Anthony Dodwell has not become more popular since; I believe, that if the mess was polled, they'd exchange him for Sydney to-morrow."

"Not after last night, my dear."

"I'm coming to that. Until now I've not felt that it became me to interfere. I felt that Sydney might resent my interfering; that he would prefer to take the matter up in his own way, at his own time. But after last night I see how mistaken I may have been. Margaret, if you were a man of honour, consider what your feelings would be if those whom you had esteemed your friends treated you as those men did Sydney."

"It's not easy for me to put myself into such a position; but if I had been in his place, and been innocent, I think I should have recognised the danger of my position, have kept calm, and have had the matter thrashed right out."

"My dear Margaret, you don't seem to realise that all these men were half beside themselves. I can quite fancy what men can be in such a moment. Sydney wanted to fly at Dodwell's throat. I'm sure that I can't blame him; I should have wanted to do the same, wouldn't you?"

"Well, that depends. I can't say that the little I have known of Captain Dodwell has moved me to affection. But, that apart, how do you explain last night?"

"Don't I tell you that I'm coming to that? Margaret, have patience.

Sydney left the barracks that night with, it is nearly certain, very little money, and half mad with rage and shame and grief. Then the curtain falls; we know nothing of what happened to him afterwards. But, in the light of last night, can't you imagine?"

"That's the pity of it--I can."

"Yes; but from one point of view only. Can't you conceive of there being another? Can't you imagine what he may have suffered in what, to him, was a new and hideous world--hopeless, helpless, friendless, penniless, alone? I can't think of any way in which Sydney could have earned a farthing, circ.u.mstanced as he was. When his money was gone, which probably lasted only a very little time, he perhaps went hungry.

Oh, you don't believe that men do go hungry! My dear, since Sydney went, I've seen crowds of men, in London streets and parks and public places, who, I am convinced, go hungry nearly all the time.

Margaret--again I give you permission to laugh--as I've been lying here between the sheets I've seen Sydney starving in rags. I'm sure it has been like that. When a man of his position gets down to that, what is there for him to do?"

"That sort of thing would be pretty rough on him, I grant. But, you know, Vi, you're taking a very great deal for granted."

"I've admitted that Sydney was never the wisest or the strongest of men. It is quite possible that in those depths he met those who were even more desperate than himself, who pointed out to him a way of at least getting something to eat. There's something about that woman Simmons which convinces me that she has known something of the sort of thing of which I speak."

"Do you mean that she has known what it is to starve?"

"I shouldn't wonder. There was something about her when she came into this room last night which struck me. When I was talking to her this morning in the hall I saw what it was; it kept peeping out. Margaret, that woman has stood at despair's very gate; she has never forgotten it, and never will. It's taken from her something which you and I have, but which she will never have again; she is not a woman in the sense we are. Although she may not know it, she is as some wild creature which has its back against the wall, and which fights, straining every nerve and every faculty it has, against what must prevail."

The countess was regarding her with her eyes wide open.

"I always have credited you with imagination, but I certainly never guessed that it amounted to this. I must take a look at Simmons myself, and see what my imagination does for me. I don't want to be beaten in a game of that kind."

"I told you you could laugh, and so you can. If I had had my wits about me, I should have stopped Sydney last night; I should have stuck to him tight; I should have made him understand that, whether he would or wouldn't, I would stay by his side, lest worse befell him. I am going to do that now; I am going to leave no stone unturned to find him. When I have found him I'll not lose sight of him again. He has not been very wise; but the world has used him ill. I will stand by his side against the world."

"My dear, you talk as I've always fancied young women talk in plays I've never seen, the sort of plays which I have been given to understand were popular at the Adelphi once upon a time. It may be very beautiful, but it's frightfully silly. Suppose it gets generally known--and these things do get out--that the gentleman in question committed what was really an act of burglary last night, do you imagine that even the most catholic-minded people will want to cultivate his acquaintance, even with you at his side? And, Vi, you know there may be worse than burglary."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Hasn't it occurred to you as just possible that he may have had something to do with what happened to Captain Draycott, who, by the way, is still nowhere to be found? Rupert tries to pretend that he thinks everything is all right, but I can see that he is oppressed by a feeling that he is lying at the bottom of the lake."

"I'm not going to talk to you, Margaret; I can see that it's no use.

I'm sure that if Sydney had anything to do with Captain Draycott, that gentleman brought it on himself."

"My dear girl! But will the police think that?"

"Margaret, I'm going to get up. It's no use our continuing the discussion. We not only look out of two different pairs of eyes; we look on two entirely different worlds. In yours it's roses, roses all the way; in mine it's thorns, thorns, thorns. Are you going, or must I dress while you're here?"

The girl, slipping out of the bed, stood before her in her night attire.

"My dear, you often have, but I'll go if you'd rather. Shall I send your maid?"

"Send no one. I'll dress myself; I will do all things for myself in future. And, while you're here, I'll say good-bye. While I've been lying there I've been planning what to do to find Sydney. We're not to see much of each other while I'm doing that, and when I've found him we're likely to see still less. As you put it, he and I are not the sort of persons with whom you and your friends might care to claim acquaintance."

"Then you won't come yachting?"

"Thank you, I will not."

"Vi, don't be a pig! I'm on your side."

"I doubt it, nor, under the circ.u.mstances, do I see how you could be."

"But I am, you idiot! I've something of the sort of feeling for you which it seems you have for him, and though I've no doubt whatever that you're more foolish than a goose--because a goose is quite a wise bird--all the same, I'm going to stick as close to you as you talk of sticking to him. So perhaps, before I quit this room, you'll promise that you won't leave the house till you've had another talk with me."

"What will be the use of that?"

"Never mind; you promise."

"Oh, I'll promise; but I shall leave the house this morning all the same."

"You can, and my prayers will go with you; but you're not going in your present frame of mind towards me--that I tell you straight. You've had no breakfast, and it's lunch time. When you're dressed, suppose you come to my room and have something with me; I'll see that we're alone."

"If you like, I'll come, but it will be on the understanding that you will not even try to persuade me not to do what I am going to do."

"I won't try to persuade or dissuade you--only you come."

When the countess was again in the pretty sitting-room which she called her very own she took a sheet of paper from between the b.u.t.tons of her blouse: it was the sheet of paper which had been contained in the envelope which had been presented to the earl by the bronze figure on the pedestal. The little lady read it carefully through; then she struck a match, and lit it at the corner, holding it in her fingers while it flamed, and she asked herself:

"I wonder who wrote it--could it have been Jane Simmons?"

When the paper had been utterly consumed, dropping the ash on to the floor, she pressed it into the carpet with her shoe, so that none of it remained. Then she rang the bell. To the man who answered it she said:

"There's a maid in the house named Simmons--Jane Simmons. Tell them to send her to me here at once."

Some minutes elapsed, during which the countess, taking her ease on a couch covered with pink satin, opened, one after the other, a number of envelopes which were in a tray upon a table. For the most part just glancing at their enclosures, she dropped them from her on to the floor, and was still engaged in doing this when the man returned.

"It appears, my lady, that Simmons has left the house."

"Indeed?" The countess just glanced up from still another enclosure she was dropping to put the question; no one would have supposed she was interested in the least.

"Yes, my lady. She was missed some time ago. Mrs. Ellis sent to her room, and it was found she was gone. It seems that one of the gardeners saw her walking towards the lake with a bag in her hand."

"Is that so? Tell them to serve lunch in my room--lunch for two--in, say, half an hour."

The man went. The lady continued to treat her correspondence with the same scant courtesy.

"So she has gone. I thought it would be found that she had gone. She was seen walking towards the lake, with a bag. I wonder why the lake, and what was in the bag. Poor Vi!"