Ralph Endacott, erstwhile professor of Oxford University and partner in the great Oriental house of Johnson and Company, now an English country gentleman, sat before wide-flung French windows leading out on to the lawn, sunken gardens and miniature park of the Great House at Market Ballaston. In front of him was an oak writing table upon which were pen and ink and a steel-clamped coffer, apparently of great age but attached to which was a modern Bramah lock. Upon the blotting paper were a few sheets of yellow, unfamiliar-looking, thick paper, covered with weird hieroglyphics; in his left hand a pair of magnifying glasses. The scent of the roses from outside had disturbed him in the midst of his labour. He rang a silver bell which stood upon the edge of the table—rang it a second time. Claire, a flutter of cool white, swung herself out of a hammock close at hand and approached lazily.

“What is it, Nunks dear?” she enquired. “You know very well that none of the servants can hear that bell, only me.”

“It was you I wanted,” her uncle declared. “Tell me, child, in what devil-sent spirit of idiocy did I waste all those years in a musty, God-forsaken country, whose only charm is that no one can understand it and no one ever will. Was I a fool or am I a fool now?”

She laughed softly, leaning against the side of the open window.

“You were a fool,” she decided. “I was a fool too, because I didn’t believe in England. I didn’t believe in the green, or the trees, the flowers, the softness, the rest of it all.”

“You were too young to be foolish,” he said. “It is only the old who can find the way to folly. Do you know that during the last few days I have discovered some manuscripts which, if I had been seated in that musk-scented den in the corner of the warehouse, with the smell of the East in my nostrils and the soft, purring call of mystery all the time in the atmosphere, would have sent me into a state of wild excitement. Here, to-day, I am gently and pleasantly interested. I have learned values.”

“Tell me about the manuscripts,” she begged, passing finally through the window and throwing herself into an easy-chair close at hand.

“There is a love poem here,” he confided, “written in his own handwriting by an emperor to a singing girl. I shall lock it away. It was not meant to be read by barbarians. Here are the details of the first plot to overcome the monarchy, and here,” he went on, “is a document more interesting than any I have yet come across—more difficult to decipher, because there are priestly words in it and phrases not used in modern Chinese. However, I have mastered it so far as to know what it is about. In this atmosphere it is strange even to dream of it.”

He paused for a moment. It was a lazy hour in a July afternoon. Even the birds had ceased to sing, but there were bees humming amongst the flowers and the sound of a reaping machine in a meadow on the other side of the red brick wall. Every now and then the roses bent their heads in a flutter of the light west breeze and lent wafts of perfume to an air already sweet with the odour of verbena and heliotrope.

“What about that last manuscript?” she asked.

He tapped the strange piece of thick, stained paper beneath his fingers, yellow in places, drooping at the edges, covered with what seemed to her to be meaningless hieroglyphics in the faintest of pink-coloured ink.

“This,” he said, “is the letter of the High Priest of the Temple of Yun-Tse, addressed to the Emperor, and telling him what means he had adopted for guarding the secret jewels.”

“Yun-Tse,” she murmured, “the home of the Body and the Soul?”

He nodded.

“These few lines,” he continued, smoothing out the paper thoughtfully with his long, bony forefinger, “to any one who can understand them, might easily be worth one of the great fortunes of the world.”

“What are you going to do with it?” she enquired curiously.

He made no immediate reply, first folding up the letter and replacing it in the coffer, which he carefully locked. Then he rose to his feet and led the way out into the gardens.

“Tell me about that letter,” she begged once more, as they seated themselves under the cedar tree.

“Part of the old story, at any rate, seems to be true,” he confided. “Those two Images have always contained a secret hiding place, and somewhere inside them are stored the jewels of the temple. On the back of the document are instructions in the cipher of the priests, which as yet I have not been able to translate. I am not sure that I shall ever attempt to.”

“But why not?” she asked wonderingly.

“If I did,” he murmured, “I should know how to appropriate the jewels.”

“But don’t you want them?” she persisted. “Wouldn’t that be very wonderful?”

He looked up through the boughs of the tree; a worn, tired-looking man, over whose high cheek bones the skin seemed tightly drawn. In ordinary European costume he appeared somehow to have shrunken, to have lost flesh and a certain amount of presence.

“It is nothing,” he said. “Since I arrived in England it has cost me many a weary hour to invest my money. Yesterday I heard from the accountants who are winding up the affairs of Johnson and Company, and it seems that there are still great sums to come.”

“All made in that strange warehouse!” she exclaimed.

“There and in Alexandria,” he replied. “I went out to China, Claire, as your father may have told you, giving up a Chair worth eight hundred a year at Oxford, and owning, perhaps, a couple of thousand pounds. I became sort of unofficial adviser to Johnson and Company simply because there were things about China which no other European knew. I was very useful to them without a doubt, and in the end they made me a partner. Now that we are winding up the business, it seems that my share is worth something between three and four hundred thousand pounds.”

“Amazing!” the girl gasped.

“Here,” he continued, “in these few sentences may lie another fortune. I am an old man, and I ask myself what good could it do to me to place those secret jewels in the markets of the world, to hang them round the necks and the shoulders of American millionairesses and the world’s courtesanes? We cannot breathe sweeter air than this, or more delicious perfumes. We cannot look upon fairer scenes. We could not eat more, drink more or sleep more. For your clothes and such pleasures as you may care to indulge in you have already carte blanche. You are not one of those who will need money to buy herself a husband. So tell me, child, what could we do with more money?”

“I can think of nothing,” she acknowledged.

“Then, for the moment, at any rate, we will let the fortune remain where it is,” he decided, “and keep our fingers unstained from sacrilege. Is this a fairy prince, Claire, or a very handsome young man in grey tweeds?”

She drew a little, fluttering breath. Her fingers closed over his.

“Nunks,” she said, “it is Gregory Ballaston.”

“That is a young man,” her uncle observed, “with whom I might have something to say. Wave to him, Claire. He need not tug at that bell.”

Gregory Ballaston, hat in hand, and probably less at his ease than on any previous occasion in his life, crossed the lawn towards them. Claire, leaning forward, watched him intently; her uncle with subdued and somewhat sardonic amusement. His attitude towards them both was entirely tentative. Claire offered her hand which he took gratefully.

“I have come,” he announced, “to welcome you to Ballaston.”

“Your obvious duty as our landlord,” Endacott remarked, also offering his hand. “Pray sit down.”

Gregory dragged up a wicker chair, with an air of relief.

“When you spoke of settling down in Norfolk,” he observed, turning to Claire, “I had no idea that we might possibly become such near neighbours.”

“Nor I, at the time,” she answered. “How beautiful your house is. I spent quite half an hour this morning looking at it from the other side of the garden.”

“I hope,” he said, a little anxiously, “that you are going to give us the pleasure of seeing you there this evening.”

“Your father has been kind enough to ask us to dine,” Mr. Endacott rejoined. “I have just despatched a note, accepting with much pleasure.”

“I think you are very generous,” Gregory declared, with a certain contriteness in his tone.

“The adjective seems to me to demand explanation,” Mr. Endacott ruminated.

“You know very well, sir,” Gregory continued, “that there are circumstances which would have justified you in refusing this invitation and refusing to meet me anywhere.”

“Ah!” Mr. Endacott murmured. “That affair of the Image, of course.”

Claire rose to her feet. Gregory waved her back again.

“Please listen, Miss Endacott,” he begged. “I want you to hear what I have to say. You know what happened?”

She assented gravely.

“My uncle has told me,” she admitted.

“I can assure you, sir,” Gregory went on, “that when I left those extraordinary premises of yours, I meant to send you the thing straight back. I had one last look at it, however, and the longer I looked, the more uncertain I felt about the whole business. I kept telling myself that it was a debt of honour. Then I kept on finding poisonous ideas in my brain—ideas which I honestly believe I have never had before. I was parting with perhaps a great treasure just on the turn of a card—a Chinaman’s turn of the card, too.”

“You don’t suggest,” Mr. Endacott began——

“I suggest nothing,” Gregory interrupted. “All I know is that my moral self—if I may use rather a grandiloquent term—was completely upset. I locked myself into my cabin with the Image. Soon after the ship sailed. Of course I know,” he went on, “this must all sound stupidly inadequate, but there it is. Superstition or no superstition, I swear that that Image has an evil influence. I have proved it.”

Claire looked thoughtfully up into the trees; her uncle stroked his chin with an air of profound meditation.

“Well,” he enquired, “have you found the fortune yet?”

“Not yet,” Gregory admitted. “My father has had an expert down and he can discover no trace of any hiding place in it.”

Mr. Endacott smiled very faintly.

“You must find that disappointing,” he observed, “after all your efforts.”

“If the jewels are not in this one,” Gregory said, “they are probably in the other.”

“Ah!” Mr. Endacott murmured.

“If it is not an impertinent question, sir,” he proceeded, “is it true that Johnson and Company are relinquishing the business?”

“Quite true.”

“Then the other Image——?”

“The other Image is not for sale,” Mr. Endacott said calmly.

“Who has it?” Gregory ventured.

“Well,” Mr. Endacott confided, “the members of the firm were Wu Ling, a nebulous Mr. Johnson and myself. When I consider,” he continued, “the extreme measures which you and your friend took to possess yourselves of these Images—measures, by the way, which may be justified by precedent but hardly by morality—I can scarcely, do you know, bring myself to reveal whether it is the domicile of Wu Ling, the possible mansion of Mr. Johnson in Alexandria, or my very conveniently near abode here, which might be indicated as the scene of your future adventures.”

Gregory was already sunburnt, but he felt his cheeks grow hotter.

“Well, I suppose I asked for that,” he admitted grimly. “What about the Image, which is at present in our possession? To whom do you consider that it belongs?”

“The firm being now dissolved,” Mr. Endacott mused, “the matter perhaps requires reflection. I will answer you later on. In the meantime, I shall leave you and my niece to better your acquaintance. My Eastern habits prevail. I desire to sleep.”

He made his way towards the house; a lank, shambling figure, yet not without a certain dignity in his abstracted movements. Gregory glanced anxiously towards his companion. She remained seated in her chair, munching some chocolates from a box.

“Have one?” she invited, holding it out towards him.

He declined, but was conscious of a poignant sense of relief. With the airy tact of her sex she had demonstrated her position. It was to be peace, not war; oblivion, if not forgiveness.

“What an extraordinary stroke of fortune it is,” he declared, “that you should have chosen this particular corner of Norfolk to settle down in.”

“It makes the world seem a small place, doesn’t it?” she remarked, frankly licking her delicately manicured fingers and placing the lid upon the box with a great air of determination. “It was my aunt living here, of course, which decided us.”

“Madame,” he confided, “has been the one picturesque figure in this neighbourhood for years. She was always beautiful, and she is always on the point of being cured. I believe that my father looks upon her as his greatest friend.”

“She is very attractive,” Claire admitted. “She wears the most beautiful clothes I have ever seen. I wonder whether it is a proof of vanity or of an immense sense of self-respect which leads a woman who spends her whole life upon a couch to take such pains with her appearance.”

“If it be vanity, there is a leaven of philanthropy in it,” he observed, “because every one loves looking at her. Besides, I believe now she really is going to get well. This new doctor who comes over from Norwich has performed some wonderful cures. It isn’t as though the weakness had been born with her. It was all the result of that motor accident, you know.”

“It would be wonderful if she got well,” Claire murmured.

They talked for a while of trifles; the absence of other neighbours, the country around.

“When one gets over the spell of this lotuslike existence,” she asked him, “what is there to do here—in the way of exercise, I mean?”

He looked down at the sunken lawn.

“Your tennis court used to be good,” he said. “One of ours is quite playable and there are plenty of golf links a few miles away.”

“Where does one buy horses?”

“At Norwich. Dad will tell you all about that. The hunting isn’t bad. My father is master of one of the packs that hunt near here. They begin cubbing at the end of next month. The shooting parties will give you plenty of exercise too, if you are fond of walking.”

“I like all these things,” she admitted, a little more earnestly, “and I love this garden. The peace of it is almost stupefying. I feel somehow or other that I should like to grow old in this atmosphere.”

“You never would,” he rejoined.

She laughed at him. Suddenly she was serious. She leaned forward in her chair.

“In a few minutes,” she said, “I must go in to see Madame. Before you leave, though, I want to ask you just one thing. What was the chief reason which made you in the first instance come over to China on that mad adventure?”

“Money,” he answered bluntly.

“But why do you need money? You have the most beautiful home I ever saw.”

He laughed with a bitterness which he took no pains to conceal.

“It is to keep that home,” he explained, “that we need money. Perhaps you scarcely understand the troubles that a certain class of English people have had to face lately, especially people who come of extravagant stock, like my father and me. It wasn’t pure love of adventure that took me out to China. It was the hope of saving Ballaston if I succeeded.”

“Is it really as bad as that?” she asked sympathetically.

“Worse,” he rejoined. “I believe that my father has finally made up his mind that there is no chance of saving the place.”

She was thoughtful for several moments, affected even perhaps more than she realised by the note of dejection in his tone. His enterprise, which had presented itself before to her imagination as a sort of buccaneering feat, not exactly reprehensible but faintly tinged with sordidness, suddenly showed itself in a new light. She realised alike the chivalry of it and the pathos, and how near he had been to success.

“Unless, after all, you discover the jewels,” she observed, a little abruptly.

“I am afraid there isn’t much chance of that,” he sighed. “Somehow, over here it seems absurd to take these superstitions seriously, but I can’t get away from the feeling that if the jewels are in existence they will never be discovered so long as the Images are separated.”

She leaned a little towards him.

“The jewels do exist,” she assured him softly.

A touch of the old frenzied earnestness came back to him. His eyes glistened, not altogether with cupidity, but with the adventurer’s pride in success.

“How do you know that?” he demanded.

She hesitated for a few moments. Yet, after all, why should there be any secrecy? The adventure, such as it had been, was finished. Here in this quiet backwater of life there seemed something grotesque about it all. Nevertheless she spoke uneasily, almost reluctantly.

“My uncle has discovered a manuscript,” she confided. “The jewels are there.”

“In which Image?” he enquired breathlessly.

She shook her head.

“I cannot tell you any more,” she said. “In fact, I do not know any more. Everything rests with Uncle. If you can persuade him to let you have a copy of the manuscript or to tell you what is in it, perhaps, after all, you will find yourself rich again. If I can help I will.”

“If one only knew in which Image!” he muttered.

“Why, what difference could that make?” she asked, smiling. “If they are in yours, well, some day or other I am sure you will be able to secure them. If they are in his, then I am afraid your adventure will have been in vain.”

The sunlight caught her hair as she leaned once more back against the cushions. Gregory suddenly forgot the jewels. He was uneasy, unsure of himself, curiously stirred by an unexpected wave of feeling. His sense of proportion diminished. There had been a cataclysm and nothing remained on earth but this old-world garden with its elm trees and its odorous cedar, and Claire!

“It will never have been in vain,” he declared, with a curious little break in his tone.