"'It is not for you I fear, Bernard, so much as him.' Tut, tut, that's simple enough," he declared. "This woman, whoever she may be, is afraid of a meeting between Sir Geoffrey Kynaston and Mr. Bernard Maddison, to give him his right name, and she remarks that it is for him she fears, and not for Sir Geoffrey. Quite right, too, considering the affectionate tone of these letters."

"Yes, I suppose that's it," Mr. Benjamin remarked in an absent tone, folding up the letter, and putting it back amongst the rest.

Mr. Levy watched him narrowly, and returned to his desk with a sense of injury. His son--his Benjamin--had discovered something which he was not going to confide to the parental ear. It was a blow.

He was wondering whether it might have the desired effect if he were to produce a sc.r.a.p of old yellow pocket handkerchief, and affect to be overcome, when they heard a hurried footstep outside. Both looked up anxiously. There was a quick knocking at the door, and a shabby-looking man dressed in black entered.

"Well, Leekson, what news?" Mr. Benjamin asked quickly.

"He's off," was the prompt reply. "Continent. Afternoon train. Waterloo, three o'clock."

Mr. Benjamin's eyes sparkled.

"I knew it!" he exclaimed triumphantly. "Job's over, Leekson. Get me a cab, and go to the office for your money."

"You're going to let him go!" cried Mr. Levy piteously.

"Not I. I'm going with him, dad. A fifty-pound note from the safe, quick."

Mr. Levy gave it to him with trembling fingers.

"Now, dad, listen to me," Benjamin said earnestly, reaching down his overcoat from the peg. "Miss Thurwell will be here some time to-day, I'm certain, to try and buy those letters. I've changed my mind about them.

Sell."

"Sell," repeated Mr. Levy, surprised. "I thought that that was what we were not to do."

"Never mind, never mind. I'm playing a better game than that now,"

continued Mr. Benjamin. "I'll leave it to you to make the bargain.

There's no one can beat you at that, you know, dad."

Mr. Levy acknowledged his son's compliment with a gratified smile.

"Well, well, Benjamin, we'll say nothing about that. I'll do my best, you may be sure," he declared fervently.

"I may as well just mention that I have ascertained how much money she has got," Mr. Benjamin went on. "She's worth, until her father dies, about fifteen thousand pounds. We won't be hard on her. Suppose we say five thousand the lowest, eh?"

"All right, Benjamin, all right," the old man murmured, rubbing his hands softly together. "Five thousand pounds! My eye! And how long shall you be away?"

"I can't quite tell, dad. Just keep your p.e.c.k.e.r up, and stick to the biz."

"Yes, Ben, yes. And of course you can't stop to tell me about it now, but won't this five thousand pounds from the young lady about put an end to this little game, eh? And, if so, need you go following this Mr.

Maddison all over the country, eh? An expensive journey, Ben. You've got that fifty-pound note, you know."

Mr. Benjamin laughed contemptuously.

"You'll never make a pile, you won't, dad," he exclaimed. "You're so plaguedly narrow minded. Listen here," he added, drawing a little closer to him, and looking round over his shoulder to be sure that no one was listening to him. "When I come back, I'll make you open your eyes. You think this thing played out, do you? Bah! The letters aren't worth twopence to us. When I come back from abroad, I'm going to commence to play this game in a manner that'll rather astonish you, and a certain other person. Ta-ta, guv'nor."

Mr. Benjamin Levy was a smart young man, but he had a narrow escape that afternoon, for as he was sauntering up and down the platform at Waterloo, whom should he see within a dozen yards of him but Mr.

Maddison and Miss Thurwell. He had just time to jump into a third-cla.s.s carriage, and spread a paper out before his face, before they were upon him.

"Jove, that was a shave!" he muttered to himself. "Blest if I thought they were as thick as that. I wonder if she's going with him. No, there's no female luggage, and that's her maid hanging about behind there. Moses, ain't she a slap-up girl, and ain't they just spooney!

D--d if he ain't kissed her!" he wound up as the train glided out of the station, leaving Helen Thurwell on the platform waving her handkerchief.

"Well, we're off. So far, so good. I feel like winning."

But, unfortunately for Mr. Benjamin, there was a third person in that train whom neither he nor Mr. Maddison knew of, who was very much interested in the latter. Had he only mentioned his name, or referred in the slightest possible way to his business abroad before Mr. Benjamin, that young gentleman would have promptly abandoned his expedition and returned to town. But, as he did not, all three traveled on together in a happy state of ignorance concerning each other; and Mr. Benjamin Levy was very near experiencing the greatest disappointment of his life.

CHAPTER XXVI

HELEN DECIDES TO GO HOME

Mr. Benjamin Levy's surmise had been an accurate one. Late in the afternoon of that day, Helen Thurwell called at the little office off the Strand, and when she left it an hour later, she had in her pocket a packet of letters, and Mr. Levy had in his safe a check and promissory note for five thousand pounds. Both were very well satisfied--Mr. Levy with his money, and Helen with the consciousness that she had saved her lover from the consequences of what she now regarded as her great folly.

She was to have dined out that evening with her aunt, but when the time to dress came, she pleaded a violent headache, and persuaded Lady Thurwell, who was a good-natured little woman, to take an excuse.

"But, my dear Helen, you don't look one bit ill," she had ventured to protest, "and the Cullhamptons are such nice people. Are you sure that you won't come?"

"If you please, aunt," she had begged, "I really do want to stay at home this evening;" and Lady Thurwell had not been able to withstand her niece's imploring tone, so she had gone alone.

Helen spent the evening as she had planned to. She took her work down into the room where they had been the night before, and where this wonderful thing had happened to her. Then she leaned back in her low chair--the same chair--and gave herself up to the luxury of thought; and when a young woman does that she is very far gone indeed. It was all so strange to her, so bewildering, that she needed time to realize it.

And as she sat there, her eyes, full of a soft dreamy light, fixed upon vacancy, and her lips parted in a happy smile, she felt a sudden longing to be back again upon the moorland cliffs round Thurwell Court, out in the open country with her thoughts. This town season with its monotonous round of gayety was nothing to her now. More than ever, in the enlarged and sweeter life which seemed opening up before her, she saw the littleness and enervating insipidity of it all. She would go down home, and take some books--the books he was fond of--and sit out on the cliffs by the sea and read and dream, and think over all he had said to her, and look forward to his coming; it should be there he would find her.

They two alone would stand together under the blue sky, and wander about in the sunshine over the blossoming moors. Would not this be better than meeting him again in a crowded London drawing-room? She knew that he would like it best.

So when Lady Thurwell returned from her party, and was sitting in her room in a very becoming dressing gown, yawning and thinking over the events of the evening, there was a little tap at the door, and Helen entered, similarly attired.

"Please tell me all about it," she begged, drawing up a chair to the fire. "My headache is quite gone."

"So I should imagine," remarked Lady Thurwell. "I never saw you look better. What have you been doing to yourself, child? You look like Aphrodite 'new bathed in Paphian wells.'"

"If you mean to insinuate that I've had a bath," laughed Helen, "I admit it. Now, tell me all about this evening."

Which of course Lady Thurwell did, and found a good deal to say about the dresses and the menu.

"By the bye," she wound up, with a curious look at her niece, "Sir Allan Beaumerville was there, and seemed a good deal disappointed at the absence of a certain young lady."

"Indeed!" answered Helen. "That was very nice of him. And now, aunt, do you know what I came in to say to you?"

Lady Thurwell shook her head.

"Haven't any idea, Helen. Has anyone been making love to you?"

Helen shook her head, but the color gathered in her cheeks, and she took up a screen, as though to protect her face from the fire.

"I want to go home, aunt. Don't look so startled, please. I heard from papa this morning, and he's not very well, and Lord Thurwell comes back to-morrow, so you won't be lonely, and I've really quite made my mind up. Town is very nice, but I like the country best."