III.
Lord Penlyn and his friend and companion, Philip Smerdon, had returned from their yachting tour, which had embraced amongst other places Le Vocq, about a fortnight before Walter Cundall arrived in London from Honduras. The trip had only been meant to be a short one to try the powers of his new purchase, the Electra, but it had been postponed by the storm to some days over the time originally intended. Since he had become engaged to Ida Raughton, he naturally hated to be away from her, and, up till the night before he returned to England, had fretted a great deal at his enforced absence from her.
But the discovery he had made in the Livre des Étrangers at Le Vocq, had had such an effect upon his thoughts and mind that, when he returned to England, he almost dreaded a meeting with her. He was an honourable, straightforward man, and, with the exception of being possessed of a somewhat violent and obstinate temper when thwarted in anything he had set his heart upon, had no perceptible failings. Above all he hated secrecy, or secrecy's next-door neighbour, untruth; and it seemed to him that, if not Ida, at least Ida's father, should be told about the discovery he had made.
"With the result," said Philip Smerdon, who was possessed of a cynical nature, "that Miss Raughton would be shocked at hearing of your father's behaviour, and that Sir Paul would laugh at you."
"I really don't see what there is to laugh at in my father being a scoundrel, as he most undoubtedly was."
"A scoundrel!" Philip echoed.
"Was he not? We have what is almost undoubted proof that he was living for two summers at that place with some lady who could not have been his wife, and whom he must have cast off previous to marrying my mother. And there was the child for whom the landlord took me! He must have deserted that as well as the woman. And, if a man is not a scoundrel who treats his offspring as he must have treated that boy, I don't know the meaning of the word."
"As I have said before, it is highly probable that both of them were dead before he married your mother."
"Nonsense! That is a very good way for a novelist to make a man get rid of his encumbrances before settling down to comfortable matrimony, but not very likely to happen in real life. I tell you I am convinced that, somewhere or other, the child, if not the mother, is alive, and it is horrible to me to think that, while I have inherited everything that the Occleves possessed, this elder brother of mine may be earning his living in some poor, if not disgraceful, manner."
"The natural children of noblemen are almost invariably well provided for," Smerdon said quietly; "why should you suppose that your father behaved worse than most of his brethren?"
"Because, if the estate had been charged with anything I should have known it. But it was not--not for a farthing."
"He might have handed over to this lady a large sum down for her and for her son, when they parted."
"Which is also impossible! He was only Gervase Occleve then, and had nothing but a moderately comfortable allowance from his predecessor, his uncle. He married my mother almost directly after he became Lord Penlyn."
This was but one of half-a-dozen conversations that the young men had held together since their return from France, and Gervase had found comfort in talking the affair over and over again with his friend. Philip Smerdon stood in the position to him of old schoolfellow and playmate, of a 'Varsity friend, and, later on, of companion and secretary. Had they been brothers they could scarcely have been--would probably not have been--as close friends as they were.
When they were at Harrow, and afterwards at Christ Church, Oxford, they had been inseparable, and, in point of means, entirely on an equality, Philip's father being a reported, and, apparently, enormously wealthy contractor in the North. But one day, without the least warning, without a word from his father or the slightest stopping of his allowance, he learnt, by a telegram in a paper, that his parent had failed for a stupendous sum, and was undoubtedly ruined for ever. The news turned out to be true, and Philip knew that, henceforth, he would have to earn his own living instead of having a large income to spend.
"Thank God!" he said, in those days, "that I am not quite a fool, and have not altogether wasted my time. There must be plenty of ways in which a Harrow and Oxford man can earn a living, and I mean to try. I have got my degrees, and I suppose I could do something down at the old shop (meaning the old University, and with no disrespect intended), or get pupils, or drift into literature--though they say that means starvation of the body and mortification of the spirit."
"First of all," said Penlyn, who in that time was the counsellor, and not, as he afterwards became, the counselled, "see a bit of the world, and come along with me to the East. When you come back, you will be still better fitted than you are now for doing something or other--and you are young enough to spare a year."
"Still, it seems like wasting time--and, what's worse!--it's sponging on you."
"Sponging! Rubbish! You don't think I am going alone, do you? And if you don't come, somebody else will! And you know, old chap, I'd sooner have you than any one else in the world."
"All right, Jerry," his friend said, "I'll come and look after you."
But when they found themselves in the East, it turned out that the "looking after" had to be done by Penlyn, instead of by Philip. The one was always well, the other always ill. From the time they got to Cairo, it seemed as if every malady that can afflict a man in those districts fell upon Smerdon. At Thebes he had a horrible low fever, from which he temporarily recovered, but at Constantine he was again so ill, that his friend thought he would never bring him away alive. Nor, but for his own exertions, would he ever have done so, and the mountain city would have been his grave. But Gervase watched by his side day and night, was his nurse and doctor too (for the grave Arab physician did nothing but prescribe cooling drinks for him and herbal medicines), bathed him, fanned him, and at last brought him, though weak as a child, back to life.
"How am I ever to repay this?" the sick man said, as he sat up one evening, gazing out on the Algerian mountains and watching the sun sink behind them. "What can I ever do in acknowledgment of your having saved my life?"
"Get thoroughly well, and then we'll go home as fast as we can. And don't talk bosh about repayment."
"Bosh! Do you call it that? Well, I don't suppose I ever shall be able to do anything in return, but I should like to have the chance. As a rule, I don't talk bosh, I believe, though no one is a judge of themselves. Do give me another drink of that lemon-water, Jerry, the thirst is coming on again."
"Which comes of talking nonsense, so shut up!" his friend answered, as he handed him the drink.
"It does seem hard, though, that instead of my being your companion as I came out to be, you should have to always----"
"Now look here, Phil, my friend," Gervase said, "if you don't leave off talking, I'll call the doctor." This threat was effectual, for the native physician had such unpleasant personal peculiarities that Philip nearly went mad whenever he entered the room.
Four years have passed since that excursion to the East and the time when Gervase Occleve is the affianced husband of Ida Raughton, but the friendship of these two has only grown more firm. On their return to England, Lord Penlyn offered his friend the post of his secretary combined with steward, which at that moment was vacant by the death of the previous holder. "But companion as well," he said laughingly, "I am not going to have you buried alive at Occleve Chase when I want your society in London, nor vice versâ, so you had better find a subordinate."
Smerdon took the post,
