Claude gripped his hand.

"You're a real brick, Jim, but it can't be done. No, I can't stay to lunch. I've got one or two calls to make. Good-bye."

"Good-bye."

He was about to leave when he turned again.

"You mustn't mind me saying this, Jim. Meredith is seeing a great deal too much of Angela. There is doubtless nothing in it, but--well, Angela is my sister, and I don't like Meredith."

When he had gone Jim sat and pondered over the words. A similar hint had been dropped by Cholmondeley. So Angela was already considered fair spoil by men like Meredith! Meredith was out to win the love that he had lost.

It rankled--it hurt. But behind his fury there lurked the sinister shadow of defeat and humiliation. There were giddy heights to which he could not climb, and to which Meredith was soaring--Meredith, a man he could have taken in his own hands and broken; a cheat, armed with every weapon that culture could forge, and little else.

In the evening he summoned up his failing courage and went to Angela's house. It was one blaze of light and one tumult of sound. A dapper footman opened the door and took his card. He waited in the hall, running his eyes over the rich decorations. From higher up the hall came sounds of revelry, and now and again he caught sight of figures flitting to and fro. The sound of a string band drifted down to him, and then laughter--cultured, high-toned laughter that grated on his nerves.

When eventually he was shown into the drawing-room, he wished he hadn't come. Angela was one blaze of glory. Her guests bowed to him in a fashion that was intended, and succeeded, to make their superiority felt. Angela was cool and remarkably self-possessed.

"I was pa.s.sing and jest dropped in," he explained.

"That was very nice of you. Will you take anything to drink?"

He shook his head negatively. He only wanted to get away from these people. They were too polite to whisper to each other, but their silence was eloquent enough. They were laughing in their sleeves at this unfortunate husband. A figure dawdled up, and bowing, took Angela's arm with a smirking smile. It was Meredith.

It was a pleasure to breathe the fresher air outside. Jim caught the next train to Devonshire, feeling like a dog that has been kicked by its mistress. He arrived home to find a pile of bills--debts incurred by Angela--awaiting him. He glared at them, half inclined to return them and repudiate responsibility. But he didn't. He wrote numerous checks for considerable sums and sent them away.

"What a pace! But it's got to stop. G.o.d, why can't I get a holt on myself.

Jim, you ain't a man. They're putting you through your paces like a circus dog, and you're taking it all lying down."

He jammed on his hat and went striding out into the country.

CHAPTER VII

THE CLIMAX

The months pa.s.sed and a New Year was ushered in. The lonely man at Little Badholme wondered what it held for him. He had seen Angela only once since the evening when he had called on her. She was riding in the Row with Meredith. She had not seen Jim, but Meredith had, and smiled to himself as though he was pleasantly conscious of the pangs he gave the former.

It was after breakfast one morning that the newspaper brought amazing news to Little Badholme. The first piece of news was to the effect that gold had been discovered in big quant.i.ties in the Klond.y.k.e, and that a vast stampede was taking place. The second was of far greater importance, so far as Jim was concerned. It was announced in a comparatively small headline, but it leaped out to him as he casually glanced over the columns.

BIG CRASH ON THE STOCK EXCHANGE.

SECRETARY AND DIRECTORS OF THE AMAZON COPPER COMPANY ABSCOND.

It came as a shock to him. But a few months since he had invested all his money in the Amazon Company! He ran to the telephone and got through to his broker. The reply was what he expected; the Company had gone smash without hope of recovery, the shares were not worth the paper on which they were written. He put up the receiver and sat down to think things over. He was broke. Save for his small bank balance and the house over his head, he had nothing in the world.

He laughed grimly as he reflected upon his meteoric career. In the meantime there was Angela spending as though money came from some eternal fountain! He frowned as he remembered the precious checks that had been paid during the past few months, checks that had reduced his liquid cash reserve to a mere fragment. Though he was unwilling to confess it, it gave him a certain amount of joy to antic.i.p.ate her fall to earth when she realized that the lavish entertaining must cease--that the source of the magic spring had suddenly dried up.

He took the next train to London, dined at the club, and then prepared to break the news to Angela.

At that moment the adorable Angela was receiving a friend. Hilary Meredith, spotlessly garbed, was lounging in the drawing-room, drinking in the strains of a Chopin Nocturne. Not only were his ears gladdened by romantic music, but his eyes were equally exercised by the radiant figure of Angela, bending over the piano, with the red-shaded lights throwing her bare shoulders into perspective and turning her hair to liquid gold. The nocturne ended, she swung round on Meredith.

"How did you like that, Hilary?"

"Superb--dark avenues on a June night, with odorous breezes and the lap of the sea on the beach below--and you, Angela--always you, dreaming in the moonlight."

"Don't be absurd! Why should I dream in the moonlight? And what should I dream?"

He looked at her from under his long eyelashes.

"Of Love, perhaps--who knows?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"I think not."

"Is it then so odious to you?"

"Perhaps."

He flung the end of his cigarette into the fireplace and, standing up, walked across to her.

"You are dazzlingly beautiful to-night, Angela."

"You say that almost every night."

"Why not? A truth cannot too often be reiterated."

She ran her white fingers over the notes of the piano, producing a rippling arpeggio that was like running water.

"Compliments are cheap."

"You think that is a mere compliment? No, you know it isn't. You know I love you madly, desperately, Angela. Let us cease this--acting. Aren't we made for each other? I'm tired of London--tired of everything but you."

She stopped playing and sat perfectly still.

"Aren't you a little impatient, Hilary? You seem to forget I have a husband."

"Husband!" he laughed loudly. "I thought you, too, had forgotten that by this time."

"I haven't," she said.

"Well, it must be an unpleasant memory--the most beautiful woman in London wedded to a cowpuncher! Angela, are you going to waste your life tied to an undesirable? Here is love and devotion waiting.... I haven't all the gold in the universe, but doesn't breeding count?"

"Hilary, you are talking the veriest nonsense."

"Am I? Then why did you ask me here to-night? You knew I would talk this nonsense, and yet you asked me."

"I was lonely--that's all."