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41 chapters
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
The Princess opened her eyes at the sound of her maid's approach. She turned her head impatiently toward the door. "Annette," she said coldly, "did you misunderstand me? Did I not say that I was on no account to be disturbed this afternoon?" Annette was the picture of despair. Eyebrows and hands betrayed alike both her agitation of mind and her nationality. "Madame," she said, "did I not say so to monsieur? I begged him to call again. I told him that madame was lying down with a bad headache, an
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
The Princess helped herself to a salted almond and took her first sip of champagne. The almonds were crisp and the champagne dry. She was wearing a new and most successful dinner-gown of black velvet, and she was quite sure that in the subdued light no one could tell that the pearls in the collar around her neck were imitation. Her afternoon's indisposition was quite forgotten. She nodded at her host approvingly. "Cecil," she said, "it is really very good of you to take in my two friends like th
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
Perhaps there was never a moment in the lives of these two men when their utter and radical dissimilarity, physically as well as in the larger ways, was more strikingly and absolutely manifest. Like a great sea animal, huge, black-bearded, bronzed, magnificent, but uncouth, Andrew de la Borne, in the oilskins and overalls of a village fisherman, stood in the great bare hall in front of the open fireplace, reckless of his drippings, at first only mildly amused by the half cynical, half angry surv
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
About half-way through dinner that night, Cecil de la Borne drew a long sigh of relief. At last his misgivings were set at rest. His party was going to be, was already, in fact, pronounced, a success. A glance at his fair neighbour, however, who was lighting her third or fourth Russian cigarette since the caviare, sent a shiver of thankfulness through his whole being. What a sensible fellow Andrew had been to clear out. This sort of thing would not have appealed to him at all. "My dear Cecil," t
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
The Princess was only obeying a faint sign from Forrest. She leaned forward and addressed her host. "It isn't a bad idea," she declared. "Where are we going to play bridge, Cecil? In some smaller room, I hope. This one is really beginning to get on my nerves a little. There is an ancestor exactly opposite who has fixed me with a luminous and a disapproving eye. And the blank spaces on the wall! Ugh! I feel like a Goth. We are too modern for this place, Cecil." Their host laughed as he rose and t
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
With the coming of dawn the storm passed away northwards, across a sea snow-flecked and still panting with its fury, and leaving behind many traces of its violence, even upon these waste and empty places. A lurid sunrise gave little promise of better weather, but by six o'clock the wind had fallen, and the full tide was swelling the creeks. On a sand-bank, far down amongst the marshes, Jeanne stood hatless, with her hair streaming in the breeze, her face turned seaward, her eyes full of an unexp
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
The Princess appeared for luncheon and declared herself to be in a remarkably good humour. "My dear Cecil," she said, helping herself to an ortolan in aspic, "I like your climate and I like your chef. I had my window open for at least ten minutes, and the sea air has given me quite an appetite. I have serious thoughts of embracing the simple life." "You could scarcely," Cecil de la Borne answered, "come to a better place for your first essay. I will guarantee that life is sufficiently simple her
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
"Not another step!" the Princess declared. "I am going back at once." "I too," Forrest declared. "Your smuggling ancestors, my dear De la Borne, must indeed have loved adventure, if they spent much of their time crawling about here like rats." "As you will," Cecil answered. "The expedition is Miss Jeanne's, not mine." "And I am going on," Jeanne declared. "I want to see where we come out on the beach." "This way, then," Cecil said. "You need not be afraid to walk upright. The roof is six feet hi
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CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
Andrew came face to face with his brother in the village street on the next morning. He looked at him for a moment in surprise. "What have you been doing?" he asked, drily. "Sitting up all night?" Cecil nodded dejectedly. "Pretty well," he admitted. "We played bridge till nearly five o'clock." "You lost, I suppose?" Andrew asked. "Yes, I lost!" Cecil admitted. "Your party," Andrew said, "does not seem to me to be an unqualified success." "It is not," Cecil admitted. "Miss Le Mesurier has been qu
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CHAPTER X
CHAPTER X
"I don't think," Engleton said slowly, "that I care about playing any more—just now." The Princess yawned as she leaned back in her chair. Both Forrest and De la Borne, who had left his place to turn up one of the lamps, glanced stealthily round at the speaker. "I am not keen about it myself," Forrest said smoothly. "After all, though, it's only three o'clock." Cecil's fingers shook, so that his tinkering with the lamp failed, and the room was left almost in darkness. Forrest, glad of an excuse
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CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XI
"Every one down for luncheon!" Jeanne declared. "What energy! Where is Lord Ronald, by the by?" she added, looking around the room. "He promised to take me out sailing this morning. I wonder if I missed him on the marshes." The Princess yawned, and glanced at the clock. "By this time," she remarked, "Lord Ronald is probably in London. He had a telegram or something in the middle of the night, and went away early this morning." Jeanne looked at them in surprise. "How queer!" she remarked. "I was
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CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XII
The man who stood with a telescope glued to his eye watching the coming boat, shut it up at last with a little snap. He walked round to the other side of the cottage, where Andrew was sitting with a pipe in his mouth industriously mending a fishing net. "Andrew," he said, "there are some people coming here, and I am almost sure that they mean to land." Andrew rose to his feet and strolled round to the little stretch of beach in front of the cottage. When he saw who it was who approached, he stop
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CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIII
Cecil came into the room abruptly, and closed the door behind him. He was breathing quickly as though he had been running. His lips were a little parted, and in his eyes shone an unmistakable expression of fear. Forrest and the Princess both looked towards him apprehensively. "What is it, Cecil?" the latter asked quickly. "You are a fool to go about the house looking like that." Cecil came further into the room and threw himself into a chair. "It is that fellow upon the island," he said. "You re
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CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XIV
The Princess was attempting a new and very complicated form of patience. Forrest was watching her. Their host was making an attempt to read the newspaper. "In five minutes," the Princess declared, "I shall have achieved the impossible. This time I am quite sure that I am going to do it." A breathless silence followed her announcement. The Princess, looking up in surprise, found that the eyes of her two companions were fixed not upon her but upon the door. She laid down her cards and turned her h
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CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XV
Bareheaded, Jeanne walked upon the yellow sands close to the softly breaking waves. Inland stretched the marshes, with their patches of vivid green, their clouds of faintly blue wild lavender, their sinuous creeks stealing into the bosom of the land. She climbed on to a grassy knoll, warm with the sun's heat, and threw herself down upon the turf. She turned her back upon the Hall and looked steadily seawards, across the waste of sands and pasture-land to where sky and sea met. Here at least was
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CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVI
"To-morrow," the Princess said softly, "we shall have been here a fortnight." Cecil de la Borne came and sat by her side upon the sofa. "I am afraid," he said, "that leaving out everything else, you have been terribly bored." "I have been nothing of the sort," she answered. "Of course, the last week has been a strain, but we are not going to talk any more about that. You prepared us for semi-barbarism, and instead you have made perfect sybarites of us. I can assure you that though in one way to
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CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVII
Andrew looked up from his gardening, startled by the sudden peal of thunder. Absorbed in his task, he had not noticed the gathering storm. The sky was black with clouds, riven even while he looked with a vivid flash of forked lightning. The ground beneath his feet seemed almost to shake beneath that second peal of thunder. In the stillness that followed he heard the cry of a woman in distress. He threw down his spade and raced to the other side of the garden. About twenty yards from the shore, J
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CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XVIII
The storm died away with the coming of evening, but a great sea still broke upon the island beach and floated up the estuary. Andrew stood outside his door and looked across toward the mainland with a perplexed frown. It was barely a hundred yards crossing, but it was certain that no boat could live for half the distance. Jeanne, who had recovered her spirits, stood by his side, and smiled as she saw the white crested waves come rolling up. "It is beautiful, this," she declared. "Do you not love
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CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XIX
There was a moment's breathless silence as Andrew stood there looking in upon the little group. Then he left his position at the door and came up to the table round which they were seated. "Madam," he said to the Princess, "your daughter is safe. She came down to the island this afternoon, and was unable to return owing to the storm." The Princess gave a little sigh of relief. "Foolish child!" she said. "But where is she now, Mr. Andrew?" "She is still at the island," Andrew answered. "It was im
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CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XX
Jeanne awoke the next morning to find herself between lavender scented sheets in a small iron bedstead, with a soft sea-wind blowing in through the half-open window. Her maid was ready to wait upon her, and her bath was of salt water fresh from the sea. She descended to find Andrew at work in the garden, the sun already high in the heavens, and the sea as blue and placid as though the storm of the night before were a thing long past and forgotten. "I am never going away," she declared, as they s
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CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXI
The Princess arranged her skirts so that they drooped gracefully, and turned upon her companion with one of those slow mysterious smiles, which many people described but none could imitate. "Mr. De la Borne," she said, "I can talk to you as I could not talk to your brother, because you are an older and a wiser man. You may not have seen much of the world, but you are at any rate not a young idiot like Cecil. Will you listen to me, please?" "It seems to me," Andrew answered drily, "that I am alre
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CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
His Grace the Duke of Westerham stepped forward from the hearthrug, in the middle of which he had been standing, and held out both his hands. His lips were parted in a smile, and there was a twinkle in his eyes. "My dear Andrew," he exclaimed, "it is delightful to see you. You seem to bring the salt of the North Sea into our frowsy city." Andrew grasped his friend's hands. "I have been fishing with some of my men for three weeks," he said, "off the Dogger Bank. The salt does cling to one, you kn
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
Cecil came face to face with his brother in the room where refreshments were being dispensed by solemn-looking footmen and trim parlour-maids. He stared at him for a moment in surprise. "What on earth are you doing here, Andrew?" he asked. "Exactly what I was wondering myself," Andrew answered, setting down his empty glass. "I met Bellamy Smith this afternoon in Bond Street, and he asked me to dine, without saying anything about this sort of show afterwards. By the by, Cecil," he added, "what ar
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
The Princess was enjoying a few minutes of well-earned repose. She had lunched with Jeanne at Ranelagh, where they had been the guests of a lady who certainly had the right to call herself one of the leaders of Society. The newspapers and the Princess' confidences to a few of her friends had done all that was really necessary. Jeanne was accepted, and the Princess passed in her wake through those innermost portals which at one time had come perilously near being closed upon her. She was lying on
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
The Princess looked up with ill-concealed eagerness as Forrest entered. "Well," she asked, "have you any news?" Forrest shook his head. "None," he answered. "I am up for the day only. Cecil will not let me stay any longer. He was here himself the day before yesterday. We take it by turns to come away." "And there is nothing to tell me?" the Princess asked. "No change of any sort?" "None," Forrest answered. "It is no good attempting to persuade ourselves that there is any." "What are you up for,
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
The Count de Brensault was a small man, with a large pale face. There were puffy little bags under his eyes, from which the colour had departed. His hair, though skilfully arranged, was very thin at the top, and his figure had the lumpiness of the man who has never known any sort of athletic training. He looked a dozen years older than his age, which was in reality thirty-five, and for the last ten years he had been a constant though cautious devotee of every form of dissipation. Jeanne, who sat
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
Forrest crossed the room and waited his opportunity until the Princess was alone. "Let me take you somewhere," he said. "I want to talk to you." She laid her fingers upon his arm, and they walked slowly away from the crowded part of the ballroom. "So you are up again," she remarked looking at him curiously. "Does that mean—?" "It means nothing, worse luck," he answered, "except that I have twenty-four hours' leave. I am off back again at eight o'clock to-morrow morning. Tell me about this De Bre
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
The Count de Brensault had seldom been in a worse temper. That Jeanne should have flouted him was not in itself so terrible, because he had quite made up his mind that sooner or later he would take a coward's revenge for the slights he had been made to endure at her hands. But that he should have been flouted in the presence of a whole roomful of people, that he should have been deliberately left for another man, was a different matter altogether. His first impulse when Jeanne left him, was to w
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
The Princess and Jeanne drove homewards in a silence which remained unbroken until the last few minutes. The events of the evening had been somewhat perplexing to the former. She scarcely understood even now why a great personage like the Duke of Westerham had shown such interest in her charge. "Tell me, Jeanne," she asked at last, "why is the Duke of Westerham so friendly with your fisherman?" Jeanne raised her eyebrows slightly. "'My fisherman,' as you call him," she answered, "is, after all,
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CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
The Count de Brensault called in Berkeley Square at three o'clock precisely that afternoon, but it was the Princess who received him, and the Princess was alone. "Well?" he asked, a little eagerly. "Mademoiselle Jeanne is more reasonable, eh? You have good news?" The Princess motioned him to a seat. "I think," she said, "we had forgotten how young Jeanne really is. The idea of getting married to any one seems to terrify her. After all, why should we wonder at it? The school where she was brought
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CHAPTER X
CHAPTER X
Jeanne's packing was after all a very small matter. She ignored the cupboards full of gowns, nor did she open one of the drawers of her wardrobe. She simply filled her dressing-case with a few necessaries and hid it under the table. At eight o'clock one of the servants brought her dinner on a tray. Jeanne saw with relief that it was one of the younger parlour maids, and not the Princess' own maid. "Mary," Jeanne said, taking a gold bracelet from her wrist and holding it out to her, "I am going t
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CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XI
The two men sat opposite to one another separated only by the small round table upon which the dessert which had followed their dinner was still standing. Even Forrest's imperturbable face showed signs of the anxiety through which he had passed. The change in Cecil, however, was far more noticeable. There were lines under his eyes and a flush upon his cheeks, as though he had been drinking heavily. The details of his toilette, usually so immaculate, were uncared for. He was carelessly dressed, a
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CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XII
The days that followed were strange ones for Jeanne. Every morning at sunrise, or before, she would steal out of the little cottage where she was staying, and make her way along the top of one of the high dyke banks to the sea. Often she saw the sun rise from some lonely spot amongst the sandbanks or the marshes, heard the awakening of the birds, and saw the first glimpses of morning life steal into evidence upon the grey chill wilderness. At such times she saw few people. The house where she wa
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CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIII
"I am afraid," Jeanne declared, "that I cannot go on. I have not the eyes of a cat. I cannot see one step before me." Her companion laughed softly as she turned round. "I forgot," she said. "You are town bred. To us the darkness is nothing. Do not be afraid. I know the way, every inch of it. Give me your hand." "But I cannot see at all," Jeanne declared. "How far is this place?" "Less than a mile," Kate answered. "Trust to me. I will see that nothing happens to you. Hold my hand tightly, like th
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CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XIV
Once more the two men sat over the remnants of their evening meal. This time the deterioration in their own appearance seemed to have spread itself to their surroundings. The table was ill-laid, there were no flowers, an empty bottle of wine and several decanters remained where they had been set. There was every indication that however little the two might have eaten, they had been drinking heavily. Yet they were both pale. Cecil's face even was ghastly, and the hand which played nervously with
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CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XV
For the fourth time the bell rang. The two men had now retraced their steps. Cecil, who had been standing in the hall within a few feet of the closed door, started away as though he had received some sort of shock. Forrest, who was lurking back in the shadows, cursed him for a timid fool. "Open the door, man," he whispered. "Don't stand fumbling there. Remember you are angry at being disturbed. Send them away, whoever they are. Look sharp! They are going to ring again. Can't you hear that beastl
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CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVI
The smoke cleared slowly away. Engleton had risen to his feet, the light of a new hope blazing in his eyes. Forrest and Cecil de la Borne stood close together near the door, which still stood ajar. The girl, who stood with her back to the wall, saw their involuntary movement towards it, and her voice rang out sharp and clear. "If you try it on I shoot!" she exclaimed. "You know what that means, Cecil. A pistol isn't a plaything with me." Cecil looked no more toward the door. He came instead a li
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CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVII
Jeanne was sitting in the garden of the Caynsard farm. The excitement of the last twenty-four hours had left her languid. For once she lay and watched with idle, almost with indifferent eyes, the great stretch of marshes riven with the incoming sea. She saw the fishing boats that a few hours ago were dead inert things upon a bed of mud, come gliding up the tortuous water-ways. On the horizon was the sea bank, with its long line of poles, and the wires connecting the coastguard stations. They sto
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CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XVIII
The Count opened his mouth. It was his way of expressing supreme astonishment. The Princess sat bolt upright on her couch and gazed at Jeanne with wide-open and dilated eyes. Curiously enough it was the Count who first recovered himself. "Is it a game, this?" he asked softly. "You press the button and the little girl appears. That means that I increase the stakes and the prize pops up." The Princess rose to her feet. She crossed the room to meet Jeanne with outstretched arms. "Shut up, you fool!
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CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XIX
For the Princess it was a day full of excitements. The Count had only just reluctantly withdrawn, and Jeanne had gone to her room under the plea of fatigue, when Forrest was shown in. She started at the look in his drawn face. "Nigel," she exclaimed hastily, "is everything all right?" He threw himself into a chair. "Everything," he answered, "is all wrong. Everything is over." The Princess saw then that he had aged during the last few days, that this man whose care of himself had kept him compar
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CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XX
"So this," the Duke said, "is your wonderful land." "Is there anything like it in the world?" Jeanne asked as she stood bareheaded on the grass-banked dyke with her face turned seaward. Above their heads the larks were singing. To their right stretched the marshes and pasture land, as yet untouched by the sea, glorious with streaks of colour, fragrant with the perfume of wild lavender and mosses. To their left, through the opening in the sandbanks, came streaming the full tide, rushing up into t
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