There seemed for the next few minutes to be a somewhat singular abstention from any desire to interfere with the two people who stood in the centre of the little group, hand-in-hand. Saton, after his first speech, and after Lois had given him her hands, had turned a little defiantly toward Rochester, who remained, however, unmoved, his elbow resting upon the broad mantelpiece, his face almost expressionless. Vandermere, too, stood on one side and held his peace, though the effort with which he did so was a visible one. Lady Mary looked anxiously towards them. Pauline had shrunk back, as though something in the situation terrified her.

Even Saton himself felt that it was the silence before the storm. The courage which he had summoned up to meet a storm of disapproval, began to ebb slowly away in the face of this unnatural silence. It was clear that the onus of further speech was to rest with him.

Still retaining Lois’ hand, he turned toward Rochester.

“You have forbidden me to enter your house, or to hold any communication with your ward until she was of age, Mr. Rochester,” he said. “One of your conditions I have obeyed. With regard to the other, I have done as I thought fit. However, to-day she is her own mistress. She has consented to be my wife. I do not need to ask for your consent or approval. If you are not willing that she should be married from your roof, I can take her at once to the Comtesse, who is prepared to receive her.”

“A very pleasant little arrangement,” Rochester said, speaking for the first time. “I am afraid, however, that you will have to alter your plans.”

“I do not admit your right to interfere in them,” Saton answered. “If you continue your opposition to my marriage with your ward, I shall take her away with me this afternoon.”

Rochester shook his head.

“I think not,” he answered.

“Then we shall see,” Saton declared. “Lois, come with me. It does not matter about your hat. Your things can be sent on afterwards. Come!”

She would have followed him towards the door, but Rochester, leaning over, touched the bell, and almost at once two men stepped into the hall. One, Saton remembered in an instant. It was the man whom he had found with Violet—the man who was there to have his fortune told. The other was a stranger, but there was something in his demeanor, in the very cut of his clothes, which seemed to denote his profession.

Saton was suddenly pale. He realized in a moment that it was not intended that he should leave the room. He looked toward Rochester as though for an explanation.

“My young friend,” Rochester said, “when you leave this place, you will leave it, unless I change my mind, in the company of those friends of mine whom you see there. I don’t want to terrify you unnecessarily. These gentlemen are detectives, but they are in my employ. They have nothing to do with Scotland Yard. I can assure you, however, that there need not be ten minutes’ delay in the issuing of a warrant for your arrest.”

“My arrest?” Saton gasped. “What do you mean?”

Rochester sighed.

“Ah!” he said. “Why should you force me for explanations? Ask yourself. Once before you have stood in the dock, on the charge of being connected with certain enterprises designed to wheedle their pocket-money from over-credulous ladies. You got off by a fluke, but you did not learn your lesson. This time, getting off will not be quite so easy, for you seem to have added to your former profession one which an English jury seldom lets pass unpunished. I am in a position to prove, Bertrand Saton, that the offices in Charing Cross Road, conducted under the name of Jacobson & Company, and which are nothing more nor less than the headquarters of an iniquitous blackmailing system, are inspired and conducted by you, and that the profits are the means by which you live. A more despicable profession the world has never known. There are a sheaf of cases against you. I will remind you of one. My wife—Lady Mary here—left a private letter in the rooms of a Madame Helga. The letter was passed on at once to the blackmailing branch of your extremely interesting business, and the sum of, I think, five hundred pounds, was paid for its recovery. You yourself were personally responsible for this little arrangement. And there are many others. If all the poor women whom you have robbed,” Rochester continued, “had had the common sense of my wife, and brought the matter to their husbands, you would probably have been a guest of His Majesty some time ago.”

Such fear as had at first drawn the color from Saton’s cheeks, and filled his eyes with terror, passed quickly away. He stood upright, his head thrown back, a faint smile upon his lips. He had some appearance, even, of manhood.

“Mr. Rochester,” he said, “I deny your charges. I have no connection with the fortune-telling establishments to which you have alluded. I know nothing of the blackmailing transactions you speak of. You have been my enemy, my hopeless and unforgiving enemy. I am not afraid of you. If this is your great blow, strike. Let me be arrested. I will answer everything. Afterwards, you and I will have our reckoning. Lois,” he added, turning to her, “you do not believe—say that you do not believe these things.”

“I—do—not—believe—them—Bertrand,” she answered slowly.

“You will come with me?”

“I—will—come—with—you,” she echoed.

“By God, sir, she shan’t!” cried Vandermere. “Take your hands off her, sir, or you shall learn how mountebanks like yourself should be treated.”

Saton struck him full in the face, so that losing for a moment his balance upon the slippery floor, Vandermere nearly fell. In a moment he recovered himself, however. There was a struggle which did not last half-a-dozen seconds. He lifted Saton off his feet and shook him, till it seemed as though his limbs were cracking. Then he threw him away.

Rochester stepped forward to interfere.

“Enough of this, Vandermere,” he said sternly. “Remember that the fellow’s career is over. He may try to bluff it out, but he is done for. I have proofs enough to send him to prison a dozen times over.”

Saton rose slowly to his feet. Unconsciously his fingers straightened his tie. He knew very well that life—or rather the things which life meant for him—was over. He had only one desire—the desire of the born poseur—to extricate himself from his present position with something which might, at any rate, seem like dignity.

“Do I understand,” he asked Rochester, “that my departure from this house is forbidden?”

Rochester shook his head.

“No!” he answered. “For what you are, for the ignoble creature that you have become, I accept a certain amount of responsibility. For that reason, I bid you go. Go where you will, so long as your name or your presence never trouble us again. Let this be the last time that any one of us hears the name of Bertrand Saton. I give you that chance. Find for yourself an honest place in the world, if you can, wherever you will, so that it be not in this country. Go!”

Saton turned toward the door with a little shrug of the shoulders.

“You need have no fear,” he said. “The country into which I go is one in which you will never be over-anxious to travel.”

He passed out, amidst a silence which seemed a little curious when one considered the emotions which he left behind. Lois’ pale face seemed all aglow with a sort of desperate thankfulness. Already she was in Vandermere’s arms. And then the silence was broken by a woman’s sobbing. They all turned towards her. It was Pauline who had suddenly broken down, her face buried in her hands, her whole frame shaking with passion.

Rochester moved towards her, but she thrust him aside.

“You are a brute!” she declared—“a brute!”

She staggered across the room towards the door by which Saton had departed. Before she could reach it, however, they heard the crunching of wheels as his car swept by the front on its way down the avenue.

Rochester pushed open the black gate which led from the road into the plantation at the back of the hill, and they passed through and commenced the last short climb. No word passed between them. The silence of the evening was broken only by the faint sobbing of the wind in the treetops, and the breaking of dried twigs under their feet. They were both listening intently—they scarcely knew for what. The far-away rumble of a train, the barking of a dog, the scurrying of a rabbit across the path—these sounds came and passed—nothing else.

They neared the edge of the plantation. There was only a short climb now, and a gray stone wall. Rochester passed his arm through his companion’s. Her breath was coming in little sobs.

“We shall be there in a moment, Pauline,” he said. “It is only a fancy of mine. Perhaps he is not here after all, but at any rate we shall know.”

She said nothing. She seemed to be bracing herself for that last effort. Now they could see the bare rocky outline of the summit of the hill. A few steps more, and they would pass through the gate. And then the sound came, the sound which somehow they had dreaded. Sharp and crisp through the twilight air came the report of a revolver. They even fancied that they heard a little moan come travelling down the hillside.

Rochester stopped short.

“We are too late,” he said. “Pauline, you had better stay here. I will go on and find him.”

She shook her head.

“I am coming,” she said. “It is my fault!—it is my fault!”

He held out his hand.

“Pauline,” he said, “it may not be a fit sight for you. Sit here. If you can do any good, I will call to you.”

She brushed him aside and began to run. With her slight start she outdistanced him, and when he scrambled up to the top, she was already on her knees, kneeling down over the crouching form.

“He is not dead,” she cried. “Quick! Tell me where the wound is.”

Rochester stooped down on the other side, and Saton opened his eyes slowly.

“I am a bungler, as usual!” he said.

Rochester opened his coat carefully.

“He has shot himself in the shoulder,” he said to Pauline. “It is not serious.”

Saton pointed to the rock.

“Lift me up a little,” he said. “I want to sit there, with my back to it. Carefully!”

Rochester did as he was bid. Then he took his handkerchief and tried to staunch the blood.

“I don’t know why you came,” Saton faltered—“you especially,” he added to Rochester. “Haven’t you had all the triumph you wanted? Couldn’t you have left me alone to spend this last hour my own way? I wanted to learn how to die without fear or any regret. Here I can do it, because it is easier here to realize that failure such as mine is death.”

“We came to try and save you,” said Rochester quietly.

“To save you!” Pauline sobbed. “Oh! Bertrand, I am sorry—I am very, very sorry!”

He looked at her in slow surprise.

“That is kind of you,” he said. “It is kind of you to care. You know now what sort of a creature I am. You know that he was right—this man, I mean—when he warned you against me, when he told you that I was something rotten, something not worth your notice. Give me the revolver again.”

Rochester thrust it in his pocket, shaking his head.

“My young friend, I think not,” he said. “Listen. I have no more to say about the past. I am prepared to accept my share of the responsibility of it. You are still young. There is still time for you to weave fresh dreams, to live a new life. Make another start. No! Don’t be afraid that I’m going to offer you my help. There was a curse upon that. But nevertheless, make your start. It isn’t I who wish it. It is—Pauline.”

Saton looked at her wonderingly.

“She doesn’t care,” he said. “She knows now that I am really a charlatan. And I needn’t have been,” he added, with a sudden fury. “It was only that cursed taste for luxury which seemed somehow or other to creep into my blood, which made me so dependent upon money. Naudheim was right! Naudheim was right! If only I had stayed with him! If only I had believed in him!”

“It is not too late,” she whispered, stooping low over him. “Be a man, Bertrand. Take up your work where you left it, and have done with the other things. This slipping away over the edge, slipping into Eternity, is the trick of cowards. For my sake, Bertrand!”

He half closed his eyes. Rochester was busy still with his shoulder, and the pain made him faint.

“Go back to Naudheim,” she whispered. “Start life from the very bottom rung, if he will have it so. Don’t be afraid of failure. Keep your hands tight upon the ladder, and your eyes turned toward Heaven. Oh! You can climb if you will, Bertrand. You can climb, I am sure. Don’t look down. Don’t pause. Be satisfied with nothing less than the great things. For my sake, Bertrand! My thoughts will follow you. My heart will be with you. Promise!”

“I promise,” he murmured.

His head sank back. He was half unconscious.

“We will stay with him for a moment,” Rochester whispered. “As soon as he comes to, I will carry him down to the car.”

In a moment or two he opened his eyes. His lips moved, but he was half delirious.

“Anything but failure!” he muttered to himself, with a little groan. “Death, if you will—a touch of the finger, a stroke too far to seaward. Oh! death is easy enough! Death is easy, and failure is hard!”

Her lips touched his forehead.

“Don’t believe it, dear,” she whispered. “There is no real failure if only the spirit is brave. The dead things are there to help you climb. They are rungs in the ladder, boulders for your feet.”

He leaned a little forward. It seemed as though he recognised something familiar amongst the treetops, or down in the mist-clad valleys.

“Naudheim!” he cried hoarsely. “I shall go to Naudheim!”