in the neighbourhood known to the Earl and Lady. Instead they had visited Valley House with a crowd of tourists on a public day, expressing the opinion to a representative of the Messenger that it would be "intrusive" to present themselves to Lord and Lady Annesley-Seton. They were spending their honeymoon in Devonshire, and might find, during their motor tours, a suitable country place to buy or rent.

In any case, they would look for a house in which to settle on their return to London.

"Good for Milton Savage," laughed Knight. "Now we'll lie low, and see what will happen."

Annesley thought that nothing would happen; but she was wrong. The next morning a note came by hand for Mrs. Nelson Smith, brought by a footman on a bicycle.

The note was from Lady Annesley-Seton.



CHAPTER X

BEGINNING OF THE SERIES

No man who had not known the seamy side of life could have guessed the effect of Milton Savage's paragraph upon the minds of Lord and Lady Annesley-Seton.

"I told you if you bet against me you would bet wrong," Knight said, when the astonished girl handed the letter across the breakfast table. Even he had hardly reckoned on such extreme cordiality. He had expected a bid for acquaintanceship with the "millionaire" and his bride, but he had fancied there would be a certain stiffness in the effort.

Lady Annesley-Seton had begun, "My dear Cousin," and her frank American way was disarming. She wrote four pages of apology for herself and her husband, explaining why they had neglected "looking up Mrs. Nelson Smith when she was Miss Annesley Grayle." The letter went on:

I hadn't been married long when my husband read out of some newspaper the notice of a clergyman's death, and mentioned that he was a cousin by marriage whom he hadn't met since boyhood, although the clergyman's living was in our county—somewhere off at the other end.

My husband thought there was a daughter, and I remember his remarking that we ought to write and find out if she'd been left badly off. Of course, it was my duty to have kept his idea alive, and to have carried it out. But I was young and having such a good time that I'm afraid it was a case of "out of sight, out of mind."

We forgot to inquire, and heard no more. It was horrid of us, and I'm sure it was our loss. Probably we should have remembered if things had gone well with us: but perhaps you know that my father (whose money used to seem unlimited to me) lost it all, and we were mixed up in the smash. We've been poorer than any church mice since, and trying to make ends meet has occupied our attention from that day to this.

I have to confess that, if our attention hadn't been drawn to your name, we might never have thought of it again. But now I've eased my conscience, and as fate seems to have brought us within close touch, do let us see what she means to do with us. We should so like to meet you and Mr. Nelson Smith, who is, apparently, more or less a countryman of mine.

I'm not allowed out yet, in this cold weather, after an attack of "flu"; but my husband will call this afternoon on the chance of finding you in, carrying a warm invitation to you both to "waive ceremony" and dine with us at Valley House en famille.

Looking forward to meeting you,

Yours most cordially,

Constance Annesley-Seton.

"Sweet of her, isn't it?" Annesley exclaimed when she and Knight had read the letter through.

Knight glanced at his wife quizzically, opened his lips to speak, and closed them. Perhaps he thought it would be unwise as well as wrong to disturb the girl's faith in Lady Annesley-Seton's disinterestedness.

"Yes, it's real sweet!" he said, exaggerating his American accent, but keeping a grave face.

They were duly "at home" that afternoon, though they had intended to go out, and the caller found them in a private sitting room filled with flowers, suggesting much money and a love of spending it. Annesley had put on Knight's favourite frock, one of the "model dresses" he had chosen for her in their whirlwind rush through Bond Street, a white cloth trimmed with narrow bands of dark fur; and she had never looked prettier.

Lord Annesley-Seton, a tall thin man of the eagle-nosed soldier type, wearing pince-nez, but youthful-looking for the forty-four years Burke gave him, could not help thinking her a satisfactory cousin to pick up: and Nelson Smith was far from being in appearance the rough, self-made man he had dreaded.

He was delighted with them both—so young, so handsome, so happy, so fortunate, and luckily so well bred. He did not make the short conventional call he had intended, but stayed to tea, and at last went home to give his wife an enthusiastic account of the visit.

"The girl's a lady, and might be a beauty if she had more confidence in herself—you know what I mean: taking herself for granted as a charmer, the way you smart women do," he said. "She isn't that kind. But with you to show her the ropes, she'll be liked by the right people. There's a softness and sweetness and genuineness that you don't often see in girls now. As for the man, you'll think him a ripper, Connie—so will other women. Has the air of being a gentleman born, and then having roughed it all over the world. A strong man, I should say. A man's man as well as a woman's. Might 'take' if he's started right."

"We'll see to that," said Constance Annesley-Seton, who was not too ill to go out but had not wanted to seem too eager.

She was less than thirty, but looked more because she had worried and drawn faint lines between her delicate auburn brows and at the corners of her greenish-gray eyes. There were also a few fading threads in the red locks which were her one real beauty; but she had a marvellous hair-varnish which prevented them from showing.

"We'll see to that! If they'll let us. Are they going to let us?"

"Yes, I think so," Annesley-Seton reassured her. "They're a pair of children, willing to be guided. They can have anything they want in the world, but they don't seem to know what to want."

"Splendid!" laughed Constance. "Can't we will them to want our house in town, and invite us to visit them?"

"I shouldn't wonder," replied her husband. "You might make a start in that direction when they come to dinner to-morrow evening."

Lord Annesley-Seton had outgrown such enthusiasms as he might once have had, therefore his account of the cousins encouraged Constance to hope much, and she was not disappointed. On the contrary, she thought that he had not said enough, especially about the man.

If she had not had so many anxieties that her youthful love of "larks" had been crushed out, she would have "adored" a flirtation with Nelson Smith. It would have been "great fun" to steal him from the pretty beanpole of a girl who would not know how to use her claws in a fight for her man; but as it was, Connie thought only of conciliating "Cousin Anne," and winning her confidence. Other women would try to take Nelson Smith from his wife, but Connie would have her hands full in playing a less amusing game.

She thought, seeing that the handsome, dark young man she admired had a mind of his own, it would be a difficult game to play; and Nelson Smith saw that she thought so. His sense of humour caused him to smile at his own cleverness in producing the impression; and he would have given a good deal for someone to laugh with over her maneuvers to entice him along the road he wished to travel.

But he dared not point out to Annesley the fun of the situation. To do so would be to put her against him and it.

She, too, had a sense of humour, suppressed by five years of Mrs. Ellsworth, but coming delightfully to life, like a half-frozen bird, in the sunshine of safety and happiness. Knight appealed to and encouraged it often, for he could not have lived with a humourless woman, no matter how sweet.

Yet he did not dare wake it where her cousins were concerned. Her sense of honour was more valuable to him than her sense of humour. He was afraid to put the former on the defensive, and he was glad to let her believe the Annesley-Setons were genuinely "warming" to them in a way which proved that blood was thicker than water.

The girl had wondered from the first why he was determined to make friends with these cousins whom she had never known, and he was grateful because she believed in him too loyally to attribute his desire to "snobbishness." He wished her to suppose he had set his heart on providing her with influential guidance on the threshold of a new life; and it was important that she should not begin criticizing his motives.

By the time dinner was over Constance Annesley-Seton had decided that the Nelson Smiths had been sent to her by the Powers that Be, and that it would be tempting Providence not to annex them. Not that she put it in that way to herself, for she did not trouble her mind about Providence. All she knew was that she and Dick would be fools to let the chance slip.

It was as much as she could do not to suggest the idea in her mind: that the Nelson Smiths should take the house in Portman Square; that she and her husband should introduce them to society, and that the Devonshire place should either be let to them or that they should visit there when they wished to be in the country, as paying guests.

But she controlled her impatience, limiting herself to proposing plans for future meetings. She suggested giving a dinner in honour of the bride and bridegroom, and inviting people whom it would be "nice for them to know" in town.

Knight said that he and "Anita" (his new name for Annesley, a souvenir of Spanish South America) would accept with pleasure. And the girl agreed gladly, because she thought her cousin and his wife were very kind.

After dinner Annesley-Seton and Knight followed Constance and "Anita" almost directly, the former asking his guests if they would like to see some of the family treasures which they could only have glanced at in passing with the crowd the other day.

"Before sugar went to smash, we blazed into all sorts of extravagances here," he said, bitterly, with a glance at the deposed Sugar King's daughter. "Among others, putting electric light into this old barn. We'll have an illumination, and show you some trifles Connie and I wish to Heaven a kind-hearted burglar would relieve us of.

"Of course the beastly things are heirlooms, as I suppose you know. We can't sell or pawn them, or I should have done one or the other long ago. They're insured by the trustees, who are the bane of our lives, for the estate. But a sporting sort of company has blossomed out lately, which insures against 'loss of use'—I think that's the expression. I pay the premium myself—even when I can't pay anything else!—and if the valuable contents of this place are stolen or burned, we shall benefit personally.

"I don't mind you or all the world knowing we're stony broke," he went on, frankly. "And everyone does know, anyhow, that we'd be in the deuce of a hole without the tourists' shillings which pour in twice a week the year round. You see, each object in the collection helps bring in those shillings; and 'loss of use' of a single one would be a real deprivation. So it's fair and above board. But thus far, I've paid my premium and got no return, these last three years. Our tourists are so disgustingly honest, or our burglars so clumsy and unenterprising, that, as you say in the States, 'there's nothing doing.'"

As he talked Dick Annesley-Seton sauntered about the immense room into which they had come from the state banqueting hall, switching on more and more of the electric candle-lights set high on the green brocade walls. This was known as the "green drawing room" by the family, and the "Room of the Miniatures" by the public, who read about it in catalogues.

"Come and look at our white elephants," he went on, when the room, dimly and economically lit at first, was ablaze with light; and Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith joined him eagerly. Constance followed, too, bored but resigned; and her husband paused before a tall, narrow glass cabinet standing in a recess.

"See these miniatures!" he exclaimed, fretfully. "There are plenty more, but the best are in this cabinet; and there's a millionaire chap, in New York—perhaps you can guess his name, Smith?—who has offered a hundred thousand pounds for the thirty little bits of ivory in it."

"I think that must have been the great Paul Van Vreck," Knight hazarded.

"I thought you'd guess! There aren't many who'd make such an offer. Think what it would mean to me if it could be accepted, and I could have the handling of the money. There are three small pictures in the little octagon gallery next door, too, Van Vreck took a fancy to on a visit he paid us from Saturday to Monday last summer. We never thought much of them, and they're in a dark place, labelled in the catalogue 'Artist unknown: School of Fragonard'; but he swore they were authentic Fragonards, and would have backed his opinion to the tune of fifteen thousand pounds for the trio, or six thousand for the one he liked best. Isn't it aggravating? In the Chinese room he went mad over some bits of jade, especially a Buddha nobody else had ever admired."

"He's one of the few millionaire collectors who is really a judge of all sorts of things," Knight replied. "But, great Scott! I'm no expert, yet it strikes me these miniatures are something out of the ordinary!"

"Well, yes, they are," Annesley-Seton admitted, modestly. "That queer one at the top is a Nicholas Hilliard. I believe he was the first of the miniaturists. And the two just underneath are Samuel Coopers. They say he stood at the head of the Englishmen. There are three Richard Cosways and rather a nice Angelica Kauffmann."

"It was the Fragonard miniature Mr. Van Vreck liked best," put in Constance. "It seems he painted only a few. And next, the Goya——"

"Good heavens! where is the Fragonard?" cried Dick, his eyes bulging behind his pince-nez. "Surely it was here——"

"Oh, surely, yes!" panted his wife. "It was never anywhere else."

For an instant they were stricken into silence, both staring at a blank space on the black velvet background where twenty-nine miniatures hung. There was no doubt about it when they had reviewed the rows of little painted faces. The Fragonard was gone.

"Stolen!" gasped Lady Annesley-Seton.

"Unless one of you, or some servant you trust with the key, is a somnambulist," said Knight. "I don't see how it would pay a thief to steal such a thing. It must be too well known. He couldn't dispose of it—that is if he weren't a collector himself; and even then he could never show it. But—by Jove!"

"What is it? What have you seen?" Annesley-Seton asked, sharply.

Knight pointed, without touching the cabinet. He had never come near enough to do that. "It looks to me as if a square bit of glass had been cut out on the side where the lost miniature must have hung," he said. "I can't be sure, from where I stand, because the cabinet is too close to the wall of the recess."

Dick Annesley-Seton thrust his arm into the space between green brocade and glass, then slipped his hand through a neatly cut aperture just big enough to admit its passage. With his hand in the square hole he could reach the spot where the miniature had hung, and could have taken it off the hook had it been there. But hook, as well as miniature, was missing.

"That settles it!" he exclaimed. "It is a theft, and a clever one! Strange we should find it out when I was demonstrating to you how much I wished it would happen. Hurrah! That miniature alone is insured against burglary for seven or eight hundred pounds. Nothing to what it's worth, but a lot to pay a premium on, with the rest of the things besides. I wish now I hadn't been so cheese-paring. You'll be witnesses, you two, of our discovery. I'm glad Connie and I weren't alone when we found it out. Something nasty might have been said."

"We'll back you up with pleasure," Knight replied. "What was the miniature like? I wonder if we saw it when we were here the other day, Anita? I remember these, but can't recall any other."

"Neither can I," returned Annesley. "But I am stupid about such things. We saw so many—and passed so quickly."

"I wonder if Paul Van Vreck was here in disguise among the tourists?" said Dick, beginning to laugh. "It would have been the one he'd have chosen if he couldn't grab the lot."

"Oh, surely no one in the crowd could have cut a piece of glass out of a cabinet and stolen a miniature without being seen!" Annesley cried.

"Dick is half in joke," Constance explained. "It would have been a miracle, yet the servants are above suspicion. Those horrid trustees never let me choose a new one without their interference. And, of course Dick didn't mean what he said about Mr. Van Vreck."

"Of course not. I understood that," Annesley excused herself, blushing lest she had appeared obtuse.

"All the same, to carry on the joke, let's go into the octagon room and see if the alleged Fragonard pictures have gone, too," said Annesley-Seton. He led the way, turning on more light in the adjoining room as he went; and, outdistancing the others, they heard him stammer, "Good Lord!" before they were near enough to see what he saw.

"They aren't gone?" shrieked his wife, hurrying after him.

"One of them is."

In an instant the three had grouped behind him, where he stood staring at an empty frame, between two others of the same pattern and size, charming old frames twelve or fourteen inches square, within whose boundaries of carved and gilded wood, nymphs held hands and danced.

"Are we dreaming this?" gasped Constance.

"Thank Heaven we're not!" the husband answered. "The two paintings are on wood, you see. So was the missing one. Someone has simply unfastened it from the frame, and trusted to this being a dark, out-of-the-way corner, not to have the theft noticed for hours or maybe days. By all that's wonderful, here's another insurance haul for me! What about the jade Buddha in the Chinese room?"

They rushed back into the green drawing room, and so to the beautiful Chinese room beyond, with its priceless lacquer tables and cabinets. In one of these latter a collection of exquisite jade was gathered together.

And the Buddha which Paul Van Vreck had coveted was gone!



CHAPTER XI

ANNESLEY REMEMBERS

There was great excitement for the next few days at Valley House and throughout the neighbourhood, for the Annesley-Setons made no secret of the robbery, and the affair got into the papers, not only the local ones, but the London dailies.

Two of the latter sent representatives, to whom Lord Annesley-Seton granted interviews. Something he said attracted the reporters' attention to Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith, who had been dining at Valley House on the evening when the theft was discovered, and Knight was begged for an interview.

He was asked if he had formed an opinion as to the disappearance of the three heirlooms, and whether he knew personally Mr. Paul Van Vreck, the American collector and retired head of the famous firm of jewellers, who had wished to buy the vanished treasures.

Having spent most of his life in America, Knight had the theory that unless you wished to be misrepresented, the only safe thing was to let yourself be interviewed. He was accordingly so good-natured and interesting that the reporters were delighted with him. If he had been wishing for a wide advertisement of his personality, his possessions, and his plans, he could not have chosen a surer way of getting it.

The two newspapers which had undertaken to boom the "Valley House Heirloom Theft" had almost limitless circulations. One of them possessed a Continental edition, and the other was immensely popular because of its topical illustrations.

Snapshots, not so unflattering as usual, were obtained of the young Anglo-American millionaire and his bride, as they started away from the Knowle Hotel in their motor, or as they walked in the garden. Though Knight had disclaimed any personal acquaintance with the great Paul Van Vreck, he was able to state that Mr. Van Vreck had been convalescing at Palm Beach, in Florida, at the time of the robbery. He had had an attack of pneumonia in the autumn, and instead of travelling in his yacht to Egypt, as he generally did travel early in the winter, he had been ordered by his doctors to be satisfied with a "place in the sun" nearer home.

Everyone in America knew this, Knight explained, and everyone in England might know it also, unless it had been forgotten. If Mr. Van Vreck were well enough to take an interest in the papers, he was sure to be amused by the coincidence that the things stolen from Valley House were among those he had wanted to buy.

Knight thought, however, that even if the clever thief or thieves had heard of Van Vreck's whim, no attempt would be made to dispose of the spoil to him. The elderly millionaire, though one of the most eccentric men living, was known as the soul of honour.

The relationship between young Mrs. Nelson Smith and Lord Annesley-Seton was touched upon in the papers; and though it was irrelevant to the subject in hand, mention was made of the Nelson Smiths' plan to live in London.

This gave Constance her chance. At an impromptu luncheon at the Knowle Hotel, before the intended dinner party at Valley House, she referred to the interest Society would begin to take in this "romantic couple."

"Everybody will have fallen in love with you already," she said, "from those snapshots in the Looking Glass. They make you both look such darlings—though they don't flatter either of you. All the people we know will be clamouring to meet you, so you must hurry and find a nice house, in the right part of town, before some other sensation comes up and you're forgotten. How would it be if you took our house for a couple of months, while you're looking round? Naturally, if you liked it, you could keep it on. We'd be delighted, for we have to let it when we can, and it would be a pleasure to think of you in it."

"If we're in it, you must both come and stay, and not only 'think' of us, but be with us: mustn't they, Anita?" Knight proposed. Of course Annesley said yes, and meant yes. Not that she really wanted her duet with Knight to be broken up into a chorus, but she longed to succeed as a woman of the world, since that was what he wanted her to be; and she realized that Lady Annesley-Seton's help would be invaluable.

So, through the theft at Valley House and the developments therefrom, the hidden desires of Nelson Smith and the daughter of the deposed Sugar King accomplished themselves, Connie still believing that she had engineered the affair with diplomatic skill, and Knight laughing silently at the way she had played into his hands.

Detectives were set to work by the two insurance companies, who hoped to trace the thief and discover the stolen Fragonards and the jade Buddha; but their efforts failed; and at the dinner party given in honour of the new cousins, Lord and Lady Annesley-Seton rejoiced openly in their good luck.

"All the same," Constance said, "I should like to know how the things were spirited out of the house, and where they are. It is the first mystery that has ever come into our lives. I wish I were a clairvoyante. It would be fun!"

"Did you ever hear of the Countess de Santiago, when you lived in America?" asked Knight in his calm voice. He did not glance toward Annesley, who sat at the other end of the table, but he must have guessed that she would turn with a start of surprise on hearing the Countess's name in this connection.

"The Countess de Santiago?" Connie echoed. "No. What about her? She sounds interesting."

"She is interesting. And beautiful." Everybody had stopped talking by this time, to listen; and in the pause Knight appealed to his wife. "That's not an exaggeration, is it, Anita?"