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'How should I suspect? I was always told that Mr. Feilding was not the man to begin that kind of thing.'

'Were you? Your companion told you that, I suppose?'

'Oh! I suppose so. There seems a horrid network of deception all about me, Lady Frances.' Armorel rose, and her visitor followed her example. 'You have put a secret into my hands. I shall respect it. Henceforth, I desire but one more interview with this man. Oh! he is all lies – through and through. There is no part of him that is true.'

'Nonsense, my dear; you take things too seriously. We all have our little reservations, and some deceptions are necessary. When you get to my age you will understand. Why won't you marry the man? He is young: his manners are pretty good: he is a man of the world: he is really clever: he is quite sure to get on, particularly if his wife help him. He means to get on. He is the kind of man to get on. You see he is clever enough to take the credit of other people's work: to make others work for you is the first rule in the art of getting on. Oh! he will do. I shall live to see him made a baronet, and in the next generation his son will marry money, and go up into the Lords. That is the way. My dear, you had better take him. You will never get a more promising offer. You seem to me rather an unworldly kind of girl. You should really take advice of those who know the world.'

'I could never – never – marry Mr. Feilding.

'Wealth, position, society, rank, consideration – these are the only things in life worth having, and you are going to throw them away! My dear, is there actually nothing between you at all? Was it all a fib?'

'Actually nothing at all, except that he offered himself to me this very morning, and he received an answer which was, I hope, plain enough.'

'Ah! now I see.' Lady Frances laughed. 'Now I understand, my dear, the vanity of the man! The creature, when he told me that fib, thought it was the truth because he had made up his mind to ask you, and, of course, he concluded that no one could say "No" to him. Now I understand. You need not fall into a rage about it, my dear. It was only his vanity. Poor dear Alec! Well, he'll get another pretty girl, I dare say; but, my dear, I doubt whether – Rising men are scarce, you know. Good-bye, child! Keep that little secret, and don't bear malice. The vanity – the vanity of the men! Wonderful! wonderful!'

'And now,' cried Armorel, alone – 'now there is nothing left. Everything has been torn from him. He can do nothing – nothing. The cleverest man – the very cleverest man in all London!'

CHAPTER XIX
WHAT NEXT?

Roland had moved into his new studio before Armorel became, as she had promised, his model in the new picture. She began to go there nearly every morning, accompanied by Effie, and faithfully sat for two or three hours while the painting went on. It was the picture which he had begun under the old conditions, her own figure being substituted for that of the girl which the artist originally designed. The studio was one of a nest of such offices crowded together under a great roof and lying on many floors. The others were, I dare say, prettily furnished and decorated with the customary furniture of a studio, with pictures, sketches, screens, and pretty things of all kinds. This studio was nothing but a great gaunt room, with a big window, and no furniture in it except an easel, a table, and two or three chairs. There was simply nothing else. Under the pressure of want and failure the unfortunate artist had long ago parted with all the pretty things with which he had begun his career, and the present was no time to replace them.

'I have got the studio,' he said, 'for the remainder of a lease, pretty cheap. Unfortunately, I cannot furnish it yet. Wait until the tide turns. I am full of hope. Then this arid wall and this great staring Sahara of a floor shall blossom with all manner of lovely things – armour and weapons, bits of carving and tapestry, drawings. You shall see how jolly it will be.'

Next to the studio there were two rooms. In one of these, his bedroom, he had placed the barest necessaries; the other was empty and unfurnished, so that he had no place to sit in during the evening but his gaunt and ghostly studio. However, the tide had turned in one respect. He was now full of hope.

There is no better time for conversation than when one is sitting for a portrait or standing for a model. The subject has to remain motionless. This would be irksome if silence were imposed as well as inaction. Happily, the painter finds that his sitter only exhibits a natural expression when he or she is talking and thinking about something else. And, which is certainly a Providential arrangement, the painter alone among mortals, if we except the cobbler, can talk and work at the same time. I do not mean that he can talk about the Differential Calculus, or about the relations of Capital and Labour, or about a hot corner in politics: but he can talk of things light, pleasant, and on the surface.

'I feel myself back in Scilly,' said Armorel. 'Whenever I come here and think of what you are painting, I am in the boat, watching the race of the tide through the channel. The puffins are swarming on Camber Rock, and swimming in the smooth water outside: there is the head of a seal, black above the water, shining in the sunlight – how he flounders in the current! The sea-gulls are flying and crying overhead: the shags stand in rows upon the farthest rocks: the sea-breeze blows upon my cheek. I suppose I have changed so much that when I go back I shall have lost the old feeling. But it was joy enough in those days only to sit in the boat and watch it all. Do you remember, Roland?'

'I remember very well. You are not changed a bit, Armorel: you have only grown larger and – ' 'More beautiful,' he would have added, but refrained. 'You will find that the old joy will return again —la joie de vivre– only to breathe and feel and look around. But it will be then ten times as joyous. If you loved Scilly when you were a child and had seen nothing else, how much more will you love the place now that you have travelled and seen strange lands and other coasts and the islands of the Mediterranean!'

'I fear that I shall find the place small: the house will have shrunk – children's houses always shrink. I hope that Holy Farm will not have become mean.'

'Mean? with the verbena-trees, the fuchsias, the tall pampas-grass, and the palms! Mean? with the old ship's lanthorn and the gilded figure-head? Mean, Armorel? with the old orchard behind and the twisted trees with their fringe of grey moss? You talk rank blasphemy! Something dreadful will happen to you.'

'Perhaps it will be I myself, then, that will have grown mean enough to think the old house mean. But Samson is a very little place, isn't it? One cannot make out Samson to be a big place. I could no longer live there always. We will go there for three or four months every year; just for refreshment of the soul, and then return here among men and women or travel abroad together, Effie. We could be happy for a time there: we could sail and row about the rocks in calm weather: and in stormy weather we should watch the waves breaking over the headlands, and in the evening I would play "The Chirping of the Lark."'

'I am ready to go to-morrow, if you will take me with you,' said Effie.

Then they were silent again. Roland walked backwards and forwards, brush and palette in hand, looking at his model and at his canvas. Effie stood beside the picture, watching it grow. To one who cannot paint, the growth of a portrait on the canvas is a kind of magic. The bare outline and shape of head and face, the colour of the eyes, the curve of the neck, the lines of the lips – anyone might draw these. But to transfer to the canvas the very soul that lies beneath the features – that, if you please, is different. Oh! How does the painter catch the soul of the man and show it in his face? One must be oneself an artist of some kind even to appreciate the greatness of the portrait painter.

'When this picture is finished,' said Armorel, 'there will be nothing to keep me in London; and we will go then.'

'At the very beginning of the season?'

'The season is nothing to me. My companion, Mrs. Elstree, who was to have launched me so beautifully into the very best society, turns out not to have any friends; so that there is no society for me, after all. Perhaps it is as well.'

'Will Mrs. Elstree go to Scilly with you?' asked Roland.

'No,' said Armorel, with decision. 'On Samson, at least, one needs no companion.'

Again they relapsed into silence for a space. Conversation in the studio is fitful.

'I have a thing to talk over with you two,' she said. 'First, I thought it would be best to talk about it to you singly; but now I think that you should both hear the whole story, and so we can all three take counsel as to what is best.'

'Your head a little more – so.' Roland indicated the movement with his forefinger. 'That will do. Now pray go on, Armorel.'

'Once there was a man,' she began, as if she was telling a story to children – and, indeed, there is no better way ever found out of beginning a story – 'a man who was, in no sense at all, and could never become, try as much as he could, an artist. He was, in fact, entirely devoid of the artistic faculty: he had no ear for music or for poetry, no eye for beauty of form or for colour, no hand for drawing, no brain to conceive: he was quite a prosaic person. Whether he was clever in things that do not require the artistic faculty, I do not know. I should hardly think he could be clever in anything. Perhaps he might be good at buying cheap and selling dear.'

'Won't you take five minutes' rest?' asked the painter; hardly listening at all to the beginning, which, as you see, promised very little in the way of amusement. There are, however, many ways by which the story-teller gets a grip of his hearer, and a dull beginning is not always the least effective. He put down his palette. 'You must be tired,' he said. 'Come and tell me what you think.' He looked thoughtfully at his picture. Armorel's poor little beginning of a story was slighted.

'You are satisfied, so far?' she asked.

'I will tell you when it is finished. Is the water quite right?'

'We are in shoal, close behind us are the broad Black Rock Ledges. The water might be even more transparent still. It is the dark water racing through the narrow ravine that I think of most. It will be a great picture, Roland. Now I will take my place again.' She did so. 'And, with your permission, I will go on with my story: you heard the beginning, Roland?'

'Oh! Yes! Unfortunate man with no eyes and no ears,' he replied, unsuspecting. 'Worse than a one-eyed Calender.'

'This preposterous person, then, with neither eye, nor ear, nor hand, nor understanding, had the absurd ambition to succeed. This you will hardly believe. But he did. And, what is more, he had no patience, but wanted to succeed all at once. I am told that lots of young men, nowadays, are consumed with that yearning to succeed all at once. It seems such a pity, when they should be happily dancing and singing and playing at the time when they were not working. I think they would succeed so very much better afterwards. Well, this person very soon found that in the law – did I say he was a barrister? – he had no chance of success except after long years. Then he looked round the fields of art and literature. Mind, he could neither write nor practise any art. What was he to do? Every day the ambition to seem great filled his soul more and more, and every day the thing appeared to him more hopeless: because, you see, he had no imagination, and therefore could not send his soul to sleep with illusions. I wonder he did not go mad. Perhaps he did, for he resolved to pretend. First, he thought he would pretend to be a painter' – here Roland, who had been listening languidly, started, and became attentive. 'He could neither paint nor draw, remember. He began, I think, by learning the language of Art. He frequented studios, heard the talk and read the books. It must have been weary work for him. But, of course, he was no nearer his object than before; and then a great chance came to him. He found a young artist full of promise – a real artist – one filled with the whole spirit of Art: but he was starving. He was actually penniless, and he had no friends who could help him, because he was an Australian by birth. This young man was not only penniless, but in despair. He was ready to do anything. I suppose, when one is actually starving and sees no prospect of success or any hope, ambition dies away and even self-respect may seem a foolish thing.' Roland listened now, his picture forgotten. What was Armorel intending? 'It must be a most dreadful kind of temptation. There can be nothing like it in the world. That is why we pray for our daily bread. Oh! a terrible temptation. I never understood before how great and terrible a temptation it is. Then the man without eye, or hand, or brain saw a chance for himself. He would profit by his brother's weakness. He proposed to buy the work of this painter and to call it his own.'

'Armorel, must you tell this story?'

'Patience, Roland. In his despair the artist gave way. He consented. For three years and more he received the wages of – of sin. But his food was like ashes in his mouth, and his front was stamped – yes, stamped – by the curse of those who sin against their own soul.'

'Armorel – ' But she went on, ruthless.

'The pictures were very good: they were exhibited, praised, and sold. And the man grew quickly in reputation. But he wasn't satisfied. He thought that as it was so easy to be a painter, it would be equally easy to become a poet. All the Arts are allied: many painters have been also poets. He had never written a single line of poetry. I do not know that he had ever read any. He found a girl who was struggling, working, and hoping.' Effie started and turned roseate red. 'He took her poems – bought them – and, on the pretence of having improved them and so made them his own, he published them in his own name. They were pretty, bright verses, and presently people began to look for them and to like them. So he got a double reputation. But the poor girl remained unknown. At first she was so pleased at seeing her verses in print – it looked so much like success – that she hardly minded seeing his name at the end. But presently he brought out a little volume of them with his name on the title-page, and then a second volume – also with his name – '

'The scoundrel!' cried Roland. 'He cribbed his poetry too?'

Effie bowed her face, ashamed.

'And then the girl grew unhappy. For she perceived that she was in a bondage from which there was no escape except by sacrificing the money which he gave her, and that was necessary for her brother's sake. So she became very unhappy.'

'Very unhappy,' echoed Effie. Both painter and poet stood confused and ashamed.

'Then this clever man – the cleverest man in London – began to go about in society a good deal, because he was so great a genius. There he met a lady who was full of stories.'

'Oh!' said Roland. 'Is there nothing in him at all?'

'Nothing at all. There is really nothing at all. This man persuaded the lady to write down these stories, which were all based on old family scandals and episodes unknown or forgotten by the world. They form a most charming series of stories. I believe they are written in a most sparkling style – full of wit and life. Well, he did not put his name to them, but he allowed the whole world to believe that they were his own.'

'Good Heavens!' cried Roland.

'And still he was not satisfied. He found a young dramatist who had written a most charming play. He tried to persuade the poor lad that his play was worthless, and he offered to take it himself, alter it – but there needed no alteration – and convert it into a play that could be acted. He would give fifty pounds for the play, but it was to be his own.'

'Yes,' said Effie, savagely. 'He made that offer, but he will not get the play.'

'You have heard, now, what manner of man he was. Very well. I tell you two the story because I want to consult you. The other day I arranged a little play of my own. That is, I invited people to hear the reciting of that drama: I invited the pretender himself among the rest, but he did not know or guess what the play was going to be. And at the same time I invited the painter and the poet. The former brought his unfinished picture – the latter brought her latest poem, which the pretender was going that very week to bring out in his own name. I had set it to music, and I sang it. I meant that he should learn in this way, without being told, that everything was discovered. I watched his face during the recital of the play, and I saw the dismay of the discovery creeping gradually over him as he realised that he had lost his painter, his poet, and his dramatist. There remained nothing more but to discover the author of the stories – and that, too, I have found out. And I think he will lose his story-teller as well. He will be deprived of all his borrowed plumes. At one blow he saw himself ruined.'

Neither of the two made answer for a space. Then spoke Roland: 'Dux femina facti! A woman hath done this.'

'He is ruined unless he can find others to take your places. The question I want you to consider is – What shall be done next? Roland, it is your name and fame that he has stolen – your pictures that he has called his own. Effie, they are your poems that he has published under his name. What will you do? Will you demand your own again? Think.'

'He must exhibit no more pictures of mine,' said Roland. 'He has one in his studio that he has already sold. That one must not go to any gallery. That is all I have to say.'

'He cannot publish any more poems of mine,' said Effie, 'because he hasn't got any, and I shall give him no more.'

'What about the past?'

'Are we so proud of the past and of the part we have played in it' – asked Roland – 'that we should desire its story published to all the world?'

Effie shook her head, approvingly.

'As for me,' he continued, 'I wish never to hear of it again. It makes me sick and ashamed even to think of it. Let it be forgotten. I was an unknown artist – I had few friends – I had exhibited one picture only – so that my work was unknown – I had painted for him six or seven pictures which are mostly bought by an American. As for the resemblance of style, that may make a few men talk for a season. Then it will be forgotten. I shall remain – he will have disappeared. I am content to take my chance with future work, even if at first I may appear to be a mere copyist of Mr. Alec Feilding.'

'And you, Effie?'

'I agree with Mr. Lee,' she replied briefly. 'Let the past alone. I shall write more verses, and, perhaps, better verses.'

'Then I will go to him and tell him that he need fear nothing. We shall hold our tongues. But he is not to exhibit the picture that is in his studio. I will tell him that.'

'You will not actually go to him yourself, Armorel – alone – after what has passed?' asked Effie.

'Why not? He can do me no harm. He knows that he has been found out, and he is tormented by the fear of what we shall do next. I bring him relief. His reputation is secured – that is to say, it will be the reputation of a man who stopped at thirty, in the fulness of his first promise and his best powers, and did no more work.'

'Oh!' cried Effie. 'I thought he was so clever! I thought that his desire to be thought a poet was only a little infirmity of temper, which would pass. And, after all, to think that – ' Here the poet looked at the painter, and the painter looked at the poet – but neither spoke the thought: 'How could you – you, with your pencil: how could you – you, with your pen – consent to the iniquity of so great a fraud?'

CHAPTER XX
A RECOVERY AND A FLIGHT

Amid all these excitements Armorel became aware that something – something of a painful and disagreeable character, was going on with her companion. They were at this time very little together. Mrs. Elstree took her breakfast in bed; at luncheon she was, just now, nearly always out; at dinner she sat silent, pale, and anxious; in the evening she lay back in her chair as if she was asleep. One night Armorel heard her weeping and sobbing in her room. She knocked at the door with intent to offer her help if she was ill. 'No, no,' cried Mrs. Elstree; 'you need not come in. I have nothing but a headache.'

This thing as well disquieted her. She remembered what Lady Frances had suggested – it is always the suggestion rather than the bare fact which sticks and pricks like a thorn, and will not come out or suffer itself to be removed. Armorel thought nothing of the allegation concerning the stage – why should not a girl go upon the stage if she wished? The suggestion which pricked was that Mrs. Elstree had been sent to her by the man whom she now knew to be fraudulent through and through, in order to carry out some underhand and secret design. There is nothing more horrid than the suspicion that the people about one are treacherous. It reduces one to the condition of primitive man, for whom every grassy glade concealed a snake and every bush a wild beast. She tried to shake off the suspicion, yet a hundred things confirmed it. Her constant praise of this child of genius, his persistence in meeting them wherever they went, the attempt to make her find money for his schemes. The girl, thus irritated, began to have uneasy dreams; she was as one caught in the meshes; she was lured into a garden whence there was no escape; she was hunted by a cunning and relentless creature; she was in a prison, and could not get out. Always in her dreams Zoe stood on one side of her, crying, 'Oh, the great and glorious creature! – oh, the cleverness of the man! – oh, the wonder and the marvel of him!' And on the other side stood Lady Frances, saying, 'Why don't you take him? He is a liar, it is true, but he is no worse than his neighbours – all men are liars! You can't get a man made on purpose for you. What is your business in life at all but to find a husband? Why are girls in Society at all except to catch husbands? And they are scarce, I assure you. Why don't you take the man? You will never again have such a chance – a rising man – a man who can make other people work for him – a clever man. Besides, you are as good as engaged to him: you have made people talk: you have been seen with him everywhere. If you are not engaged to him you ought to be.'

It was about a week after the reading of the play when this condition of suspicion and unquiet was brought to an end in a very unexpected manner.

Mr. Jagenal called at the rooms in the morning about ten o'clock. Mrs. Elstree was taking breakfast in bed, as usual. Armorel was alone, painting.

'My dear young lady,' said her kindly adviser, 'I would not have disturbed you at this early hour but for a very important matter. You are well and happy, I trust? No, you are not well and happy. You look pale.'

'I have been a little worried lately,' Armorel replied. 'But never mind now.'

'Are you quite alone here? Your companion, Mrs. Elstree?'

'She has not yet left her room. We are quite alone.'

'Very well, then.' The lawyer sat down and began nursing his right knee. 'Very well. You remember, I dare say, making a certain communication to me touching a collection of precious stones in your possession? You made that communication to me five years ago, when first you came from Scilly. You returned to it again when you arrived at your twenty-first birthday, and I handed over to your own keeping all your portable property.'

'Of course I remember perfectly well.'

'Then does your purpose still hold?'

'It is still, and always, my duty to hand over those rubies to their rightful owner – the heir of Robert Fletcher, as soon as he can be found.'

'It is also my duty to warn you again, as I have done already, that there is no reason at all why you should do so. You are the sole heiress of your great-great-grandmother's estate. She died worth a great sum of money in gold, besides treasures in plate, works of art, lace, and jewels cut and uncut. The rambling story of an aged woman cannot be received as evidence on the strength of which you should hand over valuable property to persons unknown, who do not even claim it, and know nothing about it.'

'I must hand over those rubies,' Armorel repeated, 'to the person to whom they belong.'

'It is a very valuable property. If the estimate which was made for me was correct – I see no reason to doubt it – those jewels could be sold, separately, or in small parcels, for nearly thirty-five thousand pounds – a fortune larger than all the rest of your property put together – thirty-five thousand pounds!'

'That has nothing to do with the question, has it? I have got to restore those jewels, you see, to their rightful owner, as soon as he can be discovered.'

'Well – but – consider again. What have you got to go upon? The story about Robert Fletcher may or may not be true. No one can tell after this lapse of time. The things were found by you lying in the old sea-chest with other things – all your own. Who was this Robert Fletcher? Where are his heirs? If they claim the property, and can prove their claim, give it up at once. If not, keep your own. The jewels are undoubtedly your own as much as the lace and the silks and the silver cups, which were all, I take it, recovered from wrecks.'

'Do you disbelieve my great-great-grandmother's story, then?'

'I have neither to believe nor to disbelieve. I say it isn't evidence. Your report of what she said, being then in her dotage, amounts to just nothing, considered as evidence.'

'I am perfectly certain that the story is true. The leathern thong by which the case hung round the man's neck has been cut by a knife, just as granny described it in her story. And there is the writing in the case itself. Nothing will persuade me that the story is anything but true in every particular.'

'It may be true. I cannot say. At the same time, the property is your own, and you would be perfectly justified in keeping it.'

'Mr. Jagenal' – Armorel turned upon him sharply – 'you have found out Robert Fletcher's heir! I am certain you have. That is the reason why you are here this morning.'

Mr. Jagenal laid upon the table a pocket-book full of papers.

'I will tell you what I have discovered. That is why I came here. There has been, unfortunately, a good deal of trouble in discovering this Robert Fletcher and in identifying one of the Robert Fletchers we did discover with your man. We discovered, in fact, ten Robert Fletchers before we came to the man who may reasonably be supposed – But you shall see.'

He opened the pocket-book, and found a paper of memoranda from which he read his narrative: —

'There was one Robert Fletcher, the eleventh whom we unearthed. This man promised nothing at first. He became a broker in the City in the year 1810. In the same year he married a cousin, daughter of another broker, with whom he entered into partnership. He did so well that when he died, in the year 1846, then aged sixty-nine, his will was proved under 80,000l. He left three daughters, among whom the estate was divided, in equal shares. The eldest of the daughters, Eleanor, remained unmarried, and died two years ago, at the age of seventy-seven, leaving the whole of her fortune – greatly increased by accumulations – to hospitals and charities. I believe she was, in early life, alienated from her family, on account of some real or fancied slight. However, she died: and her papers came into the hands of my friends Denham, Mansfield, Westbury, and Co., of New Square, Lincoln's Inn, solicitors. Her second sister, Frances, born in the year 1813, married in 1834, had one son, Francis Alexander, who was born in 1835, and married in 1857. Both Frances and her son are now dead; but one son remained, Frederick Alexander, born in the year 1859. The third daughter, Catharine, born in the year 1815, married in 1835, and emigrated to Australia with her husband, a man named Temple. I have no knowledge of this branch of the family.'

'Then,' said Armorel, 'I suppose the eldest son or grandson of the second sister must have the rubies?'

'You are really in a mighty hurry to get rid of your property. The next question – it should have come earlier – is – How do I connect this Robert Fletcher with your Robert Fletcher? How do we know that Robert Fletcher the broker was Robert Fletcher the shipwrecked passenger? Well; Eleanor, the eldest, left a bundle of family papers and letters behind her. Among them is a packet endorsed "From my son Robert in India." Those letters, signed "Robert Fletcher," are partly dated from Burmah, whither the writer had gone on business. He gives his observations on the manners and customs of the country, then little known or visited. He says that he is doing very well, indeed: so well, he says presently, that, thanks to a gift made to him by the King, he is able to think about returning home with the means of staying at home and doing no more work for the end of his natural days.'

'Of course, he had those jewels.'

'Then he writes from Calcutta. He has returned in safety from Burmah and the King, whose capricious temper had made him tremble for his life. He is putting his affairs in order: he has brought his property from Burmah in a portable form which he can best realise in London: lastly, he is going to sail in a few weeks. This is in the year 1808. According to your story it was somewhere about that date that the wreck took place on the Scilly Isles, and he was washed ashore, saved – '

'And robbed,' said Armorel.

'As we have no evidence of the fact,' answered the man of law, 'I prefer to say that the real story ends with the last of the letters. It remained, however, to compare the handwriting of the letters with that of the fragment of writing in your leather case. I took the liberty to have a photograph made of that fragment while it was in my possession, and I now ask you to compare the handwriting.' He drew out of his pocket-book a letter – one of the good old kind, on large paper, brown with age, and unprovided with any envelope – and the photograph of which he was speaking. 'There,' he said, 'judge for yourself.'