The Malefactor

  A DREAM OF PARADISE

  It seemed to Wingrave that the days which followed formed a sort ofhiatus in his life--an interlude during which some other man in hisplace, and in his image, played the game of life to a long-forgottentune. He moved through the hours as a man in a maze, unrecognizable tohimself, half unconscious, half heedless of the fact that the garmentsof his carefully cultivated antagonism to the world and to his fellowshad slipped very easily from his unresisting shoulders. The glory ofa perfect English midsummer lay like a golden spell upon the land. Themoors were purple with heather, touched here and there with the fire ofthe flaming gorse, the wind blew always from the west, the gardens wereablaze with slowly bursting rhododendrons. Every gleam of coloring,every breath of perfume, seemed to carry him unresistingly back to thedays of his boyhood. He fished once more in the trout streams; he threwaway his stick, and tramped or rode with Juliet across the moors. Atnight time she sang or played with the windows open, Wingrave himselfout of sight under the cedar trees, whose perfume filled with aromaticsweetness the still night air. Piles of letters came every day, which heleft unopened upon his study table. Telegrams followed, which he threwinto the wastepaper basket. Juliet watched the accumulating heap withamazement.

  "Whatever do people write to you so much for?" she asked one morning,watching the stream of letters flow out of the post bag.

  Wingrave was silent for a moment. Her question brought a sudden andsharp sting of remembrance. Juliet knew him only as Sir Wingrave Seton.She knew nothing of Mr. Wingrave, millionaire.

  "Advertisements, a good many of them," he said. "I must send forAynesworth some day to go through them all."

  "What fun!" she exclaimed. "Do send for him! He thinks that I am stayingwith Miss Pengarth, and I haven't written once since I got here!"

  To Wingrave, it seemed that a chill had somehow stolen into the hotsummer morning. His feet were very nearly upon the earth again.

  "I forgot," he said, "that Aynesworth was--a friend of yours. He cameand saw you often in London?"

  She smiled reflectively.

  "He has been very, very kind," she answered. "He was always that, fromthe first time I saw you both. Do you remember? It was down in the lowergardens."

  "Yes!" he answered, "I remember quite well."

  "He was very kind to me then," she continued, "and you--well, I wasfrightened of you." She stopped for a moment and laughed. Her eyes werefull of amazed reminiscence. "You were so cold and severe! I nevercould have dreamed that, after all, it was you who were going to bethe dearest, most generous friend I could ever have had! Do you know,Walter--I mean Mr. Aynesworth--isn't very pleased with me just now?"

  "Why not?"

  "He cannot understand why I will not tell him my guardian's name. Ithink it worries him."

  "You would like to tell him?" Wingrave asked.

  She nodded.

  "I think so," she answered.

  Wingrave said no more, but after breakfast he went to his study alone.Juliet found him there an hour later, sitting idly in front of histable. His great pile of correspondence was still untouched. She cameand sat on the edge of the table.

  "What are we going to do this morning, please?" she asked.

  Wingrave glanced towards his letters.

  "I am afraid," he said, "that I must spend the day here!"

  She looked at him blankly.

  "Not really!" she exclaimed. "I thought that we were going to walk toHanging Tor?"

  Wingrave took up a handful of letters and let them fall through hisfingers. He had all the sensations of a man who is awakened from a dreamof Paradise to face the dull tortures of a dreary and eventless life.His eyes were set in a fixed state. An undernote of despair was in histone.

  "You know we arranged it yesterday," she continued eagerly, "and if youare going to send for Mr. Aynesworth, you needn't bother about theseletters yourself, need you?"

  He turned and regarded her deliberately. Her forehead was wrinkled alittle with disappointment, her brown eyes were filled with the softlight of confident appeal. Tall and elegantly slim, there was yetsomething in the graceful lines of her figure which reminded himforcibly that the days of her womanhood had indeed arrived.

  She wore a plain white cambric dress and a simple, but much befloweredhat; the smaller details of her toilet all indicated the correct tasteand instinctive coquetry of her French descent. And she was beautiful!Wingrave regarded her critically and realized, perhaps for the firsttime, how beautiful. Her eyes were large and clear, and her eyebrowsdelicately defined. Her mouth, with its slightly humorous curl, was alittle large, but wholly delightful. The sun of the last few weeks hadgiven to her skin a faint, but most becoming, duskiness. Under hisclose scrutiny, a flush of color stole into her cheeks. She laughed notaltogether naturally.

  "You look at me," she said, "as though I were someone strange!"

  "I was looking," he answered, "for the child, the little black-frockedchild, you know, with the hair down her back, and the tearful eyes. Idon't think I realized that she had vanished so completely."

  "Not more completely," she declared gaily, "than the gloomy gentlemanwho frowned upon my existence and resented even my gratitude. Although,"she added, leaning a little towards him, "I am very much afraid thatI see some signs of a relapse today. Don't bother about those horridletters. Let me tell Mrs. Tresfarwin to pack us up some lunch, and takeme to Hanging Tor, please!"

  Wingrave laughed a little unsteadily as he rose to his feet. One daymore, then! Why not? The end would be soon enough!...

  Sooner, perhaps, than even he imagined, for that night Aynesworth came,pale and travel-stained, with all the volcanic evidences of a greatpassion blazing in his eyes, quivering in his tone. The day had passedto Wingrave as a dream, more beautiful even than any in the roll of itspredecessors. They sat together on low chairs upon the moonlit lawn, intheir ears the murmur of the sea; upon their faces, gathering strengthwith the darkness, the night wind, salt and fragrant with all thesweetness of dying flowers. Wingrave had never realized more completelywhat still seemed to him this wonderful gap in his life. Behind it all,he had a subconsciousness that he was but taking a part in some mysticalplay; yet with an abandon which, when he stopped to think of it,astonished him, he gave himself up without effort or scruple to thismost amazing interlude. All day he had talked more than ever before;the flush on his cheeks was like the flush of wine or the sun which hadfired his blood. As he had talked the more, so had she grown the moresilent. She was sitting now with her hands clasped and her head thrownback, looking up at the stars with unseeing eyes.

  "You do not regret Normandy, then?" he asked.

  "No!" she murmured. "I have been happy here. I have been happier than Icould ever have been in Normandy."

  He turned and looked at her with curious intentness.

  "My experience," he said thoughtfully, "of young ladies of your age issomewhat limited. But I should have thought that you would have foundit--lonely."

  "Perhaps I am different, then," she murmured. "I have never been lonelyhere--all my life!"

  "Except," he reminded her, "when I knew you first."

  "Ah! But that was different," she protested. "I had no home in thosedays, and I was afraid of being sent away."

  It was in his mind then to tell her of the envelope with her nameupon it in his study, but a sudden rush of confusing thoughts kept himsilent. It was while he was laboring in the web of this tangled dream ofwild but beautiful emotions that Aynesworth came. A pale, tragic figurein his travel-stained clothes, and face furrowed with anxiety, he stoodover them almost before they were aware of his presence.

  "Walter!" she cried, and sprang to her feet with extended hands.Wingrave's face darkened, and the shadow of evil crept into his suddenlyaltered expression. It was an abrupt awakening this, and he hated theman who had brought it about.

  Aynesworth held the girl's hands for a moment, but his manner wassufficient evidence of the spirit in which he had come. He drew a littlebreath, an
d he looked from one to the other anxiously.

  "Is this--your mysterious guardian, Juliet?" he asked hoarsely.

  She glanced at Wingrave questioningly. His expression was ominous, andthe light faded from her own face. While she hesitated, Wingrave spoke.

  "I imagine," he said, "that the fact is fairly obvious. What have you tosay about it?"

  "A good deal," Aynesworth answered passionately. "Juliet, please goaway. I must speak to your guardian--alone!"

  Again she looked at Wingrave. He pointed to the house.

  "I think," he said, "that you had better go."

  She hesitated. Something of the impending storm was already manifest.Aynesworth turned suddenly towards her.

  "You shall not enter that house again, Juliet," he declared. "Stay inthe gardens there, and presently you shall know why."