Jack Collingwood started from London next morning, before the arrival of his mother’s letter, and travelled with only a Saturday-till-Monday bag as representing the necessaries of life, but with a bicycle and a great number of golf clubs for its luxuries. Arthur had been away when he was at Wroxton only a fortnight before, and he had been delighted to accept the invitation, for he not only very much wished to see Arthur, but he had an affair of some importance to talk over with his mother. His last visit home had been, with the exception of that sultry conversation about Lady Hamilton and the sunset, unusually harmonious, and he was, for his own peace of mind, at present unconscious of the squall which had struck the close on the occasion of the opening of the picture exhibition. He was a person of simple, boyish pleasures, and he found entertainment enough in the express to make him abstain[144] from any search for excitement in the daily papers. He timed the speed of the train with the quarter-of-a-mile posts by the side of the line; he leaned out of the window as they swept through flying stations, and he had the prodigious luck of being stopped by signal just opposite the golf-links, when he saw an angry man in a red coat play an absurdly bad shot into a bunker, and his low, furious exclamation flecked the beauty of the morning. Still unconscious of all that lay before him, he arrived at Bolton Street, and was told that Arthur was not in yet, but that Miss Avesham was out in the garden. He followed the butler through the hall and the little conservatory that lay beyond, and as the door was opened he stopped a moment, with a dizzy, bewildered feeling that all this had happened before.

For there in the middle of the lawn was standing a girl opposite him, with a face full of laughter and anxiety, and with her parasol she kept at bay a small retriever puppy which had just left the water, and, still dripping, was evidently coming to his mistress to shake himself and receive her congratulations.[145]

The whole scene was in brilliant sunlight, and Arthur found himself saying:

“The dog is just going to shake!”

The words were not out of his mouth when the puppy’s head was shaken, and down to his shoulders he was black and curly, set in a shower of spray, but the shake had not yet reached his back and tail, the hair of which was still strong and close.

Next moment he stepped out on to the lawn, and Jeannie, seeing him, came a step forward to meet him.

“How do you do, Mr. Collingwood?” she said. “Arthur will be in in a moment. Toby had just fallen into the fountain in trying to catch a bird. Oh, dear, how extraordinary!”

And as the coincidence struck her she laughed.

Now laughter is certainly the best beginning of a friendship, and Jack hailed the omen.

“It seems fated that I should see you keeping off a wet dog,” he said. “Is not the subject forced on me?”

“Indeed it is,” said Jeannie, who had not[146] meant to allude to it at all, and hoped that he would not. But her first exclamation had been quite voluntary, not in her power to check.

“If I had known it was you,” he went on, not even explaining that he alluded to the picture, “of course I should never have done it. And if any one had told me before I came here to-day that it was you, I doubt if I should have come. Anyhow, I should be apologizing now. But twice! It is beyond my control. I think I won’t even apologize.”

“It would be an impertinence to apologize for so clear a dealing of Providence,” said Jeannie. “I, too, was rather uneasy about this moment; I was afraid you might be awkward, and make me so. But certainly you are not. Am I?”

Jack laughed.

“I had not noticed it,” he said. “And here’s the author of it all come to dry himself against me.”

“Toby, come here at once,” said Jeannie.

“You said that before, too,” remarked Jack.

Jeannie’s eyes grew round.[147]

“I believe I did,” she said. “Then we had tea. What a pity! The chain of coincidence is broken. We are only going to have lunch. Of course you know this place well.”

“I have never been in this house before,” said Jack. “It used to belong to a queer old lady who kept forty cats, when I lived here as a boy. My only connection was that I used to catapult the cats when they came over into our garden.”

“Yes, forty is a considerable number,” said Jeannie. “Oh, here are Arthur and my aunt, Miss Fortescue. Anyhow, you haven’t met her before.”

“Excuse me, she was sitting by your hat,” said Jack.

“On it,” said Jeannie; “it was crushed flat.”

Arthur came back alone toward tea-time; Jack, he said, had gone to see his mother.

“It was kinder,” he remarked, “to let him know that a letter had been written, as he had not received it yet, and I did so. He is remarkably brave. He is as bold as a dragoon. He will talk it out, he says.”

“Mrs. Collingwood will rub it in,” said[148] Miss Fortescue. “I am sorry for that young man. Oh, did he behave decently when he met you, Jeannie?”

Jeannie looked up, absently.

“Oh, quite decently,” she said. “It was not at all awkward. He has tact, I think; or, if he hasn’t, I have. Anyhow there was enough tact about for two.”

“No one person has tact for two,” said Miss Fortescue, decidedly. “He must have had some.”

Whatever he looked, Jack Collingwood did not feel nearly as brave as a dragoon, unless dragoons are timid things, when he entered the house in the close. But it was not in anticipation of a cool reception due to the picture which made him distrustful of what the next hour would bring. He hardly gave that a thought, for he had seen Jeannie, and it mattered but little what the rest of the world thought, as long as she had an uninjured mind on the subject. Her frank welcome of him, her utter insouciance on the subject—above all, though he scarcely knew it yet himself, the fact that he had met again that vision by the river, combined to make[149] him almost exultantly happy on that score. His errand to his mother, however, was far different, and full of difficulty.

She met him with a kind, Christian expression. He had received, so she supposed, her note, and the desire to see her after that was filial and laudable, for the note had been strongly expressed. Not that Mrs. Collingwood regretted that: the occasion demanded strong speaking, and her duty dictated to her.

“I am staying with the Aveshams,” he said, “and I remain over the Sunday. Mother, Arthur tells me you have written to me about that picture. I have not received the letter yet, as I started early this morning, but no doubt it will be forwarded to me. Shall we, then, dismiss that for the present, until I have read your note?”

“Certainly, if you wish it,” said Mrs. Collingwood, freezing a little. “But if you came here to talk about that, it is better you should know at once what I think.”

“I didn’t come to talk about that,” said Jack. “I came to ask your advice and your help about a very different matter.[150]”

“I shall be delighted to give it you,” said Mrs. Collingwood, sitting very upright

“It is a very sad story I have to tell you,” he said, “and I want experienced advice about it. You can give it me.”

Mrs. Collingwood relaxed a little. One of the chief businesses of her life was directing and advising, and she enjoyed it.

“Tell me,” she said.

“Do you remember a fellow who stayed here once with me from Oxford,” he asked, “called Frank Bennett?”

Mrs. Collingwood unbent a little more. She had approved of the young man in question.

“Yes, I remember him perfectly,” she said. “He had a beautiful voice, and sang Nazareth after dinner. He sang with great feeling, I remember, and we talked about the aims and career of an oratorio singer.”

Jack could not help smiling. Frank had a unique talent, he had always considered, of adaptability. It was exactly like him to sing Nazareth. He sang other things as well, if not better.

“Yes,” he said, “I see you remember him.[151] He was one of my closest friends. He is dead.”

“Oh, Jack,” she said, “I am so sorry! I liked him so much for himself. Does the advice you want concern him in any way?”

“Yes, very closely.”

Jack paused. His mother had been sympathetic, the thing had touched her, and it was with less apprehension that he went on.

“It concerns him very closely,” he said. “He had a child. No, he was not married——”

He looked steadily at his mother as he said this, and saw the sympathy and warmth die out of her face.

“The girl is also dead,” he continued. “The baby is about ten days old.”

“I should recommend an orphanage,” said Mrs. Collingwood. “I can give you a letter to one.”

“He was an awfully good fellow,” said Jack.

Mrs. Collingwood drew her mouth very tight. There was no reply necessary. Jack rose.

“The girl died suddenly a few days ago,[152]” he said, “only a week after the birth of the baby. Frank died in May last. He appointed me executor of his will, and I see by it that he leaves all he has to his—to this girl in trust for the child. He meant to marry her, he had told me that; of course he ought to have.”

“Of course he ought to have!” said Mrs. Collingwood.

If you can imagine such a thing as a malignant echo, you will know how she spoke.

“You suggest nothing else?” asked Jack, still lingering. “I have already a promise of a place in an orphanage. Of course the child does not want that. There is plenty of money.”

“There is nothing else to suggest,” said Mrs. Collingwood, in a perfectly business-like manner. “I cannot see why you wanted my advice if you already have a place for the child.”

“No; I was wrong,” said Jack.

There was a moment’s silence. All that was righteous and hard in Mrs. Collingwood surged to the surface; all that was human in[153] Jack struggled for utterance. She was the first to speak.

“Jack, how can you come to me with such a story?” she said. “You knew already all that I could possibly say, and that without examin............