How all the crises of our lives come upon us unaware! How little had he guessed, that day in the Gallery, that, although he had a good chance then, it was his last! His father, in persuading him to flee temptation, had urged the probability of a future recurrence of opportunity. "She won't run away," he had said. And behold! even as he spoke, the chain of gold was being forged to bind captive the innocent girl.

Gaunt was speaking to Joey. "Great as is Virginia's beauty," Gerald heard him say, "it is the least part of her charm. It is her character which is so fine, so exceptional. She is pure gold throughout."

Young Rosenberg looked at him with a lingering gaze of hatred. Had he known in what a crucible the gold of Virginia's nature had been and was still being proved, the hate would have intensified perhaps to the point of sending his fingers to the husband's throat. This man had apparently been certain, where he was doubtful. _Was_ Virginia as fair within as without? Could she have wholly escaped the taint of her mother's ign.o.ble nature? His father had thought not. In his indecision he had let slip the treasure which another man had promptly gathered.

As they walked slowly towards the house, his mind was filled with the two ideas--first, that all was over, so far as he was concerned, and, also, that in the course of the next few hours he might possibly see her whose dove's eyes had haunted him ever since that fatal day in the valley of decision--the day when he had decided upon retreat.

Then he began by degrees to grasp what the others were speaking of. He learned that the sudden and dangerous illness of Pansy had called Virginia to London, and that Gaunt had allowed her to go without him.

Also he learned that she had suffered with a bad knee, and that her husband was anxious lest she should now be doing too much. He listened as in a dream, his mind slowly a.s.similating all these rapid happenings; and by degrees he realised that, if she were in London without Gaunt, he could easily see her, if he could ascertain her address.

The conversation soon turned to the projected lead-mine, in which Mr.

Rosenberg senior had been asked by a friend in the financial world to take a director's place. The party were to meet Mr. Rosenberg's own expert, and Ferris's, at Branterdale cavern that afternoon. Joey was coming too.

She drove their guest over in the car, Percy electing to ride with Gaunt, whom he was most anxious to propitiate. On the way, it was quite easy for Gerald to ask Joey where in London Mrs. Gaunt was staying.

"Well, I don't exactly know," said Joey. "She went up to the Langham, but directly her mother found that out, she determined that she would go there, too. I fancy the mother's a bit of a sponge, isn't she?

Anyway, Virgie thought her husband wouldn't see keeping the two of them there, so she has gone into rooms with her mother, as being less expensive, and she always writes to me from the Nursing Home in Queen Anne Street."

"So she writes to you?"

"Yes. When they first married, Mr. Gaunt hadn't got a motor, so ours came in handy. I took her about a bit. She's a perfect angel. Hard on him, poor chap! having to let her go like this, isn't it? You can see how he is fretting!"

"Is he? He looks to me an ill-conditioned brute," said Gerald shortly.

"Oh, he's quite a good sort when you know him," replied Joey kindly.

"But as a husband for her----"

"Well, why didn't you chip in?"

"One can't always follow the dictates of the heart, Mrs. Ferris. I couldn't afford to marry for love."

"Well, of course, Gaunt is much too old for her, as far as years go; but," observed Joey, with one of her flashes of intuition, "he is absurdly young in the sense of not having used up his emotions. He was jilted in his youth, so they say, and ever since has imagined that he hated women--thought himself heart-broken, and shut himself up alone until one fine day he saw her. He has all the heaped-up love of a lifetime to pour out at her feet."

"I don't doubt his sentiments. The question is, will she have any use for them?" retorted Gerald, with bitterness.

It was late when Gaunt reached Omberleigh that evening. It seemed to him as though he had been away a week, for the reason that this was the day when he usually heard from Virgie, and if she wrote in her usual punctual way, there would be a letter lying in the bag upon the hall table when he came in.

There was. He opened the bag with hands that shook so that he was afraid Hemming might notice; and when he drew out the letter, "he pounced on it, like a dog on a bone," as the servant afterwards related, "and was off with it into his study before you could count two."

The scrupulously business-like letters were little enough upon which to feed the fire of a consuming pa.s.sion. The point was that in every letter she recognised, by implication, his hold over her. Before taking any step she consulted him, she awaited his permission. In a way it was torture; she never let him forget that he had bought and paid for her.

On the other hand, since she maintained this att.i.tude, surely she would come back to him!

She never used any form of address at the beginning of her letters.

"Osbert Gaunt, Esq.," was written above, and then followed the body of the communication. She signed herself merely "Virginia," as though the second name were too horrible, or too distasteful to write. He had never seen her full signature since she became his wife. He hungered to see her written acknowledgment of her wifehood, and with this object he had set a trap for her. He wrote a cheque which would need her endors.e.m.e.nt, and sent it to her. This expedient failed, for she returned the cheque, saying she was in no need of more money; she had enough, and more than enough.

Each of her letters contained a small statement of account, carefully balanced. The first he had received was the one that pleased him best.

There was very much to tell. She had to relate her experiences--how she went first to see Pansy, and was horrified at the change in her; how she determined to act without delay, and informed the doctor over the telephone that she meant to have another opinion. He was not pleased, but was, as Dr. Danby foretold, obliged to consent. The doctors met, and differed gravely; upon which she had formally placed herself and the case in Dr. Danby's hands. Pansy was moved that day, and from the first few hours showed symptoms of relief. Then had come the difficulty with her mother. This she had solved without applying to Gaunt. She had gone to her mother's rooms in Margaret Street, found that she and Grover could both be taken in, and had moved thither accordingly. Her exact explanations made him smile and grunt, and brought a moisture to his eyes.

To this letter there had been a postscript. Under her signature these words had been scrawled, as if on impulse:

_Thank you--oh, thank you!_

He had dwelt upon those words until he had half persuaded himself that she must have perceived something of his remorse, and wished to rea.s.sure him. The following letters from her had not, however, done anything to foster this idea. He longed to write and tell her to go back to the Langham, and take her mother there, to bid her choose herself a fur motor-coat, and anything else she liked, but he restrained all these impulses. He meant her to come back, if at all, as she had departed, in the full persuasion of his cruelty and harshness, to come back because her crystal honesty would not allow her to break her promise, even to him.

With this end in view, he forced himself to write to her as curtly as possible, signing himself "O. G." merely.

The missive he now held in his hand was no exception to his wife's usual style. He read it, first with his customary feeling of disappointment and heart-hunger, then with the succeeding glow of rea.s.surance, as he reached the little account of money expended.

Somehow he could read between the lines what an effort it was to her to accept his help; it was done only because Pansy mattered so infinitely more than she did; because Pansy must not suffer merely for the reason that Virginia's pride would be hurt in the process of curing her.

What he hardly guessed was the constant vexation, of the pin-p.r.i.c.k kind, which Virginia was then enduring from her mother. Grover was a good sort, but she was neither young nor active, and she did object to being maid to two ladies. Moreover, her own mistress, Mrs. Gaunt, was the most considerate of her s.e.x, but Mrs. Mynors was "quite another pair of shoes." As usually happens in such cases, the considerate party was made the victim of the maid's ill-humour, while the inconsiderate brought her mending and renovating with smiling face and got it all done, free of charge, the while she made scornful comments upon Grover's attainments, and wondered how Virgie could stand such a woman about her for a moment.

The nursing home at which Pansy was now placed was just as expensive as the one she occupied formerly. Therefore it was surprising to Gaunt to find that, although both Virginia and her mother were now in town, not to mention Grover, instead of Mrs. Mynors alone, the total spent in a week was less than in those preceding by quite a noticeable amount.

The letter of to-day was an exception in containing a postscript. It was apparently of the least interesting description. A small item in the accounts was marked with an asterisk, and at the foot of the page Virginia had written:

_When I come back, I can explain this._

The words sent a thrill through every nerve of the man reading.

_"When I come back!"_

He leaned forward, seizing old Grim by her ears, and rubbing his hands up and down her neck in the way she loved. "When she comes back, old girl," he whispered. Then he broke off. His eye had wandered round the dreary, untidy, ill-arranged den. Was it a home to which to bring such a bride as his? Was there anything he could do to improve it?

Slowly he rose, and limped into the little sitting-room which he had called hers. There were one or two small articles of her personal possessions left about in it. He wondered whether he could have it done up by the time of her return. He distrusted his own taste profoundly.

What did girls like?

He remembered the drawing-room at Perley Hatch, which the Ferrises had recently repainted and papered. No! That was not his idea. He felt that Virginia would never like big bunches of floral decoration all over her walls.

Then he remembered the little room in which Mrs. Mynors had received him at Wayhurst. Tiny as it was, how its charm, its dainty elegance had impressed him! He closed his eyes and recalled its aspect. Ivory paint--yes, that was all right; and walls of a warm, sunny golden brown. How would that suit her? Acting on impulse he rang the bell, and said he wanted to speak to Mrs. Wells.

The housekeeper, when consulted, was delighted with the idea. It had apparently presented itself to the mind of the servants' hall long ago.

She would send down a boy at once, to telephone from Manton into Derby for a man to come over the following morning to take the order.

"The furnishing I must leave until Mrs. Gaunt returns," said Gaunt, in a depressed way. "I can see that this stuff is all wrong, but I can't see what she would put in its place."

"Oh, as to that, sir. If it's a question of what Mrs. Gaunt would like--why, I can tell you that myself, and you won't have far to seek, for we've got it all in the house at this moment," was Mrs. Wells's surprising answer.

"Got it in the house?"

"In the lumber-room, sir. Your great-aunts, the Miss Gaunts, turned all the old things into the lumber-room, after their father died, about fifty years ago, and refurnished great part of the house, so I'm told.

There's a great many things up there, and Mrs. Gaunt, when she saw them, she went into raptures over them. Said they was as old as Adam, which I could hardly believe----"She broke off abruptly, for Gaunt, her morose master, had laughed aloud, and the circ.u.mstance was startling.

"Adam's period," he hastened to apologise. "Yes, go on, please. If you showed the lumber-room to Mrs. Gaunt, why have you never mentioned it to me?"