Violet Forster's Lover. Marsh Richard

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I counted it, or would you like to count it yourself?"

      "No; it doesn't matter, so long as it's right."

      He was conscious that a piece of paper was on the table in front of him, and that he had a pen between his fingers, though he was not sure how either of them had got there. She pointed to the paper with her finger.

      "Sign here. Just put your name-Jocelyn Kingstone. My dear boy, how your hand does shake!"

      He was aware that it shook, but he was not aware of the glance that the lady exchanged with the gentleman who was on the other side of the table, to whom, when he had made an end of writing, she handed the sheet of paper.

      "What a scrawl! Jocelyn, your writing's getting worse and worse." Then, to the elderly gentleman: "I'm afraid my husband's signature is not a very easy one to read."

      The elderly gentleman surveyed the performance through a pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez smilingly.

      "It isn't very legible, is it? Your signature is not very legible, Sir Jocelyn; it would take an expert to decipher it. Would you mind, Lady Kingstone, witnessing the fact that it is your husband's signature?"

      "Do I mind? Of course I don't." She laughed as if she appreciated the joke of the suggestion. "There-'Witness, Helena Kingstone,'-I think you will be able to read that."

      "That certainly is legible enough. You write a good bold hand, Lady Kingstone, the sort of hand I like a woman to write."

      When the pair had left the room the elderly gentleman said to a younger one who was seated at a table to one side:

      "That's a sad case, a very sad case indeed. That is quite a charming woman, and not bad-looking; while he-he's the sort of person who, in a better ordered state of society, would be consigned to a lethal chamber at the earliest possible moment. Upon my word, I often wonder what makes a woman marry such a man. Fancy, at this time of day, drunk."

      The younger man seemed to consider before he spoke.

      "It struck me that he was something else as well as drunk. He didn't carry himself like an ordinary drunken man. He seemed to be under the influence of some drug. She says that he's been ill; he looks it. I wonder if they've been drugging him to bring him up to concert pitch."

      The elder man shook his head. He seemed to be weighing the other's words.

      "It's a sad case, a very sad case, whichever way you look at it. Poor woman! She may have had her own motives when she promised to love, honour, and obey him, but it's a long row she has set herself to plough."

      When the pair in question were back in the brougham, and the horse's head was turned the other way, they had not gone very far before a distinct change took place in the lady's manner. She was no longer solicitous; she no longer sat close to her companion's side; indeed, she seemed disposed to give him as wide a berth as possible, to ignore him as completely as the exigencies of the situation permitted, and she never spoke a word. She was, possibly, too engrossed with the singularity of her proceedings to pay any attention to him. On her lap was a pile of bank-notes which she was dividing into separate parcels; these parcels she was bestowing in distinctly surprising portions of her attire. She slipped one parcel in the top of one stocking, a second into the top of the other; she took off her shoes, and placed a wad of notes in each; she turned up the sleeves of her coat-into the lining about the wrists, in which an aperture seemed to have been purposely cut, she inserted quite a number. Loosening her bodice, she slipped several into the band at the top of her skirt. With the residue she performed quite a surprising feat of legerdemain. She produced a small bag which was made of what looked like oil-skin, into which she crammed the notes; raising it to the back of her neck, she gave her shoulders a sort of hunch, it slipped down the back of her dress; one could see from the movements she made that she was trying to get it to settle in its proper place. Then, for the first time, she turned towards Beaton.

      Some of her performances had been hardly of the kind which the average woman would care to essay in front of an entire stranger. She had been as indifferent to her companion's presence as if he had been a mechanical figure; and, indeed, when she looked at him, one perceived that he might just as well have been. He seemed to be as devoid of intelligence, as incapable of taking active interest in what was going on about him; it was probable that he had been quite oblivious of what she had been doing. But this time the spectacle he presented, instead of amusing her, seemed to fill her with quite different feelings. She addressed him all at once as if he had been a dog, her voice hard, cold, strident, even a trifle vulgar:

      "Hullo-over there!" He remained still, clearly not realising that he was being spoken to. She went on in the same tone: "Now then, wake up! Haven't you been ill quite long enough? Try another sort of game. Do you hear me speak to you?" Apparently he did not. "Don't you, or won't you? Are you drunk? Now then, this won't do. I'm very much obliged to you, but I've had quite enough of it."

      Leaning towards him, taking him by the shoulder, she began to shake him with considerable vigour, considering he was a man, and a big one, and she was a woman. The effect was, in its way-a grim way, ludicrous. His hat first tilted forward over his nose, then dropped on to the floor; his head fell forward over his chest. It seemed as if, if she kept on shaking him, he would come to pieces. Perceiving this, she stopped, eyeing him more closely, but still with no show of amusement, rather with contempt and annoyance.

      "What's the matter with you? Are you ill, or is it the liqueurs and-the other things? Anyhow, I've had enough of it; I'm not going to have you ill in here. The time has come when we must part. Do you hear? Wake up!"

      He did seem to wake up, in a kind of a fashion. He raised his head with an effort, looking at her with lack-lustre eyes.

      "What is it?"

      "What is it? It's the key of the street, the same key you had before."

      A thought seemed all at once to occur to her. Stooping, she took off her right shoe, from it the wad of notes; selecting one, she replaced the others and the shoe.

      "When I first made your acquaintance you had nothing, and rather less. Now, you've had a good night's rest, a bath, and other luxuries; you've had good food and drink; you are rigged out in decent clothes from head to foot; you've not done badly; but here's something else, as a sort of tit-bit."

      She held out the note. He not only paid no heed to it, but seemingly he had no idea of what it was, or of what she was talking. This time she did seem to be amused; she laughed right out, as if his grotesque helplessness tickled her.

      "Here, you're a pretty sort; I'll put it in your waistcoat pocket for you. Mind you, it's a ten-pound note-do you hear, it's a ten-pound note-for goodness sake do look as if you were trying to understand-and it's in your waistcoat pocket; I've put it there; take care, and don't you lose it; you'll want it before you're very much older."

      She slipped the note into his waistcoat pocket without his showing the slightest sign of interest in what she was doing; he seemed to be mumbling something, for his lips were moving, but it was impossible to make out what he said.

      "Now then, my funny friend, you'd better pull yourself together; we're going to part-try to look as if you were sober, if you aren't."

      She tapped at the window; the carriage stopped; she opened the door and descended.

      "This way, please." Taking him by the arm she drew him towards her, he yielding with the old, uncomfortable docility. Somehow he joined her on the pavement. "You've left your hat behind you, you can't go about London without a hat." Picking it up from the floor of the carriage, she placed it on his head. "That's not straight; there, that's better. What a helpless child

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