The King of Diamonds Part 40

Philip walked on roses during those glorious days. He had found his mate. His life was complete. How bright the world, and how fair the future.

The only disagreeable incident marring the utter joy of existence, and that only for an instant, was his encounter with Langdon at Mrs.

Atherley's pretty flat in Mount Street.

Grenier, endowed by nature with an occasional retrospective glimpse of a n.o.bler character, read him correctly, when he said that Anson would never condescend to name the intruder in the presence of the woman he loved.

But he did ask a servant who it was with whom he had just been conversing in the entrance hall, and the girl said the gentleman was a Mr. Langdon. No; Mrs. Atherley did not know him well. He was brought to her "At Home" on a previous Wednesday by a friend.

Obviously Evelyn could not have more than a pa.s.sing acquaintance with the man, or she would have recognized him herself. Her agitation that night in the park, the terror of a difficult situation, was enough to account for her failure in this respect, nor was Philip then aware that at her previous meeting with Lady Morland's son she entertained a curious suspicion, instantly dispelled by his glib manner, that Langdon was the man who sought to thrust his unwelcome attentions upon her.

Mount Street--how came Mrs. Atherley and her daughter to return to the precincts of Mayfair? That was a little secret between Philip and Lord Vanstone.

When Evelyn slyly endeavored to make her new admirer understand that there could be no intimacy between a millionaire and a young lady who was embarking on a professional career--she thought so, be it recorded; this is no canon of art--he seemingly disregarded the hint, but interviewed Lord Vanstone next morning.

The conversation was stormy on one side and emphatic on the other.

Philip had heard sufficient of Mrs. Atherley's history by judicious inquiry to enable him to place some unpleasant facts before his lords.h.i.+p.

When the facts had been thrust down the aristocratic gorge, Anson turned to pleasanter topics. He informed Lord Vanstone, who bore the t.i.tle as the third son of a marquis, that his niece's future was more important than his lords.h.i.+p's dignity. He must eat mud for her sake, and willingly withal.

Various firms of solicitors set to work, and, marvelous to relate, Lord Vanstone was able to write and inform his half-sister that certain speculations in which he had invested her fortune were turning out well.

A cash payment of two thousand pounds would be made to her at once, and she possessed an a.s.sured income of at least one thousand five hundred pounds per annum during the remainder of her life.

The poor lady had heard these fairy tales before; indeed, some such story of more gorgeous proportions had converted her consols into waste paper.

But a lawyer, not Lord Vanstone's, sent her a check for the larger amount, and, at a subsequent interview, affirmed the statements made by her unreliable relative.

So she went back to her caste, and her caste welcomed her with open arms, and the dear woman thanked Providence for the decree that her daughter might now accept the attentions of any man, no matter how rich he might be, for she saw the drift of Philip's wishes, and, if Evelyn were married to him, surely all their previous trials might be deemed fortunate.

She little dreamed that imperious Philip had ordered matters his own way.

It was not to his thinking that his bride should come to him from the genteel obscurity of Maida Crescent. He would give her a great position, worthy of the highest in the land, and it was better for her that he should woo and win her from the ranks of her order.

It should not be imagined that he was hasty in his decision. To his mind, Evelyn and he were known to each other since they were children.

It was not by the wayward caprice of chance that he met her on the night of the meteor's fall, nor again, that he came to her a.s.sistance a second time after the lapse of years.

It was his mother's work. He was faithful to her memory--she to her trust. Never did his confidence waver. On the day that Evelyn consented to marry him he showed her his mother's photograph, and told her his belief.

The girl's happy tears bedewed the picture.

"A good son makes a good husband," she murmured. "Mamma says I have been a good daughter, and I will try to be a good wife, Philip."

Apparently these young people had attained the very pinnacle of earthly happiness. There was no cloud, no obstacle. All that was best in the world was at their feet.

Some such thought flitted through Philip's active brain once when Evelyn and he were discussing the future.

"Of course we will be busy," he said, laughing. "You are such an industrious little woman--what? Well--such an industrious tall woman--that the days won't be long enough for all you will find to do.

As for me, I suppose I must try and earn a peerage, just to give you your proper place in society, and then we will grow old gracefully."

"Oh, Philip," she cried, placing her hands on his shoulders. "We met once as children for a few minutes. Fate ordained that we should meet again under strange circ.u.mstances. We were separated for years. Can fate play us any uncanny trick that will separate us again?"

"Well, sweetheart, fate, in the shape of Wale, is coming for me at six.

Unless you wish me to send for my man and dress here----"

"Sometimes I cannot quite credit my good fortune," she said, softly.

"Tell me, dearest, how did you manage to live until you were twenty-five without falling in love with some other girl?"

"That is ridiculously easy. Tell me how you managed to escape matrimony until you were twenty-two and you are answered."

"Philip, I--I liked you that night I saw you in the square. You were a woe-begone little boy, but you were so brave, and gave me your hand to help me from the carriage with the air of a young lord."

"And I have cherished your face in my waking dreams ever since. You looked like a fairy. And how you stuck up for me against your uncle!"

"Tell me, what did you think of me when you saw me standing disconsolate in the park?"

Tell, tell, tell--it was nothing but sweet questions and sweet a.s.surances that this pair of turtle doves had been seeking each other through all eternity.

Their wedding was fixed for the middle of July. Sharp work, it may be said, but what need was there to wait? Mr. Abingdon was greatly pleased with Philip's choice, and urged him to settle down at the earliest possible date.

Mrs. Atherley, too, raised no protest. The sooner her beloved daughter was married, the more rapidly would life resume its normal aspect; they would not be long parted from each other.

The young people had no housekeeping cares. Philip's mansions were replete with all that could be desired by the most fastidious taste. His yacht was brought to the Solent, so that they could run over to Portsmouth on a motor car to inspect her, and Evelyn instantly determined that their honeymoon in Etretat should be curtailed to permit them to go for a three-weeks' cruise around the British coast.

This suggestion, of course, appealed to Philip. Nothing could be more delightful. He whispered in Evelyn's ear that he would hug her for the idea at the first available opportunity.

One morning, a day of June rain, a letter reached Philip. It bore the printed superscription, "The Hall, Beltham, Devon," but this was struck out and another address subst.i.tuted. It was written in a scrawling, wavering hand, the caligraphy of a man old and very ill. It read:

"MY DEAR PHILIP: I am lying at the point of death, so I use no labored words to explain why I address you in such manner. I want to tell you how bitterly I regret the injustice I showed to your dear mother and my sister. If, of your charity, you will come to my bedside, and a.s.sure a feeble old man of your forgiveness, I can meet the coming ordeal strong in the certainty that Mary Anson will not refuse what you have given in her behalf.

"Your sorrowing uncle, "PHILIP MORLAND."

With this piteous epistle was inclosed another.

"DEAR MR. ANSON: I join my earnest supplication to my husband's that you will console his last hours with a visit. He blames himself for what has happened in the past. Yet the fault was more mine than his--far more. For his sake I willingly admit it. And I have been punished for my sin. Ruined in fortune, with my husband at death's door, I am indeed a sorrowing woman.

"Yours faithfully, "LOUISA MORLAND."

The angular Italian handwriting of the second letter recalled a faded script in his safe at that moment. The address in each case was a village on the Yorks.h.i.+re coast, a remote and inaccessible place according to Philip's unaided recollection of the map. "Grange House"

might be a farm or a broken-down manor, and Lady Morland's admission of reduced circ.u.mstances indicated that they had chosen the locality for economy's sake.

These appeals brought a frown of indecision to Anson's brow. His uncle, and his uncle's wife, had unquestionably been the means of shortening and embittering his mother's life. The man might have acted in ignorance; the woman did not.

Yet what could he do? Refuse a dying relative's last request! They, or one of them, refused his mother's pitiful demand for a little pecuniary help at a time when they were rich.

And what dire mischance could have sunk them into poverty. Little more than two months had pa.s.sed since Sir Philip Morland was inquiring for his--Philip's--whereabouts through Messrs. Sharpe & Smith with a view toward making him his heir.

Was the inquiry Lady Morland's last ruse to save an enc.u.mbered estate?

Why was all pretense of doubt as to his relations.h.i.+p swept aside so completely?