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Cynthia found in the drawer half a column of a Spanish newspaper. The name was on the top of the column. It was a paper published in Buenos Ayres. She brought the cutting back to the bed and placed it between his fingers.

"Yes, that's it," he said, and he lay back upon his pillows, and gathered his strength. "I have got to tell you now something which we have always kept a secret from you." "There is no need to tell it," said Cynthia. Robert Daventry stared at her. "If you do know it," he said slowly, "we have made the cruellest mistake we could possibly have made. But you can't know it!"

"It's about James Challoner?" asked Cynthia, and Robert Daventry shut his eyes with a look of great distress upon his face. "How long have you known?" he asked. "From the night when he came to the estancia," she answered. And she told how she had slipped into the smokingroom and how, huddled in the great chair, she had heard all that James Challoner proposed for her. The shadow deepened upon Daventry's face as he listened, and when she had ended he asked with deep regret: "Why didn't you tell us this, Cynthia?" "Because, just outside the smokingroom door in the hall, you both decided not to tell me not to breathe a word of-of my father's visit. You thought the knowledge would trouble and frighten me. You thought it would hurt. Well, I was as certain that you would be greatly distressed to know that already I had the knowledge. So I held my tongue."

"And it did trouble you?" "Yes."

"A great deal?”

"Yes," Cynthia admitted. "I was frightened. I did not know what power he might have. I knew you had fled from him for my sake.”

"And since you have been here-during these three years-you have still been troubled, still frightened lest he should come and claim you with the law at his side?" Though the old man could hardly speak above a whisper, he was strangely insistent in his questioning. The words came unevenly, with breaks between, and now and then a weak gasp for breath. Cynthia replied quite simply:

"Yes, here, too, I have thought that he might come. I used to be frightened

at night. I used to hear him in the house."

And with every word she spoke, the compunction and distress deepened in Daventry's mind.

"What a pity!" he said. "Neither of us guessed, not even Joan, who was quicker than I to notice things. And we thought we knew all about you, Cynthia!" A faint smile lit up his face. "How little, after all, we did know! For we could have spared you all this trouble. Read." And opening his hand he let her take from it the newspaper slip. She uttered a cry as she read the first lines.

"It's true," said Daventry, from the bed. Cynthia carried the cutting over to the window and read by the fading light. It gave the account of an inquest held at a small town twenty-five miles up the line from the Daventry estancia on the body of an Englishman who had been stabbed to the heart by a Gaucho in a drunken quarrel at a tavern. There was a witness who had worked with the Englishman, and could identify him. He called himself James Challoner, and, when he was drunk, he would boast of his family. Cynthia let the slip of paper fall from her fingers, and stood by the window until Robert Daventry called her to his side.

"You held your tongue so as not to distress us," he whispered. "We held ours so as not to frighten you. And so because we were careful of your happiness, and you of ours, you have gone through years of anxiety and terror. Needless anxiety! Terror without a cause! I am so sorry. It seems so pitiful. It seems rather grim to me, Cynthia."

Cynthia answered quietly:

"That's the way things happen." And when she had spoken, Robert Daventry, with an effort, raised himself upon his elbow and peered into her face.

"You oughtn't to be able to say that, Cynthia," he said remorsefully. "You oughtn't to be able to think it. It's not the proper philosophy for twenty. I am afraid, my dear, that trouble has gone deep." He fell back and in a moment a little whimsical smile flickered upon his face. "I don't think I'll tell Joan about this," he said. "She wouldn't like it. She wouldn't forgive herself for not having noticed that you were troubled."

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After all, it was my fault," said Cynthia. "For I hid in the room. However, it's all over now."

But Daventry was not prepared to accept
her word. Some flash of insight forbade him.
"It has left its mark, my dear," he in-
sisted, and in broken sentences he dwelt up-
on his theme. His mind began to wander
after a little, but through his wanderings
there ran the thread of this idea:

"Joan was always so careful.
when you were quite a little girl . . . we
Even
were never to laugh at you. 'Children

and dogs' she used to say, 'you must never
laugh at them. Little things warp chil-
dren.' . . . Do you remember when you
used to write plays and perform them to us
at Christmas, in a toy theatre, with little
figures in tin slides?
careful that we should take them seriously,
.. Joan was always
and not laugh at the wrong place. I never
did want to laugh at the wrong place. I
thought you wrote very good plays, Cyn-
thia. I used to say you were a genius.
But Joan wouldn't have it. 'No!' she
said, 'All children are born dramatists,
but they forget the trick of it afterward.'
... I suppose she knew. She was
very clever woman-" and so he drifted off
a
gradually into sleep. Cynthia stayed by
his side while the twilight faded and the
darkness came; and the light of the fire
danced ever more brightly upon the ceiling
of the room. The wind set from the west
and as the hours passed, the chimes from
the great clock in Ludsey Church tower
came softly and faintly into the room. But
they did not disturb the old man's rest. He
went floating out on a calm tide of sleep
to his death, and Cynthia sat by his side
wondering in the intervals of her grief at
the strange arrangement of life which or-
dained that the efforts of people to secure
the happiness of others should only cause
needless terrors and vain miseries.

X

MR. BENOLIEL

"THERE are no ladies," Captain Rames said indignantly, as he took his seat in Mr. Benoliel's dining-room.

His neighbor, a florid and handsome man, a little past the prime of life, glanced at the name on the visiting-card which

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marked Captain Rames's place, and smiled sympathetically.

with a pleasant pomposity, "that to a sailor "I can quite understand," he returned who has been three years in the Antarctic the deficiency is a very lamentable business. But there are some elements of consolation. Amongst the twelve men seated at this round table of mahogany, you will hardly see one who has not made some stir in the will see Mr. Winthrop, that long and salworld. Upon your right, for instance, you low person. He is a political resident in his work, in six volumes, on the Indian one of the native States of Rajputana, and bangle, is, I believe, supposed to be the last word upon the subject. A little nearer to you you will see a youth, though he is not and the only aviator who has not yet fallen so young as he looks. He is M. Poileaux, into the sea. here no more. I myself am a surgeon whose name, I believe, is not unknown." When he does, he will come

Sir James Burrell discreetly pointed out And with a large white hand the famous others of note to his companion.

Captain Rames glanced indifferently in black coats, and amongst those few was round the table. A few of the twelve were Mr. Benoliel. It was the night of a court ball, and most of the guests were in some uniform or another, or shone in the gold of the privy councillor.

portance," replied Captain Rames bluntly.
"They are, no doubt, men of vast im-
I could dispense with the lot of them.
"But leaving you out of account, Sir James,
I do ask that there should be a petticoat on
When I dine in Grosvenor Square, in June,
one side of me, at all events."

He studied his neighbor with a quick, ob-
The surgeon laughed good-humoredly.
middle height, with a squareness of build,
servant eye. Captain Rames was of the
which his gold epaulets exaggerated at this
moment, and he was square too of face.
His hair was thick and curved over from
the side, parting in a dark, turbulent comb,
his forehead was broad, his eyes keen and
very steady. Vigor rather than refinement
ter than intellect, more capacity than
was the mark of him; he had more charac-
him.
knowledge; thus Sir James Burrell defined

"at so many bedsides that I should feel my
"I have played the comforter," he said,

vanity touched if I failed to console you," he returned. "Let me bring to your attention the menu. I am confident that it will appeal to you.'

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"Yes, that's all right," Rames admitted, as he leaned forward and glanced at the card. "But why should it particularly appeal to me?"

Sir James Burrell shrugged his shoulders. "My profession brings me into touch with interesting people. I take my pleas ure in observing them. And I have always noticed that the men who cheerfully endure the greatest hardships are also the first to demand the best of the luxuries, when they are within reach."

"Well, it's true," said Captain Rames. "I can make a shift with pemmican, but I honestly like a good dinner. It's the contrast, I suppose."

Sir James shook his head.

"It goes deeper than that," said he. "Your pale saints are no doubt profitable to the painters of glass windows, but I doubt if the world owes so very much to them. The great things are really done by the people who have a good deal of the animal in them; and animals like good dinners."

Captain Rames was mollified, and his face took on a jovial look.

of asceticism has been a great asset to him in his career. But the public has quite misjudged him. He is a voluptuary, with the face of a monk-the most useful combination for public life in this country which you could possibly imagine. If he dines alone at his club, he will not dine under a guinea; and he has the animal weaknesses up to the brim of him. For instance, he is as jealous as a dog. Filch from him the smallest of his prerogatives and, like the good democrat he is, he will turn upon you bitterly. Yet he has done great things, and initiated bold policies. Why? Because he has enough of the animal in him to do great things." And upon that Sir James broke off.

The butler was standing at the elbow of Captain Rames, with a jug of champagne in one hand, and a decanter of red wine in the other. He bent down and offered Captain Rames his choice. Sir James Burrell intervened.

"By the way," he said, "have you any wish to stand particularly well with your host?"

"I am now beginning to think that I have," replied Captain Rames.

"Then I should choose his Burgundy. He has his fancies, like the rest of us, and

"I am animal enough," he said, "to purr to prefer his Nuits-St.-George to champagne when my back is scratched."

But Sir James Burrell was mounted on a hobby and hardly heeded the interruption. "I could quote historical instances, but I need go no further than this room. Do you see the man sitting next to our host, and upon his right?"

Captain Rames saw a small thin man in the dress of a privy councillor, a man with a peaked, fleshless face, in which a pair of small eyes twinkled alertly. A scanty crop of gray hair covered the back of his skull, and left markedly visible the height and the narrowness of his forehead. Captain Rames leaned forward with a new interest. "Yes, and I recognize his face," he said. "Surely that is Henry Smale."

"Exactly," returned Sir James. "He is in the cabinet, and, quite apart from politics, he is, upon scientific grounds, a man of great distinction."

"But, surely, he disproves your theory. He looks an ascetic."

"And is nothing of the kind," interrupted Sir James. "I admit that his look

is one way to his esteem."

Captain Rames took the hint, and, as he raised his glass to his lips, Mr. Benoliel smiled to him across the table.

"I will ask your opinion upon that wine, Captain Rames," he said, and so turned again to Henry Smale.

"You see, he noticed at once," said Sir

James.

Captain Rames had noticed something too. At the mention of his name, Henry Smale had looked up with interest. He was even now obviously asking a question of Mr. Benoliel about him. Rames began to take more careful stock of his host. Mr. Benoliel was a tall, high-shouldered man, with a dark thin face in which delicacy seemed to predominate over strength. His hair was black, and a little black mustache drew a pencil line along his upper lip. His fingers were long and extraordinarily restless. It was difficult to make a guess at his age. A first glance would put him in the forties. But when Mr. Benoliel showed his eyes-which was not always,

for he had a trick of looking out between lids half-closed-it seemed that he must have lived for centuries; so much of fatigue and so much of patience were suddenly revealed.

"I wonder why he asked me to dine here," said Harry Rames.

"You were certain to dine here," replied Sir James.

"I met him but the once by the purest accident."

"You were certain to meet him," said Sir James. "All famous people meet him. All famous people dine here once. But he is not really a snob. For, quite a number of them are never invited twice." "He can be a good friend?"

"I do not think that matters," said the surgeon. "He likes to pose as Providence, and the posture will be more dramatic if it is assumed toward an acquaintance rather than a friend."

"He is a sham, then," said Rames bluntly.

"By no means," Sir James replied suavely. "Let us say, rather, that he is an artist."

Captain Rames turned with a furrowed brow to his companion.

"Of that I cannot speak," said Sir element. To supply a character much as James.

The courses followed one after the other, and Harry Rames found his eyes continually wandering back across the silver and bright flowers to the exotic figure of his host. He took his share in the conversation about him, but a movement of Mr. Benoliel would check him in his speech or cause him to listen with an absent ear. He watched the play of his delicate fingers upon the table-cloth, the continual restlessness of his body. Mr. Benoliel was of his race; there was in his aspect a queer mixture of the financier and the dilettante, the shrewd business man and the sensuous appreciator of art. There was a touch, too, of the feminine in him.

"I told you that you would not be bored," said Sir James Burrell toward the end of the dinner. "You are not the first man who has fallen under the spell of Mr. Benoliel."

Harry Rames laughed.

"I am under no spell, I assure you," he said frankly. "I was wondering whether he was likely to be of use to me.'

"It is very likely," returned Sir James. "He has been of use to many. He plays at omniscience. To anticipate a wish before it is expressed, to serve an ambition before it has been revealed that is one of our host's little vanities. He may have asked you here with no other object than to gratify it."

Harry Rames glanced quickly at his companion.

"Is that so?" he asked eagerly. Then his face fell. "But I am not even a friend of his."

"I am no great hand at subtleties," he said. "Will you tell me what you know of Mr. Benoliel? I am a beginner in the world, and he may be of importance to me." Sir James Burrell smiled. He was in his some author of the seventeenth century might have done, was a foible which continually tempted him. He was not always successful. Paradox allured him into difficulties, cheap epigrams at times blazed before him, and would not be quiet until he had uttered them. But often he managed to hit off, with some happiness, at all events, the externals of the person whom he described. He drank his wine now slowly and set down his glass. Then, twisting the delicate stem with the finger-tips of his large and handsome hand, he began:

"He is a Jew, of course, and an Oriental. But from what quarter of the Orient, who shall say? You may give him any birthplace, from the Levant to Casa Blanca, and no one will contradict you. Some hold him to be a charlatan, as you are inclined to do. But he is an accepted personage, not blown into notice and out of it by the favor of a season, but a permanency. How he became so, I cannot tell you. He is very busy all day, although when the darkness comes it would be difficult to point to any one thing which he had done. He is always at the top table at public dinners, and very near to the chairman. But he never proposes a toast or responds to one. If he writes a letter to the Times, it appears in leaded type. If you want secret information on any subject, he can get it for you. If you want help, he will find the man who can give it. He is a power in the city. He is a power in politics, and the motorcars of prime-ministers stand at his door at ten o'clock in the morning. Yet he was never in the House, and has never made a

speech on any platform. It is believed by many that he might achieve greatness if he chose. But he never chooses. He has the air at a discussion of being able to say the last word on any subject, but he does not say it. He seems, indeed, to stand high in the world on a pedestal which has no legs to it. That is how I describe him. For the rest, he is rich, and I have never heard him utter an opinion which was not derived from others, or altogether banal. But, listen! He is going to speak to us." "However, I can recommend the old brandy," was all that Mr. Benoliel had at that moment to say.

"There, what did I tell you!" said Sir James, triumphant at the success of his diagnosis.

"Well, if his talk is banal his brandy isn't, God bless him," said Captain Rames. "But I interrupted you."

"He has been guilty of one weakness," Sir James resumed. "He married into an old family of great poverty and the marriage lasted for six months. His wife lives handsomely in Eton Square But I see that I am going to lose you, for our host is beckoning to you."

Captain Rames obeyed the summons with alacrity and walked round the table. "I see that you are going on to Buckingham Palace," said Mr. Benoliel. "So I thought that I would interrupt your conversation with Sir James Burrell. For I want to introduce you to Mr. Smale."

Mr. Smale held out his hand. At a sign from Benoliel, the butler brought up a chair and placed it between Smale and his host. "Sit down," said Benoliel, and Captain Rames obeyed.

romance to favor you. But-" and he pursed up his lips as if in doubt and looked at Captain Rames with a searching eye. Rames was disconcerted. He had been back in England for some six months, and during those six months he had been much sought after. At this period of his life, doubts of him had been rarely expressed behind his back, and never to his face. Young ladies whom he did not know had clamored for his autograph, young ladies whom he did know had approached him with a winning humility; established beauty had smiled at him; established fame had welcomed him as an equal. The calm scrutiny of Henry Smale was a displeasing splash of cold water.

"Of course," he said, with a diffidence, which he did not feel. "I might be a failure."

And Henry Smale replied promptly:

"That's just it. You might be a failure. Meanwhile you are a great success, and have the chance of standing quite alone in your career. For what you set out to do is not yet done. You leave the laurel for another to snatch."

"That is quite true Mr. Smale," Harry Rames replied. "But I have considered it. I am not yielding to an impulse I have counted the risk!"

He spoke with a nice adjustment of firmness and modesty. Henry Smale rose from his chair.

"Will you come four o'clock to

"Very well," he said. down to the House at morrow afternoon? I will introduce you to Hanley, the chief whip."

Captain Rames flushed with pleasure. "Thank you, I shall be delighted," he

"Benoliel tells me," said Smale, "that cried, rising in his turn; and as the two men you are thinking of Parliament."

Captain Rames was startled. He could not remember that in his one brief conversation with his host he had even mentioned his ambition.

"I inferred it from a casual word or two you let drop," said Benoliel with a smile.

"Well, it's true," said Rames. "I should like to stand on your side very much, Mr. Smale, if I could find a seat to contest."

Henry Smale nodded.

"That, no doubt, could be arranged. You would be a strong candidate. You bring a reputation and some breath of

shook hands, Mr. Benoliel said gently: "I was thinking of Ludsey. It has no candidate on your side, Smale."

XI

A MAN ON THE MAKE

A WEEK later, and much about the same hour, Captain Rames was driven along the Mall in St. James's Park. Friday had come round again, and the light did not burn in the clock-tower at Westminster. But the windows of the admiralty blazed upon the horse-guards' parade, and its great doors

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