presented to the 
 
 LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO 
 
 FRIENDS OF THE LIHRARY 
 
 MR. JOHN C. ROSE, 
 
 donor
 
 V v
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING
 
 BY MRS. BELLOC LOWNDES 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 THE PULSE OF LIFE 
 BARBARA REBELL 
 THE HEART OF PENELOPE
 
 J 
 
 The Uttermost 
 Farthing 
 
 i 
 
 MRS. BELLOC LOWNDES 
 
 "Thou shalt by no means come out thence 
 till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing." 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 MITCHELL KENNERLEY 
 2 East 2qth Street
 
 
 
 Copyright, 1908, by Paul R. Reynolds 
 Copyright, IQOQ, by Mitchell Kennerley 
 
 *
 
 The Uttermost Farthing 
 
 LAURENCE VANDERLYN, unpaid attache at 
 the American Embassy in Paris, strode down 
 the long grey platform marked No. 5, of the 
 Gare de Lyon. It was seven o'clock, the hour 
 at which Paris is dining or is about to dine, 
 and the huge station was almost deserted. 
 
 The train de luxe had gone more than an 
 hour ago, the Riviera rapide would not start 
 till ten, but one of those trains bound for the 
 South, curiously named demi-rapides, was 
 timed to leave in twenty minutes. 
 
 Foreigners, especially Englishmen and 
 Americans, avoid these trains, and this was 
 why Laurence Vanderlyn had chosen it as the 
 
 starting point of what was to be a great adven- 
 
 1
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 ture, an adventure which must for ever be con- 
 cealed, obliterated as much as may be from 
 his own memory do not men babble in de- 
 lirium? once life had again become the rather 
 grey thing he had found it to be. 
 
 In the domain of the emotions it is the unex- 
 pected which generally happens, and now it 
 was not only the unexpected but the incredible 
 which had happened to this American diplo- 
 matist. He and Margaret Pargeter, the Eng- 
 lishwoman whom he had loved with an absorb- 
 ing, unsatisfied passion, and an ever-increasing 
 concentration and selfless devotion, for seven 
 years, were about to do that which each had 
 sworn, together and separately, should never 
 come to pass, that is, they were about to 
 snatch from Fate a few days of such free 
 happiness and communion as during their long 
 years of intimacy they had never enjoyed.
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 In order to secure these fleeting moments 
 of joy, she, the woman in the case, was about 
 to run the greatest risk which can in these 
 days be incurred by civilised woman. 
 
 Margaret Pargeter was not free as Van- 
 derlyn was free ; she was a wife, not a happy 
 wife, but one on whose reputation no shadow 
 had ever rested, and further, she was the 
 mother of a child, a son, whom she loved with 
 an anxious tenderness. ... It was these two 
 facts which made what she was going to do 
 a matter of such moment not only to herself, 
 but to the man to whom she was now about to 
 commit her honour. 
 
 Striding up and down the platform to which 
 he had bought early access by one of those 
 large fees for which the travelling American 
 of a certain type is famed, Vanderlyn, with his 
 long lean figure, and stern pre-occupied face,
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 did not suggest, to the French eyes idly watch- 
 ing him, a lover, still less the happy third in 
 one of those conjugal comedies which play so 
 much greater a part in French literature and in 
 French drama than they do in French life. 
 He had thrust far back into his heart the leap- 
 ing knowledge of what was about to befall 
 him, and he was bending the whole strength 
 of his mind to avert any possible danger of 
 ignoble catastrophe to the woman whom he 
 was awaiting, and whose sudden surrender 
 was becoming more, instead of less, amazing 
 as the long minutes dragged by. 
 
 Vanderlyn's mind went back to the moment, 
 four short days ago, when this journey had 
 been suddenly arranged. Mrs. Pargeter had 
 just come back from England, where she had 
 gone to pay some family visits and to see her 
 
 little son, who was at a preparatory school; 
 
 4
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 and the American diplomatist, as was so often 
 his wont, had come to escort her to one of those 
 picture club shows in which Parisian society 
 delights. 
 
 Then, after a quarter of an hour spent by 
 them at the exhibition, the two friends had 
 slipped away, and had done a thing which was 
 perhaps imprudent. But each longed, with an 
 unspoken eager craving, to be alone with the 
 other; the beauty of Paris in spring-time 
 tempted them, and it was the woman who had 
 proposed to the man that they should spend a 
 quiet hour walking through one of those quar- 
 ters of old Paris unknown to the travelling 
 foreigner. 
 
 Eagerly Vaiaderlyn had assented, and so 
 they had driven quickly down the Rue de 
 Rivoli, right into the heart of that commercial 
 quarter which was the Paris of Madame de
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 Sevigne, of the bitter witty dwarf, Scarron, 
 of Ninon de 1'Enclos, and, more lately, of 
 Victor Hugo. There, dismissing their cab, 
 they had turned into that still, stately square, 
 once the old Place Royale, now the Place des 
 Vosges, of which each arcaded house garners 
 memories of passionate romance. 
 
 Walking slowly up and down the solitary 
 garden there, the two had discussed the com- 
 ing August, and Margaret Pargeter had ad- 
 mitted, with a rather weary sigh, that she was 
 as yet quite ignorant whether her husband in- 
 tended to yacht, to shoot, or to travel, whether 
 he meant to take her with him, or to leave her 
 at some seaside place with the boy. 
 
 As she spoke, in the low melodious voice 
 which still had the power to thrill the man by 
 her side as it had had in the earlier days of 
 
 their acquaintance, Mrs. Pargeter said no word 
 
 6
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 that all the world might not have heard, yet, 
 underlying all she said, his questions and her 
 answers, was the mute interrogation which of 
 the alternatives discussed held out the best 
 chance, to Vanderlyn and herself, of being to- 
 gether? 
 
 At last, quite suddenly, Mrs. Pargeter, 
 turning and looking up into her companion's 
 face, had said something which Laurence Van- 
 derlyn had felt to be strangely disconcerting; 
 for a brief moment she lifted the veil which 
 she had herself so deliberately and for so long 
 thrown over their ambiguous relation "Ah! 
 Laurence," she exclaimed with a sigh, "the 
 way of the transgressor is hard! " 
 
 Then, speaking so quietly that for a mo- 
 ment he did not fully understand the amazing 
 nature of the proposal she was making to him, 
 
 she had deliberately offered to go away with 
 
 7
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 him for a week. The way in which this had 
 come about had been strangely simple ; looking 
 back, Vanderlyn could scarcely believe that his 
 memory was playing him true. . . . 
 
 From the uncertain future they had come 
 back to the immediate present, and Mrs. Par- 
 geter said something of having promised her 
 only intimate friend, a Frenchwoman much 
 older than herself, a certain Madame de Lera, 
 to go and spend a few days in a villa near 
 Paris " If you do that," he said, " then I 
 think I may as well go down to Orange and 
 see the house I've just bought there." 
 
 She had turned on him with a certain ex- 
 citement in her manner. "You've bought it? 
 That strange, beautiful place near Orange 
 where you used to stay when you were study- 
 ing in Paris? Oh, Laurence, I'd no idea that 
 you really meant to buy it ! "
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 A little surprised at the keenness of her in- 
 terest, he had answered quietly, " Yes, when 
 the owner was going through Paris last week, 
 I found he wanted the money, so so the 
 house is mine, though none of the legal formal- 
 ities have yet been complied with. I'm told 
 that the old woman who was caretaker there 
 can make me comfortable enough for the few 
 days I can be away." He added in a different, 
 a lower tone, " Ah ! Peggy, if only it were 
 possible for us to go there together how you 
 would delight in the place 1 " 
 
 " Would you like me to come with you? I 
 will if you like, Laurence." She had asked the 
 question very simply but Vanderlyn, look- 
 ing at her quickly, had seen that her hand was 
 trembling, her eyes brimming with tears. Then 
 she had spoken gently, deliberately seeming 
 
 to plead with herself, rather than with him, 
 
 9
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 for a few days of such dual loneliness for 
 which all lovers long and which during their 
 long years of intimacy they had never once, 
 even innocently, enjoyed. And he had grasped 
 with exultant gratitude what man would 
 have done otherwise? at what she herself 
 came and offered him. 
 
 Walking up and down the solitary plat- 
 form, Vanderlyn lived over again each instant 
 of that strange momentous conversation ut- 
 tered four days ago in the stately sunlit 
 square which forms the heart of old Paris. 
 How the merry ghost of Marion Delorme, 
 peeping out of one of the long narrow case- 
 ments of the corner house which was once 
 hers, must have smiled to hear this virtuous 
 Englishwoman cast virtue to the light Parisian 
 winds! 
 
 Vanderlyn also recalled, with almost the 
 10
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 same surprise and discomfort as he had ex- 
 perienced at the time itself, the way in which 
 Margaret Pargeter, so refined and so deli- 
 cately bred, had discussed all the material de- 
 tails connected with their coming adventure 
 details from which the American diplomatist 
 himself had shrunk, and which he would have 
 done almost anything to spare her. 
 
 " There is one person, and one alone," she 
 had said with some decision, " who must know. 
 I must tell Adele de Lera she must have my 
 address, for I cannot remain without news of 
 my boy a whole week. As for Tom " she 
 had flushed, and then gone on steadily " Tom 
 will believe that I am going to stay with Adele 
 at Marly-le-Roi, and my letters will be sent to 
 her house. Besides," she had added, "Tom 
 himself is going away, to England, for a fort- 
 night." 
 
 II
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 To the man then walking by her side, and 
 even now, as he was remembering it all, the dis- 
 cussion was inexpressibly odious. "But do 
 you think," he had ventured to ask, " that 
 Madame de Lera will consent? Remember, 
 Peggy, she is Catholic, and what is more, a 
 pious Catholic." 
 
 "Of course she won't like it of course she 
 won't approve! But I'm sure in fact, Lau- 
 rence, I know that she will consent to for- 
 ward my letters. She understands that it 
 would make no difference that I should 
 think of some other plan for getting them. 
 Should she refuse at the last moment but 
 but she will not refuse " and her face the 
 fair, delicately-moulded little face Vanderlyn 
 loved had become flooded with colour. 
 
 For the first time since he had known her, 
 he had realised that there was a side to her
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 character of which he was ignorant, and yet? 
 and yet Laurence Vanderlyn knew Mar- 
 garet Pargeter too well, his love of her implied 
 too intimate a knowledge, for him not to per- 
 ceive that something lay behind her secession 
 from an ideal of conduct to which she had 
 clung so unswervingly and for such long 
 years. 
 
 During the four days which had elapsed 
 between then and now, days of agitation, of 
 excitement, and of suspense, he had more 
 than once asked himself whether it were pos- 
 sible that certain things which all the world 
 had long known concerning Tom Pargeter 
 had only just become revealed to Tom Par- 
 geter's wife. He hoped, he trusted, this was 
 not so; he had no desire to owe her surrender 
 to any ignoble longing for reprisal. 
 
 The world, especially that corner of Vanity 
 
 15
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 Fair which takes a frankly materialistic view 
 of life and of life's responsibilities, is 
 shrewder than we generally credit, and the 
 diplomatist's intimacy with the Pargeter house- 
 hold had aroused but small comment in the 
 strange polyglot society in which lived, by 
 choice, Tom Pargeter, the cosmopolitan mil- 
 lionaire who was far more of a personage in 
 Paris and in the French sporting world than 
 he could ever have hoped to be in England. 
 
 To all appearance Laurence Vanderlyn was 
 as intimate with the husband as with the wife, 
 for he had tastes in common with them both, 
 his interest in sport and in horseflesh being a 
 strong link with Tom Pargeter, while his love 
 of art, and his dilettante literary tastes, bound 
 him to Peggy. Also, and perhaps above all, 
 he was an American and Europeans cherish 
 strange and sometimes fond illusions as to 
 
 14
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 your American's lack of capacity for ordinary 
 human emotion. 
 
 He alone knew that his tie with Mrs. Par- 
 geter grew, if not more passionate, then more 
 absorbing and intimate as time went on, and 
 he was sometimes, even now, at considerable 
 pains to put the busybodies of their circle off 
 the scent. 
 
 But indeed it would have required a very 
 sharp, a very keen, human hound to find the 
 scent of what had been so singular and so in- 
 nocent a tie. Each had schooled the other to 
 accept all that she would admit was possible. 
 True, Vanderlyn saw Margaret Pargeter al- 
 most every day, but more often than not 
 in the presence of acquaintances. She never 
 came to his rooms, and she had never seemed 
 tempted to do any of the imprudent things 
 which many a woman, secure of her own vir- 
 
 15
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 tue, will sometimes do as if to prove the tem- 
 per of her honour's blade. 
 
 So it was that Mrs. Pargeter had never 
 fallen into the ranks of those women who be- 
 come the occasion for even good-natured gos- 
 sip. The very way in which they had, till to- 
 night, conducted what she, the woman, was 
 pleased to call their friendship, made this 
 which was now happening seem, even now, to 
 the man who was actually waiting for her to 
 join him, as unsubstantial, as likely to vanish, 
 mirage-wise, as a dream. 
 
 And yet Vanderlyn passionately loved this 
 woman whom most men would have thought 
 too cold to love, and who had known how to 
 repress and tutor, not only her own, but also 
 his emotions. He loved her, too, so foolishly 
 and fondly that he had fashioned the whole 
 
 of his life so that it should be in harmony 
 
 16
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 with hers, making sacrifices of which he had 
 told her nothing in order that he might sur- 
 round her an ill-mated, neglected wife 
 with a wordless atmosphere of devotion which 
 had become to her as vital, as necessary, 
 as is that of domestic peace and happiness to 
 the average woman. But for Laurence Van- 
 derlyn and his " friendship," Mrs. Parge- 
 ter's existence would have been lacking in all 
 human savour, and that from ironic circum- 
 stance rather than from any fault of her own. 
 
 Vanderlyn had spent the day in a fever of 
 emotion and suspense, and he had arrived at 
 the Gare de Lyon a good hour before the time 
 the train for Orange was due to leave. 
 
 At first he had wandered about the great 
 railway station aimlessly, avoiding the plat- 
 form whence he knew he and his companion 
 
 17
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 were to start. Then, with relief, he had hailed 
 the moment for securing coming privacy in 
 the unreserved railway carriage; this had not 
 been quite an easy matter to compass, for he 
 desired to avoid above all any appearance of 
 secrecy. 
 
 But he need not have felt any anxiety, 
 for whereas in an English railway station 
 his large " tip " to the guard, carrying with it 
 significant promise of final largesse, would 
 have spelt but one thing, and that thing love, 
 the French railway employe accepted without 
 question the information that the lady the 
 foreign gentleman was expecting was his sis- 
 ter. Such a statement to the English mind 
 would have suggested the hero of an innocent 
 elopement, but as regards family relations the 
 French are curiously Eastern, and then it 
 may be said again that the American's stern, 
 
 18
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 pre-occupied face and cold manner were not 
 those which to a Parisian could suggest a 
 happy lover. 
 
 As he walked up and down with long, even 
 strides, his arms laden with papers and novels, 
 it would have been difficult for anyone seeing 
 him there to suppose that Vanderlyn was 
 starting on anything but a solitary journey. 
 Indeed, for the moment he felt horribly alone. 
 He began to experience the need of human 
 companionship. She had said she would be 
 there at seven; it was now a quarter-past the 
 hour. In ten minutes the train would be 
 gone 
 
 Then came to him a thought which made 
 him unconsciously clench his hands. Was it 
 not possible, nay, even likely, that Margaret 
 Pargeter, like many another woman before 
 
 her, had found her courage fail her at the last 
 
 19
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 moment that Heaven, stooping to her feeble 
 virtue, had come to save her in spite of her- 
 self? 
 
 Vanderlyn's steps unconsciously quickened. 
 They bore him on and on, to the extreme end 
 of the platform. He stood there a moment 
 staring out into the red-starred darkness: 
 how could he have ever thought that Margaret 
 Pargeter his timid, scrupulous little Peggy 
 would embark on so high and dangerous an 
 adventure? 
 
 There had been a moment, during that 
 springtime of passion which returns no more, 
 when Vanderlyn had for a wild instant hoped 
 that he would be able to take her away from 
 the life in which he had felt her to be playing 
 the terrible role of an innocent and yet de- 
 graded victim. 
 
 Even to an old-fashioned American the word 
 
 20
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 divorce does not carry with it the odious sig- 
 nificance it bears to the most careless Eng- 
 lishwoman. He had envisaged a short scan- 
 dal, and then his and Peggy's marriage. But 
 he had been compelled, almost at once, to rec- 
 ognise that with her any such solution was im- 
 possible. 
 
 As to another alternative? True, there are 
 women he and Margaret Pargeter had 
 know many such who regard what they call 
 love as a legitimate distraction; to them the 
 ignoble, often sordid, shifts involved in the 
 pursuit of a secret intrigue are as the salt of 
 life; but this solution of their tragic problem 
 would have been or so Vanderlyn would have 
 sworn till four days ago impossible to the 
 woman he loved, and this had added one more 
 stone to the pedestal on which she had been 
 
 placed by him from the day they had first met. 
 
 81
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 And yet? Yet so inconsequent and so il- 
 logical is our poor human nature, that she, 
 the virtuous woman, had completely lacked the 
 courage to break with the man who loved her, 
 even in those, the early friable days of their 
 passion. Nay more, whatever Peggy might 
 believe, Vanderlyn was well aware that the 
 good, knowing all, would have called them 
 wicked, even if the wicked, equally well-in- 
 formed, would have sneered at them as ab- 
 surdly good. 
 
 Vanderlyn wheeled abruptly round. He 
 looked at the huge station clock, and began 
 walking quickly back, down the now peopled 
 platform to the ticket barrier. As he did so 
 his eyes and mind, trained to note all that was 
 happening round him, together with an uncon- 
 scious longing to escape from the one absorb-
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 ing thought, made him focus those of his fel- 
 low-travellers who stood about him. They con- 
 sisted for the most part of provincial men of 
 business, and of young officers in uniform, 
 each and all eager to prolong to the uttermost 
 their golden moments in Paris; more than 
 one was engaged in taking an affectionate, 
 deeply sentimental farewell from a feminine 
 companion who bore about her those signifi- 
 cant signs the terribly pathetic, battered air 
 of wear and tear which set apart, in our sane 
 workaday world, the human plaything. 
 
 The sight of these leave-takings made the 
 American's face flush darkly; it was hateful 
 to him to think that Mrs. Pargeter must 
 suffer, even for a few moments, the proximity 
 of such women of such men. He felt a vio- 
 lent shrinking from the thought that any one 
 of these gay, careless young Frenchmen 
 
 23
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 might conceivably know Peggy if only by 
 sight as the charming, " elegant " wife of 
 Tom Pargeter, the well-known sportsman 
 who had done France the signal honour of 
 establishing his racing stable at Chantilly in- 
 stead of at Newmarket! The thought that 
 such an encounter was within the bounds of 
 possibility made Vanderlyn for a moment al- 
 most hope that the woman for whom he was 
 waiting would not come after all. 
 
 He cursed himself for a fool. Why had he 
 not thought of driving her out to one of the 
 smaller stations on the line whence they could 
 have started, if not unseen, then unobserved? 
 
 But soon the slowly-growing suspicion that 
 she, after all, was perhaps not coming to-night, 
 brought with it an agonising pang. Very 
 suddenly there occurred to him the horrible 
 possibility of material accident. Mrs. Par- 
 
 24
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 geter was not used even to innocent adven- 
 ture ; she lived the guarded, sheltered existence 
 which belongs of right to those women whose 
 material good fortune all their less fortunate 
 sisters envy. The dangers of the Paris streets 
 rose up before Vanderlyn's excited imagina- 
 tion, hideous, formidable. . . . 
 
 Then, quite suddenly, Margaret Pargeter 
 herself stood before him, smiling a little trem- 
 ulously. 
 
 She was wearing a grey, rather austere 
 tailor-made gown ; it gave a girlish turn to her 
 slender figure, and on her fair hair was poised 
 the little boat-shaped hat and long silvery 
 gauze veil which have become in a sense the 
 uniform of a well-dressed Parisienne on her 
 travels. 
 
 As he looked at her, standing there by his 
 
 side, Vanderlyn realised how instinctively ten- 
 
 25
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 der, how passionately protective, was his love 
 for her; and again there came over him the 
 doubt, the questioning, as to why she was do- 
 ing this. . . . 
 
 " Messieurs, mesdames, en voiture, s'il vous 
 plait! En voiture, s'il vous plait!" 
 
 He put his hand on her shoulder her head 
 was very little higher than his heart and 
 guided her to the railway carriage which had 
 been kept for them.
 
 II 
 
 AND now Laurence Vanderlyn and Mar- 
 garet Pargeter were speeding through the 
 night, completely and physically alone as 
 they had never been during the years of their 
 long acquaintanceship; and, as he sat there, 
 with the woman he had loved so long and so 
 faithfully wholly in his power, there came over 
 Vanderlyn a sense of fierce triumph and con- 
 quest. 
 
 The train had not started to time. There 
 had come a sound of eager talking on the plat- 
 form, and Vanderlyn, filled with a vague ap- 
 prehension, had leaned out of the window and 
 with some difficulty ascertained the cause of 
 
 the delay. The guard in charge of the train, 
 
 27
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 the man, that is, whom he had feed so well 
 in order to secure privacy, had strained his 
 hand in lifting a weight, and another employe 
 had had to take his place. 
 
 But at last the few moments of waiting 
 to Vanderlyn they had seemed an hour had 
 come to an end. At last the train began 
 to move, that slow and yet relentless move- 
 ment which is one of the few things in our 
 modern world which spell finality. To the 
 man and the woman it was the starting of the 
 train which indicated to them both that the 
 die was indeed cast. 
 
 Vanderlyn looked at his companion. She 
 was gazing up at him with a strange expres- 
 sion of gladness, of relief, on her face. The 
 long years of restraint and measured coldness 
 seemed to have vanished, receded into noth- 
 ingness. 
 
 N
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 She held out her ringless hand and clasped 
 his, and a moment later they were sitting 
 hand in hand, like two children, side by side. 
 With a rather awkward movement he slipped 
 on her finger a thin gold ring his dead 
 mother's wedding ring, but still she said 
 nothing. Her head was turned away, and she 
 was staring out of the window, as if fasci- 
 nated by the flying lights. He knew rather 
 than saw that her eyes were shining, her cheeks 
 pink with excitement; then she took off her 
 hat, and he told himself that her fair hair 
 gleaming against the grey-brown furnishings 
 of the railway carriage looked like a golden 
 aureole. 
 
 Suddenly Laurence Vanderlyn pressed the 
 hand he was holding to his lips, dropped it, 
 and then stood up. He pulled the blue silk 
 shade over the electric light globe which hung
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 in the centre of the carriage ; glanced through 
 one of the two tiny glazed apertures giving a 
 view of the next compartment; then he sat 
 down by her, and in the half darkness gath- 
 ered her into his arms. 
 
 "Dear," he said, in a voice that sounded 
 strange and muffled even to himself, "do you 
 remember the passage at Bonnington? " 
 
 As he held her, she had been looking up into 
 his face, but now, hearing his question, she 
 flushed deeply, and her head fell forward on 
 his breast. Their minds, their hearts, were 
 travelling back to the moment, to the trifling 
 episode, which had revealed to each the other's 
 love. 
 
 It had happened ten years ago, at a time 
 when Tom Pargeter, desiring to play the role 
 of country gentleman, had taken for a while 
 
 a certain historic country house. There, he 
 
 so
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 and his young wife had brought together a 
 great Christmas house-party composed of the 
 odd, ill-assorted social elements which gather 
 at the call of the wealthy host who has ex- 
 changed old friends for new acquaintances. 
 Peggy's own people, old-fashioned country 
 gentry, were regarded by Pargeter as hope- 
 lessly dowdy and " out of it," so none of them 
 had been invited. With Laurence Vanderlyn 
 alone had the young mistress of the house had 
 any link of mutual interests or sympathies; 
 but of flirtation, as that protean word was 
 understood by those about them, there had 
 been none. 
 
 Then, on Christmas Eve, had come the 
 playing of childish games, though no children 
 were present, for the two-year-old child of 
 the host and hostess was safe in bed. It was 
 in the chances of one of these games that Lau- 
 
 81
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 rence Vanderlyn had for a moment caught 
 Margaret Pargeter in his arms 
 
 He had released her almost at once, but not 
 before they had exchanged the long probing 
 look which had told to each their own as well 
 as the other's secret. Till that moment they 
 had been strangers from that moment they 
 were lovers, but lovers allowing themselves 
 none of love's license, and very soon Vander- 
 lyn had taught himself to be content with all 
 that Peggy's conscience allowed her to think 
 possible. 
 
 She had never known how could she have 
 known? what his acquiescence had cost him. 
 Now and again, during the long years, they 
 had been compelled to discuss the abnormal 
 relation which Peggy called their friendship; 
 together they had trembled at the fragile 
 basis on which what most human beings would 
 
 32
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 have considered their meagre happiness was 
 founded. 
 
 More than once she had touched him to the 
 heart by asserting that she felt sure that the 
 inscrutable Providence in which she had re- 
 tained an almost childish faith, could never be 
 so cruel as to deprive her of the only 
 source of happiness, apart from her little son, 
 which had come her way; and so, although 
 their intimacy had become closer, the links 
 which bound them not only remained platonic, 
 but, as is the way with such links, tended to 
 become more platonic as the time went on. 
 
 Even now, as he sat there with the woman 
 he loved wholly in his power, lying in his arms 
 with her face pressed to his breast, Vander- 
 lyn's mind was in a maze of doubt as to what 
 was to be their relationship during the coming 
 days. Even now he was not sure as to what 
 
 33
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 Peggy had meant when she had seemed to 
 plead, more with herself than with him, for a 
 short space of such happiness as during their 
 long intimacy they had never enjoyed. 
 
 All his acquaintances, including his official 
 chief, would have told you that Laurence Van- 
 derlyn was an accomplished man of the world, 
 and an acute student of human nature, but 
 now, to-night, he owned himself at fault. Only 
 one thing was quite clear; he told himself that 
 the thought of again taking up the thread of 
 what had been so unnatural an existence was 
 hateful impossible. 
 
 Perhaps the woman felt the man's obscure 
 moment of recoil; she gently withdrew herself 
 from his arms. "I'm tired," she said, rather 
 plaintively, " the train sways so,. Laurence. I 
 wonder if I could lie down " 
 
 He heaped up the cushions, spread out the 
 M
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 large rug, which he had purchased that day, 
 and which formed their only luggage, for 
 everything else, by her wish, had been sent on 
 the day before. 
 
 Very tenderly he wrapped the folds of the 
 rug round her. Then he knelt by her side; 
 and at once she put out her arms, and pulled 
 his head down close to hers; a moment later 
 her soft lips were laid against his cheek. He 
 remembered, with a retrospective pang, the 
 ache at his heart with which the sight of her 
 caresses to her child had always filled him. 
 
 "Peggy," he whispered, "tell me, my be- 
 loved, why are you being so good to me 
 now? " 
 
 She made no direct answer to the question. 
 Instead, she moved away a little, and raised 
 herself on her elbow ; her blue eyes, filled with 
 
 a strange solemnity, rested on his moved face. 
 
 35
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 " Listen," she said, " I want to tell you 
 something, Laurence. I want you to know 
 that I understand how how angelic you have 
 been to me all these years. Ever since we first 
 knew one another, you have given me every- 
 thing everything in exchange for nothing." 
 
 And as he shook his head, she continued, 
 " Yes, for nothing ! For a long time I tried to 
 persuade myself that this was not so I tried 
 to believe that you were as contented as I had 
 taught myself to be. I first realised what a 
 hindrance " she hesitated for a moment, and 
 then said the two words " our friendship 
 must have proved to you four years ago, 
 when you might have gone to St. Petersburg." 
 
 As Vanderlyn allowed an exclamation of 
 surprise to escape him, she went on, "Yes, 
 Laurence, you have never known that I knew 
 
 of that chance of that offer. Adele de Lera 
 
 86
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 heard of it, and told me ; she begged me then, 
 oh! so earnestly, to give you up to let you 
 
 go." 
 
 " It was no business of hers," he muttered, 
 "I never thought for a moment of accept- 
 
 ing " 
 
 " But you would have done so if you had 
 never known me, if we had not been 
 friends?" She looked up at him, hoping, 
 longing, for a quick word of denial. 
 
 But Vanderlyn said no such word. Instead, 
 he fell manlike into the trap she had perhaps 
 unwittingly laid for him. 
 
 " If I had never known you?" he repeated, 
 "why, Peggy dearest my whole life would 
 have been different if I had never known you ! 
 Do you really think that I should have been 
 here in Paris, doing what I am now doing or 
 
 rather doing nothing if we had never met? " 
 
 37
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 The honest, unmeditated answer made her 
 wince, but she went on, as if she had not 
 heard it 
 
 " As you know, I did not take Adele's ad- 
 vice, but I have never forgotten, Laurence, 
 some of the things she said." 
 
 A look which crossed his face caused her 
 to redden, and add hastily, " She's not given 
 to speaking of you of us; indeed she's not! 
 She never again alluded to the matter; but 
 the other day when I was persuading her, she 
 required a good deal of persuasion, Laurence 
 to consent to my plan, I reminded her of all 
 she had said four years ago." 
 
 "And what was it that she did say four 
 years ago? " asked Vanderlyn with a touch 
 of angry curiosity; "as Madame de Lera 
 is a Frenchwoman, and a pious Catholic, I 
 presume she tried to make you believe that our 
 
 38
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 friendship was wrong, and could only lead to 
 one thing " he stopped abruptly. 
 
 " No," said Peggy, quietly, " she did not 
 think then that our friendship would lead to 
 to this ; she thought in some ways better of 
 me than I deserve. But she did tell me that 
 I was taking a great responsibility on myself, 
 and that if anything happened for instance, 
 if I died " Vanderlyn again made a rest- 
 less, almost a contemptuous movement "I 
 should have been the cause of your wasting the 
 best years of your life; I should have broken 
 and spoilt your career, and all all for noth- 
 ing." 
 
 " Nothing? " exclaimed Vanderlyn passion- 
 ately. "Ah! Peggy, do not say that. You 
 know, you must know, that our love I will 
 not call it friendship," he went on resolutely, 
 
 "for this one week let no such false word be 
 
 39
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 uttered between us you must know, I say, 
 that our love has been everything to me! Till 
 I met you, my life was empty, miserable; 
 since I met you it has been filled, satisfied, and 
 that even if I have received what Madame de 
 Lera dares to call nothing! " 
 
 He spoke with a fervour, a conviction, 
 which to the woman over whom he was now 
 leaning brought exquisite solace. At last he 
 was speaking as she had longed to hear him 
 speak. 
 
 " You don't know," she whispered brokenly, 
 "how happy you make me by saying this to- 
 night, Laurence. I have sometimes wondered 
 lately if you cared for me as much as you 
 used to care? " 
 
 Vanderlyn's dark face contracted with pain ; 
 he was no Don Juan, learned in the byways of 
 a woman's heart. Then, almost roughly, he 
 
 40
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 caught her to him, and she, looking up, saw 
 a strange glowing look come over his face a 
 look which was, even to her, an all-sufficing 
 answer, for it told of the baffled longing, of 
 the abnegation, and, even now, of the restraint 
 and selflessness, of the man who loved her. 
 
 "Did you really think that, Peggy?" was 
 all he said; then, more slowly, as the arms 
 about her relaxed their hold, " Why, my dear, 
 you've always been you are my life." 
 
 A sudden sob, a cry of joy broke from her. 
 She sat up, and with a quick passionate move- 
 ment flung herself on his breast; slowly she 
 raised her face to his: " I love you," she whis- 
 pered, " Laurence, I love you!" 
 
 His lips trembled for a moment on her 
 closed eyelids, then sought and found her soft, 
 quivering mouth. But even then Vanderlyn's 
 
 love was reverent, restrained in its expression, 
 
 411
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 yet none the less, perhaps the more, a binding 
 sacrament. 
 
 At last, " Why did you subject us," he said, 
 huskily, "to such an ordeal? What has made 
 you give way now? How can you dream of 
 going back, after a week, to our old life? " 
 But even as he asked the searching questions, 
 he laid her back gently on her improvised 
 couch. 
 
 Woman-like she did not give him a direct 
 response, then, quite suddenly, she yielded him 
 the key to the mystery. 
 
 " Because, Laurence, the last time I was in 
 England, something happened which altered 
 my outlook on life." 
 
 She uttered the words with strange solem- 
 nity, but Vanderlyn's ears were holden; true, 
 he heard her answer to his question, but the 
 word conveyed little or nothing to him. 
 
 42
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 He was still riding the whirlwind of his own 
 poignant emotion ; he was telling himself, with 
 voiceless and yet most binding oaths, that 
 never, never should the woman whose heart 
 had just beaten against his heart, whose lips 
 had just trembled beneath his lips, go back to 
 act the part of even the nominal wife to Tom 
 Pargeter. He would consent to any condi- 
 tion imposed by her, as long as they could be 
 together; surely even she would understand, 
 if not now, then later, that there are certain 
 moments which can never be obliterated or 
 treated as if they have not been. . . . 
 
 It was with difficulty with a feeling that 
 he was falling from high heaven to earth that 
 he forced himself to listen to her next 
 words. 
 
 " As you know, I stayed, when in England, 
 with Sophy Pargeter " 
 
 43
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 Again she looked up at him, as if hesitating 
 what she should say. 
 
 " Sophy Pargeter? " he repeated the name 
 mechanically, but with a sudden wincing. 
 
 Vanderlyn had always disliked, with a 
 rather absurd, unreasoning dislike, Peggy's 
 plain-featured, rough-tongued sister-in-law. 
 To him Sophy Pargeter had ever been a gro- 
 tesque example of the deep they almost ap- 
 pear racial differences which may, and so 
 often do, exist between different members of 
 a family whose material prosperity is due to 
 successful commerce. 
 
 The vast inherited wealth which had made 
 of Tom Pargeter a selfish, pleasure-loving, un- 
 moral human being, had transformed his sis- 
 ter Sophy into a woman oppressed by the be- 
 lief that it was her duty to spend the greater 
 part of her considerable income in what she 
 
 44
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 believed to be good works. She regarded with 
 grim disapproval her brother's way of life, and 
 she condemned even his innocent pleasures; 
 she had, however, always been fond of Peggy. 
 Laurence Vanderlyn, himself the outcome and 
 product of an old Puritan New England and 
 Dutch stock, was well aware of the horror and 
 amazement with which Miss Pargeter would 
 regard Peggy's present action. 
 
 " Well, Laurence, the day that I arrived 
 there, I mean at Sophy's house, I felt very ill. 
 I suppose the journey had tired me, for I 
 
 fainted " Again she hesitated, as if not 
 
 knowing how to frame her next sentence. 
 
 " Sophy was horribly frightened. She 
 would send for her doctor, and though he said 
 there was nothing much the matter with me, 
 he insisted that I ought to see another man a 
 specialist." 
 
 45
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 Peggy looked up with an anxious expression 
 in her blue eyes but again Vanderlyn's ears 
 and eyes were holden. He habitually felt for 
 the medical profession the unreasoning dis- 
 like, almost the contempt, your perfectly 
 healthy human being, living in an ailing world, 
 often in fact almost always does feel for 
 those who play the role of the old augurs in 
 our modern life. Mrs. Pargeter had never 
 been a strong woman; she was often ill, often 
 in the doctor's hands. So it was that Vander- 
 lyn did not realise the deep import of her next 
 words 
 
 " Sophy went with me to London she was 
 really very kind about it all, and you would 
 have liked her better, Laurence, if you had 
 seen her that day. The specialist did all the 
 usual things, then he told me to go on much 
 
 as I had been doing, and to avoid any sudden 
 
 46
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 shock or excitement in fact he said almost ex- 
 actly what that dear old French doctor said to 
 me a year ago " 
 
 She waited a moment : " Then, Laurence, the 
 next day, when Sophy thought I had got over 
 the journey to London," Peggy smiled at him 
 a little whimsical smile, " she told me that she 
 thought I ought to know it was her duty to 
 tell me that I had heart disease, and that, 
 though I should probably live a long time, it 
 was possible I might die at any moment " 
 
 A sudden wrath filled the dark, sensitive 
 face of the man bending over her. 
 
 " What nonsense! " he exclaimed with angry 
 decision. " What will the doctors say next, I 
 wonder! I wish to God you would make up 
 your mind, Peggy, once and for all, never to 
 see a doctor again! I beg of you, if only for 
 
 my sake, to promise me that you will not go 
 
 47
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 again to any doctor till I give you permission 
 to do so. You don't know what I went through 
 five years ago when one of those charlatans 
 declared that he would not answer for the con- 
 sequences if you didn't winter South, and 
 and Tom would not let you go ! " 
 
 He paused, and then added more gently, 
 "And yet nothing happened you were none 
 the worse for spending that winter in cold 
 Leicestershire I " 
 
 ' Yes, that's true," she answered submis- 
 sively, " I will make you the promise you ask, 
 Laurence. I daresay I have been foolish in 
 going so often to doctors; I don't know that 
 they have ever done me much good." 
 
 His eyes, having now become quite accus- 
 tomed to the dim light, suddenly seemed to see 
 in her face a slight change; a look of fatigue 
 
 and depression had crept over her mouth. He 
 
 48
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 told himself with a pang that after all she 
 was a delicate, fragile human being or was 
 it the blue shade which threw a strange pal- 
 lor on the face he was scrutinising with such 
 deep, wistful tenderness? 
 
 He bent over her and tucked the rug round 
 her feet. 
 
 "Turn round and try to go to sleep," he 
 whispered. " It's a long, long journey by this 
 train. I'll wake you in good time before we 
 get to Dorgival." 
 
 She turned, as he told her, obediently, and 
 then, acting on a sudden impulse, she pulled 
 him down once more to her, and kissed him as 
 a child might have done. " Good-night," he 
 said, " good-night, my love ' enchanting, 
 noble little Peggy!'" 
 
 A smile lit up her face radiantly. It was 
 
 a long, long time since Vanderlyn had last ut- 
 
 49
 
 tered the charming lines first quoted by him 
 very early in their acquaintance, when he had 
 seen her among her own people, one of a band 
 of joyous English boys and girls celebrating 
 a family festival the golden wedding of her 
 grandparents. Peggy had been delicately, de- 
 liciously kind to the shy, proud American 
 youth, whom an introduction from valued 
 friends had suddenly made free of an English 
 family clan. 
 
 That had been a year before her marriage 
 to Tom Pargeter, the inheritor of a patent dye 
 process which had made him master of one of 
 those fantastic fortunes which impress the 
 imagination of even the unimaginative. That 
 the young millionaire should deign to throw 
 the matrimonial handkerchief at their little 
 Peggy had seemed to her family a piece of 
 magic good fortune. She could bring him 
 good old blood, and certain great social con- 
 
 50
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 nections, in exchange for limitless wealth; it 
 had been regarded as an ideal marriage. 
 
 More than four years went by before Van- 
 derlyn again saw Peggy, and then he had 
 found her changed transformed from a 
 merry, light-hearted girl into a pensive, re- 
 served woman. During the interval he had 
 often thought of her as one thinks of a delight- 
 ful playfellow, but he only came to love her 
 after their second meeting when he had seen, 
 at first with honest dismay, and then with 
 shame- faced gladness, how utterly ill-mated 
 she and Tom Pargeter were the one to the 
 other. 
 
 Vanderlyn made his way over to the other 
 side of the railway carriage ; there he sat down, 
 and, crossing his arms on his breast, after a 
 very few moments he fell into a deep, dream- 
 less sleep. 
 
 51
 
 VANDERLYN woke with a start. He looked 
 round, bewildered for a moment. Then his 
 brain cleared, and he felt vexed with himself, a 
 little ashamed of having slept. It seemed to 
 him that he had been asleep hours. How 
 odious it would have been if at the first 
 stopping place of the demi-rapide some 
 stranger had entered the railway carriage ! In- 
 stead of sleeping, he ought to have remained 
 watching over that still figure which lay so 
 quietly resting on the other side of the car- 
 riage. 
 
 He stood up. How tired he felt, how 
 strangely depressed and uneasy! But that, 
 
 after all, was natural, for his last four nights 
 
 52
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 had been wakeful, his last four days full of ' 
 anxiety and suspense. 
 
 He turned and looked out of the window, 
 wondering where they were, how far they had 
 gone; the train was travelling very quickly, 
 he could see white tree-trunks rushing past 
 him in the moonlight. 
 
 Then Vanderlyn took out his watch. Surely 
 it must be later than nine o'clock? He moved 
 from the window and held the dial close under 
 the blue silk shade of the lamp. Why, it was 
 only three minutes to nine ! Then they hadn't 
 yet passed Dorgival; in fact they wouldn't be 
 there for another twenty minutes, for this train 
 took two hours to do what the quick expresses 
 accomplished in an hour and a quarter. 
 
 It was good to know that he had only 
 slept for quite a little while. The desire for 
 sleep had now left him completely, and he be- 
 
 53
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 gan to feel excited, restless, and intensely, 
 glowingly alive. . . . 
 
 The curious depression and unease which 
 had possessed him a few moments ago lifted 
 from his soul; the future was once more full 
 of infinite possibilities.. 
 
 His darling little Peggy! What strange 
 beings women were! With what self -con- 
 tempt, with what scorpions would he have 
 lashed himself, had he been the one to evolve 
 this plan of this furtive flight, to be followed 
 at the end of a week by a return to the life to 
 which he now looked back with shame as well 
 as distaste ! And yet she, the woman he loved, 
 had evolved it, and thought out every detail 
 of the scheme before telling him of what was 
 in her mind. . . . 
 
 As to the future? Vanderlyn threw back his 
 head; nay, nay, there could be no going back 
 
 54
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 to what had been. Even Peggy would see 
 that. She had herself broken down the barrier 
 erected with such care; and soon, very soon she 
 would she must see that such breaches can 
 never be repaired or treated as if they had 
 not been made. What had happened, what 
 was happening, to-night, was, in very truth 
 the beginning, for them both, of a new life. 
 
 So Laurence Vanderlyn swore to himself, 
 taking many silent vows of chivalrous devo- 
 tion to the woman who, for love of him, had 
 broken, not only with lifelong traditions of 
 honour, but also with a conscience he had 
 known to be so delicately scrupulous. 
 
 From where he was standing in the middle 
 of the swaying carriage, something in the way 
 in which his sleeping companion's head was ly- 
 ing suddenly aroused Vanderlyn's quick, keen 
 
 55
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 attention. Putting out a hand to steady him- 
 self against the back of the compartment, he 
 bent down indifferent to the risk of rousing 
 the still figure. 
 
 Then, with a rapid movement, he straight- 
 ened himself; his face had gone grey expres- 
 sionless. He pushed back the blue shade off 
 the globe of light, careless of the bright rays 
 which suddenly illumined every corner of the 
 railway carriage. . . . 
 
 With an instinctive gesture, Vanderlyn cov- 
 ered his eyes and shut out the blinding light. 
 He pressed his fingers on his eyeballs; every 
 fibre of his body, every quivering nerve was in 
 revolt: for he realised, even then, that there 
 was no room for hope, for doubt, he knew 
 that what he had looked upon in the dim light 
 was death. 
 
 With an awful pang he now understood 
 56
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 why Peggy had made him that strange pa- 
 thetic offer. How blind he had been! The 
 English doctor, the man on whom he had 
 poured such careless scorn, had been right, 
 terribly right. 
 
 At last he uncovered his eyes, and forced 
 himself to gaze upon what lay before him 
 
 Margaret Pargeter had died in her sleep. 
 She was lying exactly as Vanderlyn had left 
 her, still folded closely in the rug he had placed 
 so tenderly about her. But a terrible change 
 had come over the delicate features the sight- 
 less eyes were wide open, the lips had fallen 
 apart ; his glance, travelling down, saw that her 
 left hand, the hand where gleamed his mother's 
 wedding ring, was slightly clenched. 
 
 Again Vanderlyn passed his hand over his 
 eyes. He stared about him with a touch of 
 
 helpless bewilderment, but he could do nothing, 
 
 57
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 even if there had been anything to do; it was 
 she who had insisted that they should be un- 
 encumbered by any luggage. 
 
 He crouched down, and, with an involuntary 
 inward shrinking, took up the chilly, heavy 
 hand and tried to warm it against his cheek; 
 then he shivered, his teeth chattered, with a 
 groan of which the sound echoed strangely in 
 his ears he hid his face in the folds of her grey 
 cloth gown For a few moments the ex- 
 tent of his calamity blotted out everything. 
 
 And then, as Vanderlyn lay there, there sud- 
 denly opened before him a way of escape from 
 his intolerable agony and sense of loss, and he 
 welcomed it with eager relief. He raised his 
 head, and began to think intently. How in- 
 explicable that he had not thought of this 
 the only way at once! It was so simple and 
 so easy; he saw himself flinging wide open the 
 
 58
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 narrow carriage door, and then, with that still 
 figure clasped in his arms, stepping out into 
 the rushing darkness. . . . 
 
 His mind was now working with incredible 
 quickness and clearness. How good it was to 
 know that here, in France, there need be 
 there would be no public scandal! In Eng- 
 land or America the supposed suicide of two 
 such people as were Margaret Pargeter and 
 himself could not hope to be concealed; not so 
 in France. 
 
 Here, as Vanderlyn knew well, there was 
 every chance that such a love tragedy as the 
 one of which he and Mrs. Pargeter would be 
 supposed to have been hero and heroine, would 
 remain hidden hidden, that is, from everyone 
 except those closely connected with her and 
 with himself. His own chief, the American 
 Ambassador, would be informed of what had 
 
 59
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 happened, but he was a wise old man, there 
 was no fear of indiscretion in that quarter; 
 but yes, he, Vanderlyn, must face that fact 
 Tom Pargeter would know the truth. 
 
 Vanderlyn's hidden abhorrence of the other 
 man t of the man whose friend he had per- 
 force compelled himself to be for so long, rose 
 in a great flood. 
 
 Tom Pargeter? The selfish, mean-souled, 
 dull-witted human being, whose huge fortune, 
 coupled with the masculine virtues of physi- 
 cal courage and straightness in matters of 
 sport, made him not only popular but in a 
 small way a personage! Pargeter, no doubt, 
 would suffer, especially in his self-esteem; on 
 the other hand, he, the husband, would feel 
 that so had his own conduct, his coarse infidel- 
 ity, his careless neglect of his wife, been fully 
 
 condoned. 
 
 60
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 With a choking feeling of sharp pain, Van- 
 derlyn suddenly remembered that what Tom 
 Pargeter knew now, poor Peggy's son would 
 some day have to know. For a while, no 
 doubt, the boy would be kept in merciful igno- 
 rance of the tragedy, but then, when the lad 
 was growing into manhood, some blundering 
 fool, or more likely some well-intentioned 
 woman, probably his aunt, Sophy Pargeter, 
 would feel it her duty to smirch for him his 
 mother's memory. . . . 
 
 Nay, that could not, that must never, be! 
 Vanderlyn's head fell forward on his breast; 
 there came back, wrapping him as in a shroud, 
 the awful feeling of desolation, of life-long 
 loss, for he now knew, with inexorable knowl- 
 edge, what the future held for him. 
 
 It must be his fate to live, not die ; he must 
 
 live in order to safeguard the honour of Mar- 
 
 61
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 garet Pargeter, the beloved woman who had 
 trusted him wholly, not only in this, which was 
 to have been their supreme adventure, but dur- 
 ing the whole of their long, almost wordless 
 love. It was for her sake that, she dead, he 
 must go on living; for her sake he must make 
 what now, at this moment, seemed to be a sac- 
 rifice almost beyond his power, for reason told 
 him that he must leave her, and as soon as 
 possible, lying there dead alone. 
 
 With tender, absent fingers he smoothed out 
 the woollen folds to which his face had been 
 pressed; he slipped from her finger the thin 
 gold ring, and placed it once more where he 
 had always worn it from the day of his mother's 
 death till an hour ago. 
 
 Then he stood up, and turned deliberately 
 away. 
 
 There came the loud wailing whistle which 
 62
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 told that the train was nearing a station. He 
 leaned out of the window ; the lights of a town 
 were flashing past, and he grimly told him- 
 self that there was no time to lose. 
 
 Vanderlyn again bent down; the instinctive 
 repugnance of the living for the dead suddenly 
 left him. His darling little Peggy! How 
 could he bear to leave her there alone? If he 
 and she had been what they ought to have been 
 husband and wife even then, he felt that 
 never would he have left her to the neglect, 
 to the forgetfulness to which other men leave 
 their beloved dead. There rose before him the 
 memory of one of the most moving of the 
 world's great pictures, Goya's painting of 
 mad Queen Joan bearing about with her the 
 unburied body of Philip. 
 
 He turned that which had been Mar- 
 garet Pargeter so that her face would be com- 
 
 63
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 pletely hidden from anyone opening the door 
 and looking into the carriage. 
 
 Yet, even as he was doing this, Vanderlyn 
 kept a sharp watch and ward over his own 
 nerves. His had now become the mental atti- 
 tude of a man who desires to save the living 
 woman whom he loves from some great physi- 
 cal danger. Blessing his own foresight in 
 providing the large rug which he had folded 
 about her so tenderly an hour ago, he pulled 
 up a fold of it till it covered, and completely 
 concealed, her head. Should a traveller now 
 enter the carriage he would see nothing but a 
 woman apparently plunged in deep slumber. 
 
 Again Vanderlyn glanced, with far more 
 scrutinising eyes than he had done when first 
 entering the train, through the two glazed 
 apertures which commanded a view of the next 
 
 carriage; it was, as he knew well, empty. 
 
 64
 
 I 
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 He turned once more the silk shade over the 
 lamp, jammed his hat down over his eyes, set 
 his lips together, and, averting his eyes from 
 what he was leaving, opened the railway car- 
 riage door. . . . 
 
 The train was slowing down; a few hundred 
 yards ahead lay the station. Vanderlyn 
 stepped to one side of the footboard, and 
 waited till the door through which he had just 
 passed swung to; then he turned the handle, 
 securing it firmly. 
 
 With soft, swift steps, he walked past 
 the window of the now darkened carriage 
 and slipped into the next empty, brightly- 
 lighted compartment. There came over 
 him a strong temptation to look through the 
 little apertures giving into the darkened 
 carriage he had just left, but it was a tempta- 
 tion which he resisted. Instead, he leant out 
 
 65
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 of the window, as does a traveller who is near- 
 ing his destination. 
 
 Soon there floated up to him the shouting of 
 " Dorgival! Cinq minutes d'arret! " and when 
 the train at last stopped, there arose the joyous 
 chatter which attends every arrival in a French 
 station. 
 
 Vanderlyn waited for a few moments ; then 
 he stepped down from the carriage, and began 
 walking quietly down the platform. With in- 
 tense relief he remembered that the guard of 
 the train whom he had feed so well, and who 
 must have noticed him with Peggy, had been 
 left behind in Paris. 
 
 Having passed the end compartment and 
 guard's van he stood for a while staring down 
 at the permanent way, counting the rails which 
 gleamed in the half darkness. He measured 
 with his eyes the distance which separated the
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 platform on which he was standing from that 
 whence the next train back to Paris must 
 start. 
 
 There was very little risk either of accident 
 or detection, but it was his duty to minimise 
 whatever risk there was. He dropped down 
 gently on to the permanent way, and stood 
 for a moment in the deep shadow cast by the 
 rear of the train he had just left; then, cau- 
 tiously advancing, he looked both up and down 
 the line, and made his way to the other side. 
 
 The platform on which he now found him- 
 self was deserted, for the whole life of the 
 station was still centred round the train which 
 had just arrived; but as he started across the 
 rails Vanderlyn became possessed with a feel- 
 ing of acute, almost intolerable, suspense. He 
 longed with a feverish longing to see the demi- 
 
 rapide glide out into the darkness. He told 
 
 67
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 himself he had been a fool to suppose that any- 
 one could enter the darkened carriage where 
 the dead woman lay without at once discover- 
 ing the truth, and he began asking himself 
 what he would do were the awful discovery 
 made, and were the fact that he had been her 
 travelling companion suddenly revealed or sus- 
 pected. 
 
 But Laurence Vanderlyn was not subjected 
 to so dread an ordeal; at last there floated 
 to where he was standing the welcome cry of 
 "En voiture! En voiture, s'il vous plait!" 
 The dark serpentine mass on which the lonely 
 man's eyes were fixed shivered as though it 
 were a sentient being waking to life, and slowly 
 the train began to move. 
 
 Vanderlyn started walking up the platform, 
 and for a while he kept in step with the 
 slowly gliding carriages; then they swept by
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 more quickly, a swift procession of gleaming 
 lights. . . . 
 
 As at last the red disc melted into the night, 
 he gave a muffled groan of anguish, for min- 
 gling with his sense of intense relief, came that 
 of eternal, irreparable loss. 
 
 Ironic fortune was kind to Vanderlyn that 
 night ; his return ticket from far-away Orange, 
 though only issued in Paris some two hours 
 before, was allowed to pass unchallenged; and 
 a couple of francs bestowed on a communica- 
 tive employe drew the welcome news that a 
 southern express bound for Paris was about to 
 stop at Dorvigal.
 
 IV 
 
 IT was only eleven o'clock when Vanderlyn 
 found himself once more in the Gare de Lyon. 
 He walked quickly out of the great station 
 which was henceforth to hold for him such 
 intimately tender and poignant memories ; and 
 then, instead of taking a cab, he made his way 
 on foot down to the lonely Seine-side quays. 
 
 There, leaning over and staring down into 
 the swift black waters of the river, he planned 
 out his drab immediate future. 
 
 In one sense the way was clear before him, 
 he must of course go on exactly as before; 
 show himself, that is, in his usual haunts ; take 
 the moderate part he had hitherto taken in 
 what he felt to be the dreary round of so- 
 called pleasures with which Paris was now 
 
 70
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 seething. That must be his task his easy and 
 yet intolerable task during the next week or 
 ten days, until the disappearance of Margaret 
 Pargeter became first suspected, and then dis- 
 covered. 
 
 But before that was likely to happen many 
 long days would certainly go by, for, as is so 
 often the case when a man and woman have 
 become, in secret, everything to one another, 
 Laurence Vanderlyn and Mrs. Pargeter had 
 gradually detached themselves from all those 
 whom they had once called their friends, and 
 even Peggy had had no intimate who would 
 miss a daily, or even a weekly, letter. 
 
 Indeed, it was just possible, so Vanderlyn, 
 resting his arms on the stone parapet, now told 
 himself, that the first part of his ordeal might 
 last as long as a fortnight, that is, till Tom 
 
 Pargeter came back from England. 
 
 7i
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 There was of course yet another possibility ; 
 it was conceivable that everything would not 
 fall out as they, or rather Peggy, had imag- 
 ined. Pargeter, for instance, might return 
 sooner; and, if he did so, he would certainly 
 require his wife's immediate presence in Paris, 
 for the millionaire was one of those men 
 who hate to be alone even in their spare mo- 
 ments. Also more than his wife's company, 
 Pargeter valued her presence as part of what 
 the French so excellently style the decor of his 
 life; she was his thing, for which he had paid 
 a good price; some of his friends, the syco- 
 phants with which he loved to be surrounded, 
 would have said that he had paid for her very 
 dearly. 
 
 It was very unlikely, however, that Tom 
 Pargeter would return to Paris before he was 
 
 expected to do so. For many years past he 
 
 72
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 had spent the first fortnight of each May at 
 Newmarket; and, as is the curious custom of 
 his kind, he seldom varied the order of his 
 rather monotonous pleasures. 
 
 But stay Vanderlyn suddenly remembered 
 Madame de Lera, that is the one human being 
 who had been in Peggy's confidence. ;She 
 was a real and terrible point of danger or 
 rather she might at any moment become so. 
 It was with her, at the de Lera villa in the little 
 village of Marly-le-Roi, that Mrs. Pargeter 
 was, even now, supposed to be staying. This 
 being so, he, Vanderlyn, must make it his 
 business to see Madame de Lera at the first 
 possible moment. Together they would have 
 to concoct some kind of possible story he 
 shuddered with repugnance at the thought. 
 
 Long before Peggy's confidences in the 
 train, the American diplomatist had been well 
 
 73
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 aware that Adele de Lera disapproved of 
 his close friendship with Mrs. Pargeter; and 
 she had never lent herself to any of those inno- 
 cent complicities with which even good women 
 are often so ready to help those of their friends 
 who are most foolish whom perhaps they 
 know to be more tempted than themselves. 
 
 The one thing of paramount importance, so 
 Vanderlyn suddenly reminded himself, was 
 that no one not even Madame de Lera 
 should ever know that he and Margaret Par- 
 geter had left Paris that night* together. How 
 could this fact be best concealed, and concealed 
 for ever? 
 
 To the unspoken question came swift an- 
 swer. It flashed on the man lingering on the 
 solitary river-side quay, that even now, to- 
 night, it was not too late for him to establish 
 
 the most effectual of alibis. By taking a 
 
 74
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 fiacre and bribing the man to drive quickly 
 he could be back in his rooms in the Rue de 
 Rivoli, dressed, and at his club, before mid- 
 night. Fool that he was to have wasted even a 
 quarter of an hour! 
 
 Vanderlyn struck sharply across the dimly- 
 lighted thoroughfare ; he started walking down 
 one of the narrow streets which connect the 
 river quays with commercial Paris. A few mo- 
 ments later, having picked up a cab, he was 
 driving rapidly westward, down the broad, still 
 seething Boulevard du Temple, and, as he sud- 
 denly became aware with a sharp pang at his 
 heart, past the entrance to the quiet mediseval 
 square, where, only four short days ago, he 
 and Peggy walking side by side, had held the 
 conversation which was to prove pregnant of 
 so much short-lived joy, and of such long- 
 lived pain. 
 
 75
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 Like so many modern Americans, to whom 
 every material manifestation of wealth has be- 
 come distasteful, Laurence Vanderlyn had 
 chosen to pitch his Paris tent on the top floor 
 of one of those eighteenth-century houses 
 which, if lacking such conveniences as electric 
 light and lifts, can command in their place the 
 stately .charm and spaciousness of which the 
 modern Parisian architect seems to have lost 
 the secret. His appartement consisted of a 
 few large, airy, low-pitched rooms, of which 
 the stone balconies overlooked the Tuileries 
 gardens, while from a corner window of his 
 sitting-room Vanderlyn could obtain what was 
 in very truth a bird's-eye view of the vast 
 Place de la Concorde. 
 
 Very soon after his arrival in Paris, the dip- 
 lomatist had the good fortune to come across a 
 
 couple of French servants, a husband and wife, 
 
 76
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 who exactly suited his simple and yet fastidious 
 requirements. They were honest, thrifty, clean, 
 and their only fault that of chattering to one 
 another like magpies was to Vanderlyn an 
 agreeable proof that they led a life quite in- 
 dependent of his own. Never had he been 
 more glad to know that this was so than to- 
 night, for they greeted his return home with 
 the easy indifference, and real pleasure, very 
 unlike the surface respect and ill-concealed re- 
 sentment with which a master's unexpected ap- 
 pearance would have been received by a couple 
 of more cosmopolitan servitors. 
 
 With nerves strung up to their highest ten- 
 sion, forcing himself only to think of the pres- 
 ent, Vanderlyn put on his evening clothes. 
 It was still wanting some minutes to midnight 
 when he left the Rue de Rivoli for the Boule- 
 vard de la Madeleine. A few moments later 
 
 77
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 he was at the door of the club where he 
 was sure of finding, even at this time of night, 
 plenty of friends and acquaintances who would 
 be able to testify, in the very unlikely event 
 of its being desirable that they should do so, 
 to the fact that he had been there that evening. 
 
 L'Union is the most interesting, as it is in a 
 certain sense the most exclusive, of Paris clubs. 
 Founded in memory of the hospitality shown 
 by the English gentry to the French emigres, 
 during the Revolution, this, the most old-fash- 
 ioned of Paris clubs, impales the Royal arms 
 of France, that is, the old fleur-de-lys, with 
 those of England. 
 
 At all times L'Union has been in a special 
 sense a resort of diplomatists, and Vanderlyn 
 spent there a great deal of his spare time. The 
 
 American was popular among his French fel- 
 
 78
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 low-members, to whom his excellent French 
 and his unobtrusive good breeding made him 
 an agreeable companion. There could have 
 been no greater proof of how he was regarded 
 there than the fact that, thanks to his efforts, 
 Tom Pargeter had been elected to the club. 
 True, the millionaire-sportsman did not often 
 darken the threshold of the stately old club- 
 house, but he was none the less exceedingly 
 proud of his membership of L'Union, for it 
 gave him an added standing in the cosmopoli- 
 tan world in which he had early elected to 
 spend his life. Perhaps it was fortunate that 
 he had so little use for a club where gambling 
 games are not allowed to be played where, in- 
 deed, as the younger members are apt to com- 
 plain, dominoes take the place of baccarat! 
 
 The tall Irish footman whose special duty it 
 was to wait on the foreign members, came f or- 
 
 79
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 ward as Vanderlyn walked into the hall. " Mr. 
 Pargeter has been asking for you, sir; he's in 
 the card-room." 
 
 Vanderlyn felt a curious sensation sweep 
 over him. That which he had thought so im- 
 probable as to be scarcely worth consideration 
 had come to pass. Pargeter had not gone to 
 England that night. He was here, in Paris, at 
 L'Union, asking for him. In a few moments 
 they would be face to face. 
 
 As Vanderlyn walked up the broad stair- 
 case, he asked himself, with a feeling of agon- 
 ising uncertainty, whether it was in any way 
 possible that Peggy's husband had found out, 
 even suspected, anything of their plan. But 
 no! Reason told him that such a thing was 
 quite inconceivable. No compromising word 
 had been written by the one to the other, and 
 
 every detail had been planned and carried out 
 
 80
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 in such a way as to make discovery or betrayal 
 impossible. 
 
 But to-night reason had very little to say to 
 Laurence Vanderlyn, and his strongly drawn 
 face set in hard lines as he sauntered through 
 now fast thinning rooms, for the habitue of 
 L'Union generally seeks his quiet home across 
 the Seine about twelve. 
 
 As he returned the various greetings which 
 came to him from right and left, for a French 
 club has about it none of the repressive eti- 
 quette which governs similar institutions in 
 England and America, the diplomatist felt 
 as doubtless feels any imaginative man who 
 for the first time goes under fire; what he ex- 
 perienced was not so much dread as a wonder 
 how he was likely to bear himself during this 
 now imminent meeting with Peggy's husband. 
 
 Suddenly Vanderlyn caught sight of Par- 
 81
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 geter, and that some moments before he him- 
 self was seen by him. The millionaire was 
 standing watching a game of whist, and he 
 looked as he generally looked when at 
 L'Union, that is, bored and ill at ease, but 
 otherwise much as usual. 
 
 Tom Pargeter was a short man, and though 
 he was over forty, his fair hair, fat face, and 
 neat, small features gave him an almost boyish 
 look of youth. He had one most unusual 
 physical peculiarity, which caused him to be re- 
 membered by strangers: this peculiarity con- 
 sisted in the fact that one of his eyes was green 
 and the other blue. His manners were those 
 of a boy, of a boorish lad, rather than of a 
 man ; his vocabulary was oddly limited, and yet 
 he seldom used the correct word, for he de- 
 lighted in verbal aliases. 
 
 Seeing Pargeter there before him, Laurence 
 
 82
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 Vanderlyn, for the first time in his life, learned 
 what so many men and women learn very early 
 in their lives, what it is to be afraid of a 
 person, who, however despicable, is, or may 
 become, your tyrant. 
 
 Hitherto his relations with Peggy's hus- 
 band, though nothing to be proud of, had 
 brought with them nothing of conscious shame. 
 Nay more, Laurence Vanderlyn, in that long 
 past of which now nothing remained, had tried 
 to see what was best in a character which, if 
 fashioned meanly, was not wholly bad. But 
 now, to-night, he felt that he despised, hated, 
 and, what was to him, far worse, feared the 
 human being towards whom he was advancing 
 with apparently eager steps. 
 
 Suddenly the eyes of the two men met, but 
 Pargeter was far too pre-occupied with him- 
 self and his own concerns to notice anything 
 
 83
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 strained or unusual in Vanderlyn's face. All 
 he saw was that here at last was the man he 
 wanted to see; his sulky face lightened, and he 
 walked forward with hand outstretched. 
 
 " Hullo ! Grid," he cried, " so here you are 
 at last! You see I've not gone? There came 
 a wire from the boy; he's hurt his knee-cap! " 
 
 Vanderlyn murmured an exclamation of 
 concern; as they met he had wheeled round, 
 thus avoiding the other's hand. 
 
 " Nothing much," went on Pargeter quickly, 
 " but of course Peggy will be wild to go to 
 him, so I thought I'd wait and take her to- 
 morrow, eh! what? " 
 
 Side by side they began walking down the 
 long reception-room. Vanderlyn was telling 
 himself, with a feeling of sore, dull pain, that 
 this was the first time, the very first time, that 
 he had ever known Tom Pargeter show a 
 
 84
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 kindly touch of consideration for his wife. 
 But then this concerned the boy, of whom the 
 father, in his careless way, was fond and 
 proud ; their child had always remained a link, 
 if a slight link, between Tom and Peggy. 
 
 " It was just too late to get a wire through 
 to her," went on Pargeter, fretfully, " I mean 
 to that God- forsaken place where she's stay- 
 ing with Madame de Lera; but I've arranged 
 for her to be wired to early in the morning. If 
 I'd been half sharp I'd have sent the trolley 
 for her " 
 
 "The trolley?" repeated Vanderlyn, me- 
 chanically. 
 
 " The motor the motor, man ! But it never 
 occurred to me to do it till it was too late." 
 
 11 Would you like me to go out to-morrow 
 morning and fetch her back?" asked Vander- 
 lyn slowly.
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 " I wish you would! " cried the other eagerly, 
 " then I should be sure of her coming back in 
 time for us to start by the twelve-twenty train. 
 When shall I send the trolley for you? " 
 
 " I'll go by train," said Vanderlyn shortly. 
 " Madame de Lera's villa is at Marly-le-Roi, 
 isri'it?" 
 
 " Yes, haven't you ever been there? " 
 
 Vanderlyn looked at Pargeter. "No," he 
 said very deliberately, "I scarcely know 
 Madame de Lera." 
 
 "How odd," said Pargeter indifferently. 
 " Peggy's always with her, and you and Peggy 
 are such pals." 
 
 " One doesn't always care for one's friends' 
 friends," said Vanderlyn dryly. He longed 
 to shake the other off, but Pargeter clung 
 closely to his side. Each put on the hat and 
 
 light coat handed to him; and, when once out 
 
 86
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 on the boulevard, Pargeter slipped his hand 
 confidingly through the other's arm. 
 
 His touch burnt Vanderlyn. 
 
 " By the way, Grid, I've forgotten to tell 
 you why I wanted to see you to-night. I'd 
 be so much obliged if you would go down to 
 Chantilly at the end of the week and see how 
 that new josser's getting on. You might drop 
 me a line if everything doesn't seem all right." 
 
 Vanderlyn murmured a word of assent. 
 This, then, was the reason why Pargeter had 
 come to L'Union that night, simply in order 
 to ask Vanderlyn to keep an eye on his new 
 trainer! To save himself, too, the trouble of 
 writing a letter, for Tom Pargeter was one of 
 those modern savers and users of time who 
 prefer to conduct their correspondence entirely 
 by telegram. 
 
 They were now close to the Place de 1'Opera. 
 87
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 " Let's go on to * The Wash,' " said Pargeter 
 suddenly. 
 
 The eyes of the two men became focussed 
 on the long line of brilliantly lit up windows 
 of a flat overlooking the square. Here were 
 the headquarters of a Paris club, bearing the 
 name of America's first and greatest Presi- 
 dent, which had earned for itself the nickname 
 of "Monaco Junior." 
 
 Tom Pargeter was no gambler, your im- 
 mensely wealthy man rarely is, but it gave 
 him pleasure to watch the primitive emotions 
 which gambling generally brings to the human 
 surface, and so he spent at what he called 
 " The Wash " a good many of his idle hours. 
 
 " Let's turn in here for a minute," he said, 
 eagerly, "Florae was holding the bank 
 two hours ago; let's go and see if he's still 
 at it."
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 Vanderlyn made a movement of recoil; he 
 murmured something about having to be up 
 early the next morning, but Pargeter, with the 
 easy selfishness which so often looks like good- 
 nature, pressed him to go in. " It's quite 
 early," he urged again, and his companion was 
 in no state of body or mind to resist even the 
 slight pressure of another's will. 
 
 The brightly lighted rooms of "Monaco 
 Junior " were full of colour, sound, and move- 
 ment; the atmosphere was in almost ludicrous 
 contrast to that of the decorous Union. The 
 evening was only just beginning, the rooms 
 were full, and Pargeter was greeted with bois- 
 terous warmth; here, if nowhere else, his money 
 made him king. 
 
 He led the way to the card-room which, with 
 its crowd of men surrounding each of the
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 tables, was very evidently the heart of the club. 
 "Do look at Florae!" he murmured to Van- 
 derlyn. " When I left here a couple of hours 
 ago, he was winning a bit, but I expect he's 
 losing now. I always like to watch him play 
 he's such a bad loser! " 
 
 The two men had threaded their way close 
 to the baccarat table, and now they formed the 
 centre of a group who were throwing furtive 
 glances at the banker, a pale lean Frenchman 
 of the narrow-jowled, Spanish type so often 
 repeated in members of the old noblesse. 
 
 The Marquis de Florae was " somebody," 
 to use the expressive French phrase, a mem- 
 ber of that small Parisian circle of which each 
 individual is known by reputation to every 
 provincial bourgeois, and to every foreign 
 reader of French social news. 
 
 There had been a time when de Florae had 
 90
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 set the fashion, and that not only in waistcoats 
 and walking-sticks. He was a fine swords- 
 man, and was even now in some request as sec- 
 ond at fashionable duels. None knew more 
 certainly than he every punctilio of those un- 
 written laws which govern affairs of honour, 
 and, had he been born to even a quarter of the 
 fortune of Tom Pargeter, his record would 
 probably have remained unstained. Unfortu- 
 nately for him this had not been the case; he 
 had soon run through the moderate for- 
 tune left him by his father, and he had 
 ruined by his own folly, and his one vice of 
 gambling, any chance that might have re- 
 mained to him of a good marriage. 
 
 Even in the Faubourg St. Germain, loyal 
 to its black sheep as are ever the aristocracies 
 of the old world, Florae was now looked at 
 
 askance; and in the world of the boulevards 
 
 91
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 strange stories were told as to the expedients 
 by which he now made it could not be called 
 earned a living. The playing of those games 
 which can best be described as requiring a 
 minimum of judgment and a maximum of 
 luck was apparently the only occupation re- 
 maining to the Marquis de Florae, and when 
 in funds he was often to be found in the card- 
 rooms of " Monaco Junior." 
 
 " He's losing now," whispered Pargeter. 
 " I should think he's near the end of his tether, 
 eh? Funny how money goes from hand to 
 hand! I don't suppose Florae knows that it's 
 my money he's chucking away! " 
 
 ' Your money? " repeated Vanderlyn with 
 listless surprise, " d'you mean to say that 
 you've been lending Florae money? " He 
 looked, with a pity in which there entered a 
 vague fellow-feeling, at the mask-like face of
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 the man against whom the luck seemed to be 
 going so dead. 
 
 " I'm not quite a fool! " exclaimed Pargeter, 
 piqued at the suggestion. "All the same, 
 Grid, it is my money, or a little bit of it at 
 any rate!" 
 
 An English acquaintance of the two men 
 came up to them. " The French are a won- 
 derful people," he said rather crossly, " every- 
 body says that Florae is ruined, that he's liv- 
 ing on ten francs a day allowed him by a kind 
 grandmother and yet since I have been 
 standing here he's dropped, at least so I've 
 calculated, not far short of four hundred 
 pounds!" 
 
 A grin came over Pargeter's small neat face, 
 and lit up his odd, different-coloured eyes. 
 "'Cherchez la femme/" he observed, affect- 
 ing an atrocious English accent; and then he 
 
 98
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 repeated, as if he were himself the inventor, 
 the patentee, of the admirable aphorism, 
 " ' Cherchez la femme! * That's what you have 
 got to do in the case of Florae, and of a good 
 many other Frenchmen of his kind, I fancy! " 
 " I'm going home now, Pargeter," said Van- 
 derlyn with sudden, harsh decision. " If you 
 really wish me to go out to Marly-le-Roi in 
 one of your cars to-morrow morning, will you 
 please give orders for it to be round at my 
 place at nine o'clock? "
 
 V 
 
 FEOM what seemed an infinite distance, 
 Vanderlyn awoke the next morning to hear 
 the suave voice of his servant, Poulain, mur- 
 muring in his ear, " The automobile is here to 
 take Monsieur for a drive in the country. I 
 did not wish to wake Monsieur, but the chauf- 
 feur declared that Monsieur desired the auto- 
 mobile to be here at nine." 
 
 Poulain's master sat up in bed and stared at 
 Poulain. Then suddenly he remembered 
 everything that had happened to him the even- 
 ing before. In a flash he even lived once more 
 the wakeful hours of the night which had had 
 so awful a beginning; only at four o'clock 
 had he found sleep. 
 
 " Yes? " he said. Then again, " Yes, Pou- 
 95
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 lain. I wished to start at nine o'clock. Say 
 that I shall be down in a quarter of an 
 hour." 
 
 " And then, while Monsieur is dressing, my 
 wife will be preparing his little breakfast 
 unless, indeed, Monsieur would rather wait, 
 and have his little breakfast in bed? " 
 
 " No," said Vanderlyn, quickly, " I shall not 
 have time to wait for coffee." 
 
 The keen morning air, the swift easy mo- 
 tion of the large car revived Vanderlyn and 
 steadied his nerves. He elected to sit in front 
 by the side of Pargeter's silent English chauf- 
 feur. At this early hour the Paris streets were 
 comparatively clear, and a few moments 
 brought them to the Avenue du Bois de Bou- 
 logne. There, half way down was Tom Par- 
 geter's splendid villa; as they passed it in a
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 flash, Vanderlyn averted his head. To his mor- 
 bid fancy it suddenly assumed the aspect of a 
 great marble tomb. 
 
 The car swung on through the now deserted 
 Bois ; soon it was rushing up the steep countri- 
 fied streets of St. Cloud, and then, settling 
 down to a high speed, they found themselves 
 in the broad silent alleys of those splendid 
 royal woods which form so noble a girdle about 
 western Paris. They sped through sunlit 
 avenues of fresh green foliage, past old houses 
 which had seen the splendid pageant of Louis 
 the Fifteenth and his Court sweep by on their 
 way to Marly-le-Roi, and so till they gained 
 the lofty ridge which dominates the wide val- 
 ley of the Seine. 
 
 Suddenly the chauffeur turned to Vander- 
 lyn, and spoke for the first time: "Would 
 
 you like to slow down a bit, sir? Mrs. Parge- 
 
 97
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 ter generally stops the car here to have a look 
 at the view." 
 
 " No," said Vanderlyn hoarsely, " we haven't 
 time to-day; we've got to get back to 
 Paris in time for Mr. and Mrs. Pargeter to 
 catch, if possible, the twelve-twenty o'clock 
 train." 
 
 He leant back a feeling of horror and self- 
 contempt possessed him. His life was now 
 one long lie ; even when speaking to a servant, 
 he was compelled to imply what he knew to be 
 untrue. 
 
 They ran down into the quaint little town 
 which has scarcely altered since the days when 
 Madame du Barry was dragged hence, scream- 
 ing and wringing her hands, to Paris, to 
 prison, and to the guillotine Vanderlyn's dis- 
 traught imagination saw something sinister in 
 
 the profound quietude of the place ; it was full 
 
 98
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 of shuttered villas, for through the winter each 
 village in the neighbourhood of Paris hiber- 
 nates, those whom the peasants style les bour- 
 geois still regarding country life as essentially 
 a summer pastime. 
 
 They now came to a high blank wall, broken 
 by an iron gate. '' This is the house, sir," 
 said the chauffeur abruptly. 
 
 Vanderlyn jumped out, and rang a primi- 
 tive bell; he waited some minutes and then rang 
 again. At last he heard the sound of steps 
 hurrying along a gravel path; and the gate 
 was opened by an old woman. 
 
 ' You have come to the wrong house," she 
 said curtly, " this is Madame de Lera's villa." 
 Then, as she caught sight of the Pargeters' 
 chauffeur, a more amiable look stole over her 
 wizened face, " Pardon, perhaps Monsieur 
 
 has brought a letter from Madame Pargeter? " 
 
 99
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 She wiped her hand on her apron and held 
 it out. 
 
 Vanderlyn remained silent a moment; he 
 knew that now had come the moment for him 
 to utter an exclamation of surprise, to explain 
 that he had thought to find Mrs. Pargeter 
 here, hut his soul revolted from the* lie. 
 
 " Yes, I have come to see Madame de Lera," 
 he said in a low voice. " Kindly give her my 
 card, and ask her if she will be good enough 
 to receive me?" 
 
 The old woman turned on her heel; she led 
 Vanderlyn into the silent house, and showed 
 him into a large sitting-room where the furni- 
 ture was still swathed in the rough sheeting 
 with which the careful French housewife 
 drapes her household goods when leaving them 
 for the winter. 
 
 " I will light the fire," said the servant, apol- 
 100
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 ogetically; "Madame does not use this room 
 when we are here alone." 
 
 " I am quite warm," said Vanderlyn quickly. 
 " Besides, I shall only be here a very few mo- 
 ments." 
 
 The woman gave him a curious, rather sus- 
 picious look, and went to find her mistress. 
 
 Vanderlyn, in spite of the words he had just 
 uttered, suddenly told himself that he felt 
 cold cold and dizzy. He moved over to the 
 window. It overhung a wooded precipice, be- 
 low which sparkled the Seine, that same river 
 into whose dark depths he had gazed so de- 
 spairingly the night before. Here, looking at 
 the sunlit panorama of wood, water, and sky 
 spread out before him, Peggy must often have 
 stood. For the first time since the terrible 
 moment when he had watched the train bear- 
 ing her dead body disappear into the darkness, 
 
 101
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 Vanderlyn thought of her as living; he seemed 
 to feel her soft, warm presence in this place 
 which she had loved, and where she had spent 
 peaceful, happy hours. 
 
 He heard the door open and shut, and, turn- 
 ing round, found himself face to face with the 
 Frenchwoman whom he knew to have been 
 Margaret Pargeter's devoted friend. Al- 
 though he was well aware that Madame de 
 Lera had never liked or trusted him, he, on his 
 side, had always admired and appreciated her 
 serenity and simple dignity of demeanour. As 
 she came forward, clad in the austere dress of 
 a French widow, he noted the expression of 
 constraint, of surprise, on her worn face. 
 
 " Mr. Vanderlyn? " she said, interrogatively; 
 and, as she waited for an explanation of the 
 American's presence, surprise gave way to a 
 
 look of great sternness and severity, almost of 
 
 102
 
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 dislike. Nay more, Madame de Lera's atti- 
 tude was instinct with protest the protest of 
 an honest woman drawn unwillingly into what 
 she feels to be an atmosphere of untruth and 
 intrigue. She was telling herself that she 
 owed the fact of Vanderlyn's visit to some 
 slight hitch in the plan in which she had been 
 persuaded to play the part of an accomplice; 
 she felt that Margaret Pargeter ought not to 
 have subjected her to am interview with her 
 lover. 
 
 Vanderlyn reddened. He felt suddenly an- 
 gered. Madame de Lera's manner was insult- 
 ing, not only to him, but but to Mrs. Parge- 
 ter, to his poor dead love. Any thought of 
 telling Madame de Lera the truth, or even part 
 of the truth, left him. 
 
 ' You must forgive my intrusion," he said, 
 coldly; " I have come with a message from Mr. 
 
 109
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 Pargeter. He believes his wife to be here, and 
 he wishes her to be informed that her son, lit- 
 tle Jasper, has had an accident. When the 
 news arrived last night, it was too late to tele- 
 graph, and so he asked me to come here this 
 morning in his motor in order to bring Mrs. 
 Pargeter back to Paris. He proposes that she 
 should accompany him to England to-day by 
 the twelve o'clock train." 
 
 ^\ii expression of deep bewilderment crossed 
 Madame de Lera's face. For the first time 
 since she had glanced at Vanderlyn, she be- 
 came aware that she was in the presence of a 
 man who was suffering under some keen stress 
 of feeling. She became oppressed with a great 
 misgiving. What did his presence here this 
 morning, his strange unreal words, signify? 
 What was the inward meaning of this sinister 
 comedy? It was of course clear that the se- 
 
 104
 
 cret elopement had not taken place. But then, 
 where was Mrs. Pargeter? 
 
 She cast a long searching look at Laurence 
 Vanderlyn. The American's face had become 
 expressionless. He seemed tired, like a man 
 who had not slept, but the look she thought she 
 had surprised, that look telling of the sup- 
 pression of deep feeling, of hidden anguish, 
 had gone. The fact that she did not know 
 how much Vanderlyn knew she knew added 
 to Madame de Lera's perplexity. She was 
 determined at all costs not to betray her 
 friend. 
 
 " I regret to inform you," she said, quietly, 
 "that Mrs. Pargeter is not here. It is 
 true that I was expecting her to come yester- 
 day. But she disappointed me she did not 
 come. Does no one know where she is?" She 
 threw as great an emphasis as was possible in 
 
 105
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 the impassive French language into her ques- 
 tion. 
 
 Vanderlyn avoided her perplexed, question- 
 ing glance. " Since yesterday evening," he 
 answered, "all trace of Margaret Pargeter 
 has been lost. She seems to have left her house 
 about six o'clock, and then to have disappeared 
 utterly. The servants believed," he added, 
 after a pause, " that she was coming straight 
 to you ; she had, it seems, taken some luggage 
 to the station the day before, and seen person- 
 ally to its despatch." 
 
 There was a pause; neither spoke for some 
 moments, and Madame de Lera noticed that 
 Vanderlyn had not asked her if Peggy's lug- 
 gage had arrived at her house. 
 
 " Then, Monsieur, it is surely clear," she ex- 
 claimed at last, " that there has been an acci- 
 dent, a terrible accident to our poor friend! 
 
 106
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 I mean on her way to to the station. But 
 doubtless that thought has also occurred to you 
 if not to Mr. Pargeter and you have al- 
 ready made all necessary enquiries? " 
 
 Vanderlyn, from being pale, flushed deeply. 
 " No," he said, " I am afraid nothing of the 
 kind has been done yet. You see, Pargeter 
 believes her to be here." 
 
 The words " But you you knew she was 
 not here ! " trembled on Madame de Lera's 
 lips, but she did not utter them. She felt as 
 if she were walking amid quicksands ; she told 
 herself that there was far more danger in say- 
 ing a word too much than a word too little. 
 
 " I regret," she said, " that you have made 
 a useless journey, Mr. Vanderlyn. I must 
 request you to go back and tell Mr. Pargeter 
 that his wife is not here, and I beg, I entreat, 
 
 you to inform the police that she is missing I 
 
 107
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 For all we know," she looked at him with 
 indignant severity y " she may be lying ill, 
 mortally injured, in one of our terrible Paris 
 hospitals!" 
 
 As he made no assent to her imploring 
 words, a look of anger came into Madame de 
 Lera's eyes. 
 
 " I will ask you to allow me to return with 
 you to Paris," she said, quickly. " I cannot 
 rest inactive here in the face of the possibility, 
 nay, the probability, I have indicated, llf 
 you, Mr. Vanderlyn, do not feel justified 
 in making the enquiries I have suggested, no 
 such scruple need restrain me" 
 
 She turned away, making no effort to mask 
 her displeasure, almost her contempt, for the 
 man who seemed to be so little moved by the 
 mysterious disappearance of the woman he 
 loved. 
 
 108
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 A few moments later Madame de Lera came 
 back dressed for the drive. As they walked 
 through into the hall of the villa, she suddenly 
 turned, and with a strange gentleness asked 
 her silent companion a question, " Mr. Van- 
 derlyn, you look very tired; have you had any 
 breakfast?" 
 
 He looked at her without answering, and 
 she repeated her words. 
 
 "Yes," said Vanderlyn, "that is, no, I 
 have not. I was up late last night, there 
 was no time this morning," he spoke hurriedly, 
 confusedly; the sudden kindness in her tone 
 had brought scalding tears to his eyes, and he 
 felt a nervous fear that he was about to break 
 down. Madame de Lera took his arm; she 
 opened a door and pushed him through into 
 the kitchen, just now the one bright, warm, 
 
 cheerful room in the house. 
 
 109
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 " My good Catherine," she said, " give this 
 gentleman a cup of coffee quickly!" 
 
 The presence of the old servant steadied 
 Vanderlyn's nerves; with a muttered word of 
 thanks he drank what was put before him, and 
 then they went out, across the dewy lawn, to 
 the gate. 
 
 Vanderlyn placed his companion in the back 
 of the car, and himself took the vacant seat 
 next to Pargeter's phlegmatic chauffeur, for 
 he wished to remain silent. Madame de Lera's 
 alteration of manner, her gentleness, her im- 
 plied sympathy, frightened him. He would 
 rather have endured her cold air of protest, of 
 dislike. 
 
 And yet, as they drove swiftly back to Paris, 
 taking, however, rather longer on the return 
 journey, for the country roads were now full 
 
 of animation and movement, Vanderlyn felt 
 
 no
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 himself leaning, as against a wall, on Madame 
 de Lera's strong upright nature. She might 
 dislike, disapprove, even despise him, but in 
 this matter they would be one in their desire 
 to shield Peggy's fair name. He would have 
 given much to be able to still her evident anx- 
 iety, but that course was, so he felt, forbid- 
 den to him; he had no right to share with 
 another human being the burden of his knowl- 
 edge, of his awful grief. With a pang he re- 
 minded himself that even Madame de Lera's 
 state of suspense was preferable to a knowl- 
 edge of the truth. 
 
 At last they turned into the Bois de Bou- 
 logne, rushing through the leafy roads at a 
 high speed; a few moments more would see 
 them in the beautiful avenue where stood, iso- 
 lated from its neighbours, the Villa Pargeter, 
 
 instinct with flamboyant luxury and that per- 
 
 111
 
 faction only achieved by the lavish use of 
 money. 
 
 Tom Pargeter had a supreme contempt for 
 the careless way in which the French mil- 
 lionaires of his acquaintance conducted their 
 lives. He liked to get the full value of his 
 money, and was proud of boasting to his inti- 
 mates that he kept the people who worked for 
 him up to the top mark. So it was that the 
 sanded garden, even now blazing with flowers, 
 which surrounded the square marble villa, and 
 separated it from the carriage road and tan 
 gallop, looked like a set piece, a vivid bit of 
 scene painting, in the bright morning sun- 
 light. 
 
 When they came within sight of the wrought 
 bronze gates of the villa, Madame de Lera 
 stood up in the car and leant over the front. 
 
 She touched Vanderlyn on the shoulder. 
 
 112
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 "Then if we find that Mr. Pargeter is still 
 without any knowledge of his wife, I am to 
 say that I know nothing that I was expect- 
 ing her yesterday evening, and that she never 
 arrived?" 
 
 "Yes," he answered, "that is, Madame, 
 what I expect to hear you say. It will then 
 be for Mr. Pargeter to take what steps he 
 judges proper." 
 
 As the powerful car swung through the 
 gates, Vanderlyn saw that the front door was 
 wide open, and that the English butler was 
 waiting to receive them; when the man saw that 
 his mistress was not in the car, a look of per- 
 plexity came over his impassive face. 
 
 "Mr. Pargeter has been awaiting you, sir, 
 for the last half hour," he said, "he is very 
 anxious to catch the twelve o'clock express. 
 The luggage has already gone on to the sta- 
 
 113
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 tion. Mr. Pargeter wished the car to wait, 
 but but is it to wait, sir? " he asked, helplessly. 
 
 " Yes," said Vanderlyn, shortly, " the car 
 had better wait. Where is Mr. Pargeter?" 
 
 " He's not down yet, sir; he is breakfasting 
 in his dressing-room. All the arrangements 
 were made last night, but I will let him know 
 you have arrived, sir." He looked doubtfully 
 at Madame de Lera, too well trained to ask 
 any question, and yet sufficiently human not 
 to be able to conceal his astonishment at Mrs. 
 Pargeter's non-appearance. Then, preceding 
 the two visitors upstairs, he led them through 
 the suite of large reception rooms into a small 
 octagon boudoir which was habitually used by 
 Margaret Pargeter as her sitting-room. 
 
 There he left them, and, standing amid sur- 
 roundings which all spoke to them, to the wo- 
 man, of her friend, to the man of his love, 
 
 114
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 from the hooded chair where Peggy generally 
 sat to the little writing-table where she had 
 written so many notes to them both, Madame 
 de Lera and Laurence Vanderlyn felt over- 
 whelmed with a common feeling of shame, of 
 guilt. In silence they waited for Tom Parge- 
 ter, avoiding each other's eyes ; and the French- 
 woman's fine austere face grew rigid this 
 was the first time in her long life that she had 
 been connected with an intrigue. She felt 
 humiliated, horrified at the part she now 
 found herself compelled to play. 
 
 In spite of its costly luxury, and its wonder- 
 ful beauty of decoration, an exquisite Nat- 
 tier was let into a panel above the fire-place, 
 and a row of eighteenth-century pastels hung 
 on the light grey walls, the octagon apart- 
 ment lacked the restful charm which belongs to 
 many a shabby little sitting-room. The archi- 
 
 115
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 tect of the villa had sacrificed everything to 
 the great reception rooms, and in the boudoir 
 were far too many doors. 
 
 One of these, which Vanderlyn had never 
 noticed before, was now suddenly flung open, 
 and, outlined against a narrow winding stair- 
 case, stood a figure which appeared at once 
 grotesque and menacing to the man and 
 woman who stood staring at the unexpected 
 apparition. It was Tom Pargeter, clad in a 
 bright yellow dressing-gown, and holding a 
 fork in his left hand. 
 
 " I say, Peggy, look sharp, there's no time 
 to be lost! I told Plimmer to pack some of 
 your things not that there's any reason why 
 you should come if you don't want to for 
 there's nothing much the matter with the boy, 
 and he'll probably get well all the quicker if 
 
 you " 
 
 116
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 The speaker suddenly broke short the quick 
 sentences; he stared round the little room, 
 and then, catching sight of Madame de Lera 
 who had been partly concealed by a screen, 
 "Damn!" he said, and turning, scampered 
 heavily up the staircase, leaving the door be- 
 hind him open. 
 
 Vanderlyn and his companion looked at 
 each other uncomfortably. Madame de Lera 
 was not perhaps quite so shocked, either by 
 Pargeter's appearance or by his one exclama- 
 tion apparently addressed to herself, as the 
 punctilious American supposed her to be. She 
 knew no word of the English language, and in 
 her heart regarded all foreigners as barbarians. 
 
 They waited, it seemed a long, long time, 
 but as a matter of fact it was but a very few 
 minutes after Pargeter's abrupt entrance 
 
 and exit, when his short quick steps were 
 
 117
 
 heard resounding down the long suite of 
 reception rooms. As he walked into the 
 boudoir, the master of the house this time 
 dressed in a suit of the large checks he gener- 
 ally wore bowed awkwardly to Madame 
 de Lera, and then went over and shut the door 
 giving access to the winding staircase, that 
 which in his hurry he had omitted to close be- 
 hind him. Then, and not till then, he turned 
 to Laurence Vanderlyn. 
 
 "Well?" he said, "what's happened to 
 
 Peggy? I' m told sne ' s n t nere ' I s sne ill- " 
 "Peggy never arrived at Marly-le-Roi," 
 said Vanderlyn. 
 
 To himself his very voice seemed changed, 
 his words charged with terrible significance; 
 but to Pargeter, the answer given to his ques- 
 tion sounded disagreeably indifferent and mat- 
 ter-of-fact. 
 
 118
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 "Never arrived?" he echoed. "Where is 
 she then? You don't mean to say she's lost? " 
 
 " Madame de Lera," said Vanderlyn, still in 
 the same quiet, emotionless voice, " thinks that 
 she's met with an accident," he looked im- 
 ploringly at the Frenchwoman; surely it was 
 time that she should come to his help. " I am 
 telling Mr. Pargeter," he said to her in French, 
 " that you fear she has met with an accident." 
 
 "Yes!" she exclaimed, eagerly turning to 
 Pargeter, " how can it be otherwise, Mon- 
 sieur? " She hesitated, looked at Vanderlyn, 
 then quickly withdrew her eyes from his face. 
 His eyes were full of agony. She felt as if 
 she had peered through a secret window of 
 another's soul. 
 
 " That is why I have come back to Paris," 
 she went on, addressing Peggy's husband, " for 
 
 I feel that not a moment should be lost in mak- 
 
 119
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 ing enquiries. There are certain places where 
 they take those who meet with accidents in our 
 streets accidents, alas! more and more fre- 
 quent every day. Let us start at once and 
 make enquiries." 
 
 Tom Pargeter heard her out with obvious 
 impatience. But still his varnish of good 
 breeding so far lasted that he muttered a word 
 or two of gratitude for the trouble she had 
 taken. Then he turned to Laurence Vander- 
 lyn. 
 
 " Surely you don't think anything has hap- 
 pened to her, Grid?" he asked, nervously. 
 " Now I come to think of it, she was a fool 
 not to take one of the cars. Then we should 
 have had none of this worry. I've always said 
 the Paris cabs weren't safe. What d'ye think 
 we had better do? We can't start out and 
 
 make a round of all the hospitals the idea's 
 
 120
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 absurd!" Waiting a moment, he added dis- 
 mally, "It's clear I can't take that twelve- 
 twenty train." 
 
 He walked over to one of the windows, and 
 drummed with his fingers on the pane. 
 
 Although Madame de Lera did not under- 
 stand a word he said, Pargeter's attitude was 
 eloquent of how he had taken the astounding 
 news, and she looked at him with angry per- 
 plexity and pain. She said something in a low 
 voice to Vanderlyn ; as a result he walked up to 
 Pargeter and touched him on the shoulder. 
 
 " Tom," he said, " I'm afraid something 
 ought to be done, and done quickly. Madame 
 de Lera suggests that we go to the Prefecture 
 of Police; every serious accident is, of course, 
 always reported there at once." 
 
 The other turned " All right," he said, sul- 
 lenly, " just as you like ! But I bet you any- 
 
 121
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 thing that after we have taken all that trouble, 
 we shall come back to find Peggy, or news of 
 her, here. You don't know her as well as I do ! 
 I don't believe she's had an accident ; I daresay 
 you'll laugh at me, Grid, but all I can say is 
 that I don't feel she's had an accident. Take 
 my word for it, old man, there's nothing to 
 be frightened about. iWhy, you look quite 
 pale!" 
 
 There came the distant sounci of a telephone 
 bell. "There!" he cried, "I expect that is 
 Peggy* r news of her. What a bore it is 
 having three telephones in a house! " He left 
 the room, and a moment later they heard him 
 shouting to his butler. 
 
 Vanderlyn turned to Madame de Lera. 
 "He doesn't believe that Mrs. Pargeter has 
 had an accident," he said, quietly, " you must 
 
 not judge him too harshly." He added after a 
 
 122
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 moment, " I think you must know, Madame 
 de Lera, that Mrs. Pargeter's husband has 
 always been lacking in imagination." 
 
 Her only answer was a shrug of her shoul- 
 ders. 
 
 193
 
 VI 
 
 ONCE a year the newspapers of each great 
 capital publish, among other statistics, a record 
 of the disappearances which have occurred in 
 their midst during the preceding twelve 
 months. These disappearances are not counted 
 by tens or by hundreds, but by thousands ; and 
 what is true of every great city is in a very 
 special sense true of Paris, the human Cloaca 
 Maxima of the world. There, the sudden 
 vanishing, the obliteration as it were, of a hu- 
 man being especially of a foreigner arouses 
 comparatively little surprise or interest among 
 those whose weary duty it is to try and find 
 what has become of the lost one. 
 
 To Madame de Lera, even to Tom Parge- 
 
 124
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 ter, the beginning of what was to be so sin- 
 gular and perplexing a quest had about it 
 something awe-inspiring and absorbing. So 
 it was that during the few minutes which 
 elapsed between their leaving the Avenue du 
 Bois de Bologne and their reaching the ancient 
 building where the Paris Police still has its 
 headquarters, not a word was spoken by either 
 of the two ill-assorted companions who sat to- 
 gether in the rear of the car, for Vanderlyn, 
 the only one of the three who knew where the 
 Prefecture of Police is situated, had been 
 placed next to the chauffeur in order that he 
 might direct him as to the way thither. 
 
 By such men as Tom Pargeter and their 
 like, the possibility of material misfortune at- 
 tacking themselves and those who form what 
 may be called their appanage, is never envis- 
 aged; and therefore, when such misfortune 
 
 125
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 comes to them, as it does sooner or later to all 
 human beings, the grim guest's presence is 
 never accepted without an amazed sense of 
 struggle and revolt. 
 
 The news of the accident to his little son 
 had angered Pargeter, and made him feel ill- 
 used, but that it should have been followed 
 by this mystery concerning his wife's where- 
 abouts seemed to add insult to injury. So 
 it was an ill-tempered, rather than an anx- 
 ious man who joined Vanderlyn on the worn 
 steps of the huge frowning building wherein 
 is housed that which remains the most perma- 
 nent and the most awe-inspiring of Parisian 
 institutions. 
 
 As they passed through the great portals 
 Tom Pargeter smiled, for the first time; "We 
 shall soon have news of her, Grid," he mur- 
 mured, confidently. 
 
 126
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 Vanderlyn winced as he nodded a dubious 
 assent. 
 
 But at first everything went ill with them. 
 Pargeter insisted on sending for the police 
 interpreter and stating his business in Eng- 
 lish; then, irritated at the man's lack of 
 comprehension, he broke out to Vanderlyn's 
 surprise into voluble French. But as the 
 two foreigners were sent from room to 
 room in the old-fashioned, evil-smelling build- 
 ing, as endless forms were placed before them 
 to be filled up, it became increasingly clear that 
 the disappearance of a human being, especially 
 of an Englishwoman, did not strike the list- 
 less employees as being particularly remark- 
 able. 
 
 The more angry Pargeter grew, and the 
 more violent in his language, the more politely, 
 
 listlessly, indifferent became those to whom 
 
 127
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 he addressed his questions and indignant com- 
 plaints. 
 
 The cosmopolitan millionaire-sportsman, ac- 
 customed to receive a constant stream of adu- 
 lation and consideration from all those with 
 whom life brought him in contact, was first 
 amazed, and then angered, by the lack of in- 
 terest shown in him and in his affairs at the 
 Prefecture of Police. 
 
 Then, to his surprise and only half -concealed 
 mortification, a reference made by Laurence 
 Vanderlyn to an incident which had taken 
 place the year before that is, to the disap- 
 pearance of an American citizen followed 
 by the production of the diplomatist's card, 
 brought about a magic change. 
 
 Immediately the two friends were intro- 
 duced into the presence of an important offi- 
 cial; and a moment later Tom Pargeter's out- 
 
 128
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 raged dignity and sense of importance were 
 soothed by an outpouring of respectful sympa- 
 thy, while in an incredibly short time the full 
 particulars of every accident which had oc- 
 curred in the streets of Paris during the last 
 twenty-four hours were laid before the anxious 
 husband. But it soon became clear that in 
 none of these had Mrs. Pargeter been con- 
 cerned. 
 
 The official left the room a moment; then 
 he returned with a colleague. 
 
 This man, the chief of the detective force, 
 proceeded with considerable tact to examine 
 and cross-examine both Pargeter and Vander- 
 lyn concerning the way in which Mrs. Parge- 
 ter had spent the earlier part of the previous 
 day that is, the day on which she had disap- 
 peared. 
 
 The man's manner that of scenting a 
 129
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 secret, of suspecting that more lay behind the 
 matter than was admitted by the husband and 
 friend of the woman they were seeking pro- 
 duced a disagreeable impression on Vander- 
 lyn. For the first time he felt himself faced 
 by a vague, but none the less real, danger, and 
 the feeling braced him. 
 
 " Then Monsieur did not see this lady yes- 
 terday at all? " 
 
 "No," said Vanderlyn, shortly; "the last 
 time I saw Mrs. Pargeter in her house was the 
 day before yesterday, when I called on her 
 about five o'clock." 
 
 " Monsieur is not related to the lady," asked 
 the detective quietly. 
 
 " No," said Vanderlyn again. " But I am 
 an old friend of both Mr. and Mrs. Pargeter, 
 and that is why he asked me to accompany him 
 
 here to-day." 
 
 ISO
 
 THE [UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 " Then when and how did you yourself first 
 learn of Madame Pargeter's disappearance?" 
 asked the other suddenly. 
 
 Vanderlyn hesitated ; for a moment his tired 
 brain refused to act when was he supposed to 
 have heard of Peggy's disappearance? He 
 looked helplessly at Pargeter, then said sud- 
 denly, " I met my friend at L'Union last 
 night." 
 
 " Then you already knew of Madame's dis- 
 appearance last night?" said the official 
 eagerly. 
 
 "No! no!" exclaimed Pargeter crossly. 
 " Of course we didn't know then! We didn't 
 know till just now that is, till this morning, 
 when Mr. Vanderlyn went out to Madame de 
 Lera's villa to fetch my wife. It was Madame 
 de Lera who told us that she had never arrived 
 
 at Marly-le-Roi. She disappeared yesterday 
 
 131
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 afternoon, but we did not know it till this 
 morning." 
 
 " May I ask you, gentlemen, to wait for a 
 moment while I make certain enquiries?" ob- 
 served the detective politely. " You have not 
 yet been shown our daily report concerning 
 the stations of Paris is it not possible that 
 Madame Pargeter may have met with some ac- 
 cident at the Gare St. Lazare, if, as I under- 
 stand, she was going to her friend by train, 
 and not by automobile? " 
 
 Pargeter seemed struck by the notion. He 
 turned to Vanderlyn. " I can't make out," 
 he said in a puzzled tone, "why Peggy 
 thought of going to Marly-le-Roi by train 
 when she might so easily have gone in her new 
 motor." 
 
 "Peggy gave her man a week's holiday," 
 said Vanderlyn shortly. "You know, Tom, 
 
 132
 
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 that he wanted to go to his own home, some- 
 where in Normandy." 
 
 " Yes, yes. Of course! But still she might 
 have gone out in the big car I wasn't using 
 it yesterday." 
 
 The detective came back at the end of what 
 seemed to both Vanderlyn and Pargeter a very 
 long quarter of an hour. 
 
 " No incident of any sort took place last 
 night at the Gare St. Lazare," he said briefly. 
 "We shall now institute a thorough enquiry 
 among our agents ; every police station in Paris 
 shall be notified of the fact that Madame Par- 
 geter is missing; and I shall almost certainly 
 be able to send you some kind of news of her 
 by four o'clock this afternoon. In any case 
 you can trust us to do our best. Will 
 Monsieur be returning to the Avenue du 
 Bois" he addressed Vanderlyn, "or is Mon- 
 
 138
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 sieur going to his own flat in the Rue de 
 Rivoli?" 
 
 Vanderlyn looked up quickly. His private 
 address was not printed on the card he had 
 shown; still it was reasonable enough that this 
 man should have looked up his own as well as 
 Pargeter's address and should have wished to 
 verify their statements as far as was pos- 
 sible. 
 
 " Of course, Grid, you will come home with 
 me!" exclaimed Pargeter fretfully. 
 
 " Then, Messieurs, I will send any news I 
 get straight to the Avenue du Bois de Bou- 
 logne." 
 
 As they walked through the long corri- 
 dors, it became clear that whatever anxiety 
 Pargeter had suffered had dropped off him, 
 for the moment, like a cloak. " I shouldn't be 
 surprised if I can get off to-night after all," 
 
 134
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 he said cheerfully, " you heard what he said? 
 This afternoon we shall certainly have news 
 of her." 
 
 Then, as they emerged into the hall, and he 
 caught sight of his motor-car and of its occu- 
 pant, " For God's sake, Grid," he said frown- 
 ing, "let's get rid of that old woman! There 
 she sits, staring like a bird of prey ; it's enough 
 to give one the hump! Ask her if she would 
 like us to drive her to her Paris house. If 
 she wants to go back to the country, I'll send 
 her in Peggy's Limousine oh! I forgot, 
 that's not available, is it? Never mind, she 
 can go on in this car. Say we'll send her news 
 as soon as we hear any! " 
 
 But Vanderlyn soon ascertained that 
 Madame de Lera had no wish to go back to 
 Marly-le-Roi. She accepted his brief account 
 of what had occurred at the Prefecture of 
 
 135
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 Police without comment, and, refusing Parge- 
 ter's offer to drive her to her house in the Fau- 
 bourg St. Germain, asked only to be set down 
 at the nearest telegraph station. 
 
 Dreary hours followed hours later remem- 
 bered with special horror and shrinking by 
 Laurence Vanderlyn. They were spent by the 
 two ill-assorted friends in Tom Pargeter's 
 own room on the ground floor of the villa. 
 
 It was a long, well-lighted room, lined with 
 the huge, splendidly decorative posters, signed 
 Cheret and Mucha, which were then just being 
 collected by those who admired that type of 
 flamboyant art. In this apartment Peggy, as 
 Vanderlyn was well aware, never put her feet, 
 for it was there that her husband received his 
 trainer and his sporting friends. Here also 
 was his own private telephone. 
 
 136
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 Lunch was brought to them on a tray, and 
 at two o'clock the butler came with the in- 
 formation that several police officials were in 
 the house interrogating the servants. Far 
 from annoying Pargeter, the fact seemed to 
 afford him some gratification, for it proved 
 that he was after all quite as important a per- 
 sonage as he believed himself to be. He gave 
 orders that the men were to be liberally sup- 
 plied with drink. 
 
 An hour later came a high official from the 
 Prefecture. He was taken upstairs and shown 
 into the drawing-room, and it was there that 
 Pargeter joined him, leaving Vanderlyn for 
 the first time alone. 
 
 The American lay back in the rocking-chair 
 in which he had been sitting forward listening 
 to the other's unconnected talk. What a re- 
 lief, what an immense sense of sobbing relief 
 
 1ST
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 came over his weary senses, aye, even his weary 
 limbs! He put away the thought, the an- 
 guished query, as to how long this awful ordeal 
 was likely to endure. For the moment it was 
 everything to be alone. He closed his smart- 
 ing eyes. 
 
 Suddenly the telephone bell rang, violently. 
 Vanderlyn got up slowly; stumblingly he 
 walked across the room and took up the 
 receiver. A woman's voice asked in 
 French: 
 
 "Has Mr. Pargeter left Paris?" 
 
 " No," said Vanderlyn shortly. " Mr. Par- 
 geter is still in Paris." 
 
 "Is it a friend of Mr. Pargeter who is 
 speaking?" 
 
 There was a long pause, then, " Yes," said 
 Vanderlyn. 
 
 "Will you, Monsieur, kindly inform your 
 
 138
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 friend," said the voice, shaking with a ripple 
 of light laughter, "that Mademoiselle de la 
 Tour de Nesle has something very urgent to 
 say to him? " 
 
 " Mr. Pargeter is engaged, but I will give 
 him any message." 
 
 " May I ask you, Monsieur, to have the gra- 
 cious amiability to inform Mr. Pargeter that 
 Mademoiselle de la Tour de Nesle will be ex- 
 pecting him at five o'clock this afternoon. She 
 understood he was leaving Paris yesterday, but 
 someone told her that he had been seen driving 
 in his auto on the grand boulevards this morn- 
 ing." 
 
 A few moments later Pargeter burst into the 
 room. 
 
 " They declare that Peggy must have left 
 Paris! " he exclaimed. " I thought as much," 
 he went on, angrily. " I felt certain that she 
 
 139
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 was only hiding! Of course I didn't like to 
 say so at first," and, as Vanderlyn remained 
 silent, he came and flung himself in a chair 
 close to the other man. 
 
 ' You see, Grid," his voice unconsciously 
 lowered, " she played me that trick once be- 
 fore years ago! It was a regular bit of bad 
 luck, the sort of thing that only seems to hap- 
 pen to me ; other men escape. A woman came 
 to our house, we were living in London 
 then, an old friend of mine with whom I'd 
 stupidly mixed up again; she brought a child 
 with her, a squalling brat two or three months 
 older than Jasper Of course the child had 
 nothing to do with me, but she said he had, and 
 Peggy believed her! " he looked for sympathy 
 to the silent man opposite to whom he was now 
 sitting. 
 
 " Did you ever hear of this before?" he asked 
 
 140
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 suspiciously, " did Peggy ever tell you about 
 it?" 
 
 " No," said Vanderlyn. " This is the first 
 time I have heard anything of it. How long 
 did she stay away? " he forced himself to add, 
 loathing himself the while: "Did she disap- 
 pear like this I mean, as she has done this 
 time? " 
 
 "Well, not exactly," said Pargeter reluc- 
 tantly, " for one thing she took Jasper and his 
 nurse with her, but not her maid. They went 
 off to her aunt, the aunt who brought her up, 
 you know, but for two days I hadn't a notion 
 where she was! Then one of her brothers 
 came to see me. It was all made as damned 
 unpleasant for me as possible, but they were 
 of course determined that she should come back 
 to me, and so she did after about a week. 
 But she was never nice to me again," he added, 
 
 141
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 moodily, "not that she ever was really nice 
 to me before we married. It was the aunt who 
 hunted me " 
 
 "Is there any special reason why Peggy 
 should have thought of going away like that 
 now?" asked Vanderlyn in a strained 
 voice. 
 
 " No," exclaimed Pargeter, " o'f course there 
 isn't! I've always been nice to her, as you 
 know well, Grid, much nicer, I mean, than 
 most men would have been to a wife who was 
 so so " he sought intently for a word, " so 
 superior and and unsympathetic. But lately 
 I have been specially nice to her, for my sister, 
 Sophy, you know, had written me a long 
 screed, I didn't bother to read it right 
 through, making out that Peggy's heart was 
 weak, and that I ought to be very careful about 
 her. The very day I got the letter I went out 
 
 142
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 and bought her that grey Limousine Lady 
 Prynne was so keen I should take off her 
 hands! Peggy always had everything she 
 wanted," he repeated; " I didn't have a penny 
 with her, but I've never grudged her anything. 
 In fact I should be pleased if she spent more 
 on her clothes than she seems to care to do, 
 for I like to see a woman well trigged out." 
 
 " Tom, I have a message for you," said Van- 
 derlyn slowly, " a lady telephoned just now to 
 say she's expecting you at five o'clock." 
 
 "Eh! what?" said Pargeter, his fair face 
 flushing, " a lady? What lady? Did she give 
 her name?" 
 
 "Mademoiselle de la Tour de Nesle," said 
 Vanderlyn, with curling lip. 
 
 "Oh Lord! What a plague women are!" 
 said the other, crossly. " Sometimes I think 
 
 it's a pity God ever made Eve! Such impu- 
 
 143
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 dence, her ringing up here! Still, she's an 
 amusing little devil." 
 
 " Are you going to see her? " asked Vander- 
 lyn, "because if so I think I had better be 
 getting back to my place. You see, I've rather 
 neglected my work to-day." 
 
 Something in the other's tone impressed 
 Pargeter disagreeably. 
 
 "I say, don't be shirty 1 " he exclaimed, " I 
 know you've had a lot of bother, and I'm aw- 
 fully grateful to you, and so will Peggy be 
 when she knows. I shan't make up my mind 
 about going to see Nelly till the last min- 
 
 " Nelly?" repeated Vanderlyn, puzzled 
 "Who's Nelly?" 
 
 ' You know, Grid, the the person who 
 rang me up. I always call her Nelly. Her 
 
 name's such a mouthful still, it's Nelly's 
 
 144
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 Tower, isn't it? See? Perhaps to-day as 
 there's all this fuss on I'd better not go and 
 see her, eh, Grid? I wish I was like you," he 
 added, a little shamefacedly, "you're such a 
 puritan. I suppose that's why Peggy's so 
 fond of you. Birds of a feather, eh? what? " 
 his manner grew sensibly more affectionate 
 and confidential. 
 
 The two men smoked on in silence. Vander- 
 lyn was trying to choose a form of words with 
 which he could bid the other farewell; he 
 longed with a miserable longing to be alone, 
 but that first day's ordeal was not yet over. 
 
 " I can't face dinner here," said Pargeter 
 suddenly, " let's go and dine at that new place, 
 the Coq d'Or." 
 
 Vanderlyn lacked the energy to say him nay, 
 and they went out, leaving word where they 
 were to be found. 
 
 145
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 Le Coq d'Or was a reconstitution of what 
 had been, in a now deserted suburban resort, a 
 famous restaurant dedicated to the memory 
 and cult of Rabelais. Vanderlyn had already 
 been there with American friends, but to Par- 
 geter the big room, with its quaint mediaeval 
 furnishings and large panels embodying ad- 
 ventures of Gargantua, was new, and for a 
 moment distracted his mind from what was 
 still more of a grievance than an anxiety. 
 
 But they had not long been seated at one of 
 the narrow oak tables which were supposed to 
 be exact copies of those used in a mediaeval 
 tavern, when Pargeter began to turn sulky. 
 The maitre d'hotel of the Coq d'Or was not 
 aware of how important a guest was honouring 
 him that night, and for a few moments no at- 
 tention was paid to the two friends. 
 
 "I say, this is no good!" exclaimed Par- 
 
 146
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 geter angrily, "let's go somewhere else to 
 the Cafe de Paris." 
 
 " For God's sake, Tom," exclaimed Van- 
 derlyn harshly, " sit down! Can't you see I'm 
 tired out? Let's stay where we are." 
 
 " All right. But I can tell you that at this 
 rate we shan't get anything till midnight ! " 
 Still Pargeter sat down again, and fortunately 
 there soon came up a waiter who had known 
 the great sportsman elsewhere; and a moment 
 later he was absorbed in the amusing occupa- 
 tion of making out a careful menu from a 
 new bill of fare. 
 
 During the long course of the meal, Van- 
 derlyn listened silently to Pargeter 's conjec- 
 tures concerning Peggy's disappearance 
 conjectures broken by lamentations over the 
 contretemps which had made it impossible for 
 
 him to leave Paris that day. Absorbed as he 
 
 147
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 was in himself and his own grievances, Par- 
 geter was yet keenly aware when his compan- 
 ion's attention seemed in any way to wander, 
 and at last there came a moment when, leaving 
 his cup of black coffee half full, he pushed his 
 chair away with a gesture of ill-temper. 
 
 " I'm afraid, Grid, all this must be an in- 
 fernal bore for you! " he said; " after all, Peg- 
 gy's not your wife no woman has the right 
 to lead you such a dance as she has led me to- 
 day. Let's try to forget her for a bit ; let's go 
 along to 4 The Wash'?" 
 
 Vanderlyn shook his head; he felt spent, 
 worn out. He muttered that he had work to 
 do, that it was time for him to turn in. 
 
 Each man paid his portion of the bill, and, 
 as they went through the glass doors giving on 
 to the Boulevard, Vanderlyn noticed that on 
 
 each side of the entrance to the Coq d'Or a 
 
 148
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 man was standing, sentinel-wise, as if waiting 
 for someone to go in or come out. 
 
 For a moment the two friends stood on the 
 pavement. 
 
 "Let's take a fiacre," said Pargeter sud- 
 denly, " and I'll drive you to your place." The 
 warm spring weather had brought out a num- 
 ber of open cabs. They hailed one of these, 
 and, as they did so, Vanderlyn noticed that the 
 two men who had been standing at the door of 
 the restaurant entered another just behind 
 them. 
 
 When at last he found himself in his own 
 flat, and at last alone, Vanderlyn stood for 
 a few moments in his empty sitting-room. Ter- 
 rible as had been the companioned hours of the 
 day, he now feared to be alone. It was too 
 
 early to go to bed and he looked back with 
 
 149
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 horror to the wakeful hours which had been his 
 the night before. So standing there he told 
 himself that an hour's walk he had not walked 
 at all that day would quiet his nerves, pre- 
 pare him for the next day's ordeal. 
 
 As he made his way down the broad shallow 
 stairs, his mind seemed to regain its elasticity. 
 He realised that it must be his business to keep 
 fit. A greater ordeal than anything which had 
 yet befallen him lay there in front of him. 
 Soon, perhaps to-morrow, the Prefecture of 
 Police would connect the finding of a woman's 
 dead body in the train which had left Paris for 
 Orange the night before, with Mrs. Pargeter's 
 disappearance. 
 
 It would be then that he would need all his 
 strength and self-control. He remembered 
 with a thrill of anger the curious measuring 
 glance the head of the Paris detective force 
 
 150
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 had cast on him that morning. He wondered 
 uneasily how far he had betrayed him- 
 self. 
 
 Passing through the porte cochere, he no- 
 ticed that the concierge was talking to a neat, 
 stout little Frenchman with whose appear- 
 ance he felt himself familiar. Vanderlyn 
 looked straight at the man; yes, this was un- 
 doubtedly one of the two watchers who had 
 been standing outside the door of the Coq 
 d'Or. 
 
 Then he was being followed, tracked? The 
 Paris police evidently already connected him 
 in some way with the disappearance of Mrs. 
 Pargeter? 
 
 Instead of crossing the road to the deserted 
 pavement which bounds the gardens of the 
 Tuileries, the American turned to the left, and 
 became merged in the slowly moving stream of 
 
 151
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 men and women under the arcades of the Rue 
 de Rivoli. As he walked along he became con- 
 scious, and that without once turning round, 
 that his pursuer was close behind; when he 
 walked slowly, the other, as far as possible, did 
 the same, and when he hurried on, he could 
 hear the tap-tap dogging his footsteps through 
 the crowd. 
 
 At last, finding himself opposite the Hotel 
 Continental, Vanderlyn stopped and deliber- 
 ately read over the bill of fare attached to 
 the door of the restaurant. As he did so, the 
 light of a large reverbere beat down on his 
 face ; from the human current sweeping slowly 
 on behind him a man quietly detached himself, 
 and, standing for a moment by the side of the 
 American diplomatist, looked up into his face 
 with a long deliberate stare. 
 
 152
 
 VII 
 
 THE fact that he was being watched had a 
 curious effect on Laurence Vanderlyn. It 
 roused in him the fighting instinct which he 
 had had to keep in leash the whole of that ter- 
 rible first day of repression, save during the 
 moments when he had been confronted with 
 the head of the detective department at the 
 Prefecture of Police. 
 
 As at last he walked on, now choosing de- 
 liberately quiet and solitary streets, the foot- 
 steps of his unknown companion echoed loudly 
 behind him, and he allowed himself, for the 
 first time since the night before, the cruel lux- 
 ury of recollection. For the first time, also, 
 he forced himself to face the knowledge that 
 any hour might bring as unexpected a develop- 
 ment as had been the prolonged presence of 
 
 159
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 Pargeter in Paris. He realised that he must, 
 if possible, be prepared, forearmed, with the 
 knowledge of what had occurred after he had 
 left the darkened railway carriage at Dor- 
 gival. News travels slowly in provincial 
 France, yet, even so, the fact that the dead 
 body of a woman had been found in a first- 
 class carriage of the Paris demi-rapide must 
 soon have become known, and made its way 
 into the local press. 
 
 Out of the past there came to Vanderlyn 
 the memory of an old-fashioned reading-room 
 frequented by him long years before when he 
 was studying in Paris. 
 
 The place had been pointed out to him by 
 one of the professors at the Sorbonne as be- 
 ing by far the best lending library on the left 
 side of the Seine; and there, in addition to the 
 ordinary reading-room, was an inner room, 
 
 154
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 where, by paying a special fee, one could see 
 all the leading provincial papers. 
 
 In some such sheet, for in France every 
 little town has its own newspaper, would 
 almost certainly appear the first intimation of 
 so sinister and mysterious a discovery as the 
 finding of a woman's dead body in the Paris 
 train. 
 
 Vanderlyn wondered if the library the 
 Bibliotheque Cardinal was its name still 
 existed. If yes, there was every chance that 
 he might find there what was vital to him to 
 know, both in order to rid himself of the ob- 
 sessing vision which he saw whenever he shut 
 his tired eyes, and also that he might be pre- 
 pared for any information suddenly forwarded 
 to Pargeter from the Prefecture of Police. 
 
 The next morning Vanderlyn was scarcely 
 
 155
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 surprised to see the man who had shadowed 
 him the night before lying in wait for him be- 
 fore the house. 
 
 The American measured the other's weary 
 face and stout figure, and then he began 
 quietly walking up the now deserted arcades 
 of the Rue de Rivoli; with a certain grim 
 amusement, he gradually increased his pace, 
 and when at last he turned into the great court 
 of the Louvre, and stood for a moment at the 
 base of the Gambetta Monument, he assured 
 himself that he had out-distanced his pur- 
 suer. 
 
 Striding quickly across the most historic of 
 Paris bridges, he threaded the narrow, tortu- 
 ous thoroughfares dear to every lover of old 
 Paris, till he reached the Place St. Sulpice. 
 There, forming one of the corners of the 
 
 square, was the house wherein was housed the 
 
 156
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 Bibliotheque Cardinal, looking exactly as Van- 
 derlyn remembered its having looked twenty 
 years before. Even the huge leather-bound 
 books in the windows seemed to be the same 
 as in the days when the future American dip- 
 lomatist had been, if not a merry-hearted, then 
 a most enthusiastic student, making eager ac- 
 quaintance with " The Quarter." 
 
 He walked into the shop, and recognised, 
 in the stout, middle-aged woman sitting there, 
 the trim young bourgeoise to whom he had 
 often handed a fifty centime piece in those 
 days which seemed so distant as almost to be- 
 long to another life. 
 
 " Have you still a provincial paper room? " 
 he asked, in a low tone. 
 
 " Yes," said the dame du comptoir, suavely, 
 "but we have to charge a franc for admis- 
 
 sion." 
 
 157
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 Vanderlyn smiled. " It used to be fifty cen- 
 times," he said. 
 
 "Ah! Monsieur, that was long ago! There 
 are ten times as many provincial papers now 
 as then!" 
 
 He put the piece of silver on the counter. 
 As he did so, he heard the door of the shop 
 quietly open, and, with a disagreeable feeling 
 of surprise, he saw the man, the detective he 
 believed he had shaken off, come up unobtru- 
 sively to where he was standing. 
 
 Vanderlyn hesitated Then he re- 
 minded himself that what he was about to do 
 belonged to the part he had set himself to 
 play : " Well, Madame," he said, " I will go 
 through into your second reading-room and 
 glance over the papers;" he forced himself 
 to add, " I am anxious to find news of a per- 
 
 158
 
 son who has disappeared who has, I fear, met 
 with an accident." 
 
 The detective asked a question of the wo- 
 man; he spoke in a low voice, but Vanderlyn 
 heard what ,he said that is, whether there 
 was any other way out of the two reading-* 
 rooms except through the shop. On the wo- 
 man's replying in the negative, he settled him- 
 self down and opened an illustrated paper. 
 
 Vanderlyn began systematically going 
 through the provincial papers of the towns at 
 which he knew the train was to stop after he 
 had left it at Dorgival; and after the first un- 
 easy quarter of an hour he forgot the watcher 
 outside, and became absorbed in his task. To 
 his mingled disappointment and relief, he 
 found nothing. 
 
 It was of course possible that on the dis- 
 159
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 covery of a dead body in a Paris train, the 
 matter would at once be handed over to the 
 Paris police; that would mean, in this case, 
 that a body so found would be conveyed to the 
 Morgue. 
 
 The thought that this might be so made 
 Vanderlyn's heart quail with anguish and hor- 
 ror, and yet, if such a thing were within the 
 bounds of possibility, had he not better go to 
 the Morgue alone and now, rather than later 
 in the company of Tom Pargeter? 
 
 As he passed out of the reading-room into 
 the book-shop, and so into the square, he un- 
 derstood for the first time, how it was that he 
 had made so foolish a mistake concerning the 
 detective. The latter at once entered a fiacre 
 which had evidently been waiting for him, and, 
 as Vanderlyn plunged into the labyrinth of 
 
 narrow streets leading from the Place St. Sul- 
 
 160
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 pice to Notre Dame, he could hear the cab 
 crawling slowly behind him. 
 
 Well, what matter? This visit to the 
 Morgue was also in the picture in the picture, 
 that is, of Laurence Vanderlyn, the kindly 
 friend of Tom Pargeter, helping in the per- 
 plexing, the now agonising, search for Mrs. 
 Pargeter. 
 
 But when at last he came in sight of the sin- 
 ister triangular building which crouches, toad- 
 like, under the shadow of the great Cathedral, 
 Vanderlyn's heart failed him for the first 
 time. If Peggy were indeed lying there ex- 
 posed to the careless, morbid glances of idle 
 sightseers to whom the Morgue is one of the 
 sights of Paris, he felt that he could not trust 
 himself to go in and look at her. 
 
 He stood still for a few moments, and then, 
 
 as he was about to turn on his heel, he saw 
 
 161
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 coming towards him from out of the door of 
 the Morgue a figure which struck a note of 
 tragedy in the bright morning sunshine. It 
 was Madame de Lera, her eyes full of tears, 
 her heart oppressed by the sights she had just 
 seen. 
 
 " There are three poor people there," she 
 said, in a low voice, " two men and a woman, 
 but not, thank God! our friend. I wonder 
 if it is possible that we are mistaken that 
 there was no accident, Monsieur Vanderlyn? 
 But then, if so, where is she why has she not 
 written to me? " 
 
 He shook his head with a hopeless gesture, 
 afraid to speak lest he should be tempted to 
 share with her his agony and complicated sus- 
 pense. 
 
 " If she were a Catholic," added Madame de 
 
 Lera pitifully, " I should be inclined to think 
 
 162
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 to hope that she had gone to a convent; 
 but but for her there was no such place of 
 
 refuge from temptation " her voice as 
 
 she uttered the last word became almost in- 
 audible ; more firmly she added, " Is it not 
 possible that she may have gone to England, 
 to her child?" 
 
 " No," said Vanderlyn, dully, " she has not 
 done that." 
 
 He took her to her door, and then, as he had 
 promised Tom Pargeter to do, went to the 
 Avenue du Bois, there to spend with Margaret 
 Pargeter's husband another term of weary 
 waiting and suspense. 
 
 That second day, of which the closing hours 
 were destined to bring to Laurence Vanderlyn 
 the most dramatic and dangerous moments 
 
 connected with the whole tragic episode of 
 
 163
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 Mrs. Pargeter's disappearance, wore itself 
 slowly, uneventfully away. 
 
 Tom Pargeter, alternating between real 
 anxiety, and an angry suspicion that his wife 
 was in very truth only hiding from him, poured 
 into the ears of this man, whom he now re- 
 garded rather as his friend than his wife's, 
 every theory which might conceivably account 
 for Peggy's disappearance. He took note of 
 every suggestion made to him by the members 
 of the now intensely excited and anxious 
 household, for Margaret Pargeter's gentle per- 
 sonality and thoughtful kindness had endeared 
 her to her servants. 
 
 When Plimmer, her staid maid, evolved the 
 idea that Mrs. Pargeter, on her way to the sta- 
 tion, might have stopped to see some friend, 
 and, finding that friend ill, have remained to 
 nurse her, the suggestion so seized hold of 
 Pargeter's imagination that he insisted on 
 
 164
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 spending the afternoon in making a tour of 
 his own and his wife's acquaintances. To Van- 
 derlyn's anger and pain, the only result of 
 this action on his part was that Mrs. Pargeter's 
 disappearance became known to a large circle, 
 and that more than one of the evening papers 
 contained a garbled reference to the matter. 
 
 Meanwhile, or so Pargeter complained, the 
 officials of the Prefecture of Police remained 
 curiously inactive. They were quite certain, so 
 they told the anxious husband, of ultimately 
 solving the mystery, but it was doubtful if any 
 news could be procured before the next day, 
 for they were now directing their researches 
 to the environs of Paris a new theory now 
 evolved being that Mrs. Pargeter, having hired 
 a motor cab to drive her to Marly-le-Roi, had 
 met with an accident or sinister misadventure 
 on the way thither. 
 
 165
 
 VIII 
 
 AT last the long day wore itself out, and 
 Vanderlyn, in the late afternoon, found him- 
 self once more in his own rooms, alone. He 
 only owed his escape to-night to the fact that 
 two of Mrs. Pargeter's relations had arrived 
 from England one of her many brothers, and 
 a woman cousin who was fond of her. They, 
 of course, were spending the evening with 
 Pargeter, and so the American had a respite 
 till to-morrow. 
 
 Having eaten his solitary dinner with a zest 
 of which he felt ashamed, he was now in his 
 study leaning back in an easy chair, with a pile 
 of unread papers at his side. 
 
 As he sat there, in the quiet, almost shabby 
 
 room, which was so curiously different from 
 
 166
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 the splendours of the Pargeter villa, there 
 came over him a sense of profound and not 
 unpleasing lassitude. 
 
 He looked back to the last forty-eight 
 hours as to a long nightmare, broken by the 
 few solitary walks he had forced himself to 
 take. But for these brief periods of self -com- 
 muning, he felt that his body, as well as 
 his mind, would and must have given way. 
 Peggy's husband had leant helplessly on him, 
 and from the first moment he had been so 
 indifferent onlookers would have told you 
 the sympathetic, helpful witness of the vari- 
 ous phases Tom Pargeter had lived through 
 during those long two days. 
 
 For something like a week Vanderlyn had 
 been living so apart from the world about him 
 that he had known nothing, cared nothing, 
 
 about what had gone on in that world. That 
 
 167
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 very day an allusion had been made in his 
 presence to some public event of importance 
 of which he was evidently quite ignorant, and* 
 the look of profound astonishment which had 
 crossed an Embassy colleague's face, warned 
 him that he could not go on as he had been 
 doing without provoking considerable, and 
 far from pleasant, comment. 
 
 Putting out his hand, he took up the New 
 York Herald not the Paris edition, in 
 which there was almost certain to be allusions 
 to that which he wished for the moment to for- 
 get but the old home paper which had ar- 
 rived by that day's mail, and which had been 
 carefully opened and ironed out by the faith- 
 ful Poulain. 
 
 The newspaper was a little over a week old ; 
 it bore the date, April 28. What had he been 
 
 doing on the twenty-eighth of April? and then 
 
 168
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 with a rush it all came back to him every- 
 thing he wished for the moment to forget. It 
 was on the afternoon of that day, the first 
 warm spring day of the year, that they had 
 been tempted, he and Peggy, to make their 
 way down into the heart of Paris, to the soli- 
 tary Place des Vosges. It was there, it was 
 then, that they had together planned that 
 which had brought him to his present dreadful 
 pass. 
 
 Vanderlyn put the paper back on the table, 
 and his face fell forward on his hands; was 
 he fated never to be allowed to forget not 
 even for a moment? 
 
 It was with relief that he welcomed the in- 
 terruption caused by the entrance of his serv- 
 ant bearing a card in his hand. "A gentle- 
 man has come and insists on seeing Mon- 
 
 sieur." 
 
 169
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 Poulain spoke in a mysterious, significant 
 tone, one that jarred on Vanderlyn's sensitive 
 nerves. The disappearance of Mrs. Pargeter 
 had become an engrossing, a delightful drama, 
 not only to the members of the Pargeter 
 household, but also to Poulain and his worthy 
 wife ; and it had been one of the smaller iron- 
 ical agonies of Vanderlyn's position that he 
 did not feel himself able to check or dis- 
 courage their perpetual and indiscreet en- 
 quiries. 
 
 " I have already told you," he said sternly, 
 " that I receive no one to-night. Even if Mr. 
 Pargeter himself comes, you are to say that I 
 am out!" 
 
 "I'm afraid Monsieur will have to receive 
 this gentleman." 
 
 " Poulain ! " exclaimed Vanderlyn sharply. 
 
 " This won't do! Go at once and inform this 
 
 170
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 gentleman, whoever he may be, that I can see 
 no one to-night." 
 
 " I did say so," observed Poulain, in an in- 
 jured tone, " I explained to him that you 
 would see no one. I said you were out he 
 said that he would wait. Then, Monsieur, not 
 till then, he handed me his card. If Monsieur 
 will give himself the trouble of looking at it, 
 I think he will receive the gentleman." 
 
 Vanderlyn took the card with an impatient 
 movement. He glanced at it. " Why did you 
 not tell me at once," he said roughly, " who 
 this this person was? Of course I must see 
 the Prefect of Police." 
 
 More than once, Vanderlyn had had proof 
 of the amazing perfection and grip of the 
 great, the mysterious organisation, that oli- 
 garchy within a republic, which has always 
 
 played a paramount role in every section of 
 
 171
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 Parisian life. The American diplomatist had 
 not lived in France all these years without un- 
 consciously acquiring an almost superstitious 
 belief in the omnipotence of the French 
 police. 
 
 He got up and placed himself between the 
 lamp and the door. He knew slightly the 
 formidable official whose presence here surely 
 indicated some serious development in what 
 had now become a matter of urgent mter~ 
 est to many quite outside the Pargeter 
 circle. 
 
 The two or three moments' delay doubt- 
 less the zealous Poulain was engaged in 
 helping the important visitor off with his coat 
 were passed by Vanderlyn in a state of in- 
 describable nervous tension and suspense. He 
 was glad when they came to an end. 
 
 And yet the Frenchman who came into Van- 
 173
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 derlyn's sitting-room, making a ceremonious 
 bow, would have suggested no formidable or 
 even striking personality to the eyes of the 
 average Englishman or American. His stout 
 figure, clad in an ill-cut suit of evening clothes, 
 recalled rather a Gavarni caricature than a 
 dapper modern official, the more so that his 
 round, fleshy face was framed in the carefully 
 trimmed mutton-chop whiskers which remain 
 a distinguishing mark of the more old-fash- 
 ioned members of the Parisian Bar. The red 
 button, signifying that its wearer is an officer 
 of the Legion of Honour, was exceptionally 
 small and unobtrusive. Vanderlyn was well 
 aware that his visitor was no upstart, owing 
 promotion to adroit flattery of the Republican 
 powers; the Prefect of Police came of good 
 bourgeois stock, and was son to a legal lumi- 
 nary who had played a considerable part in 
 
 173
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 '48. His manner was suave, his voice almost 
 caressing in its urbanity 
 
 " I have the honour, have I not, of speaking 
 to Mr. Laurence Vanderlyn? " 
 
 Vanderlyn bowed; he turned and led the 
 way to the fireplace. " Yes, Monsieur le Pre- 
 fet, Laurence Vanderlyn at your service. I 
 
 think we have already met, at the Elysee " 
 
 he drew forward a second arm-chair. 
 
 Monsieur le Prefet sat down; and for the 
 first time the American diplomatist noticed 
 that his visitor held a small, black, battered 
 portfolio in his right hand. As the French- 
 man laid it across his knee, he gave a scarcely 
 perceptible glance round the room; then, at 
 last, his gaze concentrated itself on the table 
 where stood the lamp, and the spread-open 
 newspaper. 
 
 ;< You probably divine, Monsieur," said the 
 174
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 Prefect, after a short pause, "what has 
 brought me here to-night. I have come to see 
 you perhaps I should say to consult you in 
 connection with the disappearance of Mrs. 
 Pargeter." 
 
 " Yes? " said Vanderlyn interrogatively, " I 
 am, of course, quite at your disposal. I have 
 been with Mr. Pargeter all to-day, but so far 
 the mystery remains as great as ever." He 
 stopped abruptly, feeling it wisest not to speak, 
 but to listen. 
 
 " That, I repeat, is why I have come here," 
 said Vanderlyn's formidable visitor. He 
 spoke with a great deliberateness and mildness 
 of manner. " I cannot help thinking, my dear 
 sir, that with your help we may be, or rather Z 
 may be, on the eve of a discovery." 
 
 Vanderlyn looked surprised; his desolate 
 
 eyes met the older man's hesitating glance 
 
 175
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 quite squarely, but this time he remained 
 silent. 
 
 The Prefect went on speaking, and his voice 
 became more and more suave ; he was certainly 
 desirous of saving in every way his host's sus- 
 ceptibilities. 
 
 " The fact that I have taken the very un- 
 usual course of coming myself to see you, Mr. 
 Vanderlyn, will prove to you the importance 
 I attach to this interview. Indeed, I wish to 
 be quite frank with you " 
 
 Vanderlyn bent his head, and then he 
 sat up, listening keenly while the other con- 
 tinued 
 
 " This is not, I am convinced, an ordinary 
 case of disappearance, and it is to us, and 
 especially to me, disagreeably complicated by 
 the fact that the lady is an English subject 
 
 and that her husband is a well-known and 
 
 176
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 highly thought of member of our English 
 colony. This makes me the more anxious to 
 avoid " he hesitated, then firmly uttered the 
 two words, " any scandal. It was suggested at 
 the Prefecture to-day that it would be well to 
 make a perquisition, not only in Mrs. Par- 
 geter's own house, but also in the houses of 
 some of her intimates. Mr. Pargeter, as you 
 know, gave the police every possible facility. 
 Nothing was found in the Villa Pargeter 
 which could throw any light on Mrs. Par- 
 geter's disappearance. Now, Monsieur, be- 
 fore subjecting you to such an unpleasant oc- 
 currence, I decided to approach you my- 
 self 
 
 Vanderlyn opened his lips, and then closed 
 them again. 
 
 " I have come to ask you, Monsieur, one 
 
 question, and I give you my word as an hon- 
 
 177
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 est man that what you tell me shall be treated 
 as confidential. I ask you if you know more 
 of this mysterious matter than you are ap- 
 parently prepared to divulge? In a word 
 I beg you to tell me where Mrs. Pargeter is 
 hiding at the present moment? I have no wish 
 to disturb her retreat, but I beg you most earn- 
 estly to entrust me with the secret." 
 
 Again the speaker's eyes took a discreet 
 journey round the plain, now shadow-filled 
 room; his glance rested on the book-shelves 
 which formed so important a part of its deco- 
 rations, lingered doubtingly on a carved wal- 
 nut chest set between two of the windows, 
 peered through these same unshuttered win- 
 dows on to the dark stone balconies, then, 
 baffled, his eyes came back and fixed themselves 
 on the American diplomatist's face. 
 
 A feeling of indescribable relief stole over 
 178
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 Vanderlyn's wearied and yet alert senses. It 
 was clear that the Prefect of Police knew 
 nothing of the truth; the directness of his 
 question proved it. Yet, even so, Vander- 
 lyn felt that he must steer his way very 
 warily. 
 
 " You are in error," he said at last, " for you 
 credit me, Monsieur le Prefet, with a knowl- 
 edge I do not possess." 
 
 " Ah! " said the other mildly, "that is most 
 unfortunate! " 
 
 "May I, on my side, put to you a question 
 to which I should be glad of an honest an- 
 swer?" said Vanderlyn abruptly. "Are you 
 now engaged in making a wide-spread en- 
 quiry among those who had the honour of this 
 lady's acquaintance? " 
 
 " No, Monsieur," the Prefect's manner 
 showed an eager desire to be quite frank, 
 
 179
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 " I am confining my personal enquiries to only 
 two persons; that is, to a certain Madame de 
 Lera, to whom you will remember Mrs. Par- 
 geter was about to pay a visit at the moment 
 she disappeared, and to yourself." 
 
 Vanderlyn made a sudden nervous move- 
 ment, but he checked the words which rose to 
 his lips, for the Prefect was again speaking, 
 and this time with a certain excitement of 
 manner. 
 
 " I am convinced that Mrs. Pargeter never 
 intended to go to Madame de Lera, and that 
 the proposed visit was a blind! The facts 
 speak for themselves. Madame de Lera had 
 taken only one servant to the country, and 
 this servant, an old woman whom she has had 
 with her many years, and whom she can en- 
 tirely trust, had no idea that her mistress was 
 expecting a visitor! I repeat that no prepa- 
 
 180
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 rations for Mrs. Pargeter's arrival had been 
 made at Marly-le-Roi. It is my belief nay, 
 my conviction that Madame de Lera knows 
 perfectly well where her friend is now con- 
 cealed." 
 
 It was then that Vanderlyn committed what 
 was perhaps the only mistake he was destined 
 to commit during this difficult interview. 
 " Has Madame de Lera made any such ad- 
 mission?" he asked quickly. 
 
 " No," answered the Prefect, looking at him 
 thoughtfully, " Madame de Lera has made no 
 admission; but then I have learned, through 
 long experience, never to believe, where there 
 is a friend in the case, what a lady tells me. 
 Women of the world, my dear sir, are more 
 loyal the one to the other than we men may 
 choose to believe ! " 
 
 "And men, Monsieur? Are they more dis- 
 
 181
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHIXG 
 
 loyal?" Yanderlyn spoke quietly, indiffer- 
 ently, as if tiie question was of no moment. 
 
 "Men,** said Monsieur le Prefet, dryly, 
 " are as a rule quite as loyal, especially where 
 they fed their honour is n^gagrJ But with a 
 man it is possible to reason; a woman, espe- 
 cially a good woman, follows the dictates of 
 instinct, in other words, of her heart," 
 
 "I notice, Monsieur k Prefet, that you 
 efimmate the possibility of material accident 
 having occurred to Mrs. Pargeter? " 
 
 " Let us distinguish! " f M !! J the older 
 man quickly. "If, by accident, you mean, 
 Mr. Yanderlyn, the type of mishap which 
 might hare occurred to this lady when she 
 was irilrinjr or drirrag in our Paris rfrertm, 
 then I certainry eliminate the possihflity of 
 
 Wltfahl six hoUTS of 
 
 such a thing baring occurred the facts would
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 have been laid before me, and, as you know, 
 two nights and two days have elapsed since 
 her disappearance. If, on the other hand, we 
 envisage the possibility of suicide, then are 
 opened up a new series of possibilities." 
 
 The Prefect gave a piercing look at the 
 American's worn and sorrow-laden face, but 
 he did not find written there any involuntary 
 answer to his mute interrogation. 
 
 "Some years ago," went on the great of- 
 ficial, " a man well known in Paris society 
 made up his mind to take his own life. He 
 hired a cellar, locked the door, and then shot 
 himself. Months went by before his disap- 
 pearance was accounted for, and then the body 
 was only discovered by an accident. If Mrs. 
 Pargeter has committed suicide, and if she, 
 an intelligent woman, was determined that the 
 fact should never be found out by her friends, 
 
 183
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 then I admit our task becomes a very difficult 
 one! But I do not believe," he continued, 
 after a short silence, "that Mrs. Pargeter did 
 this. I believe she is alive, and well. She was, 
 by each account that has reached me, young, 
 charming, and wealthy. She had a child whom 
 she apparently adored. As for her relations 
 
 with her husband " the Prefect shrugged 
 
 his shoulders, and again looked searchingly at 
 Vanderlyn. 
 
 " Mr. Thomas Pargeter," he went on, smil- 
 ing, "is not perhaps the perfect husband of 
 whom every young girl dreams; but then no 
 one is so foolish as to search for the perfect 
 husband in the world to which your friend be- 
 longs ! He is not exactly a viveur f but he is, 
 to use the slang of the day, essentially a 
 jouisseur. Is not that so?" He added, with 
 a rather twisted grin, " If every lady whose 
 
 184
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 husband lives to enjoy himself were to com- 
 mit suicide, there would be very few women 
 left in our Paris world." 
 
 " I agree with you, Monsieur le Pref et, in 
 thinking Mrs. Pargeter was the last woman 
 in the world to commit suicide," said Vander- 
 lyn brusquely, and then he got up. 
 
 There had come over him during the last 
 few moments an inexplicable, instinctive feel- 
 ing of dread, that panting fear which besets 
 the hunted creature. He was determined to 
 bring to an end the interview. But the Pre- 
 fect of Police had no intention of being dis- 
 posed of so easily. He remained sitting where 
 he was; and, placing his two fat hands firmly 
 on his knees, sat looking at the American's 
 tall figure. Slowly his eyes travelled up till 
 they rested on his host's haggard face. 
 
 ;< Then I am to understand, Mr. Vander- 
 
 185
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 lyn, that you are not in a position to give me 
 any help? That is your last word? " 
 
 Vanderlyn suddenly determined to carry 
 the war into the enemy's country. 
 
 " I can only repeat," he said, harshly, " what 
 I said before, Monsieur le Prefet namely, 
 that you credit me with a knowledge which I 
 do not possess. Further, that while, of course, 
 I appreciate the kindly motive which has in- 
 spired your visit, I think I have a right to re- 
 sent the suspicions which that visit indicates, 
 I do not say on your part, but on that of your 
 subordinates. I will not disguise from you 
 my knowledge that for the last two days every 
 step I have taken has been dogged; I suspect 
 also, but of that I have no proof, that my 
 servants, and the concierge of this house, have 
 been questioned as to my movements, as to my 
 daily life. I cannot help also suspecting 
 
 186
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 perhaps in this I am wrong that the police 
 are inclined to believe that Mrs. Pargeter a 
 woman, let me remind you, Monsieur le Pre- 
 f et, of the highest and most unspotted char- 
 acter is hiding here, in my chambers! 
 You speak of having saved me from a per- 
 quisition, a perquisition in the rooms of a 
 diplomatist is a serious matter, Monsieur le 
 Prefet, and I tell you quite frankly that I 
 should have resisted such an outrage in every 
 way in my power 1 But now, in the present 
 very peculiar circumstances, I request, nay, I 
 demand, that you should search my rooms. 
 Every possible facility shall be afforded you." 
 Vanderlyn's voice was shaking with undis- 
 guised anger, aye, and disgust. 
 
 The Prefect of Police rose from his 
 chair. 
 
 " I have no wish to subject you to any indig- 
 187
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 nity," he said earnestly, "I absolutely accept 
 your assurance that Mrs. Pargeter is not 
 in hiding here. I am aware, Mr. Vanderlyn, 
 that Americans do not lie," an ironic smile 
 wavered for a moment over his large mouth. 
 
 Vanderlyn's face remained impassive. 
 "You, on your side, must forgive my heat," 
 he said, quietly. Then he suddenly determined 
 to play for a high stake. " May I ask you to 
 satisfy my curiosity on one point? What; 
 made you first suspect such a thing? What 
 led you to to suppose " 
 
 " That you knew where this lady was; 
 
 that she might say, after a little misunder- 
 standing with her husband have taken refuge 
 with you? Well, yes, Mr. Vanderlyn, I ad- 
 mit that you have a right to ask me this, and 
 it was because I feared you might lack the 
 exquisite courtesy you have shown me, that I 
 
 188
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 brought with me to-night a document which 
 contains, in what I trust you will consider a 
 discreet form, an answer to your delicate 
 question." 
 
 Vanderlyn's visitor again sat down; he laid 
 open on his knee the leather portfolio, and out 
 of it he took a large sheet of foolscap, which, 
 unfolding, he handed to Laurence Vanderlyn. 
 
 " This, Monsieur, is your dossier. If you can 
 prove to me that it is incorrect in any particu- 
 lar, I will see that the error is rectified. We 
 naturally take special care in compiling the 
 dossiers of foreign diplomatists, for experi- 
 ence has shown that these often become of 
 great value, even after the gentlemen in 
 question have left Paris for some other 
 capital." 
 
 Vanderlyn reddened. He glanced over the 
 
 odd-looking document with eager, curious 
 
 189
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 eyes. A few words here and there were 
 printed, but the rest of the dossier was written 
 in the round copying character which must be 
 mastered by every French Government clerk 
 hoping for promotion. 
 
 First came the American diplomatist's 
 Christian name and surname, his place of birth, 
 his probable age right within two years, a 
 short epitome of his diplomatic career, a guess 
 at his income, this item considerably under the 
 right figure, and evidently based on his quiet 
 way of living. 
 
 Then, under a printed heading " General 
 Remarks," were written a few phrases in a 
 handwriting very different from the rest 
 that is, in the small clear caligraphy of an 
 educated Frenchman. Staring down at these, 
 Vanderlyn felt shaken with anger and disgust, 
 
 for these " General Remarks " concerned that 
 
 190
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 part of his private life which every man be- 
 lieves to be hidden from his fellows: 
 
 "Peu d'intimites d'hommes. Pas de fem- 
 mes: par contre, une amitie amoureuse tres 
 suivie avec Madame (Marguerite) Pargeter. 
 Voir dossier Pargeter (Thomas)." 
 
 Amitie amoureuse? Friendship akin to 
 love? The English language, so rich in syno- 
 nyms, owns no exact equivalent for this 
 French phrase, expressive though it be of a 
 phase of human emotion as old as human na- 
 ture itself. 
 
 Vanderlyn looked up. His eyes met 
 squarely those of the other man. 
 
 " Your staff," he said, very quietly, " have 
 served you well, Monsieur; my dossier is, on 
 the whole, extraordinarily correct. There is 
 but one word which I would have altered, and 
 
 which, indeed, I venture to beg you to correct 
 
 191
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 without loss of time. The young man he is 
 evidently a young man who wrote the sum- 
 mary to which you have drawn my attention, 
 must have literary tastes, otherwise there is 
 one word in this document which would not be 
 there." Vanderlyn put his finger down 
 firmly on the word " amoureuse." " My re- 
 lations with Mrs. Pargeter were, it is true, 
 those of close friendship, but I must ask you 
 to accept my assurance, Monsieur le Prefet, 
 that they were not what the writer of this 
 passage evidently believed them to have 
 been." 
 
 " I will make a note of the correction," said 
 the Prefect, gravely, "and I must offer you 
 my very sincere excuses for having troubled 
 you to-night." 
 
 As Vanderlyn's late visitor drove home that 
 
 night, he said to himself, indeed he said aloud 
 
 192
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 to the walls of the shabby little carriage which 
 had heard so many important secrets, " He 
 knows whatever there is to be known but, 
 then, what is it that is to be known? Of what 
 mystery am I now seeking the solution? " 
 
 198
 
 * 
 
 IX 
 
 As he heard the door shut on the Prefect 
 of Police, Vanderlyn felt his nerve give way. 
 There had come a moment during the con- 
 versation, when, as if urged by some malignant 
 power outside himself, he had felt a sudden 
 craving to take the old official into his confi- 
 dence, and tell him the whole truth so mag- 
 netic were the personality, the compelling 
 will, of the man who had just left him. 
 
 He walked over to the corner window of his 
 sitting-room, and stepped on to the stone bal- 
 cony which overlooked the twinkling lights of 
 the Place de la Concorde. 
 
 Then, flung out, merged in the deep roar 
 below, there broke from Laurence Vanderlyn 
 a bitter cry; the keen night air had brought 
 
 194
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 with it a sudden memory of that moment when 
 he had opened the railway carriage door and 
 stepped out into the rushing wind . . . 
 He asked himself why he had not followed his 
 first impulse, why he had not allowed himself 
 to die, with Peggy in his arms? Why, above 
 all, had he undertaken a task which it was 
 becoming beyond his strength to carry 
 through? 
 
 So wondering, so questioning, he leaned over 
 the balustrade dangerously far; then he drew 
 quickly back, and placing his hands on the 
 parapet, stood for a moment as if holding at 
 bay an invisible, yet to himself most tangible, 
 enemy. 
 
 With a sigh which was a groan, he walked 
 back into the room. He had never yet failed 
 Peggy; he would not fail her now 
 
 Vanderlyn sat down; he was determined not 
 195
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 to be beaten by his nerves. He took up the 
 New York Herald; but a moment later he had 
 laid the paper down again on the table. What 
 had been going on in America a week ago 
 could not compel his attention. He took 
 another paper off the table ; it was the London 
 Daily Telegraph, of which one of the most 
 successful features for many years has been 
 a column entitled " Paris Day by Day," an 
 olla podrida of news, grave and gay, domestic 
 and sensational, put together with infinite art, 
 and a full understanding of what is likely to 
 appeal to the British middle-class reader. 
 There, as Vanderlyn knew well, was certain to 
 be some reference to the disappearance of 
 Mrs. Pargeter. 
 
 Yes here it was ! 
 
 " No trace of Mrs. Pargeter, the wife of 
 
 the well-known sportsman and owner of Ab- 
 
 196
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 sinthe, has yet been found; but the lady's re- 
 lations think it possible that she went unex- 
 pectedly to stay with some friends, and that 
 the letter informing her household of her 
 whereabouts has miscarried." 
 
 The Paris correspondent of the great Lon- 
 don newspaper had proved himself very dis- 
 creet. 
 
 Vanderlyn's eyes glanced idly down the 
 long column of paragraphs which make up 
 " Paris Day by Day." Again he remembered 
 the look of deep astonishment which had 
 crossed a colleague's face at his ignorance of 
 some new sensation of which at that moment 
 all Paris was apparently talking. So it was 
 that he applied himself to read the trifling 
 items of news with some care, for here would 
 be found everything likely to keep him in 
 
 touch with the gossip of the day. 
 
 197
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 At last he came to the final paragraph 
 'Yet another railway mystery! The dead 
 body of a woman has been found in a first- 
 class compartment in a train which left Paris 
 at 7 p. m. last Wednesday. As the discovery 
 was not made till the train reached Orange, 
 it is, of course, impossible to know where the 
 unfortunate woman, who, by her dress, be- 
 longed to the leisured class, entered the train. 
 Her hand baggage had disappeared, no doubt 
 stolen at some intervening station by someone 
 who, having made the gruesome discovery, 
 thought it wise to make himself scarce. The 
 police do not, however, consider that they are 
 in the presence of a crime. Dr. Fortoul, the 
 well-known physician of Orange, has satis- 
 fied himself that the lady died of heart dis- 
 ease." 
 
 Vanderlyn went on staring down at the 
 198
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 printed words. They seemed to make more 
 true, more inevitable, the fact of Margaret 
 Pargeter's death, and of his own awful 
 loss. 
 
 But with the agony of this thought came in- 
 finite relief, for this, or so he thought, meant 
 that his own personal ordeal was at last draw- 
 ing to a close. The fact of so strange and un- 
 wonted an occurrence as the finding of a wo- 
 man's dead body in a train, would surely be at 
 once connected by the trained intellects of the 
 Paris Police with the disappearance of Mrs. 
 Pargeter. 
 
 He let the paper fall to the ground and be- 
 gan to think intently. When that came to 
 pass, as it certainly must do within the next 
 few hours, it would become his grim business 
 to persuade Tom Pargeter that the clue was 
 
 one worth following. The mystery solved, the 
 
 199
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 question of how Margaret Pargeter came to 
 be travelling in the demi-rapide would be com- 
 paratively unimportant at any rate not a 
 point which such a man as Tom Pargeter 
 would give himself much trouble to clear up. 
 
 Then with some uneasiness he remembered 
 that before such an item of news could have 
 found its way into an English newspaper, the 
 fact must have been known to the French po- 
 lice for at least twelve hours. If that were so, 
 their acumen was not as great as that with 
 which Vanderlyn credited them. 
 
 But stay! The Prefect of Police was con- 
 vinced that Mrs. Pargeter was alive, and that 
 he, Vanderlyn, knew her whereabouts; it was 
 not for Peggy dead, but for Peggy living, 
 that they were still searching so eagerly. 
 
 He opened the Figaro and the Petit 
 
 Journal, and ran a shaking finger down the 
 
 200
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 columns; there, in each paper, hidden away 
 among unimportant items, and told more 
 briefly and in much balder language, he at last 
 found the story of the discovery which the 
 Daily Telegraph had served up as a tit-bit 
 to thrill the readers of its Paris news columns. 
 Vanderlyn made up his mind to spend the 
 whole of the next day with Pargeter; he must 
 be at the villa, ready to put in his word of ad- 
 vice, even, if need be, of suggestion, when 
 the moment came for him to do so. 
 
 For the first time for many nights Vander- 
 lyn's sleep was unbroken; and early the next 
 morning he made his way to the Avenue du 
 Bois de Boulogne. 
 
 As he walked through the hall of the villa, 
 already peopled with a score of the Pargeters* 
 acquaintances, eager to show their sympathy 
 
 201
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 with the wealthy sportsman in this most 
 untoward and extraordinary occurrence, the 
 American was obliged to shake hands with 
 many men whom he had hitherto only known 
 by sight, and to answer questions some of 
 which impressed him as strangely indiscreet. 
 More than one of those with whom he found 
 himself thus face to face looked at him with 
 cruel, inquisitive eyes, and a scarcely veiled 
 curiosity, for it was of course well known that 
 Laurence Vanderlyn had been an intimate, 
 not only of the husband, but also of the wife. 
 At last Pargeter's valet threaded his way up 
 to him: "Will you please come upstairs, sir? 
 Mr. Pargeter told me to say that he would be 
 glad if you would go to his dressing-room as 
 soon as you arrived." 
 
 " There's no news, Grid, no news at all ! 
 
 202
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 It's getting awful, isn't it? quite beyond a 
 joke! You know what I mean I'm sick of 
 answering stupid questions. I was waked this 
 morning at seven had to see a man in bed! 
 They don't seem to understand that I can tell 
 them nothing beyond the bare fact that she's 
 vanished; they actually sent two women here 
 last night " 
 
 " Two women? " echoed Vanderlyn. " What 
 sort of women? " 
 
 " Ugly old hags," said Pargeter, briefly, 
 " from the Prefecture of Police. They 
 brought an impudent letter asking me to allow 
 them to turn out Peggy's room and look 
 
 over all her things! But I refused " he 
 
 looked at his friend for sympathy and 
 found it. 
 
 " You were quite right," said Vanderlyn 
 quickly. His face became rigid with anger and 
 
 203
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 disgust. " Quite right, Tom! Whatever made 
 them think of suggesting such a thing? 
 Where would be the use of it? 
 
 " Oh! well, of course they had a reason. The 
 police are particularly keen that we should look 
 over any old letters of hers; they think that 
 we might find some kind of clue. But I don't 
 believe she kept her letters why should she? 
 I don't keep mine. However, I've promised 
 to do the job myself " he looked uncer- 
 tainly at Vanderlyn. "Would you mind, 
 Grid, coming with me into Peggy's room? Of 
 course Plimmer, that's her maid, you know, 
 will help us. She knows where Peggy keeps 
 all her things." 
 
 " Why not ask Madame de Lera to do it? " 
 said Vanderlyn, in a low voice. 
 
 He turned away and stared at a sporting 
 print which hung just on the level of his eyes. 
 
 204
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 Had he ever written imprudent letters to 
 Peggy? Not lately, but in the early days, in 
 that brief time of uncertain ecstasy, and, on his 
 part, of passionate expression, which had pre- 
 ceded their long successful pretence at friend- 
 ship? He himself had preserved later letters 
 of hers not love letters assuredly, but letters 
 which proved clearly enough the strange close- 
 ness of their intimacy. 
 
 But what was this that Pargeter was saying? 
 " Madame de Lera? Why should I ask her to 
 interfere? I don't want to mix her up in this 
 business more than I can help! If it hadn't 
 been for her and that ridiculous invitation of 
 hers, Peggy would be here now! Peggy 
 wouldn't mind your looking over her things, 
 Grid. She's really fond of you as fond of 
 you as she can be of anyone, that is." 
 
 He got up, and, preceding Vanderlyn down 
 
 205
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 a connecting passage, flung open the door giv- 
 ing access to a spacious airy bedchamber of 
 which the pale mauve and grey furnishings 
 reminded both men of Peggy's favourite 
 flower and scent. The sun-blinds were down 
 and the maid was standing, as if waiting for 
 them, by the dressing-table. 
 
 They both instinctively hesitated on the 
 threshold. " Tom," said Vanderlyn, hoarsely, 
 "'I don't think I ought to come in here " 
 
 "Don't be a fool! I tell you she wouldn't 
 mind a bit. Surely you're not going to cut 
 now? " 
 
 Pargeter took a step forward ; then he stood 
 for a moment looking round him, evidently 
 perplexed, and ill at ease at finding himself 
 thus suddenly introduced into his wife's inti- 
 mate atmosphere. 
 
 "I don't believe she kept any letters," he 
 206
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 repeated, then glanced uncertainly at the 
 lady's-maid who stood primly by. 
 
 "Mrs. Pargeter kept some letters in that 
 writing desk over there, sir, at least I think 
 she did." 
 
 Close to the small tent-bed stood an old- 
 fashioned rosewood davenport, a relic of Mar- 
 garet Pargeter's childhood and girlhood, 
 brought from her distant English home. 
 
 The maid waited for a moment, and then 
 added, " The desk is locked, sir." 
 
 "Locked? Then did Mrs. Pargeter take 
 her keys with her? " 
 
 " I suppose she did, sir." 
 
 " Then it's no use," said Pargeter, with a 
 certain relief, " I don't want to force the thing 
 open." 
 
 Vanderlyn looked across, coldly and steadily, 
 
 at the woman. Her expression struck him as 
 
 207
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 oddly enigmatical; meeting his glance, Plim- 
 mer reddened, her eyes dropped. "I expect 
 any simple key would open it," he said, briefly. 
 
 " Well, sir, I did ask the housekeeper to lend 
 me a bunch of keys. Here they are," she 
 opened one of the dressing-table drawers. 
 " Perhaps one of the smaller ones would fit 
 the lock." 
 
 It was Vanderlyn who took the keys from 
 her strangely reluctant hand, and it was he 
 who at last felt the old-fashioned lock yield. 
 
 "Now, Pargeter," he said, sharply, "will 
 you please come over here? " 
 
 The whole of the inside of the desk was filled 
 with neat packets, each carefully tied up and 
 docketed ; on several had been written, " In 
 the case of my death, to be burnt " ; on other 
 packets, " To be returned to Madame de Lera 
 in case of my death." 
 
 208
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 Vanderlyn saw that here at least were 
 none of his letters, and none from Peggy's 
 child. 
 
 " It's no use bothering about any of these," 
 said Pargeter, crossly, " they can't tell us any- 
 thing. Why anyone should trouble to keep 
 old letters is quite beyond me ! " 
 
 " That little knob that you see there, sir," 
 said Plimmer, in her diffident, well-trained 
 voice, " is the head of a brass pin; if you draw 
 it out, sir, it releases the side drawer. I think 
 you will find more letters there, at least 
 that is where Master Jasper's letters are, I 
 know." 
 
 She looked furtively at Vanderlyn, and her 
 look said, " If you want to have the truth you 
 shall have it!" 
 
 "I say, how queer I" exclaimed Pargeter. 
 "A secret drawer! eh, Grid?" 
 
 209
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 " All old pieces of furniture have that kind 
 of thing," said Vanderlyn, " there isn't any se- 
 cret about it." 
 
 Pargeter fumbled at the brass-headed pin; 
 he pulled it out, and a drawer which filled up 
 the side of the davenport shot out. Yes, here 
 were more packets inscribed with the words, 
 " Jasper's letters, written at school," and then 
 others, " To be returned to Laurence Van- 
 derlyn in case of my death " ; and two or three 
 loose letters. 
 
 " Well, these won't tell us anything, eh, 
 Grid?" Pargeter opened the first envelope 
 under his hand: 
 
 " DEAR MAMMY," (he read slowly) , 
 
 " Please send me ten shillings. I have 
 finished the French cherry- jam. I should like 
 some more. Also some horses made of gin- 
 
 210
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 gerbread. I have laid 3 to 1 on Absinthe. 
 Betting is forbidden, but as it was Dad's horse 
 I thought I might. My bat is the best in the 
 school. 
 
 " Your loving 
 
 "JASPER." 
 
 " He's a fine little chap, isn't he, Grid? " 
 Pargeter was fingering absently a yellowing 
 packet of Vanderlyn's letters : " Fancy keep- 
 ing your old letters! What a queer thing to 
 do!" 
 
 Vanderlyn said nothing. The maid stared 
 at him stealthily. 
 
 At last Pargeter put the packet down, and 
 deliberately opened yet another envelope which 
 lay loose. " I suppose this is the last note you 
 wrote to her? " he said, then, opening it, mur- 
 mured its contents over to himself: 
 
 211
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 " DEAR PEGGY, 
 
 "I hear the show at the Gardinets is 
 worth seeing. I'll call for you at two to-mor- 
 row. Yours sincerely, 
 
 "L.V." 
 
 "Well, it's no use our wasting any more 
 time here, is it? We'd better go downstairs 
 and have a smoke. Why why, Grid I what's 
 the matter?" 
 
 " It's nothing," said Vanderlyn, roughly, 
 " I'll be all right in a minute or two " 
 
 " I don't wonder you're upset," said the 
 other, moodily. " But just think what it must 
 be for me. I can't stand much more of it. It's 
 been simply awful since Peggy's brother and 
 that cousin of hers arrived. They treat me as 
 if I were a murderer! They're at the Prefec- 
 ture of Police now, making what they're 
 
 pleased to call their own enquiries." 
 
 212
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 They had left Peggy's room, and as he 
 spoke Pargeter was leading the way down a 
 staircase which led into his smoking-room. 
 
 Once there, he shut the door and came and 
 stood close by Vanderlyn. 
 
 " Grid," he said, lowering his voice, " I've 
 been wondering don't you think it would be 
 a good plan if I were to go and see that for- 
 tune-teller of mine, Madame d'Elphis? I don't 
 mind telling you that I'd a shot at her yester- 
 day evening, but she was away. She does 
 sometimes make mistakes, but still, she's a kind 
 of Providence to me. I never do anything im- 
 portant I mean at the stables without con- 
 sulting her." 
 
 Vanderlyn looked at the eager face, the odd 
 twinkling green and blue eyes, with scarcely 
 concealed surprise and contempt. 
 
 " Surely you don't think she could tell you 
 
 213
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 where what's happened to Peggy?" he said 
 incredulously. 
 
 " If I could have seen her last night," went 
 on Pargeter, " I'd have got away to England 
 to-day. There's no object in my staying here; 
 I can't help them to find Peggy. But La 
 d'Elphis won't see me before to-morrow morn- 
 ing. If she can't clear up the mystery nobody 
 can. I'm beginning to think, Grid " he came 
 close up to the other man, " that something 
 must have happened to her. I'm beginning to 
 feel worried! " 
 
 214
 
 X 
 
 AN hour later Vanderlyn had escaped from 
 Pargeter, and was standing alone in Madame 
 de Lera's drawing-room. 
 
 He was scarcely conscious of how many 
 hours he had spent during the last terrible 
 three days, with the middle-aged French- 
 woman who had been so true and sure a friend 
 of Margaret Pargeter. In Madame de Lera's 
 presence alone was he able, to a certain extent, 
 to drop the mask which he was compelled to 
 wear in the presence of all others, and espe- 
 cially in that of the man who, as time went on, 
 seemed more and more to lean on him and find 
 comfort in his companionship. 
 
 Vanderlyn had walked the considerable dis- 
 tance from the Avenue du Bois to the quiet 
 
 215
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 street near the Luxembourg where Adele de 
 Lera lived, and all the way he had felt as if 
 pursued by a mocking demon. 
 
 How much longer, so he asked himself, was 
 his awful ordeal to endure? The moments 
 spent by him and Pargeter in Peggy's room 
 had racked heart and memory. He now fled 
 to Madame de Lera as to a refuge from 
 himself. 
 
 And yet? Yet he never looked round her 
 pretty sitting-room, with its faded, rather 
 austere furnishings, without being vividly re- 
 minded of the woman he had loved and whom 
 he had now lost, for it was there that Peggy 
 had spent the most peaceful hours of her life 
 since Pargeter had first decided that hence- 
 forth they should live in Paris. 
 
 At last Madame de Lera came into the room; 
 216
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 she gave her visitor a quick questioning look. 
 " Have you nothing new to tell? " she asked. 
 
 And, after a moment of scarcely perceptible 
 hesitation, Vanderlyn answered, " I have noth- 
 ing new to tell," but as they both sat down, 
 as he saw how sad and worn the kind face had 
 become in the last three days, there came over 
 him a strong wish to confide in her to tell her 
 the whole truth. He longed, with morbid long- 
 ing, to share his knowledge. She, after all, 
 was the only human being who knew the story 
 of his tragic, incomplete love. It would be an 
 infinite comfort and relief to tell her, if not 
 everything, then at least of the irony, the use- 
 lessness, of their present search. 
 
 Since last night the secret no longer seemed 
 to be his alone. 
 
 But Vanderlyn resisted the temptation. He 
 
 had no right to cast even half his burden on 
 
 217
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 another. Any moment the odious experience 
 which had, it seemed, already befallen Madame 
 de Lera might be repeated. She might again 
 be cross-questioned by the police. In that 
 event it was essential that she should be still 
 able truthfully to declare that she knew noth- 
 ing. 
 
 " I have just come from Tom Pargeter," he 
 observed quietly. " I can't help being sorry for 
 him. The police have been worrying him, and 
 -and at their suggestion we have been seek- 
 ing among her things among her correspond- 
 ence for some clue. But of course we 
 found nothing. Pargeter is longing to go 
 away to England. How I wish he would 
 go, God! how I wish he would go! After 
 all, as he says himself, he can do no good by 
 staying here. He would receive any news 
 
 within an hour." 
 
 218
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 Madame de Lera leant forward. "Ah! but 
 if Mr. Pargeter leaves Paris before before 
 something is discovered, his conduct would be 
 regarded as very cruel very heartless." 
 
 " Did you know," said Vanderlyn, in a low 
 voice, " that Peggy once before disappeared 
 for three days? Pargeter keeps harking back 
 to that. He thinks that she found out some- 
 thing which made her leave him again." 
 
 " Yes," said Madame de Lera, " I knew of 
 that episode in their early married life but 
 on that occasion, Mr. Vanderlyn, our poor 
 friend cannot be said to have disappeared 
 she only returned to her own family." 
 
 " Why, having once escaped, did she ever go 
 back to him? " asked Vanderlyn, sombrely. 
 
 * You forget," said Madame de Lera, gen- 
 tly, " that even then there was her son." 
 
 Her son? Nay, Vanderlyn at no moment 
 219
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 ever forgot Peggy's child. To himself, he 
 seemed to be the only human being who ever 
 thought of the poor little boy lying ill in far 
 away England. 
 
 " Well, you need not be afraid," he said 
 quickly, "that Pargeter will go away to-day. 
 He intends to stay in Paris at least till to-mor- 
 row night, for he is convinced, it seems, that 
 the fortune-teller, Madame d'Elphis, the 
 woman who by some incredible stroke of luck 
 stumbled on the right name of that horse of 
 his which won the Oaks, will be able to tell 
 him what has happened to to Margaret 
 Pargeter." 
 
 And, meeting Madame de Lera's troubled 
 gaze, he added in a low bitter tone, " How en- 
 tirely that gives one the measure of the man, 
 the absurd notion, I mean, that a fortune- 
 teller can solve the mystery! Fortunately or 
 
 220
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 unfortunately, this Madame d'Elphis has been 
 away for two or three days, but she will be 
 back, it seems, in time to give Pargeter, who is 
 a favoured client, an appointment to-morrow 
 morning." 
 
 Adele de Lera suddenly rose from her chair; 
 with a nervous movement she clasped her 
 hands together. 
 
 "Ah, but that must not happen!" she ex- 
 claimed. "We must think of a way by 
 which we can prevent an interview between 
 Mr. Pargeter and La d'Elphis! Unless," she 
 concluded slowly, " there is no serious reason 
 why he should not know the truth now? " 
 
 Vanderlyn also got up. A look of profound 
 astonishment came over his face. 
 
 "The truth?" he repeated. "But surely, 
 Madame de Lera, it is impossible that this 
 
 woman whom Pargeter is going to consult to- 
 
 221
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 morrow morning can have any clue to the 
 truth! Surely you do not seriously be- 
 lieve " he did not conclude his sentence. 
 
 That this broad-minded and religious French- 
 woman could possibly cherish any belief in the 
 type of charlatan to which the American dip- 
 lomatist supposed the famous Paris fortune- 
 teller to belong was incredible to him. 
 
 " I beg of you most earnestly," she repeated, 
 in a deeply troubled voice, "to prevent any 
 meeting between Mr. Pargeter and Madame 
 d'Elphis 1 Believe me, I do not speak without 
 reason ; I know more of this soothsayer and her 
 mysterious powers than you can possibly 
 know " 
 
 " Do you mean me to understand that you 
 yourself would ever consult such an oracle?" 
 Vanderlyn could not keep a certain contemp- 
 tuous incredulity out of his voice. 
 
 222
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 " No, indeed! But then I, unlike you, be- 
 lieve this woman's traffic to be of the devil. 
 Listen, Mr. Vanderlyn, and I will tell you of 
 a case in which La d'Elphis was closely con- 
 cerned a case of which I have absolute knowl- 
 edge." 
 
 Madame de Lera went back to her chair ; she 
 sank into it, and, with Vanderlyn standing be- 
 fore her, she told him the story. 
 
 "If you cast back your mind to the time 
 when you were first in Paris, you will probably 
 recall my husband's niece, a beautiful girl 
 named Jeanne de Lera? " Vanderlyn bent his 
 head without speaking; nay more, a look of 
 pain came over his tired face, and sunken eyes, 
 for, strangely enough, there was a certain sin- 
 ister parallel between the fate which had be- 
 fallen the charming girl whose image was thus 
 suddenly brought up before him, and that of 
 
 223
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 the beloved woman who seemed to be now even 
 more present to his emotional memory than she 
 had been in life. 
 
 " As you know, for it was no secret, Jeanne 
 had what English and American people call 
 * flirted' with Henri Delavigne, and he had 
 sworn that he would kill himself on her wed- 
 ding day. Well, the poor foolish girl took this 
 threat very seriously; it shadowed her happy 
 betrothal, and on the very day before her mar- 
 riage was to take place, she persuaded her mar- 
 ried sister to go with her to a fortune-teller. 
 It was not her own future, which stretched 
 cloudless and radiant before her, that tempted 
 Jeanne to peer into these mysteries; she only 
 wished to be reassured as to Delavigne and his 
 absurd threat " 
 
 Madame de Lera stopped speaking a mo- 
 ment, and then she went on 
 
 224
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 " Madame d'Elphis had just then become 
 the rage, and so Jeanne decided to consult her, 
 although the woman charged a higher fee than, 
 I understand, the other fortune-tellers were 
 then doing. When the two sisters found them- 
 selves there, my married niece bargained that 
 the seance should be half-price, as Jeanne only 
 wished to stay a very few minutes, and to ask 
 but one question. After the bargain was con- 
 cluded, Jeanne, it seems, observed the story 
 of the interview has been told to me, and before 
 me, many many times that she hoped the for- 
 tune-teller would take as much trouble as if 
 she had paid the full fee. On this the woman 
 replied, with a rather malignant smile, ' I can 
 assure Mademoiselle that she will have plenty 
 for her money!" 
 
 " Then began the seance. La d'Elphis 
 gave, as those sorts of people always do, 
 
 25
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 a marvellously accurate account of the poor 
 child's past, the simple, virginal past of a 
 very young girl, but when it came to the 
 future, she declared that her vision had become 
 blurred, and that she could see nothing ! Noth- 
 ing! Nothing! Both the sisters pressed her 
 to say more, to predict something of the fu- 
 ture; and at last, speaking very reluctantly, 
 she admitted that she saw Jeanne, pale, 
 deathly pale, clad in a wedding dress, and she 
 also evoked a wonderful vision of white 
 flowers . . . ." 
 
 Madame de Lera looked up at her visitor, 
 but Vanderlyn made no comment; and so she 
 went on: 
 
 " Then, with some confusion, Jeanne sum- 
 moned up courage to ask the one question she 
 had come there to ask. The answer came at 
 
 once, and was more than reassuring: 'As to 
 
 226
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 the man concerning whom you are so anxious/ 
 said Madame d'Elphis, ' you may count on his 
 fidelity. The years will go on and others who 
 loved you will forget you but he will ever re- 
 member.' ' Then nothing will happen to him 
 to-morrow? ' asked Jeanne eagerly. ' To-mor- 
 row? ' replied the woman, mysteriously, * To- 
 morrow I see him plunged in deep grief, and 
 yet that which has brought him this awful sor- 
 row will not perhaps be wholly regretted by 
 him/ 
 
 " My poor little niece, if rather piqued, was 
 yet much relieved, and the two sisters left the 
 presence of this horrible, sinister creature." 
 
 Madame de Lera passed her hand with a 
 nervous movement over her mouth " It was 
 while they were actually driving home from 
 this seance with La d'Elphis that the terrible 
 
 accident, which you of course remember, oc- 
 
 227
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 curred, an accident which resulted in the 
 younger sister's death, while the elder miracu- 
 lously escaped unhurt. Jeanne was buried in 
 her wedding dress and the flowers you re- 
 call the wonderful flowers? The woman's pre- 
 dictions as to Delavigne's constancy came 
 strangely true; who now remembers Jeanne, 
 save her poor mother and Delavigne? " 
 
 "Yes, it's a very curious, striking story," 
 said Vanderlyn, slowly, " but forgive me for 
 saying so if your niece's marriage had taken 
 place on the morrow, would anything of all 
 this have been remembered by either herself or 
 her sister? The predictions of Madame d'El- 
 phis were of a kind which it would be safe to 
 make of any French girl, belonging to your 
 world, on the eve of her marriage " 
 
 He stopped abruptly. In his wearied and 
 yet morbidly active mind, an idea, a sugges- 
 
 228
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 tion, of which he was half -ashamed, was be- 
 ginning to germinate. 
 
 " I should be grateful," he said, slowly, " if 
 you can tell me something more about La 
 d'Elphis. I am quite sure that I shall not be 
 able to prevent an interview between her and 
 Pargeter, but still something might be done 
 Is she respectable? Can she, for example," 
 his eyes dropped, " be bribed? " 
 
 Madame de Lera looked at Vanderlyn 
 keenly. Perhaps she saw further into his mind 
 than an American or an Englishwoman would 
 have done. 
 
 " All these sorts of people can be bribed," 
 she said, quietly. "As to her private life, I 
 know nothing of it, but either of my nephews 
 would be able to tell you whatever is known of 
 her, for since that tragic affair our family have 
 
 always taken a morbid interest in La d'Elphis. 
 
 229
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 Would you like to know something about her 
 now, at once? Shall I send for my nephew? " 
 
 In answer to Vanderlyn's look, rather than 
 to his muttered assent, Madame de Lera left 
 the room. 
 
 During the few moments of her absence, a 
 plan began to elaborate itself with insistent 
 clearness in Vanderlyn's mind; he saw, or 
 thought he saw, that here might be an issue out 
 of his terrible dilemma. And yet, even while 
 so seeing the way become clear before him, he 
 felt a deep, instinctive repugnance from the 
 method which would have to be employed ... 
 
 There came the sound of footsteps, and, 
 turning his back to the window, he prepared 
 himself for the inevitable question with which, 
 during the last three days, almost everyone he 
 met had greeted him. 
 
 But the youth who came into the room with 
 
 230
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 Madame de Lera, if a typical Parisian in the 
 matter of his careful, rather foppish, dress, 
 and in his bored expression, yet showed that 
 he was possessed of the old-fashioned good 
 breeding which is still to be found in France, 
 if only in that peculiar section of French so- 
 ciety known collectively as " the faubourg." 
 Jacques de Lera, alone among the many men 
 whom Vanderlyn had come across since the 
 disappearance of Mrs. Pargeter had become 
 the talk of the town, made no allusion to the 
 mystery, and asked no puerile question of the 
 man who was known to be her friend. 
 
 " Mr. Vanderlyn has been asking me what I 
 knew of the fortune-teller, Madame d'Elphis. 
 But, beyond the story concerning your poor 
 cousin Jeanne, I know nothing. You, Jacques, 
 will doubtless be able to tell us something of 
 her. Is it true, for instance, that she is some- 
 
 231
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 times employed by the police? I seem to have 
 heard so not lately, but long ago? " 
 
 " They say so," said Jacques de Lera, cast- 
 ing a quick glance at Vanderlyn. " They say 
 she helped to catch Pranzini. Extraordinary 
 stories are told of her gifts. But none of us 
 have ever been at all anxious to consult her 
 after poor Jeanne's affair. You may have 
 seen her," he turned to Vanderlyn, " for 
 she's sometimes at first nights and at private 
 views. She's by way of being artistic and 
 cultivated; and though she's strikingly hand- 
 some, she dresses oddly poses as a Muse." 
 
 " She must make a great deal of money," 
 said Madame de Lera, thoughtfully; with a 
 half smile she asked her nephew the question : 
 " Is there a Monsieur d'Elphis? Are there in- 
 fant oracles?" 
 
 Jacques burst out laughing, and both Van- 
 
 232
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 derlyn and Madame de Lera started. It was 
 the first time for many days that they had 
 heard the sound of simple human laughter. 
 
 " My dear aunt," said the young man, chuck- 
 ling, " the husband qua husband is, I assure 
 you, an unknown animal in that strange under- 
 world of which our beautiful city is the chosen 
 Mecca. No, no, Madame d'Elphis does not 
 waste her time in producing little oracles ! If 
 you wish to hear the truth, I mean the whole 
 truth, I will tell it you." 
 
 And then, as Madame de Lera nodded her 
 head, he added, more seriously, " La d'Elphis 
 is one of two sisters, the daughters of a very 
 respectable notary at Orange. Both threw 
 their caps over the windmill, the one to become 
 an unsuccessful actress, the other a successful 
 soothsayer. La d'Elphis has one virtue she 
 is a devoted sister, and lives with the other's 
 
 233
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 smalaJi. As to her own private life, she has 
 been for many years the friend of Achille de 
 Florae. She became acquainted with him not 
 long before his final crash; who knows, per- 
 haps she helped to precipitate it! It is to be 
 hoped she did, for since then he has practically 
 lived on her. And so, my dear aunt, she is in 
 a sense our cousin de la main gauche! " 
 
 Vanderlyn looked away from Madame de 
 Lera. He was sorry the young man had been 
 so frank, for the Marquis de Florae was not 
 only by birth a member of her circle, but he 
 was, as Jacques rather cruelly pointed out, a 
 connection of the de Lera family. 
 
 " Poor creature ! " exclaimed Adele de 
 Lera; her voice was filled with involuntary 
 pity. 
 
 " Yes," continued Jacques, in answer to her 
 look, " you may well say ' poor creature ' ! 
 
 234,
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 For it's from La d'Elphis that our disrepu- 
 table cousin draws the major part of his uncer- 
 tain revenues. When Paris is credulous, his 
 credit goes up, and he has plenty of money to 
 play with. I'm told that the other night he 
 lost ten thousand francs at * Monaco Ju- 
 nior'!" 
 
 Vanderlyn made a slight movement. 
 " Yes," he said, " that is true, I was there." 
 
 " In the lean months," continued Jacques, 
 who did not often find his conversation listened 
 to with such respect and attention as was now 
 the case, " I mean, of course, in the summer 
 poor Florae has to retrench, but La d'Elphis 
 does not remain idle. She goes to Aix, to 
 Vichy, to Dieppe for the Grande Semaine, 
 in fact, wherever rich foreigners gather; and 
 wherever she goes she finds plenty eager to 
 consult her!" 
 
 235
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 " Is that all you wanted to know? " said 
 Madame de Lera to Vanderlyn. 
 
 " Yes," he said, slowly, " that is all. I did 
 not know I had no idea that our poor old 
 world was still so credulous 1 " 
 
 236
 
 XI 
 
 As Vanderlyn walked away from Madame 
 de Lera's door, the plan, of which the first 
 outline had come to him while she was telling 
 the strange story concerning the fortune-teller 
 and her niece, had taken final shape; and it 
 now impressed itself upon him as the only way 
 out of his terrible dilemma. 
 
 Vanderlyn was by nature a truthful man, 
 and in spite of the ambiguous nature of his 
 relations with Margaret Pargeter, he had never 
 been compelled to lie in defence of their friend- 
 ship. Even during these last few days, he had 
 as far as was possible avoided untruth, and 
 only to one person, that is, to the Prefect of 
 Police, had he lied lied desperately, and lied 
 
 successfully. This was why, even while telling 
 
 237
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 himself that he had at last found a way in 
 which to convey the truth to Pargeter, he felt 
 a deep repugnance from the methods which 
 he saw he would be compelled to employ. 
 
 More than once the American diplomatist 
 had had occasion to take part in delicate nego- 
 tiations with one of those nameless, countryless 
 individuals, whose ideal it is to be in the pay 
 of a foreign Embassy, and who always set on 
 their ignoble services a far higher value than 
 those services generally deserve. But Vander- 
 lyn belonged to the type of man who finds it 
 far easier to fight for others, and especially 
 for his country, than for himself. Still, in this 
 case, was he not fighting for Margaret Par- 
 geter? For what he knew she valued far more 
 than life itself her honour. What he was 
 about to do was hateful to him he was aware 
 
 how severely he would have judged such con- 
 
 238
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 duct in another but it seemed the only way, 
 a way made miraculously possible by the su- 
 perstitious folly of Tom Pargeter. 
 
 The offer Vanderlyn was about to convey 
 to Madame d'Elphis was quite simple; in ex- 
 change for saying a very few words to Tom 
 Pargeter, words which would add greatly to 
 the belief the millionaire already possessed in 
 what he took to be her extraordinary gifts of 
 divination, the soothsayer would receive ten 
 thousand francs. 
 
 There need be no difficulty even as to the 
 words she should use to reveal the truth; Van- 
 derlyn had cut out from the Petit Journal 
 the paragraph which told of the strange dis- 
 covery made three nights before at Orange. 
 He would inform her that Mr. Pargeter's 
 friends, having assured themselves that the 
 unknown woman in question was Mrs. Par- 
 
 239
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 geter, desired to break the sad news through 
 her, instead of in a more commonplace fashion. 
 
 Vanderlyn knew enough of that curious un- 
 der-world of Paris which preys on wealthy 
 foreigners, to feel sure that this would not be 
 the first time that Madame d'Elphis had been 
 persuaded, in her own interest, to add the 
 agreeable ingredient of certainty to one of her 
 predictions. The diplomatist also believed he 
 could carry through the negotiation without 
 either revealing his identity, or giving the 
 soothsayer any clue to his reason for making 
 her so strange a proposal. 
 
 Having made his plan, Vanderlyn found it 
 remarkably easy to carry out. 
 
 In London, such a man as himself would 
 have found it difficult to have ascertained at a 
 moment's notice the address of even a famous 
 palmist or fortune-teller. But in everything 
 
 240
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 to do with social life Paris is highly organised, 
 London singularly chaotic. 
 
 On reaching home, he at once discovered, 
 with a certain bitter amusement, that Madame 
 d'Elphis disdained the artifices with which she 
 might reasonably have surrounded her mys- 
 terious craft. Not only were her name, ad- 
 dress, and even hours of consultation, to be 
 found in the " Tout Paris," but there also was 
 inscribed her telephone number. 
 
 Vanderlyn hated the telephone. He never 
 used it unless he was compelled to do so; but 
 now he went through the weary, odious pre- 
 liminaries with a certain eagerness Alo! 
 Alo! Alo!" 
 
 At last a woman's voice answered, " Yes 
 yes. Who is it?" 
 
 " Can Madame d'Elphis receive a client this 
 evening? " 
 
 241
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 There was a pause. Then he heard a ques- 
 tion asked, a murmured answer of which the 
 sense evaded him, and then a refusal, not, 
 he fancied, a very decided refusal, followed 
 by a discreet attempt to discover his name, his 
 nationality, his address, with a suggestion that 
 Madame d'Elphis would be at his disposal the 
 next morning. 
 
 A touch of doubt in the quick, hesitating ac- 
 cents of the unseen woman emboldened Van- 
 derlyn. He conveyed, civilly and clearly, that 
 he was quite prepared to offer a very special 
 fee for the favour he was asking ; and he indi- 
 cated that, though he had been told the usual 
 price of a seance was fifty francs, he the mys- 
 terious stranger who was speaking to Madame 
 d'Elphis through the telephone was so ex- 
 ceedingly anxious to be received by her that 
 evening that he would pay a fancy fee, in 
 
 242
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 fact as much as a thousand francs, for the 
 privilege of consulting the famous fortune- 
 teller. 
 
 To Vanderlyn's vexation and surprise, there 
 followed a long pause. 
 
 At last came the answer, the expected as- 
 sent; but it was couched in words which sur- 
 prised and vaguely disquieted him. 
 
 : ' Very well, sir, my sister will be ready to 
 receive you at eight o'clock to-night ; but she is 
 going out, so she will not be able to give you a 
 prolonged seance." 
 
 Then he had not been speaking to the sooth- 
 sayer herself? Vanderlyn felt vaguely dis- 
 quieted and discomfited. He had counted on 
 having to take but one person into his half- 
 confidence; and then well, he had told him- 
 self while at the telephone that he would not 
 find it difficult to conclude the bargain he de- 
 
 243
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 sired to make with the woman whose highly- 
 pitched, affected voice had given him, or so he 
 had thought, the clue to a venal personality. 
 
 It was with a feeling of considerable excite- 
 ment and curiosity that the diplomatist, that 
 same evening, walked up the quiet, now de- 
 serted, streets where dwelt the most famous of 
 Parisian fortune-tellers. 
 
 Madame d'Elphis had chosen a prosaic set- 
 ting for the scene of her mysteries, for the 
 large white house looked very new, a huge 
 wedge of modern ugliness in the pretty old 
 street, its ugliness made the more apparent by 
 its proximity to one of those leafy gardens 
 which form oases of fragrant stillness in the 
 more ancient quarters of the town. 
 
 A curt answer was given by the concierge in 
 reply to Vanderlyn's enquiry for Madame 
 
 244
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 d'Elphis. "Walk through the courtyard; the 
 person you seek occupies the entresol of the 
 house you will see there." 
 
 And then he saw that lying back, quite con- 
 cealed from the street, was another and very 
 different type of dwelling, and one far more 
 suited to the requirements of even a latter- 
 day soothsayer. 
 
 As he made his Way over the dimly-lighted, 
 ill-paved court which separated the new build- 
 ing, that giving onto the street, from the sev- 
 enteenth-century mansion, Vanderlyn realised 
 that his first impression had been quite errone- 
 ous. Madame d'Elphis had evidently gauged, 
 and that very closely, the effect she desired to 
 produce on her patrons. Even in the daytime 
 the mansarded house which now gloomed be- 
 fore him must look secret, mysterious. Be- 
 hind such narrow latticed windows might well 
 
 245
 
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 have dwelt Cagliostro, or, further back, the 
 more sinister figure of La Voison. 
 
 But something of this feeling left him as he 
 passed through the door which gave access to 
 the old house ; and, as he began to walk up the 
 shabby gas-lit staircase, he felt that his re- 
 pugnant task would be an easy one. The 
 woman who, living here, allowed herself the 
 luxury of such a lover as was the Marquis de 
 Florae, would not nay, could not hesitate 
 before such an offer as ten thousand francs. 
 
 There was but one door on the entresol, and 
 on its panel was inscribed in small gold letters 
 the word " d'Elphis." As Vanderlyn rang the 
 bell, the odd name gleamed at him in the gas- 
 light. 
 
 There followed a considerable delay, but at 
 last he saw a face peering at him through the 
 
 little grating significantly styled a Judas, 
 
 246
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 and doubtless dating from the Revolution, 
 still to be found in many an old-fashioned 
 Parisian front-door. 
 
 The inspection having apparently proved 
 satisfactory, the door opened, and Vanderlyn 
 was admitted, by a young bonne a tout faire, 
 into a hall filled with a strong smell of cook- 
 ing, a smell that made it clear that Madame 
 d'Elphis and her family her smalah f as 
 Jacques de Lera had called them had the 
 true Southern love of garlic. 
 
 Without asking his name or business, the 
 servant showed him straight into a square, 
 gold-and-white salon. Standing there, for- 
 getful for a moment of his distasteful errand, 
 Vanderlyn looked about him with mingled con- 
 tempt and disgust, for his eyes, trained to ob- 
 serve, had at once become aware that the note 
 of this room was showy vulgarity. The furni- 
 
 247
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 ture was a mixture of imitation Louis XV. and 
 sham Empire. On the woven tapestry sofa 
 lay a child's toy, once costly, but now broken. 
 
 How amazing the fact that here, amid these 
 pretentiously ugly and commonplace sur- 
 roundings, innumerable human beings had 
 stood, and would stand, trembling with fear, 
 suspense, and hope! Vanderlyn reminded 
 himself that here also Tom Pargeter, a man 
 accustomed to measure everything by the 
 money standard, had waited many a time in 
 the sure belief that this was the ante-chamber 
 to august and awe-inspiring mysteries; here, 
 all unknowing of what the future held, he 
 would come to-morrow morning, to learn, for 
 once, the truth the terrible truth from the 
 charlatan to whom he, poor fool, pinned his 
 faith. 
 
 Suddenly a door opened, and Vanderlyn 
 
 248
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 turned round with eager curiosity, a curiosity 
 which became merged in astonishment. The 
 woman advancing towards him made her vul- 
 gar surroundings sink into blurred insignifi- 
 cance; for Madame d'Elphis, with her slight, 
 sinuous figure, draped in a red peplum, her 
 pale face lit by dark tragic eyes, looked the 
 sybil to the life 
 
 Vanderlyn bowed, with voluntary defer- 
 ence. " Monsieur," she said, in a low, deep 
 voice, " I must ask you to follow me ; this is 
 my sister's appartement. I live next door." 
 
 She preceding him, they walked through an 
 untidy dining-room of which the furniture 
 the sham Renaissance chairs and walnut-wood 
 buffet looked strangely alien to Vanderlyn's 
 guide, into a short, ill-lighted passage, which 
 terminated in a locked, handleless door. 
 
 The woman whom he now knew to be 
 
 249
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 Madame d'Elphis turned, and, facing Van- 
 derlyn, for the first time allowed her melan- 
 choly eyes to rest full on her unknown visitor. 
 
 'You have your stick, your hat?" she 
 asked. "Yes? that is well; for when our 
 seance is over, you will leave by another way, 
 a way which leads into the garden, and so into 
 the street.'* 
 
 She unlocked the door, and he followed her 
 into a large book-lined study masculine in its 
 sober colouring and simple furnishings. Above 
 the mantelpiece was arranged a trophy of 
 swords and fencing-sticks; opposite hung a 
 superb painting by Henner. Vanderlyn re- 
 membered having seen this picture exhibited in 
 the Salon some five years before. It had been 
 shown under the title " The Crystal-Gazer," 
 and it was even now an admirable portrait of 
 his hostess, for so, unconsciously, had Vander- 
 
 250
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 lyn begun to regard the woman who was so 
 little like what he had expected to find her. 
 
 Madame d'Elphis beckoned to him to follow 
 her into yet another, and a much smaller, 
 room. Ah! This was evidently the place 
 where she pursued her strange calling; for 
 here so Vanderlyn, trying to combat the 
 eerie impression she produced on him, sardon- 
 ically told himself were the stage properties 
 of her singular craft. 
 
 The high walls were hung with red cloth, 
 against which gleamed innumerable plaster 
 casts of hands. The only furniture consisted 
 of a round, polished table, which took up 
 a good deal of the space in the room; on the 
 table stood an old-fashioned lamp, and in the 
 middle of the circle of light cast by the lamp 
 on its shining surface, a round crystal ball. 
 Two chairs were drawn up to the table. 
 
 251
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 An extraordinary sensation of awe of 
 vague disquiet crept over Laurence Vander- 
 lyn; he suddenly remembered the tragic story 
 of Jeanne de Lera. Was it here that the sin- 
 ister interview with the doomed girl had taken 
 place? 
 
 It was Madame d'Elphis who broke the 
 long silence: 
 
 "I must ask you, Monsieur," she said, 
 stiffly, " to depose the fee on the table. It is 
 the custom." 
 
 Vanderlyn's thin nervous hand shot up to 
 his mouth to hide a smile; the eerie feeling 
 which had so curiously possessed him dropped 
 away, leaving him slightly ashamed. 
 
 "Poor woman," he said to himself, "she 
 cannot even divine that I am an honest man! " 
 
 He bent his head gravely, and took the roll 
 of notes with which he had come provided, out 
 
 252
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 of his pocket. He placed a thousand-franc 
 note on the table. " What a fool she must 
 think me! " he mentally exclaimed; then came 
 the consoling reflection, " But she won't think 
 me a fool for long." 
 
 Madame d'Elphis scarcely glanced at the 
 thousand-franc note; she left it lying where 
 Vanderlyn had put it. " Will you please sit 
 down, Monsieur?" she said. 
 
 Vanderlyn rather reluctantly obeyed her. 
 As she seated herself opposite to him, he was 
 struck by the sad intensity of her face ; he told 
 himself that she had once been nay, that she 
 was still beautiful, but it was the tortured 
 beauty of a woman who lives by and through 
 her emotions. 
 
 He also realised that his task would not be 
 quite as easy as he had hoped it would be; the 
 manner of La d'Elphis was cold, correct, and 
 
 253
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 ladylike no other word would serve to the 
 point of severity. He saw that he would have 
 to word his offer of a bribe in as least offen- 
 sive a fashion as was possible. But while he 
 was trying to find a sentence with which to 
 embark on the delicate negotiation, he sud- 
 denly felt his left hand grasped and turned 
 over, with a firm and yet impersonal touch. 
 
 The centre of the soothsayer's cool palm 
 rested itself on the ring his mother's wedding 
 ring loosely encircling his little finger, and 
 then Madame d'Elphis began speaking in a 
 low, quiet, and yet hesitating, voice, a voice 
 which suddenly recalled to her listener her 
 Southern birth and breeding ; it was strangely 
 unlike the accents in which she had asked him 
 to produce the promised fee. 
 
 Surprise, a growing, ever-deepening sur- 
 prise, kept Vanderlyn silent. He soon forgot 
 
 254
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 completely, for the time being, the business 
 which had brought him there. 
 
 " For you the crystal," she whispered, " for 
 others the Grand Jeu. You have not come, as 
 others do, to learn the future ; you do not care 
 what happens to you now." 
 
 She waited a moment, then, "the ring 
 brings with it two visions," she said, fixing her 
 eyes on the polished depths before her. " Vis- 
 ions of love and death of pain and parting; 
 one, if clear, yet recedes far into the past. . ." 
 
 She raised her voice, and began speaking 
 in a monotonous recitative: 
 
 " I see you with a woman standing in a 
 garden ; behind you both is a great expanse of 
 water. She is so like you that I think she 
 must be your mother. She wears her grey 
 hair in Madonna bands; she puts her arms 
 round your neck; as she does so, I see on her 
 
 255
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 left hand one ring the ring which you are 
 now wearing, and which I am now touching. 
 She, your mother, is bidding you good-bye, 
 she knows that she will never see you again, 
 but you do not know it, so she smiles, for she 
 is a brave woman " 
 
 Madame d'Elphis stopped speaking. Van- 
 derlyn stared at her with a sense of growing 
 excitement and amazement ; he was telling him- 
 self that this woman undoubtedly possessed 
 the power of reading not only the minds, but 
 even the emotional memories, of those who 
 came to consult her. . . . Yes, it was true; 
 his last parting with his mother had been 
 out of doors, in the garden of their own 
 family house on the shores of Lake Cham- 
 plain. 
 
 As he looked fixedly at the crystal-gazer's 
 downcast eyes, his own emotions seemed to be- 
 
 256
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 come reflected in her countenance. She 
 grasped his hand with a firmer, a more con- 
 vulsive pressure. 
 
 "I see you again," she exclaimed, "and 
 again with a woman! This vision is very 
 clear; it evokes the immediate past almost 
 the present. The woman is young ; her hair is 
 fair, and in a cloud about her head. You are 
 together on a journey. It is night " 
 
 Madame d'Elphis stopped speaking ab- 
 ruptly; she looked up at Vanderlyn, and he 
 saw that her dark eyes were brimming with 
 tears, her mouth quivering. 
 
 " Do you wish me to describe what I see? " 
 she asked, in an almost inaudible voice. 
 
 " No," said Vandelyn, hoarsely, he seemed 
 to feel Peggy's arms about his neck, her soft 
 lips brushing his cheek. 
 
 The soothsayer bent down till her face was 
 
 257
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 within a few inches of the polished surface into 
 which she was gazing. 
 
 "Now she is lying down," she whispered. 
 " Her face is turned away. Is she asleep ? 
 No, she is dead! dead!" 
 
 " Can you see her now? " asked Vanderlyn. 
 " For God's sake tell me where she is ! Can 
 I hope to see her again once more?" 
 
 Madame d'Elphis withdrew her hand from 
 that of Vanderlyn. 
 
 ' You will only see her face," she an- 
 swered, slowly, " through the coffin-lid. That 
 you will see. As to where she is now I see 
 her clearly, and yet," she went on, as if to 
 herself, "nay, but that's impossible! I see 
 her," she went on, raising her voice, " laid out 
 for burial under a shed in a beautiful garden. 
 The garden is that of Dr. Fortoul's house at 
 Orange. At the head of the pallet on which 
 
 258
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 she lies there are two blessed candles; a nun 
 kneels on the ground. Stay, who is that 
 coming in from the garden? It is the wife of 
 the doctor, it is Madame Fortoul," again 
 there came a note of wavering doubt into the 
 voice of the crystal-gazer. " She is whisper- 
 ing to the nun, and I hear her words ; she says, 
 'Poor child, she is young, too young to have 
 died like this, alone. I am having a mass said 
 for her soul to-morrow morning.' ' 
 
 Madame d'Elphis looked up. Her large 
 eyes, of which the lids were slightly reddened, 
 rested on Vanderlyn's pale, drawn face. 
 
 " Monsieur," she said, in a low, reluctant 
 voice, "to be honest with you, I fear I have 
 been leading you astray. During the last few 
 moments it is my own past life that has been 
 rising before me, not the present of this poor 
 
 dead woman. When I am tired and I am 
 
 259
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 very tired to-night some such trick is some- 
 times played me. I was born at Orange ; as a 
 child I spent many hours in the beautiful gar- 
 den which just now rose up before me; I once 
 
 saw a dead body in that shed Madame 
 
 Fortoul, who is devout, often has masses said 
 for those who meet with sudden deaths and 
 whose bodies are brought to her husband." 
 
 The soothsayer rose from her chair. 
 
 " If you will come to me to-morrow," she 
 said, " bringing with you something which be- 
 longed to this lady, I am sure I shall be able 
 to tell you all you wish to know. For that sec- 
 ond seance," she added hurriedly, " I shall of 
 course ask no further fee." 
 
 Vanderlyn, waking as from a dream, heard 
 sounds in the other room, the coming and 
 going of a man's footsteps. He also got 
 up.
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 " Madame," he said, quietly, " I thank you 
 from my heart. I recognise the truth of all 
 you have told me, with one paramount excep- 
 tion. It is true that the woman whom you saw 
 lying dead is now in the house of Dr. Fortoul 
 at Orange; the fact that you once knew the 
 place is an accident and nothing but an acci- 
 dent. You have, however, Madame, made one 
 strange mistake." 
 
 He took out of his pocket and held in his 
 hand the large open envelope containing, in 
 addition to the remainder of the notes he had 
 brought, the slip he had cut from the news- 
 paper. " Here is the proof that all you have 
 seen is true," he repeated, " with one excep- 
 tion This lady was alone in the train. It is 
 important that this should be thoroughly un- 
 derstood by you, for to-morrow you will be 
 
 called upon to testify to the fact." 
 
 261
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 Madame d'Elphis stiffened into deep atten- 
 tion. 
 
 " To-morrow morning," continued Vander- 
 lyn, very deliberately, " one of your regular 
 clients is coming to ask you to assist him to 
 solve a terrible mystery. I will tell you his 
 name it is Mr. Pargeter, the well-known 
 sportsman. He is coming to ask you to help 
 him to find Mrs. Pargeter, who some days ago 
 mysteriously disappeared. This lady's death, 
 but he does not yet know it, took place while 
 she was travelling travelling alone. I repeat, 
 Madame, that she was alone quite alone 
 on her fatal journey/' 
 
 Vanderlyn stopped speaking a moment; 
 then his voice lowered, became troubled and 
 beseeching. 
 
 " Once you have revealed the truth to Mr. 
 
 262
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 Pargeter, and he will believe implicitly all 
 you say, then, Madame, you will not only 
 have accomplished a good action, but a sum, 
 bringing the fee for the seance which is just 
 concluded up to ten thousand francs, will be 
 placed at your disposal by me." 
 
 Madame d'Elphis looked long and search- 
 ingly at the man standing before her. 
 
 " Monsieur," she said, " will you give me 
 your word that the death of Mrs. Pargeter 
 was as this paper declares it to have been 
 that is to say, a natural death? " 
 
 " Yes," answered Vanderlyn, " she knew 
 that she would die in this way suddenly." 
 
 " Then," said the f ortune-teller, coldly, " I 
 will do as you desire." 
 
 Vanderlyn, following a sudden impulse, put 
 the envelope he held in his hand on the table. 
 
 263
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 " Here is the fee," he said, briefly. " I know 
 that I can trust in your discretion, your loyalty, 
 may I add, Madame, in your kindness?" 
 
 " I am ashamed," she whispered, " ashamed 
 to take this money." She clasped her hands to- 
 gether in an unconscious gesture of supplica- 
 tion, and then asked, with a curious childish 
 directness, "It is a great deal can you af- 
 ford it, Monsieur? " 
 
 "Yes," he said, hastily; the suffering, 
 shamed expression on her face moved him 
 strangely. 
 
 "When you next see Mr. Pargeter," she 
 murmured, " you shall have written proof that 
 I have carried out your wish." 
 
 She tapped the table twice, sharply, then 
 led the way into the larger room. It was 
 empty, but Vanderlyn, even as he entered, 
 saw a door closing quietly. 
 
 264
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 Madame d'Elphis walked across to an un- 
 curtained window; she opened it and stepped 
 through on to a broad terrace balcony. 
 
 " Walk down the iron stairway," she said, in 
 a low voice, " there are not many steps. A lit- 
 tle door leads from the garden below straight 
 into the street ; the door has been left unlocked 
 to-night." 
 
 Vanderlyn held out his hand; she took it and 
 held it for a moment. " Ahl " she said, softly, 
 " would that / had died when I was still young, 
 still beautiful, still loved 1 "
 
 XII 
 
 THE bright May sun was pouring into Tom 
 Pargeter's large smoking-room, making more 
 alive and vivid the fantastic and brilliantly- 
 coloured posters lining the walls. 
 
 Laurence Vanderlyn, standing there in a 
 peopled solitude, caught a glimpse of his own 
 strained and tired face in a mirror which filled 
 up the space between two windows, and what 
 he saw startled him, for it seemed to him that 
 none could look at his countenance and not see 
 written there the tale of his anguish, remorse, 
 and suspense. And yet he knew that now his 
 ordeal was drawing to a close; in a few mo- 
 ments Pargeter was due to return from his. 
 interview with Madame d'Elphis. 
 
 Walking up and down the sunny room 
 266
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 which held for him such agonising memories 
 of the long hours spent there during the last 
 three days in Tom Pargeter's company, Van- 
 derlyn lived again every moment of his own 
 strange interview with the soothsayer. The 
 impression of sincerity which Madame d'Elphis 
 had produced on him had now had time to 
 fade, and he asked himself with nervous dread 
 whether she was, after all, likely to do what 
 she had promised. Nay, was it in her power to 
 lie, or rather to tell the half-truth which was 
 all that he had asked her to tell? 
 
 At last there came the sound of the front 
 door of the villa opening, shutting; and then 
 those made by Pargeter's quick, short foot- 
 steps striking the marble floor of the hall, and 
 echoing through the silent house. 
 
 Vanderlyn stopped short in his restless pac- 
 ing. He turned and waited. 
 
 267
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 The door was flung open, and Pargeter came 
 in. Quietly shutting the door behind him, he 
 walked down the room to where the other 
 man, with his back to the window, stood wait- 
 ing for him. The three days and nights which 
 had carved indelible lines on the American's 
 already seamed face, had left Pargeter's un- 
 touched; just now he looked grave, subdued, 
 but his face had lost the expression of per- 
 plexed anger and anxiety which had alone 
 betrayed the varying emotions he had experi- 
 enced since the disappearance of his wife. 
 
 At last, when close to Vanderlyn, he spoke 
 in a low, gruff whisper. "Grid!" he ex- 
 claimed, "Grid, old man, don't be shocked! 
 La d'Elphis says that Peggy's dead that she's 
 been dead three days!" 
 
 Vanderlyn could not speak. He stared 
 
 dumbly at the other, and as he realised the re- 
 
 268
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 lief, almost the joy, in Pargeter's voice, there 
 came over him a horrible impulse to strike 
 and then to flee. 
 
 " There, you can see it for yourself " 
 Pargeter held out, with fingers twitching with 
 excitement, a sheet of note-paper. " La d'El- 
 phis wrote it all down! I didn't see her she's 
 ill. But this is not the first time I've had to 
 work her in that way, and it does just as well. 
 Her sister managed everything, she took her 
 in one of Peggy's gloves which I'd brought 
 with me." 
 
 Vanderlyn shuddered. He opened his 
 mouth, but no words would come. Then he 
 looked down at the sheet of paper Pargeter 
 had handed him: 
 
 " The person to whom this glove belonged 
 
 has been dead three days. She died on a jour- 
 
 269
 
 I 
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 ney alone. Think of the bridal flower, it 
 will guide you to where she now lies waiting 
 for those who loved her to claim her." 
 
 Pargeter laid one hand on Vanderlyn's arm 
 with the other he took out of one of his 
 pockets a sheaf of thin slips of paper. The 
 American knew them to contain accounts of 
 accidents and untoward occurrences registered 
 at the Prefecture of Police. 
 
 Pargeter detached one of the slips and laid 
 it across the sheet of paper on which Madame 
 d'Elphis had written her laconic message: 
 
 " Look look at this, Grid ! And don't say 
 again I'm a fool for believing in La d'Elphis ! 
 I've had this since the day before yesterday; 
 but I didn't bother to show it to you, for I 
 didn't think anything of it I shouldn't now, 
 
 but for La d'Elphis ! But do look' the body 
 
 270
 
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 * 
 of a young, fair woman found in a train at 
 
 Orange' ' the bridal flower/ as La d'Elphis 
 says eh, what?" 
 
 But still Vanderlyn did not speak. 
 
 " I've thought it all out," Pargeter went on, 
 excitedly. " Peggy was driven to the wrong 
 station see? Got into the wrong train and 
 then then, Grid, when she found out what 
 
 she'd done, she got upset " For the first 
 
 time a note of awe, of horror, came into his 
 voice "You see, my sister Sophy was 
 right, after all; the poor girl's heart was 
 queer ! " 
 
 "And what are you going to do now?" 
 asked Vanderlyn in a low, dry tone. "Ar- 
 range for a special to Orange, I suppose? 
 What time will you start, Tom? Would you 
 like me to come with you? " 
 
 Pargeter reddened; his green eye blinked 
 271
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 as if he felt suddenly blinded by the bright 
 sun. 
 
 "I'm not thinking of going myself," he 
 said, rather ashamedly. " Where would be the 
 good of it? Her brother and that cousin of 
 hers are sure to want to go. They can take 
 Plimmer. The truth is well, old man, I don't 
 feel up to it! I've always had an awful 
 horror of death. Peggy knew that well 
 
 enough " the colour faded from his face; 
 
 he looked at the other with a nervous, dejected 
 expression. 
 
 " Tom," said Vanderlyn, slowly, " why 
 shouldn't I go to Orange with Madame de 
 Lera? Why say anything to Peggy's people 
 till we really know? " 
 
 For the first time Pargeter seemed moved 
 to genuine human feeling. " Well," he said, 
 
 ore a good friend, Grid! I'll never for- 
 
 272
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 get how you've stood by me during this wor- 
 rying time. I wish I could do something for 
 
 you in return " he looked at the other 
 
 doubtfully. To poor Tom Pargeter, " doing 
 something " always meant parting with money, 
 and Laurence Vanderlyn was, if not rich, then 
 quite well off. 
 
 Vanderlyn's hand suddenly shook. He 
 dropped the piece of paper he had been hold- 
 ing. "Perhaps you'll let me have Jasper 
 sometimes in the holidays," he said, hus- 
 kily. 
 
 "Lord, yes! Of course I will! There's 
 nothing would please poor Peggy more ! Then 
 then when will you start, Grid? I mean for 
 Orange? " 
 
 "At once," said Vanderlyn. Then he 
 looked long, hesitatingly at Pargeter, and the 
 
 millionaire, with most unusual perspicacity, 
 
 273
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 read and answered the question contained in 
 that strange, uncertain gaze. 
 
 "Don't bring her back, Grid! I couldn't 
 stand a big funeral here. I don't want to hear 
 any more about it than I can help ! Of course, 
 it isn't much good my going over to England 
 now; but I won't stay in Paris, I'll get away, 
 right away for a bit, on the yacht, and 
 take some of the crowd with me." 
 
 No one ever knew the truth. To the Pre- 
 fect of Police the mystery of the disappear- 
 ance of Mrs. Pargeter is still unsolved un- 
 solvable. When he meets a pretty woman out 
 at dinner he tells her the story and asks her 
 what she thinks. 
 
 As for Laurence Vanderlyn, he has gone 
 home home to the old colonial house which 
 was built by his great-grandfather, the friend 
 
 274
 
 THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 
 
 of Franklin, on the shores of Lake Champlain. 
 He never speaks of Peggy excepting to Jas- 
 per ; but to the lad he sometimes talks of her as 
 if she were still there, still very near to them 
 both, near enough to be grieved if her boy 
 should ever forget that he had a mother who 
 loved him dearly. 
 
 THE END 
 
 275
 
 41555
 
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