"You think of nothing but yourself. You certainly are the most selfish fellow I ever met. You take no interest in any affairs but your own."

w.i.l.l.y made no answer. He sat stroking his moustache softly with slow crumpled hand. After a long silence, he said: "Tell me, Frank, are you really in love with my sister, or is it only imagination? I know people often think they are in love when their fancy is only a little excited. Very little will pa.s.s for being in love, but the real thing is very different from such fancies."

"I a.s.sure you I never loved any one like Maggie. Yes, I am sure I love her."

"You may be in love, I don't say you aren't; but I am sure there's no more common mistake than to fancy one's self in love because one's imagination is a bit excited. When you do fall in love, you find out your mistake."

"You think no one was ever in love but yourself. Do you remember when you took me to see her, when we heard her sing 'Love was false as he was fair, and I loved him far too well'?"

Frank knew no more of the story than that: w.i.l.l.y had loved this actress vainly. On occasions w.i.l.l.y had alluded to her, but he had never shown signs of wishing to confide.

"Yes, I remember. How I loved that woman, and what a wreck it has made of my life. I daresay you often think me dull; I can quite understand your thinking me narrow-minded, selfish, and incapable of taking interest in other people's affairs: losing her took the soul out of my life. Now nothing really amuses me--now nothing really interests me. I often think if I were to die, it would be a happy release."

"You never told me anything about it before; wouldn't she marry you?"

"I never knew her. I fell in love with her the first time I saw her, and my love swallowed up everything else. Then I wasn't wrapped up in account-books, although I was always a precise and methodical sort of chap; I was young enough then, now I am an older man than my father.

Some fellows have all the luck; everything succeeds with them, every one loves them, men and women, they get all they ask for and more, others get nothing. No matter what I tried to do, something went wrong and I was baulked. I set my heart on that girl, she was the one thing I wanted. I saw her play the same piece fifty times. I knew my pa.s.sion was hopeless, but I couldn't resist it. Had I known her I might have won her, but there were no means; I never saw her but once off the stage, and that was but a moment. I often sent her presents, sometimes jewellery, sometimes fans or flowers, anything and everything I thought she would like. I sent her a beautiful locket; I paid fifty pounds for it."

"Did she accept your presents?"

"I sent them anonymously."

"Why did you not try to make her acquaintance?"

"I knew n.o.body in the theatrical world. I was not good at making acquaintances. You might have done it. I am a timid man."

"Did you make no attempt? You might have written."

"At last I did write."

"What did you write?"

"I tried to tell her the exact truth. I told her that I had refrained from writing to her for three years. That I quite understood the folly and the presumption of the effort; but I felt now, as drowning men that clutch at straws, that I must make my condition known to her. I told her I loved her truly and honourably, that my position and fortune would have ent.i.tled me to aspire to her hand if fate had been kind enough to allow me to know her. It was a very difficult letter to write, and I just tried to make myself clear. I told her I knew no one in the theatrical world, and that waiting and hoping for some chanceto bring us together would only result in misery long drawn out; that I had some faint hope that this letter might lead her to consider that there might be an exception to the rule that a young lady should not stop to speak to a young man she didn't know. I remember I said 'when men are in deadly earnest, truth seems to shine between the lines they write. I know I am in earnest, and may say that all I hold dear and precious in life is set in the hope that this letter may not appear to you in the light of one of those foolish and wicked letters which I believe men often write to actresses, and of which I suppose you have been the recipient.' Then I said that I would be at the stage door on the following night, and that I hoped she would allow me to speak a few words to her."

"And did she?"

"I could not speak to her; I lost all courage in that moment. She walked close by me."

"You mean to say you did not speak to her after writing that letter?"

"Call me a fool, an idiot, what you will; I could not do it. I can only compare my feeling to what Livingstone says he felt when he found himself face to face with a lion. He stood staring in the lion's eyes, unable to move."

"She must have thought your letter a practical joke. I wonder what she did think."

"I wrote explaining the unfortunate circ.u.mstances as well as I could, and telling her I would come the following night."

"Did you go?"

"Yes."

"Did you speak to her?"

"Yes."

"And she wouldn't speak?"

"She pa.s.sed on with her maid, but I didn't lose hope until she married. It was always a sort of sad pleasure to go to the theatre to see her. I used to live at the Manor House for two or three months at a time, saving up my money so as to be able to make her some nice present. I wished her to remember me, although she would not speak to me. No one came to the Manor House; there was nothing to do except to read the paper and smoke my pipe. I was sick of my life, and I counted the days that would have to pa.s.s till I saw her again--only thirty more days, only nineteen days, only one more week--so I used to count, marking off each day in an almanac, until one day I read the announcement of her marriage; then I knew all hope was at an end. I went mad that night and rushed out of the house, and I should have drowned myself had I not fainted. When I came to, I was weak and delirious, and wandered along the beach, not knowing where I was going. Some fishermen brought me home. My sisters were at school at the time. I believe I was very near dying. I fainted three times one afternoon. I used to lie on the sofa and cry for hours. She married a stockbroker. I believe she didn't care for him at all. Then she died.

She was buried in Kensal Green. Whenever I am in London I go and see her grave."

"This is awfully sad."

"Yes; it ruined my life. I never had any luck. Things always went wrong with me."

"I should like to see those letters."

"I haven't got copies. I didn't keep a letter-book in those days.

Let's talk of something else. I have some news. I am going in for breeding race-horses."

"What do you mean?"

"What I say. I have calculated it all out, and I find I shall make from fifteen to twenty per cent, on my money."

"By breeding race-horses! And where are you going to breed them?"

"You know those stables on the Portslade Road where the veterinary surgeon used to live? I am going to take that place. The rent is three hundred pounds a year; there are fifty acres of pasture, and stabling for thirty horses. The dwelling-house is not a very aristocratic- looking place, but it will do for the present; when I begin to make money I shall go in for alterations. You can't do everything at once."

"You do astonish me. And where are you going to get the money to do all this? You will require at least twenty thousand pounds capital."

"More than that. You would not be able to work a place like that under twenty-five thousand pounds," w.i.l.l.y replied sententiously. "I have got about eight thousand left of my own, and I came in for a legacy of three thousand at the beginning of this year--an aunt of mine left me the money; and my father has agreed to let me have fourteen thousand on condition of my abandoning all further claim upon him. The bulk of his fortune will now be divided among my sisters. Berkins advised him to accept my offer."

"I should think so indeed; your father is worth ten thousand a year."

"No, nothing like that. His business has been going down for years past. Last year he lost heavily again; if it weren't for his investments he wouldn't be able to go on with it. The business is done for; I knew that long ago. My father and I could never agree about how the accounts should be kept. That head clerk of his is an awful duffer."

"Yes, but what are you going to do with the shop?"

"The shop was the origin of it all. If it hadn't been for the shop I dare say I never should have thought of the race-horses. My father and I could never work together. I offered to buy his surplus fruit and vegetables, and, without absolutely binding myself to deal with no one else, I had a.s.sured him of my chief custom. Naturally I expected something in return--I expected him to let me have peaches in April and strawberries in March. You cannot do this without using a good deal of heating power. I spoke to the gardener several times. Often when I went into the houses I found the pipes nearly cold. I got tired of this, and I paid a man out of my own pocket to keep the furnaces properly stoked, and--would you believe it?--my father actually raised objections--objected to my paying a man to look after his gla.s.s-houses as they should be looked after. He said he would not order in any more c.o.ke, that I'd have to get along with what there was in the garden; he said he wished the shop at the devil. I saw it was hopeless. You cannot help my father, and he won't help himself, so I threw the whole thing up."

"And when are you going to start the new scheme?"

"Immediately. One of my reasons for accepting fourteen thousand pounds down as a settlement in full was because I was beginning to fear that he might get wind of my marriage. From one or two things I have heard lately, I have reason to suspect that the secret is beginning to ooze out, and I thought it might be as well to take time by the forelock."

"And you told him? What did he say?"

"What people usually say when they criticise other people's lives without knowing anything of their temptations and sufferings. But I want to tell you about my scheme. I have bought Blue Mantle, the winner of the Czarewitch, and only beaten by a length for the Cambridgeshire, a three-year-old, with eight stone on his back; a most unlucky horse--if he had been in the Leger or Derby he would have won one or both. He broke down when he was four years old. By King Tom out of Merry Agnes, by Newminster out of Molly Bawn."

"I didn't know you knew so much about racing."