A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook

Title:      The Way of the Spirit
Author:     H. Rider Haggard
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Language:   English
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  Limited, Perth.


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Title:      The Way of the Spirit
Author:     H. Rider Haggard

First Published 1906.





                        THE WAY OF THE SPIRIT

                                  BY

                           H. RIDER HAGGARD



    "Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth . . . and walk
     in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine
     eyes; but know thou that for all these things God will
     bring thee into judgment."

    "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the
     tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God."




                              DEDICATION

  My dear Kipling,--Both of us believe that there are higher aims in
  life than the weaving of stories well or ill, and according to our
  separate occasions strive to fulfil this faith.

  Still, when we talked together of the plan of this tale, and when
  you read the written book, your judgment thereof was such as all
  of us hope for from an honest and instructed friend--generally in
  vain.

  So, as you found interest in it, I offer it to you, in token of
  much I cannot write. But you will understand.--

                                  Ever sincerely yours,

                                               H. Rider Haggard.

  To Rudyard Kipling, Esq.

  Ditchingham, 14th August, 1905.



                            AUTHOR'S NOTE

  This tale was written two years ago as the result of reflections
  which occurred to me among the Egyptian sands and the empty cells
  of long-departed anchorites.

  Perhaps in printing it I should ask forgiveness for my deviation
  from the familiar, trodden pathway of adventure, since in the
  course of a literary experience extending now, I regret to say,
  over more than a quarter of a century, often I have seen that he
  who attempts to step off the line chalked out for him by custom or
  opinion is apt to be driven back with stones and shoutings.
  Indeed, there are some who seem to think it very improper that an
  author should seek, however rarely, to address himself to a new
  line of thought or group of readers. As he began so he must go on,
  they say. Yet I have ventured on the history of Rupert Ullershaw's
  great, and to all appearance successful Platonic experiment,
  chiefly because this problem interested me: Under the conditions
  in which fortune placed him in the East, was he right or wrong in
  clinging to an iron interpretation of a vow of his youth and to
  the strict letter of his Western Law? And was he bound to return
  to the English wife who had treated him so ill, as, in the end,
  he made up his mind to do? In short, should or should not
  circumstances be allowed to alter moral cases?

  The question is solved in one way in this book, but although she
  herself was a party to that solution, looking at the matter with
  Mea's eyes it seems capable of a different reading. Still, given a
  sufficiency of faith, I believe that set down here to be the true
  answer. Also, whatever its exact cause and nature, there must be
  something satisfying and noble in utter Renunciation for
  Conscience' sake, even when surrounding and popular judgment
  demands no such sacrifice. At least this is one view of Life, its
  aspirations and possibilities; that which wearies of its native
  soil, that which lifts its face toward the Stars.

  Otherwise, why did those old anchorites wear the stone beds of
  their cells so thin? Why, in this fashion or in that, do their
  successors still wear them thin everywhere in the wide earth,
  especially in the wise and ancient East? I think the reply is
  Faith: that Faith which bore Rupert and Mea to what they held to
  be a glorious issue of their long probation--that Faith in
  personal survival and reunion, without the support of which in one
  form or another, faint and flickering as it may be, the happiness
  or even the continuance of our human world is so difficult to
  imagine.

                                                        H. R. H.





                        THE WAY OF THE SPIRIT



                               PROLOGUE

The last pitiful shifts of shame, the last agonised doublings of
despair when the net is about the head and the victor's trident at the
throat--who can enjoy the story of such things as these? Yet because
they rough-hewed the character of Rupert Ullershaw, because from his
part in them he fashioned the steps whereby he climbed to that height
of renunciation which was the only throne he ever knew, something of
it must be told. A very little will suffice; the barest facts are all
we need.

Upon a certain July evening, Lord and Lady Devene sat at dinner alone
in a very fine room of a very fine house in Portland Place. They were
a striking couple, the husband much older than the wife; indeed, he
was fifty years of age, and she in the prime of womanhood. The face of
Lord Devene, neutral tinted, almost colourless, was full of strength
and of a certain sardonic ability. His small grey eyes, set beneath
shaggy, overhanging eyebrows that were sandy-coloured like his
straight hair, seemed to pierce to the heart of men and things, and
his talk, when he had anything to say upon a matter that moved him,
was keen and uncompromising. It was a very bitter face, and his words
were often very bitter words, which seems curious, as this man enjoyed
good health, was rich, powerful, and set by birth and fortune far
above the vast majority of other men.

Yet there were flies in his silver spoon of honey. For instance, he
hated his wife, as from the first she hated him; for instance, he who
greatly desired sons to carry on his wealth and line had no children;
for instance, his sharp, acrimonious intellect had broken through all
beliefs and overthrown all conventions, yet the ghost of dead belief
still haunted him, and convention still shackled his hands and feet.
For he could find no other rocks whereon to rest or cling as he was
borne forward by the universal tide which at last rips over the rough
edges of the world.

The woman, Clara, Lady Devene, was physically magnificent; tall, with
a regal-looking head, richly coloured, ivory-skinned, perfectly
developed in every part, except perhaps her brain. Good-natured,
courageous after a fashion, well-meaning, affectionate, tenacious of
what she had learned in youth, but impulsive and quite elementary in
her tendencies and outlook; one who would have wished to live her own
life and go her own way like an amiable, high-class savage,
worshipping the sun and stars, the thunder and the rain, principally
because she could not understand them, and at times they frightened
her. Such was Clara, Lady Devene. She was not imaginative, she lived
in the present for the present. She never heard the roll of the wheels
of Fate echoing, solemn and ceaseless, through the thin, fitful
turmoil of our lives, like the boom of distant battle-guns that shape
the destinies of empires discerned through the bray of brass bands
upon an esplanade.

No; Clara was not imaginative, although she had a heart, although, for
example, from year to year she could grieve over the man whom once she
had jilted or been forced to jilt (and who afterwards died of drink),
in order to take her "chance in life" and marry Lord Devene whom she
cordially disliked; whom she knew, moreover, to be self-seeking and
cross-souled, as each in his or her degree were all his race from the
first remembered Ullershaw down to himself and his collaterals.
Ultimately, such primitive and unhappy women are apt to find some
lover, especially if he reminds them of their first. Lady Devene had
done so at any rate, and that lover, as it chanced, was scarcely more
than a lad, her husband's heir and cousin, a well-meaning but
hot-hearted youth, whom she had befooled with her flatteries and her
beauty, and now doted on in a fashion common enough under such
circumstances. Moreover, she had been found out, as she was bound to
be, and the thing had come to its inevitable issue. The birds were
blind, and Lord Devene was no man in spread his nets in vain.

Lady Devene was not imaginative--it has been said. Yet when her
husband, lifting a large glass of claret to his lips, suddenly let it
fall, so that the red wine ran over the white table-cloth like
new-shed blood upon snow, and the delicate glass was shattered, she
shivered, she knew not why; perhaps because instinct told her that
this was no accident, but a symbol of something which was to come. For
once she heard the boom of those battle-guns of Fate above the braying
of the brass band on her life's tawny esplanade. There rose in her
mind, indeed, the words of an old song that she used to sing--for she
had a beautiful voice, everything about her was beautiful--a
melancholy old song, which began:


     "Broken is the bowl of life, spilled is its ruby wine;
      Behind us lie the sins of earth, before, the doom Divine!"


It was a great favourite with that unlucky dead lover of hers who had
taken to drink, and whom she had jilted--before he took to drink. The
memory disturbed her. She rose from the table, saying that she was
going to her own sitting-room. Lord Devene answered that he would come
too, and she stared at him, for he was not in the habit of visiting
her apartments. In practice they had lived separate for years.

                  *       *       *       *       *

Husband and wife stood face to face in that darkened room, for the
lamps were not lit, and a cloud obscured the moon which till now had
shone through the open windows.

The truth was out. She knew the worst, and it was very bad.

"Do you mean to murder me?" she asked, in a hoarse voice, for the
deadly hate in the man's every word and movement suggested nothing
less to her mind.

"No," he answered; "only to divorce you. I mean to be rid of you--at
last. I mean to marry again. I wish to leave heirs behind me. Your
young friend shall not have my wealth and title if I can help it."

"Divorce me? You? /You?/"

"You can prove nothing against me, Clara, and I shall deny everything,
whereas I can prove all against you. This poor lad will have to marry
you. Really I am sorry for him, for what chance had he against you? I
do not like to see one of my name made ridiculous, and it will ruin
him."

"He shall not marry me," she answered fiercely. "I love him too well."

"You can settle that as you like between you. Go back to your reverend
parent's house if you choose, and take to religion. You will be an
ornament to any Deanery. Or if you do not choose--" and with a dim,
expressive gesture, he waved his hand towards the countless lights of
London that glimmered beneath them.

She thought a while, leaning on the back of a chair and breathing
heavily. Then that elementary courage of hers flared up, and she said:

"George, you want to be free from me. You noticed the beginning of my
folly and sent us abroad together; it was all another plot--I quite
understand. Now, life is uncertain, and you have made mine very
miserable. If anything should chance to happen to me--soon, would
there be any scandal? I ask it, not for my own sake, but for that of
my old father, and my sisters and their children."

"No," he replied slowly. "In that sad and improbable event there would
be no scandal. Only foolish birds foul their own nests unless they are
driven to it."

Again she was silent, then drew back from him and said:

"Thank you, I do not think there is anything to add. Go away, please."

"Clara," he answered, in his cold, deliberate voice, "you are worn
out--naturally. Well, you want sleep, it will be a good friend to you
to-night. But remember, that chloral you are so fond of is dangerous
stuff; take enough if you like, but not too much!"

"Yes," she replied heavily, "I know. I will take enough--but not too
much."

For a moment there was deep silence between them in that dark room.
Then suddenly the great moon appeared again above the clouds,
revealing their living faces to each other for the last time. That of
the woman was tragic and dreadful; already death seemed to stare from
her wide eyes, and that of the man somewhat frightened, yet
remorseless. He was not one of those who recoil from their Rubicon.

"Good-bye," he said quickly; "I am going down to Devene by the late
train, but I shall be back in town to-morrow morning--to see my
lawyer."

With a white and ghost-like arm she pointed first to the door, then
through the window-place upwards towards the ominous, brooding sky,
and spoke in a solemn whisper:

"George," she said, "you know that you are a hundred times worse than
I, and whatever I am, you have made me, who first forced me to marry
you because I was beautiful, and then when you wearied of me, treated
me as you have done for years. God judge between us, for I say that as
you have had no pity, so you shall find none. It is not I who speak to
you from the brink of my grave, but something within me."

                  *       *       *       *       *

It was morning, and Rupert Ullershaw stood at the door of the Portland
Place house, whither he had come to call upon Lady Devene, to whom he
brought a birthday gift which he had saved for months to buy. He was a
somewhat rugged-faced lad, with frank grey eyes; finely built also,
broad-shouldered, long-armed, athletic, though in movement slow and
deliberate. There was trouble in those eyes of his, who already had
found out thus early in his youth that though "bread of deceit is
sweet to a man, afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel."
Also, he had other anxieties who was the only son and hope of his
widowed mother, and of a father, Captain Ullershaw, Devene's relation,
whose conduct had broken her heart and beggared her of the great
fortune for which she had been married. Now Rupert, the son, had just
passed out of Woolwich, where, when his feet fell into this bitter
snare, he had been studying in the hope of making a career for himself
in the army.

Presently the butler, a dark, melancholy-looking person, opened the
door, and Rupert saw at once that the man was strangely disturbed;
indeed, he looked as though he had been crying.

"Is Lady Devene in?" Rupert asked as a matter of form.

"In, sir, yes; she'll never go out no more, except once," answered the
butler, speaking with a gulp in his throat. "Haven't you heard, sir,
haven't you heard?" he went on wildly.

"Heard what?" gasped Rupert, clutching at the door frame.

"Dead, Mr. Ullershaw, dead--accident--overdose of chloral they say!
His lordship found her an hour ago, and the doctors have just left."

                  *       *       *       *       *

Meanwhile, in the room above, Lord Devene stood alone, contemplating
the still and awful beauty of the dead. Then rousing himself, he took
the hearth-brush, and with it swept certain frail ashes of burnt paper
down between the bars of the low grate so that they crumbled up and
were no more seen.

"I never believed that she would dare to do it," he thought to
himself. "After all, she had courage, and she was right, I am worse
than she was--as she would judge. Well, I have won the game and am rid
of her at last, and without scandal. So--let the dead bury their
dead!"

                  *       *       *       *       *

When Rupert, who had come up from Woolwich that morning, reached the
little house in Regent's Park, which was his mother's home, he found a
letter awaiting him. It had been posted late on the previous night,
and was unsigned and undated, but in Clara's hand, being written on a
plain sheet, and enclosed, as a blind, in a conventional note asking
him to luncheon. Its piteous, its terrible contents need not be
described; suffice to say that from them he learned all the truth. He
read it twice, then had the wit to destroy it by fire. In that awful
hour of shock and remorse the glamour and the madness departed from
him, and he, who at heart was good enough, understood whither they had
led his feet.

After this Rupert Ullershaw was very ill, so ill that he lay in bed a
long time, wandered in his mind, and was like to die. But his powerful
constitution carried his young body through the effects of a blow from
which inwardly he never really quite recovered. In the end, when he
was getting better, he told his mother everything. Mrs. Ullershaw was
a strong, reserved woman, with a broad, patient face and smooth,
iron-grey hair; one who had endured much and through it kept her
simple faith and trust in Providence--yes, even when she thought that
the evil in her son's blood was mastering him, that evil from which no
Ullershaw was altogether free, and that he was beginning to walk in
the footsteps of his father and of that ill guide and tempter, his
cousin, Lord Devene. She heard him out, her quiet eyes fixed upon his
face that was altered almost into age by passion, illness and
repentance--heard him without a word.

Then she made one of the great efforts of her life, and in the stress
of her appeal even became eloquent. She told Rupert all she knew of
those brilliant, erratic, unprincipled Ullershaws from whom he sprang,
and counted before his eyes the harvest of Dead Sea apples that they
had gathered. She showed him how great was his own wrong-doing, and
how imminent the doom from which he had but just escaped--that doom
which had destroyed the unhappy Clara after she was meshed in the
Ullershaw net, and corrupted by their example and philosophy which put
the pride of life and gratification of self above obedience to law
human or Divine. She pointed out to him that he had received his
warning, that he stood at the parting of the ways, that his happiness
and welfare for all time depended upon the path he chose. She, who
rarely spoke of herself, even appealed to him to remember his mother,
who had endured so much at the hands of his family, and not to bring
her grey hairs with sorrow to the grave; to live for work and not for
pleasure; to shun the society of idle folk who can be happy in the
midst of corruption, and who are rich in everything except good deeds.

"Set another ideal before your eyes, my son," she said, "that of
renunciation, and learn that when you seem to renounce you really
gain. Follow the way of the Spirit, not that of the Flesh. Conquer
yourself and the weakness which comes of your blood, however hard that
may be. Self-denial is not really difficult, and its fruits are
beautiful, in them you will find peace. Life is not long, my boy, but
remorse may be a perpetual agony. So live, then, that having obtained
forgiveness for what you have done amiss, it may not be there to
torment you when you come to die."

As it chanced, her words fell in a fruitful soil well prepared to
receive them--a strong soil, also--one which could grow corn as well
as weeds.

"Mother," Rupert answered simply, "I will. I swear to you that
whatever it costs me I will," and stretching out his wasted arms he
drew down her grey head and kissed her on the brow.

This history will show how he kept that sick-bed promise under
circumstances when few would have blamed him for its breach. Romantic
as Rupert Ullershaw's life was destined to be, thenceforward it was
quite unstained.



                              CHAPTER I

                    THE VOICE OF THE SINGING SAND

More than eleven years have gone by, and the scene upon which our
curtain rises again is different indeed to that upon which it fell. In
place of that little London house where Rupert had lain sick, behold
the mouth of a cliff-hewn temple, and on the face of it, cut from the
solid rock, four colossal statues of an Egyptian king, nearly
seventeen feet high each of them, that gaze for ever across the waters
of the Nile and the desert beyond--that unchanging desert whence for
three thousand five hundred years, dawn by dawn, they have greeted the
newly-risen sun. For this place is the temple of Abu-Simbel below the
Second Cataract of the Nile in the Soudan.

It is afternoon in the month of September, of the year 1889, and
beneath one of the colossi near to the entrance of the temple is
seated a British officer in uniform--a big, bearded observer as
remarkable for intensity and power. Indeed, in this respect it was not
unlike that stamped upon the stone countenances of the mighty statues
above him. There was in it something of the same calm, patient
strength--something of that air of contemptuous expectancy with which
the old Egyptian sculptors had the art of clothing those effigies of
their gods and kings.

It would have been hard to recognise in this man the lad whom we left
recovering from a sore sickness, for some twelve years of work,
thought, struggle, and self-control--chisels, all of them, that cut
deeply--had made their marks upon him. Yet it was Rupert Ullershaw and
no other.

The history of that period of his life can be given in few words. He
had entered the army and gone to India, and there done very well.
Having been fortunate enough to be employed in two of our little
frontier wars, attention had been called to his conspicuous
professional abilities. As it chanced also he was a studious man, and
the fact that he devoted himself but little to amusements--save to
big-game shooting when it came in his way--left him plenty of time for
study. A chance conversation with a friend who had travelled much in
the East, and who pointed out to him how advantageous it might be for
his future to have a knowledge of Arabic, with which very few English
officers were acquainted at the time, caused him to turn his attention
to that language. These labours of his becoming known to those in
authority, the Indian Government appointed him upon some sudden need
to a semi-diplomatic office on the Persian Gulf. Here he did well, and
although he never got the full public credit of it, was fortunate
enough to avert a serious trouble that might have grown to large
proportions and involved a naval demonstration. In recognition of his
services he was advanced in rank and made a C.B. at a very early age,
with the result that, had he wished it, he might have entered on a
diplomatic career with every hope of distinction.

But Rupert was, above all things, a soldier, so turning his back upon
these pleasant prospects, he applied to be allowed to serve in Egypt,
a request that was readily granted on account of his knowledge of
Arabic. Here in one capacity or another he took part in various
campaigns, being present at the battles of El-Teb and Tamai, in the
latter of which he was wounded. Afterwards he marched with Sir Herbert
Stewart from Dongola and fought with him at Abu Klea. Returning to
Egypt after the death of Gordon, he was employed as an Intelligence
officer at Cairo, and finally made a lieutenant-colonel in the
Egyptian army. In this capacity he accompanied General Grenfell up the
Nile, and took part in the battle of Toski, where the Dervishes were
routed on 3rd August, 1889. Then he was stationed at Abu-Simbel, a few
miles away, to make arrangements as to the disposal of prisoners, and
subsequently to carry on negotiations with certain Arab chiefs whose
loyalty remained doubtful.

Such is a brief record of those years of the life of Rupert Ullershaw,
with which, eventful as they were, our story has nothing to do. He had
done exceedingly well; indeed, there were few officers of his standing
who could look to the future with greater confidence, for although he
appeared older than his years, he was still a young man; moreover, he
was liked and respected by all who knew him, and notwithstanding his
success, almost without enemies. It only remains to add that he kept
the promise which he made to his mother upon his sick-bed to the very
letter. Ever since that sad first entanglement, Rupert's life had been
spotless.

The sun was beginning to sink, and its rays made red pathways on the
flooded Nile, and bathed the desert beyond with a tremulous, rosy
light, in which isolated mountains, that in shape exactly resembled
pyramids, stood up here and there like the monuments of kings. The
scene was extraordinarily beautiful; silent, also, for Rupert had
pitched his camp, and that of his small escort, half a mile away
further up the river. As he watched, the solemnities of the time and
place sank into his heart, stilling the transient emotions of the
moment, and tuning his mind until it was in key with its surroundings,
an instrument open to the subtle influences of the past and future.

Here in the shadow of the mighty works of men who had been dead for a
hundred generations, and looking out upon the river, the desert, and
the mountains, which to them must have seemed as unutterably ancient
as they did to him this day, his own absolute insignificance came home
to Rupert as perhaps it had never done before. He thought of his petty
strivings for personal advancement, and a smile grew upon his face
like the smile upon that of the god-king above him. Through the waste
of all the weary ages, how many men, he wondered, even in this
desolate spot, had brooded on the hope of such advantage, and gone
forth, but few to triumph, the most to fail, and all of them to learn
within some short years that failure and success are one when
forgetfulness has covered them. Thus the warning of the past laid its
heavy hand upon him and pressed his spirit down, and the sound of the
Nile flowing on, flowing ever from the far-off mountains of its birth
through the desert to the sea, murmured in his ear that like those of
Job, his days were "swifter than a post," sung in his ear the song of
Koholeth: Vanity of vanities: all is vanity.

Rupert grew sad as the shadow of the hills which gathered deep about
him, empty and desolate of mind as the vast, deserted temple at whose
mouth he sat, the fane of a faith that was more dead than were its
worshippers. Then suddenly he remembered how that morning at the dawn
he had seen those cups of shadow filled with overflowing light, and
how by it on the walls of that very temple he had read prayers of
faith and affirmations strangely certain, of the eternity of all good
works and the resurrection of all good men, in which they who carved
them five-and-thirty centuries before, believed as firmly as he
believed to-day.

Now it was the future that spoke to him as his heart took hope once
more. Oh! he knew full surely--it came upon him with a strange
conviction--that though many troubles and much bitterness might await
him, though he might be born to sorrows as the sparks fly upwards, yet
he should not live uselessly, or endure death in vain, that no life,
not even that of the ant which toiled ceaselessly at his side in the
yellow sand, was devoid of purpose or barren of result; that chance
and accident did not exist; that every riddle had its answer, and
every pang its issue in some new birth; that of the cloth of thoughts
and deeds which he wove now would be fashioned the garment that he
must wear hereafter.

Thus brooded Rupert Ullershaw after his fashion when alone, as indeed
he loved to be, for he was a man who faced things and found truth
oftenest in solitude.

Tired of these reflections, natural as they might be in such a time
and spot, at length he rose, went a few paces to look at the lonely
grave of a comrade whose working day was over, then with a sigh
bethought him that now the afternoon was cooler, he would take some
exercise before the darkness fell. Rupert loved all the sights and
sounds of Nature, and remembering that the sunset would be fine seen
from the top of a cliff behind him, he set to work to toil up the
steep slope of sand, following a little track made by the jackals from
the river-bank to their holes in the rocks, for he knew that these
cunning animals would choose the easiest path.

Reaching the crest at length, he paused a while to look at the endless
desert and the fiery ball of the sun sinking towards it so swiftly
that he could almost see it move, as it does, or seems to do, in
Egypt. It was going down behind two distant, solitary mountains;
indeed, for a few seconds, perhaps a minute, its great red globe
seemed to rest upon the very point of one of these mountains.
Contemplating it and them, he recalled a legend which an old Arab had
told him, that beyond those mountains was a temple larger and finer
than Abu-Simbel. He had asked how far it was away and why no one went
there, and learned that it was a great distance off, deep in the
desert, and that if anyone looked upon it he died, for it was the home
of magicians who did not call on Allah and rejected his prophet.
Therefore no one did look, only the legend remained, which, the Arab
had added, without doubt was true.

Forgetting the tale of this fabled temple, Rupert pursued his walk
past the graves of some of the Khalifa's emirs who had been wounded in
the battle of Toski, a few miles away, and when they succumbed,
hastily buried where they died by their retreating comrades. He knew
the man who lay beneath one of those rough piles of stones--a brave
Dervish of high rank, who had very nearly put an end to himself and
his earthly adventures. He could see the fellow coming at him now,
yelling his war-cry and shaking his great spear. Luckily he had his
revolver in his hand and was able to shoot before that spear fell. The
bullet struck his enemy somewhere in the head, for he saw the blood
appear and the man reel off from him as though he were drunk. Then he
lost sight of him in the turmoil and slaughter, but afterwards was
told that he died upon the retreat, and was shown his grave by a
prisoner who had helped to bury him.

Whilst he was regarding it with the respect that one brave man has for
another, even though that other be a cruel and fanatical heathen,
Rupert became aware of a shadow falling upon him, which, from its
long, ugly shape, he knew must be cast by a camel. Turning, he
perceived a white dromedary bearing down upon him swiftly, its soft,
sponge-like hoofs making so little noise upon the sand that he had
never heard it coming. On the back of the camel sat an Arab sheik, who
held three spears in his hand, one large and two small. Suspecting a
sudden attack, as well might happen to him in that lonely place at the
hands of a fanatic, he sprang back behind the grave and drew his
pistol, whereon the man called out to him to put it up in the name of
God as he came in peace, not war.

"Dismount," answered Rupert sternly, "and thrown down your spears."

The Arab stopped his dromedary, commanded it to kneel, and slipping
from the saddle, laid down the spears and bowed himself humbly.

"What are your name and business," asked Rupert, "and why do you come
on me thus alone?"

"Bey," he answered, "I am Ibrahim, the Sheik of the Land of the Sweet
Wells out yonder. I came to your camp with my attendants, and being
told that you were here upon the hill-top, followed to speak with you,
if it pleases you to open your ears to me."

Rupert studied his visitor. He was a very handsome but cruel-looking
man of about forty years of age, with flashing black eyes, a hooked
nose, and a short, pointed beard which had begun to turn grey.

"I know you," he said. "You are a traitor to the Government of Egypt,
from which you have taken many benefits. You received the Khalifa's
General, Wad en-Negumi, and supplied him with food, water, and camels.
Had it not been for you, perhaps he could not have advanced, and had
it not been for you, many more of his people must have been captured.
How dare you show your face to me?"

"Bey," said the Sheik humbly, "that story is not true. What I did for
Abdullahi's soldiers, I did because I must, or die. May his name be
accursed!" and he spat upon the ground. "Now I come to seek justice
from you, who have power here."

"Go on," said Rupert; "you shall have justice, I promise you--if I can
give it."

"Bey, a detachment of the Egyptian troops mounted upon camels have
swept down upon me and robbed me. They have taken away all my sheep
and most of the dromedaries, and killed three of my people who strove
to protect them. More, they have insulted my women--yes, they, those
dogs of Fellaheen. In the name of Allah, I pray you order that my
property should be restored, or if you cannot do so, write to Cairo on
my behalf, for I am a true man, and the Khedive is my lord and no
other."

"Yet," answered Rupert, "yet, Sheik Ibrahim, I have seen a certain
letter written by you to the impostor, Abdullahi, the Khalifa, in
which you offer him assistance, should he invade Egypt and take the
road that runs past the Sweet Wells."

Ibrahim's face fell. "That letter was forged," he said sullenly.

"Then, friend, how comes it that you know anything about it?" asked
Rupert. "Get you back to your tribe, and be thankful that, now the
Khedive is victorious, his soldiers did not take you as well as your
sheep. Know that you are a man with a mark against his name, and bear
yourself more faithfully, lest this should be your lot"--and with his
foot he touched the grave of the emir across which they talked.

The Sheik made no answer. Going to his dromedary, he climbed into the
saddle, bade the beast rise, and rode off a little way. At a distance
of about forty yards, which doubtless he judged to be out of revolver
shot, he halted and began a furious tirade of abuse.

"Infidel dog!" he shouted, with some added insults directed against
Rupert's forbears; "you who stand there with your defiling foot upon
the grave of the true believer whom you killed, hear me. You refuse me
justice and accuse me of having helped the Khalifa. Be careful lest I
should help him, I who am the Sheik of the Territories of the Sweet
Wells, the road whereby he will come to take Egypt with fifty thousand
dervishes at his back, who will not be fool enough to march down the
river-bank and be shelled by your guns from steam-boats. My tribe is a
strong one, and we live in a mountainous country whence we cannot be
hunted, though your hounds of Fellaheen took us unawares the other
day. Oh! be careful lest I should catch you, white Bey, whose face I
shall not forget. If ever I do, I will pay you back for the affront
you put upon me, a true man. I swear it by my father's head. Yes, then
you shall choose between the faith and death; then you shall
acknowledge that Mahomet is the prophet of Allah, you
Cross-worshipping infidel, and that he whom you name an impostor shall
drive you and all your foul race into the sea."

"You forget yourself, Sheik of the Sweet Wells," answered Rupert
quietly, "and forget also that the future is the gift of God and not
shaped by man. Begone, now! Begone at once, lest I, too, grow angry
and summon my soldiers to take you and throw you in prison where you
deserve to be. Off, and let me see your face no more, you who dare to
threaten your sovereign, for I think that when we meet again it will
be the herald of your death."

Ibrahim sat up upon his camel and opened his mouth to answer, but
there was something in the stern, fateful bearing of the Englishman
which seemed to quiet him. At any rate, he turned the beast and urging
it to a trot, departed swiftly across the desert.

"A very dangerous man," reflected Rupert. "I will report the matter at
once and have him looked after. I wish they had left his sheep and
taken him, as no doubt he knows I said that they ought to do. Somehow,
I don't feel as though I had seen the last of that fellow." Then
dismissing the matter of this rebel sheik from his mind, he continued
his walk and crossed the mountain plateau.

Presently Rupert came to the path by which he intended to descend. It
was a strange one, none other than a perfect waterfall of golden and
set at so steep an angle that the descent of it appeared dangerous, if
not impossible, as would doubtless be the case had that slope been of
rock. Being of sand, however, the feet of the traveller sink into it
and so keep him from slipping. Then, if he is fortunate, for this
thing does not always happen, he may enjoy a curious experience. As he
moves transversely to and fro across the face of the slide, all about
him the sand begins to flow like water, till at length it pours itself
into the Nile below and is swept away. More, as it flows it sings, a
very wild song, a moaning, melancholy noise that cannot be described
on paper, which is caused, they say, by the vibration of the mountain
rocks beneath the weight of the rolling sand. From time to time Rupert
paused in his descent and listened to this strange, thrilling sound
until it died away altogether, when wearying of the amusement, he
scrambled down the rest of the hill-side and reached the bank of the
Nile.

Here his reflections were again broken in upon, this time by a woman.
Indeed he had seen her as he descended, and knew her at once for the
old gipsy who for the past year or two had lived in a hovel close by,
and earned, or appeared to earn her living by cultivating a strip of
land upon the borders of the Nile. As it chanced, Rupert had been able
a month or so before to secure repayment to her of the value of her
little crop which had been eaten up by the transport animals, and the
restoration of her milch goats that the soldiers had seized. From that
moment the old woman had been his devoted friend, and often he would
spend a pleasant hour in talking to her in her hut, or while she
laboured in her garden.

To look at, Bakhita, for so she was named, was a curious person, quite
distinct from the Egyptian and Soudanese women, being tall, thin, very
light-coloured for an Eastern, with well-cut features and a bush of
snow-white hair which hung down upon her shoulders. Indeed she was so
different from themselves that she was known as the Gipsy by all the
natives in the district, and consequently, of course, credited with
various magical powers and much secret knowledge--with truth in the
latter case.

Rupert greeted her in Arabic, which by now he spoke extraordinarily
well, and held out his hand for her to shake. She took it, and bending
down touched it with her lips.

"I was waiting for you, my father," she said.

"Supposing you call me 'your son,'" he answered, laughing, with a
glance at her white locks.

"Oh!" she replied, "some of us have fathers that are not of the flesh.
I am old, but perhaps your spirit is older than mine."

"All things are possible," said Rupert gravely. "But now, what is the
business?"

"I fear I am too late with my business," she answered. "I came to warn
you against the Sheik Ibrahim, who passed my hut a little while ago on
his way to visit you at your camp. But you have already seen him, have
you not?"

"Yes, Bakhita; but how do you know that?"

"Oh!" she replied evasively; "I heard his angry voice coming down the
wind from the top of yonder hill. I think that he was threatening and
cursing you."

Rupert nodded.

"I am sorry. I have known this man from childhood and his father
before him, for he has done much hurt to my people, and would do more.
That is why I live here; to watch him. He is a very evil man, cruel
and full of the spirit of revenge. Also, it would have been well to
speak him soft, for his tribe is strong and he may give trouble to the
Government. It is true, as he says, that the soldiers did handle him
with roughness, for one of them had grudges against him."

"What is said, is said," answered Rupert indifferently. "But tell me,
mother, how do you come to know so much--about many things?"

"I? Oh! I sit by the river and listen, and the river tells me its
tidings--tidings from the north, tidings from the south; the river
tells me all. Although you white men cannot hear it, that old river
has a voice for those whose ears are opened."

"And how about tidings from east and west where the river does not
run?" asked Rupert, smiling.

"Tidings from the east and west? Oh! thence and thither blow the
winds, and those whose eyes are opened, see more in them than dust.
They have their voices too, those old, old winds, and they tell me
tales of the kings of my people who are dead, and of the loves and
wars of long ago."

Rupert laughed outright.

"You are a very clever woman, mother," he said; "but be careful that
they don't arrest you as a Mahdist spy, for you won't be able to call
the Nile and the Campsine wind as witnesses."

"Ah! you laugh at me," she answered, shaking her old head; "but you
wonderful white folk have still much to learn from the East that was
grey with time when the first of your forefathers yet lay within the
womb. I tell you, Rupert Bey, that all Nature has its voices, and that
some of them speak of the past, some of the present, and some of the
future. Yes; even that moving sand down which you climbed but now has
its own voice."

"I know that well enough, for I heard it, but I can't explain to you
the reason in Arabic."

"You heard it; yes, and you would tell me that it is caused by sand
rubbing up against rocks, or by rocks singing to the sound of the sand
like a harp to the wind, and so, without doubt, it is. You heard the
voice, wise white father, but tell me, did you understand its talk?
Listen!" she went on, without waiting for an answer. "I, seated here
watching you as you climbed, I heard what the sand said about you and
others with whom your life has to do. Oh, no; I am not a common
fortune-teller. I do not look at hands and make squares in the dust,
or throw bones and pebbles, or gaze into pools of ink. Yet sometimes
when the voice speaks to me, then I know, and never so well as of him
whose feet are set upon the Singing Sand."

"Indeed, mother; and what was its song of me?"

"I shall not tell you," she answered, shaking her head. "It is not
lawful that I should tell you, and if I did, you would only set me
down as a common cheat--of whom there are many."

"What had the song of the sand to say of me?" he repeated carelessly,
for he was only half-listening to her talk.

"Much, Rupert Bey," she answered; "much that is sad and more that is
noble."

"Noble! That should mean the peerage at least. Well, everything
considered, it is a pretty safe prophecy," he muttered to himself,
with a laugh, and turned to leave her, then checked himself and asked;
"Tell me, Bakhita, what do you know of the lost temple in the desert
yonder?"

Instantly she became very attentive, and answered him with another
question:

"How can I know anything of it, if it is lost? But what do you know?"

"I, mother? Nothing; I am interested by the story and in old temples,
that is all, and I was certain that a person who can interpret the
voices of the river, the winds, and the sands, must know all about
it."

"Well, perhaps I do," she answered coolly. "Perhaps I would tell you
also to whom I am so grateful. Come to my hut and we will see."

"No," he said, "not to-night. I must go back to my camp; I have
letters to write. Another time, Bakhita."

"Very well, another time, and afterwards perhaps we may visit that
temple together. Who can say? But I think that you will have letters
to read as well as to write this evening. Listen!" and she held up her
hand and bent her head towards the river.

"I hear nothing except a jackal howling," he answered.

"Don't you? I hear the beat of a steamer's paddles. She will be moored
by Abu-Simbel in just three hours."

"Nonsense!" said Rupert. "I don't expect her for a week."

"People often get what they don't expect," she answered. "Good-night,
Rupert Bey! All the gods that ever were in Egypt have you in their
keeping till we meet again."

Then she turned without more words, and by the light of the risen moon
began to pick her way swiftly among the rocks fallen from the cliff
face, that lay on the brink of the flooded Nile, till half a mile or
so further north she passed through the fence of her garden and came
to her own mud hut.

Here Bakhita sat down on the ground by its door, and was very
thoughtful whilst she awaited the coming of the steamer, of which
either her own ears or perhaps some traveller had warned her. For
Bakhita also expected a letter, or, at any rate, a message, and she
was thinking of the writer or the sender.

"A mad whim," she said to herself. "Had not Tama wisdom enough of her
own, which comes to her with her blood, that she needs must go to
learn that of these white people, and to do so, leave her high place
to mix even with the daughters of Fellaheen, and hide her beauty
behind the yashmak of a worshipper of the false Prophet? Surely the
god of our fathers must have struck her mad, and now she is in great
danger at the hands of that dog Ibrahim. Yet, who knows? This madness
may be true wisdom. Oh! there are things too high for me, nor can my
skill read all her fate. So here at my post I bide to watch and learn
as I was bidden."



                              CHAPTER II

                             TWO LETTERS

When Rupert reached his camp beyond the great temple, he asked the
sergeant of his guard whether the Sheik Ibrahim had been there with
his servants. The soldier answered that he had seen no sheik.

"He must have been watching to find me alone; lucky I had my pistol
with me," thought Rupert to himself.

Then he ate his dinner, and afterwards sat down and wrote a report of
this and other matters to his superiors in Cairo. As he finished
copying the paper, to his surprise he heard a steamer hoot, and next
minute his orderly informed him that a boat coming up stream was
making fast opposite to the temple.

"So old Bakhita was right, after all. What long ears she must have,"
thought Rupert, as he started to board the steamer.

She proved to be a Government boat from Assouan, carrying a company of
Egyptian troops under the command of a brother-officer of his own, who
brought him despatches and private letters. Though one of the latter
was in the handwriting of his mother, from whom he was most anxious to
hear, as no letter of hers had reached him for some time, it was
characteristic of Rupert that he read the despatches first. Amongst
other things, these contained an order that he should proceed at once
to Cairo, there to advise with his chiefs on certain matters connected
with the state of affairs in the Wady-Halfa district. They informed
him also that the officer who brought them would stay to carry on his
work at Abu-Simbel.

As the boat was to start down the Nile at dawn, Rupert spent most of
the night in making arrangements with his successor, and in
instructing him as to the political position. When this duty was
finished, and the company of soldiers had been disembarked and camped,
his own packing claimed attention, so that, in the end, he did not get
aboard the steamer till nearly four o'clock in the morning--that is,
about an hour before she cast off. Going at once to his cabin, Rupert
opened his mother's envelope, to find that the letter within was
written with pencil, and in a very shaky hand. Consumed by anxiety, he
began to read. It ran as follows:--


 "My Dearest Son,--My last letter to you was that which I wrote to
  say how thankful I was to hear that by God's mercy you had safely
  passed the great dangers of the battle of Toski, and the delight
  with which I saw you so favourably spoken of in the official
  despatches reporting the victory.

 "That was five weeks ago, and I have not written since because,
  dear Rupert, I have been somewhat seriously ill and was not able
  to do so. Nor would I let anyone else write lest you should be
  frightened. One night, Rupert, whilst reading my Bible before
  going to bed, a very strange feeling suddenly came over me, and I
  remember no more for two days. When I recovered consciousness the
  doctor told me that I had had a stroke, I could not quite make out
  of what kind, nor does it matter. He added, not then but
  afterwards, that for a while my condition was precarious, and
  intimated to me that although all danger had passed for the
  present and I might live for years, this was without doubt a
  warning. Of course I understood what he meant and asked no more.

 "My dearest boy, as you know, I do not fear death, especially if
  it should come in so merciful a form. But on the other hand, I do
  not wish to die without seeing you again. So, if it is possible,
  and your career will not be greatly injured thereby, I wrote to
  ask you to come to England as soon as you can, for, Rupert, it is
  now well over eleven years since you left home, during all which
  time I have not seen your face except in dreams.

 "I cannot write much, for my left arm is paralysed, and all that
  side of my body very stiff and helpless, which makes it difficult
  for me to sit up, so I am asking your cousin, Edith Bonnythorne,
  to tell you what news there is. One piece, however, I must
  mention, since a young woman might not like to speak of it in
  writing to a gentleman.

 "There has been another of those sad disappointments in Lord
  Devene's family, the sixth, I think, since his re-marriage. This
  time the child, a boy, was born at seven months. Every possible
  effort was made to save his life; indeed I am told that the poor
  little thing was put into a kind of incubator, the latest
  invention, which is said to be very successful in such cases. But
  it was of no use, the child died. So, although I know you care
  nothing about it, you are once more his heir, and I think likely
  to remain so.

 "Poor Lady Devene has been to see me. She is a good sort of woman,
  although very narrow in her religious views. I think she calls
  herself a Calvinist (fancy /his/ marrying a Calvinist!). She
  grieves more over the fact that the child was not christened than
  because of its sad death. Indeed, speaking half in German and half
  in English, as is her way when moved, she said right out that she
  believed it died because Lord Devene would not have the ceremony
  performed lest it should catch a chill, and added that she was
  sure no child of theirs would ever live unless her husband
  abandoned his godless and free-thinking ways. Lastly, she declared
  that she wished she had never married him, but supposed that it
  was so ordained as a punishment of her sins, the worst of which
  was that being dazzled by the prospect of so brilliant a match,
  she had accepted what he told her about his religious principles
  without satisfying herself that he spoke the truth. I hear that
  there was a great quarrel between them as to this matter of the
  christening, in which she seems to have had the best of it,
  although he would not give way, for Tabitha (that is her name) is
  very stolid and strong-willed when she likes. At any rate, he lost
  his temper and became violent, saying he wished that either she or
  he were dead, to which she answered that /she/ would not take
  chloral. I tell you all this because I think you ought to know. It
  is a sad story, and I cannot help believing that there is
  something in what poor Lady Devene says. Do try to come and see
  me, my dearest, dearest Rupert.--Your ever loving mother,

                                            "Mary Ullershaw."


Rupert was deeply moved by the contents of this letter. His mother was
the one being whom he really loved upon earth; and although of course
he always contemplated such a possibility in a vague fashion, the fact
that she might die at any moment, that she had indeed been very near
to death, absolutely overwhelmed him. He had never taken any leave
heretofore: first, because he shrank from returning to England and the
inevitable meeting with Lord Devene, and secondly, for the reason that
his career had moved forward so rapidly from point to point and from
place to place, that at no given time had it been convenient so to do
without the loss of some considerable opportunity.

Now he knew that in this matter he had been wrong and selfish, also
that it might be too late to repair his fault. Rupert determined then
and there that he would sail for home by the first steamer, even if he
had to resign his commission in the Egyptian Army in order to do so.
His mind made up on this point, he took up the second envelope
directed in clear and fastidious-looking writing to Lieutenant-Colonel
Ullershaw, C.B., D.S.O., etc., etc., Egyptian Army.

"Well, she has got it all in--just like Edith," he thought to himself,
as his eye fell upon this somewhat elaborate superscription. Then he
opened and read the letter.

Like all that came from her--and he received several every year, since
it seemed that Edith Bonnythorne did not wish her absent relative to
forget her--it was long, well-balanced and worded, giving the idea
that it had been carefully composed and perhaps copied. It began with
warm congratulations to her dear Cousin Rupert upon his escape from
harm in the battle of Toski, of which she said she had read the
accounts with her heart in her mouth, and on the credit that he had
won, which, she added, made her even prouder of him than she had been
before.

Then it told him all the details of his mother's illness, whereof the
issue, she said, had been awaited with the greatest anxiety, since,
for a few hours, it was thought that she must die.

Next she passed on to general news, informing him that horse-racing,
gambling debts and general extravagance had involved Dick Learmer, who
was a cousin of both of them, in such difficulties that bankruptcy
proceedings had been commenced against him. In the end, however, Lord
Devene had come to the rescue and compounded with his creditors.
Moreover, he had appointed him his private secretary, with good
pay--for he earned nothing at the Bar--and as he was a capital speaker
and popular, talked of putting him up to contest, in the Liberal
interest, that division of the county in which the Devene estates were
situated, as he disliked the sitting member, a Conservative, and
wished to oust him.

"So," added Edith, "Dick has fallen on his feet again when it seemed
all over with him. I confess that I am glad both for his own sake and
because these family scandals are very disagreeable."

Lord Devene himself, she continued, was in a dreadful state of mind
over the death of the baby boy. Indeed she could never have believed
that anything would have moved him so much. Also, his domestic
relations appeared to be very unhappy, as he and his wife constantly
quarrelled over religious questions. What was more, on the whole she
had the best of it, since his gibes and sarcasms took not the
slightest effect upon her and she seldom lost her temper. What would
be the end of it Edith could not guess, but he was growing to look
quite old and ill. The letter ended by imploring Rupert to come home
to visit his mother, whom otherwise he might not see again, and to
rest a little while after so many years of hard work. Further, it
would, she was sure, be to his interest to make the acquaintance of
the leading people in London, who were always ready to push on a
successful man with good social and professional prospects if only
they remembered that he existed.

Rupert laid this letter down by that from his mother and began to
think, for he was too tired and excited with various emotions to be
able to sleep.

He remembered the last time that he had seen Edith Bonnythorne and
Dick Learmer. It was when he was lying ill after that terrible affair
many years before. They were both of them second cousins of his own
and of each other, being, like all the rest of the family, descendants
by the male or female side of the old Ullershaw who had married a
brewer's heiress, and accumulated the vast fortune that was now in the
possession of Lord Devene. Edith was the daughter of a certain Mr.
Bonnythorne, a High-Church clergyman, who went over to Rome, into a
monastery, indeed, and died there. The wife from whom he had separated
some time before he took this step, it was said because of her
friendship with her relative, Lord Devene, of whom Mr. Bonnythorne
disapproved, was a woman of extraordinary beauty, charm, and wit, but
she also had died long ago.

Dick Learmer, the next heir to the entailed Devene wealth after Rupert
himself, though the title would not descend to him under the special
remainders of the original Patent, was the son of a Chancery barrister
of Spanish extraction, whose family, the real name of which was Lerma,
had been naturalised in England for some generations. This Mr. Learmer
had died young, leaving his wife, another of the Ullershaws, and his
son Richard well provided for, but no more. After her mother's death,
Edith Bonnythorne, who had nothing, went to live with the widowed Mrs.
Learmer, and thus it came about that she and Dick were brought up very
much together. It was said, or so Rupert had heard, that the childless
Lord Devene wished to take her into his own house, but that his first
wife, Clara, refused to receive her, which was one of the causes of
the estrangement between her and her husband.

Rupert could recall, with great distinctness, the appearance of Dick
Learmer and Edith Bonnythorne as they had stood beside his bedside all
those years ago. At that time Dick was in his twenty-second year.
First he had intended to be a doctor, but after a while gave up
medicine and began to eat his dinners for the Bar, to which profession
he now belonged. He was then a dissipated and extravagant young man,
but singularly handsome, and very popular among women. Perhaps they
admired his fine dark and rather languid eyes, shaded by long lashes,
his oval face and richly-coloured complexion, and his curling chestnut
hair, all of which he had inherited with his Spanish blood. Or his
somewhat sentimental yet passionate disposition, and the readiness of
his address may have appealed to them. At any rate, they liked him,
and his cousin, Edith Bonnythorne, then still a school-girl, was no
exception to this rule, although even at that age she knew his faults
and would lecture him upon them.

She had been a beautiful child, this Edith, with her tall figure and
light, graceful carriage, so much so that people often turned to look
at her; very regular features, delicately-arched eyebrows, a broad
forehead, upon which the rippling hair of reddish gold grew low; large
dark blue eyes, somewhat heavy-lidded; a perfectly chiselled nose and
mouth, with red lips that opened a little over the white teeth when
she smiled; small feet and hands, tapering fingers and almond-shaped
nails. Such was Edith's appearance as Rupert remembered her.

Well, he must go home; he must see all these people, which, with the
exception of his mother, was the last thing that he wished to do.
Their lives and his, which had diverged so widely, were about to cross
again, so, continuing this line of thought, he set himself to
recollect what he had heard of them of late years. After all, it was
not much, for he had never made any inquiries.

Lord Devene's second wife, whom he married within ten months of
Clara's death, was, he understood, a German of good family, who had
filled the place of companion to a dowager lady of title. He had
married her, so Rupert heard, on what he called scientific principles;
in short, because German women were supposed to be models of the
domestic virtues. But why she had married Lord Devene he had no idea,
unless it were because he was Lord Devene. The results had not been
quite satisfactory; indeed, as these letters showed, marriage on
scientific principles had, in this case, proved a dismal failure.

Of course all this was much to his own temporal advantage, but the
fact gave Rupert little joy; indeed, he would have been glad without
reservation if his cousin Devene were at that moment the father of a
flourishing family of sons. He did not want to succeed to the wealth
and title, should he live to do so; he had no liking for this kind of
inherited pomp which he had done nothing to earn, or for the life that
it would involve. With the mysterious sixth sense, which most of us
have in greater or less degree, he understood, indeed he was sure,
that these honours and riches would bring him no happiness; moreover,
for reasons that the reader can guess, he detested the very name of
Devene. Still this was the present situation, and he could only hope
that it might change.

For the rest, his cousin, the handsome, pleasure-loving,
sensuous-natured, and unprincipled Dick Learmer, of whom Edith spoke
in her letter, had so far closely followed the course which he would
have predicted for him. On his mother's death he had come into his
moderate fortune of about £1,000 a year, and dissipated it with
graceful ease. Now he was hanger-on and head bottle-washer to Lord
Devene, the worst fate, Rupert reflected, that could befall most men,
and one that was in no way improved by the prospect of becoming a
dummy member of Parliament; a puppet who must dance in whatever
fashion pleased his patron and paymaster. Rupert remembered also that
some years before he had heard talk of an engagement between Dick and
their cousin Edith. If there was ever any truth in this rumour,
evidently it had come to nothing. Probably there was some truth once,
for he remembered that even when she was still a girl Dick always
appeared to be attached to Edith, an affection which she seemed to
reciprocate. Doubtless if this surmise were correct, she had shown her
good sense by putting an end to the affair when she came to know the
man's true character.

As for Edith herself, by an arrangement, of which he did not quite
understand the details, but that seemed to be convenient to them both,
financially and otherwise, for the last five years she had been living
in his mother's house, whither she migrated on the death of Mrs.
Learmer. Although in her letters to him his mother never wrote of her
with enthusiasm, on the other hand, she never complained of her,
unless it were a complaint to say that Edith seemed dissatisfied with
her prospects and position in life, which, she added, was not
wonderful when her great beauty and considerable talents were taken
into account. How did it happen, Rupert wondered, that a person who
was said to be so lovely, and, to judge from her photographs, with
justice; so clever also, had reached her present age without marrying?
Probably it was because she had met nobody whom she cared about, and
if so, this did credit to her heart, as the breaking off of her
relations with Dick, if they ever existed, had done to her
common-sense.

Well, doubtless he would soon find out all about these matters for
himself, and--the steamer was starting. With a sigh Rupert put his
letters into his pocket and went on deck. In the east the sun rose, a
huge, golden ball, and its straight, powerful rays struck full on the
colossi seated above the door of Abu-Simbel, and penetrated in spears
of light far into the temple's mysterious and pillared depths. As they
smiled on him when first he saw them, so those solemn, stony giants
smiled on him in farewell. He wondered whether he would ever look on
them again, these hoary monuments that had stared their adieux to so
many generations of Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Persians, Saracens, and
Christian men. He did not know, and yet again that sixth sense told
him that he would. So did old Bakhita, for when a few minutes
afterwards they steamed past her hut, she stood upon the bank and
called to him:

"Farewell, Rupert Bey! farewell for a little while--till you come once
more!"

He waved his hand and watched her tall figure until a bend of the
river hid it, then, feeling drowsy at last, Rupert went into his cabin
and lay down to sleep.



                             CHAPTER III

                         THE RETURN OF RUPERT

On one very dreary day in late September, Rupert, after an absence of
nearly twelve years, again set foot on English soil. His ship was due
at Plymouth early in the morning, and, as at about ten o'clock on the
previous night he had been engaged in watching the Ushant light
blinking fiercely upon the horizon until at last it went out like a
dying lamp, he expected to land there by nine o'clock at the latest.
But although the night seemed clear enough as he smoked his pipe
before turning in and counted the lamps, green and red, of the many
vessels bearing down this ocean highway to make Ushant, and passing
some of them, within a few hundred yards of the liner; afterwards in
the mouth of the Channel the fog came down.

Like most old travellers on the sea, at the change of speed of the
engines he awoke instantly. Then the syren began its melancholy
hooting, repeated at intervals of two minutes. Rising, Rupert looked
through his open port-hole to find that they had run into a bank of
dense fog through which they must pass dead-slow for hours, screaming
their apprehensions into the white and woolly gloom, whence from time
to time they were answered by other vessels as frightened as
themselves.

Although the sun showed through it like a yellow Chinese lantern, not
till ten o'clock in the morning did that mist lift, with the result
that it was four in the afternoon when they dropped anchor in Plymouth
harbour.

Two and a half more hours were taken up in transhipping baggage,
silver bullion, and passengers to the tug, and in passing the Customs,
so that the special train did not steam out of Plymouth Station until
after sunset. Rupert, a person quite regardless of appearances, and
one to whom money was valuable, took a second-class ticket, and, as a
result, found that he had a carriage to himself. Here, in the south of
England, the evening was mild, and letting down the window he looked
out. A soft, fast-falling rain gave to the autumn ruin of the
landscape a stamp of peculiar sadness. Melancholy cattle stood at the
gates of sodden fields, leaves fell from the trees beneath puffs of
wind, women under umbrellas hurried to their cottage homes, and,
unlighted as yet by lamps, unwarmed by the glow of fires, the grey
stone farmsteads appeared deserted. To one accustomed for years to the
sun of the East, and to its solemn, starry nights, the scene seemed
desolate indeed, and its gloom sank deep into Rupert's heart.

He wished that he had not come to England. He wondered what awaited
him there, and whether his mother were alive or dead. It might well
chance that the latter was the case, for since the letter which he
received at Abu-Simbel, he had no tidings of her, and although he had
telegraphed his arrival from the steamer, of course there was no time
for him to receive an answer. He had hoped, indeed, for news at
Plymouth, and had stood twenty minutes waiting his turn at the
purser's window, only to be told that there were no letters or
telegrams for him.

At first Rupert was alarmed, then remembered that as he had neglected
to wire the name of his ship from Port Said, he could scarcely expect
to hear from his mother on board of her. Therefore, the absence of
them meant nothing. And yet he was frightened, he knew not of what,
much more frightened than ever he had been at the beginning of a
battle, or when entering on any other risky enterprise. Danger, real
danger, seemed to be nearer to him.

At Exeter Rupert bought some evening papers, the first he had seen for
years, and in reading them forgot his indefinite anxieties. So the
time went by somehow till at length, stretched out endlessly around
him, he saw the lights of the squalid suburbs of London whereof they
do but seem to accentuate the dreary sameness; a whole firmament of
fallen stars relieved here and there by the tawdry constellation of a
gin-house.

Paddington at last! Into the great, empty station runs the
double-engined train. Still although it is half-past eleven at night a
number of people are standing upon one of the platforms, that at which
it halts. These are friends and relations who have come to greet
sundry of the passengers on their return to England. There, for
instance, is a young wife, who, catching sight of her husband's face,
runs along by the carriage door heedless of the remonstrances of the
porters with whom she collides violently, until it comes to a
standstill. Then in an instant that long-divided pair are in each
other's arms again, and Rupert turns his head away so as not to spy
upon their happiness, muttering to himself: "Lucky fellow, who has
someone to care for him," and descends on to the platform, looking for
a porter to help him with his hand baggage. As it chances he has to
wait a while, since all the men available have gone to the aid of the
first-class passengers, leaving the few "seconds" to look after
themselves.

While Rupert stood thus patiently he became aware of a tall lady
wearing a long cloak who was searching the faces of the crowd.
Disappointed she began to walk past him towards another group by a
saloon carriage further down the train, and their eyes met.

"Surely," he said, starting and lifting his hat, "you must be my
cousin Edith grown up."

"Oh, Rupert, there you are!" she exclaimed, in a low, pleasant voice,
and holding out her slender hand. "Yes, of course it is I, grown up,
and old too."

"One moment," he interrupted, for her dark cloak and hat suggested to
him that she might have come to break bad tidings. "Tell me how--what
is the news of my mother?"

"She is much better and sends her love, but of course could not come
to meet you."

The anxiety left Rupert's face.

"Thank God!" he said, with a sigh of relief. "Ah! here's a porter, now
let us see about the luggage."

"I could not find you anywhere, although you are so big," said Edith,
as having secured a four-wheeled cab they followed the man to one of
the vans. "Where did you hide yourself, Rupert? I thought that you
were not on the train at all."

"Nowhere. I stood for nearly five minutes by those second-class
carriages."

"Oh! I never looked there; I did not think--" and she checked herself.

"Hi! that's one of mine," exclaimed Rupert, pointing to a battered tin
case with Lieutenant R. Ullershaw, R.A., painted on it.

"I remember that box," said Edith. "I can see it now standing in the
hall of your house with the name in beautiful, fresh, white letters. I
came to say good-bye to you, but you were out."

"You are very observant!" he said, looking at her with curiosity.
"Well, it has seen some wear since then--like its owner."

"Yes," she said demurely; "only the difference is that the wear has
much improved /you/," and she glanced at the tall, soldier-like form
before her with admiration in her eyes.

"Don't pay me compliments," Rupert replied, colouring. "I am not
accustomed to them; and if you do, I shall be obliged to return them
with interest."

"You can't," Edith answered merrily. "There is nothing of me to be
seen in this cloak."

"Except your face, which is beautiful enough," he blurted out, whereat
it was her turn to colour.

"There," he went on awkwardly, as at length the cab started, piled up
with luggage. "It was awfully kind of you to come to meet me, all
alone too, and so late. I never expected it, and I am most grateful."

"Why, Rupert, how can you suppose that I should do anything else?
Unless I had broken my leg or something, I should have been there if
it had been three in the morning. It's the greatest pleasure I have
had for a long while, and, Rupert, I--I mean we--are all /so/ proud of
you."

"Oh, please don't, Edith," he broke in. "I have done nothing more than
my duty, not very well always, and have been rewarded much above my
merits, while many better men were overlooked--perhaps because I am
supposed to have prospects. Say no more about it or we shall quarrel."

"Then I won't. I don't want to quarrel, I want to be friends with you,
for I haven't many. But you mustn't be angry if I can't help feeling
proud all the same that one among the lot of us has at last done
something worth the doing, instead of wasting his time and strength
and money in every sort of horrid dissipation, like horse-racing and
gambling."

Rupert muttered something about such occupations always leading to
trouble.

"Yes, indeed," she answered; "and you mustn't think me a prig for
speaking like that, for I am not good myself a bit. I wish I were. But
we had such a lesson lately, with that wretched Dick with whom I was
brought up like a sister, you know, and scandals in the paper, and all
that sort of thing, that I can't help feeling rather bitter, and glad
that there is one of us whose name appears in the papers in another
way."

As she spoke the light of a passing carriage-lamp fell full upon her
earnest face and wide blue eyes, and Rupert understood how pure and
beautiful they were.

Certainly had she so designed it, Edith could have found no better way
and opportunity of making an excellent first impression upon the
somewhat simple mind of her cousin Rupert.

At length the growler lumbered up to the well-remembered door of the
little house in Regent's Park that he had left so many years ago.

"Go in, Rupert, go at once," said Edith. "Your dear mother is wild to
see you. I'll pay the cab."

He hesitated a little, then muttering that it was very good of her,
gave way, and ran rather than walked up the steps and through the door
which the servant had opened at the sound of wheels, up the stairs
also, to the drawing-room on the first floor. And here at last, seated
in an invalid-chair, her stiff arms outstretched to clasp him, and
words of joy and blessing upon her pale lips, he found the beloved
mother whom he had not seen for so many years.

"Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have
seen--" she murmured presently, and broke off, for her tears choked
her.


Rupert rose from his knees by her side, and turning his head away,
said in a gruff voice that he must go to see about the luggage. So
down he went to find Edith and the two servants struggling madly with
his things which the grumpy cabman had refused to bring in.

"Leave go, Edith," he said angrily. "How can you? Why did you not call
me?"

"Because I wouldn't interrupt you," she gasped, "but oh, Rupert, do
you pack your boxes full of lead, or are all your savings in them?"

"No," he answered; "only a couple of stone steles and a large bronze
Osiris--an Egyptian god, I mean. Go away, you girls, I will see about
them to-morrow; my night things are in the bag."

They went readily enough, who desired no further acquaintance with the
Colonel's boxes, one down to the kitchen, the other upstairs with the
bag, leaving Rupert and Edith alone.

"Imagine," she said--"imagine a man who travels about with Egyptian
gods in his portmanteau instead of clothes! Well, Rupert, I have
sacrificed my best gloves on the altar of your gods," and she held up
her hand and showed the kid split right across.

"I'll give you another pair," he ejaculated, still covered with
confusion, as they passed together into the dining-room where his
supper was waiting.

"Dear me," said Edith, "this unwonted exercise has made me very hot,"
and she threw off first her long cloak, and then her hat, and stood
before him in the lamplight.

Oh, she was beautiful, beautiful! or so thought this dweller in
deserts, whose heart and mind were soft as wax with joy and
thankfulness, and who for years had scarcely spoken to English ladies.

Certainly the promise of Edith's youth had been fulfilled. The perfect
shape, so light and graceful, and yet so tall, the waving hair of rich
gold that gleamed like a crown upon her white brow, the large, deep
blue eyes, the fine-cut features, redeemed from pride by the rounded
cheeks and chin; the gliding, measured movements; all these graces
remarkable enough separately, when considered as a whole, made of
Edith a most attractive and gracious, it not an absolutely lovely
woman. Then and there her charm went home to him; although as yet he
did not know it, then and there Rupert fell in love with her, he who
had never thought of any woman in such a sense since boyhood, and what
is more, his transparent eyes told her the story.

For a few seconds they stood looking at each other; then she said:

"Would you like to speak to your mother for a few minutes while the
cook sends up the soup? Oh, you must eat it, or she will be so
disappointed, and so shall I, for we have been making it all the
afternoon."

So he went. As the door closed behind him Edith sank into a chair like
a person who is suddenly relieved from some mental strain, and her
face became very thoughtful.

"That is over," she said to herself, "and far better than I expected.
He does not care for anybody, I am sure, and--the question is--do I
like him? I don't think so, although he is handsome in his way, and a
man. There is still a wall between us as in childhood--we are
different. No, I don't think that I care for him," and she shivered a
little. "Also there is that wretched Dick to be considered now as
always. Oh, Dick, Dick! if I don't take this chance it is the third I
shall have thrown away for you. You worthless Dick, who are yet the
only man who does not make me shiver. But I am not sure. He is good;
he is distinguished; he will almost certainly be Lord Devene, and
beggars can't be choosers. Well, there is plenty of time to think, and
meanwhile I will try to make him thoroughly in love with me before he
meets other women."

Then the door opened, and the maid came in with the soup.

Such was the home-coming of Rupert Ullershaw.



                              CHAPTER IV

                       A BUSINESS CONVERSATION

Edith, who was not an early riser, breakfasted in her own room. At
half-past nine on the morning following Rupert's arrival the maid as
usual brought up her tray, a newspaper--the /Morning Post/--and three
letters. Two of these were of a sort with which she was very familiar,
unpaid millinery bills, but the third was addressed in Lord Devene's
unmistakable handwriting, that was of as hard and uncompromising an
appearance as his own face. Throwing aside the bills with a shrug of
her rounded shoulders, she opened her noble relative's epistle. It was
brief and to the point:


 "Dear Edith,--Come round after breakfast if you can. I shall be
  in till 10.45, and wish to speak to you.--Yours,

                                                      "Devene."


"Bother!" she said, as she laid it down. "I shall have to scurry
through my dressing and take a cab. Well, he must pay for it. I wonder
what he wants."

Lord Devene now lived at Grosvenor Square. Even in the minds of the
most progressive latter-day agnostics primeval superstitions are apt
to linger. Perhaps it was some sentiment of the sort which causes an
African savage to burn the hut where a death has occurred and build
himself a new one, that induced Lord Devene to sell the Portland Place
house after the tragic decease of his first wife, at far below its
value, and buy himself another, though it is fair to add that the
reason he gave for the transaction was the state of the domestic
drains. However this may have been, Lady Devene Number Two never slept
in the haunted chamber of Lady Devene Number one.

At 10.46 precisely Edith paid off her cab at the spacious steps of the
Grosvenor Square mansion.

"Is Lord Devene in?" she asked of the butler, the same quiet, dark
individual who had filled the office years ago in Portland Place.

"Yes, Miss Bonnythorne," he answered respectfully; "but I was just
brushing his hat," and he glanced doubtfully at the clock.

"Show me in, Talbot; he wishes to see me," she said, and Talbot bowed
in acquiescence.

Although no orders had been given to that effect, it was understood in
this establishment that what Miss Bonnythorne desired was to be done.

A few seconds later she was ushered into the long library behind the
dining-room, at the end of which Lord Devene was engaged in stamping a
letter on a beautiful buhl writing-table near the window.

"Ah! my dear Edith," he said, in his hard, clear voice, as she glided
slowly towards him, "you are only just in time. Another half-minute
and I should have been gone."

"Half a minute is as good as a century," she answered. "Lots of things
can happen in half a minute, Cousin George. One might die in it, for
instance."

"Yes," he replied, "or be born, which is worse, or commit a murder, or
engage oneself to be married, or as you justly remark, do lots of
things. Life is made up of half-minutes, isn't it--most of them very
bad ones," and he looked at her and smiled that peculiar smile of his
which never seemed to get away from the region of his mouth.
Pleasant-natured people generally smile with their eyes, others of a
different character from their lips alone, like a dog, which is apt to
give a sarcastic air to that variable and modified expression of
inward satisfaction.

Lord Devene had changed a good deal since last we met him. Then he was
sandy-coloured, now he had become grey; indeed his peaked beard was
quite white. The wrinkles upon his face also had deepened very much,
and even in that not over-lighted room black crow's-feet were visible
beneath his quick, restless eyes. Advancing age had laid its hand upon
him although he was barely sixty-tree. Also, he had lost something of
his old defiant air; his iron will and resolution seemed to have
weakened beneath the attacks of circumstance. He hesitated sometimes
and looked at the other side of an argument; he was less sure of his
deduced facts, less resolute in their application to his private
affairs.

"You look tired," said Edith, as he came forward and kissed her cool,
pink cheek.

"Tired!" he exclaimed, with something like a groan and sinking into a
chair. "Would you not be tired if you had scarcely closed your eyes
for three nights? Edith, I can't sleep, and I don't know what is to be
the end of it, I don't indeed."

She threw an anxious glance at him, for these two, notwithstanding the
difference of their age and sex, were bound together by strong ties of
sympathy, and she was really grieved that he should be ill.

"I am so sorry," she said, in a gentle voice. "Insomnia is a terrible
nuisance, but don't trouble yourself too much about it, the fit will
pass off."

"Yes," he answered grimly, "it will pass off, because I shall take
drugs this evening. I always do the fourth night, though I hate them."

"Those stuffs sometimes lead to accidents, Cousin George," replied
Edith, pretending to be absorbed in tracing the flowers of the carpet
with the point of her umbrella, but really watching his weary face
from beneath her long eyelashes.

"Yes, they sometimes lead to accidents," he repeated after her, "as I
have good reason to know. But after all, accidents are not always
undesirable. I daresay that life still seems a very pleasant thing to
you, Edith, yet others may think differently."

"You ought not to, Cousin George, with your position and wealth."

"I am old enough to know, Edith, that position and wealth, which you
rate so highly, do not necessarily spell happiness, or even content.
After all, what am I? A rich peer at whose name old women and
clergymen turn up their eyes, they don't quite know why, and whom men
are afraid of because I can say sharp things--just one of the very
common crowd of rich peers, no more. Then for my private life. Nothing
interests me now; like the Roman Emperor I can't find a new
excitement, even horse-racing and high stakes bore me. And at home,
you know what it is. Well, I am not the first man who has bought a cow
and found that she can butt--and bellow."

Edith smiled, for the vigour of the allusion tickled her.

"You know my one hope," he went on, almost with passion, "or if you
don't, you are old enough and have brains enough to understand. I
wanted sons sprung from a quiet, solid stock, sons who could make some
use of all this trash of titles and of riches which it is too late for
me to do myself; men who would bear an honourable name and do
honourable deeds, not fritter away their youth in pleasures as I did,
or in what I took for pleasures, their manhood in the pursuit of idle
philosophies that lead nowhere, and the accumulation of useless cash,
and their old age in regrets and apprehensions. I wanted sons, it was
my one ambition, but--" and he waved his hand through the empty
air--"where are my sons?"

Now Edith knew Lord Devene to be a hard man where his interests were
concerned, wicked even, as the word is generally understood, as for
instance, Mrs. Ullershaw would understand it. Thus he would gibe at
morality and all established ideas, and of every form of religion make
an open mock. Yet at this moment there was something so pathetic, so
tragic even, about his aspect and attitude, that her heart, none of
the softest, ached for him. It was evident to her that his cold,
calculated system of life had utterly broken down, that he was
exceedingly unhappy--in fact, a complete failure; that although, as he
had so often demonstrated, there exists nothing in the world beyond
the outward and visible, of which our brain and bodies are a part, yet
strong as he was that nothing had been too much for him. He was
conquered by a shadow, and in its effects at least that shadow seemed
very like the real and solid thing which some folk call Fate, and
others the Hand of God. The idea disturbed Edith, it was unpleasant,
as sickness and the thought of death are unpleasant. Therefore, after
the fashion of her nature, she fled from it, and to turn the subject
put the first question that came into her mind:

"How is Tabitha to-day?"

Instantly all pathos, with the touch of dignity that was bred of it,
left him and he began to sneer.

"Thank you; that noble and exalted haus-frau appears to be very well.
Having paid her morning visit to the kitchen and scolded the cook for
extravagance until, I regret to say, she gave notice, she is now
seated in her dressing-gown reading a holy German work upon
predestination, from which she has been so good as to translate to me
some passages that appeared to her to bear directly upon my spiritual
future. But I didn't send for you to talk about my wife and her
grotesque views. Rupert Ullershaw is back, is he not?"

She nodded.

"Tell me about him. What is he like?"

"Tall, strong, handsome in a kind of way, except for his untidy hair
and the lines upon his brow, which made him look as though he had been
trying to solve an acrostic for ten years, old looking for his age,
awkward in his manner and slow of speech."

"A good portrait," he said approvingly, "of the outside. Now for the
in."

Edith rubbed her forehead, as was her manner when deliberating.

"That's hard," she answered; "for how can one describe what one
doesn't understand? But I'll try to get him into my mind as I see him.
I think--well, I think that he is very much the sort of man you said
just now you would like your sons to be, if you had any."

Lord Devene started as though something had pricked him.

"I beg pardon," Edith added hurriedly. "I mean that he is thoroughly
industrious, conscientious, religious, and all the other good 'ouses.'
Would you believe it? After he had gone to bed last night, he came
downstairs in an old ulster and undid a great box with a rope round it
in order to get a Bible out. I heard the noise, and thinking one of
the servants must be ill, or something, went to see what was the
matter. There at 2.30 a.m. I met him on the stairs in that costume,
and a queer couple we must have looked. I asked him what on earth he
was doing with the luggage. Thereon he calmly explained that by
mistake he put his Bible into the trunk he had in his cabin, and that
as he did not like to disturb me to borrow one at that time of night
he had to go to find it, and he showed me a large, frayed book which
had been rebound, by himself he remarked, with a deer's skin. He added
gravely that it was his custom always to read a portion of the
Scriptures--that's what he said--before going to bed, that he hadn't
missed doing so for years and wasn't going to now. I answered that was
what I called true religion, and we parted. I didn't tell him how glad
I was that he hadn't knocked me up and asked for a Bible, for upon my
word, I don't know where I should have found one."

Lord Devene laughed heartily, for Edith's description of the scene
tickled his sense of humour.

"Why," he said, "he ought to have married Tabitha, there would have
been a pair of them. I expect they will get on capitally together,
as--" and he checked himself, then added: "What an uncommonly queer
fish he must be, though he wasn't always such a model youth. Well,
whether because of the Bible or in spite of it, Master Rupert has done
very well. He is a man with a career before him; there is no doubt of
that--a career, and in all probability," and he sighed, "other things,
for no one can do without sleep for ever."

She nodded her head again, but said nothing, seeing that there was
more to come.

"Is this military saint married by any chance?" he asked.

"Oh, no! certainly not."

"Or engaged?"

"Not in the least, I imagine. I should say that he has scarcely spoken
to a woman for years. He seems so--so--"

"Is innocent the word you were looking for? Well, so much the better.
Look here, Edith, you've got to marry him."

She made a droll little face and answered:

"This is very sudden--isn't that the right thing to say? But might I
ask why?"

"For two reasons. Because it is to your interest, and, a better one
still, because I wish it."

"Let me see," said Edith. "What are you and I to each other? Second
cousins once removed, I think?"

"Yes; second cousins once removed, and more--friends," he answered,
with slow emphasis.

"Well, has a second cousin once removed and a friend the right to tell
a woman whom she must marry?"

"Certainly, under the circumstances. This fellow will probably be my
heir; I must face that fact, for Tabitha will scarcely get over those
habits of hers now--at any rate, the doctors don't think so. So I wish
him to marry someone for whom I have affection, especially as I expect
that notwithstanding his religious tomfooleries, etc., he is the sort
of man who makes a good husband."

"And supposing the doctors are wrong about Tabitha?" asked Edith
calmly, for these two did not shrink from plain speaking.

"If so, you must still be provided for, and, my dear Edith, allow me
to remark that you are not quite a chicken, and, for some cause or
other, have not provided for yourself so far."

"I don't think I should live in any great luxury on Rupert's pay," she
suggested, "even if he were willing to share it with me."

"Perhaps not; but on the day of your wedding with him I pay to the
account of your trustees £25,000, and there may be more, whatever
happens--when I get to sleep at last."

"That is very kind and generous of you, Cousin George," she answered,
with sincerity, "and I'm sure I don't know why you should do it--for a
second cousin once removed. But why on my wedding-day with Rupert
particularly?"

"I have told you, because I wish it, and why not with him? Do you
dislike the man?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "I have not fallen in love; I am not given
that way."

He looked her straight in the eyes.

"No," he answered, "because you have always been 'in love,' as you
call it, with that rascal Dick. Now, don't trouble to fence with me,
for I know. Dick can be communicative at times--after dinner."

Edith did not try to fence, only she said, with some bitterness and
colouring a little:

"Then that's the worst thing I have heard about him yet, which is
saying a good deal."

"Yes; never trust a man who brags of his conquests. Listen, Edith! I
help Dick because he amuses me, and is useful. That's why I am going
to make him a member of Parliament. Now I can't prevent your marrying
him, if you like, and are fool enough, which to me is inconceivable.
But if you do, out goes Dick, and there will be no £25,000 paid to
your trustees."

"That's rather hard, isn't it, Cousin George?"

"No; it is merciful. Edith, I will not allow you to marry that
worthless, unstable scamp of a fellow if I can help it, and for your
own sake, because I am fond of you."

"I never said I wanted to marry him."

"No; but because of him you don't want to marry anybody else, which
comes to much the same thing, so far as your future is concerned."

She thought a little while, rubbing her forehead as before, then
replied:

"Well, all of this is very clear and outspoken, but I suppose that you
don't expect an answer at once. Remember that Rupert himself may have
views. He is quite the sort of man who will not marry at all, on
principle. Also, you only have my account to go on, you have not seen
him yet since he was a boy. When you have, you may cease to think this
proposed--arrangement--desirable."

"Quite true," he answered. "You have a very logical mind. Bring him to
dinner here to-night, and we will talk the matter over again in a few
days' time."

Edith rose to go, but he stopped her.

"How is your banking account?" he asked.

"For all practical purposes I believe it has ceased to exist," she
answered gravely, for the matter was one which really troubled her.

He smiled, and taking his book from a drawer, filled in a cheque.

"There," he said; "that may help to keep the wolf from the door for a
little while, and I daresay you want some dresses."

Edith looked at the cheque; it was for £250.

"You really are very kind to me," she said, "and whoever may dislike
you, I don't. I love you."

"Me or the money?" he asked, lifting his eyebrows.

"You, you," she answered, then kissed him and went away.

"I think," reflected Lord Devene to himself, as the door closed behind
her, "this is almost the first time for over twenty years I ever heard
anybody say that to me who meant it. She must marry Rupert; it is her
great chance in life, and hasn't she as much right to these good
things as that pious bear."



                              CHAPTER V

                           THE DINNER-PARTY

When Edith reached home it was to find that Rupert had been engaged
all the morning in unpacking his baggage. Now he had just set up the
two steles, which, it may be explained for the benefit of the
uninitiated, are sepulchral tablets whereon the old Egyptians
inscribed the records of their lives, or sometimes prayers. They were
massive articles, as Edith had discovered on the previous night, most
suitable to their original purpose in a tomb, but somewhat out of
place in a very small London drawing-room, perched respectively on a
piano and the top-shelf of a Chippendale bookcase.

"Don't they look well, mother?" he was saying.

"Yes, dear, yes," answered Mrs. Ullershaw doubtfully; "but perhaps a
little solid and time-worn."

"Time-worn! I should think they are," he answered. "One of them is
about four, and the other three thousand years old, but the more
recent--no, not that of the man and his wife seated side by side--the
other, is much the more valuable. It comes from Tel-el-Amarna, which,
as of course you know, was the city built by the heretic king,
Khuen-Aten, and was put up in the tomb of one of the royal princesses.
Look at her picture on the top, with the globe of the sun above, and
from it the rays ending in hands all stretched out in blessing over
her. I'll translate it to you, if you like."

At this moment there was a most ominous crack, whereon Edith, who had
entered unobserved, remarked mildly:

"If I were you, Rupert, I should put it on the floor first, for that--
Ah! I thought so!"

As she spoke, the poor top-shelf buckled and broke, and down came the
monument with a crash. Rupert sprang at it, dumb with fear, lifting it
in his strong arms as though it were a toy.

"Thank Heaven!" he ejaculated, "it isn't injured."

"No," said Edith; "but the bookcase is."

Then he set to work to find another place for it, this time, at his
mother's suggestion, on the ground. There remained, however, the
Osiris, a really magnificent bronze, between two and three feet in
height, which could not possibly be accommodated.

"I know," said Rupert, and shouldering the god, he marched it off
downstairs.

"Do you think, Cousin Mary," asked Edith, as she watched him depart
with this relic of the past, "that Rupert could be persuaded to remove
those two shabby tombstones also?"

Mrs. Ullershaw shook her head.

"No. Please don't mention it, dear. He has set his heart on having
them here, and says he has been thinking how nice they would look in
this room for years. Besides, he would only take them into the
dining-room."

"Then let them stay," answered Edith decidedly. "I can't eat my dinner
before those memorials of the dead. I suppose he has not brought a
mummy too."

"It seems that he had one, dear, but was obliged to leave it behind,
because they would not have it on board the ship unless he would pay
for it at what he calls 'corpse-rate.'"

"There is always something to be thankful for," said Edith, as she
went to take off her hat.

When, however, she came down to luncheon, and found the great bronze
Osiris standing among the plates on the sideboard, her sense of
gratitude was lessened, but as Rupert was delighted with the effect,
she made no comment.

Whilst they were at their meal a note arrived for Rupert, whose brow
puckered at the sight of the handwriting which he remembered well
enough.

"Who is it from, dear?" asked Mrs. Ullershaw, when he had read it.

"Lord Devene," he answered shortly. "He wants Edith and myself to dine
this evening, and says that he has got the Under-Secretary for War,
Lord Southwick, to meet me. Of course I can't go and leave you alone
the first night I am at home. I'll write and say so."

"Let me see the note first, dear. Edith, you read it; I have not got
my spectacles."

So she read:


 "Dear Rupert,--Welcome home, and, my dear fellow, a hundred
  congratulations! You have done splendidly. I hear your praises on
  all sides, and I am very proud of you. But I want to tell you all
  this in person. Come and dine to-night with Edith at eight. I have
  just met Southwick, the Under-Secretary for War, at the club, and
  he is most anxious to have a private talk with you before you
  report yourself, so he has put off something or other in order to
  meet you. I took the liberty of saying that he was sure to do
  this, as I knew that you could not as yet have made any
  engagements.--Your affectionate cousin,

                                                      "Devene."


"I think that you must go, dear," said his mother.

"But I don't wish to," Rupert answered, with energy. "I hate
dinner-parties."

"Dear, sooner or later you will have to, so why not now? Also Edith
would be disappointed."

"Yes, of course," said that young lady. "I want to meet Lord
Southwick. They say he is the greatest bore in London; quite a
curiosity in his own line."

Then Rupert gave way, and having sent a verbal acceptance by the
footman, for the rest of the luncheon was as solemn as the bronze
Osiris on the sideboard.

To a man like Rupert that dinner-party was indeed a terrible ordeal.
Time had scarcely softened his vivid recollection of that horror of
the past, over which he still mourned day by day with the most
heart-felt remorse. With a shuddering of the soul he remembered its
last dreadful chapter, and now almost he felt as though the book of
some new tragedy, in which he must play the leading part, was about to
be opened in the fateful company of Lord Devene. Most heartily did he
wish himself back in the society of old Bakhita, or even of the Sheik
of the Sweet Wells, in the Soudan, or in any other desolate place, so
long as it was far from Mayfair. He even regretted having come home;
but how could he refuse to do so at his mother's prayer? Well, it must
be faced; escape was impossible, so he set his teeth and prepared to
go through with the thing.

"Great Heavens, what a man!" reflected Edith to herself, glancing at
his stern countenance, as he helped her from the cab that evening.
"One might think he was going to execution, not to dinner."

The door--how grateful Rupert felt that it was a different
door--opened, and there his gratitude faded, for behind the footman
stood that identical spare, sombre-looking man who had told him of
Clara's death. He had not changed in the slightest, Rupert would have
known him a hundred yards off; and what was more, it seemed to him
that the obsequious smile with which the butler greeted him had a
special quality, that the sight of him suggested interesting memories
to the smiler. What if this man--bah! the very thought of it made him
feel cold down the back.

Edith vanished to take off her cloak, and he, who must wait for her,
was left alone with that black, smiling demon.

"Glad to see you back safe and sound, Colonel," he said, as he took
his coat.

"Wish I could say the same," grunted Rupert involuntarily.

The butler thought a little, for this cryptic sentence puzzled him;
then taking the point, as he imagined, went on:

"Ah! I daresay you feel the changes, sir--in this establishment, I
mean. Well"--and he glanced cautiously, first behind him and then at
the powdered footmen by the door--"I am sure you won't betray me, sir,
if I say that so do we. Her second ladyship, sir, isn't what her first
ladyship was," and he sighed with genuine regret, for most of the
servants had been very fond of poor Clara, who always tried to shield
them from his lordship's anger, and was generous. "Her present
ladyship, sir, preaches and drives, and makes us read tracts, sir," he
added, with peculiar bitterness, "whereas we loved her first
ladyship"--here his voice sank to a whisper--"almost as much as you
did, sir."

At this moment, to Rupert's intense relief, for really his head was
swimming beneath the horror of these confidences, the double front
doors were thrown wide, and through them walked a stiff, poker-like
man wearing an eyeglass, who, he gathered, was Lord Southwick. The
butler, whose somewhat saturnine appearance in truth covered an
excellent heart, and who really was delighted to see Rupert, if for no
other reason, because his late mistress had been so fond of him, was
obliged to step forward to take Lord Southwick's coat. At this moment,
too, Edith arrived, looking radiant in a dress of black and silver,
saying:

"Now, Rupert, I am ready."

"So am I, I am sure," he answered.

"Well, don't be reproachful, I have not been very long," and she fixed
her gaze upon his head.

"Is anything wrong with my hair?" he asked, becoming aware of it.

"I don't know until you take your hat off," she replied gently, but
wondering how long it might be since her distinguished cousin had gone
out to dinner.

Rupert snatched off the hat and thrust it into the unwilling hands of
one of the door footmen, for it was not his business to receive hats.
Then, piloted by other footmen who met them at intervals, at length
Miss Bonnythorne and Colonel Ullershaw were announced, in stentorian
tones, at the threshold of the great drawing-room.

On the further side of the apartment two men were leaning against a
marble mantel-piece, for the night was chilly, and a small fire burned
on the hearth; while at a little distance, engaged apparently in
looking straight before her, a placid, handsome-looking woman of stout
proportions, with great coils of hair wound about her head, sat upon
an Empire sofa, her hands folded upon her plain black dress, which was
unrelieved by any jewellery.

For a moment Rupert's recognition of the men was merely automatic,
since all his attention was taken up by the splendid mantel-piece that
he remembered well, and on which he seemed to see the ghost of Clara
leaning as she was wont to do. Yes; it was the same that had stood in
her boudoir, moved here as too valuable to be left in the old mansion.
He could not mistake those statues which supported the shelf above. A
mist gathered before his eyes, and when it cleared he saw Lord Devene
advancing on him with outstretched hand, nodding affectionately to
Edith as he came.

The same man, he thought, only several degrees greyer in tone, and not
quite so firm in his walk. Then, in the actual presence of his
enemy--for so he felt him to be, now as always--the courage of the
conscience-haunted Rupert returned to him, and he determined to play
his part to the best of his ability.

As he approached, Lord Devene was thinking to himself: "Edith summed
him up very well, as usual--a bear, but a fine, right-minded bear who
has learnt his lesson once and for all. It is written on his face."
Then he said in the most hearty fashion that he was able to command,
though no affectation of cordiality could altogether deaden the brassy
ring of that well-remembered voice:

"Ah! here you are, punctual as a soldier should be, and very welcome,
I can tell you, my dear Rupert. I am delighted to see you back safe
and sound, and bringing your sheaves with you in the shape of all
sorts of honours," and taking Rupert's great, sunburnt palm in his dry
hand, he shook it, adding: "Why, what a big fellow you have become in
every sense of the word. Don't ask me to mount you this season."

"Thank you," said Rupert simply, then fixing on the allusion to his
personal appearance as easiest to deal with, went on, "Afraid one is
apt to grow stout in Egypt. Can't get enough exercise, too much sun
there. How are you?"

Then he stopped, for another voice, also well-remembered, was
addressing him, and he turned to see his cousin Dick. Undoubtedly,
even at that moment he noticed it, for by constitution and training
Rupert was observant, Dick was a very handsome man. The dark and
languid eyes looked a little tired, it was true, and the oval face had
lost some of its colour. Still, it and the graceful, shapely form
remained attractive to behold--at least, so thought many women.

"How do you do, my hero of a hundred fights?" said Dick, in the
drawling, rather sarcastic voice which had always irritated his cousin
as a boy, and still irritated him to-day.

"Very well, thank you, Dick," answered Rupert; "but I'm not a hero,
and I have not been in a hundred fights."

"It's near enough," said Dick, shaking his hand in a somewhat weary
fashion. "A man is what people choose to think of him, the exact facts
don't matter. We have called you the family hero for years, and as our
records reveal no other, of course we make the most of you."

"Then please stop calling me so now, there's a good fellow, for I
don't like it. I am only a very ordinary officer in the Egyptian
army."

"The great were ever modest," answered the exasperating Dick. "Why--"
and he fixed his eyes upon his cousin's rather seedy dress-coat, "I
hoped that you would come with all your orders on. Well, we'll get you
to a public dinner where you will have to wear them."

"Stop talking nonsense, Dick," said Edith sharply, for she saw that
Rupert was beginning to grow angry, and feared lest his cousin's
jealous chaff should produce some explosion. "Here are Lord Southwick
and the other people at last. Come, Rupert; I want to introduce you to
Lady Devene."

So Rupert was introduced to her ladyship, who, awaking from her
private meditations, held out her plump hand, looked him in the face
with her fine, china-blue eyes, and said, with a German accent:

"Ah! you are the Colonel Ullershaw of whom I hear so much, the soldier
who has been fighting bravely for the English. I am very glad to see
you. I like soldiers; my father was a soldier, but the French killed
him at Gravelotte. You are very welcome."

Rupert bowed, and as he did so felt that this lady spoke the truth,
and that her greeting was cordial and without reservation. From the
beginning he conceived a regard for this German peeress, feeling her
to be sound and honest, according to her lights. Then Lord Devene
brought up Lord Southwick and introduced him, first to his wife and
next to Rupert. After this the other guests claimed attention, and
Rupert was able to retire and employ himself in examining the pictures
until dinner was announced.

To his delight he found that Edith was given to him as a partner.

"I am glad," he said shyly, as they went together down the broad
stair. "I never hoped for such luck."

She looked at him innocently and asked: "What luck?"

"Why, having to take you down instead of one of those strangers."

"I am sure it is very nice of you to say so, Rupert, and I appreciate
it," she answered, smiling.

"Yes," said the voice of Dick behind them; "but, old fellow, you
should pay your compliments in a whisper. Sound travels up these
London staircases," and he and his partner, a pretty and piquante
heiress, laughed merrily.

"Take no notice of that impertinent Dick," said Edith as they entered
the dining-room; "it is only his way."

"I don't like his way; I never did," grumbled Rupert.

Nor, to tell the truth, did Edith, who knew well that Dick was
furiously jealous, and feared lest he should go too far and show it
openly.

At dinner Rupert found himself seated on the left of Lady Devene, who
was at the head of the table, and opposite to Lord Southwick, who had
of course taken her down. Next to Lord Southwick was the pretty
heiress, and by her Dick, who therefore sat almost opposite to Edith.
With the rest of the company we need not concern ourselves.

The dinner went on as dinners in big houses do. After he had drunk
some champagne, Dick began to flirt ostentatiously with the pretty
heiress, who appeared to be quite equal to the occasion; his object
being, as Edith was aware, to make her jealous, or at least angry.
Lady Devene, in her German accent, conversed with Lord Southwick about
cooking--a subject in which he did not seem to take the slightest
interest; while Edith drew on Rupert to tell her of the Soudan and the
military operations there in which he had shared. This subject suited
him well, and Lord Devene, watching the pair of them from the bottom
of the table, soon understood that he was talking in a manner that
compelled the respect of her intelligence, since she listened to him
intently enough.

Although Rupert did not know it, Lord Southwick began to listen also,
and having exhausted the subject of /entrées/, so did Lady Devene.

"What was that you said about the advantages of the Suakim-Berber
route, Colonel Ullershaw?" asked Lord Southwick, presently fixing his
eyeglass upon him.

Rupert repeated his remarks.

"Hum," commented Lord Southwick, "Wolseley thought otherwise."

"I did not mean to set up my opinion against that of Lord Wolseley, my
lord," answered Rupert; "it was only a private view I was expressing
to Miss Bonnythorne."

"And a very sound view too, in my judgment," said the Under-Secretary,
in the precise, official manner that rarely deserted him; "indeed,
events have proved it to be so. Moreover, Colonel Ullershaw, your
opinion is undoubtedly entitled to respect. I know it; for after
hearing that I was to meet you at dinner, I looked up your record at
the War Office and read a private memorandum, which you may remember
writing for the information of your superior officers, though perhaps
you were not aware that it was forwarded home."

Rupert coloured and muttered that he was not.

"I wish that it had been acted on," continued Lord Southwick; "but it
wasn't, and there's an end. By the way--it is rather unkind to speak
of it--but did you know, Colonel Ullershaw, that you were once
recommended for the V.C.--after Tamai where you were wounded?"

Rendered absolutely speechless, Rupert shook his head.

"Well, you were; and what's more," he went on, with a twinkle in his
eye, "you would have got it if your name hadn't happened to begin with
a U. You see, the persons recommended of about equal merit or interest
were put down alphabetically; and as there were only a certain number
of crosses to be given, a fellow whose name begins with T got one and
you didn't. It wasn't my system, I may add, but as the man who was
responsible for it is dead, and many things have happened since then,
I don't mind telling the story."

"I am very glad," blurted out Rupert; "I never did anything to deserve
the V.C."

Now this noble Under-Secretary who had been an official all his
life--for he succeeded to his peerage in an accidental fashion--who
looked like a ramrod, and who was reputed to be such a bore, was yet a
man with a kind heart, an appreciation of worth and a sense of
justice. Perhaps it was these qualities, or some of them, which caused
him to answer:

"Well, you know best, and if so, it shows that the alphabetical system
works better than might have been expected. But now give me your
opinion, and you too, Lady Devene, on this case. An officer posted a
picket outside a square. The square was attacked, picket cut off.
Result of the attack indecisive, enemy being in possession of the bush
about the square. Officer who posted the picket rather badly hurt by a
spear through the shoulder--"

"I beg you," broke in Rupert; but Lord Southwick went on
imperturbably:

"A wounded man crept into the square at night saying that he had
survived the massacre of the picket and got through the enemy, but
that the sergeant who was stabbed through the leg lay in a clump of
bush about six hundred yards away, and had not yet been discovered by
the Arabs, who occupied a donga in great force between the camp and
the said clump of bush. It being impracticable to send a rescue party,
the wounded officer dresses himself up in the jibba and turban of a
dead Arab, and thus disguised, gets through the donga, finds the
wounded man, and a storm coming on, contrives somehow or other to
lead, or rather to carry him back to camp, doing the last hundred
yards under a heavy fire both from the Arabs and our own sentries. Now
did that officer deserve the Victoria Cross?"

"/Ach! mein Gott/, I should think so," said the phlegmatic Lady
Devene, with a force quite foreign to her nature as it was commonly
understood by her surroundings. "What was the name of that brave man?
I should like to know it."

"I forget," answered Lord Southwick, with a stony grin. "Ask Colonel
Ullershaw. He may remember the incident."

"Who was it, Rupert?" said Edith, and the whole long table listened
for the reply.

Then was the Recording Angel forced to add another to the list of
Rupert's crimes, for he lied, and boldly.

"I don't know, I am sure. Never heard of the business; but if it
happened at all, I should say that the story has been greatly
exaggerated."

A smile and a titter went round the table, and the Under-Secretary
grinned again and changed the subject.

For fully three minutes Lady Devene was lost in deep meditation. Then
suddenly, while her husband was telling some story of grouse-shooting
on a Scotch moor, from which they had just returned, she broke in in a
loud voice, thumping her heavy hand upon the table:

"/Himmel!/ I see it now. It is Lord Southwick's little joke. /You/ are
that man, Colonel Ullershaw."

Whereat the company broke into a roar of laughter, and Rupert nearly
died of shame.

                  *       *       *       *       *

The feast was over at last, and Lord Devene came into the hall to bid
his guests good-bye.

"Well," asked Edith, as he helped her with her cloak, "you have seen
him. What do you say now?"

"Excelsior!" he said. "You must climb that difficult height. You must
marry him; that is, if you can, which I very much doubt."

"Do you indeed?" answered Edith. "Almost am I minded to try--for the
sake of argument. Good-night!"

"Didn't I tell you he was a hero?" sneered Dick, as he led her to the
cab. "Poor Edith! I pity you, exposed to the fascinations of such a
warrior."

"Do you indeed," she repeated. "Well, I admit they are rather
dangerous."

Meanwhile Lord Southwick had button-holed Rupert by the front door.

"I shall expect to see you, Ullershaw, at the War Office, where I wish
to introduce you to the Secretary of State," he was saying. "Would
to-morrow at half-past twelve suit you?"

Rupert, understanding that he had received an order, answered:

"Certainly, my lord, I will be there."



                              CHAPTER VI

                         RUPERT FALLS IN LOVE

The next morning Rupert attended at the War Office, and actually was
introduced by Lord Southwick to the Secretary of State. His
conversation with the great man was not long--three minutes must have
covered it. Still, even a person of Rupert's rather unusual modesty
could scarcely fail to understand from its tone that he was looked on
with favour in high places. The Right Honourable gentleman went so far
indeed as to congratulate him upon his past services, of which he had
evidently been informed, and to hint that his future might be
brilliant. He asked him for how long he was on leave, and when he was
told six months, smiled and remarked that it was a long time for so
active a soldier to remain idle, adding:

"Now, if we wanted to send you anywhere before it expires, would you
be willing to go?"

"Certainly, sir," replied Rupert, with enthusiasm, for already he
seemed to have had almost enough of London, and for the moment forgot
about his mother, forgot also that return to duty would mean
separation from Edith, whose society he had begun to find so
agreeable.

"Very well, Colonel Ullershaw," answered the Secretary of State.
"Remember about it, Southwick, will you? All sorts of things keep
cropping up out there in Egypt and the Soudan, and Colonel Ullershaw
might be the man to deal with some of them," and he held out his hand
to show that the interview was over.

"You have made an excellent impression, I am sure," said Lord
Southwick to him in the outer room. "Only let me give you a tip. Our
chief is rather arbitrary in his ways, and expects to find the
promptness upon which he prides himself reflected in others. If he
should wish to employ you, as is quite likely, don't hesitate or ask
for time to consider, but fall in with his views at once. It will be
better for you afterwards, as if you don't, you probably will not be
asked again."

Rupert thanked him for the hint and departed, reflecting that he was
scarcely likely to hear more of the matter, especially as there were
plenty of officers in Egypt capable of carrying out any mission or
special service for which occasion might arise. He forgot that he was
already considered successful; that he was, moreover, and probably
would remain the heir to a very wealthy peerage; in short, a person
such as those in authority like to employ, since unto him that hath
shall be given.

Soon Rupert discovered that this attitude towards himself was very
general; indeed, in a small way, he became something of a lion. In
addition to his other advantages, Lord Southwick's Victoria Cross
story, of which he was known to be the hero, had got about, with
various embellishments, and excited curiosity, especially among women.
When town filled again, he was asked to public dinners, where, as Dick
had prophesied, he was obliged to wear his orders. The first two or
three he rather enjoyed, but at length there came one when, to his
horror, in the unexpected absence of some distinguished general,
suddenly he found himself obliged to return thanks for the army. In
fact, he got through it pretty well, as was testified by the cheers of
a not too critical audience, but convinced that his failure had been
complete, he went home in great trouble.

"What is the matter?" asked his mother, noting his gloomy face as he
stalked into the little drawing-room which he seemed to fill with his
uniform and decorations; and Edith added; "Why are you home so early?"

"I came away before the end," he said solemnly; "they forced me to
speak, and I made a fool of myself."

Knowing Rupert, they did not take this statement too seriously, though
Edith was somewhat relieved when, from the reports in the newspapers
next morning, and from private inquiry, she satisfied herself that he
had really done rather well.

However this might be, Rupert would go no more to public dinners,
dreading lest again he should hear that awful and inaccurate eulogium
of himself, and be once more requested to get up and give his views
upon nothing in particular. However, plenty of private entertainments
remained, and to these Edith saw that he did go, although it is true
she did not particularly enjoy exposing him to the fascinations of
various unengaged young ladies. But her cousin Devene's strict
injunction notwithstanding, Edith had as yet by no means made up her
mind to marry Rupert herself. She was thinking the matter over, very
closely, that is all, and meanwhile had fully determined that he
should marry no one else. So she was jealous of him, not for
affection's sake, but for fear lest she should be forestalled.

Of affection, indeed, she had none for Rupert; if anything, she shrank
from him personally--this big, rugged man--and his inner self she
could not understand at all. He would converse with her on Egyptology
and the art of war, and other subjects that bored her to death, not
excluding religion at times. He would be earnest and take solemn views
of things, conscientious also to an extent that was absolutely
painful, even going so far as to reprove her for trifling society
fibs. They had nothing in common--their two natures were as dissimilar
as is the babbling stream from the black and iron rock over which it
runs. Edith lived in the day for the day, to catch the sunlight, to
flee from the shadow. Rupert remembered always that the day would soon
be done, and that then must be rendered the account thereof; that the
watchword of life should be Duty and Self-effacement for the common
good, the greatest gain of man.

At present, it is true, Edith had the art to hide these abysmal
differences from his somewhat innocent eyes, although he did now and
again wonder if she were not a little shallow. She listened to his
discourses on the Pharaohs; she suffered him to draw her plans of
battles which she was apt to look at upside down; she even took an
apparent interest in his rather alarming views of human
responsibilities, and his belief in redemption that must be earned by
sacrifice. But oh! it was pain and grief to Edith, and though she was
far too clever to show it in his presence, or even in that of his
mother, when he had gone she would rise and dance about the room in
joy at her deliverance; yes, and allow Dick to seek her out and even
endure his tiresome jealousy for the mere pleasure of that congenial
fellowship. But she never allowed him any more, being too wise to
compromise herself in such a fashion.

"Oh!" Edith reflected to herself again and again, "if these things
were done in the green tree, what would be done in the dry?" If Rupert
was so insufferable even as an admirer, what would he be like when he
had assumed what she felt sure he would call the "duties and
responsibilities of matrimony," in which she would be expected to take
a daily and an ample part?

Meanwhile, her business was to make him fond of her--to persuade him
that she was absolutely charming and necessary to his existence. Nor
did Edith fail at the task. Gradually Rupert grew to adore her, till
at length, like a sudden light, there arose in his mind an
appreciation of the stupendous fact that, all unworthy as he was of
such perfections, he might dare to cherish the ambition of making her
his wife.

After all, Rupert was very human, and one who had long acknowledged
the fact that though it may be salutary for his soul's health, it is
not good for man to live alone. With that one unfortunate exception in
his early youth, he had fled from women, not because he did not like
them, who was no misogynist, but because he deemed it right. But now,
when he came to think of it, why should he not marry like other men,
and be happy in his wife's love, and leave children--he who loved
children--behind him, like other men? It was a great idea, and with
Edith at his side, it grew upon him fast, unaware, as he remained,
that the suggestion was one which emanated from the said Edith--not in
words, but in a thousand acts and glances. He began to pay solemn
court to her; he was dreadfully respectful and considerate; he blushed
if any word with a double meaning were uttered in her presence, and
when other men looked at her with admiration--and many did--he felt
furious.

He gave her gifts also. The first of them was a huge blue scarabĉus,
set in gold, which, he informed her, he had himself removed from the
breast of a body, where it had rested for three thousand years. Edith
loathed that scarabĉus, both for its associations and because it did
not match any of her dresses; also because it assured her that the day
of decision was drawing nigh. Yet she was obliged to wear it
sometimes, until she managed to let it fall upon the pavement, where
it was broken to bits, which bits she showed to Rupert, as it appeared
to him, almost with tears. He consoled her, though his heart was
wrung, for the thing was really good, and next week in triumph
produced another and a larger one!

Such were the humours of the situation; its tragedies, very real ones,
were to come!

It happened thus: Lord Devene, both for change of air and because he
hated Christmas and everything to do with it, departed, as was his
custom at that time of year, to spend a month at Naples. Thereon Lady
Devene, as was /her/ custom, migrated to Devene, the family place in
Sussex. Now although the estates here were not so very large, for most
of the Devene real property consisted of an acre or two of houses in
Shoreditch, a colliery, and the ancestral brewery, the house was
magnificent and extensive. To be there alone oppressed even Lady
Devene's phlegmatic temperament, so she asked various people who were
more or less congenial to share her solitude. More especially did she
insist that Rupert and his mother should come, for she liked them
both, particularly Rupert. This involved the asking of Edith, whom she
did not like, while Dick Learmer would be present as a matter of
course in his capacity of secretary and factotum.

Rupert did not want to accept, although the shooting was excellent and
he was fond of shooting. Even when Edith said that she should go
anyhow--for in secret she longed for the relief of a little of Dick's
society, in love as he was--he still hesitated. Then she remarked that
it would be scarcely kind of him to deprive his mother of her only
outing, since, if he stayed in London, she would stay also. So in the
end Rupert yielded, for circumstances were too much