When the Hon. Wipplinger Towle beheld the inhospitable shores of Staten Island fade into a dim haze of distance, which he accomplished from the depths of a comfortable steamer chair, placed in just the proper position on the deck of the newest Cunarder, it was without any rancor of soul or bitterness of spirit. He loved Jane Blythe as much (or more) than ever; but he was not disposed on that account to humiliate himself to the point of seeking stolen interviews with the object of his affection upon American back stoops. No; Jane must somehow be led to return to her native land, and once more in her proper environment, Mr. Towle could not find it in his heart to despair of finally winning her. He was a man of wide and varied experience, and he was not unaware that a period of discreet neglect upon his part might tend to enhance his apparent value.

It should be explained that during the course of that long and dusty tramp over the highways of Staten Island, whereon he had encountered clouds of bloodthirsty mosquitoes, the evidence of whose fierce attacks was even yet to be discerned upon his patrician countenance, the sagacious Mr. Towle had laid out a course of action from which he had not deviated an iota thus far, and in which his early return to England figured as a necessary step. In brief, he had taken the pains to satisfy himself that Jane Blythe's humiliating position was not in any sense an unsafe one, and that her sojourn under the roof of Mr. and Mrs. James Livingstone Belknap would result in little beyond what Mr. Towle was philosophically inclined to look upon as a needful though unpleasant experience. The only factor in the problem which really perplexed him was the presence of Mr. John Everett in the home of Mrs. Belknap. That arrogantly youthful figure suggested a possible painful finale to his own hopes, which Mr. Towle nevertheless found himself able to contemplate with resignation. He had arrived, in short, at that enviable stage of his experience when he had ceased to avidly desire what did not essentially belong to himself. "A man does not really want that which is another's," he was accustomed to say to the few intimates who were admitted to his confidence. "He only thinks or supposes that he does. The possession of it would make him as wretched as did the fabled black pudding which the unfortunate old woman acquired with the first of her three elfin-bestowed wishes. Made irrevocably fast to the end of her nose by her angry husband by means of the second wish, she was finally forced to rid herself of it by the sacrifice of the last and final wish."

Not that Jane Blythe ever appeared to Mr. Towle in the guise of a potential black pudding. He thought of her continually and sincerely as altogether good, lovely, and desirable; but as quite possibly too good, too lovely, and too desirable a possession for his lonely heart to selfishly appropriate. Something of this really chivalrous and exquisitely altruistic devotion was apparent even to the obtuse perceptions of Mr. Robert Aubrey-Blythe, whom Mr. Towle sought out immediately upon reaching London.

"I have found her, Robert," began Mr. Towle, without preamble.

"You have found——?"

"Jane," said Mr. Towle. The honorable gentleman did not appear at all excited, consequently Mr. Aubrey-Blythe, as in duty bound, sprang up from his chair, where he had been absorbed in a matter antipodally remote from the fortunes of his niece.

"Well, well, well!" cried Mr. Aubrey-Blythe excitedly, and "Upon my soul, Towle!" he said. "I am surprised!"

He was quite sincere in this statement, for beyond a few perfunctory efforts to trace the missing girl the Aubrey-Blythes had appeared piously resigned to the decree of a discerning Providence which had seen fit to remove so disturbing an element from their midst. Still it was annoying, not to say intolerable, to have one's acquaintances at the club and elsewhere preface their ordinary remarks with the query "Found your niece yet, Blythe?" or "Hear you've a deuced unhappy mystery to unravel at your house," with an occasional dubious reference to the morgue and the workhouse. So it was with genuine relief and pleasure that Mr. Aubrey-Blythe learned of the speedy and successful dÉnouement of Mr. Towle's foreign adventures.

"I am shocked and—er—grieved at what you tell me of the girl's present position," he added, with genuine mortification depicted upon his rotund countenance. "An Aubrey-Blythe in a kitchen—actually working with her hands! Preposterous, Towle, preposterous! I shall at once take steps to remove her."

"Hum—ah," murmured Mr. Towle; "better leave her where she is for a while longer."

"What is that you are saying?" inquired the other fussily. "No, no; that would never do, Towle—never in the world! Bless my soul; what will my wife, Lady Agatha Aubrey-Blythe, say to all this! Really, Towle, I dislike to disturb her ladyship with the shocking intelligence."

"I beg that you will not inform her of it," Mr. Towle said, rather sharply. "There is nothing to be gained by doing so, and much to be lost."

"The girl has never been a favorite with Lady Agatha," observed Mr. Aubrey-Blythe. "They seem to be—er—totally uncongenial."

"I can quite believe that," said the other dryly. He stared hard at his friend in silence for some minutes before he spoke again. "I believe you—er—informed me that your niece, Miss Jane Aubrey-Blythe, was— That is to say, you gave me to understand that she was entirely without fortune. Am I correct in this—er—particular?"

"And I," burst out Mr. Aubrey-Blythe, "understood you to say that the fact made no difference in your—ah— But, I beg your pardon, Towle; of course this—er—unfortunate escapade of the girl's ends all that—of course, of course! I shouldn't have spoken as I did."

"You misunderstand me, Robert," said Mr. Towle patiently. "My sentiments toward Miss Blythe are entirely unchanged; quite so, in fact. What I wished to say is this: I should like to settle some money on Miss Blythe, and—er—I don't know how to go about it. You must advise me, Robert."

"You would like to settle some money! Yes, I see; but this is no time to talk of marriage settlements, my dear fellow, with the girl in America, and——"

"I am not talking of marriage settlements," said Mr. Towle calmly. "There may never be a marriage between us; in fact I have scarcely any hope of it. I am too old, and"—with a slight bitterness of manner—"unluckily I look even older than I am. No; what I want is to give to Jane a comfortable sum of money outright, and leave her to be happy in her own way. If I can win her later on, I mean to do it fairly and squarely; but, as I have already said, I have very little hope of it."

"Gad, man! if you give the girl a fortune, she's bound to marry you; common gratitude, common decency, would demand it."

"Exactly so," quoth Mr. Towle. "But I'll have no common gratitude and common decency as you call it—and deuced common it is—mixing up in her feelings for me. Neither do I want her driven into a marriage with me as a dernier ressort. If she could—er—love me I— But never mind, Robert. We'll cut this short, if you please. And I don't intend, mark you, to give her a fortune; nothing that would attract a crowd of worthless fellows, you understand, but enough so that she may feel free and independent of—er—other people, including yourself, and be able to buy her own frocks and the feathers and frills that women love; a matter of ten or twelve thousand pounds, say."

"Very handsome of you, Towle, to have thought of it, I'm sure; uncommonly generous, by gad! but I doubt if it will be becoming in me to allow it. I fear that Lady Agatha——"

"You'll not tell her," interrupted Mr. Towle eagerly. Then he leaned forward and rested his hand upon the other's broad knee. "I'm not one to refer over often to the past, Robert, as you know; but I believe you've told me more than once that you—er—that I— No; I can't say it. It sticks in my throat."

"I know what you mean, Towle," growled Mr. Aubrey-Blythe. "There's no need for you to remind me that I'm under a tremendous obligation to you. But do you mean to tell me——"

"I declare to you that if you will help me to do what I wish in this one thing, I shall know the obligation to be on the other side. And, mind, it is to be kept a secret between you and me—forever."

Mr. Robert Aubrey-Blythe appeared plunged into profound meditation. At last he raised his head. "She wouldn't touch a penny of it, if she knew," he said at last. "Jane is deucedly independent and all that."

"She'd be obliged to take it if it came from a relative," suggested Mr. Towle; "couldn't you——"

The other shook his head. "Bless my soul, Towle," he murmured, with something very like a twinkle of humor in his eyes; "if I should attempt to settle a shilling piece on Jane there'd be the deuce and all to pay. I should think you'd know better than to suggest it."

"It's going to be done somehow, Robert," said Mr. Towle firmly, "if I—er—have to hang myself to bring it about. She couldn't refuse a legacy."

"Oh, I say; that would never do, Towle! You mustn't think of such a thing," protested Mr. Aubrey-Blythe, fidgeting in his chair. "But, speaking of a legacy, I wonder, now——"

He left his sentence suspended in midair, while he rummaged in his desk for a paper. "Hum—yes, yes. Now, I wonder— I—er—had a brother once, a younger brother, a sad rascal of a fellow, quite as improvident as poor Oliver—Jane's father, you know—and dissolute to boot. We don't often mention Foxhall Aubrey-Blythe, poor fellow; sad case, very. He's dead, in short. Died in South Africa a couple of months ago, without a sixpence to his name, as might have been expected. Now, I wonder— Of course, it would be very irregular and all that; but I fancy it could be arranged, with the help of a discreet attorney—eh? That is to say, if you won't think better of it, Towle."

"I should think it might be done," agreed the Hon. Wipplinger Towle seriously. "There can be no possible harm in it, certainly, to the dead man, or to anyone else. And it's got to be arranged, Robert. I'm quite set upon it."

After which the arch conspirators put their heads together over the details of a plot which, for the present at least, does not vitally concern the fortunes of Miss Jane Evelyn Aubrey-Blythe, who at that moment was industriously engaged in brushing the rugs, which she had carried out from Mrs. Belknap's little parlor to the untidy grass plot bristling with spent dandelion stalks, situated at the rear of the Belknap house.

Mary MacGrotty was clattering about the range inside the small kitchen, pausing to cast an occasional malevolent glance through the open window. Master Belknap was engaged in calmly propelling his tricycle up and down the sidewalk under the watchful eye of Mrs. Belknap, seated on the front porch with her sewing. It was an eminently peaceful domestic scene, which gave no sign of the volcanic possibilities lurking underneath the deceitful calm of its surface.

The seventh individual who was in process of being inextricably bound in the fast-spinning threads of a watchful Fate was Mr. John Everett, who sat in a certain Broadway office, ostensibly occupied with a very dry legal paper, whose intricacies he supposed himself to be diligently mastering. In reality this young gentleman was uncounted leagues away from the Broadway office, wandering in lands of faerie with Jane. Jane's eyes were bright and Jane's lips were red and tempting; Jane's little hands were clasped upon his arm as they two walked slowly (all in the land of faerie) across a velvet lawn, wherein neither plantain nor dandelion had ever encroached, toward a house—a little house, with balconies, perhaps, and dormer windows, certainly—Jack Everett couldn't be altogether sure of its outlines, since houses (in the land of faerie) have a way of changing while one looks, like dissolving lantern views. All of which was very much in the air and exceedingly foolish, as this worthy young man told himself sternly, when he found, at the expiration of half of a delightful hour, where he had really been spending his time.