Chapter One
Concerns a Stranger

“Yes! I’m certain it was Gordon Gray – the man whose face I can never forget, and whom I could identify among a million! Gordon Gray! Returned from, the dead!”

The white-haired rector, the Reverend Norton Homfray, a tall, sparely-built man of sixty-five, pursed his lips and drew a long breath. He was evidently greatly upset.

He had taken off his surplice in the vestry after evening service, and now stood motionless against the old rood-screen gazing into the cavernous darkness of the empty Norman church.

The congregation had dispersed into the winter darkness, wandering slowly and piously through the churchyard and out by the old lych-gate and down the hill, and old Morley, the verger, had already turned out the lights.

“Yes,” murmured the old clergyman, “he sat in the last pew yonder listening to me as I preached! Surely he cannot have risen from the grave, for I heard that he died at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York eighteen months ago! Forget him? Ah!” he sighed. “How can I ever forget? Why is he here in Little Farncombe, I wonder?”

For a few moments he remained motionless in the silent gloom of the historic old church, with its beautiful Norman arches so admired by archaeologists from all parts of the country. The stillness was broken only by the creaking of old Morley’s Sunday boots and the slow deep tick of the clock in the belfry.

Then, at last, he buttoned his overcoat and made his way out into the windy December night, passing round the churchyard and entering the grounds of his quiet old-world, ivy-clad rectory, a sixteenth-century house too large for his needs and too expensive for his slender pocket.

Norton Homfray was a fine type of country rector, a theological scholar and highly popular with all in his rural parish.

As a young man at Balliol he had taken high honours, and when a curate at Durham he had married. After twenty-seven years of married happiness Mrs Homfray had died four years ago leaving one son, Roderick, a heavy-jawed young fellow, now twenty-six. Mr Homfray had been utterly crushed by his wife’s death, and his house was now conducted by Mrs Bentley, a deaf old woman with a high-pitched voice.

When the latter, in order to make up the fire, came into the long old dining-room, a heavily-furnished apartment with several old portraits on the walls and French windows across which heavy dark-green curtains were drawn, she found Mr Homfray sitting beside the glowing logs staring straight at the embers.

Of late he had been unusually silent and morose. Therefore she put on a couple of logs and left the room without speaking.

When she had closed the door the old man, whose strong face was thrown into bold relief by the fitful light of the fire, stirred uneasily in a manner that showed him to be highly nervous and anxious.

“Roddy must never know! Roddy must never know – never!” he kept whispering to himself.

And the light of the blazing logs rose and fell, illuminating his fine old face, the countenance of an honest, upright man.

“No!” he murmured to himself, too agitated even to enjoy his pipe which he always smoked as relaxation after preaching his sermon. “No, I am not mistaken! Gordon Gray is still in the flesh! But why should he come here, as though risen from the grave? I saw him come in after the service had commenced. He sat there staring straight at me – staring as though in evil triumph. Why? What can it mean?”

And the thin, white-haired man lapsed into silence again, still staring into the blazing logs, the light from which danced about the long dining-room. On a little mahogany side-table near where the rector was seated stood a small tin tobacco-box attached by a cord to a pair of wireless telephones, and also to a thick, rubber-covered wire which ran to the window and passed out to the garden. Roddy Homfray, the rector’s son, was a young mining engineer, and also an enthusiastic wireless amateur. In an adjoining room he had a very fine wireless set, most of which he had constructed himself, but the little tobacco-box was a “freak” crystal-receiver set which he could carry in his pocket, together with the telephones, and by using a little coil of wire, also easily carried – which he could stretch anywhere as an aerial – he could listen to any of the high-power stations such as Paris, Leafield, Carnarvon, Nantes or Bordeaux. It was a remarkably sensitive little piece of apparatus, ships and “spark” stations being also received with peculiar clearness. That wonderful little contrivance had been described in several of the journals devoted to the science of radio, together with photographs, and had caused a sensation.

As the old clergyman’s eyes fell upon it he drew a long breath, and then whispered to himself:

“Poor Roddy! If he knew! Ah! If he knew! But he must never know the truth. It would break his heart, poor boy!”

Sight of the stranger who had sat alone in the pew at the back of the church had brought to him a flood of bitter memories, haunting recollections of a closed page in his history – one that he never dared reopen.

Meanwhile Roddy Homfray, a tall, dark-haired, clean-limbed fellow who, though young, had made several mining expeditions in Brazil and Peru as assistant to a well-known engineer, had left the church after service and walked down the hill towards the village. Recently he had been in Peru for five months, and had only returned a week ago and again taken up his hobby of wireless.

Three days before, while walking down the road from Little Farncombe into Haslemere to take train to London, he had overtaken an extremely dainty chestnut-haired girl, petite and full of charm, warmly clad in rich furs. She was evidently a lady. With her was a black toy pom which ran yapping at Roddy, as was its nature.

“Tweedles! Come here,” she cried, and having called off her pet she in a sweet refined voice apologised. Roddy laughed, assuring her that he was not in the least alarmed, and then they walked the remainder of the way side by side, chatting about the picturesqueness of the Surrey hills, until at last he lifted his hat and left her. She did not look more than seventeen, though he afterwards found that she was twenty. He had become fascinated by her extreme beauty, by her manner, and her inexpressible grace and charm, and as he sat in the express rushing towards London her sweet oval face and deep violet eyes arose time after time before him.

On that Sunday morning he had called upon his old friend Hubert Denton, the village doctor, and while smoking before the fire in the low-pitched sitting-room, he had described his meeting with the fair stranger.

“Oh! That’s Elma Sandys,” replied the doctor, a thick-set man of about forty-five.

“What? The daughter of Mr Purcell Sandys who has just bought Farncombe Towers?” asked Roddy in surprise.

“Yes. As I dare say you know, Purcell Sandys is a well-known financier in the City and has a house in Park Lane,” said the doctor. “A few months ago he bought the Towers and the great estates, including three villages with their advowsons, from the Earl of Farncombe.”

“He must be immensely rich,” remarked Roddy reflectively.

“Yes, no doubt. He is a widower and Elma is his only daughter. She looks only a child. I was asked to dinner at the Towers a fortnight ago, and I found both father and daughter charming – the girl especially so. Since leaving school her father has taken her travelling quite a lot. Last winter they spent in Egypt.”

Roddy listened to his description of the dinner-party. Then he said:

“Poor Lord Farncombe! I’m sorry he had to sell the place. He is a real good type of the British nobility. It seems nothing short of vandalism that the historic houses of our peers should pass into the hands of the magnates of commerce.”

“I quite agree. Lord Farncombe has gone to America, I believe. They say he was broken-hearted at being compelled to sell the house which his ancestors had held for five centuries.”

“Mr Sandys’ daughter is a very charming girl,” Roddy said.

“Very. She acts as hostess for her father. Mrs Sandys died some years ago, I understand,” replied the doctor. “Sandys is spending an enormous sum in improving the Towers, putting in a new electrical plant and building a new range of glass-houses. Halton, the builder, was telling me of it.”

But Roddy’s thoughts were afar. He was thinking of the chic, dainty little girl at whose side he had walked down to Haslemere, little dreaming that she was the daughter of the man who had purchased the whole Farncombe estates, including the living which his father held.

That night, after church, he decided to stroll down through the village and out to the house of an old retired colonel, who was a friend of his father.

The new moon was shining, but the sky was growing dull and overcast. He had lingered until all the congregation had passed out of the old churchyard, and following them down the hill, he turned to the left at the Market Cross, where he overtook a small, fur-clad female figure, whom he at once recognised by the light of the moon, which had reappeared from a bank of cloud, as that of Elma Sandys.

She, too, recognised him as he raised his hat and joined her.

“We are hardly strangers, Mr Homfray,” she exclaimed in her sweet musical voice. “Since we met the other day I learned who you are.”

“May I walk with you?” he asked, laughing. “You are going home, I suppose, and it’s lonely beyond the bridge.”

“You’re really awfully kind,” she said. “I’ve just been taking some chicken broth the cook made for a poor old lady named Bamford. Do you know her?”

“Oh, yes, poor old Betty Bamford! She’s been bedridden for years, poor old woman,” replied Roddy. “My mother used to go and see her. It certainly is good of you to look after her. Lady Farncombe also used to be very kind to her, I’ve heard my father say.”

And as they sauntered slowly along over the ancient moss-grown bridge and down the road where the bare trees met overhead, they chatted on merrily as young people will chat.

Roddy Homfray found her a delightful companion. He had on their first meeting believed her to be a visitor in the locality, for many people came from London to Little Farncombe on account of its picturesque surroundings, and its fine views across to the Hog’s Back and over in the direction of Petersfield. But he had been disappointed to find that she was the only daughter of Purcell Sandys, the millionaire purchaser of the Farncombe estates.

From the moment her father had entered possession of the Towers, the magnificent Tudor mansion which had been the home of the Farncombes, Elma had interested herself in the welfare of the village and had, with the assistance of two lady residents, sought out the poor. Her father, unlike most financiers, was a straightforward, upright, honest man who believed in giving charity in secret where it was needed. In this Elma assisted him, hence the new owner had already become popular in the neighbourhood, though, naturally, great sympathy was felt on all sides for the old earl who had been compelled to part with his estates.

As Roddy walked at Elma’s side down the dark, lonely road, the girl suddenly said:

“It’s really awfully good of you to come with me all this way, Mr Homfray. I expected to be home earlier, but the poor old lady was alone and begged me to stay a little longer. I was surprised when I saw how dark it had grown.”

“I assure you that it is a pleasure,” he declared briefly. There was regret in his heart that she was what she was. From the very first moment they had met, when little Tweedles had bristled his black hair and barked at him, he had fallen in love with her. Thoughts of her obsessed him, and her face rose ever before him. But as they walked together he knew that the difference in their stations would ever be a barrier between them. He was poor and could never aspire to her hand.

“I hear you have just returned from abroad,” she remarked.

“Yes. I sailed from Buenos Ayres six weeks ago,” he replied. “I’m a mining engineer, and we’ve been prospecting in the Andes.”

“And were you successful?”

“Fortunately, yes. But I expect to go away again very soon – that is, if I can obtain what I want, namely, a concession from the Moorish Government to prospect for emeralds beyond the Atlas Mountains. According to records left by the ancients there is a rich deposit of emeralds in the Wad Sus district, and I am hoping to be able to discover it.”

“How exciting! Fancy discovering emeralds?” Roddy laughed, and replied:

“The probability is that I shall fail. But if I get the concession I shall do my best.”

“I certainly wish you every good luck,” the girl said. “It must be awfully exciting to go prospecting. I suppose you meet with all sorts of adventures?”

“Oh! We have curious experiences sometimes,” he said lightly, and then he went on to describe a very narrow escape from drowning he had had once while at work on the bank of the Amazon.

On her part, she told him she was delighted with Farncombe.

“I’m tired of the rush of life in London,” she said. “My father is compelled to entertain a great deal at Park Lane, and I have to be hostess. But it is so very pleasant to live here in the country and have one’s friends down from town. We had a big house-party last week and had a ripping time. We shall have a shooting-party next week, and another the week after.”

Roddy was silent for a few moments, for they were already in the avenue and in sight of the lights of the great mansion.

“I had better leave you here, Miss Sandys,” he said, with undisguised regret. “And if you are to be so busy I fear I shall not have the pleasure of meeting you again before I go.” Then as he raised his hat, she replied cheerily: “Perhaps we may meet again very soon. Who knows? Thanks ever so much, Mr Homfray. It was very good of you to come all this way. Good-night?”

And she turned and left him.