"Thank you, sir. I'm glad to be back," was all I could say.

He put a hand on each shoulder and stood at arm's length to examine me.

"And we're glad to have you back, looking as fit and brown as a bronze gladiator. Come along to your room! It's been ready for you this three months, for that silly Margaret set to work on it the very day we sent off your letter."

"How is Mistress Waynflete, sir?"

"You'll see in five minutes if you'll only bestir yourself. The wits say that there's no need for George to furnish the town with a new queen as I have provided it with an empress."

He hurried me off to my room, as he called it, and it was so grand that I crept about it on tiptoe for fear of damaging something. There was everything a young man could want except clothes, and Master Freake laughingly a.s.sured me that they (meaning Margaret and himself) had puzzled for hours to see if they could manage them, but had given it up in despair.

"I declared you'd pine and get thin," he said, "and she vowed you'd get lazy and fat."

I felt very doltish and unready as I followed him to the drawing-room. It was very clear to me that no meeting on level terms was in front of me, and when I got into a large, brilliant room where some dozen splendid ladies and as many elegant, easy-mannered gentlemen were a.s.sembled, I felt inclined to turn tail.

"Empress." It was the exact word. Master Freake put his arm in mine and led me towards her. She was sitting throned in one corner of a roomy, cushioned sofa, with half a dozen young men--the least of them an earl, I thought bitterly--bending round her as the brethren's sheaves bent round Joseph's. And, as if she were not overpowering enough of herself, everything that consummate skill and the nicest artistry could do to enhance her beauty had been done. Juno banqueting with the G.o.ds had not looked more superb. "On level terms," I whispered to myself mockingly, as Master Freake led me on, for one of the circling sheaves, with whom she was exchanging easy, lightsome banter, was my finely chiselled acquaintance, the Marquess of Tiverton.

Except that she cut a quip in two when she saw who it was that Master Freake was bringing, Margaret gave no sign of surprise. She neither paled nor reddened, nor gushed nor faltered. Empress-like she simply added me to her train.

"I bring you an old friend, Margaret," said Master Freake, for whom, as I saw, the worshippers round the idol made way respectfully.

"And my old friend is very welcome, sir," she answered, holding out her hand. I bowed over it and kissed it. I thought that it trembled a little as it lay in mine, but it is at least probable that I was the source of what fluttering there was.

"I trust you have had a good voyage, Mr. Wheatman?" she questioned easily.

"Excellent, madam," I replied, with imitative lightness of tone. "It was like rowing on a river."

For a moment her eyes steadied and darkened, then she said with a smile, "That being so, even I, who am no sailor, should have enjoyed it along with you."

This was how we met. Whether on level terms or not, who shall decide?

"I say, Mr. Wheatman," broke in the pleasant voice of the Marquess, "you don't happen to have any venison-pasty on you, I suppose? I've got some rattling good snuff, and I'll give you a pinch for a plateful, as I did up in Staffordshire. I vow, Miss Waynflete, it makes me hungry to see him."

This speech caused much laughter, and Margaret said it was fortunate supper was ready. She then introduced me to the company around, and when this was done, Master Freake fetched me to renew the acquaintance of Sir James Blount and his lady, so that I was soon full of talk and merriment.

Supper and talk, wine and talk, ba.s.set and talk--so the time went by till long after midnight. Then one by one the guests dropped off. The Marquess lingered longest, and on going, pledged me to call on him next morning.

"At last," said Margaret. "Beauty sleep is out of the question to-night, Oliver, so tell us everything about everything. It's glorious to have you back."

It is not my purpose to dwell on my life in London. After a few days it became one long agony because of, but not by means of, Margaret. She did her best for me, and was all patience, kindness, and graciousness, and was plainly bent on living on level terms with me according to her promise and prophecy. It only required a day or two to show me that she had many a man of rank and wealth in thrall. As wealth went then, the Marquess of Tiverton was, by his own fault and foolishness, a poorish man, but he was lost in love of her, and he was only one of the many exquisites who were for ever in and out of Master Freake's fine mansion. It did not become a Wheatman of the Hanyards to cringe or be abashed in any company, and with the best of them I kept on terms of ease and intimacy. I dressed as well, and perchance looked as well, as they did, and if my accomplishments differed from theirs they differed for the better in Margaret's eyes, which were the only eyes that mattered.

Brief as I intend to be, I must set down a few jottings on things that belong to the texture of my story. To begin with, the Colonel, though pardoned, was still in France, looking after his affairs there, for before starting to join the Prince he had wisely shifted all his fortune over to Paris.

Davie Ogilvie had got clear away after Culloden, and his sweet Ishbel, though taken after the battle, had been permitted to join him there. It was a great comfort to know they were safe, for there were sad relics of my escapade in London--the row of ghastly, grinning heads over Temple Bar.

Soon after my arrival, Master Freake had sent for his lawyers and delivered to me in full possession the Upper Hanyards and the huge tale of guineas which the rascal old earl had disgorged as the price of the letter. Master Freake kept a rigid silence over the contents of that famous doc.u.ment "about lands," and I had no wish to know. It was worth a thousand acres and near ten thousand guineas to the Earl. I was satisfied if he was. I put my guineas in a bank of Master Freake's choosing. What a dowry I could have given Kate if--

My Lord Brocton was in town. I saw him several times, in the street or at the play, but took no notice of him. He was said to be eagerly hunting after a lady of meagre attractions but enormous fortune. Twice when I saw him he had with him the fellow I had b.u.mped against the wall, a notorious shark and swashbuckler, by name and rank Sir Patrick Gee. Tiverton, who had his own reasons for being interested in Brocton, told me they were hand and glove together.

In a little while a month may be, a change came over the relation in which Margaret and I stood to each other. We both fought against it but in vain. We could not travel on parallel lines, we two. We must either converge or diverge, and fate had given me no choice.

I used to pretend I was going out, to ride or lounge with the Marquess or some other acquaintance, and then slip upstairs to the quiet old library, bury myself in a windowed recess cut off by curtains, and try to forget it all in a book. Fool-like I thought I could solve my problem so. The Hanyards was calling me and I dared not go. I should leave Margaret, and I could not leave her.

Why, I asked myself a thousand times, was I so poor a cur compared with Donald? He had done what I had done, and he had seen his way at once and followed it. He would not live, having, in all innocence and with the most urgent of all reasons, killed his friend. Not that I felt that his solution was my solution. My duty was to leave Margaret and to go to Kate, to help her, to the best of my ability, to live down her sorrow, and to show by my life and conduct that I would pay the price. And here I was, hovering moth-like round the flame.

Then again I would say that I would wait till the inevitable had happened, and Margaret was married to Tiverton. Anything to put it off, that was really all I was capable of.

To me, in my recess, Margaret came one morning.

"I thought you'd gone out, Oliver," she began.

"No," said I. "I altered my mind, and thought I'd like reading better."

"You puzzle me. Are you quite well?"

"As fit as a fiddle," said I cheerily, and rose to give her my seat, for the recess would only hold one.

"You're not to move, sir."

She fetched a couple of cushions, flung them by the window, and curled up on them. I wished she wouldn't, for she made a glorious picture.

"Now, sir, I am going to have it out with you," she said severely and smilingly. I smiled back, and pulled myself together.

"I hope 'it' is not a very serious 'it,' madam," I replied.

"It may be. Does your head ever trouble you?"

"My head ever trouble me?" I gasped, taken aback.

"Yes, your head, sir. When you fell down those stairs you received a very serious wound on the head. It gaped open so that I could have laid a finger in the hole. Are you sure it doesn't trouble you, Oliver? Blows on the head are dreadful things, you know."

"Look at it," said I, popping my head down, and very glad of the chance.

Her beautiful fingers parted my thick, short, bristly hair and found the spot.

"There's nothing wrong with the skull, is there?" I asked.

"No," very doubtfully. "It's healed splendidly."

"Now, madam," said I, "talk to me in Italian!"

It was the first time, by chance, that I had thought of it.

For ten minutes she questioned and cross-questioned me in Italian on all sorts of subjects, and I came out of the ordeal pretty well--thanks to Signor Zandra.

"Point one," said I in English. "The outside of my head is all right.

Point two: are you satisfied with the inside?"

For a full minute she gazed in silence at her feet, twisting them about swiftly and somewhat forgetfully. It was trying, almost merciless, for she was very beautiful.