The Windsor Magazine/'Padlocks!'

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

 

Illustration: "'I liked him last night,' she sobbed. 'He was so game. I liked him so much better than I had ever liked him before. I had guessed there was something queer about him, so had your father——' Susie turned round. Her face was set, as if carved in stone. 'Mother! Please don't say any more.'"

 

"PADLOCKS!"

By MRS. BELLOC LOWNDES

ILLUSTRATED BY HENRY COLLER

"MOTHER! I've forgotten a most important chap. Jake d'Egremont, 200 Jermyn Street. Do put him down!"

"What an odd name. Do I know him, Robin?"

"He came to lunch one day—just before we left town. But I think you were out——" Lord Ardvilly hesitated, just a perceptible moment, and the Duchess, who was very quick, noticed that hesitation.

"He's more a friend of Susie's than of mine," he observed.

"I wish I were better acquainted with some of your friends, and your sister's friends, darling boy," she said wistfully.

She and her eldest son were making out a list of guests, young and old, for their first September house-party.

"Of the five young men whose names I've just put down I only know one to speak to," she went on.

"Life in London is such a rush," he said penitently. "Also, you're so awfully busy, mother."

"Never too busy to care very much about anything that concerns you and your sister, my dear. But now to go back to this friend of Susie's. Is he tall, dark, clean-shaven, with very bright blue eyes?"

"Yes, that describes him exactly! Then you have seen him, mother?"

"If it's the man I mean he was at the Kent House ball, and I noticed that he danced a good many times with your sister."

The Duchess was remembering, with a slight feeling of retrospective discomfort, the admiring, caressing look that a tall dark man, whose name she now knew to be d'Egremont, had cast on her lovely little débutante daughter. The two had been sitting out on a balcony, far from the ball-room, and they had remained unaware both of her approach and of her retreat.

"Now I've got down nine of your and Susie's friends; Mr. Davenant for me; and——"

"—'the Marchioness' for father?" her son slyly ended the sentence.

The Duchess smiled. The Duke was a man of strong prejudices, and he very much disliked his cousin by marriage, Lady St. Yves, who, according to malicious gossip, was fond of describing herself as "the Marchioness."

"Your father will be here only for the Monday of our party. I think he ought to put up with having her once next him at dinner!"

"I wish she wasn't coming," grumbled the young man, "she's so purse-proud and pompous."

"Poor Gertie! I heard someone say the other day that she was like a poultice gone cold."

"Mother—how perfect! I must tell that to——"

"No, indeed—you mustn't tell anybody that, dear boy! Surely you don't repeat the little things I tell you?"

She looked up into his face with a half-laughing, half-frightened look. "Padlocks!" she cried.

As he bent down and kissed her, "Padlocks, of course," he murmured.

And then he went on: "I know Gertie's a good sort really. But 'a poultice gone cold'? I call that a stroke of genius!"

He was leaving the charming flower-filled old-fashioned sitting-room which was still called her Grace's boudoir, when suddenly he turned round.

"Padlocks, too, about Susie and d'Egremont, eh, mother? Susie would be awfully cross if she knew I had told you he was a 'special' of hers."

"Why should she be?"

"She shouldn't be, but Susie's like that, you know."

Susie's mother did know that Susie was "like that," and she sighed a rather sad sigh as she began writing her notes of invitation. The girl, now just over eighteen, was reserved and sensitive; secretive, too, about trifles of no importance. Now and again she treated the Duchess more like an unloved governess than as an almost over-loving, over-tender mother.

II.

"When I look at some of those rouged, powdered, lip-sticked young things, so different from what I used to be, it makes me feel so ancient—such a 'has been,'" observed the Duchess, in a melancholy tone, as she rubbed her soft, unlined, unpowdered cheek on her husband's sleeve.

The two were standing in what was called the Musicians' Gallery. It was a queer dark little recess with one side opening on to the great hall, on whose floor, some forty feet below, were now dancing some ten to twelve couples.

"You always talk as if you were old. If you're old, what am I?" observed the Duke.

For a moment his wife made no answer to that remark. She was picking out her own children among the dancers in the great hall below. Yes, with one exception, there they all were, even to the youngest of them who was still, to her own indignation, for she was eight years old, called Lady Baby. She had been allowed to stay up because the joyous party was breaking up very early the day after to-morrow....

The Duchess's heart flew to the one child who was not there, her eldest daughter, Lady Lettice Arbuthnot, who had married last year, and lived far away in the North of England.

"You forget, James, that we'll be grandparents soon, please God," she said softly.

"I hate remembering a fact which you keep reminding me of with what I call unnatural joy," he grunted.

And then all at once he asked, in quite a different tone, "Who's that dark chap dancing with Susie? No one's taken the trouble to introduce him to me."

"His name is d'Egremont, and he's been the Admirable Crichton of the party," she replied lightly. "He does everything well—tennis, golf, even rackets. He's a first-rate horseman, too; you should have seen him two days ago, in the riding school!"

"I always distrust those sort of do-all-things-well chaps," growled the Duke. "There's something funny about your new friend. I thought so at dinner, to-night."

"If you'd honoured my party with a little more of your company, he'd be your friend too."

"If I'd known 'the Marchioness' was going to give you the slip, I'd have come days ago," he said penitently.

"We needn't ask her again for ever so long," said the Duchess cheerfully. "I'm always nervous lest any of her wonderful jewels should disappear while she's on a visit here. They're always dropping off her, and then there's such a fearful fuss till they've been found again. D'you remember the emerald earring?"

"That was found, after she left, in the pin-box where she'd put it? Of course I do!"

"I wish you weren't going away to-morrow," she murmured, slipping her hand through his arm.

"I only like being here when we're alone—you and I and the bed-post," he observed.

"And the children?"

"I can do with a little of their company—but not with that of their friends!"

"I'm just as bored as you are by the new-young!" she exclaimed. "But it's one's duty to be kind, so now I'm going downstairs."

"Kindness always brings its own punishment," he observed, as he bent down and kissed her.

"I don't ask you to be kind——"

But he followed her, as she knew he would.

As the host and hostess entered the great hall the dancers began streaming out on to the moonlit lawn; it was an early September night, warm, yet with all the summer heat gone.

The Duchess stopped to say a kindly word to the four members of the local string band, and then exclaiming, "You'll find Mr. Davenant in the cedar drawing-room, James; I'm just going out for a minute to give Susie my shawl," she went across to the threshold of the door now open on to the star-lit night.

At first she saw nothing; then, gradually, shadowy forms emerged. She began to count them. Yes, they were all there, less two—she missed her daughter's slender figure, and that of one of the young men.

She took a step forward, on to the grass, and then suddenly she heard, uttered in low, ardent tones, the words: "You don't know what your friendship means to me, Susie. But it wouldn't be fair to ask you to wait—till I've made good!"

And then the fresh young voice whose every inflexion Susie's mother knew, and had known and marked, from the speaker's babyhood, exclaimed: "Of course it would be fair—if I think so! As to making good—d'you really believe it would take as long as you think it would, Jake?"

The two who were exchanging these poignant, intimate words of—was it only friendship?—were evidently sitting or standing on the other side of one of the stone buttresses which jutted out between each of the long windows of the great hall.

To listen to what she was not meant to hear was no part of the Duchess's code, so quickly walking towards the shadowy groups sauntering about on the lawn beyond —that amount of deceit she allowed herself to practise—she called out, "Susie! Where are you, my dear? I've brought you out a shawl——"

There was a pause; then she heard a breathless voice from behind her crying, "I'm here, mother!"

She turned quickly round, glad of the darkness, to see the two figures which had been so securely hidden, as they doubtless thought, from censoring ears, as well as eyes, hastening towards her.

"Mr. d'Egremont has been telling me all about some interesting work he is going to do abroad."

Lady Susie uttered the commonplace words in a nervous, shaken voice. And, "I'm one of those people, Duchess, who've always been rolling stones," chimed in the deep vibrant tones of which his elder listener had early realised the caressing, seductive quality.

"I've heard of a very good job in South America," he went on, "so I shall be off next month. Lady Susie has been kind enough to suggest that I may perhaps come back for a week-end a little later on, before I say good-bye for what I know will be a long time to all my friends?"

"I'm glad you'll be able to find time for us again, Mr. d'Egremont."

The Duchess was glad, so very, very glad, that he was going away, and for a long time, that her voice was even kinder than usual.

Little Lady Susie moved across to her mother's side and, miracle of miracles, took hold of her mother's hand.

"Everyone has been so awfully good to me."

There was a touch of sincere emotion in Jake d'Egremont's voice. "My last job was in Spain, and I've really been taking a holiday, here, in England. Already it seems home!"

"I thought you were English, though of course your name is French," said his hostess pleasantly.

"I'm descended from one of the Great Revolution emigrés. My great-great-grandfather was a page of Marie Antoinette. Jake was 'Jacques' of course——"

Illustration: "His head fell forward on his breast, and sounds of hard, difficult sobs wrung her heart."

"'I'm so sorry, so very, very sorry.'"

Insensibly the Duchess's heart softened. The foreign strain perhaps accounted for something about this man which she did not like—the "something" which had made the Duke feel that this attractive guest was a thought unlike other people.

Through the windows came strains of jazz music, and the dancers began streaming back through the open door. With a sigh the Duchess watched the gay procession; then she, too, went back into the great hall.

Closely clasped to Jake d'Egremont's breast Lady Susie was moving slowly, slowly round, an absorbed, dreaming expression on her flower-like face.

Not for the first time during the last few days the mother told herself that her girl's new friend was much older than the other young men there. His tanned, hatchet-shaped face bore traces of hard living. But his blue eyes were very bright; and when he looked down at his partner they became filled with an abject look of adoration which repelled the Duchess, and made her long to snatch her child from his powerful, possessive arms.

III.

The next afternoon Mr. Davenant, most trusted, if not most popular, of Home Secretaries, stood with the Duchess on the terrace outside the cedar drawing-room. In a few minutes from now he was due to leave the castle.

"I wish," he exclaimed, "that we had an English Watteau painting now!"

He was gazing down into a glade starred with lithe, moving figures. The young men were in flannels, and the girls clad in brightly coloured cotton frocks, for it was still very hot.

"Though I have hosts of friends, I am, as I think you know, Duchess, a lonely man, and it's done me good"—his eyes twinkled, but there was genuine emotion in his resonant voice—"to see a real, old-fashioned English home!"

"I wish you'd stay till to-morrow," she said impulsively. "Why not leave with the young people? The Duke had to go up this morning, but surely you could stay till to-morrow?"

He looked at her, amused that she could think that her dear busy-idle Duke had had to be in London to-day, but that he, who bore so heavy a burden of public care, could stay on.

"Alas, would that I could! It's been such a delight meeting all these golden lads and girls——"

The Duchess exclaimed, "I'm glad you've enjoyed my baby party! I suppose it's because I'm growing old at last, but I don't feel as much in touch with the young folk as I ought to do. Now take the five young men down there, I mean my Robin's friends——"

The man by her side made a slight movement; it was as if he was suddenly impelled to listen with increased attention.

"—Four of them I never met before my boy suggested I should ask them here for our tennis week! I'm actually glad we're slowly coming back to chaperons."

"I agree," he observed, with quick decision.

"One feels it,"—instinctively she lowered her voice,—"because of the girls, Mr. Davenant! Young men must take their chance. But believe me," she smiled a very charming smile, "when I say that even the naughtiest of our modern girls are such innocent creatures—really. However knowing they may think they are, what do they, what can they know of life? Of the horrible gins and pitfalls which lie concealed in the path of the reckless, and even of the simply foolish?"

"You are speaking more truly than you know, Duchess."

He turned and faced her squarely. "I'm tempted," he said, with a half -doubting smile, "to tell you a secret!"

"A secret?" He saw her eyes sparkle, as she added, "Though I'm said to be a chatterbox, I'm very discreet! You and I are old enough friends for you to know that." And this was true. The Duchess was discreet.

"It isn't a pleasant secret." The smile left Mr. Davenant's face. And then he exclaimed, "Forgive me! I think I'd better not tell you——"

She put out her hand, and laid it for a moment on his arm.

"Has your secret anything to do with any of us?" she asked, in a changed voice. "If it's anything disagreeable, I'd rather learn it from you, my friend, than from anybody else."

He saw a look of real apprehension come over her face. So, while cursing himself for a babbler, he told himself that having gone so far he must go the whole way. Fortunately, what he was about to reveal did not concern this dear delightful woman in any real sense at all.

"It has absolutely nothing to do with you, or with anybody you care for," he said reassuringly. "But it's the sort of thing that might conceivably find its way into one of those stupid, gossip columns, by which I'm told certain people we know make their living."

"Yes?" she said, breathing more easily. "What is it?"

"I hardly know where to begin!" he exclaimed. "But, well—may I start by saying that you've been fortunate in not having Lady St. Yves among your guests this week?"

His hostess's face showed her bewilderment. "Then your secret has got to do with 'the Marchioness.' Is she going to be married again?"

"No, that's not my secret——"

And then, after a moment's hesitation, he went on: "I went out for a walk in the town by myself yesterday. And whom should I see, coming out of what I believe is called the River Hotel, but a man named Cracknell, who is a noted officer in the C.I.D."

"C.I.D.?" repeated the Duchess uncertainly. "What does that stand for?"

"I see you're no reader of detective yarns," he smiled. "But any of your children could, I'm sure, tell you that C.I.D. stands for our Criminal Investigation Department. Well, he, Cracknell and I, went for a walk together, along a raised field-path through those beautiful water meadows which I suppose remain very much as they were in Turner's time, and then Cracknell revealed why he was here, in your peaceful little town."

"Yes——?"

"You said just now that four of the five young men among your guests are practically strangers to you?"

It was on the tip of her tongue to say, "Well, that was an exaggeration, for I know all about three of them, though I'd never actually met them."

But, eager to hear what he had to tell, she remained silent.

"One of your visitors—I know I may trust you not to try and find out which one—is a famous international——" The Home Secretary's lips formed the word "criminal," but hurriedly he substituted the milder term, "crook."

"Is that really true, Mr. Davenant?"

The face whose habitual serenity had always been, to the man standing by her, the Duchess's greatest charm, became extraordinarily discomposed. She looked agitated and alarmed.

"I oughtn't to have told you!" he exclaimed penitently.

She made a great effort over herself; she even smiled. "On the contrary—I shall always be grateful that you told me. It will be a lesson to me to be more careful."

"A hostess can hardly be too careful nowadays," he observed, in a quiet, kindly tone. "But Cracknell informed me the young man in question moves in very good society, for all that he is—what he is. It is supposed that he found out Lady St. Yves was to be among your guests, and——"

"—that he really came here, hoping to steal some of her famous jewels," she ended the sentence for him.

To his surprise he saw that the idea actually amused the Duchess; she no longer looked as she had done just now—alarmed, and very much shocked.

"D'you know much about him?" she asked slowly.

"Yes and no. He was, it seems, head of the gang concerned with the big robbery which took place nearly a year ago from one of the royal palaces in Spain. Then ha utterly disappeared. The continental police were convinced that he had gone to South America. He was born in Brazil, his family being of"—he hesitated—"very good Continental extraction, and, oddly enough, well-to-do and respectable."

"A robbery in Spain? I had not heard of that," she murmured, remembering a word uttered last night by her little Susie's friend.

"About ten days ago," went on Mr. Davenant, "a woman who is in love with him gave him away to the C.I.D. She had become violently jealous, she admitted, of the kind of life he has been leading the last few months—I mean the life of a popular man about town in what is absurdly called 'the smart set.'"

"I know what you mean," she murmured.

"I mean the set that welcomes anybody—anybody, mark you, Duchess—who has money to burn. It was hoped to catch this daring chap red-handed here. But for all our sakes I am exceedingly glad that the young gentleman in question has spent perforce an idle week, resting on his oars. Even before I pointed it out to Cracknell, he realised the importance of not allowing it to be known that such a man had stayed at the castle as your guest. If the fact that I was with you at the same time came out, it would make me look rather absurd, and would make a splendid story for the newspapers—the sort of story that one naturally prefers should remain unpublished."

"Yes, indeed!" she exclaimed.

"Besides, I've always followed in life the good, old-fashioned rule of letting a man go and be hanged elsewhere," he said thoughtfully.

"But what will happen after he leaves here?" she asked, in a low, troubled tone.

Mr. Davenant looked surprised. "Can you ask? As soon as he has got well away he will, of course, be arrested. There is more than one most serious extradition charge against him."

"I suppose the poor man has no suspicion——?" she began.

He looked at her, amused. "He's less than no suspicion! He regards himself as absolutely safe, especially here. The woman who betrayed him declares that he's madly in love, really in love, with some society girl. But that's all nonsense of course. An important part of that sort of chap's stock-in-trade is being able to make love charmingly——"

The Duchess winced inwardly, but all she said was: "Now I wonder which of our young men has been making love? Not one, so far as I've been able to see. I haven't noticed anything of the kind—have you, Mr. Davenant?"

She threw him a gentle, inquiring look.

He was surprised by the question. That wasn't playing quite fair. He had thought that his dear Duchess always played fair, and he felt a little disappointed.

He shook his head and smiled. "I expect our friend is having a holiday from love-making, as well as from everything else," he answered lightly.

A man-servant came out on the terrace. "Your car is at the door, sir."

His hostess accompanied her friend to the great door, where her eldest boy ought to have been waiting to see off their distinguished guest. She had reminded him of the time. But Lord Ardvilly had forgotten, as young people are apt to forget nowadays the courtesies which yet mean so much in life.

As Mr. Davenant pressed her hand he murmured, "I hope I've been wise in telling you that curious secret, Duchess?"

She said at once, "Not only wise, but kind."

"And of course you'll never give me away?"

She looked a little hurt. "Padlocks!" she cried.

It was a quaint, old-fashioned expression, which she had learnt and adopted as her own from the stern old dame who had been the Duke's grandmother.

As he stepped up into his motor the Home Secretary wondered if the Duchess would guess, between now and to-morrow morning, which of her children's friends was a dangerous criminal. He thought not, and he hoped not.

Though he was a shrewd man of the world he would have been surprised indeed to learn that not for one moment had her doomed guest's identity been in doubt.

IV.

That same evening Jake d'Egremont was standing before the high mantelpiece of the charming bedroom where he had spent some exultant, delicious and absolutely happy hours during the last week.

To fall from the sublime to the common-place, a final touch of perfection had been afforded by the fact that he had been valeted during this wonderful visit by Lord Ardvilly's own man.

D'Egremont more than once in his life had had occasion to play the part of a gentleman's gentleman, both on the Continent and in America. Each time he had elected to personate an English valet. During the last few days he had told himself that were it ever to be his fate to play that rôle again he would act it all the better for having known the quaintly-named Nettle, to whom he intended to present, to-morrow morning, a truly princely tip.

But never more, so he had determined, would he masquerade as either prince or valet—he had filled both parts with distinction. The time had now come for him to play a very different rôle—that of prodigal son. He had made to-day a partial confession to the most adorable, as well as the truest, girl, in the whole world. She had given him her word of honour that she would treat his confidences as to certain wild youthful acts of folly as sacred. Earnestly she had begged him to turn over an entirely new leaf. And, as if in exchange for his fervent promise, she had admitted that, yes, he had guessed truly, she was still quite heart-free, and now at eighteen, old enough to know that a sensible girl is in no hurry to marry till she is—well?—say one-and-twenty. That would be in three years from now—time enough for a clever man to carve out an entirely new, and while brilliant, yet absolutely respectable, career for himself.

In a sense Lady Susie had said very little—and yet the little, as he well knew, implied so much!

While dressing for dinner on this, his last, evening at the castle, he stopped now and again, and lived again that last delicious hour with her who called herself his friend, but who surely knew, deep in her heart, that they were lovers.

Had he acted like a cur—what the young men who now called him friend would have called a cad? He would have liked to feel quite sure—far more sure than he did feel—that he had not.

But he had the supreme excuse a man can always put to himself, assured of absolution. This excuse was that he adored Lady Susie, and that his love was not a murky flame, but a bright, pure, steady fire which had already consumed much of the dross in his complex, highly vitalised nature.

Then came a knock on the door. It was Nettle, with a letter on a salver.

"Her Grace has sent you this note, sir. It requires no answer."

There flashed over d'Egremont's mind in hurried, jumbled sequence almost every word that he and Lady Susie had exchanged during the last few days. No, there was nothing, nothing the girl could have repeated to her mother. He had been so careful, and she, in her pathetic childish way, had been so careful too—a little frightened also, maybe. All that they had sworn had been an eternal friendship.

Even so he opened the envelope with shaking fingers. Then he gave a quick inward gasp of relief.

"Tuesday night.

"Private.

"Dear Mr. d'Egremont,—

"I am tired this evening, so I am not coming down to dinner. It would give me such pleasure, if you are really going away to-morrow early, if, when the gentlemen leave the dining-room, you would come up to say good-bye to me in my boudoir. My maid will be waiting at the top of the staircase which runs up from the dining-room lobby, to show you the way.

"I feel that we have seen so little of one another.

"Yours sincerely,
"Laura St. Andrews."

The only thing that seemed a little strange was the word private above the "Dear Mr. d'Egremont." Could the Duchess suppose him the sort of man who might boast to a fellow-guest that he had been singled out by her for this trifling distinction?

 

Two hours later Her Grace's austere-looking maid stood where d'Egremont had been told he would find her. He felt strung up, excited, ill-at-ease. The coming interview might be of real moment to him—if everything fell out as he was beginning to believe it might do—in the far future.

At first he had felt just a little afraid of the Duchess. He had at once realised what some of her intimates would have denied, that she was an exceptionally clever woman, under her lightsome, "funning" manner. More than once he had seen her give a thoughtful measuring glance at her daughter when they—he and Lady Susie—had been together, and those mild glances had made him wary.

So it was with a beating heart that he followed the maid down a long corridor. Then they turned into a passage which seemed familiar, and, with a slight shock of surprise, he passed the door of his own bed-room.

A few moments later he was ushered into an apartment of which the lights, to his instinctive relief, were heavily shaded.

The Duchess's boudoir reflected the tastes of its possessor. A fine portrait by Lawrence, of the lady known to social history as "Duchess Charlotte," hung opposite a graceful presentment of the present Duchess by Edward Hughes, painted when the sitter was still a bride.

There were some beautiful little pieces of eighteenth-century furniture, and several ugly, comfortable, Victorian easy chairs. On the turquoise-blue walls each side of the mantelpiece, hung a number of watercolours, some good, some very bad, as well as several miniatures, and on a what-not table were rows of photographs.

As his hostess rose to greet him, he was a little surprised to see that she was still wearing the pleated white skirt and grey and white jumper she had worn at tea-time; and that on a couch—d'Egremont's eyes always noticed everything, however apparently irrelevant—lay a long grey cloak and black hat.

The Duchess smiled, a little tremulously, and there came over him a sudden feeling of—was it apprehension? The expression of her face was quite different from what he had ever seen it; she looked what he felt—nervous.

All at once she went across the room and locked the door; as she turned round she exclaimed, "Don't be surprised! I often do that. All my friends know it's a trick of mine. I do so hate being interrupted——"

She walked slowly back, all the spring gone from her light step, to her low chair.

"Sit down, Mr. d'Egremont," she said. And then suddenly she got up. "No! Perhaps we'd better stand, for I've something to tell you, and time is precious."

And then he did feel, suddenly, terribly, afraid.

"It has come to my knowledge that you are in great, in imminent, danger," she whispered, her voice almost inaudible.

He did not move. He remained still—the woman standing close to him called it to herself, "horribly" still.

Then she saw him glance this way and that—at the door she had just locked; at the door giving into a lobby which led to her bedroom; and then at the window behind her—his eyes those of a hunted animal.

"You're quite safe here," she said quickly. And, as his gaze became fixed on her quivering face, she added, "But you would no longer be safe, after you have left here to-morrow morning. And I have sent for you to-night to help you to escape."

He made as if to speak. Then his lips closed again.

The Duchess felt a thrill of relief. She had been so afraid he would put up a fight—pretend, maybe, to misunderstand her.

There was so much more than fear, there was such anguish, in his face, that her righteous anger died, leaving only pity.

"I'm so sorry, so very, very sorry," and she put one of her little hands on his arm.

Suddenly he shook her hand off, and turned his back to her. His head fell forward on his breast, and sounds of hard, difficult sobs wrung her heart.

Unhappy d'Egremont! He was living over his life as a man is said to do when he is drowning—telling himself that, yes, he deserved this frightful punishment, this flinging up of a gateless barrier between him and the future he had meant should be so different from his past.

"Forgive me," he said at last.

And as he turned his ravaged face towards her, she told herself that he was years older than she had thought him to be. But she was mistaken. He was what she had vaguely guessed, that is, thirty-six. But the last few moments had added years to his real age.

"Although I have reason to feel sure that the castle is not being watched, we will take no risks. So I am going to take you out into the park, as if for a stroll, myself. I want to put you in the way of reaching Hilby Junction. I've thought everything out very carefully."

She was speaking in a firm, decided voice now—the voice of the fortunate woman who always has her own way, to whom no one ever ventures to say "no," perhaps because she is too clever to run the risk of denial.

"Go to your room; change into day clothes; and gather up what you feel you must take with you. If by bad luck Nettle should be there, say that you and Lord Ardvilly are going to fish the lower ponds after everyone else has gone to bed. As to what you leave behind it will be packed to-morrow morning, and sent to whatever address you give me."

She unlocked the door. "Mr. d'Egremont?"

"Yes, Duchess."

"I can trust you?"

He saw in her pale sad face the fear to which she would not put a name. "I'm not that sort of coward," he said quickly.

"Be as quick as you can. Your room is close here."

He was away for about a quarter of an hour, but it seemed far longer to the Duchess. In spite of his implied promise each slow moment held, to her, the threat of a pistol-shot.

But she had done him an injustice. It was true that d'Egremont was not that sort of coward.

"I had to write three letters," he said, when he came back, "and that delayed me. One was to Lord Ardvilly's valet, telling him I have been suddenly called to town, and that I had only a few moments to catch a train. I left it on my dressing-table. As to the two other letters, perhaps you will glance over them?"

She took the still open envelopes from his hand, and she blushed like a girl when she saw that one was addressed to "The Lady Susie Beaton."

As she drew it out of the envelope, she looked at the writer of that closely covered sheet with a stern, searching look—more stern, more searching than she was herself aware.

"Tuesday night.

"Dear Lady Susie,—

"This is to tell you that I have had bad news which compels me to leave England to-morrow, I fear never to return.

"You and your brother have been so kind to me, we have become such friends, that I feel I may write to you, as well as to Lord Ardvilly. I hope you will not think it impertinent of me to say God bless you.

"Yours sincerely,
"Jake d'Egremont."

The Duchess put the letter back in its envelope. Then she read that addressed to her eldest son.

"Tuesday night

"{Private.)

"Dear Ardvilly,—

"I have a sudden call abroad, to-night which I cannot disregard. I managed to say good-bye to your kind mother, and I have written a line to Lady Susie. You and she were both so kind to me in London, and during the glorious week I have just spent with you here.

"I shall never forget you, and I hope you will sometimes give me a kind thought. I'm afraid it is not likely that we shall ever meet again. I have told your mother that she has my permission to explain why.

"Yours ever,
"J. d'E."

"Don't you mind my telling them?" she asked hesitatingly.

"Mind? Of course I mind! But I think it's only fair to them—and to you. I cannot expect you to forgive me, but I do ask, most humbly, your pardon——"

To that she made no answer. His letter to her daughter had brought back her feelings of anger, and yes, of contempt, for this unscrupulous man to whom she was being so good.

She glanced at the quaint green and gold ormolu clock which had belonged to her own mother, and which those of Duchess Laura's friends who prided themselves on their taste thought a blot on the pretty room. But she would not have exchanged that 1868 clock for the most beautiful old timepiece in the world. It had chimed out all the sad and all the happy half-hours and hours of her life. Now it marked twenty minutes past ten.

"You've got an hour," she said, "to catch the last Brighton train at Hilby Junction, about two and a half miles from here. There's an excursion day-boat to France early to-morrow morning, no passports being required by those who go by it."

He smiled, visualising the French passport made out in the name of d'Artagnan which he had in his coat pocket. "You needn't be anxious about me, Duchess. I shall be all right—that is if I feel it's worth while to be all right."

"It's always worth while to make a new start. We all have to do that sometimes——"

"You're right," he said slowly, "and if I did it for no one else's sake, I'd do it for yours," and again the fires of her anger died down. Together, she leading the way, they went down a narrow little staircase which led to a garden door opening on to what was called "The Duchess's Pleasaunce," though the duchess who had designed that formal walled garden had been dead for over a hundred years.

Then she took his arm. Anyone seeing them, and not recognising the liege lady of the countryside, would take them for sweethearts, trespassing.

When they came to an arch in the high brick wall—"I'm so glad that I've never allowed a door to be put here. I hate feeling cabined and confined," she exclaimed. Then, feeling him shudder slightly, she felt a pang of regret that she had uttered those two sinister words. Had he ever been in prison, she wondered?

She dropped his arm, and they hastened on, now walking very quickly along the grass path leading down towards the river which formed a natural boundary to the park.

And then, when they were very near the place where she meant to leave him, she asked suddenly, "What made you adopt this terrible, this ignoble, this dangerous way of life, Mr. d'Egremont?"

"One mad act of folly committed when I was twenty. An interview with a harsh, unforgiving father, and a chance meeting with a brute who was looking out for just such a lad as I was then."

The Duchess then said something which immediately after having said it she regretted having said. But she was at once so excited and so nervous that she spoke aloud her thoughts:

"I am glad my cousin, Lady St. Yves, was not with us——"

She saw by his face that he knew what was in her mind. He looked sharply, unreasonably hurt.

"You thought I had come here to steal her famous emeralds?" he asked harshly.

She remained silent, and he went on, speaking for the first time with a touch of excitement in his voice. "It might have been true, of course, but it just happens not to have been true."

She said in a low voice, "I'm sorry. I beg your pardon for having believed it." And then, with an effort, she went on, "Can't you make a new start? We all have to do that sometimes."

"If I do it," he exclaimed, "it will be for your sake—only for your sake! And if I do I give you my word of honour neither you nor anyone you love will ever hear of me again."

"Thank you," she whispered, and then she put out her hand.

He gripped it so strongly that she nearly cried out.

V.

At seven the next morning Lady Susie was sitting up in her narrow four-post bed, sipping her early cup of tea. She was feeling sad, for everyone, including her own secret particular friend, was leaving the castle at nine o'clock. It was consoling to know that he, at any rate, would soon be coming back for a week-end.

The door opened suddenly, and, to the girl's surprise, her mother came into the room.

As she walked towards the bed the Duchess looked so unlike her usual serene happy self that little Lady Susie felt a pang of fear. Had anything happened to Lettice, darling Lettice, who was expecting her first baby so soon?

"Mother! What is the matter?"

"I've brought you a letter which I thought you would like to read before going down-stairs."

The girl took the envelope, and, glancing at it, she blushed a painful, hot, ugly blush.

"Thank you so much, mother."

Then she added, with a touch of defiance, "I think I'll read it presently—after I've got up."

"I'd like you to read it now, my dear. Perhaps I ought to tell you that I know what is in it, though Mr. d'Egremont wrote the letter without consulting me."

The Duchess was now speaking almost in a whisper. She went quickly back to the bedroom door, and locked it.

"Mother!"

There was anger, defiance, active rebellion, all contained in the one word.

"My darling child——"

She stopped, abruptly, for the girl had begun reading the letter, and as she read on, all the colour drifted from her face.

"I don't understand," she said helplessly. "What does he mean, mother?"

"It means—oh, Susie, how I wish that I could bear this trouble for you, but there are certain troubles which we poor women have to bear alone."

"I can bear anything—but suspense," the words were uttered in a low, agonised tone. "If you really do know, mother, then tell me what this letter means!"

"Mr. d'Egremont was being looked for by the police—the police of more than one country. I found out, never mind how, that the Scotland Yard people were waiting to arrest him only till he got away from here this morning."

There broke a bitter cry from the girl's lips, and the Duchess hurried on, "I felt—and I think your father will do so too, though I don't intend to tell him about it yet—that I could not send one of my guests, a friend of Robin's and yours, however blameworthy, to walk into the trap that was being laid for him. So last night I sent for him, told him of his danger, and helped him to get away."

Susie's lips just moved. "I see. Thank you, mother," and she turned her face away.

All at once the Duchess burst into tears. She laid her head down on the pillow by her pale tearless young daughter, and began to cry bitterly. "I liked him last night," she sobbed. "He was so game. I liked him so much better than I had ever liked him before. I had guessed there was something queer about him, so had your father——"

Susie turned round. Her face was set, as if carved in stone.

"Mother! Please don't say any more." Then she lifted up her little head. "He was my friend—he is my friend, still." And then she gave a sudden cry. "I suppose I shall never see him again? You see what he says here?"

The Duchess snatched up a tiny pink handkerchief which lay on the coverlet. She dabbed her eyes and her child's, too.

"He wrote to your brother, just saying good-bye," she murmured. "But I don't mean to tell Robin what I've told you. I shall simply say Mr. d'Egremont came and said good-bye to me before going away."

The girl said again, "Thank you, mother." And this time there was a note of true gratitude in her voice.

"I did do everything I could," said the Duchess, and again the tears welled up into her eyes.

She was telling herself that she would ever bless the man she had helped to escape a fate he had deserved, if it made her Susie really love her, really trust her.

When close to the door the Duchess suddenly turned round. "Padlocks!" she cried. "Not only now, but all my life—and all your life long, my darling!"

And Lady Susie—a piteous look of pain, of shame, of renunciation, on the face which only yesterday had still been that of a child, and was now that of a woman—called back, "Yes, yes, mother—padlocks!"

Copyright, 1926, by Paul Reynolds, in the United States of America.