Curiously enough, much of his own hot anger and indignation had left him, and he found himself looking at the matter from the position of an outsider or an onlooker. No doubt Stella would readily enough admit the enormity of Kane's offence, but Rick could see how it might appear to her as a mere episode in a daring and adventurous man's career. Then too the beggar had made a clean breast of it!
However, Stella kept her room all the next day, and so no one knew what her feelings were.
XI.
Kane went home to his solitary Cedars and began to put his affairs in order.
First of all, he made over to Richard Dysart the sum of fifty thousand pounds in checks and securities, the original proceeds of the sale of the diamonds of which he had been despoiled. Even this depletion of his fortune left Kane a rich man. In a few hours all was done, and he had even wired to engage passage in the next steamer for the Cape, for thence he had determined to retire and end his days. England would know him no more.
But the tugging at his heart-strings would not let him leave the old country without a word from the only woman he had ever loved or ever could love. So, in defiance of convention, and not knowing whether her brothers would interfere, he sent Stella a line as follows:
"I am leaving England for good. For the sake of our united past will you say good-bye? I shall be in the church porch at sunset."
It was a forlorn hope! She might come; she might not venture to trust her strength to go through such an ordeal; she might write instead; she might not reply at all. So it was with no very hopeful feelings that Kane made his way to the sorrowful tryst.
Instead of Stella he found Richard Dysart awaiting him, smoking a long cigar and flicking the light snow from his boots with a dog-whip.
Kane halted, in doubt as to his reception and of what might be coming. It was as he feared,—he would not be allowed to see or speak with the girl!
Rick removed his cigar from his teeth and came forward, to Kane's surprise offering his hand, which the culprit gripped with fierce tenacity, a great gulp in his throat the while. In his bruised and beaten state of mind the cool nonchalance and semi-geniality of the other's manner was like a pat on the head to a pariah dog that has been uniformly kicked and cuffed all around camp.
"I received your letter about the money," said Dysart, "and I'm bound to say that you've tried to do the handsome thing, as I told Sir Arthur. I can't quite make it out, Kane. By rights, I suppose I
