1

If any rumour circulated round Wyck-on-the-Hill, sooner or later it was bound to reach the old lady at the Dower House. The Dower House was the redistributing centre for the news of the district.

Thus Mr. Waddington heard that Mrs. Levitt was talking about letting the White House furnished; that she was in debt to all the tradesmen in the place; that her rent at Mrs. Trinder's was still owing; that her losses at bridge were never paid for. He heard that if Major Markham had been thinking of Mrs. Levitt, he had changed his mind; there was even a definite rumour about a broken engagement. Anyhow, Major Markham was now paying unmistakable attentions to the youngest Miss Hawtrey of Medlicott. But as, engagement or no engagement, his attentions to Mrs. Levitt had been unmistakable too, their rupture required some explanation. It was supposed that the letter which the Major's mother, old Mrs. Markham of Medlicott, received from her daughter, Mrs. Dick Benham of Tunbridge Wells, did very thoroughly explain it. There had been "things" in that letter which Mrs. Markham had not been able to repeat, but you gathered from her singular reticence that they had something to do with Dick Benham and Mrs. Levitt, and that they showed conclusively that Elise was not what old Mrs. Waddington called "a nice woman."

"They say she led Frank Levitt an awful life. The Benhams, my dear, won't have her in the house."

But all this was trivial compared with the correspondence that now passed between Mr. Waddington and Elise. He admitted now that old Corbett had known what he was talking about when he had warned him that he would be landed—landed, if he didn't take care, to the tune of five hundred and fifty-five pounds. His letters to Mrs. Levitt, dictated to Barbara Madden, revealed the care he had to take. From motives which appeared to him chivalrous he had refrained from showing Barbara Mrs. Levitt's letters to him. He left her to gather their crude substance from his admirable replies.

"'MY DEAR MRS. LEVITT:

"'I am afraid I must advise you to give up the scheme if it depends on my co-operation. I thought I had defined my position—'

"Defined my position is good, I think."

"It sounds good," said Barbara.

"'That position remains what it was. And as your exceptionally fine intelligence cannot fail to understand it, no more need be said.

"'At least I hope it is so. I should be sorry if our very pleasant relations terminated in disappointment—'"

For one instant she could see him smile, feeling voluptuously the sharp, bright edge of his word before it cut him. He drew back, scowling above a sudden sombre flush of memory.

"Disappointment—" said Barbara, giving him his cue.

"Disappointment is not quite the word. I want something—something more chivalrous."

His eyes turned away from her, pretending to look for it.

"Ah—now I have it. 'Very pleasant relations terminated on a note—on a note of—on an unexpected note.

"'With kind regards, very sincerely yours,

"'HORATIO BYSSHE WADDINGTON.'

"You will see, Barbara, that I am saying precisely the same thing, but saying it inoffensively, as a gentleman should."

Forty-eight hours later he dictated:

"'DEAR MRS. LEVITT:

"'No: I have no suggestion to make except that you curtail your very considerable expenditure. For the rest, believe me it is as disagreeable for me to be obliged to refuse your request as I am sure it must be for you to make it—'

"H'm. Rest—request. That won't do. 'As disagreeable for me to have to refuse as it must be for you to ask.'

"Simpler, that. Never use an elaborate phrase where a simple one will do.

"'You are good enough to say I have done so much for you in the past. I have done what I could; but you will pardon me if I say there is a limit beyond which I cannot go.

"'Sincerely yours,

"'HORATIO B. WADDINGTON.'

"I've sent her a cheque for fifty-five pounds already. That ought to have settled her."

"Settled her? You don't mean to say you sent her a cheque?"

"I did."

"You oughtn't to have sent her anything at all."

"But I'd promised it, Barbara—"

"I don't care. You ought to have waited."

"I wanted to close the account and have done with her."

"That isn't the way to close it, sending cheques. That cheque will have to go through Parson's Bank. Supposing Toby sees it?"

"What if he does?"

"He might object. He might even make a row about it."

"What could I do? I had to pay her."

"You could have made the cheque payable to me. It would have passed as my quarter's salary. I could have cashed it and you could have given her notes."

"And if Toby remembered their numbers?"

"You could have changed them for ten shilling notes in Cheltenham."

"All these elaborate precautions!"

"You can't be too precautions when you're dealing with a woman like that…. Is this all you've given her?"

"All?"

"Yes. Did you ever give her anything any other time?"

"Well—possibly—from time to time—"

"Have you any idea of the total amount?"

"I can't say off-hand. And I can't see what it has to do with it."

"It has everything to do with it. Can you find out?"

"Certainly, if I look up my old cheque books."

"You'd better do that now."

He turned, gloomily, to his writing-table. The cheque books for the current year and the year before it betrayed various small loans to Mrs. Levitt, amounting in all to a hundred and fifty pounds odd.

"Oh, dear," said Barbara, "all that's down against you. Still—it's all ante-Wednesday. What a pity you didn't pay her that fifty-five before your interview."

"How do you mean?"

"It's pretty certain she's misinterpreted your paying it now so soon."

"After the interview? Do you really think she misunderstood me,
Barbara?"

"I think she wants you to think she did."

"You think she's trying—trying—to—"

"To sell you her silence? Yes, I do."

"Good God! I never thought of that. Blackmail."

"I don't suppose for a minute she thinks she's blackmailing you. She's just trying it on…. And she may raise her price, too. She won't rest till she's got that five hundred out of you."

Mrs. Levitt's next communication would appear to have supported
Barbara's suspicion, for Mr. Waddington was compelled to answer it thus:

"DEAR MRS. LEVITT:

"You say you were 'right then' and that my 'promises' were 'conditional'"—

(You could tell where the inverted commas came by the biting clip of his tone.)

—"I fail to appreciate the point of this allusion. I cannot imagine what conditions you refer to. I made none. As for promises, I am not responsible for the somewhat restricted interpretation you see fit to put on a friend's general expressions of goodwill.

"Yours truly,

"HORATIO BYSSHE WADDINGTON."

His last letter, a day later, never got as far as its signature.

"DEAR MADAM:

"My decision will not be affected by the contingency you suggest. You are at perfect liberty to say what you like. Nobody will believe you."

"That, I think, is as far as I can go."

"Much too far," said Barbara.

"And that's taking her too seriously."

"Much. You mustn't send that letter."

"Why not?"

"Because it gives you away."

"Gives me away? It seems to me most guarded."

"It isn't. It implies that there are things she might say. Even if you don't mind her saying them you mustn't put it in writing."

"Ah-h. There's something in that. Of course, I could threaten her with a lawyer's letter. But somehow—The fact is, Barbara, if you're a decent man you're handicapped in dealing with a lady. Delicacy. There are things that could be said. Material things—most material to the case. But I can't say them."

"No. You can't say them. But I can. I think I could stop the whole thing in five minutes, if I saw Mrs. Levitt. Will you leave it to me?"

"Come—I don't know—"

"Why not? I assure you it'll be all right."

"Well. Perhaps. It's a matter of business. A pure matter of business."

"It certainly is that. There's no reason why you shouldn't hand it over to your secretary."

He hesitated. He was still afraid of what Elise might say to Barbara.

"You will understand that she is in a very unbalanced state. Excitable. A woman in that state is apt to put interpretations on the most innocent—er—acts."

"She won't be able to put on any after I've done with her. If it comes to that, I can put on interpretations too."

Mr. Waddington then, at Barbara's dictation, wrote a short note to Mrs.
Levitt inviting her to call and see him that afternoon at three o'clock.

2

At three o'clock Barbara was ready for her.

She had assumed for the occasion her War Office manner, that firm sweetness with which she used to stand between importunate interviewers and her chief. It had made her the joy of her department.

"Mr. Waddington is extremely sorry he is not able to see you himself. He is engaged with his agent at the moment."

Mr. Waddington had, indeed, created that engagement.

"Engaged? But I have an appointment."

"Yes. He's very sorry. He said if there was anything I could do for you—"

"Thank you, Miss Madden. If it's all the same to you, I'd much rather see Mr. Waddington himself. I can wait."

"I wouldn't advise you to. I'm afraid he may be a long time. He has some very important business on hand just now."

"My business," said Mrs. Levitt, "is very important."

"Oh, if it's only business," Barbara said, "I think we can settle it at once. I've had most of the correspondence in my hands and I think I know all the circumstances."

"You have had the correspondence in your hands?"

"Well, you see, I'm Mr. Waddington's secretary. That's what I'm here for."

"I didn't know he trusted his private business to his secretary."

"He's obliged to. He has so much of it. You surely don't expect him to copy out his own letters?"

"I don't expect him to hand over my letters to other people to read."

"I haven't read your letters, Mrs. Levitt. I've merely taken down his answers to copy out and file for reference."

"Then, my dear Miss Madden, you don't know all the circumstances."

"At any rate, I can tell you what Mr. Waddington intends to do and what he doesn't. You want to see him, I suppose, about the loan for the investment?"

Mrs. Levitt was too profoundly disconcerted to reply.

Barbara went on in her firm sweetness. "I know he's very sorry not to be able to do more, but, as you know, he did not advise the investment and he can't possibly advance anything for it beyond the fifty pounds he has already paid you."

"Since you know so much about it," said Mrs. Levitt with a certain calm, subdued truculence, "you may as well know everything. You are quite mistaken in supposing that Mr. Waddington did not advise the investment. On the contrary, it was on his representations that I decided to invest. And it was on the strength of the security he offered that my solicitors advanced me the money. He is responsible for the whole business; he has made me enter into engagements that I cannot meet without him, and when I ask him to fulfil his pledges he lets me down."

"I don't think Mr. Waddington knows that your solicitors advanced the money. There is no reference to them in the correspondence."

"I think, if you'll look through your files, or if Mr. Waddington will look through his, you'll find you are mistaken."

"I can tell Mr. Waddington what you've told me and let you know what he says. If you don't mind waiting a minute I can let you know now."

She sought out Mr. Waddington in his office—luckily it was situated in the kitchen wing, the one farthest from the library. She found him alone in it (the agent had gone), sitting in a hard Windsor chair. He knew that Elise couldn't pursue him into his office; it was even doubtful whether she knew where it was. He had retreated into it as into some impregnable position.

Not that he looked safe. His face sagged more than ever, as though the Postlethwaite nose had withdrawn its support from that pale flesh of funk. If it had any clear meaning at all it expressed a terrified expectation of blackmail. His very moustache and hair drooped lamentably.

"Are you disengaged?" she said.

"Yes. But for God's sake don't tell her that."

"It's all right. She knows she isn't going to see you."

"Well?"

She felt the queer, pathetic clinging of his mind to her as if it realized that she held his honour and Fanny's happiness in her hands.

"She's not going to give up that five hundred without a struggle."

"The deuce she isn't. On what grounds does she claim it?"

"She says you advised her to make a certain investment, and that you promised to lend her half the sum she wanted."

"I made no promise. I said, 'Perhaps that sum might be forthcoming.' I made it very clear that it would depend on circumstances."

"On circumstances that she understood—knew about?"

"Er—on circumstances that—No. She didn't know about them."

"Still, you made conditions?"

"No. I made—a mental reservation."

"She seems to be aware of the circumstances that influenced you. She thinks you've gone back on your word."

"I have gone back on nothing. My word's sacred. The woman lies."

"She sticks to it that the promise was made, that on the strength of it she invested a certain sum of money through her solicitors, that they advanced the money on that security and you advised the investment."

"I did not advise it. I advised her to give it up. I wrote to her. You took down the letter…. No, you didn't. I copied that one myself."

"Have you got it? I'd better show it her."

"Yes. It's—it's—confound it, it's in my private drawer."

"Can't I find it?"

He hesitated. He didn't like the idea of anybody, even little Barbara, rummaging in his private drawer, but he had to choose the lesser of two evils, and that letter would put the matter beyond a doubt.

"Here's the key," he said, and gave it her. "It's dated October the thirtieth or thirty-first. But it's all humbug. I've reason to believe that money was never invested at all. It's all debts. She hasn't a leg to stand on. Not a leg."

"Not a stump," said Barbara. "Leave her to me."

She went back to the library. Mrs. Levitt's face lifted itself in excited questioning.

"One moment, Mrs. Levitt."

After a slightly prolonged search in Mr. Waddington's private drawer she found the letter of October tie thirty-first, and returned with it to the office. It was very short and clear:

"MY DEAR ELISE:

"I cannot promise anything—it depends on circumstances. But if you sent me the name and address of your solicitors it might help."

"Take it," he said, "and show it her."

3

Barbara went back again to the library and her final battle with Elise.

This time she had armed herself with the cheque books.

Mrs. Levitt began, "Well—?"

"Mr. Waddington says he is very sorry if there's any misunderstanding. I don't know whether you remember getting this letter from him?"

Mrs. Levitt blinked hard as she read the letter.

"Of course I remember."

"You see that he could hardly have stated his position more clearly."

"But—this letter is dated October the thirty-first. The promise I refer to was made long after that."

"It doesn't appear so from his letters—all that I've taken down. If you can show me anything in writing—"

"Writing? Mr. Waddington is a gentleman and he was my friend. I never dreamed of pinning him down to promises in writing. I thought his word was enough. I never dreamed of his going back on it. And after compromising me the way he's done."

Barbara's eyebrows lifted delicately, innocently. "Has he compromised you?"

"He has."

"How?"

"Never mind how. Quite enough to start all sorts of unpleasant stories."

"You shouldn't listen to them. People will tell stories without anything to start them."

"That doesn't make them any less unpleasant. I should have thought the very least Mr. Waddington could do—"

"Would be to pay you compensation?"

"There can be no compensation in a case of this sort, Miss Madden. I'm not talking about compensation. Mr. Waddington must realize that he cannot compromise me without compromising himself."

"I should think he would realize it, you know."

"Then he ought to realize that he is not exactly in a position to repudiate his engagements."

"Do you consider that you are in a position—exactly—to hold him to engagements he never entered into?"

"I've told you already that he has let me in for engagements that I cannot meet if he goes back on his word."

"I see. And you want to make it unpleasant for him. As unpleasant as you possibly can?"

"I can make it even more unpleasant for him, Miss Madden, than it is for me."

"What, after all the compromising?"

"I think so. If, for instance, I chose to tell somebody what happened the other day, what you saw yourself."

"Did I see anything?"

"You can't deny that you saw something you were not meant to see."

"You mean Wednesday afternoon? Well, if Mr. Waddington chose to say that
I saw you in a bad fit of hysterics I shouldn't deny that."

"I see. You're well posted, Miss Madden."

"I am, rather. But supposing you told everybody in the place he was caught making love to you, what good would it do you?"

"Excuse me, we're not talking about the good it would do me, but the harm it would do him."

"Same thing," said Barbara. "Supposing you told everybody and nobody believed you?"

"Everybody will believe me. You forget that those stories have been going about long before Wednesday."

"All the better for Mr. Waddington and all the worse for you. You were compromised before Wednesday. Then why, if you didn't like being compromised, did you consent to come to tea alone with him when his wife was away?"

"I came on business, as you know."

"You came to borrow money from a man who had compromised you? If you're so careful of your reputation I should have thought that would have been the last thing you'd have done."

"You're forgetting my friendship with Mr. Waddington."

"You said business just now. Friendship or business, or business and friendship, I don't think you're making out a very good case for yourself, Mrs. Levitt. But supposing you did make it out, and supposing Mr. Waddington did lose his head and was making love to you on Wednesday, do you imagine people here are going to take your part against him?"

"He's not so popular in Wyck as all that."

"He mayn't be, but his caste is. Immensely popular with the county, which I suppose is all you care about. You must remember, Mrs. Levitt, that he's Mr. Waddington of Wyck; you're not fighting one Mr. Waddington, but three hundred years of Waddingtons. You're up against all his ancestors."

"I don't care that for his ancestors," said Mrs. Levitt with a gesture of the thumb.

"You may not. I certainly don't. But other people do. Major Markham, the
Hawtreys, the Thurstons, even the Corbetts, do you suppose they're all
going to turn against him because he lost his head for a minute on a
Wednesday? Ten to one they'll all think, and say, you made him do it."

"I made him? Preposterous!"

"Not so preposterous as you imagine. You must make allowances for people's prejudices. If you wanted to stand clear you shouldn't have taken all that money from him."

"All that money indeed! A loan, a mere temporary loan, for an investment he recommended."

"Not only that loan, but—" Barbara produced the cheque books with their damning counterfoils. "Look here—twenty-five pounds on the thirty-first of January. And here—October last year, and July, and January before that—More than a hundred and fifty altogether. How are you going to account for that?

"And who's going to believe that Mr. Waddington paid all that for nothing, if some particularly nasty person gets up and says he didn't? You see what a horrible position you'd be in, don't you?"

Mrs. Levitt didn't answer. Her face thickened slightly with a dreadful flush. Her nerve was going.

Barbara watched it go. She followed up her advantage. "And supposing I were to tell everybody—his friend, Major Markham, say—that you were pressing him for that five hundred, immediately after the affair of Wednesday, on threats of exposure, wouldn't that look very like blackmail?"

"Blackmail? Really, Miss Madden—"

"I don't suppose you mean it for blackmail; I'm only pointing out what it'll look like. It won't look well…. Much better face the facts. You can't do Mr. Waddington any real harm, short of forcing his wife to get a separation."

There was a black gleam in Mrs. Levitt's eyes. "Precisely. And supposing—since we are supposing—I told Mrs. Waddington of his behaviour?"

"Too late. Mr. Waddington has told her himself."

"His own version."

"Certainly, his own version."

"And supposing I gave mine?"

"Do. Whatever you say it'll be your word against ours and she won't believe you. If she did she'd think it was all your fault…. And remember, I have the evidence for your attempts at blackmail.

"I don't think," said Barbara, going to the door and opening it, "there's anything more to be said."

Mrs. Levitt walked out with her agitated waddle. Barbara followed her amicably to the front door. There Elise made her last stand.

"Good afternoon, Miss Madden. I congratulate Mr. Waddington—on the partnership."

Barbara rushed to the relief of the besieged in his office redoubt.

"It's all over!" she shouted at him joyously.

Mr. Waddington did not answer all at once. He was still sitting in his uneasy Windsor chair, absorbed in meditation. He had brought out a little note from his inmost pocket and as he looked at it he smiled.

It began thus, and its date was the Saturday following that dreadful
Wednesday:

"MY DEAR MR. WADDINGTON:

"After the way you have stood by me and helped me in the past, I cannot believe that it is all over, and that I can come to you, my generous friend, and be repulsed—"

He looked up. "How did she behave, Barbara?" "Oh—she wanted to bite—to bite badly; but I drew all her teeth, very gently, one by one." Teeth. Elise's teeth—drawn by Barbara.

He tore the note into little bits, and, as he watched them flutter into the waste-paper basket, he sighed. He rose heavily.

"Let's go and tell Fanny all about it," said Barbara.