Kitabı oku: «The Mistress of Shenstone», sayfa 11

CHAPTER XXII
LORD INGLEBY’S WIFE

The journey down from town had been as satisfactorily rapid as even Jim Airth could desire. He had caught the train at Charing Cross by five seconds.

The hour’s run passed quickly in glowing anticipation of that which was being brought nearer by every turn of the wheels.

Myra’s telegram was drawn from his pocket-book many times. Each word seemed fraught with tender meaning, “Come to me at once.” It was so exactly Myra’s simple direct method of expression. Most people would have said, “Come here,” or “Come to Shenstone,” or merely “Come.” “Come to me” seemed a tender, though unconscious, response to his resolution of the night before: “I will arise and go to my belovèd.”

Now that the parting was nearly over, he realised how terrible had been the blank of three weeks spent apart from Myra. Her sweet personality was so knit into his life, that he needed her – not at any particular time, or in any particular way – but always; as the air he breathed; or as the light, which made the day.

And she? He drew a well-worn letter from his pocket-book – the only letter he had ever had from Myra.

“I shall always want you,” it said; “but I could never send, unless the coming would mean happiness for you.”

Yet she had sent. Then she had happiness in store for him. Had she instinctively realised his change of mind? Or had she gauged his desperate hunger by her own, and understood that the satisfying of that, must mean happiness, whatever else of sorrow might lie in the background?

But there should be no background of anything but perfect joy, when Myra was his wife. Would he not have the turning of the fair leaves of her book of life? Each page should unfold fresh happiness, hold new surprises as to what life and love could mean. He would know how to guard her from the faintest shadow of disillusion. Even now it was his right to keep her from that. How much, after all, should he tell her of the heart-searchings of these wretched weeks? Last night he had meant to tell her everything; he had meant to say: “I have sinned against heaven – the heaven of our love – and before thee; and am no more worthy…” But was it not essential to a woman’s happiness to believe the man she loved, to be in all ways, worthy? Out of his pocket came again the well-worn letter. “I know you decided as you felt right,” wrote Myra. Why perplex her with explanations? Let the dead past bury its dead. No need to cloud, even momentarily, the joy with which they could now go forward into a new life. And what a life! Wedded life with Myra —

“Shenstone Junction!” shouted a porter and Jim Airth was across the platform before the train had stopped.

The tandem ponies waited outside the station, and this time Jim Airth gathered up the reins with a gay smile, flicking the leader, lightly. Before, he had said: “I never drive other people’s ponies,” in response to “Her ladyship’s” message; but now – “All that’s mine, is thine, laddie.”

He whistled “Huntingtower,” as he drove between the hayfields. Sprays of overhanging traveller’s-joy brushed his shoulder in the narrow lanes. It was good to be alive on such a day. It was good not to be leaving England, in England’s most perfect weather… Should he take her home to Scotland for their honeymoon, or down to Cornwall?

What a jolly little church!

Evidently Myra never slacked pace for a gate. How the ponies dashed through, and into the avenue!

Poor Mrs. O’Mara! It had been difficult to be civil to her, when she had appeared instead of Myra to give him tea.

Of course Scotland would be jolly, with so much to show her; but Cornwall meant more, in its associations. Yes; he would arrange for the honeymoon in Cornwall; be married in the morning, up in town; no fuss; then go straight down to the old Moorhead Inn. And after dinner, they would sit in the honeysuckle arbour, and —

Groatley showed him into Myra’s sitting-room.

She was not there.

He walked over to the mantelpiece. It seemed years since that evening when, in a sudden fury against Fate, he had crashed his fists upon its marble edge. He raised his eyes to Lord Ingleby’s portrait. Poor old chap! He looked so content, and so pleased with himself, and his little dog. But he must have always appeared more like Myra’s father than her – than anything else.

On the mantelpiece lay a telegram. After the manner of leisurely country post-offices, the full address was written on the envelope. It caught Jim Airth’s eye, and hardly conscious of doing so, he took it up and read it. “Lady Ingleby, Shenstone Park, England.” He laid it down. “England?” he wondered, idly. “Who can have been wiring to her from abroad?”

Then he turned. He had not heard her enter; but she was standing behind him.

“Myra!” he cried, and caught her to his heart.

The rapture and relief of that moment were unspeakable. No words seemed possible. He could only strain her to him, silently, with all his strength, and realise that she was safely there at last.

Myra had lifted her arms, and laid them lightly about his neck, hiding her face upon his breast… He never knew exactly when he began to realise a subtle change about the quality of her embrace; the woman’s passionate tenderness seemed missing; it rather resembled the trustful clinging of a little child. An uneasy foreboding, for which he could not account, assailed Jim Airth.

“Kiss me, Myra!” he said, peremptorily, and she, lifting her sweet face to his, kissed him at once. But it was the pure loving kiss of a little child.

Then she withdrew herself from his embrace; and, standing back, he looked at her, perplexed. The light upon her face seemed hardly earthly.

“Oh, Jim,” she said, “God’s ways are wonderful! I have such news for you, my friend. I thank God, it came before you had gone beyond recall. And I, who had been the one, unwittingly, to add so terribly to the weight of the lifelong cross you had to bear, am privileged to be the one to lift it quite away. Jim —you did not do it!”

Jim Airth gazed at her in troubled amazement. Into his mind, involuntarily, came the awesome Scotch word “fey.”

“I did not do what, dear?” he asked, gently, as if he were speaking to a little child whom he was anxious not to frighten.

“You did not kill Michael.”

“What makes you think I did not kill Michael, dear?” questioned Jim Airth, gently.

“Because,” said Myra, with clasped hands, “Michael is alive.”

“Dearest heart,” said Jim Airth, tenderly, “you are not well. These awful three weeks, and what went before, have been too much for you. The strain has upset you. I was a brute to go off and leave you. But you knew I did what I thought right at the time; didn’t you, Myra? Only now I see the whole thing quite differently. Your view was the true one. We ought to have acted upon it, and been married at once.”

“Oh, Jim,” said Myra, “thank God we didn’t! It would have been so terrible now. It must have been a case of ‘Even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me.’ In our unconscious ignorance, we might have gone away together, not knowing Michael was alive.”

Beads of perspiration stood on Jim Airth’s forehead.

“My darling, you are ill,” he said, in a voice of agonised anxiety. “I am afraid you are very ill. Do sit down quietly on the couch, and let me ring. I must speak to the O’Mara woman, or somebody. Why didn’t the fools let me know? Have you been ill all these weeks?”

Myra let him place her on the couch; smiling up at him reassuringly, as he stood before her.

“You must not ring the bell, Jim,” she said. “Maggie is at the Lodge; and Groatley would be so astonished. I am quite well.”

He looked around, in man-like helplessness; yet feeling something must be done. A long ivory fan, of exquisite workmanship, lay on a table near. He caught it up, and handed it to her. She took it; and to please him, opened it, fanning herself gently as she talked.

“I am not ill, Jim; really dear, I am not. I am only strangely happy and thankful. It seems too wonderful for our poor earthly hearts to understand. And I am a little frightened about the future – but you will help me to face that, I know. And I am rather worried about little things I have done wrong. It seems foolish – but as soon as I realised Michael was coming home, I became conscious of hosts of sins of omission, and I scarcely know where to begin to set them right. And the worst of all is – Jim! we have lost little Peter’s grave! No one seems able to locate it. It is so trying of the gardeners; and so wrong of me; because of course I ought to have planted it with flowers. And Michael would have expected a little marble slab, by now. But I, stupidly, was too ill to see to the funeral; and now Anson declares they put him in the plantation, and George swears it was in the shrubbery. I have been consulting Groatley who always has ideas, and expresses them so well, and he says: ‘Choose a suitable spot, m’ lady; order a handsome tomb; plant it with choice flowers; and who’s to be the wiser, till the resurrection?’ Groatley is always resourceful; but of course I never deceive Michael. Fancy little Peter rising from the shrubbery, when Michael had mourned for years over a marble tomb on the lawn! But it really is a great worry. They must all begin digging, and keep on until they find something definite. It will be good for the shrubbery and the plantation, like the silly old man in the parable – no, I mean fable – who pretended he had hidden a treasure. Oh, Jim, don’t look so distressed. I ought not to pour out all these trivial things to you; but since I have known Michael is coming back, my mind seems to have become foolish and trivial again. Michael always has that effect upon me; because – though he himself is so great and clever – he really thinks trivial and unimportant things are a woman’s vocation in life. But oh, Jim – Jim Airth – with you I am always lifted straight to the big things; and our big thing to-day is this: – that you never killed Michael. Do you remember telling me how, as you lay in your tent recovering from the fever, if some one could have come in and told you Michael was alive and well, and that you had not killed him after all, you would have given your life for the relief of that moment? Well, I am that ‘some one,’ and this is the ‘moment’; and when first I had the telegram I could think of nothing – absolutely nothing, Jim – but what it would be to you.”

“What telegram?” gasped Jim Airth. “In heaven’s name, Myra, what do you mean?”

“Michael’s telegram. It lies on the mantelpiece. Read it, Jim.”

Jim Airth turned, took up the telegram and drew it from the envelope with steady fingers. He still thought Myra was raving.

He read it through, slowly. The wording was unmistakable; but he read it through again. As he did so he slightly turned, so that his back was toward the couch.

The blow was so stupendous. He could only realise one thing, for the moment: – that the woman who watched him read it, must not as yet see his face.

She spoke.

“Is it not almost impossible to believe, Jim? Ronald and Billy were lunching here, when it came. Billy seemed stunned; but Ronnie was delighted. He said he had always believed the first men to rush in had been captured, and that no actual proofs of Michael’s death had ever been found. They never explained to me before, that there had been no funeral. I suppose they thought it would seem more horrible. But I never take much account of bodies. If it weren’t for the burden of having a weird little urn about, and wondering what to do with it, I should approve of cremation. I sometimes felt I ought to make a pilgrimage to see the grave. I knew Michael would have wished it. He sets much store by graves – all the Inglebys lie in family vaults. That makes it worse about Peter. Ronnie went up to town at once to telegraph out the money. Billy went with him. Do you think five hundred is enough? Jim? – Jim! Are you not thankful? Do say something, Jim.”

Jim Airth put back the telegram upon the mantelpiece. His big hand shook.

“What is ‘Veritas’?” he asked, without looking round.

“That is our private code, Jim; Michael’s and mine. My mother once wired to me in Michael’s name, and to him in mine – poor mamma often does eccentric things, to get her own way – and it made complications, Michael was very much annoyed. So we settled always to sign important telegrams ‘Veritas,’ which means: ‘This is really from me.’”

“Then – your husband – is coming home to you?” said Jim Airth, slowly.

“Yes, Jim,” the sweet voice faltered, for the first time, and grew tremulous. “Michael is coming home.”

Then Jim Airth turned round, and faced her squarely. Myra had never seen anything so terrible as his face.

“You are mine,” he said; “not his.”

Myra looked up at him, in dumb sorrowful appeal. She closed the ivory fan, clasping her hands upon it. The unquestioning finality of her patient silence, goaded Jim Airth to madness, and let loose the torrent of his fierce wild protest against this inevitable – this unrelenting, fate.

“You are mine,” he said, “not his. Your love is mine! Your body is mine! Your whole life is mine! I will not leave you to another man. Ah, I know I said we could not marry! I know I said I should go abroad. But you would have remained faithful to me; and I, to you. We might have been apart; we might have been lonely; we might have been at different ends of the earth; but – we should have been each other’s. I could have left you to loneliness; but, by God, I will not leave you to another!”

Myra rose, moved forward a few steps and stood, leaning her arm upon the mantelpiece and looking down upon the bank of ferns and lilies.

“Hush, Jim,” she said, gently. “You forget to whom you are speaking.”

“I am speaking,” cried Jim Airth, in furious desperation, “to the woman I have won for my own; and who is mine, and none other’s. If it had not been for my pride and my folly, we should have been married by now —married, Myra – and far away. I left you, I know; but – by heaven, I may as well tell you all now – it was pride – damnable false pride – that drove me away. I always meant to come back. I was waiting for you to send; but anyhow I should have come back. Would to God I had done as you implored me to do! By now we should have been together – out of reach of this cursed telegram, – and far away!”

Myra slowly lifted her eyes and looked at him. He, blinded by pain and passion, failed to mark the look, or he might have taken warning. As it was, he rushed on, headlong.

Myra, very white, with eyelids lowered, leaned against the mantelpiece; slowly furling and unfurling the ivory fan.

“But, darling,” urged Jim Airth, “it is not yet too late. Oh, Myra, I have loved you so! Our love has been so wonderful. Have I not taught you what love is? The poor cold travesty you knew before —that was not love! Oh, Myra! you will come away with me, my own belovèd? You won’t put me through the hell of leaving you to another man? Myra, look at me! Say you will come.”

Then Lady Ingleby slowly closed the fan, grasping it firmly in her right hand. She threw back her head, and looked Jim Airth full in the eyes.

“So this is your love,” she said. “This is what it means? Then I thank God I have hitherto only known the ‘cold travesty,’ which at least has kept me pure, and held me high. What? Would you drag me down to the level of the woman you have scorned for a dozen years? And, dragging me down, would you also trail, with me, in the mire, the noble name of the man whom you have ventured to call friend? My husband may not have given me much of those things a woman desires. But he has trusted me with his name, and with his honour; he has left me, mistress of his home. When he comes back he will find me what he himself made me – mistress of Shenstone; he will find me where he left me, awaiting his return. You are no longer speaking to a widow, Lord Airth; nor to a woman left desolate. You are speaking to Lord Ingleby’s wife, and you may as well learn how Lord Ingleby’s wife guards Lord Ingleby’s name, and defends her own honour, and his.” She lifted her hand swiftly and struck him, with the ivory fan, twice across the cheek. “Traitor!” she said, “and coward! Leave this house, and never set foot in it again!”

Jim Airth staggered back, his face livid – ashen, his hand involuntarily raised to ward off a third blow. Then the furious blood surged back. Two crimson streaks marked his cheek. He sprang forward; with a swift movement caught the fan from Lady Ingleby’s hands, and whirled it above his head. His eyes blazed into hers. For a moment she thought he was going to strike her. She neither flinched nor moved; only the faintest smile curved the corners of her mouth into a scornful question.

Then Jim Airth gripped the fan in both hands; with a twist of his strong fingers snapped it in half, the halves into quarters, and again, with another wrench, crushed those into a hundred fragments – flung them at her feet; and, turning on his heel, left the room, and left the house.

CHAPTER XXIII
WHAT BILLY KNEW

Ronald and Billy had spoken but little, as they sped to the railway station, earlier on that afternoon.

“Rummy go,” volunteered Ronald, launching the tentative comment into the somewhat oppressive silence.

Billy made no rejoinder.

“Why did you insist on coming with me?” asked Ronald.

“I’m not coming with you,” replied Billy laconically.

“Where then, Billy? Why so tragic? Are you going to leap from London Bridge? Don’t do it Billy-boy! You never had a chance. You were merely a nice kid. I’m the chap who might be tragic; and see – I’m going to the bank to despatch the wherewithal for bringing the old boy back. Take example by my fortitude, Billy.”

Billy’s explosion, when it came, was so violent, so choice, and so unlike Billy, that Ronald relapsed into wondering silence.

But once in the train, locked into an empty first-class smoker, Billy turned a white face to his friend.

“Ronnie,” he said, “I am going straight to Sir Deryck Brand. He is the only man I know, with a head on his shoulders.”

“Thank you,” said Ronnie. “I suppose I dandle mine on my knee. But why this urgent need of a man with his head so uniquely placed?”

“Because,” said Billy, “that telegram is a lie.”

“Nonsense, Billy! The wish is father to the thought! Oh, shame on you, Billy! Poor old Ingleby!”

“It is a lie,” repeated Billy, doggedly.

“But look,” objected Ronald, unfolding the telegram. “Here you are. ‘Veritas.’ What do you make of that?”

“Veritas be hanged!” said Billy. “It’s a lie; and we’ve got to find out what damned rascal has sent it.”

“But what possible reason have you to throw doubt on it?” inquired Ronald, gravely.

“Oh, confound you!” burst out Billy at last; “I picked up the pieces!”

A very nervous white-faced young man sat in the green leather armchair in Dr. Brand’s consulting-room. He had shown the telegram, and jerked out a few incoherent sentences; after which Sir Deryck, by means of carefully chosen questions, had arrived at the main facts. He now sat at his table considering them.

Then, turning in his revolving-chair, he looked steadily at Billy.

“Cathcart,” he said, quietly, “what reason have you for being so certain of Lord Ingleby’s death, and that this telegram is therefore a forgery?”

Billy moistened his lips. “Oh, confound it!” he said. “I picked up the pieces!”

“I see,” said Sir Deryck; and looked away.

“I have never told a soul,” said Billy. “It is not a pretty story. But I can give you details, if you like.”

“I think you had better give me details,” said Sir Deryck, gravely.

So, with white lips, Billy gave them.

The doctor rose, buttoning his coat. Then he poured out a glass of water and handed it to Billy.

“Come,” he said. “Fortunately I know a very cute detective from our own London force who happens just now to be in Cairo. We must go to Scotland Yard for his address, and a code. In fact we had better work it through them. You have done the right thing, Billy; and done it promptly; but we have no time to lose.”

Twenty-four hours later, the doctor called at Shenstone Park. He had telegraphed his train requesting to be met by the motor; and he now asked the chauffeur to wait at the door, in order to take him back to the station.

“I could only come between trains,” he explained to Lady Ingleby, “so you must forgive the short notice, and the peremptory tone of my telegram. I could not risk missing you. I have something of great importance to communicate.”

The doctor waited a moment, hardly knowing how to proceed. He had seen Myra Ingleby under many varying conditions. He knew her well; and she was a woman so invariably true to herself, that he expected to be able to foresee exactly how she would act under any given combination of circumstances.

In this undreamed of development of Lord Ingleby’s return, he anticipated finding her gently acquiescent; eagerly ready to resume again the duties of wifehood; with no thought of herself, but filled with anxious desire in all things to please the man who, with his whims and fancies, his foibles and ideas, had for nine months passed completely out of her life. Deryck Brand had expected to find Lady Ingleby in the mood of a typical April day, sunshine and showers rapidly alternating; whimsical smiles, succeeded by ready tears; then, with lashes still wet, gay laughter at some mistake of her own, or at incongruous behaviour on the part of her devoted but erratic household; speedily followed by pathetic anxiety over her own supposed short-comings in view of Lord Ingleby’s requirements on his return.

Instead of this charming personification of unselfish, inconsequent, tender femininity, the doctor found himself confronted by a calm cold woman, with hard unseeing eyes; a woman in whom something had died; and dying, had slain all the best and truest in her womanhood.

“Another man,” was the prompt conclusion at which the doctor arrived; and this conclusion, coupled with the exigency of his own pressing engagements, brought him without preamble, very promptly to the point.

“Lady Ingleby,” he said, “a cruel and heartless wrong has been done you by a despicable scoundrel, for whom no retribution would be too severe.”

“I am perfectly aware of that,” replied Lady Ingleby, calmly; “but I fail to understand, Sir Deryck, why you should consider it necessary to come down here in order to discuss it.”

This most unexpected reply for a moment completely nonplussed the doctor. But rapid mental adjustment formed an important part of his professional equipment.

“I fear we are speaking at cross-purposes,” he said, gently. “Forgive me, if I appear to have trespassed upon a subject of which I have no knowledge whatever. I am referring to the telegram received by you yesterday, which led you to suppose the report of Lord Ingleby’s death was a mistake, and that he might shortly be returning home.”

“My husband is alive,” said Lady Ingleby. “He has telegraphed to me from Cairo, and I expect him back very soon.”

For answer, Deryck Brand drew from his pocket-book two telegrams.

“I am bound to tell you at once, dear Lady Ingleby,” he said, “that you have been cruelly deceived. The message from Cairo was a heartless fraud, designed in order to obtain money. Billy Cathcart had reason to suspect its genuineness, and brought it to me. I cabled at once to Cairo, with this result.”

He laid two telegrams on the table before her.

“The first is a copy of one we sent yesterday to a detective out there. The second I received three hours ago. No one – not even Billy – has heard of its arrival. I have brought it immediately to you.”

Lady Ingleby slowly lifted the paper containing the first message. She read it in silence.

Watch Cook’s bank and arrest man personating Lord Ingleby who will call for draft of money. Cable particulars promptly.

The doctor observed her closely as she laid down the first message without comment, and took up the second.

Former valet of Lord Ingleby’s arrested. Confesses to despatch of fraudulent telegram. Cable instructions.

Lady Ingleby folded both papers and laid them on the table beside her. The calm impassivity of the white face had undergone no change.

“It must have been Walker,” she said. “Michael always considered him a scamp and shifty; but I delighted in him, because he played the banjo quite excellently, and was so useful at parish entertainments. Michael took him abroad; but had to dismiss him on landing. He wrote and told me the fact, but gave no reasons. Poor Walker! I do not wish him punished, because I know Michael would think it was largely my own fault for putting banjo-playing before character. If Walker had written me a begging letter, I should most likely have sent him the money. I have a fatal habit of believing in people, and of wanting everybody to be happy.”

Then, as if these last words recalled a momentarily forgotten wound, the stony apathy returned to voice and face.

“If Michael is not coming back,” said Lady Ingleby, “I am indeed alone.”

The doctor rose, and stood looking down upon her, perplexed and sorrowful.

“Is there not some one who should be told immediately of this change of affairs, Lady Ingleby?” he asked, gravely.

“No one,” she replied, emphatically. “There is nobody whom it concerns intimately, excepting myself. And not many know of the arrival of yesterday’s news. I wrote to Jane, and I suppose the boys told it at Overdene. If by any chance it gets into the papers, we must send a contradiction; but no explanation, please. I dislike the publication of wrong doing. It only leads to imitation and repetition. Beside, even a poor worm of a valet should be shielded if possible from public execration. We could not explain the extenuating circumstances.”

“I do not suppose the news has become widely known,” said the doctor. “Your household heard it, of course?”

“Yes,” replied Lady Ingleby. “Ah, that reminds me, I must stop operations in the shrubbery and plantation. There is no object in little Peter having a grave, when his master has none.”

This was absolutely unintelligible to the doctor; but at such times he never asked unnecessary questions, for his own enlightenment.

“So after all, Sir Deryck,” added Lady Ingleby, “Peter was right.”

“Yes,” said the doctor, “little Peter was not mistaken.”

“Had I remembered him, I might have doubted the telegram,” remarked Lady Ingleby. “What can have aroused Billy’s suspicions?”

“Like Peter,” said the doctor, “Billy had, from the first, felt very sure. Do not mention to him that I told you the doubts originated with him. He is a sensitive lad, and the whole thing has greatly distressed him.”

“Dear Billy,” said Lady Ingleby.

The doctor glanced at the clock, and buttoned his coat. He had one minute to spare.

“My friend,” he said, “a second time I have come as the bearer of evil tidings.”

“Not evil,” replied Myra, in a tone of hopeless sadness. “This is not a world to which we could possibly desire the return of one we love.”

“There is nothing wrong with the world,” said the doctor. “Our individual heaven or hell is brought about by our own actions.”

“Or by the actions of others,” amended Lady Ingleby, bitterly.

“Or by the actions of others,” agreed the doctor. “But, even then, we cannot be completely happy, unless we are true to our best selves; nor wholly miserable, unless to our own ideals we become false. I fear I must be off; but I do not like leaving you thus alone.”

Lady Ingleby glanced at the clock, rose, and gave him her hand.

“You have been more than kind, Sir Deryck, in coming to me yourself. I shall never forget it. And I am expecting Jane Champion – Dalmain, I mean; why do one’s friends get married? – any minute. She is coming direct from town; the phaeton has gone to the station to meet her.”

“Good,” said the doctor, and clasped her hand with the strong silent sympathy of a man who, desiring to help, yet realises himself in the presence of a grief he is powerless either to understand or to assuage.

“Good – very good,” he said, as he stepped into the motor, remarking to the chauffeur: “We have nine minutes; and if we miss the train, I must ask you to run me up to town.”

And he said it a third time, even more emphatically, when he had recovered from his surprise at that which he saw as the motor flew down the avenue. For, after passing Lady Ingleby’s phaeton returning from the station empty excepting for a travelling coat and alligator bag left upon the seat, he saw the Honourable Mrs. Dalmain walking slowly beneath the trees, in earnest conversation with a very tall man, who carried his hat, letting the breeze blow through his thick rumpled hair. Both were too preoccupied to notice the motor, but as the man turned his haggard face toward his companion, the doctor saw in it the same stony look of hopeless despair, which had grieved and baffled him in Lady Ingleby’s. The two were slowly wending their way toward the house, by a path leading down to the terrace.

“Evidently – the man,” thought the doctor. “Well, I am glad Jane has him in tow. Poor souls! Providence has placed them in wise hands. If faithful counsel and honest plain-speaking can avail them anything, they will undoubtedly receive both, from our good Jane.”

Providence also arranged that the London express was one minute late, and the doctor caught it. Whereat the chauffeur rejoiced; for he was “walking out” with Her ladyship’s maid, whose evening off it chanced to be. The all-important events of life are apt to hang upon the happenings of one minute.