Two days before that fatal night Sydney Beaton had gone down to see his brother, Sir George Beaton, head of the family, and practically its sole representative, in his old home at Adisham, in the County of Wilts. The visit had been of the nature of a forlorn hope. Sydney wanted help, pecuniary help, as he had done more than once before. He was in a very tight place. He had piled folly on to folly, and just lately he had surmounted the pile with the biggest of the lot. If he could not get money quickly matters would go very ill with him. Money-lenders and all those sort of people were not to be persuaded; he owed them already more than they ever expected to get. Nor did he know of any friend or acquaintance who would be likely to do what he required; his credit was bad even among them. He did not think he would be able to get the money from his brother; George had told him on a previous occasion that he would never let him have another farthing; there was evidence that he meant to keep his word. Still, Sydney had to try lest worse befell.

But he failed, badly. There was something very like a quarrel. Sydney confessed, after a fashion. He warned George that if he did not get the money he wanted the family name might suffer. George, in reply, said right out what he thought of him; he made it quite clear that his opinion of his brother could hardly have been a worse one. He refused to let him have even so much as a five-pound note.

"Sydney," he said with brutal frankness, "nothing can save you--certainly my money can't; I mean, nothing can save you from yourself. I mayn't be the steadiest mover; I'm not holding myself up as an example----"

"There you show your wisdom."

"But you--you're the limit. In the sense in which they use the word in the stable, you're a rogue. You're worse than an unbroken, bad-tempered colt; you're not safe either to ride or drive. You're absolutely certain to come a cropper, and probably a bad one. I give you my word that I have no intention, if I can help it, of letting you bring me down with you. You know, I'm not a rich man; I want all the money I've got for my own use----"

"That I will admit."

"If you had your way you'd make a bankrupt of me in another couple of years. But you're not going to have your own way; not another sovereign do you get out of me. That's my last word."

The younger brother seemed to be moistening his lips before answering; there was a strained look in his eyes.

"You understand that if you won't help me I'm in a hole?"

"I understand that clearly. I also understand that if I won't, what you call, 'help' you, you'll drag me in with you. In fact, what you're after is sheer blackmail. If there had been a witness of our conversation, I could give you into custody for attempting to obtain money by means of threats, and you'd be convicted. If the family name is to be dragged in the mud by you, then I shall want all the money I have to get it out again. Hadn't you better go? I don't propose to offer you a bed for the night, and if you waste much more time the last train will need some catching."

Sydney did go, after some very unbrotherly words had been exchanged; but he did not catch the last train. The last train from that part of the world left early; another interview which immediately followed the one with his brother delayed him till it was dawn. As he was leaving the house in which he was born, Ling, the butler, handed him a note, remarking, as if imparting a confidence:

"From Miss Forster, Mr. Sydney. It reached me just after you came, but I thought I had better not bring it in to you while you were with Sir George."

Without a word he tore the envelope open. Within was a sheet of paper on which were half a dozen lines.

"Dear Sydney,--Why did you not let me know you were coming? How dare you not to? If I had not seen you driving from the station I might never have known. I shall be at the old place this evening at seven o'clock; mind you come. I don't know that I need give a special reason why you are to come; I take it for granted that you will jump at the chance, but there is a special reason all the same.--Vi.

"Mind--I said seven! Just you make it seven."

Sydney looked at his watch; it was a quarter to seven. The last train left for London soon after eight. The station was nearly eight miles off; the dog-cart in which he had come was waiting at the door; he had not much time to spare if the train was not to go without him. He arrived at a sudden resolution--all his resolutions were arrived at suddenly, or he would have been a happier man. He spoke to the groom in the cart.

"Go down the village and wait for me at 'The Grapes.' I'll be with you as soon as I can."

He strode off. The groom touched his hat. He winked at Ling, who had appeared on the doorstep. The butler resented the familiarity.

"I don't want anything of that sort from you, Sam Evans; you mind your own business and leave others to mind theirs. You do as Mr. Sydney tells you, and wait for him at 'The Grapes.'"

"I'll wait for him right enough, but I wouldn't mind having a trifle on it that I keep on waiting till it's too late for him to catch his train."

Sam Evans grinned; he kept on grinning as he drove off, although the butler had done his best to keep him in his place. But the groom was right; the dog-cart waited outside the village inn till it was too late for Sydney Beaton to catch the last up train.

Autumn was come. The nights were drawing in. It was dusk. Sydney Beaton pursued his way through gathering shadows, through trees whose foliage had assumed the russet hues of autumn. There had been rain earlier in the day; a northerly breeze had blown it away, the same breeze was bringing the leaves down in showers about him as he walked. He went perhaps a good half-mile, taking a familiar short cut across his brother's property on to the neighbouring estate of Nuthurst. He came to a ring of trees which ran round a little knoll, on the top of which was what looked to be an old-fashioned summer-house. His footsteps must have been audible as they tramped through the dry leaves; that his approach had been heard was made plain by the fact that a feminine figure came out of the building and down the rising ground to meet him as he came. What sort of greeting he would have offered seemed doubtful; something in his bearing suggested that it would have been a less ardent one than that which he received. Moving quickly towards him, without any hesitation the lady placed her two hands upon his shoulders and kissed him again and again.

"Sydney, you are a wretch! Why didn't you let me know that you were coming?"

"I scarcely knew myself until I was in the train."

"You might have sent me a telegram before the train started."

"I'm only here for half an hour; I shall have to hurry off to catch the last train back to town."

Something in his words or manner seemed to strike her. She drew a little away from him in order to see him better.

"Sydney, what's wrong?"

He smiled, not gaily. To her keen eyes his bearing seemed to lack that touch of boyish carelessness with which she was familiar.

"What isn't wrong? Isn't everything always wrong with me? Aren't I one of those unlucky creatures with whom nothing ever does go right?"

"Have you quarrelled with George again?"

"He's told me he couldn't give me a bed for the night, which doesn't seem to point to our being on the best of terms."

There was a momentary pause before she spoke again; and then it was with quizzically uplifted eyebrows.

"More money, Sydney?"

He was silent. His hands in his jacket pockets, his feet a little apart, he stood and looked at her, something on his handsome face which seemed to have obscured its sunshine. When he spoke it was with what, coming from him, was very unusual bitterness.

"Vi, what's the use of this? I didn't want to let you know that I was coming; I didn't mean to let you know that I had come, because--what's the use of it?"

"What's the use of my loving you, do you mean? Well, for one thing, I thought that you loved me.

"An unlucky beggar who is always in a mess, and only scrambles out of one hole to get into another--what does his love matter to anyone?"

"I cannot tell you how much it matters to me. And, Sydney, doesn't my love matter to you?"

"Vi! you mustn't tempt me."

"How do you mean, tempt you?"

"If you only knew how I longed to take you in my arms, and keep you there. But what's the good of longing?"

"You can take me in your arms--and keep me there--for about ten seconds."

"Yes, I know; I know that you're a darling, the sweetest girl in the world, but what right have I to do it? What prospect have I of ever making you my wife? All debts, and nothing to pay them. What would your uncle say if he came upon us now? Wouldn't he warn me off the premises, as my brother has done? You know, my dear, you're not for such as I am. I don't want to say anything unkind, but don't you see, can't you see, that the only thing left for me to do is to withdraw and leave the field open for a better man?"

"Sydney, this time you must have come a cropper."

There was that in the girl's tone which, in spite of himself, brought a real smile to the young man's lips.

"I have. You're right. One which is going to make an end of me."

The girl shook her head gaily.

"Oh, no, it won't. I know you better. You've been coming croppers ever since I have known you, and that's all my life, some of them awful croppers; there must have been quite twenty from which you were never going to rise again. But you've managed, and you'll manage again. Only, really, I do wish you'd get out of the habit, if only for a while."

"Vi, you don't understand, this time you really don't. I'm done. I went to my brother as a last resource--you may be pretty sure it was a last resource--for the money which was the only thing that could save me. I am quite serious. He told me he would not give me so much as a sovereign; he even refused me a night's lodging. That means, as I tell you, that I'm done. I don't know quite what will happen to me, but something not pretty. When you and I meet again it is quite possible it will not be as equals; I shall be in a class of which you do not take social cognisance."

Again the young lady shook her head; if again it was with an attempt at gaiety, there was something which looked very much like tears in her eyes.

"What a cropper you must have come; it makes my blood run cold to hear you talking. Have you been robbing a bank?"

"I might as well have done. I'm likely to be in as awkward a position as if I had."

The girl looked at him steadily; his eyes met hers. Each might have been looking into the other's soul.

"Sydney, do you still love me?"

"Wouldn't it be better for you if I were to tell you straight out that I don't? Think, wouldn't it?"

"No, it wouldn't; it would be much worse. It would be a cowardly thing to say, and also, I happen to know, an untrue one. I know that you do still love me. I only asked you for the sake of hearing your answer. You do."

"It has become a habit."

"And habits are not things which are easily rooted up."

"So it would seem."

"I don't flatter myself that your love for me is such an important a factor in your life as I should like it to be, or you would keep clear of croppers. I don't think you are capable of very strong and enduring emotions where a woman is concerned; nowadays men aren't. But, in your own fashion, you love me all the same, and you'll keep on loving me. I know you. And it's a fashion with which I should be very well content if----"

"Yes, if; that's it--if! So what's the use?"

"You're frightfully selfish."

"Is that a new discovery? You've told me so--how many times? And now, when for the first time in my life I'm really generous, you say it again."

"But you're not generous; you're only considering yourself. You're more selfish than ever. You love me in your fashion, but you must remember that I love you in mine. I don't see myself how I'm going to marry you just yet awhile."

"Just yet awhile!"

"Yes, I said just yet awhile. But then, are you thinking of marrying someone else?"

"I shall never marry any other woman if I don't marry you. I'm not that kind of man."

"Precisely. I believe you. Nor am I that kind of girl. As I say, I may not be able to marry you just yet awhile, nor may I ever be able to marry you at all, but--it's you or no one. Sydney, whatever becomes of you, you will always be the only man in the world for me. You may come badly to grief; you may do things I would much rather you didn't do; you may make me suffer more than the average man makes the woman who loves him suffer; but I'd rather anything than lose you. Whatever may become of you, whatever you do, wherever you may be, be sure of one thing, always--that I love you. I'll make open confession. Sydney, I'd marry you to-morrow if you wished me. I don't think you're likely to, nor do I think that it would be good for either of us if you did, but--there's the truth. And that confession stands for always. In whatever plight you may find yourself, penniless and in rags--I'm only talking to suit your mood, you know--you have merely to say so that I can hear you, 'Come, let's marry,' and I'll be your wife, your glad and loving wife. Here's my hand on it, and my lips to boot if you'd like them, as soon as the thing may be."