Mrs. Vanderstein's jewels. Mrs. Charles Bryce

weakening she redoubled her efforts, and as she talked, refusing to allow herself to be discouraged by Joe’s objections and the difficulties he pointed out, he gradually succumbed to her wheedling, and once he had thrust his scruples into the background became nearly as enthusiastic as she was herself.

      Before they parted the plan was worked out in every point. It remained but to take the faithful necessary friend of Joe’s into their confidence. This, Joe told her, had better be a subaltern in his regiment, by name Baines, luckily in London at the present moment.

      “As long,” he said with a return to former doubts, “as old Baines is equal to the job. There’s not much he’d stick at, though.”

      “Yes,” said Barbara, and was silent a minute during which the difficulties of carrying out her plan successfully seemed to swarm around her with quite a new vigour. “If anything should turn up,” she faltered, “to make this idea impossible, you will try telling Mrs. Vanderstein the truth, won’t you? It is a chance, after all.”

      “Well, it can’t make things worse, I suppose,” he agreed. “I hope it won’t come to that. I don’t think it will now; but if it does, I promise, if it pleases you, that I will make a clean breast of it to her.”

      “Thank you,” she murmured; and then as they turned, “there she is now, making signs that we should go back.”

CHAPTER VIII

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      When they had driven away Sidney wandered off beyond the outskirts of the crowd to a lonely spot among the trees, where he walked up and down, whistling softly to himself and pausing from time to time to aim a blow at the head of an unoffending daisy with his stick.

      “What an ass I am,” he exclaimed presently in heartfelt tones, but a listener who had fancied he was alluding to his foolish gambling on the turf would have been mistaken. His thoughts were engaged on quite a different and much pleasanter subject.

      How lovely she had looked! How sorry she had seemed! What sympathy had shone in her eyes as she listened to his discreditable troubles. How determined she had been to find a way out; surely she could not show such interest in the concerns of all her acquaintances.

      The way out, by the by, now that he thought of it dispassionately, was hardly, perhaps, quite one that a man could take after all and keep the little self-respect left to him; but it was overwhelmingly sweet that she should have lost sight so completely of all considerations except the one of retrieving his fortunes.

      He had always liked and admired her, of course, but never till to-day had he realised what a loyal, brave spirit dwelt behind those sea-blue, childish eyes. There was no girl in the world like her, and was it unduly conceited of him to think she must like him a little to show such agitation at the tale of his misfortunes? And here he frowned and pulled himself up short. What business had he, a ruined gambler, a man whose career was, to all intents and purposes, at an end, to think twice about any girl, much less to feel so absurdly happy? He determined heroically to banish Barbara from his thoughts, and in pursuance of that excellent resolution walked off across the Park at such a tearing speed that little boys whom he passed asked derisively where the other competitors in the race had got to.

      . … .

      It was on the following morning that Mrs. Vanderstein made certain confidences to Barbara, thereby dashing to earth the high hopes she had built of rescuing Sidney from the ruinous meshes in which he had entangled himself.

      To that which Mrs. Vanderstein told her the girl listened at first with incredulity, but a scoffing comment was received with such extreme disfavour that she dared not venture another; and finally, as she heard more and fuller accounts and Mrs. Vanderstein, chafing under a sense of her friend’s disbelief, went so far as to produce written evidence of the truth of the story, Barbara was no longer able to deny to herself that the astounding tale was undoubtedly not the joke she had taken it for, but represented the plain facts of the case.

      With increasing dismay she heard all that Mrs. Vanderstein had to tell her, seeing her hopes for Joe vanish more completely at each new piece of information; and when at the end of the tale her friend reproached her for her lack of sympathy she had much ado to prevent herself from bursting into unavailing tears.

      She was able, however, to summon enough self-control to find some words of affection, which seemed to fill the requirements of the situation; at all events they seemed to satisfy Mrs. Vanderstein. The girl only made one stipulation, and on this point remained obstinate till the elder lady, failing to shake her determination, was at last obliged to yield a reluctant consent.

      As soon as she could escape, Barbara, making the first excuse that occurred to her, ran to her room, where she pinned on a hat without so much as waiting to glance in the looking-glass. Then, snatching up a latch key, she let herself out of the hall door and hurried to the nearest post office.

      Several telegraph forms were filled in, only to be torn up and discarded before she worded the message to her satisfaction; and even when she handed it in under the barrier—which protects young ladies of the post office from too close contact with a public who might, were it not for these precautions, be exasperated into showing signs of violence—she was still regarding it doubtfully, and her fingers lingered on the paper as if reluctant to let it go.

      It was addressed to Joseph Sidney, and covered more than one form.