The flat was in utter darkness when Harry arrived between nine and ten. He was disappointed, and yet not surprised. He knew that his mother was to have returned from the sea by this time, but that was all he did know. He found the porter, and asked him how he was redirecting the letters.

The man gave Mr. Walthew's address. Harry groaned.

"Mrs. Ringrose has never been back since she first went away?"

"No, sir."

"You have the key of the flat?"

"Yes, sir; my wife goes up there every day."

"Then get her to go up now and light the gas stove and lay the table. I'll bring in the provisions if she'll do that and make my bed for me. Tell her I know it's late, but – "

"That's all right, sir," interrupted the porter, a familiar but obliging soul; and when Harry returned in ten minutes, with his slices of pressed beef and his French rolls and butter, from the delightful shop round a couple of corners, the flat was lighted like a public-house, and you lost sight of your breath in the minute dining-room where the asbestos was reddening in the grate.

Yet it was a sorry home-coming, that put Harry painfully in mind of his last, and he felt very wistful and lonely when he had finished his supper and written a few lines to his mother. He came in from posting them with an ounce of birdseye, and dragged an easy chair from under its dust-sheet in the other room, and so arranged himself comfortably enough in front of the gas stove. But his first pipe for several weeks did no more for him than Weber's Last Waltz, which duly welcomed him through the ceiling. He was unused to solitude, and the morrow's interview with Lowndes sat heavily on his nerves. His one consolation was that it would take place before his mother's return. She must know nothing until he knew all. And he had begged her not to hurry back on his account.

In the sideboard that was so many sizes too large for the room – the schoolroom sideboard of the old home – he at last laid hands upon some whisky, and in his loneliness and suppressed excitement he certainly drank more than was good for him before going to bed. Immense and immediate confidence accrued, only to evaporate before it was wanted; and morning found him nervous, depressed, and dearly wishing that he had gone hot from Scrafton to Lowndes the day before. But the bravest man is he who goes trembling and yet smiling into action, and, after all, it was a sufficiently determined face that Harry Ringrose carried through the sloppy City streets that foggy forenoon.

In the outer office the same small clerk was perched on the same tall stool: but Bacchus sat solitary, in his top-coat and with a redder nose than ever, at the desk in the inner office, the door of which was standing open.

"Good-morning, Mr. Backhouse," said Harry entering. "Mr. Lowndes is out?"

"Very much out."

"Doesn't he come here now?"

"No."

"I'm sorry to trouble you, Mr. Backhouse, but can you tell me where I can find him?"

"Offices of the Crofter Fisheries."

"Where are they?"

"Hartington House, Cornhill."

So brusque was his manner, so different from Harry's recollection of the red-nosed man, that the young fellow thanked him for his information with marked stiffness, whereupon the other sprang up and clapped on his hat.

"I don't mean to be rude to you, Mr. Ringrose, but I'm sick of that man's name," cried he: "it gives me a thirst every time I hear it. Didn't you know about the Company? It comes out next week – they're going to have a solid page in every morning paper on Monday – capital one million, and everything but Royalty on the board! Lowndes has made himself General Manager with God knows how many thousand a year, and I was to be Secretary with five hundred. He promised it to me again and again – he had the use of these offices rent free for months – and used to borrow from the housekeeper when I had nothing – and now he gives it over my head to one of his aristocratic pals. I tell you, Mr. Ringrose, it makes me dry to think of it! Come and let me buy you a drink."

Harry thanked him but declined, and, on the way downstairs, asked whether Lowndes still lived at Richmond.

"He may be there still," said Bacchus, "but I hear he's going to move into an abbey or castle – I forget which – as soon as the Company comes out. He's renting it furnished from one of these belted blokes he's got in with. So you won't have the least little split? Well, good-bye then, Mr. Ringrose, and may Gordon Lowndes prove a better friend to you than he has to me!"

Harry could not help smiling grimly as he headed for Cornhill. The grievance of Bacchus was as much his own. Most heartily he wished he had no worse.

Hartington House proved to be a modern pile with a lift worked by a smart boy in buttons; and the offices of the Crofter Fisheries, Limited, occupied the whole of one floor. If Harry had felt nervous when climbing the familiar stairs in Leadenhall Street, he might well have been overpowered by the palatial character of the new premises. A commissionaire with as many medals as a Field-Marshal handed his card to one gentleman, who passed it on to another gentleman, who carried it through a ground-glass door. Harry was then conducted into a luxurious waiting-room in which two or three busy-looking men were glancing alternately at their watches and at the illustrated papers which strewed the table. A single gigantic salmon occupied a glass case running the length of the mantelpiece, while several new oil paintings hung upon the walls. Harry noticed that the subjects were exclusively Scottish, and that one at least was by a distinguished Academician, of whose name the most was made in black letters on a gilt tablet.

In such surroundings the visitor found it a little difficult to rehearse what he had determined to say to Lowndes, and it was no misfortune that kept him waiting the better part of an hour. The delay gave him time to gather his wits and to recollect his points. It prepared him for a new Gordon Lowndes. It steadied his feet when they sank into the rich carpet of a still more sumptuous apartment, in the middle of which stood the most magnificent desk he had ever seen; it kept his eye from being distracted from the resplendent gentleman who sat at the desk, the gentleman with the orchid in the silken lapel of his frock-coat, and with everything new upon him but the gold eye-glasses that bridged the twitching nose.

Before his mouth opened beneath his waxed moustache, Harry felt convinced that Lowndes had seen Scrafton, and was fully prepared for this visit.

"Well, Ringrose, what can I do for you?" he cried, as Harry advanced, and his tone was both cold and sharp.

"Ask your typist to step into another room," replied Harry, glancing towards the young girl at the clicking Remington.

Lowndes opened his eyes. Indeed, Harry had begun better than he himself expected, and his confidence increased as the other turned to his typist.

"Be good enough to leave us for a minute, Miss Neilson; we shan't be longer," said Lowndes pointedly. "Now," he added, "kindly take a seat, Ringrose."

But Harry came and stood at the other side of the magnificent desk.

"I want to ask you two or three questions, Mr. Lowndes," said he quietly.

"About the Company, eh?"

"No, not about the Company, Mr. Lowndes."

"Then this is neither the time nor place, and it will have to be a very short minute. But blaze away."

"What is there between you and that man Scrafton?" asked Harry, and for the life of him he could steady his voice no longer. His very lip was trembling now.

"Which man Scrafton?" asked Lowndes, beginning to smile.

"You know as well as I do!" Harry almost shouted. "The other master in the school at Teddington – the man whose existence you pretended not to know of when I met you that afternoon on Ham Common. I ask you what there is between you. I ask you why you pretended there was nothing that Saturday afternoon – that Monday morning when you came to intercept him and pretended you had come to see me. I ask you what there was between that ruffian and – my father!"

His voice was almost breaking in his passion and his agony, but he was no longer nervous and self-conscious. That agony of doubt and of suspicion – that passionate determination to know the truth – had already floated him beyond the shoals of self. Lowndes waved a soothing hand, and his tone altered instantly. It was as though he realised that he was dealing with a dangerous fellow.

"Steady, Ringrose, steady!" said he. "You must answer me one question if you want answers to all those."

And there was a touch of the old kindness in his tone, a strange and disconcerting touch, for it sounded genuine.

"As many as you like —I have nothing to hide," cried Harry. And he had the satisfaction of making Lowndes wince.

"What makes you think I am acquainted with the man you mention?"

"What makes me think it?" echoed Harry, with a hard laugh. "Why, I've seen you together!"

"When?" cried Lowndes.

"The very day I saw you last. I came over to tell you something I'd heard the fellow say. I wanted to consult you of all men! And there were the two of you walking up and down your garden path."

"Was it the evening?"

"Yes, it was, and you walked up and down by the hour – like conspirators – like confederates!"

Lowndes had started up and was leaning across his desk. His hands gripped the edge of it. His face was ghastly.

"Spy!" he hissed. "You listened to what we were saying."

"I didn't," retorted Harry. "You knew one gentleman even then."

There were several sorts of folly in this speech: no sooner was it uttered than Harry saw one. Had he been less ready to deny the eavesdropping he might have learnt something now. By pretending to know much he might have learnt all. He had lost a chance.

And Gordon Lowndes – that arch-exponent of the game of bluff – was quick as lightning to appreciate his good fortune. The blood rushed back to his face, his hands came away from the mahogany (two little tell-tale dabs they left behind them), and he sank back into his luxurious chair – with a droop of the eyelids and ever so slight a shake of the head – an artist deploring the inartistic for art's sake while he welcomed it for his own.

Harry was furious at his false move, and at this frank though tacit recognition of the lost advantage.

"I wish I had listened!" he cried. "God knows what I should have heard, but something you dare not tell me, that I can see. There! I have been fool enough to answer your questions; now it's your turn to answer mine, and to tell me what there is between you and Scrafton."

"Well, he's a man I've had a slight acquaintance with for a year or two. He lodges – or he did lodge – in Richmond. I scraped acquaintance with him because his face interested me. But it isn't more interesting than the man himself, who is the one genius I know – the one walking anachronism – "

"I know all about that," interrupted Harry. "Why did you pretend you knew nothing about him? That's what I want to get at. You don't deny you led me to think you had never heard of him?"

"No – I did my best to do so."

"You admit it now! And why did you do your best? What was the meaning of it? What had you to gain?"

"Nothing."

"Then why did you do it?"

"My good fellow, that's my business."

"Mine too," said Harry thickly. "This man knows something of my father; you know something of this man; and first you pretend you don't – and then you try to prepare him for meeting me. I suppose you admit it was Scrafton you came to see that morning?"

"Well, I confess I wanted to put salt on the fellow; and, as he'd left Richmond, that was my only way."

"Exactly!" cried Harry. "You wanted to put salt on him because there was some mystery between the two of you and my father, and you were frightened he'd let something out. By God, Lowndes, there's some treachery too, if there isn't crime! Sit still. I'm not going to stop. Ring your bell if you like, and I'll tell every man in the office – I'll tell every big-wig on the board. There's treachery somewhere – there may be crime – and I've suspected it from the beginning. Yes, I suspected you the first time I set eyes upon you. I suspected you when we talked about my poor father in his own room and in the train. You looked a guilty man then – you look a guilty man now. Confess your guilt, or, by the living Lord, I'll tell every director of this Company! Ah, you may laugh – that's your dodge when you're in a corner – you've told me so often enough – but you were white a minute ago!"

The laugh had stopped and the whiteness returned as Lowndes sprang up and walked quickly round the desk to where Harry stood. He laid a hand on Harry's arm. The boy shook it off. And yet there was a kindness behind the other's glasses – the old kindness that had disconcerted Harry once already.

"Consider what you are saying, Ringrose," said Lowndes quietly. "You're going on like a young madman. Pull yourself together and just consider. You talk of telling tales in a way that is neither nice nor wise. What do you know to tell?"

This simple question was like ice on the hot young head.

"Enough, at any rate," he stammered presently, "to put me on the track of more."

"Then I advise you to find out the more before you make use of threats."

"I intend to do so. I'll be at the bottom of your villainy yet!"

Lowndes darkened.

"Do you want to force me to have you turned out?" he asked fiercely. "Upon my word, Ringrose, you try the patience of the best friend you ever had. Didn't I stand by you when you landed? Didn't I do the best I could for you when I was on the rocks myself? Now I'm afloat again I want to stand by you still, but you make it devilish difficult. I honestly meant to make you Secretary of this Company, but when the chap who helped me to pull it through asked for the billet, what could I do? Here's an envelope that will show you I haven't forgotten you; take it, Ringrose, and look at it at your convenience, and try to think more charitably of an old friend. Recollect that I was your father's friend first."

"So you say," said Harry, taking the long thick envelope and looking straight through the gold-rimmed glasses. "I will believe you when you tell me where he is."

"I know no more than the man in the moon."

"You were at the bottom of his disappearance!"

"I give you my word that I was not."

"You know whether he is dead or alive!"

"I do not, Ringrose."

"Then tell me where you saw him last!"

"You sicken me," cried Lowndes, losing his temper suddenly. "I told you the whole story six months ago, and now you want me to tell it you again so that you may challenge every point. I'll answer no more of your insolent questions, and I'll tell the commissionaire to mark you down and never to admit you again. You hold in your hand fifty shares in this Company. Next week they will be worth a hundred pounds – next month perhaps a thousand – next year very likely five. Take them for your mother's sake, if not for your own, and for God's sake let me never see your face again!"

"From the man who may be at the bottom of our disgrace? No, thank you – not until you tell me what you did with my father – you and Scrafton between you!"

"I have already answered you."

"Then so much for your fifty shares."

The long envelope spun into the fire. Lowndes darted to his desk, caught the electric bell that dangled over it, and pressed the button. Harry stalked to the door, turned round, and faced him for the last time.

"You will not tell me the truth; very well, I will find it out. I will find it out," cried Harry Ringrose in a breaking voice, "if I have to spend my whole life in doing so. And if you have wronged my father I will have no mercy on you; and if you have not – all I ask is – that you – have no mercy on me!"

CHAPTER XXIII
THE END OF THE BEGINNING

Harry drifted through the fog, the sport of misery and rage. He was a beaten man, and slow as another to own it to himself. Now he swore that he and he alone would unravel the mystery of his father's fate; now the sense of his own impotence appalled him; but at last the bitter fact of his defeat came home to him in all its nakedness.

Yes, he had been beaten by a readier and a keener wit, and the most plausible tongue a villain ever wagged. He had been at the mercy of that specious charlatan, that unscrupulous blackleg, that scoundrel self-confessed. He knew it now. Lowndes had put him in the wrong. He was no match for a man like that. Nevertheless, he was in the right, and one day it would be proved – and one day Lowndes would get his deserts.

And yet – and yet – there were words and looks and tones that had sounded genuine enough. The man was not wholly false or bad. His good side, his staunch side, had shown itself again and again, in good and staunch actions performed without ostentation, and in motive transparently pure. That side existed in him still, and Harry felt that he had spoken as though it did not. He was sorry for many things he had said. He wished he had said other things instead or as well. He wished he had not flung those shares into the fire, though they proved that Lowndes had expected him, and they must have been intended for a sop. Still he was sorry he had thrown them on the fire; and he wished he could unsay that boast about his being a gentleman because he had not listened; other considerations apart, it struck him now almost as a contradiction in terms.

So to existing tortures he must needs add that of savage self-criticism. It was the morbid wont of Harry Ringrose, the penalty of a temperament. In a little, however, sheer perplexity gripped his mind again, and wrenched it from himself. The old unanswered questions were upon him once more.

What had there been between Lowndes and Scrafton and his own poor father? Were these men in league with the fugitive? Had they planned the wrong which had ruined and disgraced his family? Lowndes had long ago confessed that the raising of the £20,000 was his idea, that the actual acquisition of the £10,000 was his deed. The chances were that his scheme had gone further and cut deeper, and that at least a part of the plunder was for himself. Then what had he done with his share – and what had Scrafton done with his?

How else could Scrafton come in?

Harry thought of that ghoulish face, of those cruel hands, and the blood ran cold in every vessel. If ever he had seen a man capable of any crime, a man without bowels, as Lowndes was without principle, that man was Jeremiah Scrafton. What if between them they had murdered the ironmaster for those ten thousand pounds? What if they had driven him out of his mind and clapped him into an asylum, or into some vile den of Scrafton's? Ever quicker to imagine than to reason, the young fellow tasted all the horror of his theories before he realised their absurdity: where, again, were the proceeds of the crime? Lowndes was only now emerging from the very depths of poverty, while as for Scrafton, he was either an extremely poor man, or a stage miser come to life. Besides, there was the letter from Dieppe.

So he went from one blind alley of the brain to another; and of all the faces that passed him in the fog, there was none he knew – he had no friend to turn to in his sore dilemma. And he was trudging westward, going back to face his mother and to live with her in the little flat, with this miserable mystery unsolved, with these haunting suspicions unconfirmed, and therefore to be locked indefinitely in his own bosom. Vultures for his vitals, and yet he must face them, and alone.

No one to tell – no friend to consult. The words were a dirge in his heart. Suddenly they changed their tune and became a question. He stopped dead in the street. It was the Strand. He had just passed the gulf of fog which hid Waterloo Bridge.

He stood some minutes, ostensibly studying the engravings in the shop at the Adam Street corner, and looking again and again at his watch as though anxious to know the time, but too absent to bear it in mind. It was five minutes to one when he looked first; by five minutes past that shop-window and the Strand itself knew Harry Ringrose no more. He was deep in the yellow gulf, which was dimly bridged by the lights of the bridge.

The train took an hour to feel its way to Richmond: it was worse than the hour spent in the waiting-room of the Crofter Fisheries, Limited.

At Richmond the fog was white. To make an end of it, Harry took a cab, and kept the man waiting while he asked if Miss Lowndes was in. A smart parlour-maid told him that she was; otherwise there was no change.

Fanny rose hastily from a low chair in front of a blazing fire; her face was flushed but smiling, and she held up a paper in one hand while she gave Harry the other.

He took it mechanically. He had not meant to take it at all. It was the wretched Tiddler, of all papers, which disarmed him.

"I was just thinking about you," said his friend. "I was trying to find out which is yours this week."

"Yes?"

There was no life in his voice. His heart had leapt with pleasure, only to begin aching in a new place.

"We take it in every week on your account," said Fanny Lowndes.

"You mean that you do," said Harry, pointedly.

She coloured afresh.

"No; it is my father who brings it home from the City."

"Then he never will again!"

For some seconds their eyes were locked.

"Mr. Ringrose, what do you mean? Your tone is so strange. Has anything happened?"

"Not to your father. He and I have quarrelled – that's all."

"When?"

"This morning."

"And you have come to tell me about that!"

"I didn't mean to do so. I came to speak to one of the only two friends I have in the world besides my mother. I came to speak to you while – while you would speak to me. And now I've gone and spoilt it all!"

"Of course you haven't," said the girl, with her kind smile. "Sit down and tell me all about it. I think all the more of you for saying the worst thing first." Yet she looked alarmed, and her tone was only less agitated than his.

"It is not the worst," groaned Harry Ringrose, "and I can't sit down to say the sort of thing I've come to say. Oh, but I was a coward to come to you at all! It was because I had no one else to turn to; and you have always been my friend; but it was a cowardly thing to do! I will go away again without saying a word."

She had sunk down upon her low chair, and was leaning forward so that he could not see her face, but only the red gold of her hair in the ruddy firelight.

"No; now you must go on," she said, without raising her face.

"It is about your father – and mine."

"I expected that."

"I asked him some plain questions which he could not – or would not – answer. In desperation – in distraction – I have come to put those questions to you!"

"It is useless," was the low reply. "I cannot answer them – either."

"Wait until you hear what they are. They are very simple. What was there between Scrafton and your father and mine? What had your father and Scrafton to do with my father's flight? That's all I ask – that's all I want to know."

"I cannot tell you what you want to know."

"Cannot," he said gently, "or dare not?"

"Cannot!" she cried, and was on her feet with the word, her burning face flung back and her grey eyes flashing indignation.

Harry bowed.

"That is enough for me," he said, "and I apologise for those last words – but you would understand them if you had heard all that passed this morning."

"I do not want to know what passed. My father's affairs are not necessarily mine. I cannot tell you what you want to know because – I do not know myself."

"You have made that clear to me," said Harry, staring out of the window and through the fog. He could see the gate with the ridiculous name still painted upon it. It stood wide open as he had left it in his haste. He thought of the first time he had seen it and entered by it; he thought of the second time, which had also been the last; and all at once he thought of a question asked upon the other side of the gate, and never answered, nor repeated, nor yet remembered, from that day to this.

He turned to his companion.

"You once told me that you knew my father?"

"Yes, I knew him."

"You have seen him here in this house?"

"Yes."

"I am going to ask you what I asked you once before. You did not answer then. I entreat you to do so now. When was the last time you saw my father in this house?"

The girl drew back in dismay; not a syllable came from her parted lips.

"Was it since I asked you the question last?" cried Harry, his imagination at its wildest work in a moment.

"No."

"Was it after he was supposed to have disappeared?"

"No."

"Was it after he left my mother up north?"

Miss Lowndes turned away, but there was a mirror over the mantelpiece, and in it he could see her scarlet anguish. Harry set his teeth. He must know the truth – the truth came first.

"So he was here on his way through town. I understood it was my mother who saw him last. I have to thank you – I do so from my heart – for setting me so far upon the right track. Oh, I know what it must be to you to have such things forced from you! I hate to press you like this. No, Miss Lowndes, duty or no duty, you have only to say the word, and I will leave you alone." He could not bear the sight of her quivering shoulders, of the pretty pink ear that was all her hands now let him see of her face. Unconsciously, however, he had made his strongest appeal in his latest words; his magnanimity fired that of the girl, his consideration touched her to the quick, and she turned to him with noble impulse in her frank, wet eyes.

"I will tell you of the last time I saw your father," she cried, "on one condition. You are to question me no more when I have finished."

Harry took her hand.

"I promise," he said, and released it instantly. It was no time to think of her. He must think only of his purpose – his duty – his sacred obligation as a son.

"It was on Easter Eve," said his friend steadily. "I was up in my room – it was just dinner-time – and I saw him come in at the gate." She could not conceal a shudder. "He looked terrible – terrible – so sad and so old! My father must have seen him too. I heard their voices, but I did not hear what they said; my father lowered his voice, and I thought I heard him telling Mr. Ringrose to do the same. It was all I did hear. My father came upstairs and said a business friend had come unexpectedly, and would I mind not coming down? So my dinner was sent up to me, and afterwards in the dark I saw them go together to the gate; and at the very gate they met that dreadful man – that man whose face alone is enough to haunt one. Oh, you know him better than any of us! You are a master in the same school."

"Not now," said Harry. "I left yesterday on that man's account. Didn't he come here yesterday to tell your father?"

"Not here. He may have been to the new offices. I saw last night there had been some unpleasantness. Unpleasantness! If you knew what we have suffered from that monster! One reason why we got in such difficulties was because he was always coming – " She checked herself suddenly, with a gesture of disgust and of some underlying emotion.

"And is that all?" asked Harry gently. "Am I to know nothing beyond that meeting at the gate?"

"No, I will tell you the very last I saw of your father – and I will tell you what I think. The very last I saw of him was when they all three went out together after talking for a few minutes in the dining-room below mine. I did not hear a word. What I think is – may God forgive me, whether I am right or wrong – that the flight was arranged in those few minutes."

"You think your father knew all about it?"

"I cannot help thinking that."

"When did he come back?"

The girl turned white.

"Your promise!" she gasped. "You promised to ask no more questions!"

"I see," said Harry, grimly. "Your father crossed the Channel with mine. This is news indeed!"

"It is not!" cried Miss Lowndes. "I don't admit it. I don't know it. I don't believe it. He told me he had been up in Scotland; he was always going up to Scotland then. Oh, why do you try to wring more from me than I know? I have told you all I know for a fact. Why do you break your promise?"

"I didn't mean to," he answered brokenly. "And yet – it was my duty – to my poor father."

"Your father is gone," she cried. "Spare mine – and me."

"Do you mean that he is – dead?"

She looked at him an instant with startled eyes, as though his had read the secret suspicion of her heart; then with a wild sob, "I do not know, I do not know," she cried piteously. With that she burst into tears. He tried to soothe her. "Leave me – leave me," was all her answer, and in his helplessness he turned to do so – to leave her bowed down and weeping passionately – weeping as he had never seen woman weep before – in the chair from which she had risen to welcome him – with that foolish paper still lying crumpled at her feet.

It was so he saw her when he turned again at the door, for a last look at his friend. The white fog pressed against the panes; a little mist there was in the room, but the fire burnt very brightly, and against the glow were those small ears pink with shame, those strong hands racked with anguish, that fine head bowed low, that lissom figure bent double in the beautiful abandon of a woman's grief. Young blood took fire. He forgot everything but her. He could not and he would not leave her so; in an instant his arms were about her, he was kissing her hair.

"I love you – I love you – I love you!" he whispered. "Let us think of nothing else. If we are never to see each other again, thank God I have told you that!"

She pushed him back in horror.

"But it is dreadful, if it is true," she said; and yet she held her breath until he vowed it was.

"I have loved you for months," he said, "though I didn't know it at first. I never meant to love you. I couldn't help myself – it makes me love you all the more." And his arms were round her once more, in the first earnest passion of his life, in the first sweet flood of that passion.