There was just sufficient in her conduct to make
the name he had called her by applicable--therefore her bitterest
wrath and indignation were aroused against him. He had behaved
unpardonably. She could kill him for it. "I'll just show him," she said to herself, "what that uncivil tongue
of his can do. He shall see that it can do him infinitely more harm
than all Kelson's love-making. For one thing I'll spoil his chances
with Gladys Martin; and--I wonder if I could make use of what I know
about him, as a means of getting friendly again with Shiel. At all
events I'll try." With this object in view she went round to Shiel's lodgings, and was
informed by the landlady that Shiel was ill.

"Nothing serious I hope?" she asked. "It has been," the landlady replied, "but he is better now. It all
came through his not taking proper care of himself." "May I see him, do you think?" Lilian Rosenberg inquired. "I don't know," the landlady grumbled. "He's in a very touchy mood--no
one can do nothing right for him. But maybe there won't be any harm in
your trying," she added, her eyes wandering to the half-crown in
Lilian Rosenberg's fingers. She opened the door somewhat wider, and Lilian Rosenberg entered. Shiel was immensely surprised to see her. Illness and solitude had
very considerably subdued him, and though at first he showed some
resentment, he speedily softened under her sympathetic solicitation
for his health. She put his room straight and dusted the furniture,
got tea for him, and when she had completely won him over by these
kindly actions, and made him beg her pardon for ever having spoken
harshly to her, she broached the subject all the while uppermost in
her mind--the subject of Hamar and Gladys. "He hasn't the slightest intention of marrying her," she said. "All he
wants is to make her his mistress, so as to be able to throw her over
the moment he gets tired of her, and then marry some one of title. He
is tremendously taken with her of course--her physical beauty, which
he had the impudence to tell me surpassed that of any other woman he
had seen, appeals strongly to his grossly sensual nature. If she won't
give in to him now, she will be obliged to do so in six months' time." "I don't understand you," Shiel said feebly; "why in six months'
time?" Lilian Rosenberg then told him what she knew about the compact. "So you see," she added, "that if the final stage is reached no woman
will be safe--the trio will have any girl they fancy entirely at their
mercy." "How inconceivably awful!" Shiel exclaimed. "Surely there is some way
of stopping them." "There is only one way," Lilian said slowly, "the union between the
three must be broken--they must quarrel, and dissolve partnership." "You may be sure they will take good care not to do that." "Don't be too sure," Lilian Rosenberg replied. "Matthew Kelson is very
fond of me. With a little persuasion he would do anything I asked." "Then do you think you could bring about a rupture between him and
Hamar!" Shiel asked eagerly. "I might!" "And you will--you will save Gladys Martin after all!" Lilian did not reply at once. "Do you think she is the sort of girl who would marry poverty," she
said, evasively, "poverty like this!" and she glanced round the room. "I won't ask her to!" Shiel exclaimed. "Whilst I have been lying in
bed, ill, I have thought of many things--and have come to the
conclusion I have no right ever to think of marrying. It is difficult
for me to earn enough to keep one person in comfort--and I've lost all
hope of ever earning enough to keep two." "Well, if you don't ask her," Lilian Rosenberg said, "there's one
thing, she will never ask you. And I think you are remarkably well out
of it. If you do ever marry, marry a girl that has grit--a girl that
would be a real 'pal' to you--a girl that would help you to win fame!" CHAPTER XXVIII

WHOM WILL HE MARRY? Had Lilian Rosenberg been able to see the effect of her conversation
upon Shiel after she had left him, she would have been disappointed. He had, prior to this interview with Lilian Rosenberg, as he told her,
made up his mind to abandon all idea of marrying Gladys Martin; and
there is a possibility that had her name not been mentioned, had she
not been recalled so vividly to his mind, he would have adhered to
that resolution--at all events so long as he refrained from seeing
her. But such is human nature--or at least man's nature--that directly
Lilian Rosenberg had left him, Shiel's love for Gladys burst out with
such wild, invigorated force that it swept reason and everything else
before it. Gladys! He could think of nothing else! Every detail in her
appearance, every word she had spoken, came back to him with
exaggerated intensity. Her beauty was sublime. There was no one like
her, no one that could inspire him with such a sense of ideality, no
one that could lead him on to such dizzy heights of greatness. It was
all nonsense to say, as Lilian Rosenberg had said, there were just as
many good fish in the sea as had ever come out of it--there was only
one Gladys. Hamar should never marry her--he would marry her himself. She must be told at once of Hamar's infamous designs. A mad desire to
see her came over him, and disregardful of the doctor's orders that he
should remain in bed several more days, he got up, and dressing as
fast as his weak condition would allow him, took a taxi and drove to
Waterloo. On reaching the Cottage, at Kew, he found Gladys at home, and to his
great joy, alone. There is nothing that appeals to a woman more than a sick man, and
Shiel, in coming to Gladys in his present condition, had unwittingly
played a trump card. Had he appeared well and strong she would
probably have received him none too cordially--for she was very tired
of men just then; but the moment her eyes alighted on his thin cheeks
and she saw the dark rings under his eyes, pity conquered. This man at
least was not to blame--he was not of the same pattern as other men,
he was not like so many men whose adulations had grown fulsome to her,
and--he was totally unlike Hamar. In very sympathetic tones she inquired how he was, and on learning
that he had been sufficiently ill to be kept in bed, asked why he had
not told her. "Aunty and I would have called to see you," she said, "and brought you
jelly and other nice things. Who waited on you, had you no nurse?" Fearful lest he should give her the impression he was speaking for
effect, or trying to trade on her feelings (Shiel was one of those
people who are painfully exact), he told her as simply as he could
just how he had been placed. "But why come here," Gladys demanded, "when you were told to stay in
bed till the end of the week. It is frightfully risky." Shiel then explained to her the purport of his visit. "Then it was to warn me, to put me on my guard against Hamar, that you
disobeyed the doctor's orders," she said. Shiel nodded. "You are not displeased, are you?" he asked nervously.