CHAPTER VIII

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THE BEGINNING OF THE END.

It is a lovely afternoon in early summer, and a pair of youthful lovers have the morning room at Fairlawn to themselves.

And a very pleasant room it is, at once sunny and airy, with two long windows which open on a space of greenest lawn interspersed with flower beds of various quaint shapes and sizes, which as yet are hardly in their full summer beauty. At one end of the room is an archway shrouded by a portière, forming the entrance to the second Mrs. Drelincourt's boudoir.

At a table between the windows a very charming girl, as fresh and sweet as a rosebud dipped in dew, is arranging some cut flowers in a Nankin jar. On a couch no great distance away, admiring her with all his eyes, lounges a rather jaded looking young man in flannels; jaded, be it understood, not from dissipation, but from overwork.

"I only sat out two dances the whole evening, and it was my own fault I didn't dance those." It was Marian Drelincourt who spoke.

"No doubt you fancied yourself the belle of the ball," rejoined the young man. "I dare say there were several other young ladies there who cherished the same pleasing delusion."

"No such silly thought ever entered my head. But I will say this--that if there had been twice as many dances, I could have had partners for all of them."

"You seem on particularly good terms with your young self this afternoon. I almost wonder how you escaped falling in love with one or other of your partners."

"How do you know that I did escape? There were two or three who made themselves especially agreeable. But for anything that may have happened you have only yourself to blame. You ought to have been there to look after me, and keep me out of danger. Mrs. Delisle could easily have managed to get a ticket for you."

"My dear Marian, as if I had not already explained to you how utterly impossible it was for me to start on my holidays till late yesterday afternoon! I took the first train after I was at liberty----"

"And reached Fairlawn just as papa and mamma were sitting down to dinner. Although you professed to be so exceedingly delighted to see them, mamma told me that she never saw you pull such a dismal face as you did last evening. I wonder why?"

"Then you may have the pleasure of wondering, because I shan't tell you why."

"Amiable youth!"

"But why didn't Mrs. Drelincourt take you to the ball herself, instead of leaving you to be chaperoned by Mrs. Delisle?"

"Mamma rarely goes anywhere. In the first place, as you know, her health is very delicate, and, in the second, she wouldn't go anywhere without papa."

"Is Mr. Drelincourt, now that he has come back to England, as much of a recluse as he was during the time he lived abroad?"

"Just as much. His coming home has made no difference in his mode of life. We see no company, or next to none, and he and mamma visit nowhere."

"It seems to me that it must be rather a dull sort of life to lead."

"Not at all. You forget for how many years they led the same kind of life abroad. Wet or fine, papa goes out on horseback for a couple of hours every morning. Then, all forenoon he is busy in his laboratory. You may or may not know that he is a fellow of more than one learned society. In the afternoon he and mamma--sometimes taking me with them--drive or walk, and for the evening we have books, chess, and music."

"You, at least, must find such an existence very, very quiet."

"Quiet, yes; dull, no. Since I left school it is the only kind of life I have known, and I have never longed for any other. Besides"--with a demure glance at the young man--"have I not everything a girl could wish for to make me happy?"

"Sweet one!" exclaimed Walter Deane,--as he sprang to his feet. That half veiled glance was more than flesh and blood could withstand.

Another instant and his arms would have been about her. But Miss Drelincourt sprang back with a warning finger on her lips. "Hush! I think there's some one coming," she whispered. In point of fact, she thought nothing of the kind. But the pretense answered its purpose. Young Deane slunk back to his seat with rather a shamefaced air.

Finding no one appeared, he made a mental note that he had been tricked, but deemed it best to postpone his revenge.

"I don't think I ever saw two people so wholly devoted to each other as Mr. and Mrs. Drelincourt are," he presently remarked. "They are more like--well--like lovers than----"

"Than two people who have been long enough married to have a daughter who will be eighteen on the second of next month. But they are always the same. They seem to live only for each other."

"And for their daughter."

"Oh, I am quite a secondary person, I assure you, especially with papa. Do you know, Wally, I believe he is sometimes actually jealous of me when he thinks I am paying mamma too many attentions. It almost seems as if he grudged me more than a tiny corner of her heart."

"That seems rather a strange feeling for a father to entertain."

"Somehow, papa seems different from other people. I can't explain how or in what way, only I feel that there is a difference."

"There's a magnetism about Mr. Drelincourt which seems to draw people to him whether they wish it or no. Me he attracts more than any man I ever met."

"You are not the only one by many who has experienced the same peculiar attraction. Can you wonder at mamma and I loving him so dearly?"

Before there was time to say more the portière was drawn aside, and the second Mrs. Drelincourt advanced slowly into the room.

Although she had left her fortieth birthday behind her, she was still a very beautiful woman, with a freshness and purity of complexion almost rivaling that of her daughter. Strangers seeing them together found it hard to realize that she was Marian's mother.

"Mamma," exclaimed Marian, "I have here the very first Gloire de Dijon which has come into bloom. I've been watching it for days on purpose that you might have it. I've not forgotten that it's your favorite flower."

"You are always thinking of me."

"As if it were possible to think of you and love you half as much as you deserve!" said Marian, as she proceeded to fix the flower in her mother's dress.

"That would indeed be an impossibility."

Everybody started and turned their eyes in one direction. The speaker was Mr. Drelincourt. He was standing in the archway, holding the portière aside with one hand.

"Have you not another rose for me, _petite?_" he asked, as he came forward:

"It is the only one which is yet open, papa; but there will be a lot more in a day or two."

"By which time they will have become common. _N'importe_. I must try to find existence endurable without one." Then, turning to his wife: "The postman has just brought me a letter which must have been delayed in transit, since it was evidently intended to reach me yesterday. It is dated from Paris a couple of days ago, and is written by my old friend, Colonel Winslow. In it he says that we may expect him at Fairlawn on Thursday--that's today--in time for dinner. He may arrive at any moment."

"Was it not Colonel Winslow, papa, who stayed with us at Bordighera five or six years ago?"

"That was the man."

"I was in short frocks at the time, and I remember that I quite fell in love with him."

"I should advise you not to repeat the process now," remarked young Deane in an aside to her.

"And why not, pray?" she asked in the same tone. "Colonel Winslow, let me tell you, is a very charming man. I always did like elderly men better than boys. I think it very likely that I shall fall desperately in love with him."

Without giving her lover time to reply, she picked up her hat, and swinging it by its ribbons, passed out through one of the long windows. Before she had time to cross the lawn and plunge into the shrubbery beyond, Walter was following her. Drelincourt and his wife stood watching them through the other window.

The twenty years which had passed over Felix Drelincourt's head since his first wife's death had changed him very little to outward seeming. His black hair was turning gray about the temples, his long, thin face looked a trifle longer and thinner, a few crow's feet had gathered about his eyes, and there was a slight but perceptible stoop of his tall, lean figure. And that was all.

"I hope that Colonel Winslow will make a long stay with us," remarked Mrs. Drelincourt, as she seated herself in a favorite easy chair.

"Why do you hope so?"

"Because the presence of your old friend will be such a pleasure to you; because he will cheer your loneliness, and----"

"Mr. Ormsby," intoned the solemn voice of Wicks, the butler, before any one was aware that the door had been opened.

Drelincourt turned on the instant, and confronted his visitor, one lean, muscular hand gripping the back of his wife's chair like a vise.

Our old acquaintance, his silk, hat balanced carefully in his left hand, advanced with that air of self-consequence which was so much a part of him that he could no more have divested himself of it than he could-have unscrewed and laid aside one of his limbs. He never forgot that he was Mr. Ormsby, of Denham Lodge--not even when he repeated aloud the responses in church and avouched himself a miserable sinner.

He was considerably stouter than when we saw him last, and more scant of breath. His cheeks, too, were fuller and rounder, and his double chin more noticeable than of yore. His complexion was no longer mottled, but of one uniform tint, and that the tint of a boiled lobster, while his once sandy hair had turned completely white. In other respects no change was discernible in him.

"Drelincourt," he began at once, "you and I have not met for twenty years. I have called on you twice since your return, but both times was told you were not at home--a statement which, I tell you candidly, I did not credit. Today, however, I am more fortunate, and it is well I am so, seeing that I am the bearer of news which can scarcely fail to make even you--cold-blooded cynic though you always were--rejoice and feel glad. At last, Drelincourt, at last, and after all these years, the murder of my poor sister will be avenged."

For the next few seconds his listeners might have been figures of wood or stone. They neither stirred nor spoke, but stood or sat in the

## particular position in which each of them had been arrested by

Ormsby's ominous words.

The silence was broken by Drelincourt's clear, level accents.

"My dear Ormsby, you speak in enigmas."

"Enigmas? Stuff! They are a sort of rubbish I never deal in; more in your line, by far. Man alive! I tell you we have got hold of the wretch, the double dyed villain who did the deed, and have laid him safely by the heels in Sunbridge jail. And, after all, Drelincourt, whom do you think the fellow turns out to be?"

"Guessing riddles is not in my line."

"Why, that scoundrel Gumley."

"A--h!" It was more an indrawing of the breath than an exclamation. Never had Drelincourt's marvelous command over himself stood him in better stead. For a second or two there was a slight flickering of his eyelids, and that was all.

"Yes, sir," resumed the other, "Gumley, the under gardener, the man who was arrested at the time on suspicion, but ultimately liberated. From the first I made no secret of my belief that he was the criminal. From that belief I have never swerved, and today facts have fully justified it."

"May I inquire as to the nature of the facts in question?"

"The most important of them is the fellow's own confession."

There was a perceptible pause on Delincourt's part. Then "Gumley's own confession that----" Another pause.

"That it was he who stole my sister's jewels."

"So! And does his confession end there?"

"It does. But surely no sane person can doubt that the hand which stole the jewels was guilty of the far graver crime!"

"And yet there might be found people, whether sane or otherwise, to doubt the accuracy of such an assumption."

A coldly malignant gleam shot from Ormsby's porcine eyes. "I have not forgotten, Drelincourt, how you stood up for the fellow twenty years ago. Had it not been for your evidence about the locket, in all probability he would have been convicted then. But stand up for him now, after his own confession! On my soul, Drelincourt, it almost looks as if you knew more about the affair than you choose to tell!"

Mrs. Drelincourt let her soft cheek rest for a moment like a caress against her husband's hand, which was still grasping the back of her chair.

"Ormsby, I am one of those men, too few in number, I am sorry to think, who decline to accept assumptions in lieu of facts. You say this fellow has confessed to the robbery. Well and good; let him be punished for it. But to assume that he is, therefore, and as if it were a matter of course, guilty of the more heinous crime seems to me monstrous in the extreme."

"If you were a man of the world, Drelincourt, instead of being the student and recluse you are, you wouldn't talk such rot--for I can call it by no other name. So convinced are I and my brother magistrates of Gumley's guilt that we have unanimously made up our minds to commit him to the next assizes on the double charge of robbery and murder."

"Iv that case, there's nothing more to be said," remarked Drelincourt with a shrug, as he turned away.

"My errand is discharged; I will no longer intrude," said Ormsby.

He made a sweeping, old fashioned bow, and then marched out, his nose in the air, and the color in his cheeks a shade deeper than when he had entered the room. Wicks shut the door behind him, and the next moment the first dinner bell sounded.

"I will follow you in a few moments," said Drelincourt to his wife. "I have a note to write which must be despatched at once."

He waited with a nonchalant air, a couple of fingers of each hand thrust into his waistcoat pockets, till she had gone, then he sank wearily into a chair.

"At last the sword has fallen! For twenty long years it has been suspended over my head, and now the hair that held it has snapped. Fate guides our footsteps through a blind labyrinth, and brings us to the exit by ways we wot not of. But it may be that all is not yet lost. Some loophole of escape there may be still, though all is dark at present. Through what mischance has Gumley been caught in the toils after all these years? Why has he confessed to the robbery of the jewels? Why---- But these are idle questions. I must see Rodd and get him to fathom this mystery for me."

Therewith he rang the bell. "Tell Mr. Marsh that I wish to see him at once in the library," he said to Wicks. Then to himself he added: "In all the world there is but one soul to whom I can freely talk and from whom I have no concealments."

When he entered the library, three minutes later, he found Roden Marsh already there.

"So--you have heard," he said, as he shut the door, and paused for a moment before advancing. "I can read your news in your face."

"I wanted to be the first to tell it you, so that you might be prepared; but I could find no opportunity of seeing you alone."

"My dear Rodd, night and day for twenty years I have never been otherwise than prepared. But tell me what it is you have heard. At present I am altogether in the dark. That Gumley has been arrested, and has confessed to the robbery of my first wife's jewels--so much I have been told, but beyond that I know nothing."

"Yesterday morning Gumley, who has not been seen in this part of the country for a number of years, tried to pawn a lady's watch. The suspicions of the pawnbroker were aroused, the police were called in, Gumley's lodging was searched, and in it was found nearly the whole of Mrs. Drelincourt's stolen property. This morning I happened to be in Sunbridge on business when Gumley was brought up at the court house before Mr. Ormsby and two other magistrates. It was Draycot, the chief constable, who told me of the arrest, so, of course, I took care to be present at the hearing."

"It seems strange, does it not, that the fellow should have kept his ill-gotten gains by him all these years?"

"Not when you know the circumstances, as you shall hear."

At this point Drelincourt sat down, and motioned Rodd to do the same.

"To go back to the affair of twenty years ago," resumed the latter. "It seems Gumley's cupidity had been excited by the sight of the jewelry worn at different times by Mrs. Drelincourt, besides which he had sworn to be revenged on her for the horsewhipping she had administered to him a few days before the robbery. He obtained access to the dressing room through the window, by means of a ladder planted outside, purloined by him from one of the outhouses, and duly taken back when he had accomplished his purpose. He had chosen a time when he knew there was not much likelihood of his being interrupted, Lucille, Mrs. Drelincourt's maid, who slept next her mistress' dressing room, being out of the way on leave of absence. Having found the jewel casket, he emptied it of its contents, and got back to his own room at the east lodge by the way he had come. With the exception of the locket afterwards found on him----"

"To account for his possession of which I perjured myself."

"He hid away the whole of the stolen property in the thatch of the lodge, where the police failed to discover it. I ought here to mention that Gumley had a bed room at the east lodge, which he had not yet given up, although Mrs. Drelincourt had discharged him some days before. Well, finding it impossible, after his release from prison, to obtain possession of the jewelry, he left the neighborhood, only coming back to it about a week ago. At last his long waited for opportunity had arrived. As you know, a new lodge has just been built. The old one was untenanted and on the point of being pulled down. A night or two since Gumley forced his way into it, and there, under the thatch, he found the little parcel he had hidden twenty years ago. What followed is known to you."

"And yet--fools that we are--how many of us are ready to affirm that blind chance alone is the arbiter of our destinies!" Drelincourt sighed heavily, then he rose and took a turn or two across the floor, after which he resumed his seat.

"Ormsby tells me that he and his brother dunderheads have made up their minds to commit Gumley for trial on the capital charge."

"There is little doubt but they will do so."

"When do the assizes take place?"

"Three weeks from now."

"Should Gumley be committed tomorrow, as I suppose he will be, you must go up to London, and see a certain solicitor whose name and address I will give you. You will put Gumley's case into his hands, and instruct him to engage the best counsel. Expense must be no object; only, it must not be known from whence or whom the requisite funds will be forthcoming."

"I understand. But suppose----"

"My dear Rodd, let us have no suppositions, as thou lov'st me! They are hateful things. When you have carried out my instructions, you will have done all that can be done."

Again he rose and in his restless fashion took a turn or two from end to end of the room. Then, as he laid a hand on Rodd's shoulder: "You have read how, during the First Revolution, when the guillotine was busy at work and the Conciérgerie was crammed with prisoners who had been tried and condemned, morning after morning the tumbrels used to come to the prison gate and the names used to be called out of those who were to be led off to execution--you have read all that?"

"Certainly--and how gay the prisoners were, or made believe to be; and how they used to get up little dances among themselves, although they knew that for some of them the sun would rise next morning for the last time."

"Rodd, I feel exactly as I can conceive those condemned prisoners used to feel, except that in my case the end is a little farther off, although none the less inevitable. Meanwhile, let us eat, drink, and be merry. Bring roses and garlands. Let us have in the hautboy and the flute. And as for the grim Shadow biding its time behind my chair--I can feel its presence there already--you and I alone have eyes to see it."

Rodd regarded him with a troubled expression. "I fail to understand you," he said. "You don't mean to imply----"

"Hush!"

Marian was standing at the open door.

"Ah! here comes my little girl," exclaimed Drelincourt, turning to her with his gayest smile.

Rodd went slowly out of the room, with bowed head and heart as heavy as lead.

"Yes, you tiresome old thing, and come to scold you. Mamma wants to know what is keeping you so long. If you don't come at once, you won't be able to finish dressing before the bell rings, and then everybody will be kept waiting."

"That would, indeed, be a grave misdemeanor. By the way, you have not told me how you enjoyed the ball last night. When you got back you stole off to bed without my having seen you."

"I saw a light in the laboratory, but was afraid of disturbing you. The ball? Oh, it was just lovely! And what do you think? I danced every dance but two!"

"Greedy child! Then you did not fail to enjoy yourself, although a certain person was not there to keep you company."

"It was my first ball, papa--think of that! I could scarcely fail to enjoy myself, could I? Of course I should have enjoyed myself far more if Wally had been there."

"You seem very much in love with Wally, as you call him."

"Of course I am, papa. Have not you yourself agreed that some day we are to be married?"

"I suppose you won't care how soon that 'some day' comes?"

"Indeed, then, I don't want it to come, oh, for ever so long! As if I were in a hurry to leave you and mamma! It is most unkind of you even to hint at such a thing, and I have a great mind to sulk with you for the rest of the day."

"Such a threat is enough to make any one shake in his shoes. Do you know, _petite_, of what I have been thinking?"

"How should I, papa?"

"Why, now Walter and my old friend Winslow are both here, that we will try for a little while--say, for the next few weeks--to be as jolly as sandboys. Yes, we will be gay, we will be dissipated even (fancy poor mamma being dissipated, eh?), and our mottoes shall be 'Away with melancholy' and '_Vive la bagatelle!_'"

"That will be awfully nice."

"Awfully. Tomorrow, if the weather hold fine, we will drive as far as Beauchamp Chase and picnic there. Then mamma and you must arrange for a garden party, and possibly we may be able to get up a dance or two--and I know not what other frivolities." To himself he said: "What a mockery is all this!"

"You darling papa! How happy we shall be! But come along, do, or mamma will say that you are making me as bad as yourself."

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