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'Why!' cried Armorel. 'The writing corresponds exactly!'

'It certainly does, letter for letter. Well; the conclusion of the whole matter is that I believe the story of the old lady to be correct in the main. On the other hand, there is nothing in the papers to show the existence in the family of any recollection of so great a loss. One would imagine that a man who had dropped – or thought he had dropped – a bag, full of rubies, worth thirty-five thousand pounds, into the sea would have told his children about it, and bemoaned the loss all his life. Perhaps, however, he was so philosophic as to grieve no more after what was hopelessly gone. He was still in the years of hope when the misfortune befell him. Possibly his children knew in general terms that the shipwreck had caused a destruction of property. Again, a man of the City, with the instincts of the City, would not like it to be known that he had returned to his native country a pauper, while it would help him in his business to be considered somewhat of a Nabob. Of this I cannot speak from any knowledge I have, or from any discovery that I have made.'

'Oh!' cried Armorel, 'I cannot tell you what a weight has been lifted from me. I have never ceased to long for the restoration of those jewels ever since I found them in the sea-chest.'

'There is – as I said – only one descendant of the second sister – a man – a man still young. You will give me your instructions in writing. I am to hand over to this young man – this fortunate young man – already trebly fortunate in another sense – this precious packet of jewels. It is still, I suppose, in the bank?'

'It is where you placed it for me when I came of age.'

'Very well. I have brought you an order for its delivery to me. Will you sign it?'

Armorel heaved a great sigh. 'With what relief!' she said. 'Have you got it here?'

Mr. Jagenal gave her the order on the bank for the delivery of sealed packet, numbered III., to himself. She signed it.

'To think,' she said, 'that by a simple stroke of the pen I can remove the curse of those ill-gotten rubies! It is like getting rid of all your sins at once. It is like Christian dropping his bundle.'

'I hope the rubies will not carry on this supposed curse of yours.'

'Oh!' cried Armorel, with a profound sigh, 'I feel as if the poor old lady was present listening. Since I could understand anything, I have understood that the possession of those rubies brought disaster upon my people. From generation to generation they have been drowned one after the other – my father – my grandfather – my great-grandfather – my mother – my brothers – all – all drowned. Can you wonder if I rejoice that the things will threaten me no longer?'

'This is sheer superstition.'

'Oh! yes: I know, and yet I cannot choose but to believe it, I have heard the story so often, and always with the same ending. Now, they are gone.'

'Not quite gone. Nearly. As good as gone, however. Dismiss this superstitious dread from your mind, my dear young lady.'

'The rubies are gone. There will be no more of us swallowed up in the cruel sea.'

'No more of you,' repeated Mr. Jagenal, with the incredulous smile of one who has never had in his family a ghost, or a legend, or a curse, or a doom, or a banshee, or anything at all distinguished. 'And now you will be happy. You don't ask me the name of the fortunate young man.'

'No; I do not want to know anything more about the horrid things.'

'What am I to say to him?'

'Tell him the truth.'

'I shall tell him that you discovered the rubies in an old sea-chest with other property accumulated during a great many years: that a scrap of paper with writing on it gave a clue to the owner: and that, by means of other investigation, he has been discovered: that it was next to impossible for your great-grandfather, Captain Rosevean, to have purchased these jewels: and that the presumption is that he recovered them from the wreck, and laid them in the chest, saying nothing, and that the chest was never opened until your succession to the property. That, my dear young lady, is all the story that I have to tell. And now I will go away, with congratulations to Donna Quixote in getting rid of thirty-five thousand pounds.'

An hour or two afterwards, Mrs. Elstree appeared. She glided into the room and threw herself into her chair, as if she desired to sleep again. She looked harassed and anxious.

'Zoe,' cried Armorel, 'you are surely ill. What is it? Can I do nothing for you?'

'Nothing. I only wish it was all over, or that I could go to sleep for fifty years, and wake up an old woman – in an almshouse or somewhere – all the troubles over. What a beautiful thing it must be to be old and past work, with fifteen shillings a week, say, and nothing to think about all day except to try and forget the black box! If it wasn't for the black box – I know I should see them always coming along the road with it – it must be the loveliest time.'

'Well – but – what makes you look so ill?'

'Nothing. I am not ill. I am never ill. I would rather be ill than – what I am. A tearing, rending neuralgia would be a welcome change. Don't ask me any more questions, Armorel. You look radiant, for your part. Has anything happened to you? – anything good? You are one of those happy girls to whom only good things come.'

'Do you remember the story I told you – about the rubies?'

'Yes.' She turned her face to the fire. 'I remember very well.'

'I have at last – congratulate me, Zoe – I have got rid of them.'

'You have got rid of them?' Mrs. Elstree started up. 'Where are they, then?'

'Mr. Jagenal has been here. He has found a great-grandson of Robert Fletcher, who is entitled to have them. I have never been so relieved! The dreadful things are out of my hands now, and in Mr. Jagenal's. He will give them to this grandson. Zoe, what is the matter?'

Mrs. Elstree rose to her feet, and stood facing Armorel, with eyes in which wild terror was the only passion visible, and white cheeks. And, as Armorel was still speaking, she staggered, reeled, and fell forwards in a faint. Armorel caught her, and bore her to the sofa, when she presently came to herself again. But the fainting fit was followed by hysterical weeping and laughing. She knew not what she said. She raved about somebody who had bought something. Armorel paid no heed to what she said. She lamented the hour of her birth: she had been pursued by evil all her life: she lamented the hour when she met a certain man, unnamed, who had dragged her down to his own level: and so on.

When she had calmed a little, Armorel persuaded her to lie down. It is a woman's chief medicine. It is better than all the drugs in the museum of the College of Physicians. Mrs. Elstree, pale and trembling, tearful and agitated, lay down. Armorel covered her with a warm wrapper, and left her.

A little while afterwards she looked in. The patient was quite calm now, apparently asleep, and breathing gently. Armorel, satisfied with the result of her medicine, left her in charge of her maid, and went out for an hour. She went out, in fact, to tell Effie Wilmot the joyful news concerning those abominable rubies. When she came back, in time for luncheon, she was met by her maid, who gave her a letter, and told her a strange thing. Mrs. Elstree had gone away! The sick woman, who had been raving in hysterics, hardly able to support herself to her bed, had got up the moment after Armorel left the house, packed all her boxes hurriedly, sent her for a cab, and had driven away. But she had left this note for Armorel. It was brief.

'I am obliged to go away unexpectedly. In order to avoid explanations and questions and farewells, I have thought it best to go away quietly. I could not choose but go. For certain reasons I must leave you. For the same reasons I hope that we may never meet again. I ought never to have come here. Forgive me and forget me. I will write to Mr. Jagenal to-day.

'Zoe.'

There was no reason given. She had gone. Nor, if one may anticipate, has Armorel yet discovered the reasons for this sudden flight. Nor, as you will presently discover, will Armorel ever be able to discover those reasons.

CHAPTER XXI
ALL LOST BUT —

Mr. Alec Feilding paced the thick carpet of his studio with a restless step and an unquiet mind. Never before had he faced a more gloomy outlook. Black clouds, storm and rain, everywhere. Bad, indeed, is it for the honest tradesman when there is no money left, and no credit. But a man can always begin the world again if he has a trade. The devil of it is when a man has no trade at all, except that of lying and cheating in the abstract. Many men, it is true, combine cheatery and falsehood with their trade. Few are so unfortunate as to have no trade on which to base their frauds and adulterations.

Everything threatened, and all at once. Nay, it seemed as if everything was actually taken from him and all at once. Not something here, which might be repaired, and something there, a little later on, but all at once – everything. Nothing at all left. Even his furniture and his books might be seized. He would be stripped of his house, his journal, his name, his credit, his position – even his genius! Therefore his face – that face which Armorel found so wooden – was now full of expression, but of the terror-stricken, hunted kind: that of the man who has been found out and is going to be exposed.

On the table lay three or four letters. They had arrived that morning. He took them up and read them one after the other. It was line upon line, blow upon blow.

The first was from Roland Lee.

'I see no object,' he said, 'in granting you the interview which you propose. There is not really anything that requires discussion. As to our interests being identical, as you say – if they have been so hitherto they will remain so no longer. As to the market price of the pictures, which you claim to have raised by your judicious management, I am satisfied to see my work rise to its own level by its own worth. As to your threat that the influence which has been exerted for an artist may be also exerted against him – you will do what you please. Your last demand, for gratitude, needs no reply. I start again, exactly where I was when you found me. I am still as poor and as little known. The half-dozen pictures which you have sold as your own will not help me in any way. Your assertion that I am about to reap the harvest of your labours is absurd. I begin the world over again. The last picture – the one now in your studio – you will be good enough not to exhibit' – 'Won't I, though?' asked the owner – 'at the penalty of certain inconveniences which you will learn immediately. I have torn up and burned your cheque.' – 'So much the better for me,' said the purchaser. – 'You say that you will not let me go without a personal interview. If you insist upon one, you must have it. You will find me here any morning. But, as you can only want an interview in the hope of renewing the old arrangement, I am bound to warn you that it is hopeless and impossible, and to beg that you will not trouble yourself to come here at all. Understand that no earthly consideration will induce me to bear any further share in the deception in which I have been too long a confederate. The guilty knowledge of the past should separate us as wide apart as the poles. To see you will be to revive a guilty memory. Since we must meet, perhaps, from time to time, let us meet as a pair of criminals who avoid each other's conversation for fear of stirring up the noisome past. What has been resolved upon, so far as I – and another – are concerned, Miss Armorel Rosevean has undertaken to inform you. – R. L.'

'Deception! Criminals!' I suppose there is no depth of wickedness into which men may not descend, step by step, getting daily deeper in the mire of falsehood and crime, yet walking always with head erect, and meeting the world with the front of rectitude. Had anyone told Mr. Alec Feilding, years before, what he would do in the future, he would have kicked that foul and obscene prophet. Well: he had done these things, and deliberately: he had posed before the world as painter, poet, and writer of fiction. As time went on, and the world accepted his pretensions, they became a part of himself. Nay: he even excused himself. Everybody does the same thing: or, just the same, everybody would do it, given the chance: it is a world of pretension, make-believe, and seeming. Besides, he was no highwayman, he bought the things: he paid for them: they were his property. And yet – 'Deception! Criminals!' The words astonished and pained him.

And the base ingratitude of the man. He was starving: no one would buy his things: nobody knew his work, when he stepped in. Then, by dexterity in the art of Puff, which the moderns call réclame– he actually believed this, being so ignorant of Art – he had forced these pictures into notice: he had run up their price, until for that picture on the easel he had been offered, and had taken, 450l.! Ungrateful!

'Deception! Criminals!'

Why, the man had actually received a cheque for 300l. for that very picture. What more could he want or expect? True, he had refused to cash the cheque. More fool he!

And now he was going absolutely to withdraw from the partnership, and work for himself. Well – poor devil! He would starve!

He stood in front of the picture and looked at it mournfully. The beautiful thing – far more beautiful than any he had exhibited before. It cut him to the heart to think – not that he had been such a fraud, but – that he could have no more from the same source. His career was cut short at the outset, his ambitions blasted, by this unlucky accident. Yet a year or two and the Academy would have made him an Associate: a few more years and he would have become R.A. Perhaps, in the end, President. And now it was all over. No Royal Academy for him, unless – a thing almost desperate – he could find some other Roland Lee – some genius as poor, as reckless of himself. And it might be years – years – before he could find such a one. Meantime, what was he to show? What was he to say? 'Deception! Criminals!' Confound the fellow! The words banged about his head and boxed his ears.

The second letter was from Effie – the girl to whom he had paid such vast sums of money, whom he had surrounded with luxuries – on whom he had bestowed the precious gift of his personal friendship. This girl also wrote without the least sense of gratitude. She said, in fact, writing straight to the point, 'I beg to inform you that I shall not, in future, be able to continue those contributions to your paper which you have thought fit to publish in two volumes with your own name attached. I have submitted my original manuscript of those verses to a friend, who has compared them with your published volume, and has ascertained that there is not the alteration of a single word. So that your pretence of having altered and improved them, until they became your own, is absurd. My brother begs me to add that your statement made before all the people at the reading was false. You made no suggestions. You offered no advice. You said that the play was worthless. My brother has made no alterations. You offered to give him fifty pounds for the whole rights in the play, with the right of bringing it out under your own name. This offer he refuses absolutely.

'I sincerely wish I could restore the money you have given me. I now understand that it was the price of my silence – the Wages of Sin.

'E. W.'

No more verses from that quarter. Poets, however, there are in plenty, writers of glib and flowing rhymes. To be sure, they are as a race consumed by vanity, and want to have their absurd names stuck to everything they do. Very well, henceforth he would have anonymous verses, and engage a small army of poets. The letter moved him little, except that it came by the same post as the other. It proved, taken with the evening of the play, concerted action. As for comparing the girl's manuscript verses with the volume, how was she to prove that the manuscript verses were not copied out of the volume?

Then there was a third letter, a very angry letter, from Lady Frances, his story-teller.

'I learn,' she said, 'that you have chosen me as the fittest person upon whom to practise your deceptions. You assured me that you were engaged to Miss Armorel Rosevean. I learn from the young lady herself that this is entirely false: you did offer yourself, it is true, a week after you had assured me of the engagement. You were promptly and decidedly refused. And you had no reason whatever for believing that you would be accepted.

'I should like you to consider that you owe your introduction into society to me. You also owe to me whatever name you have acquired as a story-teller. Every one of the society stories told in your paper has been communicated to you by me. And this is the way in which you repay my kindness to you.

'Under the circumstances, I think you cannot complain if I request that in future we cease to meet even as acquaintances. Of course, my contributions to your paper will be discontinued. And if you venture to state anywhere that they are your own work, I will publicly contradict the statement.

'F. H.'

He stood irresolute. What was to be done? For the moment he could think of nothing. 'It is that cursed girl!' he cried. 'Why did she ever come here? By what unlucky accident did she meet these two – Roland Lee and Effie? Why was I such a fool as to ask Lady Frances to call upon her? Why did I send Zoe to her? It is all folly together. If it had not been for her we should have been all going on as before. I am certain we should – and going on comfortably. I should have made Roland's fortune as well as my own name – and his hand was getting stronger and better every day. And I should have kept that girl in comfort, and made a very pretty little name for myself that way. She was improving, too – a bright and clever girl – a real treasure in proper hands. And I had the boy as well, or should have had. Good Heavens! what losses! What a splendid possession to have destroyed! No man ever before had such a chance – to say nothing of Lady Frances!' It was maddening. We use the word lightly, and for small cause. But it really was maddening. 'What will they say? What are they going to do? What can they say? If it comes to a question of affirmation I can swear as well as anyone, I suppose. If Roland pretends that he painted my pictures – if Effie says she wrote my poems – how will they prove it? What can they do?

'But things stick. If it is whispered about that there will be no more pictures and no more poems – oh! it is the hardest luck.'

One more letter reached him by that morning's post: —

'Dearest Alec, – I have left Armorel, and am no longer a Companion. The gilt could not disguise the pill. I have, however, a communication to make of a more comfortable character than this. It is true that I am like a housemaid out of a situation. But I think you will change the natural irritation caused by this announcement for a more joyful countenance when you see me. I shall arrive with my communication about noon to-morrow. Be at home, and be alone. – Your affectionate

'Zoe.'

What had she got to say? At the present crisis what could it matter what she had to say? If she had only got that money out of Armorel, or succeeded in making the girl his servant. But she could not do the only really useful thing he ever asked of her.

He laid down the letter on the table, beside one from his printers – three days old. In this communication the printers pointed out that his account was very large; that no satisfactory arrangement had been proposed; that they were going to discontinue printing his paper unless something practical was effected; and that they hoped to hear from him without delay.

There was a knock at the door: the discreet man-servant brought a card, with the silence and confidential manner of one who announces a secret emissary – say a hired assassin.

The visitor was Mr. Jagenal. He came in friendly and expansive.

'My dear boy!' he said with a warm grasp. 'Always at work – always at work?'

Alec dexterously swept the letters into an open drawer. 'Always at work,' he said. 'But I must be hard pressed when I cannot give you five minutes. What is it?'

'I will come to the point at once. You know Mrs. Elstree very well, I believe?'

'Very well indeed – I knew her before her father's failure. Before her marriage.'

'Quite so. Then what do you make of this?' He handed over a note, which the other man read: 'Dear Sir, – Unexpected circumstances have made it necessary for me to give up my charge of Armorel Rosevean at once. I have not even been able to wait a single day. I have been compelled to leave her without even wishing her farewell. – Very truly yours, Zoe Elstree.'

'It is very odd,' he said truthfully. 'I know nothing of these circumstances. I cannot tell you why she has resigned.'

'Oh! I thought I would ask you! Well, she has actually gone: she has vanished: she has left the girl quite alone. This is all very irregular, isn't it? Not quite what one expects of a lady, is it?'

'Very irregular indeed. Well, I am responsible for her introduction to you, and I will find out, if I can, what it means. She is coming here to-day, she writes: no doubt to give me her reasons. What will Miss Rosevean do?'

'Oh! she is an independent girl. She tells me that she has found a young lady about her own age, and they are going to live together. Alec, I don't quite understand why you thought Mrs. Elstree so likely a person for companion. Philippa tells me that she has no friends, and we appointed her because we thought she had so many.'

'Pleasing – attractive – accomplished – what more did you want? And as for friends, she must have had plenty.'

'But it seems she had none. Nobody has ever called upon her. And she never went into any society. Are you sure that you were not misled about her, my dear boy? I have heard, for instance, rumours about her and the provincial stage.'

'Oh! rumours are nothing. I don't think I could have been mistaken in her. However, she has gone. I will find out why. As for Armorel Rosevean – '

'Alec – what a splendid girl! Was there no chance there for you? Are you so critical that even Armorel is not good enough for you?'

'Not my style,' he said shortly. 'Never mind the girl.'

'Well – there is one more thing, Alec – and a more pleasant subject – about yourself. I want to ask you one or two questions – family questions.'

'I thought you knew all about my family.'

'So I do, pretty well. However – this is really important – most important. I wouldn't waste your time if it was not important. Do you remember your great-aunt Eleanor Fletcher?'

'Very well. She left all her money to charities – Cat!'

'And your grandmother, Mrs. Needham?'

'Quite well. What is in the wind now? Has Aunt Eleanor been proved to have made a later will in my favour?'

'You will find out in a day or two. Eh! Alec, you are a lucky dog. Painter – poet – nothing in which you do not command success. And now – now – '

'Now – what?'

'That I will tell you, my dear boy, in two or three days. There's many a slip, we know, but this time the cup will reach your lips.'

'What do you mean?' cried the young man, startled. 'Cup? Do you mean to tell me that you have something – something unexpected – coming to me? Something considerable?'

'If it comes – oh! yes, it is quite certain to come – very considerable. You are your mother's only son, and she was an only child, and her grandfather was one Robert Fletcher, wasn't he?'

'I believe he was. There's a family Bible on the shelves that can tell us.'

'Did you ever hear anything about the early life and adventures of this Robert Fletcher?'

'No: he was in the City, I believe, and he left a good large fortune. That is all.'

'That is all. That is all. Well, my dear boy, the strangest things happen: we must never be surprised at anything. But be prepared to-morrow – or next day – or the day after – to be agreeably – most agreeably – surprised.'

'To the tune of – what? A thousand pounds, say?'

'Perhaps. It may amount very nearly to as much – very nearly – Ha! ha! – to nearly as much as that, I dare say – Ho! ho!' He chuckled, and wagged his white head. 'Very nearly a thousand pounds, I dare say.' He walked over to look at the picture.

'Really, Alec,' he said, 'you deserve all the luck you get. Nobody can possibly grudge it to you. This picture is charming. I don't know when I have seen a sweeter thing. You have the finest feeling for rock and sea-shore and water. Well, my dear boy, I am very sorry that you haven't as fine a feeling for Armorel Rosevean – the sweetest girl and the best, I believe, in the world. Good-bye! – good-bye! till the day after to-morrow – the day after to-morrow! It will certainly reach to a thousand – or very near. Ho! ho! Lucky dog!'

Mr. Jagenal went away nodding and smiling. There are moments when it is very good to be a solicitor: they are moments rich in blessing: they compensate, in some measure, for those other moments when the guilty are brought to bay and the thriftless are made to tremble: they are the moments when the solicitor announces a windfall – the return of the long-lost Nabob – the discovery of a will – the favourable decision of the Court.

Alec sat down and seized a pen. He wrote hurriedly to his printers: 'Let the present arrangements,' he said, continue unchanged. I shall be in a position in two or three days to make a very considerable payment, and, after that, we will start on a more regular understanding.'

Another knock, and again the discreet man-servant came in on tiptoe. 'Lady refused her card,' he whispered.

The lady was none other than Armorel herself – in morning dress, wearing a hat.

He bowed coldly. There was a light in her eyes, and a heightened colour on her cheek, which hardly looked like a friendly call. But that, of course, one could not expect.

'After our recent interview,' he said, 'and after the very remarkable string of accusations which fell from your lips, I could hardly expect to see you in my studio, Miss Rosevean.'

'I came only to communicate a resolution arrived at by my friends Mr. Roland Lee and Miss Effie Wilmot.'

'From your friends Mr. Roland Lee and Miss Effie Wilmot? May I offer you a chair?'

'Thank you. No. My message is only to tell you this. They have resolved to let the past remain unknown.'

'To let the past remain unknown.' He tried to appear careless, but the girl watched the sudden light of satisfaction in his eyes and the sudden expression of relief in his face. 'The past remain unknown,' he repeated. 'Yes – certainly. Am I – may I ask – interested in this decision?'

'That you know best, Mr. Feilding. It seems hardly necessary to try to carry it off with me – I know everything. But – as you please. They agree that they have been themselves deeply to blame: they cannot acquit themselves. Certainly it is a pitiful thing for an artist to own that he has sold his name and fame in a moment of despair.'

'It would be indeed a pitiful thing if it were ever done.'

'Nothing more, therefore, will be said by either of them as to the pictures or poems.'

'Indeed? From what you have already told me: from the gracious freedom of your utterances at the National Gallery, I seem to connect those two names with the charges you then brought. They refuse to bring forward, or to endorse, those charges, then? Do you withdraw them?'

'They do not refuse to bring forward the charges. They have never made those charges. I made them, and I, Mr. Feilding' – she raised her voice a little – 'I do not withdraw them.'

'Oh! you do not withdraw them? May I ask what your word in the matter is worth unsupported by their evidence – even if their evidence were worth anything?'

'You shall hear what my word is worth. This picture' – she placed herself before it – 'is painted by Mr. Roland Lee. Perhaps he will not say so. Oh! It is a beautiful picture – it is quite the best he has ever painted – yet. It is a true picture: you cannot understand either its beauty or its truth. You have never been to the place: you do not even know where it is: why, Sir, it is my birthplace. I lived there until I was sixteen years of age: the scene, like all the scenes in those pictures you call your own, was taken in the Scilly archipelago.' He started. 'You do not even know the girl who stands in the foreground – your own model. Why – it is my portrait – mine – look at me, Sir – it is my portrait. Now you know what my word is worth. I have only to stand before this picture and tell the world that this is my portrait.'

He started and changed colour. This was unexpected. If the girl was to go on talking in this way outside, it would be difficult to reply. What was he to say if the words were reported to him? Because, you see, once pointed out, there could be no doubt at all about the portrait.

'A portrait of myself,' she repeated.

'Permit me to observe,' he said, with some assumption of dignity, 'that you will find it very difficult to prove these statements – most difficult – and at the same time highly dangerous, because libellous.'

'No, not dangerous, Mr. Feilding. Would you dare to go into a Court of Justice and swear that these pictures are yours? When did you go to Scilly? Where did you stay? Under what circumstances did you have me for a model? On what island did you find this view?'

He was silent.

'Will you dare to paint anything – the merest sketch – to show that this picture is in your own style? You cannot.'

'Anyone,' he said, 'may bring charges – the most reckless charges. But I think you would hardly dare – '

'I will do this, then. If you dare to exhibit this picture as your own, I will, most assuredly, take all my friends and stand in front of it, and tell them when and where it was painted, and by whom, and show them my own portrait.'

The resolution of this threat quelled him. 'I have no intention,' he said, 'of exhibiting this picture. It is sold to an American, and will go to New York immediately. Next year, perhaps, I may take up your challenge.'