Helena's Path

"Very well. We'll start at eight. We may as well walk. By Beach Path it's only about half-a-mile."

"But the path's stopped, Ambrose," Stabb objected.

"I've asked her to have the obstruction removed before eight o'clock," Lynborough explained.

"If it isn't?" asked Roger Wilbraham.

"We have hands," answered Lynborough, looking at his own very small ones.

"Wilbraham wants to know why you don't go to law, Ambrose."

Lord Lynborough never shrank from explaining his views and convictions.

"The law disgusts me. So does my experience of it. You remember the beer, Cromlech? Nobody ever acted more wisely or from better motives. And if I made money – as I did, till the customers left off coming – why not? I was unobtrusively doing good. Then Juanita's affair! I acted as a gentleman is bound to act. Result – a year's imprisonment! I lay stress on these personal experiences, but not too great stress. The law, Roger, always considers what you have had and what you now have – never what you ought to have. Take that path! It happens to be a fact that my grandfather, and my father, and I have always used that path. That's important by law, I daresay – "

"Certainly, Lord Lynborough."

"Just what would be important by law!" commented Lynborough. "And I have made use of the fact in my letter to the Marchesa. But in my own mind I stand on reason and natural right. Is it reasonable that I, living half-a-mile from my bathing, should have to walk two miles to get to it? Plainly not. Isn't it the natural right of the owner of Scarsmoor to have that path open through Nab Grange? Plainly yes. That, Roger, although, as I say, not the shape in which I have put the matter before the Marchesa – because she, being a woman, would be unappreciative of pure reason – is really the way in which the question presents itself to my mind – and, I'm sure, to Cromlech's?"

"Not the least in the world to mine," said Stabb. "However, Ambrose, the young man thinks us both mad."

"You do, Roger?" His smile persuaded to an affirmative reply.

"I'm afraid so, Lord Lynborough."

"No 'Lord,' if you love me! Why do you think me mad? Cromlech, of course, is mad, so we needn't bother about him."

"You're not – not practical," stammered Roger.

"Oh, I don't know, really I don't know. You'll see that I shall get that path open. And in the end I did get that public-house closed. And Juanita's husband had to leave the country, owing to the heat of local feeling – aroused entirely by me. Juanita stayed behind and, after due formalities, married again most happily. I'm not altogether inclined to call myself unpractical. Roger!" He turned quickly to his secretary. "Your father's what they call a High Churchman, isn't he?"

"Yes – and so am I," said Roger.

"He has his Church. He puts that above the State, doesn't he? He wouldn't obey the State against the Church? He wouldn't do what the Church said was wrong because the State said it was right?"

"How could he? Of course he wouldn't," answered Roger.

"Well, I have my Church – inside here." He touched his breast. "I stand where your father does. Why am I more mad than the Archdeacon, Roger?"

"But there's all the difference!"

"Of course there is," said Stabb. "All the difference that there is between being able to do it and not being able to do it – and I know of none so profound."

"There's no difference at all," declared Lynborough. "Therefore – as a good son, no less than as a good friend – you will come and bathe with me to-morrow?"

"Oh, I'll come and bathe, by all means, Lynborough."

"By all means! Well said, young man. By all means, that is, which are becoming in opposing a lady. What precisely those may be we will consider when we see the strength of her opposition."

"That doesn't sound so very unpractical, after all," Stabb suggested to Roger.

Lynborough took his stand before Stabb, hands in pockets, smiling down at the bulk of his friend.

"O Cromlech, Haunter of Tombs," he said, "Cromlech, Lover of Men long Dead, there is a possible – indeed a probable – chance – there is a divine hope – that Life may breathe here on this coast, that the blood may run quick, that the world may move, that our old friend Fortune may smile, and trick, and juggle, and favor us once more. This, Cromlech, to a man who had determined to reform, who came home to assume – what was it? Oh yes – responsibilities! – this is most extraordinary luck. Never shall it be said that Ambrose Caverly, being harnessed and carrying a bow, turned himself back in the day of battle!"

He swayed himself to and fro on his heels, and broke into merry laughter.

"She'll get the letter to-night, Cromlech. I've sent Coltson down with it – he proceeds decorously by the highroad and the main approach. But she'll get it. Cromlech, will she read it with a beating heart? Will she read it with a flushing cheek? And if so, Cromlech, what, I ask you, will be the particular shade of that particular flush?"

"Oh, the sweetness of the game!" said he.

Over Nab Grange the stars seemed to twinkle roguishly.

Chapter Four

THE MESSAGE OF A PADLOCK

Lord Lynborough presents his compliments to her Excellency the Marchesa di San Servolo. Lord Lynborough has learnt, with surprise and regret, that his servants have within the last two days been warned off Beach Path, and that a padlock and other obstacles have been placed on the gate leading to the path, by her Excellency's orders. Lord Lynborough and his predecessors have enjoyed the use of this path by themselves, their agents and servants, for many years back – certainly for fifty, as Lord Lynborough knows from his father and from old servants, and Lord Lynborough is not disposed to acquiesce in any obstruction being raised to his continued use of it. He must therefore request her Excellency to have the kindness to order that the padlock and other obstacles shall be removed, and he will be obliged by this being done before eight o'clock to-morrow morning – at which time Lord Lynborough intends to proceed by Beach Path to the sea in order to bathe. Scarsmoor Castle; 13th June.

The reception of this letter proved an agreeable incident of an otherwise rather dull Sunday evening at Nab Grange. The Marchesa had been bored; the Colonel was sulky. Miss Gilletson had forbidden cards; her conscience would not allow herself, nor her feelings of envy permit other people, to play on the Sabbath. Lady Norah and Violet Dufaure were somewhat at cross-purposes, each preferring to talk to Stillford and endeavoring, under a false show of amity, to foist Captain Irons on to the other.

"Listen to this!" cried the Marchesa vivaciously. She read it out. "He doesn't beat about the bush, does he? I'm to surrender before eight o'clock to-morrow morning!"

"Sounds rather a peremptory sort of a chap!" observed Colonel Wenman.

"I," remarked Lady Norah, "shouldn't so much as answer him, Helena."

"I shall certainly answer him and tell him that he'll trespass on my property at his peril," said the Marchesa haughtily. "Isn't that the right way to put it, Mr. Stillford?"

"If it would be a trespass, that might be one way to put it," was Stillford's professionally cautious advice. "But as I ventured to tell you when you determined to put on the padlock, the rights in the matter are not quite as clear as we could wish."

"When I bought this place, I bought a private estate – a private estate, Mr. Stillford – for myself – not a short cut for Lord Lynborough! Am I to put up a notice for him, 'This Way to the Bathing-Machines'?"

"I wouldn't stand it for a moment." Captain Irons sounded bellicose.

Violet Dufaure was amicably inclined.

"You might give him leave to walk through. It would be a bore for him to go round by the road every time."

"Certainly I might give him leave if he asked for it," retorted the Marchesa rather sharply. "But he doesn't. He orders me to open my gate – and tells me he means to bathe! As if I cared whether he bathed or not! What is it to me, I ask you, Violet, whether the man bathes or not?"

"I beg your pardon, Marchesa, but aren't you getting a little off the point?" Stillford intervened deferentially.

"No, I'm not. I never get off the point, Mr. Stillford. Do I, Colonel Wenman?"

"I've never known you to do it in my life, Marchesa." There was, in fact, as Lynborough had ventured to anticipate, a flush on the Marchesa's cheek, and the Colonel knew his place.

"There, Mr. Stillford!" she cried triumphantly. Then she swept – the expression is really applicable – across the room to her writing-table. "I shall be courteous, but quite decisive," she announced over her shoulder as she sat down.