Jackson Hyane, was banking upon answered indifferently to the name of Tibbetts or Bones.

At half-past eight that night he saw his cousin off from King's Cross.

He had engaged a sleeper for her, and acted the part of dutiful relative to the life, supplying her with ma.s.ses of literature to while away the sleepless hours of the journey.

"I feel awfully uncomfortable about going away," said the girl, in a troubled voice. "Mr. Tibbetts would say that he could spare me even if he were up to his eyes in work. And I have an uncomfortable feeling at the back of my mind that there was something I should have told him--and didn't."

"Queer bird, Tibbetts!" said the other curiously. "They call him Bones, don't they?"

"I never do," said the girl quietly; "only his friends have that privilege. He is one of the best men I have ever met."

"Sentimental, quixotic, and all that sort of thing, eh?" said Jackson, and the girl flushed.

"He has never been sentimental with me," she said, but did not deceive the student of men.

When the train had left the station, he drove straightaway to Devonshire Street. Bones was in his study, reading, or pretending to read, and the last person he expected to see that evening was Mr.

Jackson Hyane. But the welcome he gave to that most unwelcome visitor betrayed neither his distrust nor his frank dislike of the young well-groomed man in evening-dress who offered him his hand with such a gesture of good fellowship.

"Sit down, Mr.--er----" said Bones.

There was a cold, cold feeling at his heart, a sense of coming disaster, but Bones facing the real shocks and terrors of life was a different young man from the Bones who fussed and fumed over its trifles.

"I suppose you wonder why I have come to see you, Mr. Tibbetts," said Hyane, taking a cigarette from the silver box on the table. "I rather wonder why I have the nerve to see you myself. I've come on a very delicate matter."

There was a silence.

"Indeed?" said Bones a little huskily, and he knew instinctively what that delicate matter was.

"It is about Marguerite," said Mr. Hyane.

Bones inclined his head.

"You see, we have been great pals all our lives," went on Jackson Hyane, pulling steadily at the cigarette--"in fact, sweethearts."

His keen eyes never left the other's face, and he read all he wanted to know.

"I am tremendously fond of Marguerite," he went on, "and I think I am not flattering myself when I say that Marguerite is tremendously fond of me. I haven't been especially fortunate, and I have never had the money which would enable me to offer Marguerite the kind of life which a girl so delicately nurtured should have."

"Very admirable," said Bones, and his voice came to his own ears as the voice of a stranger.

"A few days ago," Mr. Hyane went on, "I was offered a tea plantation for fourteen thousand pounds. The prospects were so splendid that I went to a financier who is a friend of mine, and he undertook to provide the money, on which, of course, I agreed to pay an interest.

The whole future, which had been so black, suddenly became as bright as day. I came to Marguerite, as you saw, with the news of my good luck, and asked her if she would be my wife."

Bones said nothing; his face was a mask.

"And now I come to my difficulty, Mr. Tibbetts," said Hyane. "This afternoon Marguerite and I played upon you a little deception which I hope you will forgive."

"Certainly, certainly" mumbled Bones, and gripped the arms of his chair the tighter.

"When I took Marguerite to lunch to-day," said Hyane, "it was to be--married."

"Married!" repeated Bones dully, and Mr. Hyane nodded.

"Yes, we were married at half-past one o'clock to-day at the Marylebone Registry Office, and I was hoping that Marguerite would be able to tell you her good news herself. Perhaps"--he smiled--"it isn't as good news to her as it is to me. But this afternoon a most tragic thing happened."

He threw away his cigarette, rose, and paced the room with agitated strides. He had practised those very strides all that morning, for he left nothing to chance.

"At three o'clock this afternoon I called upon my financier friend, and discovered that, owing to heavy losses which he had incurred on the Stock Exchange, he was unable to keep his promise. I feel terrible, Mr. Tibbetts! I feel that I have induced Marguerite to marry me under false pretences. I had hoped to-morrow morning to have gone to the agents of the estate and placed in their hands the cheque for fourteen thousand pounds, and to have left by the next mail boat for India."

He sank into the chair, his head upon his hands, and Bones watched him curiously.

Presently, and after an effort, Bones found his voice.

"Does your--your--wife know?" he asked.

Jackson shook his head.

"No," he groaned, "that's the terrible thing about it. She hasn't the slightest idea. What shall I tell her? What shall I tell her?"

"It's pretty rotten, old--Mr. Hyane." Bones found his voice after a while. "Deuced rotten for the young miss--for Mrs.--for her."

He did not move from his chair, nor relax his stiff expression. He was hurt beyond his own understanding, frantically anxious to end the interview, but at a loss to find an excuse until his eyes fell upon the clock over the mantelpiece.

"Come back at ten--no, half-past ten, young Mr. ... awfully busy now ... see you at half-past ten, eh?"

Mr. Hyane made a graceful exit, and left Bones alone with the shattered fragments of great romance.

So that was why she had gone off in such a hurry, and she had not dared to tell him. But why not? He was nothing to her ... he would never see her again! The thought made him cold. Never again! Never again!

He tried to summon that business fort.i.tude of his, of which he was so proud. He wanted some support, some moral support in this moment of acute anguish. Incidentally he wanted to cry, but didn't.

She ought to have given him a week's notice, he told himself fiercely, than laughed hysterically at the thought. He considered the matter from all its aspects and every angle, and was no nearer to peace of mind when, at half-past ten to the second, Mr. Jackson Hyane returned.

But Bones had formed one definite conclusion, and had settled upon the action he intended taking. Mr. Hyane, entering the study, saw the cheque book on the desk, and was cheered. Bones had to clear his voice several times before he could articulate.

"Mr. Hyane," he said huskily, "I have been thinking matters out. I am a great admirer of yours--of your--of yours--a tremendous admirer of yours, Mr. Hyane. Anything that made her happy, old Mr. Hyane, would make me happy. You see?"

"I see," said Mr. Hyane, and he had the satisfaction of knowing that he, a student of men, had not misread his victim.

"Fourteen thousand pounds," said Bones, turning abruptly to the desk and seizing his pen. "Make it payable to you?"

"You're too kind," murmured Hyane. "Make it an open cheque, Mr.

Tibbetts--I have to pay the agents in cash. These Indian merchants are so suspicious."

Bones wrote the cheque rapidly, marked it "Pay Cash," and initialled the corrections, then tore the slip from the book and handed it to the other.

"Of course, Mr. Tibbetts," said Hyane reverentially, "I regard half this as a loan to me and half as a loan to my dear wife. We shall never forget your kindness."

"Rot!" said Bones. "Nonsense! I hope you'll be happy, and will you tell her----" He swallowed something.

There was a faint tinkle of a bell in the hall, and Ali, his servant, poked an ebony face round the corner of the door.