From out the Vasty Deep | Page 8

of what poor Milly's
own solicitor called his "thoughtful generosity" to Miss Pigchalke, the
woman was pursuing Varick with an almost insane hatred. About six
months ago she had called on Dr. Panton, the clever young medical
man who had attended poor Mrs. Varick during her last illness. She had
formulated vague accusations against Varick--accusations of cruelty
and neglect of so absurd a nature that they refuted themselves. Miss
Pigchalke's behaviour was the more monstrous that she had already
received the first fifty pounds of the hundred-pound pension her
friend's widower had arranged to give her.
In a will made before her marriage, the late Mrs. Varick had left her
companion two thousand pounds, and though the legacy had been
omitted from her final will, Varick had of his own accord suggested
that he should allow Miss Pigchalke a hundred a year. She had begun
by sending back the first half-yearly cheque; but she had finally
accepted it! To-night he reminded himself with satisfaction that the
second fifty pounds had already been sent her, and that this time she
would evidently make no bones about keeping the money.
Making a determined effort, he chased her sinister image from his
thoughts, and turned his mind to the still attractive woman who was
about to act as hostess to his Christmas party.
His keen face softened as he thought of Blanche Farrow. Poor, proud,

well-bred and pleasant, poor only in a relative sense, for she was the
only unmarried daughter of an Irish peer whose title had passed away
to a distant cousin. Miss Farrow could have lived in comfort and in
dignity on what income she had, but for one inexplicable failing--the
more old-fashioned and severe of her friends and relatives called it a
vice.
Soon after she had come into the enjoyment of her few hundreds a year,
some rich, idle acquaintance had taken Blanche to Monte Carlo, and
there, like a duck to water, she had taken to play! Henceforth
gambling--any kind of gambling--had become her absorbing interest in
life. It was well indeed that what fortune she had was strictly settled on
her sisters' children, her two brothers-in-law being her trustees. With
one of them, who was really wealthy, she had long ago quarrelled. With
the other, now a widower, with only a life interest in his estate, she was
on coldly cordial terms, and sometimes, as was the case now, acted as
chaperon to his only child, her niece and namesake, Bubbles Dunster.
Blanche Farrow never begged or borrowed. When more hard hit than
usual, she retired, alone with her faithful maid, to some cheap corner of
the Continent; and as she kept her money worries to herself, she was
well liked and popular with a considerable circle.
Such was the human being who in a sense was Lionel Varick's only
close friend. They had met in a strange way, some ten years ago, in
what Miss Farrow's sterner brother-in-law had called a gambling hell.
And, just as we know that sometimes Satan will be found rebuking sin,
so Blanche Farrow had set herself to stop the then young Lionel Varick
on the brink. He had been in love with her at that time, and on the most
unpleasant evening when a cosy flat in Jermyn Street had been raided
by the police, he had given Blanche Farrow his word that he would
never play again; and he had kept his word. He alone knew how
grateful he had cause to be to the woman who had saved him from
joining the doomed throng who only live for play.
And now there was still to their friendship just that delightful little
touch of sentiment which adds salt and savour to almost every relation
between a man and a woman. Though Blanche was some years older

than Lionel, she looked, if anything, younger than he did, for she had
the slim, upright figure, the pretty soft brown hair, and the delicate,
finely modelled features which keep so many an Englishwoman of her
type and class young--young, if not in years, yet young in everything
else that counts. Even what she sometimes playfully called her petit
vice had not made her haggard or worn, and she had never lost interest
in becoming, well-made clothes.
Blanche Farrow thought she knew everything there was to know about
Lionel Varick, and, as a matter of fact, she did know a great deal no
one else knew, though not quite as much as she believed. She knew
him to be a hedonist, a materialist, a man who had very few scruples.
But not even to herself would she have allowed him to be called by the
ugly name of adventurer. Perhaps it would be truer to say--for she was
a very clever woman--that even if,