Mabel was constrained and nervous in her father's presence. A barrier had arisen between them which neither flowers nor smiles could displace. The beautiful blooms which he had ordered as her "commission" on the infamous card-sharping business were untouched until Voss discreetly distributed them about the rooms, where their odor sickened her, and recalled unceasingly the things she would forget.

She was to meet Jack in town to-day--their first meeting after the all too brief honeymoon--and instead of the delicious flutter of joy and expectant excitement that should have been hers by right, she was trembling, sick with apprehension, guilty, and ill at ease. Lady Hester's letter was as salt in her wounds. The enormity of her folly in marrying Jack so hurriedly seemed to have grown into a crime. She set out to meet him, nevertheless, and, like all criminals, was sufficiently vain of her appearance to wear her prettiest frock--a muslin thing that hung cloud-like upon her swift-moving, graceful form. As she stepped into Bond Street, pale, except for the sharp flush on her cheeks, and with sparkling, troubled eyes, nervous and roving, many a head was turned to gaze after her. When she hailed a cab the knowing ones guessed that her errand was not a prosaic one.

The cool air beat upon her hot brow, and her tired eyes opened wider, as from a cleansing breath. She heard again the ripple of the trout stream and the whisper of the wind amongst the leaves. She was going to meet Jack--her husband--and what else mattered? He and she were one, bound indissolubly. The troubles and scruples of Lady Hester and the backslidings of her father were but pawns in the game. Life was love and love was life, and it was only in the beginning.

As the cab turned into Piccadilly she passed some people that she knew, and dropped her head nervously so that the brim of the large Romney hat screened her face. There was a block in the traffic later, and a cab drew up almost opposite her containing an over-dressed bounder, who stared impudently through his eye-glass and smiled after surveying her. He guessed that she was off to meet a man; it was written all over her.

If Jack had been there the insolent fellow would not have dared.

Yes; Jack was all she had. When the dusty green of Hyde Park came into view she strained her eyes for the first glimpse of the lithe, tall form of her lover--her husband.

Husband!

She murmured the word and lingered over it fondly, and laughed the low, soft laugh of careless excitement. With an insouciance worthy of her father she flung care to the winds, and forgot the card-sharping, the Bishop, and Lady Hester.

She leaned forward eagerly at Prince's Gate, and was ready to cry with delight at the sight of Jack restlessly pacing the shady plane avenue and switching the grass viciously with his stick. Her blood tingled hot and eager. She could not keep still. She waved her little handkerchief wildly. When they came face to face, she was all smiles, happiness, and love. She almost leaped into his arms, and evidently expected to be embraced, but Jack, with true British marital self-consciousness, drew himself up stiffly, looking nervously to right and left.

"Oh, Jack, Jack!" was all she could say as her hands rested in his. His eyes showed how delighted he was to see her again. The cabman surveyed the meeting with a critical, fore-calculating eye, wondering whether the gentleman would pay or the lady. After they had walked a few yards he called after them.

"Beggin' your pardon, miss----"

"I must pay the cabman and send him away, dearest," whispered Jack, and Mabel came down to earth--or nearly.

The cabman did not drive away. He waited and watched the lovers pass into the gardens. Jack felt almost nervous.

"We've got to be careful," he whispered anxiously; "there are such an infernal lot of people about that I know, and people who know the governor too. They mustn't see us, or there'll be the dickens to pay. It's deuced hard on a chap that he can't walk with his own dear little wife in a public park without having to play the fox. But there, it won't be for long, little one. My clever little girl is going to see to all that. She's going to get round the old boy, and then----"

"And then?" she asked, and she shivered as from a cold wind. She came right down to earth with a dull, heavy thud.

"Why, then we'll own up. Oh, darling, you don't know what it is to be married and live in chambers, and go on with the old life just the same."

"Yes, I do, Jack. You don't suppose that I find Stratton Street a paradise."

"It's home, though." She shuddered again. "Home! How often I've thought of home since last week, Mabel, and dreamed of it, and imagined my little fairy presiding at the evening meal. Then comes disillusionment, and I eat my solitary chop in a gaudy restaurant, where men are dining with their wives and sweethearts, all jolly, and off to the theatre. And from my corner I sit and groan and think of--my wife."

"Don't, Jack, don't! You mustn't grip my arm like that. That woman over there in the blue frock looks very much like Mrs. Selwyn Carton. She'll see you. She is looking this way. Let's take the other path."

Jack rattled on, grumbling and laughing by turns, until he had exhausted his small stock of news. Then it occurred to him that he had done all the talking and Mabel the listening.

"Well, little one, and what is your news? How goes it with your adorable dad? What would he say if he knew you were shopping in Kensington Gardens--eh?"

"I don't think he'd mind very much," replied Mabel, with a gasp and a horrid choking in her throat.

"Then he's not a very particular chap--eh? Rather a good sort, though."

"I--I don't know."

It was on her lips to tell Jack everything, but loyalty, pride, and shame impelled her to hold her peace. Why should she worry Jack with her troubles when he had so many of his own?

Perhaps if she had spoken then things might have turned out differently.

Woman-like, she tried to change the conversation; but Jack wanted to know if his father-in-law--how strange it sounded on his lips--was going down to the Palace. When she told him that the invitation had been accepted he laughed joyfully.

"That's ripping, little girl. You're a rare little schemer, full of tact and artfulness. You'll be a gold mine to me when I'm made a judge. Once let our fathers meet, and imagine they are settling our affairs for us, then all will be well; though I think I'd better see papa-in-law, darling, and coach him up in the part he has to play--without letting him suspect it, of course."

"I don't think I would, Jack, not yet."

Again she struggled to explain, to confess, to warn him. Her tongue was tied. She laughed frivolously instead, and talked of Weybury and the incidents of the honeymoon--of anything that would help her to forget the awful tangle into which things were drifting.

The Long Water gleaming in the morning sunlight reminded them of Weybury and their stolen holiday, and fired Jack with eagerness for new indiscretions. He was rash enough to suggest another brief escape from civilization, but Mabel vetoed the project with a firmness that hurt his vanity.

"No, Jack--impossible!"

"Nothing is impossible when one really loves," he retorted loftily.

"Don't be silly, Jack. We must be very careful--for your sake."

"Why should I be compelled to live apart from my wife?" cried Jack contentiously, as if demolishing the arguments of the plaintiff. "Why should I suffer tortures of loneliness? Why----"

"Jack, you must, you must. One false step, and we shall be discovered. Oh, dear! I am already weary of deceit. I wish----"

"Don't say that you wish we hadn't been down to Weybury. That would be unkind, Mabel. I thought you were happy there."

"Of course, Jack, of course. You know I was. But you must understand that a woman, when she's married"--Jack grinned delightedly--"must make her husband's welfare her first thought."

"Mabel, I don't care a hang for my welfare just now, or the world, or father, or anything else--but you."

They were standing facing each other, and he excitedly seized his wife, careless of eye-witnesses, but sheltered by a screen of close-growing rhododendrons. "Mabel, I can't do without you. You must come down to my chambers in the Temple. I want you to see the place. You know you said you wanted to."

"Jack! After all our noble resolutions at Weybury? How patient we were to be, and how strong!"

"Mabel, don't look at me with serious eyes like that. They were never meant for anything but laughter. There's something about you this morning that makes me reckless. You're looking such a picture of restrained devilment that----"

"I don't feel it, Jack."

"Well, never mind, you look it. You're such a queer mixture of demureness and diablerie. I'm sure if I suggested to you that we should run a race down to the Long Water, and play touch like little urchins round the penny chairs, you'd enter into the fun and enjoy yourself like the dear little kiddie that you are."

Mabel was excited more than elated. The rhythm of Jack's full baritone vibrated in her very heart-strings; when he was in high spirits and reckless his mood was contagious. And what woman in love can resist high spirits? Frivolity and coquetry were ever twin sisters.

The abandon of mutual proprietorship suddenly seized them, and they walked hand-in-hand like any park lovers--or husband and wife. They drifted back to honeymoon manners, oblivious of their surroundings or the dangerous proximity of the carriage drive, and were only brought back to earth by a sudden start from Jack, who relinquished his hold and hurriedly raised his hat to a passing vehicle.

"Confound it!" he growled, with set teeth. "Aunt Caroline."

The carriage sped swiftly by. A pale-faced, hook-nosed, elderly lady with an eagle eye bowed stiffly, and raised her pince-nez rather pointedly to get a better view of the smartly dressed girl. It was the Bishop's sister, of whom Jack had often spoken in accents of doubtful praise as "an awfully good soul," devoted to his father and himself, but showing it in ways chiefly irritating.

"Well, she doesn't know me," said Mabel comfortingly.

"All the worse," groaned Jack. "They'll hear at home that I spend my mornings in Kensington Gardens strolling hand-in-hand with an unknown female. You will be described, and then----"

"Jack, we ought to be more careful. We oughtn't to behave like this at all. I wanted to talk to you very, very seriously about--about lots of things."

"Interfering old--busybody!" exclaimed Jack, still running on Aunt Caroline. "She knows everything and everybody, and turns up everywhere. A wonderful old girl for her years--but I wish she'd leave off nosing into my affairs. Depend upon it, she knows there has been a row about you at home; and trust her for guessing who you are."

"And Lady Hester begged me not to see you, Jack," observed Mabel, with a woebegone look. They stood and looked at one another foolishly. Then they both laughed at the absurdity of their position--husband and wife in a fever of anxiety at having been seen together by a maiden aunt.

"Mabel," cried Jack, with a sudden burst of desperation, "if you don't promise to come down and see me in the Temple, I'll just hug you where you stand, before all these people." He seized her arm, and she jumped away in mock terror.

"I'll come, Jack, I'll come. I'm bewildered by the difficulties that beset us. But there is love." She slipped her arm in his. They passed again into the shelter of the trees where the shadows were deeper, and only a few nurse maids and their charges disturbed the solitude.

Gone were all her fine resolutions, and the half-formed notions of abandoning Jack forever and freeing him from the incubus of a disreputable father-in-law. After all, their world was themselves, and they must revel in the sunlight. Let to-morrow bring its burdens and responsibilities. To-day was theirs.

The day after would be Aunt Caroline's.

Jack was feverishly eager that they should snatch a few hours of wedded bliss in the Temple, despite resolutions to the contrary; and it was when urging this sort of indiscretion that Jack showed that great facility of argument and fluency of persuasive speech that had already stood him in such good stead at the Bar.

Mabel protested that it was horribly indiscreet, but he demolished her weak arguments by the most elementary logic. He talked long and eloquently; and what could a young and infatuated wife do but submit? Her father's erratic manner of life and the absence of any female relatives left her very much her own mistress to come and go as she pleased; so that she, personally, ran very little risk in visiting a supposed bachelor in chambers, and would find little difficulty in absenting herself from Stratton Street. As for Jack, he argued that, though brick walls might have ears, they had fewer eyes than London streets. He declared that with a wife's occasional counsel he would be another man. The future would hold no terrors for him, and the high pinnacle upon which the woolsack rested was at once lowered to a quite moderate elevation. Despite their experience with Aunt Caroline and the danger of being observed, they kissed farewell beneath the trees, in full view of Mrs. Selwyn Carton's maid, who was airing her mistress's discarded blue frock in sequestered paths.

Mabel parted from her husband with her head in a whirl, cheeks crimson, and eyes glistening. She walked all the way home, and only in Bond Street became really conscious of the presence of other people in the world. She suddenly caught sight of her father gazing in a jeweler's window, and halted guiltily, uncertain whether to slip by or to join him.

He had seen her reflection in a window mirror, and was watching her approach. At the psychologic moment he turned and greeted her affectionately, and drew her to the window.

"Look! is it not beautiful?" He pointed to a glittering ring, which caught a ray of the sunlight as it nestled on its white velvet cushion. "The design is an inspiration--so simple, yet so elegant. Mabel, you must have that ring."

Before she could protest Bannister drew her into the shop, where, apparently, he was well known. He entered with a languid air, and smiled genially on the fussy manager.

"Good morning, Bowman. You're looking well."

"Pleasure to see you again, sir; such a long time since we had the pleasure. Saw you looking at that ring we have just received from our Paris house. It's quite in your style."

"Let's see it, Bowman. I haven't bought a jewel for weeks. I've successfully mastered my infatuation for beautiful gems for at least twenty-one days."

Mabel looked up at her father in some mystification, knowing so little of his habits and moods.

The jeweler saw the look, and explained:

"Your father, Miss Bannister, has a wonderful taste in this sort of thing." He gently put forward a tray of gems.

"Ah, I've bought many a jewel from Bowman," observed Bannister patronizingly, as he drew forward a chair for Mabel; "and I've sold him a good few, too. I never keep them long."

"Well, it's a pleasant hobby, sir, collecting jewels."

"Deuced expensive, Bowman."

"Oh, no, sir," smiled the jeweler deprecatingly. "You're a good hand at a bargain, sir. The things you've sold me brought their value, I'm sure."

"I only bring Bowman my bargains," explained Bannister to Mabel, who was looking at the ring with natural delight, but with a tremulous fear of she knew not what. "When I see a thing like that going at a reasonable price I must have it. And when I grow tired of it I bring it back to Bowman. Gems of all kinds have a wonderful fascination for me--haven't they, Bowman?--till I weary of them. But of late I've held myself in check--eh?"

"Well, you haven't brought us anything lately, sir. We were almost giving you up as lost."

"And how much is the ring, Bowman?"

"Well, to you, sir, fifty guineas. You know its value too well for me to ask you more."

Bowman purred as if he were being very clever, and Bannister smiled languidly as though he were flattered.

"Do you like it, Mabel?"

"It's lovely, father, but I have five already."

"Discard the one you like least and Bowman will buy it--won't you, Bowman?"

"Certainly, sir."

"Well, my daughter likes the ring, Bowman, so we'll have it. By the way, I haven't a check-book on me."

"That's all right, sir. Your convenience is ours, sir."

"Is that an emerald?" asked Bannister, screwing his eyeglass on more tightly, and pointing to a gem in the glass case on the counter.

"Yes, sir, a particularly dark one."

"They're worth their money now--emeralds?" queried Bannister casually.

"Yes, indeed, sir. We could take more emeralds than we can get just now. There's a run on them."

"Indeed, is that so? I believe I've quite a number in my collection--foolish big things I bought years ago."

"Really, that is very interesting."

"In my ignorance I bought them because they were big. The settings were atrocious, and I had them unmounted."

"I should like to see them very much, sir. But when you tell me the jewels are ugly I can scarcely credit it, for it is not like you to buy ugly things, sir."

"Ah, I bought them years ago, when I thought the price of more importance than the setting--when I first began collecting, and got the gem mania badly."

Again Mabel looked wonderingly at her father.

"Miss Bannister would probably like them cut down," said Bowman, expanding genially towards Mabel.

"Oh, no; such things are not for little girls," said Bannister sharply. "The ring is enough. If you have a blank check, Bowman, I'll settle for the ring out of hand."

"By the bye, sir, I believe we owe you something. We bought something of yours a month or two ago, and we never settled."

"Oh, I can't be bothered now, Bowman. You must still owe me the balance on that transaction. You know how I hate bothering about money."

"As you please, sir, as you please. But I would rather----"

"Nonsense, Bowman, you're as safe as the Bank of England."

"It's very kind of you to say so, sir." Mr. Bowman smiled again, and produced a blank check book.

Bannister dashed off a check, talking all the while, and forgot to sign it until he was reminded.

"Dear, dear, I am so careless in these matters," he explained with a drawl, and signing with the weary air of a man burdened with superfluous wealth.

Mr. Bowman packed the ring for Mabel, and bowed them out with a very sweet smile for Mabel. He admired her exquisite grace, especially the poise of her beautiful neck, which seemed, to his eyes, especially designed to display a diamond necklace to perfection--and he had several in his shop that might tempt the fastidious Mr. Bannister. But so far he had bought more jewels of the gentleman than he had sold him.

Mabel walked home with her father as beside a total stranger. He talked amusingly and cleverly on every subject except jewels and his recent purchase. But the suspicion was deepening that the idol of her school days had more than feet of clay. He was hollow, unreal, mysterious, terrifying. She knew that, in his own cynical way, he was cunningly revealing to her his real personality. She shrank from the revelation with terror. That he had been lying to the jeweler she was certain, but to what end?

She escaped from him as soon as they arrived home, and shut herself in her little bedroom--her only refuge in their very confined flat.

The imperative necessity of understanding more, of knowing all that there was to know about herself, her father, her dead mother, her lack of relatives, gripped her with a keen desire to probe. She was in the toils of mystery, and everything about her assumed a new aspect.

Voss from an obsequious man servant had become an enigma, a factor in the household to be reckoned with, an unknown quantity, and a venomous influence. He was with her father now.

Voss was reading something aloud to his master, and she caught the word "Cardew" and "emeralds."

She stepped softly from her room. The corridor was dark and narrow, but it was covered with a thick carpet, so that her foot fall was inaudible. A paroxysm of inquisitiveness had seized her. She must know at all costs the things she dared not ask. But the wildest nightmare never approached the horror of the revelation that was to follow.

Voss's unpleasant voice was raised to a high-pitched, inexpressive monotone, and he gabbled as he read aloud. He had rediscovered the paragraph concerning the Bishop of Ripley's family jewels which he had previously quoted to Bannister, and was now reading it with a considerable amount of noise intended for emphasis.

"The Bishop is one of the Gladstone creations, and as a Churchman a Tory, but distinguished by his plain speaking and unconventional sermons. He owes not a little of his success to his charming wife, the only daughter of the late Marquis of Cromarty, the Irish peer. She is a most popular figure in society, but brought her husband no great dowry, for the poverty of the Lennox estates is proverbial. Her interest in church work, however, is as keen as her husband's. She is the fortunate possessor by her marriage of the Cardew emeralds, which were once famous at Court. These emeralds, by the way, came to the Bishop through his mother, and are reported to be the finest in the world, the value of one necklace alone being estimated at £20,000. Although possessed of exquisite taste in the matter of dress, Lady Hester has affected puritanical severity of late years, and the famous Cardew gems are never worn. But they are always available for the inspection of connoisseurs at the Palace, where they are kept on show as part of the family heirlooms."

"There you are," said Voss triumphantly. "What did I tell you? They don't keep 'em at the bank."

"I only said it was probable," replied Bannister irritably. "Don't talk so loud. I've not made up my mind at all."

"The old dodge will work," urged Voss eagerly; "it worked before. A chisel in the window, a wire across the path, a duster round my boots, and a walk over the flower-beds to make it look as though the business had been done from the outside; then Mr. Bannister's valet will tell a fairy tale about a man creeping along the corridor, the alarm will be raised, the sparklers gone, and the police will rush off and scour the whole country for a burglar. I'll take good care not to go near the swag, so they can't suspect me. But you, being a gentleman, no one will question what part of the house you was in. Once get 'em out of the house and cut 'em up, and the rest is as easy as winking. Why, then you'd be able to buy your place in the country."

"When I want your advice I'll ask for it," hissed Bannister, with an impulsive, angry movement towards the door. "Haven't I told you before that I won't allow business to be discussed while there is a third person in the house? Do you want the girl----" The rest was inaudible, except when Voss's voice broke in again, rather insolently--

"How was I to know the girl was in? I thought she was out. I didn't see----" The door closed with a bang, and silence followed.

Mabel tottered back to her room, trembling and white, and understanding, yet stubbornly refusing to accept the wild suggestion that was forming on her brain.

Thieves! Common thieves!

Lady Hester's story came back--the sudden disillusionment when she discovered that she had married a plausible scamp. The coincidence was ghastly in its suggestiveness. But for that story she would not have believed it possible for a man like her father, who moved among the best, and professed the most fastidious refinement, to be a social vampire, working in league with light-fingered rascals of the class of Voss.

She laughed hysterically at the absurdity of the idea, and gazed round with blanched face at her luxurious surroundings. Here was no sign of poverty, no sign of war with mankind. Her own life, as far as she remembered it, had never rubbed shoulders with low and vulgar associations. She had moved only amongst the rich. Her intimates belonged to the most favored class. And yet--the daughter of a thief! Horrible!

The noble image of the fine old Bishop of Ripley flashed up like an ogre of condemnation. What would he say if he knew? And she, his son's wife, his daughter, walking perilous paths with an unscrupulous, unabashed fraud of a father. It was no use shirking the awful truth. Many things, hitherto inexplicable and mysterious, were now made clear. She flushed, now hot, now cold, as queer memories surged through her brain.

Her father's affection for herself was undoubted. He had given proof of it in diverse ways. But she understood now the meaning of many strange moods and fits of irritation that would come over him when he had been lavish with his caresses. She remembered scenes long ago, when she was a little girl, and there were tears in his eyes at parting from her at the convent gate--genuine tears, such as a mother might shed. Could a rogue be sentimental?

She had always imagined that her likeness to her mother had endeared her to him. He said so once, and could not bear to talk of the dead. Was it true? Was anything true or real about her?

The shock was overwhelming. She was helpless and panic-stricken. She could not face a meeting with him any more that day, and, pleading a sick headache, remained in her room, wrestling with the awful problem. If she had not been Jack's wife it would have been less terrifying. She could have disappeared utterly--where to, when, or how she did not speculate. In the great revolt panic succeeded panic as she considered the wheels within wheels, the mesh in which she was entangled by her rash marriage with Jack. She was numbed with fear at the thought of her father visiting the Palace. He and his rascally servant were going there as honored guests--to steal. No other construction could be put upon their talk.

To steal! From Jack's father!

Oh, the mad indiscretion of her marriage! She had ruined Jack utterly. She faced the worst bravely and desperately, and resolved that no one must know of that dreadful false step. No one knew; no one must ever know. That was her first and dominant idea.

A night of broken rest with dreadful dreams, a morning grey and hopeless, with no course of action decided upon, no fixed resolve, and the necessity of attending to bodily needs in the way of food.

The woman who came to the flat to cook by the day when required brought her breakfast, but she sickened at the thought of eating the bread of sin--of crime. Her father sent an affectionate message, with some beautiful flowers, and a more practical mark of concern in the shape of a prescription made up by a neighboring chemist. The exquisite rogue was a man, after all, with the same instincts, affections, and sympathies as his fellows. He, too, suffered from headaches, and could not bear to think of his beautiful Mabel enduring physical pain and spoiling her flower-like beauty. He supposed that it was the Blunt incident, which her sharp eyes had detected more by accident than by design upon his part, and was genuinely sorry. He had encountered the symptoms of revolt and horror in a high-spirited woman before--many years ago--and knew the virulence of the poison. He instinctively dreaded that the malady would take the same course and end in the same way, unless he took steps to throw dust in his child's eyes and enabled her to recover her lost self-respect. He had no notion of the real extent of her knowledge.