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.