Bannister found Aunt Caroline waiting for him in the library with the time table, as she had threatened. She was amazed and scandalized to find that her ladyship had gone in the motor with her guest while her husband lay ill upstairs. The fact that the doctor had prescribed fresh air had no bearing upon the case, from her point of view, knowing what she knew.

She sat in her high-backed chair by the library table, gazing out of the window, seeing nothing, and muttering to herself. Any wavering in her resolution was over now. This shameless intimacy between her brother's wife and the rascal Dick Gordon made it more than ever imperative that he should be got out of the way.

Bannister returned from the drive in good humor. The report of Mabel's progress was a great relief to him--greater than he would have cared to admit--and contributed not a little to his pleasant frame of mind. He was winning all along the line. Hester was yielding. He could afford to snap his fingers at the Bishop's sister.

The footman divested him of his coat--Voss did not appear--and gave the information that Miss Cardew awaited him in the library. He sauntered in with an amused smile, and the old lady rose to greet him. She held in her hand the ominous time table. He put up his eyeglass and surveyed it with a quizzical smile.

"I said I should see that you went, and I am here."

"And so am I, Miss Cardew. You surely do not suppose that I am going away when my daughter lies ill upstairs?"

"My brother lies ill as well."

"The coincidence is unfortunate, but my hostess expects me to stay; and, indeed, I believe the Bishop himself desires it. My son-in-law endorses their commands. I could not possibly go away now."

"But I am willing to pay you."

"Miss Cardew, you insult me."

She laughed a harsh, bitter laugh, and sank down into a seat by the table, motioning him to the lounge in front of her. He dropped down into a comfortable seat, still smiling that irritating smile of amused contempt.

"You cannot deceive me. You are extortionate, and this is your method of fencing with me. I mentioned a figure last night which was not high enough for you. How much do you want to go, and take your child with you? I will undertake to explain matters to my nephew."

"My dear Miss Cardew, I told you that if you offered me twenty thousand pounds--an outrageous sum--it would have no effect."

"I shall tell my brother everything."

"It will kill him if you do. I presume you have no financial interest in his death."

She paled and faltered, but rage came to her assistance. "You know where to stab. You are a coward, but you can't deceive me. The money I offer you is the greatest inducement. I have not offered enough. You shall have ten thousand pounds; and I will provide for your daughter's reception in some religious institution, where she can be quiet and secure for the present, until she is ready to consider what is best for the future."

Mr. Bannister burst out laughing, as though he were hugely tickled. She watched him without moving a muscle.

"It is very pretty play. You are a clever actor, Mr. Gordon. I have here bonds to the extent of four thousand pounds in this little bag." She patted a velvet satchel that lay upon the table. "The rest will be sent to your bank--if you have one."

His mirth died down; and seeing her advantage, she took out the bonds and spread them on the table. The first thought that flashed through his brain was a professional one--"I wonder where she keeps them--in her brother's safe?"

"It is very unwise of you, Miss Cardew, to keep so much convertible money in the house."

"Yes, when men like you are under the same roof."

"Madam, you are insulting." He swung round and glared at her angrily; then rose to his feet in virtuous indignation excellently assumed. "I don't want your money, and I think you would be well advised to leave your nephew's and my affairs alone. The past cannot be undone, and good people like you with a past of your own should be very careful how you jeopardize the future--especially when the future concerns young people whose lives lie before them."

"I am thinking of my brother and my brother's wife, and of the secret she carries in her heart, and of the tyranny that you exercise over her."

"Are you sure, my dear Miss Cardew, that you are not thinking of the secret that lies hidden in your own heart?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean the little grave in Switzerland."

"What little grave?"

"Do not force me to be more explicit. Judd was an old friend of mine, and I knew all the secrets of his life. I am referring to the journey to Switzerland after the fiasco of the elopement, and the subsequent visits there every year. The little grave in the mountains, you know."

"What on earth are you talking about?"'

"Must I speak more plainly? I mean your child's grave."

The old lady's face dropped in sheer astonishment, and she gazed at him with glassy eyes.

"You wouldn't like the Bishop to know all Mr. Judd's secrets any more than I should like him to know the unfortunate accident of Mabel's parentage."

"You infamous scoundrel!" cried the old lady, starting up, and clenching her bonds in her long, bony fingers as though she would use them to strike him.

"Madam, I need say no more. If you expose our secret we shall expose yours. You would never survive the scandal."

He bowed and left her speechless with rage, taking the newspaper with him. In the hall he discovered the easiest lounge in the sunniest corner, and was soon deep in the morning's news.

Aunt Caroline was utterly astounded. She seemed to be stunned, and stood for a long time in one position, clenching the bonds she had brought for Bannister, and staring into space.

* * * * * * *

The Bishop lay in bed and tossed restlessly. He asked for his wife. The nurse commanded him to silence--a difficult thing for the Bishop of Ripley--and as he could not be pacified it was explained to him that the doctor had ordered her to take the air.

He asked for his son, and Jack was sent for. The old man grasped his hand and shook it silently. Then tears came to his eyes--he was strangely weak.

"I'm so glad about the brewery, my boy--so glad," he murmured at last. "You've made a beginning."

"Yes, father. The brewery company are going to retain me for all their work. They are tremendously pleased."

"That will mean an income, won't it, my boy?"

"Yes, father."

"And you'll be able to get married at once?"

"Yes, father."

This seemed the moment for confession, but the doctor had forbidden excitement; Jack cursed his ill-luck. It was possible to speak now.

"I hear that Mabel has had a fall, but the doctor thinks it won't be much--poor girl, poor girl!"

"Yes; but you mustn't worry about that, and I mustn't stay with you long. The doctor's orders, you know, father."

"Doctor's orders--nonsense! I am as well as anything. Your aunt angered me last night, and I was saying something heated, and fainted. I've got lots to do--lots to do. But if I must stay at home, I'll attend to home affairs. When do you think you'll get married? We'll have the ceremony in the cathedral, of course. You'll have to set things straight with your Aunt Caroline. She has a bee in her bonnet, and nothing I can say will alter her. She has taken an absurd prejudice to Mr. Bannister and a dislike to Mabel."

"No, father, I don't think she dislikes Mabel; she couldn't. She has been sitting with her this morning--nursing her, in fact."

"Oh, come, come!--that's better. Well, then, we can consider everything as settled. You can write to our lawyers and arrange with them to see Mr. Bannister about the settlements."

"It's rather an awkward thing for us to move in the matter, isn't it? You see, he is making a settlement."

"Well, hurry on the wedding, anyway. I suppose Hester will see to Mabel's frocks, and all that sort of thing. The girl has no mother. I'll speak to her about it. Let her come up to me directly she comes in."

"Very well; you'll settle details with her. I know nothing about these things."

Thus Jack evaded the main issue and secured an excuse to escape from the sick room.

Lady Hester had returned from her motor ride. He was surprised to see how pale and agitated she was. He conveyed his father's message faithfully enough.

"You see, Mabel has no mother," he urged, in a whisper, "and if we've got to be married publicly, of course you will see to her trousseau, and all that, won't you?"

"Yes, of course, but I can't bother with it now."

"No, of course not. But father is sure to broach the subject."

"Well, he must be told that the doctor forbids discussions of any kind," she answered rather snappishly, flinging off her coat.

"Hester, my dear," cried the Bishop, in the adjoining room, "I want you."

She responded to his call, sending Jack away impatiently, and pulled herself together and straightened her features into their usual placid mould, ere she approached the bedside softly and calmly. "I'm not allowed to talk to you, John," she whispered, taking his hand in her cold palm. "The doctor forbids it."

"Nonsense, nonsense! I'll change my doctor if he is so stupid. That wooden-faced nurse worries me. I shall be much more easy if you are here, dear."

"Yes, John, I should like to be with you." Her voice faltered, and she bent down and kissed him on the forehead. She was trembling badly, and he detected her agitation at once.

"My darling, you must not worry yourself about me. It is nothing--nothing. I assure you I feel quite well. Sit down by my side. Ah! it is in moments like these, when everybody else worries me, that I appreciate the stately calm and placid repose of my beautiful Hester." He held her hand and patted it approvingly. "I was asleep just now, and dreaming troubled dreams. I fancied I was losing you. You were receding further and further, and you had things in your hand which you were hiding from me. Strange--strange how the thoughts of yesterday creep into one's dreams. I couldn't see what you were hiding, but I fancied they were the emeralds."

"How ridiculous!" she murmured, and leaned back in the cane chair by the bedside to shade her face from his gaze. Her hand remained limp and cold, and he stroked it fondly. It was a trick of his when they were discussing purely domestic affairs, and his restless body was momentarily at ease.

"I have just been telling Jack that the marriage must be hurried on. We shall soon be too busy to have an affair of that kind hanging over us. I've been thinking it out, and wondering whether we ought not to invite a good many people here for the wedding."

"Oh, no, no; let it be a quiet affair, John. Jack wishes it, and so does Mabel."

The Bishop was silent for awhile, then he chuckled to himself, as if some idea tickled him.

"Why are you laughing, dear?"

"I was thinking of Caroline. I was very angry last night; but, really, it is too absurd. I was thinking of her notion that Jack and the girl were already married. What ideas she gets into her head. As if the boy would be such a sneak and a fool as to deceive me and defy my authority by underhand conduct of that sort. Mabel is too proud and dignified a girl to lend herself to such nonsense. And Caroline, if she were not so blinded by prejudice, would see it--eh, darling?"

"Yes, John."

The Bishop retained her hand, and she lay back, breathing heavily. He dozed a little. There was a long pause, broken only by the old man's muttering as he sank deeper into the slumbrous shadows. "Most absurd! Most uncharitable! Most unkind!"

"Hush!" she whispered, disengaging her hand and bending over him to gently smooth his pillow. "Go to sleep, dear."

He was soon sleeping peacefully. When the nurse came Lady Hester raised her finger warningly. The woman frowned to find her there, and she stole away on tiptoe, closing the bedroom door behind her. She let the latch go into its socket very gently, but, on turning round, uttered a short, startled cry. Voss was standing in the middle of the dressing room.

"Oh, how you frightened me!"

"Pardon, my lady, but I thought you called."

"I called? Why should I call you?"

"I was passing along outside, my lady, and somebody called. I thought it was my name I heard. Sorry, my lady."

He backed out of the room, and not until he closed the door did she remember the safe! She ran to the wall and examined the door. It was securely locked, and the key was in her bosom. She shut herself in her own room, and locked the door on the corridor. Then she returned to the dressing room and turned the key in the door leading to the passage also, but remembered as she did it that it must be left open for the nurse to come and go, to avoid the necessity of the woman passing directly into the Bishop's bedroom from the corridor and disturbing him. By leaving the door of the dressing room ajar she was able to watch if he were sleeping without entering.

The wretched wife returned to her bedroom. It was her only place of refuge now. She was driven from her husband's bedside, and she knew that she had no right there. That right, which had been hers for so many years, suddenly became very precious. The vigorous, kindly old man, who made her his confidant in every thought and consulted her in every act, was a tower of strength compared with the cynical, calculating rascal down stairs who claimed her as his lawful wife. She wanted to drop down by the Bishop's bedside and implore his forgiveness and confess all. But such an act was impossible in his present state of health. The web of falsehood and deception which she had weaved about herself was closing tighter and tighter. She had no right to enter the holy man's presence. She was vile and unclean. As he lay sleeping in the middle of the stately old bed, with his arms straight down on the coverlet, he looked like a recumbent saint; yet she, his well beloved and honored wife, had been planning to rob him only an hour ago. She had listened to the arguments of a villain and hearkened greedily to the cry of expediency.

She, too, was to become a thief--a thief's wife in reality, stealing for her husband.

"No, no!" she cried, beating her throbbing temples. "It is for John's sake. I am doing it for him. He must be saved at all costs. Mabel must be saved. Jack's happiness must be considered. I am but a low, unclean thing, crawling at his feet, but I must not ruin him. What does it matter what I do?" Bannister's threat of the Divorce Court was hideous to the woman accustomed to the preaching of a Bishop who denied the right of the civil power to put asunder those whom God has joined. What an awful scandal? He would put her away, and she would be at the mercy of the man down-stairs, who made no secret of his desires, and boldly proposed the most abominable treachery.

Miss Cardew sent her a message requesting a talk in the up-stairs study.

This was the thing she dreaded most of all. She was up in arms in a moment, ready to fight with the old weapons--denial and evasion. She had no excuse for avoiding the inevitable meeting, and braced herself for the struggle. She assumed an outward calm, and even straightened her ruffled hair at the mirror, and used a little artifice to hide the traces of recent weeping. She entered the up-stairs study with as much dignity as she could command, and Aunt Caroline was somewhat surprised at the calm hauteur of her sister-in-law, whom she expected to come before her trembling and humbled. The old lady closed the door and plunged into the thick of the matter at once.

"Hester, you know what I overheard last night."

"How should I know what you overheard?"

"I have no doubt you have taken means to discover from the man downstairs."

"You mean Mr. Bannister," she replied loftily, and in a tone of the greatest indifference.

"Hester, Hester, it is no good your treating me like this. I know your secret, and Mabel's. It must be kept from my brother at all costs. You must get rid of that man somehow. I've offered him money, but he won't go. How on earth could you ever have fallen under the sway of such a rascal?"

"Did you not once fall under the sway of a rascal, Caroline?"

The old lady winced, and her voice shook when she next spoke.

"We are in the same plight, Hester, and women must stand by women. I have offered the fellow ten thousand pounds to go away, and he will not. What is the attraction? He is a nobody, a scamp, and a swindler, living by his wits. What is it keeps him here?"

"I'm sure I don't know."

"Hester, I've been thinking things over, and I've come to the conclusion that perhaps, after all, it would be better if Mabel remained and the man went. She is married to Jack, and nothing can alter that. She's a good girl, so far as I can understand, and knew nothing of her father's history until quite recently. If we can get him to go away things might be patched up--or, rather, covered up. It would break my brother's heart if he knew the kind of girl his son had married; and it would enrage him fearfully if he knew that Jack was already married. It is miserable to have to stoop to such deceptions, but we must keep their secret."

"I am glad you are taking a sane point of view at last," observed Hester sneeringly. "Whom God hath joined let no man put asunder."

"Yes, yes; that is agreed, then. Jack need not know anything. His father need not know. The marriage must take place in all its mockery. So far, so good. What inducement can you give the man to make him go?"

"I have done my best."

"Something is keeping him here. Is it you?"

Lady Hester almost broke down. She started and looked scared, but recovered her self-possession quickly and replied foolishly, "Is it remarkable that he should find some fascination in the woman he was once crazy about? Oh, don't look alarmed--don't be frightened. I hate him. I loathe the sight of him. I wish he were dead. God forgive me for the thought; but I sometimes wish I had the power to kill him."

The elder woman was silent for a time, lost in thought. Lady Hester fidgeted uneasily, and wondered what was coming next. It was a long time before the other spoke.

"I'll offer him twenty thousand pounds; and the girl must remain," she exclaimed at last. "You must add your entreaties, Hester--go on your knees if necessary. He must have his price--he must have his price!"

Hester echoed the words as if they were a prophecy and a pronouncement of doom.

The old lady left her, apparently to seek Bannister and make fresh offers, and she roamed about the upper part of the house in a fever of misery and doubt.

He must have his price. The price was a base and horrible surrender of her womanhood and the robbery of her husband. Caroline Cardew would be able to do nothing. It was herself he wanted. She had seen the passion in his eyes, heard the old thrill in his voice, and knew that he would forsake the old adventurous paths for softer, easier, pleasures, and greedier lust.

She passed the door of her daughter's room, which adjoined Bannister's, and stopped to listen outside. She could not trust herself to go in, not knowing what reception her daughter would give her, or whether, if she were too ill to speak, her presence might not agitate the patient. She longed to fling herself in Mabel's arms and sob out her misery.

While she stood there the door of the adjoining room opened, and Bannister walked out. He had taken refuge upstairs from the importunity of Aunt Caroline, for one reason, and, for another, to keep an eye on Voss, who was strangely evasive. He stepped out almost into his wife's arms. She uttered a little cry, and drew away; but he greeted her with a whisper, and, after a stealthy look round, approached her swiftly, and slipped his arm about her waist.

"Don't--don't!" she cried, as loudly as she dared. He drew her to him and kissed her on the lips. She protected her face with her hand and hissed her annoyance; but he attacked her more savagely, and with a soft laugh of triumph put his face closer and kissed the soft white neck below the pink shell-like ear. She moaned her disgust, and tried to strike him; but he only caught her wrist, and laughed.

She begged piteously to be released, for the door of Mabel's room behind him had opened, and Beatrice Carew stood in the opening. She must have seen everything. She was about to step out on to the corridor, but, finding that she was spoiling "sport," stepped back again, blazing with contempt and indignation.

"I shan't have a shred of reputation left," cried the wretched woman in agony. "This is the end. You can do your worst. It is over. If you touch me again I shall kill you."

He laughed and shrugged his shoulders. "You will feel better presently. I apologize for my idiotic lack of caution--it is unlike me. But--but, there, Hester, you always rouse me out of myself and make a different man of me."

"It is finished; do you understand? I have done!" she cried, standing in the doorway of her dressing-room.

"No, my dear Hester, I shall come to you to-night for that little transfer that we discussed. When everybody is asleep you can hand me the small parcel, and I will arrange that to-morrow--while the household are at dinner--but you know the rest. You must pay your ransom. After that I shall rely upon persuasion, not force. Oh, we shall become great friends."

"Never! If you drive me too far--you know how I shall end it. And if the spirits of the dead haunt the living, I shall haunt you to your dying day."

"Mere melodramatic heroics, my dear Hester. Don't talk so loudly. Let us say half-past twelve, The house will be asleep then. Lock the door of the room adjoining the Bishop's bedroom in case that infernal nurse sleeps lightly."

She made no reply, and he descended the stairs, as if the matter were settled.