Part 35 (1/2)

”Vernon, what do you mean?”

”I will tell you. Now you stay quite quiet and listen. Are you aware of the fact--perhaps you are not--that that dear Lady Helen, that precious stepmother of yours, has a brother who was in the army?”

”Has she?” I asked. ”I didn't know.”

”Well, I happen to be aware of the fact. He was a good-for-nothing, if anyone was in all the world. His name was Gideon Dalrymple. Surely your father has sometimes spoken to you about Colonel Dalrymple?”

”Never,” I said.

”Well, it doesn't greatly matter; you're not likely to hear a great deal about him in the future--he is the sort of person whose history people shut up; but before that time comes I--have some work to do in connection with that same excellent officer in His Majesty's army.”

”Stop!” I said suddenly. I bent forward and looked into his eyes; my own were blazing with excitement, and my cheeks must have been full of colour.

”Vernon, I recall a time, it comes back to me. I went unexpectedly into a room where my father and stepmother were seated. I saw my darling father in a rage, one of the few rages I have seen him in since his marriage. I heard him say to her: 'Your brother will not enter this house!' Can he be the same man?”

”Beyond doubt he is. Well, now, I will tell you that when I first knew you I also knew, as did most people who were acquainted with your father, something of his story. I knew that he had gone through a time of terrible punishment; that he had been cas.h.i.+ered; that he was supposed to have committed a very heinous crime--in short, that he was the sort of person whom no upright soldier would speak to.”

”Yes,” I said, trembling very much; ”that is what one would think, that is what I said in my letter. Only you understand, Vernon, that I am on his side--he and I bear the same shame.”

”Little darling, not a bit of it. There's no shame for you to bear. But let me go on. You remember that day when I met you in Hyde Park?”

”_The_ day?” I said.

”_The_ day, Heather. You and I walked back to the house in Hanbury Square together. You were sent out of the room. I had a long talk with your stepmother and with your father--no matter now what was said. I was beside myself for a time, but I made up my mind then that whatever happened I'd woo you and win you and get you and keep you! Something else also haunted me, and that was the fact that your father, Major Grayson, was not in the least like the sort of man I had expected him to be. I have, Heather, I believe, the power of reading character, and if ever there was a man who had a perfectly beautiful, honourable expression, if ever there was a man who could _not_ do the sort of thing which Major Grayson had been accused of doing, that man was your father.

Before I left the house I was as certain of his innocence as I was of my own.”

”You darling!” I said. I stooped and kissed his hand.

”Then I thought of you, and I said to myself: 'She's Major Grayson's worthy daughter,' and--I gave myself up to thinking out this thing.

People can go to the British Museum, Heather, and can read the newspapers of any date, so I went there on the following morning and read up the whole of your father's trial. I read the evidence for and against him, and I discovered that there was a great deal of talk about a Gideon Dalrymple--the Honourable Gideon Dalrymple, as he was called.

He was mixed up in the thing. I went farther into particulars, and discovered that this man was the brother of Lady Helen. I sat and thought over that fact for a long time. I took it home to my rooms with me and thought it over there; I thought it over and over and over, but I could not see daylight, only I was more and more certain that your father was innocent.

”Then I got your letter, and that letter was just enough to stir me up and to make me wild, to put me into a sort of frenzy. So at last I said to myself: 'There's nothing like bearding the lion in his den,' and one day, quite early in the morning, I called at the house in Hanbury Square. I asked to see Lady Helen Dalrymple, and as I stood at the door a boy came up with a telegram. The telegram was taken in, and I was also admitted, for I gave the sort of message that would cause a woman of her description to see me. She was in her boudoir, and she came forward in a frenzy of distraction and grief, and said: 'What do you want? Go away! I am in dreadful trouble; I won't see you--it's like your impertinence to come here!'

”'I won't keep you long,' I said. 'I want to get at once from you Colonel Gideon Dalrymple's private address, for I have something of the utmost importance to talk over with him.'

”'What?' she screamed. 'You can't see him--you can't possibly see him.

He's very ill. I've just had a telegram from a nursing home where he is staying. I am on my way to see him myself. My poor, poor brother!'

”'Oh, then, if he is ill, of course he'll confess,' I said. 'I may as well go with you. He has got to confess, sooner or later, and the sooner he does it the better.'”

”Vernon! You said _that_ to her?”

”Yes, Heather; I said all that.”

”Oh, you had courage. But what did you mean?”