Telford looked at the sketch with a cold smile.  “Yes, that’s right,” he said.  “You’ve painted in a good bit of the devil too.  You owe me something for this.  I have helped you to a picture and have given you a sitting.  There is no reason why you should paint the truth to the world.  But I ask you this:  When you know that her husband is dead and she becomes your wife, tell her the truth about that, will you?  How the scoundrel tried to kill me—­from behind.  I’d like to be cleared of cowardice some time.  You can afford to do it.  She loves you.  You will have everything, I nothing—­nothing at all.”

There was a note so thrilling, a golden timbre to the voice, an indescribable melancholy so affecting that Hagar grasped the other’s hand and said, “So help me God, I will!”

“All right.”

He prepared to go.  At the door Hagar said to him, “Shall I see you again?”

“Probably in the morning.  Good-night.”

Telford went back to the hotel and found the horse he had ordered at the door.  He got up at once.  People looked at him curiously, it was peculiar to see a man riding at night for pleasure, and, of course, it could be for no other purpose.  “When will you be back, sir?” said the groom.

“I do not know.”  He slipped a coin into the groom’s hand.  “Sit up for me.  The beast is a good one?”

“The best we have.  Been a hunter, sir.”

Telford nodded, stroked the horse’s neck and started.  He rode down toward the gate.  He saw Mildred Margrave coming toward him.

“Oh, Mr. Telford!” she said.  “You forsook us to-day, which was unkind.  Mamma says—­she has seen you, she tells me—­that you are a friend of my stepfather, Mr. Gladney.  That’s nice, for I like you ever so much, you know.”  She raised her warm, intelligent eyes to his.  “I’ve felt since you came yesterday that I’d seen you before, but mamma says that’s impossible.  You don’t remember me?”

“I didn’t remember you,” he said.

“I wish I were going for a ride, too, in the moonlight.  I mean mamma and I and you.  You ride as well as you drive, of course.”

“I wish you were going with me,” he replied.—­He suddenly reached down his hand.  “Good-night” Her hand was swallowed in his firm clasp for a moment “God bless you, dear!” he added, then raised his hat quickly and was gone.

“I must have reminded him of some one,” the girl said to herself.  “He said, ‘God bless you, dear!’”

About that time Mrs. Detlor received a telegram from the doctor of a London hospital.  It ran: 

    Your husband here.  Was badly injured in a channel collision last
    night.  Wishes to see you.

There was a train leaving for London a half hour later.  She made ready hastily, inclosed the telegram in an envelope addressed to George Hagar, and, when she was starting, sent it over to his rooms.  When he received it, he caught up a time table, saw that a train would leave in a few minutes, ran out, but could not get a cab quickly, and arrived at the station only to see the train drawing away.  “Perhaps it is better so,” he said, “for her sake.”