The Under-Secretary

How little the world knows of the inner life of its greatest men! The popular favourite, the chosen of fortune in the various walks of life, is too often an undeserving man, the skeleton in whose cupboard could not bear the light of day. Fortune never chooses the best men for the best places. Dishonesty grows fat, while virtue dies of starvation. The public are prone to envy the men who are popular, who are “boomed” by the newspapers, and whose doings are chronicled daily with the same assiduity as the movements of the Sovereign himself, yet in many cases these very men, as did Dudley Chisholm, shrink from the fierce light always beating upon them. They loathe the plaudits of the multitude, because of the inner voice of conscience that tells them they are charlatans and shams; and they are always promising themselves that one day, when they see a fitting opportunity, they will retire into private life.

In every public assembly, from the smallest parish council up to Westminster itself, there are prominent members who live in daily fear of exposure. Although looked upon by the world as self-denying, upright citizens, they are, nevertheless, leading a life of awful tension and constant anxiety, knowing that their enemies may at any moment reveal the truth.

Thus it was with Dudley Chisholm. That he was a man well fitted for the responsible post he occupied in the Government could not be denied, and that he had carefully and assiduously carried out the duties of his office was patent to all. Yet the past – that dark, grim past which had caused him to travel in the unfrequented tracks of the Far East – had never ceased to haunt him, until now he could plainly see that the end was very near. Exposure could not be long delayed.

The turret-clock chimed the hour slowly, and its bells aroused him.

“No,” he cried hoarsely to himself, “no, it would not be just! Before taking the final step I must place things in order – I must go out of office with all the honour and dignity of the Chisholms,” he added with a short and bitter laugh. “Out of office!” he repeated hoarsely to himself, “out of office – and out of the world!”

Chapter Twenty One.

Sows Seeds of Suspicion

Chisholm with uneven steps walked back to the big writing-table, turned up the reading-lamp and, seating himself, began to put the many official papers quickly in order, signing some, destroying others, and now and then making marginal notes on those to be returned to the Foreign Office. Many of the more unimportant documents he consigned to the waste-paper basket, but the others he arranged carefully, sorted them, and placed them in several of the large official envelopes upon which the address was printed, together with the bold words “On Her Majesty’s Service.”

The light of hope had died from his well-cut features. His countenance was changed, grey, anxious, with dark haggard eyes and trembling lips. When, at last, he had finished, he rose again with a strange smile of bitterness. He crossed to the portion of the book-lined wall that was merely imitation, opened it, and with the key upon his chain took from the small safe concealed there the envelope secured by the black seal, and the small piece of folded paper which contained the lock of fair hair – his most cherished possession.

He opened the paper and stood with the golden curl in the palm of his hand, gazing upon it long and earnestly.

“Hers!” he moaned in a voice that sounded suspiciously like a sob. “If she were here I wonder what would be her advice? I might long ago have confided in her, told her all, and asked her help. She would have given it. Yes, she was my friend, and would have sacrificed her very life to save me. But it is all over. I am alone – utterly alone.”

Tears stood in his eyes as he raised the love-token slowly and reverently to his lips. Then he spoke again:

“For me there only remains the punishment of Heaven. And yet in those days how childishly happy we were – how perfect was our love! Is it an actual reality that I’m standing here to-night for the last time, or is it a dream? No,” he added, his teeth clenched in firmness, “it’s no dream. The end has come!”

The stillness of the night remained unbroken for a long time, for he continued to stand beside the table with the fair curl in his nervous hand. Many times he had been sorely tempted to destroy it, and put an end to all the thoughts of the past that it conjured up. And yet he had grown to regard it as a talisman, and actually dare not cast it from him.

“Little lock of hair,” he said at last in a choking voice, his eyes fixed upon it, “throughout these years you have formed the single link that has connected me with those blissful days of fervent love. You are the only souvenir I possess of her, and you, emblem of her, fragile, exquisite, tender, were my faithful companion through those long journeys in far-off lands. In days of peril you have rested near my heart; you have been my talisman; you have, sweet and silent friend, cheered me often, telling me that even though long absent I was not forgotten. Yes – yes!” he exclaimed wildly; “you are part of her – actually part of her!” and again he kissed the lock of hair in a burst of uncontrollable feeling.

Suddenly he drew himself up. His manner instantly changed, as the stern reality again forced itself upon him.

“Ah!” he sighed, “those days are long spent, and to me happiness can never return – never. My sin has risen against me; my one false step debars me from the pleasures of the world.” His chin was sunk upon his breast, and he stood staring at the little curl, deep in reverie. At last, without another word, he raised it again to his hot, parched lips, and then folded it carefully in its wrapping.

The envelope he broke open, took out the small piece of transparent paper, and spread it upon a piece of white foolscap in order to read it with greater ease. Slowly he pondered over every one of the almost microscopic words written there. As he read, his heavy brows were knit, as though some of the words puzzled him.

He took a pencil from the inkstand and with it traced a kind of geometrical diagram of several straight lines upon the blotting-pad.

These lines were similar to those he had traced with his stick in the dust when standing at the stile on that steep path in the lonely coppice near Godalming.

Now and then he referred to the small document in the crabbed handwriting, and afterwards examined his diagram, as though to make certain of its correct proportions. Then, resting his chin upon his hands, he sat staring at the paper as it lay upon the blotting-pad within the zone of mellow lamplight.

“It seems quite feasible,” he said at last, speaking aloud. “Would that the suggestion were only true! But unfortunately it is merely a vague and ridiculous idea – a fantastic chimera of the imagination, after all. No,” he added resolutely, “the hope is utterly false and misleading. It will not bear a second thought.”

With sad reluctance he refolded the piece of transparent paper, replaced it in the envelope, and put it back in the safe without resealing it. But from the same unlocked drawer he took a formidable-looking blue envelope, together with a tiny paper folded oblong, and sealed securely with white wax. The paper contained a powdered substance.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary carried them both back to his writing-table, and laid them before him. Upon the envelope was written in a bold legal hand, doubly underlined: “The Last Will and Testament of Dudley Waldegrave Chisholm, Esquire (Copy).”

He smiled bitterly as he glanced at the superscription, then drew out the document and spread it before him, reading through clause after clause quite calmly.

There were four pages of foolscap, engrossed with the usual legal margin and bound together with green silk. By it the Castle of Wroxeter and his extensive property in Shropshire were disposed of in a dozen words. The document was only lengthy by reason of the various bequests to old servants of the family and annuities to certain needy cousins. With the exception of the Castle and certain lands, the bulk of the great estate was, by that will, bequeathed to a well-known London hospital.

Some words escaped him when, after completing its examination, during which he found nothing he wished to be altered, he refolded it. He then sealed it in another envelope and wrote in a big, bold hand: “My Will – Dudley Chisholm.”

As the names of his solicitors, Messrs Tarrant and Drew, of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, were appended to the document, there was no necessity for him to superscribe them.

“All is entirely in order,” he murmured hoarsely. “And now I have to decide whether to await my doom, or take time by the forelock.” As he spoke thus, his nervous hand toyed with the little paper packet before him.

The room was in semi-darkness, for the logs had burned down and their red glow threw no light. At that moment the turret-clock struck a deep note, which echoed far away across the silent Severn.

A strange look was in his eyes. The fire of insanity was burning there. As he glanced around in a strained and peculiar manner, he noticed upon a side table the whiskey, some soda-water, and a glass, all of which Riggs, according to custom, had placed there ready to his hand.

Without hesitation he crossed to it, resolved on the last desperate step. He drew from the syphon until the glass was half-full. Then he added some whiskey, returned with it to his seat, and placed it upon the table.

With care he opened the little packet that had been hoarded since the days of his journey in Central Asia, disclosing a small quantity of some yellowish powder, which he emptied into the glass, stirring it with the ivory paper-knife until all became dissolved. Then he sank into his chair with the tumbler set before him.

He held it up to the light, examining it critically, with a sad smile playing about his thin white lips. Presently he put it down, and with both hands pushed the hair wearily from his fevered forehead.

“Shall I write to Claudia?” he asked himself in a hoarse voice, scarcely louder than a whisper. “Shall I leave her a letter confessing all and asking forgiveness?”

For a long time he pondered over the suggestion that had thus come to him.

“No,” he said at last, “it would be useless, and my sin would only cause my memory to be more hateful. Ah, no!” he murmured; “to leave the world in silence is far the best. The coroner’s jury will return a verdict to the effect that I was of unsound mind. Juries don’t return verdicts of felo-de-se nowadays. The time of stakes and cross-roads has passed.”

And he laughed harshly again, for now that he had placed all his affairs in order a strange carelessness in regard to existence had come upon him.

“To-morrow, when I am found, the papers – those same papers that have boomed me, as they term it – will discover in my end a startling sensation. All sorts of ridiculous rumours will be afloat. Parliament will gossip when it meets; but in a week my very name will be forgotten. One memorial alone will remain of me, my name engraved upon the tablet in the house of the Royal Geographical Society as its gold-medallist. And nothing else – absolutely nothing.”

Again he paused. After a few minutes had passed he stretched out his trembling hand and took the glass.

“What will the world say of me, I wonder?” he exclaimed in a hoarse tone. “Will they declare that I was a coward?”

“Yes,” came an answering voice, low, but quite distinct within the old brown room, “the world will surely say that Dudley Chisholm was a coward —a coward!”

He sprang to his feet in alarm, dashing the glass down on the table, and, turning quickly to the spot whence the answer had come, found himself face to face with an intruder who had evidently been concealed behind the heavy curtains of dark red velvet before the window, and who had heard everything and witnessed all his agony.

The figure was lithe and of middle stature – the figure of a woman in a plain dark dress standing back in the deep shadow.

At the first moment he could not distinguish the features; but when he had rushed forward a few paces, fierce resentment in his heart because his actions had been overlooked, he suddenly became aware of the women’s identity.

It was Muriel Mortimer.

Since he had locked the door behind him as soon as he had entered the room, she must have been concealed behind the heavy curtains which were drawn across the deep recess of the old diamond-paned window.

“You!” he gasped, white-faced and haggard. “You! Miss Mortimer! To what cause, pray, do I owe this nocturnal visit to my study?” he demanded in a stern and angry voice.

“The reason of my presence here was the wish to find a novel to read in bed, Mr Chisholm,” she answered with extraordinary firmness. “Its result has been to save you from an ignominious death.”

Erect, almost defiant, she stood before him. Her face in the heavy shadow was as pale as his own, for she perceived his desperate mood and recognised the improbability of being able to grapple with the situation. He intended to end his life, while she, on her part, was just as determined that he should live.

“You have been in this room the whole time?” he demanded, speaking quite unceremoniously.

“Yes.”

“You have heard my words, and witnessed all my actions?”

“I have.”

“You know, then, that I intend to drink the contents of that glass and end my life?” he said, looking straight at her.

“That was your intention, but it is my duty towards you, and towards humanity, to prevent such a catastrophe.”

“Then you really intend to prevent me?”

“That certainly is my intention,” she answered. Her clear eyes were upon him, and beneath her steady gaze he shrank and trembled.

“And if I live you will remain as witness of my agony, and of my degradation?” he said. “If I live you will gossip, and tell them of all that has escaped my lips, of my despair – of my contemplated suicide!”

“I have seen all, and I have heard all,” the girl answered. “But no word of it will pass my lips. With me your secret is sacred.”

“But how came you here at this hour?” he demanded in a fiercer tone.

“As I’ve already told you, I came to get a book before retiring, and the moment I had entered you came in. Because I feared to be discovered I hid behind the curtains.”

“You came here to spy upon me?” he cried angrily. “Come, confess the truth!”

The curious thought had crossed his mind that she had been sent there by Claudia.

“I chanced to be present here entirely by accident,” she answered. “But by good fortune I have been able to rescue you from death.”

He bowed to her with stiff politeness, for he suspected her of eavesdropping. He felt that he disliked her, and in no half-hearted fashion. Besides, he recollected the prophetic warning of the colonel. It was more than strange that he should discover her there, in that room where his valuable papers were lodged. He scented mystery in her action, and fiercely resented this unwarrantable intrusion upon his privacy.

“My own behaviour is my own affair, Miss Mortimer,” he said in a determined voice.

“Yes, all but suicide,” she assented. “That is an affair which concerns your friends.”

“Of whom you are scarcely one,” he observed meaningly.

“No,” she replied, stretching forth her hand until it rested upon his arm. “You entirely misunderstand me, Mr Chisholm. As in this affair you have already involuntarily confided in me, I beg of you to rely upon my discretion and secrecy, and to allow me to become your friend.”

Chapter Twenty Two.

Requires Solution

With his face to the intruder, Chisholm stood leaning with his hand upon the back of a chair.

“Friends are to me useless, Miss Mortimer,” he answered her.

“Others perhaps are useless, but I may prove to be the exception,” she said very gravely. “You want a friend, and I am ready to become yours.”

“Your offer is a kind one,” he replied, still regarding her with suspicion, for he could not divine the real reason of her visit there, or why she had concealed herself, unless she had done so to learn, if possible, his secret. “I thank you for it, but cannot accept it.”

“But, surely, you do not intend to perform such a cowardly act as to take your own life,” she said in a measured tone of voice, looking at him with her wide-open eyes. “It is my duty to prevent you from committing such a mad action as that.”

“I quite admit that it would be mad,” he said. “But the victim of circumstances can only accept the inevitable.”

“Why, how strangely and despondently you talk, Mr Chisholm! From my hiding-place at the back of those curtains, I’ve been watching you this hour or more. Your nervousness has developed into madness, if you will permit me to criticise. Had it not been for my presence here you would by this time have taken your life. For what reason? Shall I tell you? Because, Mr Chisholm, you are a coward. You are in terror of an exposure that you dare not face.”

“How do you know?” he cried fiercely, springing towards her in alarm. “Who told you?”

“You told me yourself,” she answered. “Your own lips denounced you.”

“What did I say? What foolish nonsense did I utter in my madness?” he demanded, the fact now being plain that she had heard all the wild words that had escaped him. The old colonel had warned him that this woman was not his friend. He reflected that, at all costs he must silence her. She paused for a few moments in hesitation.

“Believing yourself to be here alone, you discussed aloud your secret in all its hideousness – the secret of your sin.”

“And if I did – what then?” he demanded defiantly. His courtliness towards her had been succeeded by an undisguised resentment. To think that she should have been brought into his house to act as eavesdropper, and to learn his secret!

“Nothing, except that I am now in your confidence, and, having rescued you from an ignominious end, am anxious to become your friend,” she answered in a quiet tone of voice. Her face was pale, but she was, nevertheless, firm and resolute.

He was puzzled more than ever in regard to her. With his wild eyes full upon her, he tried to make out whether it was by design or by accident that she was there, locked in that room with him. That she was an inveterate novel-reader he knew, but her excuse that she had come there to obtain a book at so late an hour scarcely bore an air of probability. Besides, she had exchanged her smart dinner-gown for a dark stuff dress. No, she had spied upon him. The thought lashed him to fury.

“To calculate the amount of profit likely to accrue to oneself as the result of a friend’s misfortune is no sign of friendship,” he said in a sarcastic voice. “No, Miss Mortimer, you have, by thus revealing your presence, prolonged my life by a few feverish minutes, but your words certainly do not establish the sincerity of your friendship. Besides,” he added, “we scarcely know each other.”

“I admit that; but let us reconsider all the facts,” she said, leaning a little toward him, across the back of a chair. “Your actions have shown that the matter is to you one of life or death. If so, it manifestly deserves careful and mature consideration.”

He nodded, but no word passed his lips. She seemed a strangely sage person, this girl with the fair hair, whose parentage was so obscure, and whose invitation to his house was due to some ridiculous penchant felt for her by Claudia. Why she had ever been invited puzzled him. He would gladly have asked her to return to town on the day of her arrival if it had been possible to forget the laws of hospitality and chivalry. The whole matter had annoyed him greatly, and this was its climax.

“Well, now,” she went on, in a voice which proved her to be in no way excited, “I gather from your words and actions that you fear to face the truth – that your guilt is such that exposure will mean ruin. Is this so?”

“Well, to speak plainly, it is so,” he said mechanically, looking back at the glassful of death on the table.

“You must avoid exposure.”

“How?”

“By acting like a man, not like a coward.”

He looked at her sharply, without replying. She spoke with all the gravity of a woman twice her years, and he could not decide whether she were really in earnest in the expression of her readiness to become his friend. One thing was absolutely certain, namely, that she was acquainted with the innermost secrets of his heart. In the wild madness of despair he had blurted out his fear and agony of mind, and she had actually been the witness of those moments of sweet melancholy when, at the sight of that lock of hair, he had allowed his thoughts to wander back to the days long dead, when the world was to him so rosy and full of life. Should he conciliate her, or should he, on the other hand, defy her and refuse her assistance? That she, of all women, should in this fashion thrust herself into his life was strange indeed. But had she actually thrust herself upon him, or was her presence there, as she had alleged, a mere freak of fortune?

“You say that I ought to act like a man, Miss Mortimer. Well, I am ready to hear your suggestion.”

“My suggestion is quite simple: it is that you should live, be bold, and face those who seek your downfall.”

He sighed despairingly.

“In theory that’s all very well, but in practice, impossible,” he answered after a short pause.

“Think! You are wealthy, you are famous, with hosts of friends who will come to your aid if you confide in them – ”

“Ah! but I cannot confide in them,” he cried despondently, interrupting her. “You are the only person who knows the secret of my intention.”

“But surely you will not deliberately seek such an inglorious end – you, the pride and hope of a political party, and one of a race that has century after century been famous for producing noble Englishmen. It is madness – sheer madness!”

“I know it,” he admitted; “but to me birth, position, wealth, popularity are all nothing.”

“I can quite understand that all these qualities may count as nothing to you, Mr Chisholm,” she said in a tone of voice indicative of impatience, “but there is still one reason more why you should hesitate to take the step you have just been contemplating.”

“And what is that?”

For a moment she remained silent, looking straight at him with her splendid eyes, as if to read the book of his heart. At length she made answer:

“Because a woman worships you.”

He started, wondering quickly if his midnight visitor intended those words to convey a declaration of love. With an effort he smiled in a good-humoured way, but almost instantly his dark features regained their tragic expression.

“And if a woman pays me that compliment, is it not a misfortune for her?” he asked. There was a motive in her concealment there. What could it be?

“It surely should not be so, if the love is perfect, as it is in the present case.”

“Well,” he said, smiling, “apparently you are better acquainted with my private affairs than I am myself, Miss Mortimer. But in any case the love of this woman whom you mention can be only a passing fancy. True, I was loved once, long ago. But that all belongs to the past.”

“And the only relic of the bygone romance is that lock of hair? Yes, I know all. I have seen all. And your secret is, I assure you, safe with me.”

“But this woman who – well, who is attracted towards me? What is her name?” he demanded, not without some interest.

“You surely know her,” she answered. “The woman who is your best and most devoted friend – the woman in whom you should surely confide before attempting to take such a step as you are contemplating to-night – Lady Richard Nevill.”

His lips again set themselves hard at the mention of that name. Was it uttered in sarcasm, or was she in real earnest? He regarded her keenly for a moment, and then inclined to the latter opinion.

“The relations existing between Lady Richard and myself are our own affair,” he said, vexed by her reference to a subject which of all others, next to the knowledge of his sin, perturbed him most.

“But your secret concerns her,” Muriel declared. “Many times you have confided in her and asked her help at the various crises in your career. Why not now? Her very life is yours.”

“Am I to understand that you wish to pay me compliments, Miss Mortimer?”