An Unpardonable Liar | Page 4

one seems to know exactly where she is. She was traveling abroad with some people called Branscombes, and I'm going to send a letter through their agent. We shall see.
"Lastly, for business. I've floated the Aurora company with a capital of $1,000,000, and that ought to carry the thing for all we want to do. So be joyful. But you shall have full particulars next mail. I'm just off to Herridon for the waters. Can you think it, Gladney--Mark Telford, late of the H.B.C, coming down to that? But it's a fact. Luncheons and dinners in London, E.C., fiery work, and so it's stand by the halyards for bad weather! Once more, keep your nose up to the wind, and believe that I am always," etc.
He read it through, dwelling here and there as if to reconsider, and, when it was finished, put it back into his pocket, tore up the envelope and let it fall to the ground. Presently he said: "I'll cable the money over and send the letter on next mail. Strange that I didn't think of cabling yesterday. However, it's all the same."
So saying, he came down the moor into the town and sent his cable, then went to his hotel and had dinner. After dinner he again went for a walk. He was thinking hard, and that did not render him less interesting. He was tall and muscular, yet not heavy, with a lean dark face, keen, steady eyes, and dignified walk. He wore a black soft felt hat and a red silk sash which just peeped from beneath his waistcoat--in all, striking, yet not bizarre, and notably of gentlemanlike manner. What arrested attention most, however, was his voice. People who heard it invariably turned to look or listened from sheer pleasure. It was of such penetrating clearness that if he spoke in an ordinary tone it carried far. Among the Indians of the Hudson Bay company, where he had been for six years or more, he had been known as Man of the Gold Throat, and that long before he was called by the negroes on his father's plantation in the southern states Little Marse Gabriel, because Gabriel's horn, they thought, must be like his voice--"only mo' so, an dat chile was bawn to ride on de golden mule."
You would not, from his manner or voice or dress have called him an American. You might have said he was a gentleman planter from Cuba or Java or Fiji, or a successful miner from Central America who had more than a touch of Spanish blood in his veins. He was not at all the type from over sea who are in evidence at wild west shows, or as poets from a western Ilion, who ride in the Row with sombrero, cloak and Mexican saddle. Indeed, a certain officer of Indian infantry, who had once picked up some irregular French in Egypt and at dinner made remarks on Telford's personal appearance to a pretty girl beside him, was confused when Telford looked up and said to him in admirable French: "I'd rather not, but I can't help hearing what you say, and I think it only fair to tell you so. These grapes are good. Shall I pass them? Poole made my clothes, and Lincoln is my hatter. Were you ever in Paris?"
The slow, distinct voice came floating across the little table, and ladies who that day had been reading the last French novel and could interpret every word and tone smiled slyly at each other or held themselves still to hear the sequel; the ill-bred turned round and stared; the parvenu sitting at the head of the table, who had been a foreign buyer of some London firm, chuckled coarsely and winked at the waiter, and Baron, the Afrikander trader, who sat next to Telford, ordered champagne on the strength of it. The bronzed, weather worn face of Telford showed imperturbable, but his eyes were struggling with a strong kind of humor. The officer flushed to the hair, accepted the grapes, smiled foolishly, and acknowledged--swallowing the reflection on his accent--that he had been in Paris. Then he engaged in close conversation with the young lady beside him, who, however, seemed occupied with Telford. This quiet, keen young lady, Miss Mildred Margrave, had received an impression, not of the kind which her sex confide to each other, but of a graver quality. She was a girl of sympathies and parts.
The event increased the interest and respect felt in the hotel for this stranger. That he knew French was not strange. He had been well educated as a boy and had had his hour with the classics. His godmother, who had been in the household of Prince Joseph Bonaparte, taught him French from the time he could