slipped. Infernally dark out here."
I caught a look on the face of my guardian that puzzled me; it was that eager look again, but intensified a thousandfold; and he was smiling straight at me as though—ridiculous thought!—I had done some worthy thing in his eyes. That look surprised me, and in a vague way terrified me.
As the confusion subsided, and the people went back into the room, I found that the girl was clinging to my arm; and it seemed natural that she should do so. Hockley had slouched away, muttering that he would put himself straight; once again it happened that Barbara and I were alone together. We passed out of sight of the windows; and then in a moment, at the end of the terrace, we stood in perfect understanding, as it seemed, with hands clasping hands, and my boyish eyes looking into her girlish ones. And it was writ in the skies above us, and whispered by the trees forlornly enough, that we loved each other, and that it was all hopeless.
"I promised a year ago—before I understood," she whispered, as though taking up a tale that had been told between us. "My father likes him; he will be good to me, I know. I—I did not understand."
I seemed to live twenty lives in that moment when I stood and held her hands, and listened to her words. There was a savage pride in my heart, greater than my misery, that I should so have won her without a word; I knew that I was greater in her sight than the man whose name she was to take. Boy though I was, I know that I dedicated myself and my life to her then; the world has never seemed to me so pure and holy since as it did then. I was not ashamed of the tears I shed, as I bent my head, and put my lips to her hands; I felt that I could not shame her with any pleadings or protestations. When presently we were calmer, I walked slowly back into the world with her, and gave her to the man to whom she belonged, and who had come in search of her.
I did not see her again that night; she pleaded fatigue, and went to her room. The little party broke up, and I presently found myself on the high road under the stars, walking beside Jervis Fanshawe. And the thing that surprised me most was the extraordinary mood the man was in. He gave vent to little soft chuckles from time to time, and snapped his long fingers, and muttered to himself; while every now and then he dropped a hand on my shoulder, and gave it an approving squeeze, as though in pure friendliness. It was only when he spoke to me that my mind went back to my encounter with Hockley that night.
"You struck well, my boy; I'd like to have seen the whole thing, but I was a bit too late. Muscle is a magnificent possession; and you must be very strong." He slipped his hand down my arm as he spoke, and chuckled again. "Always strike hard, Charlie; stand no insolence from a creature like that. He's a leper—a bullying beast—a robber!" Strong though I was, he absolutely hurt me with the grip he gave my arm.
"He's walking along just in front of us," I said a moment later, as we saw a figure slouching along ahead.
Hockley turned as we got near to him, and waited for us. I braced myself for a possible encounter; I think in that moment I rather longed for it. But the man contented himself with coming towards us, with his hands thrust in his pockets; and so stopping in the road in the darkness to look me over.
"I make it a rule to let a man have blow for blow," he said, slowly and doggedly, "but I also make it a rule to get my blow in at my own time of day. Look out for yourself, you young dog; you'll get it when you least expect it."
I said nothing, and he slouched on again for a yard or two, turned again, and came back. And this time he approached my guardian.
"As for you, Jervis Fanshawe, I've a bone to pick with you. You're responsible for this cub, and you've no right to let him loose about the country, interfering with honest men."
"Honest men, indeed!" sneered Fanshawe, getting a little behind me as he spoke.
"Yes—honest men," repeated the other. "I hope it doesn't touch you on the raw, Fanshawe," he added, with a grin. "And mark what I say: I'll have a kick at you for this night's work, and I'll begin now. I want my money within twenty-four hours."
"You know you can't have it," replied my guardian, in a voice that had suddenly changed.
"Very well—then I'll talk!" exclaimed Gavin Hockley, swinging round on his heel with a laugh, and striding off into the darkness.
I felt my arm gripped again; I looked round into a white distorted face that shocked and frightened me. If ever I saw murder in a man's eyes I saw it then.
"When next you strike him, Charlie—strike him hard," he whispered passionately in my ear. "When next you strike him—strike him dead!"
CHAPTER III
HER WEDDING DAY
I went to London the next morning, something to the astonishment of my guardian, who protested feebly that there was nothing to take me away, and suggested that he needed my presence in the country. But I felt that my life, so far as Hammerstone Market was concerned, was closed; I did not ever wish to see the place again.
Let it not be thought for a moment, on account of my youth, that this was a mere boyish infatuation, out of which I should in time naturally have grown, remembering it at the best as only a tender boyish romance. It was never that; it had set its roots too deeply in the very fibres of my soul ever to be rooted up. I have heard that there are men like that, to whom love, coming early, comes cruelly—bending and twisting and torturing them, and creeping into their hearts, to cling there for ever. Such a case was mine; I have never been able to shake off that first impression, nor to forget all that her eyes seemed to say to me, on the terrace under the stars, when I kissed her hands, and bade her that mute farewell.
So I came to London, and went to my rooms, and set myself to work. I had fully made up my mind that this should not change my life; I had a purpose in view, in that I felt it was vitally necessary I should justify myself in her eyes, and justify her love for me. If I had sunk then in my own estimation, or had fallen away from the high ideals I had set up, so I felt must I have sunk before her, and fallen away from her. She was never to be anything to me, but she should feel that I had at least been worthy.
It must have been about a week after my return to London when my guardian came to me. My rooms were in a narrow street off Holborn, at the very top of a house; the chief room had a great skylight stretching over nearly half of it, making it a very excellent studio. I was at work there, getting the last of the light of the dying day, when he came in, and stood for a moment watching me, before I laid down my palette and went to greet him. I thought he looked thinner and more haggard even than before, and I thought that that nervous eager intensity in his face had increased. He just touched my hand with his, and then stood for a minute or so looking at the canvas. But when he spoke it was not of the picture.
"Have you seen anything of Hockley?" he asked abruptly, without looking at me.
"No; what should I see of him?" I asked in reply. "I have seen no one."
He gave a grim chuckle, and bent forward to look at the canvas more closely. Yet still he did not speak of the picture.
"He's left Hammerstone Market," he went on. "Made it a bit too hot to hold him, I fancy. And he's been saying mad things about me—and about you." He turned his head sharply, and looked at me, and repeated the words—"About you."
"It will not trouble me very much, whatever he says," I retorted.
"Don't be too sure; he's a dangerous man," said my guardian. "He'll talk about any one, and it's all lies. I shouldn't be surprised"—he turned to the picture again, and examined it—"I shouldn't be a bit surprised if he didn't say something more about me one of these days."
"I remember that I heard him threaten to talk," I remarked. "But surely a man in your position can afford to laugh at him and his threats?"
"That's where you're wrong," broke in Fanshawe quickly. "It's the men in my position that can have lies told about them, lies which they dare not refute. I tell you he's a dangerous