CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

THE BLOW.

Purcell Sandys was seated at his writing-table in his fine s.p.a.cious library in Park Lane engrossed in the intricacies of some formidable-looking accounts.

Hughes, the grave-faced old butler, opened the door softly, and asked:

"Shall you be wanting anything more to-night, sir?"

His master raised his head wearily, and Hughes at once noticed how very pale and changed he seemed.

"No, nothing, Hughes," he replied in an unusual voice. "But leave word that when Miss Elma comes in I wish to see her here at once. She's at Lady Whitchurch's dance, but she ought to be back very soon."

"Yes, sir," answered the old servant. "But--excuse me, sir, you don't look very well. Can't I get you something? A little brandy--perhaps?"

"Well, yes, Hughes. Just a liqueur-gla.s.s full," was his master's reply; and then he turned again to his accounts.

Hughes, a moment later, placed the thin little Venetian liqueur-gla.s.s upon a silver salver at his elbow, and retired noiselessly.

Mr Sandys had not heard him. He was far too engrossed in his work of examination of the accounts and three bankers' pa.s.s-books.

Now and then he drew long breaths and snapped his fingers in fierce impatience.

"To think of this! Only to think of it!" escaped his pale, thin lips.

Then he rose, and with his hand on the edge of the table he slowly surveyed his room.

"And I trusted Hornton! He was so sound that I would have entrusted to him Elma's life and future. And she is all I have in the world. And he's let me down!"

He reseated himself at the table, and, taking up a telegram, re-read it, as he had done a dozen times before.

It was dated from Stowmarket, and said:

"Much regret to tell you that poor Charles has been found dead. Very distressed.--Lady Hornton."

His partner was dead! Upon his table lay a letter he had received by the last post that evening. A letter of apology it was. On the previous night at eight o'clock the two partners had met alone in Lombard Street, and Sir Charles had confessed that he had been gambling heavily in Paris, at Deauville, at Aix, at Madeira, at the Jockey Club, at Buenos Ayres, as well as at a private gambling-h.e.l.l called Evans' in West Kensington, and that the result had been that he had lost everything. He could not face the music.

So he had made his bow to the world and ended his life. Purcell Sandys was left to bear the brunt of the whole of the gigantic liabilities of them both!

The great financier left the little gla.s.s of brandy untouched. He was never addicted to spirits. A man of strong and outstanding personality, he had studied, as so many of our greatest Englishmen have done, the practically unknown philosophy of Yogi--that science of "I am"--of the "Great Ego," which by our modern world is so little understood.

Purcell Sandys, at that moment when he knew that ruin had befallen him, stood erect, and presently a curious smile crossed his lips. He had studied the old Indian science of "Raja Yogi" thoroughly and well. He knew the nature of Real Self, as every strong man does. He knew the power of the Will, which power underlies the entire teachings of Raja Yogi, and he was master of his Real Self. The great strong men through all the ages have studied the Yogi science perhaps unconsciously. Even as Purcell Sandys stood there, a ruined man in that millionaire's palace in Park Lane, he spoke aloud and repeated the mantrams or affirmations of the candidates presenting themselves to the Yogi masters for their first lesson.

"I am a Centre," he said in a low, distinct voice. "Around me revolves the world. `I' am a Centre of Influence and Power. `I' am a Centre of Thought and Consciousness. `I' am independent of the Body. `I' am Immortal and cannot be destroyed. `I' am Invincible and cannot be injured. Mastery is with me."

Then he returned to his chair and fell to studying and adding up his liabilities. They were colossal. He had known that Hornton was very fond of games of chance and often played for high stakes at a certain gaming-club in Paris, but he had never dreamed he was gambling away the firm's securities. The blow had staggered him, for it had brought him in a day from luxury to ruin. The financial operations they had in progress throughout the world were now simply bubbles. There was nothing behind them. The Paris house had been depleted, and yet so high was the standing of the firm that n.o.body had expected such a crisis.

The failure would inevitably bring down with it other smaller houses, and hundreds of small investors, war widows, clergymen, artisans, and people who earned weekly wages, both in England and in France, would lose their all.

He bit his lip to the blood. An hour before he had spoken on the telephone to Lady Hornton, but the line was very bad to Stowmarket, and he could scarcely hear her. But he understood her to say that her husband, who had been out motoring in the morning, had lunched and then, as usual, gone to his room to have a nap. But when his man went to call him at half-past five he found him dead.

Such news was, indeed, calculated to upset any man. But Purcell Sandys, on account of his Yogi knowledge, knew of his own subconscious mentality. He relaxed every muscle, he took the tension from every nerve, threw aside all mental strain, and waited for a few moments.

Then he placed his position firmly and fixedly before his mental vision by means of concentration. Afterwards he murmured to his subconscious mentality--which all of us possess if we know how to use it aright:

"I wish my position to be thoroughly a.n.a.lysed, arranged, cla.s.sified, and directed, and the result handed back to me. Attend to this?"

Thus the ruined financier spoke to his subconscious mentality just as though it were a separate ent.i.ty which had been employed to do the work.

Confident expectation was, he knew, an important part of the process, and that the degree of success depended upon the degree of his confident expectation. He was not a slave to the subconscious, but its master.

Returning again to his table, he sat for a long time pondering until suddenly the door opened and Elma burst in, bright and radiant in a filmy dance frock of emerald with shoes and stockings to match. In her hair she wore a large golden b.u.t.terfly, and in her hand she carried her long gloves.

"Do you want to see me, dad?" she asked. "I know I'm rather late, but I've had such a topping time. Only one thing spoiled it. That Mr Rutherford was there and pestered me to dance with him."

Her father was silent for a few seconds. Mention of the name of Rutherford caused him to reflect.

"Yes, dear, I want to see you. Sit down for a moment. I have something to tell you."

"You look very anxious, dad," exclaimed the girl. "Why, what's the matter?"

"A very serious one, my dear--most serious. A heavy blow has fallen upon me. Sir Charles has killed himself!"

"What?" gasped the girl, rising from her chair.

"Yes, and, moreover, before doing so he ruined us both by gambling.

Elma, I cannot conceal the bitter truth from you, dear. I am ruined!"

The girl was too astounded to utter a word. Her countenance had blanched.

"But, dad!" she cried at last. "You can't mean that you are actually ruined--you, the rich man that you are."

"I thought I was until last night," he replied huskily. "I have enemies, as well as friends. What man has not? The truth cannot be concealed from them very long, and then they will exult over my ruin,"

he remarked very gravely.

"But, dad, what are we to do? Surely Sir Charles hasn't actually ruined you?"

"Unfortunately he has, my child. I trusted him, but the curse of gambling was in his blood and he flung away my money as well as his own.

But he is dead--he has paid the penalty of his folly, and left me to face our creditors."

"And the future, dad?" asked the young girl, gazing aimlessly about her and not yet realising what ruin meant.

Purcell Sandys, the man whose credit was at that moment so high in Lombard Street--for the truth was not yet out--sighed and shook his head.

"I must face the music, my dear," he said. "Face defeat, as others have done. Napoleon was compelled to bow to the inevitable; I must do so.

Farncombe must be sold, and this house also. I must realise as much as possible to pay my creditors. But I cannot pay them all even though I sell everything."

"And then?" asked his pretty daughter, so slim and girlish. "And then, dad?"

"Then we must both go into obscurity. Perhaps we can live over in Brittany, in some out-of-the-way place, and learn to forget. But I said `we.' No, dear, you could never forget. You are young and have your life before you--you must marry, child, and be a happy wife. I could never take you over to France to one of those deadly-dull little towns where life is only existence, and thoughts of the past become an obsession. No."