"I should be quite willing to trust the contents of any of my letters to Colonel Darcy's care."

The Colonel had, meantime, been nervously twisting the envelope round his fingers, and Stanley caught sight of a well-known monogram composed of the initials A. R. It was the letter he had taken from Kingsland, and restored to Mr. Riddle. How came it in Belle's hands--the seal still unbroken, and why was it given to Darcy? His suspicions, so long lulled by careful artifice, were at once aroused, and he threw the Colonel a glance, the meaning of which was not lost on the woman. Suddenly, her whole manner changing, she became nervous and excitable, once more saying to Darcy:

"Now, go, Bob; go at once, for all our sakes."

He growled a surly reply, and before the Secretary was aware of his intentions, had left the room.

Stanley stood for a moment, dazed; uncertain whether to follow or remain, his breast full of conflicting emotions; bewilderment at the vast field of possibilities opened by the Colonel's receipt of the letter; rage at his cowardly imputations, and dismay at the consequences of the strong circ.u.mstantial evidence which Madame Darcy had unwittingly manufactured against him; and at the effect which the Colonel's charges might produce on Miss Fitzgerald.

He was prepared for hysterics, recriminations, stern questions, scorn, anger, and endless tears; but totally unprepared for the ringing burst of laughter which greeted him as soon as the Colonel had left the room; cold, cynical laughter, from the girl he had just asked to be his wife, who threw herself on the couch, her eyes flashing and her whole face twitching with anger or merriment, he was not certain which.

"Oh dear--oh dear!" she cried, when she could at last control her voice, "this is too funny! too dreadfully funny!"

"I don't see anything amusing about it," he said bluntly. He was angry and sore, and this ill-timed merriment irritated him.

"Don't you? Then you must have lost your sense of humour. This young man," she continued, pointing at him, as if she were exhibiting him to a crowd. "This good young man, who preaches me sermons on self-respect--who is concerned for my good name--who thinks I've been too careless of my reputation, who is cut to the heart because I do not live up to the ideal to which he considers a woman should attain, who has just done me the honour to ask my hand in marriage--not because he loves me--oh dear, no--but because he feels it his duty to save me from myself. This practical young man, who combines pleasure with duty, by conducting an _affaire du coeur_, in a neighbouring farmhouse, with my friend's wife, but whose morality is so outraged at the man who is courteous enough to permit that wife to get the divorce, that he can't bear to be in the same room with him. This superlatively excellent young man, who had almost persuaded me that I was wrong in my estimate of human nature, turns out to be the worst of the lot, a whitened sepulchre of lying and hypocrisy and deceit--or perhaps I should sum it all up and say--a model of diplomacy. Isn't it funny--isn't it cruelly, wickedly humorous? Do you wonder I laugh?"

"If you can believe this of me, Miss Fitzgerald----" began the Secretary, who had flushed, and then turned as white as a sheet.

"One story's good till another is told, my dear Jimsy; but I was wrong to have laughed. I quite understand, believe me, the painfulness of your position."

"I tell you it's not true----" he began.

"Oh, don't try to improve the situation. You can't"--she continued, rising and towering before him in the majesty of her wrath. "I'd really come to believe that there was one among the hundreds of worthless, vicious, mercenary human beings I know, who called themselves men, who was what he claimed to be; who really believed in the old fallacies of right and duty, and moral cleanliness, and lived up to them; who really kept the ten commandments in thought as well as in act, a strong rock of defence to whom I might cling in time of trouble; but he's a fraud like all the rest, and the man I made a hero turns out to be of clay!"

She paused, and the Secretary, controlling himself, replied coldly:

"After what you've said, it's of course worse than useless for me to repeat the question I asked you just before Colonel Darcy intruded his presence upon us. It had better remain unanswered."

"No," she said. "I don't think so. It needs an answer, and you shall have it--but not yet. I've been a little fool, and have been punished for my folly; but I don't know any reason why I should make you suffer.

You're only as you were made. You can't help it, I dare say."

"You surely can't think of marrying me, believing what you do."

"I don't know. While I thought you were an angel, I was afraid of you. I thought I should have to be constantly living up to you and listening to sermons;-- Thank Heavens you can never preach to me again. Even you wouldn't have the face to do it now. But since I've found out that you're only very human, I really don't know but what I might grow to love you. I'll think it over. There," she continued, "don't look so sheepish. I may decide not to take you after all, but until then consider yourself on approval. Don't say anything more, you'd only bore me. I want to be by myself and get my face straight, if I can," and crossing the room she broke out again into peals of ringing, unmusical laughter.

"This is intolerable!" he cried, but he addressed thin air,--he was alone.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE DOOR WITH THE SILVER NAILS

"ST. JAMES' CLUB, "PICCADILLY, W.

"MY DEAR STANLEY,

"I am sending this letter to you at Roberts' Hall, because I am certain that you are there.

"I can fancy you drawing a long face, and admitting to yourself that you are certainly in for a sermon from that old bore, Kent-Lauriston, but you are entirely mistaken. I shall neither expostulate with nor upbraid you, for you have done exactly what I expected you would do. Nevertheless I mean to save you from yourself, to which end I trust you are not as yet entangled, as it is less easy gracefully to break than make an engagement.

"The fact is, my dear Mr. Secretary, I do not consider you, under the present circ.u.mstances, a responsible creature. The fascinating Miss Fitzgerald has, I can well imagine, driven all other considerations into the background.

"I should probably have let you go to your fate, unchecked by any letter of mine, did I not feel that I had been morally negligent. You came to put your case in my hands, and proved so sweetly rational that, for the last time I swear, I trusted in human nature, and left you to your own devices, instead of watching your every movement until the danger was past.

"Of course I have heard the little scandal about your escapade with Colonel D----'s wife. All London is ringing with it, thanks to her husband.

"What you most want is change of scene and occupation, to distract you from your present cares. There is only one way to drown care without drowning oneself--and that is by work.

So unless I find you grinding away at the Legation to-morrow noon, I shall invite myself to be one of Mrs. Roberts'

house-party, and we shall see what may be effected even in the face of overwhelming odds. Give me a fair field and no favour, and I pledge my word to win you to yourself.

"In any event command my humble services.

"Yours as ever, "KENT-LAURISTON.

"Friday evening."

The Secretary dropped back on the comfortable divan that occupied a recess in one corner of the smoking-room, and gazed vacantly at the letter as it lay in his lap; then he gave a great sigh, and reached for a fresh cigarette. In his own estimation, matters could not be worse, but unfortunately he was not in a position to heed his friend's advice and bolt for London the first thing in the morning--indeed his recognition of Darcy's letter, the possible significance of which he was at last beginning to realise, imperatively demanded his presence and attention.

Besides, he was now accountable to others. To Belle in the first place--and to Colonel Darcy in the second. For the latter he cared not a whit. It was true that circ.u.mstantial evidence had made rather a strong case against him--but the Secretary was sure the Colonel did not really believe the charge he had preferred against his wife to be true, and that he had merely seen, in the unfortunate combination of circ.u.mstances, a chance of strengthening his own position.

But while Stanley had little concern for the Colonel's status, he felt a great deal for his own. Fate had treated him badly, very badly, and he owed it to Belle and to Madame Darcy, and to his own good name, to right himself as speedily as possible.

The figure he would cut in Madame Darcy's eyes was bad enough in all conscience. He supposed she would never speak to him again, and, for some reason which he was at a loss to explain satisfactorily to himself, this prospect made him feel uncommonly blue. He even felt no resentment against her, though her innocent rashness had been the font of all his misfortunes. Somehow it seemed an honour to be a.s.sociated with her, even to his own undoing. And that by any efforts in her behalf, he should have unwittingly injured her, nearly drove him to despair, with chagrin and regret.

But if his position in the eyes of Madame Darcy and of himself was most awkward, the position he held in Miss Fitzgerald's estimation was, he told himself again and again, simply unbearable. That it was possible for any good woman to believe--and she certainly did believe--the things that were said about him, and yet find it in her heart to even consider matrimony with such an unscrupulous cad as he must appear to her, revolted him. It was not nice; he was sure Lady Isabelle would never have done so.

Perhaps she did not care, that was worst of all; that she did not care for him, for his good name, his honour, his reputation, only for--the thought was intolerable--he started up and drank off a strong peg of whiskey; he felt that he needed a bracer. In the hopes of distracting his thoughts, he once more took up and re-read Kent-Lauriston's letter, which had arrived before dinner and lain forgotten during the excitement of the evening; and which he had found waiting to greet him, when, at the close of that dreadful interview, he had stolen away to his room without bidding anybody good-night. He remembered that he had hesitated to open it, knowing as he did that it contained a remonstrance against committing a folly, which he had already committed. He had determined to read it calmly, but it awakened within him a scathing self-examination most unsettling in its result.

He recognised it as the dictum of an astute man of the world, a "_connoisseur des grandes pa.s.sions_" one who knew the symptoms with unfailing accuracy. In short, the Secretary did not for a moment doubt the truth of what his friend had written; but he was equally certain that it did not apply to his own case.

Miss Fitzgerald had by no means driven all other thoughts from his mind.

Indeed, he realised that she had, during the last few days, held a relatively small place in his thoughts. He was not miserable when he was absent from her--he had enjoyed his talk with Madame Darcy and his walk with Lady Isabelle immensely. He had not even decided that he should ask Belle to marry him till the eleventh hour, and was not that decision due, after all, to the pity which, we are told, is akin to love, but which by itself forms such an unsatisfactory subst.i.tute? Would his friend have any trouble in winning him to himself, as he expressed it?

Was he supremely happy? Was he not rather, in his heart of hearts, wishing himself well out of the whole affair? The words of Madame Darcy came back to him, doubly enforced by these contradictory data.

"You do not love her. Love is blind. Love does not reason."

Had it come to this, then--was he such a weak fool that he did not know his own mind; that he had proposed to a woman who existed only in his imagination; who so little resembled the real one that he had no wish to a.s.similate the two; that he was already regretting the step before it was half taken? What hope did that hold out for a happy future? He was thoroughly disgusted with himself. In a fit of mortified rage, he crumpled up the letter in his hand, and threw himself down among the cushions of the divan. As he lay there Kingsland entered the room.

"Why," he said, "I thought you had retired."

This was, indeed, the truth, but the restlessness induced by Kent-Lauriston's note had made the confinement of his chamber seem intolerable, and a rapid survey of the rooms downstairs a.s.sured him that the Dowager and Miss Fitzgerald were in full possession; a combination which, under the circ.u.mstances, he did not care to face. These facts, however, were hardly to be adduced to a third party, and the Secretary, turning to the resources of diplomacy, reminded the Lieutenant that they had had an appointment for a game of pool, which one of them, at least, had not seen fit to keep.

"Shall we have it now?" suggested Kingsland.

"No," answered Stanley. "I'm not feeling fit."