“I am not thinking so much about your comfort as my own,” replied Tab calmly. “It isn’t going to do me a lot of good in any way. Consider yourself ejected.”
Rex grinned.
He sailed for Naples the next afternoon, and Tab went down to the boat to see him off. No mention of Ursula Ardfern was made until the landing bell was ringing.
“I am holding you to your promise, Tab, to introduce me to Miss Ardfern,” he said, and frowned as though at some unhappy recollection. “I wish to heaven she hadn’t been mixed up in the business at all. How on earth do you account for her jewel-case being in poor Uncle Jesse’s vault? By-the-way, the key of that devil room is in my trunk if the police want it. I don’t suppose they will, for they have the other key now.”
He had asked this question about Ursula’s jewels so many times before, that Tab could not keep count of them. Therefore, he did not attempt to supply a satisfactory solution.
Standing on the pier he watched the big ship gliding down the river, and on the whole was glad that the companionship had broken up. He liked Rex and Rex liked him, and they had shared happily the mild vicissitudes which came to young men with large ambitions and limited incomes. Of the two, Tab had been the richer in the old days, and had often helped the other through the morasses which grip the ankles of men who systematically live beyond their means. And now Babe was in calm waters: forevermore superior to the favours of crabbed uncles and businesslike employers: no more would he start at every knock the postman rapped, or scowl at the letters which arrived, knowing that more than half of them were bills he could not hope to satisfy.
Nearly a month had passed since the inquest, and all that Tab had heard about Ursula was that she had been very ill and was now in the country, presumably at the Stone Cottage. He had some idea of going down to see her, but thought better of it.
Meanwhile, he had made respectful enquiries about the girl who had so impressed him.
Ursula Ardfern’s story was a curious one. She had appeared first in a road company, playing small parts and playing them well. Then without any warning, she blossomed forth into management, took a lease of the Athenaeum and appeared playing a secondary role in an adaptation of Tosca—the lead being in the capable hands of Mary Farrelli. The dramatic critics were mollified by her modesty and pleased with her acting: said they would like to see her in a more important part, and hoped that her season would be prosperous. They asked, amongst themselves, who was the man behind the show and found no satisfactory answer. When Tosca came off, after a run of three months, she staged The Tremendous Jones, which played for a year, and this time she was the leading actress. She had gone from success to success, was on the very threshold of a great career. The simple announcement that she had retired from the stage forever was not very seriously believed. Yet it was true. Ursula Ardfern had appeared for the last time before the footlights.
The day that Rex sailed she saved Tab any further cogitation by writing to him. He found the letter at the office.
“Dear Mr. Holland: I wonder if you would come to Stone Cottage to see me? I promise you rather a sensational ‘story,’ though I realize that it will lose much of its importance because I will not have my name mentioned in connection.”
Tab would have liked to have gone then and there. He was up the next morning at six, and chafed because he could not in decency arrive at the house much before lunch.
It was a glorious June day, warm, with a gentle westerly wind, such a day as every doctor with a convalescent patient in his charge, hails with joy and thankfulness.
She was reclining where he had seen her on his first visit to Hertford, but this time she did not rise, but held out a thin, white hand, which he took with such exaggerated care that she laughed. She was paler, thinner of face, older looking in some indefinite way.
“You won’t break it,” she said. “Sit down, Mr. Tab.”
“I like Mr. Tab very much better than I like Mr. Holland,” said Tab. “It is glorious here. Why do we swelter in the towns?”
“Because the towns pay us our salaries,” she said drily. “Mr. Holland, will you do something for me?”
He longed to tell her that if she asked him to stand on his head, or lie down whilst she wiped her feet upon him, she would be gladly obeyed. Instead:
“Why, of course,” he said.
“Will you sell some jewels for me? They are those which were found—in poor Mr. Trasmere’s vault.”
“Sell your jewels,” he said in amazement, “why? Are you—” he checked himself.
“I am not very poor,” she said quietly, “I have enough money to live on without working again—my last play was a very great success, and happily the profits—” She stopped dead. “At any rate, I am not poor.”
“Then why sell your jewelry? Are you going to buy others?” he blurted out.
She shook her head, and a smile dawned in her eyes.
“No, my plan is this: I am going to sell the jewelry for what it is worth, and then I want you to distribute the money to such charities as you think best.”
He was too astonished to answer, and she went on:
“I know very little about charities and their values. I know in some cases all the money subscribed is swallowed up in officials’ salaries. But you
