"If you would----" began Derrick; but Mr. Clendon stopped him with an upraised hand.

"You say that you are a friend of Miss Grant's--I seem to remember you, though I have only seen you at a distance, and then indistinctly. Are you not the young man who lived in the flat opposite hers?"

Derrick's face grew red. "I am, sir," he said. "It was while I was living there that Miss Grant did me the service of which I speak. I was in great trouble; in about as bad a trouble as a man could be; in fact, I had come to a point beyond which it seemed to me--I was a fool!--that it was impossible to carry on. At that moment of folly and madness, Miss Grant came to my aid, and saved me--you will think me extravagant if I say--from death; but that's the real fact. I did not know her name until you told me just now; I saw her for only a few minutes; those few minutes, and her angelic goodness, changed the whole current of my life.

Isn't it only natural that I should want to see her, to tell her----"

He broke off abruptly and turned away to the window. As the piercing eyes followed him, they grew troubled, the thin lips quivered and the wasted hand that lay on the table closed and unclosed spasmodically.

"Will you tell me your name?" asked the low voice. "Mine is Clendon."

Derrick hesitated for a moment; then he remembered Donna Elvira's injunction that he should bear his a.s.sumed name while in London.

"Sydney Green, sir."

"And you have come from abroad?" said Mr. Clendon. "I can see that by your tanned face, by the character of your attire."

"From South America," said Derrick. "I am here on a mission, on business for an employer. I am afraid I cannot tell you any more; I've only just arrived and am staying at the Imperial in Western Square. If you think I have told you sufficient, if you can trust me, I shall be very grateful if you will give me Miss Grant's address. I wish I could convince you that I am asking it from no unworthy motive."

"You have already done so," said Mr. Clendon, quietly. "I will give you her address. Miss Grant is acting as librarian at Lord Sutcombe's house, at Thexford Hall."

"Lord Sutcombe!" muttered Derrick, with an imperceptible start. The colour again flooded his face; his grat.i.tude, his joy were so great that, for a moment, they rendered him speechless, and his voice was broken when he could command it.

"I don't know how to thank you, sir," he said, and, impulsively, he held out his hand.

Mr. Clendon took it after a moment's pause; and they stood, the old man and the young man, looking into each other's eyes, and Derrick's--no shame to him--were moist. For, think of it! he feared that he had lost the girl on whom his heart had been set ever since the first moment he had seen her; and now this old man had put him in the way of finding her. They stood with clasped hands for longer than is usual; and Derrick was too absorbed in his own emotion to notice the tremor in the thin fingers which grasped his.

"I see that you will go to Miss Grant at once," said Mr. Clendon, with a flicker of a smile, that was not one of irony, but of sympathy.

"By the first train, and as fast as it will take me," said Derrick, with the note of youth and hope ringing in his voice. "Look here, sir," he went on, impelled by a strange feeling, "I may as well tell you that which you have no doubt guessed already. I--I love Miss Grant. It would be very strange, if I didn't, considering that she's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen, and all she did for me. All the time I've been away I've thought of her and longed to see her again. Not a moment of the day or the waking night----But I beg your pardon, sir, I'm afraid you'll think me--rather mad."

"Yours is a madness common to youth, and befitting it well," said Mr.

Clendon. "That you should love her is not strange; she is all that you say of her. Are you sure that you are worthy of her?"

"Good lord, no!" exclaimed Derrick, impetuously. "No man that ever was born could be worthy of her; no man could see her, be with her five minutes----Why, do you know, all the while I was talking to you, before you called her 'Miss' Grant, I was tortured by the dread that has made many an hour miserable for me, since I saw her last--the dread that some other man--that she might be married----"

"She is not married," said Mr. Clendon, with a faint smile, "though it is probable that many men have wanted to marry her."

"I've been thanking G.o.d that she is free, ever since I gleaned the fact from your words," said Derrick. "I'm going down to her at once. May I tell her that I have seen you, that you gave me her address?"

"You may," said Mr. Clendon. "Miss Grant honours me with her friendship; I hope, I trust, her affection."

After a pause, he added:

"You are staying in England for some time?"

"For some little time," said Derrick, stifling a sigh at the thought of ever again leaving the girl of his heart.

"May I ask you to come to see me when you return to London?" asked Mr.

Clendon; and his tone, though courteously conventional, was fraught with a certain earnestness.

"Of course, I will, sir," replied Derrick, promptly. "You have been very kind to me; you might have answered my question with an abrupt negative, have refused me the information; instead of which, you have--well, you have been awfully good to me; you have relieved my mind of a load of apprehension, and set me in the way of finding Miss Grant. Yes; you have been very good to me, and I hope you will let me see you again. Besides, you are a friend of hers, and that's quite enough to make me want to know more of you."

"Then come to me when you return," said Mr. Clendon. "But do not let me trespa.s.s on your time, Mr. Green; you must have other claims, those of your people, your parents."

"Haven't any, sir," answered Derrick, gravely. "I'm all alone in the world--for the present," he added, his eyes shining with the hope that glowed in his breast.

"That is a strange statement," said Mr. Clendon, his brows raised, his eyes fixed on Derrick's face.

"But it's true, unfortunately," said Derrick. "I must be going now, sir.

Let me see, Waterloo is the station for Thexford. I'll go there and wait for the first train."

He held out his hand and the two men shook hands again; and Mr. Clendon stood at the door and watched the young man as he went swiftly down the steps, as if his life depended on his haste; the old man went back to his room and, sinking into his chair, covered his eyes with his hands and sat as if lost in thought--and memories. And, strangely enough, it was not of the young man he was thinking, but of a very beautiful woman, half woman, half girl, with black hair and brilliant eyes, with the blood of the South mantling in her cheeks, with the fire of the South, pa.s.sionate, impetuous, uncontrollable, in eyes and cheek; a woman of fire and strong will, hard to understand, impossible to control; a woman to make or wreck a man's life. The woman whose vision rose before the old man, who sat, a bowed and desolate figure, in his chair, had wrecked his. Strange that the meeting with this young man had called up that vision, strange that his face and voice had revivified the memory of the past. With a sigh, a gesture of the flexible hand, as if he were putting the matter from him, Mr. Clendon took his violin from its case and began to play.

CHAPTER XXI

Derrick's mind was in a condition of joyous confusion as the train bore him in a slow and leisurely fashion towards Thexford. Predominant, of course, was the thought that he was on his way to see the girl of his heart. But presently he began to think of the strange old man who had set him that way. Naturally enough, Derrick felt curious about him; for he had been much struck and interested by the old man's appearance and manner. Derrick knew a gentleman when he saw him, and he knew that Mr.

Clendon was a gentleman and one of a very fine type; seen in befitting surroundings, Mr. Clendon would have filled completely the part of a n.o.bleman; and yet he was poor and living in Brown's Buildings. Derrick felt strangely drawn towards the old man, but told himself that it was because Mr. Clendon was a friend of Celia's--Derrick had already learned to call her 'Celia' in his mind.

Then the fact that she was librarian to Lord Sutcombe recurred to him.

It was a strange coincidence, one of the strangest; and as he faced it, Derrick's intention to go straight to the Hall and ask for Celia became changed. He did not want to meet the Sutcombes: it was just possible that Heyton and Miriam would be there; and most certainly he did not want to meet them. He uttered a groan of impatience: he would not be able to go to the Hall; he would have to find some means of meeting her elsewhere; every moment of delay, every moment that stood between him and the sight of her, a.s.sumed the length of years. With his brows knit, and his heart in a state of rebellion, he got out at the little station and looked round him wistfully, irresolutely.

There was a fly at the station steps, but he was in too much of a fever to ride in a crawling vehicle, and he inquired of a sleepy porter the direction of the nearest inn.

"There's no inn here, sir," said the man. "You see, this is really only the station for the Hall; but you'll find a small kind of place in the village farther on; it's called Fleckfield; it's rather more than a couple of miles."

Derrick gave his small portmanteau to the flyman and told him to drive there, and he himself set out walking.

Climbing a hill at a little distance from the station, he caught sight of the tower of a big house and knew that it must be Thexford Hall. And, within those walls, was the girl he loved! He set his teeth and strode on, resentful of every yard that took him from her instead of to her.

A signpost directed him to Fleckfield, and presently he came to the village and to the little inn in the middle of the single street. It was a rustic looking place, with the usual bench and table outside it; and on the former was seated a young fellow in a knicker-bocker suit. He was writing busily on a pad which rested on his knee, and he looked up with an absent, far-away expression in his eyes as Derrick strode in upon his solitude.

"Good afternoon," he said, pleasantly, when he had come down from the clouds; for it was Reggie Rex, busy on the outline of his novel.

Derrick returned the salutation and sank on to the bench beside him; and Reggie, after a comprehensive glance, and one of distinct approval, said:

"You look hot, sir. Have a drink. I can recommend the local ale. It is good though not particularly intoxicating."

"Thanks," said Derrick; and he made short work of the tankard of home-brewed which the landlord brought him. "Are you staying here?" he inquired. "I ask, because I want a room for a night or two."

"That's all right," said Reggie. "They'll be able to give you a room, I think. Your portmanteau has arrived already. Is your name Grey?"

"No," replied Derrick, staring at him with pardonable surprise. "Sydney Green."

"Oh, well, it wasn't a bad guess," said Reggie, complacently. "I saw 'S.

G.' on your portmanteau, and 'Green' seemed so obvious that I hit on Grey."