how long should a man have known a woman before venturing upon a proposal of love? such was the question now occupying the mind of idris.

he had seen mademoiselle rivière three times only: he had not spent above seven hours in her presence: yet had they been seven hundred instead of seven he knew that his feeling for her would be no stronger at the end of that time than at the beginning. the moon might have its period of crescent and wane: not so his love: its circle was full and complete from the first moment of his setting eyes upon her.

she was now the sole object of his thoughts. all other matters: the quest for his father, the problem of the viking's skull, were relegated to the dim and distant future; what were they compared with the winning of lorelie?

he found himself continually dwelling upon her manner towards him at the moment of their last parting. he was uncertain whether she was startled only, or vexed, by his act of gallantry; whether he must draw hope or despair from that event; and he knew not which was the wiser course—to declare his love at once, or to defer the proposal till he had gained a greater hold upon her affections. a too premature avowal might be disastrous: on the other hand to be dilatory might lead to his being forestalled by viscount walden.

this latter argument prevailed with him, and he [pg 198]resolved to see lorelie at once, and take the momentous step of giving utterance to his feelings. even rejection was preferable to the state of suspense in which he was now living.

on presenting himself at the cedars he was told by the maid who opened the door that her mistress was out. where had she gone? the maid was not certain, but she fancied that "ma'amzelle" had said something about spending the afternoon in ravenhall park.

accordingly idris betook himself to this park, a large extent of which was open to the public: and after a short search he found lorelie seated within a charming recess formed by dark rocks overhung with blossoming foliage. she was holding in her hand a small writing-pad, upon which lay some sheets of manuscript that she was apparently correcting and annotating with a pencil, doubtless putting some emendatory touches to her drama, the fatal skull.

the place, though picturesque, was hardly the ideal spot for his love-avowal, since it was within sight of the majestic towers of ravenhall, which, in idris' opinion, offered a very powerful argument in favour of lord walden's suit.

on seeing idris lorelie at once made way for him on the seat beside her, the glad light in her eyes showing that he was far from being an unwelcome visitor.

though idris had set out in bold spirit, yet now, faced by opportunity, he began to realize that the task required more courage than he was master of: and for a long time he talked of other matters, or rather he let lorelie carry on the conversation, finding it easier to be a listener than a speaker.

and lorelie could talk: charmingly, and upon many topics that are supposed to be the peculiar province of the masculine mind. she had never seemed so bright[pg 199] and interesting as on this present occasion. how sweet and silvery her laugh! how pretty the curve of her lips, and how glowing their colour! supposing he were to stoop suddenly and kiss them? would not such an act be tantamount to a love-avowal, and thus relieve him from the difficulty of an oral confession?

lorelie, observant at last of idris' quiet manner, rallied him on his want of spirits.

"you seem very grave to-day, mr. breakspear?"

"do i, mademoiselle? i am thinking."

"may i share your thoughts?"

"you may share my life if you will."

"mr. breakspear, what are you saying?" exclaimed lorelie, quickly, breathlessly.

"that i love you. is that a fault? nay, rather, it would be a fault not to love you."

lorelie drew a deep shuddering breath. their eyes met: a strange wistful tenderness in hers. such a look idris had never before received from woman: he knew what it meant, and grew giddy at the thought that he had the power to evoke it.

then, in a moment, all was changed!

a priestess, starting in agony from the delphic tripod, could not have exhibited a wilder mien than did lorelie at that moment as she rose to her feet, her hands pressed to her bosom as if to repress the emotion struggling there: in her eyes an expression of horror, the startled guilty look of one who, tempted to listen to wrong, is suddenly recalled to a sense of duty.

idris had wanted to say more, to speak of the depth of his love, but that look chilled all the warmth of his feelings, and checked the words that were rising to his lips.

"mr. breakspear," she began, with a strange "catch" in her voice, "you saved my life from the sea, and it may be that gratitude has led me to—to—how shall i [pg 200]express myself?—to be too warm in my friendship. i have not guarded myself sufficiently. if there has been anything in my manner or words calculated to impress you with the belief that your addresses would be acceptable to me, i beg—i entreat—of you to forgive me. such utterance—such action—on my part has been unintentional. i cannot listen to you."

with many women a "no" may sometimes mean "yes," but this was not the case with lorelie rivière. idris felt that her decision was final, irrevocable. and yet what was the meaning of that first look of rapture that had come into her eyes?

"you do well to refuse me, mademoiselle: to refuse in truth any suitor, for who indeed is worthy of you, but——"

"mr. breakspear, for pity's sake be silent. see!"

she drew something from her dress-pocket, turned aside for a moment, and then held out the third finger of her left hand. and at the sight idris, strong man though he was, staggered as a man may stagger on hearing his death sentence.

"great heaven! you are not married?" he said hoarsely.

"ten months ago. secretly. at nice."

"to—to——?"

but he knew the name before she pronounced it.

"to lord walden—yes."

the earth that afternoon was roofed with a sky of deep delicious azure: the soft breeze rippled the leaves of the woodland, and at each breath the air became alive with the white blossoms of the trees. nothing could be sweeter or fairer than this summer day, but its charm was not for idris. with the knowledge that lorelie could never be his, there passed away a glory from the earth.

mechanically he turned his eyes towards ravenhall.[pg 201] lorelie followed the direction of his glance. through a vista in the trees they could see the castellated pile, set with mullioned casements, and fronted with ivied terraces ascended by stately flights of stone steps. she knew—and bitter was the knowledge—that idris was thinking that there was the prize for which she had sold herself.

he wronged her, however, by this thought.

when lorelie, eighteen months before, had listened to the vows of viscount walden she had honestly believed herself to be in love with him. idris' avowal had shown her the hollowness of that belief. vivid as fire on a dark night there suddenly flashed upon her trembling mind the overwhelming revelation that her feeling for her husband was as nothing compared with her feeling for idris. if all the happiness she had previously known had been suddenly sublimated and concentrated into one single intense sensation of a moment's duration it would not have equalled the rapture evoked by idris' avowal. but in a moment the feeling had gone, giving place to the dull lethargy of despair. though realizing but too plainly that she had married the wrong man, the knowledge of the fact did not diminish the loyalty due to her husband. faithful she would ever remain, but it was not her fault if the love that she could henceforth give him would be scarcely deserving of the name.

she would have died rather than have given utterance to this confession, but idris had read the secret in her eyes: she knew that he had read it, and the knowledge added to her confusion and made her unable to meet his glance.

there was a long silence between them. what was there to talk about? their mutual love? that was of necessity a forbidden subject; and to talk of anything less than this seemed a mockery of the deep feelings within them.

[pg 202]

parted from lorelie by adverse fortune what remained for idris but to face the situation bravely?

"mademoiselle," he said, using from habit the title that was no longer hers, "i take my leave. forgive me, if my words have caused you pain. farewell."

"but not forever. we may meet from time to time as—as friends."

did she not realize that such friendship might be perilous? no: and as idris gazed upon her clear eyes he saw there a spirit too pure to suffer itself to do wrong.

"you must forget," she faltered, "that you have ever entertained this—this feeling for me."

idris smiled bitterly. he knew—she knew—that it was the one event in their lives they never would forget.

at their last parting he had kissed her hand: he did not venture even to touch it now, but, lifting his hat, he quietly withdrew.

with tears in her eyes lorelie watched him till he was lost to view.

"if you knew the truth," she murmured, "your feeling for me would not be love but hatred."

in melancholy mood idris returned to wave crest. beatrice, quick to interpret his looks, guessed what had happened: and though the result was such as she herself desired, yet the sight of his dejection touched her to the quick and filled her with a mixed feeling of pity and anger. who, forsooth, was mademoiselle rivière that she should treat idris' love as of no account?

aware that lorelie was not favourably regarded by beatrice, idris had prudently refrained from making the latter a confidante of his love-affair, but now, sitting down beside her, he proceeded to tell her all.

but when beatrice heard the amazing news that lorelie rivière was in reality viscountess walden, and therefore[pg 203] her cousin by marriage, a look not merely of wonder but of dismay stole over her face.

"have you proof of this?" she asked breathlessly.

"proof of what?" exclaimed godfrey, entering the room at this juncture.

"that mademoiselle rivière is ivar's wife," she replied.

"well, i did not ask her to produce her marriage certificate," said idris, somewhat vexed that lorelie's word should be doubted. "for the truth of her words i had better refer you to your cousin, lord walden himself. we see now the cause of his surliness the other night. any fellow with so lovely a wife might be jealous on learning that she had spent five hours in a lonely cave tête-à-tête with a stranger."

"he might, nevertheless, have had the grace to give you a few words of thanks for saving her life," remarked godfrey. "i suppose it is from fear of his father that he keeps the marriage a secret?"

"presumably."

"hum! rather hazardous to bring her so near to ravenhall," said godfrey.

"and she is really married?" murmured beatrice. "o, how i have wronged her!"

"in what way?" asked godfrey. "come, trixie, let us learn the reason of your past aversion."

it was some time before beatrice could be induced to reply.

"you remember the case of old gideon?" she said at last.

"perfectly," replied godfrey, adding for idris' enlightenment, "he was an old farmer at the point of death. i was unable to procure a nurse, and trixie generously offered her services. the poor fellow died at midnight; and trixie, though pressed to remain, left the place and[pg 204] came walking home all by herself, reaching here at two in the morning. but what has this to do with mademoiselle rivière—i beg her pardon, lady walden?"

"on my way home," replied beatrice, "i had to pass her villa, and whom should i see walking up the garden-path towards the house but ivar himself! he had not noticed me, and i did not make myself known to him: in truth i was so much amazed that i could do nothing but stand silent under the shadow of the trees, watching, or, if you will, playing the spy. i saw him open the door of the villa with a key of his own, and go in. not knowing that he was married to mademoiselle rivière, what conclusion could i come to but that—that——"

and here beatrice paused, leaving her hearers to guess the nature of her conclusion.

"and you thought that of mademoiselle rivière?" said idris: and beatrice felt keenly the reproach in his tone.

"i have never whispered my suspicion to any one—not even to you, godfrey."

"the sequel shows the advantage of holding one's tongue," replied her brother. "it has saved you from having to make a humiliating apology to the new viscountess. well, seeing that she is now your cousin, you cannot do better than acknowledge the relationship by making a call upon her."

but beatrice shrank from this ordeal.

"i have always shown her by my manner that i dislike her. she must think me an odious creature."

"on the contrary," replied idris, "whenever your name has been mentioned she has spoken well of you, and has expressed herself as desirous of your friendship."

beatrice was finally persuaded into promising that she would pay the new viscountess a visit on the morrow:[pg 205] after which, godfrey, turning to idris, addressed himself to a new theme.

"i spent this morning," he said, "in my laboratory over that piece of steel taken from your so-called viking's skull, and i have discovered it to be of modern fabrication."

"ah! and how do you prove it?" said idris, preparing to argue the point.

"chemical analysis shows that the steel contains two per cent. of platinum."

"what of that?" said idris bluntly.

"much. platinum is a metal of modern discovery, first hit on in the year—well, i forget the exact date, some time about the beginning of the eighteenth century. therefore, any steel that is combined with platinum must have been forged within the past two hundred years, and consequently cannot be a relic of norse days."

"for what purpose is platinum mixed with the steel?"

"to impart additional hardness."

"i must accept your dictum as final. of course the conclusion is that if the steel be modern, the skull must be modern, too. i must give up my belief, miss ravengar, that i possess the skull of your viking ancestor. but then," he went on, "orm was buried within that hillock: the pictured tapestry and the name ormfell prove it. what, then, has become of his remains?"

"crumbled to dust, perhaps, with the lapse of time," suggested beatrice.

"the existence of the tapestry confutes you. solid bone would not crumble, if a woollen fabric will endure."

"true," replied beatrice, with a puzzled look. "i am forgetting the tapestry. here's a mystery, indeed! what has become of the viking's bones?"

"if the skeleton within the tumulus be that of a[pg 206] modern person," said idris, "how on earth came it there? who buried him, and——"

"we do not yet know that it is a 'him,'" interjected godfrey. "the skeleton may be the remains of a woman."

"i speak provisionally. who buried him, or her, and why should such a strange grave be chosen?"

"because," replied the surgeon, gravely, "because, my dear idris, cannot you see that the present occupant of ormfell did not die a natural death? the piece of steel lodged in the brain proves that. he was murdered, murdered with a stiletto hairpin: and he, or they, that did the deed, knowing, as we know, that ormfell contains a grave-chamber, disposed of the victim's body by placing it within the hillock, no doubt thinking that the remains, if ever discovered, would be taken for those of some ancient warrior, an error into which we ourselves would have fallen had not that tapestry remained, i might say, providentially remained, to tell us otherwise."

for a few moments both beatrice and idris sat dumbfounded at this startling theory.

"by heaven! i believe you are right," cried idris. "and yet this murder-theory of yours is open to objection. there is the difficulty of conveying a dead body to ormfell. consider the risk of detection that the murderer would run."

"the murder may have taken place within ormfell itself," suggested beatrice.

"that is my view," replied godfrey, "for there are signs which seem to point to that conclusion."

"what signs are they?" asked idris.

"you will perhaps think my first reason fanciful," replied godfrey. "you have continually maintained," he went on, addressing idris, "that the divining rod took a downward bend at a certain point in the mortuary [pg 207]chamber. what formed the attractive force? 'the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground!' shall we say that that was the true cause? for human blood has been shed there. have you forgotten how the tapestry taken from that very spot reddened the water in which it was placed? now let us suppose that some one standing at that point was suddenly struck down from behind: his natural action in falling would be to clutch at the nearest thing he could lay hold of."

"which in his case would be the tapestry," interjected idris.

"just so: and that is my way of accounting for the tearing of that fabric, and the downward curvature of the rod to which it was attached. the tapestry at the same time became saturated with the blood of the victim."

"your opinion seems reasonable," remarked idris, "except as regards the divining rod; i can't believe that dried blood could produce such an effect. but the difficulty remains—what has become of the viking's bones?"

and to this question godfrey could give no satisfactory answer.

"when do you think this murder took place?" idris asked. "in our own days, or long before them?"

"i see no way at present of fixing the date," godfrey replied.

"it may have been twenty, fifty, or a hundred years ago, or even more," ventured idris.

"any period since the era of the discovery of platinum," answered godfrey.

"is there no way in these scientific times of ascertaining the age of that skull?" asked beatrice.

godfrey shook his head.

"the most skilled anatomist would be puzzled to determine the age of a given skull," he replied.

[pg 208]

idris paced uneasily to and fro, assigning the skull in turn to each of those who, to his knowledge, had been in any way connected with the runic ring—his father, lorelie's father, the unknown assassin of duchesne, and lastly the masked man of quilaix.

"whoever the victim was," said beatrice, slowly and thoughtfully, "he must have been murdered by a woman."

"a woman!" ejaculated idris. he could not tell why at that moment a cold feeling should come over him.

"a woman!" repeated beatrice, solemnly: "for i still adhere to my belief that the piece of steel was a fragment of a stiletto hairpin, and who but a woman would think of using such an instrument?"