Elizabeth was under no uneasiness concerning Pelham. The West African expedition was one of great responsibility, but of trifling danger, and Elizabeth had the highest respect for Pelham’s ability to take care of himself. The thought had been in her mind, as it was in Pelham’s, that she was far better prepared to do without him then than in those earlier days when she had been a stranger in a strange land. Such indeed was the case, but ten years of close companionship and reliance on Pelham’s judgment and kindness for almost every act of her life had bred in Elizabeth a dependence which she did not fully realize until he was gone. It was as if the sun had dropped out of the heavens when he was away. In Darrell she had the companionship of a husband who adored her, but who except for his love could not give her the least assistance in any other way; while with Pelham it was, besides the intimacy of a great, unspoken love, the ever present aid of sound sense, good judgment, and a cultivated mind.

Elizabeth, with her youth and beauty and her natural taste for gayety and admiration, could not but find the London season charming; and as for Darrell, it seemed the very wine of life to him to be once more in England. They were invited everywhere, and had pleasure in returning the hospitality offered them. As regarded their income the Darrells, it is true, had a large one, as the late Lady Pelham was supposed to have left about forty thousand pounds; but it was hampered in many ways, as the late Lady Pelham was one of those persons who try to transact business after they are dead and buried.

Darrell knew nothing of business, and seemed incapable of learning. He spent money liberally for himself and more liberally still for Elizabeth. She had only to express a wish for it to be gratified. Darrell desired to cover her with jewels, but Elizabeth with better taste preferred to wear only one ornament, the handsome diamond and pearl necklace which seemed so peculiarly hers. Of the new gems in it, she and Darrell and Pelham had spent hours examining and deciding; and the idea of inserting in it her wedding gift of a pearl brooch, was Elizabeth’s entirely and she was proud of it. Darrell, who grew more in love with his wife each day, was charmed at this bit of sentiment, on which they had united in defeating the jeweller.

On the night before the Goodwood races, there was a great ball at Marlborough House, to which Elizabeth and Darrell were commanded. Never had Elizabeth looked handsomer. A black evening gown showed off the perfections, the exquisite beauty, of her white shoulders and slender arms. The necklace around her milky white throat looked like moonlight and starlight combined.

“You will make a sensation to-night, my girl,” said Darrell, kissing her.

“If you like my looks, that is the main point,” replied Elizabeth. She habitually made him these pretty speeches, which was gratifying to Darrell, as the husband of a beauty.

They went to the ball, which had a gayety unsurpassed in balls. It established Elizabeth’s place in society as one of the beauties of the season. She received vast attention from those London exquisites who claim to fix a woman’s place in beauty’s calendar. She was noticed, admired, and conversed with by royalty itself, and the Prince having thus set his mark of approval on her, Elizabeth’s title as a London beauty was settled beyond cavil. She enjoyed it thoroughly, of course; but the image of Pelham did not leave her mind. She would turn her head in the midst of the splendor and magnificence of the ball, wishing to herself, “Could I but see him now!”

The ball lasted late, and it was not over until night had flown and the rosy dawn had come. Elizabeth was one of the few women sufficiently natural to look well after a night of dancing, and she looked as fresh as the dawn itself when she stepped into her carriage. Not so Darrell, who appeared so wearied that Elizabeth reproached herself at not having left earlier.

“I didn’t wish to bring you away,” he said with his usual kindness of tone. “Nine years in the Punjaub entitles you to some indulgences, and besides I was proud of you. I like to see you happy and admired.”

Elizabeth laid her head on his shoulder in the seclusion of the brougham, and Darrell, after a pause, said in a low voice: “This is the anniversary of the boy’s death. I wouldn’t speak of it before, Elizabeth, but I hadn’t forgotten it.”

“And I,” said Elizabeth, her heart suddenly turning to the dead child, sleeping under the cypress trees in the military cemetery at Embira, “had not forgotten it, but I hoped that you had, dearest.”

They talked together for a little while of their lost darling, as the parents of dead children do, and then Darrell suddenly grew quiet. Elizabeth thought he was asleep, and would not move for fear she might disturb him. When she reached their own door, she raised her head from his shoulder. Darrell was dead.

Of all that happened in the succeeding weeks, Elizabeth had afterward but a confused recollection. She was stunned by the blow and deeply grieved. Although she had long ceased to return Darrell’s affection in kind, yet she had a deep love for him. It was so deep, so sincere, so unselfish, that his death could not fail to be a heavy grief to her,—the heaviest but one that she could know: that other was Pelham’s. Her sorrow was not joined with remorse. She had honestly and earnestly devoted her life to Darrell, and felt sure that she had made him happy; but nevertheless it was a deep and sincere sorrow.

Her first thought had been naturally and inevitably for Pelham. She was so ignorant of business, so absolutely untrained in affairs, and so much a stranger in England, that she scarcely knew where to turn. Darrell had plenty of relatives, but Elizabeth had never known them, except during her few short months in England, and none of them were particularly near Darrell either in blood or friendship. His grandfather was long since dead, and the cousin who inherited the title was in West Africa. From the beginning Elizabeth seemed overwhelmed with difficulties, with annoying details which she was called upon to decide without having the slightest experience in them. She knew nothing of the value of money, having had but little until she came into what seemed to both Darrell and herself an enormous fortune. She knew not what she had spent nor what she was spending. Thus, as in everything else, could she have only turned to Pelham and asked him what to do, everything would have gone right. But Pelham was in West Africa; it would possibly take anywhere from four to five months to communicate with him, nor was it possible for him to return for at least a year from the time he had started.

It was Pelham, however, who inherited everything that came from Lady Pelham. The sole provision for Elizabeth was about one hundred pounds a year, which was Darrell’s own small inheritance. But the fact that Pelham was the sole heir relieved Elizabeth’s mind when it was brought home to her that she would be obliged to account for everything Darrell and she had received,—every chair and table in Lady Pelham’s house, and every jewel, however trifling. Elizabeth, who was as high-minded as she was inexperienced, desired to hand over everything to Pelham direct, but she knew him, or thought she knew him, too well to suppose it possible that he should make her position the least painful or embarrassing to her. In the first weeks of her widowhood, when she had wished to remain alone in her London house, entirely secluded from the world and its affairs, she was forced to see solicitors, attorneys, business men, and persons of all sorts. Some of these presented unpaid bills for large amounts, and foremost among the intruders was one Andrew McBean, a Scotch attorney who was Pelham’s agent.

This man, with his persistence and insistence, annoyed Elizabeth almost beyond endurance; but the thing which troubled her most was the continual presenting of unpaid bills. She gave up her carriage and sold it with the horses, imagining in her simplicity that she could use this money for the payment of the accounts which rained upon her every day; and she actually did so use this money until informed by McBean that she had sold Pelham’s property and misused the proceeds. This McBean said to her one day in her own drawing-room, or what she supposed was her own drawing-room. Elizabeth’s heart fluttered with terror as McBean warned her that she would be required to account for every penny of this money—in fact of all the money that she was spending.

She had that morning, in despair, taken her diamond and pearl necklace to a jeweller’s agent, who really acted as an amateur pawn-broker, and who had advanced her five hundred pounds on it. Had McBean asked her then about the necklace, she would have fainted on the floor; but he did not. As soon as he had gone, Elizabeth, in her widow’s dress, flew pale and panting to the agent to whom she had intrusted the necklace, and told him what McBean had said to her. The agent, who saw that he had a frightened woman in his power and a valuable piece of property worth four times what he had advanced on it, soothed Elizabeth by telling her that McBean had no right to demand the necklace from her, as it was hers, being partly her husband’s wedding gift to her. Elizabeth returned home, in that hour of darkness, with but one thought uppermost in her mind. Could she but see Pelham, he would not suffer her thus to be persecuted. She knew quite well how he would wish her to act,—to pay off the pressing debts which humiliated her, and to take the small balance of money left and remain in England until he should return. This she determined to do.

She had not heard from him either by cable or by letter since Darrell’s death, but that was nothing. Communication with him would be necessarily slow. It might be weeks or even months before she should hear, but she was certain of what the purport of his letter would be, and of what his wishes already were. So, dismissing her servants and turning the house over to McBean, she went to live in a small lodging-house, there to await Pelham’s return. She put away from her all the thoughts about him as a lover,—thoughts which would occasionally force themselves upon her, but from which she turned steadfastly,—and thought of him only as a brother and friend, the man most anxious to help her in the world, not even excepting her own father. General Brandon had written to her urgent and affectionate letters, telling her that his heart and hand and home were open to her as the best of daughters; and Elizabeth, whose heart yearned unceasingly for her father, found in the thought of once more being held in her father’s arms the heartiest consolation she could have at that moment. But she knew it was useless to tell General Brandon any of her money difficulties. She understood his straitened circumstances, his mortgaged house, and the story of his Egyptian bonds. The only thing to do was to write Pelham frankly and fully every circumstance of her affairs, and to await his reply in England. She did this, and set herself to the task of waiting.

It was now autumn, a dull London autumn, and it seemed to Elizabeth as if she were living in a bad dream. Only the other day she had a devoted husband in Darrell, a friend in Pelham who was all that a friend could be to a woman, a home, servants, carriages, jewels, everything that the heart of woman could ask, with the prospect of having her father as an honored guest; and now she was widowed, alone, and in deep poverty. She had brought her expenses down to the lowest possible penny. Friendless, overwhelmed with debts of which she understood nothing, and in the clutches of a Scotch attorney and a jeweller’s agent, she felt a certainty of relief when Pelham should write and then should come.

Every time the lodging-house bell rang, she thought it was Pelham’s letter, but it did not come. Instead came McBean, first hinting and then threatening legal proceedings, especially in regard to the necklace. This seemed to Elizabeth an undeserved outrage and, reËnforced by the counsel of the jeweller’s agent, she said firmly, her dark eyes flashing: “That necklace was my husband’s gift to me, his last gift to me, and part of it was his wedding gift. It is to me the most valuable thing on earth apart from what it cost, and it is mine and I shall not give it up. When Major Pelham returns, I promise you he will see the matter as I do.”

This conversation occurred in Elizabeth’s dingy room at the lodging-house, in an unfashionable part of Bayswater. “I judge Major Pelham will take the same view as I do, the only possible view,” replied McBean, a wizened, fox-eyed man, who loved a five-pound note better than his own soul. “I am following out Major Pelham’s exact directions when I demand of you the return of the necklace.” At these words Elizabeth felt as if a knife had been thrust into her heart. She understood McBean to mean that he had received from Pelham explicit instructions in the matter of the necklace, while as a matter of fact he had heard nothing from Pelham any more than Elizabeth had. McBean had honestly thought that he was acting exactly in Pelham’s interests and as Pelham would have wished him to do, who had in general terms authorized him to collect all debts due Pelham and pay all authorized bills.

McBean noticed Elizabeth’s pallor and shock at his words, and rightly judged that he had hit upon the means of alarming her. He continued to talk as if repeating Pelham’s words. Elizabeth listened with horror. Was there then no such thing as love and faith in the world? Could she have known Pelham for all these years, have felt the assurance of his devotion, and yet after all not known him? No word of McBean’s was lost upon her, dazed as she was; but, feeling that she was unable to bear the scene longer, she got up and walked out of the room like an insulted queen, leaving McBean still talking. Not by one Scotch attorney, nor in one hour, could Elizabeth’s belief in Pelham be shattered; and after the first horror caused by McBean’s words, Elizabeth experienced a revulsion of feeling. She reproached herself for believing that Pelham could, for the sake of a few hundred pounds, so persecute and humiliate her. If she lost faith in Pelham, she would lose faith in humanity, even in her own father. McBean must be lying. What he had said to her was incredible. It stiffened her resolution to remain in England at any cost until she could hear from Pelham, and of eventually hearing she could have no doubt. She wrote him a few lines, simply asking if he had received her letter and recounting the circumstances under which she remained in England after Darrell’s death. This letter she forwarded to the War Office, and then set herself to the task of waiting three months, or perhaps five, until she could get a reply. Meanwhile she continued to receive tender and affectionate letters from her father, imploring her to return to him. Elizabeth replied, saying that she would come to him as soon as the condition of her affairs permitted, and merely adding that there were certain things to be settled up in connection with the estate which required her presence in England.

The dull autumn deepened into a winter of fierce cold, with scarcely a ray of sunshine. Elizabeth suffered from this as only one can suffer who has spent many winters under an Indian sun. Even if her pride had permitted her to call for assistance from their former friends, of whom she had scarcely one among the women, but many among the men, she dared not; she was afraid that McBean’s story had gone far and wide and that every action of hers might be under suspicion. And then came the crowning blow. The time passed when she might have returned the five hundred pounds advanced on the necklace. She could not pay it, having barely enough out of the one hundred pounds left her by Darrell to keep body and soul together. And no word came from Pelham.

The spring advanced, and the trees in the Bayswater district grew green. The time returned when only a year before she had been adored by her husband and loved and revered by the man who was now treating her with insulting neglect,—for to this belief Elizabeth had at last been forced. She spent many nights walking up and down her narrow room wringing her hands at the thought of the last letter she had written Pelham. The first she had no regrets for. It had been sent under the impression that Pelham was not only a sincere man but a gentleman; for certainly, knowing as he did every circumstance of Elizabeth’s life and condition, it was ungentlemanlike of him to seize everything on which the law permitted him to lay his hands and to leave her destitute, alone, and a stranger. She felt that she could no longer doubt McBean’s word, of which nothing could have convinced her short of Pelham’s own conduct. Hope died hard within her, and she lingered in London during the spring and late summer; but as autumn came on she realized there was but one refuge left her, her father’s roof in Washington.

She dared not let her intention of leaving London be known, for fear she might be stopped and a scandal might ensue. She raised money enough to take a second-class passage on a cheap steamer, and on a gloomy day in the last part of September she started upon her homeward journey. She had endured grief, anxiety, and privations, and especially that last overwhelming blow, the admission of Pelham’s faithlessness. It had transformed her delicate and seductive beauty, but strangely enough it had not rendered her less delicately seductive. The pathos of her eyes, the sadness of her smile, the droop of her beautiful mouth, her mourning attire, refined and even elegant, in spite of her poverty, marked her out. She was not less beautiful than in her days of joy, and was far more interesting.